Description
Paper: Lay and Monastic Perspectives on the Liturgy in Historical Writing from Medieval Southern ItalyAbstract: This paper ask how historians' differing liturgical roles and perspectives shaped the kind use made of references liturgical celebrations in select historical writers of the eleventh and twelfth century in Southern Italy. The Chronicon Beneventanum composed by Falco Beneventanus, a lay notary and judge of Benevento (c.1070-1145), constitutes one of the earliest lay city chronicles of medieval Italy. It is compared with liturgical references in near contemporary historical writing from the same city and region: the monastic Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae (Benevento, c.1119) of uncertain authorship; the Chronicon monasterii casinensis begun by Leo Marsicanus, librarian of Montecassino, and continued by his successors in that office (recounting the history of the monastery and region to the 1140s); Abbot Alexander of Telese’s, Gesta Rogerii regis Siciliae; Amatus of Montecassino’s, L’Ystoire de li Normant (c.1080). How does the clerical status and differing ritual experience shape the historian’s employment of liturgical events, texts, and references in chronicle writing?
| Period | 31-Mar-2017 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Ritual and Historiography in the Middle Ages |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Münster, GermanyShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |