This thesis challenges existing preconceptions about the textual uniformity of the late medieval English Office liturgy. The received narrative is that all breviaries of the same liturgical Use are in large part identical. This study demonstrates that all complete, surviving manuscript breviaries and antiphonals of each secular liturgical Use of medieval England (dating from s.xiii -s.xvi) do share a common textual 'fingerprint' particular to each Use. But this is in large part restricted to the proper texts of universal or popular observances.Other features of these service books, even within the sources of the same Use, are subject to significant variation, influenced by local customs and hagiographical and textual priorities, and also by varying reception to liturgical prescriptions from ecclesiastical authorities. Distinct regional patterns, especially in the kalendar, are a principal result. Rubrics (giving details of ritual) and lessons (at Matins) in particular suggest that the manuscripts are witnesses to textual subfamilies, and that these represent succeeding stages of the promulgation of the major Uses across England. The identification of the characteristic features of each Use and the differentiation of regional patterns have resulted from treating each manuscript as a unique witness, a practice which is not common in liturgical studies, but one which gives the manuscripts greater value as historical sources. The unique character of each allows it to be situated in its temporal and intellectual context and indeed to illuminate that context. For instance, properties of individual manuscripts can be compared with other evidence for the prescription of liturgy in England in order to assess the efficacy of ecclesiastical orders of this nature. A descriptive catalogue of 115 manuscripts and xTABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xii Introduction 1 Studying the English Office liturgy The influence of liturgy The structures of liturgy The structures of liturgical books Organising variance and uniformity Writing about English liturgy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries After Vatican II Organising the evidence 2 Liturgical analysis Responsory series Analysis Sarum and York series Hereford: linked to Sarum Monastic and other series The reliability of responsory series Conclusions The kalendar Analysis 'Normative' kalendars Provincial, regional, and local observances: Dedication and Relics feasts Regional kalendars Diocesan feasts: Norwich 'synodals' and Dublin 'constitutions' Additions to kalendars Liturgical analysis: conclusions 3 Textual analysis Textual criticism and liturgical manuscripts
The study of medieval manuscripts of England. Festschrift in honor of Richard W. Pfaff. Edited by George Hardin Brown and Linda Ehrsam Voigts. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 384. Arizona Studies in the MiddleAges and the Renaissance, 35.) Pp. ix+438 incl. 23 gs. Tempe, Az: ACMRS/Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. \$70. 978 0 86698 432 4
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