Summary

The liturgy of Western Christendom (c. 1000–1400) was the product of sweeping ecclesio-political and religious reforms that had a broad and lasting impact on the content and performance of the rites of the Latin Church in the later Middle Ages. Beginning with the reforms of monasticism at Cluny and culminating in the reformed papacy in the age of the Investiture Controversy, a sharp division between the clerical order and the laity was imposed on Christian society. This fostered a heightened sense of divine mystery in the liturgical rites (principally, the Mass) that could only be administered by properly ordained clergy, under the authority of the pope. The triumph of the clerical rule of Christendom coincided with more concrete expressions of the real presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements in both formal theology and liturgical practice. The Mass liturgy became the summit and quintessence of liturgical piety in this era, eclipsing other forms of liturgical service and becoming the focal point of sacramental theology. With the construction of monumental new churches in the Gothic style, from the 12th through 14th centuries, liturgical performance (including costly vessels and vestments) achieved levels of ostentation that caused some conflict between ascetically minded reformers (the Cistercians) and the proponents of lavish liturgical spaces (the Cluniacs). A thriving tradition of liturgical exposition or formal commentary on the divine offices worked in tandem with these dramatic architectural and artistic developments in the liturgical spaces of Europe. Despite the new scholastic methods of the universities, allegorical exegesis of the liturgy, following a tradition that began in the 8th century with Amalarius of Metz, continued to predominate in the lengthy treatises of expositors who worked in the peak period of scholastic theology, down to and including William Durandus of Mende (c. 1296). The performative aspects of the liturgy also witnessed major advances with the introduction of polyphonic chant, liturgical drama, and para-liturgical processions (such as the Feast of Corpus Christi).