The Homiliae Toletanae and the Theology of Lent and Easter [Paperback]

This book takes seriously the need for a two-fold shift in methodology within the field of liturgical studies and serves as a model for future historical work. The first shift necessary in liturgical studies is a shift to sources other than the central liturgical texts, i.e. the Missal, breviary, lectionary, and books of rites. The second shift necessary in the field is a greater appreciation of the diversity of liturgical celebrations within the Church. In order to engage in such a study, this book analyzes a non-traditional liturgical source within a little-studied liturgical tradition. The source that provides the basis for this study is the Homiliae Toletanae (British Library, Add. 30853), a homiliary for Mass found in the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite. The Homiliae Toletanae dates to circa the seventh/eighth centuries and survives in one tenth/eleventh-century manuscript. It contains homilies for every major temporal and sanctoral feast in the calendar of Toledo. The Homiliae Toletanae is a valuable manuscript for reconstructing and understanding the liturgical practices of seventh/eighth-century Toledo. This study looks only at the Lenten homilies found within the Homiliae Toletanae in order to supplement what is already known about the Lenten practices of late Visigothic and early Mozarabic Spain. In reconstructing the practices of Lent in seventh/eighth-century Spain, this study explores the two major themes of Lent, penance and initiation, and their relationship to one another. It reflects on what some scholars consider a crisis in the thematic understanding of Lent in the seventh/eighth centuries. Coupled with this crisis is a shift from adult initiation to infant initiation in this period. This study argues that this crisis of meaning and the subsequent shift to a more penitential understanding of Lent was a direct result of the decline in adult initiation in this period. The dominant role that fasting and almsgiving played in the Lenten life of late Visigothic ls2