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Cosima Clara Gillhammer, "Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy" (Reaktion Books, 2025)
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A
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B
Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm your host, Gregory McNeff, and I'm excited to be joined by Kosima Clara Gelhammer, the author of Light on Darkness, the Untold Story of the Liturgy. The book was published by RTIAN in the United States in June of 2025. Kosima is a Career Development Fellow in English at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. She teaches and researches medieval literature, culture, and liturgy. Her books include a late medieval history of the ancient and biblical world. I selected Light on Darkness because it beautifully reveals how art, religion and ritual have intertwined to shape the Western imagination. The book shows that liturgy is not just a boring and antiquated reflection of theology, but a living art form that unites sound, symbol, and beauty across centuries. And exploring how sacred practice became the wellspring of Western creativity. It reminds us that beauty and belief are timeless. As an aside, the production quality of the book is fantastic. It's definitely a book you want to own rather than borrow or read on an electronic device. Hello, Kasima, thank you for joining me today to discuss your book.
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C
Hello, it's a pleasure to be here.
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B
Kasima, why did you write Light on Darkness and who is the target reader?
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C
Well, the story of why I wrote the book is, in the first place, a Personal one. So my job is to teach undergraduate in English Literature at Oxford University about medieval literature and culture. Now, to understand medieval literature, one needs to understand the cultural context in which it is embedded and liturgical texts. So the forms and prayers of church services are a crucial source of inspiration for medieval poets and writers. And the problem I've frequently encountered is that this is a context that has lost two students in the modern world. Of course, everyone comes from a different background and may or may not be closely familiar with Christian faith and particularly with liturgical texts. So in the first place, really, this book was a teaching book and an introduction for my first year students to help them with their studies. But as I wrote it, it grew into something broader that might, I hope, also be of interest to the general reader. So, to anyone who's interested in Western art, literature, music and culture, it's perhaps also worth saying that this is not a book that's primarily aimed at experts, at readers who are already closely familiar with the form of church services or liturgical texts. It's very much trying to speak to anyone who perhaps thinks ritual and church rites and prayers are stuffy or antiquated or not worth our time. And it's attempting to convince them of the contrary and show why they're relevant.
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B
Perfect. Throughout the book, you refer to the Christian Church. And just to clarify, when you say liturgy, at least with respect to the Mass, is it primarily the Roman Catholic Church, or could you maybe define exactly what you mean by liturgy in terms of the time?
- [04:01]
C
Sure, sure, yes. So to define liturgy. So the term liturgy itself is derived from ancient Greek, means public service, service of the gods or public worship. So liturgy is a term that's commonly used to refer to the forms of public worship in the Christian church. Now, such forms of worship in Christianity, as in many other faith, are characterized by a prescribed set of words, prayers, songs, gestures and movement. And my book is specifically concerned with the Western liturgy. So the forms of Christian worship that gained their distinctive form in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, and therefore they're particularly associated with Roman Catholicism. So we're going back to the medieval period, when most of these liturgical forms gained their distinctive shape before any split within between Catholicism and Protestantism had emerged. So we're going back before that time and then looking sort of further forward in current times. This is, I suppose, most closely represented by the Roman Catholic Church. But that's not to say that Protestant Churches don't also have an inheritance of this tradition. So, for instance, the Book of Common Prayer and the Anglican Church was very, very closely related to these medieval liturgical forms as well.
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B
And just to clarify, you actually answered that the Anglican Church, but some other Protestant or Christian denominations still have a strong connection with liturgy. Is that fair?
- [05:42]
C
That's fair, yes. It will depend on which particular Protestant church. We're kind of looking at specific forms of worship. Three churches are a bit more flexible with our forms of worship, et cetera. But I think it's safe to say that in almost any form and practice of Christianity today, there is some sense of an inheritance of this tradition.
- [06:06]
B
Yeah, perfect. In the beginning of the book, you talk about the relationship between liturgy and Western civilization. And specifically, you say liturgy is the root of Western culture, and you talk about the best kept secret being, quote, liturgy is the center of the cultural history of the West. Could you talk about that relationship?
- [06:25]
C
Sure. Yes. So liturgy being the root of Western culture is really the central thesis of the book. The book aims to show that the liturgy is not only important for followers of the Christian faith, but that it underlies and inspires the cultural history of Western Europe. Its music, art, literature, and architecture is shaped by and developed out of the liturgy. So without the liturgy, we wouldn't have Dante's Divine Comedy, we wouldn't have Milton, we wouldn't have Renaissance art, we wouldn't have Michelangelo's Pieta, we wouldn't have Moses, Requiem, et cetera, et cetera. The list continues. But also, and this may be surprising for many people, the liturgy also continues to influence popular culture today. So we find it inspiring. Pop songs, but also movie soundtracks. So in the book, you'll also find out what the Star wars score has to do with medieval liturgy or perhaps unexpected connection.
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B
Yeah, no, I know you make a number of those sort of connections with popular or maybe secular culture throughout the book, and I found a lot of them interesting, and I want to get to that before we do, just to drill a little more into liturgy. You earlier referred to it the perception being antiquated. And in your book, you talk about ritual being stiff, cumbersome, uninspiring. But you actually suggest the liturgy of the Christian church is dynamic and vibrant, quote, which expresses with astonishing variety and creativity, universal human experiences. And I think you just touched that on that with the art references. But could you. Could you maybe expand on that a little more? That sort of variety and creativity, it seems like it blends different traditions and evolves.
