Commemorating the Virgin Mary at Barking Abbey: Cambridge, University Library, Dd.12.56

Abstract

This article examines the unusual commemorative Office of the Virgin from Barking Abbey in a fifteenth-century book of hours, Cambridge, University Library, Dd.12.56 (hereafter Dd.12.56). As already evident in the Barking Ordinal, the nuns of this Abbey venerated Mary, one of their patron saints, with a weekly full three-nocturn, twelve-lesson Matins service. Dd.12.56, however, has only recently been linked to Barking Abbey and drawing on new material in this manuscript in correlation with others from the Abbey, I argue that the Barking nuns compiled a unique series of readings and responsories to honour Mary. The progression through the three nocturns of Matins articulates a Marian theology that intersects with the nuns’ self-understanding and I demonstrate that they carefully crafted the lesser hours to highlight specific times of day and to complement Marian hymns sung at Barking. The accepted belief that books of hours were for personal devotion obscures the possibility that such books reflect communal liturgical practices, potentially serving multiple purposes within a monastic setting. Although Dd.12.56 dates from the fifteenth century, it may testify to a much older liturgical practice, which originated in the twelfth century when the three-nocturn format was still prevalent in Benedictine use and before it was largely replaced by a two-nocturn format in the thirteenth century. Benedictine tradition offered individual monastic houses the opportunity to craft this service. Dd.12.56 stands as a new and important testimony to the rich and imaginative ways in which the Barking community created, collated and curated materials that they steeped in their minds and hearts.

The English Benedictine nunnery Barking Abbey, from its founding in c.666 to its dissolution in 1539, enjoyed a long and illustrious history of creative engagement with the liturgy. Barking's book culture has been the focus of several studies and the nuns of Barking are known both to have commissioned and authored liturgical and literary works.¹ The relatively recent attribution of Cambridge, University Library, Dd.12.56 (hereafter Dd.12.56),² a mid-fifteenth-century book of hours, to Barking Abbey expands the corpus of known liturgical works from Barking. Dd.12.56 provides full texts for the daily Hours of the Virgin and the weekly commemorative Office of the Virgin as well as numerous texts for the early abbesses of Barking: Ethelburg, Hildelith and Wulfhild.³

Medieval monastics venerated the Virgin Mary in myriad ways including several major feast days, Lady Masses, a daily office and a weekly office that is the focus of this article. This weekly office developed during the twelfth century into a full, three-nocturn, twelve-lesson commemorative Office of the Virgin celebrated on Saturday in English Benedictine houses. However, by the thirteenth century, most houses had settled into a simpler two-nocturn, three-lesson structure. The nuns of Barking Abbey are among those who retained the more fulsome veneration into the fifteenth century as attested to by their ordinal dating from the first decade of that century.⁴ New evidence offered by Dd.12.56, demonstrates that the nuns of Barking venerated their patron saint, Mary, through their own particular blend of lessons, responsories, hymns and antiphons, creating and performing offices that reflected and shaped the nuns’ understanding and devotion.

Dd.12.56 records, on fols. 1r–82r, the texts for virtually all the readings, prayers, antiphons, responsories, psalms and versicles of both the daily and weekly offices of the virgin. Its contents can therefore be compared with and used to amplify existing evidence from the Barking Ordinal and Barking Hymnal to achieve a much more complete description of the liturgy at Barking.⁵ Sally Roper reports only eight post-twelfth-century sources of English Benedictine practice that use a full, three-nocturn, twelve-lesson format for Matins, many of which (like the Barking Ordinal) indicate this practice but do not provide the full texts it requires.⁶ Roper notes the opportunity for religious houses to create their own unique texts and music for the office.⁷ The Barking Office of the Virgin in Dd.12.56 thus offers an unusual opportunity to examine the content of the full office as it was celebrated at Barking in the mid-fifteenth century, quite possibly the continuation of a much earlier practice. In this article I argue that the ordering of the lessons, the unique sequence of responsory chants and the unusual hymns and antiphons at the lesser hours all demonstrate the nuns’ creative engagement with the office liturgy, as they moulded it into a theologically and musically rich experience that in turn shaped their lives.

