The following excerpts are taken from William Durandus’ great liturgical commentary, the Rationale Divinorum Officium, book V (which treats of the Divine Office), chapter 9, on Vespers. I have titled it “on Saturday Vespers” because the psalms of Saturday Vespers (143-147, in the traditional arrangement before St Pius X’s reform) are the only ones which he comments on specifically. The part noted * between two red stars * is from the prologue of this same book V, which Durandus himself cites in that place.
At the evening hour, the Church symbolizes the first coming of the Lord, which took place “as the world was coming to its evening” (a citation of the Vespers hymn of Advent, Conditor alme siderum), that is, in the last age. In this regard, it renders thanks to God by singing, according to what the Apostle says, “We are those upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” (1 Cor. 10, 11) Furthermore, Christ was taken down from the cross in the evening, and in the same hour, at the Last Supper, He instituted the sacrament of His body and blood, and washed the feet of the disciples, and manifested himself to the disciples on the road to Emmaus in the likeness of a pilgrim at the breaking of the bread. Rightly therefore does the Catholic Church give thanks to Christ at this hour.
The Deposition of Christ from the Cross, 1634, by the workshop of Rembrandt van Rijn.
Of course, … the office of the following day begins at Vespers, because the evening service, that is the canonical hour, is the first office, according to the custom established by the prophet Ezra, * who taught the people of Israel, when they had return from the Babylonian captivity, to praise God four times in the night and four times in the day. Therefore the evening office belongs to the night, * and for this reason it is named after the evening star (Vesper), which rises at the beginning of the night. …
At this hour, the Church says five psalms, first of all because of the five wounds of Christ, who offered a sacrifice for us in the evening of the world; secondly, for correction, namely, so that we may weep over and ask for forgiveness of our sins, which are committed during the day through the five bodily sense, and come in unto according to what Jeremiah says (9, 21), “death has come in through our windows.” For who is there who does not fall and is not taken by the sense of sight? Thirdly, through the five psalms the Church strengthens itself against the tribulations of the night; for this hour indicates the weeping of them for whom the Sun of justice (Mal. 4, 2) set, and of this it is said (Ps. 29, 6), “In the evening shall weeping abide.” This weeping will last until the morning, that is until the sun which had fallen for sinners will rise upon the faithful, according to the same Psalm, “And in the morning (shall abide) rejoicing. For the same cause also do we strike the breasts with five fingers. …
The psalms are sung according to the meaning of the day; and behold, on the seventh day, that is on Saturday, because of the resurrection which follows, the Office treats of victory and the praise of God which follows victory. Therefore, the first Psalm “Blessed be God” (143) is literally about David’s victory over Goliath (according to its title in the Septuagint and Vulgate), but according to the spiritual sense, it treats of the victory by which we overcome the devil. And since after that victory, it remains only to praise the Lord through whom we have won it, there follow four psalms which are about praise. In the first, the Church sets forth praise: “I will exalt thee, o Lord”; in the second, she urges herself on, saying, “Praise the Lord, o my soul”; in the third, she invites others to join her, “Praise ye the Lord”; in the fourth, she congratulates the heavenly Jerusalem, saying, “Praise the Lord, o Jerusalem.”…
David and Goliath, ca. 1542-44, by Titian
The versicle on Saturday is “May our evening prayer (rise unto Thee, o Lord, and Thy mercy descend upon us)”, and on the other days, “Let my prayer be directed, (o Lord, like incense in Thy sight), both of which signify the evening on which they are sung, in keeping with the sense of the words that follow within the psalm (140) “The lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.” …
The incensation is done so that we may always be the good odor of God (2 Cor. 2, 15), by advancing in knowledge, in teaching, for such must we be because of the promises of God… And therefore at Vespers and at Lauds, after the psalms and the reading … the incense is offered to signify that no one can render a good odor unto God, or give a good example of working to others, which is signified by the incense, unless first he works in the service of God, because which he teaches others through the psalms…
The priest who is senior in the office of the Church, as the one who holds the place of Aaron, ought to offer the incense so that it be an eternal sweet offering before the Lord, and a sweet, fragrant odor, according to the words of the Psalms, “Let my prayer, o Lord, be directed like incense in thy sight.” (right: an 11th century Greek mosaic of Aaron the high priest.)
