Ill and Impaired Bodies in a Ninth-Century Liturgical Commentary

T his paper seeks to locate the ninth-century liturgical commentary, the Liber Officialis by Amalarius of Metz, in scholarly discourse concerning disability and sickness.By analysing five distinct moments in the text where Amalarius specifically writes about a bodily ailment or impairment and its consequence on the affected person's experience of Mass, I will argue that Amalarius' interpretation of the liturgy is shaped by a desire to normalize and de-stigmatize any medical conditions that might have been seen in a negative light by other members of the congregation.The fact that the celebration of Mass is the context in which everything occurs is particularly important, for, as I will show, certain physical conditions can be considered disabilities therein but would not be construed as such under other circumstances or in different settings.Where applicable and non-anachronistic, I will also draw on terms and concepts developed by scholars of modern disability studies and expand upon them so that we may consider how a text written almost twelve centuries earlier can contribute to our understanding of perceptions of illness and impairment throughout history. Background Information on the Liber Officialis and Existing ScholarshipAmalarius of Metz (d.c. 850 CE) is remembered today for his exceptionally innovative interpretations of the Roman Catholic liturgy.His innovation, unsurprisingly, made him a target for accusations of heresy, 1.I would like to thank Professor Katherine Williams for recommending sources that have been of great value to this essay.Much gratitude also goes to Professor John Haines, out of whose seminar class this essay developed.Finally, I thank my anonymous reviewer for many helpful suggestions and corrections.Ill and Impaired Bodies v 23 terrain of illness and disability grew out of New Testament theology," 16 Christ's miraculous healings, and the idea that bodily nuisances were caused by sin and spiritual defects, although this last point may have been overemphasized by modern historians.17 Wheatley mentions that, in medieval visual art and narratives about saints, a patient's infirmity is not the object of concern in itself, but a means for a saint to prove his or her holiness by curing it.Simultaneously, the patient's faith in the healer is ultimately more important than the wholeness of the body.18 The primary form of disability that Wheatley discusses is blindness, and he situates it in a liturgical context when pointing out that, "from the twelfth century through the remainder of the Middle Ages, the laity partook of the Eucharist through only their sense of sight."19 Healthy members of the congregation who could see the elevation of the host by the priest directed their gaze onto God himself and were able to benefit fully from communion in this way without being required to confess their sins beforehand.On the contrary, confession had to be made before oral ingestion of the Eucharist, for fear of anyone receiving the Lord's body unworthily.20 Since communion through sight was not an option for the blind, physical impairment put one's spiritual well-being at a disadvantage.Wheatley cites two miracle narratives -one from Jean Gobi's Miracles de Saint Marie-Madeleine and another from The Life and Gests of S. Thomas Cantilupe -through which we can see how disability and liturgy coincided in the minds of medieval writers.In the first story, a man who lost his eyesight in the grueling environs of prison enters a church and meditates upon the body of Christ in the host.However, he fervently desires to behold it not only with his spiritual vision but with his literal sight, prizing the latter as more efficacious in producing an intense and immediate experience of sacred materiality.God grants his prayer and he regains the use of his eyes.In the second story, a blind man who was once a servant to Saint Thomas prays to the Virgin Mary for his eyesight, hoping that he could

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