Laus Beatae Mariae Virginis

We are now in the midst of an octave that contains three feasts of the Virgin Mary, her Nativity on September 8th, her Holy Name on the 12th, and the Seven Sorrows on the 15th. The historical starting point of this arrangement is of course the first of these, which was imported into the Roman Rite from the Byzantine tradition at the end of the 7th century, along with three other Marian feasts, the Annunciation, the Purification, and the Assumption. Unlike those other three, however, it was slow to catch on, and still not celebrated in many parts of western Europe even by the beginning of the 11th century. To a large degree, the impetus for its general acceptance came from the preaching of a Saint named Fulbert, who became bishop of Chartres in France in 1006, and held the see for 22 years. His city was already an important pilgrimage center because it possessed an object believed to be a garment of the Virgin Mary herself. Fulbert began rebuilding Chartres Cathedral after it was destroyed by a fire in 1020 in a much larger form, to accommodate the great crowds of pilgrims who came to venerate the relic. (As is so often the case with such projects, it was not completed until after his death. This new church in turn burned down in 1194, leading to the magnificent Gothic building which stands today, rightly recognized as one of the greatest architectural achievements of the Middle Ages.)

A stained glass window in the south ambulatory of Chartres Cathedral, known as Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière (Our Lady of the Beautiful Window), or the Blue Virgin. The three large panels in the center were made in the 12th century, and are among the very few pieces of stained glass that were found to be salvageable from the fire of 1194 that destroyed the older church.

One of St Fulbert’s sermons about the Virgin Mary (PL 141, 338C etc.) came to be particularly well known, in part because it was somehow mistakenly attributed to St Augustine. Although it was originally preached on the Annunciation, the standard late medieval custom was to read it at Matins on the feast of Mary’s Nativity. In many churches (e.g. Notre-Dame in Paris), the peroration (or parts thereof) was read as the lessons of the Little Office of the Virgin. One section of it, (“Sancta Maria… commemorationem”) was also set to music and became of the most commonly used antiphons of the Divine Office.

“O beata Maria, quis tibi digne valeat jura gratiarum ac laudum рræconia impendere, quæ singulari tuo assensu mundo succurristi perdito? Quas tibi laudes fragilitas humani generis persolvat, quæ solo tuo commercio recuperandi aditum invenit? Accipe itaque quascumque exiles, quascumque meritis tuis impares gratiarum actiones: et cum susceperis vota, culpas nostras orando excusa. Admitte nostras preces intra sacrarium exauditionis, reporta nobis antidotum reconciliationis. Sit per te excusabile, quod per te ingerimus: fiat impetrabile quod fida mente poscimus. Accipe quod offerimus, redona quod rogamus; excusa quod timemus. Quia tu es spes unica peccatorum, per te speramus veniam delictorum; et in te, beatissima, nostrorum est exspectatio præmiorum. Sancta Maria, succurre miseris, juva pusillanimes, refove flebiles, ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo sexu. Sentiant omnes tuum juvamen, quicumque celebrant tuam commemorationem. * Assiste parata votis poscentium, et repende omnibus optatum effectum. Sit tibi studium assidue orare pro populo Dei, quæ meruisti benedicta pretium ferre mundi.

The Gregorian antiphon Sancta Maria, succurre miseris.

A polyphonic setting of the same text as a motet by Victoria.

O blessed Mary, who might be able worthily to offer thee due thanks and praise, who by thy unique act of assent, didst come to the aid of a lost world? What praises might the frailty of the human race render to thee, which by thy exchange (with God), found the entrance to new life? Receive therefore these acts of thanksgivings, however meagre, however unequal to thy merits, and when thou shalt receive our request, do by thy prayers obtain pardon for our sins. Admit our supplications into the hallowed presence of thy hearing, give us in return the medicine of reconciliation. Let that prayer which we pour forth through thee find forgiveness, let us obtain what we ask with confidence. Receive what we offer, grant in return what we ask for, remit that which we fear, for thou art the only hope of sinners, through thee do we hope for the forgiveness of our crimes, and in thee, most blessed one, is the hope of our rewards. O Holy Mary, come to the aid of the wretched, help the fearful, comfort to the sorrowful, pray for the people, plead for the clergy, intercede for all devout women; may all that keep thy holy commemoration feel thy assistance. Readily accede to the prayers of those who ask, and render to all the desired effect. Be it thy care to constantly pray for the people of God, thou who are blessed, and merited to bear the ransom of the world.”

Music for First Vespers of the Assumption

In the Roman Rite, there are traditionally only three hymns generally used on feasts of the Virgin Mary. These are Ave, Maris Stella, which is sung at Vespers, Quem terra at Matins, and O gloriosa Domina at Lauds; the second and third of these were originally two parts of the same hymn, divided for liturgical use. Among the many other hymns composed in the Middle Ages in honor of the Virgin, a standout is O quam glorifica, an anonymous composition of the ninth century, possibly earlier, which was adopted by several churches for use on the Assumption. At Sarum, it was sung at First Vespers of the feast, while the Parisian Use placed it at Matins, and from these extended it to the Little Office of the Virgin. It was incorporated into the Latin version of the Liturgy of the Hours, although it was not assigned to the Assumption, but to Lauds of Our Lady’s Queenship on August 22, which is now the de facto octave of the Assumption. This is a piece whose complex Latin meter makes for a rather odd word order, and a prime example of a work to which translation perhaps does more than a little injustice. It is here sung by the Trappist monks of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, in a recording from 1958; the Cistercian tradition also places it at first Vespers of the feast.

O quam glorifica luce coruscas, Stirpis Davidicae regia proles! Sublimis residens, Virgo Maria, Supra caeligenas aetheris omnes.	O with how glorious light thou shinest, royal offspring of David’s race! dwelling on high, O Virgin Mary, Above all the regions of heaven.
Tu cum virgineo mater honore, Caelorum Domino pectoris aulam Sacris visceribus casta parasti; Natus hinc Deus est corpore Christus.	Thou, chaste mother with virginal honor, prepared in thy holy womb a dwelling place for the Lord of heaven; hence God, Christ, was born in a body.
Quem cunctus venerans orbis adorat, Cui nunc rite genuflectitur omne; A quo te, petimus, subveniente, Abjectis tenebris, gaudia lucis.	Whom all the word adores in veneration, before whom every knee rightfully bends, From whom we ask, as thou comest to help, the joys of light, and the casting away of darkness.
Hoc largire Pater luminis omnis, Natum per proprium, Flamine sacro, Qui tecum nitida vivit in aethra Regnans, ac moderans saecula cuncta. Amen.	Grant this, Father of all light, Through thine own Son, by the Holy Spirit, who with liveth in the bright heaven, ruling and governing all the ages. Amen.

The Sarum and Dominican Uses also have a special Magnificat antiphon for First Vespers of the Assumption, much longer than those typically found in the Roman Use.

Aña Ascendit Christus super caelos, et praeparavit suae castissimae Matri immortalitatis locum: et haec est illa praeclara festivitas, omnium Sanctorum festivitatibus incomparabilis, in qua gloriosa et felix, mirantibus caelestis curiae ordinibus, ad aethereum pervenit thalamum: quo pia sui memorum immemor nequaquam exsistat. – Christ ascended above the heavens, and prepared for His most chaste Mother the place of immortality; and this is the splendid festivity, beyond comparison with the feasts of all the Saints, in which She in glory and rejoicing, as the orders of the heavely courts beheld in wonder, came to the heavenly bridal chamber; that She in her benevolence may ever be mindful of those that remember her.

The classic Vespers hymn of the Virgin, Ave Maris Stella, in Gregorian chant...

and in Palestrina’s splendid polyphonic setting.