Dd.12.56: layout and construction

Dd.12.56 (titled Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis) is described in the 1867 catalogue of manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library as well as in the recent 2011 catalogue (where it is titled Officium B.V. Mariae).⁸ The earlier of these two catalogues is the more complete, but neither gives a full listing of Dd.12.56's contents. It is in the 2011 catalogue that the manuscript is associated with Barking Abbey, based on its litany and prayers. Nigel Morgan has further confirmed the Barking origins of the book on the grounds of its litany and use of Roman psalm incipits, a known Barking practice, rather than the Gallican ones widely used in England at this time.⁹

Dd.12.56 is a small volume of 200 folios in twenty-six quires measuring 123 × 92mm with a writing area of approximately 90 × 55mm. Table 1 shows its contents and quire structure. The manuscript's first twenty-one quires form a continuous codicological unit, with new sections beginning in the middle of quires, while quires 22–4 and 25–6 constitute two additional, self-contained and distinct units. Basic design features, such as the two-line initials in blue ink with red pen-work flourishing and alternating red and blue letters for psalm verses, remain consistent throughout (see Figure 1). The first twenty-one quires are far from uniform, however, featuring multiple scribal hands, variation in the number of lines per page and the spacing on the page.¹⁰ These observations strongly support the contention that the scribes intended to create a continuous manuscript but in several instances there are gaps at the end of a quire (e.g., fol. 66v) or the text has been stretched out on the last folio to fill up the space (e.g., fols. 82v and 120v). In other cases, an extra word or two has been interpolated under the last line on a quire (e.g., fol. 46v). Possibly the scribes were copying multiple quires simultaneously from an exemplar of a different size and thus estimated incorrectly. Altogether this volume looks like a group project undertaken by four to five scribes, quite possibly the nuns themselves.¹¹

Table 1. Structure and contents of Cambridge, University Library, Dd.12.56.

Figure 1. Cambridge, University Library, Dd.12.56, fol. 12v. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. (colour online)

The contents of Dd.12.56 include the weekly and daily offices of the Virgin (here intertwined), the Office of the Dead, prayers for meals, the commendatory psalms and antiphons, the gradual psalms, the penitential psalms, the litany and a section with memoria to the Trinity and to the Barking saints (Ethelburg, Hildelith, Wulfhild and Erkenwald).¹² Dd.12.56 does not include a calendar, the gospel lessons and the two Marian prayers that are found in many books of hours. However, it otherwise fits comfortably within the conventional parameters for a ‘book of hours’, a scholarly category that encompasses a great deal of variation, with the Hours of the Virgin being the only constant.¹³ While a book of hours is commonly referred to as ‘a book for lay people’, priests and monastics also owned and used these volumes.

One of the unusual features of Dd.12.56 is its presentation of both the daily and the weekly Marian offices. Most books of hours include the daily hours of the virgin but, unlike Dd.12.56, not the commemorative office that was celebrated weekly in the monastic context. Matins for the weekly (Saturday) office is given first in Dd.12.56 (fols. 1r–32v), followed immediately by the antiphons, lessons and responsories for the daily office (fols. 32v–35r). The remaining hours are given with this material intertwined: the appropriate antiphons for both the weekly and the daily office in ordinary time as well as for seasonal variations are listed sequentially. Although the rubrics are generally instructive, there are places where it is difficult to disentangle with certainty the daily and weekly liturgies.

A volume of the size and composition of Dd.12.56 has many potential uses within a monastic context. It could be used within the communal recitation of the Hours of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead, for personal devotion and reading or for teaching these basic services to novices. Dd.12.56's small size would have allowed it to be carried easily from choir to chapterhouse. The most experienced nuns would surely have memorised almost all the material in the manuscript. Barking had a rich literary culture, with a carefully described distribution of books at the beginning of Lent each year.¹⁴ The nun who received Dd.12.56 each year had a wealth of texts to read in this portable volume. Although there is no musical notation in the volume, it is a thoroughly musical compilation, full of texts for sung responsories, hymns and antiphons, many of which are referenced in the ordinal. For a nun who participated regularly in the communal performance of these rites, the musicality of the words would have been evident. What, then, can this fifteenth-century book of hours tell us about the specific aspects of Marian theology that enriched the lives of the Barking nuns and the distinctive ways in which they made the commemorative office a unique vehicle of praise for their patron saint?

