Daniel Mitsui has written several posts touching on 'Post-Tridentine Catholicism . . . [being] Catholicism understood with the mind of a Protestant' and 'Catholics themselves [beginning] to think like Protestants, rejecting the mediaeval vision that saw the world in four senses - literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical - and instead to subvert all interpretations to the literal sense.' (Quotes are from Bonfire Motets and Missionary Icons and Legend and Apocrypha.)

[T]he mediaeval vision . . . saw the world in four senses - literal, allegorical [or typical], tropological [or moral], and anagogical [or eschatological sense]

Daniel Mitsui's post Legend and Apocrypha. (Links supplied).

A little elaboration, and simplification: Typological understanding is seeing the New Testament in the Old, tropological understanding is applying the meaning to our lives, now, and anagogical understanding is seeing the afterlife or end of time in the Biblical verse or story.

Two other posts on The Lion and the Cardinal discuss the four senses: Loss, Archaeology and Recovery, part I and Loss, Archaeology and Recovery, part II. There's also Bonfire Motets and Missionary Icons.

It would be impertinent of me to discuss these four senses in any detail, or to discuss the development of these methods. The Study Program of the The Roman Theological Forum might be a place to start.

But I can point to three examples of these methods in action, from the pre-Tridentine Church:

• the fifteenth century Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, which I found via PK's post The Mirror of Human Salvation. It is available online at The Royal Library of Denmark pages and again at the Royal Library here,
• the Internet Biblia Pauperum, treating the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth century manuscripts and printed blockbooks of 'graphic depiction[s] of related scenes from the Old and New Testaments',
• and the Signs of Plenty site, which discusses the Altar of Verdun, ' a set of 17 tripartite instruction panels intended originally to be read by all and sundry' in 'an Augustinian monastery near Vienna', dedicated in 1181.

For the Biblia Pauperum, see the previous posts Biblia Pauperum and Poetic Knowledge, which includes this quote from the Internet Biblia Pauperum site:

[W]hereas 12th century typologies seem to be designed to "answer" contemporary heretical movements, the emphasis here seems less on conversion (to prove Christ is the fulfillment of OT prophecies) than to engage the reader in contemplation and understanding.

As to The Mirror of Human Salvation:

The Speculum humanæ salvationis was written anonymously and it is unique in portraying, more fully and dramatically than any other book of the period, the medieval concept of typology, or the thesis that all the events of the New Testament were prefigured by the events recounted in the Old. It was indebted to the earlier Biblia Pauperum or Biblia Picta manuscripts, which were also typological, but they were composed almost entirely of pictures, while the first Speculum humanæ salvationis had an extensive text to explain its miniatures. . . . The Speculum is entirely concerned with the Fall and Redemption and with their prefiguration in the Old Testament.

Source: Preface to A Medieval Mirror, by by Adrian Wilson & Joyce Lancaster Wilson.

On the Altar of Verdun, here is part of the site's Abstract of Theological Program:

The typological schema of the ‘altar's' program is triadic: the main events of the New Testament, the Vita Christi, are shown to have been twice foretold by events recorded in the Old Testament. These past events now are seen as allegories, as veiled signs, as artfully concealed communications hinting at the divine plan: they are presented as an invitation to be cunningly and subtly read, according to their true significance in light of present revelation.

This method of interpretation, called typological, or figurative, rests its truth claims on the testimonies of biblical allegories and the authority of the patristic tradition. The fifth and the 12th century are periods where typology especially flourished, in strategic response to immense political and spiritual challenges.

And, the translation of the dedication of the altar:

In this work you see how the sacred and salvific signs accord with the order of the ages.

Search for the world's beginnings in the first zone; the veiled shadow images of the law are to be found below; in the middle zone discern the advent of grace extending to the present.

What in early times prophetic song darkly foretold is illumined by God's new creation coming to heal with holy power the fall which drove the first parents into exile by the cunning of the snake.

If you truly think about the commandments of the Old Law you find little or no beauty in their external form.

This shows they are only the forebodings of the law divine pity granted to the next world age.

Tuscany and Campania are regions of Italy, the former well known for being 'the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance'.

