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A Monastic Death Ritual from the Imperial Abbey of Farfa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Susan Boynton
Susan Boynton*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

Lengthy and complex rituals surrounding illness and death were an important part of the collective experience of medieval monastic communities. In manuscripts from as early as the eighth century, the texts for Christian death rituals consist of prayers, readings, and chants for the visitation of the sick, unction, communion, the funeral mass, and burial. Even though many of the early medieval formularies were copied in monastic scriptoria, the texts could be performed in secular or monastic settings. The earliest death rituals that are explicitly written for monastic communities and contain extensive prescriptions for the actions that accompanied a monk from his final hours of life to his grave are transmitted in monastic customaries of the eleventh century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Traditio , Volume 64 , 2009 , pp. 57 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Fordham University 

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References

1 On death rituals in the early Middle Ages see Paxton, Frederick S., Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1990), and Sicard, Damien, La liturgie de la mort dans l'église latine des origines à la reforme carolingienne (Münster, 1988). I am grateful to Frederick Paxton for discussing the Farfa ritual with me.Google Scholar

The following abbreviations are used throughout: CAO = Hesbert, Réné-Jean, Corpus antiphonalium officii , 6 vols. (Rome, 1968–79); Mohlberg, = Liber sacramentorum romanae aeclesiae ordinis anni circuli (Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316/Paris. Bibl. Nat. 7193, 41/56, Sacramentarium Gelasianum) , ed. Mohlberg, Leo Cunibert, 3rd ed. (Rome, 1981); SG = Deshusses, Jean, Le sacramentaire grégorien: ses principales formes d'après les plus anciens manuscrits, 3rd ed., 3 vols., Spicilegium Friburgense 16, 24, 28 (Fribourg, 1992).Google Scholar

2 The present discussion does not address death rituals intended for the secular clergy, although some survive from the eleventh century. As described by Hamilton, Sarah in “The Rituale: The Evolution of a New Liturgical Book,” in The Church and the Book: Papers Read at the 2000 Summer Meeting and the 2001 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society , ed. Swanson, R. N. (Woodbridge, 2004), 74–86, at 79, an early eleventh-century manuscript from Rome (Vat. MS Archivio San Pietro H. 58) contains two different ordines for the visitation of the sick, including one that, according to Hamilton, seems to be intended for use within a clerical community rather than a monastic one. I am grateful to Julian Hendrix for bringing my attention to this study.Google Scholar

3 On the death rituals in the three Cluniac customaries from the eleventh century, see Paxton, Frederick, “Death by Customary at Eleventh-Century Cluny,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny , ed. Boynton, Susan and Cochelin, Isabelle (Turnhout, 2005), 297–318; see also Paxton's, forthcoming reconstructive edition, The Cluniac Death Ritual in the Central Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Vat. MS Vat. Lat. 6808. Edited in Liber tramitis aeui Odilonis abbatis , ed. Dinter, Peter, Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 10 (Siegburg, 1980).Google Scholar

5 Boynton, Susan, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125 (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2006), 106–43, and Boynton, Susan, “The Uses of the Liber Tramitis at the Abbey of Farfa,” in Studies in Medieval Chant and Liturgy in Honour of David Hiley , ed. Bailey, Terence and Dobszay, László (Budapest and Ottawa, 2007), 87–104.Google Scholar

6 In the edition I follow the orthography of the base manuscript, rarely correcting it; the “e caudatae” in the Vallicelliana manuscript are rendered in the text as “ae.” Google Scholar

7 For recent discussions with reference to previous studies see Boynton, Susan, “Oral Transmission of Liturgical Practice in the Eleventh-Century Customaries of Cluny,” forthcoming in Understanding Monastic Practices of Oral Communication (Western Europe, Tenth–Thirteenth Centuries) , ed. Vanderputten, Steven (Turnhout, 2009), and Boynton, , Shaping a Monastic Identity, 124–25. The preface and prologue are newly transcribed and translated in From Dead of Night to End of Day, 319–27; see also the critical edition in Liber tramitis , ed. Dinter, , 3–5.Google Scholar

8 Boynton, , Shaping a Monastic Identity , 135–43.Google Scholar

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12 This section is separated from the preceding one by the rubric Item alius ordo ad infirmum ungendum. The prayer (which in the Liber tramitis has the incipit Omnipotens sempiternae deus qui per beatum apostolum tuum dixisti) is mentioned in Liber tramitis , 270, 272.Google Scholar

13 Paxton, , “Death by Customary,” 299.Google Scholar

14 Boynton, , Shaping a Monastic Identity , 125–26.Google Scholar

15 See especially Liber tramitis (n. 4 above), xxxviii–xlii.Google Scholar

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17 SG 1:454; for the contents of individual manuscripts see 3:145–54.Google Scholar

18 To see the position of this prayer in the ordines edited by Martène, Edmond in the first volume of De Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus libri tres , editio novissima, 4 vols. (Antwerp, 1763–64), a convenient overview can be found in Darragon, Benoit, Répertoire des pièves euchologiques citées dans le “De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus” de dom Martène (Rome, 1991), 82–109, 230, 239, 241. The Liber tramitis, 271, refers to the series as “Deus qui famulo tuo Ezechie et alias quae sequuntur”; the series follows the anointing rather than preceding it as in the Farfa ritual.Google Scholar

