I am very pleased to share with NLM readers the themes and schedule for my lecture tour in Spain later this month. Between July 18 and 25, I’ll be speaking on the traditional Roman liturgy in Seville, Cordoba, Toledo, Madrid, Segovia, and Oviedo, then participating in the 3-day pilgrimage to Covadonga. Lectures will be given in English with a Spanish translation provided. My books that have been translated into Spanish (six of them) will be available at the events. All details may be found in the poster below.
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Me complace compartir con los lectores de NLM los temas y el programa de mi gira de conferencias por España a finales de este mes. Entre el 18 y el 25 de julio, hablaré sobre la liturgia tradicional romana en Sevilla, Córdoba, Toledo, Madrid, Segovia y Oviedo, y luego participaré en la peregrinación de tres días a Covadonga. Las conferencias se impartirán en inglés con traducción al español. Mis libros traducidos al español (seis de ellos) estarán disponibles en los eventos. Todos los detalles se pueden encontrar en el cartel al final de la página.
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SEVILLA — Viernes, 18 de julio, 20.00h
“Por qué es mejor no entenderlo todo inmediatamente: la sabiduría de la liturgia tradicional”
Una Voce Sevilla
Plaza Pintor Amalio García del Moral, nº 11, local 9
41005 Sevilla
CÓRDOBA — Sábado, 19 de julio, 20.00h
“La genialidad del rito más antiguo del Cristianismo”
Hotel Córdoba Center
Avenida de la Libertad, 4
14006 Córdoba
TOLEDO — Lunes, 21 de julio, 18.00h
“Cómo Nuestra Señora nos enseña el significado de la misa”
Alcázar de Toledo
C/ de la Union, s/n
45001 Toledo
MADRID — Martes, 22 de julio, Santa Misa 20.00h, Conferencia 21.00h
“Por qué es bello el rito tradicional y por qué necesitamos esta belleza”
Parroquia de la Sagrada Familia
C/ Antonio Toledano, nº 23
28028 Madrid
SEGOVIA — Miércoles, 23 de julio, 19.00h
“Por qué la misa tradicional es majestuosa y cortesana”
Casa de Espiritualidad «San Frutos»
C/ Obispo Gandásegui, nº 7
40001 Segovia
(detrás del Obispado y del antiguo Seminario Conciliar)
OVIEDO — Viernes, 25 de julio, 19.00h
“Por qué es mejor no entenderlo todo inmediatamente: la sabiduría de la liturgia tradicional”
The feast of St Agnes is one of the oldest and most universal among those of the ancient martyrs; it is kept on this day in the Roman, Byzantine and Ambrosian Rites, and several of the Fathers preached or wrote about her, including Ss Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. The importance of her cultus is also demonstrated by the presence of her name in the canon of the Roman Mass, and the fact that her church in Rome on the via Nomentana was one of the first six built by the Emperor Constantine in the earliest years of the peace of the Church.
At the church of St Agnes, lambs are blessed on the patronal feast day, and their wool shorn to the make the pallia worn by archbishops as part of their liturgical regalia. This photos was taken by our Roman pilgrim friend Agnese in 2020 - Tanti auguri!
One of the works in which St Augustine mentions her is a sermon preached on her feast day in the year 396; however, it is titled “On the feast of Ss Fructuosus the bishop, and the deacons Augurius and Eulogius,” with whom it is principally concerned, who were martyred on the same day as Agnes, but roughly forty-five years earlier, at Tarragona in Spain, during the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus. Spanish liturgical books of the Roman Rite traditionally keep St Agnes on this day, and either transfer or commemorate the martyrs, but in the Mozarabic Rite, the native rite of Spain, they take precedence over Agnes, as a feast which is both older and more proper to the rite. The same is true in Tarragona, where they are honored the principal patron Saints.
The original account of their martyrdom survives, and is one of a fairly small number of such documents which are universally recognized to be authentic, even by the most skeptical among scholars of hagiography. These acts contain a record of the trial, such as it was, of Fructuosus and his companions before the Roman governor Emilian, who begins the interrogation.
“You have heard what the emperors have commanded?”
“I do not know what they have commanded, but I am a Christian.”
“They have commanded that the gods be worshipped.”
“I worship one God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all the things therein.”
“Do you know that there are (other) gods?”
