Orden und Klöster
Liturgy has often served as a source for studying the identities of medieval religious
communities through examining local saints and special chants or ceremonies. This article
deepens such approaches by considering the practice of liturgical coordination, which
required each convent to reconcile the obligations imposed upon it by the order to
which it belonged, the diocese in which it lay, and the personal networks of its sisters.
The shifting dates of the Easter cycle created a wide variety of possible calendrical conflicts
and necessitated that each convent’s liturgical practice be organized anew every year.
Focusing on German-language liturgical manuals from Observant Dominican convents,
this article introduces these sources and examines the various obligations, authorities,
and sources of advice that Dominican sisters coordinated when planning each year’s
liturgy. It then turns to the concrete example of a major calendrical conflict on May 1,
1519, which illustrates how convents negotiated their networked obligations and defended
their decisions. Supplementing traditional sources such as chronicles and charters,
liturgical administrative documents reveal how each convent’s liturgical identity was
both iterative and networked and how the tensions between these features opened up
spaces for assertive decision-making.
Der Mittelpunkt des monastischen Lebens ist seit
Jahrhunderten die Heilige Schrift. Sie ist nicht
nur Gegenstand persönlicher Meditation, sondern
die Grundlage des klösterlichen Betens. Die Ordensleute versammelten sich siebenmal zum gemeinsamen Beten, dessen Texte dem Alten und
Neuen Testament entnommen sind. Es waren im
Mittelalter viele Codices zur Feier der Messe und
der Offizien nötig. Doch im Laufe des 12. Jahrhunderts, durch die häufige Abwesenheit des
päpstlichen Hofes von Rom bedingt, wurde ein
gekürztes Offizium notwendig.