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An Unknown ‘Apology’ in Morgan Manuscript 641

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Anselm Strittmatter*
Affiliation:
St. Anselm's Priory, Washington, D.C.

Extract

Following certain suggestions of the late Edmund Bishop, Father Joseph Jungmann, S.J., in his excellent book, Die Stellung Christi im liturgischen Gebet, discusses at some length the type of prayer which in the West was generally known as ‘Apologia Sacerdotis', though other titles too, are not infrequently found, e.g., ‘Excusatio’ or ‘Accusatio Sacerdotis', and occasionally some such neutral heading as ‘Oratio S. Ambrosii’, ‘Oratio S. Augustini’. The relevant material has been gathered by Abbot Cabrol, who presents a most useful (and at the same time curiously misleading) list of the prayers which belong to this class in his article, ‘Apologies' (DACL 1, 2591–2601). To this list very little, if anything, remains to be added, but for the sake of completeness there will have to be included in any corpus of apologies, if such a collection is ever undertaken, the interesting cento which is here published—as far as I am aware, for the first time.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1946 by Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service Co., Inc. 

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References

1 ‘The Litany of Saints in the Stowe Missal,’ Journal of Theological Studies 7 (1905–6) 122136; reprinted with supplementary material in Liturgica Historica (Oxford 1918) 137–164s The ‘apologiae’ are briefly discussed on pp. 122–3 of the first printing, on p. 138 of the second. Of the older literature on this subject, Cardinal Bona's treatment of it in his Rerum liturgicarum libri duo II 1.1 (in fine) & 2 (Augustae Taurinorum 1753, t. III, pp. 2–3, 10–11), is outstanding. As for recent literature, apart from the writings cited in the text above, special mention must be made of Father Herbert Thurston's article, ‘The Confiteor,’ The Month 124 (July-December 1914) 50–63. Useful, too, is Eisenhofer's, discussion, Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik II (Freiburg i. Br. 1933) 78–9. Inaccessible to me are the two following publications, which I know by title only: Caronti, E., ‘Le Apologie della Messa,' Rivista d’ apologia cristiana, 1920, pp. 1–31 (cf. Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft 1 [1921] 186 n. 436), and Callewaert, C., ‘II Confiteor alla Messa e all' ufficio,’ Rivista liturgica 20 (1933) 57–60 (cf. Jf Ltgw. 13 [1936] 374 n. 315).Google Scholar

2 Münster i. W. 1925 (Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen 19–20) pp. 223–5. I am fully aware of the strictures which Lebreton, Père (Recherches de science religieuse 16 [1926] 370–3) and Odo Casel, P. (Jf Ltgw. 7 [1927] 177–183) have passed upon this book, but it remains, none the less, a work of exceptional value to the student. See the review of Connolly, J. H., Journal of Theological Studies 28 (1926–7) 82–3.Google Scholar

3 ‘Apologia Sacerdotes’ (sic) is the title found in the Missale Gothicum (Regin. lat. 317, fol. 170v); see Bannister's, H. M. edition, I (H. B. S. 52, London 1917) 81 n. 275; Cunibert Mohlberg, O.S.B., Facsimile Edition (Augsburg 1929) Tafelband, 170v. ‘Incipit Apologia’ is prefixed in the Bobbio Missal (ed. Lowe, E. A. [H. B. S. 58, London 1920] 147 [483]) to the prayer, Ante oculos tuos, domine, culpas quas fecimus, which was still printed in the Roman Missal as late as 1910 under the heading, ‘Oratio S. Augustini’, but has since been excluded. The Sacramentary of Rodradus, abbot of Corbie, of the middle of the ninth century, twice has the title, ‘Apologia sacerdotis’ (foll. 244v, 245; Leroquais, Victor, Les Sacramentaires èt les Missels manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France [= Leroquais], Paris 1924, I 27). The diversity of titles is rather fully considered by Cabrol in his article in DACL.Google Scholar

4 Cabrol prints a list of one hundred and sixty four items to which several others, unnumbered, are added. Even a casual examination will show that nearly every prayer cited recurs several times, the total number of distinct prayers being probably less than fifty. A new list might well be drawn up on the basis of incipits, and when more than one recension of a prayer exists, these ought to be distinguished.Google Scholar

5 Most probably, the collect ‘Post Profetiam’, Deus sancte ecclesiae constitutor, and the prayer following, Misericors et miserator domine, of the Mass of St. Germanus of Auxerre in the famous palimpsest, Augiensis CCLIII of Karlsruhe, would have to be included as the oldest Latin prayers of the kind known to us. See Wilmart, A., ‘L’âge et l'ordre des messes de Mone,' Revue Bénédictine 28 (1911) 382 and 389; in Mone's original edition these prayers are printed as part of a separate mass-formulary (Lateinische und griechische Messen aus dem zweiten bis sechsten Jahrhundert, Frankfurt a. M. 1850, p. 37; PL 138, 880–881).Google Scholar

