The book presents close readings of rituals from diverse communities, each as they appear in a single source. The rituals' chants are transcribed into modern notation and analyzed, both for their text-music relationships and for their functions within the rituals. Hild shows that within the widespread practice, local versions of the liturgies-along with their chant repertories-remained unstandardized throughout the Middle Ages. Yet some commonalities are evident among these varied local practices. One is the use of song. Beginning in the ninth century, sources most often prescribe chant, not the Eucharist, for the final moments of life. Another commonality is the positive depiction of the afterlife conveyed by the chants.
Created for the powerful and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, women and men, monastics, clerics, and laity, these manuscripts offer a glimpse into the religious practices that distinguished communities from one another and also bound them together within a single tradition.
Read more