Performing the Gospels in Byzantium: Sight, Sound, and Space in the Divine Liturgy

Description

Tracing the Gospel text from script to illustration to recitation, this study looks at how illuminated manuscripts operated within ritual and architecture. Focusing on a group of richly illuminated lectionaries from the late eleventh century, the book articulates how the process of textual recitation produced marginalia and miniatures that reflected and subverted the manner in which the Gospel was read and simultaneously imagined by readers and listeners alike. This unique approach to manuscript illumination points to images that slowly unfolded in the mind of its listeners as they imagined the text being recited, as meaning carefully changed and built as the text proceeded. By examining this process within specific acoustic architectural spaces and the sonic conditions of medieval chant, the volume brings together the concerns of sound studies, liturgical studies, and art history to demonstrate how images, texts, and recitations played with the environment of the Middle Byzantine church. 01.0_pp_i_ii_Performing_the_Gospels_in_Byzantium 02.0_pp_iii_iii_Performing_the_Gospels_in_Byzantium 03.0_pp_iv_iv_Copyright_page 04.0_pp_v_v_Contents 05.0_pp_vi_xvii_List_of_Illustrations 06.0_pp_xviii_xxiv_Acknowledgments 07.0_pp_1_28_Introduction 08.0_pp_29_166_The_Lectionary 08.1_pp_30_67_Beginnings_and_Initials 08.2_pp_68_117_Miniatures_and_Marginalia 08.3_pp_118_166_Faltering_Images 09.0_pp_167_283_The_Liturgy 09.1_pp_168_191_The_Reading_of_the_Lectionary 09.2_pp_192_233_The_Sound_of_the_Lectionary 09.3_pp_234_283_Polyvalent_Images 10.0_pp_284_286_Epilogue 11.0_pp_287_318_Bibliography 12.0_pp_319_330_Index