Heavenfield

My Distilled Prayer project has officially moved over to my new blog on the psalms and devotional materials. Here is the new url for the project: http://psalterstudies.wordpress.com/distilled-prayer-project/

All of the posts originally put on Heavenfield are still here. The main page has moved. I hope I see some of you over on the new blog occasionally…

As Eamon Duffy wrote in his recent book Marking the Hours, the late middle ages were an age of bead and book. It was not a choice of either/or. On the eve of the Reformation both Books of Hours and Paternoster beads were found at all levels of society. In wills prayer beads and books of hours usually passed together, often to a daughter. I think this has more to do with the types of things inherited by sons and daughters than being an inherent gender issue. Women inherited portable wealth (textiles, jewels, books, furniture), while men inherited land and such (buildings, ‘the business’, titles, most livestock etc).

Finding information about early prayer beads is not easy. This gap has been partially filled by Chris Laning’s Bedes Byddyng: Medieval Rosaries & Paternoster Beads published as issue 135 (2007, 81 pgs) of The Compleat Anachronist. It is available for $4.50 (free postage and handling in US) from here. You can read Chris Laning’s blog Paternosters here.

Laning covers a wide variety of topics: the evolution and spread of paternoster beads and the rosary, commerce and gift giving, origins and meaning of terminology of prayer beads, finding and evaluating the evidence of prayer beads, materials culture, and how to make paternosters and wear them. She also gives brief descriptions of variations of prayer beads used up to 1600, an appendix listing the Latin prayers, and another appendix giving step-by-step instructions to make a set of prayer beads.

Today we think of the Roman Catholic rosary as a pretty rigid set of prayers with a standardized rosary. This is the current product of a long evolutionary process. As Laning describes, everything about the rosary is a product of a several evolutionary steps. Prayer beads began as Pater Noster beads based on the Lord’s Prayer. The number of beads has varied considerably but eventually settled on 150 pater nosters reflecting the 150 psalms prayed on 50 beads, three times around. The ‘Marian psalter’ began as one of many variations that obviously eventually won.

One of the things I find fascinating that is the way prayer beads influenced the English language. The word “bead” comes from Old English ‘to bid’/’to pray’. This is fairly well known but what may be new is that English is the only language to name beads after praying. In German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French or Swedish, the word for bead is derived from their words for pearl or grain. In other words, in the rest of Europe, their word for bead is derived from some similar size pre-existing object. Only in English is the word for all round objects strung on string named after prayer beads. It also seems odd that prayer beads are always referred to in the plural as sets or pairs of beads or rosaries (perhaps because one rosary is a the sum of many prayers?-big guess on my part perhaps some English major will fill me in). Paternoster has also become a by-word for objects strung in a string that lasts to this day from a string of lakes in a valley to a bucket-brigade type of elevator.

Prayer beads only began taking on the name rosary from 1386 as a metaphorical comparison between the practice and a wreath of roses or a rose garden. Early leaders in the development opposed the name as being too sensual. Initially the word rosary was also applied to other devotions as well.

Laning identified the three main objections to the rosary during the Reformation: 1) the rosary was deemed to be promising salvation by works rather than faith alone, 2) excessive devotion to the Virgin Mary and 3) not in the bible. [Sometime soon I’ll come back and address these for our times and the modern Anglican rosary.] Laning notes that rosaries continued to be used into at least the 1600s “when one seventeenth-century Puritan clergyman in south-west Wales…was reduced to imploring his congregation, if they insisted on using their rosaries, at least to use them ‘prayerfully and with thought’” (p. 16). Its a shame that Laning didn’t look at the legends of the Irish penal rosaries. The legend seems to be alive and well today but I don’t recall ever seeing much evidence.

Most of this work is dedicated to material culture of prayer beads and how to wear them. She discusses the materials beads and their accessories were made from, the guilds that produced them and the significant commerce in beads and components. The guilds specialized to the degree that by 1260 in Paris there were three specialized guilds: one for bone/horn workers, another for shell and coral workers and lastly for amber and jet workers. Jewelers or goldsmiths made paternosters of gold, silver and gems. Archaeologists could find this as a handy summary to identify prayer beads, particularly when components were shipped unassembled.

