One of the most interesting medieval developments in the celebration of Easter and Holy Week in the West is the complexity and diversity of the liturgical ceremonies, which expand in time, multiply in number, and yet, paradoxically, remain constant in meaning. The early Easter celebration, though rich in symbolic texture, was relatively simple in structure. Later evolution fragmented this “original” unity, spreading out the liturgical ceremonial in an attempt to commemorate specific “historical” moments in the paschal mystery of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection.1
By the end of the fourth century, the feast of Easter had already expanded into a three-day period called the Triduum Paschale. By the fifth century, the triduum included Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday;2 in addition, the celebration of Palm Sunday (sometimes called Passion Sunday) had been added on the Sunday before Easter, thus setting off the entire week as a “Holy” week (maior or authentica), “a kind of extension” of the triduum.3
To make matters even more confusing, the medieval celebration of Holy Week was not “a uniform observance throughout the Western Church . . . the way Holy Week was celebrated differed not only from country to country, but even within each country”;4 since the period under study here runs approximately from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries, the ceremonial also multiplied and changed over time. Many authors have examined the complex ceremonial of the Lent-Easter season, both in terms of public, official liturgy and “private,” popular devotion.5 For the purposes of this volume, discussion will be limited to the public ceremonial of these major days: Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday itself.
The medieval liturgy of this Sunday before Easter stresses two major elements: the reading of the account of Christ’s suffering and death (the Passion); and Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem before his death. The latter theme was stressed at the blessing of palms and opening processional that preceded the actual mass. The gospel narrative (Matt. 21:1–12 in Rome, John 12:12–29 in England) read at this ceremonial blessing records that bystanders spread palm branches along the roadway (along with their garments) as they acclaimed Jesus (riding on a donkey) with cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David.” The dominant element of the day became the reading of this pericope and the blessing of palm branches, followed by a liturgical procession with these palms. This opening premass ritual actually somewhat overshadowed the full reading of the passion account (also taken from Matthew), which was chanted during the mass itself.
The adoption of a procession with palms was a gradual development. It was celebrated relatively early in Jerusalem (late fifth or early sixth century) and came to “mark” the beginning of Holy Week or “Great Week,” as it was known in the Christian East. In Rome, however, the focus of Palm Sunday remained on the reading of the Lord’s Passion, while elsewhere in the West (e.g., Spain and Gaul) the theme of anointing was stressed as part of the preparation of catechumens for baptism. In these places the gospel reading, John 12:1–25, included both the anointing of Jesus’ feet by Mary at Bethany and his subsequent entry into Jerusalem. Only later (seventh and eighth centuries) do Roman sacramentaries entitle this Sunday in palmis, and only later still (ninth century in France and perhaps as late as the eleventh century in Rome) are actual processions of laity and clergy bearing palms described.6
Details of the procession varied from place to place throughout the medieval period, and increasingly included more “representational” elements. The palms would be blessed publicly in a ceremony held before the mass of the day, either outside or in a chapel or church other than the one where the mass would be celebrated. In some places, the bishop led the procession from a starting point outside the city environs to the church (often through a town gate);7 the bishop might then ritually knock or strike the church door, acting out his role as a living representation of Christ, the “King of glory” who enters in triumph.8 In others places, notably Salisbury in England, the procession moved from inside the church to circle the outside walls of the building itself, and was “headed by a figureless cross, painted red.”9 Beginning in the late eleventh century, English custom also included carrying a consecrated host (sometimes with relics of the saints) in a “shrine” or “bier” as part of this formal procession with palms.10 In parts of Germany, an even more dramatic, representational “figure” called a Palmesel (“a donkey with Christ astride, set on wheels”) was also part of the procession.11 The procession usually contained (or concluded with) a popular hymn attributed to the ninth-century bishop, Theodulph of Orleans: Gloria, laus, et honor (“All glory, laud and honor, to thee, Redeemer King”).12
After the procession entered (or reentered) the church, the mass of the Sunday was celebrated. As mentioned above, its prominent element was the singing/chanting of the Passion (Matt. 26:1–27:61), which was divided into three parts: one cleric (a tenor) serving as narrator, another (a bass) taking the part of Christ, and a third (an alto) singing the roles of others (disciples, Pilate, “the Jews” or “synagogue,” and the crowd). On Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week the passion accounts from Mark and Luke were also sung in this way.13
Holy Thurday marked the intersection of several different liturgical “movements” that characterized both Lent and the original “unitive” celebration of Easter itself. As a result, the medieval celebrations of this day were rooted in complex origins and became diverse in practice.
One element was the paralleling of preparation for baptism with reconciliation from post-baptismal sin. In late antiquity, catechumens who were considered to be ready for baptism during the next Easter Vigil spent the Lenten weeks before Easter in intense prayer and instruction, capped by final liturgical ratification/celebration. In addition, there were some, the severity of whose offense had led them to enroll as public penitents and spend these weeks in final preparation for reconciliation and readmission to communion. Since both the ancient and the early medieval traditions considered Holy Thursday to be the final day of Lent, not the first day of the triduum, some of the liturgical celebrations assigned to that day reflect a preparation for the baptisms to come (the blessing of chrism), as well as the completion of a period of penitence before the joyous celebration of Easter (the reconciliation of penitents).
