Tuesday, 6 July 2021, 9.00-10.30, Room A224 | Chair: Santiago Ruiz-Torres (Universidad de Salamanca)
Creating a confessor saint in the Old Hispanic liturgy: Saint Aemilian | Emma Hornby (University of Bristol), Rebecca Maloy (University of Colorado Boulder), Kati Ihnat (Radboud University) & Maeve O’Donnell (University of Bristol)
Saints were the heroes of medieval culture, the centre of lively cults which presented them as active intercessors and examples for their fellow Christians. Saints were proudly defended as local patrons and community figureheads, and veneration of saints was often gendered: women were commemorated for virginity; and men were celebrated for leadership. The veneration of Iberian saints within the Old Hispanic liturgy has not previously been analysed closely. In this paper, building on collaborative research undertaken with Maeve O’Donnell, Rebecca Maloy, and Kati Ihnat, I introduce Saint Aemilian, who was the focus of a lively and widespread cult. A sixth-century confessor priest and ascetic (not a martyr), the eleventh-century version of his liturgy developed in his home monastery (San Millán de la Cogolla) intersects with the famous casket built to house his relics in the eleventh-century. Combined consideration of liturgy with casket, in the context of the monastery’s history, uncovers an integrated practice of venerating this saint and articulating his key characteristics.
An unedited office in honour of St. Aemilianus: hermeneutic keys to the first Roman liturgy for this saint | Juan Pablo Rubio (Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo di Roma)
Saint Aemilianus or San Millán was a confessor saint in Visigothic Hispania in the fifth to sixth century. His cult, at first only known in the region of La Rioja, was bolstered early by the Vit sancti Emiliani, written with a liturgical purpose around 635-40 by Saint Braulio, bishop of Zaragoza. In the late tenth century, in the context of the reconquista, it was disseminated widely by Aemilianus becoming—in the popular imagination—a military leader of the Castillian-Navarese troops. His 12 November feast appears in the Mozarabic calendars, and is given chants in the mid-tenth century León antiphoner (E-L8, f. 246). After the implementation of the lex romana in Castille and León at the end of the eleventh century, Saint Aemilianus was incorporated into the Sanctorale of local churches. Until now, however, only the Mass liturgy was known to modern scholars.
The aim of this paper is to present an unpublished office in honor of this hermit saint found in two unnotated breviaries of the diocese of Calahorra from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As well as analysing the repertoire from liturgical, textual and historical perspectives in order to reveal its distinctive features, I offer the hermeneutical keys and arguments that suggest the office originated at the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, custodian of the saint’s relics.
The reception of the Roman-Frankish chant in the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. The alleluia verses of E-Mh Cód 18 and E-Mh Cód 51 | Vicente Urones (Universidad de Salamanca)
The active composition of alleluia verses in the High and Late Middle Ages, as well as the assignment of these in series such as those of Easter and the Sundays after Pentecost, makes this liturgical-musical genre, together with the responsories of Matins, that of greater interest for the identification of local traditions.
The Real Academia de la Historia de Madrid preserves three codices with the repertoire of the Roman mass from the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. The two oldest—and the object of this research—are the missal E-Mh Cód 18 (11th century ex.) and the gradual E-Mh Cód 51 (12th century in.), which have a significantly higher number of alleluia verses than the first. Both codices, although to a different extent, reflect the reception of Roman chant in the monastery: the elaboration and comparison of alleluia lists has special interest when looking for relationships between these and other sources belonging to different geographic areas. The comparative analysis between the alleluia verses versions of the two codices, taking into account the study of the melodies, the notation and the assignment of alleluia verses to different feasts, will allow us to know the influence level that the first one had on the second.
The objective is therefore double. We will ascribe the alleluia verses of the two codices to different diffusion areas, and then we will analyse the similarities and differences between them through a specific case: the alleluia.
