¹ Bede, Quaestionum super Genesim ex dictis partum dialogus (PL 93: 259):‘Discipulus: Quare non benedixit arbores et herbas, sed hominem et animalia? Magister: Ideo namque ista benedixit propter propagandi prolem … quìa arbores sensum non habent sentiendi uel intelligendi, animalia sentiunt, et non intelligunt, homo quìdem sentit et intelligit: ideo arboribus non dixit: Crescite et multiplicamini’

² New Catholic Enyclopedia (Detroit, MI, 2003), s.v. ‘Benedictions’; Little, L. K., Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France (New York, 1993), 92.Google Scholar

³ Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971), 27–28.Google Scholar

⁴ Flint, Valerie argued that these sorts of rituals were used by the Church to ‘rescue’ certain forms of magic beneficial to conversion: The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, NJ, 1991), 4.Google Scholar

⁵ Chenu, M.-D., ‘The Symbolist Mentality’, in Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, ed. and trans. Taylor, J. and Little, L. K. (Chicago, IL, 1968), 99–145, at 129; originally published as La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris, 1957).Google Scholar

⁶ Liuzza, R. M., ‘Anglo-Saxon Prognostics in Context: A Survey and Handlist of Manuscripts’, Anglo-Saxon England 30 (2001), 181–230 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jolly, K. L., Anglo-Saxon Charms in the Context of Popular Religion (Ann Arbor, MI, 1987)Google Scholar; Hall, A., Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief Health, Gender and Identity (Woodbridge, 2007).Google Scholar

⁷ With the exception of Rivard, D. A., Blessing the World: Ritual and Lay Piety in Medieval Religion (Washington, DC, 2008).Google Scholar

⁸ André Vauchez calls them ‘parallel liturgies’. He argues that they were designed ‘to permeate the daily existence of the faithful with religion’: The Spirituality of the Medieval West: the Eighth to the Twelfth Century, trans. C. Friedlander (Kalamazoo, MI,1993). 29.

⁹ Jolly, K. L., ‘Prayers from the Field: Practical Problems and Demonic Defense in Anglo-Saxon England’, Traditio 61 (2006), 95–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Derek Rivard’s broad survey of medieval benedictions does not go into regional or chronological nuances.

¹¹ Hughes, A., Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to their Organization and Terminology (Toronto, ON, 1982)Google Scholar; Palazzo, E., A History of Liturgical Books: From the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century, trans. Beaumont, M. (Collegeville, MN, 1998)Google Scholar; Rasmussen, N. K., Les pontificaux du haut moyen âge:genèse du livre de l’évêque (Leuven, 1998).Google Scholar

¹² This is something I will explore further in my Ph.D. thesis, ‘Blessings for Nature in English Liturgical Books, c. 900–1200’.

¹³ M.-D. Chenu, ‘Nature and Man: The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century’, in Taylor and Litde, eds, Nature, Man and Society, 1–48, at 5.

¹⁴ Bartlett, R., The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2008).Google Scholar

¹⁵ M.-D. Chenu,‘Monks, Canons, and Laymen in search of the Apostolic Life’, in Taylor and Litde, eds, Nature, Man and Society, 202–38, at 229.

¹⁶ The Sarum Missal, ed. J. Wickham Legg (Oxford, 1916), 455–56.

¹⁷ London, BL, MS Stowe 944.

¹⁸ Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 391; The Portiforium of Saint Wulstan, ed. A. Hughes, 2 vols (London, 1958–60).

¹⁹ Hippolytus of Rome, Apostolic Tradition 3.28.

