The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography (review)

The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography. Edited by Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. [xxiv, 632 p. ISBN 0-19-512453-7. $75.]

In an extensive volume comprising six sections--on methodology, the early Office, manuscript research, regional traits, hagiography, and computing--an international group of specialists addresses a variety of topics concerning the medieval Office. Some of its twenty-three essays represent cutting-edge liturgiological or musicological research. Peter Jeffrey, for instance, traces Eastern influence in the pre-Carolingian Irish liturgy, drawing on a variety of sources but particularly the Bangor Antiphoner. He offers fresh insights into this manuscript's provenance and possible relation to northern Italian centers, throwing its connection with Ireland into doubt. One also learns much here, and in Margot Fassler's introduction, about Office traditions in the Holy Land and Egypt, and about early sources of the Western Office.

For her part and on a very different topic, Barbara Haggh demonstrates that certain occasions commemorated with polyphony or special chants at the side chapels of Cambrai Cathedral in the fifteenth century had only a small place, if any at all, on that cathedral's calendar. Such was the case with Guillaume Du Fay's foundations for the feasts of St. Anthony of Padua and St. William of Maleval; he also composed an extensive Office for St. Waudru, as well as a polyphonic Office for the Dead and Requiem Mass probably intended for performance on the anniversary of his death. Haggh's analysis of the music sources of some of these and other works, such as the Marian antiphons, suggests that melodic variants may have come about as a matter of an individual founder's wish as much as through geographical location or liturgical use. The possibilities for greater musical and liturgical diversity than might be expected from any given center are apparent.

Authors whose objectives are more limited likewise chronicle the current state of research. The late James McKinnon's essay examines Office chants in the context of the formation of the Roman repertory. Following the thesis developed in his last book, The Advent Project: The Later-Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), he demonstrates how, due to a monastic penchant for symmetry and order, the numerical apportionment of psalms in the Office was part of a broader liturgical trend toward fixity. Michel Huglo contributes a brief yet valuable description of a Cluniac processional at Solesmes. László Dobszay focuses on practical aspects of manuscript antiphoners, including the distinction between missing items and true omissions, and understanding surplus chants. Andrew Hughes describes the trials and tribulations of using the computer to catalog and edit rhymed Offices, offering valuable suggestions for deciphering the CD-ROM data included with his Late Medieval Liturgical Offices: Resources for Electronic Research (2 vols., Subsidia Mediaevalia, 23-24 [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1994-96]). Besides these, there are contributions by Anne Walters Robertson (on the revival of the Gallican practice of singing an antiphon before the Gospel and the connection of these late chants with Gospel antiphons in the Office), David Hiley (the historia of St. Julian), Gunilla Iversen (St. Olav), and Janka Szendrei (St. Augustine).

Among the essays on regional traditions and individual manuscripts, Terence Bailey's makes a case for appreciating the Vespers antiphons in the Old Milanese Sanctorale as chronological strata. His analysis of text types and conclusions concerning their dates help us understand more completely the impact on the Ambrosian rite of Charlemagne's conquest of northern Italy, particularly in the tendency to adapt older antiphons to new feasts and liturgical functions rather than creating new chants. James Grier examines early-eleventh-century sources from St. Martial in Limoges, finding in one Office book (F-Pn lat. 1085...