commentaries by Maurice de Sully; and formulae for confession. The liturgical collection
deemed most suitable for the laity was the psalter, which explains its early translation
into the vernacular. The oldest psalters were in Latin, however, as were most of the books
of hours (consisting of the Penitential psalms and the Office of the Dead), but these were
sometimes combined with prayers in the vernacular. The earliest prayerbook containing
vernacular prayers, the Psalter of Lambert de Bègue, was produced early in the 13th
century in the vicinity of Liège.
Vernacular prayers, more independent of Latin models than the liturgical pieces,
address the heavenly hierarchy: God, Jesus, the Virgin, and the saints. The Ave Maria
appears in French only in the 13th century and is not included in a psalter until the 14th,
but paraphrases of the prayer were composed by such well-known authors as Baudouin
de Condé, Rutebeuf, Gautier de Coinci, and Philippe de Beaumanoir. The Saluts to the
Virgin are derived from the Aves, but the Marian chansons, especially those by Rutebeuf
and Gautier de Coinci, are more closely related to the secular lyric. Another popular
genre was the complainte portraying the Virgin’s suffering during the Passion. Some of
these are based on the Latin Stabat mater, others, such as the Regrets de Nostre Dame by
Huon le Roi de Cambrai, the Débat de la Vierge et de la Croix, and the Plainte Nostre
Dame, are longer and more complex. Related to these materials, but different in genre,
are the works that combine biblical and apocryphal materials in narrative form.
Maureen B.M.Boulton
[See also: BOOK OF HOURS; DIDACTIC LITERATURE (OCCITAN); GAUTIER
DE COINCI; HYMNS; MARY, DEVOTION TO; MARY, LITURGICAL
VENERATION OF; MORAL TREATISES; PLANH/COMPLAINTE]
Brayer, Edith, and A.M.Bouly de Lesdain. “Les prières usuelles annexées aux anciennes
traductions françaises du Psautier.” Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes: Bulletin 15
(1969):69–120.
Sinclair, Keith V. Prières en ancien français: nouvelles références, renseignements
complémentaires...du Répertoire de Sonet. Hamden: Archon, 1978.
——. French Devotional Texts of the Middle Ages: A Bibliographic Manuscripts Guide. Westport:
Greenwood, 1979. [Supplements, 1982, 1988.]
Sonet, Jean, ed. Répertoire d’incipit de prières en ancien français. Geneva, Droz, 1956.
PREACHING
. The Frankish church inherited from late antiquity a range of pastoral acts identified with
preaching and an ecclesiological framework by means of which these acts were
authorized. Patristic preaching was centered on the address of the faithful, which
occurred within worship on Sundays and feast days, an address centered on exegesis of
biblical readings by which the preacher articulated Christian belief and cult on the one
hand, Christian life and practice on the other.
Little is known of the preaching practice of the Frankish church during the
Merovingian period (ca. 450–751). Its episcopate was filled largely by scions of the old
Roman provincial aristocracy, who tended to maintain the rhetorical and theological
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