Download PDF | Jeffrey C Anderson - A Byzantine Monastic Office, A.D. 1105-The Catholic University of America Press (2016).
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Preface
I wish to thank Leslie A. Morris, curator of manuscripts at the Houghton Library for allowing me to study the Psalter, which is here published by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. The value of the manuscript was recognized by Prof. Robert F. Taft, SJ, who encouraged its publication. Stefano Parenti carefully reviewed the text and an early draft of the English translation was read and commented upon by Stamatina McGrath. Much of the final draft of both the text and the translation was carefully reviewed and commented upon by my colleague Prof. Robert H. Jordan. The Department of Fine Arts and Art History and the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University offered funding for the translation of part 2 of the publication. I offer my warmest thanks to all for their generous help and support.
For the completion of this work, begun too long ago to still have to await its conclusion, I must thank many people: my friend and colleague Prof. Robert F. Taft, SJ, who asked me to work on the Cambridge codex, and Prof. Dirk Krausmüller, who allowed me to use his unpublished transcription of the Hypotyposis of Nicetas of Stoudios prior to the edition by Parpulov. At the Library of the Academy of Sciences in Sofia, I consulted the microfilms of the Sinai manuscripts when they were made available to scholars through the great generosity of Dr. Gabriela Georgieva, in an atmosphere of courteous collabo-ration.
I am grateful to Prof. Agamemnon Tselikas, through the good offices of Prof. Maria Luisa Agati, for the microfilm of the Lesbos, Leimonos 295. I am also grateful to Dr. Alda Spotti and the staff of the Italian Center for Manuscript Studies of the “Vittorio Emanuele” Central National Library in Rome: their kindness is well known to those who have had the opportunity to conduct research at the Center, which deserves wider recognition. Finally, I would like to thank the Institute for Patristic Studies of Thessaloniki, which I consulted during Professor Euthymios Litsas’s tenure as supervisor of the microfilms.
INTRODUCTION
The liturgical psalter, Cambridge, Houghton Library, MS gr. 3, was donated to Harvard University by Edward Everett.’ Over his lifetime (1794-1865), Everett was a graduate of Harvard College, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature, and president of the University. While studying for his doctorate at Gottingen, Everett took the opportunity to travel in search of Greek manuscripts, which were rare in America at the time. On a visit to Istanbul, in 1818, he was given the opportunity to buy five Greek manuscripts and some leaves with Greek text. The offer was made by the British Consul General, acting on behalf of the “family of a Greek prince in decay,” As Georges Papazoglou has shown, the “Greek prince” was Nikolaos Karatzas, a Phanariot who had amassed a substantial library.? With the exception of a copy of the Chronicle composed by the twelfth-century author Michael Glykas, the manuscripts purchased by Everett were liturgical in nature (Gospel lection-ary, praxapostolos, liturgical sermons of Gregory of Nazianzen). Upon his return to America, Everett promptly donated the books to the university, and all are now in the Houghton Library (Gk. MSS 3-8).*
The psalter that Everett acquired from Karatzas had been in Istanbul for over two centuries. A note dated 1589, written on fol. A, states that the book belonged to Michael Kantakouzenos, father of Andronikos who used it to learn the psalms.° This Michael was the notorious book collector Michael (“Son of Satan”) Kantakouzenos of Constantinople, whose vast library was sold at his death, in 1578, eleven years before the date given in the note.° Papazoglou has argued that Michael had apparently given the psalter to his son, who was thirty-six years old in 1589, when the note was written. Owing to the transaction the manuscript escaped the liquidation of the Kantakouzenos library to remain within the family until it passed to Nikolaos Karatzas, who may have given it to his son, from whom it came to Edward Everett.’
Although the Harvard Psalter contains no explicit testimony as to where and for whose use it was made, the manuscript does have evidence of when it was finished. The scribe included a set of Paschal tables (fols. 285-86). They begin with the entry: “The year 6613 [1105 A.D.]; indiction 13; solar cycle 5; lunar cycle 1; apokreos: February 12; Pascha by [Mosaic] Law: Monday of the first week of April [April 3]; Pascha of the Christians [Easter]: April 9,” and continue for nineteen more years to A.M. 6632 [1124 A.D.].° The table gives the reader two of the most important points for the changing liturgical seasons: apokreos (the first week of partial abstinence leading up to Lent) and Easter (the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox). Although one might connect the tables to the use of the manuscript in a monastery (see below), their inclusion is actually a function of the content of the book; many copies of the psalter have such tables, including ones with no apparent liturgical use as well as others made for lay reading.” If one believes that the scribe was a practical man, then the first entry is that of the year in which the manuscript was finished, 1105. Nothing in the handwriting or illustration casts doubt on this conclusion. The illustration, in fact, supports the early twelfth-century date, and points to Constantinople as the place where the manuscript was made.
