Our thanks once again to the authors of Canticum Salomonis, this time for their kind permission to reprint this very interesting article on a medieval form of the bidding prayers said at Mass.
When adoption of the Roman rite north of the Alps during the Carolingian period displaced the general intercessions that had been an ancient feature of the Gallican rite, it seems that various attempts were made to remedy their absence. In places such as Milan, the people sang a vestigial Kyrie eleison before or even during the Creed.
By the 12th century, in Germany, the void had been filled by Leis or Credo-songs, often elaborate vernacular hymns with a refrain Kyrie eleison, sung during the Credo.In France, however, a new ritual, called the prône (Latin pronaüm), developed out of a combination of the sermon and several additional elements that appeared in no particular order: an instruction on Christian doctrine, often on the Our Father and Creed as per Charlemagne’s orders, pious prayers and examinations of conscience, memorials of the dead, bidding prayers, announcements, and, by the 17th century, the vernacular repetition of the Epistle and Gospel. Templates for the prône appear in many ritual books and homilaries beginning in the Middle Ages, and collections of these intercessory prayers are some of the oldest monuments in the German language. In England too the bidding prayers were said in the vernacular on Sundays and feasts. These prayers concluded with song.
A whole architecture developed to house this miniature recapitulation of the Liturgy of the Catechumens. During the Middle Ages the prône was delivered from the rood loft (jubé in French), where the readings of the Epistle and Gospel also took place. In the Baroque era, when many rood screens were destroyed, elaborate preacher’s pulpits were erected with a bank of chairs facing it on the opposite side of the nave to seat the ministers. This “compromise” that the prône represented—a vernacular para-liturgy within the Latin whole—proved fruitful and long-lived. Because of its evocation of the most primitive early Christian arrangement of readings around a central choir, Louis Bouyer calls this era the golden age of Latin liturgy.
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| A view of the rood loft (jubé) of the church of Ste Madeleine in Troyes |
Honorius Augustodunensis, writing in the 12th century, most likely in Regensburg, includes an early example of a prône in his sermon collection Speculum Ecclesiae, in the middle of the Christmas sermons. He says it is to be used “on the highest feasts.” Though written in Latin as a preaching guide for clerics, its text would have been delivered in the vernacular by the preacher who used it. It is a remarkable hybrid of several elements:
I. A catechesis on the Our Father and Creed
II. An examination of conscience followed by a general absolution
III. Bidding prayers
IV. A concluding exhortation and Kyrie eleison
The catechesis takes the form of a guided lesson. First the audience is asked to recite the Our Father, word by word, perhaps in order to memorize it; indeed he calls the Our Father “your prayer.” A line-by-line allegorical and numerological exposition of the prayer follows. His word choice may indicate a call-and-response technique, wherein the preacher invites the crowd to shout out (clamatis, dicitis, uociferamini) each successive line of the prayer before explaining it. His ladder analogy is at once homely and yet almost bold in its invitation to the laity to practice Christian perfection and contemplation. The seven petitions of the Our Father lead him into a discussion of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, also based on the metaphor of the ladder.
This is followed by a paraphrase of the Apostles’ Creed. Although not a line-by-line exegesis like that of the Our Father, he does insist that the people should know it by heart, and use it to combat demons and temptations.
The examination of conscience is quite thorough. (More than one sensitive copyist tried to scratch out one article referring to the sin of bestiality!) His advice to seek out confession and penance suggests the coëxistence, in the early 12th century, of both public and private modes of penance, with grave public sins requiring a public 40-day penance and absolution. He seems to assume frequent confession, and communion more than once a year.
Having taught the faith and absolved their sins, the preacher leads the people in a set of bidding prayers that closely resemble the penitential preces of the Divine Office, the Great Intercessions of Good Friday, and Greek litanies. The response “Amen” is indicated; whether it was to be said by the preacher or people is unclear.
The prône ends with the celebrant stirring up the crowd to raise the joyful cry Eia, and join their voices in a loud refrain of Kyrieleison.
The instruction gives the laity a wealth of material to meditate and pray on during the silent canon.
Honorius thus gives us a glimpse into the lively interior of a high Romanesque church. Inside we see a clergy who zealously and skillfully impart the doctrine of perfection, and a receptive and enthusiastic people who delight in allegory and loud, even rowdy acclamations of faith.
The prône continued to be said in French and German churches well into the 19th century, conserving the same general structure as found in Honorius’ example.
The text has been established based on the following MSS, and subdivided by the editors with Roman numerals.
Read the English translation below, or download a PDF with the Latin and English texts.
I. On the Faith
A. On the Pater noster I
Say each word of the Pater noster with them from beginning to end. Then add:
Dearly beloved, God himself composed this prayer, and taught us to climb it like a ladder up to the joys of heaven. The sides of this ladder are the contemplative and active lives, into which the supreme Wisdom inserted seven rungs of petitions.
On the first rung you stand and cry out to heaven: Pater noster. Take heed, brethren, of what you say. You call God your Father. God did not wish that we call him Lord but Father, that you might consider that you are all brethren in him, and so love each other as brethren, and as a reward for this love, become heirs of his kingdom. If God is your Father, then you are brethren in Jesus Christ who is the Son of God. And if, like sons, you do deeds that please your Father, you shall doubtlessly receive your inheritance from God along with Jesus.
Then you say: qui es in celis. Although God is everywhere, nevertheless he dwells more intimately in the saints, who are called “heaven,” since his grace enlightens them more brightly. These words admonish you to pray that you yourselves might become heavens, wherein God may be pleased to dwell.
Thereafter you say: Sanctificetur nomen tuum. God’s name was always hallowed. You ask that the name “our Father” be so hallowed in yourselves that through your good works you might be worthy to be called his sons. For you are called Christians after Christ, and you beg that you might become one body in Christ, so that you might secure hallowdom with him in his kingdom.
Whence, standing on the second rung, you say: Adueniat regnum tuum. That is, may God be pleased to reign in you through grace, and make you worthy of his kingdom.