The Translation of St Thomas Becket

On this day in the year 1220, the relics of St Thomas Becket were translated from the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral to a splendid new shrine in the main body of the church. This was one of the major religious events of the era, celebrated in the presence of King Henry III and many leading churchmen; in the Use of Sarum, it was commemorated by its own feast on July 7th, with the feast of the Holy Relics assigned to the following Sunday. It was of course the presence of St Thomas’ relics that made Canterbury such an important place of pilgrimage in medieval England, famously noted in the prologue of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (verses 15-18): “And specially from every shire’s ende / Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende (went), / The hooly blisful martir for to seke (seek), / That (t)hem hath holpen (helped) whan that they were seeke (sick).”

Because Thomas had given his life to defend the independence of the Church from undue interference by the civil power, King Henry VIII had the shrine destroyed in 1538, and forbade all devotion to him, even requiring that every church and chapel named for him be rededicated to the Apostle Thomas. The place within Canterbury Cathedral where the shrine formerly stood has been empty ever since; this video offers us a very nice digital recreation. Like the nearly contemporary shrine of St Peter Martyr and several others, the casket with the relics rests on top of an open arched structure, so that pilgrims can reach up and touch or kiss it from beneath, without damaging the metal reliquary itself.

The same source provides another video which shows sick persons praying at the original burial site in the crypt, which continued to attract pilgrims even after the relics themselves had been moved to the upper church. (The same is true of the church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia, where the original sarcophagus which held the relics of St Augustine is kept, although the relics were long ago moved to the main sanctuary.)

Medieval Allegories of the Divine Office

I have often had occasion to quote the medieval canonist and liturgical scholar William Durandus, bishop of Mende in France, who was born in a small town in Provence in 1237, and died at Rome in 1296. His treatise titled “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum – Explanation of the Divine Services” may well be described as a “Summa Liturgica”, for it provides a summary at once general and thorough of the Church’s liturgy, (covering both text and rite), as his contemporary St Thomas Aquinas did for theology in the two Summas.

The tomb of Durandus in the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. On the left side, he is presented to the Virgin and Child by St. Privatus, the patron saint of his see; St. Dominic is on the right.

Like earlier medieval writers on the liturgy, Durandus simply takes it for granted that the Church’s received liturgical texts are full of allegories, and may be explained as having a mystical significance greater than their mere letter. In this, his attitude to the liturgy is similar to that of the Church Fathers to the Holy Scriptures, and that of the Biblical authors themselves to earlier parts of the Bible. An interesting example of this is his explanation of the readings of Matins in the period after Pentecost.

The system of Scriptural readings assigned to the Office goes back to the 6th century; it originated in the ancient Roman basilicas, but we know nothing about how it was devised. When it was extensively revised in the Tridentine reform, the basic pattern of readings (Isaiah in Advent, St Paul after Epiphany, Genesis in Septuagesima etc.) was not changed, but completed and expanded. Following the feast of Pentecost, the readings are from the books of Kings until the first Sunday of August, when the Church takes up the Sapiential books, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. In September are read Job, Tobias, Judith and Esther, followed by the two books of the Maccabees in October, and Ezechiel, Daniel and the twelve minor prophets in November.

As he goes through the liturgical texts of the individual Sundays after Pentecost, Durandus is particularly concerned to explain both the mystical significance of the readings taken from a particular book, and their connection with the Sunday Masses. Of course, the date of Pentecost changes every year, ranging from May 10th to June 13th; therefore, the Office readings, which are tied to the calendar months, coincide with a different Sunday every year. Durandus’ allegorical links between these readings and the Sundays assumes a period of only 24 weeks between Pentecost and Advent, although there can be as many as 28. This section of the Rationale is quite long, and I here give only a few selection from the more interesting passages, all from the sixth book.

On the first Sunday after Pentecost

By Septuagesima we signify the human race’s expulsion from the fatherland of Paradise; by Lent, the people’s servitude under Pharaoh; by Easter, the immolation of the Lamb; by the forty days of Eastertide (i.e. from Easter to Ascension), the forty years in the desert; by the Rogations, the entrance into the promised land; by the seven days of Pentecost, in which seven gifts are apportioned, the division of the land; from the season which begins today, we signify the affliction of the people, and the governance by judges and kings. Therefore, there follow the four books of Kings. …

And here begins the fourth time of pilgrimage, because we are on the way to return to the fatherland. But because we have enemies before we arrive there, namely, the flesh, the world and the devil, the readings are taken from the books of Kings, which treat of wars and victories, that we may have victory, as the Jews did against the Philistines, …

But because war is not waged well without discretion, in the period that follows come the books of Solomon. Again, because vices arise, against which patience is necessary, the history of Job comes after that.

(Referring then to the principal personages whose stories are told in the Books of Kings) Saul is proposed to us as an example, who by disobedience lost (the rule of) the kingdom, that we may not be disobedient as he was, and lose the eternal kingdom. But David was humble in all his works, …

Saul and David, by Rembrandt, ca. 1655

David is preaching, and by the sling of preaching the devil is cast out of the heart of men, … Therefore, because men obtain victory through humility, at the Mass the Introit (of the First Sunday after Pentecost) begins “Lord, I have hoped in Thy mercy” – this shows David’s humility – “my heart hath exulted” – this is the joy of his mind, and through these two things is the battle won.

On the seventh Sunday after Pentecost

(The Sapiential books) are read from the beginning of August to the beginning of September, because this month is hot, and signifies the heat of the vices, in which we must rule (ourselves) wisely, as in the midst of a wicked and perverse nation. Or otherwise, because this month, August, is the sixth month (according to the ancient Roman calendar), whence it was called Sextilis before the time of Augustus Caesar, and our true Solomon (i.e. Christ) came in the sixth age of the world, Who made both one, and was the might of God, and the wisdom of God, and who taught us to live and teach wisely.

On the ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The book of Wisdom is read. Wisdom is to think about heavenly things, and lift the heart up to them, … and because a man cannot lift himself above himself, but must be drawn by the Lord, therefore the Introit says, “Behold God is my helper: and the Lord is the protector (‘susceptor’) of my soul”, that is, one who taketh upwards (‘sursum captor’.) ”

King Salomon, by Pedro Berruguete, ca. 1500

On the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

The twelfth Sunday is about prayer, and Job, as it were is portrayed, praying and sitting upon the dung heap (Job 2, 8) complaining about his false friends. … Job upon the dung heap is symbolically the soul in mortal sin, … and while it remains there, can only pray God to deliver it thence; wherefore the Introit begins “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.” …

But in the Offertory is shown the efficacy of prayer, and the whole text is the prayer of Moses, taken from Exodus (chapter 32), when he prayed for the children of Israel, who made the golden calf for themselves, … which proves that the merits of the Saints benefit us.

On the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The book of Tobias is read, by whom the human race is represented, made blind by the sin of the first parent, which can only be healed by the bitterness of the Passion, which is signified by the gall (placed on Tobias’ eyes to heal them in chapter 11). … it says in the Introit, “Look, o Lord, upon Thy covenant, … and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor.” And this is what Tobias said to his son, “Fear not, my son: we lead indeed a poor life, but we shall have many good things if we fear God.”

On the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

(T)he Church reads and sings about the Maccabees, who suffered many things under Antiochus and seven (foreign) nations. And by this it is held that the temple, which was polluted by those peoples, was purified by the Maccabees. By this it is signified that the soul, which is the temple of God, once polluted by the seven deadly vices, cannot be purified unless it be purified of sin.

Heliodorus Driven from the Temple (2 Maccabees 3), by Bertholet Flémal, 1658-62, following Raphael’s depiction of the same subject in the Stanza di Elidoro in the Vatican Museums.

