Amalarius and the Medieval Liturgy

This course will be devoted to a close reading of the liturgical commentaries of the brilliant Carolingian bishop and diplomat Amalarius of Metz (ca. 775-ca. 850). Amalarius was a pioneer of the "allegorical" method of liturgical exegesis. Although his political enemies secured the condemnation of some of his ideas as heretical, Amalarius's writings were enormously influential and were adapted and imitated by liturgical commentators into the late Middle Ages. After a being introduced to the forms and genres of the early medieval liturgy and to Amalarius's career and allegorical method, we will read the bulk of Amalarius's genuine surviving exegetical writings alongside relevant early medieval liturgical texts. At all times we will situate Amalarius's concerns against the wider backdrop of liturgical developments in his age and against current trends in scholarship on rnedievalliturgy. This course will be suitable both for students who have had some prior instruction in medieval liturgy, and for those with no prior experience who are willing to make rapid progress in the subject.