- [08:07]
C
Sure, sure. Yeah. So this is probably the greatest prejudice against liturgy and the reason why it's so little known today, especially from a modern perspective. We often think of ceremonies and rituals as something that's formal and stiff and boring, something I have to sit through rather than something you enjoy. But even from a secular perspective, when we think about it, our lives are suffused by rites and rituals and various different shapes. They don't have to be religious, but we may have our own private rituals, like things that we do habitually and that add structure to our day. So many people would describe the morning as a private ritual without which they couldn't quite start the day in the. The right. In the right way. And we also have rituals, of course, that we share with our friends and with family at specific occasions. Something like putting up a Christmas tree on the same day every year, reading a bedtime story to our children at the same time every day, whatever it may be. So all of these things have a special recognizable format which always stays roughly the same and which recurs at regular intervals. And then, of course, there are also big ritual ritualized events which can be political, like the swearing in of a president, or they can be related to sports. Think about the ceremony surrounding the super bowl, for instance. So rites and rituals are fundamental to our lives, even if we like to think of ourselves as quite relaxed and informal. And what I suggest in the book is that the rites of the Christian church are not stocky and boring, but they engage very deeply with fundamental experiences such as love and joy and grief and suffering. So in the way that the liturgy commemorates specific events of the life of Christ, it taps very profoundly into what it means to be human, because the Christian faith is fundamentally built upon the belief that God himself became human. And so as the liturgical year takes us through the birth of Christ, to his death on the cross and resurrection, we engage both with the specifics of the Christian faith, but also with universal emotions and experiences that are common to all of humanity.
- [10:32]
B
How does the expression lex arandi, lex credendi reflect the importance of ritual in the. In Christian prayer?
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C
Okay, so lex arandia, lex credendi is, Is. Is a motto in the Christian tradition, meaning the law of prayer is the law of belief. And it hints at a specific process of reciprocal influence between how we worship and what we believe. So let's think about what rituals of worship entail. In rituals, a set of common beliefs is acted out in a symbolic setting in community with others. So, for example, in religious ceremonies, the congregation pray together, kneel, bow their heads, sing together, shake hands, or perform a number of other symbolic actions in accordance with their beliefs. Most people will see this as an expression of an individual's Belief. So I'm a member of a church, and so I attend worship in a specific form. But as this motto indicates, interestingly, there's a reciprocal process at work. So these symbolic actions and a ritual model. In a ritual model, a certain set of behaviors, which in turn encourages individuals to embody these behaviors in their daily lives. This may sound a bit technical, but to put it in other words, rituals help members of the community internalize their beliefs. So this is a dynamic that's well documented in anthropology for rites and rituals across cultures. The idea that if one must act as though one believed, one ends in believing as one acts. So worship and belief are in a reciprocal relationship. Not only are the religious beliefs reflected in the form of worship, but the inverse is also true. So the law of prayer, the form of worship that we find in the liturgy, is not just an arbitrary choice according to individual taste, but it actively influences Christian faith. So how we pray, how we express and act out our beliefs, matters for the individual and for their life within the community. So we can think of liturgy as both a personal practice, a way in which individuals express their religious beliefs, but it's at the same time the manifest practice of a community in which individuals come together in public worship. And this then in turn strengthens this community and instills in individuals a sense of belonging. So it's kind of a cyclical relationship.
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B
Would you say there's a catechetical function to the liturgy?
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C
I think that certainly is to the liturgy. It's something that the book doesn't focus on in great detail, I would say. But, yes, there's certainly a catechetical function. The fundamental beliefs of Christianity are referred to throughout the religious ritual. For instance, the creed forms part of the liturgy of the Mass on specific feast days, and, of course, a part of the. Certainly the Sunday service is devoted to preaching. So we've got readings from Scripture and then preaching, where the meaning of scriptural passages and the relevance of particular feast days, episodes from the life of Christ, et cetera, are explained to the congregation, are expounded. So it certainly also serves the function of the religious education of the congregation, amongst many other things.
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B
You refer to the Middle Ages repeatedly throughout your book. In particular, how was the liturgy more integrated in the daily lives of Christians, both lay and religious, in that period, relative to today?
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C
Yes. So, well, from a modern perspective in the west, we think of religious practice as more or less a personal choice. So whether you go to church services or not is very much up to you. This was quite different in the Middle Ages. The liturgy was part of the fundamental structure of people's daily lives. So maybe to contextualize, there were two main forms of the liturgy, the Mass. So that was the church service that was attended by basically everyone on Sundays. And then there's the liturgy of the hours, the regular prayers at eight set hours throughout the day in monasteries and convents. So this was how your day was structured if you were living a religious life. But these liturgical hours are also important to the laity. For instance, many of the most beautiful illuminated and illustrated medieval manuscripts are books of hours that contain the liturgical text or private prayer by lay Christians. So whether lay or religious, everyone was familiar with at least some aspects of liturgical practice. And this is why the shared knowledge then suffused literature, art and music, because it was integral to daily life. The liturgical calendar intersected with and defined the rhythm of daily life as well. So holy days, feasts, anniversaries, rituals formed the social fabric of medieval society, really. And they were important not only as religious occasions, but also for secular activities in trade and commerce, and also such mundane duties as paying rent. So you would frequently have to pay rent four times a year at Candelas, at Pentecost, at Lammas, which was a harvest festival, and on All Saints Day. So the presence of Mass, of course, in words like candleness and Christmas, indicates the importance of religious services on these dates. But evidently the liturgical celebration did not impede transactions of a more secular nature on these festivals, like handing over your rent.
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B
Yeah, that's interesting. Even universities today, I think, still celebrate, like, Michaelmas at the beginning of the semester. So there's definitely of the liturgy and secular culture. Yes, you talk about the liturgy involving all the senses, not just the intellect. And specifically, you say, quote, channel, sound, sight, smell and movement. It demands to be experienced. Can you comment on that? On how it has that sort of immersive or total approach, rather than just sort of a mental understanding?
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C
Yes. Well, to really understand how the liturgy functions, we have to imagine these religious rites within the context and the spaces in which they take place. Because fully understanding the experience of a liturgical ritual, its effect on all the senses within the astonishing space of the church, requires bodily presence at this ritual. So imagine being in this, say, in a medieval cathedral, the scent of the incense, the stone around you, the beautiful statues, gold, etc. So the liturgy and the way it channels sound, sight, smell and movement really demands to be experienced in a fully embodied form, because it demands participation in community with others. So in a liturgical celebration, as I've mentioned, there's a series of postures and movements that are required not only of the priest and the service, but also the congregation you have assembled. So together, the congregation kneels, stands, sits, makes the sign of the cross, goes up towards the altar to make an offering, and so on. So the liturgy follows an intricate dramaturgical logic in which all of those who are present in the ritual participate in some form. And this then becomes a unified whole which speaks to all the senses within a dedicated sacred space. And of course, there's also music, there is singing. Everything contribute to this overall experience within the space.