Today I installed Democracy Player v0.9.1, a video player for Linux, Mac OS X and MS-Windows, and poked around a little in their channel listings.

There's a nice number of travel video podcasts at PodTravels.TV, put together by six fellows in Italy who visited Anghiari (the city's official site is here), Siena several times, Florence and other places.

Campania PodCast (site is only in Italian, as far as I can tell) is a project to promote the art, culture and natural attractions of the region. A listing of all available videocasts are here. There's an interesting videocast of St Michael's grotto.

The videocasts from both these sites are not narrated.

On February 13, 1937, the comic strip 'Prince Valiant', first appeared. Hal Foster drew the strip until 1971. From the wikipedia article (links omitted):

The setting is Arthurian. Valiant himself is a Nordic prince (from the faraway Thule—apparently located somewhere near the city Trondheim on the Norwegian west coast). Early in the story, Valiant comes to Camelot, becomes fast friends with Sir Gawain and Sir Tristram, earns the respect of King Arthur and Merlin, and becomes a Knight of the Round Table. Later, he meets the love of his life—Aleta—on a Mediterranean island. He fights the Huns with his magic Singing Sword, Flamberge, travels to Africa and to America, and helps his father regain his lost throne of Thule.

Val fights the Vikings
From the June 19, 1938 strip


The Huns approach
From the September 17, 2939 strip


King Arthur receives the Saxons, Val behind him, May 11, 19??

In appreciation for whoever nominated this blog in some categories of the 2007 Catholic Blog Awards (yes, I am vain enough to have looked; all nominated blogs get listed), and even though electronic expressions of gratitude are in vain, here is the song 'You light up my life', performed by Patti Smith.

Bill White's remark about the Cistercian monks draining a swamp, in his blog post Cistercian engineers and Thomas Aquinas sent me on a little hunt, and I found some interesting things. When you hear or read of the Cistercians, what usually comes to mind are austerity, silence, white cowls hiding faces, secluded places, strict observance, etc, (Bill's phrase 'monk-engineers' brings to mind Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s story of a desert monastery two millennia hence, A Canticle for Leibowitz), but

[t]he Cistercians at the beginning renounced all sources of income arising from benefices, tithes, tolls and rents, and depended for their income wholly on the land . . . [and they] developed an organized system for selling their farm produce, cattle and horses, and notably contributed to the commercial progress of the countries of western Europe.

It was as agriculturists and horse and cattle breeders that . . . the Cistercians exercised their chief influence on the progress of civilization in the later Middle Ages: they were the great farmers of those days, and many of the improvements in the various farming operations were introduced and propagated by them, and it is from this point of view that the importance of their extension in northern Europe is to be estimated.

(Source: Cistercians at wikipedia.) The Summa cartae caritatis (Charter of Charity) XXIII, 'Quod redditus non habemus.' lists 'Ecclesias, altaria, sepulturas, decimas alieni laboris vel nutrimenti, villas, villanos, terrarum census, furnorum vel molendinorum redditus et caetera his similia monasticae puritati adversantia nostri et nominis et ordinis excludit institutio.' Exordium Cistercii. Later, the Cistercians did possess every one of these items.

By the middle of the 12th century the Cistercians had reached the cutting edge of hydro-power and agricultural technology. A typical monastery straddled an artificial stream brought in through a canal. The stream ran through the monastery shops, living quarters, and refectories, providing power for milling, wood cutting, forging, and olive crushing. It also provided running water for cooking, washing, and bathing, and finally for sewage disposal. . . .

We're too often told that this period of history was a Dark Age. The reason is that the people who wrote Medieval political history were remote from the world of making things. The scribes of the kings wrote about armies and slaughter. They didn't devote much time to the engineers who were really changing the world.

Source: Cistercians, one of the radio series The Engines of Our Ingenuity, by John H. Lienhard, M.D. Anderson Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and History at the University of Houston. The running water also came into the monks' lavatorium, through lead taps in the wall, products of their mines and smelting works.