The Harvard Psalter is illustrated, mainly in the psalms. Its miniatures were the subject of an important article published by Lawrence Nees in 1975.'° In his study of the manuscript, Nees brought together a number of other works illustrated in a similar style. On the strength of Nees’s findings, other scholars have contributed attributions to the group, which is now both extensive and varied.’* Appearing as early as the last decade of the eleventh century and lasting as late as the middle of the twelfth, the manner of illustration exemplified by the Psalter represents a significant movement. Although no work has yet come to light with the name of a patron who can be placed in the capital—as is so often the case with luxury manuscripts—it is difficult to imagine the phenomenon the group represents as one occurring outside Constantinople and its unique base of patronage. The only fullpage illustration appears on fol. 8v.’? It shows the Deesis with David, who is placed outside the frame but next to the Theotokos (fig. 1).
At her feet is a small figure who may represent the manuscript’s patron and donor, its user, or possibly its scribe; he is, unfortunately, too small and the surface too abraded to offer much information. He is depicted in proskynesis; with his left hand he reaches out to cup Christ’s foot and the fingers of his right hand touch its toes. Portrayed with an oval face and possibly no beard, he either wears a grey cap or has grey hair. His long undergarment is ochre, but the overgarment has entirely flaked away; from stains on the sheet, the overgarment appears to have been painted a dark color, possibly black or deep olive. The color scheme of ochre tunic and medium to very dark brown overgarment is that of the monks’ habits in the Princeton Heavenly Ladder, made about a generation before the Harvard Psalter, as well as in other works around the same time.’ A figure shown at a smaller scale and prostrate appears in a number of frontispiece and dedication miniatures; sometimes the figure is identified as the donor, as in Mt. Athos, MML, A.103, whereas in others he may be the scribe, as seems to be the case with Paris, BNF, Coisl. gr. 79, fol. 2v.’* In the Psalter, the man may be the owner and user of the book, who has had himself depicted touching Christ’s body, albeit the Lord’s foot and in gesture of supplication in keeping with the tenor of the monk’s prayers in the book itself. In fact, the entire composition, a Deesis that includes David and the prostrate monk, can be considered an emblem of the text, which for several of the offices was used privately by the owner in his cell.
The Harvard Psalter represents a recent phenomenon of the time—the richly produced liturgical text—though admittedly ones this rich are rare. Among the other contemporary or nearly contemporary examples are the charter of the monastery of the Theotokos Kecharitomene (Paris, BNF, gr. 384), founded by Eirene Doukaina,** the Evergetis Synaxarion in Athens (Athens, EBE, 788),’° and Paris, BNE, gr. 331, discussed below.
Description and Contents
The Harvard Psalter is a quarto measuring 23 4 x 17 %4 cm. It is composed of heavy parchment of average preparation, and originally consisted of 282 folios; the leaf between fols. 187 and 188 was omitted from the foliation and the one between fols. 184 and 185 is lost. For the text of the psalms and odes (fols. 9r-232Vv) the scribe ruled the leaves throughout for a single column of text in pattern’” 31C1a with 21 lines per leaf in a block measuring 16.7 x 10.9 cm (fig. 1). For the horologion and calendar (fols. 23 3r-281v) he changed to the simpler pattern 12C1 and increased the number of lines to 22, inscribed in a block measuring 16.8 x 12.2 cm (fig. 2).
The scribe copied the text in minuscule using a dull brown ink common in Middle Byzantine manuscripts, and the rubrics he wrote in semi-uncial using a thin carmine ink (cool red). Many of the additions he added in the margins are also in red. The unnumbered quires are regular quaternions except for the illustrated block in gathering fols. 214-16 and the gathering at the end of the horologion, fols. 273-81. Two other manuscripts have been attributed to or associated with the work of the scribe of the Harvard Psalter; one is the psalter Mt. Athos, MI, cod. 22, and the other a Gospel book in Baltimore, WAM, W 522."* Although possible, such attributions tend to be difficult and inconclusive owing to the formalized nature of the scripts, which, to borrow a characterization from Nigel Wilson, are “copper plate.”