“I do not.”
“You shall know hereafter.”
This last statement was effectively a threat of torture, at which Fructuosus “looked to the Lord and began to pray.” Emilian declared, “Who will be heard, who will be feared, who will be adored, if the gods are not worshipped, and the images of the emperors are not adored?” He then turned to Augurius and said, “Do not listen to the words of Fructuosus”, at which the latter replied, “I worship the almighty God.” Emilian then asked Eulogius, “Do you also worship Fructuosus?”, five words which fully betray a mystified incomprehension of Christianity very typical of the Romans. The answer was, “I do not worship Fructuosus, but the same (God) whom he worships.”
Turning back to Fructuosus, Emilian asked him “Are you a bishop?”, and to the answer “I am”, replied with a single word in Latin, “Fuisti – you were”, a very curt way of saying “You shall soon be dead.” He then gave the order that they be burnt alive.
As the Saints were taken to the local amphitheater, the ruins of which still stand to this day, not only the Christians, but also the pagans expressed their grief, for they also loved Fructuosus. These acts contain an interesting witness to the antiquity of the Church’s discipline of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, which is also mentioned in one of the very oldest Christian documents outside the New Testament, the Didache. On his way to the amphitheater, Fructuosus was offered a cup of wine, but he would not drink it, saying that “it was not yet the hour to break the fast”, being only mid-morning. And thus, having kept the “statio” [1] of Wednesday in prison, “he hastened to complete that of Friday with the martyrs and prophets in the paradise which the Lord hath prepared for them that love Him.”
Another episode right before the execution, one of several such known to us, bears witness to the great veneration in which the martyrs were held by the early Christians. A man named Felix came forward, took the bishop’s right hand, and asked him to remember him, the clear implication being that the martyr would certainly stand in God’s presence very shortly, and thus be able to plead for him. To this Fructuosus replied, “I must keep in remembrance the Catholic Church, spread (through the world) from East to West.” He then addressed his flock as follows: “You will not now lack a shepherd, nor will the Lord’s charity and promise fail, either now or in the future; for what you see now (i.e. their execution) is but the weakness of an hour.”
Burning at the stake usually killed more by smoke inhalation than actual burning, and this seems to be the case with these martyrs, since the acts say that the fire loosened the bonds which held them, in such a way that they were able to kneel in prayer before they died, “certain of the resurrection.” The author then reports that “the customary miracles” took place, a standing rebuke to those skeptics who are wont to treat excessive reports of miracles as a sign that the written life of a Saint is not authentic. Two of Emilian’s servants, Babylas and Mygdonius, who were also Christians, as well as his own daughter, saw the heavens open and the Saints ascending with crowns on their heads. Many of the persecutors focused their energies entirely on the clergy, and ignored the laity, and Emilian seems to have been such a one, since the two Christian servants were able to invite him to “come and see those whom you have condemned today, how they are restored to heaven and their hope”, but Emilian “was not worthy to see them.” The faithful then collected the relics, in accordance with the custom also attested in many other ancient accounts of martyrdoms.
In St Augustine’s time, the acts of the Martyrs were often read at Mass on Saints’ days, if they were available, and the sermon mentioned above is one of several that refers to this custom. “When we hear how the martyrs suffered, we rejoice, and glorify God in them. … You heard the persecutors’ interrogation, you heard the answers of those who confessed (Christ), while the passion of the Saints was being read.” Further along, he introduces St Agnes by saying, “Blessed are they whose passion was read. Blessed is Saint Agnes, the day of whose passion is today.” This custom never obtained in the Roman Rite, which had only two readings at the Mass, the Epistle and Gospel; hence the passions of the Saints found their place in the Divine Office instead. In the Ambrosian Rite, on the other hand, which has three readings on Sundays and feasts, the custom is still preserved to this day, even in the post-Conciliar form, by which the life of a Saint (in a fairly succinct version, to be sure) may be read in place of the Old Testament reading on certain feast days.
The cause and manner of the death of these martyrs naturally suggested to the author of their acts a similarity with the three children in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel; this was a Biblical story near to the heart of every Christian in antiquity, since the Romans’ principal reason for persecuting them was their refusal to worship the statue of the Emperor, just as the three children would not worship the statue of the Babylonian Emperor. He therefore wrote that “they were like Ananiah, Azariah and Misael, in such wise that the divine Trinity was also seen in them, once they were set in the fire of the world, so that the Father was not far from them, and the Son came to help them, and the Holy Spirit walked in the midst of the fire.”