In England, the Cistercian landholdings initially were worked by lay-brothers. Late in the thirteenth century, the monks began leasing them out (A change in land-holding, as it relates to Kirkstall Abbey in Lincolnshire). Besides its sheep, the Abbey had fishponds: 'several parallel ponds of different sizes linked by a single channel' (Precincts and Function Of The Monasteries).

The Field Archaeology web site has a page on Marshes and Fens, discussing the reclaiming of swamps:

If the land was not drained properly this can badly affect plant growth. As badly drained land will remain cold, delaying the germination of crops and waterlogging of soil prevents the take-up of nutrients by plants and stunts their root development. Badly drained pastureland will also have an effect on the cattle and the monks also realised that bad drainage would lead eventually to foot rot in the sheep and this disease would also spread to the cattle.

Quite a bit of labor is implied by this paragraph:

The effect on the landscape was considerable with digging ditches and dykes, building, diverting rivers and constructing canals that could bring goods to the Abbey building itself and was cheaper than road transport. A good example of this is to be found at Meaux Abbey in East Yorkshire. Here the Abbey is situated on a low island in a marshy valley and the monks modified the watercourses and constructed a canal so supplies could be brought up to the Abbey from the River Hull. Lambwath stream was diverted and later canalised into a sixteen-foot wide channel known as Forthdike. . . . The mouth of the Hull was diverted and widened to improve its outfall to the Humber, the old course being reduced to a mere drain.

As you would expect of a supra-national (understanding the anachronism in that phrase) organization, such efforts were not restricted to England: at the Real Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de Rueda, (Royal Monastery of Our Lady of the Waterwheel), on the banks of the Ebro River, near Sástago in Zaragoza province, Aragon, in Spain:

From the early founding the monks conducted important hydrological works including a dam on the Ebro and creation of a massive waterwheel or "rueda". The waterwheel diverted some of the river flow to a Gothic aqueduct for distribution to various parts of the monastery; moreover, many of the water channels and plumbing uses are readily visible today. This series of hydrological innovations was an early example of indoor plumbing and waste disposal as well as a bonafide central heating system. In the uninhabitated muslim frontier, the monks created: the salt's mule track, saltworks equipments, a fluvial pier, fluvial mule barge transport, an oilmill, a flour mill, a stone irrigation ditch waterwheeled [sic] . . .

(Links omitted.) At paradoxplace's Real Monasterio de Neustra Señora de Rueda page, we learn that 'the water wheel also survived in working order until a few decades ago.'

Water wheels could be used for other purposes than grinding grain into flour. The rotating movement of the wheel, when converted to vertical motion, would drive hammers, useful in fulling wool, tanning hides and metalworking: 'The Cistercians pioneered the use of water-mills in iron metallurgy, and Kirkstall [Abbey] may have built the first water-driven hammer forges.' (Source: Kirkstall > Lands > Industry.)

In the late 12th century, the Cistercian monks were at the forefront of a minor "industrial revolution", that saw the introduction of fulling mills to Britain. The introduction of water technology revolutionised the fulling process that had hitherto relied on human power to either 'walk' or beat the cloth. The Cistercians at Quarr Abbey seem to have set up an early fulling mill on their grange at Haseley [on the Isle of Wight, c. 1200].

I'll end with one other area the Cistercians developed: mining. Fountains Abbey's lands included lead mines and smelting works. The monks and lay-brothers used lead in the 'manufacture of piping and brewing vats, and for use in roofing and window tracery' and for the ventilation system, and iron mines and forges, iron being used for 'tools, fittings and horseshoes, clippers to shear sheep and everyday objects such as buckles, keys, pots and pans', and 'plough shares, horseshoes, arrow tips, spades, nails, ship’s anchors' ("The contribution of the Cistercian Order to the economic development of the north was little less than revolutionary.".)

Today is Sexagesima Sunday. From my ScrapBook grab of the old catholichaven.org site, here is part of Dom Guéranger's commentary.

Today's Introit, Gradual, (no Alleluia, it being buried) Tract, Offertory and Communion in mp3 format, chanted, can be downloaded or listened to at Dominica in Sexagesima.

