Liturgica historica; papers on the liturgy and religious life of the Western church

Preface

The papers contained in this volume were written in a period extending over the last thirty years. They may all, I think, be described as ' occasional '.

So far as those included in the first part (' Liturgica ') are concerned, only one is really ' popular '—the first. The rest are more or less technical, though not perhaps always in the usual and proper technical form. In reprinting them I have reviewed and revised them all. To some new supplementary notes are added, running somehow in more than one case to a length almost equalling that of the original paper ; and to all, or nearly all, additional foot-notes have been freely added. This new matter is printed in square brackets. A supplementary note which stood at the end of No. VII has been suppressed for reasons specified at p. 163. As regards No. X, On the Origin of the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, there are reasons why it is altogether desirable to reprint it in the shape in which it originally appeared in 1886. And as it stands in this volume, the end of the supplementary note, pp. 250-9, is really the concluding part of the original paper itself. Had I to write such a paper now, and with present knowledge, it would be cast in a different shape. No. XV has been entirely rewritten and retains but a few shreds of the original preliminary notice in Neues Archiv.

Mgr Mercati has been kind enough to let me print here his paper More 'Spanish Symptoms' (No. VIII a), which first appeared in the Journal of Theological Studies.

It may be well to explain what is the object of, what is the connecting link between, the very miscellaneous-looking papers composing this first half of the volume.

The first paper indicates the conditions determining the developcviii PREFACE

merit of the Western Mass in the critical period, the seventh centur}'^ to the tenth, in which the fusion of the two great types of religiousness, the Roman and the Hispano-Gallican, took place. The second is an illustration of the same subject, from an earlier to a much later period, from the point of view of one single material object, the Christian Altar.

Nos. Ill, IV, V, and XV are devoted to three points : — First, the precise fixation of the form and contents of the Gregorian Sacramentary, or Book of Mass and Sacraments, at the earliest stage of its history at which the full text of that book is presented to us in the extant manuscripts, namely, the time of Pope Hadrian I, in the closing decades of the eighth century. Secondly, an explanation of the process to which this book was subjected in France when it was officially adopted as the Sacramentary of the future by Charlemagne. Incidentally it is shewn that the author of the Supplement added in France to Hadrian's Gregoriammi was Alcuin. Thirdly, the fixation of the text of the Gregorian Canon of the Roman Mass ; by which I mean the text of the Canon as settled by Gregory the Great,

The full value and result of the precise fixation of these three definite points may not at once appear evident or be adequately realized. It will become clear, I have no hesitation in saying, in the course of time. It will be seen that it becomes possible, working backward into the earliest period of the use of the Gelasian book, as the then Book of the Mass and Sacraments of the Roman Church, to see how Gregory discarded earlier practices, now out of date and almost meaningless, and modernized the rite. On the other hand — and this is much more important, and may to some appear more attractive — it will be possible to appraise the religious implications of the Gregorian book and understand what is, I venture to think, an almost astounding as it is a unique survival and conservation of old and simple ideas in regard to some matters that most deeply touch the Christian life. We shall then also be able to appreciate more justly and truly the Gallican type of religious mind, by way indeed of contrast.

Paper VI and the following numbers are each devoted to an

PREFACE ix

examination of some particular liturgical item, to the best of my ability, according to the methods to-day accepted and applied to the investigation of documents. Those particular items were not specially selected, but were dealt with simply because some occurrent incident set me to work upon them. Nor, as will be seen from what is said above as to the Gregorian Sacramentary, were they the most important items : far from it ; perhaps they may even count among insignificant ones. But it is the method that matters.

These papers of the first part, besides the fact of their technicality, were penned always with a sense that it needs wariness to take any step, whether forward or backward, in a region so obscure and so disputable as Early Liturgy, Eastern or Western. As said elsewhere, it is a region not merely full of pitfalls, but one where the paths are as sliddery and ' difficult ' as the via coliibri super petram. This at all events is an impression borne in upon me by the experience of a time that is now not far short of half a century. But (I would here repeat) half, perhaps the major part, of the difficulty lies in the ease with which theories and ' views ' have been allowed to outstrip the accurate investigation, or knowledge, of facts.

The antiquarian papers forming the second part of the volume were all originally printed in the Doivnsidc Rcviezv. If these tiny vignettes do not of themselves commend themselves to the reader, I have nothing further to advance in their favour. They were included simply because I liked them, as having given me occasion to write in my own natural style.

