Celtic Rite - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The term "Celtic Rite" is applied to the various liturgical rites

Catholic Liturgical Rites

The Catholic Church celebrates a number of different Liturgical Rites, a term that refers to a particular form of liturgy.They are not to be confused with the Rites in the sense of sui iuris particular Churches, of which there are 22 Eastern and one Western....

used in Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...

in Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

and Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

, sporadically in Galicia

Kingdom of Galicia

The Kingdom of Galicia was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which at its territorial zenith occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Founded by Suebic king Hermeric in the year 409, the Galician capital was established in Braga, being the first kingdom which...

(Northern Iberia

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

) and also in the monasteries

Monastery

Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

founded by the Irish missions of St. Columbanus in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the early middle ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

. The term does not imply homogeneity; the evidence, scanty and fragmentary as it is, is in favour of considerable diversity.

The British church

Before the 8th century AD there were several Christian rites in Western Europe. Such diversity of practice was often considered unimportant so long as Rome's primacy was accepted. Gradually the diversity tended to lessen so that by the time of the final fusion in the Carolingian

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

period the Roman Rite

Roman Rite

The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...

, its Ambrosian

Ambrosian Rite

Ambrosian Rite, also called the Milanese Rite, is a Catholic liturgical Western Rite. The rite is named after Saint Ambrose, a bishop of Milan in the fourth century...

variant, the Romanized Celtic Rite and the Hispano-Gallican Mozarabic Rite

Mozarabic Rite

The Mozarabic, Visigothic, or Hispanic Rite is a form of Catholic worship within the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, and in the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church . Its beginning dates to the 7th century, and is localized in the Iberian Peninsula...

were practically all that were left.

We find British bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

s at the Council of Arles in 314 and the Council of Rimini

Council of Rimini

The Council of Rimini was an early Christian church synod held in Ariminum ....

in 359. Communication with Gaul may be inferred from dedications to St. Martin

Martin of Tours

Martin of Tours was a Bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela. Around his name much legendary material accrued, and he has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints...

at Withern

Withern

Withern is a village and civil parish in Lincolnshire, England, about six miles south east of Louth. Stain was once an independent parish but was combined with Withern when the old church of St. John the Baptist was destroyed some centuries ago.The name Withern is from the Old English Widu+wudu,...

and at Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

, from the mission of Victridius of Rouen in 396 and those of Germanus of Auxerre

Germanus of Auxerre

Germanus of Auxerre was a bishop of Auxerre in Gaul. He is a saint in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, commemorated on July 31. He visited Britain in around 429 and the records of this visit provide valuable information on the state of post-Roman British society...

, with St. Lupus

Lupus of Troyes

Saint Lupus was an early bishop of Troyes. Born at Toul, he was brother-in-law to Hilary of Arles, as he had married one of Hilary's sisters, Pimeniola. Lupus worked as a lawyer. However, after being married for six years, he and his wife parted by mutual agreement.Lupus renounced all of his...

in 429 and with St. Severus

Saint Severus

Saint Severus may refer to:*Severus of Avranches *Severus of Barcelona *Severus of Naples*Severus of Ravenna, bishop of Ravenna *Severus of Reims, bishop of Reims*Sulpicius Severus...

in 447, directed against the Pelagianism

Pelagianism

Pelagianism is a theological theory named after Pelagius , although he denied, at least at some point in his life, many of the doctrines associated with his name. It is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without...

of which the bishops of Britain stood accused.

However some parts of Britain derived much of their religion from later Irish missions. St. Ia of Cornwall

Ia of Cornwall

Saint Ia of Cornwall was a 5th or 6th century Cornish evangelist and martyr.Ia was said to have been an Irish princess, the sister of Saint Erc. She was a spiritual student of Saint Baricus and travelled as a missionary to Cornwall where she joined Saints Fingar and Piala...

and her companions, Saint Piran

Saint Piran

Saint Piran or Perran is an early 6th century Cornish abbot and saint, supposedly of Irish origin....

, St. Sennen

Sennen

Sennen is a coastal civil parish and a village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. Sennen village is situated approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....

, St. Petroc

Saint Petroc

Saint Petroc is a 6th century Celtic Christian saint. He was born in Wales but primarily ministered to the Britons of Dumnonia which included the modern counties of Devon , Cornwall , and parts of Somerset and Dorset...

k and the rest of the saints who came to Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

in the late fifth and early 6th centuries probably brought with them whatever rites they were accustomed to. Cornwall had an ecclesiastical quarrel with Wessex

Wessex

The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

in the days of St. Aldhelm, which appears in Leofric's Missal

Leofric Missal

The Leofric Missal is an illuminated manuscript, not strictly a conventional missal, from the 10th and 11th century, now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University where it is catalogued as Bodley 579....

, though the details of it are not specified.

The certain points of difference between the British Church and the Roman in St. Augustine's time were: (1) The rule of keeping Easter (2) the tonsure (3) the manner of baptizing. Gildas also records elements of a different rite of ordination.

Liturgy

There is a mass, probably of the 9th century, apparently Cornish since it mentions "Ecclesia Lanaledensis" (perhaps St Germans

St German's Priory

St German's Priory is a large Norman church in the village of St Germans in south-east Cornwall, in the United Kingdom.-History:According to a credible tradition the church here was founded by St Germanus himself ca. 430 AD. The first written record however is of Conan being made Bishop in the...

in Cornwall

Cornwall

, though this was also the Breton name of Aleth, now part of Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo is a walled port city in Brittany in northwestern France on the English Channel. It is a sub-prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine.-Demographics:The population can increase to up to 200,000 in the summer tourist season...

) and in honour of St. Germanus. It is quite Roman in type, probably written after that part of Cornwall had come under Saxon influence, but with a unique Proper Preface.The manuscript also contains glosses, held by Professor Loth to be Welsh but possibly Cornish or Breton. There is little other evidence as to what liturgy was in use.

19th century Anglicans such as Sir William Palmer in his Origines Liturgicae and the Bishop of Chichester

Bishop of Chichester

The Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the Counties of East and West Sussex. The see is in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...

in his Story of the English Prayerbook proposed that Irenaeus

Irenaeus

Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...

, a disciple of St. Polycarp the disciple of St. John the Divine, brought the Ephesine Rite to Provence

Provence

Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

whence it spread through Gaul to Britain and became the foundation of the Sarum Rite

Sarum Rite

The Sarum Rite was a variant of the Roman Rite widely used for the ordering of Christian public worship, including the Mass and the Divine Office...

