Praising Mary

LITURGY AND PRAYER

FOR MONKS IN THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES, devotion to Mary was expressed above all in the sung and intoned texts of the Divine Office and mass. Liturgy and prayer were defining features of monastic religious life and culture. Monks and nuns devoted themselves to the daily performance of the opus dei; it shaped their lives and permeated every aspect of it. As Susan Boynton has written, "Like the monastic garment, the liturgy was a habit that could not be shed, a fundamental and underlying condition of life in a religious community." The Divine Office was their primary task and responsibility as stipulated in the Benedictine rule, and earned them a livelihood from donations by penitents eager to have the monks' prayers. This practice was both praise and prayer — exalting God and the saints while also asking for mercy — expressed most especially in the psalmody. The daily recitation of the Psalms, the basis of the monastic life, was nevertheless couched in a rich tapestry of additional sung and spoken texts, prayers, and readings, all accompanied by prescribed actions in deliberate, elaborate stagings. The cult of saints, both major and minor ones, local and universal, was enacted through the liturgical celebration of their feast days, with the chants, processions, and ritual actions this entailed. Sermons explained the biblical texts used for a given day, providing deeper understandings of scripture and extrapolating essential moral lessons. Private prayer and contemplation supplemented public praise as monks expressed their individual commitment to their chosen way of life. Liturgy and prayer were the primary manifestations of the monastic identity, and through the liturgy's complex and variable structures, which evolved over time and place, monks communicated their ideals, values, and most dearly held beliefs. It is in liturgy and prayer, then, that we find the most significant expression of the cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Norman English monastic culture.

The monks of Anglo-Norman England developed the communal liturgy and individual prayer in unusual and significant ways. The process by which this occurred was complex, with religious and political change as well as challenge eliciting creative responses. Hints that church leaders attempted to curb the more extravagant practices of Marian veneration after the Norman Conquest are nonetheless countered by an unprecedented richness of liturgical and devotional materials composed in Mary's honor. Anglo-Saxon feasts such as the Conception and Presentation were revived in the midst of heated debate, extensive communal practices like the Office of Mary reappeared, and new celebrations were created such as the feast of Mary's mother, Anne. It was in this context that the archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, wrote his effusive prayers to Mary, responding to the requests of his fellow monks. These prayers further inspired others to write lengthy meditational texts that ascribed Mary a more central place in the story of Christian salvation than ever before. Praise was heaped on Mary in order to appeal to her as a powerful and merciful mediator with her Son, and seek protection for entire communities and salvation for individual souls. At the same time, the rejection by Jews of Mary's essential role in the economy of salvation found its way into liturgical sources to remind performers and audiences alike of the proper way to approach the queen of heaven: with belief and reverence rather than doubt. The promotion of Mary as a saintly model drew inspiration not only from the English heritage but also from Norman, Italian, and even Iberian traditions; this was not a question of uniquely English patrimony but rather of a culture open to outside influence, absorbing elements from without to enhance what was already in place. Nigel Morgan made a seminal survey of the English materials that showed how the major developments in Marian devotion in the twelfth century were monastic as opposed to secular in origin. Taking his work as a useful starting point, this first chapter will focus on the diverse monastic means of addressing Mary in prayer and song, revealing the active contribution made by monks in the Anglo-Norman sphere to devotion to Mary as mother of mercy.

LITURGY: FEASTS

By the time the Normans arrived in 1066, devotion to the Virgin Mary had already "reached cult proportions" in England, according to Sally Roper. Marian devotion was an important feature of monastic culture in the Anglo-Saxon period, in many ways ahead of continental developments. Mary Clayton's extensive study of the cult of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England has illustrated the considerable innovation and originality with which it developed, particularly as a result of the monastic reforms undertaken in the late tenth century, radiated out of Winchester Cathedral. The surviving evidence from Anglo-Saxon sermons, narratives, and liturgical poetry, in both Latin and the vernacular, as well as prayer, art, and song, paint a picture of Mary as an especially significant saint among the growing numbers of religious institutions that boasted her patronage. Numerous churches, cathedrals, and monasteries were founded in Mary's name in this period, and several changed allegiance to adopt her saintly patronage; double dedications, to Mary and another saint, were also popular. The overwhelming evidence of foundations and refoundations points to dedication to Mary as "a hallmark of the reform, an outward sign of a truly monastic, celibate community."

This trend was then echoed in the liturgy. Mary was honored with daily antiphons and a weekly mass on Saturdays that developed into a daily celebration of the Hours of Mary in the eleventh century. In addition to the four traditional feasts of the Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, and Nativity, celebrated in the Roman calendar since the seventh century, several unusual feast days were adopted in England, including the Byzantine feasts of Mary's Conception on December 8 and Presentation in the Temple on November 21. The eighth-and ninth-century Books of Nunnaminster and Cerne attest to a rich tradition of private prayer to Mary fostered in Anglo-Saxon England. Such practices helped to establish a powerful link between monks and nuns in Anglo-Saxon England with their saintly patron and figurehead, memorializing their bond with her and calling on her intercessory powers to protect them, both individually and collectively.

With the coming of the Normans in 1066, patterns of Marian devotion seem to have shifted. Although scholars have long been revising the previously held assumption that the post–Conquest period was one of deep religious rupture, it can hardly be denied that the incoming clerical leaders had an interest in liturgical reform. There is considerable evidence that Archbishop Lanfranc, who was brought in from Bec to lead the English church,...