A Very Useful New Piece of Liturgical Scholarship from Sharon Kabel

One of our most frequently seen and linked posts in NLM’s history is a guest article shared with us by archival researcher extraordinaire Sharon Kabel in 2020, about the mythical indult which supposedly granted a general dispensation from the traditional rule of abstinence from meat, in the United States, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, (i.e. today). Mrs Kabel has recently completely another very interesting project on the history of the wedding Mass, which she was able to do via the incredibly useful Usuarium database, a vast, searchable repository of medieval liturgical books. Surprisingly, it turns out that the wedding Mass in the Missal of St Pius V (known from its Introit as Deus Israel) is actually a new creation which did not previously exist. Sharon’s research revels that there were a variety of different wedding Masses, and the most common was simply a votive Mass of the Holy Trinity.

The wedding Mass, with the Gregorian propers from the votive Mass of the Most Holy Trinity, in a Missal according to the Use of Arrhas in France, printed in 1508. BNF Paris, B-27899

Her project examines all the different parts of the wedding Mass (Gregorian propers, including the sequences, Scriptural readings etc.) and tabulates which ones were used most commonly in which regions, organized into charts which show the frequency of their use, and maps out the geographical regions where each was most common. You can the whole thing on her website:
https://sharonkabel.com/survey_wedding_masses_983-1617/

or download it as a pdf:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jO65PJmCM1BUKTUCIhTqfXjLxb_EibuE/view

This project is not just a worthy and interesting piece of research in its own right, but a model for similar projects to explore other aspects of our liturgical patrimony. We congratulate Mrs Kabel on her excellent and diligent work - feliciter!