This book takes the reader on a 800 year long journey through the chant and liturgy of the Order of the Birgittines investigating liturgical books from the Birgittine abbeys in Vadstena, Mariënwater/Maria Refugie (the Netherlands), Mariëntroon (Belgium), and Altomünster (Germany). Karin Lagergren explores how the liturgy maintained the Birgittine identity through all these centuries and how it negotiated the Birgittine liturgical heritage in order to adapt to a changing world. The Birgittine Order is a monastic order with the charismatic figure of St Birgitta as its very special hallmark, providing spiritual unity and a firm foundation for the Birgittine identity. How could such a figure remain constantly present and relevant to the Order’s existence and members? This is one of the questions the book attempts to answer. Furthermore, it seeks to address how the Birgittines used, expanded, altered, and lived with the Birgittine liturgy, through examining their liturgical books. More generally, interest lies in exploring how groups use chant and liturgy and adapt them to their particular needs; the Order of the Birgittines provides a specific case. Another issue concerns the intriguing question of the transmission of the Birgittine liturgy. In summary, the overall and guiding idea behind this book is to describe how liturgy expresses fundamental ideas about how a community chooses to define itself, in this case the Birgittines. A theoretical basis for this understanding has been adopted from Max Weber’s concept of charisma. Understanding arises through examination of the musical content of the liturgical books as well as the structure, layout and decoration of the books and how these can be linked to historical circumstances. The Birgittine liturgical chant repertoire in this study is regarded as a ‘chantscape’, a term covering the entire Birgittine liturgy as experienced by the sisters and brothers of the Order. This term, used here for the first time, is based on the more familiar concept of ‘soundscape’ and will be the guide for analysis of musical examples and then related to questions of Birgittine spirituality and Birgitta’s charismatic authority. This book is the first to address the Birgittine chant and liturgy after the Middle Ages and considers many sources that until now have been unexplored.

This book takes the reader on a 800 year long journey through the chant and liturgy of the Order of the Birgittines investigating liturgical books from the Birgittine abbeys in Vadstena, Mariënwater/Maria Refugie (the Netherlands), Mariëntroon (Belgium), and Altomünster (Germany). Karin Lagergren explores how the liturgy maintained the Birgittine identity through all these centuries and how it negotiated the Birgittine liturgical heritage in order to adapt to a changing world. The Birgittine Order is a monastic order with the charismatic figure of St Birgitta as its very special hallmark, providing spiritual unity and a firm foundation for the Birgittine identity. How could such a figure remain constantly present and relevant to the Order’s existence and members? This is one of the questions the book attempts to answer. Furthermore, it seeks to address how the Birgittines used, expanded, altered, and lived with the Birgittine liturgy, through examining their liturgical books. More generally, interest lies in exploring how groups use chant and liturgy and adapt them to their particular needs; the Order of the Birgittines provides a specific case. Another issue concerns the intriguing question of the transmission of the Birgittine liturgy. In summary, the overall and guiding idea behind this book is to describe how liturgy expresses fundamental ideas about how a community chooses to define itself, in this case the Birgittines. A theoretical basis for this understanding has been adopted from Max Weber’s concept of charisma. Understanding arises through examination of the musical content of the liturgical books as well as the structure, layout and decoration of the books and how these can be linked to historical circumstances. The Birgittine liturgical chant repertoire in this study is regarded as a ‘chantscape’, a term covering the entire Birgittine liturgy as experienced by the sisters and brothers of the Order. This term, used here for the first time, is based on the more familiar concept of ‘soundscape’ and will be the guide for analysis of musical examples and then related to questions of Birgittine spirituality and Birgitta’s charismatic authority. This book is the first to address the Birgittine chant and liturgy after the Middle Ages and considers many sources that until now have been unexplored. 

The sisters in the Birgittine Order preserved the memory of the Order’s founder Saint Birgitta (c 1303-1373) in a most extraordinary way. Chants commemorating her were incorporated into their Marian centered liturgy on Birgittine feast days but also in their ferial liturgy the Cantus sororum. These chants were in the form of antiphons in Lauds and Vespers and in processions. Not only Birgitta but also her daughter Katherina (†1381) was commemorated with chants in a similar manner. By placing these chants alongside the Mother of Christ, Birgitta (and Katherina) were inscribed into the very heart of the Order and its memory: the liturgy. The presentation examines this repertoire for Birgitta and Katherina and their role in the Birgittine liturgy and spirituality, and presents recorded version of a few of the chants.

Liturgical fragments from Småland and the possibility for reconstructing Mass liturgy in a parish church

In the project on the medieval parish church in Småland, one of my tasks was to investigate the traces of a diocesan liturgy in Växjö bishopric, the smallest bishopric in medieval Sweden. This turned out being a real challenge. The situation and problems can be summarized as follows: 

• In contrary to most other dioceses in medieval Sweden, Växjö never got any printed breviary or missal that can outline the normative liturgy at the end of the Middle Ages.

This means that we lack material for comparison with sources of assumed provenance Växjö. The occurrence of the Office for the local saint Sigfrid is itself not a proof since he was observed in all Swedish dioceses. 

• The exact boundaries of Växjö medieval diocese have not been possible to fully establish, due to a permanent conflict with the surrounding Linköping diocese. This makes it impossible to know exactly in which parts of the region of Småland we can expect a diocesan liturgy typical to Växjö.
• In a few cases secondary inscriptions are found, where ownership can be traced to a particular church. From the province of Småland, parts of a gradual from Pjätteryd church is preserved, which mainly consists of sequences for feasts for saints observed by the whole Catholic church. From Tofteryd parish, two parchment fragments are known containing liturgy for the Divine Office for Epiphany. All fragments contain standard liturgy and standard chants. Another problem concerns that both Pjätteryd and Tofteryd are situated far from Växjö and we do not know to what extent they actually were incorporated into Växjö diocese or used the liturgy of Linköping diocese.

Source situation

The sources consist of 14 fragments now housed in the National Archives in Stockholm with presumed provenance Växjö diocese. There are no preserved complete books. No complete calendar is preserved.

Preliminary results  

While my investigations not have given any answers to the question on the nature of the diocesan liturgy in Växjö, the work has resulted in a systematic investigation and detailed discussion of how difficult it is to attribute sources to a church or even a diocese. This discussion is valid for all liturgical milieus sharing this spare source situation. 

The most important result of this study is that we have to be extremely aware of the problems when it comes to attribute sources to certain dioceses and especially churches. The medieval liturgy was in many cases very streamlined, and in other cases cultivated their particular cults, and it is important to be aware of when which situation is valid. 

The liturgies in the dioceses in medieval Sweden are often difficult to map. Melodic variants and traditions are largely unknown. The attribution of sources to specific parishes and dioceses is often problematic. I argue that it is more correct to talk about cathedral liturgies than diocesan liturgies since these uniform diocesan liturgies probably never existed. In this presentation, two different examples will be discussed. 

Växjö diocese:

Växjö diocese was the smallest diocese in medieval Sweden with no sources of known provenance from the core region Värend. It never got a printed missal or breviary in the late 15th century as many other Swedish dioceses why we lack a late medieval standard version to test other sources against. Moreover, we do not have a calendar with secured provenance Växjö diocese. The possibility to investigate the liturgy typical to this diocese is extremely difficult. This part of the paper explores possible sources and what they tell us.

Strängnäs diocese:

Strängnäs diocese had a missal printed in 1487 but with empty staves. Only one copy survives with incipits for Gloria, Gloria, several prefaces, and a complete Exultet. The musical notation was written in by hand, which makes it impossible to know if these incipits were standard incipits valid for the whole diocese or the use varied. In a recent publication, I reconstructed the incipits to complete chants. This allowed me to delve into questions on how to find plausible sources for reconstructing melodies and the very idea of diocesan liturgies.

This presentation will discuss two dioceses from two different perspectives where questions on infrastructure, dissemination, uniform liturgies, top down or bottom up strategies will be important topics.

The presentation discusses how women, the Virgin Mary, and saint Birgitta were placed at the center of the Birgittine liturgy and how this can be looked at by using 3D technology.

Three issues were addressed: 

1. How women were put forth in the Birgittine Order both in the organisation and in the liturgy.

2. How this was reflected in the architecture and layout of the abbey church. 

3. How singing was organized and how it sounded – and as a consequence how architecture and normative documents can tell us something about how women were the center of this monastic order.