19 See SG 3:172 (the agenda mortuorum in six manuscripts), and SG 2:22 (no. 3012).Google Scholar

20 SG 2:195 (no. 2794).Google Scholar

21 See the text edited by Sicard, , La liturgie de la mort (n. 1 above), 379–80.Google Scholar

22 Paxton, , Christianizing Death (n. 1 above), 123, 141; SG 1:463 (no. 1415); Liber tramitis, 276.Google Scholar

23 Ordo Romanus 49 in Les Ordines romani du haut moyen âge , ed. Andrieu, Michel, vol. 4 (Louvain, 1956), 525–30 (Vat. Ottob. Lat. 312, fol. 151v). On this ordo see especially Paxton, , Christianizing Death, 37–44, and Sicard, , La liturgie de la mort, 2–33.Google Scholar

24 Paxton, , “Death by Customary,” 301–2.Google Scholar

25 Le pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle , 149, 1, ed. Vogel, Cyrille and Elze, Reinhard, Studi e testi 227 (Vatican City, 1963), 281: “Mox ut viderint eum ad exitum propinquare, communicandus est de sacrificio sancto, etiam si comedisset ipso die.” Google Scholar

26 Iogna-Prat, Dominique, “La croix, le moine, et l'empereur: dévotion à la croix et théologie politique à Cluny autour de l'an mil,” in Haut Moyen-Age: Culture, Éducation et Société: Études offertes à Pierre Riché , ed. Lepelley, Claude et al. (La Garenne-Colombes, 1990), 449–75.Google Scholar

27 Liber tramitis (n. 4 above), 275.Google Scholar

28 Liber tramitis , 276: “dicat praeces solitas pro defunctis.” Google Scholar

29 The prayer is not in the Rheinau manuscript because it lacks the entire last section of the ritual.Google Scholar

30 PL 149:774B: “Sepulcrum cum factum fuerit, dicenda est haec collecta super illud: Deus, qui fundasti.” Google Scholar

31 Das Klosterrituale von Biburg (n. 16 above), 251 (no. 345); for the location of this prayer in manuscripts from the other houses see the comparative table on p. 324.Google Scholar

32 Hallinger, Kassius, ed., Consuetudinum saeculi X/XI/XII Monumenta Introductiones , Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 7.1 (Siegburg, 1984), 304; compare Liber tramitis, 271.Google Scholar

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34 Redactio Vallumbrosana , 371. The performance of the responsory Subuenite before the soul leaves the body goes back to Ordo Romanus 49.Google Scholar

35 PL 151:918–31; I cite the PL edition because I have not yet been able to identify the manuscript from which the text has been transcribed.Google Scholar

36 North Italian Services (n. 16 above), 47; PL 151:920C-D.Google Scholar

37 PL 151:922C, 923A.Google Scholar

38 For the diverse influences on Farfa's liturgy see Boynton, , Shaping a Monastic Identity , 144–83 (n. 5 above).Google Scholar

39 Descriptions in Martini, Paola Supino, Roma e l'area grafica romanesca (secoli X-XII) (Alessandria, 1987), 264–65, and Boynton, , Shaping a Monastic Identity, 237–38.Google Scholar

40 On this manuscript see Boe, John, “Music Notation in Archivio San Pietro C 105 and in the Farfa Breviary, Chigi C.VI.177,” Early Music History 18 (1999): 18–21; Boynton, Susan, “Eleventh-Century Continental Hymnaries Containing Latin Glosses,” Scriptorium 53 (1999): 202–9; Boynton, , “Liturgy and History at the Abbey of Farfa in the Late Eleventh Century: Hymns of Peter Damian and Other Additions to BAV Chigi C.VI.177,” Sacris Erudiri 39 (2000): 317–44; Boynton, , Shaping a Monastic Identity, 238–39; Martini, Supino, Roma, 254–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Dinter, Peter, Liber Tramitis (n. 4 above), xl n. 93, dates Chigi C.VI.177 to between 1030 and 1060. Several features in the script support a dating of 1050–60.Google Scholar

42 Regula Benedicti , ed. Hanslik, Rudolf, CSEL 75 (Vienna, 1977), 45–47.Google Scholar

43 Descriptions in Boynton, , Shaping a Monastic Identity , 239; Boynton, , “The Uses of the Liber Tramitis” (n. 5 above); Martini, Supino, Roma, 252–53; Mohlberg, Leo Cunibert, Katalog der Handschriften der Zentralbibliothek Zürich (Zurich, 1951), 1:196.Google Scholar

44 Probably at Rheinau, a hymn for the patron saint of the monastery, St. Findan, , Letetur omnis hac die/deuota plebs ecclesie (Analecta Hymnica 23, 176), was added on p. 1 and notated with Germanic neumes. His cult was limited to Rheinau and, after 1200, Sankt Gallen. See Das Rheinauer Rituale (n. 11 above), 21.Google Scholar

