Many books discuss the theology and doctrine of the medieval liturgy: there is no dearth of information on the history of the liturgy, the structure and development of individual services, and there is much discussion of specific texts, chants, and services. No book, at least in English, has struggled with the difficulties of finding texts, chants, or other material in the liturgical manuscripts themselves, until the publication of Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office in 1982. Encompassing a period of several centuries, ca 1200-1500, this book provides solutions for such endeavours. Although by this period the basic order and content of liturgical books were more or less standardized, there existed hundreds of different methods of dealing with the internal organisation and the actual writing of the texts and chants on the page. Generalization becomes problematic; the use of any single source as a typical example for more than local detail is impossible. Taking for granted the user's ability to read medieval scripts, and some codicological knowledge, Hughes begins with the elementary material without which the user could not proceed. He describes the liturgical year, season, day, service, and the form of individual items such as responsory or lesson, and mentions the many variants in terminology that are to be found in the sources. The presentation of individual text and chant is discussed, with an emphasis on the organisation of the individual column, line, and letter. Hughes examines the hitherto unexplored means by which a hierarchy of initial and capital letters and their colours are used by the scribes and how this hierarchy can provide a means by which the modern researcher can navigate through the manuscripts. Also described in great detail are the structure and contents of Breviaries, Missals, and the corresponding books with music. This new edition updates the bibliography and the new preface by Hughes presents his recent thoughts about terminology and methods of liturgical abbreviation.

The Divine Office--the cycle of daily worship other than the Mass--is the richest source of liturgical texts and music from the Latin Middle Ages. However, its richness, the great diversity of its manuscripts, and its many variations from community to community have made it difficult to study, and it remains largely unexplored terrain. This volume is a practical guide to the Divine Office for students and scholars throughout the field of medieval studies. The book surveys the many questions related to the Office and presents the leading analytical tools and research methods now used in the field. Beginning with the Office in the early Middle Ages, the book covers manuscript sources and their contents; regional developments and variations; the relationship between the Office, the Mass, and other ceremonies and repertories; and the deep links between the Office and medieval hagiography. The book concludes with a discussion of recent technical advances for handling the enormous amounts of evidence on the Office and its performance, in particular CANTUS, the vast electronic database developed by Ruth Steiner of Catholic University for the analysis of chant repertories. The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages is an essential resource for anyone studying medieval liturgy. Its accessible style and broad coverage make it an important basic reference for a wide range of students and scholars in art history, religious studies, social history, literature, musicology, and theology.

This title is an introduction to Western liturgical resources and a synthesis of their history for more than a millennium. It provides a historical summary, examines the relationship between medieval history and liturgy, suggests new methods of research, and underscores the fruitfulness of an interdisciplinary approach.

This book provides an introduction to current work and new directions in the study of medieval liturgy. It focuses primarily on so-called occasional rituals such as burial, church consecration, exorcism and excommunication rather than on the Mass and Office. Recent research on such rites challenges many established ideas, especially about the extent to which they differed from place to place and over time, and how the surviving evidence should be interpreted. These essays are designed to offer guidance about current thinking, especially for those who are new to the subject, want to know more about it, or wish to conduct research on liturgical topics. Bringing together scholars working in different disciplines (history, literature, architectural history, musicology and theology), time periods (from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries) and intellectual traditions, this collection demonstrates the great potential that liturgical evidence offers for understanding many aspects of the Middle Ages. It includes essays that discuss the practicalities of researching liturgical rituals; show through case studies the problems caused by over-reliance on modern editions; explore the range of sources for particular ceremonies and the sort of questions which can be asked of them; and go beyond the rites themselves to investigate how liturgy was practised and understood in the medieval period.

"Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts describes the complexity of western medieval astrology and its place in society, as revealed by a wealth of illustrated manuscripts and historical background."--BOOK JACKET.

PT 3: Catholic books in a Protestant world.

The interdisciplinary approach of Music and Medieval Manuscripts is modeled on the work of the scholar to whom the book is dedicated. Professor Andrew Hughes is recognized internationally for his work on medieval manuscripts, combining the areas of paleography, performance, liturgy and music. All these areas of research are represented in this collection with an emphasis on the continuity between the physical characteristics of medieval manuscripts and their different uses. Albert Derolez provides a landmark and controversial essay on the origins of pre-humanistic script, while Margaret Bent proposes a new interpretation of a famous passage from a fifteenth-century poem by Martin Le Franc. Timothy McGee contributes an innovative essay on late-medieval music, text and rhetoric. David Hiley discusses musical changes and variation in the offices of a major saint‘s feast, and Craig Wright presents an original study of Guillaume Dufay. Jan Ziolkowski treats the topic of neumed classics, an under-explored aspect of the history of medieval pedagogy and the transmission of texts. The essays that comprise this volume offer a unique focus on medieval manuscripts from a wide range of perspectives, and will appeal to musicologists and medievalists alike.

An illustrated treatise on a book of hours created between 1469 and 1473 in Ferrara, Italy.