The Mozarabic liturgy makes many references to this idea in its liturgical texts for their feast day, as in this prayer at Matins. (The great veneration in which these Saints were held is also indicated by the fact that Mozarabic Matins normally has three prayers, but on their feast day, twenty-one, of which this is the sixth.) “Ananiah, Azariah, Misael, the three children tested by the fire of Babylon, were a great sign, o Lord, to Thy holy martyrs, to whom their august victory offered an example. In the case of the former, the fire fled, lest they die; in the case of the latter, it was let in, that they might be crowned. With the former, since also the time of the passion was not yet ripe, the fire of punishment could not touch their holy bodies; with the latter, in the acceptable time, when the way to paradise was opened by the death of Christ, it destroyed the bodies that were touched to the fire, once the door of paradise was now opened to the blessed. Therefore, we bless Thee, o God, who delivered the former from the flames, and crowned the latter after the flames; Who also, to deliver the former, didst sprinkle (dew) upon the fires, but allow them to take the latter up (to heaven). Grant us therefore, by the examples and prayers of them all, that we may so be delivered from the fire of carnal vices, that enkindled by the fiery sweetness of Thy words, we may merit to come to Thee in peace.”
The adoration of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Three Children in the furnace. From a manuscript known as the Saint-Sever Beatus (mid-11th century), an illustrated commentary on the book of the Apocalypse by the Spanish monk St Beatus of Liébana (ca. 730-800). This copy also includes St Jerome’s Commentary on the book of Daniel and a treatise by St Ildephonse of Toledo on the perpetual virginity of Mary. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 8878)
In a similar vein, the preface of their Mass (which, like many Mozarabic prefaces, is exceedingly long) ends with the words “Full worthy was it, that a divine voice should mark them, like unto that which marked the Hebrew children, Azariah and his companions, who walked in the furnace of the king of Babylon safe and sound, singing Thy praises with a new song, and in the heavenly office of the Angels cried out and said: Holy, holy, holy…”
Each year since 1990, a cultural association based in Tarragon and named for St Fructuosus has performed a passion play by Andreu Muñoz Melgar in honor of the three martyrs, in conjunction with the schola cantorum of the city’s cathedral. The story sticks very closely to that of the ancient passion, and in 2018, it was staged in the very amphitheater where the actual martyrdom took place, and at the same time of day. Here are links to two videos (not embeddable, for some reason) of the performance of it, the first from 2014 in Catalan, and the second from 2015 in Castilian.
[1] “Statio” meant the keeping of a fast until the mid-afternoon, which would later become the time for the canonical hour of None. This reference from 259AD shows us as an early form of the custom, later developed more fully, by which the Mass on penitential days was celebrated after None, and followed by Vespers, and the breaking of the fast.
Here are a couple of more wins for YouTube’s suggestions algorithm, two very nice Masses of the late Franco-Flemish school of Renaissance polyphony. The first is by Philippe Rogier, who was born ca. 1561 at Arras in the Spanish Netherlands (now in France); the kings of Spain recruited so many musicians and singers from that area that they maintained a full choir of them, known as the Flemish chapel (“capilla flamenca”), in addition to the native choir, the “capilla española.” Rogier became the assistant director of the Flemish chapel in 1584, and director of all the music at the court of Philip II of Spain two years later. He was ordained a priest at an uncertain date, but died in Madrid in 1596 at the age of only 35. He was a prolific composer, with well over two hundred compositions, the majority of them sacred works, listed in the 1649 catalog of the library of King John IV of Portugal where they were kept. This library was destroyed by the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and the corpus of Rogier’s surviving works counts fewer than 60 pieces, over half of which are motets. Here is one of his seven surviving Masses, the Mass Domine, Dominus noster for three choirs.
