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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 220: Borderline History?: Reading Liturgical Commentaries as Historical Sources, II

Monday 6 July 2020, 14.15-15.45

Organisers:Miriam Czock, Historisches Institut, Universität Duisburg-Essen
Graeme Ward, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Moderator/Chair:Sarah M. Hamilton, Department of History, University of Exeter
Paper 220-aLiturgical Austerity in Walahfrid Strabo's Libellus de exordiis
(Language: English)
Thomas Greene, Department of History, Loyola University Chicago
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Liturgy
Paper 220-bRoman Authority through the Eyes of South German Liturgists, c. 1000-1100
(Language: English)
Henry Parkes, Department of Music University of Nottingham
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Liturgy
Paper 220-cReinventing Amalarius: History and Authority in a 12th-Century Liturgical Commentary from Trier
(Language: English)
Graeme Ward, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Liturgy
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.