6 Not infrequently, collections of prayers of this kind have prefixed to them the caption, ‘Incipiunt Apologiae’ (MS 77 of the Bibliothèque Municipale of Le Mans, of the second half of the ninth century, fol. lv [Leroquais I 30]; Martène, Edmundus, De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus, Lib. I, cap. iv, art. xii, Ordo VII [all references to this work are to the second edition, Antwerp 1736], I 535; the well known Codex S. Eligii of the tenth century [Leroquais I 63f.] PL 78, 226; Vatic. lat. 3806 (fol. 298) of about the year 1000 [Ebner, Adalbert, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kunstgeschichte des Missale Romanum im Mittelalter. Iter Ilalicum (= Ebner), Freiburg i. Br. 1896, p. 214]).Google Scholar

7 The designation of this book in De Ricci-Wilson, , Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, II (New York 1937) 1476, as a ‘Missale Gallicanum’ is a curious error. It is a sacramentary, not a missal, and as might be expected in view of its date, a book of the Roman Rite, not Gallican. The bibliographical references in the Census deal with the extraordinary interest and value attaching to the manuscript from an artistic point of view. It will not be amiss at this point to call attention to the dislocation of certain gatherings. The manuscript began at one time with what is now folio 41 (the midnight Mass of Christmas; has a leaf which contained the Mass of the Vigil been lost?). What is now fol. 1 followed originally upon fol. 105. In other words, the leaves (38–40) on which the collection of apologies is inscribed came after the Proprium de Tempore and before the Sanctorale, resumed in the present foliation on fol. 106. Accordingly, I fail to understand W. H. J. W(eale)'s remark, ‘Collation: a to z in eights’ (A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Fifty Manuscripts in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson, Cambridge 1902, p. 126). The numbering of the gatherings had been cut off before the rebinding of the codex. If he believed the present arrangement of the book to be the original one, at least he might have commented on the uniqueness, not to say the abnormality, of it (the Mass-formulary for Easter Sunday on fol. 1, those for Christmas on foll. 41–3, that of Easter Night on fol. 100, followed by the Canon of the Mass which ends on fol. 105v and is followed by the feast of St. Euphemia on fol. 106).Google Scholar

8 This is the date given in the Census (see preceding note). Special importance, however, attaches to the following statement of Morey, Charles R. Professor: ‘ … a date of about 1100 may be arrived at for the manuscript, and its illumination is probably due to a certain Frotmundus, a monk of the Mount, who was also the scribe of another Mont-Saint-Michel manuscript, no. 72, in the library of Avranches’ (The Arts 7 [1925] 210; see also The Pierpont Morgan Library: Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts Held at the New York Public Library, November 1933 to April 1934, p. 13).Google Scholar

Leroquais I 75 describes a fragmentary sacramentary of Mont-St.-Michel (Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 116 [Supplément]) of the tenth century, and II 39 a missal (Avranches, Bibl. Municipale, MS 42) of the early thirteenth century. It is worthy of note that whereas the Morgan book includes the feast of the Dedication of the Abbey Church of St. Michael the Archangel (Oct. 16), it has no suggestion of either a vigil or an octave.—Two manuscript breviaries of Mont-St.-Michel are also extant: one, of the beginning of the thirteenth century, Avranches, Bibl. Mun. MS 39, which comprises the winter section (from the first Sunday of Advent to Holy Saturday); the other, of the fifteenth century, Parisin. lat. N. A. 424, which contains the summer section (from Holy Week to the twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost) (Leroquais, , Les Bréviaires manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, Paris 1934, I 99101; III 391–3). One more liturgical manuscript, a twelfth-century pontifical of Avranches (Parisin. lat. 14832) may here be mentioned, not because it in any way represents the use of the famous abbey, situated ‘in periculo maris’, but because it contains (foll. 177–184) several texts of considerable interest and importance for the history of the monastery (Leroquais, , Les Pontificaux manuscrits des bibliothèques de France, Paris 1937, II 191–3).—Finally, it may be added that the absence of a vigil or octave of the Dedication of the Abbey Church would indicate that the Morgan MS was written for a church elsewhere (Langres, argues Weale, op. cit. 127–8).Google Scholar

