The Durham Collectar

By Alicia Corra

Few liturgical historians are aware that a book of collects for the Divine Office formed part of the service-books owned by a monk or priest in Anglo-Saxon England. Conciliar decrees and liturgical rules remain silent about its existence. Only the surviving manuscripts remain; from them, it is possible to answer questions about the function and development of the collectar, and its effect on Anglo-Saxon liturgy. The Durham Cathedral Library, MS. A.IV.19, misnamed the Durham Ritual', is the earliest collectar to have survived in England. It has been tentatively dated to the early tenth century, written in the south of England from an unknown exemplar. It has received two editions and a facsimile; yet two questions are still unresolved: where did it come from, and how was it used. To answer the first, a new edition of the Latin text only is presented in this volume. Each prayer is numbered and sourced, where possible, referring to the major sacramentary traditions and to the relevant English and continental liturgical books. Extensive collation tables arrange these findings in a systematic manner, indicating at a glance the most influential liturgical sources. In the introduction, the function of the collectar is discussed. The A.IV.19 is compared with the eight continental collectars which pre-date it, and with such well-known eleventh-century English books as the Leofric Collectar and the Wulfstan Portiforium. Clearly, at this time, the collectar was more abundant and better organized. By the twelfth century, the collectar is still used, but its association is so intertwined with other office material that it is but a small step away from the breviary. ALICIA CORREA is Research Assistant at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1870252403
• ISBN13: 9781870252409
• Release Date: December 1992
• Publisher: Henry Bradshaw Society
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"