Rogier’s contemporary and fellow Netherlander, Géry de Ghersem, was born at Tournai ca. 1574, and as a boy, sang in the capilla flamenca under his direction. In 1604, he returned north, and found a position in Brussels as the director of music for the court of Albert VII, archduke of Austria and sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands; he was also ordained a priest, and worked in several different positions until his death in 1630. He apparently did most of his composing while he was in Spain, and almost all of his corpus, which was very large (perhaps even larger than that of his friend and teacher Rogier), was also destroyed in the library of John IV. In his will, Rogier had asked Ghersem to publish a group of six of his Masses and dedicate them to the King of Spain; Ghersem did this, while adding one of his own to the collection, the only work of his that survives complete, based on a motet by Francesco Guerrero, Ave Virgo Sanctissima.
Last month, at the suggestion of reader Richard Seto, I shared a video about the restoration of the very large processional monstrance (‘custodia’ in Spanish) of the cathedral of the Assumption in Mexico City. Mr Seto was kind enough to suggest as a follow up a similar video about the even more magnificent one at Toledo in Spain, a rare chance to see up close some the details of the enameled gold and jeweled monstrance which had belonged to Queen Isabella that the custodia enshrines. The footage also inludes a part of the tapestry collection which is hung on the outside of the cathedral for the Corpus Christi procession. For those who do not speak Spanish, YouTube’s automatic subtitle and translation feature works very well with that particular language.
The feast of St Agnes is one of the oldest and most universal among those of the ancient martyrs; it is kept on this day in the Roman, Byzantine and Ambrosian Rites, and several of the Fathers preached or wrote about her, including Ss Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. The importance of her cultus is also demonstrated by the presence of her name in the canon of the Roman Mass, and the fact that her church in Rome on the via Nomentana was one of the first six built by the Emperor Constantine in the earliest years of the peace of the Church.
As she does every year, our Roman pilgrim friend Agnese went to the church of her name Saint for the traditional blessing of the lambs this morning, whose wool is shorn to the make the pallia worn by archbishops as part of their liturgical regalia. Tanti auguri!
One of the works in which St Augustine mentions her is a sermon preached on her feast day in the year 396; however, it is titled “On the feast of Ss Fructuosus the bishop, and the deacons Augurius and Eulogius,” with whom it is principally concerned, who were martyred on the same day as Agnes, but roughly forty-five years earlier, at Tarragona in Spain, during the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus. Historically, Spanish liturgical books of the Roman Rite traditionally kept St Agnes on this day, and either transferred or commemorated the martyrs, but in the Mozarabic Rite, the native rite of Spain, they take precedence over Agnes, as a feast which is both older and more proper to the rite.
The original account of their martyrdom survives, and is one of a fairly small number of such documents which are universally recognized to be authentic, even by the most skeptical among scholars of hagiography. These acts contain a record of the trial, such as it was, of Fructuosus and his companions before the Roman governor Emilian, who begins the interrogation.
“You have heard what the emperors have commanded?”
“I do not know what they have commanded, but I am a Christian.”
“They have commanded that the gods be worshipped.”
“I worship one God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all the things therein.”
“Do you know that there are (other) gods?”
“I do not.”
“You shall know hereafter.”
This last statement was effectively a threat of torture, at which Fructuosus “looked to the Lord and began to pray.” Emilian declared, “Who will be heard, who will be feared, who will be adored, if the gods are not worshipped, and the images of the emperors are not adored?” He then turned to Augurius and said, “Do not listen to the words of Fructuosus”, at which the latter replied, “I worship the almighty God.” Emilian then asked Eulogius, “Do you also worship Fructuosus?”, five words which fully betray a mystified incomprehension of Christianity very typical of the Romans. The answer was, “I do not worship Fructuosus, but the same (God) whom he worships.”
Turning back to Fructuosus, Emilian asked him “Are you a bishop?”, and to the answer “I am”, replied with a single word in Latin, “Fuisti – you were”, a very curt way of saying “You shall soon be dead.” He then gave the order that they be burnt alive.
As the Saints were taken to the local amphitheater, the ruins of which still stand to this day, not only the Christians, but also the pagans expressed their grief, for they also loved Fructuosus. These acts contain an interesting witness to the antiquity of the Church’s discipline of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, which is also mentioned in one of the very oldest Christian documents outside the New Testament, the Didache. On his way to the amphitheater, Fructuosus was offered a cup of wine, but he would not drink it, saying that “it was not yet the hour to break the fast”, being only mid-morning. And thus, having kept the “statio” [1] of Wednesday in prison, “he hastened to complete that of Friday with the martyrs and prophets in the paradise which the Lord hath prepared for them that love Him.”
