History Meme

Both Jonathan and Michelle tapped me for this one so here goes…

Instructions:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. List 7 random/weird things about your favorite historical figure.
3. Tag seven more people at the end of your blog and link to theirs.
4. Let the person know they have been tagged by leaving a note on their blog.

Of course, I wouldn’t be up to my usual pedantic standards if I didn’t preface something interesting with a whole pile of boring verbiage.

Let’s think for a second about the Benedictine Revival! In the mid-tenth century, King Edgar decided that England was in need of a religious revival. There a number of reasons in back of this–one was the decimation of monasteries and monastic life by the past several centuries of viking depradations, a concomitant loss of learning, bad morale (and maybe morals too), and there was probably something in there too about transferring land-ownership to grateful clergy rather than scheming eorls. While monks can cause problems they rarely raise up armies to overthow you… In any case, he kicked of the reform on the secular side of things. On the sacred side it was begun by the work of three great now-sainted monastic bishops: St. Dunstand, St. Æthelwold, and St. Oswald. This was the first generation of the reform. The second generation is characterized by two men with extant writings, Archbishop Wulfstan of York and Abbott Ælfric of Eynsham. Ælfric was the greatest catechist of his day who embraced the notion that religious reform and revival would occur by promoting sound religious teaching in the vernacular—including a host of sermons and sermon-like materials in Old English, over 150. And yes, he’s the hero of my dissertation. But I’m not writing about him today! (Well—any more today…) No, I’m writing about the author of one of the few surviving documents we have from the third generation of the reform, one of Ælfric of Eynsham’s students, Ælfric Bata.

And yes, the similarity between the names has confused an awful lot of people over the years.

Ælfric Bata’s surviving work is the Colloquies. When you studied foreign languages, did you ever have to stand up in front of the class and act out lame dialogues about buying cheese or whatever in that language? Well, that’s what ÆB’s Colloquies is. Remember, the goal here was to get Germanic-speaking yokels to be able to converse fluently in Latin. ÆB’s Colloquies take us from intermediate level to truly advanced-level conversational Latin. Ok—enough pedantry: onto the good stuff, seven wierd or random facts.

1. Bata isn’t a last name—it’s a descriptor that probably refers to a barrel of beer. Scholars are split as to why this was applied to him but the leading suggestions were either that he was overly fond of emptying said barrels—or that he was shaped like one. Of course, I see no reason why they can’t both be right.
2. ÆB’s teacher, my Ælfric, was a serious, pious kind of guy. Not ÆB. The conduct recorded in his Colloquies has been used by historians as evidence of the state of moral decay in English monasteries in the time before and at the Norman Conquest.
3. For example—one of the dialogues (#3) takes place in a classroom before the teacher arrives. In it, students learn how to ask how to cheat off another’s homework.
4. In another (#6), the students get beaten for not being able to recite their homework. (Which does give the previous point a bit more urgency…)
5. Several of them contain an interesting insights into liturgical life, especially the part played by the adolescents who would have been learning these dialogues. In one (#5) a student describes for the master a quick sketch of what the boys have been up to that day—primarily liturgical duties. Another (#1 teaches students how to rent out their services copying liturgical books. According to this colloquy, a well-written missal could fetch up to two pounds of pure silver. The final selling price, though, is twelve mancuses. (If only I knew how that compares to two pounds of silver… What’re the odds that an expert on medieval numismatics might wander along shortly…?)
6. The point of one of the colloquies (#25) is (apparently) to learn how to insult someone in Latin.
7. This treatise (still #25) is partly agricultural in nature, going through a variety of plants and trees. However, it seems as if a far greater weight is given to learning the various specialized names for the kinds of manure. If it comes out of the rear of a domestic animal you’ll find it listed here! And yes, I suspect this connects far more to the abuse topos than the agriculture one…

So, if you ever wanted to read some fascinating vignettes of tenth-century monastic life—or how to call somebody cow-poop in Latin—Ælfric Bata’s your man.

[The Colloquies in both Latin and Modern English can be found in a great edition edited by Scott Gwara, translated by David W. Porter called Anglo-Saxon Conversations: The Colloquies of Ælfric Bata (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997).]

I’ll tag bls, Anastasia, the Postulant (now that GOEs are over), Christopher, LutherPunk, the Lutheran Zephyr, Caelius (are you still alive?) and anyone else with a hankering to do it.

On the Avatar and Liturgy

Michelle at Heavenfield was asking about avatars. And I’ve been intending to get back to talking about early medieval liturgy. Sorry, but putting together a pedagogically helpful structured sequence of posts that lay everything out in good order is more than I can muster at the present time. Rather, it’ll be bits and pieces that perhaps I’ll try to connect logically at a later date. I mention these two things (avatars and liturgy) together because they’re related…

My avatar is, in fact, a liturgical symbol.

Early medieval sacramentaries are books for the Mass used by the priest. They’re different from missals because missals include more material—they have stuff that the priest wouldn’t pray given a full liturgical crowd. A sacramentary only has the priest’s parts. (On this way of structuring liturgical books and its theological implications see this piece of mine at the Cafe.)

Sacramentaries have material that can profitably be classified in two parts: ordinaries and propers. Ordinaries are those prayers or elements that are used all year long. Preeminently, this means the canon of the Mass. Propers are material that change whether seasonally, weekly, or daily. The bulk of a sacramentary is taken up by “mass sets.” These are collections of a number of prayers—anywhere from four to six or so—that provide the “proper” elements for the occasion, that is, the things that change. The full Eucharistic prayer is not complete until these items are plugged into their proper place.

Major days may get these six proper elements:

1. An opening collect that goes at the beginning of the service after the introit,
2. An offering prayer (also known as the secret as it was said inaudibly) [typically marked as sub obl or secreta]* wherein the bread and wine to be consecrated are offered to God,
3. A proper preface [often marked as Praefat] which follows the introductory dialogue (sursum corda) at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer,
4. A prayer at the conclusion [marked Ad Comp] of the Eucharist,
5. a prayer over the people [marked Ad Pop/uli],
6. and a benediction [marked Benedict].

*Rubrics are at all the whim of scribes, different books may use different designations. For solid guidance on this matter generally look to Andrew Hughes which is essential for understanding manuscript layout—just be warned he covers sources from 1250 and later…

Mass sets for non-major days—especially weekdays—tend to just have numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5. These days don’t get their own proper preface and, properly speaking, only a bishop should give a benediction and these are often relegated to their own separate book. (I work a lot out of the Leofric Missal which was written for a bishop and thus has them…)

So—what does this have to do with my avatar? Because these prayers are designed to be inserted into pre-existing prayers, there is common transitional material. Since everyone knew what this was, these transitional phrases weren’t written out but were merely abbreviated with signs. My avatar is one of these. What looks like an odd ‘W’ is actually the joining of a V, a D, and a cross to abbreviate the standard phrase that begins proper prefaces: “Vere dignum et iustum est… (It is right and proper that we…)”

This one is taken from Cod. Sang. 342, a manuscript from the monastery of St. Gall and is a proto-missal that contains, in addition to a sacramentary, a Gospel lectionary and the earliest survival noted gradual. It was probably written by Hartker, a monk of St. Gall, who is a major figure for the study of early chant.

As to why I selected it—because I’m a liturgy geek. Was there really any question about that?

(And now I want LP and Lee to explain why they picked theirs…)

Categories of Liturgical Sources in Anglo-Saxon England

The place to begin in discussing A-S liturgical minutae is with the state of primary sources—what are they and how may they be categorized? How will I know where to find what items?

The most comprehensive resource I know of is a 1985 article printed in a festschrift for Peter Clemoes: Helmut Gneuss, “Liturgical books in Anglo‑Saxon England and their Old English terminology,” pages 91-141 in Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England : studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday, edited by Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

What makes this article invaluable is that Dr. Gneuss has laid out the major types of books according to liturgical use, then categorized every surviving A-S liturgical sources known to him within his typology. Here are his headings from page 99:

BOOKS FOR THE MASS
A	Missal and Sacramentary
B	Gradual
C	Troper
‑ Mass Lectionaries ‑
D	Gospel‑Book and Gospel Lectionary
E	Epistolary
BOOKS FOR THE OFFICE
F	Breviary
G	Collectar
H	Psalter
J	Antiphoner
K	Hymnal
‑ Office Lectionaries ‑
L	Bible
M	Homiliary
N	Legendary
O	Books with special offices
BOOKS FOR THE CHAPTER OFFICE
P	Martyrology
Q	Regula S. Benedicti and Chrodegang’s Regula canonicorum
EPISCOPAL BOOKS AND RITUALS
R	Pontifical
S	Benedictional
T	Manual
OTHER BOOKS
U	Consuetudinary
W	Prayer‑Books and Private Prayers
X	Liturgical Calendar
Y	Confraternity Book

This set of typologies is incredibly helpful for thinking through different kinds of liturgical materials. The danger in seeing a typology like this, however, is assuming that since these categories exist epistemologically that they exist in reality—that each section represents a kind of book one might find in a monastic library. This is not the case… Inevitably, certain kinds of material travel together. For instance, it is quite common for a “Psalter” to be much more than Gnuess’s category H. Indeed, most physical psalters contain H (the Book of Psalms) but this is preceded by X (a liturgical kalendar) and followed by K (a hymnal).

Nevertheless, Gneuss’s categories are a great place to begin for learning about the range of early medieval liturgical materials.

Great Find by bls

…well, ok, great if you’re an Anglo-Saxon liturgy geek… (so maybe “invaluable” is a little extreme, but since I don’t have consistent access to Milfull you have no idea how helpful this is to my dissertation.)

bls directs us to the Anglo-Saxon Hymnarium produced by the Surtees Society under the editorship of the Rev. J. Stephenson reprinted as the volume for 1851. (Here’s the alphabetical index if you want to check for any particular hymns. [Important note: this text contains only the Latin and the Old English gloss. It does not contain modern English translations/paraphrases/equivalents.])

What this means is that yes, it contains a transcription of the Durham Hymnal; no, it does not necessarily follow current editorial standards–caveat lector! So, for basic information this is a great reference to have sitting on your hard-drive; for academic citation, go look it up in Milfull first.

This is also helpful and fascinating for those with an interest in the history of the Ritualist/Anglo-Catholic movements. In terms of “what did they know and when did they know it”, this date establishes the available presence of a classical Anglo-Saxon hymn cycle before the first publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern (TOC here) which first appeared in 1861 (in planning since 185 and which included some Anglo-Saxon options in the Sarum Office Hymn list of 1904.

For the Aelfric folk in the crowd, there are some interesting connections between the Durham Hymnal and Aelfric. For instance, I believe that the Hymnal was bound with an edition of Aelfric’s Grammar—which may make the glossing that much more interesting since his grammar included a glossary (a list of Latin words and their Old English equivalents). When the two texts were bound together I cannot answer and should look up… Furthermore, the order of hymns in this hymnal can be compared with the list that Aelfric gives in the Letter to the Monks at Eynsham the temporal cycle of which I mostly reproduced here. IIRC, they are similar but by no means identical (reminding us once again of the inevitable variation in medieval liturgy).

More Scholarly Goodness

Dr. Nokes points us to a great example of what scholars can be up to and how a blog can be pertinent for the dissemination of academic data. There are a spate of Beowulf films in various stages of production including a major studio effort coming out soon. As a result, people are asking Anglo-Saxonists about Beowulf and are searching the internet for more about it. Dr. Michael Drout does a great service to the general public by giving some helpful information to those wondering about Beowulf.