St Thomas Aquinas was canonized on this day in the year 1323. Although popular devotion to him began as soon as he died, the Dominicans did not begin officially collecting testimonies to his sanctity until 1317, over 40 years after his death. Representatives of the Order presented their evidence to Pope John XXII (1316-34, the second Avignon Pope) in an audience the following year, at which the process received formal approval to continue. One of the most famous stories about Thomas is that a cardinal objected to his cause because he had performed no miracles, to which the postulator answered, “Quot articuli, tot miracula - there are as many miracles as there are articles (in the Summa.)” The cause was concluded in five years, and the same Pope issued the bull of canonization on July 18, 1323; as was then the custom, it includes an appendix of some of the Saint’s more notable posthumous miracles. His feast day is traditionally kept on March 7th, the date of his death, but the Neo-Gallican uses of Paris and various other French sees moved it to this date to keep it out of Lent.
Above St Thomas, the Lord sits on a throne of angels, and around his head are Moses, St Paul and the Four Evangelists, figures representing his mastery of all the sources of Divine Revelation.
On the book in Thomas’ hands are written the words of Proverbs 8, 7, “Veritatem meditabitur guttur meum, et labia mea detestabuntur impium. – My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness”, the first words of the Summa Contra Gentiles. Of the four books lying flat under it, the one on the left is the Bible, with the first words of Genesis 1, 1, while the other shows the beginning of Thomas’ commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. (In medieval universities, the final step to obtain a doctorate in theology was the writing and defending of such a commentary; St Robert Bellarmine was the first person to be granted a doctorate in theology by writing one on Thomas’ Summa Theologica.) The two books under them are written with a purely ornamental form of letter called pseudo-kufic script, used by medieval artists to represent languages that they did not know such as Greek and Arabic; this would signify the superiority of Christian philosophy and theology over those of the pagans and Muslims.
Every second Sunday of July, the Santuario della Beata Vergine della Creta in the town of Castellazzo Bormida in northern Italy celebrates their titular feast. Formally called the feast of Our Lady of Castellazzo or the feast of Our Lady of Grace, it is more popularly known as the feast of Our Lady of the Centaurs – “centaurs” being an Italian nickname for motorcycle riders, both because they somewhat resemble a centaur as they sit astride their rides, and because of their somewhat uncouth reputation.
The feast attracts thousands of bikers every year from the foothill regions of Italy, France, and Switzerland, who caravan to the shrine, attend Mass, and receive a blessing for themselves and their machines. Here is one prayer for the occasion:
O Madonna of the Centaurs, you who from this shrine place upon us your benevolent mantle: save us from the dangers of the road at all times and in all places. O Blessed Virgin Mary, help us so that our behavior can be an example to everyone, an example of genuine sportsmanship on the road and an example of working for brotherhood and universal harmony in our lives. Support us in our weakness and let us live as strong witnesses to the Faith so that, reaching you in Paradise, we may enjoy, bless, and love your Son Jesus forever and ever. Amen.
But the best writing on the subject is probably by Pope Pius XII. In the Apostolic Letter proclaiming the Madonna of Castellazzo the patroness of motorcyclists (February 11, 1947), the Pontiff eloquently describes how bikers visit her shrine on her feast day, how they affix her image to their bikes after Mass and the blessing, and how they tear off with a great racket down ancient Roman roads. We suspect that Pius XII (or someone) was having a little fun with the Latin, for instead of using the neo-Latin word for a motorcycle (autobirota), he declares Mary of Castellazzo the “Heavenly Patron, especially for Italy, of coachmen driving two-wheelers powered by fire-inducing liquid” (Patrona Caelestis praecipua pro Italia raedariorum birotas ignifero latice incitas moderantium). That’s “bikers” to you and me. Appended is the complete text in the original Latin.
This year’s feast, the 81st of its kind, took place last Sunday on July 12. Here is a reel of the so-called procession:
And another from the newspaper La Stampa (not embeddable)
BEATISSIMA VIRGO MARIA, GRATIARUM MATER, VULGO «MADONNINA DI CASTELLAZZO», IN ALEXANDRINA STATIELLORUM DIOECESI VENERATA, RAEDÀRIORUM BIROTAS IGNIFERO LATICE INCITAS MODERANTIUM PATRONA CAELESTIS PRAECIPUA PRO ITALIA DECLARATUR.