. The Ephesine origin of the Gallican Rite rested first upon on a statement of Colman of Lindisfarne

Colmán of Lindisfarne

Colmán of Lindisfarne also known as Saint Colmán was Bishop of Lindisfarne from 661 until 664. He succeeded Aidan and Finan. Colman resigned the Bishopric of Lindisfarne after the Synod of Whitby called by King Oswiu of Northumbria decided to calculate Easter using the method of the First...

in 664 at the Synod of Whitby respecting the origin of the Celtic Easter and second upon an 8th-century Irish writer who derived the Celtic divine office from Alexandria. Archbishop Nuttall also asserted the Eastern origin of the Celtic rite. The Catholic Encyclopedia disagreed, asserting (see also Ambrosian Rite
Ambrosian Rite
Ambrosian Rite, also called the Milanese Rite, is a Catholic liturgical Western Rite. The rite is named after Saint Ambrose, a bishop of Milan in the fourth century...

) that the Sarum Rite is "merely a local variety of the Roman, and that the influence of the Gallican Rite upon it is no greater than upon any other Roman variety".

A letter from Pope Zachary

Pope Zachary

Pope Saint Zachary was Pope of the Catholic Church from 741 to 752. A Greek from Calabria, he was the last pope of the Byzantine Papacy...

to St. Boniface (1 May, 748, reports that an English synod had forbidden any baptism except in the name of the Trinity

Trinity

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...

and declared that whoever omits the Name of any Person of the Trinity does not truly baptise. Henry Spelman

Henry Spelman

Sir Henry Spelman was an English antiquary, noted for his detailed collections of medieval records, in particular of church councils.-Life:...

and Wilkins put this synod at London in 603, the time of St. Augustine while Mansi

Giovanni Domenico Mansi

Gian Domenico Mansi was an Italian theologian, scholar and historian, known for his massive works on the Church councils....

makes its date the first year of Theodore of Tarsus

Theodore of Tarsus

Theodore was the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury, best known for his reform of the English Church and establishment of a school in Canterbury....

, 668. The possibility of priests, presumably Celtic, having been invalidly baptized was considered in the "Poenitentiale Theodori" (Lib. II, cap. iii, 13), and in cap. ix of the same book, after ordering the reordination

Reordination

Reordination is the second ordination of a cleric whose original ordination is questionable.-History:The Oratorian Jean Morin, in the seventeenth century, and Cardinal Hergenröther, in the nineteenth, designated as "reordinations" the history of all ordinations which were considered null for any...

of those ordained by Scottish and British bishops "who are not Caholic in their Easter and tonsure" and the asperging of churches consecrated by them. It has been conjectured that the British Church resembled the Hispanic

Hispania

Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....

in baptizing with a single immersion. This form had been allowed by Rome in the case of Iberia.

Easter

The Britons adhered to the old cycle of 84 years instead of the newer cycle of 19 years and counted the third week of the moon (on the Sunday of which Easter must fall) from the 14th to the 20th instead of from the 15th to the 21st. Until 457, when the 532-year cycle of Victorius of Aquitaine was adopted at Rome, Britain agreed with Rome, differing from Alexandria and the East. In 525 Rome altered its rule again to the 19-year cycle of Dionysius Exiguus to conform to Eastern usage.

Colman at the Synod of Whitby may have had the Quartodeciman controversy in mind when he claimed an Ephesian origin for the Gaelic Easter. St. Wilfrid answered that according to the Quartodeciman rule Easter might be kept on any day of the week, whereas the Celts kept it on Sunday only. St. Aldhelm in his letter to King Gerontius of Dumnonia also seems to charge the Cornish with Quartodecimanism.

The Easter question was eventually settled at various times in different places. The following dates are derived from Haddan and Stubbs: South Ireland, 626-8; North Ireland, 692; Northumbria (converted by Celtic missions), 664; East Devon and Somerset, the Celts under Wessex, 705; the Picts, 710; Iona, 716-8; Straathclyde, 721; North Wales, 768; South Wales, 777. Cornwall held out the longest of any, perhaps even, in parts, to the time of Bishop Aedwulf of Crediton (909).

Establishment of the Gaelic Rite

The rites of the Celtic Church stand on firmer ground, though even there the information is scanty. There were Christians in Ireland before Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....

, but we have no information as to how they worshipped, and their existence is ignored by the Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae, attributed to the 7th-century Tirechan

Tírechán

Tírechán was a 7th century Irish bishop and biographer of Saint Patrick. Tírechán wrote his untitled memoir sometime after the death of his mentor, Ultan of Ardbraccan, in 657. The work survives in the manuscript The Book of Armagh.Tírechán's account, which J. B...

. This interesting document, which, though its dates need not be accepted too exactly, is worthy of general credit, divides the saints of Ireland into three orders, each of which orders is stated to have lasted during the reigns of four kings, the three orders covering, between them, a period of about 225 years, from the coming of St. Patrick in 440, in the reign of Laoghaire MacNeil, to the reign of Blathmac and Diarmait, sons of Aodh Slane, in 665.

Symmetry is attained by omitting about six intervening reigns, but the outside dates of each period are clear enough, and the liturgiological value of the document consists in the statements, very probably true in the main, respecting the customs of the saints of these orders as to the Masses and celebrationes, i.e. the Divine Office, and the Easter and tonsure questions. (Celebratio -- "Divine Office"; Irish, Celebrad. Dr. MacCarthy in his edition of the Stowe Missal

Stowe Missal

The Stowe Missal, which is strictly speaking a sacramentary rather than a missal, is an Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Gaelic in about 750. In the mid-11th century it was annotated and some pages rewritten at Lorrha Monastery in County Tipperary, Ireland...

gives several instances of this use of the word.)

The first order was in the time of St. Patrick. They were all bishops, 350 in number, founders of churches. They had one Head, Christ; one leader, Patrick; one Mass, and one tonsure from ear to ear, and they celebrated one Easter "quarta decima luna post aequinoctium vernale". All these bishops were sprung from the Romans, the French (i.e. the Gauls), the Britons, and the Scots. Their period is given from the reign of Laoghaire to that of Tuathal Moelgarbh (c. 440-544).

The second order were a few bishops and many priests, 300 in number. They had one head, Christ, they celebrated different Masses and "diversas regulas", they had one Easter, the fourteenth of the moon after the equinox, and one tonsure from ear to ear. They received a Mass from the Britons, David of Wales, Gilla (Gildas

Gildas

Gildas was a 6th-century British cleric. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during this period. His renowned learning and literary style earned him the designation Gildas Sapiens...