As Dr. Nokes has noted before, one of the factors that goes into how Google indexes hits is based on the number of links that a page has to it. The more links to it, the higher it goes. This is why he exhorts his readers to link to it; it’s a public service. The more links that lead to good data, the more that good data will be read…

Kalendrical Calculations

Caelius has a nice post up on the Golden Number and calculations for Easter and such.

Kalendar arithmetic (the art of the computus) was an important part of the liturgical arts back in the day. Isidore includes astronomy in Book 3 on Mathematics along with music and geometry but puts his section on the Paschal Cycle in Book 6 where he talks about the book and services of the Church. (Here’s a handy fully hyperlinked table of contents for the whole Etymologiae.) Bede wrote two books on time, De Temporibus and the later De Temporum Ratione (see the table of contents here), that teach calendar calculations. The second is the more complete treatment.

Furthermore, this was an important enough matter that the two great English translators of things ecclesiastical into the vernacular—Ælfric and Bryhtferth—both tackled the topic. Indeed, Bryhtferth’s Enchiridion is theoretically a work focused on the calendar and computus but he meanders through all sorts of areas to get there. Ælfric’s De Temporibus Anni is far more lucid, drawing primarily from Bede and supplementing with Isidore.

Where the rubber really hits the road, though are the tables like those that begin on folio 45v of the Leofric Missal… And, hey, as long as you’re poking around those parts of that manuscript, check out the Christ and Satan pictures too.

Great New(?) Blog

I’ve just discovered a great new(?) blog, East to West that will be of interest to some readers of this site. Its author is a PhD student at the University of Wales who writes on patristics, early medieval matters, and the like with an emphasis both on Anglo-Saxon England and the Eastern Church. His current set of posts is exploring the most natural link between the two which occures in the person of Theodore of Tarsus.

Bletsien þec, dryhten

I’m always amused when people refer to Rite I as “Old English.” It’s really not…

If you want to hear one of the canticles in real honest-to-goodness Old English, check out an Old English version of the Benedicite (with a narrative frame) read by Prof. Michael Drout: Part 1 and Part 2. The full text is here if you’d like to read along.

Feast of St. Bede

Blessed Feast of St. Bede to all! At haligweorc, it’s an important feast as he’s the patron here. There’s a note on him up at the Cafe as well, but–like most things written for popular consumption on Bede–it regards him primarily as an historian. History was just a small part of what he did. Here’s his reckoning of his accomplishments:

Thus much of the Ecclesiastical History of Britain, and more especially of the English
nation, as far as I could learn either from the writings of the ancients, or the tradition
of our ancestors, or of my own knowledge, has, with the help of God, been digested by me,
Bede, the servant of God, and priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles, Peter and
Paul, which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow; who being born in the territory of that same
monastery, was given, at seven years of age, to be educated by the most reverend Abbot
Benedict, and afterwards by Ceolfrid; and spending all the remaining time of my life in
that monastery, I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture, and amidst the
observance of regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, I always
took delight in learning, teaching, and writing. In the nineteenth year of my age, I
received deacon’s orders; in the thirtieth, those of the priesthood, both of them by the
ministry of the most reverend Bishop John, and by the order of the Abbot Ceolfrid. From
which time, till the fifty-ninth year of my age, I have made it my business, for the use
of me and mine, to compile out of the works of the venerable Fathers, and to interpret and
explain according to their meaning these following pieces -

On the Beginning of Genesis, to the Nativity of Isaac and the Reprobation of Ismaal,
three books.

Of the Tabernacle and its Vessels, and of the Priestly Vestments, three books.

On the first Part of Samuel, to the Death of Saul, four books.

Of the Building of the Temple, of Allegorical Exposition, like the rest, two books.

Item, on the Book of Kings, thirty Questions.

On Solomon’s Proverbs, three books.

On the Canticles, seven books.