The manuscript opens with one complete gathering of prefatory material: an introduction written by Michael Psellos in political verse (fols. 1r-7v),”” and the full-page image of the Deesis (fol. 8v); following the introductory ma- terials are the psalms and odes with supplements (fols. 8r-232v), a horologion (fols. 233r-261V), synaxarion-menologion (fols. 262r-281v), guides to setting the dates of feasts governed by the lunar cycle, and a brief excerpt from the Exposition fidei of John of Damascus (fols. 282r-289v, not transcribed here).”°
The scribe employed graphic conventions to call attention to the major divisions of the text, which is written more or less continuously so as not to waste valuable parchment. A cross of four dots sets off the titles to the canonical hours (fols. 242v, 2441, 245v, 252v, 253v), the interhours (fols. 251, 2521), as well as the liturgical office called “the Typika” (fols. 245v, 247v), the ritual before communion (fol. 248v), the office of Holy Thursday (fol. 248v), the prayers before communion (fol. 249v), and the prayers after communion (fol. 2511). A line sets off the Trinitarian Hymns of matins (fol. 263v) as well as the prokeimena to “Everything that has breath” (fol. 238v), and another is drawn at the end of the typika (fol. 248v). Lines also call attention to the start of the calendar and before each of the months. Finally, a cross of four dots sets off the word “then” following the second prayer for the dead in compline (fol. 26o0r). In the synaxarion-menologion, the scribe used red ink to highlight a number of feasts: the conception of John the Baptist (Sep. 23), the Theotokos’s ascent to the Holy of Holies (Nov. 21), Christmas (Dec. 25), the Feast of Lights (Jan. 6), Feast of the Annunciation (Mar. 25), Feast of the Metamorphosis (Aug. 6), and Easter Sunday.
The Greek Text
The scribe wrote in a neat, legible hand. He copied the psalter supplements (part I) in full, neither truncating passages nor abbreviating words. As a result, the non-biblical additions match the psalms in appearance; figure 2 shows fol. 24v, which contains Psalm 16:14b-15 and, beginning at line 9, the start of the supplements to kathisma 2. When copying the horologion (part II) and synaxarion-menologion (part III), the scribe often abbreviated words, following a tradition of medieval Greek texts that was based on the need to conserve material. Letters the scribe omitted in the copying of troparia and prayers he indicated by conventional signs, whereas the liturgi-cal instructions must be read without the benefit of compendia, often from only two or three letters serving to designate an entire word; owing to their formulaic nature and familiarity from other liturgical books, the instructions are rarely in doubt (see fig. 3, fol. 240v with the end of matins and start of the first hour in line 13). When a question arises over what the scribe intended, the letters supplied appear in angle brackets. These and other additions in angle brackets must be treated as conjectures.
In transcribing the text, I have added the iota subscripts and ignored the occasional double dotting of iota and upsilon, though the scribe’s use of the diaeresis is followed in the transcription. The rare cases of itacism have been corrected, unless they create a possible reading or occur in a proper name. The scribe is careful with accents, including enclitics. The exception is when the word preceding the enclitic has a circumflex on the penult (for example, pdoat); in these instances the scribe almost invariably fails to shift the accent. I transcribe the numbers as written unless the context seems better served otherwise; thus, I leave 6 N’ as “the fiftieth psalm.”
Possibly the greatest difference between the manuscript and the transcription arises in punctuation (and the attendant accent changes). For the most part, both the troparia and prayers are heavily punctuated. The frequent breaks, and in particular the number of semicolons (-), can hinder the ability of modern readers to follow the meaning. The horologion was intended to be used in performance, both corporate and individual, so the phrases are broken more often than is required by modern, silent reading.
Prose passages copied in the Harvard Psalter, it should be noted, are just as heavily punctuated as the hymns. The scribe sometimes used the margins for the mode designations, psalm numbers, points at which “Glory to the Father ..” or “Both now and forever ...” should be said, to signal that a passage is a prayer, and for his corrections. All marginalia have been integrated at points where I think they belong in a strictly linear text (and notes call attention to their original locations). I also group passages into paragraphs of related material and give a paragraph to each complete troparion and prayer, whereas the scribe wrote in continuous blocks.
