Blog by-the-Sea

Sandro Magister on Enrico Maria Radaelli: The Architecture of the Beautiful and the True

Sandro Magister yesterday posted an article titled "Everyone to the Sacred Theatre of Heaven.  A Theologian Act as Guide", drawn from the work of theologian Enrico Maria Radaelli.  Radaelli is a Catholic lay theologian whose new book Ingresso alla Bellezza (Entryway to Beauty) is described by Magister as a new book by a new author of the first rank.  Radaelli's website has a page with more information about the book.

Magister includes an English translation of Radaelli's article published in Italian on February 4 and 5, 2008 in the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano.  The original Italian article is included in Radaelli's website with a different title, "L'Architettura del Bello e del Vero" (The Architecture of the Beautiful and the True).  The original title was "In una cupola il segreto del secondo Nome del Figlio di Dio" (In a cupola, the secret of the second Name of the Son of God).

In that article, Radaelli wrote about church architecture as an expression of the divine mysteries: Trinitarian theology, the Son of God as both Image and Word, beauty as the appearance of the invisible truth.  Radaelli wrote of the cupola and vault of a church in Rome as a viewing of the "secret theater of heaven".

Speaking of the liturgy in the context of such architecture, he quoted Carmelite Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity:

"The liturgy descends and Christ, priest and victim, is made substantially present. And the Church, with the wisdom of her spouse and as mother of those called to the sacrosanct mysteries, takes care always to make the flock aware of this reality: not only by teaching the most correct doctrine to it, but also by bringing it almost to touch the reality that is procured, placing it, as Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity used to say, 'face to face, although in darkness,' with the Glory of God."

Radaelli proposes reinventing the cupola in contemporary architecture, while preserving its "sacred character as 'theater of the Heavens."  It would be, he says, a "truly 'trinoliturgical' art, to render to the Truth the most appropriate divine Beauty."

Stained Glass and Crafts in Vermont this Week-End

Stained glass artist Deborah Coombs has provided several photos of her windows posted in this blog, including the window at left, showing Jesus stilling the storm.  She was mentioned in an article in Catholic News Service last year, which I mentioned in an earlier post with a link to the website of St. Mary's Cathedral in Portland, Oregon, which is one of the projects of her company, Coombs Criddle Associates.  Coombs Criddle specializes in architectural stained glass.  See this too.

If you will be in the Vermont area this week-end, you may want to visit Coombs Criddle at the Vermont Crafts Council's Open Studio Week-End, May 26 and 27.  More than 300 artists and craftspeople will open their studios to the public throughout Vermont, exhibiting how they create stained glass windows, make jewelry, blow glass, and produce other arts and craft creations as their line of work.

The Vermont Crafts Council offers maps and directions online.  Coombs Criddle is in Readsboro, in southern Vermont, where these other artists and craftspeople will also open their studios this week-end.

A Response to AC Grayling, Part V: From 1003 to 1145

This is the last of a series of 5 posts that have considered two questions in a challenge posted by British philosophy professor and blogger A.C. Grayling.  The earlier posts can be found in this blog's category Church History: The "Dark Ages".  The two questions posed by Professor Grayling, addressed in the first 4 parts of the series, were:

1.  Did Christianity Cause the Dark Ages?

2.  What has Christianity, as a body of beliefs, contributed to science?

The Time Frame

The time frame for this series of posts, generally about the "Dark Ages," was based on a time frame chosen by A.C. Grayling to define his challenge.  It was given in his comment to a post by Carl Olson on Insight Scoop in the series of blog posts last January that prompted this series.  Professor Grayling's comment specified the time frame in question as follows, in his comment to Carl Olson:

"First may I pick you up on your point about my rhetorical "thousand years": you leave to your readers to work out the period I concede to you, from 318 (summoning of the Council of Nicea) to 1145 (your choice: the beginning of the building of Chartres Cathedral) is 827 years."

His choice, was based, in part, on a reference made by Dr. Olson in a January 24 post in which he mentioned Chartres Cathedral.  Dr. Olson had pointed out that Professor Grayling had probably seen some towers and domes from medieval buildings, including Chartres Cathedral.  He was not defining Chartres Cathedral as a turning point in the Dark Ages.  Rather, he referenced an article in Wikipedia saying that the building of Chartres Cathedral had begun in 1145 with the "Cult of Carts."  In response, Grayling set 1145 as the end of his time frame for the "Dark Ages" with the beginning of the construction of Chartres Cathedral. 

For that reason, this post addresses the construction of Chartres Cathedral and ends with the Cult of Carts in 1145.  However, historians would not describe that time frame as the "Dark Ages," and many do not use that term at all.  As discussed in Part IV of this series, the collapse that followed the fall of the Roman Empire was really over by the end of the seventh century.  The period of rebuilding had begun.  Part IV covers the early centuries of rebuilding.

As a result, the answers to Professor Grayling's challenges were actually completed in Part IV of this series.  Part V will simply consider the building of the Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Chartres,  For more buildings from that era, see the videos of such churches in an earlier post from today.  For lives of people from the Church history of that era, see posts about St. Anselm (11th century rebuilding in England) and about the Blessed Hildegard of Bingen (12th century Germany).

The Building of Chartres Cathedral

In a guided tour of Chartres Cathedral, if you go there today, you can go down into the crypt, now used as a chapel, and down to the very bottom of the building.  The lower paving dates back to the first cathedral in that location, built in the fourth century.  There is a well there, inside the church, that is even older.  The well dates back to Gallic times when a Druidic community worshiped there before the first cathedral was built.  It is from the era discussed in Part II of this series of posts.

Also still there in the crypt, at the bottom of a Carolingian column, is a Gallo Roman base that was part of a sixth century cathedral that replaced the original fourth century church.  That the bases of columns in the sixth century would have been strong enough to bear the weight of a cathedral demonstrates that not all of Western Europe had fallen into ignorance.  The Gallo Roman construction is from the era of collapse described in Part III of this series.

That church, in turn, was destroyed by the Duke of Aquitaine in 743, and the church that followed it was destroyed by Viking invaders in 858.  In the Viking attacks, of the kind mentioned in Part IV, some Christians are said to have been thrown into the old Druidic well.  The well became a place of Christian martyrdom, and from then on what had been remembered as pagan took on Christian symbolism too.

The oldest part of the crypt, beneath the choir, is part of a Carolingian church that was built after the destruction of 858, during the reign of Louis the Pious, the son of Charlemagne.  The Carolingian cathedral, in turn, was destroyed by fire in 1020.  However, part of the crypt from that era survives.

Rebuilding began then under Bishop Fulbert of Chartres  -- the same Fulbert whose teaching at the monastic school there was mentioned in Part IV of this series of posts.  Fulbert is thought possibly to have been a student of the great Gerbert of Aurillac, and he was known for his study of medicine before he became bishop in 1007.  From 990 to 1007, his school drew students from throughout Western Europe. The growing monastic schools would lead to the universities of the twelfth century, with an ever increasing demand for knowledge.

The building of many churches after the year 1000, and the use of classical knowledge of geometry in the process, was discussed in Part IV.  Bishop Fulbert's cathedral, begun after the fire of 1020, was finished in 1037.  A picture in an illumined manuscript shows it with a central western tower and a nave that was almost as long as that of the present cathedral.  In the crypt today, there is a faded eleventh century fresco.  It is a picture of Mary with the baby Jesus, with the magi to her left and with two bishops credited with evangelizing Chartres at her right.  An 11th century flight of steps still leads up from the crypt to the sanctuary.

In 1134, a fire destroyed much of Chartres, including part of the cathedral.  The rebuilding of Chartres Cathedral, as it stands today, actually began in the mid 1130's on the west side of the church, which probably was heavily damaged. The photo in the upper left corner of this post (taken by me) shows the west wall and the two towers from a distance.  The north tower was begun as early as 1134, although the north spire now in place was not there until 1507.  The south tower was begun by 1145, and the portals (not visible in this photo) were begun around 1145.  The year 1145 was a turning point in the rebuilding of the west end of the building.

However, no one then would have thought that they were beginning to build Chartres Cathedral, as most of Bishop Fulbert's cathedral was still intact, and people then thought it was a miracle that it had survived the fire.  They were rebuilding only the damaged west end.

