DE PUNIET DE PARRY, PIERRE. — Liturgist and Benedictine monk, b. at Rochefort-sur-Mer on 24 March 1877, d. at Oosterhout (Holland) on 4 April 1941. He entered the abbey of Solesmes at a very young age and made his profession there on 8 December 1895. Ordained priest on 23 March 1901, he went first to Farnborough, then to Quarr Abbey (England), where he studied under distinguished liturgists such as F. Cabrol, H. Leclercq, and M. Férotin.
L. Gougaud, A. Wilmart. Then, drawn by his brother Dom Jean De P., who later became abbot of Oosterhout (1910), he went to Holland, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was first entrusted with teaching apologetics, and from 1917 until his death served as master of novices.
In the scholarly field, Fr. De Puniet devoted himself especially to the study of liturgy and palaeography. He began with research on the early rites of the Church, Christian initiation, Baptism, and Confirmation (La liturgie baptismale en Gaule avant Charlemagne, in Revue des questions historiques, 72 [1902], pp. 382–423; Oration et Confirmation, in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 13 [1912], pp. 450–66; Confirmation, in DACL, III, 11, cols. 2575–2644; Le don de l’Esprit Saint et la Confirmation, in La vie et les arts liturgiques, 10 [1923–24], 354–63). In subsequent years he returned to the study of baptismal liturgy: Les trois homélies catéchétiques du Sacramentaire glésien, in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 5 [1904], pp. 505–21, 755–86; 6 [1905], pp. 15–32, 304–18; Aperitio aurium, in DACL, I, 11, cols. 2523–37; Baptême, ibid., II, 1, cols. 251–346; Bénédictions de l’eau, ibid., II, 1, cols. 685–713; Catéchuménat, ibid., II, 11, cols. 2579–2621, and several other studies published in 1923–24 in La vie et les arts liturgiques. Yet his most extensive and important work is Le Pontifical romain. Histoire et commentaires (2 vols., Paris 1930–31; German trans., Klosterneuburg 1935), which, although it has occasioned some reservations (cf. Ephrem. lit., 45 [1931], pp. 421–23 [C. Mohlberg]; Rev. des sciences relig., 10 [1931], pp. 334–37 [M. Andrieu]), remains on the whole a work of first rank for the history of the Roman Pontifical. Of a different kind and value are the two volumes of commentary on the Psalter (Le psautier liturgique à la lumière de la tradition chrétienne, Paris 1933–35), in which the ascetic and pious spirit of the author predominates. In the field of palaeography, De Puniet’s attention was first drawn to the Codex 60r of Lucca (cf. Paléographie musicale, IX, preface, 1905); this was followed by studies on Le nouveau papyrus liturgique d’Oxford, in Rev. bénéd., 26 [1909], pp. 34–51; on Le Sacramentaire glésien de la collection Phillips (in Ephrem. lit., 43 [1920], pp. 91–109, 280–303; 45 [1931], pp. 116–23; 46 [1932], pp. 375–95); and finally the last major work, Le Sacramentaire romain de Gellone, which first appeared in Ephrem. lit. from 1934 to 1938 and then as a separate volume (Rome 1938). A full survey of De Puniet’s scholarly activity must also include a good many other articles published in DACL, Ephemerides Liturgicae, La vie et les arts liturgiques, Vie spirituelle, and in the Cours et conférences des Semaines liturgiques at Louvain. Clarity of mind and wide erudition are the qualities that stand out in all his scholarly output.