Book review: The Roman Mass: From Early Christian Origins to Tridentine Reform. By Uwe Michael Lang. Pp. 445. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. ISBN 9781108832458.

Abstract

This impressive volume discusses the development of Mass in the Latin Church from its beginnings to the end of the Middle Ages. The author places the history of what he calls ‘The Roman Mass’ in the earliest origins of Christian worship, considering the traces of these origins in the biblical New Testament, and following further formation and transformation in the early Christian centuries. The first three chapters deal with these early Christian origins, before the actual topic of ‘the Roman’ Mass comes into the picture. The middle five chapters focus on the medieval period, starting in late antiquity (ch. 4), zooming in on the early Roman papal liturgy (ch. 5), discussing the input of the early medieval transalpine cultures under the Carolingians (ch. 6) and the Ottonians (ch. 7), and zooming out on a plurality of Mass practices in the first half of the second millennium (ch. 8). The impact of the late antique and medieval developments on (early) modern and contemporary liturgical history is described in the final chapter via the events and liturgical productions of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation period.