Another fire in 1194 destroyed what remained of Bishop Fulbert's structure, sparing the west front that had been built in the twelfth century, and sparing most of the crypts.  On the level of the crypt today, the ambulatory has 3 wide barrel-vaulted Romanesque chapels from before that fire, and 4 rib-vaulted Gothic chapels added after 1194,  The 12th century St. Clement Chapel has a 12th century fresco, and a 12th century baptismal font that is still used today for baptisms.

Once you climb the stairs up to the cathedral above the crypt, what you see today was built from around 1134 through the present.  After the 1194 fire, most of the present day High Gothic cathedral was built, beginning in the thirteenth century.  However, the twelfth century towers still stand, along with the twelfth century royal portals and the 3 stained glass windows above them.  The other stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral, including the rose window above those 3, are more recent.

In this YouTube video of Chartres Cathedral below, a panorama of the interior, you will twice see the oldest stained glass windows -- three windows on one wall beneath a large rose window:

The second video shows the same 3 windows from the exterior, and the doors beneath them (the royal portals) also date back to that era:

The Cult of Carts

The Cult of Carts came into being while the north tower was being constructed.  Whitney S. Stoddard describes its impact in Art & Architecture in Medieval France:

"People of noble birth and humble peasants came to help pull the carts laden with stone from the quarries some distance from Chartres.  This act of devotion to rebuild the Queen's House on Earth has rarely been equaled in recorded history.  By 1145 two towers were under construction, with the south tower completed in the 1160's.  The Royal Portals and the three stained-glass windows above were in place by 1150."

Thus, while it may not be quite accurate to say that 1145 marks the beginning of the construction of Chartres Cathedral, the year marked the great initiative of the construction, a combined effort of rich and poor alike.  It was not an effort of great technology, but rather a simple community effort done in devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

The cathedral had had a long history as a place of special devotion to the Blessed Virgin for whom it is named.  Referring to the later rebuilding after the fire of 1194, Etienne Houvet explains the enthusiasm that began when they found a precious relic.  Mary's veil, which the Carolingian cathedral had received from Charles the Bald, was found in the rubble:

"Chartres was then what Lourdes is today.  Sick people were nursed in the crypt, generally for a period of nine days.

"The veneration of Our Lady drew great crowds here.  The pilgrims slept in the cathedral, which accounts for the slope of the nave paving allowing a thorough washing, and panels of the stained glass windows could be taken out to air the building."

It was not, then, a transition away from the faith that spurred the twelfth century people to build Chartres Cathedral.  Without question, the design and building benefited from the growth of intellectual knowledge and the value that the Church and monastic teachers placed on reason, classical philosophy, the Church Fathers, geometry, and science.  Men like Boethius, Alcuin, Gerbert and Fulbert were among the great teachers and students of that era who had contributed to that restoration.  However, in the end, it was their devotion to the Lord and to his Blessed Mother that spurred them to build, and to build again when each building in turn was burned.  What did Christianity, as a faith, contribute to the great architectural development in the building of Chartres Cathedral?  Answer:  That is what motivated them to build it.

Bibliography:

Crypts of Chartres Cathedral, The (a hand-out from the guided tour given by the cathedral in 2005).

Houvet, Etienne, Chartres: Guide of the Cathedral

Stoddard, Whitney S.,Art & Architecture in Medieval France.

Photo: Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Chartres, taken by me in October 2005.

French Churches Built in the 11th and 12th Centuries

Here are some videos of churches built in Western Europe during the 11th and early 12th centuries, some of them with stories of their history:

Conques Abbey

Also see the video of Saint Pierre de Moissac of the Cluniac monks here, which I cannot embed.

Vézelay, la Madeleine;

 

Saint-Austremoine, Saint-Nectaire-le-Haut,  Auvergne:
This video also shows the churches of Lavaudieu and Saint-Julien:  The abbey church of Lavaudieu was built in the 11th century but the buildings were sold after the French Revolution.  They were restored beginning 1945.  Saint-Julien was built in the 11th and 12th centuries, but the roof and vaulting over the nave and some other portions of the church are more recent.

Auvergne Romane
Uploaded by cgerardc

Chartres Cathedral - West Wall:
The 3 lower windows and the royal portals beneath them, shown in the next video of the west wall of Chartres Cathedral, date back to the mid- twelfth century.  The rose window above them is more recent, as is most of the present building.

 

Paray-le-Monial Priory:

Sanctuary english part 1
Uploaded by Sessionparay

A Response to AC Grayling, Part IV: From 741 to 1003

This is Part IV of a series of posts on Christianity, science and the Dark Ages. Click here for Part I, II or III.  All posts in the series will be in the "History 2007" category for now.  Given the length, I am thinking about setting up a separate category for this series.  Part V will follow when time permits.

Myth Busting about the Era from 741 to 1003:

The photo in the upper left hand corner of this post is a picture of the interior of St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim, Germany.  The church is considered a prime example of western European architecture of the late tenth century, founded in 996 A.D. and constructed in the early 11th century.  That photo (shown here as a thumbprint) and others are on this Hildesheim tourism page.  Later in this post, there is a topic on architecture in the 8th to 10th centuries with more photos and links to buildings from that era.  All are in thumbprint as I am not sure if they are rights protected.  Links are provided for the pages with the full-size photos.

It is important to show the pictures in answer to AC Grayling's assertion that:

"By the accident of its being the myth chosen by Constantine for his purposes, it plunged Europe into the dark ages for the next thousand years - scarcely any literature or philosophy, and the forgetting of the arts and crafts of classical civilisation (quite literally a return to daub and wattle because the engineering required for towers and domes was lost), before a struggle to escape the church's narrow ignorance and oppression saw the rebirth of classical learning, and its ethos of inquiry and autonomy, in the Renaissance."

Sir Richard W. Southern, in Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, spoke of the way the era  in question is now understood as compared to the way it was once seen by the people who invented the term “Middle Ages”:

“For them it meant the age of barbarism, superstition, and ignorance, lying between the two ages of civilization, ancient and modern.  Almost no one now thinks that this is at all a fruitful way of looking on the period [of the Middle Ages]. . . The fall of the Roman Empire left a mental and spiritual as well as a political ruin which it took centuries to repair.  The collapse was a long and complicated business, but in the West it was complete by the end of the seventh century.  It was then that the work of rebuilding began.”

In a similar vein, Avital Wohlman wrote, in the Introduction to the English translation of John Scottus Eriugena’s ninth century Treatise on Divine Predestination:

“According to a tenacious prejudice, the Renaissance appeared as a sudden dawn putting an end to the prolonged darkness of the Middle Ages.  Studies appearing in recent decades, however, have shown just how simplistic such a vision has been.  We have discovered, with increasing amazement, that the Middle Ages were marked by successive renaissances which progressively shaped humanism in the West.”

Although the concept of a ninth century "Renaissance" from the time of Charlemagne to the early tenth century is disputed among historians, there is widespread recognition of the accomplishments of the people of that era, including those discussed in this post.  Many of those accomplishments detailed here were taken from the recent historical research and writing by French medievalist Pierre Riché.

Similarly, German historian Gerd Tellenbach rejected the traditional concept of the expansion of Christianity, and wrote, in The Church in Western Europe from the tenth to the early twelfth century:

"[I]t would be better to see the period of mission as lying between the middle of the ninth century and the early thirteenth century, for only then were the last remnants of paganism eliminated in north Europe and among the Slavs of the Elbe and Baltic regions.  Taking western Christianity as a whole it is also significant that the crucial advance of the Spanish reconquista came at the beginning of the thirteenth century."

The more conventional view would see the expansion of Christianity from the "point of view of European rather than Global Church history."  Moreover, even in the era discussed in this post, according to Tellenbach, "Christians and heathens coexist under Viking rule in England and Ireland." Normandy was only gradually Christianized, becoming a French feudal state in the eleventh century.  Sweden did not become truly Christian until around 1100,

Thus, the real process of Christianizing Europe was simultaneous with the process of recovery from the Dark Ages -- not the process of falling into them.  Thus, even the chronological argument, by which some historians in an earlier era blamed Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire because they believed, erroneously, that the spread of Christianity through Europe was simultaneous with its collapse, must fail.  Not only was that argument unsupported by evidence of causation, but even the assertion that the events were in chronological proximity was factually incorrect.

Pippin III and the Papacy

After the death of King Charles (the “Hammer”) Martel in 741, local revolts were eventually overcome by his sons, Carloman and Pippin III.  Carloman’s abdication in 747 left Pippin in control.