A second element derived from the fact that the celebration of the Thursday mass occurred at the end of a fast day. In antiquity, this meant that Christians were expected to go without food until mid-afternoon; eventually, it became customary in many areas for the eucharist to be celebrated at that hour, and all in attendance would receive communion to break the fast of that day. And finally, the third element to shape the development of Holy Thursday was the celebration and remembrance of the Last Supper, during which Christians believed that Christ instituted the celebration of the eucharist itself. The Last Supper is also considered to be one of the key moments in the Passion of Jesus; in the gospel accounts, it was after the supper that Christ was arrested and brought to trial.
By late antiquity and the early Middle Ages these diverse themes had crystallized into a variety of liturgical practices. Fourth-century Jerusalem observance, for instance, included not one but two eucharistic celebrations on Thursday afternoon: one to close the Lenten fast of the day, and a second to commemorate Christ’s Last Supper. That evening, all reassembled to begin an all-night processional vigil, commemorating again Christ’s words to his disciples during the supper, his prayer later in the garden of Gethsemane, and, finally, at dawn, his arrest and appearance before Pilate.14
But it was the tradition of Rome, not Jerusalem, that shaped the medieval western liturgy most decisively. From at least the fourth century at Rome, those who had been fasting and doing penance as penitents were officially readmitted to communion in a specific rite for reconciliation, which was retained in some liturgical books long after the public penance that had occasioned it had fallen into disuse.15 In addition, by the seventh century the holy oils, some of which would be used in the baptismal rite during the coming Easter Vigil, were blessed on Holy Thursday by the pope at a mass which also commemorated the Last Supper.16
The papal liturgy was not the only one celebrated in Rome. In smaller churches around the city, other priests held eucharistic celebrations, and on Holy Thursday this presbyteral liturgy called for one mass to end the fast and a later, evening mass to commemorate the Last Supper. At one point, these different papal and presbyteral customs were combined: one sacramentary lists three masses for Holy Thursday, one containing the reconciliation rite, a second for the consecration of oils, and a third, evening eucharist commemorating the Lord’s Supper. Eventually, the medieval western practice was reduced to a single mass on Holy Thursday, in commemoration of the Lord’s Supper. Oils would be consecrated at this mass only if a bishop presided.17
In England, Holy Thursday was called Maundy Thursday, in reference to yet another ceremonial practice which became associated with the eucharistic celebration on that day. This is the practice of footwashing, a charitable act of humility and service suggested in the Johannine account of the Last Supper. Here, Jesus, like a household servant, washes the feet of his disciples and encourages the disciples to follow his example (John 13:3–20). Later during the meal, Jesus reinforces this teaching by giving to his disciples a “new commandment”18 to “love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35).
This practice, which had entered baptismal liturgy very early in some places (Milan, for instance),19 had become particularly customary in early monastic communities, where the brothers or sisters would wash each others’ feet at certain times of the week or liturgical year, and would also wash the feet of travelers and guests (later, only of the poor) who were availing themselves of the community’s hospitality. From the seventh century on, this footwashing rite became a formal part of the Holy Thursday rituals, although the ceremony did not always take place during the celebration of mass. The pope, for example, originally washed the feet of twelve of his fellow clergy (subdeacons, “the lowest rank of full-fledged clergy”) during the evening service of vespers, and later, also the feet of thirteen poor men. Throughout the Middle Ages, bishops, abbots, and pastors throughout Europe would conduct the footwashing in a similar manner, although in some places only paupers participated, and in others, only the clergy (canons) of the cathedral. The poor who participated in this ceremony often received some token of alms or money.20
The single evening mass of the Lord’s Supper was considered to be the beginning of the paschal triduum, in continuity with the calendrical tradition of Judaism and late antiquity which reckoned the beginning of each day not at sunrise, but at sundown.21 This mass would be the last to be celebrated before the Easter Vigil on Saturday, since it was the custom in the West not to celebrate the eucharist on Friday or Saturday before the vigil.
Since communion was distributed to the faithful anyway during the Good Friday service (see below), a new complication emerged: some of the consecrated hosts would have to be reserved for the next day. This need gave rise to other “rememorative” and “representational” liturgical elaboration: (1) a procession with the sacrament (the “deposition of the host”22) to the place where it was to be kept (or reserved) until Saturday; (2) the practice there of prayer (“adoration”), which came to be called the Forty Hours’ Devotion, in reference to the length of time Christ’s body lay in the tomb; (3) a ritualized “burial” of a consecrated host or hosts (and/or a wooden cross) in a “symbolic tomb” or “holy sepulchre”;23 and (4) the stripping of the altars of their linens and candles, while the main altar “was also washed with water and wine (a symbol of Christ’s blood washing the world clean).”24
A final observation must be made about a special, non-eucharistic prayer service held during the triduum: that of Tenebrae (or “Darkness”). This was a simplified form of matins, the regular early morning service held every day of the year, the name possibly being suggested by the first word of the responsory Tenebrae factae sunt (“It became dark” or “Darkness fell”), or by the physical darkness in which the service ended.
The general tone of the service’s psalmody, antiphons, and readings reflected the feeling of sadness (“a mournful mood”)25 which would continue strongly through Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Scripture readings for the service, for example, were especially selected from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. But the most striking feature of the service involved the “rememorative” symbolic elements of light and darkness: fifteen candles26 were lit at the celebration of Matins/Tenebrae, and one candle was ritually extinguished at the end of each psalm until, by the end of lauds (a second morning office conjoined with matins), all were dark.27 Finally, “the service ended with a general striking of the benches, symbolizing the scourging of Christ.”28
The ceremonies of Good Friday emphasized three ritual moments: the formal chanting of the Passion; the veneration of the cross; and the distribution of communion from the reserved sacrament to the assembly.
