Toledo Nuptial Rite: A Glimpse into Regional Variety

Last July in Spain, I had the great joy of meeting a priest from a Spanish family, albeit born in Chicago (and thus perfectly fluent in both English and Spanish), who now happily ministers in the traditional rite to faithful of the Asturian diocese of Oviedo.

I share with readers of NLM the comments and photos he shared with me some months ago.

“This afternoon I celebrated a beautiful TLM Wedding, according to the venerable Toledo usage contained in an appendix to the 1897 Rituale Romanum for dioceses in Spain. At the head of the appendix is a prayer that a priest is to say privately before administering any sacrament:

One finds an admonition in Castilian which describes the essence of the sacrament of Marriage. Great material therein for a homily or catechesis.

Particularly interesting from a linguistic perspective is the usage of medieval and renaissance Castilian – the “Vos” to refer to a singular person “you”, but not like the formal “usted”, it’s rather a more elevated form used to address royalty, even today for those well-mannered enough. As to the verb form for “Vos”, the plural you (“vosotros”) is used, that is, the verb form used commonly in Spain for informal plural you (not so much in Spanish America), but used in the context of “Vos,” referring to a singular “you” in a distinguished manner. Think of this as Thee, Thou. From a grammatical point of view, it sounds old, venerable, and thus beautiful. Tolkien no doubt knew of it since he liked the sound of Spanish!

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Sacred Art of Spanish America - An Exhibition at Cornell University

I recently visited a very interesting exhibition at the Johnson Museum of Art on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, titled “Colonial Crossings: Art, Identity, and Belief in the Spanish Americas.” The works on display are primarily from the 18th century, with a few earlier pieces anda few later, from several different parts of the former Spanish colonies of the New World. The exhibition is scheduled to end on December 15th; if you are in the area, it is very much worth your time. Here are pictures of all the major works, and most of the minor ones. Very few of the artists are known by name.

We start, of course, with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This was painted in 1779 by a Mexican artist named Sebastián Salcedo, a prestige commission done in a difficult and expensive medium, oil on copper; difficult, because it requires a lot of layering, and takes forever to dry. (The very first image of the Sacred Heart to be exposed in a church in Rome, the famous work of Pompeo Batoni, was done in the same medium only 12 years earlier.) It has to be said that the didactic panels in the show give far too little information about basic art historical facts, such as who commissioned this, whether it was for a church, a private chapel, a public space etc.

A painting of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as Our Lady of Miracles, from Cuzco, Perú, 18th century, made for the local Franciscan house. This is a very much toned down version of the allegorical representation of the Immaculate Conception, by this period long out of fashion in Europe.

Madonna and Child, 1592-1605, by an anonymous follower of the Italian painter Bernardo Bitti, a Jesuit priest from Camerino, Italy, who worked in many different places in the Viceroyalty of Perú.

Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá (modern Columbia), with Ss Francis and Andrew, late 17th or early 18th century. The anonymous donor at the right clearly seems to have been added to the painting by a different hand, but no further information about this was provided by the show.

An image of Our Lady of Remedies, from La Paz (in modern Bolivia), 1770. The story depicted here is that a local miscreant stabbed an image of the Virgin Mary, but was converted instantly when it began to bleed.

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The Legend of St Ildephonsus of Toledo

The day after the feast of one of its most celebrated martyrs, St Vincent, the church in Spain commemorates one of its greatest bishops, St Ildephonsus, who succeeded his own uncle, St Eugenius, as archbishop of the primatial see of Toledo in 657, and reigned until his death about ten years later. Many Saints have been honored liturgically in one place or another, or within a particular religious order, as Doctors of the Church, without the title being officially proclaimed or recognized by the Holy See. In Spain, even before the expansion of the title’s use began in the Tridentine reform, Ildephonsus was called a Doctor, along with St Isidore of Seville, traditionally said to have been his teacher. (The latter, by the way, was officially granted the title by Pope Innocent XIII in 1722, and has more recently, in view of his work as an encyclopedist, become the informal Patron Saint of the internet.)

The calendar page for January of a Missal according to the Use of Toledo, Spain, printed in 1551, with the entry on the 23rd “Ildephonse, Archbishop of Toledo, Confessor and Doctor.” The term “vj cap(parum) - of six copes” refers to a system for grading feasts based on the number of copes used at Vespers, which was borrowed from the Mozarabic Rite. (This missal is not Mozarabic, but the Toledan Use of the Roman Rite.)