Far from having controlled Europe through the worst of the Dark Ages, the Church was in need of reform.  There were previously Christianized regions in need of re-evangelization.  Paganism had not yet disappeared.  Carloman asked Boniface to convoke a synod, because Church discipline had been shattered for decades.  Pippin likewise condemned superstition and paganism and sought to restore the use of the Rule of St. Benedict in religious houses.  The western Church, at that time, was by no means a strong enough moral force to have caused or prevented the Dark Ages.  That was about to change.

In 750, the Umayyad dynasty was overthrown in Baghdad, replaced by the Abassid dynasty.  The Umayyad Abd ar-Rahman I, the survivor of the caliphs who had spread Islam through the Middle East, fled to Spain.  There, he established a caliphate in Cordoba.  Pippin, who was then at war with Arabs in western Europe, established diplomatic relations with the Muslim rulers.  Envoys from Baghdad wintered in Metz in 768.

He soon drew papal attention.  As of 700, the Byzantine emperor had been the effective ruler of much of Italy, including Rome, and the Bishop of Rome had been loyal to the Byzantine emperor.  Until 752, the Popes had been Greek more often than Roman.  But Lombard attacks on Italy had undermined Byzantine control.  The Byzantine emperor had visited Rome for the last time in 663, and would not do so again until the 14th century.  The Pope had visited Constantinople in 710, received with reverence, but would not do so again for many centuries.  The last Greek Pope, Pope Zachary, held the papacy from November, 741 to March, 742, early in Pippin’s reign.

Losing effective protection from the Byzantine emperor, Pope Stephen II determined to build ties with King Pippin.  In 754, Pope Stephen II came to Gaul and declared Pippin and his two sons to be “patricians of the Romans,” responsible to protect the papacy.  The following year, Pippin went to Rome.  The next Pope corresponded with Pippin, calling him the “new Moses” and the “new David.” 

An inter-dependence developed between the Carolingians and the papacy in which there was no clear division between the role of the Church and the role of King or Emperor.   The emperor, in a sense, became a part of the Church.  In contrast with the largely Greek papacy of the previous era, from 752 to 1054, there were 44 Roman popes, 11 Italians, 4 Germans, 1 Frenchman and 1 Sicilian.  The presence of St. Peter in Rome became the focus of western unity.

Thus, to speak of the Carolingians as bringing western Europe out of the Dark Ages is to speak of the Church having done so.  They drew from Christianity -- from the examples of Moses and David -- in deciding what should be the role of a king.

New Intellectual and Liturgical Beginnings

The liturgical forms used in Frankish churches had varied before Pippin.  Pippin instituted liturgical reform with the help of Bishop/Saint Chrodegang of Metz to incorporate the Roman liturgy into Carolingian churches.  Moreover, the Carolingians did not simply incorporate what then existed in Rome.  Rather, new forms developed that were distinctively Carolingian, influenced by Rome as well as by the East and by the native Frankish music.  An old theory that Gregorian chant was brought to the Franks when Pope Stephen came to visit Pippin II is now widely rejected by music historians, including Kenneth Levy and the Abbey of Solesmes.  Instead, it was the Carolingians who developed Gregorian chant and, in a later century, carried it to Rome.

St. Chrodegang, greatly knowledgeable of Latin culture, improved Latin linguistic skills among the clergy.  Pippin entrusted royal administrative duties to clerics, resulting in improvement in royal documents, a more regular Latin script, and greater command of language in official documents.  Manuscripts in Greek, a language little known to the Franks, were brought to Gaul and translated into Latin.  Among the more important, those manuscripts included early translations of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius.  Pippin also furthered the knowledge of Roman law among his jurists.

The value that Christianity had placed on the written word, music and liturgy were foundational, following references in Scripture and Church Fathers such as St. Augustine.  Scriptural references to the importance of literacy and the written word are widespread: "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." (Ex. 34:27)  "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success." (Jos. 1:8) "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night." (Ps. 1:1,2) "O sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things!" (Ps. 98:1) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father." (John 1:1, 14).

Charlemagne

The greatest of the Carolingians was Charlemagne, who reigned for 47 years.  His Thirty Years War succeeded in 804 at Christianizing Saxony, an achievement at which the Romans had failed.  While the Celts (known as “Scots”) never became part of Charlemagne’s empire, some of their most brilliant people journeyed to the Frankish Kingdom.  The Anglo-Saxon Alcuin settled in Gaul, where he furthered the reforms begun by Chrodegang.  Charlemagne asked him to prepare a correct Latin text of the Bible, which became the standard Latin text of the Middle Ages.

By 780, a new lower case script had developed, regular in appearance, with equal spaces between the words. In 789, Charlemagne wrote that Catholic books for worship should be carefully corrected, and that the Gospels, Psalter and Mass books should only be copied by people who write very carefully.  By the Renaissance, the Caroline script was mistaken for ancient Roman script, and it was used for Italic fonts and Roman typography.  Chapel and court libraries were created, as well as monastic libraries, where books were shared.  Goldsmiths and ivory carvers decorated luxury manuscripts.

On Christmas Day, 800, Charlemagne was crowned “emperor” by Pope Leo II in a Byzantine rite in St. Peter’s in Rome.  A western empire had been re-created.

In 789, Charlemagne ordered each monastery and bishopric to create schools for boys.  They were to be taught reading, writing, grammar, music, and arithmetic.  In villages, the priests were to hold school, free of charge to the parents. Correct Latin came back into fashion.  A poet praised Charlemagne for making as much effort to remove mistakes from books as to defeating his enemies.  The growth in learning also gave the culture an increasing appreciation for the philosophical and scientific classics from the later Roman Empire.

At the palace at Aachen, Bl. Alcuin described a palace school with intellectual debates in which all could participate.  He wrote to Charlemagne, concerning Charlemagne’s wishes for education in the empire, which Alcuin worked toward achieving:

“If most men were to embrace your outstanding intentions, perhaps a new Athens would be brought to perfection in Francia, indeed a far more excellent Athens.  For ennobled by teaching of Christ the Lord, our Athens would surpass the wisdom of the Academy.  Educated only in the disciplines of Plato, the old Athens glimmered thanks to the seven liberal arts.  But enriched by the sevenfold plenitude of the Holy Spirit, the new Athens would surpass every glory of worldly wisdom.”

Charlemagne died on January 28, 814.  Three years before his death, he partitioned his valuables among friends and officers.  A description of the things partitioned includes gold, silver, precious stones, vases, and a series of silver tables with maps of Rome and Constantinople.

Louis "the Pious" and Charles the Bald

Before Charlemagne’s death, he crowned his sole surviving son, Louis “the Pious”, as co-emperor, “Emperor and Augustus.”

Louis’s son, Charles the Bald, was crowned emperor of the Romans by Pope John VIII at St. Peter’s in Rome on Christmas Day, 875. Among his gifts to Rome were a Bible still held at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls and the “Throne of St. Peter” held in a reliquary at St. Peter’s.  He used the seal “Empire of the Romans and the Franks.”  While he tried to re-establish ancient traditions, and to regain the entire empire that had been Charlemagne’s (portions of which had been lost), he would not have time to succeed.  He died on October 6, 877.

Like his predecessors, Charles the Bald loved reading and learning.  Like his forbears, he fostered the production of gold and ivory artwork and beautifully decorated books.

The Carolingians who followed him continued to hold power, to one degree or another, for another century.  They were often called “emperor,” but with smaller territory.  Western Europe entered a period of weakness, with new Viking invasions beginning in 879.  In 882, pillagers threatened Reims.  Abp. Hincmar of Reims, who had counseled emperor Charles the Bald, fled with the church treasury and relics.  Reims survived the attack, but Hincmar died later that year.  Pope John VIII also died late that year, possibly assassinated by one of his own entourage.  Pagan Slav and Magyar invasions plagued western Europe through the early tenth century.

In the course of raids and invasions, much of what the Carolingians had had was pillaged or destroyed, including artwork, libraries, and buildings.  Nonetheless, growth in population and growth in learning continued during the ninth century.

Alcuin, John Scottus Eriugena, and Intellectual Awakening of the Ninth Century

It was the eighth century Alcuin who set in motion the intellectual awakening that came to fruition in the ninth century.  He and the Carolingian emperors had worked to rebuild education and the knowledge of classical texts.  His work was based upon Scripture and the Church Fathers, especially Bl. Boethius and  St. Augustine.  However, Alcuin was a teacher, and not an original thinker.  His writings echoed those of St. Augustine, rather than adding to them.  It was not until the ninth century that substantial creative intellectual work was seen.