There is testimony from the end of the fourth century that a relatively elaborate Good Friday liturgy in Jerusalem already included the reading of Jesus’ trial (from John), the veneration of the cross, and, later in the day, the reading of the Passion (again from John). The special veneration ceremony was presided over by the bishop at the church erected on the supposed site of the crucifixion (Golgotha). He held on a table a relic of the True Cross; the faithful came up to kiss it, under the close scrutiny of deacons in attendance at the table so as to prevent the laity from biting off a piece of the cross at the kiss in order to keep it as a personal relic.29 This veneration ceremony was retained as an important part of the Good Friday liturgy in the West.30 We saw above that early medieval liturgical manuscripts from Rome clearly testify to two rather different styles of service: a papal liturgy, and a “presbyteral” liturgy for use in the smaller churches of the city. The seventh-century papal liturgy seems to have centered on the reading of the Passion (according to the Gospel of John) and a formal series of intercessory prayers (the orationes solemnes, or “solemn prayers”).31 This series of prayers, which numbered nine by the sixteenth century, probably reflected more ancient practice in its specific, formal structure, namely: (1) “bidding” (the formal statement of a prayer intention); (2) a direction to kneel for a few moments of silent prayer; and (3) a final short prayer by the presider to “sum up” the unvoiced prayer of the community (the “collect”).32
The contemporary presbyteral liturgy, on the other hand, began by placing a cross on the altar, followed by the reading of the Passion, the bringing of the reserved sacrament to the altar, the priest’s veneration of the cross, and the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. After this, all received communion and then venerated the cross. By the beginning of the eighth century, the papal liturgy had incorporated the presbyteral veneration of the cross but not the reception of communion; in fact, by the thirteenth century the reception of communion seems to have been restricted to the celebrant alone, no matter what the setting.33
From the ninth through twelfth centuries, as the dominant influence on Christian liturgy shifted to northern European culture and political interests,34 the Good Friday liturgy became more elaborate still. The general character of the day as a day of mourning became especially pronounced,35 and the ritual veneration of the cross became more and more central.36 This ceremonial veneration of the cross became an independent ritual element which migrated, as it were, to other occasions of the year.37 The procession with the cross, now veiled, was broken by pauses three times, each marked by the singing of the Trisagion acclamation (“Holy God, holy Mighty One, holy Immortal One, have mercy on us”), and the cross was then unveiled by the bishop as a “veritable theophany . . . the crucifixion as the revelation of divine glory.”38 Then, private prayers were provided for each of three genuflections before the cross which had been added as part of the ritual “approach” for veneration.39 Versicles now accompanied the ritual kissing of the floor, then of the hands and feet of the figure of Christ on the crucifix40 provided for the veneration.41 The time of the Good Friday service, like that of Holy Thursday and (as we shall see) of the Easter Vigil too, was gradually “moved up” until, by the sixteenth century, it began in the morning instead of when it had originally occurred.42
The commemoration of Christ’s suffering and death eventually expanded beyond the day of Good Friday itself. For example, a more popular, private devotional service, known as the “Way of the Cross” or the “Stations of the Cross,” became widespread in the fifteenth century due to the efforts of the Franciscans, who advocated “representational” devotional elements in general, such as Christmas manger scenes.43 The various moments of Christ’s passion (e.g., the scourging) were commemorated with prayer and meditation in a structured manner marked by “an immediate and human character.”44 Small wooden crosses would be set up to mark the stations in an outside location or affixed to the inside walls of a church building. Eventually the number of “stations” was set at fourteen. Though technically private and intended for individual piety, this devotional practice could also be held in common with a large group in attendance; while often observed on Good Friday, the Stations of the Cross could take place at any time.
The Good Friday liturgy contained several components which could be (and often were) interpreted in an anti-Semitic way.45 One particularly important element was the liturgical use of the Passion from the Gospel of John, with its many references to Jesus’ betrayal to and trial by “the Jews.” Contemporary biblical scholarship has clarified the political and religious hostility which led to the use of this kind of language in the composition of this gospel at the end of the first century.46 However, the public reading of this pericope during one of the most important services of Holy Week could not help but exacerbate the increasing suspicion of and even violence toward Jews in medieval western Europe; this treatment of the Jews as the deliberate “killers of Christ” became quite marked in the twelfth and especially the thirteenth centuries.47
A second troubling element can be found in the prayer texts themselves. The “bidding”—that is, the intentions—of the nine “solemn prayers” move from “inside” the church “outwards”; they are for the church, for the pope, for the clergy, for the (civil) ruler, for catechumens, for the “needs of the faithful” (e.g., relief from error, sickness, for travelers), for heretics and schismatics, for the conversion of the Jews, and finally, for the conversion of “pagans.” The eighth of the orationes solemnes, that for the conversion of the Jews, was worded as for “the perfidious Jews” in the medieval period; it was also the only prayer of the series at which the congregation was not bidden to kneel.48