Before bringing these introductory words to a close I should like in some way to associate this book with the names of three liturgists of the last century whom I hold in very particular respect : Ernst Ranke, who first taught me the criticism of liturgical documents; Theodor Kliefoth, from whom I learnt that for a full and real understanding of ' Liturgy ' a lively interest in the forms and formulae of public worship in nothing less than the whole range of the communities that 'profess and call themselves Christians' is a necessity ; finally, and before all, our fellow-countryman G. H. Forbes,

X PREFACE

whose liturgical work, carried out in conditions of great difficulty in an obscure country place near Edinburgh, simple and modest as is its appearance, seems to me to rank in quality and value with the work of the three or four sonimitds — Cassander the pioneer, Bona, Tommasi, Mabillon. His Gallican Liturgies can never have been in the hands of many ; and now, overlaid by the great productivity of a later generation of liturgiologists, seems to have become practically forgotten, lost. A new edition, with the text revised on the manuscripts, some modifications or corrections of a certain kind in both text and marginalia, and the addition of the Missale Francornni, would be, so I consider, the best contribution to the study and understanding of Liturgy since his death, and a veritable boon to a young generation of students growing up after the war, among whom may (it is to be hoped) be found some who perceive that the history of Christian worship, in its varieties and differing forms through the centuries, is at the least and lowest a subject of human interest not less worthy of attention than the ancient religions of Greece and Italy.

Mr K. Sisam of Oxford has most kindly read the proof-sheets, and helped me with many suggestions relating to those inaccuracies of style which either debase the expression or obscure the meaning : helped me also to make alterations in some of the later papers, which improve their form and bring some of the arguments into clearness and evidence.

And what shall I say of the Clarendon Press? What can I say but express the wish that the contents of this volume were better worth the liberality, zeal, determination and speed with which, in days of unexampled stress, the book has been carried through ? For after all I must recognize that it is but a volume of scraps, with only this of unity that they are the product of the native sense of a single brain, occupied ever in the space of half a century with the problems of our early religious history as Western Christians. And so at the age of threescore years and beyond, thus gathering together these fragments ne pcrcant, I commit the volume to the judgement and I would fain hope the indulgence also of my readers. And if any of

PREFACE

XI them should find use or profit in the perusal of anything contained in

this volume, their thanks are due to Dom Hugh Connolly, without

whose help this collection of papers would certainly never have

reached the printer's hands.

EDMUND BISHOP.

Mr Edmund Bishop died on February 19, 19 17, leaving still unfinished the proof-sheets of this book, to which he gave the last of his strength. By his wish we have undertaken the final revision ; and as most of the papers in their present form differ from the original prints, sometimes substantially, sometimes in details of word or phrase, it seems necessary to assure the reader that these changes are due to the author himself. Mr Bishop had carefully revised all the slip proofs ; and, still more minutely, the sheets of the first twelve papers. He had long since delegated to Dom Connolly the verification of references and quotations, and the compilation of the indexes. There remained only the minutiae of proof correction ; so that the volume appears in the form which the author had chosen as final.

R. H. C.

K. S.

Part I : Liturgical

I. The Genius of the Roman Rite ....

II. On the History of the Christian Altar .

III. The Earliest Roman Mass Book (the Gelasianum)

IV. On some Early Manuscripts of the Gregorianum V. On the Early Texts of the Roman Canon

VI. Kyrie Eleison : A Liturgical Consultation

VII. The Litany of Saints in the Stowe Missal

VIII. * Spanish Symptoms '

VIII A. More ' Spanish Symptoms ' (by Mgr G. MercatO

IX. On the Origin of the Prymer ....

X. On the Origins of the Feast of the Conception of THE Blessed Virgin Mary ....

XI. Origins of the Cope as a Church Vestment

XII. Holy Week Rites of Sarum, Hereford and Rouen compared

XIII. Of Six Candles on the Altar : an Enquiry

XIV. Angilbert's Ritual Order for Saint-Riquier XV. A Letter of Abbat Helisachar ....

Part II : Antiquarian

XVI. Some Ancient Benedictine Confraternity Books

XVII. A Benedictine Confr.\ter of the Ninth Century

XVIII. An Antiquary of the Ninth Century (Agnellus of Ravenna)

XIX. About an Old Prayer Book

XX. Gifts of Bishop Henry of Blois, Abbat of Glaston BURY, to Winchester Cathedral

XXI. From an Old Note-Book

PAGE

I

39 62

137 165 203 211

238 260

276 301 314 333

349 362

370 384

XIV

CONTENTS

XXII. How A Cathedral was Built in the Fourteenth Century (Milan Cathedral) ....

XXIII. Character Sketches from Mediaeval Inventories

XXIV. Leaves from the Diary of a Papal Master of Cere

MONIES

XXV. Pastor Dreygerwolt's Note-Book

XXVI. Abbat Stengel

XXVII. Richelieu and the Benedictines .

XXVIII. Historical Critics on the Critical Art

Addenda ....