45 Cf. Liber tramitis , 270: “omnis congregatio psalmos hos decantent, uidelicet septem speciales.” Google Scholar

46 SG 1:454 (no. 1386).Google Scholar

47 SG 1:454 (no. 1387).Google Scholar

48 SG 1:454 (no. 1388).Google Scholar

49 SG 1:454 (no. 1389).Google Scholar

50 Cf. Liber tramitis , 270: “Sacerdos autem incipiat ungere infirmum, in primis uisus siue ceteros sensus corporis et dicat repetendo per unumquemque Per istam unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam indulgeat tibi dominus quicquit peccasti per uisum.” Google Scholar

51 Das Klosterrituale von Biburg (n. 16 above), 231 (no. 272), and Das Rheinauer Rituale, 147 (no. 124).Google Scholar

52 Cf. SG 3:119, lines 1–10 (no. 3979bis).Google Scholar

53 PL 151:920C (sacramentary from Fonte Avellana, modern shelfmark unknown); cf. North Italian Services (n. 16 above), 47.Google Scholar

54 PL 151:920D; cf. North Italian Services , 47, and Odermatt, , Ein Rituale in beneventanischer Schrift (n. 11 above), 313 (no. 211).Google Scholar

55 Cf. Le pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle , 149, 1, ed. Vogel, and Elze, , (n. 25 above), 281, and Ordo Romanus 49, 1, in Les Ordines romani du haut moyen-âge, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense 29, ed. Andrieu, Michel (Leuven, 1984), 529; PL 151:920D.Google Scholar

56 SG 3:163 (no. 4073).Google Scholar

57 PL 151:922C (“Deus, qui vitam justis tribuis”).Google Scholar

58 PL 151:923A.Google Scholar

59 SG 2:22 (no. 3012).Google Scholar

60 Ed. Sicard, , La liturgie de la mort (n. 1 above), 379.Google Scholar

61 SG 2:195 (no. 2794).Google Scholar

62 CAO, no. 7716.Google Scholar

63 Ed. Sicard, , La liturgie de la mort , 362–63.Google Scholar

64 Ed. Sicard, , La liturgie de la mort , 379–80 (second part of Delicta iuuentutis).Google Scholar

65 Odermatt, , Ein Rituale in beneventanischer Schrift (n. 11 above), 315–16, no. 216.Google Scholar

66 SG 1:458 (no. 1399).Google Scholar

67 Lines 345–48; cf. Mohlberg, , 237 (no. 1626); PL 151:926D.Google Scholar

68 Cf. Mohlberg, , 235 (no. 1611); SG 3:157 (no. 4051).Google Scholar

69 Ed. Sicard, , La liturgie de la mort , 372.Google Scholar

70 Cf. Mohlberg, , 235 (no. 1612); SG 3:158 (no. 4052).Google Scholar

71 Cf. SG 1:460 (no. 1408).Google Scholar

72 Ed. Sicard, , La liturgie de la mort (n. 1 above), 379 (first part of prayer); cf. Ps. 24:7.Google Scholar

73 CAO, no. 7716.Google Scholar

74 Mohlberg, 236 (no. 1618).Google Scholar

75 Mohlberg, 236 (no. 1616).Google Scholar

76 Mohlberg, 236 (no. 1619).Google Scholar

77 SG 1:458 (no. 1401).Google Scholar

78 CAO, no. 7477.Google Scholar

79 SG 1:459 (no. 1402).Google Scholar

80 CAO, no. 7716.Google Scholar

81 SG 1:459 (no. 1403); SG 2:209 (no. 2877).Google Scholar

82 CAO, no. 3266.Google Scholar

83 CAO, no. 1446.Google Scholar

84 CAO, no. 3335.Google Scholar

85 CAO, no. 3012.Google Scholar

86 CAO, no. 2123.Google Scholar

87 This form of the antiphon text is found designated “Pro Defunctis” in Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana C5, fol. 309v; Vatican City, BAV San Pietro B79, fol. 306r; and Karlsruhe, Aug. 60, fol. 265v.Google Scholar

88 CAO, no. 119.Google Scholar

89 CAO, no. 4154.Google Scholar

90 CAO, no. 3573.Google Scholar

91 Das Klosterrituale von Biburg (n. 16 above), 251 (no. 345).Google Scholar

92 Ibid., 255 (no. 366).Google Scholar

93 SG 1:460–61 (no. 1409).Google Scholar

94 One line of text is missing in Vallicelliana F.29; the missing part of the word cannot be reconstructed conclusively.Google Scholar

95 Cf. SG 1:458 (variant on no. 1399).Google Scholar

96 SG 1:462 (no. 1414).Google Scholar

97 Mohlberg, , 236 (no. 1617).Google Scholar

98 Cf. Mohlberg, , 234 (no. 1608).Google Scholar

99 Mohlberg, , 236–37 (no. 1621).Google Scholar

100 Mohlberg, , 235 (no. 1614).Google Scholar

101 Mohlberg, , 237 (no. 1623).Google Scholar

102 SG 3:164 (first sentence of no. 4077).Google Scholar

103 SG 1:463 (no. 1415); text in brackets supplied from edition.Google Scholar