Finally, one of the major pieces of music sung during the veneration of the cross was also a focus of anti-Semitism. This complex series of verses and responses, sung as the people approached the cross individually to venerate it with a kiss, is known as the Improperia, or the “Reproaches.” The core of the composition consists of descriptions of the scriptural acts of God (here identified with Christ) for God’s people, coupled with a description of the various sufferings endured by Christ during his passion. For example, one verse runs, “For thy sake I scourged Egypt with its firstborn: and thou didst scourge me and deliver me up”; another states, “I went before thee in a pillar of cloud: and thou hast brought me to the palace of Pilate.” One major refrain, Popule meus, is phrased as the words of Christ: “O my people, what have I done to thee? or in what have I afflicted thee? answer me.”49
All of these texts combined to imbue the medieval Good Friday liturgy with a strong anti-Semitic tone, which was often intensified by the calendrical proximity of the Jewish Passover to Holy Week. Jewish Passover ritual was even suspected of involving the use of human sacrifice and blood; and from time to time, Jewish communities were accused of kidnapping and murdering a Christian child for use in these Passover ceremonies, a famous instance being the case of a two-year-old named Simon of Trent (d. 1475), who was actually canonized, listed in the Roman Martyrology, and given the feast day of March 24.50 Several medieval church councils also restricted the public activities of members of the Jewish community during Holy Week, the most notable being the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.51
In antiquity, Saturday had been a quiet fast day which honored “the repose of Jesus in the tomb, but also his descent into hell and his mysterious encounter there with those who were waiting for him to open the gate of heaven.”52 This is also sometimes referred to as the “Harrowing of Hell,” a reference to Christ’s redemption of those who were called “the saints of the Old Testament.” The event is the subject of many Byzantine icons, in which Jesus Christ is depicted as holding Adam (and often Eve) by the hand and leading them through the heavenly gate, symbols of all the righteous whose lives predated his.53
By the turn of the fifth century, the regular morning and evening services of the day were equipped with special ceremonies for those to be baptized during the Easter vigil that night. The catechumens had been publicly “given” the Creed to memorize during Lent (the traditio symboli), and were asked to “return” or recite it (the redditio symboli) during a short public liturgy in the morning.54
All of this presupposed the major liturgical event of the day, indeed, of the entire Paschal triduum: the celebration of the Easter Vigil Saturday night until dawn on Sunday, the core of which had been made up of the initiation rite for the catechumens and the celebration of the Easter eucharist at dawn. As the medieval period began, however, the practice of adult baptism at the Easter vigil fell into disuse, and was gradually replaced by the custom of baptizing infants in a timely fashion after birth. With the demise of adult initiation, the whole character of the liturgical celebration, from the returning of the Creed in the morning to the rite of initiation that night, had to change.
Other ceremonies, therefore, became more prominent. In the celebration of the Easter Vigil, for example, a lengthy series of readings taken from the Hebrew Scriptures and retained from the ancient practice took on special significance. By the fifteenth century, the Roman Missal listed twelve of these, each accompanied by a musical response called a tract, and a short presbyteral prayer known as a collect. By way of contrast, the customary practice from the eighth century at mass had been to read only two selections, usually one from one of the four Gospels (the “gospel”), preceded by one from elsewhere in the New Testament (the “epistle”); the medieval reading of twelve texts from the Hebrew Scriptures, in addition to the epistle and gospel readings, emphasized the solemnity of the medieval Easter Vigil that had lost its ancient focus on adult baptism.55
The next element was a lengthy ritual blessing of water and of the baptismal font, which took place after the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures. This was a vestige of the old baptismal practice (in some places, an infant was still baptized at this time),56 so that the blessing prayer referred especially to biblical narratives involving water: creation, the Flood, Moses and the rock, Jesus’ turning water into wine, his baptism in the Jordan, his walking on water, and his command to baptize all nations. Additionally, the Holy Spirit was called down upon the water of the font, to sanctify and purify it as a means of cleansing and rebirth. In the later medieval liturgy, the presider would be directed actually to “part” the water with his hand in the sign of the cross, to throw some of the water (a few drops) in each of the four “quarters of the world,” and to dip the paschal candle into the water of the font three times, accompanied by a sung Litany of the Saints.57
The early medieval period (fifth through seventh centuries)58 had already introduced into the vigil ceremonies the notable practice of a blessing and procession of the paschal candle capped by the sung Easter Proclamation (the Exultet) before the readings began. Later, these ceremonies were themselves prefaced by a separate rite for the lighting and blessing of a “new” fire, from which the paschal candle itself was at one point lit (see below).