You should find everything you need to know to make an accurate replica of a medieval paternoster or rosary here. This would be a great project for the Jedi cum knights (or the ladies they fight for/over) at Kent U’s medieval days. Paternoster beads would also be a great teaching tool for medieval history or literature from the Age of Chaucer right through Shakespeare. I’ll leave you with the quote from The Vision of Piers Plowman (19:375-383) (c. 1375) that Chris Laning takes her title from:

“There was no Christian creature that any wits had… that didn’t help to increase the quantity of holiness; some by bedes bidding and some by pilgrimage, and others by private penance, and some by pennies dealing [almsgiving] …Cleanness of common [people] and clerks’ clean living made unity, holy church, in holiness stand.” (p. 74)

Its odd the circuitous route that research sometimes leads you on, or I’m just not very disciplined at staying on topic. Hmmm… well, that’s possible. Anyway, one of the interesting tangents that my study of Bede’s breviate pslater has taken is that breviate psalters are most commonly found in private devotional books and later Books of Hours. This continuity from Anglo-Saxon devotional books, like the Book of Cerne, to late medieval Books of Hours, primarily for the laity, and eventually to today’s Book of Common Prayer (BCP), the prayer book of the English reformation that is still used today, is intriguing.

The Book of Common Prayer is a somewhat odd in the history of prayer books because it is for both corporate and personal prayer. Indeed, even the daily prayer is written in such a way that it can be used corporately. The Book of Common Prayer has many advantages: it is covers all possible needs for corporate liturgy, catechism and historical documents, most needs for private prayer and perhaps above all is an instrument of unity for the Anglican Communion. As such it has had an immense impact on the English diaspora as this one book owned by the laity made it possible to carry the faith around the globe. Today each national church in the Anglican Communion produces their own revised text or uses a historic Anglican version of the BCP. One of the disadvantages of the BCP is that as an Episcopalian instrument of unity planning and executing revisions is an extremely long and arduous process. The current BCP for the US was produced in 1979 and the previous was in 1928. To my mind the greatest disadvantage of changing so slowly is its effect on the BCPs usefulness for private prayer. Anyway, I have digressed too far away from my topic for today. One of the give-aways of the Book of Hours impact on the BCP is the inclusion of a full psalter.

A while back MJ Toswell wrote an interesting paper on the relationship between late Anglo-Saxon psalters and Books of Hours. One of the things I find really interesting is that these late A-S psalters had collects after each psalm (which turns the psalm into a Christian prayer). So it is more of a devotional book than a transcript of one book of scripture.

“the frequency with which a psalter manuscript in the later Anglo-Saxon period concludes with a set of prayers and a litany, itself a formalized prayer, suggests the notion of a short reading (a psalm, easily identified in these manuscripts and clearly punctuated for reading aloud or silently) followed by a prayer. This is, of course, the process underlying the development of private devotional texts, whether in Latin or in the vernacular. (p. 1

“Although these manuscripts [Books of Hours] varied in size and decoration, they were almost always commissioned by one person for his, or usually her, own use. They included short versions of the Offices for private use, personal prayers and meditations, and selected didactic texts for enlightenment. The texts were often a mixture of Latin and the vernacular. The prayers, meditations and sermons were generally couched in fairly simple terms, and were lavishly illustrated as a further aid to comprehension and for glory.” (p. 20)

Although there are format differences (such as the development of distinct offices), the elements of the Book of Hours are found in the late medieval psalter texts and the Book of Cerne and related texts. I think that is fascinating. Its a shame that the practice of producing Books of Hours has gone out of style.