), and Docus (Cadoc

Cadoc

Saint Cadoc , Abbot of Llancarfan, was one of the 6th century British Christian saints. His vita twice mentions King Arthur. The Abbey of Llancarfan, near Cowbridge in Glamorganshire, which he founded circa 518, became famous as a centre of learning...

). It may be noted that the "Vita Gildae" tells how King Ainmerech sent for Gildas to restore ecclesiastical order in his kingdom "quia paene catholicam fidem inipsa insula omnes reliquerant". The second order lasted from the end of the reign of Tuathal to that of Aodh MacAinmerech (c. 544-99).

The third order were priests and a few bishops, 100 in number, "qui in locis desertis habitabant et oleribus et aqua et eleemosynis vivebant, propria devitabant", evidently hermits and monks. They had different Masses, different rules, and different tonsures, "alii enim habebant coronam, alii caesariem", and celebrated different Easters, some on the fourteenth, some on the sixteenth, of the moon, "cum duris intentionibus" -- which perhaps means "obstinately". These lasted from the reign of Aeda Allain (Aodh Slaine) to that of his two sons (Blathmac and Diarmait, c. 599-665).

The meaning seems to be that the first order celebrated a form of Mass introduced by St. Patrick, the second and third orders used partly that Mass and partly one of British origin, and in the case of the third order Roman modifications were also introduced. Though we have no direct evidence one way or the other, it would seem probable that St. Patrick, who was the pupil of St. Germanus of Auxerre

Germanus of Auxerre

and St. Honoratus

Honoratus

Saint Honoratus was Archbishop of Arles.There is some disagreement concerning his place of birth, and the date of his death is still disputed, being according to certain authors, January 14 or January 15. It is believed that he was born in the north of Gaul and that he belonged to an illustrious...

of Lerins, brought with him a Mass of the Gallican type, and it is clear that the British Mass introduced by Sts. David, Gildas, and Cadoc differed from it, though to what extent we have no means of knowing.

The "unam celebrationem" of the first order and the "diversas regulas" of the second and third probably both refer to the Divine Office, and we may take the authority of the 8th-century tract in Cott. MS. Nero A. II for what it is worth in its not improbable statement that St. Germanus taught the "Cursus Scottorum" to St. Patrick, who certainly was under his instruction for some time.

The working of the "Catalogus" seems to imply that the first and second orders were Quartodecimans, but this is clearly not the meaning, or on the same argument the third order must have been partly Sextodecimans—if there were such things—and moreover we have the already mentioned statement of St. Wilfred

Wilfred

Wilfred or Wilfrid may refer to:* Wilfred , which lists persons named Wilfred, Wilfrid or Wilfrith* Thomas Wilfred , musician and inventor* Operation Wilfred, a British Second World War naval operation...

, the opponent of the Celtic Easter, at the Synod of Whitby

Synod of Whitby

The Synod of Whitby was a seventh century Northumbriansynod where King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome, rather than the customs practised by Iona and its satellite institutions...

, that such was not the case.

Tirechan can only mean what we know from other sources: that the fourteenth day of the moon was the earliest day on which Easter could fall, not that it was kept on that day, Sunday or weekday. It was the same ambiguity of expression which misled Colman in 664 and St. Aldhelm in 704. The first and second orders used the Celtic tonsure, and it seems that the Roman coronal tonsure came partly into use during the period of the third order.

After that we have an obscure period, during which the Roman Easter which had been accepted in South Ireland in 626-28, became universal, being accepted by North Ireland in 692, and it seems probable that a Mass on the model of the Carlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

and Piacenza

Piacenza

Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...

fragments and the Stowe and Bobbio

Bobbio Abbey

Bobbio Abbey is a monastery founded by Irish Saint Columbanus in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio, in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus...

Missals, that is to say a Roman Canon with some features of a non-Roman type came into general use. But it was not until the 12th century that the separate Irish Rite, which, according to Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick (1106–39), was in use in nearly all Ireland, was abolished. Saint Malachy

Saint Malachy

Saint Malachy was the Archbishop of Armagh, to whom were attributed several miracles and a vision of the identity of the last 112 Popes...

, bishop of Armagh (1134–48), began the campaign against it, and at the Synod of Cashel

Cashel, County Tipperary

Cashel is a town in South Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 2936 at the 2006 census. The town gives its name to the ecclesiastical province of Cashel. Additionally, the cathedra of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly was originally in the town prior to the English Reformation....

, in 1172, a Roman Rite "juxta quod Anglicana observat Ecclesia" was finally substituted.

Scottish sources

In Scotland there is very little information. Intercourse with Ireland was considerable and the few details that can be gathered from such sources as Adamnan's Life of St. Columba and the various relics of the Scoto-Northumbrian Church point to a general similarity with Ireland in the earlier period. Of the rite of the monastic order of the Culdees (Céli Dé or Goillidhe-Dé, servants of God, or possibly Cultores Dei) very little is known, but they certainly had a rite of their own, which may have been similar to the Irish.

The Roman Easter and tonsure were adopted by the Picts

Picts

The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

in 710, and at Iona in 716-18, and much later, in about 1080, St. Margaret of Scotland, wife of King Malcolm III, wishing to reform the Scottish church in a Roman direction, discovered and abolished certain peculiar customs of which Theodoric, her chaplain and biographer, tells us less than we could wish.

It seems that the Scots did not begin Lent on Ash Wednesday but on the Monday following, as is still the Ambrosian practice. They refused to communicate on Easter Day and arguments on the subject make it seem as if the laity never communicated at all. In some places they celebrated Mass "contra totius Ecclesiae consuetudinem, nescio quo ritu barbaro" ("contrary to the customs of the whole Church, with I know not what barbaric rite"). The last statement may be read in connection with that in the Register of St. Andrew's (drawn up 1144-53), "Keledei in angulo quodam ecclesiae, quae modica nimis est, suum officum more suo celebrant".

How much difference there may have been cannot be judged from these expressions. Scotland may have retained a primitive Celtic Rite, or it may have used the greatly Romanized Stowe or Bobbio Mass. The one fragment of a Scottish Rite, the Office of the Communion of the Sick, in the Book of Deer, probably 11th century, is certainly non-Roman in type, and agrees with those in the extant Irish books.