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B
That's interesting. I want to you talk about the psalms in a specific chapter of the book, and you note how popular they were in the Middle Ages due to their powerful introspective and confessional qualities. Why do you think Psalm 51 in particular played such an important part of medieval liturgical practice?
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C
Okay, so Psalm 51 is also known as the Miserere Psalm. So this is one of the so called penitential psalms of the church. It starts with the words, have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness, according to the multitude of thy mercies, do away mine offenses. And that really sets the the theme for this entire psalm. It expresses in a particularly memorable way feelings of sinfulness, of remorse and prayerful petition. Traditionally, this psalm has been read as an expression of King David's remorse after an illicit affair with Bathsheba, as indicated in the superscription that is often attached to it, which is a psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after he had sinned with Bathsheba. So this alludes to a story from 2 Samuel 11:12, where King David has this affair with Bathsheba and he has her husband Uriah killed. And it is at this point when the tradition places Psalm 51, when the Prophet Nathan comes to David and reproaches him. And the psalm ascribes to David's voice the expression of deep regret, calling to God from the depths of guilt and sinfulness. So this is the historical context, as it were. But in the liturgical practice of the Church, this psalm becomes a more general prayer that expresses the sense of sinfulness and asks God for forgiveness. It was part of the Liturgy of the hours and religious communities and had a very prominent liturgical role there. So it was one of the liturgical texts that were frequently set to music in medieval times and also post medieval times. In the medieval church, the psalm would often have been recited or chanted. And this chanting of the psalm typically happened according to a set pattern which the first and the second part of the Psalm verse would have alternated between the two sides of the choir. So through the singing of this psalm text, it was realized by an applied to the present congregation. So in the moment of liturgical performance, the congregation inhabits the text and the speaker of the psalm. So the eye of the Psalm is no longer primarily the voice of the Psalmist or of King David himself, if that's how you want to read it. But it also becomes the eye of every individual worshipper who is contemplating their own sinfulness and asking for forgiveness.
- [21:14]
A
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30 day free trial@lifelock.com Podcast terms apply in the chapter on love, you spent a fair amount of time discussing the Song of Solomon. Would you characterize that as erotic?
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C
Yes. Well, the, the Song of Solomon or Song of Songs, it's. It's been called by different names. Is. Is. Yes, basically on a. On a basic level, it's a dialogue between two lovers. So it's also one of the books of the Old Testament, perhaps quite surprisingly for some some readers, because it's situated there in the canon of the Old Testament, next to Histor, historical books and chronicles. But the subject matter of erotic love is clear from the outset. The song starts with let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. So we have this imagery of the poem that is really rich and suggestive. The eyes of the beloved are compared to doves, her cheeks to pomegranate, her breast to twins of a gazelle. She's strikingly described as a locked garden containing a verdant scenery of well water, fruits and spices. So the erotic undertones here are quite obvious. But this is kind of a puzzling question of sort of, what would we make of this erotic love poem that's juxtaposed with chronicles and historical books in the Old Testament? So this question of how to make sense of it plays a big role in Jewish tradition as well. And in Jewish sources, a specific line of interpretation developed which helped to accept the Song of Songs as a sacred text, despite its ostensibly, very obviously secular nature. The poem was read as an allegory, as a tale with a hidden meaning of the love between God and his people, the Israelites. And this Jewish allegorical interpretation was later adapted by early Christian interpreters who took the general principle, but then applied it slightly differently. So the Song of Songs with the Song of Solomon began to be read as an allegory of the love between Christ and the Church, or between Christ and the soul of the individual believer. So according to these interpretations, God is presented in the Song of Songs as a passionate lover who pursues his bride, who can be the church or the soul, depending on your reading, using secular and erotic imagery to refer to a spiritual, religious reality.
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B
Is this language or imagery unusual in liturgical texts, this sort of, I guess, the sensual language?
- [24:48]
C
Well, it's certainly unusual within the context of the Old Testament. Now, the liturgy serves a very particular function in the use and interpretation of the imagery of the. The Song of Solomon. A lot of the Song of Solomon revolves around the bridal imagery of these two lovers, the lover sort of singing this song to his bride. And through the liturgy, this eventually came to be applied to a very particular female subject, the Virgin Mary. So according to Christian theological understanding, Mary occupies a unique position in the divine plan of salvation. Although she's human, like all other human beings, she is uniquely privileged to become the human mother of Christ. And according to medieval and Roman Catholic belief, she is conceived without sin herself, and then conceives miraculously by the Holy Spirit. So Mary comes to be thought of as the bride of the Holy Spirit, and yet she is also a child of God, as other humans are. So, in the tradition of biblical interpretation, where God was identified with the male speaker of the Song of Songs, it was probably only a small leap to identify Mary as the bride of the Holy Spirit with the female beloved in the Song of Songs. This is an interpretive tradition that goes back at least to the writings of St. Ambrose in the 4th century. But in the 12th century, this idea is further developed. So the association of the female beloved in the Song of Songs with the Virgin Mary is an idea which arises first and foremost in the liturgy, and then it becomes commonly used on feasts of the Virgin Mary in the liturgical calendar. So to come back to your question, it is in the first instance, quite unusual to have this text in the Old Testament. But then it becomes not at all unusual to be applying this text to particularly the Virgin Mary on specific feast days that are associated with her.
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B
And you talk about a specific term, hortus conclusus, that refers to the Virgin Mary. Could you. Could you talk about why that, that name, that term was applied to her?
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C
Yes. So the term hortus conclusus is a Latin term that means enclosed garden. This is an epithet from the Song of Songs that also came to be applied to the Virgin Mary. So the image was traditionally read as a metaphor of Mary's perpetual virginity, so concealing Jesus by the Holy Spirit. So the image there is that Mary is a locked garden that is impassable to men. So a garden in which only God can enter. And this is a theme that is very much emphasized in symbolic form. For instance, in Renatan's art, images of the Annunciation theme, where Mary's pictured sitting in this enclosed garden, walled garden, when the angel Gabriel brings the message. There's a very famous painting by Frangelico and many others that really play upon this symbolism.
