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Natalis Innocentum: the Holy Innocents in Liturgy and Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Martin R. Dudley
Martin R. Dudley*
Affiliation:
Simon of Cyrene Theological Institute, London
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Extract

It has come to our knowledge, not without grievous amazement and displeasure of heart [Bishop Grandisson wrote to the clergy of Exeter Cathedral and of other collegiate churches in his diocese before Christmas 1360] that for these past years and some years preceding, at the most holy solemnities of Christ’s Nativity, and the feasts of St Stephen, St John the Apostle and Evangelist, and the Innocents, when all faithful Christians are bound to busy themselves the more devoutly and quietly in praise of God and in Church Services, certain Ministers of our aforesaid Church, together with the boys, not only at Matins and Vespers and other hours, but also (which is more detestable) during the solemnity of the Mass have rashly presumed, putting the fear of God behind them, after the pernicious example of certain Churches, to associate together within the Church itself and play certain foolish and noxious games, unbecoming to clerical honesty.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 31: The Church and Childhood , 1994 , pp. 233 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1994

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References

1 John Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, Register, p. 1213. Translation in Coulton, G. G., Life in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1967), 1, pp. 99–100.Google Scholar

2 The English liturgical texts cited here are drawn from the following: Ordinale Exoniensis, ed. J. N. Dalton, Henry Bradshaut Society, 37 (London, 1909); Breviarium ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Sarum, ed. F. Procter and C. Wordsworth (Cambridge, 1882); The Sarum Missal, ed. J. Wickham Legg (Oxford, 1916); Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, ed. C. Wordsworth (Cambridge, 1901).

3 Grandisson, Register, p. 1213.

4 Dudley, M. R., ‘Liturgy and Doctrine: Corpus Christi’, Worship, 60, no. 5 (1992), pp. 417–26.Google Scholar

5 Parsch, P., The Church’s Year of Grace, 4 (Collegeville, 1959), p. 18.Google Scholar

6 Matt. 2.12.

7 E.g., Leo the Great, Sermon 31, On the Feast of the Epiphany, which is largely concerned with the Innocents: A Select Library o/Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. P. SchafTand H. Wace, series 2, 12 (Grand Rapids, 1976), pp. 144-5.

8 PL 13, cols 1219-30.

9 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, III, xvi, 4 (PG 7).

10 Paulinus, Carmina, xxxi, 587, CSEL, 30 (1894), and Prudentius, Cathemerinon, xii, 93-140, M. P. Cunningham, ed., CChr. 126, (1966) from which the Tridentine office hymns were drawn. Note Duchesne’s reservations about dating the introduction of the feast from hymns and sermons: Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution (London, 1923), p. 268 n. 3.

11 Mohlberg, L. C., ed., Sacramentarium Veronense (Rome, 1956), pp. 164–6.Google Scholar

12 Bourque, E., Etude sur les Sacramentaires Romains (Rome, 1949), p. 137.Google Scholar

13 Vogel, C., Medieval Liturgy: an Introduction to the Sources, rev. and tr. Sharp, W. G. and Rasmussen, N. K. (Washington DC, 1986), pp. 64–9.Google Scholar

14 Deshusses, J., ed., Le Sacramentare Grégorien, 1, 3rd edn (Fribourg, 1992)Google Scholar, Parsch, Church’s Year of Grace, I, p. 226.

15 The Western titles are listed by Bruylants, P., Les Oraisons du Missel Romain (Louvain, 1952), p. 8 Google Scholar. They include in natali Innocentum, natale Innocentum, natalis Innocentum; the Missal of 1570 entitles it Infesto sanctorum Innocentium.

16 d’Orchelles, Guy, Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis, Kennedy, V. L., ed., MS 1 (1939), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

17 It also appeared in the first Mass in the Veronense.

18 St Paul, Mother, Nativitas Christi (London, 1948), p. 12.Google Scholar

19 Amalarius of Metz, De ecclesiasticis officiis, i, 41 and iv, 37, in J. M. Hanssens, ed., Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, 3 vols (Vatican City, 1948-50). See also Bernhold of Constance, Micrologus, PL 151, cols 1005-6, and Honorius of Autun, Gemma anima, PL 172, cols 646f.

20 A full account of the arguments is given in Gavanto, B. and Mcrati, C.-M., Thesaurus sacrorum rituum (Venice, 1749), pp. 351–2.Google Scholar

21 Bernhold of Constance, Micrologus, PL 151, cols 1005-6.

22 Beleth, John, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis in Douteil, H., ed., CChr.CM (1976), 41A, p. 133.Google Scholar

23 Durandus, , Rationale divinorum officiorum (Lyons, 1672), pp. 461—2.Google Scholar

24 At Bayeux, the procession went to the altar of St Nicholas: Ordinaire et coutumier de lèglise cathédrale de Bayeux, ed. U. Chevalier (Paris, 1902), p. 69.

25 The difficulties of liturgical reconstruction of the rites are explored by P. Pickett in the programme notes included in Pickett’s Pageant: eight centuries of early music, book I (London, 1989), and in the booklet accompanying the recording of The Feast of Foots (London, 1992).

26 Martene, , De antiqua ecclesiae disciplina (Lyons, 1706), p. 101.Google Scholar

27 ibid.

28 Text and studies in K. Young, Ordo Rachelis = University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, no. 4 (Madison, 1919), and The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 (Oxford, 1933), pp. 102-24. English translation of the Fleury play in D. Bevington, Medieval Drama (Boston, 1975), pp. 67-72. Specific discussion of the French plays in G. Frank, The Medieval French Drama (Oxford, 1960), pp. 31-43.

29 Pickett, Feast of Fools, notes to the recording.

30 Young, Drama, 2, p. 110.

31 Text in Paris, BN, MS latin 1139, trop. Martialense saec. xi—xii, fol. 32v— 331r; ed. Young, Drama, 2, p. 109.

32 Invitatory antiphon from the Divine Office.