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Vol. 83 (1995): Our Past

Articles

The development of the memorative liturgy among the Cistercians from simple forms to a fully developed obituary

  • Michał Kaczmarek
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52204/np.1995.83.281-293  [Google Scholar]
Published: 1995-06-30

Abstract

While older orders adhered to quite extensive formulas of devotion to the dead, the Cistercians simplified them significantly. Only gradually did individual notes of obituaries, scattered in various liturgical books, begin to be combined into one book. In 1973, Joachim Wollasch (Münster/Westfalen) wrote a study on the memorative liturgy in the Cistercian Order. It was based on a comparison of fourteen commemorative lists from the 12th and 13th centuries, originating from a number of Western European Cistercian monasteries. On January 11, the Cistercians replaced the customary prayer for individual deceased with all-encompassing prayers for the Order's friends and beneficiaries, and similar prayers began to be said for fraternal orders on November 20. It would be interesting to compare the findings of Zakrzewski and Wollasch with the records of the Silesian Cistercians, especially the collection of the monastery in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, which includes the 13th-century "Liber capituli". It contains not only a commemorative list, but also personal obituary entries and a "Liber mortuorum" from the very beginning of the 15th century with an introductory note informing about an earlier book of this type. A comparative analysis of the entries in the martyrology and the Book of the Dead leaves no doubt that the monks from the abbey in Kamieniec performed collective prayers for the dead. However, the monks also retained the custom of mentioning the names of the great beneficiaries of the monastery in prayer. The number of individual obituary entries in the various liturgical books seems to have steadily increased until it became too difficult to manage.

References

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