This is the publication of a single manuscript, and not a critical edition of several manuscripts of identical content. Reference is occasionally made to contemporary or earlier works: the ninth-century Horologion Cod. Si-nai. 863, published by J. Mateos,”’ the Evergetis Synaxarion, edited by R. Jordan,”” and the Messina Typikon, edited by M. Arranz.** I have given a greater place to the twelfth-century prayer book Paris, BNF, gr. 331, referred to as “P” in the notes to the text; it is one of three medieval manuscripts used by I. Phountoulis in his edition of the cursus of the Sleepless Monks (Akoimetoi).”* Like the Harvard Psalter, the prayer book is illustrated, though modestly so. Its scribe wrote in a bold minuscule of the type associated with liturgical manuscripts made for performance, whereas the manner of the Harvard Psalter is less expansive and, as noted, relies heavily on abbreviation. The Paris prayer book was made for private use; it contains a brief office for each of the twenty-four hours of the day; these generally consist of a psalm, three troparia, and a prayer. Placed at proper intervals are the offices of matins, the third, sixth, and eighth hours, the typika, and vespers; at the end are communion prayers and the long prayer to the Theotokos that is also found in the Harvard Psalter (fols. 191r-195r).
Other differences noted in the translation are difficult to evaluate along simple lines, but one can say that many of the different wordings found for troparia in the modern editions were already in circulation by the start of the twelfth century. This leads to the question of just how the scribe of the Harvard Psalter composed the text. A clue may lie in several of the pieces the scribe copied more than once: the prayer associated with Psalm 50 (Kupte 6 Oedc uy, 6 TI dia wetavoiac) and the two troparia‘O xpovoc tij¢ Gwrjs tov and Tot otavpod cov 16 Eviov. In each case, the scribe gives a slightly different rendering, although the differences are insignificant. Generally speaking, the text (or the manuscript from which it was copied) appears to stand somewhere between oral and written traditions; the scribe or compiler seems occasionally to rely on memory as he arranges familiar material.
Translation
The translation with its notes has been made—above all else—for those who are not students of the monastic offices, but who wish to follow their observance by one monk in one Byzantine house. Meeting this goal requires a structured format with annotations and additions, all bracketed in some way or another. The liturgical instructions appear in plain text and everything spoken in italics. This convention can be said to mirror the scribe's selective use of red and brown inks, minuscule and semi-uncial forms of writing to signal changes from instruction to the voiced passages. But where the scribe tends to write in continuous blocks, I have often separated each element of an office, giving it a separate line.
Some of the troparia, prokeimena, and formulas the scribe wrote out in full, but most he merely signaled using an incipit; and often he did not bother to write formulaic endings that he assumed the user already knew. If only a few words or a sentence remain to complete a prayer or formula, I add them in angle brackets. In most cases, reference is given to a source, but all must be treated as conjecture. When the scribe has given only an incipit, the reader is referred to a printed edition where the full text can be found; these references are given within parentheses following the incipit. Owing to the nature of Greek and how troparia were composed, the opening words often cannot be rendered in acceptable English. I have therefore used the editions cited in parentheses to give an adequate opening phrase, with the occasional result that words in the translation may not appear in the Greek text. Some of the technical terms describing parts of the Byzantine office are merely transliterated; for a few others, English terms have come into use and I employ them. The complex terminology used in denoting the parts of offices is placed within the historical context by Stefano Parenti, to whose accompanying essay I refer using the designation “Parenti §” followed by his section number.
Byzantine liturgical hymns exist in a number of translations made for devotional use.”° The translators employ language and phrasing that, in the case of English, often recall the King James Bible (1611). The translation here was made for the purpose of studying a historical document. In making it, I have aimed for a literal rendering of the Greek into English and have avoided archaisms while attempting to preserve some of the character of the original. Whenever possible I keep to the order of clauses, deviating when necessary to meet the requirements of English syntax, which relies far more heavily on word order than does Greek. Occasionally, participles are rendered as active verbs and other changes are made to suit English usage. It is sometimes necessary to add words, often pronouns carried over from previous clauses; they appear within parentheses. Finally, I treat the phrase Xplotdc 6 @edc as if it were the common Xptotdc 6 Oedc Huov, translating it “Christ our God”
Quotations from the Bible are rendered according to The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament with an English Translation for the Septuagint and the Revised Standard Version for the New Testament.”® Direct quotations from scripture and passages recalling ones from the liturgy appear in boldface; although intrusive, the typographic shift helps clarify changes in verb tense or points at which the syntax seems to slacken. Many direct quotations, it should be stressed, are modified to fit the grammar of the sentence in which they are embedded, so careful study of them as an aspect of medieval composition would require returning to the Septuagint and Greek New Testament. The language of the Byzantine horologion is steeped in the Septuagint, and I have tried to note only deliberate quotation (in boldface), obvious paraphrase (signaled by the abbreviation for confer), and words that derive particular significance from their use in a biblical passage. Though seemingly objective, the application of these criteria involves considerable subjectivity. I have not called attention to common epithets for the Deity that are derived from scripture: “full of pity” (Ex 34:6, etc.), “merciful” (ibid.), “patient” (ibid.), “much merciful” (ibid.), “who knows the hearts of mankind” (Acts 1:24), “comforter” (Jn 14:26) and so on.
