In a seminal study, Cur cantatur?, Anders Ekenberg examined Carolingian sources for explanations of why the liturgy was sung, rather than spoken. This multidisciplinary volume takes up Ekenberg's question anew, investigating the interplay of New Testament writings, sacred spaces, biblical interpretation, and reception history of liturgical practices and traditions. Analyses of Greek, Latin, Coptic, Arabic, and Ge'ez sources, as well as of archaeological and epigraphic evidence, illuminate an array of topics, including recent trends in liturgical studies; manuscript variants and liturgical praxis; Ignatius of Antioch's choral metaphor; baptism in ancient Christian apocrypha; and the significance of late ancient altar veils.

This volume was conceived with the double aim of providing a background and a further context for the new Dumbarton Oaks English translation of the Life of St Neilos from Rossano, founder of the monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome in 1004. Reflecting this double aim, the volume is divided into two parts. Part I, entitled "Italo-Greek Monasticism," builds the background to the Life of Neilos by taking several multi-disciplinary approaches to the geographical area, history and literature of the region denoted as Southern Italy. Part II, entitled "The Life of St Neilos," offers close analyses of the text of Neilos's hagiography from socio-historical, textual, and contextual perspectives. Together, the two parts provide a solid introduction and offer in-depth studies with original outcomes and wide-ranging bibliographies. Using monasticism as a connecting thread between the various zones and St Neilos as the figure who walked over mountains and across many cultural divides, the essays in this volume span all regions and localities and try to trace thematic arcs between individual testimonies. They highlight the multicultural context in which Southern Italian Christians lived and their way of negotiating differences with Arab and Jewish neighbors through a variety of sources, and especially in saints' lives.

This volume was conceived with the double aim of providing a background and a further context for the new Dumbarton Oaks English translation of the Life of St Neilos from Rossano, founder of the monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome in 1004. Reflecting this double aim, the volume is divided into two parts. Part I, entitled "Italo-Greek Monasticism," builds the background to the Life of Neilos by taking several multi-disciplinary approaches to the geographical area, history and literature of the region denoted as Southern Italy. Part II, entitled "The Life of St Neilos," offers close analyses of the text of Neilos's hagiography from socio-historical, textual, and contextual perspectives. Together, the two parts provide a solid introduction and offer in-depth studies with original outcomes and wide-ranging bibliographies. Using monasticism as a connecting thread between the various zones and St Neilos as the figure who walked over mountains and across many cultural divides, the essays in this volume span all regions and localities and try to trace thematic arcs between individual testimonies. They highlight the multicultural context in which Southern Italian Christians lived and their way of negotiating differences with Arab and Jewish neighbors through a variety of sources, and especially in saints' lives.