Inscribed in the Book of Life: Liturgical Commemoration in Merovingian Gaul

Abstract

The present chapter discusses the ritual of reciting names in the public performance of the Merovingian mass and studies the prayers accompanying this ritual based on sources dating to the late seventh and early eighth centuries. This study focuses on how membership of the Christian community was defined and, more specifically, on the composition of the liturgical assembly that gathered on Sundays and feasts for the public celebration of mass. The effort to create and strengthen the idea of membership in and belonging to the Christian community in this complex time of great change was not marked by the development and consequent use of an entirely new vocabulary, but rather by the reuse of existing terminology, derived from ancient and biblical discourse concerned with citizenship and belonging. The public celebration of the cult is one of the loci in which this vocabulary was filled with new, sometimes radically changed, meanings.