Index of MSS referred to page

411 422

434 444

453 462

485 487

PART I: LITURGICAL

THE GENIUS OF THE ROMAN RITE ^

It is with much diffidence that I venture to address any assembly on the subject of this paper, or, indeed, discuss the Liturgy at all. On questions connected with the origin, the relations, the extension, or the history of the Roman rite, much has indeed been said and learnedly written any time during this last fifty or sixty years ; much has been disputed with regard to it within certain circles, and hotly disputed too. Yet, after all, as the result of so much labour and zeal it cannot be said, I think, that much real knowledge of the subject exists. By ' real hioivledge ' I mean knowledge of such a kind as can be grasped by the educated man who is no specialist, but who, regarding the Roman Liturgy as a factor, and no inconsiderable factor, in the religious history of the past, desires to possess some common notions as to its character, compared with other rites that have existed in the Christian world ; and would wish to know why, whilst they have been discarded, it has become so widely spread and is now universal throughout the West. Learned volume accumulates on learned volume, theory is elaborated after theory, and yet the remark which has been reported to me of an eminent historical writer, accustomed to all the niceties of critical enquiry, has only too much justification. ' In the course of my studies of the early middle ages ', he said, ' I have not infrequently had need to obtain information on liturgical subjects in order to understand the general history. I turn to the most authorized books on the subject, and I confess I cannot understand them, or bring what they say into accord with the results obtained by the accepted modern methods of investigation.'

I am afraid I may have already managed to possess my hearers with a somewhat unfavourable opinion in regard, generally, to the subject of this essay. I should be sorry to do so, for it is really a subject of deep interest, and one which it is desirable that, as Catholics, we should be able to understand. And my belief is that

* A paper read at the meeting of the Historical Research Society at Archbishop's House, Westminster, on May 8, 1899, and first printed in the Weekly Register, May 1899 (three articles).

the history of our sacred rites should be matter quite capable of rational and simple exposition.

But our subject this evening is a much narrower one. It will be well, first of all, to understand precisely what is meant by the title of this essay : ' The Genius of the Roman Rite.' Some one a very long time ago described Genius as ' Son of the Gods and Father of Men '. It is thus we speak of the Genius of a people — the French or the English, the German or the Italian ; a something intangible and indefinable, it is true, but a permanent reality that we can quite well apprehend ; a characteristic and distinguishing spirit that manifests itself in all that that people says and does, in its history and its literature ; determining the character of both, and affecting the general character even of its thought.

An enquiry into the genius of the Roman rite is therefore an endeavour to get at, and to recognize, the particular, the native spirit animating and penetrating that rite, which differentiates it from others, Gallican or Gothic, Greek or Oriental. If we can, as I say, get at this and bring it into clear recognition, it is reasonable to anticipate that a great step will have been taken towards understanding how it has come about that this rite has so far recommended itself as to supersede all others in Western Christendom. I say ' all others ', viewing the Ambrosian rite as really Roman at bottom. Of course, to some minds, the idea of a simple fiat of authority is sufficient explanation for any or all such change. But, as a fact, it is not commonly so that great changes do come about in this world. When the case is looked closely into, it is generally found that sound reason and rational method, after all, play the great part in human revolutions.

Our first business is to turn not to remains of antiquity, accessible for the most part to the learned only, but to the authorized and official Roman service books in current use, with which we are all familiar ; and especially to the missal, the missal being the most important of them all. Perusing the masses for the ecclesiastical year in the Roman missal, or the votive masses, the attentive reader who has no theories on the Liturgy, who will divest himself of book learning on the subject and be content to note and observe just what is obviously there, cannot fail to perceive how different in character, style, and feeling are many of the prayers of the missal. Here is an example which I hope will bring home what I mean ; it is in no way an extreme case, and I choose it for that very reason. The prayers taken for comparison are the collect, secret, and post-communion (i) for All Souls Day, (2) those prescribed for the Living and the Dead to be said in the third place on Ash Wednesday and during Lent.

I. Collect. — O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful.

grant to the souls of Thy servants departed the remission of all their sins, that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon which they have always desired.

Secret. — Mercifully look down,0 Lord, we beseech Thee, upon this Sacrifice which we offer to Thee for the souls of Thy servants ; that to those to whom Thou didst grant the merit of Christian faith, Thou mayest also grant its reward.

