A ‘Proper’ Celebration: The Old Hispanic Commune Sanctorum and its Affordance for Individualised Liturgies

The collective intoning of chant and prayer performed on a saint’s feast day tells us much about what the composers, compilers, and celebrants of that liturgy understood and valued about that saint in their community. Liturgies composed specifically in honour of a particular saint thus understandably dominate the scholarship. This article instead spotlights the Commune sanctorum, those materials able to be used for the liturgy of any saint in a given saintly category. I show how Commune sanctorum materials, especially in the León Antiphoner, could do far more than simply ascribe a saint standard, saintly characteristics. Rather, they could offer liturgical practitioners the opportunity to create personalised liturgies with meaningful resonance to the saint’s life. Through two case studies, this article challenges our understanding of common and proper saints’ liturgies, situating liturgies created from the Commune sanctorum as sites of distinctive local practice and liturgical creativity.