Pontificalia. A Repertory of Latin Manuscripts Pontificals and Benedictionals

298 Pages·2007·2.684 MB·English

by  Kay (Richard)

PONTIFICALIA

A Repertory
of
Latin Manuscript
Pontificals and Benedictionals

compiled by

Richard Kay
Emeritus Professor of History
The University of Kansas
Lawrence KS
2007

ISBN 978-1-936153-01-5

http://hdl.handle.net/1808/4406

Copyright © 2009 Richard Kay

This electronic edition created by Digital Publishing Services,
an initiative of the University of Kansas Libraries
http://www.lib.ku.edu
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Cover Statement

Medieval bishops often had a special book of liturgical services that only a bishop could
perform. Such books are of two kinds: one is termed a “benedictional,” or collection of pontifical
blessings; the other is called a “pontifical” and it includes the rest of the episcopal liturgy. The
present work is a catalog of 1249 such manuscripts in Latin that have been identified, but it is not
exhaustive. Each item contains a short description and a bibliography.
In addition, three appendices list: relevant manuscripts the present location of which is
unknown; printed editions of pontificals and benedictionals; and manuscripts that for some
reason have been excluded from this catalog.
This catalog is a research tool that will be useful especially to specialists in the history of
medieval liturgy, but also to those interested in Latin paleography, medieval art, and church
history.
Table of Contents

(each of the sections is paged separately)

Introduction

Common Abbreviations

Special Abbreviations

Bibliography

Repertory

Appendix 1: Lost Manuscripts

Appendix 2: Rejected Manuscripts

Appendix 3: Printed Pontificals & Benedictionals
Introduction • 1

Introduction

The compilation of bibliographies, like the editing of texts, should require
no apology,1 for scholars recognize that to reconstruct the past accurately one
must have access to all the relevant sources in reliable editions. Nonetheless,
academic administrators regard editors and compilers as mere “hewers of wood
and drawers of water (Deut. 29:11, Josh. 9:21), whose maintenance of the infra-
structure may be essential but deserves little recognition. Perhaps that is why so
many of the great repertories on which liturgical scholarship depends have been
compiled by men who were free from the pressure of academic advancement.
Thus, to name but a few of them, we rely on the unhurried industry of Chevalier
for hymns,2 Grégoire for homilaries,3 Hesbert for antiphons,4 Moeller for bene-
dictions,5 and, of course, Leroquais for French sacramentaries, psalters, breviar-
ies, books of hours, and pontificals.6 Similarly, the present work is a global reper-
-----------------------------------

1. An earlier version of this introduction appeared under the title
“Pontificalia: A Global Checklist of Latin Manuscript Pontificals and
Benedictionals” in Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal, 10/2 (2006), p.
192-202.
2. Ulysse Chevalier, Repertorium hymnologicum, 6
vols.(Louvain/Brussels, 1892-1921).
3. Reginald Grégoire, Les homéliaires du moyen âge: Inventaire et
analyse des manuscrits = Rerum ecclesiastica documenta, Series maior: Fontes, 6
(Rome, 1966).
4. René-Jean Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii, 6 vols. = Rerum
ecclesiastica documenta, Series maior: Fontes, 7-12 (Rome, 1963-1979).
5. Edmond (Eugène) Moeller, Corpus benedictionum pontificalium, 4
vols. = Corpus Christianorum, Series latina, 162, 162A, 162B, & 162C (Turnhout,
1971-1979).
6. Victor Leroquais, Les sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des
bibliothèques publiques de France, 3 vols. (Paris, 1924); Les psaultiers
manuscrits latins des bibliothèques publiques de France, 3 vols. (Mâcon, 1940-
1941); Les bréviaires manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, 5 vols.
Introduction • 2
tory of Latin liturgical manuscripts containing pontificalia, namely those occa-
sional services that only a bishop could perform. My interest in the genre began
in 1958, when as a graduate student I began my study of pontificals, which con-
tinued only intermittently until 2003, when I finally began compiling this reper-
tory as a project well suited to my status as a retired professor. Four years later,
in October 2007, when the compilation had reached its present state, I paused be-
fore undertaking new lines of investigation that might exceed my energy, re-
sources, and remaining years. Since at present it seems unlikely that I shall be
able to fill the gaps, I am mounting this imperfect interim version of the repertory
on the “ScholarWorks” website provided by the University of Kansas libraries,
which will make the data widely available.
Admittedly, much remains to be done. Above all, I have yet to survey
systematically what has been published in the last twenty years. This necessary
task was postponed for two reasons: first, because it seemed best to wait until as
many manuscripts as possible had been identified, so I could more readily recog-
nize relevant publications; and second, because my university library does not
subscribe to any of the standard liturgical journals. Even more difficult is the
challenge of locating manuscripts that have changed hands in the last fifty years
or so. Private collectors too often shun publicity, so that tantalizing auction re-
cords often lead to a dead-end. Even the recent acquisitions of public collections
are difficult to determine because they are announced obscurely if at all. These,
then, are the principal gaps in the present version.
* * *
The principal part of this compilation is a “Repertory of Locations” pres-
ently listing over 1200 liturgical manuscripts, almost all of them written in Latin.
The primary purpose of this list is to record all surviving copies of pontificales,
but it also includes a closely related genre, the benedictionale. The pontificale is
the bishop’s book par excellence, containing all the liturgical services that a
bishop needed to perform ex officio. He might, of course, also own other liturgi-
cal books that he used in his lesser capacity as a priest, such as a missal or brevi-
ary; but when he functioned qua bishop, his pontifical was enough. The most
complete pontifical included a benedictionale, which provided the bishop with
blessings for every occasion that required an episcopal benediction rather than a
merely priestly one. Since a benedictional could contain well over a hundred
formulas, it was in effect a distinct unit that in fact often was bound separately,
and consequently it is frequently treated as a distinct liturgical genre. Broadly
speaking, then, pontificals and benedictionals are the theoretical scope of this rep-
ertory, but in practice these categories present problems that must be discussed in
detail.