The Book of Deer is a 10th century gospel book from Old Deer

Old Deer

Old Deer a parish and village in the district of Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The population as of 1901 was 4,313. The village lies on the Deer or South Ugie Water, 10.1 miles west of Peterhead, and two miles from Mintlaw station on the Great North of Scotland Railway Company's branch line...

, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, with early 12th-century additions in Latin, Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic language

Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....

. Now in the Cambridge University Library

Cambridge University Library

The Cambridge University Library is the centrally-administered library of Cambridge University in England. It comprises five separate libraries:* the University Library main building * the Medical Library...

. It contains part of an order for the communion of the sick, with a Gaelic rubric. The origin of the book is uncertain.

Irish (insular and continental) sources

In 590 St. Columbanus and his companions invaded the Continent and established monasteries throughout France, South Germany, Switzerland, and North Italy, of which the best known were Luxeuil, Bobbio, St. Galen, and Ratisbon. It is from the Rule of St. Columbanus that we know something of a Celtic Divine Office. Irish missionaries, with their very strict rule, were not altogether popular among the lax Gallican clergy, who tried to get them discouraged. At a council at Macon, in 623, certain charges brought by one Agrestius were considered. Among them is the following: "In summâ quod a caeterorum ritu ac norma desciscerent et sacra mysteria sollemnia orationum et collectarum multiplici varietate celebrarent". There has been more than one interpretation of this phrase, some holding, with Pope Benedict XIV

Pope Benedict XIV

Pope Benedict XIV , born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, was Pope from 17 August 1740 to 3 May 1758.-Life:...

, that it refers to the use of many collects before the Epistle, instead of the one collect of the then Roman Missal, others that it implies a multiplicity of variables in the whole Mass, analogous to that existing in the Hispano-Gallican Rite. The Columbanian monasteries gradually drifted into the Benedictine Order.

The general conclusion seems to be that, while the Irish were not above borrowing from other Western nations, they originated a good deal themselves, much of which eventually passed into that composite rite which is now known as Roman. This seems to be a rough statement of the opinion of the English Roman Catholic scholar Edmund Bishop

Edmund Bishop

Edmund Bishop was a Roman Catholic historian of Christian liturgy and collaborated with Francis Aidan Gasquet in the writing of two works in this field.-Works about Bishop:...

, which involves the much larger question of the origin and development of all the Western rites.

The Antiphonary of Bangor

Copied at the Abbey of Bobbio from a manuscript compiled at the monastery of Bangor in County Down

County Down

-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...

, during the time of Abbot Cronan (680-91), this so-called "antiphonary" is now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It contains a large collection of canticles, hymns, collects, and antiphons, all, with very few exceptions, relating to the Divine Office. All but two of the twenty-one pieces in the Turin fragment are found in this manuscript also.

The Bobbio Missal

A manuscript of the 7th century found by Mabillon at Bobbio in North Italy, now in the Biblotheque Nationale at Paris (Lat. 13,246). V. Neale and Forbes entitle it Missale Vesontionense seu Sacramentarium Gallicanum, its attribution to Besancon being due to the presence of a Mass in honour of St. Sigismund. Monseigneur Duchesne appears to consider it to be more or less Ambrosian, but Edmund Bishop

Edmund Bishop

Edmund Bishop was a Roman Catholic historian of Christian liturgy and collaborated with Francis Aidan Gasquet in the writing of two works in this field.-Works about Bishop:...

considers it to be "an example of the kind of book in vogue in the second age of the Irish Saints", and connects it with the undoubtedly Irish Stowe Missal. It contains a Missa Romensis cottidiana and masses for various days and intentions, with the Order of Baptism and the Benedictio Cerei.

The Stowe Missal

A manuscript of the late eighth or early 9th century, with alterations in later hands, most of them written by one Moelcaich, who signs his name at the end of the Canon, and whom Dr. MacCarthy identifies, not very convincingly, with Moelcaich MacFlann, c. 750. It was discovered abroad, in the 18th century, by John Grace of Nenah, from whom it passed to the Duke of Buckingham's library at Stowe

Stowe House

Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house located in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of Stowe School, an independent school. The gardens , a significant example of the English Landscape Garden style, along with part of the Park, passed into the ownership of The National Trust...

. It was bought by the late Earl of Ashburnham in 1849, and from his collection it went to the Royal Irish Academy. It contains part of the Gospel of St. John, probably quite unconnected with what follows, bound up with the Ordinary

Ordinary of the Mass

The ordinary, in Roman Catholic and other Western Christian liturgies, refers to the part of the Eucharist or of the canonical hours that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed...

and Canon of the Mass

Canon of the Mass

Canon of the Mass is the name given in the Roman Missal, from the first typical edition of Pope Pius V in 1570 to that of Pope John XXIII in 1962, to the part of the Mass of the Roman Rite that begins after the Sanctus with the words Te igitur...

, three Masses, the Order of Baptism and of the Visitation, Unction, and Communion of the Sick, and a treatise in Irish on the Mass, of which a variant is found in the "Leabhar Breac".

The non-Roman elements in the Stowe Missal are: (1) The Bidding Litany between the Epistle and Gospel, which, however, came after the Gospel in the Gallican. (2) The Post-Sanctus. (3) the Responsory of the Fraction. (4) The position of the Fraction before the Pater Noster. (5) the elaborate Fraction. (6) the Communion Antiphons, and Responsory. In the "missa apostolorum et martirum et sanctorum et sanctarum virginum", in the Stowe, the Preface and Sanctus are followed by a Post-Sanctus of regular Hispano-Gallican form, "Vere sanctus, vere benedictus"" etc., which modulates directly into the "Qui pridie"" with no place for the intervention of "Te igitur""and the rest of the first part of the Gelasian Canon. This may represent an Irish Mass as it was before the Gelasian interpolation. In the other two Masses this is not shown.

The Book of Dimma

An 8th-century Irish pocket gospel book originally from the Abbey of Roscrea, County Tipperary, Ireland. It contains the four gospels and has an order for the unction and communion of the sick inserted between the gospels of Luke and John.

The Book of Mulling

A manuscript of the late 8th century. It contains the four Gospels, an office for the unction and communion of the sick, and a fragmentary directory or plan of a service. Dr. Lawlor thought the latter a plan of a daily office used morning and evening but the editors of the Liber Hymnorum took it as a special penitential service and compared it with the penitential office sketched out in the Second Vision of Adamnan in the Speckled Book, which, as interpreted by them, it certainly resembles.

