Cistercian Liturgy and daily practice through the manuscripts of Alcobaça: Preliminary considerations from three sample rituals

In recent decades the medieval liturgy has attracted growing scholarly attention as an area with great potential for yielding a wealth of information at a number of levels of historical research. Where the Cistercian liturgy is concerned, due to a preoccupation with uniformity of practice across the Order, investigation not only relies on analysis of the surviving manuscripts but also on scrutiny of the legislation produced by the Cistercian General Chapter which was convened annually from the first half of the twelfth century. This paper examines some liturgical books, and books supplementary to the liturgy, which survive from the library of the Monastery of Alcobaça, comprising different sources that connect text with performance. The main goal is, through an analysis to different liturgical books, recover (partially) gestures, performances and prayers and use these sources to study and contextualize liturgical identity of this Cistercian Monastery.