Another episode right before the execution, one of several such known to us, bears witness to the great veneration in which the martyrs were held by the early Christians. A man named Felix came forward, took the bishop’s right hand, and asked him to remember him, the clear implication being that the martyr would certainly stand in God’s presence very shortly, and thus be able to plead for him. To this Fructuosus replied, “I must keep in remembrance the Catholic Church, spread (through the world) from East to West.” He then addressed his flock as follows: “You will not now lack a shepherd, nor will the Lord’s charity and promise fail, either now or in the future; for what you see now (i.e. their execution) is but the weakness of an hour.”
Burning at the stake usually killed more by smoke inhalation than actual burning, and this seems to be the case with these martyrs, since the acts say that the fire loosened the bonds which held them, in such a way that they were able to kneel in prayer before they died, “certain of the resurrection.” The author then reports that “the customary miracles” took place, a standing rebuke to those skeptics who are wont to treat excessive reports of miracles as a sign that the written life of a Saint is not authentic. Two of Emilian’s servants, Babylas and Mygdonius, who were also Christians, as well as his own daughter, saw the heavens open and the Saints ascending with crowns on their heads. Many of the persecutors focused their energies entirely on the clergy, and ignored the laity, and Emilian seems to have been such a one, since the two Christian servants were able to invite him to “come and see those whom you have condemned today, how they are restored to heaven and their hope”, but Emilian “was not worthy to see them.” The faithful then collected the relics, in accordance with the custom also attested in many other ancient accounts of martyrdoms.
In St Augustine’s time, the acts of the Martyrs were often read at Mass on Saints’ days, if they were available, and the sermon mentioned above is one of several that refers to this custom. “When we hear how the martyrs suffered, we rejoice, and glorify God in them. … You heard the persecutors’ interrogation, you heard the answers of those who confessed (Christ), while the passion of the Saints was being read.” Further along, he introduces St Agnes by saying, “Blessed are they whose passion was read. Blessed is Saint Agnes, the day of whose passion is today.” This custom never obtained in the Roman Rite, which had only two readings at the Mass, the Epistle and Gospel; hence the passions of the Saints found their place in the Divine Office instead. In the Ambrosian Rite, on the other hand, which has three readings on Sundays and feasts, the custom is still preserved to this day, even in the post-Conciliar form, by which the life of a Saint (in a fairly succinct version, to be sure) may be read in place of the Old Testament reading on certain feast days.
The cause and manner of the death of these martyrs naturally suggested to the author of their acts a similarity with the three children in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel; this was a Biblical story near to the heart of every Christian in antiquity, since the Romans’ principal reason for persecuting them was their refusal to worship the statue of the Emperor, just as the three children would not worship the statue of the Babylonian Emperor. He therefore wrote that “they were like Ananiah, Azariah and Misael, in such wise that the divine Trinity was also seen in them, once they were set in the fire of the world, so that the Father was not far from them, and the Son came to help them, and the Holy Spirit walked in the midst of the fire.”
The Mozarabic liturgy makes many references to this idea in its liturgical texts for their feast day, as in this prayer at Matins. (The great veneration in which these Saints were held is also indicated by the fact that Mozarabic Matins normally has three prayers, but on their feast day, twenty-one, of which this is the sixth.) “Ananiah, Azariah, Misael, the three children tested by the fire of Babylon, were a great sign, o Lord, to Thy holy martyrs, to whom their august victory offered an example. In the case of the former, the fire fled, lest they die; in the case of the latter, it was let in, that they might be crowned. With the former, since also the time of the passion was not yet ripe, the fire of punishment could not touch their holy bodies; with the latter, in the acceptable time, when the way to paradise was opened by the death of Christ, it destroyed the bodies that were touched to the fire, once the door of paradise was now opened to the blessed. Therefore, we bless Thee, o God, who delivered the former from the flames, and crowned the latter after the flames; Who also, to deliver the former, didst sprinkle (dew) upon the fires, but allow them to take the latter up (to heaven). Grant us therefore, by the examples and prayers of them all, that we may so be delivered from the fire of carnal vices, that enkindled by the fiery sweetness of Thy words, we may merit to come to Thee in peace.”