The image below of The Shipwreck of St. Paul in Malta fresco, is from The Tower of Winds in Vatican City. The Tower 'was supposed to be used mainly to facilitate the astronomical studies for the reform of the Calendar. . . . The Sala della Meridiana (Meridian Hall), originally formed by an open gallery, [was] to be used for astronomical observations.' Pope Urban VIII (see the previous post here, The Archangel Michael overpowers, flattens, and subdues a [future] Pope) ordered the gallery's arches closed, and Pope Alexander VII gave it to the Catholic convert Queen Christina of Sweden as her residence. 'In 1891, Leo XIII founded the Vatican Observatory (Specola Vaticana) and chose the Tower of Winds as its seat, and its roof was substituted with a flat terrace to allow astronomical observations.' (Quoted material from the linked site on the Tower.)

A few works come up in a search on 'Lourdes' at the Internet Archive, and the following look to be particularly interesting:

• Lourdes, by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson,
• Lourdes, by Johannes Jørgensen, with a preface by Hillaire Belloc,
• The glories of Lourdes, by Justin Rousseil, and
• Our Lady of Lourdes, by Henri Lasserre.

Lourdes, grotto in 1858
from Lourdes, by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson


Lourdes, grotto in 1914
from Lourdes, by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson

The best television series, ever, James Burke's Connections, can be viewed here, episode by episode. Watch them from the bottom of the page (the first episode, 'The Trigger Effect', is at the bottom), to the top of the page (the final episode, 'Yesterday, Tomorrow and You' is at the top).

Eddie Feigner, USMC (Ret) , the King of the 'King and his Court' passed on yesterday, Febuary 9, 2007. He was 81. On national television in 1964, he struck out big leaguers Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Maury Wills, Harmon Killebrew, Roberto Clemente and Brooks Robinson, in order. I don't know whether it was on eighteen pitches, but it probably wasn't many more.

Today is the feast of St Scholastica (no article in the Catholic Encyclopedia). From breviary.net, here are Lessons iv v and vi for the this virgin, the twin sister of St Benedict, with some images depicting her. The first printing press in Italy was established in 1463 at Santa Scholastica, Subiaco.

Most, if not all, of what we know with great certainty about this holy nun is from Pope St Gregory the Great's Dialogues, ch XXXIII (link is to the Latin and an English translation).

Don Marco's post A Remarkable Discovery on his Vultus Christi has a letter attributed to St Scholastica on the observance of Lent.

It rained today down under, where Perpétua is.

Back on March 30, 2006, the BBC's Radio 4 program 'In Our Time' broadcasted 'The Carolingian Renaissance - the revival of early medieval Western Europe'. Radio 4 makes available mp3 audio format files for only seven days or so after the show airs, and hence the mp3 is no longer available.

So, I've put the mp3 on this site in case someone wants to download it and listen to it at their leisure.

Here is the direct link to the mp3 file. Click on the link and your audio player should launch. If you right mouse click on the link, you ought to be able to save the mp3 file to your computer.

Previous posts here referencing 'In Our Time':

• 'Greyfriars and Blackfriars - philosophy, evangelism and fund-raising in the 13th century Church', from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• 'The Siege of Constantinople - the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire', from from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• 'The Jesuits - the school masters of Europe', from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• One more day to download 'The Siege of Constantinople' from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• 'In Our Time' returns',
• In Our Time tomorrow, Thursday, March 30: The Carolingian Renaissance, and
• The Field of the Cloth of Gold, on the BBC's 'In Our Time', available for download [updated].

Back on November 10, 2005, the BBC's Radio 4 program 'In Our Time' broadcasted 'Greyfriars and Blackfriars - philosophy, evangelism and fund-raising in the 13th century Church'. Radio 4 makes available mp3 audio format files for only seven days or so after the show airs, and hence the mp3 is no longer available.

So, I've put the mp3 on this site in case someone wants to download it and listen to it at their leisure. Here is the direct link to the mp3 file. Click on the link and your audio player should launch. If you right mouse click on the link, you ought to be able to save the mp3 file to your computer.

