The Liturgy in Medieval England
A History

This book provides a comprehensive historical treatment of the Latin liturgy in medieval England.

Richard W. Pfaff (Author)

9780521808477, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 September 2009

622 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 3.4 cm, 1.11 kg

"Magisterial is a word often debased by overuse, but one can think of no other characterization for this book, despite its remarkable modesty of tone. It will be teaching medievalists interested in the liturgy for many, many years." -Milton McC. Gatch, Church History

This book provides a comprehensive historical treatment of the Latin liturgy in medieval England. Richard Pfaff constructs a history of the worship carried out in churches - cathedral, monastic, or parish - primarily through the surviving manuscripts of service books, and sets this within the context of the wider political, ecclesiastical, and cultural history of the period. The main focus is on the mass and daily office, treated both chronologically and by type, the liturgies of each religious order and each secular 'use' being studied individually. Furthermore, hagiographical and historiographical themes - respectively, which saints are prominent in a given witness and how the labors of scholars over the last century and a half have both furthered and, in some cases, impeded our understandings - are explored throughout. The book thus provides both a narrative account and a reference tool of permanent value.

1. Introduction
2. Early Anglo-Saxon England: a partly traceable story
3. Later Anglo-Saxon: liturgy for England
4. The Norman conquest: cross fertilizations
5. Monastic liturgy, 1100–1215
6. Benedictine liturgy after 1215
7. Other monastic orders
8. The non-monastic religious orders: canons regular
9. The non-monastic religious orders: friars
10. Old Sarum: the beginnings of Sarum use
11. New Sarum and the spread of Sarum use
12. Exeter: the fullness of secular liturgy
13. Southern England: final Sarum use
14. Regional uses and local variety
15. Towards the end of the story.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]