PIUS PP. XII
Ad perpetuam rei memoriam. — Flagrans erga Beatissimam Virginem Mariam, Dei hominumque Matrem, pietas, omnibus christifidelibus constanter impenseque colenda, digna sane est quae, ex ipso Apostolico Nostro munere, in fidelium animis a Nobis excitetur. Quod autem per Venerabilem Fratrem Petrum Iosephum Gagnor, ex Ordine Praedicatorum, Alexandrinum Statiellorum Episcopum, accepimus haud exiguam paterno animo Nostro laetitiam attulit. In oppido enim « Gasmonio », quod nunc « Castellazzo Bormida » vulgo appellatur, ubi natus est Gregorius Grassi, ex Ordine Fratrum Minorum, Orthosiensis in Phoenicia titularis Episcopus, atque in Sinensi dicione pro Christi Fide Martyrii palma decoratus, quem Nosmet ipsi inter Beatos Caelites nuperrime adnumeravimus, celebre exstat Templum, Deo in honorem Beatae Mariae Virginis dicatum. Innumerabiles eo conveniunt devotae plebes, quae Mariam Virginem « a Gratia et a Creta » familiariter prope atque amice raedarii, patrocinium ipsius Virginis Mariae enixe imploraturi. Nec ipsorum pietas decursu temporis imminui videtur, quin etiam, infensissimo bello nuper composito, magis magisque ostenditur. Solent ipsi, die praesertim Gratiarum Matris festo, cum suis autobirotis ante sacram Imaginem sistere, ac dein transgredí, dum Sacerdos aliquis, vel etiam Episcopus, sollemniter benedictionem impertitur ; qua laeto hilarique animo recepta, festinanter abscedunt atque, magno strepitu ac fragore antiquissimis Romanorum vias percurrentes, celerrimi praeterlabuntur. Iterum ac saepius praedicti raedarii, Fidem in Deo ardentem fervidamque pietatem in Mariam Virginem ostendentes, Cuius quoque Effigiem super suis birotis ad faustum omen palam deferunt, a Rectore-Parocho eiusdem Sanctuarii, immo ab Episcopo ipso, petierunt ut Deipara a «Castellazzo Bormida», in Pedemontana regione, praecipua ac primaria raedariorum autobirotas moderantium Patrona Caelestis, pro tota Italia, a Nobis renuntiaretur. Cum autem supra memoratus Alexandrinus Statiellorum Episcopus huiusmodi vota ac preces enixe Nobis rettulerit atque commendaverit, tantam Fidem tantamque pietatem peculiari rependendam praemio censuimus. Propterea, Antistiti eidem perlibenter gratificantes, auditoque Venerabili Fratre Nostro Carolo Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinali Salotti, Praenestino Episcopo atque Sacrae Rituum Congregationis Praefecto, certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostris deque Apostolicae Nostrae potestatis plenitudine, praesentium Litterarum tenore, perpetuumque in modum, Beatissimam Virginem Mariam Gratiarum Matrem, vulgo «Madonnina di Castellazzo», in Alexandrina Statiellorum dioecesi, Patronam Caelestem praecipuam pro Italia, raedariorum birotas ignifero latice incitas moderantium, declaramus atque constituimus, cum omnibus et singulis privilegiis liturgicis patronis praecipuis competentibus. Haec edicimus ac statuimus, decernentes has Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere ; suosque plenos atque integros effectus sortiri et obtinere, illisque ad quos pertinent, seu pertinere poterunt, plenissime suffragari ; sicque rite iudicandum esse ac definiendum ; irritumque ex nunc et inane fieri, si quidquam secus super his, a quovis, auctoritate qualibet, scienter sive ignoranter contigerit attentari. Contrariis non obstantibus quibuslibet.
Datum Romae, apud Sanctum Petrum, sub anulo Piscatoris, die xi mensis Februarii, anno MCMXXXXYII, Pontificatus Nostri octavo.
De speciali Sanctissimi mandato
In the Breviary of the Carmelite Order, which keeps its patronal feast today, the following antiphon is appointed to be said every day after Vespers or Compline.
Ave, Stella matutina,
Peccatorum medicina,
Mundi princeps et Regina.
Virgo sola digna dici,
Contra tela inimici
Clypeum pone salutis
Tuae titulum virtutis.
Tu es enim virga Jesse,
In qua Deus fecit esse
Aaron amygdalum,
Mundi tollens scandalum.
Tu es area compluta,
Caelesti rore imbuta,
Sicco tamen vellere.
Tu nos in hoc carcere
Solare propitia,
Dei plena gratia.
O Sponsa Dei electa,
Esto nobis via recta
Ad aeterna gaudia,
Ubi pax est et gloria.
Tu nos semper aure pia,
Dulcis, exaudi, Maria
Hail, morning star,
Medicine of sinners,
Ruler and Queen of the world,
Alone worthy to be called a virgin,
Against the spears of the enemy
Set the shield of salvation,
The sign of Thy virtue.
For you are the rod of Jesse,
In whom God made to be
Aaron’s almond, taking away
the scandal of the world.
Thou are the ground rained upon,
Imbued by heaven’s dew,
Though the fleece stayed dry.
