The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One (review)

Durandus’s Rationale divinorum officiorum surely deserves a place in the Records of Western Civilization. It was the definitive “summa” of the centuriesold tradition of commentary on the liturgy in all its aspects, including especially its interconnection with canon law. The number of manuscript and print editions known or assumed to be in circulation (see p. xxii) and the translations into medieval and early-modern vernaculars are a gauge of the Rationale’s popularity and influence. Two modern translations extended the Rationale’s influence to the Gothic revival and other medievalisms of the later nineteenth century: Charles Barthélemy’s translation of the entire work into French in 1854, and John Mason Neale and Benjamin Webb’s translation of book I with essays, notes, and other items, published in 1843 as The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments: A Translation of the First Book of the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, and reprinted many times.

This volume is offered as a replacement for the Neale and Webb translation, which is considered obsolete partly because it is based on uncritical versions of the text and partly because it is “too antiquated for the modern English-speaking student of medieval liturgy and architecture” (p. xxv). However, it is not only the archaisms of the Neale and Webb version that challenge contemporary students, but the content of Durandus’s work as well, and a glossary of technical liturgical terms would have made a useful appendix to this new translation.

The translator, Timothy Thibodeau, has contributed significantly to scholarship on Durandus’s Rationale, as a collaborator on its first critical edition (Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis [hereafter CCCM] 140, 140A, 140B, Turnhout, 1995–2000) and as author of a series of studies (see bibliography, p. 126). Thibodeau signals (p. xxvi) that he has taken a few liberties— “. . . I have striven for readability and faithfulness to the spirit rather than the letter of what he said”—but both letter and spirit are, unfortunately, too often sacrificed for this translation to be earnestly recommended. The translation contains many slips that the reader might have expected either the translator or the readers provided by Columbia University Press to have caught.

Comparison of selected portions of the translation to the CCCM text revealed two principal types of errors: those due to inadvertence and those due to forcing the text into some plausible meaning without sufficient analysis. Space limitations preclude an extensive list of these; the following examples are referenced by section and line number, with discrepancies underlined.

Due to Inadvertence

From book I.1.316ff:

significant contemplatiuos in quibus Deus sine offensa quiescit.

“signify the contemplatives who remain at rest in God without offense ”

From book I.4.74f:

funus usque ad manus quibus continetur extenditur,

“the rope extends even beyond the hand of the one holding it”

From book I.4.167f:

campane tempore interdicti silent quia sepe ob delictum subditorum impeditur lingua predicatorum

“during a time of interdict, the bells are silent because often on account of the crime of those under interdict , the tongue of the preacher is obstructed”

Due to a Misunderstanding of a Passage or Its Background

From book I.1.61f:

Quandoque mater quia cotidie in baptismo spirituales filios Deo parit et quandoque filia iuxta illud Prophete: Pro patribus tuis nati sunt tibi filii . Item quandoque ponitur uidua quia propter pressuras nigrescit et ut Rachel non consolatur.

“Sometimes it is called a mother because she daily provides God with spiritual sons through Baptism; sometimes, she is called a daughter, according to the Prophet: In place of your fathers, daughters are born to you [Ps. 44:17]. Also, the Church is regarded as a widow, because on account of her afflictions, she grows dark, just as Rachel could not be consoled [cf. Jer...