The Medieval Dominicans: Books, Buildings, Music, and Liturgy ed. by Eleanor J. Giraud and Christian Thomas Leitmeir (review)

A product of one of several conferences celebrating the eight hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Order of Friars Preachers, this collection “. . . examines the material, liturgical, and cultural (in music and art) aspects of Dominican life which rarely come to the fore in studies of the Dominican Order” (p. 15). These thirteen essays expand current scholarly views of Dominican cultural influence, both internal and external, by including fresh investigations into topics where new evidence augments or alters established perspectives alongside studies of subjects that had not been fully fleshed out by previous scholars. These authors rely on theological reflection and devotional practice as they seek to cement the Dominican character of the influences.

Although collections of essays exist for this purpose, the essays in this volume manage to connect to and build on each other across traditional disciplinary lines in a manner that grants the reader a truly multivalent understanding of the subject. To wit: Mary and Richard Rouse dive into Dominican influences on book culture, including Dominican education and the methods of knowledge production and dissemination, a topic which connects to Laura Albiero’s essay, “The Spread and Circulation of the Dominican Pocket Breviary,” since the two show that the increased need for portable books, including pocket breviaries and bibles (with their companion interpretive tools for voracious, scientific study of the scriptures), is linked to the mendicant life in the thirteenth century, especially at Paris. These discussions connect to Alison Stone’s essay on illustrated books, focusing on Dominican devotional life, in turn joining well together with aspects of Emily Guerry’s contribution on Louis IX, the Crown of Thorns, and the two friars who brought the relics from the East to Paris. Panayota Volti’s essay on Dominicans’ work as seen in the remnants of their life in the Eastern Mediterranean helps expand on some mutual influences within the Eastern networks covered briefly in Guerry’s essay, but also resonates with the topic of Haude Morvan’s discussion of architectural influences in Italy through the Reformation. Barbara Walters’ essay, “Reading Eschatology in the Feast of Corpus Christi,” builds interpretation onto the historical-theological depth of source analysis in “Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Theology and the Feast of Corpus Christi,” by M. Michèle Mulcahey. Two essays on Jerome of Moravia’s Tractatus de Musica seek to determine its character and its intended use: Christian Thomas Leitmeir’s work provides historical source analysis to determine the Dominican antecedents of De musica, while Blazej Matusiak elaborates Jerome’s interpretation. Finally, Innocent Smith’s contributions, “The Orations of the Medieval Dominican Liturgy” and his essay on Dominican liturgy and pastoral care of Dominican nuns, bookend Eleanor Giraud’s “Dominican Mass Books before Humbert of Romans.” Giraud and Smith move beyond established narratives concerning the early Dominican liturgy and the rationale for its reform, showing that the consistency of uniformity would have benefitted both friars and the nuns in their pastoral care. Or further, that the reform allowed the friars to tailor some prayers to fit their charism, privileging both prayer and study, rather than the monastic privileging of prayer over study.

Although some overlap exists between several of the essays, these relative connections are not redundant, nor do they offer competing visions. Rather, taken together, the connection between the essays and the breadth of the source material allows the reader to experience some of the richness of the influence of the Dominican Order on medieval culture.