Missale Gothicum (MS Reg. Lat. 317 of the Vatican Library, henceforth: MG) is presented in the "Acknowledgements" by the author (7) as a "new and revised edition based on a study of the manuscript and its linguistic characteristics" and a response to the need "to supplement the work of Bannister [edition of the Henry Bradshaw Society, 1917-1919] and Mohlberg" [edition of 1961]. Unfortunately, this announced response to the need for a supplement turns into a succession of lost opportunities to advance scholarship through some original contributions, but repeats--with some omissions and misunderstandings--what others have said. Ironically, the saving grace of this edition is something not explicitly stated, perhaps not even envisioned, by the author: the availability in the prestigious Corpus Christianorum series of a wealth of liturgical prayers formerly used in the Gallican liturgy, and the striking word-image relationship made visible by four splendid plates (fols. 39v, 140v, 169v, 206).
The text of MS Reg. Lat. 317 is preceded by an "Introduction" of 328 pages divided as follows: "Chapter I: The Missale Gothicum; Manuscript and Printed Editions" (11-22), "Chapter II: Liturgical Latin" (23-187), "Appendix: Liturgical Commemoration of the Saints in the Missale Gothicum" (189-328). The Latin text of MG follows (350-544). A bibliography (329-348) and indices (545-596) round out the volume.
On the positive side of this new edition there is the beautiful typographical presentation: technology has made great strides since 1961, and it shows. Nevertheless, perplexities abound. First, concerning the apparatus. It is not clear what kind of audience the author has in mind; if she writes for persons with some knowledge of Latin, there is no need to point out, as Rose does with intell on almost every page, that praecederit should be praecederet, agemus should be agimus, quaesomus should be quaesumus, and so on. In any introductory course in medieval Latin students will be told that "i" is often written for "e," "o" for "u," "y" for "i," and vice versa. If the prospective readers are not Latinate, intell will be lost on them and a translation with Latin text facing would serve them better.
The glossary added to the Mohlberg edition is sorely missed in this one. On the bright side, the concordance of many prayers in MG with prayers in other liturgical books is reported on every page; unfortunately the reader is not told that such prayers, often similar, are not always identical--and the adjustments made in MG to prayers used in other liturgical books can be quite revealing. In two instances (MG prayer 1249 and 177) the prayers are similar to those of the Sacramentarium Veronense, but MG adds the names of the people specifically remembered at each Mass. This is one distinctive Gallican trait, evidence of impact by the community on the local liturgy.
Lost opportunities do not end here. The so-called Tironian notes in MG could indeed be the occasion for a supplement to the Mohlberg edition. Much work has been done on the tachygraphic systems generally called "Tironian notes" since the time of Chatelain and the studies of Steffens and Henke are readily available online. Accepting without further ado all of Mohlberg's suggestions, Rose reports that he attributed the notes to the 9-10 century and to a Frankish cloister. But these notes are in-house memos to the celebrant to remind him to call out the names of people or to provide the proper conclusion to a prayer. Such notes made sense when MG was still used as a service book, not later; and by the ninth or tenth century neither MG nor tachygraphic systems were commonly in use. A study of the Tironian notes could contribute to a better understanding of the chronology of MG and the profile of its users.
The chapter on liturgical Latin is the longest one (23-187), but quantity does not quality make. The author traces the development of liturgical Latin relying heavily on the works of A. Blaise and Christine Mohrmann cited in the bibliography (23-36), then proceeds to discuss orthography (37-54), form and function (67-93), syntax (94- 104), lexicology and semantics (105-181), providing numerous examples drawn from MG as illustration of the findings of Blaise and Mohrmann. All well and good, but most of the linguistic features discussed by Rose are not limited to MG or to Merovingian Latin: confusion between ablative and accusative, o and u, omitted accusative endings can be found in the graffiti at Pompeii. But, while street Latin in the graffiti can be reasonably attributed to the limited education of the artist, authors such as Gregory of Tours and Ursinus, the hagiographer of the second passio of Saint Leodegar, made it clear to their readers that they were writing in the language of their day so as to be understood by all, and that they wrote in the language of the people out of choice, not out of ignorance. In the diligent compilation by Rose there is total disregard for the context of the linguistic traits of MG, nor does she inquire whether such traits are common to other writers (Gregory of Tours and "Fredegar" come easily to mind) and/or indicative of a given geographical area, or social environment. Pity, because a comparative study of the language of MG could be very useful for a contextualization of the work.
Not all prayers in MG fit into the patterns discussed by Rose. For example, the Mass of the Innocents (368-370), not found in any liturgical book included in the Index locorum parallelorum, is not written in Merovingian Latin, but rather in the highly polished and rhetorical style of Gallo-Roman writers: the name that comes to mind is that of Sidonius Apollinaris, who, as Gregory of Tours informs us, wrote Masses: in praefatione libri, quem de missis ab eo compositis coniunximus, plenius declaravimus [in the preface to the book about the masses composed by him, which we appended], (H. F. 2.22). Could a systematic study of these Masses point to a southern environment, say, the school of Bordeaux, and could their flawless Latin indicate that some parts of MG were originally written in southern Gaul, then copied in MG? Since some quires are lost, we cannot--strictly speaking--rule out that the book was originally a missal. Missale Gothicum, which means Visigothic, is perhaps right after all. Thus, the remark by Rose to the effect that "the book is neither a missal nor a work of a 'Gothic' nature or origin" (12) appears unduly hasty.