A Sequence for the Ascension

For the ongoing feast of the Ascension, here is a sequence for it which was sung in the Uses of Sarum, York, and Hereford in England, and in those of Paris and Sens in France. (Despite its great antiquity, and its status as the capital of France, Paris was a suffragan diocese to Sens until 1622.) It is attributed, though far from certainly, to the Blessed Hermanus Contractus (Herman the Cripple), better known as the author of the great Marian antiphons Alma Redemptoris Mater and Salve, Regina. This recording is interesting for the way it alternates between a single voice and the full choir; in fact, sequences were most typically designed to be sung in some form of alternation like this. The Latin text with English translation, taken from Sequences from the Sarum Missal, with English Translations, by Charles Buchanan Pearson (Bell and Daldy; London, 1871. Click images to enlarge.)

How Medieval Christians Celebrated the Rogation Days (with a Dragon)

The following description of the Rogation Processions comes from a canon of the cathedral of Siena named Oderico, who in the year 1213 wrote a detailed account of the liturgical texts and ceremonies used in his church.

“Mindful of that promise of the Gospel, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive,’ (John 16, 24; from the Gospel of the Sunday which precedes the Lesser Litanies) St Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, in this week instituted the three days of the Litanies, because of an urgent necessity … days which are greatly celebrated by every church with fasts and prayers. The Greek word ‘litany’ means ‘supplication,’ because in the Litanies we beseech the Lord that he may defend us from every adversity, and sudden death; and we pray the Saints that they may intercede for us before the Lord. … The Church celebrates the Litanies with devotion in these three days, with (processional) crosses, banners, and relics She goes from church to church, humbly praying the Saints that they may intercede with God for our excesses, ‘that we may obtain by their intercession what we cannot obtain by our own merits.’ (citing a commonly used votive Collect of all the Saints.) ...

It is the custom of certain churches also to carry a dragon on the first two days before the Cross and banner, with a long, inflated tail, but on the third day, (it goes) behind the Cross and banners, with its tail down. This is the devil, who in three periods, before the Law, under the Law, and under grace, deceives us, or wishes to do so. In the first two (periods) he was, as it were, the lord of the world; therefore, he is called the Prince or God of this world, and for this reason, in the first day, he goes with his tail inflated. In the time of grace, however, he was conquered by Christ, nor dares he to reign openly, but seduces men in a hidden way; this is the reason why on the last day he follows with his tail down.” (Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Senensis, 222)

Oderico does not describe the dragon, but given that Siena is in Tuscany, still a major center of leather-working to this day, we may imagine that the dragon itself was a large wooden image mounted on wheels or a cart, and the inflatable tail something like a leather bellows. It should be noted that in addition to the processional cross, Oderico mentions both banners and relics as part of the processional apparatus. In the medieval period, it was considered particularly important to carry relics in procession; so much so that, for example, a rubric of the Sarum Missal prescribes that a bier with relics in it be carried even in the Palm Sunday procession. A typical bier for these processions is shown in the lower right corner of this page of the famous Book of Hours known as the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. made by the Limbourg brothers between 1411 and 1416.

The Gospel of Nicodemus in the Liturgy of Eastertide

By “the Gospel of Nicodemus”, I mean not the apocryphal gospel of that title, but the passage of St John’s Gospel in which Christ speaks to Nicodemus, chapter 3, verses 1-21. This passage has an interesting and complex history among the readings of the Easter season. For liturgical use, the Roman Rite divides it into two parts, the second of which begins at one of the most famous verses in all the Gospels, John 3, 16, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son …”; the first part anciently included verse 16, but was later cut back to end at 15.

Christ and Nicodemus, by Fritz van Uhde, ca. 1886

The oldest surviving Roman lectionary, the “Comes Romanus” of Wurzburg, was written around 700 A.D, and represents the liturgy of approximately 50-100 years earlier, the period just after St Gregory the Great; in it, John 3, 1-16 is assigned to be read twice in Eastertide. The first occasion is on the Pascha annotinum, the anniversary of the previous year’s Easter and baptism of the catechumens. The second is the Octave Day of Pentecost, the observance of which is, of course, much older than the feast of the Holy Trinity which we now keep on that Sunday.

In his Treatises on the Gospel of St John (11.3), St Augustine say that “this Nicodemus was from among those who had believed in (Christ’s) name, seeing the signs and wonders which He did” at the end of the previous chapter. (2, 23) “Now in this Nicodemus, let us consider why Jesus did not yet entrust Himself to them. ‘Jesus answered, and said to him: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ (John 3, 3) Therefore, Jesus entrusts Himself to those who have been born again. … Such are all the catechumens: they already believe in the name of Christ, but Jesus does not entrust himself to them. If we shall say to the catechumen, ‘Do you believe in Christ?’ he answers, ‘I believe’, and signs himself; he already bears the Cross of Christ on his forehead.”

These words refer to the very ancient custom, still a part of the rites of Baptism to this very day, by which the catechumens were signed on their foreheads with the Cross. Augustine here follows his teacher St Ambrose, who says in his book On the mysteries, “The catechumen also believes in the Cross of the Lord Jesus, by which he is also signed: but unless he shall be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive forgiveness of sins, nor take in the gift of spiritual grace.” (chapter 4)

Augustine then says (11.4), “Let us ask (the catechumen), ‘Do you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink (His) blood?’ He does not know what we are saying, because Jesus has not entrusted Himself to him.” The fact that Nicodemus first came to Christ at night (John 3, 2) also refers to his status as a catechumen. “Those who are born from water and the Spirit (John 3, 5), what do they hear from the Apostle? ‘For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk then as children of the light.’ (Eph. 5, 8) and again, ‘Let us who are of the day be sober.’ (1 Thess. 5, 8) Those then who have been reborn, were of the night, and are of the day; they were darkness, and are light. Jesus already entrusts Himself to them, and they do not come to Jesus at night as Nicodemus did…”.

Following this interpretation, the Gospel is perfectly suited for the celebration of the Pascha annotinum, in which the catechumens commemorated the day when Christ first entrusted Himself to them in both Baptism and the Eucharist.

Two leaves of a 1491 Missal according to the Use of Passau (Germany). The Mass for the Octave Day of Pentecost begins towards the bottom of the first column on the left, with the rubric “everything as on the feast, except the Epistle and Gospel.”

On the Octave Day of Pentecost, this Gospel is repeated, although the Wurzburg manuscript here attests to a custom of the Roman Rite observed in northern Europe, but not in Rome itself. Already in very ancient times, baptisms were done on Pentecost as on Easter; this is attested in a letter of Pope St Siricius (384-399) to Himerius, bishop of Tarragon in Spain (cap. 2), and one of Pope St Leo the Great (440-461), in which he exhorts the bishops of Sicily to follow the Church’s custom and the example of the Apostle Peter, who baptized three thousand persons on Pentecost day. (Epist. 16) The Gospel of the vigil of Pentecost, John 14, 15-21, is continued on the feast itself with verses 23-31, both passages referring to the sending of the Holy Spirit. Since Baptism was traditionally administered on Pentecost, the reading of the Nicodemus Gospel on the Octave, a foundational text for the Church’s understanding of that Sacrament, expresses what an important aspect of the feast this really was.

This point is made even more clearly by the Ambrosian rite. The Church of Milan assigns two Masses to the Easter vigil and each day of Easter week, one “of the solemnity”, and a second “for the (newly) baptized”; the latter form a final set of lessons for the catechumens who have just been received into the Church. At the Easter vigil Mass “for the baptized”, the Nicodemus Gospel is read, ending at verse 13. The first prayer of this Mass begins with a citation of it: “O God, who lay open the entrance of the heavenly kingdom to those reborn from water and the Holy Spirit, increase upon Thy servants the grace which Thou hast given; so that those who have been cleaned from all sins, may not be deprived of the promises.” The Epistle, Acts 2, 29-38, is taken from St Peter’s speech on the first Pentecost, ending with the words, “and you will receive the Holy Spirit.”

