This collection of essays brings together scholarly treatments centered on the specific subject of liturgical music in the medieval Irish Church. The majority of the contributions treat music composed for liturgical veneration of saints—from those of widespread fame to lesser-known local saints—by examining source material from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the continent. The collection both begins and ends with a handful of more broadly-set and theoretical examinations.
Despite its rather narrow focus, this collection contributes to a more general argument of Ireland's place in ecclesiastical history, and indeed, medieval history as a whole. This collection responds to an important tension in the study of medieval Irish culture that touches most aspects of the field: should one focus on uniqueness and divergence, or ought we seek out the context of Irish practice within the broader Christian world in which Ireland existed? The stated purpose of the present collection is to “challenge the isolated position of scholarship on the music and liturgy of the medieval Irish Church and to restore it to its rightful place on the European historical map” (xvii). The booming intellectualism of the early Middle Ages that would inform Christian cultural revival across Europe; the tensions that followed regarding church practices such as the dating of Easter; the cultural dichotomy within the country that was initiated by the Norman invasion; and the later nationalistic movement that sought distinctiveness in its cultural identity all helped create a narrative regarding the Irish Church in which “difference was emphasized over common ground” (xviii). The current volume, then, seeks to serve as a corrective to such trends, with findings that emphasize the “diversity and international connectedness of Irish ecclesiastical culture throughout the long Middle Ages” (xviii) through examinations of the style, role, and origins of music in early medieval Irish liturgical culture. The collection also illuminates the long-term and international legacy of Irish saints in the continental church via the hymns dedicated to their feast days.
The collection opens with several broad treatments that acclimatize the reader to the subjects of liturgical music and Saints Offices that are the dominant concerns of the essays that follow. Michel Huglo's contribution assesses the state of research on Irish chant, drawing on source material from continental monasteries with Irish connections as well as on the Irish church. This article stresses the continental connection in the use of chant, concluding that the early Gallican chant was highly influential on Irish style. Barbara Haggh-Huglo's essay similarly introduces the nature and development of the Historia, or Saints’ Offices, as a genre, while stressing their variety due to local, regional, and international influences.
The central portion of the book is concerned with studies of Saints’ Offices and is made up of eleven essays that are divided into the categories “Continental Sources,” “Insular Sources: Ireland,” and “Insular Sources: Scotland and Wales.” Of those that rely on continental sources, Jean-Michel Picard and Sara G. Casey carefully lay out the appearance of Irish saints and their musical dedications in continental manuscripts, demonstrating their enormous and sustained impact. Picard's analysis demonstrates that, while widespread commemoration of Irish saints on the continent declined in the twelfth century, the celebration of several well-known saints persisted in some communities that had fully integrated these saints into their liturgies, while others became universal favorites, such as Saint Brigit. Casey focuses specifically on the influence of the traveling Irish saints, or peregrini, on the persistence of Gallican-style chant, thereby complementing the contribution of Michel Huglo in the first section of the book. Within the group of essays that treat Irish sources, Ann Buckley's contribution examines the veneration of lesser-known local saints in Irish liturgy prior to the twelfth-century reforms that led to their obscurity. This essay thus provides a neat correlative with Sean Furlong's examination of the evolution of the Office of Ireland's most famous saint, Patrick, which took place largely in the context of that reform. The chapters devoted to Scottish sources present a collection of case studies focusing on various Saints Offices from Scotland that demonstrate Irish influence. Greta-Mary Hair provides a particularly interesting discussion of the political reasons behind the selection of St. Andrew as the patron of Scotland over the far more “national” saint Columba (a point I had often wondered about before!). Sally Harper provides the lone contribution concerning Wales, which compares the colonization of the Welsh Church by English rule in the eleventh and twelfth centuries with that of Ireland, as well as demonstrating direct contacts between the two countries via education.
The final three essays in the collection fall under the heading “Liturgy: Theory and Practice” and examine the interplay between international influence and local practice within the Irish church, while the concluding essay by Liam Tracy examines scholarship that has led to the prevalent interpretation of “Celtic Christianity” as divergent and questions the appropriateness of this consistently imprecisely examined concept.
This is a decidedly scholarly collection that will likely prove all but impenetrable to the general reader, but it is a highly effective introduction for scholars of liturgical music to the Irish material, and vice versa. Celtic Studies scholars with a grounding primarily in history and literature will similarly find this an enlightening exploration of another facet of Irish intellectual achievement. Though several of the articles delve into musicology or liturgical terminology in a manner that nonspecialists will find challenging to interpret, this aspect does not diminish the usefulness of these contributions as a whole in creating a better understanding of music in Irish liturgy and the ways in which its study can further elucidate the counter-fertilization of ecclesiastical culture that took place between Ireland and the continent. On the whole, this collection meets its stated goal to restore Ireland to “its rightful place on the European historical map,” and the scholarship of the field is therefore enriched by its contribution.