In this prison do thou console us ,
Mercifully console us,
Who art full of God’s grace
O chosen spouse of God
Be for us the straight road
To eternal joys
Where peace and glory are.
Do Thou ever hear us
With devoted ear, sweet Mary.
In the following recording of it, note that the cantor has taken the common medieval habit of pronouncing Latin more or less like the vernacular to extremes, exaggerating the U of modern French. (The ensemble who recorded this, Diabolus in Musica, takes its name from a common term for the tritone, a dissonance which, according to a very modern popular legend, was generally disliked and avoided in medieval music theory, hence the name “the devil in the music.”)
According to Archdale King in his book The Liturgies of the Religious Orders, Fr Benedict Zimmerman O.Carm., a great scholar of his order’s liturgy, claimed that this antiphon was “without any doubt” composed by St Simon Stock himself, the English Carmelite and general of the Order to whom the Virgin revealed the brown scapular. However, Guido Dreves, in the 48th volume of the Analecta hymnica, attributed it to Peter the Venerable, an abbot of Cluny who died a century before St Simon’s time. The words “Aaron’s almond” refer to the episode of the flourishing of Aaron’s staff in Numbers 17, generally understood in the Middle Ages as a prophetic symbol of the Mother of God’s virginity, as was the episode of Gideon’s fleece in Judges 6, 36-40.
The antiphon is then followed by a versicle and prayer. V. Pray for us, Holy Mother of God. R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray. Defend, we ask, o Lord, by the intercession of the Blessed Mary ever-Virgin, this Thy family, from every adversity, and in Thy great mercy protect it, that boweth before Thee with all its heart, from the snares of all enemies. Through Christ, our Lord. R. Amen. (Defende, quaesumus, Domine, beata Maria semper Virgine intercedente, istam ab omni adversitate familiam tuam, et toto corde tibi prostratam, ab hostium proitius tuere clementer insidiis. Per Christum...)
Then the following invocation is said. V. In omni tribulatione et angustia, sucurrat nobis pia Virgo Maria. R. Amen.
(In every tribulation and anguish, may the Holy Virgin Mary come to our aid.)
And a final prayer, which mentioned several of the more important Carmelite Saints.
Oremus. Omnipotens, et clementissime Deus, qui Montis Carmeli Ordinem gloriosissimae Virginis Mariae Genitricis Filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi, sacrato titulo insignitum, Sanctorum tuorum Patris nostri Eliae, et Elisaei Prophetarum, Angeli et Anastasii Martyrum, Cyrilli et Alberti Confessorum, Euphrasiae, Teresiae et Mariae Magdalenae Virginum, et aliorum plurimorum meritis decorasti: tribue nobis quaesumus, ut per eorum suffragia ab instantibus malis animae et corporis liberati, ad te verum Carmeli verticem gaudentes pervenire valeamus. Per eundem... (Almighty and most merciful God, who hast adorned the order of Mount Carmel, that is distinguished by the sacred title of the most glorious Virgin Mary, the Mother of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, with the merits of Thy Saints, the prophets Elijah, our father, and Elisha, the martyrs Angelus and Anastasius, the confessors Cyril and Albert, the virgins Euphrasia, Theresa and Mary Magdalene, and very many others; grant us, we ask, that, being delivered by their prayers from present evils of soul and body, we may be able to come rejoicing to Thee, the true height of Carmel. Through the same...)
The Virgin Mary and Carmelite Saints, by Pietro Novelli, 1641; from the Carmelite church of Palermo, Siciliy.
I have written previously about the Carmelite tradition by which the order regards the Prophets Elijah and Elisha as its founders. The martyr Angelus named here was a converted Jew from Sicily, who was murdered by a man of notoriously evil life whom he had publicly rebuked, ca. 1220; his feast is kept on May 5th. The martyr Anastasius is the same traditionally celebrated on January 22nd together with St Vincent of Saragossa; he was a Persian who died in the 7th century, and whom the Carmelites claim as one of their own. This is part of a rather dubious hagiographical tradition by which the Order expropriated a number of Saints of the distant past (among them the 8th pope, St Telesphorus, who reigned ca. 125-136) to establish its antiquity among the mendicant orders that emerged in the early 13th century. Of the two Confessors named here, St Albert was the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem (1205-14) who gave them the earliest written form of their rule; St Cyril was an early prior general of the Order in the Holy Land, to whom an extravagant hagiographical legend was later attached. St Euphrasia, a kinswoman of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, was one of the most famous of the ascetic Saints of the Egyptian desert, and died in 420 AD; her life is well and reliably attested, and was also later expropriated by the Carmelites. The Theresa named here is she of Avila, who died before the formal separation of the Order into two branches; the Mary Magdelene is a Florentine nun surnamed de’ Pazzi, who died in 1607.