The service plan in the Book of Mulling is:

(illegible)
Magnificat
Stanzas 4, 5, 6 of St. Columba's hymn Noli pater
A lesson from St. Matt. v
The last three stanzas of the hymn of St. Secundus, Audite omnes
Two supplementary stanzas
The last three stanzas of the hymn of Cumma in Fota, Celebra Juda
Antiphon Exaudi nos Deus, appended to this hymn
Last three stanzas of St. Hillary's hymn, Hymnum dicat
Either the antiphon Unitas in Trinitate or (as sketch of Adamnan seems to show) the hymn of St. Colman MacMurchon in honour of St. Michael, In Trinitate spes mea
The Creed
The Paternoster
Illegible, possibly the collect Ascendat oratio.

Liber Hymnorum - The Book of Hymns

This is a collection of forty hymns in Latin and Irish, almost all of Irish origin, with canticles and "ccclxv orationes quas beatus Gregorius de toto psalterio congregavit". There are explanatory prefaces in Irish or Latin to each hymn. Some of the hymns are found in the Antiphonary of Bangor, the Leabhar Breac, and the Book of Cerne. There are two manuscripts of this collection, not agreeing exactly, one in Trinity College, Dublin, of the 11th century, and one in the Franciscan Convent at Dublin, of somewhat later date.

In the "Liber Hymnorum" there are hymns by Patrick, Columba, Gildas

Gildas

, Sechnall, Ultan

Ultan

Ultan was an Irish monk who later became an abbot. He was the brother of Saint Fursey and Foillan. He was a member of Fursey's mission from Ireland to East Anglia in c. 633, and lived there both as a monastic probationary and later alone as an anchorite. In c...

, Cummaim of Clonfert, Muging, Coleman mac Ui Clussaigh, Colman Mac Murchan, Cuchuimne, Óengus of Tallaght, Fiach, Broccan, Sanctam, Scandalan Mor, Mael-Isu ua Brolchain, and Ninine, besides a few by non-Irish poets.

Fragmentary texts

The Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

Fragment is manuscript of the 7th century in the Turin Library. Mayer considers the fragment to have been written at Bobbio. It consists of six leaves and contains the canticles, "Cantemus Domino", "Benedicite", and "Te Deum", with collects to follow those and the Laudate psalms (cxlvii-cl) and the "Benedictus", the text of which is not given, two hymns with collects to follow them, and two other prayers.

There are two Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

Fragments: four pages in an Irish hand of the late eighth or early 9th century in the Library of Karlsruhe contain parts of three masses, one of which is "pro captivis". The arrangement resembles that of the Bobbio Missal, in that the Epistles and Gospels seem to have preceded the other variables under the title of lectiones ad misam. Another four pages in an Irish hand probably of the 9th century contain fragments of masses and a variant of the intercessions inserted in the Intercession for the Living in the Stowe Missal and in Witzel's extracts from the Fulda Manuscript. There are also some fragments in Irish.

The Piacenza
Piacenza
Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...

Fragment consists of four pages (of which the two outer are illegible) in an Irish hand, possibly of the 10th century. The two inner pages contain parts of three Masses, one of which is headed "ordo missae sanctae mariae". In the others are contained the Prefaces of two of the Sunday Masses in the Bobbio Missal, one of which is used on the eighth Sunday after the Epiphany in the Mozarabic.

The St. Gall Fragments are eighth- and ninth-century fragments in Manuscripts 1394 and 1395 in the Library of St. Gallen

St. Gallen

St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...

. The first book (1394) contains part of an ordinary of the Mass which, as far as it goes, resembles that in the Stowe Missal. The second (1395) contains the confession and litany, which also begin the Stowe Missal, a fragment of a Mass of the Dead, a prayer at the Visitation of the Sick, and three forms for the blessing of salt and water.

The Basle Fragment is a ninth-century Greek Psalter with a Latin interlinear translation. On a fly-leaf at the beginning are two hymns in honour of Mary and of St. Bridget, a prayer to Mary and to the angels and saints, and a long prayer "De conscientiae reatu ante altare".

The Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

Fragment is a 10th-century leaf containing part of an office for the profession of a nun.

Other manuscripts

Besides these manuscripts there are certain others bearing on the subject which are not liturgical, and some of which are not Celtic, though they show signs of Celtic influences. The Book of Cerne

Book of Cerne

The Book of Cerne is a ninth century Anglo-Saxon prayer book. It was apparently made between 820 and 840 for Bishop Æthelwold of Lichfield . It is the only surviving illuminated manuscript that can be firmly attributed to the kingdom of Mercia...

is a large early ninth-century manuscript collection of prayers, etc. made for Æthelwold, Bishop of Lichfield (820-40). It once belonged to the Abbey of Cerne in Dorset, but is Mercia

Mercia

Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...

n in origin and shows Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Carolingian, Roman, and Byzantine influences. The Leabhar Breac

An Leabhar Breac

Leabhar Breac , now less commonly Leabhar Mór Dúna Doighre or possibly erroneously, Leabhar Breac Mic Aodhagáin , is a medieval Irish vellum manuscript containing Middle Irish and Hiberno-Latin writings...

or Speckled Book, an Irish manuscript of the 14th century, belonging to the Royal Irish Academy, contains a very large collection of ecclesiastical and religious pieces in Irish. The contents are not as a rule of a liturgical character but the book contains a variant of the Irish tract of the Mass which is also in the Stowe Missal. An 8th-century manuscript of probably Northumbrian origin, contains selections from the Gospels, collects, hymns, canticles, private devotions, etc. A fragment of seven leaves of an Irish manuscript of the 9th century contains a litany, the Te Deum, and a number of private devotions.

The ultimate origin of the various prayers, etc., found in the fragments of the Celtic Rite in the books of private devotion, such as the Book of Cerne

Book of Cerne

, Harl. MS. 7635, and MS. Reg. 2. A. xx, which are either Irish or have been composed under Irish influence, is still under discussion.

The Turin Fragment and the Antiphonary of Bangor

Antiphonary of Bangor

The Antiphonary of Bangor is an ancient Latin manuscript, supposed to have been originally written at Bangor Abbey in modern day Northern Ireland....

contain for the most part pieces that are either not found elsewhere or are only found in other Irish books.

The Book of Cerne

Book of Cerne

is very eclectic, and pieces therein can also be traced the Gelasian, Gregorian, Gallican, and Hispanic origins, and the Stowe Missal has pieces which are found not only in the Bobbio Missal, but also in the Gelasian, Gregorian, Gallican, Hispanic, and even Ambrosian books.

