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The Office of St Adalbert: Carte de visite of a late medieval Dutch abbey*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

A. Marcel. J. Zijlstra
A. Marcel. J. Zijlstra
Affiliation:
Utrecht University
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Extract

Two recently discovered manuscripts have shed new light on chant cultivation at Egmond Abbey during the late Middle Ages. Together with the only previously known chant source from the abbey, these enable us to reconstruct the hitherto unknown Office of its patron saint, Adalbert (25th of June). Palaeographic details, moreover, provide new insights into the significance of Egmond as a centre of chant cultivation.

Type
Articles
Information
Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , October 1994 , pp. 169 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 I am deeply indebted to Professor J. Peter Gumbert for sharing his ideas about the Rijnsburg breviary with me.

2 Boeren, P. C., De catalogus van de liturgische handschriften van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek te Den Haag (The Hague, 1988), 57–8.Google Scholar

3 The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 71 J 70.

4 This Easter play was edited and discussed in van Waesberghe, J. Smits, ‘A Dutch Easterplay’, Musica Disciplina, 7 (1953), 15–37.Google Scholar

5 See also my edition of Vespers and Matins of the Office: Zijlsrra, Albertus Marcel. J., Officia Sancti Adalberti Egmundensis (St Adelbertabdij, Egmond-binnen, 1990).Google Scholar

6 To the best of my knowledge, the only source with similar corrections is the manuscript Graz 807 (Paléographie Musicale 19; cf. 15*–16*).

7 Some other remarkable features in the manuscript indicate that Egmond maintained its own traditions. First, so-called modal letters (lettres d'intonation) are used. The traditional evovaé's are rare in the manuscript. Instead, the symbols, a, e, i, o, u, greek H, y and w (omega) are written in the margins, indicating the mode of each antiphon. The use of these letters is thought to be restricted to Switzerland and its neighbouring regions (cf. Huglo, M., Les tonaires: inventaire, analyse, comparison (Paris, 1971), 108, 232–46)Google Scholar. Second, the liturgical ordering of the feasts predating 1150 is exactly the same as in the manuscript Zürich Rh. 28, stemming from the Benedictine foundation Rheinau, Switzerland (cf. Puskás, Regula, Die Mittelalterlichen Mettenresponsorien der Klosterkirche Rheinau. Studien zum Antiphonar in Hs Zentralbibliothek Zürich Rh 28 (Baden-Baden, 1984), 129–79;Google Scholar and Hesbert, R., Corpus Antiphonalium Officii, ii (Rome, 1965)).Google Scholar In a later study I will deal with this Swiss connection.

8 According to Smits van Waesberghe, Egmond was ‘one of the most prestigious establishments in north-western Europe’ (‘A Dutch Easterplay’, 20). Egmond Abbey certainly was of great importance for the County of Holland, but, as long as documentary evidence is lacking, Smits's view seems somewhat exaggerated.

9 This short survey of the abbey's history was made with the help of J. Hof, De Abdij van Egmond van de aanvang tot 1573, Hollandse Studiën 5 (The Hague-Haarlem, 1973); Dom ir Beekman, A. (ed.), Tien eeuwen Egmond, ontstaan, bloei en ondergang van de regale abdij van Egmond (Heemstede, 1950)Google Scholar; Cordfunke, E. H. P., Opgravingen in Egmond. De abdij van Egmond in historisch-archeologisch perspectief (Zutphen, 1984)Google Scholar; Vis, G. N. M., Mostert, M. and Margry, P. J. (eds.), Heiligenlevens, Annalen en kronieken, Geschiedschrijving in middeleeuws Egmond, Egmondse Studiën 1 (Hilversum, 1990).Google Scholar

10 Lampen, W., ‘De boekenlijst der oude abdij’, in Beekman, Tien eeuwen Egmond, 77 and 88Google Scholar.

11 Abbot Walter was appointed in 1129 and died in 1161 (Hof, De Abdij van Egmond, 37) and came from the Abbey of St Peter. The second abbot, Lambert (1180–2), had probably been a monk in the Abbey of St Bavo in Ghent. He was appointed after an interregnum of four years.

