HITTORP, MELCHIOR

HITTORP, MELCHIOR. — Liturgist, canon of S. Maria ad Gradus and dean from 1583 of the collegiate church of S. Cuniberto, born in Cologne ca. 1525, died there in 1584.

At the suggestion of Giacomo Pamelius, he compiled, in order to defend Catholic liturgical institutions from the criticisms of innovators, in *De divinis catholicae Ecclesiae officiis et mysteriis varii vetustorum aliquot Ecclesiae Patrum ac scriptorum ecclesiasticorum libri* (folio, Cologne 1568), the *Ordo romanus* and liturgical works by Isidore, P. Alcuin, Amalarius, Rabanus Maurus, Walahfrid Strabo, Berno of Reichenau, the *Micrologus*, Ivo of Chartres, Hildebert, Radulf of Rivo, and an *Expositio Missae*.

The new edition prepared by G. Ferrari (Rome 1591) was enriched with seven additional texts, including the liturgical works of Peter Damian, Peter the Venerable, Honorius of Autun, and Rupert of Deutz. This edition was later reproduced, with some additions, in volume X of the *Magna Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum* by Margarin de la Bigne (Paris 1610). Hittorp’s valuable collection remains the prototype of a corpus of liturgical works.

BIBL.: Hurter, III, cols. 357–58; F. Cabrol, *Introduction aux études liturgiques*, Paris 1907, pp. 43–45; M. Andrieu, *Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen âge*, Louvain 1931, pp. xv–xvi and passim; L. Eisenhofer, *Handbuch der kath. Liturgik*, I, Freiburg im Br. 1932, p. 136; W. Kosch, *Das katholische Deutschland*, I, Augsburg 1933, cols. 1616.