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B
How does the orate celli verse from Isaiah reflect the expectation and yearning of the Advent?
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C
Okay, so a recurring feature of the services in the season of Advent was traditionally the virato cherli verse, again a Latin term that cites the opening of the opening words of Isaiah 45, 8 supert nubis pluandiustum, meaning drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies fall down righteousness. So, strictly speaking, the word rora in Latin refers to the falling of dewdrop, and justum can mean either just thing or just man. So the verse can be understood to refer to a person coming to earth from above, rather than the more abstract righteousness that we find in some translations. It just depends how we translate it. So the poetic conceit of the Latin text is unusual, and it's immediately evocative. The first half of the verse speaks of dewdrops falling from heaven. And in the second half, this image of Jew from heaven may be associated with a person. So let this guy pour down righteousness, or pour down the righteous man. So the original Old Testament text is no more explicit than this. But within Christian understanding and the liturgical symbolism, it being sung in the season of Advent, this just man is associated with the coming of Christ as the Messiah. So this verse occurs in the daily prayer of the Church during Advent and expresses the expectation of the coming of the Savior. In liturgical practice, it's accompanied by the response, aperiatur terra et germinet salvatorum, so let the earth be opened and send forth the Savior. Also a citation from Isaiah. So, after the image of a just man being rained down from heaven, the response then presents us with the inverse image, where the Messiah comes out of the very earth, so springing out of the soil like a new tree. So we have this imagery here where heaven and earth above and below are intimately connected in this verse. So in this way they mirror the miracle of Christ's birth, which combines the heavenly with the earthly, so God with humankind, God becoming man. But the use of this liturgical rev only alludes to these complex theological ideas. So it uses immediately accessible natural images of the dew, of the rain, of the growing of plants to express this expectation of the coming of Christ and the season of Advent.
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B
The image of. I'm sorry, the liturgy of Tenebra, which concerns the three days leading up to Easter, quote, reverberates with the theme of personal accountability and culpability. Could you explain that insight?
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C
Yes, perhaps it's useful to explain the Tenebrae liturgy in a bit more detail here. So the term Tenebrae literally means darkness. So, as you said, this liturgy takes place during the days leading up to Easter. So the most intense part of the liturgical year, in a way, the Tridium of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. So celebrating and commemorating the Passion of Christ and his resurrection. So the Church relives the suffering and the death of Christ through ceremonies of really profound emotional power during these days. And it's not only the texts that create this atmosphere of mourning and loss and shock and horror, but also the way in which they are interwoven with ritual and music. What we have in the Tenebris Tenebrae services is a symbolism of gradual extinguishing of candles during the service, which symbolizes the growing darkness of the world at Christ's crucifixion. So the congregation are plunged into darkness, into ever growing darkness, and participate in this symbolism physically and spiritually. And then at the end, as the candles are slowly extinguished, only one single candle remains, which is then briefly hidden from view and then restored with a loud crashing sound, which is made by knocking on the pews. So a lot of interaction by the congregants. So the symbolism here represents Christ's death and his resurrection. So the light of hope is hidden, but it's not extinguished. And then the return of the light at the end of the ceremony becomes a sign of hope. Darkness has not conquered. And this loud, crashing sound can be read as symbolic of kind of the tomb opening when Christ rises from the dead. So the Tenebrae liturgy has this very intense symbolism of light and darkness, and it also has a series of texts of responsories which are interwoven with psalms, which deepen this atmosphere through poetic and emotional reflections on the Passion. So as an example, the third response response for Good Friday draws upon the image of a vineyard. So to translate into English, oh, vineyard, my chosen one, I planted you. How is your sweetness turned into bitterness? To crucify me and take Barabbas in my place, I surrounded you with a fence, I cleared you off stones and built a watchtower in your defense. So this is a text which adapts imagery from Isaiah 5, where God laments his vineyard that yields only wild grapes, despite his utmost care. And in this use of the responsory in the liturgical ritual, the voice becomes that of Christ himself, who's reproaching his people for their betrayal. So in the liturgical text, Christ speaks directly to his listeners and addresses them as the unfaithful vineyard. So in this way, the Tenebro liturgy reverberates with this theme of personal accountability. Sorry, this theme of personal accountability and culpability. So the text doesn't only recall the disobedience of Israel, but it implicates all of humanity in the Crucifixion. So it's not just an image that's specific to the people of Israel, but it also includes the present congregation. So each participant is invited to confront their own share in this betrayal and sinfulness, to experience the sorrow of repentance. But through the darkness and its final piercing light, when the candle returns, the service leads from guilt to grace and from despair to renewed hope.
- [34:51]
B
Yeah, I think that really captures the idea of interacting with all the senses there, the sights, the sounds. It's definitely a memorable experience for anyone who's been part of that liturgy. I want to continue. You talk about what's called the improperia, or reproaches of Good Friday. And specifically, I found this interesting. You suggest it merges and plays with other literary and liturgical traditions. Could you talk about that? And is there some sort of organic development there? How? You know, again, we think of liturgy as very fixed, particularly these texts going back thousands of years.