John Scottus, called "Eriugena," is among the foremost examples of that ninth century intellectual development.  He was one of many Irish scholars who fled the Viking raids and settled in the Carolingian Empire.   The Irish immigrants were well respected for their learning and apparently brought with them some of the classical Roman books that had been preserved in Irish monasteries through the barbarian invasions that had destroyed many Roman libraries.

While the major theological issues of the eighth century had been largely framed by eastern theologians centered in Constantinople, the major theological issues of the ninth century west developed separate from eastern thinking.  They reflected a competition between the two centers of Constantinople and Aachen for supremacy.  There were issues derived in part from questions over interpretations of the thinking of Augustine and Boethius on issues such as grace and free will (predestination); the question of whether the body of Christ was present in the Eucharist in truth or in spirit (transubstantiation); and the question of the interaction of Scripture, the Church Fathers, and reason in theological discussion (authority).

Although Eriugena's proposed answers to those questions were rejected as heretical, they represented an early effort to frame issues and to offer argument derived as much from reason as from Scripture, the Church Fathers, and the writings of Greek and Roman scholars of antiquity.  His work was rejected initially because he applied the dialectic -- the science of secular philosophical reason -- to theological analysis.  By the late tenth century, the application of reason to theology was no longer as controversial, but it would not be until the thirteenth century that St. Thomas Aquinas would truly find a balance and a unity between faith and reason that would prove to be lasting.

Nonetheless, Eriugena was protected by the emperor.  He remained free, and his writings continued to be read and preserved.  At the emperor's request, he made a translation from Greek to Latin of the work of Pseudo-Dionysius.  His Treatise on Predestination weaves together ideas from St. Augustine, Bl. Boethius and Pseudo-Dionysius with an ease that somewhat belies the belief of that era that Pseudo-Dionysius was the convert of St. Paul, rather than nearly a contemporary of Augustine and Boethius (The writings of all three are known today to fall within a little more than one century).  He did not appeal to reason in rebellion against the Christianity but, rather, in response to his understanding of Christianity.

A sampling of his writing reflects the Christian motivation for his work:

"The blessed theologian John [the Apostle] therefore flies beyond not only what may be thought and spoken, but also beyond all mind and meaning.  Exalted by the ineffable flight of his spirit beyond all things, he enters into the very arcanum of the one principle of all. . . . And if you want to know how, or by what reason, all things are made through the Word thus subsist vitally, causally, and in the same manner in him, consider examples chosen from created nature." (Homily on the Prologue to John's Gospel). 

"For he is the highest intellect in which all things exist together -- rather he is himself all things although called by a variety of names which take their meaning from the rational nature which was created in order to search him out. . . .Accordingly God, who fashioned all things, first in his goodness created the substances of the universe he was to create, and then in his generosity arranged to bestow gifts on each according to its rank.  Manifestly, among those substances, he brought into being the nature of man under the control of a rational will.  For man is not a will for the reason that he is will, but because he is a rational will." (Treatise on Divine Predestination)

The Ottonians

Henry I, an heir of the Carolingians, restored the German monarchy.  He designated his son Otto as his successor in 936.  Otto, called by some the “new Charlemagne” or “Otto the Great”, regained control of Italy in 951.  In 962, re-established the empire after 85 years of lesser unity.  Under the Ottonians – Otto I, his son Otto II, and his grandson Otto III – the Carolingian concept of empire saw its final and greatest development from 962 to 1002.

Following the example of earlier emperors, the Ottonians also supported learned bishops who could teach the clerics on whose work they relied.  Otto III collected books, including volumes written by Boethius, Isidore of Seville, Cassiodorus, among others.  The artwork in his Gospel Book (such as an illustration of St. Luke) are celebrated. 

In 954, Otto I’s son William became Archbishop of Mainz and brought the clergy and monks into the work of beautifying the liturgy.  Otto II’s marriage to a well educated Byzantine princess, Theophano, brought to the royal chapel a group of Greek clerics and workmen.  Textiles, ivory artwork, and manuscripts were created in a style similar to Byzantine style.  The late tenth century saw religious art and manuscripts as a means of glorifying God and communicating God’s glory to the viewer.

Also, in contrast with the ninth century, the dialectic was increasingly taught in the schools.  There was also a rebirth of Roman law, and a renewal of legal studies.

Rome, parts of which had long been empty, began to see new growth as the population rose.  Otto III, who took pride in his Byzantine and Roman philosophical heritage, wanted Rome to be his imperial capital.  Rome had still not fully recovered from the devastation of the sixth and seventh centuries.  Its population had recovered, but only to the extent that it had 20,000 people.  Regional conflicts plagued the city, which would never in fact become Otto III's imperial city. 

Like his father, he sought a Byzantine bride.  The request was granted, but the Byzantine emperor's niece was still in her journey to Bari when Otto III died at the age of 22.

The monk Gerbert of Aurillac was introduced to Otto I as a young man.  Gerbert became tutor to Otto II, then abbot, archbishop, and eventually pope in 999 with the support of Otto III.  Little remains of Gerbert’s writing other than letters and one short treatise.  However, he imparted to his students an appreciation for the writings of Boethius, Plato, Aristotle, and other classical Greek and Roman writers, a mathematical understanding of music, and an understanding of geometry and astronomy.  His creativity was so startling in his era that legends arose a century after his death, calling him a magician.  As Pope Sylvester II, beginning in 999, Gerbert nurtured the new churches of Poland and Hungary.  He worked to reform the clergy.  Together with Otto III, he sought to re-establish the unity between east and west, to unify both Empire and Church as they once had been.  In all of that, he often emulated Boethius.  He even encouraged the emperor to venerate the tomb of Boethius in preference over that of St. Augustine during a visit to Pavia.

The Growth of Science and Technology

The new society, learning the technology that was known in theory in the ancient world, readily put it into practice.  They often developed it creatively so that the use differed in different parts of Europe.  Water mills spread throughout Europe.  During the Roman Empire, the technology was known but little used.  By 1086, the Domesday Book shows that there were 6,000 mills in England alone.

Gerbert of Aurillac and several other teachers of the tenth century were greatly successful.  Gerbert carried into western Europe some of the Muslim knowledge of math and science in that day, having studied the abacus and Arabic treatises translated into Latin which were then available in Spain.  Those included the writings of Maslama ibn Ahmad al-Majjriti on astronomy and the writings of Abu al Qasim on medicine.  Gerbert's student Richer, a monk at the Royal Monastery of St. Remi, later wrote that "The number of students grew unceasingly."

Gerbert also made several contributions to science.  He built a newly designed abacus which, according to Richer, made it possible for people to mentally perform multiplication and division of numbers "in less time than it took to formulate them."  He wrote a treatise on the abacus for one of his students.  He built wooden spheres to study the earth's zones and revolutions of planets and stars.  He built an ocular tube to observe planets and stars, which is thought to have been used as a nocturnal to tell the time at night.

One of his students is thought, more likely than Gerbert himself, to have written a text on the use of the astrolabe which is often attributed to Gerbert.  The fragments of Constance on the astrolabe, written in Richenau in 1008 based upon a model from around 995 confirm the use of a treatise on astronomy by monks educated by the Church in the tenth century.

The study of medicine was restored by another master, Vulfad, a monk of Fleury, at the school of Chartres in the late tenth century.  At Chartres, another great master known as Fulbert of Chartres became famous for his understanding of medicine.  After studying under Gerbert, Richer went to Chartres, where he studied the aphorisms of Hippocrates and a book titled "The Concordances of Hippocrates, Galen, and Soranus."  He described learning pharmacy, botany, and surgery.  Christian students in the tenth century also learned from the writings of Jewish doctors, including Hasdai ibn Shaprut.

Dramatic Growth in Music Theory and Composition

The western liturgy and chant developed with Carolingian and Ottonian support for learning and for the Church.  As the spread of Christianity through Germany had helped to unify the region under St. Boniface earlier in the eighth century, reform and development under another German bishop, Chrodegang, was supported by the Carolingians later in the same century.  Under Bishop Chrodegang, the chant of the Mass developed in Metz around 765.  It was called "Gregorian" in honor of Pope/St. Gregory the Great.  The chant of the Office was developed at St. Martin of Tours around 800, where Charlemagne sent Alcuin toward the end of Alcuin's life.