In a similar vein, the preface of their Mass (which, like many Mozarabic prefaces, is exceedingly long) ends with the words “Full worthy was it, that a divine voice should mark them, like unto that which marked the Hebrew children, Azariah and his companions, who walked in the furnace of the king of Babylon safe and sound, singing Thy praises with a new song, and in the heavenly office of the Angels cried out and said: Holy, holy, holy…”
Each year since 1990, a cultural association based in Tarragon and named for St Fructuosus has performed a passion play by Andreu Muñoz Melgar in honor of the three martyrs, in conjunction with the schola cantorum of the city’s cathedral. The story sticks very closely to that of the ancient passion, and in 2018, it was staged in the very amphitheater where the actual martyrdom took place, and at the same time of day. Here are two videos of the performance of it, the first from 2014 in Catalan, and the second from 2015 in Castilian.
[1] “Statio” meant the keeping of a fast until the mid-afternoon, which would later become the time for the canonical hour of None. This reference from 259AD shows us as an early form of the custom, later developed more fully, by which the Mass on penitential days was celebrated after None, and followed by Vespers, and the breaking of the fast.
Here are a couple of more wins for YouTube’s suggestions algorithm, two very nice Masses of the late Franco-Flemish school of Renaissance polyphony. The first is by Philippe Rogier, who was born ca. 1561 at Arras in the Spanish Netherlands (now in France); the kings of Spain recruited so many musicians and singers from that area that they maintained a full choir of them, known as the Flemish chapel (“capilla flamenca”), in addition to the native choir, the “capilla española.” Rogier became the assistant director of the Flemish chapel in 1584, and director of all the music at the court of Philip II of Spain two years later. He was ordained a priest at an uncertain date, but died in Madrid in 1596 at the age of only 35. He was a prolific composer, with well over two hundred compositions, the majority of them sacred works, listed in the 1649 catalog of the library of King John IV of Portugal where they were kept. This library was destroyed by the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and the corpus of Rogier’s surviving works counts fewer than 60 pieces, over half of which are motets. Here is one of his seven surviving Masses, the Mass Domine, Dominus noster for three choirs.
Rogier’s contemporary and fellow Netherlander, Géry de Ghersem, was born at Tournai ca. 1574, and as a boy, sang in the capilla flamenca under his direction. In 1604, he returned north, and found a position in Brussels as the director of music for the court of Albert VII, archduke of Austria and sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands; he was also ordained a priest, and worked in several different positions until his death in 1630. He apparently did most of his composing while he was in Spain, and almost all of his corpus, which was very large (perhaps even larger than that of his friend and teacher Rogier), was also destroyed in the library of John IV. In his will, Rogier had asked Ghersem to publish a group of six of his Masses and dedicate them to the King of Spain; Ghersem did this, while adding one of his own to the collection, the only work of his that survives complete, based on a motet by Francesco Guerrero, Ave Virgo Sanctissima.
After seeing a recent post by Matthew Alderman entitled “A Visigothic Hermitage in the Province of Burgos”, reader Mervyn Samuel was kind enough to send in the following photographs and some information about them. Mr Samuel is a member of a cultural association in Spain called Urbs Regia, which seeks to promote great knowledge and appreciation of the Visigothic culture and its role in the formation of Spain. Their website is currently being redone; we will post notice when it comes back online. Of course, we have written here from time to time about one of the most important survivals of Visigothic Spain, the Mozarabic Liturgy.
“I was pleased to see your recent mention of the Visigoths in Spain in relation to the little church of Nuestra Señora de las Viñas. They were so important in Spanish and European history yet are little remembered nowadays. Precisely for this reason an association, Urbs Regia, has been established in the Visigothic capital, Toledo, to examine what remains of their culture in Spain and other countries (a previous capital was Bordeaux).
We have recently visited the ruins of the palatine city of Recopolis (in the modern province of Guadalajara), and the Visigothic section of the National Archaeological Museum here in Madrid. A few photos are attached.