Post- Communion. — We beseech Thee, O Lord, that the prayer of Thy suppliants may benefit the souls of Thy servants ; that Thou mayest deliver them from all their sins, and make them partakers of fhy redemption.

The following are the corresponding prayers ' for the Living and the Dead ', prescribed to be said throughout Lent.

1. Colleet.—O Almighty and Eternal God, who hast dominion over the living and the dead, and art merciful to all whom Thou foreknowest shall be Thine by faith and good works ; we humbly beseech Thee that they for whom we have determined to offer up our prayers, whether the present world still detains them in the flesh, or the future hath already received them out of the body, may, by the intercession of all Thy saints, and the clemency of Thy pity, obtain the pardon of all their sins.

Secret. — O God, who alone knowest the number of the elect who are to be placed in supernal felicity, grant, we beseech Thee, that, by the intercession of all Thy Saints, the names of all those who have been commended to our prayers, and of all the faithful, may be kept in that book of blessed predestination.

Post-Comvmnion. — May the mysteries which we have received purify us, we beseech Thee, O Almighty and Merciful God, and by the intercession of all Thy Saints, grant that this Thy sacrament may not be made unto us a means of condemnation, but of pardon and salvation ; may it be the washing away of sins ; the strength of the weak ; protection against all the dangers of the world ; and the remission of all the sins of the faithful, living and dead.

It suffices, I think, only to listen to the reading of these prayers to perceive how different are the two sets in spirit, in feeling, and in the run of ideas. In the one set the ideas are as simple and elementary as the expression is pregnant and precise : they are plain matter of fact, without imagination at all. In the second set we are in a different region — in one aspect vague and figurative, as with the ' book of blessed predestination ' ; in another, in the midst of theological ideas, the fruit of Christian reflection and speculation — with ' the number of the elect ' and ' those whom Thou foreknowest shall be Thine by faith and good works '. Again, the plain designation, ' the souls of Thy

B 2 servants departed ', becomes in the second set, ' those whom the future world hath already received out of the body '. Once more the simple petition for the forgiveness of sins and the partaking of the redemption becomes in the second set of prayers quite a litany.

I am not now saying ' this is Roman' or ' that is not Roman ' ; I am not even saying that these two sets of prayers could not have been written by one and the same man. But I do say that in that case his mood, and sense, and feeling, issuing in his style, must have been very different on the two occasions ; and that there is a difference as great and as perceptible, as between the style of Addison and the style of Macaulay.

But when, on going further and endeavouring to trace back the history of the prayers just read, up to the earliest point at which I have any knowledge of them, I find that the one set comes from a book that is certainly, though not in every detail of its contents, Roman, and that the other set comes from a quarter that is not Roman, but may conveniently be called Gallican, a new aspect is given to the whole question, and I begin to see possibilities of historical investigation.

It has been said that one reason for choosing the foregoing example taken from within the covers of the Roman missal is that the contrast is not extreme. To illustrate, however, the differing ' genius ' of liturgical rites, I take a second example and compare a preface of the Roman rite, and the corresponding preface from the Spanish Gothic rite commonly called the Mozarabic.

Here is that marvellous preface for Pentecost in the Roman missal :

' It is truly meet and just, right and salutary, that we should always, and in all places, give thanks to Thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Eternal God, through Jesus Christ our Lord ; Who ascending above all heavens, and sitting at Thy right hand, poured forth the promised Holy Ghost this day upon the children of adoption. Wherefore with joy that knows no bounds the whole universe ^ exults ; the Powers, too, above and the Angelic Hosts together hymn Thy glory, saying evermore: Holy, Holy, Holy.'

It strikes one immediately as characteristic that, whilst in its preface for Pentecost our Roman rite takes only some eight lines to commemorate that great mystery, the Gothic preface takes some eighty lines. It would be impossible and wearisome to translate the whole ; but I give the beginning and the end as shewing the contrast with the Roman formula :

' It is meet and right, O God Almighty, to acknowledge, as far as

* Totus in orbe terrarum mundus. The prayers in which the Roman genius expresses itself are truly hard to render ; there have been in the past samples of excellence in that line, and yet to the fastidious ear and sense, even these, in all their old world beauty, are not satisfying after all.

man can do, Thy gracious benefit, and ever in yearly round to celebrate tile gift of eternal salvation granted this day. For who shall keep silent on the advent of Thy Holy Spirit, since through Thy Apostles every tongue of the barbarians finds voice ? But who can sufficiently tell the illapse of that fire on this day ? '

