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Project A4:
Mass in the Late Middle Ages: Theory of Symbols, Ceremonial Practice, and Social Communication
| Abstract |
The project investigates, in the context of the history of rituals, the meaning of mass-liturgy from the Middle Ages to the threshold of the Reformation. Previous research on sacrificial offerings has shown the altar as a scene of action whose paradigmatic importance for the netting of ritual acts and social practice is in a state of ongoing development. Apart from this social dimension of the ritual and its role in giving shape to rituals in other fields of social activity, the work concerns the inner dynamics of the ritual as such. The course of the ritual and its interpretations help to illustrate how mass-liturgy served to prepare sacrality and presence, and how in commentaries it was explained as visualisation and dramatisation of Jesus' life and suffering. Not the least important point therein is to demonstrate the ritual as generating groups and institutions, while dissociating from heretics and those of a different faith.
The project develops a data base of pictures and texts called "Missa Mediaevalis", which is also its most important working instrument.
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