Office and liturgy

Evidence as to the nature and origin of the Celtic office is found in the Rule of St. Columbanus, which gives directions as to the number of psalms to be recited at each hour, in the Turin fragment and the Antiphonary of Bangor, which gives the text of canticles, hymns, collects, and antiphons, in the 8th century tract in Cott. MS. Nero A. II., which gives what was held in the 8th century to be the origin of the "Cursus Scottorum" (Cursus psalmorum and Synaxis are terms used for the Divine Office in the Rule of St. Columbanus) and in allusions in the Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae, which differentiates between the Cursus Gallorum, which it derives imaginatively from Ephesus and St. John, through St. Polycarp and St. Irenaeus, and this Cursus Scottorum which, according to this writer, probably an Irish monk in France, originated with St. Mark at Alexandria. With St. Mark it came to Italy. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Basil, and the hermits St. Anthony, St. Paul, St. Macarius, St. John, and St. Malchus used it. St. Cassian, St. Honoratus, and St. Porcarius of Lérins, St. Caesarius of Arles, St. Germanus, and St. Lupus also used it, and St. Germanus taught it to St. Patrick, who brought it to Ireland. There Wandilochus Senex and Gomorillus (Comgall) used it and St. Wandilochus and Columbanus brought it to Luxeuil. The part of the story from St. Germanus onwards may possibly be founded in fact. The other part is not so probable as it does not follow that what St. Columbanus carried to Gaul was the same as that which St. Patrick had brought from Gaul in an earlier age.

The mass

The Bobbio and Stowe Missal

Stowe Missal

s contain the Irish ordinary of a daily mass in its late Romanized form. Many of the variables are found in the Bobbio book and portions of some masses are in the Carlsruhe and Piacenza fragments besides which a little information is found in the St. Gall fragments, the Bangor Antiphonary, the order for the communion of the sick in the Books of Dimma, Mulling, and Deer, the tract in Irish at the end of the Stowe Missal and its variant in the Leabhar Breac.

The Bobbio book is a complete missal, for the priest only, with masses for holy says through the year. The Stowe Missal gives three differing forms, a fragmentary original of the 9th century, the correction by Moelcaich and the Mass described in the Irish tract. The pieces said by the people are in several cases only indicated by beginnings and endings. The original Stowe Mass approaches nearer to that of Bobbio than the revised form does.

Moelcaich's version is a mixed mass, Gelasian, Roman or Romano-Ambrosian for the most part, with much of a Hispano-Gallican type underlying it, and perhaps some indigenous details. It is evident that Roman additions or substitutions were recognized as such.

In the Bobbio book the Masses throughout the year seem to be Gallican in arrangement up to the Preface and Gelasian Roman afterwards. They contain at their fullest, besides Epistle, Gospel and sometimes a lesson from the Old Testament or the Apocalypse (the Prophetia of the Ambrosian Rite), the following variables:

Collects, sometimes called Post Prophetiam, sometimes not named.
Bidding prayer, sometimes called by its Gallican name, Praefatio. This is followed by one or more collects.
Collect post nomina.
Collect Ad Pacem.
Sometimes secreta, but whenever this title is used the mass is wholly Roman and has no Praefatio, Post nomina or Ad Pacem, but only one collect preceding it.
Contestatio, in one case called "immolatio missae". This is the Praefatio in the Roman sense.

Here the mass ends, with apparently no variable post-communion, though these are given in the three masses in the Stowe. The masses are: three for Advent; Christmas Eve and Day; St. Stephen; Holy Innocents; Sts. James and John; Circumcision; Epiphany; St. Peter's Chair; St. Mary; the Assumption (this and St. Peter's Chair are given in the Martyrology of Oengus on 18 Jan., evidently its place here); five for Lent; In symboli traditione; Maundy Thursday; Easter Eve and Day; two Paschal Masses; Invention of the Cross; Litany days; Ascension; Pentecost (called in Quinquaginsimo); St. John Baptist; in S. Johannis passione; Sts. Peter and Paul; St. Sigismund; Martyrs; one Martyr; one Confessor; St. Martin; one Virgin; for the Sick; Dedication; St. Michael; for travellers; for the priest himself; Missa omnimoda; four votive masses; for the Living and the Dead; in domo cujuslibet; seven Sunday Masses; for the king; two daily Masses; for a dead priest; for the Dead—sixty-one in all.

The mass in symboli traditione includes the traditio and expositio symboli, that for Maundy Thursday is followed by the Good Friday Lectio Passionis, and the Easter Eve mass is preceded by preces and intercessory orationes similar to those now used on Good Friday, by the benedictio cerei (for which a hymn and a prayer occur in the Bangor Antiphonary), here only represented by Exultet, and by the order of baptism.

Hours and psalms

The Rule of St. Columbanus and the Bangor book distinguish eight Hours;

Ad duodecimam (Vespers, called ad Vespertinam and ad Vesperam in the Bangor book, Adamnan's Life of St. Columba calls it once (iii,23) Vespertinalis missa)
Ad initium noctis (Compline)
Ad nocturnam or ad medium noctis
Ad matutinam (Lauds)
Ad secundam (Prime)
Ad tertiam
Ad sextam
Ad nonam

At the four lesser Hours St. Columanus orders three psalms each; at Vespers, ad initium noctis, and ad medium noctis twelve each, and ad matutinam, a very curious and intricate arrangement of psalmody varying in length with the longer and shorter nights. On Saturdays and Sundays from 1 November to 25 March, seventy-five psalms were recited on each day, under one antiphon for every three psalms. From 25 March to 24 June these were diminished by three psalms weekly to a minimum of thirty-six psalms. It would seem, though it does not say so, that the minimum was used for about five weeks, for a gradual increase of the same amount arrives at the maximum by 1 November. On other days of the week there was a maximum of thirty-six and a minimum of twenty-four.

The Rule does not say how the psalter was distributed, but from the Bangor book it seems that the Laudate psalms (cxlvii-cl) were said together, doubtless, as in all other rites, Eastern or Western (except certain 18th-century French uses), at Lauds, and that Domine, Refugium (Ps. lxxxix) was said ad secundam. Adamnan mentions that St. Columba sang Ps. xliv, Eructavit cor meum, at vespers on one occasion. The psalms at the lesser Hours were to be accompanied by a number of intercessory versicles. In the Bangor book these, somewhat expanded from the list in the Rule, but certainly to be identified with them, are given in the form of one, two, or three antiphons and a collect for each intercession.

