Chant, Liturgy, and the Inheritance of Rome: Essays in Honour of Joseph Dyer ed. by Daniel J. DiCenso and Rebecca Maloy (review)

In the often rather rarified world of liturgical scholarship, there are relatively few scholars who have generated such a wide circle of admirers as Joe Dyer. This impressive volume provides a tribute to his influence, framed around the history of medieval liturgy both within and beyond Rome. Part of the fascination of this topic is the remarkable diversity of surviving traditions of chant and musical practice. Joe Dyer is known for his prolific production of scholarly articles on the development of Roman liturgy, but always with attention to the spatial environment in which liturgy develops. All the studies in this volume are marked by rigorous attention to what manuscripts can teach us, not just about medieval chant, but the context in which liturgy was performed, whether within or outside Rome, in particular in the early medieval period.

The largest number of contributions is grouped together under the rubric ‘Medieval Rome and Ancient Rites’. Charles M. Atkinson studies the survival of the Missa graeca, preserved with remarkably consistency in the Latin West at the abbey of Saint-Denis, between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Charles B. McLendon focuses on the architectural and political significance of Old St Peter’s. It is salutary to be reminded that the first Pope firmly attested as being buried there was Leo I in the fifth century, helping to promote his vision of papal primacy in the Latin West. Also from a firmly historical perspective, John F. Romano considers the key role of archdeacons as ecclesiastical managers, acting on behalf of their bishop, and in Rome on behalf of the Pope himself. Their liturgical role helped cement their authority. Edward Nowacki offers a study of how the earliest antiphons of the Roman Office were crafted out of biblical texts, most likely in the seventh century, when we can first discern moves to impose standardized liturgical practices on a variety of religious communities. Thomas Kelly pursues similar themes in respect to the Paschal Vigil, in particular at the Lateran, the true ecclesiastical centre of the Church in Rome, not St Peter’s, located outside the city precincts. In this context, the essay of Catherine Carver is exemplary on demonstrating how much the role of sound, in particular the ringing of bells, was central to urban experience in Rome. More relevant to the wider diffusion of Roman influence is a study by David Ganz of the Missale Gallicarum Vetus, shedding light on pre-Carolingian liturgical practice. Emma Hornsby offers insights from Beneventan experience in relation to the Easter Vigil. Luisa Nardini provides a more specialist survey of prosulas, adapted (like antiphons) from Scripture, but set to familiar melodies.

There is a similar range of perspective in four papers about the influence of Roman liturgy. Susan Rankin documents the gradual move towards standardizing the singing of the Psalter in the eighth century, reinforced by Charlemagne and his advisors. Barbara Haggh-Huglo documents how all the post-Carolingian offices in a Cambrai manuscript incorporate modes in sequential order rather than nonsequentially as in the oldest liturgical offices. Daniel J. DiCenso explores different versions of Charlemagne’s Admonitio generalis to demonstrate the range of ways in which it was interpreted. An essay by James Borders on a twelfth-century pontifical shows how both oral and textual sources may shape its formation.

A final group of papers deals with subsequent liturgical developments. Some are more thematic, such as that of Susan Boynton, who shows how a manuscript of Cluny, copied c. 1200, transmits a distinctly Cluniac vision of history, presenting its abbey as foreshadowing the heavenly Jerusalem. Christopher Page offers a more personally felt reflection on how chant created arias ‘from the grand opera of Scripture history that we call the liturgy’ (p. 440). Others are more...