"A Pueblo book."

Translated from the German.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

The problem and its solution -- Domestic and congregational celebrations -- The legacy of the synagogue -- The impact of Hellenism -- Variety and uniformity -- Regional definition and influential centers -- Transferal and blending -- Liturgy and politics -- Cathedral and monastery -- The work of the individual -- Language and nation -- Development, persistence, hardening -- Liturgical language and the vernacular -- Priest and deacon -- The ivy of poetry -- The demands of personal piety -- Reform and standardization -- The limits of what we can know.

In 1921, Anton Baumstark delivered two lectures on the development of the Roman Rite to a gathering at the Abbey of Maria Laach. Abbot Ildefons Herwegen offered to publish those lectures, but Baumstark decided to write a book on the topic instead, which was published two years later as On the Historical Development of the Liturgy. It would be another sixteen years before he produced Comparative Liturgy, for which he is better known. Together the two books lay out Baumstark's liturgical methodology. Comparative Liturgy presents his method; On the Historical Development of the Liturgy offers his model. --

For nearly a century On the Historical Development of the Liturgy has been valued by specialists in the field of liturgical studies, both for its description of comparative liturgy and for the portrayal of patterns Baumstark discerns in liturgical development. Also significant are the hypotheses Baumstark proposes and the evidence he brings to bear on problems in liturgical history. In this annotated edition, Fritz West provides the first English translation of this work by Anton Baumstark. --

Trained in classical and oriental philology, Anton Baumstark (1872-1948) was prodigious as a scholar studying the literature, art, and liturgy of the whole church--Oriental, Eastern, and Western. Comparative liturgy, his method for studying the historical development of the liturgy as an organism, has had a lasting influence, notably on the liturgical study of the Christian East. --Book Jacket.