Featuring Catholic artists, Dony McManus, Henry Wingate, and David Clayton
I am delighted to be speaking in Portland, Maine, this coming fall with my friends and Catholic artists, Henry and Dony, at a conference organized by the Diocese of Portland.
This is the second set of images from a Gospel book commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor St Henry II and his wife St Cunegond at the beginning of the 11th century. (today is his EF feast day.) It was made at the abbey of Reichenau for the cathedral of Ss Peter and Paul in Bamberg, Germany, a see which they founded. See the first part (which was published on Monday, his OF feast day) for some explanation of the artistic style.
By the time this was made, the common portrayal of Christ which we use today, with long hair, a full beard, and high cheek bones, was already standard, although not the universal standard. Here, He is shown throughout as beardless and younger, which suggests that the artists at Reichenau may have deliberately copied these images from an older prototype, possibly much older, possibly Byzantine. Also note the lack of depth and naturalism so typical of Ottonian art in the figure of Christ sitting at the table of the Last Supper, with legs that have no anatomical relationship whatsoever to His torso. The lower part shows the washing of the disciples’ feet, the Gospel of Holy Thursday in the Roman Rite (John 13, 1-15.) In the corner, one of the Apostles is shown putting his shoes back on, a gesture of realism which also suggests that the artist, who does very little of this kind of thing elsewhere, also worked from a prototype of an older artistic school closer to the naturalism of the ancient Roman tradition.
The first image accompanying the Passion of St John on Good Friday (chapters 18 and 19). In the lower part, Christ is brought before the high priest Caiaphas. Having no notion of what a Jewish priest might look like, the artist has shown him more or less as any magistrate sitting on a throne; were it not for the rending of his garments, (which is recounted in the passions of Matthew and Mark, but not in John’s), we might well think he was Pilate. In the upper part, the Crucifixion: as was commonly done in the early Middle Ages, Christ the King is seen on the Cross fully awake and in triumph, rather than suffering. Note that neither His head nor arms nor torso slumps down, to indicate that even in the midst of His Passion, He is still the creator and sustainer of the universe.
On the second page, the deposition from the Cross and the burial, with the sun and the moon shown covering their mouths and looking away, to convey their astonishment and horror.
The Gospel of Easter, with the myrrh-bearing woman...
In May, my daughter and I visited a few places in Austria and Italy, and while I wasn’t much of a shutterbug (I’m trying these days to leave my camera mostly unused), I’ll admit that I pulled it out whenever I saw something that I thought NLM readers might enjoy seeing. As usual, click on the images to enlarge.
The ceiling of the sacristy at Heiligenkreuz Abbey. Note how the tormentors of the three children in the fiery furnace are sporting turbans, a reminder that the Turks once ransacked this abbey.
For a place that’s supposed to help priests become recollected for Mass, the interplay between this priest and his server is rather funny!
The Pummerin of Stephansdom in Vienna, the third largest bell in Europe at 44,380 lbs or the weight of 15-20 cars; its metal is from 208 Turkish cannons melted down after the Siege of Vienna.
Our guide took us up to the perimeter of the Stephansdom roof to give us a close look at the tiles.
Here’s the huge room under the Stephansdom roof, above the vaulted nave of the church - it's almost the size of a church in itself.
I was recently made aware of this remarkable collection of English medieval illuminations through Hilary White’s Sacred Images Project Substack, and I was immediately struck by the quality of the draftsmanship. Looking at these images, it became clear to me that these are among the finest models I have encountered for artists who wish to learn to draw and paint in a style appropriate for the renewal of sacred art in our own time.
The Annunciation
The Sarum Use and Its Living Descendants
Before turning to the images themselves, it is worth pausing to consider what this Psalter actually is - it is significant in a way that resonates today.
The Sarum Use was a distinctly English form of the Roman Rite, developed at Salisbury and prevalent across much of England throughout the medieval period, right up to the Reformation. This particular Psalter belongs to that tradition.
This gives these illuminations a particular resonance with Christians in the Anglo-American world. The Psalter from the Book of Common Prayer, called the Coverdale Psalter - after Miles Coverdale, who translated the text into English in the 16th century - is a liturgical descendant of the Sarum Use of the Roman Rite. It is the Psalter that generations of Anglicans have prayed, and which continues to be prayed today. It is approved for use by Catholics (in the 1928 revision used by the Anglican Ordinariates), Orthodox, and many Protestant denominations. All share a living connection to the liturgical world that produced the images shown here. To look at this Psalter is, for many of these Christians, to encounter a visual companion of their contemporary daily worship.