- [35:28]
C
Sure. So the improperia are a very old element of the Good Friday Liturgy, they date back to at least the 9th century, and they occur in different forms in both the Eastern and Western churches. So they're essentially a series of rhetorical questions which are directed by God at his people, with the repeated refrain, popular males quid fetchy TB So, O my people, what have I done to you? They're often sung antiphonally, alternating between a cantor and the choir. So the responses are given by the choir. The cantal verses juxtapose God's love and protection of his people in the Old Testament with their rejection of Christ as the Savior. So God, by whom the people of Israel were led out of slavery in Egypt, guided through the desert, fed with manna from heaven, led through the Red Sea, given a powerful kingdom, granted victory over their enemies, this very same God has now been crucified, despite his never wavering faithfulness to his people. So the specific acts of God in the Old Testament are contrasted in a moving way with the suffering of Christ. And the text plays upon the similarity of words and concepts. So, for instance, I opened the sea before you, but you opened my side with a spear. So juxtaposing the Old and New Testament. So the warlike imagery of some of these images that we get here alludes to the violence done to Christ. But the Old Testament references are not just reminders of military victories of the Israelites over their enemies. We encounter here a very basic principle of biblical interpretation called typology. So the Old Testament episodes which are mentioned in the reproaches are key events which have a rich history of interpretation, the Christian tradition. So, for instance, the parting of the Red Sea, which delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians in the Book of Exodus, was traditionally interpreted as a prefiguration of the redemption through Christ, who leads the Christian people out of captivity by the devil. So the sea was seen as a reference to the water of baptism and the drowning of Pharaoh, and scripts was understood to represent the victory over the devil and the forces of hell through Christ's death. So, on one level, the mention of these Old Testament events within the reproaches delve into the emotional landscape of Christ, who's cruelly betrayed by his people. But it also has a deeper meaning, which relates events that were seen as prophecies of the coming of Christ to their fulfillment of Christ. So that's how the liturgical text speaks to this tradition of biblical interpretation and what these images mean in the broader context. So the events of the Red Sea point towards the crucifixion, and it's exactly at this moment of crucifixion, when the voice of Christ, Christ speaks them in the liturgy. So what is emphasized here is a reminder that every individual present has betrayed Christ through wrongful actions, through lack of love and unfaithfulness. So, again, the people of Israel and the Christian people become merged. It's a poetic engagement with the bitterness of betrayal as God's Son is rejected by his own. And this makes his pain relevant to each member of the congregation who's participating in the Good Friday liturgy. And so out of this liturgical text, then, arise other treatments of the same theme and imagery in medieval, but also in early modern poetry. So in the book, I specifically mention the medieval dialogue poem Natura Hominis and Bony Tartar's Day, where there's a similar dialogue, but it goes in a slightly different direction.
- [39:24]
B
Yeah, I think in reference to that poem you talk about, different liturgical and literary traditions are blended together, taking the reader quote on a roller coaster of abrupt changes of direction and surprising views. Not typically how you would describe liturgy, but certainly valid in this case. And you make very good claim for that. Before we shift to art, I was just wondering if you could talk about how important the Liturgy of the Hours were in the daily lives of Christian and sort of connecting these. These moments and, you know, helping them, I guess, stay in the presence of God throughout the day.
- [39:57]
C
Certainly, yes. I mean, if you imagine what your life, if you were a monk or a nun, if you were living a religious life, the Liturgy of the Hours was kind of the fundamental principle according to which your day was structured. You'd start first thing in the morning, wake up whilst it's still dark, say prayers, say the liturgy of Matins, then go back and work, et cetera. So at eight times throughout the day, you're singing psalms, praying psalms, contemplating the year of the feast day, or a specific event in the liturgical calendar that really structures everything you do during the day towards this liturgical context. And it's interesting that lay readers were also very interested in this form of devotion. So it was not just something that the religious did if you were in a monastery or a convent, but also we have lay, aristocratic readers who commission books of ours, beautifully illustrated, often sort of meant for contemplation of the. The event, the life of Christ, but who are certainly also interested in following along and kind of imbuing every day with this religious significance and contemplation.
- [41:15]
B
That's excellent. I want to shift to the importance or the influence of liturgy on the art, which is certainly a central theme of your book, specifically, say Quote, the story of Jesus is the central story around which the Western artistic imagination has revolved for thousands of years. How do you think liturgy can help modernity specifically, better understand the story of Christ and the Christian message, particularly with respect to its influence on art?
- [41:42]
C
Well, I think many modern audiences are very interested and deeply appreciate medieval and Renaissance art. For example, earlier this year, I was at an exhibition at the National Gallery in London called the Rise of Painting, which was entirely dedicated to Renaissance art. And it was so packed that you had to fight your way through crowds to even get a glimpse of the paintings. But a lot of Renaissance art and later Western art is highly symbolic, and a great deal of this symbolism is derived from the liturgy, as I attempt to show in the book. So, for instance, how the Annunciation or how the crucifixion is portrayed in art in different interpretations. And artistic interpretations often fill the balance of the Gospel accounts. The Gospel accounts are mostly sticking to the factual what happened, but they're mostly silent on the topic of emotions. And these are black. These are blank spaces that are filled with the artistic imagination throughout the centuries in various different ways. And the tragical texts are so foundational to these cultural developments that to understand them is to understand better Western religious art and the ways in which it interprets the central story of Jesus of Nazareth in a million different ways.
- [42:59]
B
Yeah, I want to circle back to that, like, particularly with respect to the Stabat Mater and how different artists had different interpretations of Mary's role there. But one of the. What you classify as the fine example of Latin liturgical poetry as the Dies Irae. Could you talk that and I'll just read a sense in which you describe it. What makes it particularly successful as a poem is the close connection it creates between the great and terrible events at the end of time affecting the whole creation and their intensely personal application from the individual speaker's point of view. I. I feel like that layers in a very nice thing you touch on in the second half about time and timelessness and universal in particular. But before we get there, maybe you could give a little context about the Dozier A and just talk about its afterlife and modern culture. Star wars, the Lion King, Rathmon and all.
