Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England: Four Studies.

Stevenson, Jane

This book is, as the title indicates, a collection of four separate studies. The first two are on kalendars -- the kalendar of the Junius Psalter, and the reconstruction of the kalendar of Glastonbury; the last two studies are more general considerations of liturgical books. Historians of the early Middle Ages have in recent years become increasingly interested in liturgy: this book is a further demonstration that larger questions of ecclesiastical history can be usefully addressed with the aid of this superficially intractable material.

One area of common ground in all four studies is the impression that they produce of the centrality of Canterbury in late Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical culture. The first study makes the Junius Psalter a Canterbury book, on the basis of its kalendar, which derives, as Dr Dumville demonstrates, from a text (the 'Hampson' metrical kalendar) which survives in two Christ Church, Canterbury manuscripts. The second addresses the origins of the Leofric Missal, which includes a kalendar written c. 970 which has been ascribed to Glastonbury. Dumville demolishes the arguments that have been brought forward, and ends by offering the alternative suggestion that the kalendar of the Leofric Missal and related kalendars should be attributed to Canterbury.

His third study is a useful attempt to sort out the dates and places of origin of Anglo-Saxon pontificals and benedictionals: thirty-odd of these are discussed and, in some cases, re-attributed. Again, the thrust of his conclusions is that by far the largest proportion -- over one-third -- are associable with Canterbury. The last, and longest, reviews the historical context of manuscript production, beginning with that old favourite, 'continuity and change'; the survival of Anglo-Saxon liturgical books through the storms of the Viking age, and continues through a variety of other topics: Northumbrian manuscripts, hagiography, relations with the Celtic Church, documentary additions to Gospel books, Old English, the categorization of liturgical manuscripts, centres of production, and liturgical script. This is basically a collection of notes and queries: useful information and interesting ideas heading in a variety of directions.

While the collection is not in itself particularly concerned to present an argument, or state a case, it is nevertheless a useful reference work. The amount of detailed document work the collection represents, particularly in the palaeographic field, will, it is to be hoped, make it a valuable quarry for the ecclesiastical history of late Anglo-Saxon England -- a value which is enhanced by a generous index, a manuscript index and a good bibliography.