On Easter itself, the Gospel of the Mass “for the baptized” is John 7, 37-39.

On the great day of the festivity, the Lord Jesus stood and cried out, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive, who believed in him: [for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.]

However, the words noted here in brackets are omitted at this Mass. Pentecost also has two Masses, and at its Mass “for the baptized”, this Gospel is repeated, but including the final words, further emphasizing the connection between the two great baptismal feasts.

The remains of the Baptistery of Saint John at the Fonts (San Giovanni alle Fonti), the paleo-Christian baptistery of Milan, discovered under the modern Duomo in 1889.

In the second-oldest Roman lectionary, the Comes of Murbach, roughly a century later than the Wurzburg manuscript, the Nicodemus Gospel was added to a third Mass, that of the Finding of the Cross on May 3rd. The origin and gradual diffusion of this feast are not the subject of this article; suffice it to note two points here. The Wurzburg lectionary has neither the Finding of the Cross nor the Exaltation, but both are in Murbach, and are well-established by the end of the Carolingian period. The latest possible date for Easter, (occurring only once per century since the Gregorian Calendar was promulgated in 1582), is April 25, making May 2nd the latest date for Low Sunday. It is probably not a coincidence that the Finding of the Cross was fixed to May 3rd, the first date at which it must occur in Eastertide, but cannot fall within the Easter Octave itself.

The choice of Gospel was certainly determined by the final words, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting.” St Augustine explains, “As those who looked upon the serpent did not perish from the bites of the serpents; so those who with faith look upon the death of Christ are healed from the bites of sins. But they were healed from death to temporal life: here, however, He says “that they may have eternal life.” (Tract. in Joannem, 12, 11)

The Deposition of Christ, by Michelangelo, 1547-53, also known as the “Nicodemus Pietà” from the generally accepted tradition that the hooded figure at the top of the group is Nicodemus, and a self-portrait of the artist. From the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo di Firenze.

It may also have been motivated by the fact that the Pascha annotinum was by this time falling into disuse; Bl. Ildephonse Schuster notes in The Sacramentary (vol. 2, p. 260) that it is only rarely mentioned in Rome after the 8th century. (The Murbach lectionary omits its Epistle.) This is probably due both to the disappearance of the adult catechumenate, and to the fact that it was supposed to be celebrated with the same rites as Easter itself, but will often occur in Lent; it would then have to be transferred, rather obviating the point of it. Assigning John 3, 1-16 to May 3rd may therefore have been intended to maintain its importance by finding it a more prominent position in the liturgy. And indeed, it is as the Gospel of the Finding of the Cross that it will serve as part of the liturgy of Eastertide past the Middle Ages and through the Tridentine period.

Although the Octave of Pentecost is very ancient, Rome and the Papal court never kept the first Sunday after Pentecost as part of it. (This forms another parallel with Easter, since the liturgy of Low Sunday differs in many respects from that of Easter itself.) In northern Europe, as noted above, the Octave Day was a proper octave, repeating the Mass of the feast, but with different readings: Apocalypse 4, 1-10 as the Epistle, and John 3, 1-16 as the Gospel. Both of these traditions were slowly but steadily displaced by the feast of the Trinity, first kept at Liège in the early 10th century; but there was a divergence of customs here as well. When Pope John XXII (1316-34) ordered that Holy Trinity be celebrated throughout the Western Church, he placed it on the Sunday after Pentecost, a custom which became universal after Trent. But even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries and several major dioceses in Germany still kept the older Octave Day of Pentecost, and put the feast of the Trinity on the Monday after.

Others compromised between the older custom and the new by keeping the readings from the Octave of Pentecost, but inserting them into the Mass of the Trinity; this was observed at Sarum, and by the medieval Dominicans and Premonstratensians. After the Tridentine reform, however, as part of the general tendency to Romanize liturgical books, this compromise was retained only by the Old Observance Carmelites, leaving the first part of the Nicodemus Gospel only on the Finding of the Cross for all the rest of the Roman Rite.

In 1960, the feast was suppressed from the general Calendar, and relegated to the Missal’s appendix “for some places”, causing the effective disappearance of the crucial Gospel passage from the liturgy of Eastertide. This defect been partially remedied in the Novus Ordo; the reading is broken into two pieces, assigned to the Monday and Tuesday after Low Sunday, but not to any major feast of the season.

A second (and shorter) part of this article will consider the second part of the Gospel of Nicodemus, John 3, 16-21, on Pentecost Monday, June 9th.

A Medieval Hymn for Eastertide

Many medieval breviaries, including those of the Sarum Use, the Cistercians, Carmelites and Premonstratensians, have a hymn for the Easter season which is not found in the Roman Breviary, Chorus novae Jerusalem by St Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, who died in 1029. The original version of the Latin text, and the English translation of John Mason Neale (1867), are given below. In this recording, the monks of the French abbey of Ligugé sing the revised version which Dom Anselmo Lentini made for the Liturgy of Hours; the differences are explained in the notes below the table.

Chorus novae Jerusalem, Novam meli dulcedinem, Promat, colens cum sobriis Paschale festum gaudiis.	Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem! To sweet new strains attune your theme; The while we keep, from care releas’d, With sober joy our Paschal Feast:
Quo Christus, invictus leo Dracone surgens obruto Dum voce viva personat A morte functos excitat.	When Christ, Who spake the Dragon’s       doom, Rose, Victor-Lion, from the tomb, That while with living voice He cries, The dead of other years might rise.
Quam devorarat improbus Praedam refudit tartarus; Captivitate libera Jesum sequuntur agmina.	Engorg’d in former years, their prey Must Death and Hell restore to-day: And many a captive soul, set free, With Jesus leaves captivity.
Triumphat ille splendide, Et dignus amplitudine, Soli polique patriam Unam facit rempublicam	Right gloriously He triumphs now, Worthy to Whom should all things bow; And, joining heaven and earth again, Links in one commonweal the twain.
Ipsum canendo supplices, Regem precemur milites Ut in suo clarissimo Nos ordinet palatio.	And we, as these His deeds we sing, His suppliant soldiers, pray our King, That in His Palace, bright and vast, We may keep watch and ward at last.
Esto perenne mentibus Paschale, Jesu, gaudium, Et nos renatos gratiae Tuis triumphis aggrega.	(in the recording, but not in the original text)
Per saecla metae nescia Patri supremo gloria, Honorque sit cum Filio Et Spiritu Paraclito. Amen.	Long as unending ages run, To God the Father laud be done; To God the Son our equal praise, And God the Holy Ghost, we raise.

A literal translation of the hymn’s first two lines would read “Let the choir of the new Jerusalem bring forth the new sweetness of a song.” The word “meli – song” is the genitive singular form of the Greek word “melos” (as in “melody”); this is unusual in Latin, and the line was emended in various ways. The Premonstratensians, e.g., changed it to “nova melos dulcedine – Let the choir of the new Jerusalem bring forth a song with new sweetness.” Dom Lentini disturbed the original text less by changing it to “Hymni novam dulcedinem – the new sweetness of a hymn.”

This manuscript of the mid-11th century (British Library, Cotton Vesp. d. xii; folio 74v, image cropped), is one of the two oldest with the text of this hymn.

Unfortunately, he then decided to remove altogether the original doxology, which is unique to this hymn, in favor of his re-written version of the double doxology used at most hymns of the Easter season.