For a work "based on the study of the manuscript" (Acknowledgements) the section on "Manuscripts and Printed Editions" (11-22) on palaeography, codicology, and textual transmission, is thin indeed. Worse, some statements are misleading. Mabillon, the founding father of palaeography, does not fare well in the author's estimation: we read that he "did not go to this trouble"--to base his edition on the study of codex BAV, Reg. Lat. 317, that is (18). But Mabillon did study the manuscript and discussed its script and readings, occasionally disagreeing with Tomasi, in his De liturgia gallicana libri tres (reprint in PL 72:99-224), inexplicably omitted from Rose's bibliography. Pity, because, had she read Mabillon, the author would know that the he corrected the reading "aufetis" to "neophytis" well before Bannister and Mohlberg, whom she cites in the apparatus (450).
The remark that the uncial script of MG is "archaic for the period" (12) is puzzling, because the use of uncial as opposed to other types of script is related not only to chronology, but to the intended use of the manuscript. Uncial is a book-hand, appropriate for display and luxury editions. In Rome it was used regularly until the ninth century. The codex Morgan 334 (the only dated codex from Luxeuil), written in uncial, is dated 669. MG was written in uncial because it is a display book, and the real challenge would be to identify its type of uncial. A systematic comparison should be easier after the studies of Petrucci on Roman uncial, of Troncarelli on the uncial of Vivarium, of Palma on that of the Castellum Lucullanum at Naples. The uncial of MG does present distinctive traits (ligature of T with the vowel that follows, typical of hand B) and it would be interesting to see whether it is an imitation script or witness to an independent tradition.
Rose's statement on the "school of Luxeuil" (15) is another example of superficial analysis. Rose remarks that "The decorative style points toward the school of Luxeuil, partly by reason of kinship with the ornamental style of the Luxeuil lectionary" (15). Thus, she dismisses a complex question with a vague statement and a reference to Mohlberg in footnote 20. Some initials--specifically the elongated H in MG, fol. 174v, and that in the Luxeuil Lectionary (MS Paris, BNF Lat. 13246) fol. 84v--are indeed similar. But this simple fact raises more questions than it provides answers--for the "school of Luxeuil" refers to a decorative style and a type of script, neither of which have been satisfactorily dated or located. The Lectionary of Luxeuil, so named because Mabillon found it in the monastery of Luxeuil, was not necessarily written there: its liturgy is that of Paris and its script ("script of Luxeuil") is a regional pre-caroline minuscule attested-- as Leclercq noted as early as 1925 in DACL 6/2:1424--from Trier to Fulda to Reichenau, to Italy (Ivrea, Bobbio, and Verona), to France (Flavigny, Soissons, Paris, Corbie and Arras). In 1963 Michael Putnam demolished the theory that the script of Luxeuil radiated from the scriptorium at Luxeuil. Since only some decorations in MG are in the style of "Luxeuil" (a fact that Zimmermann, ignored in Rose's bibliography, noted as early as 1916), the challenge would be to see which stylistic influences are present in MG. To say that some decorations in MG point to the school of Luxeuil adds nothing to scholarship.
The Appendix, "Liturgical Commemoration of the Saints in the Missale Gothicum" (189-328), may be useful as an introduction to the cult of various saints in the Merovingian age, but does not add information beyond what has been said by the Bollandists as regards hagiography, or by Bruno Krusch as regards the life of Saint Leodegar, a key figure in MG because the date of his martyrdom (678/679) is the terminus post quem for the compilation of MG. There are some perplexing points. The author states that "according to Krusch this second work [the Passio secunda] is a forgery" (383 note 83). Krusch, who was not particularly fond of medieval religion, said only that the second passio has little historical value, suspecting (and he was probably right) that it was based on the first one. Ursinus, who wrote the second passio at the behest of the bishop of Poitiers, never claimed direct knowledge of the events, saying only that he had drawn his material from reliable sources (see note 1). It is questionable whether such re-writing can be called a forgery and at any rate Krusch did not use the word; nor are there good reasons to doubt that Ursinus was the author and bishop Ansoald of Poitiers the patron.
Even more perplexing is the author's remark on Leodegar in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum: Leodegar's dates (martyrdom and translation of the body to Poitiers) "are not yet given in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum" (314). The dates could not be recorded at the time of compilation of the Martyrologium (fifth century according to some, c. 628/629 according to others), but Krusch reported faithfully that the depositio [burial], then corrected to passio sancti Leodegarii was eventually noted in the codex Bern, Bergerbibliothek 289.
All in all, this edition of MG is a beautiful presentation of a collection of prayers for the sacrifice of the Mass as well as a reminder of the many problems that still await solution. A witness to piety and a challenge to scholarship: habent sua fata libelli.