- [43:49]
C
Sure, sure, yes. I mean, really, I'd have to read out the whole poem or we don't have time for this. So the Latin poem starts with the words Dies Irae, meaning Day of Wrath. And it's a text that full of astonishing imagery describing the day of doom. So it's about doomsday. It features trumpets it features dead bodies rising from their graves and a fearsome judge. So the ideas here are traditional, taking inspiration from the Bible and from established Christian beliefs about the day of doom at the end of time. But nowhere do they find a more creative, powerful expression than in this poem. I think the text is gripping in its content, and it's masterful in its form, and it switches between a descriptive and an intensely personal perspective, as I say in the quote that you've just read out. So it first describes the fearsome and terrible day of judgment on a grand scale, attended by death personified and nature personified. And then suddenly, it takes an introspective turn, and the focus shifts to the speaker's own reaction to the terrible events unfolding. And, of course, the speaker here is an everyman. It's the I. It's all of us. What will this judgment mean for me personally? So the speaker, then, towards the end of the poem, turns humbly to God, asking him to be a merciful judge with a prayer to be numbered among the saved. So what makes this poem particularly memorable, I think, is also the chant tune to which it is commonly sung. And this is where we get into the musical history and afterlife of this poem. So it has a very distinctive tune. The beginning goes like this, and this little tune becomes, in Western musical tradition, something like the shorthand for death. So in the book, I go on a musical journey to trace how this chant tune sort of comes to define death in a musical form. So this happens not just in religious music. It is, first of all, you know, it's very prominent, of course, in chant and early modern music. It also then becomes absorbed into classical music, the very famous settings by Verdi, by Mozart, by Rachmaninoff and so on. But then we also find it in film scores such as Star wars and Lord of the Rings or in horror films. And it's something that you would probably recognize if I played you one of those scores, but you wouldn't sort of necessarily consciously think of it as a religious theme at all. But somehow in the back of our minds when we hear this tune, we go, ooh, something's not quite right here. Something ominous is kind of lurking around the corner. And so that's why it's particularly effective in horror films as well. So it's really a fascinating story of how a liturgical text takes on a life of its own outside of the confines of traditional religion. Because all of those films, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, horror films, are not about the day of doom, but they still have this undertone of death and danger and darkness. So they maintain these connotations that you originally had in the poem, but then become sort of detached from the immediate religious context.
- [47:22]
B
Yeah, yeah. That is fascinating the way it's sort of like you said, is transmitted or I guess, retains its significance in a secular setting, a secular, modern artistic setting. I want to talk a little more about that on the painting side, in particular, with respect to the Stabbett Mater. You write, typical artistic representations, quote, attempt to elicit a compassionate response from the viewer, intending to touch the emotions rather than explain. I mean, maybe the Dies Irae is more explanatory and about the importance of depth and the inevitability of it, but the paintings are on the stab at Mater, I think, are trying to elicit more notion of comparison passion. Could you talk about that, how you view that?
- [48:05]
C
Yeah. In the Gospels, we're told that Mary, the mother of Jesus, stood underneath the cross, but we're not told what this experience might have been like for her. We can only imagine what it must have been like to see your only son crucified and die in such a horrific way. The liturgical poem beginning with Stavad Martyr, so meaning the Mother Stood Underneath the Cross, attempts to fill in this gap, and it provides an imaginative engagement with the mother standing underneath the cross, looking upon her son who is dying. This then becomes a formative influence on artistic engagements with this theme. So there's a wide range of portrayals of the Virgin Mary underneath the cross in art, in Western art through the ages, that we've got a range of emotions from restrained grief, where she's bravely holding herself upright, to near collapse under unbearable grief. The latter is particularly prevalent in the 14th and 15th centuries, where a large number of paintings portray Mary's emotional state through her fainting or having fainted next to the cross. That's a motif that's known in art history as the swoon of the Virgin. So it was a choice made by artists who went to new extremes in order to plunge the viewers into the depths of suffering and grief of Christ's mother. And as such, this motif also calls for a compassionate response from the spectator. It intends to move and to touch the emotions rather than to explain what's going on.
- [49:38]
B
Yeah, I mean, the Virgin Mary alone seems to be responsible for so much tremendous art in Western civilization. You obviously referenced Pieta and I mean, I'm sure Raphael alone. It's just in the Renaissance, it's unbelievable her impact. I'll shift a little to literature now. You talk about Milton and specifically his portrayal of the Felix Culpa in Paradise Lost. Could you talk about that?
- [50:04]
C
Sure. So the Felix Culpa is an idea that's referred to again by a Latin term meaning, oh, happy thoughts. It comes from the Exalted, which is a poetic Easter proclamation of Christ's resurrection in the liturgy. So it's embedded in a long, richly poetic hymn of praise. And because it's set in this poetic hymn of praise, which is very beautiful, it's easy to miss just how radical this idea of the happy fault is. The Christian faith rests upon the idea that humankind is fallen, that the world is broken, as expressed in the story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Paradise. And equally foundational is the idea that in order to repair what has been broken and to heal humankind from the consequences of the Fall, Christ became incarnate and died as a willing sacrifice on the cross. Now, the Felix culpa motif turns this narrative upside down. It says Adam's sin was necessary, it was even a happy event, as it brought about such an inestimably wonderful thing as the incarnation of God himself. So within a Christian framework, to describe the Fall as necessary and fortunate and happy could hardly be more provocative. The Felix culpa idea stretches paradox to its limits with its underlying logic that the unexpectedly fortunate outcome of an unfortunate event would not exist had the unfortunate event not occurred in the first place. There's a bit of mental arithmetic required there. So by this logic, the unfortunate event itself is redefined as something positive. And Milton refers to the same idea in Paradise Lost, where Adam praises the goodness of God, and I'm just going to read it out, the relevant passage. O goodness infinite goodness immense, that all this good of evil shall produce an evil turn to good more wonderful than that which by creation first brought forth light out of darkness full of doubt I stand, Whether I should repent me now for sin by me done and occasioned, or rejoice much more, that much more good thereof shall spring to God, more glory, more goodwill to men from God, and over wrath grace shall abound. So here we've got the Felix Culpa paradox that leaves Adam a bit conflicted. He's unsure whether he should repent of his sin. So that's the reaction which we would see it as appropriate under normal circumstances, or in fact, with the opposite, and rejoice that his sin has brought about an even greater good, that grace shall abound. So we're kind of operating with two different views of time here. There's really an easy answer. To Adam problem here. So the problem is not one of logic, but it's to do with what perspective and what timescale is applied. Because only in hindsight does it become clear whether an unfortunate event has led to unfortunate consequences. So Milton's Adam here is both within and outside of time. He speaks with the knowledge of the coming of pride, obviously, knowledge which stands outside the timeline of the normal chronology, which contends with the perspective of the supposed historical Adam, who does not have the knowledge that his fall will have a good outcome. So the historical Adam wants to repent of his sin as he sees its negative outcome being cast out of paradise. But the Adam with foreknowledge of the redemption wants to rejoice. So we've got a temporal and an eternal perspective here which can't be easily reconciled. I think that can be both bad. I think can be both bad and then turn out to be good in hindsight. It just depends on your point of view. So as the liturgy indicates, believers have to hold both of these aspects in balance and accept the paradox. So. So the fall is both unfortunate and through God's intervention, also the most fortunate thing that has happened.
