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Message, Celebration, Offering: the Place of Twelfth- and Early Thirteenth-Century Liturgical Drama as ‘Missionary Theatre’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Brenda Bolton
Brenda Bolton*
Affiliation:
Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London
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Extract

The Church of Christ, whether congregation, building, or organization, demands at all times continuity in the expression of its message to reinforce the faith of believers and in its purpose to spread the Word among non-believers. In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the growth and development of liturgical drama assisted in the expression of a corporate faith, not only that of well-established communities of monks and cathedral clergy, but also that of the laity for whom dramatic presentations could provide the necessary stimuli to worship. On the frontiers of Christendom too, where missionary endeavour was crucial, the dramatization both of the liturgy and of biblical events helped to lay the foundations for a projected continuity of worship amongst neophytes and those whose faith was not yet secure. Problems inevitably arose as new situations provoked liturgical changes. It thus became essential to ensure that neither the central faith nor the purpose of worship were weakened, diminished, or lost in the face of such change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 35: Continuity and Change in Christian Worship , 1999 , pp. 89 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999

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References

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58 D. 75 c.5: CIC, 1, cols 266-7. I am most grateful to Prof. Kenneth Pennington for an e-mail discussion on this matter.

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71 An important article by Susan Boynton, ‘Performative exegesis in the Flcury Interfectio pucrorum’. Viator, 29 (1998), pp. 39-64, appeared after this volume went to press.