Worship in Medieval and Modern Europe: Change and Continuity in Religious Practice (review)

In introducing this immensely important collection of eleven essays John Witvliet asserts what has become something of a truism regarding the study of liturgy, namely, that it is "because worship practices are of interest to a variety of scholarly disciplines: cultural anthropology, visual art and architecture, music, rhetoric, theology, and cultural and social history," its study is "an inherently interdisciplinary task" (p. 2). But few have demonstrated as well as these authors how at least some of these disciplines can be brought to bear in order to refine an appropriate method for studying liturgy—both in the past and in the present.

The book's subtitle—"change and continuity"—reflects well the thesis of the symposium at which these papers were delivered. Each is a case study in liturgical change brought about in the late medieval period as a result of the work of the reformers and the Council of Trent. This is not a book for beginners. The level of scholarship requires some grounding in the political, cultural, theological, and ecclesiastical climate of these times. But anyone with such familiarity will benefit greatly from this inherently interdisciplinary treatment of worship in this period.

Each essay is similarly structured: (brief) introduction by the editors, a selection of primary texts which are the material to be commented upon in the essay, and then the essay itself. The reproduction of such primary source material itself makes an important contribution simply because much writing about worship practices in this period can be over-generalized and not based in specific sources. The accompanying essays almost always offer important nuances and critique to conventional "wisdom" about the changes that occurred in liturgy during this period. The authors almost always note that change accompanied continuity and that even within each liturgical tradition represented here (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, etc.) there was significant variety in the liturgies celebrated.

The essays are helpfully divided into five sections. The first, "starting points for assessing change and continuity," contains essays about daily devotion by lay people in the diocese of Rheims (by Margot Fassler) and a glimpse into worship in Geneva before and after the Reformation (by Robert Kingdon). Each of these essays deals with a small piece of the late medieval tapestry and yet in doing so the authors offer important nuances on "tried and true" presumptions from an older generation of authors (e.g., Fassler's skillful use and critique of the work of Josef Jungmann).

The second, "complexities of location and time period," also contains two essays. Frank Senn's review of the move from the late medieval Latin to the Mass in Swedish (the title is "The Mass in Swedish: From Swedish to Latin?") reflects the stated aim of the collection where his insights about popular participation, music, and ritual complement his insightful study of the texts of the liturgy. Bodo Nischan's study of the use of altars in Lutheran practice and communion tables in Reformed practice is especially apt given the emphasis on liturgical practice in these essays.

In the third section, entitled "worship outside of 'Church,'" each author deals with an aspect of medieval liturgy not often noted in generalized treatments of this period. Karin Maag's about the practice of worship in schools and Susan Felch's on "the development of the English Prayer Book" offer important insight about the everyday worship of many in the period, which worship was conducted outside of official liturgies in churches. The essay by Katherine Elliott van Liere on the reform of the medieval breviary undertaken by Cardinal Quiñones is extremely important for those who want to trace the rise and fall of this proposed reform, and the rationale both for his revision and why it was rejected.

In the fourth section on "rites of passage" the revision of the Catholic rite for baptism by Lutherans and...