Bangor Antiphonary

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bangor Antiphonary (Antiphonarium Monasterii Benchorensis) is a Latin manuscript whose origin is believed to be in Bangor Abbey in what is now Northern Ireland . The codex is now under the signature Ambros. C. 5 inf. in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan . The antiphonary contains texts (not music) for use in the prayers of the hours.

history

The thin manuscript volume is the oldest surviving liturgical evidence of a Celtic rite , to which an approximate date of origin can be assigned. For this reason it is particularly interesting for liturgical scholars.

The manuscript was discovered by Ludovico Antonio Muratori in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan and named by him (“ Antiphonarium Benchorense ”). The Cardinal Federico Borromeo had brought it to Milan along with other books from the Bobbio Abbey when he founded the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in 1609 as Archbishop of Milan .

Bobbio , an abbey in the Apennines , was founded by Columban von Luxeuil , an Irish-Scottish wandering monk who came from the monastery in Bangor , in County Down , now Northern Ireland . There he was a student of the founder of the monastery, St. Comgall . Columban died in Bobbio and was buried there in 615. Bobbio and Bangor are linked by this founding story alone, and the contents of the Codex indicate that it was originally written in Bangor and then brought to Bobbio, albeit no longer in the time of St. Columban: there is one in the Codex Hymn with the title “ ymnum sancti Congilli abbatis nostri ” (Hymn of Saint Comgall, our abbot), and he is named in it as “ nostri patroni Comgilli sancti ” (Our Patron Saint Comgall). The Codex also contains a list of fifteen abbots beginning with Comgall and ending with Cronan, the fifteenth abbot who died in 691. The compilation date must therefore be at the end of the 7th century.

Probably there were exchanges between Bobbio and Bangor from time to time, so it is not certain at what time the antiphonary came to Bobbio. But it would not be surprising if Bobbio had come after the destruction of Bangor by the Danes in the ninth century.

Tradition has it that the bearer of the Codex was Dungal of Bobbio , who left Ireland in the early 9th century and became well known on the continent. He may retire to Bobbio at the end of his life. He bequeathed his books to the "blessed Columban", that is, to his monastery in Bobbio. The antiphonary, however, cannot be identified with any of the books that appear in the catalog of books bequeathed by Dungal as recorded by Lodovico Antonio Muratori , and there are insufficient reasons to associate Dungal with Bangor at all.

Muratori is careful to note in his preface that the Codex, however old and damaged, may be a copy made in Bobbio. The antiphonary was written in Latin but contains strong internal references to its Irish origin. It is written in the "Scottish style" with regard to the orthography, the shape of the letters and the dotted ornamentation of the capital letters, but this may still have been done by Gaelic monks in Bobbio.

content

The volume consists of 36 sheets and the name “Antiphonary” is rather misleading because it contains six cantica , twelve metrical hymns , 69 collects for use in the prayers of the hours , special collection prayers , seventy anthems ( verses ), the Confession of Nicaea and the Our Father . The most famous piece in it is the popular Eucharistic hymn " Sancti venite Christi corpus sumite ", which does not appear in any other text. It was sung by the clergy at communion and is entitled “ Ymnum quando comonicarent sacerdotes ” (hymn when the priests receive communion). A text of the hymn from the old manuscripts of Bobbio with a literal translation was reprinted in the “Essays on the Discipline and Constitution of the Early Irish Church” (p. 166) by Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran , who called it the “golden fragment of our ancient Irish Liturgy ”(golden fragment of our ancient Irish liturgy).

Cantica

  1. Audite, coeli ,
  2. Cantemus Domino ,
  3. Benedicite ,
  4. Te Deum,
  5. Benedictus ,
  6. Gloria in excelsis ,

Collect

The Bangor Antiphonary lists the collects in sets to be used at every hour of worship. One of these sets is set in verse (compare the mass in hexameters in the Gallican fragment from Reichenau ). It can be assumed that these sets were something like the skeleton of the Liturgy of the Hours in Bangor. The order is always the same:

  1. Post canticum (apparently fitting the titles which, as in the first ode of a Greek canon, refer to the crossing of the Red Sea , Cantemus Domino )
  2. Post Benedictionem trium Puerorum (after the blessing of the three boys)
  3. Post tres Psalmos , or Post Laudate Dominum de coelis (Ps. Cxlvii – cl) (after three Psalms / After the Laudate Dominum)
  4. Post Evangelium (the only Gospel canticle in the Codex. The same name is often used, for example in the York Breviary for the Benedictus, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis )
  5. Great hymn
  6. De Martyribus (possibly commemoration of the dead at the end of the Laudes), also some Antiphons ( super Cantemus Domino et Benedicite , super Laudate Dominum de coelis, De Martyribus ). In the Bangor Codex there are also collectibles for combination with the Te Deum, which are listed in addition to the above, as if they were part of another prayer time. In the Turin fragment, these are related to the text of the Te Deum , follow the Benedicite and his Collecten and stand in front of the Laudate Dominum de coelis .

Hymns

The antiphonary contains twelve hymns, eight of which are not found anywhere else, and ten of which are certainly intended for liturgical use. Comgall and Camelac are named as authors.

In his Vita S. Columbani , Jonas von Bobbio mentions that as a young man Columban wrote a number of texts that could be singed and were also used for teaching. Michael Lapidge suspects that some of them were handed down in the antiphonary , including the antiphonary , which was apparently written around 700, about 100 years after Columban's death. Lapidge points out that there are reasons to assume that the hymn Precamur patrem was written by Columban himself. However, this theory is not universally accepted.

Editions and literature

  • Ludovico Antonio Muratori: Anecdota Bibliothecae Ambrosianae IV, Padua 1715, pp. 119–159
  • Frederick Edward Warren: The antiphonary of Bangor - an early Irish manuscript . 2 volumes, 1893–1895 (Henry Bradshaw Society, IV, 10)
  • Ezio Franceschini : L'antifonario di Bangor , 1941

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c “The Bangor Antiphonary”, The Tablet : 9, April 14, 1893 ( Memento of the original from September 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archive.thetablet.co.uk
  2. ↑ a b c Ua Clerigh, Arthur. “Antiphonary of Bangor”. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. April 14, 2015
  3. ^ Muratori, Ludovico Antonio. Antiquitatis Italicae Medii Aevi , Milan, 1740, III, 817–824
  4. ↑ William Reeves : "The Antiphonary of Bangor" , Ulster Journal of Archeology , First Series, Vol. 1: 168-179, Ulster Archaeological Society 1853.
  5. ^ Michael Lapidge: Columbanus: Studies on the Latin Writings. Boydell & Brewer Ltd 1997. ISBN 9780851156675
  6. ↑ Michael W. Herren, Shirley Ann Brown: Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century. Boydell Press 2002. ISBN 9780851158891

Web links