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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 120: Borderline History?: Reading Liturgical Commentaries as Historical Sources, I

Monday 6 July 2020, 11.15-12.45

Organisers:Miriam Czock, Historisches Institut, Universität Duisburg-Essen
Graeme Ward, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Moderator/Chair:Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Paper 120-aWhat Is History?: Historical Concepts in Amalarius's and Ruperts of Deutz's Commentaries on the Liturgy
(Language: English)
Miriam Czock, Historisches Institut, Universität Duisburg-Essen
Index terms: Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Liturgy
Paper 120-bLiturgy as a Way of Life: Ralph of Battle and Rupert of Deutz on the Transformative Function of the Divine Office
(Language: English)
Sigbjørn Olsen Sønnesyn, Department of History, Durham University
Index terms: Liturgy, Mentalities
Paper 120-cThe Manuscripts of Honorius Augustodunensis's Gemma animae
(Language: English)
Karl Kinsella, Department of History of Art, University of York
Index terms: Liturgy, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Abstract

Although liturgical commentaries were produced in vast quantities and very widely read throughout the Middle Ages, modern scholars have tended to dismiss them as derivative texts, undeserving of critical attention. Our contention, however, is that these commentaries are invaluable sources, not least because they allow us to reconstruct contemporary understandings of past, present, and future as they were shaped by the central focus of medieval Christian life: the liturgy. These two sessions seek to rethink the historical value of liturgical commentaries, not only by exploring their distinctive modes of representing time and history but also by asking how they can illuminate the worlds of those who wrote and read them.