Missa de Venerabile Sacramento
Information booklet about the recording of Cantores Sancti Gregorii. This programme is built around the reconstruction of the early 16th century liturgical practice in the Heilige Stede Kapel in Amsterdam, namely, the votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament celebrated weekly together with the procession with the Miraculous Host. The central piece of this concert is the famous Occo Codex, luxurious choirbook made for Heilige Stede Kapel by the workshop of Petrus Alamire, from which we chose Josquin's Missa Pange lingua and several motets connected to the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Plainchant and other liturgical elements also come from graduals and missals of local provenance.
Information booklet about the recording of Cantores Sancti Gregorii. This programme is built around the reconstruction of the early 16th century liturgical practice in the Heilige Stede Kapel in Amsterdam, namely, the votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament celebrated weekly together with the procession with the Miraculous Host. The central piece of this concert is the famous Occo Codex, luxurious choirbook made for Heilige Stede Kapel by the workshop of Petrus Alamire, from which we chose Josquin's Missa Pange lingua and several motets connected to the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Plainchant and other liturgical elements also come from graduals and missals of local provenance.
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ABOUT THE PROGRAMME<br />
I<br />
t was the week before the Palm Sunday, March 15, 1345. The<br />
priest of the Ou<strong>de</strong> Kerk went to visit a sick, dying man in<br />
Kalverstraat to hear his confession and administer the<br />
extreme unction and viaticum and had no i<strong>de</strong>a that the<br />
consequences of what he was about to do would still be<br />
remembered more than 6 centuries later and be known as The<br />
Eucharistic Miracle of Amsterdam. What all the accounts seem to<br />
agree on is that the dying man vomited after having received the<br />
Blessed Sacrament, the Host was thrown into fire by his caretakers<br />
but on the following day it was observed it had remained intact.<br />
They called a priest who tried to take it back to the Ou<strong>de</strong> Kerk, but<br />
the Sanctissimum kept returning back. The miracle was promptly<br />
confirmed by the city council as well as officially recognized by the<br />
bishop of Utrecht, Jan van Arkel. Within little more than 2 years, on<br />
October 21, 1347 the chapel Terheylighenste<strong>de</strong> (The Holy Place,<br />
Locus Sacer) was consecrated by the auxiliary bishop of Utrecht,<br />
Nythardus. The site of the miracle quickly became a very<br />
important pilgrimage <strong>de</strong>stination for the Low Countries and<br />
beyond (with some rather important pilgrims, such as, in about<br />
1484, Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who was later to become<br />
the Holy Roman Emperor). Consi<strong>de</strong>ring the importance of religion<br />
in the Late Middle Ages as well as the close relationship between<br />
religion on one hand and tra<strong>de</strong> and travel of the peoples on the<br />
other this must have been a very important factor in the rise of<br />
Amsterdam to importance and its flourish.<br />
F<br />
ast forward to early 1500’s. After two fires, in 1421 and 1452,<br />
the chapel is rebuilt as a rather large hall church with 3 naves of<br />
equal height. On the northern end of the transept, on the<br />
Kalverstraat si<strong>de</strong> was the ‘Holy Corner’ (the spot where the miracle<br />
had happened) with the fireplace. While <strong>de</strong>tailed information<br />
about liturgical observances in the Heilige Ste<strong>de</strong> remain sparse,<br />
especially because of the events of the late 16th century, both
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