Gregorian chant spread through western Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries, aided by newer, more sophisticated forms of musical notation.  Boethius's 6th century Treatise on Music was influential through the ninth and tenth centuries, an analysis of both the physics and mathematics of music, in harmony and scales, as well as the philosophy of music and its effect on people.  Much of Boethius' work had been lost for 300 years, resurfacing in the early 9th century.  Historian Calvin Bower hypothesizes that a copy of his work on mathematics had been preserved in Ireland, while Italian libraries were destroyed in Barbarian invasions. Michael Bernhard theorizes that the work of Boethius was then collected in Charlemagne's library at Aachen.  In the tenth century, Gerbert of Aurillac paid attention to copying the classical manuscripts, particularly those of Boethius. 

And yet, there can be no doubt that the medieval Christians drew from that classical theoretical analysis and applied it to produce new musical applications.  Those applications spread far beyond the achievements of Roman and Greek theoretical understanding.  Music and rhetoric were part of liturgy, and liturgy was for the whole Christian population, not the province of the elite few.

Some time in the late tenth or early eleventh century, the Carolingian antiphons began to be used in Rome, along with the newer Carolingian liturgy.  By the turn of the eleventh century, improvements in the way music was written dramatically changed the ability to spread music by written notation.  That, in turn, changed the connection between the singer and the written music.  The change was a matter of music theory, of a new understanding of the mathematical and physical relationships of notation.  It has been called "the most significant turning point in the entire history of music in the west." (Saulnier)

Lastly, the Carolingian liturgy included a western way of saying the Creed, with the filioque.  At that time, the Roman churches still used an older liturgy that did not include a creed.  The adoption of the Carolingian liturgy in the Roman churches, probably under Henry II in the eleventh century, was destined to have troubling consequences. 

Restoration and New Creativity in Architecture

In contrast with the poor housing seen among invading peoples, and those left in poverty within the de-populated west of the seventh century, Pierre Riché's writings on the Carolingians and the year 1000 (linked below) provide repeated examples of how the Carolingians began to build.  They created new structures with the magnificence fitting for imperial buildings. As the population grew and education improved, particularly in times of stability, more structures were built.  Some of them were elaborate.

In the course of the Carolingian era, 100 royal residences were constructed or refurbished.  27 cathedrals and hundreds of monastery buildings were built.  Ancient treatises on architecture, including that by Vitruvius, were discovered and put to new use, prompting a renewal of construction in stone.  Kings who had traveled to Italy wanted arches and beautiful churches and chapels.  Carolingian architects put their own ideas into the work, rather than merely copying older Roman plans.

The octagonal Royal Chapel at Aachen [photo at left from this page], designed by Odo of Metz, and built beginning in 702, still survives.  The royal residence there once included four groups of buildings.  They included a royal audience hall similar in size to the aula palatina in ancient Trier.  Marble columns for the palace were taken from older structures.  A covered walkway connected the palace residence to a group of religious buildings arranged as a Latin cross.  Beyond that were the houses of bishops, merchants, and dignitaries.  Nearby were a hunting park and menagerie, where Charlemagne kept an elephant he received from an Abbasid caliph.  A foundry in Aachen created decorative metals, including the wrought iron and bronze doors that still survive in the chapel.

The palace was well known, and its features were imitated elsewhere in the empire into the 11th century.  A church at Ottmarsheim in Alsace, built early in the eleventh century, reflected the design at Aachen.

New monastic buildings were also constructed at St. Denis in the 8th century.

John Scottus Eriugena wrote a description of the Carolingian chapel at the monastic foundation at Compiègne, a building that no longer exists.  Here is part of his poem describing the chapel:

“A house built varied with columns of marble,
Made beauteous in accord with the hundred-length norm!
Behold the curving angles and the rounded vaults, . . .
The towers, the parapets, the coffered ceiling, and skillful roof;
The tapered windows, the breaths of light beglassed; . . .
All glimmers with gems and glistens with gold.”

The abbey church of St. Germain was rebuilt in the 9th century, designed from a wax model.  Antique columns were brought from Provence, and frescoes decorated the corridor and chapels by the saint’s relics in the crypt [photo at left from this page].  The frescoes were found under plaster in 1927.

Frescoes appear to have been common decorations for Carolingian churches.  Other such frescoes survive from the time of Charlemagne at the Church of St. John at Münster, Switzerland, including 20 Old Testament scenes and 62 Gospel scenes.

An architectural study still exists from the early 9th century, showing a great church with two apses, east and west.

Around the year 1000, Archbishop/St. Willigis built new cathedrals in Mainz and also sought to encourage church art as an expression of God’s glory.

Not far from Mainz, Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim built the Church of St. Michael’s in the late tenth century, featuring towers and other sophisticated architectural features.  The interior is shown in the picture in the upper left corner of this post.  Although the building was badly damaged in World War II, it still stands as restored and rebuilt in the 1950's.  Now celebrated bronze doors were built for the abbey of St. Michael at the turn of the 11th century.  Among the books from that era of St. Michael’s history are a copy of Vitruvius’ treatise on architecture and Boethius’ De Arithmetica.  The geometric principles from those books were applied in the construction of the transepts and the east and west apses of the abbey church in Hildesheim.

The cathedral of Reims was restored beginning 976.  Nearly one-quarter of the vaults of the church were demolished and rebuilt.  After the fire of Orléans in 987, the cathedral and several other churches were rebuilt.  The Basilica of Our Saviour (Lateran Basilica) was restored and became the location of the tombs of the popes, rather than St. Peter's.

The Roman forms were not merely copied, but rather were applied creatively.  The architectural style varied in different regions of the empire, as artists and architects sought to create a new art form.

Archaeological evidence suggests a great effort to restore churches in the late 8th century, and another such effort in the tenth and eleventh centuries.  Gerd Tellenbach notes that the restoration of churches, and foundation of many new churches, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, began as invasions died down. It was a time when the population was growing and populations were moving.  Tellenbach mentions, "The imaginative Rodulfus Glaber reported enthusiastically that after the millennium the world clothed itself in a white robe of churches."

The Christianization of Kievan Russia

While the Ottonian west spread Christianity to Poland and Hungary in the tenth century, it was the Byzantine liturgy that spread in the that century to Kievan Russia.  The impact of a family connection is not clear.  However,Ottonian Empress Theophano, the Byzantine wife of Otto II, was the cousin of the Byzantine princess Anne who was given in marriage to Russia’s Prince Vladimir before his conversion to Christianity.  Theitmar, the German Bishop of Magdeburg who was the contemporary of Otto II and Vladimir, had called Vladimir “an exceptional fornicator.”  The western Church expressed disgust at the marriage of their empress’s cousin to the notorious Russian prince in 988.  However, the prince had had a Christian mother and grandmother.  Tradition places Vladimir’s baptism on January 6, 988, while historian George P. Fedotov estimates the year at 1000.  Whatever the date, after his conversion and baptism, Vladimir became committed to Christian mission.  A glowing description of Prince Vladimir followed in 1008, when Saint/Bishop Bruno of Querfurt wrote to Henry II about his encounter with Vladimir during a missionary journey.

The joy with which the Russian people accepted Christianity is shown in Hilarion’s Eulogy for Prince Vladimir, who is St. Vladimir the Great in the Orthodox Church:

“See also your city beaming in its grandeur!  See your blossoming churches, see the growing Christianity, see the city gleaming in its adornment of saintly images, and fragrant with thyme, and re-echoing with hymns and divine, sacred songs!  And seeing all this, rejoice and be glad, and praise the good God, the creator of all this.”

The Hope for Unity

The hope for a unity of Church and Empire was a pragmatic reality in the year 1000, when the Byzantine Empire was linked to the Ottonian Empire and the Kievan Empire by the marriage of two Byzantine princesses to Prince Vladimir of Kiev and to Otto II, the mother of Otto III.  The western Emperor, who took pride in his philosophical Greek and Roman heritage, had wanted to build the center of his empire in Rome.  He adopted Greek titles, replacing the Latin, for some of his officials.  His request for a Byzantine bride had been granted, and a niece of Byzantine Emperor Basil II was en route to the west to become his wife at the time of his death.