Woman and Bishop (identities unkown)
The School of St Albans — Broadly Understood
I have referred in the past to the tradition these images represent as the School of St Albans, though I use that phrase in a more generic sense than art historians might. Strictly speaking, the School of St Albans refers to the English illumination of the early Gothic and late Romanesque period, particularly the work of the 13th-century monk Matthew Paris, who worked at St Albans Abbey. His style can be seen in manuscripts such as the Westminster Psalter and in the wall paintings that still survive in English churches.
This Psalter was likely not produced at St Albans; it comes from elsewhere in England. The Cambridge Digital Library, which provided the images, suggests that it is likely somewhere in southeast England, either Lincoln or East Anglia. But it still contains the essential elements of the style as I have described it: the primacy of line in describing form, a limited palette, and an emphasis on flat coloration rather than blended tonal modeling. Whether we call it the School of St Albans or simply the English medieval tradition, this manuscript is a full expression of it!
These limitations in stylistic features, which distinguish it from naturalistic forms of art, are its strength. As a result, the style sidesteps what I consider the blight of so much modern sacred art: sentimentality. When you cannot render every gradation of light and shadow, you are forced to think clearly about form, about meaning, and about what is essential. Line demands clarity, while tonal naturalism invites sentiment. The School of St Albans offers artists today a discipline that might hold sentimentality at bay!
St Catherine and St Margaret
What to Notice in These Images
As you look at these beautiful reproductions from the Psalter, there a couple of points I would make:.
Consistent with the broader Western tradition of sacred art, there is a heavy emphasis on beautiful, ornate patterns in the borders, backgrounds, and across the surface of the image. This richly ornamented flatness is distinct from what we encounter in much contemporary Byzantine iconography, for example, which tends toward greater austerity in those areas that could be decorated.
St George
At the same time - and here is an example of how the English tradition converges with the Byzantine - the content follows traditional customs. Notice, for example, how the Nativity is depicted. St Joseph is portrayed as significantly older than Our Lady: by tradition, he was a widower, and is depicted in imagery as set apart from the Virgin and Child in the Nativity. This deliberate distancing signals his temporary doubt about the Virgin Birth. Contemporary depictions of St Joseph in the Roman church, on the other hand, tend to portray him as a young and vigorous man.
The Holy Roman Emperor St Henry II, who died on this day in the year 1024 (born May 6, 973), together with his wife St Cunegond of Luxembourg (975-1040), founded the Bavarian see of Bamberg in 1007. (Prior to his imperial coronation in 1014, he was the Duke of Bavaria.) For the consecration of the cathedral, he commissioned a Gospel book from the monastery of Reichenau, one of the most important Benedictine abbeys in the empire, and the center of an important contemporary school of painting and manuscript illumination. The manuscript (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 4452) has 28 full-page illustrations, and a great many decorated letters, although these latter are all quite similar to each other. This first article will show the illustrations up to Palm Sunday, and some other pages that exemplify the various kinds of decorations. The second part will include the illustrations from Holy Thursday to the end.
Henry was the last of the imperial dynasty which is called “Ottonian” from the name “Otto” shared by its first three emperors, a dynasty which ran from 919 to his death in 1024. The art of the Ottonian period moves strongly away from the naturalism of the classical world which the Carolingian era that preceded it sought to imitate. The human figures are stylized, mostly without expression or depth; the backgrounds are no more than bands of color, very often gold, since this is decidedly a luxury production. The contrast is immediately noticeable when one compares the late Carolingian ivory (ca. 870) on the front cover, looking at the highly naturalistic figure of Christ on the Cross, with the flatness of the figures in the image of Henry and Cunegonde being crowned by Christ.
The ivory plaque shows (from top to bottom; click to enlarge) the hand of God the Father coming down from heaven, with the sun and moon to either side, symbolically represented as figures driving chariots; three angels above the Cross; the Crucifixion, with the mourners and the soldiers, and Joseph of Arimathea speaking to Pilate (Joseph is shown as a nobleman of the early 11th century, carrying a war banner); the women at the tomb (a three-storied structure); the dead rising from their tombs, and symbolic figures of the sea, earth and underworld giving up the dead. At the corners of the gold frame are the symbols of the Four Evangelists in enamel medallions, and between them, slightly smaller enamels of Christ and the Twelve Apostles. Around the edge of the ivory runs an inscription written by someone anxious to show off his knowledge of Greek vocabulary.
“Grammata qui sophie querit cognoscere vere Hoc mathesis plene quadratum plaudet habere. En qui veraces sophie fulsere sequaces, Ornat perfectam Rex Heinrih stemmate sectam.
