The Leofric Missal (review)

The Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodley 579) is, as its latest editor says, "a hugely complex book." That very complexity makes it exceptionally interesting to connoisseurs of Anglo-Saxon liturgy and also to historians of earlier medieval Europe. In 1883 F. E. Warren made it "fittingly, the first Anglo-Saxon liturgical source to receive anything like a modern edition," as Richard Pfaff wrote in 1995. But "though there was a gratifying simplicity about Warren's analysis," Pfaff added, this composite manuscript "can no longer be regarded as, so to speak, the foundation document for the study of [Anglo-Saxon massbooks]." Further, because Warren did not number the individual prayers, comparison was difficult—and comparison is exactly what is needed, if this book's sources and successive phases of construction are to be understood. Now Nicholas Orchard has given us an exemplary new edition, allowing 'Leofric' to be situated at the heart of early medieval culture where, naturally, it drew on multiple centers and peripheries. This work is absolutely in line with the purposes of the Henry Bradshaw Society, which is now chaired with tremendous energy and skill by Michael Lapidge, and whose first Council, in 1890, was, as Lapidge himself gracefully acknowledges in his preface, adorned by Warren's presence.

Orchard has produced an exemplary edition of the 2,939 separate prayer-formulae in the 514 pages of Volume II, together with Volume I's Collation Tables(the forty-one items whose contents are here displayed show the huge potential for further comparative research) and Indices, along with comprehensive bibliographies of manuscripts and secondary works (pp. 235-387). A substantial Introduction, in effect a fine monograph in itself, forms the rest of Volume I. The three successive liturgical components of the book are clearly distinguished, sourced, and contextualized (in Volume II, each is typographically distinct too). The first, A, is an eighth-century Gelasian sacramentary, with additions, in a compilation made at Canterbury in the early years of the tenth century (Orchard suggests that the consecration of Wells cathedral in 908/9 offers a dating-point for the church-dedication rite in A). The second, B, consists of a calendar and other liturgical matter clearly associated with Canterbury and datable to the third quarter of the tenth century. The third, C, represents a relatively small amount of material derived from the PRG and added to the manuscript at Exeter in the third quarter of the eleventh century. Orchard's discussion of A is lengthy (pp. 23-131), because most contention has centered on it. Orchard argues, against several other scholars, and developing the work of the late Christopher Hohler, that A was compiled in England. This makes sense of the following: a hybrid temporal including Italian as well as northern Frankish elements; a sanctoral with Italian and Anglo-Saxon traits; Masses of diverse origin but including a series of votives by Alcuin; a rare prayer for St. Patrick which indicates a link with Wells; a litany linked with the dedication of a church; and a pontifical that includes ordinations and a king's consecration ordo, as well as much other material, containing features "undoubtedly English." The king's ordo has, as Orchard notes, attracted "immense" attention: rightly so, it now transpires, since its unequivocal Englishness provides important (though contributory rather than necessary) support to Orchard's general argument.

Orchard's further achievement is to have related each of the three component parts, in turn, to the initiatives of three individuals. The connexions of B with Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury, and of C with Bishop Leofric of Exeter, are none the less important for having been long acknowledged. Both these churchmen have had the benefit of a lot of recent research, and for each, Orchard draws on others' work, as well...