Dies natalis:
From celebrated doctor to perfumed body
In this part we explore the creation of sensory experience through our source material, that is, the medieval manuscripts containing the liturgies for Thomas’s feasts. The Dominicans who created Thomas’s o�ces emphasized his body with an intensity rarely found in the liturgy of other saints. The intensity presumably a�ected the audience – friars, Dominican nuns and laity alike – and made Thomas’s intangible presence real. His presence was enacted through the liturgical performance, which is considered here mostly from the viewpoint of singing, reading and seeing the liturgical books, but hearing, smelling, touching and tasting are also integral to our analysis. The approach in this part is largely cultural and art historical, but we do take musicological and philological viewpoints into account as well.
When Thomas’s Dies natalis o�ce was composed, the Dominican Order, whose members prepared the liturgy, had just succeeded in having a third friar from their ranks canonized. Thomas’s canonization was not necessarily energetically supported by the whole Order.
Thomas probably enjoyed the veneration of most of the Dominican friars in southern Italy, where he was born and where he had joined the Order of Preachers in Naples. When the canonization process came to a successful conclusion in 1323, regardless of whether Thomas was perceived as a saint throughout the Order in Europe and by lay people or not, it became important to present him as such in his liturgy. At the time of the canonization Thomas’s corpse was in Cistercian hands, with the exception of a few pieces of bone in Dominican possession,
and this created an extra intensity in the Dominican celebration of him. The friars believed that Thomas’s corpse rightfully belonged to their (his) Order, and they, wanted to persuade others to side with them, to make the world believe that an injustice had been done to them.359 The liturgy was without doubt the most e�ective way for the Dominicans to transmit their message widely, both inside and outside the Order. The o�ce of the Dies natalis carries a dual message: on the one hand it presents Thomas’s saintly deeds in a traditional manner, connecting him to St Dominic and St Augustine as well as the whole biblical tradition, and on the other hand it emphasizes Thomas’s (Dominican) corporality both in earthly and eternal life. In the following pages, we examine how these two sides of Thomas were propagated throughout the o�ce of the Dies natalis, selecting musically and contextually representative examples, whether they are details in single manuscripts or common features of the sources.
The antiphon Felix Thomas (Blessed Thomas) opens the o�ce of the Dies natalis. The atmosphere of the chant is celebrative and emotional at the same time. The air is full of tenderness as the mode of the antiphon is at first a mellow one. The atmosphere created by the music seems to reflect the joy of the Order at having Thomas o�cially canonized.360 The words are in perfect concordance with the message of the tone: “Blessed Thomas, doctor of the church, light of the World, splendour of Italy, a virgin shining in the flower of his purity, rejoices in his twofold crown of glory.”361 The chant presents Thomas o�cially as blessed. He has two crowns, signs of sainthood, for being a confessor and virgin of Christ.
A closer look at the combination of music and words reveals the way in which Thomas’s saintly character is condensed in his
359 Räsänen 2017.
360 For example, for a comparison of a later, similar type of melody in the Finnish St Henrik’s o�ce, see the first chant Gaude cetus fidélium (Rejoice, flock of the faithful).
Turku, Provincial Archives of Turku, Archdiocese Cathedral Chapter, Antifonarium Liber Cappelle Charis Loyo, Gu I:3; Turku, Åbo Academy’s Library, Antiphonarium Tammelense Gu I:3. f. 27V.TA 155V. See also Taitto 1998.
361 For all the notations and Latin texts of Thomas’s two o�ces discussed in this chapter, see Part III.
representations, musical, literal and pictorial, already from the opening of the o�ce: the first phrase and its melody introduce Thomas as the music rises up to the fifth interval from the Final. The second phrase begins immediately after the fifth interval, which is an important recitation tone of the chant. The music continues to soar even higher until it reaches the highest point, its dynamic existence, with the words lumen mundi, splendor. The overall balance between the music and poetry emphasize the core message of the antiphon: Thomas is the light of the world.
The following piece of the o�ce, the psalm Laudate pueri (Ps. 112), calls on the audience to praise the Lord, who is presented as the rising sun that is high above all the nations. The antiphon and the psalm share practically the same metaphor/topos. Every antiphon is followed by a psalm – for example at the beginning of the Matins there is a series of three psalms – and it becomes evident that antiphon-psalm-antiphon alternation functions like a conversation between the new saint, presented in the antiphons, and the old tradition which is anchored in psalms.362 This important aspect of the antiphons and psalms in saints’
o�ces is often forgotten. However, the psalms are the cornerstone of the liturgy of hours, and further, of the o�ce dedicated to a saint. Our suggestion is that this antiphon-psalm-antiphon alternation referred to the authority and security of the tradition. Using the bond between the antiphons and psalms, the o�ce of the Dies natalis masterfully introduces the new saint, Thomas, to the faithful, bringing the same enlightenment and hope of salvation as God himself.363 Thomas is like a new guest who has been invited to enter the familiar old surroundings, the biblical world of the psalms.
Not surprisingly the next chant, the great responsory Sertum gestans, highlights again Thomas’s ability to bring enlightenment to the world, the same theme that echoes from the previous chant. Now the words carry a more material imagery: “From his necklace of heavenly
362 Dyer 1989; Boynton 2007.
363 On medieval way to read the Psalms allegorically referring directly to Christ, see Thibodeau 2015, 14–17.
fire, a light spreads across the World.” We must remember that by its place in the Matins, the responsory in question formed a great final to the series of the responsories and to the shortened Vita of Thomas presented piece by piece in the first, second and third nocturn. As the last responsory, it elevated St Thomas to an equal level with St Augustine, and even higher: “[…] Augustine speaks to a brother:
Thomas is my equal in glory, my superior in his virginal purity”.364 In other words, Thomas is compared here to St Augustine, one of the most authoritative medieval philosophers and a Church father, not to mention the person whose rule the Order of Preachers followed, and he is found to be his equal.365 Since according to the hagiographical narratives the comparison was made by St Augustine himself, the story had to have a huge importance for Thomas’s memory. In the liturgy, and when Sertum gestans was also performed in the Vespers, it was a grandiose introduction to Thomas, who was elevated to an exalted place in the history of the Church.
At the beginning of Thomas’s Dies natalis, the dialogue between the music and the words proceeds smoothly and in some cases the dialogue even reaches a pictoriallevel, i.e. the liturgical manuscripts have decoration which reinforces the content of the o�ce.366 The most sumptuous example is in the manuscript of Orvieto (O), which we have already seen as di�ering from the other manuscripts in regard to the notation of several chants. Folio 134R with the beginning of Thomas’s Dies natalis is pictorially decorated around all its edges in a vegetal style resembling that of central Italy. Moreover, it has several medallions that have di�erent people depicted inside, including two Dominicans.
The folio also has two fairly large historiated images. The image in the lower margins catches our attention: it represents Thomas sitting in front of a church building, presenting his writings – he has one book in
364 The whole text of MR9 in Latin with the notation, see Part III and Appendix 6 in English.
365 The episode appeared in written form for the first time in the canonization hearing records in Naples in 1319. After the canonization it was commonly adopted into Thomas’s Legendae, see, for example, Ystoria, cap. XXIII.
366 On mental techniques to “to step” through the pictorial reality to the spiritual realm, see an illustrative example in Baert, Iterbeke and Watteeuw 2018.