Inorganic' Development: Changing Liturgical Customs in Late Medieval Scotland (1192-1510) as the Antithesis of 'Traditional' Catholic Liturgical Devel

This project will utilise extant texts from the period to present the first comprehensive historical survey and analysis of liturgical development in Scotland from 1192-1510. In doing so, it will explore how a critical awareness of past liturgical practice can be used to remedy ongoing discord among Catholic liturgists following the promulgation of Pope Francis' 2021 motu proprio Traditionis custodes.

The second contribution of this project will be to address contemporary Catholic liturgical debates in consideration of this national and historical case study. Consequently, this project will compare the evolution of medieval liturgy in Scotland to the criteria for 'organic' liturgical development cited by twenty-first century scholars Peter Kwasniewski (2017), Joseph Ratzinger (2000), Alcuin Reid (2005), and Athanasius Schneider (2021).

Therefore, this project will unveil the now-overlooked political, pastoral and practical elements of reform that guided ritual development prior to the standardisation of Western Catholic liturgy in the sixteenth century.

The catalogues of extant medieval Scottish liturgical books and fragments that survived the Protestant Reformation suggest the evolution of localised variations of the Roman rite in the country (David McRoberts, 1952; Stephen Holmes, 2011). Where conclusions on the development of Scotland's liturgical customs cannot be drawn from these few surviving sources, it will thus be necessary to infer them, to some extent, from scholarship on medieval English and Scandinavian rites (Archdale King, 1959; William Maskell, 1846; and Richard Pfaff, 2009).

The contents of the extant manuscripts will also be analysed in conjunction with scholarship on medieval Church councils in the country (Donald Watt, 2000) and the relationship between Scotland's ecclesiastical and political authorities (Jane Dawson, 2007; Jenny Wormald, 1987). Thus, this study will provide a comprehensive historical analysis of medieval liturgical development which will inform the present-day, and practical, debates about the Catholic rites.