Lost in Sacred Space: Textual Hermeneutics, Liturgical Worship, and Celano’s Legenda Ad Usum Chori

LOST IN SACRED SPACE: TEXTUAL HERMENEUTICS, LITURGICAL WORSHIP, AND CELANO’S LEGENDA AD USUM CHORI Thomas of Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori,1 or Legend fo r Use in the Choir, has attracted scant, sustained attention from scholars intent on exploring the historical dimensions of Francis of Assisi’s life.2Although Celano’s summary efforts in the Legenda ad usum chori to provide a portable, breviary legenda of the Poverello offers selected new insights in Francis’s life,3the abiding importance of friar Thomas’s efforts in the liturgical arena lies elsewhere. Later liturgical texts, such as Julian of Speyer’s elegant Divine Office o f Saint Francis and Bonaventure’s finely crafted M inor Life o f Saint Francis, definitively supersede the Legenda ad usum chori in both literary and theological sophistication. This essay holds that the significance of the Legenda ad usum chori lies, instead, at the crossroads of architecture, pictorial art, and aural recitation where the memory of the saint is evoked, proclaimed, celebrated, and received within a textual community of Franciscan friars. Scholars note the broad impact of liturgical legenda texts on the brothers as well as the faithful who joined with them to commemorate the feast of Saint Francis. Jacques Dalarun underlines the influence of the Legenda ad usum chori on the formation of the fraternal remembrance of Francis and the propagation of that common memory 1Strictly speaking, the author of the Legenda ad usum chori is anonymous. Scholars are unanimous, however, in attributing this work to Thomas of Celano. For an overview of the authorship question and textual tradition of the Legenda ad usum chori, see: Fernando Uribe, Introducción a las hagiografías de San Francisco y Santa Clara de Asís. Murcia: Editorial Espigas, 1999: 92-95. I would like to thank Jacques Dalarun, who graciously read and commented upon this study, and Hans Christoffersen, who followed it faithfully from conception to completion. 2Chiara Frugoni’s work on the stigmata is the exception among scholars; see: Chiara Frugoni, Francesco e l ’invenzione delle stimmate: Una Storia per Parole e Im m agini fin o a Bonaventura e Giotto (Torino: Guilio Einaudi Editore, 1993). Jacques Dalarun, La M alavventura di Francesco d ’Assisi: P er un Uso Storico delle L eggende Francescane (Milano: Edizioni Biblioteca Francescana, 1996) 68-69. See also: Stanislao da Campagnola, “La Legenda Maior e la Legenda Minor Sancii Francisci di Bonaventura da Bagnoregio” in Fontes Franciscani: Introduzioni Critiche, ed. Stefano Brufani et al. (Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola: 1997) 37. Franciscan Studies 59 (2001) 109 110 T im othyJ. J ohnson among the faithful through the preaching of the brothers.4Stanislao da Campagnola notes the crucial role of another liturgical legend, Bonaventure’s Minor Life o f Saint Francis, in diffusing the image of the saint within the context of artistic representations and liturgical space proper to the Franciscan community.5 The relationship between Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori and liturgical space provides the impetus and outline for this essay; it maintains that this literary commemoration of Francis of Assisi within the textual community of the friars heralds a decisive utilization and production of architectural space in general, and liturgical space, in particular, that differs from the founder’s earlier perspective on space and spirituality. Thomas of Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori, together with early artistic representations of Francis and the construction of churches representative of the community’s changing identity and apostolic endeavors, marks the initial attempts of the brothers to structure, wherever they gathered, a common liturgical identity around the historical figure of the poor man from Assisi. This essay focuses, therefore, on how liturgical space is produced or constructed so the Legenda ad usum chori may be situated and interpreted in the historical context of the Franciscan textual communities. Special attention is given to Henri Lefebvre’s seminal work, The Production o f Space,6 as it offers numerous insights into the often overlooked, yet significant relationship between architecture and social relationships. Brian Stock’s, Listening for the Text,1together with Dennett Rafoth’s reflections on discourse communities,8 allows for a nuanced appreciation of the relationship between writers and readers. The utilization of conceptual...