The creation of the commemorative office

The adoption of a new office offered monastics an opportunity for collaborative creation and, as Roper contends, the introduction and evolution of the commemorative Office of the Virgin was no exception.¹⁵ For the Barking community this would not have been a novel situation as they had already developed their own liturgies for their other patron, Saint Ethelburg.¹⁶ Jean Leclercq suggests that the nature of monastic life fosters communal creative endeavours noting that ‘collaboration indeed presupposes anonymity, charity, humility, organization, and obedience’.¹⁷ Through the lens of this understanding of monastic activity, the commemorative Office of the Virgin, as found in Dd.12.56, is testament to the Barking community's creativity. An entire set of twelve unique responsories frame the twelve lessons of Matins during ordinary time.¹⁸ The lessons themselves comprise a distinctive set compiled from both commonly circulated and unusual or unknown sources. A set of antiphons – virtually unknown elsewhere and discussed in detail later – frames the lesser hours, which also include the unique, Barking set of hymns used on Marian feast days. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it seems reasonable to presume that the nuns of Barking created, compiled and curated this office.

Although Dd.12.56 presumably testified to the practice at Barking in the mid-fifteenth century, it is not possible to know precisely when this form of the office became standard. Twelve-lesson Matins in English Benedictine sources are scarce after the end of the twelfth century.¹⁹ Roper has demonstrated that the office was quite stable at St Albans over the twelfth to fifteenth centuries with some seasonal alternatives having been added.²⁰ Similarly, the Barking Ordinal and Hymnal – both also copied in the fifteenth century – undoubtedly contain many layers of liturgical change. This suggests that the basic contours and content of the commemorative office at Barking were plausibly developed in the twelfth century and that the version in Dd.12.56 may reflect a practice that dates back at least as far as the 1100s, including accretions and changes from the intervening 300-year period. It may also be assumed that the nuns of Barking regularly celebrated the commemorative Office of the Virgin on Saturdays communally and with music.²¹ An instruction in the Barking Ordinal indicates that when the Feast of St Thomas fell on a Saturday, Matins of the Virgin was still observed but in a quiet, probably spoken, voice.²² This relegation of the Office of the Virgin to a less important status due to the importance of the Feast of St Thomas is evidently the exception to the usual performance practice.²³

Matins

Matins of the commemorative office served as a principal repository for the Marian theology that shaped the nuns’ understanding of the Blessed Virgin. At Barking, the eight lessons for the first and second nocturns remained constant throughout the entire liturgical year, reflecting basic tenets of medieval beliefs about Mary. The Barking community's choice of these readings, and the creation of responsories to exegete the texts, presented a communal understanding of the mother of Jesus. The constant repetition of these texts, week in and week out, undoubtedly embedded the images and ideas in the nuns’ minds and hearts.²⁴ Table 2 outlines the contents of the Saturday Matins service during ordinary time. The Appendix presents the full text of the lessons and responsories, with notes on other extant sources. In the discussion that follows, I examine the texts for each of the three nocturns in order to highlight the particular framing of Marian theology enacted weekly at Barking.

Table 2. Matins of the Saturday Office of the Virgin in ordinary time in Cambridge, University Library, Dd.12.56.

The first nocturn

The antiphon that frames the six psalms of the first nocturn during ordinary time, Dignare me laudare, originates in the Feast of the Assumption and asks the Virgin's permission to offer her praise.²⁵ At Syon Abbey, the Brigittine house established in 1415, this antiphon is said before Matins actually begins.²⁶ This antiphon provides a fitting opening to the first nocturn, seeking approval for the office that follows.

The four lessons of the first nocturn, which match those in the earliest English sources of the commemorative Office of the Virgin, connect Barking to the English Benedictine tradition.²⁷ By contrast, the responsory chants in Dd.12.56 diverge from those more commonly associated with this office. One responsory chant is specified for each of the four lessons of the first nocturn, as well as an incipit for an alternative responsory after the fourth lesson during Eastertide.²⁸ None of these four responsories is found in the earlier Benedictine sources as examined by Roper, nor do they appear in the CANTUS database. They do match exactly the information for the commemorative office in Advent in the Barking Ordinal.²⁹ Thus, not only the lessons but also the responsories are unchanging throughout the year, forming the bedrock of the nuns’ Marian devotion.

