29 November 2008

Stowe Celtic Sarum

Interesting comments on my last post. The early Irish Stowe Missal in Latin was published in the Henry Bradshaw Society series; I doubt whether it's still in print. The chaplain of Lampeter did produce a (depapalised) English translation in something called - I believe - A Celtic Eucharist. If I did a Demonstration Celebration I would of course do it in the Latin: Latin was unvernacular to the Irish peasants who worshipped in the 790s, so do do it in a vernacular would be grossly inauthentic. I would also keep the congregation standing outside the church for the whole sevice, with the clergy starting outside and entering the church only after the Gospel. If there were torrential rain, that would only make the whole thing even more genuine. See my 2002 paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (Vol 102C, Number 1). Copies, if there are any left, at only 4.50 Euros from the RIA, 19, Dawson Street, Dublin2.

I did make plans a few years ago to celebrate a Sarum votive of the Five Wounds down in Cornwall to commemorate the 1549 Rising. This was being organised by a sound and admirable priest who reluctantly had later to tell me he had discovered that most Cornish Nationalists seemed to be antiChristian and those who weren't appeared to think that Methodism is the authentic Cornish indigenous religion: so his lovely idea had to be aborted. I had been planning a low Mass, and I discovered that while the Sarum Missal provides very full rubrical directions, they presuppose a Cathedral High Mass. It is not at all easy to work out what exactly Sir Mumpsimus did when he was racing through his Chantry obligation at six o'clock on Monday morning; my plan was to supply this void with help of the customs with which the preConciliar Dominican Low Mass used to be celebrated: Fr Aidan Nichols was a great help. But it all came to nothing.

6 comments:

Little Black Sambo said...

The Cornish are a bit like the Scotch who think St Columba was a Presbyterian.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Fr. Hunwicke, thank you for the fascinating blog. Those who are interested can find the Stowe missal and many other liturgical resources free for download at archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/publications32henruoft
I have no relationship to this site other than as a hoarder of their pdf files of classic Anglican books, such as the Library of Anglo Catholic Theology.

Balthazar said...

It's coming out in the Boydell and Brewer reprint of the HBS series next year:
http://www.boydell.co.uk/70252594.HTM

johnreuben said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fr.Ogs said...

Little Black Sambo is probably right: a Bryanite Methodism has settled upon Cornwall, occluding the light, Mr. Wesley's baleful influence having been superseded by the yet more schismatic, Protestant effects of Whitefield and Co.
Yet 'The Lion of Exeter's' patrimony, the re-founded Diocese of Truro, under, e.g. +Walter Frere and +Edmund Morgan, practised a quite austere and demanding faith: Feasts were preceded by Fasts, the Eucharistic Fast began from Midnight (not twenty minutes before the beginning of the Service), we rose for a Sung Eucharist at 6:30am for the Feasts - having perhaps been in Church for the Feast's Eve. Silence, or at least a reverent quiet, surrounded and interpenetrated our Services as we 'prayed the Mass'. But then, after a Ball (who very post-modernly declared that 'heresy' was merely a Greek word for argument or discussion) came the "charismatic" Belinda (charismatic, as in gift for self-publiity...?).
The first rule for 'incomers' is 'Join the Old Cornwall Society'; the second is 'Become a Cornish Nationalist, the third is 'Learn the Cornish Language: no wonder most of those who are 'Cornish Nationalists' are anti-religion: a slightly earlier layer of immigrants has commandeered the Pagan/Wiccan heights, whence they can dispense the true wisdom of the Ages... that they hastily learned, or made up, in their first unfriendly months in Cornwall...