MICROLOGUS DE ECCLESIASTICIS OBSERVATIONIBUS. – This is a sober and accurate description of the liturgy of the Mass and of the liturgical year, which avoids exaggerated symbolism and inculcates Roman usages and ordinances.
A work widely disseminated in the early Middle Ages, it marks a new revival in liturgical literature after the decline that followed the Carolingian splendour. Its author is Beroldo of Constance. Written shortly after the year 1000, it was first printed in Paris in 1510. Since then the editions multiplied; the latest is in PL 151, 973-1022. For a long time Ivo of Chartres (d. ca. 1116) was considered its author, as certain codices of the 12th and 14th centuries indicate; some, however, attributed it to G. Belet (12th century), others to Rabano Mauro (9th century). S. Bäumer, after a careful examination of 18 codices, came to the conclusion that it could only be attributed to Ivo of Chartres. G. Morin, on the other hand, definitively established that it is the work not of a Frenchman, but of a German, Beroldo of Constance. The learned Benedictine reached this conclusion after a careful study of the writers of the period, such as Onorio of Autun (De luminaribus Ecclesiae, IV, 113; PL 172, 231), the anonymous author of Melk, a contemporary of Onorio (De scripto-
ribus ecclesiasticis : PL 148, 1058-1432), and others, as well as a meticulous examination of the text and of other writings by Beroldo.