12 Gumbert, J. P., ‘The Dutch and Their Books in the Manuscript Age’. The Pannizzi Lectures 1989 (London, 1989), 20 ff., comment on plate II, after p. 54.Google Scholar

13 Boeren, , De catalogus. A festum fori was a feast on which labouring was not allowed.Google Scholar

14 The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 73 E 8, fol. 98r.

15 The significant role of Mary Magdalene in the Visitatios was recognized for the first time in Susan Rankin, K., ‘The Mary Magdelen Scene in the “Visitatio Sepulchri” Ceremonies’, Early Music History, 1 (1981), 227–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Hanslik, Rudolphus, Benedicti Regula, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, lxxv (Vienna, 1960), cc. xiiii, xi.Google Scholar

17 From the tenth century it was certainly common to arrange the antiphons and responsories of new Offices according to their modes (cf. Michel Huglo, Les tonaires, 122–8). The modal arrangement of the antiphons is shown in Table 1.

18 The Vita was edited in Oppennann, O., Fontes Egmundenses (Utrecht, 1933), 3–22.Google Scholar A more recent edition with Dutch translation was made by Vis, G. N. M. (ed.), ‘De Vita Sancti Adalberti Confessoris’, in Egmond en Berne. Twee verhalnde historische bronnen uit de Middeleeuwen (‘s Gravenhage, 1987).Google Scholar

19 Opperman, Fontes Egmundenses, 4.

20 The lessons in the Rijnsburg manuscript may not always have been used in the Office. Six lessons, obviously for liturgical use, are found in a Legendarium from the Carthusian establishment of St Alban in Trier. They are taken from the same chapters as the antiphons and responsories from the first and second Nocturns of the Office. In this way the story is told twice: once in singing and once in reading (cf. Vis, ‘De Vita’, 27).

21 Zijlstra, , Officia Sancti Adalberti Egmundensis, 72.Google Scholar

22 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, after the Bursfeld reform, Egmond had close ties with another abbey in the southern Netherlands, the Abbey of Afflighem (now in Belgium). In a surviving Diurnal from 1523, St Adalbert's feast is mentioned as an Officium summum maius (fol. 6v). No chantbooks from this abbey have survived.

23 ‘Angelorum domino letis coniubilemus preconiis: Qui beatum adalbertum hodie coronavit in celis.’ Zijlsrra, Officia Sancti Adalberti Egmundensis, 67.

24 ‘Laudemus dominum quern laudant angeli qui tanta patronum nostrum donavit gracia: et celestis imperii sempiterna coronavit gloria.’ Zijlstra, , Officia Sancti Adalberti Egmundensis, 83.Google Scholar

25 Opperman, , Fontes Egmundenses, 12.Google Scholar

26 ‘Vita Sancti Adalberti secunda cum miraculis novis’, in ibid., 23–38.

27 Vis, G. N. M., ‘Sint Adalbert en de andere structured’, in Vis, , Mostert, and Margry, (eds.), Heiligenlevens, 50–1.Google Scholar

28 ‘Apparuit confessor domini adalbertus cuidam deo sacrate per visum dicens: Ecce tempus advenit e tumulo humana mea efferendi: Ut per me devocio augeatur fidelium plebi.’ (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 73 E 8, fol. 99v.)

29 ‘Divini ergo est consilii ne ulterius lateant pignera corporis mei.’ Zijlstra, Officia Sancti Adalberti Egmundensis, 65 and 13–14.

30 Zijlstra, Officia Sancti Adalberti Egmundensis, 65 and 13–14.

31 ‘Graviter crudeles / vicisti fresones; / preme cunctos hostes / nobis adversantes, // Et corde securo / famulantes christo / possimus gaudere / tecum sine fine.’ Zijlstra, , Officia Sancti Adalberti Egmundensis, 14.Google Scholar

32 ‘Defende nos domine continue raptorum violencie expositos per beati patrocinia adalberti ut de manu inimicorum omnium liberati serviamus ribi sine timore.’ (The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 73 E 8, fol. 101 v.)

33 ‘Anno MCLXI domnus Walterus abbas bonorum memoria dignus post renovationem ordinis et status Egmundensis cenobii, post constructionem et ornatum templi, post claustri et omnium officinarum edificationem, post fratrum de parvo numero in magnum aggregationem obiit IIIIto kal. Decembris […].′ Oppermann, Fontes Egmundenses, 168.