PIMSPontifical Institute
of
Mediaeval Studies

The last thirty years have greatly revised many older assumptions on medieval liturgy. These essays reflect that development. By focusing on manuscript examples of local practice, they replace the older model of reform by top-down legislation with one of greater complexity and local diversity. Together they show the reforms were not an imposition of a normative “prototype” but a work in process that not only included reworking of older texts and music but also entirely new compositions.

The contributions also expand scholarly focus beyond the liturgy of the friars to include that of cloistered nuns, Dominican penitent women, and lay people present at the liturgy. As such, they reflect a shift to a more “anthropological” and less “philological” approach, a move from an understanding of liturgy as a “text” to liturgy as a “performance.” That change especially inflects the essays on the cult of Thomas.

Thomas’s cult had a political as well as a religious dimension. The liturgy at the saint’s shrine in Toulouse occurred within a complex architectural and material environment that itself underwent continuous physical development. The Dominican liturgy was always presented and reinterpreted through the sermons preached during its performance. Thus, this volume fittingly closes with an edition of, and commentary on, the oldest known sermons on Thomas, probably preached at his shrine in Toulouse.

Contents

List of Figures • vii

AUGUSTINE THOMPSON, O.P. • Introduction • 1

Part I: Humbert of Romans’s Reforms and their Reception
DOMINIK JURCZAK, O.P. • Diversitas, unitas, and uniformitas in the Early Dominican Liturgy • 12
INNOCENT SMITH, O.P. • A Tale of Two Missals: The Missale conventuale and Missale minorum altarium in the Exemplars of the Reformed Dominican Liturgy • 33
CJ JONES • Et tibi, mater: Women’s Communal Confession and the Dominican Confiteor in the Office • 79
AUGUSTINE THOMPSON, O.P. • The Officium of the Dominican Penitents, 1286–1405 • 99

Part II: Dominican Music and Chant
CONSTANT J. MEWS • The Custom of the Poets: John of Garland and Jerome of Moray (Moravia) on Literature and Music • 116
ELEANOR J. GIRAUD • Humbert’s Codex: Prototype, Final Product, Work in Progress, or All of the Above? • 142
MARGOT E. FASSLER • The Dominican Magdalene Office: An Overview of the Early Liturgical Sources • 159

Part III: The Liturgies of St Thomas Aquinas
MARIKA RÄSÄNEN • The Translatio Narrative for the Relics of St Thomas in the First Nocturn of Matins • 195
RICHARD ALFRED SUNDT • The Functioning of the Dominican Church in Toulouse and the Shrines of St Thomas Aquinas • 217
M. MICHÈLE MULCHAHEY • Preaching Thomas Aquinas: Newly Discovered Sermons for the Feast and Translation • 250 

Epilogue: Liturgical Events during the Conference
INNOCENT SMITH, O.P. • In the Midst of the Church: A Homily for the Feast of Thomas Aquinas • 350

Contributors • 354
Index of Manuscripts • 357
General Index • 359

Editor

Augustine Thompson, O.P. is the Praeses of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. He previously taught medieval religious history at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, the University of Virginia, and the University of Oregon. His books and articles, focused especially on high medieval Italian religious and intellectual history, include most recently Dominican Brothers: Conversi, Lay, and Cooperator Friars (2017); Francis of Assisi: A New Biography (2012); and Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–1325 (2005).

Endorsement

“Ritual Life in the Medieval Dominican Order represents an important milestone for Dominican and liturgical studies. The book offers a cross-disciplinary study of the rites of Dominican friars, nuns, and lay penitents in the Middle Ages, in the context of a more global religious history. The volume spans the history of the offices from the generalate of Humbert of Romans onwards, the worship of saints (especially Mary Magdalene and Thomas Aquinas), and the scope of communal confession, drawing on a renewed study of texts, music, and architectural space. The ten essays gathered here, written by leading specialists in the field, offer original research supported by editions of manuscripts and hitherto unpublished materials. Historians, art historians, musicologists, and philologists will benefit greatly from reading these thought-provoking and rigorous analyses.” — Haude Morvan, Université Bordeaux Montaigne

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