| This dissertation provides a new framework within which to evaluate the liturgical writings of Amalar of Metz (ca. 775/80-850). Amalar is generally credited with having applied a fully developed method of symbolic interpretation to Latin commentaries on the Mass, or expositiones missae. Such an exegetical method had long been utilized as a tool for understanding the Scriptures, and was first extended to the understanding of Christian worship in the mystagogical catecheses of the fourth century. Although Amalar was not the first Westerner to introduce spiritual interpretation to liturgical explanations, it would be his task to apply a figurative hermeneutic to nearly every aspect of the liturgy.;Amalar's works remained popular throughout the Middle Ages, but modern liturgical scholars have tended to disparage such an approach to the liturgy, resulting in a general perception that Amalar misunderstood the liturgy, and interpreted it as a sacred drama.;In order to provide a corrective to such an evaluation, this study proceeds on two fronts. The first is to place Amalar within a Carolingian cultural and liturgical context, and consists in putting three lenses into place: (1) the emergence of the European liturgy in ninth century Francia; (2) the exegetical tradition inherited by Frankish scholars, and; (3) the development of liturgical commentary as a literary genre. The second part of the dissertation focuses on Amalar's expositiones missae themselves. After an historical context is established and a chronology proposed, an analysis of Amalar's writings details how they explain the liturgy, and how they relate to each other.;This study demonstrates that Amalar develops a legitimate exegesis of the early ninth-century (European) liturgy. His interpretive method is not limited to the words of liturgical and scriptural texts and prayers, but is firmly anchored in liturgical ritual. Through the consistent use of the clause "bringing to mind" (ad memoriam ducens), Amalar explicates an intricate, overlapping system consisting in multiple layers of meaning for nearly every liturgical object and gesture. This dissertation concludes that Amalar thus develops a theory of ritual memorial which can be called anamnesis. |