Esto perenne mentibus
Paschale, Jesu, gaudium,
Et nos renatos gratiae
Tuis triumphis aggrega.

Jesu, tibi sit gloria,
Qui morte victa praenites,
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu,
In sempiterna saecula.

“Be to our minds the endless joy of Easter, o Jesus, and join us, reborn of grace, to Thy triumphs. – Jesus, to Thee be glory, who shinest forth, death being conquered, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto eternal ages.”

It is not difficult to figure out the rationale behind this change, since it appears in other features of the reform as well. As the wise Fr Hunwicke noted two years ago, “The post-Conciliar reforms made much of Easter being 50 days long and being one single Great Day of Feast. They renamed the Sundays as ‘of Easter’ rather than ‘after Easter’, and chucked out the old collects for the Sundays after Easter ... because they didn’t consider them ‘Paschal’ enough.” (The “old” collects to which he refers are all found in the Gelasian Sacramentary in the same places they have in the Missal of St Pius V.) Likewise, St Fulbert’s original conclusion makes no direct reference to Easter. For further reference, see these articles about the supposed restoration of the 50 days of Easter:

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/05/fifty-days-of-easter.html http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/06/fifty-days-of-easter-part-2.html

Medieval Vespers of Easter

In the Breviary of St Pius V, Vespers of Easter Sunday and the days within the octave present only one peculiarity, namely, that the Chapter and Hymn are replaced by the words of Psalm 117, “Haec dies quam fecit Dominus; exsultemus et laetemur in ea. – This is the day that the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice therein.” In the Office, this is labelled an “antiphon”, but it is really the first part of the Gradual of the Mass, and is also sung at Lauds and the minor Hours.

The vast majority of medieval liturgical Uses, however, apart from those of the monastic orders, had a special form of Vespers which was used only in this week. I will summarize it broadly here (without giving every detail) from the critical edition of the Sarum Breviary published by Francis Procter and Christopher Wordsworth in 1882, since the rubrics of the Sarum liturgical books are generally more complete than those of others Uses. There were a great many variants to this ceremony, far too many to note here, but the basic outline is the same from one Use to another.

A page of a Dominican Breviary printed at Venice in 1477; Vespers of Easter Sunday begins in the 10th line of the left column. Although the Kyrie in place of ‘Deus in adjutorium’ at the beginning is one of the most consistent features of these Vespers, it was later removed from the Dominican Use, as were the verse of the gradual, the alleluia, and the sequence.

Essentially, the first part of these Vespers corresponds in form to the Mass of the Catechumens, with the psalmody representing the Epistle, and the Magnificat representing the Gospel. The chants which are sung between the Epistle and Gospel in the Mass are repeated between the Psalms and the Magnificat, with certain variations. The second part consists of a series of processions: first to the baptismal font, which is the most important part of the ceremony, and its raison d’être, then “ad crucem”, which is to say, to a chapel with a Crucifix as its main feature, where Masses for the Dead were traditionally said, and then to a chapel of the Virgin Mary. (At Sarum, where the cathedral itself was dedicated to the Virgin, this last part was done as the procession returned to the main choir.)

At the beginning, the customary “Deus in adjutorium” is replaced by the Kyrie of the Mass Lux et origo, which is given as Mass I in the modern Liber Usualis. The first three psalms of Sunday Vespers, 109, 110 and 111, are sung with a single antiphon consisting of four Alleluias, followed by the gradual and alleluia of the Mass. The second part of the gradual varies from day to day, just as it does at the Mass; the alleluia is often different from that of the day’s Mass, or made longer by the addition of a second verse. In many Uses, but not that of Sarum, the sequence Victimae Paschali was said as well. There follow the Magnificat with its antiphon, and a prayer, in the customary manner.

At this point, the procession to the baptismal font is formed in the following order: the cross-bearer, two acolytes carrying candles, the thurifer, two deacons who carry the holy oil and the chrism, a server to carry the book, and the celebrant, followed by the leaders of the choir (called “rectors” at Sarum), and the rest of the clergy. A rubric of the Sarum Breviary notes that it was not their custom to carry the Paschal candle at the head of this procession, indicating that this was certainly done elsewhere.

Before the procession starts, the rectors intone an antiphon, “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia,” which is completed by the choir. They then begin the fourth psalm of Sunday Vespers, 112; one “Alleluia” is sung after each verse, and the procession begins moving after the first verse is completed. It makes it way to the baptismal font, where the first verse of the psalm and then the antiphon are repeated, and the font is incensed, after which the celebrant sings a versicle, the choir sings the response, and the celebrant sings a prayer. Many Uses added the Vidi aquam to this part of the ceremony.

The Baptistery of St John in the Lateran in Rome, photographed by William Henry Goodyear (1846-1923); from the Brooklyn Museum archives via Wikimedia Commons. (The current baptismal font of Salisbury Cathedral is comically hideous.)

The procession then goes to the chapel of the Cross, while singing the fifth psalm of Sunday Vespers, 113, repeating an antiphon of just one “Alleluia” after each verse. (In many places, Psalm 113 was sung while processing to the font together with Psalm 112, and a responsory was sung here instead.) The Cross is likewise incensed, followed by another versicle, response and prayer.

The procession then returned to the main choir, while singing a Marian antiphon, also followed by another versicle and prayer; at Sarum, this antiphon varied each day of the octave, while in other Uses, such as that of the Dominicans, the Regina caeli was sung every day. At the end, Benedicamus Domino and Deo gratias are sung with two Alleluias as in the Roman Rite.

It should be obvious that this ritual had its origins in the very ancient days of the Church, when the newly baptized would return each day of the Easter octave to the font where they had been reborn in Christ on the eve of Holy Saturday. The eminently baptismal character of the ceremony also explains why it is not in the Roman Breviary, a form of the Office originally used in the chapel of the Papal court, which was not a parish, and hence had neither catechumens nor a font. In fact, the Ordinal of Pope Innocent III, which lays out this form of the Office in the early 13th century, contains a rubric noting that Vespers of Easter was done in a completely different manner in the Lateran Basilica from that done in the Papal chapel. This is also why we find that in the Dominican Use, the entire portion which was sung while processing to the font (Psalms 112 and 113) is simply dropped, since the earliest Dominican churches would not have been parishes, and hence not had baptismal fonts.

The most common variant of this rite, as noted above, was the singing of a responsory while processing to chapel of the Cross, instead of Psalm 113 as at Sarum. This beautiful text is attributed to King Robert II of France (972-1031), also known as Robert the Pious.

R. Christus resurgens a mortuis jam non moritur, mors illi ultra non dominabitur: * Quod enim vivit, vivit Deo, alleluia, alleluia. V. Dicant nunc Judaei, quomodo milites custodientes sepulchrum perdiderunt Regem ad lapidis positionem: quare non servabant petram justitiae? Aut sepultum reddant, aut resurgentem adorent nobiscum, dicentes: Quod enim vivit.

R. Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no longer, death shall no longer have dominion over Him: * For in that He liveth, He liveth unto God, alleluia, alleluia. V. Let the Jews now say how the soldiers that guarded the tomb lost the King where the stone was laid: why did they not keep the stone of justice? Let them either give back Him that was buried, or with us adore Him as he riseth, saying: For in that He liveth…

To catalog of all the variants of this ceremony found in medieval liturgical Uses would be a truly Herculean task, since there do not seem to be two cathedrals in all of Europe that did it in quite the same way. One more text, this remarkable antiphon from the Use of Paris, calls for particular notice; the very simple rubrics of the Parisian Breviary of 1492 simply say that it was sung “ad crucem”, i.e., the cross on top of the rood screen.

