In this volume, readers experience, in English translation, the colorful and varied textual fabric of the most important literary and creative repertory of the Middle Ages. The public, organized worship of the Church had a central role in medieval life. Studying its forms and genres allows readers not only to become aware of one of the most important influences on culture and religion, but also to consider these texts, which were widely disseminated and had fundamental effects on daily life.

A Commentary on the Order of Mass of The Roman Missal gathers the insights of some of today's foremost English-speaking liturgical scholars to aid in understanding this most recent edition of the Order of Mass and its new English translation. Developed under the auspices of the Catholic Academy of Liturgy this commentary was guided by three primary concerns: to situate the promulgation of a new English translation of the Roman Missal historically and theologically to aid in the pastoral implementation of these texts and rites to contribute to the ongoing development of vernacular worship for English-speaking Roman Catholics Contributors include: John Baldovin Anscar Chupungco Mary Collins Keith Pecklers David Power Joyce Ann Zimmermann The volume is edited by John Baldovin, SJ, Professor of Historical and Liturgical Theology at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry Mary Collins, OSB, Professor Emerita at The Catholic University of America School of Theology and Religious Studies, Washington DC Edward Foley, Capuchin, the Duns Scotus Professor of Spirituality and Professor of Liturgy and Music at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago Joanne Pierce, Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA

This is the first annotated critical edition of works of Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), a writer recognized by literary critics, historians, and theologians as one of the most important figures in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Peter McCullough, a leading expert on religious writing in the early modern period, presents fourteen complete sermons and lectures preached by Andrewes across the whole range of his adult career, from Cambridge in the 1580s to the court of James I and VI in the 1620s. Through a radical reassessment of Andrewes's life, influence, and surviving texts, the editor presents Andrewes as his contemporaries saw, heard, and read him, and as scholars are increasingly recognizing him: one of the most subtle, yet radical critics of mainstream Elizabethan Protestantism, and a literary artist of the highest order. The centuries-old influence of William Laud's authorized edition of Andrewes (1629) is here complicated and contextualized by the full use for the first time of the whole range of Andrewes's works printed before and after his lifetime, as well as manuscript sources. The edition also showcases the aesthetic brilliance of Andrewes's remarkable prose, and suggests new ways for scholars to carry forward the modern literary appreciation of Andrewes famously begun by T. S. Eliot. A full introductory essay sets study of Andrewes on a new footing by placing his works in the context of his life and career, surveying the history of responses to his writings, and summarizing the history of the transmission of his texts. The texts here are edited to high modern critical standards. The exhaustive commentary sets each selection in its historical context, documents Andrewes's myriad sources, glosses important and unfamiliar words and allusions, and translates his frequent quotations from the ancient Biblical languages.