School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemText and illustration in the Medieval Missal, with special reference to a group of French missals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries( 1996)The liturgy of the Mass and individual Mass books of the medieval period have long been the focus of detailed and learned study by liturgical specialists. The illustration of particular missals has also been the subject of research by art historians. The nature of the relationship between text and illustration, however, has attracted less scholarly attention since the pioneering work of scholars such as Adalbert Ebner in Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kunstgeschichte des Missale Romanum in Mittelalter iter Italicum (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1896) and Victor Leroquais in Les sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des bibliotheques publiques de France (Paris, 1924). This thesis examines the illustration of a group of French missals with special reference to the ways in which it relates to the liturgical text and the nature of the consistency and variation of such illustration. The twenty-five missals selected for detailed analysis are drawn from both the north and south of France and from a number of religious and clerical backgrounds in order to determine the degree to which local custom, patronage and the innovations of particular illuminators may have influenced the illustration. Since the primary purpose of the medieval missal was to provide the texts for the priest for the solemn celebration of the Mass, the most important act of public worship of the Church, the way in which the various texts and their arrangement in the missal reflect the beliefs and liturgical practices of the Church is central to this thesis. This study of the illustration follows the order of the missal's basic components: the calendar, the temporale from the first Sunday of Advent up to Holy Saturday, the prefaces and canon, the temporale from Easter Sunday up to the last Sunday of Pentecost, the sanctorale and the commons of the saints. An accompanying Catalogue provides a descriptive list of the illustrative contents of each manuscript and indicates the relationship of each illustration to the text. The analysis of these manuscripts indicates that during the thirteenth and fourteenth century -by which time the medieval missal had acquired its distinctive shape - the illustration of the missal throughout much of France followed a strikingly consistent pattern, despite variations conditioned by patronage, schools of illumination etc. Individual illustrations are not only closely related to the text, but as part of a comprehensive illustrative pattern they emphasise the liturgical significance of the Mass. This is interpreted as making present the redemptive nature of Christ’s life, death and resurrection and celebrating its continuance through the life of the saints and of the Church. At the same time the illustration fulfils the very practical function of drawing attention to key texts and sections in the book; it thus, along with the rubrics, helps to guide the celebrant thorough the complexities of the liturgy.