Lady Mass per annum at St Teilo’s Church (June 2011)

This particular celebration of Lady Mass took place in June 2011 in St Teilo’s Church, now re-erected in St Fagans National History Museum outside Cardiff.

This is the Lady Mass used on Saturday, celebrated at the principal altar of the church.

Four groups of people take part, as would have been the case in many churches in the late Middle Ages:

• clergy – priest with assisting deacon and subdeacon
• servers – acolyte, thurifer, and two candlebearers
• a small group of singers, one of whom acts as organist and another as organ blower
• congregation – segregated with women on the left and men on the right, and ranked by social standing.

Clergy, servers and singers conduct the liturgy east of the great dividing rood screen in the chancel.

The congregation stand in the nave, on the western side of the screen, with only limited sight and hearing of what is happening on the eastern side.

Video recordings

The whole Lady Mass

A shortened introductory version with commentary

Texts used by the participants

You can view, download, print and follow the main ‘performance’ texts used by the participants for this enactment:

• Service booklet for clergy and servers (master)
• Service booklet for celebrant, deacon and subdeacon
• Service booklet for singers

The full sequence of text resources used in the enactment can be found here.

Additional texts used by the participants to help them think about the experience of medieval people at such a Mass can be found here.

A tabular summary of what happens when and where in the Mass can be found here and a diagrammatic plan identifying the space used in St Teilo’s Church can be found here.

Lady Mass per annum is the form of Mass in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary used in late winter and early spring from 3 February (the day after the feast of the Purification) to the day before Palm Sunday (with certain minor changes from after Septuagesima); and again from the first Sunday after Trinity right through the summer and autumn until the day before Advent Sunday.