The blessing of the new fire dates back to the seventh and eighth centuries, and seems to have been carried out somewhat differently according to local custom. The fire could either be “reserved” from candles kept burning from Holy Thursday, or kindled anew on Saturday; in some places, “new” fire was kindled for each of the three days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), while in others, only once on Saturday. In many places, people and clergy processed in silence to the place where the fire was to be lighted. The fire was itself blessed by a variable combination of litanies, formulas of one to six benedictions on varying themes, other more general collects, and, later, by aspersion with holy water and incense.59
The origins of the paschal or Easter candle are complicated and unclear. One root is the Christian liturgical tradition of lighting and blessing the evening lamp at evening prayer (the Lucernarium). Another is the striking visual symbol of the “Light of Christ,” risen from darkness and death; and a third is the ritual introduction of the new light into the church proper. Earliest custom seems to have called for the paschal candle itself to be blessed and lit with the new fire, then carried lit in the procession; later, a lit processional candle was carried, accompanied by the larger, unlighted paschal candle.60 Eventually, the new fire was carried in procession by lighting a single or, later, a triple candle, which would be borne aloft on some kind of stand.61 The massive, unlit paschal candle would usually be set up by the ambo.62 A triple acclamation, Lumen Christi (“Light of Christ”), would be intoned and all would respond with Deo gratias (“Thanks be to God”); at first, this would be sung at the paschal candle inside the church, but eventually it became part of the procession as the smaller processional candle made its way to the front of the church.63
The blessing of the paschal candle also became more elaborate as time went on. The candle was first blessed with the sign of the cross made as a hand-gesture, or more rarely, with a lighted candle or with chrism; later, the cross was actually incised into the beeswax.64 The insertion of five blessed grains of incense into this cross seems to have developed from the earlier act of incensing the candle itself before the sung Exultet, or Easter proclamation.65 Since the paschal candle was interpreted as a symbol of Christ (Christ as the pillar of fire, the new life of the Risen Christ shared by all Christians, and, in more allegorical fashion, the humanity/wax and divinity/-flame of Christ), the grains of incense also took Christological meanings (the anointing of Christ’s body in the tomb, or the five wounds).66
The singing of the Exultet was the next major liturgical moment. A cleric, usually a deacon, stood high in the ambo (or lectern) and sang this lengthy proclamation/prayer of praise, both of the candle and of the Easter joy it symbolized.67 Themes included the rejoicing of heaven and earth; the canceling of Adam’s debt by Christ’s resurrection; the pillar of light at the Red Sea; the reconciliation which Christ’s resurrection brings to all; and a request for God’s blessing and protection during the celebration. Even the work of the bees in making the wax is mentioned. In southern Italy, special documents called Exultet rolls were prepared, which contained the text of the prayer; as the deacon sang, the scroll would unroll over the top of the ambo, so that large (to the reader, upside-down) illustrations of the images in the prayers could be seen by the assembled congregation.68
The above-mentioned readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the blessing of the font followed. The celebration of mass then continued with the singing of the Kyrie (“Lord have mercy”) and the Gloria (“Glory to God in the highest”), which would have been customary at any mass (the Gloria, with its festive text, was omitted during penitential seasons such as Lent). Next followed another short collect-prayer and the reading of the epistle (the Tridentine Roman Missal stipulated Colossians 3:1–4). The gospel reading (Matt. 28:1–7) was preceded by the chanting of the Alleluia, which would be intoned first by the presider and repeated by the entire congregation; at Easter, this was repeated three times, each time on a slightly higher note. The Alleluia was followed by a psalm verse (Ps. 117:1) and a tract (from Ps. 116). The rest of the mass followed, though it became customary later to omit a few of the usual liturgical chants and ceremonies (including the Creed, the Agnus Dei, and the kiss of Peace); and later still, it was concluded by a shortened form of vespers (changed in modern times to a shortened form of lauds) and a formally sung dismissal by the deacon (or celebrant).69
Unfortunately, the medieval development of the Easter Vigil can be read as “a miserable tale of fragmentation.”70 The gradual disassociation of the vigil from Christian initiation has already been mentioned. The second major problem was the time of day that the vigil came to be held. Gradually, over the centuries, the start of the vigil was pushed earlier and earlier, until, by the time of the Council of Trent (1545–1563), it was held on Saturday morning.71 Much of the community’s energy and enthusiasm was thus reserved for the celebration of Sunday itself.
By the fifth century, a second Easter mass was celebrated later on Easter morning; clear evidence for such a mass in Rome dates from the seventh century. Other Easter Sunday celebrations, like matins and vespers, became more elaborate; matins followed the vigil early Sunday morning. The reserved sacrament (or, in other places, the symbolic cross) which had been symbolically “entombed” earlier was often carried in a formal procession back to its usual place, either immediately before or after matins (or just before mass, in some places).72
Beginning in the tenth century, matins featured the performance of a short liturgical drama which became more elaborate with time, and came to be known as the “Visit to the Sepulchre.” An early form of this drama, known as the Quem quaeritis dialogue, is set as a dialogue at the tomb of Christ early Easter Sunday morning. In the synoptic gospel tradition, two (Matt. 28) or three (Mark 16) women go to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body; they encounter an angel (Mark has a young man, and Luke 24, two young men in dazzling apparel). In various ways, they are told that Jesus is not in the tomb but has risen, and that they should tell the rest of the disciples this news.
The Quem quaeritis form consists of only three lines, based on this scriptural tradition, exchanged between the “three Marys” and the angel. Although it is unclear whether the dialogue was of Gallican or Roman origin, and exactly where it was first placed (at the Easter Vigil, or as a kind of gathering ceremony before Easter Sunday mass), the dialogue does spread rapidly across Europe and, by the thirteenth century, was always set after Easter matins.73 The earlier, simple dialogue became lengthier and finally evolved into a structured “play.”74
Easter vespers too was an occasion for ceremonial elaboration. The service was held in mid-afternoon at the Lateran basilica in Rome. Special elements included a solemn entrance procession, first of the clergy and later of the entire congregation, including those who had been baptized just the night before, to the baptistery and then to the smaller chapel of the Holy Cross (where their initiation had been completed with the confirmation-crismation). The service ended with a gathering of the clergy “in the portico of the chapel, where three kinds of wine were served to them,” while a choir chanted an Easter piece in Greek and a prayer for the pope.75
Other customs deserve mention here. Early medieval sources note a special mass celebrated for those who had been baptized on the previous Easter (the pascha annotina).76 The symbols of the egg (the “Easter egg”) and the rabbit (today’s “Easter bunny”) date from pre-Christian times, and stand for the renewed fertility and “rebirth” of spring.77 However, the medieval custom of blessing an Easter lamb connects directly with the scriptural identifications of Jesus Christ as the paschal lamb, or the Lamb of God.78 And finally, from the ninth century on, the medieval period saw the celebration of a “second triduum” (Easter Sunday, and the following Monday and Tuesday), which focused on the resurrection, as a kind of parallel to the “first triduum” centering on Christ’s passion and death. This fragmentation of the original unitive nature of Easter (commemorating the passion, death, and resurrection) can be seen as the final “deterioration” of “the internal unity of the paschal mystery.”79
Clearly, the medieval celebrations of Holy Week and Easter show an enormous variety and a lively mix of unitive, rememorative, and representational elements. It is perhaps not surprising that by the sixteenth century, some of the oldest ceremonial elements had been so abbreviated, overladen with later accretions, and distorted by being wrenched from their “proper” time-frame, that the younger and more immediately “interactive” dramatic (representational) elements became far more popular with the general Christian population. It is also no surprise to find much of this ceremonial being simplified by the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and finally, being restored and reformed by the Catholic Church in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the essential core of the Holy Week and Easter liturgies remains: the commemoration (that is, the “entering-into” a communal memory), on whatever level, of the paschal mystery, the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ in which all baptized Christians believe themselves to share.