9 Valentini, A., Codice necrologico-liturgico del monastero di S. Salvatore o S. Giulia in Brescia (Brescia 1887) has been inaccessible to me. I have used the reprint of this particular text given by Ebner in his ‘Beiträge zur Textgeschichte des Canon Missae,’ op. cit. 415f.Google Scholar

10 From which it was first printed, as far as I am aware, by Martène, , op. cit. 4.27 (III 519), where the old number of the codex is given: 3865 (cf . Delisle, Léopold, ‘Mémoire sur d'anciens sacramentaires,’ Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 32, 1 [1886: pp. 57–403] 91ff.). An admirable edition of this sacramentary was published by the late Dom Paul Cagin of Solesmes, Le Sacramentaire Gélasien d'Angoulême (Angoulême, au Siège de la Société Historique et Archéologique de la Charente, s. a.; ‘Avis’ dated 4 December 1918).Google Scholar

* Morgan MS 641, fol. 38v. The raised numbers (1–13) inserted in the following edition refer to the sections of the commentary below.Google Scholar

a Sic cod. Lege ‘summae’.Google Scholar

b Sic cod. Lege ‘maculatae’.Google Scholar

c Sic cod. Lege ‘eterne’.Google Scholar

d Sic cod. Lege ‘gloriosissimae’.Google Scholar

1 See notes 3, 6, 9, 10 and 11 in the preceding commentary. To the erudition displayed in Wilmart's article cited above, an interesting fact not mentioned by him may here be added, namely, the existence of a Slavic version of this same Oratio S. Ambrosii, which is to be found in Maltzev's, Alexios Andachtsbuch der Orthodox-katholischen Kirche des Morgenlandes (Berlin 1895) 691706, where it is reprinted—without our customary distribution over the days of the week, however—from the Iereiskii Molitvoslov (St. Petersburg 1885) 259–263.Google Scholar

2 Since Wilmart considers Jean de Fécamp the author of all three recensions which were current from the twelfth century onward (op cit. 125), it is immaterial for our present purpose that—with the exception of one—all the parallels cited above occur only in the long recension, B.Google Scholar

3 ‘… une personnalité singulièrement riche et attachante, la plus capable, sans doute, de nous révéler le sens profond de la réforme de Cluny …’: Wilmart, , ‘La complainte de Jean de Fécamp sur les fins dernières’, Auteurs spirituels 129 (Revue d'Ascétique et de Mystique 9 [1928] 388).Google Scholar

4 On the basis of Wilmart's researches, these include the following: (1) the Confessio theologica, first printed at Paris in 1539, later at Antwerp (1545, Ioanne Cassiano authore; later still it was attributed to St. Augustine), Louvain (1573), Würzburg (1581), Cologne (1604), and if I understand aright, never reprinted since (Auteurs spir. 128 n. 3); (2) the Libellus de Scripturis et verbis Patrum; (3) the Confessio fidei, attributed by its first editor, P. Chifflet, S.J., to Alcuin (PL 101, 1027–98); (4) the Meditationes S. Augustini (PL 40, 901–42; Wilmart, , ‘Formes successives ou parallèles des “Méditations de Saint Augustin”,’ Revue d'Ascétique et de Mystique 17 [1936] 337357); (5) the Complainte sur les fins dernières, as Wilmart entitles it (Versiculi ad excitandam cordis compunctionem de Scripturis collecti; for the ‘editio princeps’ of this text see Auteurs spir. 131–134); (6) the Deploratio quietis et solitudinis derelictae (edited for the first time by Leclercq, J. and Bonnes, J. P., Revue Bénédictine, 54 [1942] 41–60). For further orientation concerning the complicated problem of Jean de Fécamp's writings, I refer the reader to still another article by Wilmart. ‘Deux préfaces spirituelles de J. de F.’, Rev. d'Asc. et de Myst. 18 (1937) 1–44.Google Scholar

5 Concerning the ‘Missae S. Augustini’ of the Liber Sacramentorum attributed to Alcuin, see in addition to the bibliographical references given in note 2 of the commentary: Cabrol, F., ‘Les écrits liturgiques d'Alcuin,’ Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 19 (1923) 515516; id. ‘Alcuin,’ DACL 1, 1080; Henry, W., ‘Messes de Saint Augustin’ DACL 1, 3148–9. With reference to my query concerning possible ‘Spanish Symptons’ (see notes 2 and 4 of the preceding commentary and footnote 8 of the Supplementary Note below), Dom Cabrol's suggestion (DACL 1, 1083) that Alcuin probably became acquainted with Mozarabic books in the course of the Adoptianist controversy, is deserving of special attention. More than one pertinent comment on the problems involved will be found also in Father Gerald Ellard's brilliantly written study, ‘Alcuin and Some Favored Votive Masses,’ Theological Studies 1 (1940) 37–61.Google Scholar