The lessons and responsories in the first nocturn testify to the permanent and revelatory power of Mary: her greatness, and her glory as the pinnacle of God's creation. The universal church, the patriarchs and the prophets all join in this chorus of praise. Mary's symbiotic relationship with God is stressed, as in the first responsory ‘Ave maria’ [R1], when the ubiquitous ‘Hail Mary’ is followed by ‘born in you and remaining in you forever’. The opening lesson, Sacrosanctam venerabilis, emphasises the propriety of praying to Mary for help, identifying her as the one who overcame the initial sin of humanity. This understanding of Mary as the new Eve dates to the earliest centuries of the church.³⁰ The Myroure of Our Ladye, a volume from the Bridgettine English house at Syon Abbey, offers us an understanding of how a fifteenth-century English nun might have understood this theological concept in its description of the meaning of ‘Ave’:

AVE MARIA. Thys salutacyon ys taken of the gospel of the gretynge of the aungell Gabryel. and of Elyzabeth. & yt was the begynnynge of oure helthe. And, therfore thy worde Aue. Spelled bakwarde. is Eua. for lyke as Eues talkynge with the fende was the begynnynge of oure perdycion. so oure ladyes talkynge with the aungel when he gryte her with thys Aue. was the entre of oure redempcyon. And so Eua is turned in to Aue.³¹

This understanding of the relation between Mary and Eve parallels the understanding of Christ as the new Adam, a commonplace of typological biblical interpretation that undergirds many aspects of Marian theology. The first lesson, even in its brevity, resonates with this understanding of Mary's power and with the constant repetition of ‘Ave maria’ throughout the liturgy, and this is further emphasised by the first responsory. The second and third lessons focus on Mary's many attributes to emphasise her greatness. This enumeration of the superlative qualities of Mary is a common trope, the recitation of which is a devotion in itself as indeed we see in Marian litanies of the period.³² Here the list ends in Lesson 3 with the assertion that from Mary ‘flows the beginning of salvation’. The responsories, Beata et benedicta and O maria sole splendidior [R2 and R3], which follow these lessons further expand this praise declaring in the second responsory that Mary is ‘blessed and praised above all creatures’. Not to be outdone, the third responsory praises Mary as ‘more splendid than the sun, higher than the sky, surpassing the excellence of the heavens’. These responsories are the collective response to the individual reading of the lessons.

Having focused on these stellar qualities of Mary, the believers now turn, in the fourth lesson, to request Mary's aid to pray for them, cleansing their blind eyes and showing them the path of justice. The responsory O singularis rerum [R4] that sums up this nocturn includes the verse ‘In you, with every grace perfected, God rested from his works’. Here, the reference to the sabbath seems particularly appropriate for this liturgy, which was enacted weekly on Saturday.³³ The four responsories in this nocturn are seemingly unique to Barking and particularly apt for the lessons they follow. Throughout this first nocturn the worshipper announces the greatness of Mary and steeps herself in these images of Mary upon whom she can call for help and mercy.

The second nocturn

The psalms of the second nocturn are framed by the antiphon Sicut letancium identifying Mary as the place of ‘all our rejoicing’.³⁴ The fifth lesson, which is linked to the fourth in many sources, contains an almost credal statement. It specifies that, by believing in Mary as the progenitor of God, the believer rejoices that ‘through you the salvation of peace came to us’. The sixth lesson expands the earlier claim that Mary erased the sin of Eve, therefore rejoicing that ‘the contagion of our sins … has been cancelled’. The seventh lesson focuses on the bodily aspects of Mary as the vessel through which Christ was born and nourished, and by which she serves as both a model of modesty and a mother. The opening recitation of Mary's characteristics emphasises her conventional medieval attributes as temple and chamber. The passage continues by connecting the nursing of Christ by Mary to the food received by Christians through Christ. Mary is both ethereal and earthly, reigning in heaven and suckling her child. Indeed, the nuns at Barking prayed that all of them might become ‘temples to Christ's indwelling’, so this lesson resonates with their vocation as nuns as well.³⁵

In the final, eighth, lesson of this nocturn the worshippers petition Mary for her help in beseeching God on their behalf, concluding: ‘Let all feel your solace who with devotion celebrate the memory of your glorious praise.’ This lesson effectively sums up the intercessory purpose of worshiping Mary and is a fitting conclusion to this nocturn. In the Barking liturgy, these first eight lessons recurred as a unit throughout the entire year in the commemorative office.