On Isaiah, Daniel, the twelve Prophets, and part of Jeremiah, Distinctions of Chapters,
collected out of St. Jerome’s Treatise.

On Esdras and Nehemiah, three books.

On the Song of Habacuc, one book.

On the Book of the blessed Father Tobias, one Book of Allegorical Exposition concerning
Christ and the Church.

Also, Chapters of Readings on Moses’s Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges.

On the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

On the Book of the blessed Father Job.

On the Parables, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles.

On the Prophets Isaiah, Esdras, and Nehemiah.

On the Gospel of Mark, four books.

On the Gospel of Luke, six books.

Of Homilies on the Gospel, two books.

On the Apostle, I have carefully transcribed in order all that I have found in St.
Augustine’s Works.

On the Acts of the Apostles, two books.

On the seven Catholic Epistles, a book on each.

On the Revelation of St. John, three books.

Also, Chapters of Readings on all the New Testament, except the Gospel.

Also a book of Epistles to different Persons, of which one is of the Six ages of the
world; one of the Mansions of the Children of Israel; one on the Words of Isaiah,
“And they shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited;
” one of the Reason of the Bissextile, or Leap-Year, and of the Equinox, according to
Anatolius.

Also, of the Histories of Saints. I translated the Book of the Life and Passion of St.
Felix, Confessor, from Paulinus’s Work in metre, into prose.

The Book of the Life and Passion of St. Anastasius, which was ill translated from the
Greek, and worse amended by some unskillful person, I have corrected as to the sense.

I have written the Life of the Holy Father Cuthbert, who was both monk and prelate,
first in heroic verse, and then in prose.

The History of the Abbots of this Monastery, in which I rejoice to serve the Divine
Goodness, viz. Benedict, Ceolfrid, and Huetbert, in two books.

The Ecclesiastical History of our Island and Nation in five books.

The Martyrology of the Birthdays of the Holy Martyrs, in. which I have carefully
endeavored to set down all that could find, and not only on what day, but also by what
sort of combat, or under what judge they overcame the world.

A Book of Hymns in several sorts of metre, or rhyme.

A Book of Epigrams in heroic or elegiac verse.

Of the Nature of Things, and of the Times, one book of each.

Also, of the Times, one larger book.

A book of Orthography digested in Alphabetical Order.

Also a Book of the Art of Poetry, and to it I have added another little Book of Tropes
and Figures; that is, of the Figures and Manners of Speaking in which the Holy Scriptures
are written.

Emphasis added to highlight what he considered to be his most important work; history is literally the smallest part…

As specifically his works on the gospels show, Bede saw his role to complement and complete. That is, his cycle of 40 homilies was specifically designed to fill out Gregory the Great’s own book of 40–the almost complete lack of overlap signals this. Too, Bede’s commentary efforts were not on the two gospels most often used in the liturgy for which good commentary already existed but, rather, Luke and Mark–the two used the least and for which good commentary was hard to find. He sought to plug the gaps, fill in the holes. That is, he saw himself as part of a team effort for edifying and building up the Church.

And that’s why he’s the patron here.

“Traditional” Office Hymns

One of my favorite words that gets thrown around–”traditional”–is inherently slippery… “Traditional” for whom? When is the ideal time when something stops and starts being traditional?

The notion of tradition is always a contemporary construct–an idea of how we view things and privilege things that appeared and/or happened in the past. There was discussion on Ship of Fools about whether the “Traditional Office Hymns” in my “traditional Anglo-Catholic” ordo were, in fact traditional. It’s a perfectly fair question and my response is that the list I give matches the list in the first edition of Ritual Notes supplemented and checked with the Anglican Breviary meaning that the list stands firmly documented within Anglo-Catholic tradition.