1 Leroquais describes two books only used at St. Gatian's, , Parisin. lat. 9430 (+MS 184 of the Bibliothèque Municipale of Tours) and Parisin. lat. N. A. 1589 (op. cit. I 43, 53), and neither does he indicate as the source of Martène's Ordo VII. (Parisin. lat. 9434 is a book of St. Martin's of Tours, which eventually came into the collection of St. Gatian, where it figured as number 63 [Leroquais I 148], and Parisin. lat. 9435 [St. Gatian 67] was written for the abbey of Maillezais [ibid. I 184].) Google Scholar

2 This manuscript contains the famous Missa Flacii Illyrici to which reference has been made above in notes 2, 4, and 11 of the commentary on the prayer, Exaudi me. Concerning this tour de force of liturgical composition, see Joseph Braun's important study, ‘Alter und Herkunft der sog. Missa Illyrica,’ Stimmen aus Maria-Laach 69 (1905) 143–155, in which the old number of the manuscript from which Flacius Illyricus published the text is distinctly given: Codex Helmstad. 1151. (v. Heinemann, O., Die Handschriften der herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel, 1. Abt. Die Helmstedter HSS. III [Wolfenbüttel 1888] 83, gives the new number also, 1258, in the margin.) Beginning with an unusually interesting criterion, viz., the vestments worn by the officiating bishop, Braun succeeded eventually in dating the manuscript about 1020, when it was written for Sigebert, bishop of Minden, in or near his episcopal city. Mention must be made at this point also of Dom Cabrol's two articles, ‘La Messe de Flacius Illyricus,’ Revue Bénédictine 22 (1905) 151–164, and ‘La Messe Latine de F. I.,’ DACL 5, 1625–1635. Edmund Bishop (Liturgica Historica 138 n. 2, and 506) and Dom André Wilmart (Auteurs Spirituels 121, note on lines 94–7, and 599) both give the number of the manuscript incorrectly as 115, and are to be emended accordingly.Google Scholar

3 The ‘Ordo Missae’ as given by Leroquais (II 21) from MS 409 (s. XIII) of the Bibliothèque Municipale of Colmar (see prayer VI below) agrees practically verbatim with this Ordo XVI of Martène. If this is the book which the latter used, it has suffered considerably since, for Leroquais found its ‘Ordo Missae’ rather incomplete.Google Scholar

4 In a letter dated Dec. 29/44, Dr. E. A. Lowe, to whom I am glad once more to express my thanks, kindly supplied me with data sufficient to prove the identity of this codex (see the same author's Beneventan Script, Oxford 1914, p. 75f.) with the book which Bona cites by the old number only.Google Scholar

5 van den Gheyn's, P. Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique I (Bruxelles 1901) contains descriptions of four mass-books (two sacramentaries, one missal, and one missal-antiphonary) which formerly belonged to Stavelot (221: n. 387 [1814–16]; 222: n. 388 [2034–35]; 254: n. 432 [1818]; 279: n. 450 [2031–32]), but none of them would seem ever to have belonged to a church of Verdun.Google Scholar

6 I accept Lowe's date (op. cit. 364). Ebner 228 and l. c. is less definite: ‘s. XII–XIII in.’ Google Scholar

7 I adopt Wilmart's date of the manuscript over against that given in Cuissard's catalogue (Paris 1889), in which the book is assigned to the tenth century. See the former's Auteurs Spirituels 113 n. 2.Google Scholar

8 Once more the question arises of a possible ‘Spanish symptom’ (see note 2 of the Commentary above). Since the prayer is included in the ‘Ordo Missae’ of the so-called Pontifical of Prudentius of Troyes, the late Edmund Bishop in his projected discussion of the ‘apologiae’ of this Ordo would undoubtedly have commented on it in his own exceptionally valuable way (op. cit. 138 n. 2).Google Scholar

9 I accept here Nicholson's, E. W. B. dating in the Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford II 1 (Oxford 1922) 487–9, 2675; see especially page 488: ‘I place A not earlier than 1040’ and a little farther on: ‘I do not hesitate to date A after 1049.’ Google Scholar

10 PL 158, 925CD; Wilmart, A., ‘La tradition des Prières de Saint Anselme,’ Revue Bénédictine 36 (1924) 54, 58, 65, and 66 n. 1, where one more manuscript is given as containing this prayer, B. M. Add. 33381, part 2 (of the fourteenth century).Google Scholar