Baptism service

There are two Celtic orders of baptism extant: one in the 7th-century Bobbio Missal and one in the ninth-century part of the Stowe Missal. They differ considerably in the order of ceremony, though they have a good deal of their actual wording in common. Both the Stowe and the Bobbio have the Gallican washing of the feet after baptism, with words very similar to those in the "Gothicum" and "Vetus Gallicanum".

The Stowe is the longest of any early form and on the whole has most in common with the Gelasian and Gregorian. In some of its details it has the appearance of a rather unskilful combination of two orders, for the exorcism, renunciation and confession of faith come twice over. The long Blessing of the Font and Baptismal Water is a combination of the Gelasian and Gregorian forms.

The actual formula of baptism is not given in the Stowe, but in the Bobbio it reads: "Baptizo te in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti unam habentem [sic] substantiam ut habeas vitam aeternam partem cum sanctis." ("I baptise you in the name of the father and son and holy spirit, having one substance, that you share life eternal with the saints") This form resembles those in the "Missale Gothicum", the "Vetus Gallicanum" and the 11th-century Mozarabic "Liber Ordinum" in adding "ut habeas vitam aeternam", though all differ in other additions.

Bobbio form

"Ad Christianum faciendum" (a) First Exorcism (b) Signum Crucis (c) Insufflation

Blessing of Font. (a) Exorcism of water. (b) Two collects. (c) Sursum Corda and preface. (d) Chrismation at font

Second Exorcism: "Exorcidio te spiritus imunde"

"Ephpheta". The form is "Effeta, effecta est hostia in odorem suavitatis". Cf. the Stowe form

Unction with oil of catechumens on nose, ears, and breast. The form is "Ungo te oleo sanctificato sicut unxit Samuel David in regem et prophetam"

Renunciation. The three renunciations of the Stowe (and general Roman) form, combined under one answer

Confession of faith, with full creed

Baptism

Chrismation, with which is said the form "Deus D. N. J. C. qui te regeneravit", etc.

Vesting with white robe

Washing the feet

"Post Baptism", two collects

Stowe form

Exorcism and Signum Crucis (sign of the cross). Three prayers. The first is in Moelcaich's hand and includes the signing, the second occurs also in the Bangor Antiphoner as "Collectio super hominem qui habet diabolum" (collect upon man, who has the devil) and the third "Deus qui ad salutem" is repeated before the Blessing of the Font.

Consecratio salis (consecration of salt) with an exorcism from the Gelasian

Renunciation - three separate answers

Confession of faith - the creed in its shortest possible form, a simple profession of faith in each person of the trinity

Insufflation without words

First unction on breast and back with oil and chrism, saying "Ungo te oleo sanctificatio in nomine" ("I anoint you with sanctified oil in the name...") etc.

Second renunciation in the same words as before

Four prayers of exorcism, two Gelasian and two Gregorian

Irish rubric "It is here that salt is put into the mouth of the child."

"Ephpheta" - the form is: "Effeta quot est apertio effeta est hostia in honorem [sic] suavitatis in nomine" etc. The Gelasian and Gregorian (like the modern Roman) have, "Effeta quod est adaperire in odorem suavitatis, tu autem effugare Diabole, appropinquabit enim judicium Dei". The play upon the words effeta and effecta is peculiar to the Bobbio and Stowe. In other books "Ephpheta" is not associated with the giving of the salt, as it appears to be here, but with the touching of the nose and ears with spittle.

Prayer - "Domine sancte pater omnipotens aeterne deus, qui es et qui eras et qui venturus es" ("Lord, holy father, omnipotent eternal god, you who are and who was and who are to come"). This occurs in the Gelasian as "Ad catechumenum ex Pagano faciendum" ("for making a convert out of a pagan"), and is said in the present Roman baptism of adults before the giving of the salt in the case of converts from paganism.

Prayer - "Deus qui ad salutem humani generis" ("Lord, who for the health of human kind"). This, which forms part of the blessing of water in the Gelasian, Gregorian, and modern Roman, is repeated here for the second time, having been said already with the first exorcism.

Prayer - "Exaudi nos Domine......et mittere dignare" ("Hear us, lord"). The prayer used at the "Asperges" in the modern Roman rite.

Second unction - "Huc usque catechumenus. Incipit oleari oleo et crismate in pectus et item scapulas antequam baptizaretur."

Litany "circa fontem canitur" ("Sung around the font") - No text is given. In the Ambrosian rite the Litany is said after the Baptism, and in the modern Roman on Easter Eve after the blessing of the font.

Two psalms (or rather verses of two psalms) - "Sitvit anima mea usque vivum, quemadmodum. Vox Domini super aquas multas. Adferte." This is a way of expressing Ps. xli, 2 and Ps. xxviii, 3. The whole of Ps. xli is said in the Ambrosian, and Ps. xxviii in the Roman baptism of adults.

Blessing of the font - the first part consists of exorcisms which, though they occur in various parts of the existing Gelasian books, are always connected with blessing the font or the water therein. The last part consists, with a few variations, of the prayer "Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, adesto magnae pietatis tuae mysteriis" along with the preface and prayers that follow in the Gelasian, Gregorian, and modern Roman Easter Eve ceremonies, down to the pouring of chrism into the font. The direction which follows orders the chrism to be poured "in modum crucis" - "et quique voluerit implet vasculum aqua benedictionis ad domos consecrandas et populus praesens aspergitur aqua benedicta".

Confession of faith repeated in a slightly amplified form.

The baptism - a triple immersion or aspersion is ordered but no formula is given.

The chrismation - anointing with oil "in cerebrum in fronte" ("upon the forehead"). The prayer is "Deus omnipotens Pater D.N.J.C. qui te regeneravit" etc. as found in the Gelasian, Gregorian, modern Roman and Ambrosian, the Bobbio and "Vetus Gallicanum". The formula is "Ungo te de oleo et de Chrismate salutis et sanctificationis in nomine.... nunc et per omnia in saecula saeculorum", and "operare creatura olei operare in nomine"....

Vesting with white robe by the deacon, with the usual words (said by the priest), "Accipe vestem candidam" ("accept the white vesture") etc.

Signing of the hands - the priest says "Aperiatur manus pueri" and "Signum crucis Christi accipe in manum tuam dexteram et conservet te in vitam aeternam". Warren finds an instance of this ceremony in the 11th-century Jumièges Ritual, but otherwise it does not seem to be known.

