A number of individual manuscripts which show unique or singular arrangements of ordines romani are discussed, located to Worms under Bishop Bernharius, and the instigation of a circle of bishops around Arn of Salzburg, who shared ordines with each other and with monasteries under their patronage. The chapter discusses the relation of these texts to pilgrim travel literature, from clergy who had been to Rome and observed and questioned the Roman clergy.

In this final chapter, the presentation of the ordo romanus manuscripts is discussed. Their use of innovative script forms and patterns of script use to highlight points of interest to their compilers is analysed. The characteristics of their physical format and layout are used to suggest potential uses and users. Finally, the employment of Latin in the texts is discussed, showing how certain scribes saw no problem recording the ordines in a form of Latin later characterised as ‘debased’. This questions the assumed notion of a wholesale reform of Latin and liturgical Latin in particular. The deployment of Greek in several ordines is also discussed, as a counterpart.

One key text, Ordo Romanus 11, is here subjected to keen scrutiny. Though always held to be Roman in origin, and, indeed, among the oldest of the ordines, it is shown that Ordo Romanus 11 is actually a Frankish reworking and enhancement of rubrics in the Gelasian Sacramentary, with minimal input of only Roman homilies and prayers. This concerns the performance of scrutinies, or pre-baptismal sessions of education and examination of the catechumens, and their godparents, that took place in Lent. Via the Gelasian of the Eighth Century, three Roman scrutinie sexpanded to seven Frankish ones. A more detailed examination of these processes comes from a North Italian Mass book, probably taken to Metz.Diverse understanding and putting into practice is seen in the expositions, or texts studying baptism.

This chapter discusses a group of manuscripts which carry some of the oldest examples of the ordines romani. The texts are together termed the ‘Roman’ Collection, and it was assumed they were put together from the texts of purest Roman origin to propogate the adoption of Roman liturgy in Francia. However, examination of the manuscripts reveals a much less focused or immediate gathering of the texts, and shows that none of the given texts are indisputably Roman in origin. Individual manuscripts also continually changed how the Collection was presented and conceived, adding more individual texts of Frankish conception to it. The Collection is traced back to Carolingian Metz, where an experiment in the creative adoption of Roman liturgy was being undertaken.

Themanuscripts discussed above are analysed as examples of the diverse practices of using and reading liturgical texts in the Early Middle Ages. Accompanying text and apparatus are noted and studied, showing that none of the manuscripts fully agree with the conception of ‘purely’ liturgical or non-liturgical texts erected by scholarly analysis and cataloguing. Education co-existed with narrative and prescription of ritual. All the texts led towards deeper understanding, the precondition for correct performance. Manuscripts in which the ordines appear alongside canon law, papal history, and within liturgical books of other genres, are all discussed.

A series of unique ordines discussing particular ceremonies are compared. It is shown how the texts were most likely redacted and spread by Arn of Salzburg, the first archbishop of that city and of Bavaria. Arn made use of the texts to shore up, define and defend his legitimacy as metropolitan. The ordines all assumed a stational framework, showing how the appropriation of this system legitimised Frankish episcopal power over the city. The role of Arn of Salzburg in the confection of a new ordo for the ordination of a bishop is established via a manuscript in Vienna. This was the first detailed account of Frankish ordination practices. In the manuscript, it is revealed as part of Arn’s programme to establish himself.

The subject is the key and dramatic ritual of the stational Mass. This was undertaken in Rome through the year, involving a lavish procession to a given church in the city, where Mass was performed by the Pope. Many ordines address the stational system, showing it to be a subject of keen interest to the Frankish redactors of such texts. It is revealed how the Franks carefully and thoughtfully distinguished the rituals that were special to the Pope, as they appropriated and refashioned papal rites. A discussion of several Carolingian reworkings of the stational system is discussed, and the ubiquity of this form of appropriation, not only in cities but also monasteries that became the image of the city of Rome during this ritual, is firmly established.

A second group of manuscripts are examined, the witnesses of the ‘Frankish’ Collection. Here, a connection to the royal chapel of the kings of Italy and the monastery of Reichenau are advanced to explain the collection. The spread of the collection to diverse centres such as Verona, Regensburg, Nonantola and Corbie is discussed. The presentation of the individual manuscripts as ‘embroynic’ forms of the pontifical, a later genre of liturgical book for episcopal functions, is questioned.

The introduction concerns itself primarily with establishing the historiography of the ordines romani, introducing the editions of Michel Andrieu, and showing how his presentation and study of the texts were shaped byassumptions about their proper origin and use. The overarching idea of liturgical refom is questioned, as well as the usefulness of synthetic editions, which fail to capture the variability and interactivity with which early medieval liturgical texts were compiled.