- [54:18]
B
It's very interesting. And you say Milton's portrayal of Adam stands both within and outside of time. And you just talked about the perspective. And I know in your book you actually reference Einstein's notion of time. It's almost in its way, its own revolution of time, I guess, the liturgy. But well before Einstein. And I do want to circle back to time because I think one of your last chapters really gets very philosophical about time. But before we go there, we've talked about Dante, Shakespeare, Frangelica, Milton, and you actually talk about Blake as well in the book, but similar to some concepts around Star Wars, Lion King, you talk about modern artists. And I wanted to ask you about three or four here, and maybe you could briefly talk about the influence of the liturgy on them and how it's reflecting their art. The first is Arvo Part, I believe he's an Estonian composer who uses a very simplistic system, Tintabole. But could you maybe talk about his composition and music?
- [55:18]
C
Oh, sure, yeah. So Pat, at some point during his career, kind of enters a period of silence and study during which he immersed himself in early music. So playing chant is very important there. Medieval and Renaissance polyphony, and also particularly the charmed traditions of the Orthodox Church. So he's very much influenced by that. So many of his large scale works are direct settings of liturgical texts, either in Latin or in Church, Slavonic, Eastern texts, or they have their structure shaped by liturgical texts, even when no text is sung. So his music really emphasizes the sense of. Of time and silence and repetition and this gradual unfolding in his works, which reflects the cyclical nature of liturgical time. So going back to the same idea and developing it, really contemplating it. So his music often features sort of extended durations and pauses, a sense of stillness, and then also blends the ancient so chant with the modern. So kind of a minimalist approach to music, which gives his music a timeless quality. So for any listeners who are interested, I would particularly recommend the Berlin Mass as a kind of. To get a taste of what his music is like.
- [56:44]
B
Yeah. In fact, the Estonian Orchestra was last night here at Carnegie Hall.
- [56:48]
C
Oh, lovely.
- [56:49]
B
A program in honor of Bert. His music is extremely profound, moved to Scottish composer James McMillan, who I had the opportunity to meet 30 years ago and two years ago here in New York. I find his work particularly interesting. But he's much more modern than I think. I guess he's a contemporary with Pert. He's probably a bit younger, but could you talk about his art?
- [57:12]
C
Yeah, yeah. So James MacMillan is. He's a Catholic himself. The liturgical tradition of the Church is deeply interwoven with his compositional output already. So his music often emerges from liturgical experience, from theological reflection, from charm, traditions, communal prayer and the architecture of worship as well. So one of the key examples I talk about in the book is his setting of the Miserere Psalm, which is one of my favorite pieces of music of all time, which evokes liturgical church tunes. Also kind of looks backward to the famous setting of the Miserere by Renaissance composer Allegri, which is kind of the really famous one, but in macmillan's own style, then charts a wonderfully moving journey from darkness and sin to hope and renewal. So I can only recommend you listen to it. I think it's a fantastic piece.
- [58:10]
B
Oh, absolutely. He showed me as very cerebral, very thoughtful, his composition, which I guess you have to be in that profession. I was going to ask you about Kate Bush and the Song of Solomon connection.
- [58:21]
C
Sure, sure. Yes. So this is when we get into pop music. So she's got a song called Song of Solomon from 1993, which, as you might imagine, engages with the imagery of the Song of Songs. So just to quote a few lyrics, I'll be the rose of Sharon for you. I'll be the lily of the valley for you. Two really central images to the Song of Songs, whilst incorporating this imagery into a modern context. So what's interesting to me here is that she mixes more informal language that's more associated with modern pop songs like Write It Just For Me. Yeah. And sign up with the Kiss with deliberate arch hiding biblical language. So, for I am sick of love, his left hand is under my head. Oh. And his right hand doth embrace me. So it's an example of the long afterlife of biblical and liturgical influence in perhaps surprising places in popular culture.
- [59:21]
B
And then lastly, it seems like Tolkien has definitely dominated or been part of the popular cultural discussion, particularly in cinema and obviously literature. If you just talk about Tolkien and the particular word, I'm going to mispronounce this. Er, Randall.
- [59:36]
C
Randall, yes. Very good. Yeah. So this is quite a famous story about how the young Gerard Tolkien sort of first conceives of the idea that then later becomes his legendarium in the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings. So the liturgical context there is that the season of Advent in the lead up to Christmas is marked by a series of antiphons that express the yearning for the coming of the Savior, called the O Antiphons, because they all start with the word O. And one of them is O Orians, which in translation goes, o radiant dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice, come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death. Incidentally, there's also a lovely setting of this by Macmillan. But to come back to Tolkien, there is an Old English translation and poetic reflection on Oorien, which survives in the 10th century extra book, which is a collection of poems which has been titled by Modern scholars Christ 1, the Old English translation of Oriens, which in Latin can mean dawn or morning star, here is particularly striking. Christ is invoked under the title Earendel. The origin of this word is a bit mysterious, but our best guess is that it is a name that the Anglo Saxons used for the morning star, Venus, or another particularly bright constellation. So when the young Gerard Tolkien studied Old English as an undergraduate here at Oxford, he came across the word. And in his own words, he was immediately struck by the great beauty of this word or name. And he notes that he felt, quote, a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind these words, end quote. So it was this fascination with its name that struck a creative spark. And Tolkien would later describe these Old English words as the source of the mythology that he created. And he included in the end a character named Earendil in his mythology of Middle Earth, who's a character who's a mariner who set into the skies as a star, casting light upon the darkness of the world as a token of hope. So, again, the liturgical imagery there is quite clear.
- [62:02]
B
That's a wonderful example of the liturgy still having such a powerful influence in modern times and shaping culture. Towards the end of the book, you, I think, get philosophical with this chapter on time, and specifically, you've alluded to it in this conversation, but you discuss different concepts of time as reflected in the liturgy, including time as a circle, time as a straight line, time pointing to the future, but, quote, drawing the past into the present. But what really stood out for me is you say, quote, the most mysterious and crucial idea of time is as liturgical presence. What do you mean by that?
- [62:37]
C
Good question. So this is where we have to dive deep into the theology of the Mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation. So the belief that the bread and wine on the altar really become the body and blood of Christ. Christ. So medieval Christians and Roman Catholics today believe that this is the case. So when the priest speaks the words of consecration, he uses the very words of Christ at the Last Supper, which is reported in the Gospels. This is my body, and this is the chalice of my blood. The theological idea behind this liturgical practice is that the priest speaks and acts in the person of Christ, so he represents Christ in ritual practice here. So this is why the priest's words are the words of Christ himself rather than the words of a human minister spoken to God. So according to medieval belief, what happens during the Mass is not a reenactment of the Last Supper, like a play on a stage, but it's an actualization of past events. So this has been explained like this. The celebrant actually blesses. He does not play the role of Christ's blessing. We actually give thanks. We do not play the role of the disciple giving thanks. So although there are significant disagreements and divergent interpretations of these ideas in later Protestant movements, the understanding of the Eucharist expressed by medieval liturgy insists that Christ becomes truly present through the words of consecration. So, theologically speaking, liturgy is situated at the intersection between the passing of ordinary time and divine timelessness. God, of course, is outside of time. And therefore the historical events of the redemption can remain perpetually present in the liturgy, but not just as a memory or a recollection of past events, but as an actualization of that which happened in the past. It becomes present in the present moment of the liturgy.
- [64:38]
B
Yeah, I found that chapter really fascinating. I mean, you Talk about the liturgy collapsing time, breaking the barrier of time, time becoming, quote, flexible, malleable, all inclusive. I mean, on a completely unrelated note, some description of Einstein's notion of time. Again, is this flexible, determined by the perspective of the viewer? I don't want to read too much in any connection between that, but it is very interesting. I think day to day, we think of time as fixed. A second part of that chapter, which I also thought was interesting, is you highlight the centrality of the sacrificial character of the Mass, which you just discussed. But you also note, quote, there are areas of overlap between ritual performance and stage acting, and the two have fruitfully inspired each other. Could you briefly share some examples there?
- [65:23]
C
So, from the early Middle Ages in the west onwards, there is a tradition of liturgical plays which developed around the liturgy. So they used dramatic representations of crucial moments of the life of Christ. The earliest evidence of such plays comes from monastic communities. So, for example, the Regularis Concordia, which is a manual of rules for houses of the Benedictine order in medieval England, which was compiled in the 10th century, contains a dramatic dialogue between the women at the empty tomb of the risen Christ and the angel who announces Christ's resurrection. So this centers on the question, quem Karitis, whom do you seek? So small plays such as this were designed to accompany major feasts such as Easter and Christmas, and were performed in Latin and usually in plainchant, within monastic communities. So in this case, the Benedictine monks would have taken on the roles of the angel and the women, perhaps quite unexpectedly. Another slightly later example are the medieval mystery plays that were performed in medieval towns on the feast of Caucus Christi. So this is a later medieval development. Plays were performed in cycles, and the performances took place as open air street theater with a series of wagons for the pageants set up at stations at key points within the medieval towns. So, kind of you have to imagine it as audiences being able to move from wagon to wagon along the streets in order to watch, to watch individual pageants being performed. The subject matter of such plays was religious in nature, and it spanned the whole of Christian history, representing crucial events from the creation of the world, over the life of Christ to the day of doom. So you could kind of watch the whole of Christian history unfold as you're walking through the different stations and town. And this was really a theatrical spectacle which was a civic event in which everyone took part, whether as a member of the audience or as an actor in a play. So we. We have associations of craftsmen and merchants which practice a specific trade, being in charge of individual plays and. And various aspects concerning their performance. So, for instance, the butchers, the guild of the butchers was often in charge of the crucifixion play. For obvious reason, these plays often incorporate liturgical quotations. So, for instance, the play that has the crucified Christ, the Crucifixion, includes the words, oh, all you who pass by the way, look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. So this is spoken by Jesus on the cross to the people walking past. It's also a liturgical quotation. So it's taken from the liturgy. In a performance, in a cycle play, this liturgical appeal gains an additional layer of meaning, and it becomes actually quite literal. So the wagons on which the plays were performed are set up along the main streets of a medieval town, and the audience wanders past pageant from pageant to pageant. So they literally become the men that walk by way of street who are watching Christ being crucified. So the appeal to the passersby is directed at the spectators of the play. Christ on the Cross speaks to the medieval inhabitants of the medieval town who are watching the play. So the past and the present meet through the words of the liturgy enacted here on stage in a very interesting way.
- [68:58]
B
Yeah, yeah. No, that's fascinating. Kosuma. You end the book, and I think it's the last sense book, by saying you think the future is bright for the liturgy. Why do you think that?
- [69:10]
C
Well, as my book aims to show, the liturgy has inspired countless artists over hundreds, even thousands of years. Artistic productions that have engaged with the liturgy have added to its detail and richness and meaning. But, of course, artists have also questioned and provoked and reacted against this traditional. So such responses are part of a living tradition. And the fact that liturgical inspirations have proved meaningful in sometimes entirely secular contexts, as discussed, show the versatility and the stability of this tradition. It's an ongoing process. So the liturgy has formed and still forms the fabric of Western creative imagination in different forms in the modern period than in the medieval period, but it is still there, and it still provides images, words, and concepts with which we think and tell stories. So I think this is very much an ongoing process that will continue into the future for many centuries to come.
- [70:13]
B
Excellent. That concludes our interview. Again, the book is Light on the Untold Story of the Liturgy by Cosima Clara Gilhammer. Cosima, thank you so much for your time in writing such a lovely and thoughtful book and timely.
- [70:27]
C
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.