Among St Ildephonsus’ works is a treatise “On the Perpetual Virginity of St Mary” which came to be fairly well-known in the Middle Ages, a defense of the Church’s traditional teaching on that subject, and filled with praises of Her, always in reference to Her Son. To give just a sample:

“Behold, all the earth is filled with the glory of God through this Virgin. From the little to the great, all have come to know the living God through this Virgin. All have seen the salvation of God through this Virgin. All the ends of the earth have remembered and been converted through this Virgin. All the nations of the world worship before Her Son; for the kingdom belongeth to the Son, and God Himself shall rule over the nations. All these sing to the Lord, Her Son, the new song of their redemption, for by being born from this Virgin, He hath done great things. God hath made known His salvation through this Virgin, and revealed His justice in our sight. Through this Virgin they have found God, who could not find Him through the observance of the Law. Through this Virgin came God, and the nations and tongues being gathered, we have come and seen His, glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father. All the nations have been gathered in the name of this Lord, in the midst of Jerusalem, which is tehe vision of peace, that is, the universal church, and they will walk no longer after the wickedness of their heart. … And behold, all the nations bless Him that was born of such a Mother, and praise Him.”

This rhetorically effusive and repetitive style is very typical of the Mozarabic liturgy which was then used throughout Spain, and for which Ildephonse is believed to have written the Mass of the Ascension. The Mozarabic Mass has many more variable parts than the Roman; another example of the same style may be found in his introduction to the Lord’s Prayer.

“Who will speak of Thy mighty deeds, o Lord, or who shall be able to tell of all Thy praises? Thou camest down to the things of man, while leaving not those of heaven, and returned on high, leaving not the things of man behind; wholly omnipresent, everywhere wondrous, not cut off by the flesh, that Thou should not be in the Father, nor taken away by the Ascension in such wise that Thou should not be in man. Look upon the prayer of Thy people, o holy Lord, o merciful God, that on this day of Thy Ascension, just as glory was given to Thee on high, so grace may be given to us on earth.”

Sometime after St Ildephonsus’ death, a legend arose that once as he was praying before the tomb of St Leocadia, a virgin of Toledo martyred in the persecution of Diocletian, she rose from her grave in order to convey to him the thanks and praise of the Virgin for what he had written. Later on, the Virgin Herself appeared to him, sitting on his episcopal throne, and bestowed a chasuble upon him.

The Virgin Mary Appears to St Ildephonse, by Bartolomé Estaban Murillo (1617-82), ca. 1655. (Public domain image from Wikimedia).

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, collections of legends of the Virgin Mary became extremely popular, and a great many of them contain some version of this story, which, in fact circulated so widely that it was incorporated into the liturgy of the Ethiopian Church. In the Ethiopian synaxarium, the Eastern equivalent of the Martyrology, an entry for Tahisas 22 (December 31st), the feast of St Gabriel, reads “Salutation to Dekesius, Bishop of Telteya (Toledo), to whom Mary gave heavenly apparel, because he wrote the account of the miracle of her Annunciation.”

St “Dexius” offers his book about the Virgin Mary to Her (above), and receives a vestment from Her (below). This image comes from a translation of a late 14th century Ethiopian manuscript of legends of the Virgin Mary, published in Britain in 1900, with reproductions of the original illustrations.

An Altarpiece of St Barbara

In honor of the feast of St Barbara, here is a particularly nice altarpiece dedicated to her, a work in the International Gothic style by a painter from Valencia, Spain, named Gonçal Peris Sarrià (1380-1451). Originaly made for the parish church of Puertomingalvo in the province of Teruel, in what was then the Kingdom of Aragon, it is now in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. Each panel is shown and explained separately below; you can right-click each image to see it in a much higher resolution. Last year, I gave a more detailed explanation of the legend of St Barbara and how she came to be honored as a Patron Saint for a great many different things.

(Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

St Barbara holding the palm of martyrdom and her traditional emblem, a tower.

(Upper left panel) On the left side, St Barbara is baptized by a monk. The story on the right side comes from her traditional legend, which has long been recognized by scholars of hagiography as historically unreliable. Her father, a wealthy pagan named Dioscorus, wishing to hide her beauty from the eyes of strangers, ordered her to be enclosed in a tower. As she meditated on the splendor and harmony of the world, which she could observe from the two windows, she began to think about its Cause. Renouncing the idols worshipped by her father, she became a Christian, and so had her father’s workmen open a third window in her tower to honor of the Holy Trinity.

