The Practice of the Bible in the Middles Ages

This interdisciplinary volume of fourteen essays presents the medieval Bible as fluid in its composition and appearance, and as the starting-point for a variety of creative, interpretative practices. Broadly speaking, the first half concentrates on the role of the Bible in the liturgy and in the structured routines of monasticism. Susan Boynton sets out the use of biblical extracts in the Mass and Divine Office and in representational rituals. Richard Gyug offers an analysis of Beneventan manuscripts of groups of biblical books, showing how their annotation and selection corresponds to their employment in communal worship. Isabelle Cochelin presents the Bible as embodied by the monastic life as a whole. Two further chapters discuss full versions of the Bible which were produced for communal use, often in the context of ecclesiastical reform: Diane J. Reilly covers Carolingian and Romanesque lectern Bibles, and Lila Yawn, Italian Giant Bibles. Where these five chapters together give a sense of the daily and annual rhythms shaped by the Bible, from the commemorative feasts of the Temporale to the seasonal arrangement of shelves of biblical books, Jennifer Harris’s contribution addresses the impact of the Bible on the linear time of salvation history

Archaeology · Art · Christianity · Context (archaeology · Early Christianity · Embodied cognition · Exegesis · Literature · Liturgy · Monasticism · Theology · Worship · Classics · Historical and Archaeological Studies · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy