pressed by the Cabochiens were registered and then revoked. Contemporaries applied it
to the trial of the duke of Alençon at Vendôme in 1458. The sessions termed lits de
justice were not novel: earlier kings had visited the Parlement to register important
ordonnances and for important trials. In the new usage, the term designated the most
solemn and formal of the king’s visits, distinguished from those made to attend pleadings
and seek counsel. In the 16th century, it came to be associated particularly with sessions
when the king imposed registration of unpopular legislation. Although evidence is sparse
for the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the ordonnance of 1485 and the declarations of
such officials as Claude de Seyssel show that the institution’s significance was not
forgotten and go far to explain the reappearance of the term to designate solemn royal
sessions of the Parlement in 1527 and later years.
Elizabeth A.R.Brown/Richard C.Famiglietti
[See also: LAW AND JUSTICE; PARLEMENT DE PARIS]
Brown, Elizabeth A.R., and Richard C.Famiglietti. The Lit de Justice: Semantics, Ceremonial, and
the Parlement of Paris 1300–1600. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994.
Hanley, Sarah. The Lit de Justice of the Kings of France: Constitutional Ideology in Legend, Ritual,
and Discourse. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Holt, Mack P. “The King in Parlement: The Problem of the Lit de Justice in Sixteenth-Century
France.” Historical Journal 31 (1988):507–23.
Scheller, R.W. “The ‘Lit de Justice,’ or How to Sit on a Bed of Estate.” In Annus quadriga mundi:
Dertien Opstellen over middeleeuwse Kunst, ed. J.B.Bedaux and A.M.Koldeweij. Zutphen:
Welburg Pers, 1989, pp. 193–202.
LITURGICAL BOOKS
. Liturgical books contain the prescribed texts and rubrics for the conduct of worship,
including the celebration of the Mass, the observance of the Divine Office, and the
administration of the sacraments. Chief among the numerous medieval types are the
Lectionary, a descendant of the Comes, which contains excerpts (pericopes) from
Scripture to be used as readings in the daily liturgy of the Mass; the Breviary, which in
the 12th and 13th centuries emerged as a single volume incorporating all of the texts of
the Divine Office; and the Sacramentary and Pontifical, discussed below.
The earliest forms of Christian worship used the Bible as the primary text and were
organized around freely created formulae. By the 3rd century, however, there is evidence
of written formulae for the eucharistic celebration, and following the Edict of Milan (313)
a process of increasing systematization of the liturgy begins. The first collections to
appear, the libelli missarum, were small booklets containing prayers for the Mass. Out of
these developed the Sacramentaries, the most important of which were the Leonine, the
so-called Gelasian (Vat. Reg. 316), and the Gregorian. Reflecting the medieval practice of
providing a book for each minister, not each liturgical act, the Sacramentary contained
the texts required for the presider only; the directions for the performance of the liturgy
were found in separate volumes known as “Ordinals (ordines Romani). Ordinals
accompany both the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries. It was only in the 12th and
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1046