Unlike the first nocturn, the second nocturn offers two alternative responsory chants for each lesson as well as a third option (incipit only) for the final responsory during Eastertide. These responsory chants exegete the lessons in two distinct ways. The responsories for ordinary time/Advent, again apparently unique to Barking, are specifically framed to connect with imagery from the consecration service for nuns as well as to reflect on the act of praising Mary. The responsory after the fifth lesson, Hec est ancilla [R6], resonates with the chant Ancilla Christi sum sung by the nuns in the consecration service.³⁶ Both the nuns and Mary are handmaidens of the Lord. Similarly, in the responsory after the seventh lesson, Beata dei genitricis [R10], the imagery of Mary as a bride again connects with the nuns’ vocational understanding of themselves as brides and explicitly invokes the Saturday context in which the responsory is sung: ‘Blessed bride, bearer of God, keep the sabbath rest rightly.’ The second nocturn ends with a responsory, Congratulamini mihi omnis [R12], in the voice of Mary: ‘Rejoice with me all you who love God because from my innermost parts I brought forth God and man.’ And here, at Mary's specific request, the nuns sing and rejoice with her as the second nocturn comes to an end.

The second set of responsories in this nocturn, intended for the period between Christmas and the Feast of the Purification, are, unsurprisingly, focused on the birth of Jesus. They are all commonly used chants for Christmas or its octave.³⁷ All but one of them reference parts of Mary's body: gremium (lap, bosom), uterum (womb), viscer (flesh), uber (breast) and auris (ears). It is the willingness to bear God in her body that is Mary's defining characteristic during the Christmas season and this emphasis is found throughout the responsories. Although the texts of the lessons remain the same, the experience of the nuns singing this second nocturn changes depending on the season with the emphasis in the period from Christmas through Purification on the role of Mary in the birth of Christ and through the rest of the year on Mary as a prototype of the nun, a bride and a handmaid giving praises.

The third nocturn

The lessons in the third and culminating nocturn of Matins usually relate to the gospel reading in that nocturn. In Dd.12.56, the gospel passage given is Luke 11:27 and is the passage usually referred to as Loquente ihesu although in Dd.12.56 it actually begins In illo tempore: ‘While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!”’ Jesus's reply – ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’ – is also germane to the lessons although it is not read as part of the gospel.³⁸

The gospel passage is, as read, a testimony to Mary by the unnamed woman in the crowd and, by extension, by the nuns. The lessons for this third nocturn are from Magne devotione, a homily on the passage by the Venerable Bede (c.672–735). The use in the commemorative office of this homily by Bede is not unique to Barking Abbey. The lessons in the final nocturne in both a twelfth-century psalter (BnF lat. 10433, possibly a gift to Henry II for his coronation) and the twelfth-century St Albans Breviary (BL Royal 2.A.x) are drawn from Bede's homily.³⁹

The responsory texts for ordinary time in this nocturn again pair well with the readings. The ninth lesson emphasises the faith of the woman in the crowd and, in Bede's view, thereby condemns ‘the faithlessness of future heretics’. The responsory Intacta virginitate [R15], sung in the voice of Mary, stresses her chastity in bearing an all-powerful life. The verse adds ‘The mouth/word of blasphemy is marked’, tying into Bede's contention that Mary called out the blasphemers.

In the tenth lesson, Bede calls on the universal church to praise the woman who had the courage to speak out from the crowd to praise Mary. In response to the reading, the nuns sing Virgo incomperabilis [R17]: ‘Incomparable virgin, there is no sorrow like your sorrow in the passion of your son. There is no joy like your joy in his resurrection.’ This is followed by a verse that says that Mary reigns with ‘the one with whom you suffer’. Here the focus is on the relationship between Jesus and Mary, and the privileged position that she holds as his mother, through her merit. The eleventh lesson continues the focus on Mary and the following responsory, Ego fructificavi [R19], is focused on the sweetness and delight of being the mother of God.