M. J. Toswell “The Late Anglo-Saxon Psalter: Ancestor of the Book of Hours?” Florilegium 14: 1995-6, p. 1-24

I was reading over Ward’s Bede and the Psalter at lunch today and came across one of those scholarly exaggerations that really gets under my skin. It follows the general principle that anything of any worth that came out of Wearmouth-Jarrow must be associated somehow with Bede. She goes beyond implication that Bede worked on the Codex Amiatinus and implies that he was one of its designers.

“The three great scholarly pandects made at Jarrow under Ceolfrith may well have owed their text to Bede’s scholarly eye; certainly his care for Jerome’s text iuxta Hebraicos was in line with the text of the psalter produced for that book. …Perhaps it was Bede the scholar, who most of all delighted in this new text ‘according to the Hebrew’ especially for the psalter, who suggested this change. “(p. 9)

Note that not only is Bede now directing the choice of text for Coelfirth’s great project, but it is being produced at the smaller monastery of Jarrow rather than the larger and older house of Wearmouth. I see no reason why Abbot Coelfrith would not have been the person who made such critical decisions as which text to use and what style the book would be produced in. Given Benedict Biscop and Coelfrith’s desire to collect the latest, greatest books and to imitate Rome, it doesn’t surprise me at all that Coelfrith would use the most up-to-date translation of Jerome that he had available. Second, as she notes in her paper, Bede used the Gallican psalter for all of his other psalter quotes in his commentaries and exegesis.

Just to back up a bit, the Codex Amiatinus is one of the three great Pandects of the entire bible made at Wearmouth-Jarrow during the tenure (and apparently under the patronage) of Abbot Ceolfrith. Bede’s association with this text is repeated over and over in many places even though no medieval text actually associates him with it and the dates make it unlikely that he was involved. Both Bede’s writings and the Anonymous Life of Coelfrith only name Coelfrith with the production of the bibles.

We know that at least one copy of the bible was completed in 716 and that it would have taken decades to complete three copies. We actually don’t know that all three were completed by 716, or that they were of identical design, but it seems likely. The Codex Amiatinus is based on Cassiodorus’ Codex Grandior but with the newest Latin translation by Jerome. The only surviving codex, the Codex Amiatinus, was taken by Ceolfrith as a gift for the pope in 716. His death en route no doubt helped it’s placement in a safe continental library soon after 716 and its survival to this day. The massive size of these books, weighing over 75 pounds, would have made the survival of the two copies left at Wearmouth and Jarrow difficult once the monastery was abandoned.

So anyway, if the Lindisfarne Gospels took a decade to make then these took far longer even if they were made by a team of scribes. (I actually don’t know how many scribes worked on the Codex Amiatinus.) So we are looking at this project beginning in the 690s at the latest and perhaps even earlier. We also don’t know that the books had been only recently completed in 716. Based on the completion of his biography in the Ecclesiastical History in 731 at the age of 59, Bede was born about 672. He would have been ordained a deacon in 691 at the tender age of 19 and a priest in 702 at the age of 30. These dates are roughly confirmed by his remark that St John of Beverly ordained him both times. John of Beverly was Bishop of Hexham from 687 to 706. So it is very likely that the the triple pandect project was started by 690-695, if not earlier, when Bede was a tender young deacon. Brilliant as his teachers no doubt thought that he was, he was still very much a junior in the monastery.

Too often we think of Bede as this brilliant star in a patch of country bumpkins. He was the product of the school that made him. No doubt as an elder he was considered extraordinary, but as a youth he would have had many teachers who were his equal or better. He certainly had a high regard for the intellect and learning of Abbot Coelfrith. His inclusion of Abbot Coelfrith’s letter to King Nechtan in the Ecclesiastical History certainly shows Bede’s regard for him (and yes, I think Coelfrith wrote it).

In my continuing quest to learn more about 8-9th century breviate psalters I’ve came across a couple interesting papers:

Thomas H Bestul (1986) “Continental Sources of Anglo-Saxon Devotional Writing” p. 103-126 in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture. P Szarmach with V. Oggins, eds. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications.

Leslie Webber Jones. (1929) “Cologne MS.106: A Book of Hildebald” Speculum 4(1): 27-61.

