A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège(Eastman Studies in Music)

Embraces an all-encompassing interdisciplinary methodology to uncover the symbiosis of saintly and civic ideals in music, rituals, and hagiographic writing celebrating the origins and identity of a major clerical center. Medieval Liege was the seat of a vast diocese in northwestern Europe and a city of an exceptional number of churches, clergymen, and church musicians. Recognized as a priestly paradise, the city accommodated as many Masses each day as Rome. In this volume, musicologist Catherine Saucier examines the music of religious worship in Liege and reveals within the liturgy and ritual a civic function by which local clerics promoted the holy status of their city. Analyzing hagiographic and historical writings, religious art, and sung ceremonies relevant to the city's genesis, destruction, and eventual rebirth, Saucier uncovers richly varied ways in which liegeois clergymen fused music with text, image, and ritual to celebrate the city's sacred episcopal origins and saintly persona. A Paradise of Priests forges new interdisciplinary connections between musicology, the liturgical arts, the cult of saints, church history, and urban studies, and is an essential resource for scholars and students interested in the history of the Low Countries, hagiography and its reception, and ecclesiastical institutions. CatherineSaucier is assistant professor of music history at Arizona State University.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Sound of Civic Sanctity in the Priestly Paradise of Liège Martyred Bishops and Civic Origins: Promoting the Clerical City The Intersecting Cults of Saints Theodard and Lambert: Validating Bishops as Martyrs The Civic Cult of Saint Hubert: Venerating Bishops as Founders Clerical Concord, Disharmony, and Polyphony: Commemorating Bishop Notger's City Military Triumph, Civic Destruction, and the Changing Face of Saint Lambert's Relics: Invoking the Defensor patriae Conclusion: Hearing Civic Sanctity Appendix: Medieval Service Books Preserving the Chant Repertory Sung in the City of Liège Notes Bibliography Index

Review :
This study is as revelatory for the details of city politic as it is for an understanding of the liturgy that was proper to local worship practices. The book is generously illustrated with texts and translations, liturgical tables, tabular textual comparisons, and with extensive musical and artistic examples, each of which is examined with a deft interpretive palette and assessed for the import of chronological context. The culmination of more than a decade of careful archival and analytical work about the music and culture of Liège (in modern Belgium). Demonstrates how music, hagiography, and civic identity were intimately intertwined in Liège during the late Middle Ages. A particularly useful volume because of the music transcriptions and translations of chant texts, many of which are not available in the Cantus Index. Balances thorough archival work with analysis of music and text. Because of its broad scope, clear organization, and accessible style, this rich book will be of service not only to musicologists but also to scholars of liturgy, hagiography, church history, and urban history. Weaves a compelling narrative centred on the lives of Liège's founder-bishops as celebrated in the hagiography, art, rituals and music made, enacted and re-enacted by the medieval clerical population of Liège. An expert examination of an impressively vast array of sources -- including archival, liturgical, artistic and hagiographic. A must-read for anyone interested in how one might locate the fashioning of a city's image in the extant remains of story, art, music and ritual. An impeccably organized and elegantly crafted discussion of the previously under-appreciated liturgical materials of medieval Liège, and an enlightening study of the interrelations between liturgical chants and the civic culture in which they existed and which they sought to uphold. It serves as a model of how a study of localized liturgy should be treated, and as a valuable resource for those interested in the ecclesiastical history of the city (it includes a helpful handlist of chant books from the diocese of Liège, to encourage further attention). Saucier's A Paradise of Priests represents a substantial achievement in a number of fields, including medieval and Renaissance musicology, urban history, and church history. The book's readable style will make it accessible to students as well as to scholars and teachers. A seamless and compelling narrative. Saucier's monograph is a vital contribution to the study of music, politics, and identity construction through the celebration of local saints in the Middle Ages. Saucier's study is grounded in detailed readings of the office texts and melodies . . . and is rounded out by a deft application of historical and art-historical research findings . . . . Fluently written.