Aña Ego sum Alpha et Ω, (omega) primus et novissimus, initium et finis, qui ante mundi principium et in saeculum saeculi vivo in aeternum. Manus meae, quae vos fecerunt, clavis confixae sunt; propter vos flagellis caesus sum, spinis coronatus sum; aquam petii pendens, et acetum porrexerunt; in escam meam fel dederunt et in latus lanceam; mortuus et sepultus, resurrexi, vobiscum sum. Videte, quia ego ipse sum et non est Deus praeter me, alleluia.

Aña I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end, who before the beginning of the world, and unto all ages live forever. My hands, which made ye, were fixed with nails; for ye I was scourged, I was crowned with thorns; as I hung, I asked for water, and they offered vinegar. They gave Me gal for food, and a spear in My side. Being dead and buried, I rose, I am with ye. See that it is I, and there is no God beside me, alleluia.

The reliquary of the Crown of Thorns, by Viollet-Le-Duc in 1862 and preserved at Notre-Dame de Paris. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by PHGCOM.)

Music for Lent: The Media Vita

The hour of Compline is far more variable in the Dominican Office than in the Roman, often changing the antiphon of the psalms, the hymn, and the antiphon of the Nunc dimittis. This was true of most medieval Uses, and especialy in Lent, a season in which the Dominican Use brings forth some its best treasures. The most famous of these is certainly Media vita, a piece which will always be associated with St Thomas Aquinas, whose biographers note that he would always weep copiously when it was sung, especially at the verse “Cast us not away in the time of our old age, when our strength shall fail, forsake us not, o Lord.” Although written as a responsory, with verses and the repetition of the second part of the beginning, it was sung in many Uses as an antiphon for the Nunc dimittis. As Fr Thompson has noted previously, it may now be used by the Dominicans as a responsory, rather than as an antiphon, and it is thus that we can hear it sung by the Dominican students at Blackfriars.

R. In the midst of life, we are in death; whom shall we seek to help us, but Thee, o Lord, who for our sins art justly wroth? * Holy God, holy mighty one, holy and merciful Savior, hand us not over to bitter death. V. Cast us not away in the time of our old age, when our strength shall fail, forsake us not, o Lord. Holy God, holy mighty one etc.

The Use of Sarum appointed Media vita to be sung at the same time as the Dominicans, during the third and fourth weeks of Lent, but with more verses, and the division of the refrain as follows:

Aña In the midst of life, we are in death; whom shall we seek to help us, but Thee, o Lord, who for our sins art justly wroth? * Holy God, holy mighty one, holy and merciful Savior, hand us not over to bitter death.
V. Cast us not way in the time of our old age, when our strength shall fail, forsake us not, o Lord. Holy God.
V. Close not Thy ears to our prayers. Holy mighty one.
V. Who knowest the secrets of the heart, show mercy to our sins. Holy and merciful Savior, hand us not over to bitter death.

Many composers have put their hand to this text; one of the finest versions of it is the setting by the Franco-flemish composer Nicolas Gombert. (1495-1560 ca.)

Historical Falsehoods about Active Participation: A Response to Dr Brant Pitre (Part 4)

This is the fourth part of my response to a video by Dr Brant Pitre of the Augustine Institute about popular participation in the liturgy. (part 1; part 2) At the conclusion of the third part, I stated that in any defense of the post-Conciliar reform, it is necessary to mispresent the history of the liturgy in the Tridentine period, and Dr Pitre begins to do this at the 31:00 mark. In matters of history, precision matters, and this part of the presentation is very lacking in precision.

His essential contention is that because the liturgical books of the Tridentine period contain no clear directives for lay participation (31:12), there was no lay participation. As I have explained in the previous articles of this series, the liturgical books never had any directives for lay participation, either before or after the Tridentine reform. This lack “in the five-hundred years after the Council of Trent” is unfavorably contrasted with the active lay participation that supposedly predominated “in the first thousand years of the Latin Rite.” (Five hundred years have not passed since the beginning of the Council of Trent in 1545; indeed, the four-hundredth anniversary of its closing, Dec. 4, 1963, was the day the first documents of Vatican II were formally promulgated, including, most ironically, Sacrosanctum Concilium.)

His chosen example (31:20) of this lack of participation is taken from a letter written by an English bishop named Stephen Gardiner which “describes what the liturgy was like in the wake (n.b.) of the Council of Trent and the promulgation of the Tridentine Missal (n.b.).” Dr Pitre quotes this letter from the book Roman Catholic Worship: Trent to Today by James F White, who in turn quotes it from an edition of Gardiner’s letters published in 1933. “The people in the church took small heed what the priest and clerks did in the chancel, but only to stand up at the gospel and kneel at the sacring [bell], or else every man was occupied himself severally [individually] in several prayers. And therefore it was never meant that the people should indeed hear… the Mass but be present there and pray themselves in silence.”

But this letter was written in 1547. By the end of that year, only ten of Trent’s eventual twenty-five sessions had been held; of these ten, the last three were concerned solely, and very briefly, with administrative matters. The Missal imprecisely known as “the Tridentine Missal” would not be promulgated for another 23 years. What then does the liturgical situation which Bp Gardiner describes have to do with the so-called Tridentine Missal? Nothing. 1547 is also the year in which Henry VIII died, which means that at the time that Gardiner wrote, the vast majority of the faithful in England were still used to the Sarum liturgy, not the liturgy of the papal court and the Franciscans, which Dr Pitre accuses earlier of removing the participation of the laity.

The frontispiece of a Sarum Missal printed at Paris in 1555.

This would have been the perfect place to mention at least one example of the better scholarship which has corrected these tendentious and overly simplistic claims about lay participation in the liturgy before the modern era. The most obvious example, because it is concerned directly with Gardiner’s place and period, would be Eamon Duffy’s famous book The Stripping of the Altars. Another would be Fr Augustine Thompson’s Cities of God, which deals with the religious life of the medieval Italy from which emerged the villains of Dr Pitre’s presentation, the Franciscans. Another still would be John Bossy’s very interesting article The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700 (Past and Present; Aug. 1983, no. 100), or the Italian scholar Gian Luigi Beccaria’s Sicut Erat, a study of the influence of the Latin Bible and liturgy on the Italian language, which shows that ordinary Italians in post-Counter Reformation Italy absorbed a great deal more from the liturgy than modern liturgists know.   

Ignoring all such scholarship, Dr Pitre declares this state of affairs to be normative for the entire period after Trent until the 20th century, although he does acknowledge that “in solemn High Masses and other forms of liturgy you might have more participation of the faithful.” And the next witness he adduces to this effect is the Belgian liturgist Dom Bernard Botte OSB (1883-1980).

With all due respect, it is unpardonably sloppy to treat the entire post-Tridentine period as if it were all of one piece. No mention is made of the massive social upheavals which began in the mid-18th century with the so-called Enlightenment, leading to the French revolution, and a crescendo of further revolutions and wars, and culminating in two horrifically destructive world wars. No mention is made of the damage which these wars and revolutions did to the Church in Europe and South America by closing down or destroying an incalculably large number of its institutions. And no mention is made of the impact which the destruction of so many churches had on the Church’s liturgical life.

The cathedral of St Donatianus in Bruges (now part of the modern state of Belgium) in 1641; destroyed in 1799 by the occupying French Revolutionary Army. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

We therefore get a long quote from Dom Botte’s book Silence and Participation (34:15), the usual dreary litany of complaints from the early cancerous phase of the liturgical movement, that the laity recite private devotions while the priest says Mass, and usually receive communion outside of Mass, etc. But in Dr Pitre’s telling, this has nothing to do with the social and cultural conditions of early 20th central Belgium specifically, or post-revolutionary Europe generally. It is due solely to an absence of rubrics in the Tridentine Missal ordering the faithful to actively participate.