²⁰ The Old Gelasian survives in a single manuscript: Vatican City, BAV, Reg. Lat. MS 316; see Liber Sacramentorum Romanae AEcclesiae: Vaticanas Reginensis Latinus 316, Fos. 3–245, ed. L. C. Mohlberg (Rome, 1968), 233. See also Chavasse, A., Le Sacramentaire Gélasien (Vaticanus Reginensis 316) (Tournai, 1958), 461–69.Google Scholar

²¹ For full discussions of the development of the Frankish liturgy, see McKitterick, R., The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895 (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Hen, Y., The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the Death of Charles the Bald, 877 (London, 2001)Google Scholar. Gelasian blessings were preserved in so-called ‘developed’ Gregorians: Pfaff, R. W., ‘Massbooks’, in idem, ed., The Liturgical Books of Anglo-Saxon England (Kalamazoo, MI, 1995), 7–34, at 11.Google Scholar

²² It is possible that these terms are influenced by the Post-Tridentine Rituale Romanum. See, e.g., The Bobbio Missal:A Gallican Mass-Book [MS. Paris Lat. 13246], ed. E.A. Lowe, A. Wilmart and H.A. Wilson, 3 vols (London, 1917–24); The Leofric Missal, ed. N. Orchard, 2 vols (London, 2002).

²³ See The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, ed. S. Keynes (Copenhagen, 1996); idem, ‘The Liber Vitae of the New Minster, Winchester’, in Rollason, D. et al., eds, The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context (Woodbridge,2004), 149–63, esp. 156–60.Google Scholar

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²⁵ S. Rankin, ‘Some Reflections on Liturgical Music at Late Anglo-Saxon Worcester’, in Brooks, N. and Cubitt, C., eds, St Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence (London, 1996), 325–48.Google Scholar

²⁶ Durham, Cathedral Library, MS A.IV.19, fol. 47. See The Durham Ritual (Durham Cathedral Library A.IV. io), ed. T.J. Brown (Copenhagen, 1969).

²⁷ Latham, R. E., Revised Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources (London, 1965), s.v.‘Herba’.Google Scholar

²⁸ For example, Hen, Y., Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, A.D. 481–751 (Leiden, 1995), 49–50.Google Scholar

²⁹ J.-C. Schmitt, ‘Religion, Folklore and Society in the Medieval West’, in Little, L. K. and Rosenwein, B. H., eds, Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings (Oxford, 1998), 376–87, at 382.Google Scholar

³⁰ Hen, Royal Patronage, 77–78.

³¹ Pfaff, R. W., ‘Prescription and Reality in the Rubrics of Sarum Rite Service Books’, in idem, ed., Liturgical Calendars, Saints and Services in Medieval England (Aldershot, 1998), 197–205, at 204.Google Scholar

³² Chenu,‘Symbolist Mentality’, 129.

³³ Scribner, R. W., Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), 40.Google Scholar

³⁴ Chavasse, Le Sacramentaire Gélasien, 468–69.

³⁵ Meaney, A., ‘The Practice of Medicine in England about the Year 1000’, Social History of Medicine 13 (2000), 221–37, at 223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ Scribner, Popular Culture, 40; Jolly,‘Prayers from the Field’, 102.

³⁷ Chavasse, Le Sacramentaire Gélasien, 468–69.

³⁸ Ward, B., Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000–1215 (London, 1982), 11.Google Scholar

³⁹ Primarily in AElfric’s St Bartholomew’s Day Homily; see Meaney, ‘The Practice of Medicine’, 233.

⁴⁰ Ibid. 232.

⁴¹ The audience for AElfric’s Homilies is much debated; for a helpful summary, see J. Wilcox,‘AElfric in Dorset and the Landscape of Pastoral Care’, in Tinti, F., ed., Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2005), 52–62.Google Scholar

⁴² Currently being explored in my Ph.D. thesis.

⁴³ All formulae from the Portiforium are transcribed from the manuscript by the author and collated with Hughes’s edition. Those from the Liber Vitae are transcribed by the author.

⁴⁴ Cockayne, T. O. and Singer, C., Leechdoms, Wortcnning and Starcraft in Early England, 3 vols (London, 1961), 3: 79.Google Scholar