This thesis challenges existing preconceptions about the textual uniformity of the late medieval English Office liturgy. The received narrative is that all breviaries of the same liturgical Use are in large part identical. This study demonstrates that all complete, surviving manuscript breviaries and antiphonals of each secular liturgical Use of medieval England (dating from s.xiii – s.xvi) do share a common textual ‘fingerprint’ particular to each Use. But this is in large part restricted to the proper texts of universal or popular observances. Other features of these service books, even within the sources of the same Use, are subject to significant variation, influenced by local customs and hagiographical and textual priorities, and also by varying reception to liturgical prescriptions from ecclesiastical authorities. Distinct regional patterns, especially in the kalendar, are a principal result. Rubrics (giving details of ritual) and lessons (at Matins) in particular suggest that the manuscripts are witnesses to textual subfamilies, and that these represent succeeding stages of the promulgation of the major Uses across England. The identification of the characteristic features of each Use and the differentiation of regional patterns have resulted from treating each manuscript as a unique witness, a practice which is not common in liturgical studies, but one which gives the manuscripts greater value as historical sources. The unique character of each allows it to be situated in its temporal and intellectual context and indeed to illuminate that context. For instance, properties of individual manuscripts can be compared with other evidence for the prescription of liturgy in England in order to assess the efficacy of ecclesiastical orders of this nature. A descriptive catalogue of 115 manuscripts and transcriptions of their liturgical kalendars provide both a resource for further research and a proof of concept of the methodology.

Visitatio, however, is driven by the same forces that drive equally dramatic liturgical commemorations year-round, climaxing in but not exclusive to the period around Easter. Beginning with an account of late Anglo-Saxon baptism, I examine the liturgy for the high festivals from Christmas to Ascension Day. For each chapter, I describe the liturgical forms for the day and their intended relationships with the participants, focussing on the establishment of dramatic associations between the celebrants and certain figures in the commemorated events. I then compare the liturgical forms with vernacular treatments of a particular festival, looking both for overt instruction and more subtle influence of the liturgy on the preaching texts. Anglo-Saxon preachers and homilists openly assumed the themes and symbolic images of the dramatic ritual in their attempts to make their congregations understand and take on Christian imperatives. Recursively, vernacular preaching helped solidify the meanings of the symbolic elements of the dramatic ritual and their significance to the lives of Christians. Anglo-Saxon appreciation of the dramatic potential of the liturgy was realized both in creative expansion of the liturgy and in the vernacular preaching texts that identified and enhanced this dramatic dynamic.