Johann Drumbl and the Origin of the Quem Quaeritis: A Review Article

The first half of Johann Drumbl's Quem Quaeritis: Teatro Sacro delVAlto Medioevo (Rome: Bulzoni, 1981) studies the origin of the Quem quaeritis and has as its thesis: "The Latin Quem quaeritis was composed about 930 under the influence of Abbot Odo of Cluny for the French monastery of St. Benoitsur-Loire, formerly called Fleury." The present reviewer, as editor of the Consuetudines Floriacenses^ is especially interested because the citation of the Quem quaeritis from that customary is what supplies Drumbl with support for his thesis. What follows will thus be an account of the present writer's reactions to the particular matter of the origin of the Quem Quaeritis, without attempting a complete review of the book. The originality and, I believe, the value of Drumbl's study is that he disengages himself from the problematics of his predecessors, who have been studying the Quem quaeritis for its dramatic quality and who have been seeking to explain how and why this drama was created inside the Latin liturgy. Drumbl, au contraire, considers the Quem quaeritis for its quality as a liturgical ceremony, and poses the question: Why, in the exact place we find the first Quem quaeritis, was this new liturgical ceremony created? One must therefore discover the birthplace of this first Quem