This would have been a good place to at least give a nod to the fact that the later leaders of the liturgical movement, especially between the world wars, were often highly tendentious in their presentation of the then-current state of the liturgy, exaggerating the most negative aspects, while downplaying or ignoring the more positive ones. This tendentiousness, in turn, comes from a shift in attitude which marks them off from the first among them, Dom Prosper Guéranger, a shift which I have described elsewhere.

In brief, Dom Guéranger believed that the Church possessed in its liturgy a treasure of inestimable value, but one which had come to be widely neglected in many ways. The goal of the liturgical movement, as he saw it, was primarily educational, to reacquaint the clergy and the laity with that very treasure. In the interwar period, the attitude of many liturgists changed towards the belief that the liturgy was in many ways flawed, and that the laity cannot be educated up to its level. Therefore, in this view, the liturgy needed to be purged of its flaws and reformed down to the presumed level of the laity, which is why I referred above to this period as “the early cancerous phase.”

Dom Guéranger

The first part of the quote from Dom Botte begins with a reference to the sung Masses in his hometown as “a dialogue between the clergy and the cleric organist.” Dr Pitre interrupts (34:25) to give us another historical error: “In our own day, the choir will often consist of lay people, for many centuries after Trent, the choir often consisted of clerics.” This is an error per suppressionem veri; the choir very often consisted of clerics for centuries before Trent as well. This is consistently attested by the very same class of documents, the Ordines, which he had previously cited as witnesses to popular participation. The Ordo Romanus Primus, which he had brought in earlier as a witness to lay participation, refers to the clerical schola more often than to the people.

He then mentions the famous (or infamous) restriction of St Pius X’s motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini on women singing in the liturgy, specifically, as part of the liturgical schola. There has been a lot of debate, and legitimately so, about the application of this motu proprio; personally, I agree with the joke that “tra le sollecitudini” is Italian for “too much of a good thing.” Dr Pitre, however, makes it sound as if in practice, women were systematically excluded from singing at Mass for centuries, and as if Tra le sollecitudini were an expression of long-standing and post-Tridentine policy, which is categorically false on both counts. In reality, Pius X issued it thinking of the places where the same professional singers, including women, who performed at the opera house on Friday and Saturday also performed in church on Sunday, and in much the same style. This was especially common in Italy, which is why the document is named by its opening words in Italian, not Latin. It should be noted as well that in other writings, Pius X made exceptions for congregations of female religious; and, in any case, his successor Pius XII made it clear that women were permitted to sing if they were not part of a clerical schola that sang near or in the sanctuary.

A recording of the Regina Caeli by the Italian composer Paolo Giorza (1832-1914), made at the “Anglo-Catholic” church of St Magnus the Martyr in London. The video helpfully includes a quotation from a document issued by the Society of St Gregory of America, following a convention which the society held in May of 1922, a blacklist of music held to be not in accordance with the motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini. “All compositions by P(aolo) Giorza should be eliminated from the repertoire of the Catholic choirs. The composer ... did not change his style one iota when he put sacred words to these utterly secular melodies. The worst example of the ‘Ballet’ style in church is the setting of the Regina Coeli, which, sad to relate, is still sung in many of our churches.”

Under all this, there seems to lie an assumption which would be charming in its naiveté, did it not lead to such a betrayal of historical facts; namely, that the Church’s life is described wholly and solely by whatever the Holy See puts into its documents. If the Missal makes no mention of what the people are supposed to do at Mass, they must not be doing anything at Mass. If a motu proprio says that women are not to be part of the liturgical schola, this means that “for centuries” women did not sing at Mass at all.

I make bold to say this because at 36:35, Dr Pitre introduces yet another historical error, the claim that because vernacular missals, with or without the Latin, were forbidden by the Holy See, they did not exist. “There was no missal to read.” (To this effect, he cites the book Liturgy: An Illustrated History, by Fr Keith Pecklers SJ.)

Here again, some very pertinent information is omitted. Before the Industrial Revolution, paper was far more expensive to produce than it is now, and therefore books were as well. Moreover, a much larger percentage of humanity’s collective energy had to be devoted to satisfying what anthropologists call primary needs: food, clothing, shelter, and the arms necessary to keep your neighbors from taking your food, clothing and shelter. As a result, relatively speaking, far fewer people were educated to such a degree that they could make any use of a hand missal, and far fewer people could afford one.

Nevertheless, for those who could read, and could afford them, they did in fact exist. I am greatly indebted to Mr Nico Fassino, the creator of The Hand Missal History Project, for the following summary.

“What we think of as a modern hand missal was not put into the hands of a majority of the laity until rather late, but there were an astonishing number of books which were very close to modern hand missals which were published in large numbers, already in the 1600s in France, and even in English. There was a huge variety of books which contained the Ordinary (including the Canon), the Sunday readings, collects and other parts, and these were published in all sorts of editions and binding options, from cheap paper copies to luxurious leather. In short, there were many more such books in circulation than is commonly assumed, even accounting for literacy rates and cost, and stretching back to the 1600s.

There are obvious cases of Church authorities being wary of vernacular liturgical translations, and these are cited by the existing scholarship over and over. But they do not seem to align with or explain the facts on the ground when compared with the number of titles, the number of copies, the number of editions, and the continuous printing history of such books across so many different geographical areas.” (Images following courtesy of Mr Fassino.)

The beginning of the Canon in a hand missal for the laity, translated into German; this book was published within a decade of the end of the Council of Trent.

Another in English, from roughly 1660.

A French example from the first decade of the 17th century.

Historical Falsehoods about Active Participation: A Response to Dr Brant Pitre (Part 3)

This is the third part of my response to a video by Dr Brant Pitre of the Augustine Institute on the subject of popular participation in the Mass. In the previous part, I explained the errors of his claims about the nature of the Roman stational Masses, and of an ancient document which describes them, and then, the erroneous contrast which he draws between them and the Masses celebrated in the papal chapel. By repeatedly calling the latter “private Masses”, without further qualification, he gives the false impression that these were exclusively low Masses, which had no place for the participation of the lay faithful. In this telling, such low Masses were then adopted by the Franciscans when they took on the specific form of the Roman liturgy used in the papal chapel.

At 26:10, Dr Pitre says about this liturgical form that it doesn’t have “any clear directive for how the people are supposed to be engaged, because the people by and large were not present at private Masses in the papal chapel.” Therefore, when the Franciscans spread this specific form of the liturgy throughout Europe, they effectively injected into the Church’s bloodstream a habit of lay non-participation in the Mass. (This is my metaphor, not his.)

As noted by Fr Uwe Michael Lang in the very book of his which Dr Pitre cites, liturgical books properly so-called (the ancient sacramentaries, the missals which derive from them, chant books, lectionaries etc.), have never contained directives for the people’s participation. The document to which Dr Pitre hitherto referred as a witness to popular participation, the Ordo Romanus Primus, is not a liturgical book properly so-called, but an early form of ceremonial manual, and the contrast which he draws between it and the liturgical books of the papal court (adopted by the Franciscans) is a category error. (As I noted in the previous article, he also greatly exaggerates the degree to which it is concerned with the people’s participation.)

Secondly, we must stop for a moment to contemplate the manifest absurdity of these claims about the Franciscans; above all, the claim that as a “missionary order”, they set out to evangelize the people by giving them a liturgy which excluded them from the active participation in the liturgy to which they had hitherto been habituated for centuries. I do not ascribe to Dr Pitre any deliberate falsehood; I am certain that he has been led astray by the bad scholarship on the liturgy and its history which has reigned supreme for centuries. Objectively, however, this is an atrocious calumny against one of the Church’s greatest religious orders.