Above all, I would suggest that the Visigoths were in no real sense ‘barbarians’ when they came into Hispania as allies of Rome to try to prop up Roman civilisation in this peninsula. Originally Arian heretics, they accepted full Christianity in its Catholic form as a result of the conversion of King Recaredus I, formalised at the 3rd Council of Toledo in 589. They included such glorious figures of European culture as Saint Isidore, Archbishop of Seville. They united Hispania for the first time by overcoming the Suevians in the north-west, and expelling the Byzantine or Eastern Roman forces from the south-east. Always a small proportion of the total population, they allowed the long-established Hispano-Roman cities to continue under Roman Law, while their own affairs were governed by Germanic Common or Customary Law.
The two remaining arms of a processional cross (third photo) are of such high quality that they were probably saved from Toledo Cathedral during the Islamic invasion of 711 and hidden with the remainder of the Guarrazar Hoard. The fourth photo shows votive crowns from the same hoard, probably also from the Cathedral; the fifth shows the votive crown of King Recesvintus.”
Kind Recaredus speaks to the bishops at the Third Council of Toledo
In the course of researching my articles on the Theology of the Offertory, and specifically the offertories of the medieval Spanish uses of the Roman Rite, I came across an interesting custom in the way of printing certain Missals before the Tridentine Reform. I believe this custom may be completely unique to Spain; I have never seen anything like it in any of the great many other medieval Missals I have read through over the years. (I here use the term “medieval” in reference to the origin of these liturgical customs; the Missals themselves were printed in the Renaissance.) The examples I give here are from the Missal according to the Use of Seville, printed in that city in 1565, and that of Segovia printed at Venice in 1500.
In these missals, each part of the Canon of the Mass is labelled with its putative author, each of whom “constitutit – established” that that part of it be said. Where these attributions come from, I cannot imagine, and their inventor had some rather confused ideas about Church history. Except for St Basil, all of the supposed authors are called “Papa”, but there has never been a Pope named Ignatius, Maxentius, or Bricius. (This last is traditionally Anglicized as “Brice” when it refers to St Martin of Tours’ disciple and successor.) Of course, the word “Papa” was formerly used for other bishops beside the Pope, and it is likely that “Pope Ignatius” means St Ignatius of Antioch. “Pope Maxentius” remains quite mysterious.
“Pope Bricius” on the other hand, is a legendary martyr and early bishop of Évora in Portugal, said to be a disciple of the first bishop of Braga, St Peter “de Rates”, who was in turn a disciple of the Apostle St James the Greater, converted when the latter was evangelizing Spain. The Missal of Seville attributes to Bricius the singular honor of having established the Institution Narrative; without positing any conscious fraud, we may conjecture that this pedigree was intended to confirm the Iberian peninsula’s bona fides for receiving the Faith from one of the chiefs among the Apostles. (Segovia, on the other hand, garbles the name as “Baccius”, but this may be a mistake of the Venetian printers.)
The attributions in order are: Te igitur: St Basil (the Great. The Missal of Segovia adds for precision “at the fifth synod in the city of Antioch”.) In primis quae tibi: “Pope Ignatius” Memento of the living: Basil again (Segovia says Pope St Celestine I, 422-32) Communicantes: Pope St Gregory the Great
Here and below: the relevant pages of the 1565 Missal according to the Use of Seville
Hanc igitur: Pope St Innocent (the First, 401-17) Quam oblationem tibi: “Pope Maxentius” Qui pridie: “Pope Bricius” (or Baccius)
Unde et memores: Pope St Sergius (the First, 687-701) Supplices: Pope St Leo the Great Memento of the dead: Pope St Calixtus (the First, 218-223) Nobis quoque: Pope St Pelagius (the First, 551-565; or the Second, 579-90, Gregory the Great’s predecessor)
Per quem haec omnia: Pope St Xystus (the Second, 257-58, the Xystus mentioned in the Communicantes)
The Missal of Seville gives three different tones for the singing of the Our Father, but says nothing about its author, presumably understood to be the Lord. The Missal of Segovia, on the other hand, puts before it the words “Gregorius dialogus constituit – Gregory the Dialogist established”, i.e., that it be sung after the Canon. (“Dialogus” is the title by which Pope Gregory the Great is known in the East, referring to his collection of Saints’ biographies, the Dialogues.) Both Missals agree in attributing the Libera nos to Pope St Urban I, 222-230.
