In this first book to document the full history of ordinary Christians' liturgical expression, distinguished liturgical historian and theologian Frank Senn ventures behind the liturgical screen, behind the texts, and behind the rubrics to reconstruct the structures of everyday religious expression in Christian history.

"Thanks be to God! Senn has turned his encyclopedic mind and wit to the dynamic of God's people at worship, moving liturgical studies into the camp long inhabited by biblical studies, drawing on the social sciences and cultural anthropology. Weaving a prodigious witness from the cultural and socio-political forces impacting the worshiping community throughout Judeo- Christian history, Senn charts the lively, often elusive, but always creative interchange between the faith community and the world it is called to inhabit.... In an era of liturgical foment, the author offers sage reflection and even words of hope for a Church not always sure of its path yet bearing the promise of the Spirit's enlivening, anchoring presence in the midst of the upheaval."
— Dr. Robert D. Hawkins, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, SC

"In using these fascinating studies to ask how, at certain periods and places, the enacted symbols of the Christian assembly have interacted with the surrounding social setting, Frank Senn surprises us with data and fresh points of view, makes informed guesses, entertains revisions of established theories, and gladly, asserts his own opinions. This is an important book. We have needed liturgical history to begin to do this work. Reading Senn will make us long for more."
— Gordon W. Lathrop, Charles A. Schieren Professor of Liturgy Emeritus, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

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Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: What Is a Social History of the Liturgy?

1. Sociologically Speaking, What Kind of Group Was the Christian Assembly?
2. Sacraments and Cult
3. Apocalypse and Christian Liturgy
4. Times, Occasions, and the Communion of Saints
5. Sacred Places and Liturgical Art in Late Antique Culture
6. People and Places for Different Liturgies
7. Church Music through the Carolingian Renaissance
8. Vernacular Elements in the Medieval Latin Mass
9. The Medieval Liturgical Calendar
10. The Eucharistic Body and the Social Body in the Middle Ages
11. The Dissolution of the Social Body in the Middle Ages
12. Death Here and Life Hereafter in the Middle Ages and Reformation
13. The Ecclesiastical Captivity of Marriage
14. Liturgy and Confessional Identity
15. Popular Devotions, Pious Communities, and Holy Communion
16. Worship Awakening
17. Liturgical Restoration
18. Liturgical Renewal

Epilogue: Postmodern Liturgical Retrieval
Bibliography
Notes
Index