Part of a fresco by Cimabue, painted between 1285 and 1288 in the lower basilica of St Francis in Assisi; this is one of the oldest likenesses of Francis that exists, and is held by many to be the closest known representation of what he actually looked like.

And this in turn leads to a greater question: if this were really how things developed, how did the Franciscans and their liturgy come to be so popular in the first place, “spread(ing) like wildfire throughout Europe”? (26:20) Like the other mendicant orders, they were established almost entirely in large cities. This means that their congregations had plenty of other churches they could attend, churches where (even if this fictitious history were true) the high degree of popular participation which they had known hitherto would have remained.

In reality, the papal liturgy was already beginning to spread before the Franciscans were founded. As noted by Dr Donald Prudlo in a forthcoming publication (A Companion to the History of the Roman Curia, chapter 7), permission to use it was granted to two orders before them, the Hospitaler Order of the Holy Spirit and the Augustinian hermits, and it was imposed upon the canons of Genoa cathedral. In 1204, it was adopted by the bishop of Assisi for his whole diocese, which is how St Francis himself had come to know it, long before he ever laid the foundation of what would become his order.

The choir of the cathedral of St Lawrence in Genoa. Not designed for low Mass. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Benjamin Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

Dr Pitre says very little about the Franciscans’ supposed motives for doing as he claims they did, a point which he certainly ought to have explicated further, given its central importance to his narrative. But he does say, immediately after mentioning their adoption of the papal liturgy (25:44), that they were “a missionary order, they don’t stay in one place.” Said thus, without further qualification, this is a grotesque exaggeration. It is true that the mendicant orders did not formally keep the Benedictine rule of stability, but nevertheless, the great majority of their members spent their whole lives in their order’s house in or near their native place. Only the cream of their crops, great scholars like St Thomas Aquinas or great preachers like St Bernardine of Siena, traveled widely, and even then, most itinerant preachers were limited to their own province.

Dr Pitre then goes on to claim that “the Mass which most people are going to experience and become familiar with after the great missionary efforts of the Franciscans is a private (his verbal emphasis) Mass in which the priest and server (note the singular) would be able to celebrate anywhere at any chapel as they are traveling throughout Europe spreading the Gospel.” Of course, the Franciscans’ liturgical practice certainly exercised some influence on the liturgical culture of the Roman Rite in general outside their own churches. But to claim that it became what “most people experienced” is a gross oversimplification. However large and widespread the mendicant orders may have been, they were always vastly outnumbered by secular clergy and monks.

The upper basilica of St Francis in Assisi. Also not designed for low Mass.

Note also how the emphasis on the term “private” gives the impression that what the Franciscans were doing was mostly low Mass, a false impression, reinforced in its falsehood by the reduction, within a minute, of “just the priest and whatever servers or ministers (plural) might be assisting” (26:02) to “the priest and server (singular).” (27:05)

Of course, no anti-history of the liturgy would be complete without a substantial misrepresentation of the role of the Council of Trent. (27:22) “And it’s going to be that private form of the Mass that will be ultimately adopted by the Council of Trent in 1570, whenever (sic) it publishes its official Missal of Pope St Pius V.” The Council of Trent ended in 1563, having left as its sole directive on the reform of the liturgy that this was a matter to be left to the Holy See. Dr Pitre claims that this explains why all the editions of the Missal between Trent and Vatican II contain rubrics for the clergy and “server” (again, in the singular), but contains no mention of the people. This is also false. The so-called Tridentine Missal makes no mention of the people’s role in the liturgy because, as noted above, the liturgical books never mentioned it.

Starting at 28:10, Dr Pitre lays the parts of the Mass out in a chart, and notes how the Missal of St Pius V and subsequent editions assign them to the priest and the “server”, again in the singular, reinforcing the false impression that this Missal is concerned only with low Mass. No mention is made of the many rubrics that pertain to the solemn or sung Mass, which was still the daily norm in thousands of churches of the Roman Rite when that Missal was published. 

A page of the rite of Mass in the rubrics of the Missal of St Pius V; the section in italics at the lower right describes the beginning of the solemn Mass.

This error in genere is compounded with several other errors in specie. Dr Pitre notes that the Confiteor is said by the priest and server, without mentioning that it had never been an audible part of the normative, i.e. sung form of Mass. He draws particular attention to the fact the readings were said facing the altar because there were no people present to read them to in the papal chapel. “It’s a private Mass.” But the readings were never done facing the people per se, and while there may not have been lay people present for the services in the papal chapel, there were still plenty of members of the papal household present.

He claims that there is no sermon in the Missal, because there is no one to preach to. This is also wrong; then as now, the papal household had its own full-time preacher, and often hosted guest preachers. But even as he says this, a citation appears on the screen from Fr Joseph Jungmann’s Mass of the Roman Rite that a rubric was added in the first revised edition (issued by Clement VIII in 1604) which specified the place of the sermon. Again, the liturgical books never specified the place of the sermon before this; even his putative model of popular participation, the Ordo Romanus Primus, makes no mention of it at all.

The simple truth is this: the notion that the sermon is an intrinsic part of the Mass is a conceit of the post-Conciliar reform. One can debate whether it has been a fruitful conceit or not, but any claim that it has a solid tradition behind it is false.

The nave of the church of the Holy Name of Jesus in Rome, commonly known as ‘il Gesù’, the principle Jesuit church in the city. Note the position of the preaching pulpit, which is nowhere near the sanctuary. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Finoskov, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

Just as Dr Pitre previously claimed that the readings were anciently done facing the people, without, apparently, looking at the placement of the ambos in the ancient Roman basilicas, he seems to have made a claim about sermons in the Counter-Reformation period without looking at the placement of the pulpits in the churches of that era. Many Counter-Reformation churches have pulpits out in the nave because the sermons were often quite long and delivered with great rhetorical energy, such that on a practical level, the preacher could really only do them once. The church would therefore have two Masses, with the sermon between them, so that the faithful could come for Mass and stay for the sermon, or come for the sermon and stay for Mass. (Perhaps we should ask the harried priests today who say five Masses in three churches on a weekend, and have to deliver the same sermon five times, whether this custom might have had some merit to it.)

This goes on for a couple of more minutes, but what it all amounts to is that the Missal of St Pius V does not do a thing which no liturgical book of the Roman Rite had ever done, namely, to formally define the role of the faithful in liturgical participation. This long series of errors culminates in the claim that this form of the Mass, which he has thus far mispresented on almost every count, was “spread throughout Europe by the Council of Trent.”

As an aside, this contradicts his earlier claim that it has already been spread throughout Europe by the Franciscans: “the Mass which most people are going to experience and become familiar with after the great missionary efforts of the Franciscans…” More importantly, the Missal which was produced by St Pius V (not the Council of Trent) was not imposed on any church (be it a cathedral, a canonry, a monastery, etc.) which could demonstrate that its own liturgical usage was at least 200 years old. As the wise Fr Hunwicke beatae memoriae explained many times, all such institutions were permitted to pass over to the use of the new Roman books, but only with the unanimous consent of the bishop and chapter. They were not required to do so, and many did not, including the other most influential mendicant order, the Dominicans. So I will simply add that in regard to popular participation, the Missal of St Pius V is just as silent as the local Missals which it did replace were (e.g. that of Sarum), and had always been.

In any defense of the post-Conciliar reform, it is of course necessary to mispresent the history of the liturgy in the Tridentine period, and on this score, Dr Pitre continues to disappoint. His remaining false claims will be addressed in the next part of this series.