1. This development has not gone unremarked by liturgical scholars of the twentieth century. Kenneth Stevenson, for example, has delineated three “pieties” or “modes” of liturgical celebration (on which, see also Paul Bradshaw’s introductory essay in this volume): (1) “unitive,” which Stevenson defines as “austere, primitive, and . . . theologically the least demanding”; (2) “rememorative,” which is still highly “eschatological” or ahistoric in employing symbolic “code,” but which is more “elaborate” and requires both “preparation [and] community . . . concentration”; and (3) “representational,” which stresses the dramatic reenactment of salvific events, more like a play or a painting. All three of these elements will be found in this brief examination of the medieval Holy Week celebration. See Kenneth Stevenson, “The Ceremonies of Light—Their Shape and Function in the Paschal Vigil Liturgy,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 99 (1985): 170–85, here pp. 174–76. See also his Jerusalem Revisited: The Liturgical Meaning of Holy Week (Washington, D.C., 1988), pp. 5–11.
2. Through the fifth century, the triduum was understood to be comprised of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, “and was considered outside Lent which ended on Holy Thursday”: Cyril Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, revised and translated by William G. Storey and Niels K. Rasmussen, O.P. (Washington, D.C., 1986), p. 309. See also Patrick Regan, “The Three Days and the Forty Days,” Worship 54 (1980): 2–18.
3. Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, p. 309.
4. J. G. Davies, Holy Week: A Short History (Richmond, Va., 1963), p. 39.
5. In addition to the sources cited in the notes of this article, the following also deserve mention: John Baldovin, “Holy Week, Liturgies of,” in Peter Fink, ed., The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship (Collegeville, 1990), pp. 542–52; John W. Tyrer, Historical Survey of Holy Week, Its Services and Ceremonial, Alcuin Club Collections 29 (London, 1932).
6. Pierre Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” in A.-G. Martimort, ed., The Church at Prayer, vol. 4 (Collegeville, 1986), pp. 70–71. This Sunday was also referred to in medieval times as “Willow” and “Olive Sunday,” since willow or olive branches might also be used; see Roger E. Reynolds, “Holy Week,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 6 (New York, 1985), pp. 276–80, here pp. 276–77.
7. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 71.
8. From Psalm 23/24:7 (“Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in”); the entire psalm was often sung by cantors at this point. See Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 277.
9. Davies, Holy Week, p. 44.
10. Nathan Mitchell, Cult and Controversy (Collegeville, 1982), pp. 170–71, and Davies, Holy Week, p. 44. Elsewhere, other “Christ symbols” might be used, for example, a cross or a decorated Gospel book; see Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 277.
11. Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 277.
12. Davies records that at Salisbury the hymn was sung mid-way in the procession by a small choir of boys “from a high platform . . . at the end of each verse they threw down cakes [unconsecrated wafers or altar breads] and flowers,” Holy Week, p. 44.
13. See John Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1991), p. 140; and Davies, Holy Week, pp. 45–46.
14. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 48. However, one must be wary of attempting to read back into an early source the modern “compartmentalization” of the Holy Week celebration; see Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, pp. 34–35.
15. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” pp. 48, 71–72. For more on this practice, see James Dallen, The Reconciling Community (Collegeville, 1986), pp. 56–88.
16. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 72.
17. Ibid., pp. 48–49.
18. In Latin, mandatum novum, suggesting the medieval English adjective “Maundy”; see Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, p. 37, among others.
19. See Robert Cabié, “Christian Initiation,” in A.-G. Martimort, ed., The Church at Prayer, vol. 3 (Collegeville, 1988), pp. 52–53.
20. See Peter Jeffery, “Mandatum Novum Do Vobis: Toward a Renewal of the Holy Thursday Footwashing Rite,” Worship 64 (1990): 107–41. The custom of distributing “Maundy money” continues in England to this day; see Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 278.
21. Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year (Collegeville, 1981), p. 64.
22. Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, pp. 142–43.
23. Adam, The Liturgical Year, p. 68.
24. Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, p. 143.
25. Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 277.
26. The number fifteen was prescribed in the Roman Breviary of 1568. However, the number seems to have been more variable in the earlier Middle Ages; various medieval ordines call for any number from five to seventy-two, depending on the area and custom. For a complete history, see A. J. MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum (Collegeville, 1992), pp. 52–89; and, more briefly, Davies, Holy Week, pp. 46–47.
27. MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum, pp. 126–32. There were several possible underlying interpretations for this gradual extinguishing of the candles. Some of the symbolic meanings pick up anti-Semitic themes which will be seen even more clearly in the Good Friday liturgy: in England, for example, the twenty-four candles were understood to refer to “the twelve prophets and the twelve apostles and signified the disbelief of the Jews,” as Davies notes, Holy Week, p. 46. MacGregor (p. 61) quotes a liturgical book from Exeter in offering the interpretation “that the extinguishing of them [the candles] signifies the cruelty of the Jews, who persecuted or murdered [the prophets and the apostles].”
28. Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 277, and Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, p. 141.
29. See Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, pp. 57–58.
30. See, for example, Patrick Regan, “Veneration of the Cross,” Worship 52 (1978): 2–12.
31. For more on these prayers, see G. G. Willis, “The Solemn Prayers of Good Friday,” in his Essays in Early Roman Liturgy (London, 1964), pp. 3–48, especially pp. 39–48.
32. See Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, p. 145.
33. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” pp. 49–50. This may also have been due to the widespread decline at this time in lay reception of communion generally.
34. See Theodor Klauser, A Short History of the Western Liturgy, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1979), p. 81: “all the imaginative and dramatic elements of these solemnities [Holy Week] were introduced into the Roman liturgy by the Gallo-Frankish reformers . . . in particular the impresive present-day form of the Veneration of the Cross.”
35. Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 278, notes the superstitions which became prevalent: “it was considered unlucky to drive nails or to wash on this day, and it was lucky to sow grain or die.”
36. For an outline of this service as it was celebrated in eleventh-century Germany, see Joanne Pierce, “New Research Directions in Medieval Liturgy: The Liturgical Books of Sigebert of Minden (1022–1036),” in Gerard Austin, ed., Fountain of Life (Washington, D.C., 1991), pp. 51–67.
37. This ritual was observed at Rome from the seventh century on a feast day celebrating the discovery of the Cross and later recovery of that same Cross relic from the Persians (the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14), and it later spread throughout western Europe; see Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” pp. 99–100, and Klauser, A Short History of the Western Liturgy, pp. 89–90.
38. Regan, “Veneration of the Cross,” p. 6.
39. In England, called “Creeping to the Cross”; see Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, p. 65, and Davies, Holy Week, pp. 51–52, who notes that at Salisbury, the clergy went barefoot for the veneration ceremony.
40. Regan notes that the use of a crucifix (a cross with the body of Christ affixed) instead of a plain wooden cross for the veneration ceremony can be dated to the fourteenth century at least; actually, texts implying the use of a crucifix can be found in the early eleventh century. See Pierce, “New Research Directions in Medieval Liturgy,” pp. 55–56.
41. At least for the use of the clergy; see Pierce, “New Research Directions in Medieval Liturgy,” pp. 55–56. For a more detailed study of these prayers, see Lilli Gjerløw, Adoratio Crucis (Oslo, 1961).
42. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 50.
43. Ibid., p. 86.
44. Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, p. 69.
45. Several contemporary authors have called attention to this situation. Some of the more recent discussions include: Eugene J. Fisher, “The Roman Liturgy and Catholic-Jewish Relations since the Second Vatican Council,” in Eugene J. Fisher et al., eds., Twenty Years of Jewish-Catholic Relations (New York, 1986), pp. 135–55; William Seth Adams, “Christian Liturgy, Scripture, and the Jews: A Problematic in Jewish-Christian Relations,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 25 (1988): 39–55; Piet van Boxel and Margaret McGrath, “Anti-Jewish Elements in Christian Liturgy,” in Eugene J. Fisher, ed., The Jewish Roots of Christian Liturgy (New York, 1990), pp. 161–67.
46. See, for example, Raymond E. Brown, S.S., A Crucified Christ in Holy Week: Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives (Collegeville, 1986), especially pp. 9–20. A more complete study of these passion narratives can be found in his two-volume work The Death of the Messiah (New York, 1994). For an accessible summary of these contemporary shifts in general, see Lawrence Boadt, “The Role of Scripture in Catholic-Jewish Relations,” in Fisher, Twenty Years of Jewish-Catholic Relations, pp. 89–108; in that same volume, the article by Michael Cook, “The Bible and Catholic-Jewish Relations,” also offers helpful examples and bibliography, pp. 109–24.
47. See, for example, Jeremy Cohen, “The Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition from Augustine to the Friars,” Traditio 39 (1983): 1–27.
48. Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, p. 145, and Fisher, “The Roman Liturgy and Catholic-Jewish Relations,” p. 137. The text and rubrics of the prayer were changed even before Vatican II by Pope John XXIII; the St. Joseph Daily Missal, published in 1959 in Latin and English for the use of the laity, does entitle the prayer “For the Conversion of the Jews,” but removes the adjective “perfidious” from both the bidding text and the following collect. Additionally, the congregation is bidden to kneel as for the other eight prayers.
49. The other refrain is known as the Trisagion, already mentioned above, in which the phrase “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us” is repeated by priests and choir in both Latin and Greek as the cross is brought forward for veneration; for an example, see Pierce, “New Research Directions,” pp. 54–55. The English translations of the Reproaches have been taken from The Roman Missal in Latin and English, Latin texts and English translations of the Roman Missal compiled by Fernand Cabrol, O.S.B., in 1921.