The young Otto III viewed Rome, Aachen and Constantinople as the 3 imperial cities.  Although the Ottos had been crowned emperor in Rome, and had been in Italy for a little more than a third of their combined reign, Otto III never gained control of the city.  Regional powers were gaining in strength who did not wish to see imperial power extended.  There were people who wanted the half-Greek Otto III and his philosopher Pope to devote more attention to the historic central Carolingian region in Germany.  Theophano had never been fully accepted by the western European people.  As she continued to dress in Byzantine fashion, she was sometimes called "the Greek Empress."

In the spring of 1001, Otto III and his army entered Rome, but never went beyond St. Paul's Outside the Walls.  They soon learned that opposition to their efforts was growing in Germany.  They returned to Germany for a synod at the end of the year, hoping to raise support for the expedition.  Returning to Rome, the emperor fell ill from malaria at Paterno, north of the city.  He died there on January 24, 1002.

Gerbert was over 60 years old and was considered an old man in that day.  He was allowed back into Rome, considered relatively harmless without his emperor.  Following Otto III's death, Gerbert changed his title to one that reflected his desire to be the pope of all Christians, and not just those of western Europe.  He had previously signed his name "Gerbert also known as Silvester" or "Silvester who is called Pope Gerbert."  He began to call himself, "Supreme Pope and Universal Vicar of the Blessed Peter, Servant of the Servants of God."

Otto III's successor, Henry II, had no interest in attempting to re-unite the old Roman Empire.  Regional powers were gaining strength in preference over a western empire.  Gerbert died in Rome on May 12, 1003, having fallen ill while saying Mass at Rome's Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. 

Bibliography:

Autour de Gerbert d'Aurillac: Le pape de l'an mil

Boethius, Treatise on Music

Carabine, Dierdre, John Scottus Eriugena

Eriugena, John Scottus, with an introduction and reflections by Christopher Bamford, The Voice of the Eagle: The Heart of Celtic Christianity

Eriugena, John Scottus, with an introduction by Avital Wohlman, Treatise on Divine Predestination

Fedotov, George P., The Russian Religious Mind: Kievan Christianity, The Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries

Gerbert of Aurillac, Letters, with an introduction and notes by Harriet Lattin

Guilmard, P. Jacques-Marie, of Solesmes, Interview with Zenit

Hilarion of Kiev, "Eulogy for Prince/St. Vladimir"

Levy, Kenneth, Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians

Poppe, Andrzej, “St. Vladimir as a Christian,” from The Legacy of St. Vladimir: Byzantium, Russia America

Riché, Pierre, Gerbert d'Aurillac: Le Pape de l'an mil

Riché, Pierre, Les grandeurs de l'an mille

Riché, Pierre, The Carolingians

Saulnier, Dom Daniel, Gregorian Chant: A Guide

Southern, R.W., Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages

Tellenbach, Gerd, The Church in Western Europe from the tenth to the early twelfth century

The photo below is one of several photos of the statue of Gerbert in Aurillac, France, generously taken by a reader, Georg, in Aurillac. This one shows the base of the statue, with pictures of Gerbert at the far right with an invention.  To his left, behind a child, is the French King Hugh Capet.  Behind King Hugh are the Emperors Otto I, Otto II and Otto III, with Bishop Fulbert of Chartres:

 

Subiaco 2007

  A video tour of the Monastery of St. Benedict, Subiaco.  Hat tip Bénédictus.

The "Refoundation" of the Lisieux Carmel

Update 4/30/08: The General House of the Order of Discalced Carmelites reports on this "re-ordering" of the chapel at the Lisieux Carmel that the work, though behind schedule, is close to completion.  The chapel is scheduled to re-open on May 11.  That article and an article from last year credit architect François Pin.

The online French daily La-Croix published an article yesterday titled "La "refondation" du Carmel de Lisieux" (The "Refoundation of the Lisieux Carmel).  The article is about recent changes and construction at the Carmelite monastery in Lisieux, France, where St. Thérèse of Lisieux lived in the late 19th century.  Without actually translating that fairly detailed article, this post includes some of the information from the article and links to interesting photos related to the work.  A website devoted to the Lisieux Carmel, with several photos, can be found here.  The old brick building of the cloister can be seen here and here.  In contrast, a photo taken at the monastery in 2005, is shown here.

Thérèse died in 1897.  After her canonization in 1925, people were reluctant to update the buildings, believing -- wrongly -- that they were in that condition when Thérèse lived there.  As a result, even in the 1990's, none of the nuns' cells had running water.

With the centenary of Thérèse's death approaching, the idea of expanding and renovating the monastery began to gain support.  The nuns realized that if they did not update the monastery, there would be no new vocations there.  Besides that, the Lisieux Carmel is perhaps the most famous, and most visited, monastery in the world.  Besides restoring the buildings, which were much deteriorated and out of date, there was a desire to create a greater space for the large number of pilgrims who come to visit. 

Step by step, in a process over several years, the monastery was not only given new wings, but really a new "foundation," supported by the Carmelite order beginning in 1999.  A second stage, with a renovated chapel and concourse for pilgrims, gained the order's support in 2006.  A photo of the chapel, as it was in 2000, can be found here.  The gates are presently closed to visitors as the work continues, and will remain closed until near Christmas.

An architect from the Paris area, Dominique Benoist, was chosen for the project.  The artist Pierre Buraglio was commissioned to decorate the oratory.  The website of Benoist Architectes has a slide show of some of the firm's work, including a picture of new construction at the Lisieux Carmel.  The art Blog d'Eric Seydoux has a Pierre Buraglio category with pictures of some of his work (not the Lisieux Carmel).  Another website features Buraglio's work for an exposition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in 2004. 

The work is still ongoing.  The old brick cloister, seen in the pages linked above, is now joined to a comfortable new wing shown on the architect's website also linked above.  Pierre Buraglio's work is described by La-Croix as a play on "the pale stone of the ground, the light wood of a large cross behind the rough concrete altar, and golden light produced by the stained glass."

Naturally, so much change was a major event for the affected Carmelite nuns.  "We could live in this convent for decades without anything changing, but today the world turns very quickly, and we must adapt", said Sister Marie of the Redemption, 86 years old, quoted in the La-Croix article.  She entered here in 1942, and made profession in the hands of Mother Agnes, the older sister of St. Thérèse, who died in 1951!   Before Vatican II, Carmelite nuns never left. "Even the dentist was required to come to the carmel!" she said.  However, today, the sisters drive cars to run their errands.

To plan the project, eight nuns from different parts of France, and from different Carmelite backgrounds, came together for 9 months at the carmel de Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d’Armor), described by one of them "as for a birth."  They invented from day to day, working out the project.  Some were accustomed to a city monastery with a grill, while others were accustomed to an open setting in a forest.  At Easter, 2001, they again came together for 3 months at the Carmel in Caen, spending every other day at the Lisieux Carmel.  In September, 2001, the 12 nuns at Lisieux and 5 from the original Saint-Brieuc group agreed to  merge to form one community at the new Lisieux foundation. 

In 2003, they received a new prioress, whose work has included listening to the difficulties faced by the nuns as they endured the unsettling changes.  Sister Marie spoke of the Saint-Brieuc group's previous moves from their original homes to Saint-Brieuc and later to Caen as "an experience of poverty, because a Carmelite nun is not accustomed to being uprooted."  By 2003, the new prioress said, ""There were sufferings to take into account, because what the sisters had experienced for a year and half had been very shaking."  Then, they had to decide how to live in the new buildings.  The order encouraged them to completely change the furniture of their cells.

However, once the new installation was completed, to their surprise, 5 new novices came to their door. That carmel had not seen more than 5 novices in the previous 10 years.  The present prioress, Sister Dominique, said, "That assures us that God wills it." 

The Way of Beauty in the Liturgy

Last March, I posted several items about the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which met for two days on the theme of "Pathway to Evangelisation and Dialogue."  The topics included such things as "The Mysterious Beauty of God Shining in the Liturgy" and "The Beauty of the Christian Life: Holiness."  Earlier posts are: The Way of Beauty, Calendar for the Plenary Assembly: Beauty as a Pathway to Evangelisation and Dialogue, and The Gospel Message in All Its Beauty.