Previous posts here referencing 'In Our Time':

• 'The Siege of Constantinople - the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire', from from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• 'The Jesuits - the school masters of Europe', from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• One more day to download 'The Siege of Constantinople' from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• 'In Our Time' returns',
• In Our Time tomorrow, Thursday, March 30: The Carolingian Renaissance, and
• The Field of the Cloth of Gold, on the BBC's 'In Our Time', available for download [updated].

Back on December 28, 2006, the BBC's Radio 4 program In Our Time broadcasted 'The Siege of Constantinople - the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire'. Radio 4 makes available mp3 audio format files for only seven days or so after the show airs, and hence the mp3 is no longer available.

So, I've put the mp3 on this site in case someone wants to download it and listen to it at their leisure. Here is the direct link to the mp3 file. Click on the link and your audio player should launch. If you right mouse click on the link, you ought to be able to save the mp3 file to your computer.

Previous posts here referencing 'In Our Time':

• 'The Jesuits - the school masters of Europe', from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• One more day to download 'The Siege of Constantinople' from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• 'In Our Time' returns',
• In Our Time tomorrow, Thursday, March 30: The Carolingian Renaissance, and
• The Field of the Cloth of Gold, on the BBC's 'In Our Time', available for download [updated].

Back on January 18, 2007, the BBC's Radio 4 program In Our Time broadcasted 'The Jesuits - the school masters of Europe'. Radio 4 makes available mp3 audio format files for only seven days or so after the show airs, and hence the mp3 is no longer available.

So, I've put the mp3 on this site in case someone wants to download it and listen to it at their leisure. Here is the direct link to the mp3 file. Click on the link and your audio player should launch. If you right mouse click on the link, you ought to be able to save the mp3 file to your computer.

Previous posts here referencing 'In Our Time':

• One more day to download 'The Siege of Constantinople' from the BBC's 'In Our Time',
• 'In Our Time' returns',
• In Our Time tomorrow, Thursday, March 30: The Carolingian Renaissance, and
• The Field of the Cloth of Gold, on the BBC's 'In Our Time', available for download [updated].

This site runs Pivot, blogging software written in PHP and not requiring any database to function. When v1.40.0 came out, I tried it for a little while until comment spam overwhelmed me. That was probably because I had not configured in illo tempore correctly. Today, I upgraded to v1.40.1, and we'll see how it goes. Changelog for 1.40. Changelog for 1.40.1. What's the emoticon for 'holding my breath and crossing my fingers'?

I've installed a different comment spam blocker. No longer do readers need to answer the 'silly question' to post comments, but javascript must be enabled on your browser in order to comment. Yes, I know . . .

One interesting new feature is tagging.

A translation into English of Fr Patrick de La Roque's letter to diocesan clergy in France is in Francisco Romero's blog post SSPX to the Diocesan French Clergy: How to Say the Mass. The letter contains a few astute remarks on introducing the faithful to the Traditional Latin Mass. Apparently, the letter responds to a request for information on saying the TLM. A second DVD, 'to teach [the] symbolic and liturgical explanation' of 'gestures and rites [sic? actions?]' may be produced.

Searching, unsuccessfully, for an image of Dom Dominic Johner, I came across Liturgiologist's heaven, a post by BJA on the Occidentalis blog. (He has a carving of St Bede the Venerable in his sidebar which came up in an image search for Johner.) In the post he lists more than five dozen works at the Internet Archive he categorizes under liturgy. Here are the items he lists under 'The Roman Mass':

• The Sacrifice of the Mass (M. Gavin, 1903),
• Holy Mass: The Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Roman Liturgy, Volume I (Herbert Lucas, 1914),
• Holy Mass: The Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Roman Liturgy, Volume II (Herbert Lucas, 1914),
• The Mass: Its Doctrine, Its History (Ferdinand Cabrol, 192–),
• Explanation of the Sacrifice and Liturgy of the Mass (1870),
• The Liturgy of the Roman Missal (Jules Baudot and Desire Camille Leduc, 1920),
• The Roman Missal Adapted to the Use of the Laity (19––),
• The Roman Missal for the Use of the Laity (1806),
• Hierurgia, Volume I (Daniel Rock, 1833).