Washing of feet - this ceremony is peculiarly Gallican and Celtic and is not found in Roman books. An order was made in Iberia by the Council of Elvira in 305 that it should be performed by clerks, not priests. The Stowe form begins with verses from the Psalms, "Lucerna pedibus" and others, with Alleluias. Then follow a formula and a prayer, both referring to Christ washing the feet of his disciples.

Communion - "Corpus et sanguinis [sic] D.N.J.C. sit tibi in vitam aeternam, followed by thanksgivings for communion and baptism. At the end are a blessing of water (found also in the Gregorian) and an exorcism (found also in Gallican and Ambrosian books and in a slightly varied form, in the 11th-century Mozarabic Liber Ordinum). These, if they belong to the baptism, are clearly out of place, rendered unnecessary, as Warren suggests, by the introduction of the larger Roman blessing of the font. It is possible, however, that they belong to the office of the visitation of the sick, which follows immediately without any break in the manuscript, since that service in the Book of Mulling has a blessing of water at the beginning.

Visitation, unction, and communion of the sick

There are four extant specimens of these services: in the Stowe Missal and the Book of Dimma are the longest and most complete, and agree very closely. The Mulling differs in the preliminary bidding prayers and in beginning with blessings of water and of the sick person, the latter of which comes at the end and in a different form in the Stowe and Dimma, though it agrees with the Dimma in inserting the creed, which is not in the Stowe. The Deer form has only the communion, which agrees substantially with the other three. The order in the Stowe is:

Blessing of water - "Benedic, Domine, hanc creaturam aquae" ("Bless, O Lord, this creature water") (Gregorian) and "Exorcizo te spiritus immunde" ("I exorcise thee, O unclean spirit
Unclean spirit
In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton , which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ....

") (found in the Bobbio Baptismal Order before the "Ephpheta" and in an Ambrosian Order quoted by Martène, but in both as an "exorcismus hominis", exorcism of [sick] person). These two are considered by Warren to belong to the Baptismal Order, but cf. the position of the "Benedictio super aquam" and "Benedictio hominis" in the Book of Mulling.

Preface - in the Gallican sense, "Oremus fratres, Dominum Deum nostrum pro fratre nostro" ("Let us pray, brothers, to the Lord our God for our brother", i.e., the sick person), followed by six collects, all but one of which, as well as the Praefatio, are in the Dimma.

Two Gospels. Matt., xxii, 23, 29-33, and xxiv, 29-31. The first is in the Dimma, where there is also an Epistle, I Cor., xv, 19-22.

Unction. In the Dimma this is preceded by a declaration of faith in the trinity, eternal life and the resurrection. In the Mulling the creed follows the unction. The form is "ungo te de oleo sanctificato ut salveris in nomine ... in saecula" ("I anoint thee with the oil of sanctification that thou mayest be saved, in the Name of the Father ... for ever") etc. The Dimma is "Ungo te de oleo sanctificato in nomine Trinitatis ut salveris in saecula saeculorum" ("I anoint thee with the oil of sanctification in the name of the trinity that thou mayest be saved for ever and ever"), and the Mulling "Ungo te de oleo sanctificationis in nomine dei patris et filii et spiritus sancti ut salveris in nomine sancti trinitatis" ("I anoint thee with the oil of sanctification in the name of God the father and the son and the holy spirit that thou mayest be saved in the name of the holy trinity"). The forms in the old Ambrosian Rituals and in the pre-Tridentine rite of the Venetian patriarchate began with "Ungo te oleo sanctificato". A very similar form is given by Martene from a 12th-century Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, Italy, c. to the west of the town of Cassino and altitude. St. Benedict of Nursia established his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, here around 529. It was the site of Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944...

Breviary (Vol. IV, 241), and another is in the 10th-century Asti
Asti
Asti is a city and comune of about 75,000 inhabitants located in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy, about 55 kilometres east of Turin in the plain of the Tanaro River...

ritual described by Gastoue (Rassegna Gregoriana, 1903). The Roman and modern Ambrosian forms begin with "Per istam unctionem" ("Through this anointing"). Nothing is said in the Celtic books about the parts of the body to be anointed.

The Lord's Prayer - with introduction "Concede Domine nobis famulis tuis" and embolism "libera nos Domine". The Dimma has the same introduction but after the prayer the sick person is directed to recite "Agnosce, Domine, verba quae precepisti". As another, or perhaps an alternative, introduction to the prayer, The Mulling and Deer have "Creator naturarum omnium". In each case the Pater Noster and its accompaniments are preliminary to the Communion.

Three prayers for the sick man, referring to his Communion - these are not in the Dimma, Mulling, or Deer. One of these, "Domine sancte Pater te fideliter", is in the present Roman ritual.

Pax - "Pax et caritas D.N.J.C." ("The peace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ"), etc. as in the mass.

Communion. The words of administration as given in the Stowe are "Corpus et sanguis D.N.J.C. fili Dei vivi altissimi, et reliqua" ("The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living most high God, and the remains"). The Dimma omits "altissimi" (most high) and ends "conservat animam tuam in vitam aeternam" ("preserve thy soul unto eternal life"). The Mulling has "Corpus cum sanguine D. N. J. C. sanitas sit tibi in vitam aeternam" ("The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be health to thee unto eternal life"). The Deer has the same, except that it ends "in vitam perpetuam et salutem" ("unto perpetual life and health"). Then follow Communion anthems similar to those in the Mass, differing in order and selection in the Stowe Mass, the Stowe, Dimma, Mulling, and Deer communions of the sick and in the Antiphonary of Bangor, though several are common to them all.

Thanksgiving - "Deus tibi gratias agimus" ("God, we give thee thanks"). This is found in the Dimma, Mulling, and Deer forms, where it ends the service. In the Dimma it is preceded by the blessing.

Blessing - "Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te" "("The Lord bless the and keep thee"), followed by the signing of the cross and "pax tibi in vitam aeternam" ("Peace to thee in eternal life").

Consecration of churches

In the Leabhar Breac there is a tract describing the consecration of a church, a ceremony divided into five parts; consecration of the floor, of the altar with its furniture, consecration out of doors, aspersion inside and aspersion outside. The consecration of the floor includes writing two alphabets thereon. There are directed to be seven crosses cut on the altar, and nothing is said about relics.

On the whole the service appears to be of the same type as the Roman though it differs in details and, if the order of the component parts as given in the tract may be taken as correct, in order also.

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