(Paris, 1934); Les livres d’heures manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1927) and Supplément, 2 vols. (1943); Les pontificaux manuscrits des
bibliothèques publiques de France, 3 vols. (Paris, 1937).
Introduction • 3

Parameters
By 1300 the pontifical and the benedictional, as described above, were
recognized genres. A new bishop could confidently commission one or simply
buy it from a booksellerready made. But the pontifical had developed slowly as a
genre and had early intermixed with other types of liturgical books, so that for
two centuries (800-1000) it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish
“true” pontificals from quasi- or pseudo-pontificals. Unlike Niels K. Rasmussen,7
who was a strict minimalist in his assessment of early pontificals, I shall be inclu-
sive, leaving my reader to discard what does not suit his purpose.
Caeremoniales. The pontifical is not to be confused with the ceremonial,
which is a distinct genre. Caeremoniales were not books for bishops but for mas-
ters of ceremonies. The ceremonial elaborated on the details of any given cere-
mony, giving much more information than the bishop required to perform his part
in the proceedings. Put another way, a ceremonial expanded the rubrics (or stage
directions, often distinguished by being written in red letters, or at least under-
lined in red), while often indicating the black-letter prayer texts only by the open-
ing words, or incipit, thus making such a rubricist text unusable by a performing
bishop. Although ceremonials are undoubtedly a valuable source for liturgical
practice, as a distinct genre they deserve a repertory of their own. Accordingly,
they are excluded here, unless one has in the past been misidentified as a pontifi-
cal, in which case it is included but marked as a pseudo-pontifical (†).
Ordines. The compiler of a list of pontificals is presented with a more
complex, and perhaps ultimately insolvable, problem in the case of ordines. An
ordo is simply a written description of the form, or “order,” of a particular liturgi-
cal service. Ordines are the building blocks out of which pontificals are made.
They existed long before anyone thought of selecting the ones of special interest
to a bishop and making the first pontifical. Often ordines for some particular
function were collected into a single booklet, or libellus; sometimes select ordines
were appended to a sacramentary; and occasionally compendious collections were
made of ordines and related materials, such as the manuscripts described by
Michel Andrieu, on which he based his edition of the ordines Romani. 8 Moreo-
ver, even after the pontifical became the usual bishop’s book, individual ordines
or a few related ones were often copied separately, probably for portability or for
some similar convenience. My problem is whether, or to what extent, ordines that
-----------------------------------