The Concluding Document of the Plenary Assembly is now available online in English.  I am not quite sure how long it has been there, but I only recently realized it was there.  Here is the section on Beauty in the Liturgy (footnotes omitted):

"Beauty in the Liturgy.  The beauty of the love of Christ comes to meet us each day not only through the example of the saints but more so through the holy liturgy, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist where the Mystery becomes present and illuminates with meaning and beauty all our existence.  This is the extraordinary means by which our Saviour, once dead and resurrected, shares His life with us, making us part of His Body as living members and making us participate in His beauty.

"Florenskij described beauty in the liturgy, symbol of the symbols of the world as that which permits the transformation of time and space "in the holy, mysterious temple that shines with celestial beauty."

"During a conference at the 23rd National Italian Eucharistic Congress, Cardinal Ratzinger cited in his introduction the old legend about the origins of the Christian faith in Russia.  According to this legend, Prince Vladimir of Kiev decided to adhere to the Orthodox Church of Constantinople after having heard his ambassadors who had been sent to Constantinople where they had been present at a solemn liturgy in the basilica of Saint Sophia. They said to the prince, "We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth… We are witnesses: God has made His dwelling place there among men."  And the Cardinal theologian took from this legend the basis of truth: "it is in effect certain that the internal force of the liturgy played an essential role in the diffusion of Christianity…That which convinced the ambassadors of the Russian prince, that the faith celebrated in the Orthodox liturgy was true, was not a missionary style argument whose elements appeared more convincing to those disposed to listen than those of any other religion. No, that which struck home was the mystery in itself, a mystery that, precisely because it is found beyond all discussion, imposes on reason the force of truth."  How can we fail to underline the importance of icons, the marvellous heritage of the Christian East, which still today gives something of the liturgy of the undivided Church: its rich and deep language thrives on its roots in the experience of the undivided Church, the Roman catacombs, the mosaics of Rome and Ravenna as well as Byzantium?

"For the believer, beauty transcends the aesthetic. It permits the passage from "for self" to "more than self."  The liturgy which is disinterested and does not seek to celebrate God for Him, through Him and in Him, is not beautiful, and therefore not true. It should be "disinterested" in "putting oneself before God and placing one's eyes on Him who shines with the divine light on the things that pass."  It is in this austere simplicity that it becomes missionary, that is, capable of witnessing to observers who let themselves be taken over by the invisible reality that it offers.

"The French writer Paul Claudel allured to the internal force of the liturgy in witnessing to his conversion during the singing of the Magnificat during Vespers on Christmas Eve at Notre-Dame de Paris: "It was then that the event happened that has dominated all my life.  In an instant, my heart was touched and I believed.  I believed with such force, with such relief of all my being, a conviction so powerful, so certain and without any room for doubt, that ever since, all the books, all the arguments, all the hazards of my agitated life have never shaken my faith, nor to tell the truth have they even touched it."

"The beauty of the liturgy, an essential moment in the experience of faith and the pathway towards an adult faith, is unable to reduce itself to mere formal beauty.  It is first of all the deep beauty of the meeting with the mystery of God, present among men through the intermediary work of the Son, "the fairest of the children of men" (Ps 45, 2) who renews without end His sacrifice of love for us. It expresses the beauty of the communion with Him and with our brothers, the beauty of a harmony which translates into gestures, symbols, words, images and melodies that touch the heart and the spirit and raise marvel and the desire to meet the resurrected Lord, He who is the Door of Beauty.

"Superficiality, banality and negligence have no place in the liturgy.  They not only do not help the believer progress on his path of faith but above all damage those who attend Christian celebrations, and in particular, the Sunday Eucharist.  In the last few decades, some people have given too much importance to the pedagogical dimension of the liturgy and the desire to make the liturgy more accessible even for outsiders, and have undermined its primary function: the liturgy lets us immerse ourselves completely in the salvific action of God in His son Jesus, which makes it missionary. Essentially turned towards God, it is beautiful when it permits all the beauty of the mystery of love and communion to manifest itself.  The liturgy is beautiful when it is "acceptable to God" and immerses us in divine joy."

Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus

"You, King of glory,know how to give great gifts, and you have promised them; there is nothing greater than you, and you bestowed yourself upon us; you gave yourself for us.

"Therefore, we ask that we may know what we love, since we ask nothing other than that you give us yourself.  For you are our all: our life, our light, our salvation, our food and our drink, our God.  Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus, with that breath of your Spirit; wound our souls with your love, so that the soul of each and every one of us may say in truth: Show me my soul's desire, for I am wounded by  your love.

"These are the wounds I wish for, Lord.  Blessed is the soul so wounded by love.  Such a soul seeks the fountain of eternal life and drinks from it, although it continues to thirst and its thirst grows ever greater even as it drinks.  Therefore, the more the soul loves, the more it desires love, and the greater its suffering, the greater its healing.  In the same way may our God and Lord Jesus Christ, the good and saving physician, wound the depths of our souls with a healing wound -- the same Jesus Christ who reigns in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen."

- From an instruction by St. Columbanus, an excerpt from the second reading for Thursday of the twenty-first week in Ordinary Time, Liturgy of the Hours,

Picture: The icon and altar from the abbey church of Prince of Peace Abbey, Oceanside, California.  The icon is copyright protected by Prince of Peace Abbey.  My photo of the icon here is posted by permission of Prince of Peace Abbey.

The icon's title is "Christ the Prince of Peace, the Universal Ruler," based on the Gospel of St. John and the Revelation of St. John.  The wounds of Christ's passion are shown as stars on Christ's wrists, based on Scripture describing the "Lamb standing, yet slain."  The facial proportions were taken from the Shroud of Turin.

Drink of the Fountain of Life

"It is right, brothers, that we must always long for, seek and love the Word of God on high, the fountain of wisdom.  According to the Apostle's words all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him, and he calls the thirsty to drink.

"If you thirst, drink of the fountain of life; if you are hungry, eat the bread of life.  Blessed are they who hunger for this bread and thirst for this fountain, for in so doing they will desire ever more to eat and drink.  For what they eat and drink is exceedingly sweet and their thirst and appetite for more is never satisfied.  Though it is ever tasted it is ever more desired.   Hence the prophet-king says: Taste and see how sweet, how agreeable is the Lord."

- From an instruction by St. Columbanus, an excerpt from the second reading for Wednesday of the twenty-first week in Ordinary Time, Liturgy of the Hours,

Picture: Stained glass window "Blessed Host" by Debora Coombs  for St. Mary's Cathedral, Portland, Oregon.  Used by permission of Debora Coombs.

Solesmes in America

(The links in this post were updated 10/3/07 as the old Clear Creek links no longer worked.)

With several posts on this blog about Gregorian chant (see "Music" in the sidebar) and photos from the Benedictine abbey in Solesmes, France devoted to the study and preservation of Gregorian chant (scroll down in the sidebar), I thought it would be interesting to add a post about the two American monasteries that are members of the Congregation of Solesmes.  One is a house for monks in Oklahoma with a beautiful monastery building at the architectural stage, and the other is a house for nuns living lives of contemplative prayer in Vermont.  Both have their own websites.

The newer monastery of the two is Clear Creek Monastery in Oklahoma.  Clear Creek's buildings are still mostly in the planning stage.  While the monks make do with a barn and a scenic log farmhouse, they have beautiful photographs of their monastery and renderings of their recent construction project on the banks of an Oklahoma creek.  The monastery's full name is Our Lady of the Annunciation Monastery of Clear Creek. 

Oklahoma might seem an odd place for a member of the French Congregation of Solesmes, although there is one other U.S. monastery among the 21 monasteries of the Congregation.  Clear Creek is a foundation of a French monastery (Fontgombault) which was in turn founded by St. Pierre de Solesmes, devoted to the study of Gregorian Chant.  Moreover, as the abbey at Solesmes traces its founding back nearly 1000 years, with an even older adjacent parish church, the Father Abbot of Fontgombault told Clear Creek's architect, "We want a monastery to last 1000 years." 

The Clear Creek website has a page of its gregorian chant CD's available for purchase.  Visitors are welcome, and information about visits to Clear Creek are also available on the website.  There is also a page on how to help with the construction and an address where you can sign up for the monastery's mailing list.

The other American monastery in the Congregation of Solesmes is the Monastery of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Westfield, Vermont.  Westfield is a monastery of Benedictine nuns founded in 1981 by a French Canadian monastery.   The Westfield site has a page about St. Benedict and the Rule and another page about their Benedictine life of contemplative prayer, silence and solitude, in the mountains of Vermont.  The nuns support themselves by the sale of altar bread, and of course you can e-mail them for ordering information.