BJA is also preparing works on 'the rites of "old" Holy Week, that is, before the reforms of Pope Pius XII in 1955 [and] . . . a similar draft for the "new" Holy Week, reformed under Pius XII'.

Writing, I assume, from way down South, Jeffrey Tucker posted The Age of Dom Johner - Again a few days ago on The New Liturgical Movement blog. In it he mentioned that the Church Music Association of America makes available for purchase The Chants of the Vatican Gradual and A New School of Gregorian Chant by the Benedictine priest Dominic Johner. I've twice posted excerpts from The Chants of the Vatican Gradual, at The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, excerpts from The Chants of the Vatican Gradual by Dom Dominic Johner and at Septuagesima Sunday, excerpts from The Chants of the Vatican Gradual by Dom Dominic Johner, and mp3 recordings of today's Offertory and Communion.

Both of Dom Johner's works are also freely available on the 'net:

• A New School of Gregorian Chant in .pdf, .djvu, .txt and FlipBook formats, at the Internet Archive, and
• a .pdf version of The Chants of the Vatican Gradual from the Church Music Association of America (this is a direct link to the .pdf format file).

The CMAA describes A New School of Gregorian Chant thusly:

This is Dom Johner's practical guide to chant, a classic since it was first published in 1912 with the English translation appearing in 1925. It is meant not as an academic treatise (though the research here is extraordinary) but as a training manual for a higher level of singing. The goal of the book is to help the singer render Gregorian chants worthily, and in true artistic style, especially in the Liturgy, and to kindle enthusiasm for this glorious music.

T. Peregrinus's post A welcome visitor includes a humorous improvisation by Fr. Timothy Deeter, when he was performing the function of deacon at a Mass said by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in St Peter's Basilica.

Hat tip tp JP Sonnen's post Cardinal Pell and the Aussie Catholics... linking not to the post, but to the blog.

No Dom Guéranger this week: when catholichaven.org had up selections of his commentary, the site omitted Septuagesima Sunday. I've decided to excerpt the commentary on the Introit, Gradual, Collect (Tract), Offertory and Communion, by Dom Dominic Johner, from The Chants of the Vatican Gradual. A previous post here, giving some background on the works and its purpose, is at The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, excerpts from The Chants of the Vatican Gradual by Dom Dominic Johner.

The Introit, Gradual, Alleluia-verse, Tract, Sequence, Offertory, and Communion 'are studied in their historical and liturgical setting, and their sentiments of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, gratitude and penance, are pointed out and developed. In this sense also the intimate relationship existing between these various texts is indicated; all are integrated into a unified whole and referred to the life of Christ and His Church. Following this short meditation, the author analyses the musical score accompanying the text, and attempts to show how Gregorian Chant interprets these various sentiments and gives adequate expression to them— in short, how Gregorian Chant is the perfect yet simple medium of translating religious emotion into the language of music.' (Quoting the translators.)

Today's Offertory and Communion in mp3 format, chanted, can be downloaded or listened to at Dominica in Septuagesima.

To detect a Soviet air attack on North America, the United States built sixty-three DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line radar stations across Canada and Alaska in the 1950s. They provided several hours notice of any approaching enemy bombers.

The MetaFilter post The DEW Line links to some images taken by Dewliners, including the one below of Father Franz Van de Velde, O.M.I. celebrating Christmas Mass at the Pelly Bay Mission, then part of the Vicariate Apostolic of Baie d'Hudson. You can just make out the chalice with pall and two prayer cards.

Christmas Mass at the Pellay Bay Mission, 1960
Father Franz Van de Velde, O.M.I.

Fr Van de Velde was born in Belgium in 1909, sailed to New York in 1937, wintered in Repulse Bay, Northwest Territories, arrived in Pelly Bay (Kugaaruk) in April, 1938, and spent the next 50 years of his life in the Canadian Arctic, mainly in the Pelly Bay and Kitikmeot region. He passed to his reward in 2002. Source: Arctic contents. There's a story about one Christmas at Pelly Bay and Fr Van de Velde at Christmas at the Real Pelly Bay.