Studies on Medieval Liturgy and Ritual

Dear Colleagues,

Christian liturgy undoubtedly has a ritual quality, characterized by its involvement in the salvific history. At the same time, liturgy encompasses the service of the church to God, as well as God's interaction with human beings. On the one hand, liturgy can be understood as the totality of acts of worship that follow fixed forms and formulas. On the other hand, the term is also considered a category of analysis in cultural studies and refers to the execution of a more or less unchanging sequence of formal actions and statements that contain an already predetermined meaning (Roy Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) or "any ritual action with an ultimate frame of reference and the doing of which is understood to be of cosmic necessity" (Ronald L. Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies [1982]. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. (=Studies in Comparative Religion), 1995). Liturgy can thus be understood in the Christian context of ritual actions as an expression of the Christian faith of an individual or the community. Thus, liturgy stands in both an anthropological and socio-cultural context (post). There is a dynamic interaction between rituals and the surrounding culture or worldview, whereby ritual is not a rigid entity but remains open to revelation and change. The tension between the two terms liturgy and ritual opens the possibility, both within the theological context and outside the ecclesiastical sphere, of exploring the dynamics of complex, seemingly uniform actions in their changing referentiality and changing of meaning for a community.

The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

- Diversity and consolidation of rituals in the liturgy (e.g., in the development of Eastern and Western churches, in the context of church reforms, etc.).

- Theological disputes about the "right" rituals.

- Shifts in the meaning of rituals within the liturgy.

- Processes in the standardization of liturgy and their social and political background.

- Rituals and ceremonies regarding the tension between church and society/politics, as well as their changes.

- Community-constituting meaning of "liturgical" rituals, for example, in cooperatives, guilds and other social groups.

- Mediality/materiality of ritual and liturgy (“Schriftlichkeit”, music, objects…).

- Ritual and space in liturgy.

- Female liturgy and gender.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors, Dr. Eva-Maria Butz ([email protected]) and Prof. Dr. Jörg Bölling ([email protected]), or to the Assistant Editor of Religions, Ms. Margaret Liu ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purpose of ensuring that the paper is within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer-review process.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Eva-Maria Butz
Prof. Dr. Jörg Bölling
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• liturgy
• ritual
• ceremony
• correctness
• mediality
• materiality
• space
• music
• gender