(Lower left panel) On the left side, Dioscorus learns that Barbara has become a Christian, and threatens her with a sword. On the right, she runs away to hide in a forest, persued by her father; a shepherd who reveals her hiding place to him is turned to stone. 

(Upper right panel) On the left side, Barbara is brought before a Roman official, and condemned for her Christian faith; on the right, she is tortured on her breasts, a detail perhaps borrowed from the traditional legend of St Agatha.

(Lower right panel) On the left side, Barbara is being stoned; on the right, she is beheaded by her father, who together with his servant is struck by lightning strike, as Barbara’s soul is received into heaven by an angel.

The Crucifixion, over the central figure of the Saint; this image would have served as the altar cross for the celebration of Mass.

The left side of the predella, with Ss Ursula, identified by her arrow, Lucy, holding her eyes on a plate), and the Virgin Mary in mourning; this last indicates that the central panel between the two sides, which is now missing, was most likely an image of Christ in the tomb, a very common image to place in the middle of the predella. 

The right side of the predella, with Ss John the Evangelist, Margaret (with a dragon) and Catherine of Alexandria with her wheel. 

The Legend of St Ildephonsus of Toledo

The day after the feast of one of its most celebrated martyrs, St Vincent, the church in Spain commemorates one of its greatest bishops, St Ildephonsus, who succeeded his own uncle, St Eugenius, as archbishop of the primatial see of Toledo in 657, and reigned until his death about ten years later. Many Saints have been honored liturgically in one place or another, or within a particular religious order, as Doctors of the Church, without the title being officially proclaimed or recognized by the Holy See. In Spain, even before the expansion of the title’s use began in the Tridentine reform, Ildephonsus was called a Doctor, along with St Isidore of Seville, traditionally said to have been his teacher. (The latter, by the way, was officially granted the title by Pope Innocent XIII in 1722, and has more recently, in view of his work as an encyclopedist, become the informal Patron Saint of the internet.)

The calendar page for January of a Missal according to the Use of Toledo, Spain, printed in 1551, with the entry on the 23rd “Ildephonse, Archbishop of Toledo, Confessor and Doctor.” The term “vj cap(parum) - of six copes” refers to a system for grading feasts based on the number of copes used at Vespers, which was borrowed from the Mozarabic Rite. (This missal is not Mozarabic, but the Toledan Use of the Roman Rite.)

Among St Ildephonsus’ works is a treatise “On the Perpetual Virginity of St Mary” which came to be fairly well-known in the Middle Ages, a defense of the Church’s traditional teaching on that subject, and filled with praises of Her, always in reference to Her Son. To give just a sample:

“Behold, all the earth is filled with the glory of God through this Virgin. From the little to the great, all have come to know the living God through this Virgin. All have seen the salvation of God through this Virgin. All the ends of the earth have remembered and been converted through this Virgin. All the nations of the world worship before Her Son; for the kingdom belongeth to the Son, and God Himself shall rule over the nations. All these sing to the Lord, Her Son, the new song of their redemption, for by being born from this Virgin, He hath done great things. God hath made known His salvation through this Virgin, and revealed His justice in our sight. Through this Virgin they have found God, who could not find Him through the observance of the Law. Through this Virgin came God, and the nations and tongues being gathered, we have come and seen His, glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father. All the nations have been gathered in the name of this Lord, in the midst of Jerusalem, which is tehe vision of peace, that is, the universal church, and they will walk no longer after the wickedness of their heart. … And behold, all the nations bless Him that was born of such a Mother, and praise Him.”

This rhetorically effusive and repetitive style is very typical of the Mozarabic liturgy which was then used throughout Spain, and for which Ildephonse is believed to have written the Mass of the Ascension. The Mozarabic Mass has many more variable parts than the Roman; another example of the same style may be found in his introduction to the Lord’s Prayer.

“Who will speak of Thy mighty deeds, o Lord, or who shall be able to tell of all Thy praises? Thou camest down to the things of man, while leaving not those of heaven, and returned on high, leaving not the things of man behind; wholly omnipresent, everywhere wondrous, not cut off by the flesh, that Thou should not be in the Father, nor taken away by the Ascension in such wise that Thou should not be in man. Look upon the prayer of Thy people, o holy Lord, o merciful God, that on this day of Thy Ascension, just as glory was given to Thee on high, so grace may be given to us on earth.”