7. Niels Krogh Rasmussen OP, Les pontificaux du haut moyen âge:
Genèse du livre de l’évêque = Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense: Études et
documents, 49 (Louvain, 1998).
8. Michel Andrieu, Les ordines Romani du haut moyen âge, vol. 1: Les
manuscrits = Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense: Ëtudes et documents, 11
(Louvain, 1931); idem, vols. 2-5: Les textes = idem, fasc. 23, 24, 28, & 29
(Louvain, 1948-1961).
Introduction • 4
are normally found in a pontifical should be recorded in a repertory of pontifi-
calia. The most inclusive course is that adopted by Pierre Salmon in his catalog
of Vatican liturgical manuscripts:9 an ordo that normally forms part of a pontifi-
cal is reported in the Repertory as a pontificalis elementum; more specifically, if it
was copied from a pontifical, it is a pontificalis excerptum. In this interim version
of the Repertory both elements and excerpts have been included but are distin-
guished by coding them with a division sign (÷). When a manuscript pontifical or
benedictional has survived in fragmentary form, however, the remains--even a
single leaf--are uncoded when the genre is certain; otherwise, they are coded as a
questionable addition (+?).
Eventually these coded entries will have to be thinned out, not to say
weeded, because if these principles were to be applied uniformly throughout the
Repertory, it would be, and perhaps already is, swamped by such entries. For ex-
ample, roughly half the texts used by Herbert Schneider in his edition of conciliar
ordines10 are proper to a pontifical (i.e. they are pontificalis elementa), although in
fact they have been found in legal collections, miscellanea, or in isolation. The
inclusion of these ordines extravagantes, although useful to those searching for a
particular class of material (coronations, councils, and the like), would alter the
character of the present repertory, which is focused on a particular way of collect-
ing ordines rather than on the component ordines themselves.
The inclusion of such peripheral materials would be justified if the Reper-
tory did regularly analyze the contents of each manuscript, as did Leroquais and,
to a lesser extent, John Brückmann.11 Unfortunately such a herculean task has not
been possible for me, so I have reluctantly left the task of inventorying the con-
tents of all the manuscript pontificals to some long-lived and industrious succes-
sor, for whom this repertory should serve as a point of departure. I have, how-
ever, occasionally indicated the principal contents of a manuscript, especially in
order to establish the character of abbreviated or fragmentary pontificals.
Benedictionals. A blessing on the congregation (benedictio populi) was
given during, or perhaps at the end of, the Eucharist, at least as early as the fourth
century.12 Such a blessing could be given by a priest, but better by a bishop if he
was present. Although the same simple formula of a blessing super populum or in
populo may have been used both by priests and bishops, eventually a distinctive
and more solemn form became the standard benedictio episcopalis. Typically, it
-----------------------------------

9. Pierre Salmon, Les manuscrits liturgiques latin de la Bibliothèque
Vaticane, vol. 3: Ordines Romani, pontificaux, rituels, cérémoniaux = Studi e
testi, 260 (Vatican City, 1970).
10. Herbert Schneider, Die Konzilsordines des Früh- und Hochmittelalters
= MGH, Ordines de celebrando concilio (Hanover, 1996).
11. John Brückmann, “Latin Manuscript Pontificals and Benedictionals in
England and Wales,” Traditio, 29 (1973), p. 391-458.
12. Moeller 1973 & 1968.
Introduction • 5
consisted of three clauses and concluded with a formula beginning Quod ipse
praestare....13 The earliest extant collections of these blessings were made as
supplements to the Roman mass books that Charlemagne imposed on the Frankish
church. These supplements were needed because episcopal blessings had been
customarily used in the Gallican liturgy but were not included in the texts im-
ported from Rome. By far the most popular of these collections was the one that
became a regular supplement to the Gregorian sacramentary. Formerly attributed
to Alcuin, it now seems to have been compiled by monks associated with the
monastery of Aniane; probably the work was begun about 810 by Benedict of
Aniane (d. 821) and completed by Helischar, his fellow monk at Aniane, shortly
before his death in 836.14 Because the authorship is obscure but the project is
linked to Aniane, I refer to it as the “Anianian supplement.” This supplement,
which is often identified by the incipit of its preface, Hucusque, is divided into
two parts, with 52 benedictiones episcopales at the end of the second part.
Should this collection, embedded as it is in an appendix to the Gregorian
sacramentary, be considered a benedictional? Perhaps not, if one is intent on
maintaining rigid distinctions between genres; but anyone looking for collections
of benedictiones episcopales will be best served by including series that are not
free standing, and accordingly for the practical purpose of this repertory they have
been included as benedictionals. This flexible approach to liturgical typology can
be justified, however, by the existence of ninth-century episcopal benedictions
that were collected together in an independent book instead of being appended to
a Gregorian sacramentary.15 With less justification but in the same inclusive
spirit, the very few series of bishop’s blessings that antedate the Anianian and
Freising collections have also been admitted to the Repertory. 16
-----------------------------------

