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  • Sapientia et Eloquentia: Meaning and Function in Liturgical Poetry, Music, Drama, and Biblical Commentary in the Middle Ages
  • Mariusz Beclawski
Iversen, Gunilla and Nicolas Bell, eds, Sapientia et Eloquentia: Meaning and Function in Liturgical Poetry, Music, Drama, and Biblical Commentary in the Middle Ages (Disputatio, 11), Turnhout, Brepols, 2009; hardback; pp. xiv, 558; 16 b/w illustrations, 3 b/w tables; R.R.P. €100; ISBN 9782503520575.

In this volume, Gunilla Iversen and Nicolas Bell offer their readers a selection of medieval liturgical 'functional poetry', along with commentaries and glosses on poetic genres which fall into the liturgical and didactic spheres within 'monastic' and 'prescholastic' culture respectively. The phrase 'liturgical poetry' highlights the fact that the new poetic forms, i.e. hymns, sequences and tropes, were fundamentally Christian. The volume seeks to show how medieval authors and musicians found new ways of using old material.

What makes it such a valuable contribution to the study of medieval poetry and music is the use of specific manuscript sources in a series of case studies. These (there are nine in total) are interwoven with Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback's two philosophical studies ('On St Augustine - Time, Music, and Theology' and 'Sancta Sonatina: Reflections on Sound and Meaning'), which are aimed at stimulating reflections on the other contributions. The case studies themselves are organized into three sections: the first examines selected ninth-century texts which exhibit new and influential literary forms; the second encompasses the analysis of related material from the twelfth century; and the third considers thirteenth-century commentaries describing early sequence texts.

Many of the authors approach the medieval manuscripts they examine from different and innovative angles. A case in point is the Antiphoner of Charles the Bald (BnF lat. 17436), which, as a well-known ninth-century manuscript, is usually analysed from a liturgical and historical viewpoint. Here, Marie-Noël Colette considers it from a musicological and poetic perspective as an early source of sequences.

The nine case studies can be briefly summarized as follows: The first two focus on novel musical and poetic creations in ninth-century liturgy. In 'Psallite regi nostro, psallite', Gunila Iversen analyses different variations and functions of 'Alleluia' in singing, and the emergence of maiestas domini in ninth-century poetry. Colette's first paper (mentioned above), 'The place and Function of Music in a Liturgical Context: The Earliest Witness of Sequences and Versus ad sequentias in the Antiphoner of Charles the Bald and Other Early Sources' refers to the earliest witnesses of sequences and versus ad sequentias. [End Page 238]

Next, Alexander Andrée's 'From Propheta plangens to Rethor divines: Toward an Understanding of the Rhetorical Hermeneutics of Gilbert the Universal in his Gloss on Lamentations' addresses the procedure of transforming an old text into a new form by giving it a new time and setting. Nils Holger Petersen's article 'Biblical Reception, Representational Ritual, and the Question of "Liturgical Drama"' approaches the text known today as Sponsus in a new devotional and theological context. 'From Jubilus to Learned Exegesis: New Liturgical Poetry in Twelfth-Century Nevers', Iversen's second paper, examines new liturgical poetry from the twelfth century, relying on the texts in the Nevers manuscript.

Colette's second paper, 'A Witness to Poetic and Musical Invention in the Twelfth Century: The Troper-Proser of Nevers (BnF n.a.lat. 3126)' analyses Abelard's verse Epithalamica which was used as a sequence in the Easter liturgy for the Paraclete, and other new compositions found in twelfth-century Nevers and Aquitania. In 'Letters, Liturgy, and Identity: The Use of Epithalamica at the Paraclete', William T. Flynn looks at Epithalamica in more detail, considering the liturgical and institutional context for which the text was written, in light of Abelard and Heloise's insights. The next paper, 'Readings and Interpretations of Boethius's De institutione musica in the Later Middle Ages', contributed by Nicolas Bell, is devoted to analysing various reinterpretations and uses of the flagship text by Boethius as it was voiced in the later centuries. Erika Kihlman, in her article 'Understanding a Text: Presentation and Edition of a Sequence Commentary in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F. 6. 8', takes up sequence...

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