In the last sentence of the twelfth lesson, Bede offers a final warning to the nuns that they should listen and observe the word of God, unlike the Jewish heretics. Thus, throughout the year (except during Advent), the nuns at Barking heard this passage weekly during the commemorative office, as the final word of the twelve lessons. By extension, the passage points the nuns to avoid such other potential heresies as Lollardy as well.⁴⁰ The nuns then sing a responsory associated with the Feast of the Assumption, Sancta maria succurre miseris [R21]. At Barking this responsory is sung at Vespers for the Feast of the Assumption with the prose Beatissimam me as well as at Matins as the final responsory without a prose (sine prosa).⁴¹ Often this text appears as an antiphon,⁴² but here it is expanded into a responsory with the addition of the phrase ‘let all feel your solace who celebrate your memory’. This chant ends Matins with a final plea for intercession, especially for devout women, and a final description of the commemorative office, celebrating Mary's memory. These responsories for ordinary time again form a framing of the lessons that is unique to Barking.

The second set of responsories offered in the third nocturn [R16, R18, R20 and R22] focus more concretely on the words of the woman in the crowd. Mary's womb is referenced in each responsory text, and her chastity is the main focus. In their bodily emphasis they echo the responsories in the second nocturn. The final responsory, Nesciens mater [R22], embodies this approach. Thus, as the nuns journey through the three nocturns of the commemorative office, they move from the praise of Mary by the universal church, through credal statements about Mary to an understanding of Mary as the prototype of correct belief. In some sense, the enactment of this office weekly is both orthopraxis and orthodoxy: it is the action of praising Mary with the statement of their beliefs about her.⁴³

The lesser hours

The preceding examination of the Matins service has revealed several distinctive aspects of the Barking liturgy. In the other monastic hours, the most unusual material appears in the lesser hours. There are two features that especially distinguish the commemorative office celebrations of Prime, Terce, Sext and None at Barking Abbey: the hymnody and the antiphons. Hymnody at the lesser hours usually consists of the same hymn (frequently Memor salutis auctor) for all four hours and Barking followed this practice for the daily office. This hymn, sung four times a day, initially addresses God as the author of health but then calls upon Mary to be present at the time of death.

However, for the weekly office, Barking uses a set of four hymns that are also sung at the corresponding office on all the major Marian feast days and appear in the Barking hymnal in the appropriate place for the Feast of the Assumption.⁴⁴ These hymns offer a framing for the lesser hours that is, again, unique to Barking, giving a more specific focus to each hour. The hymn for Prime, Regina celi precluem, is a hymn of praise to Mary – ‘Let all the multitude of the faithful praise the queen of heaven’ – who is the mother of God. The doxological verse, like the verses for the other hymns, praises the Trinity who through Mary saves us.

In contrast to the hymn for Prime, the hymn at Terce (Matrem per integerrimam) is an exuberant hymn inserting a refrain at the end of each line.⁴⁵ The refrain text, ‘Fulget dies ista celebris’, is added only partially at first and then presented in full at the last line of each stanza:

Matrem per integerrimam fulget dies

Opem ferens celerrimam fulget dies ista.

Dissolve christe vincula fulget dies

Que nostra nectunt crimina fulget dies ista celebris.

Gloria tibi domine fulget dies

Qui natus es de virgine fulget dies ista

Cum patre et sancto spiritu fulget dies

Et sempiterna secula fulget dies ista celebris.⁴⁶

The refrain transforms the hymn from a single verse (plus doxology), underlining Mary's agency in providing Christ to redeem our sin with a joyful reminder to ‘let this celebrated day shine’, a festal proclamation on Saturday and feast days. As Mary Channen Caldwell notes, ‘the musico-poetic complex signaled by “Fulget dies” functions as a marker of festivity, representing a strategy by which to expand and ornament the liturgy of the office’.⁴⁷ The presence of the refrain form indicates that this hymn may well be a later, thirteenth-century addition to the office.⁴⁸

Terce is provided with an additional hymn, listed without a rubric in Dd.12.56 but corresponding to the hymn given in the ordinal for Terce during Eastertide. Te sanctam dei genitrix is also referenced in the ordinal for the services in the week following the Feast of the Assumption and for the office in the week following the Feast of the Nativity of Mary.⁴⁹ The second verse of the hymn describes Mary as the intermediary through whom the grace of heaven can be poured out on us: ‘Just as rain on a fleece, so the grace of heaven descends on you so that it is returned to us, the children of adoption.’⁵⁰ Te sanctam shares a melody with three other hymn texts in the Barking Hymnal (Beata nobis gaudia, Votiva cunctis and Agnetis festum martiris). It is possible, although there is no specific evidence, that Te sanctam was the original Terce hymn that was relegated to a seasonal hymn after the addition of Matrem per integerrimam.