13. “Quod ipse prestare dignetur qui cum patre et spiritu sancto vivit et
gloriatur deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen. Benedictio dei patris et
filii et spiritus sancti, et pax domini sit semper vobiscum -- May He deign to be
present who lives with the Father and the Holy Spirit and is God glorified, world
without end. Amen. The blessing of God the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit, and the peace of the Lord be always with you.”
14. J. Deshusses, “Le ‘Supplément’ au sacramentaire grégorien: Alcuin
ou Benoît d’Aniane?,” ALW, 9 (1965), p. 48-71. For the contribution of
Helischar: Joseph Décréaux, Le sacramentaire de Marmoutier (Autun 19 bis)
dans l’histoire des sacramentaires carolingiens du IXe siècle, 2 vols. = Studi di
antichità cristiana, 38 (Vatican City, 1985), 1:218-234.
15. The Benedictionals of Freising (Munich, Bayerische Staasbibliothek,
Cod. lat. 6430), ed. Robert Amiet = HBS, 88 (1974).
16. Notably MS. Vat. Pal. 493 (Missale Gallicanum Vetus, saec. VIII
1/2), , MS. Paris BnF lat. 12048 (Gelasian sacramentary of Gellone, 790’s), MS.
Paris BnF lat. 816 (Gelasian sacramentary of Angoulême, ca. 800), MS. Berlin
DSB Phillipps lat. 105 (Gelasian, ca. 800). In addition to these early Gallican
episcopal blessings, the Repertory notices a few Mozarabic ones as well.
Introduction • 6

Interpreting the entries
In general, I have tried to summarize the salient features of each manu-
script without entering into excessive detail. Although the entries themselves are
largely self-explanatory, the underlying principles that have guided me are not.
consequently, in order to clarify my rationale, I shall briefly comment on the ele-
ments of a typical entry.
The body of each entry is divided into two parts, or paragraphs. The first
provides a succinct description of the item, and the second gives a selective bibli-
ography.
• Location. The address line is based on the form employed by Kris-
teller/Krämer 1993, unless more recent nomenclature has come to my attention.
In parentheses, I give alternate shelf marks and/or catalog numbers a prominent
place, as these are often cited instead of the one I have taken to be the current of-
ficial designation.
• Title. Almost always factitious, the underscored title should facilitate
scanning the list. It represents my best present understanding of the book, which
is usually described by genre and by destinary (“Pontifical of Bamberg”). In
cases where the destinary seems uncertain or of secondary importance, a generic
title has been preferred (“Durandus Pontifical”). If the book is of a recognized
type, this is noted in parentheses, especially for the various versions of the Roman
Pontifical (PRG, PRxii, PRCur). Quotation marks enclose titles not my own,
some from the MS, others supplied by the binder or cataloger. When a book has a
traditional title that is now considered dubious--if not downright inaccurate--the
questionable alternative is also noted: for example, “Pontifical of Winchester” is
my title for MS. London BL Add. 49598, which has been called the “Benedic-
tional of Archbishop Robert.”
When the item described in the short, underscored title is only one part of
a MS, as is often the case with benedictiones episcopales, the nature of the con-
text is also specified (e.g. “in a Gregorian sacramentary”).
• Place. Next, conveniently close to the beginning of the entry, the place
of production is identified. Although this is not always easy to ascertain, and con-
sequently is not a usual feature of manuscript cataloging, I thought it would be
useful for those who wished to single out (by an electronic search) manuscripts
originating in on particular country. to make such a search possible, I have im-
posed uniformity by using the modern names of countries (England, France, It-
aly). If the MS can be placed more specifically, that is noted next (in parenthe-
ses), e.g. “France (Avignon)” or “Italy (north).”
• Date. As is customary, the date is “paleographical,” i.e. it is based on the
estimated date of the script. The century (saeculum) is given in capital roman
numerals (saec. XIV), which, in order to facilitate electronic searching, are not
used for other purposes in the Repertory (e.g. Mabillon’s ordo xiv). the first and
last decades of a century are indicated, respectively, by in(eunte) and ex(eunte);