Scope and Purpose of the Manuscript
The Harvard manuscript is a liturgical psalter intended for use in private and group devotion. Effectively, two components comprise the bulk of the manuscript: the psalter with liturgical supplements and a horologion that gives the rituals of the monastic hours; to them is appended a calendar of fixed and movable celebrations and the hymns appropriate to them.
Psalms and Kathismata
The psalms can be said to lie at the heart of monastic devotion, and they were used in various ways in the monk’s daily regime of prayer, confession, and supplication. Single verses, called prokeimena, introduce troparia (short non-biblical hymns), readings,” or other ritual units;** sometimes they serve as brief, apparently independent chants.” Entire psalms appear at points in the offices, often but not invariably early,*° and they may be grouped in triplets of fixed psalms.** David's penitential psalm, Psalm 50, was chanted on a number of occasions throughout the day, when it was often paired with a prayer using language based upon it.*
With the exception of Psalm 151, the psalms are also divided into twenty numbered units, known as kathismata, each subdivided into three sections. The number of psalms in each kathisma varies between one and ten, but the number of verses each contains is less variable.** At the completion of each kathisma, the scribe added a set of ritual elements that follow a consistent pattern (fig. 2); the monk says the Trisagion (“Holy God, holy and Scope and Purpose of the Manuscript 17
mighty ...”),** the Lord’s Prayer (“Our father ...”), two troparia, a theotokion (a troparion in honor of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos), the Kyrie eleison (“Lord, have mercy”) repeated forty times, and finally a prayer.** With the exception of the Trisagion and Lord’s Prayer, the liturgical supplements are copied out in full. Recitation of the kathismata may have two places in the monk’s daily devotions, one corporate and the other private. Group recitation of the kathismata, termed stichologia and translated here as “continuous psalmody; is ordered as a regular part of the Sunday office of matins.*° The manuscript specifies two kathismata, but from other sources we know that kathismata were chanted daily at matins and their number could change with the liturgical seasons. At the Constantinopolitan monastery of St. John Stoudios, where an influential reform of monastic ritual was undertaken in the century following the end of Iconoclasm, anywhere from one to four kathismata were said at matins, depending on the season or celebration.*’ At Stoudios and other monasteries of the time kathismata were also performed at vespers (although omitted with some regularity), and at the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours.** In addition to their use in corporate worship, the kathismata may have been chanted privately. In his commentary on the Harvard Psalter, Stefano Parenti advances the proposition that the monk recited kathismata at moments throughout the entire day, ending with the tenth and the office for trespasses at the close of the day,”’ followed by kathismata eleven through twenty said during the night.
des and Canons
Following Psalm 151, the scribe copied nine biblical odes.** As the “canon’ this particular choice plays an important role in matins and compline. The nine are grouped in triplets,*” and are chanted with non-biblical liturgical poetry, for example, compositions specific to the saint or feast of the day. Two important service manuals that are roughly contemporary with the Harvard manuscript show how rich and variable the canons could be. One is the ritual typikon of the monastery of San Salvatore at Messina, published by Miguel Arranz and thought to generally reflect Stoudite practice.** The other is the synaxarion of the Constantinopolitan monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis, edited by R. Jordan. (Unlike the liturgical psalter, these two works give detailed, day-by-day instructions.) That the nine odes were considered to be a kind of three-part ritual unit is underscored by the appearance of biblical poetry in other parts of the manuscript. Two of what we now call odes are referred to as “prayers” in the manuscript, and the scribe copied them as part of the supplements to the kathismata, not among the nine odes comprising the canon. The first is the Prayer of Manasses,** used as the concluding prayer for kathisma 16, where it appears in the manuscript, and additionally chanted at both mesonyktikon and compline. The second is the Prayer of Hezekiah,** which serves as the prayer to close kathisma 17, where the scribe copied it. The Ode of Symeon is recited toward the end of vespers, although the scribe did not write out this brief canticle.