The preface then goes on by slow meander to reach and to develop the theme that the preservation of the unity of the faith is not prejudiced by the variety of languages spoken by the faithful. It proceeds, by and by, to touch on mystic meanings involved in the seven weeks or fifty days of Eastertide ; and comes round at length again to the idea of the unity of the faith in the diversity of the nations. The preface closes thus : ' O flame that in burning confers fruitfulness, whom every intellectual creature, vivified by it, confesses to be the Lord Omnipotent ; participating in whose fire in more abundant measure the Cherubim and Seraphim, magnifying the equality of the Holiness Divine and the Omnipotence of the Trinity, never resting and never wearying in their office, amidst the song of choirs of the celestial host, of crying aloud with everlasting jubilation, adore and glorify, saying : Holy, Holy, Holy.'

Prefaces, even those for the greatest mysteries of religion, worked out into trifling considerations, are no rare exception in these early Galilean and Spanish books. Read in the student's closet or the library, these books are of the deepest interest ; they contain also prayers of great beauty ; but when regarded as living rites, as giving the prayers actually said and sung in public, they not only proclaim themselves as the productions of a late, and sometimes of a barbarous age, but they evince a tone of mind, and are the product of a spirit alien to that which we have now become accustomed to regard as most befitting the Divine worship, tutored as we have so long been in the sobriety of Roman forms. Many fine things have been said of these books, and much sentiment has been expended on them, but they could not stand the test — a simple one — of a full translation into English.

Features that are most characteristic of them are not, indeed, wholly wanting in the Roman missal, as, for instance, in the third prayer for the blessing of the palms on Palm Sunday, which begins much like an ordinary collect, and then breaks forth into an expository instruction on the mystical meaning of the ceremony. ' The branches of palms, then, signify His triumph ', &c. ; — an exposition quite in place in an address to the people, but surely not so, according to our now common notions, in a prayer addressed to God ; yet the style here adopted is perfectly consonant with what is found in the prefaces of the early Galilean and Spanish missals.

We are, of course, now accustomed to a printed Roman missal, and to regard this stereotyped book, through practice, as a homogeneous whole. If we had nothing but the test of differences of style, it w^ould be impossible to get beyond speculation as to the possibly diverse elements of which the missal may be composed. As experience shews, scientific discussions on such a basis have no end, simply because no external criterion can be brought to bear on the subject. They are commonly, therefore, best given over altogether. Fortunately, however, in the present case such a criterion is available. We are able to decompose the present Roman missal, refer it to its sources, and recognize out of what elements or documents it is made up. The question, therefore, is no longer matter of arbitrary speculation, but of investigation into matter of fact. On this point, even so late as five years ago, I could not have spoken with full confidence. Since then I have seen, I think, every manuscript of real importance for the history of the missal at the critical period, and know now what precisely are the limits, or the contents, of the two documents, or volumes, of which our present missal was made up, and know also in a general but, I think, sufificient way what was the gradual course of the fusion of these two documents. One of them may be taken as genuinely Roman, without foreign admixture ; the other, though the substratum, indeed the bulk of it, is Roman, has been considerably modified by Gallican hands. In the course of the fusion several other non-Roman items have been introduced. This process was going on during the whole of the ninth century in France and Germany. As to the date at which the book thus brought together was received and adopted by the Roman Church, we are altogether in the dark ; but the Roman missal of the present day is unimpeachable evidence that it is a composite work ; whilst the evidence is equally clear that its compilation did not take place in Rome, and that Rome only adopted it ready made.

It has become possible, therefore, out of the whole complex or amalgam, to get at, and separate out, the genuine Roman elements ; and it is evident that through these latter only is it possible to realize what is the special contribution made by the Roman genius to the Liturgy of the Western Church. This can best be seen by some particular example ; and to give such an example must be the next stage of our enquiry.

As the most convenient one, we may take what we are all familiar with, viz, the text of the mass as it now stands in the Roman missal ; and, disembarrassing it of foreign elements, put ourselves in a position to consider the pure Roman product. These foreign elements may be called to a large extent French, and, for the most part, made their appearance in the Roman mass only in the later middle ages.

1. The Asperges, the psalm hidica with the following versicles, in fact everything said up to, and including, the prayers said by the priest when he ascends to the altar, are all non-Roman and of comparatively late introduction.

2. The Kyrie clcison was introduced at a much earlier period, viz. the second half of the fifth century. It was imported from the East ; it was not a native Roman element of the mass.

3. The same may be said of the Gloria in cxcclsis ; and of the Credo ; the former may have been introduced into the Roman mass in the sixth, the second in the eleventh century.