AMALARIO OF METZ (Amalarius, Amalarius). - Medieval theologian and liturgist, about whose life few and disputed historical data exist. He seems to have been born at Metz between 770 and 775. He was probably at the school of Alcuin, at Aachen, as G. Morin holds, or, as others think, at Tours (cf. De eccl. off., IV, 17; De ord. Antiph., chaps. 58 and 67); he died at Metz on 29 April, between 850 and 853. According to the academic custom of the time, to the Frankish name Amalario (Amalhere) was added the literary nickname Symphosius, of which Fortunatus could be a Latin synonym.
Having returned to Metz, Leidrad invited him, it seems, to Lyon in order to make use of him in the restoration of the ordo psallendi according to the rite of the palatine chapel (letter of Leidrad to Charlemagne, in MGH, Epist., IV, p. 542 ff.). Around 809, when the emperor raised the see of Trier to a metropolis, A. was placed over it as metropolitan; but so as not to wound local susceptibilities, he preferred not to make use of his jurisdiction over the suffragans. In 811, he was sent by Charlemagne to Hamburg to consecrate the first Saxon Christian church beyond the Elbe; and in the spring of 813 he was sent with Peter, abbot of Nonantola, as ambassador to Constantinople for the peace negotiations with the emperor of the East (MGH, Epist., V, p. 555 ff.; cf. Einhard: PL 104, 478). Having returned to Italy in the following spring, he stayed at Nonantola, saddened by the news of the death of Charles (28 Jan. 814).
From this time A. no longer appears as bishop of Trier, for a powerful personage, Hetti, occupies his place: perhaps, discouraged by the loss of his august supporter, he renounced it, yielding to the opposition of others. As is generally believed, he seems also to have been a commendatory abbot; and perhaps precisely on this occasion, by way of compensation, an abbey was given to him in commendam, which, according to Morin, may have been that of St. Peter of Hornbach in the diocese of Metz. In all probability, while at Metz, he was a kind of auxiliary (chorepiscopus) of Drogo (823-55), the son of Charlemagne, who during his frequent and long absences from the diocese governed it by means of "chorepiscopi."
A. played an important part in the Synod of Aachen of 816 on the reform of the clergy, and in that of Paris of 825 on the controversy over images. During the exile of Agobard, archbishop of Lyon, the administration of that metropolis was entrusted to him (835-38); but for having attempted a liturgical reform by introducing his Antiphonary there, he drew upon himself the wrath of the partisans of Agobard, led by the deacon Florus, who waged a violent campaign against him and even succeeded in having him condemned as a heretic at the Council of Kiersy (or Quierzy, Carisiacum, Sept. 838: MGH, Conc., II, p. 768); after which Agobard was able to return to his see.
A. reappears, after about ten years, in the theological disputes on predestination, raised by the teaching of Gottschalk (v.). He was in Rome at least twice: under Leo III (795-816), probably in 814, on his return from Constantinople (cf. De eccl. off., I, 42; IV, 40), and under Gregory IV, in 831, sent on a mission by Louis the Pious (cf. De ord. Antiph., prol. and chap. 58); he always profited greatly from these for his liturgical studies.
He was buried in the abbey of St. Arnulf, beside his august friend Louis the Pious; and he was soon honored as a saint by the people.
On the grave question of the two A.'s, that of Metz and that of Trier, raised by Sirmond, G. Morin shed light after three centuries with various writings, identifying the two (cf. Etudes, Textes, Découvertes, Maredsous 1913, pp. 62-63; see now I. M. Hussens, work cited below).
WRITINGS
Of the numerous works of A. the following have come down to us, almost all of a liturgical character:
Liber Officialis, also called De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, in 4 books, dedicated to the emperor Louis the Pious; his principal work, on which A. labored at several different times. He published the first 3 books around 820 and gradually joined to them, as an appendix, a group of letters (PL 105, 1333-40). In a second edition, he added to it book IV (cf. Pref. Postquam). He then prepared a final edition of the complete work around 832, after his second journey to Rome. These facts must be kept in mind in order to explain the state of the numerous manuscripts (about 80). The text published in 1568 by Hittorp, and reproduced in Migne, is a combination of the second and third editions. It is to A. Wilmart's credit that he pointed out the variety of A.'s authentic editions (Revue Bénéd., 37 [1925], pp. 73-99).
De ordine Antiphonarii is A.'s second work in liturgical importance and one of the last he composed, since the book must be later than the death of Louis the Pious (840), as well as that of Gregory IV (844), as the chronological indications of chap. 58 demonstrate (cf. Hanssens, in Ephem. Liturg., 41 [1927], p. 239). The opuscule has an apologetic character, inasmuch as A. wrote it to justify the criteria used in the composition of his Antiphonary (v. below).