The hymn for Sext, O res digna miraculo, expounds the miracle of the virgin becoming a mother and the importance of Mary in freeing humanity from the bondage of death. The middle of the three verses stresses Mary's chastity and modesty:

Virgo mater efficitur

Set castitatis titulum

Materna servant ubera

Cum pudore virgineo.⁵¹

The final, doxological stanza addresses the Trinity and then ends ‘who, through the virgin Mary, freed [us] from the bond of death’ (‘que per mariam virginem mortis solvit cyrographum’).

The final hymn in this series is Vergente solis radio, which references the time of day and focuses on the praise of Mary and its efficacy for the petitioner:

May the liveliness of mind not become lukewarm from the inclining ray of the sun, but rather may it be aroused in praises of the Lord's mother. Let us celebrate her with devotion and petitionary prayers so that she might see to it that we rejoice with her in heaven.⁵²

This set of four hymns, sung weekly at Barking during the commemorative office as well as on Marian feast days, frames the offices and creates a more specific identity for each of the lesser offices. The hymns also resonate with themes found in Matins: Mary as freeing humanity from original sin, Mary as intercessor Mary as a chaste mother.

The four antiphons used at the weekly office continue this approach by referring specifically to the time of day when the nuns celebrate the office.⁵³ This set of antiphons, to my knowledge, appears in only one other manuscript: an eleventh-century addition in BnF lat. 2136 with alphabetic notation.⁵⁴ In the Barking Book of Hours, they appear as the antiphon for the psalms in each hour with a rubric indicating that they are for Saturday, that is, that they are to be sung with the commemorative office rather than the daily office.

These texts also bring to the fore the use of the word ‘sabbatum’. Clearly this use ties the antiphons to Saturday – the day on which the nuns sing them – rather than Sunday, the Christian sabbath. And yet, in several instances there is a connection with the concept of rest typically associated with Sunday. Earlier, in the responsory following the seventh lesson, the verb sabbatizat is used, which carries the connotation of keeping the sabbath rest. What, then, can these antiphons tell us about how the nuns thought of Saturday.

Each antiphon specifically names the liturgical hour at which it is used and references Saturday. Prime is hailed as the time of first offerings and dedication of the day, with the emphasis here on the holiness of Saturday (the sabbath), the light and the offering of praise:

Ave prima sole iusticie illluminata

Tibi laudis primitias

Offerimus ad primam

Sancti tui sabbati horam.⁵⁵

The antiphon for Terce is much more specifically focused. It hails the bride of the Trinity and references the hour of Terce, the same hour that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles:

Ave sponsa dei trinitatis

adornans thalamum virginitatis

ympnus hore tercie

sub trinitatis ordine ad sabati festum

invitans⁵⁶ familiarem

olim Ierosolimis hac hora missum apostolis.⁵⁷

Although there is no biblical precedent for Mary's presence at the hour of Pentecost, numerous medieval depictions of the event show her present there, a parallel with her experience of the Holy Spirit at the annunciation.⁵⁸ This antiphon for Terce, through its language and through its presence in the Hours of the Virgin, makes that same connection.

The antiphon for Sext depicts Jesus wandering alone among the lilies of the valley:

Ave dignissima sabbati vacancia

Que sponsi fide fervencior

in centro solis queris

quem diligis in meridie

et spreto grege sodalium

invenis solivagum

inter lilia convallium.⁵⁹

Again, the day and the time of day are central to the message of the antiphon. Here the power of the sun at midday is contrasted with the fervency of faith. The hour of Sext is connected to the hour of Jesus's crucifixion, his hour of greatest loneliness.