They are interesting papers. Finally a description of one of the three manuscripts that contain the oldest surviving edition of Bede’s Abbreviated Psalter (Cologne MS 106)! Bede’s three surviving psalters all come from c. 825 and apparently all passed through Alcuin (pictured).

There was apparently once quite a bit of discussion over this manuscript because it was thought that it might be the set of works sent by Alcuin to Bishop Arno of Salzburg before 805. Webber Jones has proven that this is not Alcuin’s manuscript. However, it does seem to contain the vast majority of the works that Alcuin sent to Arno, along with other materials.

So, it was apparently written in Cologne during the tenure of Bishop Hildebald of Cologne from 794-819 (who helpfully had all books produced during his tenure labeled as such). It includes Alcuin’s letter to Arno as a preface, as if to explain where most of the original text came from.

Cologne MS 106 contains a formidable list of Bede’s devotional materials: 12 hymns or metrical prayers including the hymn on Aethelthryth and his abbreviated psalter. Bede’s note that his hymns are in “various meters and rhythms” could be an explanation for the variety of metrical prayers and hymns included in his prayer book. In other words, it more a book of verse/poetry than a hymnal in today’s sense. His title seems to reflect the medieval norm that poetry was to be sung rather than recited. Given that I know of no cult of Aethelthryth on the continent and the manuscript isn’t reported to contain any excerpts from the Ecclesiastical History, Aethelthryth’ s hymn appears to be transmitted as one of a set of Bede’s hymns. This gives me some more confidence that we may have a portion of Bede’s ‘Book of Hymns’.

Bestul suggests that devotional books prior to the Book of Cerne were all or primarily verse (as the Cerne is, excepting the Passion narratives). All of Bede’s devotional works done for himself or friends were verse including his verse Life of Cuthbert and the hymn on Aethelthryth. For his personal uses, these verse versions were sufficient. He only writes the prose Life of Cuthbert to fulfill a specific commission from Lindisfarne. This answers the nagging question of why he didn’t write a prose life of Aethelthryth when he was clearly devoted to her memory. The answer may be that he simply didn’t get a commission to do so, and the hymn was sufficient for his use. Of course, the vast bulk of Bede’s works were not devotional materials; they were teaching texts. While these teaching texts may reveal windows into his theology and devotional practices, that was not their purpose.

This all begs the question: does Bede’s ‘Book of Hymns’ - currently best represented by Cologne MS106- represent Bede’s personal prayer book? If so, then it is the best window into his personal devotional practices.

The latest challenge to my distilled prayer project is figuring out what role Aethelwald’s psalter in the Book of Cerne should take in the project. This has a lot to do with identifying Aethelwald and coming up with a rough date for the psalter.

The Book of Cerne is dated roughly contemporary with a Bishop Aethelwald of Lichfield (818-830). There is a good possibility that it was compiled either for him or in honor of him. However, like just about everything else in the Book of Cerne, the breviate psalter of Aethelwald the bishop shows clear signs of transmission. I picked up Kuyper’s edition of the Book of Cerne last week and I’m beginning to compare this psalter with Bede. One very obvious thing has jumped out… Aethelwald’s psalter is a patchy beast - only 96 psalms are represented.

The following vulgate psalms are missing from the breviate psalter in Cerne (based on Kuyper’s assignment of the psalms):

11, 13, 14, 19, 20, 23, 41, 42, 49, 52, 57, 61, 66, 73, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 86, 90, 91, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 104, 107, 109, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 143, 147, 150

Michelle Brown and others have noted the longest gap before and have noted that his is a sign of transmission. The gap between inclusion of Ps 117 and Ps 137 flows smoothly in the middle of a page. However when we look at gaps of more than two sequential pslams, other significant holes show up as well. It gets even more curious when David Dumville and Michelle Brown notes that the psalter has been divided into three 50s, Irish style, and this is marked by ornate capitals for psalms 1, 51, and 101. This three-fold division is widely spread in period English psalters. Well, that is all well and good, except for the fact that with the gaps noted above the text is not divided into three 50s at all. In fact not one of the three divisions contains abbreviations of 50 psalms. These may be traditional divisions for the time period, but they have lost their meaning. Michelle Brown takes pains in her book to point out that the tri-fold division is not exclusively Irish but they do seem to have popularized it. Michelle Brown notes that Cerne falls short of the Irish Liber Hymnorum‘ s instruction that breviate psalters should have 365 verses. Cerne has 272 verses. This means that I don’t have to count the distribution of the verses because it is obvious that they can’t be evenly divided into three groups either.