Horologion and the Monastic Hours
The second part of the manuscript contains the horologion, the order of service for the monastic hours—traditionally matins; the first, third, sixth and ninth hour; vespers; compline; and the night office of mesonyktikon.*” The horologion of the Psalter combines corporate with private devotions and treats the traditional offices in a manner that reflects contemporary Constantinopolitan practice. The horologion opens on two prayers said upon rising from sleep; they are likely done individually and in private.** Following them is a grand office celebrated communally and combining several rituals; it begins with those for the forgiveness of sins and the remembrance of the dead, followed by mesonyktikon, matins (orthros), and the first hour, all of which flow together without intervening titles or obviously marked breaks in the manuscript (fig. 3, showing, on fol. 24ov, line 13, the end of matins and beginning of the first hour). Following matins—as I will call it in short—are the third, sixth, and ninth “great” hour, which, like all subsequent hours and rituals, the scribe clearly titled. The third hour evokes the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4, 15), whereas the sixth and ninth hours recall Christ’s last hours on the cross (see Mt 27:45-46; Mk 15:33-34; Lk 23:44-46). The next hour is vespers (lychnikon, lamp-lighting), followed by compline (apodeipnon, after supper), which completes the daily cursus of formal observances.
Typika and Mesoria
To the canonical hours, the compiler added a somewhat loosely organized set of rituals and supplements, which he inserted between the ninth hour and vespers. The first is the office of the typika, said after the sixth hour on days when the eucharistic liturgy is celebrated, but when it is not, after the ninth hour, where it is copied; at the end of the typika is a brief ritual performed before the liturgy. The scribe then gives the additional psalms and troparia for the first, third, sixth, and ninth hour on Maundy Thursday. These are special interhours, or mesoria, that were added after the canonical hours. Then come the communion prayers, one set said before receiving communion and the other after, and all four written in the first person singular, signifying that they were said privately.” Finally there are the interhours for the first, third, sixth, and ninth great hour for Good Friday as well as those added on the Saturday before Easter Sunday; outside of the three days of Holy Week, no mention is made of interhours, as these were performed, privately or corporately, in other houses of the time.*°
The third, sixth, and ninth hour were celebrated privately in the monk’s room.”” These hours are relatively short, and their only variable element is the troparion of a feast or saint, when one is celebrated in “the church.” To find the additional troparia the monk turned to the calendar following the horologion; in it he found the celebrations and associated troparia for both movable days, determined on the basis of Easter, and the fixed celebrations of the calendar year, which began on September 1. Many of the troparia fixed for the first, sixth, and ninth hours are not contained in the manuscript, but presumably their daily use meant that the monk learned them early on.
Communal Offices: Matins, Vespers, Compline
The other three offices—matins, vespers, and compline—were communal celebrations for which the monks all gathered to participate. The three communal hours, and particularly matins and compline, are lengthy and complex in nature on account of the many variable elements that needed to be taken into account. The Harvard manuscript covers the main factors governing the choices that needed to be made. The first is the day of the week, whether Sunday, the weekdays Monday through Friday, Saturday, or one of the individual weekdays. At the start of matins, for example, the “Alleluia” is specified daily except Saturday and Sunday, when “God is the Lord” is ordered. There are also elements that change daily; the matins Hymns of Light in the first mode, for instance, are different on each day of the week.** In compiling the order of service for matins, the scribe faced the problem of specifying the weekday changes within the sequential, linear confines of a continuously written text; after giving the instruction for chanting the “God is the Lord” on Saturday,** he turns to the Sunday ritual, specifying it as far as the prokeimena to “Everything that has breath ...” and then returning, with some repetition, to where he left off.°*
The second structural element is the mode of the week. Chanting is done in one of eight modes: modes one through four, plagal modes one and two, barys, and plagal mode four. The modes are said to be “groups of melodies of a certain type built upon a number of basic formulae?’** Each week has its own mode; the church begins with the first mode in the week following Easter, then moves week-by-week through the remaining seven before beginning again at the first and repeating the cycle. For a small number of hymns— such as the matins Hymns of Light and Trinitarian Hymns°°—the scribe copied the complete selections arranged by mode, and the user chose the one or ones that were appropriate. The modes of the troparia are generally fixed. Any given hour, therefore, would contain elements in different modes.