He who seeks to know the letters of true wisdom / will rejoice in possessing this square (object) of the fullness of learning. / Behold those who shone forth as true followers of wisdom; King Henry adorns this perfect school with a crown.”
The dedicatory inscription, by which St Henry offers the Gospel book to the Apostles Peter and Paul, the titular Saints of Bamberg Cathedral.
“Rex Heinricus ovans, fidei splendore coruscans, Maximus imperio fruitur quo prosper avito, Inter opum varias prono de pectore gazas Obtulit hunc librum, divina lege refertum, Plenus amore Dei, pius in donaria templi; Ut sit perpetuum decus illic omne per aevum. Princeps aeclesiae, caelestis claviger aulae, Petre, cum Paulo gentis doctore benigno Hunc tibi devotum prece fac super astra beatum Cum Cunigunda, sibi conregnante serena. Hoc Pater, hoc Natus, nec non et Spiritus almus Annuat, aeternus semper Deus omnibus unus.
King Henry, rejoicing, shining with the splendor of the Faith, / very great in the rule of his grandfather which he successfully holds, / among the varied treasures of his riches, from his heart inclined / offers this book, filled with the divine law, / being full of the love of God, dutiful in giving to the temple, / that it may be an everlasting glory there through every age. / Prince of the Church, key-bearer of the heavenly court, / Peter, with Paul, kindly teacher of the nations, / by your prayer, make this man devoted to you blessed above the stars, / with Cunigonde, his serene co-ruler. / May the Father, and the Son, and also the kindly Spirit / approve this, the one eternal God, ever above all.”
Christ crowning Ss Henry and Cunegonde, who are attended by Ss Peter and Paul. (The lack of depth characteristic of Ottonian art is particularly noticeable in the misplacement of St Paul’s arms.) Below are personifications of the provinces of the Empire; the three larger are probably meant to be Gaul, Italy and Germany, and the smaller, lower ones the German duchies of Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia, Saxony, Lower and Upper Lorraine. Over the upper scene is written,
“Tractando justum, discernite semper honestum. Utile conveniat, consultum legis ut optat.
Doing what is just, always discern what is honorable; / may that which is useful fit with what the law requires.”
Below, “Solvimus ecce tibi, Rex, censum jure perenni. Clemens esto tuis; nos reddimus ista quotannis.
Behold, we pay thee, o king, tribute by perennial law. / Be merciful to thine own; we render these things every year.”
The Four Evangelists, each accompanied by his traditional symbol and a poetic inscription. For St Matthew, “Res notat hic hominis Mathaeus, scriptor herilis. - This Matthew, the Master’s writer, notes the deeds of the man.”
St Mark: “Ut leo voce fremit, Marcus dum talia scribit. - As Mark writes such things, he roars like a lion.”
In his post yesterday on the embolism, the prayer which follows the Lord’s Prayer in the Mass, and builds off its concluding words, Dr Foley noted that something of the sort is found in all Western liturgies, and several Eastern ones. For example, the ancient liturgy of Jerusalem, known as the liturgy of St James, or Hagiopolite Rite, has the priest say in the analogous place, “And lead us not into temptation, o Lord, Lord of hosts, who knowest our weakness, but deliver us from the evil one, and from his works and his every assault and devising, though Thy holy name, that hath been invoked upon our low estate.”
He then concludes with this doxology: “for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and forever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.” This latter part is also said in the Byzantine Rite, not only at the Divine Liturgy, but also at the many occasions when the Lord’s Prayer is said in the Office. Partly under Byzantine influence, it has been adopted by various other Eastern rites as well.
This addition is extremely ancient, already attested in germinal form (“for Thine is the power and the glory forever”,) in the Didache, ca. 100 A.D. The names of the three Divine Persons were added to this formula later, in the wake of the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries. Likewise the word “kingdom”, for the same reason that the words “whose kingdom shall have no end” were added to the Nicene Creed, in response to the heretic Marcellus of Ancyra, who taught that Christ would cease to be after He had delivered the eternal kingdom to God the Father.