The Gospel Message in All Its Beauty

ZENIT has posted an article on the conclusions delivered by the Plenary Council of the Pontifical Council for Culture here.  The two-day council concluded yesterday.  The Vatican website previously posted the schedule for their meetings here.  An earlier post here included the press release announcing the council's subject matter, which was beauty as a way to evangelism and dialogue.  The conclusions, announced by Cardinal Poupard, president of the council, spoke of the need to rediscover beauty and the need to live lives of holiness.  It warned of liturgical clericalism which could transform ceremonies into shows.  The ZENIT article said:

"'The Church can only propose the Gospel message in all its beauty, which is capable of attracting spirits and hearts, offering through its pastors and faithful the testimony of integrity of life and of clarity of the message they reflect,' said the cardinal when presenting one of the principal conclusions."

 

Calendar for the Plenary Assembly: Beauty as a Pathway to Evangelisation and Dialogue

The Vatican website has posted a schedule of the two-day Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which will begin on Monday, entitled "Pathway to Evangelisation and Dialogue".  The topics of the sessions include "The Foundations: A Theological Aesthetic", "Contemplating the Most Beautiful in the Beautiful Things", "The Mysterious Beauty of God Shining in the Liturgy" and "The Beauty of the Christian Life: Holiness", among other topics.  About a week ago, I posted the Vatican Information Service press release about the assembly, which can also be found on the Vatican website here.

On the Originality of Modern Architecture

Yesterday, I linked to Sandro Magister's new article about church art and architecture.  In it, he compared the new church near Rome where Pope Benedict XVI will say Mass this Sunday with an eleventh century cathedral, and found the new church lacking.  I agreed with him about the 2003 architecture, comparing it instead with Church of the Nativity, Rancho Santa Fe, which is a little over 16 years old. 

After I posted those comments, I became more interested in the particular Italian church in Magister's article when I saw the photograph of the interior posted in Amy Welborn's Open Book yesterday.  What struck me were the similarities between the interior of the Church Dio Padre Misericordioso at Tor Tre Teste (critiqued by Magister) and the interior of the church at Rancho Santa Fe (the very one with which I had compared it).  I grant you, it is hard to judge by photographs, and I have never actually seen the church at Tor Tre Teste except in photographs.  But the concept of lighting behind a geometric style wooden cross is similar enough to ask just how original the Dio Padre Misericordioso design was. 

The two architects in question are both renowned post-modernist American architects.  They are compared in an article from the New York Times available online, "Architectural View: Museums Designed for Tight Quarters", written by Paul Goldberger in 1985.  Goldberger's topic was museum design, and he said nothing particular about either architect's designs of churches.  However, he briefly summed up the difference between the postmodern style of Charles Moore, who designed Nativity, and Richard Meier, who designed Dio Padre Misericordioso:

"If Charles Moore's architecture has a deliberate, if somewhat self-conscious, casualness to it, Richard Meier's is openly formal. There is no attempt at Des Moines to allude even loosely to the previous wings of the art center; this is an essay in the vocabulary with which Mr. Meier has been identified for years - white porcelain enamel panels, glass, gray granite and metal pipe rails, all put together into an intricate and pristine object that is physically connected to the earlier wings by a glass-enclosed corridor but which stands, almost like a villa, by itself."

 

This can be seen in comparing the exterior view of Nativity with that of Dio Padre Misericordioso.  Here is the entrance to Nativity at Christmas, California mission style doors set in a style that is somewhat like a warm, welcoming California home:

It is simple enough to see what author Goldberger might have meant by a "deliberate, if somewhat self-conscious casualness". 

Contrast that with the exterior of Dio Padre Misericordioso, as shown on the Galinsky website.  Meier also designed the white, post-modern Getty Center Museum in Los Angeles, shown here on the same website.

Here is the Galinsky website picture of the exterior of Dio Padre Misericordioso:

As to the difference between the two architects' styles and between the two recently designed churches, the pictures of the exterior are the best illustrations.

 

After looking at Amy's posting, however, I questioned whether the Dio Padre Misericordioso design was as original as it might initially appear.  The exterior, for one thing, resembles the well known design of the Sydney Opera House:

The Sydney Opera House, which is much older than Meier's design, was designed by Jorn Utzon and completed in 1973, 30 years before the completion of Dio Padre Misericordioso.  It is situated on the water where it more clearly suggests a ship with three sails than does Meier's structure situated near Rome.  The white tile and glass materials are typical for both architects.

What struck me more was the similarity in the interior between Dio Padre Misericordioso and the interior of Church of the Nativity, which was designed by Charles Moore a couple of decades before Richard Meier's design in Rome.  Here are the photos, first Nativity, and then Dio Padre Misericordioso:

Could this much similarity be coincidental?  If the similarity were only in the use of two similar wooden crosses, I would think the similarity might well be attributed to a common source.  The wooden, geometric cross in Nativity was designed by Renzo Zecchetto as an adaptation of Cimabue's thirteenth century crucifix at Santa Croce in Florence.  The cross used in Dio Padre Misericordioso, according to Sandro Magister, is from the seventeenth century and was taken from another church -- but I assume that he is refering to the older, dark crucifix above, and that the modern, geometric cross there was similarly of contemporary origin.  If the similarity were limited to the two geometric crosses, it would be hard to suggest that Nativity's interior was copied.  However, both churches also have a darker crucifix situated together with the geometric wooden cross.  In Nativity, it is a sixteenth century bronze Spanish corpus held by the wooden cross.  In Dio Padre Misericordioso, it is a separate crucifix above and to the right of the geometric cross, drawing the eye upward as the bronze stars in Nativity's altar canopy do. 

The most noticeable similarity is the use of the light source behind the cross.  Charles Moore used lighting studies for Nativity, with a hidden window behind the cross.  The window was situated so that the light shines in during Mass on Sunday mornings.  Richard Meier's window behind the cross at Dio Padre Misericordioso was designed so that the light shines in at sunset.  Can that much similarity really be coincidental?

The similarity of the interior gave me pause in the course of the day, considering that I had agreed with Sandro Magister's criticism of Meier's architecture when I wrote first thing in the morning.  When I saw the similarity between the two interiors, I wondered if I could have been too quick to criticize the architecture because Magister had criticized it.

On further reflection, however, and after looking online for a photo of the exterior of the church at Tor Tre Teste, I understood better the contrast that Magister was making.  And I still agree with him.  Nativity, with its pink and red windows, green and brown bronze statues, golden stars, and warm mission style design, is hardly the cold white architecture that Magister criticized.  The sense of prayerfulness as one enters the church, combined with the welcoming home-like exterior and parish hall, are what a modern church design can be, and yet be a "church". 

Meier's architecture is interesting, but Magister asks whether it is theologically Catholic and whether it is worshipful: does it reflect the Church as a vision of the City of God.  Setting aside, for the moment, that important question, there is another question.  If its value is in its originality, is it really all that original?  Goldberger made one statement that I was left to question: "Mr. Meier's buildings never look like any other kind of architecture, even the modernist buildings to which the architect owes so clear a debt."  If you take an exterior similar to a well known opera house built 30 years earlier, and an interior similar to a competitor's church interior built 20 years earlier, and put them together, that is not original.

Having not seen the Church Dio Padre Misericordioso except in photos, there is a chance that I could change my view if I studied it longer.  But the photos I looked at yesterday left me with questions and criticisms beyond those raised by Magister. 

Comments, anyone?

Art and Architecture as Theology of the City of God

Sandro Magister writes about church architecture and Catholic art in an article posted today entitled A Beautiful Church has been Raised at Tor Tre Teste.  But it is Absent Minded, and Mute.  The same posting includes an essay by Pietro de Marco entitled "For a church worthy of housing the 'Civitas Dei'".  Both Magister's writing and de Marco's essay contrast the theology in a great architectural masterpiece of the past (the cathedral of Monrealae) with the theology implicit in the architecture of  some new churches whose whiteness and barrenness, both find, do not communicate the same theological message.  Magister mentions one particular church as an example, where the Holy Father will say Mass this Sunday.  He writes:

There is, in fact, something that is out of tune between these geometrically enchanting but bare walls and the overflowing richness of images that distinguishes two millennia of Christian art.

De Marco wrote:

I insist: what affirms the transparency of