The third factor that needed to be taken into account is the feast day, or celebration honoring a saint, when appropriate troparia and other nonbiblical poetry would be chanted. Other aspects of performance could also be affected. At Sunday matins “God is the Lord” is chanted in the mode of the week, unless it is a feast or saint’s day, then it is chanted in the mode of the troparion for that day’s feast.*’ The horologion contains little about the great liturgical periods, particularly Lent.** It specifies that on Monday through Wednesday of Holy Week a troparion said in conjunction with the “Alleluia” replaced the Trinitarian Hymns, and there are the added troparia or the interhours of Holy Week, but little else is specified as changing with the liturgical seasons, other than the additions and substitutions cited for certain days in the calendar of movable feasts.
Personnel
Despite what may at first seem to be offices described in considerable detail, the horologion actually gives only a basic order of service—the skeletal structure—and it may be useful to note what the compiler leaves out. In a large monastery of Middle Byzantine times, the communal offices might be organized and supervised by a substantial number of monks charged with separate duties. They could include the doorman, who admonished late-comers and kept watch for those trying to leave before the dismissal, a brother who awakened monks nodding off in fatigue, and the superior who might participate in minor ways along with the ekklesiarch. The ekklesiarch (in a nunnery the ekklesiarchissa) was charged with the arrangements for each communal office, including the requirements of the cantor (psaltes), who supervised one or two choirs. When the eucharistic liturgy was performed the priest officiated with the assistance of the deacon.
The horologion tells us little to nothing about the roles of the priest, deacon, and cantor. It incorporates ritual elements and prayers associated with the eucharistic liturgy, but makes no mention of the priest and, with one exception, the deacon who would have conducted the service. From Abbot Timothy's typikon for the Theotokos Evergetis we know that the priest was present at matins and compline, as was also likely to have been the case in the monastery where the Psalter was used.°’ The beginning of matins is signaled in the Harvard manuscript by “Glory to the holy, consubstantial and indivisible Trinity, always, now and forever and ever. Amen.”®° From the typika of Stoudios, Evergetis, and St. Sabas, we learn that the first line is said by the priest, and Evergetis adds that the “Amen?” is said by the ekklesiarch.™ At the Stoudios monastery the prayer following Psalm 50 was said by the priest at matins, but in the Harvard Psalter, where the prayer is twice written out in full, the rubric seems to indicate that it is said by the congregation.” The participation of the deacon is cited once in the horologion—in the chanting of the prokeimena to the “Let everything that has breath ..””—and the only mention of the cantor comes in the same sequence of responsory prokeimena.
Books
Arranging and leading the communal hours and the liturgy required a small library of specialized books, none mentioned in the horologion. The priest read from a book of prayers (euchologion) and the biblical lessons were chanted from the Gospel lectionary, the Prophetologion (Old Testament readings), and Apostolos (readings from Acts and Epistles). In preparing for the performance of the hours, the ekklesiarch arranged for the cantor the specialized volumes containing the propers of the day, including the troparia only given here in their opening phrases; among the many service books needed are the Oktoechos (hymns in the eight modes), Pentekostarion (offices for Eastertide), and Triodion (for Lent), in which the hymns and other devotional units are organized by mode and liturgical season.™* When the Harvard manuscript orders the monks to do poetic kathismata and canons, or hypakoe, it does not provide the actual hymns needed to do so. Judging by the twelfth-century liturgical typika of the monasteries of San Salvatore at Messina and the Theotokos Evergetis (its synaxarion), prose readings were also a regular part of matins.°° The horologion here makes no reference to biblical, patristic, or hagiographic readings at any point other than the Sunday reading from the Gospel lectionary.°° In the vespers ritual, the prokeimenon that is associated with a reading from the Old Testament is given, but no reference to a reading follows;°’ instead, the scribe writes “After the prokeimenon say, “‘Deign, O Lord ..?” At Messina, the “Deign, OLord ..? is chanted directly after the reading.°* But at the Evergetis the same prokeimenon could, it appears, occasionally be a free-standing element, so it is difficult to determine with confidence whether there was or was not a reading at this point in the monastery for which the Psalter was made. In light of the number of copies of the liturgical homilies of Gregory of Nazianzen or the edition of saints’ lives by Symeon Metaphrastes produced in the eleventh century for monastic use—not to mention biblical and patristic works—the omission from the horologion of any mention of readings seems to be a decision based on the assumption that the book’s owner was an auditor not a reader or monk with specific responsibility for the services.
