A Blog for Liturgical Ressourcement
The Cantores Sancti Ludovici are pleased to announce a chant workshop with Marcel Pérès (Ensemble Organum) from August 21-25, 2023, in St. Louis, Missouri. The week will include the study of chants from the Capetian Dynasty (987) through the Baroque period, culminating with liturgies for the Feast of St. Louis, August 24-25. To register for this workshop, please contact info@scholastl.org.
Over a lustre ago we embarked on the ambitious project to translate the Gemma animae (Jewel of the Soul), Honorius Augustodunensis’s 12th-century treatise on the Mass and Divine Office. Our readers were privy to the first fruits of our labours, accompanying us in the process of discovering the rich tradition of allegorical interpretation of the liturgy to which Honorius contributed so much. As we noted in our first post on the subject, the genre of mediæval liturgical commentary remains understudied, and our enterprise in Englishing the Gemma animae began as a modest attempt to begin to remedy this unhappy situation.
Our work has finally concluded with the publication of our translation by the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library in two elegant volumes. Like the rest of the books in this admirable series, our edition of the Gemma animae presents the English translation side-by-side with the Latin text. In the case of the latter, we moved away from the glaringly defective version found in volume 173 of the Patrologia Latina in favour of an edition based on one of the better manuscripts, Admont Benediktinerstift Cod. 366, with manifest errors and omissions corrected based on a collation of other early manuscripts. We can confidently say that the Latin text presented is a vast improvement over the sole printed version heretofore available.
Our edition is also enriched by copious endnotes that shall help the reader navigate Honorius’s text with greater facility.
Volumes 1 and 2 of the Jewel of the Soul can be purchased through Amazon, at $35 per volume.
We should like to express our gratitude to Joseph Barnas for these beautiful photographs.
The 1537 antiphoner of diocese of Münster contains the musical notation for the office of St. Charlemagne, whose feast is celebrated to-day, 28 January. His office was sung in the Age of Faith not only in the former imperial capital of Aachen, but throughout the lands of the old Carolingian empire, from Gerona in the Spanish March to Bremen in Saxony, and even beyond, in dioceses like Prague and Cracow.
The Magnificat antiphon at first Vespers is a charming rhyming piece with a melody typical of the 6th mode:
| O spes afflictis, timor hostibus, hostia victis, regula virtutis, iuris via, forma salutis, Karole seruorum pia suscipe vota tuorum. | O hope of the afflicted, bane of thine enemies, ransom of the vanquished, standard of virtue, path of justice, pattern of salvation, Charles! receive the pious petitions of thy servants. |
Our friends in the Rome of the West will host Marcel Peres for a week of workshops, conferences, and liturgies in February. The conference is free, so what are you waiting for? From the announcement at New Liturgical Movement:
As previously announced, the St Louis, Missouri, based Cantores Sancti Ludovici will host Marcel Peres, the famous chant scholar and director of the Ensemble Organum, from February 14-19 for an unprecedented series of workshops, lectures, and liturgies. The full program is given below; these events are free and open to all, but an RSVP is requested to info@scholastl.org. All events are at the Oratory of Sts. Gregory and Augustine, located at 7320 Dale Avenue in St Louis, unless otherwise noted.
Tuesday, Feb 14
10AM: Colloquium 1
4PM: Colloquium 2
6PM: Vespers
7PM*: Evening conversation cum vino (*Location TBD)
Wednesday, Feb 15
10AM: Colloquium 3
4PM: Colloquium 4
6:30PM: Mass
7:15PM: Compline
Thursday, Feb 16
10AM: Colloquium 5
4PM: Colloquium 6
6:00PM: Vespers
7PM*: Evening conversation cum vino (*Location TBD)
Friday, Feb 17
10AM: Colloquium 7
4PM: Colloquium 8
6PM: Vespers
7PM*: Evening conversation cum vino (*Location TBD)
Saturday, Feb 18
8:15AM: Mass
9:15AM: Breakfast
10AM: Conversation with Marcel Peres
Sunday, Feb 19
7:20AM: Prime
11:10AM: Terce
11:30AM: High Mass
4:30PM: Vespers
Colloquium Topics:
• Psalmody as the Central Aspect of Worship
• Rediscovering the 1st Millenium of Catholic Traditions
• Improvisation/Cantare Super Librum/Fauxbourdon
• Individual Styles (Ambrosian, Old Roman, Mozarabic, etc)
• Practical Applications of Chant Techniques (trills, runs, etc)
• Liturgical Performance Practice
• Motion and Space
Sermon VI
St. Ivo of Chartres
Seeing the world corrupted by original and actual sin, the Creator devised a secret and marvelous plan to save the fallen world through the mysterious incarnation of the Word. For by that same Word through whom he had created all things from nothing, he was able to remake what had been destroyed: For he spoke and they were made: he commanded and they were created. We believe that his power was not diminished or changed, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration, or that he could be less powerful and wise in remaking than he had been in fashioning in the first place. The omnipotent hand of the potter all of whose ways are mercy and truth, which took mud from the earth and raised it to the dignity of rational nature, desired to remake the fragile shattered vessel in such a way that man’s sin would neither go unpunished—for He is just—nor remain incurable—for He is merciful. If He Whose wisdom reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly were only just, He could have used his own strength to fight against mankind’s seducer and lead the lost sheep back to the flock, restoring it to its Lord. But in this way He would seem only to have demonstrated the superiority of his strength, rather than to have poured out His healing mercy upon the redeemed […] In other words, what God’s wisdom could do wisely and mightily, He willed also to do sweetly, uniting to Himself the infirmity of our flesh in order to heal it first in Himself, and then use it to restore mankind to health, as if by some medicinal elixir. Do not think that our Doctor lacked the experience or power to do things differently; rather, this was the most convenient way to procure the antidote, given the physical state of the patient. For the weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men.
This is the specific reason, as it seems to us, why the Son of God put on our human nature and lived among men: so that by His death He could overcome the mortality he had received from us, and after repairing our nature to a state even better than its origin, could call us back to immortality, so that the humble flock would follow where the lofty pastor had shown the way.
What a remarkable and unprecedented medical practice, where the doctor chooses to make Himself sick and to heal by His own weakness the patients for whom He has procured the remedy of salvation. In this we see the incomparable charity with which He loved us […] Experienced doctors treat their patients’ sickness by applying contraries in some cases, and likes in other cases. Our Lord Jesus Christ did this when He enriched us by his poverty, lifted us up with His humility, healed us with His infirmity, and gave us life by His death. So in the art of medicine dry things are applied to wet, wet things to dry, and hot things to cold, and weaker contraries are overcome when they come into contact with stronger contraries. Similarly, like things are applied to like, as when the size of the poultice is measured according to the dimensions of the wound or swelling. So scorpion flesh fried in oil is used to treat a scorpion sting. So an antidote made of snake flesh can save someone dying of snake bites, or drinking a potion infused with venom. In a similar way our Doctor treated the death of our flesh—which came through the serpent—through the death of His own flesh, and remade it in the image of His immortality, a work that will be completed in the time of restitution.
Canticum Salomonis 