There exist various Expositiones of the Mass. First of all the De officio Missae, mentioned in the correspondence with Peter of Nonantola (MGH, Epist., V, p. 245 ff.), which A. composed at sea, during the journey to Constantinople. Returned home, A. had to recast this little treatise of his into another, more complete one. Both, partially preserved in the Zurich ms. C. 102, were published in 1927 by Fr. Hanssens in Ephemerides Liturgicae (41 [1927], pp. 166-73). The third treatise on the Mass is given by the Eclogae de Ordine Romano et de quattuor orationibus Missae (or Eclogae de officio Missae), a description of the Roman pontifical Mass. It has been held to be a later work, derived from A.'s writings (cf. Rev. Bénéd., 25 [1908], pp. 304-20); but Fr. Hanssens, considering the great similarity of the Eclogae to the first two treatises, thinks that they may constitute their definitive authentic edition. He further holds that the Expositio Missae which begins with the words Missa pro multis causis celebratur, attributed by Wilmart to an anonymous author of the 8th century (cf. DACL, V, col. 1022 ff.), must preserve other fragments of A.'s first expositio, and in Ephem. Liturgicae (44 [1930], pp. 24-46) he gives the critical edition of it.
The Epistolary (MGH, Epist., V, pp. 240-74) comprises only about ten letters, among which notable are the reply to Charlemagne on the ceremonies of Baptism, the letter to Abbot Hilduin on the time of sacred ordinations and of fasts, that to the disciple Guntard on frequent communion, those on the name of the Seraphim and Cherubim, on the pronunciation and on the monogram of Jesus (IIB).
According to the testimony of Ademar of Angoulême (Hist., III, 2: PL 141, 29), A. would be the author of the famous Regula Comunicorum et Sanctimonialium issued at the Council of Mainz of 816 (MGH, Conc., II, pp. 307-456); Migne reports it among A.'s writings (PL 105, 815-986); but Albert Werninghoff prefers to attribute its drafting to Ansegisus (MGH, Conc., II, p. 309).
Of A. as poet there remain the Versus marini, dedicated to Peter of Nonantola: 80 hexameters that narrate the vicissitudes of his legation in the East (MGH, Poet. Lat., I, pp. 426-28).
Entirely lost are his theological writings (cf. PL 121, 1952), such as the reply to the consultation of Pardulus of Laon on predestination, of which the author of the De tribus epistolis speaks with strange contempt (chap. 40: PL 121, 1954). Lost too is the opuscule summarizing his writings, recalled by Florus under the name of Embolis (PL 119, 73) and which A. must have composed, while staying at Lyon, on the eve of the Council of Kiersy. Lost is the Prologue to the Lectionary, mentioned by A. himself together with the Commentarius diuturnalis officii, which he intended to write (De ord. Antiph., chap. 16: PL 105, 1273).
LITURGICAL ACTIVITY AND DOCTRINE
Having been unable to obtain in Rome from Gregory IV a copy of the chants of the office, because the available volumes had been carried off by Wala, abbot of Corbie, A., on returning from the City, went to Corbie to study there the authentic copies of the Roman Antiphonary. But since the Metz copies were older and less developed, he set about producing his own edition. And so, before assuming the government of Lyon, he composed a typical Antiphonary, whose value, however, cannot have exceeded that of a private collection. He did only eclectic work, producing an edition that reproduced, marked by sigla, the Roman tradition (R.), the Metz tradition (M.) and his own modifications (I. C. [ingenium cogitavit]: Indulgentia, Caritas).
Unfortunately this antiphonary, which brought A. polemics and vexations, is lost. But in a certain way the justifying book De ordine Antiphonarii, a historical source of the first importance, takes its place. With its description of the liturgical books and its numerous citations, it gives an idea of the collection of antiphons and responsories at the end of the 8th century and in the first half of the 9th.
In the Liber Officialis, a kind of liturgical encyclopedia, A. treated of the ecclesiastical year, of the sacred Orders, of vestments, of the Mass, of the divine office and of the funeral liturgy. No writing had such wide diffusion and influence on later liturgists down to Durandus of Mende: the treatise remains an irreplaceable source for the history of medieval liturgy.
With these works, which are the ripest fruit of the studies promoted by Charlemagne and by Alcuin, A. passes for the founder of liturgical science in the Middle Ages. He attempts the explanation of almost all the rites of the Church. Contrary to what is usually asserted, A. was tormented by the travail of historical research concerning their origin, anxious to know the authentic meaning intended by the institutors, in relation to the spiritual fruits to be obtained: Ardor mihi inest iritae viae et abolitae propter antiquitatem, ut sciam quid habeat in medulla res memoreata, id est, quid in corde esset primorum dictatorum officii nostri, et quem fructum pariat (little preface to the De eccl. off.: PL 105, 992).
His mystical explanations became the norm for later treatises, so that - in the expression of Bishop and Wilmart - he is regarded as the pontiff of symbolism (cf. DACL, V, col. 1024).
The accusation of heresy brought against him by Florus (cf. PL 119, 71-80) was founded above all on the expression "Triforme est corpus Christi" of the De eccl. off. (III, 35: PL 105, 1154 ff.): but the interpretation of it was evidently unjust. Indeed, this text of A. influenced the development of medieval theological thought: having entered the Decretum of Gratian under the name of Pope Sergius (cap. 32, D. II de cons.), it was also received by the great Scholastics, such as Albert the Great, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas (cf. H. de Lubac, Corpus mysticum, Paris 1944, pp. 301-49: Le « corpus triforme » d'Amalaire et ses destinées).
A. is certainly one of the most interesting figures of the Middle Ages, and his writings, if in the past they contributed much to liturgical piety, now remain also as a most precious guide for historical investigation.