On the other hand…

Here’s another list:

From Nov 1 Matins: Primo dierum | Lauds: Aeterne rerum | Vespers: Lucis Creator (Sunday, O lux beata) | Compline: Christe qui lux es
Advent Matins: Verbum Supernum | Lauds: Vox clara | Vespers: Conditor alme siderum
Christmas Matins: A Patre unigenitus | Lauds: A solis ortus cardine | Vespers: Christe redemptor omnium
Epiphany Matins: A Patre unigenitus | Lauds: Iesus refulsit omnium | Vespers: Hostis Herodes impie
LXX Matins: Alleluia piis edite laudibus | Lauds: Almum sidereae iam patriae decus | Vespers: Alleluia dulce carmen
Lent Matins: Clarum deus ieiunii | Lauds: Iesu quadragenariae | Vespers: Audi benigne conditor
Passiontide Matins: Arbora decora | Lauds: Auctor salutis | Vespers: Vexilla Regis
Easter Matins: Iesu nostra redemptio | Lauds: Aurora lucis rutilat | Vespers: Ad cenam Agni prouidi
After Asc Matins: Optatus votis omnium | Lauds: Aeterne rex altissime | Vespers: Hymnum canamus gloriae
Pentecost Matins: Veni creator Spiritus | Lauds: Beata nobis gaudia | Vespers: Iam Christus astra ascenderat
Until Nov 1 Matins: Nocte surgentes | Lauds: Ecce iam noctis | Vespers: Deus creator omnium (Sunday, Lucis creator) | Compline: Te lucis ante terminum

There are a number of commonalities between this list and the other, the chief difference being static hymnody through the week in Ordinary time in this listing… But there are other differences as well. This list comes straight from a 10th century English Benedictine customary (Ælfric’s LME for the OE folk in the crowd)–so it’s pretty darn “traditional” too. But which is more traditional? How do we adjudicate?

If we push it further, though, we find that this isn’t even “the” Office Hymn cycle for 10th century English Benedictines. Rather, there were two different hymnal types in circulation, the Winchester-Worcester type and the Canterbury type, that reflect how continental influences shaped local practice during the Benedictine Revival (the 10th c. rebirth of monasticism in England after the Viking depredations of the previous centuries). This present list, while an important witness of actual(?) use, isn’t even a “pure” form of the Winchester-Worcester type. Furthermore, how we even define “pure” is up in the air–do we consider “pure” to be what is in the majority of the sources that have survived? And if so–we need to consider how representative the books are that have survived…

“Traditional” is simple until you start pushing on it and defining it;”tradition” is one of those things that becomes fuzzier the more you look at it.

Tradition isn’t a static thing and it isn’t a single thing. As any medievalist will tell you, there isn’t a common “medieval” anything. Rather, we can only talk about what certain texts represent about what was happening in certain places at certain times (…and discussions will ensue about whether any of it actually happened as it was represented…). Much of what appears as Anglo-Catholic tradition is a Victorian adjudication about what is properly medieval in light of their construct of the high medieval period as an English golden age. (Which is why the contemporaneous pre-Raphaelite paintings of the Arthurian cycle have the 5th century characters in 14/15th century accoutrements…)

Thoughtful discernment is key here. The answer on the Office Hymns is clearly that both lists—the Anglo-Catholic (presumably Tridentine) one and Ælfric’s one—have a place in the tradition. The one we choose positions us in relation to that tradition. Personally, I like Ælfric’s because it has more static elements and thus fits the peculiarities of my current Office practice. Too, it aligns me with the English Benedictine pre-Scholastic practice which I think most fully and properly illuminates the Anglican way. At the same time, I recognize that it falls outside of what is “traditional” for classic Victorian-inspired (heavily Scholastic) Anglo-Catholicism.

I guess if there’s a note I want to end on, it’s this: “tradition” often gets used in churchy circles as a rhetorical blunt instrument meant to end discussions. It doesn’t have to be. Tradition can also be a way of understanding the fullness of what we have received and understanding how adjudicating among the manifold options makes a difference for how we understand ourselves, our faith, and our practices of faith now.