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Interpreting Medieval Liturgy c. 500 - 1500 AD: Text and Performance

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the research network 'Interpreting Medieval Liturgy c.500 - 1500 AD: Text and Performance' has been convened by the University of Exeter and University of Kent.

The medieval world is widely recognised as one in which ritualized actions played an important role in religious, social and political life. Liturgical rites constitute an important, yet understudied, part of the medieval record, largely because the study of them has become highly specialised and compartmentalised as different academic disciplines have developed their own approaches to this form of evidence. Liturgical rites pose particular problems for modern scholars because often the only surviving evidence for them is written texts which are very imperfect guides to actual performance.

The final meeting of the network took place in June 2010, at St Fagan's National History Museum, Cardiff and explored the problematic relationship between texts which were ostensibly designed for performance, and actual performances. These difficulties are frequently acknowledged but solutions are rarely offered. The workshop sought to find ways out of this impasse by bringing together scholars of the written rite with musicologists, practitioners, researchers in medieval drama, and museum staff. All were involved in the preparation of a re-enactment that informed, and was informed by, discussion of the problems involved. This re-enactment was filmed, and a copy of the film is available to view from: http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/mlnetwork/workshop3.php