Most of the components of the hours are chanted, and although the mode is often given there is no musical notation to offer further guidance. The instruction in the menologion for the birth of the Theotokos, celebrated on September 7, gives the troparion and orders that it be chanted in the first mode to the melody of the troparion “When the stone had been sealed,” reminding us that the hymns were sung. A number of troparia are repeated often through the week, so presumably they were committed to memory. But the monks go through a vast amount of hymnographic material of various kinds at the three communal services. We cannot assume anything like a hymnal at the back of every pew, but then neither can we take it for granted that the monastic congregation chanted or said everything cited in the orders of service. Some elements may have been performed by the choir(s) or by the soloist.°? The cantor may have started a chant before it was taken up by the congregation following his lead.”° We also know that cantors used hand signals when leading the choir(s), and it is possible that the congregation of monks, called the “people” in the manuscript, were positioned in such a way as to be able to follow the cantor’s lead; this seems to be explicit at the Evergetis.”* Finally, it should be noted that in our attempt to understand aspects of performance, the scribe or compiler offers us little help. In the manuscript he uses three verbs for performance, chant (waAdw), sing (€madw), and what I have rendered as “say” (Aéyw), instead of the more restrictive “recite.” I suspect his use of these words is at times imprecise.
Places and Times for Offices
Finally, the horologion omits mention of where things happen and when they happen. The scribe gave only the sequence of observations and, in the case of the office of the typika, the circumstance under which the sequence would change; the scribe does not tell the user at what times he should gather with the others in church or rise in his room to chant an hour. Such instruction would have been unnecessary because a brother was designated to keep time and sound the semantron, a length of wood or metal struck rhythmically with a mallet, to signal the start of the office. The one indication in the manuscript that the times of the observances were not consistently fixed throughout the year comes indirectly in the form of the brief notes at the start of each month of the fixed cycle; they give the number of daylight and night time hours.’” Other sources also indicate that the times of when the hours were celebrated were not invariable. Combing the Messina typikon, Arranz has established the times throughout the year when the San Salvatore monks performed their offices, and John Klentos has done the same for the Evergetis monastery.’* Their results cannot be applied to the monk who used the Harvard manuscript; nevertheless, they reveal the possible degree of variation in timing the observances, which themselves differed in length over the course of the year. Where the monks gathered is also unspecified, and we cannot assume that everything took place in either the monk’s room or the church. At Messina, where the midnight office immediately preceded matins, the monks did not enter the church until the “Glory to God in the highest ...” and so presumably they were gathered in the narthex, as at Stoudios.’* We also know of processions around monastic precincts, or gatherings to pray and sing at graves, in special chapels, or at the monastic fountain in the courtyard. The Harvard Psalter gives no indication of such things. Although there can be no doubt that the Harvard Psalter reflects contemporary monastic practices, some of the things left unspecified, along with ones added, raise the possibility, even if remote, that the book was used
outside a monastery for private devotion.’*
Naming of Elements
A final word on nomenclature. It can seem dauntingly opaque and foreign, but it is only the technical language of the church. The compiler identified the ritual units, the building blocks of the hours, essentially in one of three ways. One was by giving the opening phrase: the “Come, let us worship,’ “Everything that has breath” or “God is the Lord” Troparia are similarly identified. For the psalms both the opening phrase and the psalm number are given, making it easy to find them in the first part of the manuscript. Other units bear something like a name: the Trisagion, The Trinitarian Hymns; Psalms 148-50 are called the Ainoi (the psalms of praise, or lauds in the Western church). Finally, there are the generic designations for variable elements—Hymns of Light, canons, hypakoe—that may derive from content, place in the service, or some other aspect of the hymn. The roots of these terms do not always lead to a correct understanding of their meaning or implication. The prokeimena, from prokeimai, ought to be the things that invariably come before, requiring a close connection with something immediately following, as is generally the case, but as noted above a prokeimenon can at times also be a free-standing unit. The kathismata, from kathidzo, ought to be things done sitting down, but the psalms recitations, to which the word often pertains, were performed standing. This last and other problems of naming are taken up by Stefano Parenti in his commentary on the horologion.
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