Rachel Fulton
Center for
Renaissance Studies
The Newberry
Library
Spring 2007
ÒPraying by the Book:
Devotional Manuscripts and
Their Uses in the High and Later Middle AgesÓ
Books of prayer, particularly books of
hours, are at once some of the most and least studied productions of late
medieval manuscript art. Justly
famous for the sumptuousness of their illuminations and their appeal to the
late medieval laity, only recently have these books begun to be studied in
detail for the principal use for which their makers and owners intended them;
namely, to pray. The purpose of
this seminar is to situate the production and use of these books within the
history and experience of prayer as practiced by both clergy and laity from the
Carolingian period to the turn of the sixteenth century. Themes and problems to be addressed
include the history of so-called private prayer and its relationship to the
monastic use of the psalter; the development of
alternatives to the psalter as a focus for prayer
such as rosaries, rhymed psalters, and the Little
Office of the Virgin; spiritual exercises and the development of the book of
hours; the relationship between beauty and theology in the experience of prayer
as expressed through the production of illuminated books of prayer; and the
changes brought about in the practice of prayer towards the end of our period
by the introduction of printed books of prayer.
In addition to providing students an
opportunity to work closely with some of the most beautiful manuscripts in the
Newberry Library collection, this seminar will likewise introduce them to the
structures of the monastic liturgy and the practice of lectio divina underpinning the monksÕ and nunsÕ performance in
the choir; to the debates about the propriety of using images as foci for
devotion and the theories of the senses and memory supporting their use; and to
the complex relationship between the monasteries as at once ÒpowerhousesÓ of and
models for the prayer of the Christian community as a whole.
Students taking the course for credit
will be asked to choose one appropriate manuscript from the Newberry Collection
on which to write a 12-15 page research paper due at the end of the quarter. A number of shorter assignments will be
given over the course of the quarter in order to assist in the process of
writing this paper. Although the
majority of the readings for discussion will be in English, students should be
comfortable working in Latin for the purposes of their research.
Books available
for purchase at the Newberry Library Bookstore
RB1980: The Rule
of St. Benedict in English, ed. Timothy Fry, Liturgical Press [ISBN 0814612725]
Patrick D.
Miller, Interpreting
the Psalms, Fortress Press [ISBN 0-8006-1896-3]
Nancy Van Deusen, ed., The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture
of the Middle Ages, State University of New York Press [ISBN 0-7914-4130-X]
Thomas H. Bestul, ed., A Durham Book of Devotions, Pontifical Institute
of Mediaeval Studies [ISBN 0-88844-468-0]
The Prayers and
Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward, Penguin Books [ISBN 0-14-044278-2]
Kathryn A. Smith,
Art, Identity
and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and their Books of
Hours, University of Toronto Press [ISBN 0-8020-8691-8]
Roger Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life,
Georges Braziller [ISBN 0-8076-1498-X]
Scott McCloud, Understanding
Comics: The Invisible Art, Harper Paperbacks [ISBN 0-0609-7625-X]
Michael L. Raposa, Boredom and the Religious Imagination, University Press of Virginia
[ISBN 0-8139-1925-8]
Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, Oxford
[ISBN 0-19-504996-9]
Adrienne von Speyr, The World of Prayer, trans. Graham Harrison, Ignatius Press [ISBN
0-89870-033-7]
Reading and
Discussion Assignments
March 30 Regular
prayer
RB1980: The Rule
of St. Benedict in English, ed. Timothy Fry
Jonathan Black,
ÒThe Divine Office and Private Devotion in the Latin West,Ó in The Liturgy of
the Medieval Church, eds. Thomas J. Heffernan and
E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), pp.
45-71
April 6 Praying
the Psalms
Patrick D.
Miller, Interpreting
the Psalms
Augustine, Expositions of
the Psalms, trans. Maria Boulding, 6 vols. (Hyde
Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2000-2004): vol. 1, pp. 67-75, 175-78, 221-45
(Psalms 1, 2, 13, 21 and 22); vol. 4, pp. 172-77, 303-314 (Psalms 81 and 89);
vol. 6, pp. 83-97, 127-37, 256-82 (Psalms 126, 129 and 138)
James McKinnon,
ÒThe Book of Psalms, Monasticism, and the Western Liturgy,Ó in The Place of the
Psalms, pp. 43-58
Joseph Dyer, ÒThe
Psalms in Monastic Prayer,Ó in The Place of the Psalms, pp. 59-89
April 13 Little books
of prayer
The Prayers and
Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward
A Durham Book of
Devotions, ed. Thomas H. Bestul
April 20 Big books of
prayer
[meet in manuscripts room]
Kathryn A. Smith,
Art, Identity
and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England, pp. 1-56
Jeffrey
Hamburger, ÒBefore the Book of Hours: The Development of the Illustrated Prayer
Book in Germany,Ó in The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late
Medieval Germany (New York: Zone Books, 1998), pp. 149-95, 510-522
Judith Oliver,
ÒWorship of the Word: Some Gothic NonnenbŸcher in
their Devotional Context,Ó in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, eds. Jane H.M.
Taylor and Lesley Smith (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp.
106-122.
April 27 Structuring
prayers: time
Roger Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life
Smith, Art, Identity and
Devotion, pp. 57-151
May 4 Envisioning
prayers: text and image
Scott McCloud, Understanding
Comics: The Invisible Art
Smith, Art, Identity and
Devotion, pp. 152-296
May 11 Kalamazoo—no class meeting
May 18 Practicing
prayer: boredom and process
Michael L. Raposa, Boredom and the Religious Imagination
May 25 Embodying
prayer: pain, imagination and belief
Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, pp. 161-277
June 1 Theology in
act
Adrienne von Speyr, The World of Prayer
June 8 Praying with
the books in the Newberry collection
[meet in manuscripts room]