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18 - Liturgy

from Part III - Religious mentality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

Mette Birkedal Bruun
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
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Summary

The liturgical principles of the Cistercians were grounded, as with all other aspects of the Order, in the strict observance of the Rule of St Benedict. The singing of the psalms was central to Benedictine monasticism, and Benedict devoted several chapters of his Rule to an explanation of how the complete Psalter could be recited each week by dividing its contents between the various services of the day and night office. By the eleventh century, several abbeys under the influence of Cluny had sufficient endowments to enable their monks to pray and chant all day, leading to a perpetual cycle of worship which paid less attention to the spiritual reading and manual labour with which Benedict had balanced the life of prayer. It was in liturgical matters that the early reformers could most easily perceive decadence in the Cluniac congregations: the chief intention of the founders of Cîteaux was not to establish a new religious Order so much as to strip out the many liturgical accretions which had filled the monastic day, and thereby to maintain a more even balance between ora et labora. Their adherence to Benedict’s prescriptions was very literal, and understandably attracted derision from some quarters, notably in Abelard’s letter to Bernard.

When Robert and his twenty-one companions left Molesme in 1098 to establish the New Monastery that would later be named as Cîteaux, we may assume that they took with them the various liturgical books, vestments and vessels that they would require for worship. When Robert was recalled to Molesme the following year, his companions were allowed to retain all of the equipment he had brought with him (his capella), with the exception of a breviary which they were instructed to return to Molesme after making a copy. A psalter written in Arras which Robert had owned in Molesme was among the books kept at Cîteaux, but a note added to it later records that its calendar and litany were unusable for the rite of the New Monastery. There is no way of knowing precisely how services were ordered in the very early years, but it was under Stephen Harding’s abbacy (1108/9–33) that major revisions were made to bring the liturgy in use at Cîteaux under a more systematic and uniform structure, primarily to ensure that the newly established daughter houses followed the same practices as the mother house.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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References

Waddell, C., ‘The Origin and Early Evolution of the Cistercian Antiphonary: Reflections on Two Cistercian Chant Reforms’, in The Cistercian Spirit, ed. Pennington, M.B., CS 3 (Shannon, 1970), pp. 190–223Google Scholar
Scarcez, A., ‘Les sources du responsorial cistercien’, Études grégoriennes, 38 (2011), 137–80Google Scholar
Smits, E.R., Peter Abelard: Letters IX–XIV. An Edition with an Introduction (Groningen, 1983)Google Scholar
Maître, C., La réforme cistercienne du plain-chant: étude d’un traité théorique, Cîteaux: Studia et Documenta 6 (Brecht, 1995)Google Scholar
Guentner, F.J., Epistola S. Bernardi de revisione cantus cisterciensis et Tractatus, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 24 ([Rome], 1974)Google Scholar
Meyer, C., ‘Le tonaire cistercien et sa tradition’, Revue de musicologie, 89 (2003), 57–92Google Scholar
Veroli, C., ‘La revisione musicale Bernardina e il Graduale Cisterciense’, Analecta Cisterciensia, 47 (1991), 3–141; 48 (1992), 3–104; 49 (1993), 147–256Google Scholar
For a convenient facsimile of a representative post-Bernard antiphoner from the abbey of Morimondo, see Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouvelles acquisitions latines 1411: un antiphonaire cistercien pour le temporal, e siècle (Poitiers, 1998) and Un antiphonaire cistercien pour le sanctoral, e siècle: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouvelles acquisitions latines 1412 (Paris, 1999)
Lesevorgänge: Prozesse des Erkennens in mittelalterlichen Texten, Bildern und Handschriften, ed. E.C. Lutz et al. (Zurich, 2010)
Grassin, S., ‘Sur la pratique polyphonique chez les cisterciens’, Études grégoriennes, 29 (2001), 129–66Google Scholar
Choisselet, D. and Vernet, P. (eds.), ‘Les Ecclesiastica officia’ Cisterciens du’XIIème siècle, La documentation cistercienne 22 (Reiningue, 1989).
Maître, C. (ed.), Bernard de Clairvaux: Office de Saint Victor, Prologue à L’antiphonaire, Lettre 398, SCh 527 (Paris, 2009).Google Scholar
Waddell, C. (ed.), Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux, Cîteaux: Studia et Documenta 9 (Brecht, 1999).Google Scholar
The Primitive Cistercian Breviary, Spicilegium Friburgense 44 (Fribourg, 2007).

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  • Liturgy
  • Edited by Mette Birkedal Bruun, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order
  • Online publication: 05 December 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9780511735899.023
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  • Liturgy
  • Edited by Mette Birkedal Bruun, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order
  • Online publication: 05 December 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9780511735899.023
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Liturgy
  • Edited by Mette Birkedal Bruun, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order
  • Online publication: 05 December 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9780511735899.023
Available formats
×