Matthew 6, 9-13, the Lord’s Prayer with the doxology, in a Greek manuscript of the Gospels with interlinear Latin translation, commonly known as Codex Δ; originally written ca. 850 AD at the monastery of Bobbio in northern Italy, now in the library of the monastery of San Gallen in Switzerland. (Cod. Sang. 48, p. 33; https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/0048, CC BY-NC 4.0)
There is an interesting story of how this Eastern liturgical addition became part of the standard way of saying the Lord’s Prayer among English-speaking protestants. There are many manuscripts of the Gospel of St Matthew which include one version of it or another at chapter 6, verse 13. This is found not just in Greek, but also in a few manuscripts of the Old Latin versions, three of the four Syriac translations, in Armenian and Coptic, etc. On the other hand, it is missing from the oldest and most important witnesses to the text of the New Testament, such as the codexes Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and one of the most important ancient translations, St Jerome’s revision of the Old Latin. The first Latin commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, that of St Cyprian, also makes no mention of it. The consensus of modern scholarship recognizes that it is a later addition, most likely made because the scribes who produced the manuscripts were used to hearing it so often in the liturgy.
The first printed Greek New Testament was put together by the famous humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), issued in 1516, and revised four times over the following 19 years. But the manuscripts which he and his collaborators had to work with were few, late, and by modern standards bad. The great uncials codices such as the two named above were completely unknown to the West, nor had any of the Egyptian papyri yet been discovered which in more recent times have proved such valuable witnesses to the original text. Erasmus, judging from what he had in his manuscripts, included the doxology at Matthew 6, 13 in his edition, from which it passed into various protestant versions, including the King James Bible, and from that to the Book of Common Prayer. And thus an eastern liturgical interpolation came to be commonly said as if it were part of the prayer itself.
In the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, there is a scene in which the main character, Capt. Jack Aubrey, leads a funeral service for sailors killed in a battle on an English military vessel. At approximately 2:00:45, the whole company recites the Lord’s Prayer together; at the words “give us this day,” the camera moves to show the other main character, Aubrey’s friend and the ship’s doctor, Stephen Maturin, who is Catholic. When they reach “for thine is the kingdom”, Maturin stops speaking, since the addition of those words was a protestant custom which he would not observe. I am certain that this must have been deliberate, even though Maturin’s Catholicism isn’t noted in the film, since the actor who plays him, Paul Bettany, is English, was raised Catholic, and would have known this. (I am not the first person to have noticed this. In this excerpt, Maturin appears at 00:44.)
Vir Domini Benedictus ferrum de profundo resiliens Gotho reddidit, dicens: * Ecce, labora, et noli contristari. V. Vix enim manubrium misit ad lacum, ferrum de profundo rediit, quod reddens dixit: Ecce. Gloria Patri. Ecce. (The 4th responsory of the Solemnity of St Benedict in the Monastic Breviary.)
R. Benedict, the man of God, returned to the Goth the iron that leapt up from the deep, saying, * Behold, work on, and do not be sad. V. For scarcely did he put the handle near the lake, and the iron returned from the deep; and giving it back, he said, Behold... Glory be... Behold.
In the Second Book of St Gregory the Great’s Dialogues, dedicated to the life and miracles of St Benedict, this episode of a miracle also performed by the Prophet Elisha (4 Kings 6, 1-7) is recounted thus in chapter six:
(A) certain Goth, poor of spirit, came to conversion (i.e., became a monk) whom the man of God Benedict most gladly; and one day, commanded him to take ... a sickle, and cut away the briars from a certain plot of ground, so that a garden might be made there. Now this place, which the Goth had undertaken to clear, was by the side of a lake, and while he was cutting away the cluster of briars with all his strength, the head of the sickle flew off the handle and fell into the water, in a place where it was so deep that there was no hope of getting it back. The Goth, in great fear, ran to the monk Maurus, and told him what he had lost, confessing his own fault, and Maurus went to the servant of God Benedict and told him. Therefore, the man of God Benedict went to the lake, took the handle from the Goth’s hand, and put it into the water, and soon the iron head came up from the deep, and entered again into the handle (of the sickle), which he returned at once to the Goth, saying, ‘Behold, work on, and be sad no more.’
St Benedict died on March 21 in the year 543 or 547, and this was the date on which his principal feast was traditionally kept, and is still kept by Benedictines; it is sometimes referred to on the calendars of Benedictine liturgical books as the “Transitus - Passing”. There was also a second feast to honor the translation of his relics, which was kept on July 11. The location to which the relics were translated is still a matter of dispute, with the abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy, founded by the Saint himself, and the French abbey of Fleury, also known as Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, both claiming to possess them. This second feast is found in many medieval missals and breviaries, even in places not served by monastic communities. (It was not, however, observed by either the Cistercians or Carthusians.). The second feast was in a certain sense the more solemn in the traditional use of the Benedictines; March 21 always falls in Lent, and the celebration of octaves in Lent was prohibited, but most monastic missals have the July 11 feast with an octave. In the post-Conciliar reform of the Calendar, many Saints, including St Benedict, were moved out of Lent; in his case, to the day of this second feast in the Benedictine calendar.
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