On the Historical Development of the Liturgy

In 1921 Anton Baumstark delivered two lectures on thedevelopment of the Roman Rite to a gathering at the Abbey ofMaria Laach. Abbot Ildefons Herwegen offered to publish thoselectures but Baumstark decided to write a book on the topicinstead which was published two years later as On the HistoricalDevelopment of the Liturgy. It would be another sixteen years beforehe 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 HistoricalDevelopment of the Liturgy offers his model.For nearly a century On the Historical Development of the Liturgyhas been valued by specialists in the field of liturgical studies bothfor its description of comparative liturgy and for the portrayalof patterns Baumstark discerns in liturgical development. Alsosignificant are the hypotheses Baumstark proposes and the evidencehe brings to bear on problems in liturgical history. In this annotatededition Fritz West provides the first English translation of this work by Anton Baumstark.