Commentaries on the liturgy constitute a significant, but still unjustly neglected literary genre in the medieval period. In recent decades, excellent critical editions have been produced of some of the major monuments of the genre, including the De ecclesiasticis officiis of John Beleth (c. 1160), the Mitralis de officiis of Sicard of Cremona (c. 1200) and the Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand (c. 1280-1300). This makes the decision of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series, lavishly produced on high quality paper in two volumes of a comfortable size, to include an edition and lightly annotated translation of the Gemma animae of Honorius Augustodunensis all the more welcome. According to their dust jackets, the edition and translation are the work of two scholars, both doctoral students at the time of publication. There is much to applaud about these two volumes. Honorius (c. 1080-c. 1140) is a mysterious author, who has long resisted easy identification. From the extensive research of the late Valerie Flint, we know that he spent much of his life in Regensburg, perhaps at the imperial chapel, before becoming a monk at Lambach in around 1133. Because so much research on twelfth-century Europe tends to focus on the intellectual dynamism of northern France, and of Paris in particular, the assumption is often made, at least by Francophile scholars, that Honorius is an outsider, whose literary output is more derivative than original. Yet the sheer number of surviving copies (seventy-two) of his many different writings, especially in the region of southern Germany and Austria raise a question about how we should account for its popularity. Why should a new Latin-English version of this large work, taking up well over a thousand pages across two volumes, attract our attention?

The originality of the title of this treatise itself deserves comment. The translators render the last line of its preface: “For you see, just as gold is adorned by a jewel, so the soul is made lovely by divine services” (vol. I, 9). One may quibble about minor issues of translation, such as adding to this sentence “For you see,” or rendering divino officio as “divine services” rather than “the divine office.” As a whole, the translation favours fluency over verbatim fidelity, a bonus for those who are not Latinists, but who wish to understand the importance of allegorical commentary on the liturgy. The Latin text offered here is not that of a critical edition. We learn from a note on the text at the end of the second volume that it is based on a single manuscript (Admont, Benediktinerstift, Cod. 366), silently corrected by a handful of geographically dispersed manuscripts, including from Lambach. Given the high standard of existing critical editions of liturgical commentaries, it is unfortunate that so little explanation is given here about the history of its text and of the additional notes, offered in appendices

The editors provide a relatively brief introduction to the allegorical style of this treatise, explaining simply that it builds on the work of Amalarius of Metz in the first half of the ninth century. It is not always clear in the notes just when Honorius is repeating or reshaping tradition. No reference is made to the vitriolic attacks on Amalarius as provoking heretical and inane fantasies made by Florus of Lyon, a partisan of Agobard of Lyon. Given the contested nature of liturgical commentary in the Carolingian period, Honorius can be seen as providing a sophisticated synthesis of intricate ritual detail (such as Amalarius loved) and a coherent explanation that enabled any participant in liturgy to appreciate its relationship to the Gospel and to spiritual life in general. Honorius is an imaginative writer, skilled in the rhyming prose style of Gregory the Great. The translators capture this style in declarations like: “I loose the hawsers of my words from the harbor of leisure, drive the battered ship of my quill out into the squalls of invention, and, unfurling the sails of my commentary, I entrust them to the wind of the Holy Spirit” (vol. I, 5). Comparing the beginning of the Gemma animae to the De ecclesiasticis officiis of Amalarius of Metz enables us to see how Honorius creates a more satisfying structure for his treatise. He begins not with the season of Lent as building up to Easter, but with the liturgy of the Mass. He opens with a vivid picture of the liturgical procession by which the Mass begins, explaining the role of each of the actors involved.

Individual chapters illustrate an imaginative mind. Thus, cantors are presented (1.16) as the apostles who teach God’s praises. They summon all to the schola Dei. Honorius (1.17) picks up on the scriptural image of the servant plowing a field to explain that the plow is our service. “The plowman is he who rends hearts with the plow of compunction” (vol. I: 41). Honorius portrays an ideal liturgy, in which the reading of the Gospel is followed by a sermon to the people about penance, faith, and confession (1.25). While Honorius never explains his own role within the Church, it is clear that he is providing a template against which clerics could strive to understand their role within the liturgy. There are brief comments on the way of life of nuns, widows, and lay sisters (1.239-242), but without detail.

While the first of its four books cover the Mass and its participants, the second deals with the other parts of the divine office. The third book deals with special feasts in the Church’s year. Some of his allegorical interpretations may sometimes seem forced, but they convey a desire to relate ritual to human experience. Thus, Honorius explains (3.50) that “the Lenten season is the life of each man, plunged into the sadness of tribulation here below” (vol. II, 91). He compares the six weeks to the ages of man (infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, old age and decrepitude). He explains that for baptism (officially reserved for Easter and Pentecost, although the rite could be performed by any Christian at any time), a godparent should have a basic knowledge of the Catholic faith and the Lord’s prayer, in the vernacular or in Latin (3.115). The fourth book explains how all the feasts of the year fit together.

The editors are to be congratulated for producing a volume that makes liturgical ritual accessible to a wider public. Students of medieval liturgical manuscripts and visual art will find helpful detail. While later liturgical commentators, like John Beleth, might draw more on secular examples to explain specific rituals, Honorius has his own way of explaining liturgy through a rich knowledge of scripture. These two volumes help show how the Gemma animae can illuminate the meaning of medieval liturgical ritual.