Michelle Brown noted the possibility that Bishop Aethelwald simply didn’t find anything of interest in the missing psalms, but she notes that is unlikely. I agree; he can’t have intentionally skipped this many and still considered it to be a psalter. I think that it is worth noting that based on a skimming of his edition, it looks like Kuyper is getting 5-6 psalms per page. This means that the 20 psalm gap could be accounted for my missing two folios (front and back). The other gaps can’t be accounted for as easily by missing folios but they could still represent damaged folios or folios where one side had an illustration. This many gaps just says to me that we have transmission - at some point- of a badly damaged book, perhaps recopied to try to salvage it. In the century between Aethelwald of Lichfield and Aethelwald of Lindisfarne there could have been several generations of copies made, so that the artist-scribe of Cerne need not have been using such a damaged copy.

Although Michelle Brown has argued persuasively that the psalter of Aethelwald need not have been by Aethelwald of Lindisfarne on the grounds of linguistics or decoration, the text itself says that it is older than Aethelwald of Lichfield. I find it too hard to believe that the copying of a text by Aethelwald of Lichfield could have become so damaged so quickly, especially if the book was made for the same bishop.

In her Jarrow lecture, Michelle Brown argued that Lindisfarne Gospels was part of Lindisfarne’s effort to prove that they were now fully in the stream of Western/Roman Christianity. Might the same Bishop Aethelwald who had the Lindisfarne Gospels bound and commissioned its cover have also produced a breviate psalter with the Romanrum translation as a further sign of their inclusion into the universal church?

Reading on the Book of Cerne I noticed that people have wondered if a book in Fulda (and since lost) called Ympnarius Edilwaldi could be a copy the breviate psalter from the ‘prayerbook of Æthelwald’ in the Book of Cerne. Apparently some have also thought that this book was a source for Bede’s hymns in Germany. I guess we can propose anything since there is no list of its content, only a listing in a library catalog. Well, psalms are a type of hymn, so this made me wonder if Bede did refer to his abbreviated/breviate psalter in his list of works.

Bede’s list of handbooks or prayer books from the list of his works in the Ecclesiastical History (McClure and Collins, 1994: 295):

• “A martryology of the festivals of the holy martyrs…”
• “A book of hymns in various metres and rhythms.:
• “A book of epigrams in heroic and elegiac metre”
• “Two books, one on the nature of things and the other on chronology: also one longer book on chronology”
• “A book on the art of metre, and to this another, that is, concerning the figures and modes of speech or tropes, that is, concerning the figures and modes of speech with which the holy Scriptures is adorned.”

It is questionable if any of these are really prayer books, but they are as close as Bede gets to devotional books. It is possible that Bede would not have thought that his own devotional book was something to add to a publications list. The question remains open if his book of hymns could have included his abbreviated/breviate psalter.

There are few hymns known to be credited to be that were probably included in that book:

• A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing possibly for the feast of Ascension.
• Hymn of St Æthelthryth given within the History and said to have been written long ago.
• Hail Harbinger of Morn on John the Baptist
• ‘On Our Lady’s Birthday’ on the Assumption of Mary

Any thoughts from readers? Can “breviate psalters” be found collections of hymns?

Terminology can be such a bear… I just discovered that “abbreviated plasters” have been traditionally called “breviate psalters”. I wonder why the modern editors and scholars of Bede’s works never use this term and always use “abbreviated” rather than “breviate”, perhaps because they don’t think that modern people know what breviate means?