The final antiphon in this remarkable and unusual set references the ending of the day, where the bright star (Mary) is edging towards nightfall, and it reflects too the very act of praise in which the nuns are participating:

Ave clara dei stella

vergere ad occasum nescia

te singule hore sabbati salutant⁶⁰

laude speciali

donec post nonam stilus orologii

inclinet umbra diei.⁶¹

This set of four antiphons orients the psalmody of the lesser hours towards both the specific day and the specific hour. Saturday was set apart liturgically for the praise of Mary and in that sense is a ‘sabbath’ or ‘rest’ from the regular liturgy. Crucially, the antiphons are also linked through their use of ‘Ave’ as an initial word. The very use of this word ties the antiphons into a wider practice of Marian devotion, including the concept of Mary as the new Eve. Together the hymnody and these antiphons serve to make the commemorative (weekly) office distinctly different from the daily office, even though the psalms, chapter and prayers remain common to both.

Conclusions

This examination of the veneration of Mary at Barking Abbey through the weekly commemorative office offers several fruitful perspectives. While the usefulness of books of hours for liturgical study has long been appreciated, these volumes still remain understudied as resources for liturgical historians.⁶² The common belief that the hours (horae) depict a personal devotional life often obscures their central role in monastic and clerical circles, where the Hours of the Virgin functioned as both communal worship and individual meditation. The small size of Dd.12.56 makes it inherently useful in multiple situations. What a perfect volume to put into the hands of a novice as she memorised and absorbed the material it contained: the weekly and daily Hours of the Virgin, the Office of the Dead, the litanies and the texts appropriate for Ethelburg, Hildelith and Wulfhild. These essential components of the nun's daily and weekly routine needed to be pondered in her heart and received in her spirit. From Dd.12.56 she would have gained a deep understanding of Marian theology as transmitted through these texts.

The texts of the Hours of the Virgin, although preserved only in a fifteenth-century manuscript, likely took shape in the twelfth century when the twelve-lesson format developed and flourished in Benedictine houses. Several factors support this proposition: the overall twelve-lesson format; the incorporation of the four antiphons that are otherwise only found in an eleventh-century source; and the close correspondence in the daily office between the twelfth-century Wherwell psalter and Dd.12.56. It is likely that Dd.12.56 reflects changes and accretions over the centuries, but these offices became a fixed part of monastic life in the 1100s and it seems probable that it was at that time that this extensive and cohesive vehicle of praise for the Virgin Mary was created at Barking Abbey in honour of their patron saint.

In the construction of their commemorative office, the nuns included several references to the sabbath, an important indication of its place in the liturgy. As Roper points out, the commemorative office was considered a festal liturgy that replaced the daily (non-Marian) office.⁶³ The incorporation of sabbath references within the office – notable especially in the opening antiphon of Matins, the seventh responsory and the antiphons for the lesser hours – therefore make explicit the ways in which the nuns focused on Mary on this day of rest. This liturgy specifically hallowed that day and distinguished it from the regular opus dei. This sabbath emphasis in the office additionally sets it apart from the liturgies for the major Marian feast days at the abbey.

Dd.12.56 also offers an important opportunity to see how the veneration of Mary at Barking differed from that offered to Ethelburg. As noted earlier, there are many attributes of Mary that are enumerated in the liturgy: Mary as the vessel/mother of God, the new Eve who cancels the sins of humanity, the model of modesty, the place of rejoicing, the one who grants indulgences and above all as the chaste and yet maternal body. The veneration of Ethelburg at Barking, which draws heavily on her vita and the foundational stories of the abbey, focuses more on her role as the particular mother of these nuns, nursing them and being present to them with a mother's love. Mary is the mother of God, but Ethelburg is the nun's mother, their first abbess. Mary is Christ's mother; Ethelburg, like the nuns themselves, Christ's bride.⁶⁴ Because of the Barking nun's special connection to Ethelburg, they also call frequently upon her intercessory powers. The combination of the universal power of Mary and the localised power of Ethelburg protected and enveloped the nuns of Barking.

The presence of the full commemorative Office of the Virgin in Dd.12.56 significantly enhances understandings of the unique liturgy at Barking Abbey. While many aspects of Benedictine liturgy were fixed, there were also considerable opportunities for each religious house to make its own choices. This rare twelve-lesson office demonstrates how the Barking nuns focused their liturgy in honour of Mary in self-referential ways that reminded them weekly of their roles as handmaidens, brides and participants in the praise of the Virgin. With unique responsories, hymns and antiphons they sang their devotion to Mary, with a particular focus on the time of day for each of the lesser hours. The expansive imagery of the commemorative office and the brief, yet effective, focus on the purpose of praising Mary in the daily office permeated the nuns’ worship.