Sometime after St Ildephonsus’ death, a legend arose that once as he was praying before the tomb of St Leocadia, a virgin of Toledo martyred in the persecution of Diocletian, she rose from her grave in order to convey to him the thanks and praise of the Virgin for what he had written. Later on, the Virgin Herself appeared to him, sitting on his episcopal throne, and bestowed a chasuble upon him.

The Virgin Mary Appears to St Ildephonse, by Bartolomé Estaban Murillo (1617-82), ca. 1655. (Public domain image from Wikimedia).

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, collections of legends of the Virgin Mary became extremely popular, and a great many of them contain some version of this story, which, in fact circulated so widely that it was incorporated into the liturgy of the Ethiopian Church. In the Ethiopian synaxarium, the Eastern equivalent of the Martyrology, an entry for Tahisas 22 (December 31st), the feast of St Gabriel, reads “Salutation to Dekesius, Bishop of Telteya (Toledo), to whom Mary gave heavenly apparel, because he wrote the account of the miracle of her Annunciation.”

St “Dexius” offers his book about the Virgin Mary to Her (above), and receives a vestment from Her (below). This image comes from a translation of a late 14th century Ethiopian manuscript of legends of the Virgin Mary, published in Britain in 1900, with reproductions of the original illustrations.

A Recent TLM Pilgrimage In Spain

Our thanks to reader Daniel Martínez Pasamar for sharing with us this account of a pilgrimage / retreat recently held in Spain for a group of the faithful attached to the traditional Latin Mass.

From Thursday, June 28th to Sunday, July 1st, the first edition of the Family Retreat ‘Vayamos Jubilosos’ for people attached to the Traditional Liturgy of the Roman Rite in Spain took place. This is the first time ever that such an initiative, geared at deepen knowledge of the Mass of Ages and the values and principles of Christendom has been held in Spain.

In addition to the lectures for adults, and the parallel educational activities and talks specifically designed for the children, the participants in the retreat were able to attend Mass every day, either one of the Low Masses celebrated by the priests present at the event, or the Solemn High Mass which was the spiritual core of each day. Furthermore, the attendees took part in different traditional devotions: daily solemn Vespers in Gregorian chant, Benediction and the Holy Rosary.

On Saturday, the group walked on pilgrimage to the shrine of Blessed Virgin Mary of the Cross, the site of a famous and offically recognized apparition of the Virgin Mary to a young shepherd girl named Inés, which took place in 1449. This shrine was visited by personages such as the Emperor Charles V, Don John of Austria (the victor of Lepanto), and Cardinal Franisco Cisneros went on pilgrimage to the shrine when Saint Juana de la Cruz was the abbess of the convent attached to it. The Stations of the Cross were prayed on the way to the Shrine.

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A New Image of St. John Neumann

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Rescuing Souls from Purgatory,
17th century, Cuzco School

During Spain's period of rule over much of Latin America, the religious artists of Peru developed a distinct style known to historians as the Cuzco School. Cusqueña art emerged from a melding of Spanish and indigenous talents, and many of its greatest exponents were Quechua in origin, though Creole Spaniards also participated as well. Painters often looked to prints of European religious art for inspiration, but with a free hand and an almost Byzantine sense of stylized solemnity. Lavish gold leaf and flattened perspectives are common; the gold leafing itself is strongly reminiscent of the Spanish and Spanish colonial tradition of polychromed estofado sculpture, with its rich undercoat of gilt.


I was intrigued to discover that the Cuzco Style is alive and well in, of all places, Gaithersburg, Maryland, where a large painting of St. John Neumann done in this traditional style by the members of a missionary parish in Peru ornaments St. John Neumann Catholic Church. It is an intriguing melding of a "modern" saint with a venerable iconographic style, and reminds us vividly of the deep roots of the Catholic faith in the Americas. I do not know much else about this piece but would be glad if our readers could pass any further information onto me.

VIII Centenary of the Consecration of the Cathedral of Santiago [UPDATE]

On 7 May, the VIII centenary of the consecration of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was celebrated by the Archbishop of Santiago, Most Rev. Julián Barrio Barrio. One of the most precious sets of antique vestments from the treasure of the cathedral was used. At the beginning of the ceremony, there was a procession with stations at each of the cathedral's consecration crosses, where each time a motet was sung with the text of the inscription around the respective consecration cross. At the end, the famous botafumeiro was swung. Below are some photographs of the occasion; you can watch video clips at this link.

















Photographs: Miguel Castaño/Archdiocese of Santiago.

UPDATE

While the link to the video footage is unfortunately not working anymore, pictures of Pontifical Vespers celebrated on the day before have become available: