Pleasantly written, this volume constitutes an important contribution to our knowledge of the clerical Feast of Fools. This book will be of interest to musicologists and liturgists, but also to historians of medieval theater who should be acquainted with the dramatic performances of medieval clerics.

The Medieval Review

A newly identified medieval play for the Feast of Fools, with a new English translation and musical edition ready for performance. Scholars and non-scholars alike have long been fascinated by the medieval "Feast of Fools", the annual celebration on or around the New Year that came to be known for its inversion of established hierarchies, its boisterousness, and its scurrilous, even sacrilegious, clerical behaviour. However, we now know that many of the most obscene and subversive practices associated with the feast were, in fact, the misunderstandings, exaggerations, or even fabrications of overzealous ecclesiastical reformers. Our most reliable information about the Feast comes from the scant extant liturgical items that clerical communities actually used during their celebrations. This book shows that the twelfth-century Ordo Joseph from Laon, in France - a play long-known to scholars, telling the story of Joseph the patriarch and his brothers -- is in fact a drama for the Feast of Fools, long hidden in plain sight, intended for performance at Epiphany. It situates the play within the context of the cathedral community's history of biblical exegesis under its school-master Anselm of Laon, proposing "performative gloss" as an important new tool for understanding how medieval liturgical dramas generated meaning. It Includes a new Latin edition of the text, accompanied by an English translation, as well as a musical reconstruction that harnesses the music of Laon's liturgy and finally makes possible a performance of this spectacular, newly identified Feast of Fools drama.
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A newly identified medieval play for the Feast of Fools, with a new English translation and musical edition ready for performance
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Notes on the Text List of Abbreviations Introduction: A New Play for the Feast of Fools Part I: Study 1: The Ordo Joseph in Context 2: The Scriptures and the Staging 3: The Joseph Story as Model and Reversal 4: Anti-Jewish Sentiment and the Passion Part II: Text, Music, and Commentary Text and Translation The Music of the Ordo Joseph Notes and Commentary Bibliography Index
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Product details

ISBN
9781837650590
Published
2023-08-08
Publisher
Boydell & Brewer Ltd; Boydell & Brewer
Weight
376 gr
Height
234 mm
Width
156 mm
Age
P, 06
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Number of pages
190

Biographical note

Robert C. Lagueux is the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Graduate Studies and Faculty Development at Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He researches and publishes work on medieval music, liturgy, and drama, and more widely on pedagogy, teaching, and learning.