The Grammar of Good Friday: Macaronic Sermons of Late Medieval England by Holly Johnson (review)

Despite the work of many accomplished scholars in recent years, the field of sermon studies still has large tracts of unexplored territory. The sermons of even quite famous medieval preachers remain unstudied and unedited, let alone those of their far more numerous anonymous brethren. The task is difficult, as the texts often exist only in manuscript form in single copies with little identifying information about the author or the circumstances of delivery. It can seem a thankless task even to consider taking on such works, which do not always, it has to be said, boast the most delightful aspects of literary style. Yet sermons can yield much information about the way that the Christian message was delivered to the laity, especially in the late medieval period. They open up aspects of daily life through the examples laid out to explain dogma and morals to ordinary people, and they offer insights into techniques of learning and preaching that might otherwise go unnoticed. Holly Johnson’s The Grammar of Good Friday manages to combine all of these features into an accessible study of late medieval preaching.

Johnson, a professor of English at the University of Mississippi, addresses how the immensely popular Passion devotion of the late Middle Ages was delivered to the laity through sermons, which Johnson sees as an understudied method of propagation of this phenomenon (pp. xv–xvi). She focuses on England in its “golden age of preaching,” from ca. 1350–1450, and gives first an introduction to sermon studies in general, then a comprehensive study of the way that Passion devotion manifested itself in Good Friday sermons, and finally an edition and translation of five Good Friday sermons from late medieval England.

Johnson’s Introduction will be useful to nonspecialists as it defines the various kinds of sermons and sermon collections available in the period. Her work relies heavily on Siegfried Wenzel’s Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England (1994) and his Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England: Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif (2005), both of which pioneered the modern study of Latin and macaronic sermons (sermons in Latin with vernacular elements) in England since the work of G. R. Owst. The Introduction also lays out the parameters of the study and texts. She has utilized nine sermons as evidence for her study of Good Friday sermons and edited five (see below). She notes that of the four nonedited sermons, three can be found in editions in other works, and the fourth is quite similar to two of the other edited texts (pp. xix–xxx).

As part of her careful study of the texts, Johnson lays out the liturgical context of Passion preaching on Passion Sunday (the Sunday two weeks before Easter) and on Good Friday. She notes that most congregations in England encountered the liturgy through the Sarum Use, an adaptation of the Roman Rite utilized throughout England. In this context the most significant variant from the Continental version was the Sarum Use’s inclusion of “The Burial of the Cross” (p. 5). This ritual was part of the Veneration of the Cross, the most important aspect of the Good Friday liturgy. Two priests carried into the church a veiled cross which was then unveiled in three stages. Once it was unveiled, the priests and people approached barefoot and then on their knees in the “Creeping to the Cross” (pp. 6–7). Finally the cross was “buried” in a special tomb inside the church. The liturgy for the day also included a long sermon, though it is not clear exactly where it was placed in the service. Johnson emphasizes the dramatic and affective nature of the Good Friday liturgy, which was also reflected in the preaching for the day.

Probably the most fascinating aspect of Johnson’s study to sermon specialists is her analysis of what she terms “The Grammar of Good Friday,” that is, “a grammar...