50. See Butler’s Lives of the Saints, revised by Herbert Thurston, S.J., and Donald Attwater, vol. 1 (London, 1956), pp. 671–72. Simon’s feast day is shared by another of these children, an English boy of twelve called William of Norwich, who was supposedly kidnapped and crucified by Jews in 1144. The editors state clearly in this entry that “No scrap of serious evidence has ever been adduced which would show that the use of Christian blood formed any part of Jewish ritual.” Veneration of Simon of Trent was officially discontinued in 1965; see Fisher, “The Roman Liturgy and Catholic-Jewish Relations,” p. 137. His article also contains suggestions for further reading on this “blood libel.”
51. See Paul Rorem, “Easter,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 4 (1984), pp. 364–68; here, p. 366.
52. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” pp. 50–51.
53. See Kilian McDonnell, “The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the Descent into Hell,” Worship 69 (1995): 98–109.
54. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 51, and Cabié, “Christian Initiation,” pp. 27–28.
55. Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, pp. 147–48. For more on early Roman lectionaries, see Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, pp. 291–355.
56. Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, pp. 148–49.
57. See E. C. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy (London, 1970), pp. 186–88, 242–44; and also Dominic E. Serra, “The Blessing of Baptismal Water at the Paschal Vigil: Ancient Texts and Modern Revisions,” Worship 64 (1990): 142–56.
58. The rite of the blessing of the paschal candle seems to have been added first outside of Rome (North Africa and Northern Italy) by the fifth century, while the blessing of the new fire can only be found in Roman liturgical books in the twelfth century; see Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” pp. 37–38.
59. MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum, pp. 135–72. The benediction themes could be taken from scriptural sources (God as light and creator of light, light as inner illumination, the pillar of fire and the burning bush) or “pagan” concepts (fire as purifying and cleansing, control over fire as power over evil).
60. One early Roman ordo even calls for two “standard” candles to be carried in procession, then kept “on either side of the presidential chair”; see Stevenson, “The Ceremonies of Light,” p. 180.
61. MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum, pp. 251–76, notes the use of the pole (sometimes painted red), the reed (sometimes decorated with flowers), the spear, or the arundo serpentina (serpent pole/reed), in which the stand or the candle was twisted to shape a serpent (perhaps recalling the bronze serpent of Moses, allegorically a symbol of Christ’s “being lifted up”; see Num. 21:8–9 and John 3:14).
62. Ibid., pp. 291–319. These later medieval paschal candles could be huge, twenty or thirty feet in height, and apparently weighed from thirty to three hundred pounds.
63. The evolution of this ritual is an interesting study, for the use of this acclamation evidently originated in central Italy; see MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum, pp. 281–90.
64. Ibid., pp. 320–38, 366–81, and Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 40. Other characters were at times also inscribed on the candle: the Greek letters alpha and omega (symbolizing Christ’s sovereignty over time, as in Rev. 20:6); the year or other calendrical information (sometimes transcribed on a piece of parchment as a charta); pictures of saints or candles. The candle could also be decorated with flowers, a crucifix, or attended by other, smaller candles.
65. For more on incense, see an older work by E. C. G. F. Atchley, A History of the Use of Incense in Divine Worship (London, 1913).
66. MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum, pp. 357–59, 406–9.
67. An earlier form of the blessing prayer over the candle, the Deus mundi conditor, can be found in the Gelasian sacramentary accompanied by a blessing of incense. It was later used in certain German areas as the blessing for the new fire; see MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum, pp. 382–87. He also notes that the Exultet text “has much in common with the notion of berakah” (p. 386), while Stevenson (Jerusalem Revisited, p. 87) remarks that the Exultet “certainly reads like a Christian form of the Jewish Passover Haggadah, the joyous explanation of the meaning of Passover.”
68. See Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 279; and Leslie Brubaker, “Exultet Roll,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 4 (1984), p. 565. For a more complete study, see Myrtilla Avery, The Exultet Rolls of South Italy (Princeton, 1936).
69. See Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, pp. 147–49.
70. Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, p. 82.
71. Ibid., p. 82, and Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 40.
72. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” pp. 51–53; Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, p. 150; Reynolds, “Holy Week,” p. 279.
73. See Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy, pp. 137–38, and Timothy J. McGee, “Drama, Liturgical,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 4 (1984), pp. 272–77.
74. There is an enormous literature on this Easter liturgical drama. See, for example, O. B. Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (Baltimore, 1965); Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford, 1951); Clifford Flanigan, “The Roman Rite and the Origins of the Liturgical Drama,” University of Toronto Quarterly 43 (1974): 263–84; Timothy J. McGee, “The Liturgical Placements of the Quem quaeritis Dialogue,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 29 (1976): 1–19; and “The Origins of the Quem quaeritis and the Easter Sepulchre Music-Drama, as Demonstrated by Their Musical Settings,” in Sandro Sticca, ed., The Medieval Drama (Albany, 1972), pp. 121–54.
75. Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 52. For a complete study of this liturgy, see John Brooks-Leonard, “Easter Vespers in Early Medieval Rome: A Critical Edition and Study” (doctoral dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 1988).
76. See Klauser, A Short History of the Western Liturgy, p. 88.
77. See, for example, Rorem, “Easter,” p. 367. For an interesting discussion of spring symbolism in Judaism and Christianity, see Anscar Chupungco, O.S.B., Shaping the Easter Feast (Washington, D.C., 1992), pp. 21–36.
78. See, for example, Jounel, “The Easter Cycle,” p. 53.
79. Regan, “The Three Days and the Forty Days,” p. 12.