Performativity of the Medieval Ritual of MandatumFrom the Basilica of St. George in the Prague Castle
Abstract
The rich choral repertoire for the Maundy Thursday in the liturgical tradition of the St. George included, among other numbers, a collection of compositions related to the ritual washing of feet called Mandatum.
The corpus, identical in eight different processionals, the narrative of which is based on the story related in John's Gospel (John 13, 1-17), is enriched by a promi-nent female aspect drawn from another New Testament scene (Luke 7, 36-50). This con-nection results in compositional analogies between different liturgical feasts drawing from the given scenes.
The extant form of the ritual, found in the liturgical ordo of the monastery, shows concise treatment of the liturgical text both in literary and symbolic way, employing consistently liturgical vessels as well as other "props". These observations bring up questions about dramaturgy of potential performances of the ritual and its theatrical aspect