Despite the historical confusion, and the fact that none of these attributions rests on any evidence, several of the Saints named herein are traditionally known as the authors of various parts of the liturgy, or the originators of certain liturgical customs. The anaphora attributed to St Basil the Great is used in the Byzantine Rite on a handful of days, including the Sundays of Lent (but not Palm Sunday), Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday. St Ignatius of Antioch is traditionally said to have instituted antiphonal singing in church, after a vision of angels chanting thus in Heaven. Among Gregory the Great’s many contributions to the liturgy is the addition to the Canon of the words “diesque nostros … grege numerari”; he also did move the Lord’s Prayer to its place after the Canon. The Byzantine Rite attributes to him the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts which is celebrated on certain weekdays of Lent, and commemorates him at the end of that service. Sergius I added the Agnus Dei to the Mass, and Leo the Great added the words “sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam” to the Canon. Calixtus I is said to have instituted, or rather formalized, the Ember Days, which Leo (two centuries later) believed to date from Apostolic times.
The page before the Canon in the Missal of Seville
The attribution of the final part of the Canon (“Per quem haec omnia”) to Pope St Xystus II may be related to a custom associated with his feast day, August 6th. On that day, grapes were traditionally blessed between the end of the Nobis quoque and the Per quem haec omnia, also the traditional place for the blessing of the oil of the Sick on Holy Thursday. Although the blessing of the grapes, which is also observed by the Eastern churches, long predates the Western adoption of the feast of the Transfiguration, the Missal of Seville gives a charming explanation of why it is done on that date. “It must be noted that on this day, the Blood of Christ is confected from new wine… (and) this is the reason. On the day of the (Last) Supper, the Lord Jesus said to the Apostles… ‘Amen I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father.’ (Matthew 26, 29) Therefore, because He said “new”, and the Transfiguration pertains to that state which He had after the Resurrection, new wine is sought on this feast.”
As a chorister at Westminster Cathedral during the 1980s, I was fortunate enough to be involved in a number of recordings of some of the most wonderful liturgical music in the repertoire. A particular highlight was Treasures of the Spanish Renaissance, released by Hyperion in 1985, which included a number of stunning masterpieces from the golden age of Spanish polyphony by three of its greatest masters: Francisco Guerrero, Alonso Lobo and Sebastián de Vivanco. Amongst the choristers, a particular favourite on that recording was Versa est in luctum by Lobo. It is an absolutely remarkable piece of polyphony, a setting of a responsory from the Office of the Dead: ‘My harp is turned to mourning and my music to the voice of those who weep. Spare me, Lord, for my days are as nothing.’ It was a text which seems to have had particular significance to Iberian composers at the time, and indeed the greatest of them all, Tomás Luis de Victoria, included a beautiful setting in his Requiem music for the Dowager Empress Maria who he served as Chaplain at the Monastery of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid. Lobo’s setting was written for the funeral of her brother, Philip II, and there is a definite sense that the composer saved something extra for this commission, attaining new heights of the greatest beauty, achieving something truly worthy of one of the greatest Catholic monarchs.
The Reredos at Toledo Cathedral
This Friday I will be travelling to Spain with my choir, the Schola Cantorum of the London Oratory School, and amongst the Masses and recitals planned, it will be especially wonderful to direct the boys in performances of the Lobo at two places of great significance: the first will be the magnificent Basilica at the Monastery of San Lorenzo at El Escorial. Philip II, for whose funeral it was written, lies in the Royal Mausoleum under the High Altar at El Escorial. He built the magnificent foundation, incorporating a monastery, basilica and palace, in thanksgiving for the Spanish victory at St Quentin in 1557. The battle took place on the Feast Day of St Laurence, 10 August, which is why El Escorial was built in a gridiron layout, in honour of St Laurence’s mode of martyrdom. The king had his own chambers carefully positioned so that he could see the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass from his bed to which he was confined towards the end of his life, through an internal window to the right of the altar. The second performance will be at the magnificent Cathedral in Toledo where Lobo served as Maestro de Capilla. The cathedral's stupendous reredos must be one of the finest in Christendom and simply has to be experienced.
The boys will also be singing music by the Spanish composers Esquivel, Vivanco, Guerrero and Victoria, as well as music by English and Italian composers. You can read more details here, and you can follow their progress through Escorial, Madrid, Segovia, Toledo and Salamanca on Facebook and Twitter. Wish us luck and keep us in your prayers.
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