Liturgical Documents: French Ordinals
Résumé
My purpose has been to demonstrate the interest of medieval ordinals, which are still so little known. They are a mine of information for the archaeology, place names and certain aspects of daily life in the Middle Ages. But more specially, they give the measure of the power and identity of the ecclesiastical institutions with relation to one another. The fact that a collegiate church like Saint-Géry in Cambrai has a liturgical usage that is quite distinct from that of the cathedral is proof of its independence. In a very centralised order like that of the Cistercians, the particularities of the local diocese never influence the liturgy of their abbeys. On the other hand, diocesan practice has far more influence on the abbeys of Premonstratensian or Victorine canons. This permeability of local use is evidence of a lesser cohesion in these congregations. The history of religious institutions in the Middle Ages is too often limited to the study of their spirituality and their temporal power. In the eyes of their contemporaries, their identity was defined in the first place by their liturgy. This historiographical blind spot can only be filled by the study, analysis and dating of these manuscripts.
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