I’ve been re-reading Lorraine Daston’s Rules: A Short History of What We Live By (which is brilliant -- you should go read it yourself!), and thinking about its relevance for the sixteenth-century prayerbooks that are so much part of my life right now.
Rules, Daston tells us, are important, but the best rules are thick rules; they are specific, yes, but they are also supple. They come with examples, and exceptions, and mechanisms of interpretation that don’t get befouled by absolutist thinking. Circumstances change; people get sick; time runs short. And yet in all three instances, the goal of the rule presumably still applies. A little judgment, she argues, goes a long way toward effective implementation of “the rule.” (Her chapter 2 discussion of the Benedictine rule is particularly fruitful for understanding this perspective.)
What I want to do here is play a bit with what this might mean in the context of the sixteenth-century prayerbook copied for women’s use. I’ve chosen the most ornate of the Thalbach Prayerbooks, ÖNB Cod. 11750, again, since it represents Thalbach at its most careful. “Nice” hand, carefully organized layout, clear directions, many labels, distinction between the red-ink rubrics and the brown-ink text. It’s tidy, in other words. But it also shows a tidiness of approach, in that it frequently offers up prefatory instructions to a prayer that guide the reader into the appropriate stance, place, movement, mindset. It’s what I think of short-hand as prayer choreography.
So I’m here to ask: what if we think of those rubrics as “thick rules” instead of “verbal choreography”? What do we gain? In one sense, of course, the answer is obvious: rubrics tell readers what to do. But Daston’s account of thick rules helps me ask a more precise question: not whether rubrics direct practice, but what kind of practice they assume, enable, and refine.
Rules that are not rule-bound
It is easy, especially from a modern distance, to read rubrics primarily as instruments of control: say this, do that, turn here, kneel there. But in a pre-modern devotional manuscript, a rubric may be less like a traffic sign and more like a craft instruction. It tells the practitioner what kind of action is called for, while assuming that the practitioner already inhabits a world in which the action makes sense.
Are rubrics rules? Yes—but I think they are rules of practice rather than regulations of compliance.
ÖNB Cod. 11750, fol 15r; texts have been lightly normalized by the author. Ein schön Gebet, damit alle Glieder unseres Herrn gegrüßt werden, vor einem Crucifix zu sprechen. GEGRJESST ſeyeſtu du aller heilligſt haubt vnnſers lieben herrn Jesu christi welches für unns gekrönt mit dörnen vnd geschlagenn mit einem ror…. A beautiful prayer with which all the limbs of our Lord are honored, to be recited before a crucifix. HAIL to you, most holy head of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, which for us was crowned with thorns and struck with a reed….” |
We have here several elements: a description (a beautiful prayer), a content summary (with which all the limbs of our Lord are honored), and the part I am thinking of as being the rule: performative details of how and of where the prayer is to be delivered – it is to be recited (sprechen) before a Crucifix.
This isn’t complex. The supplicant isn’t drowning in detail. She’s merely guided to a best practice in prayer delivery, shifted to a space where sight (the crucifix) can reinforce the task of prayer (to consider in turn each of the body parts of the suffering Lord of the crucifixion. As a rule goes, it organizes her prayer, binding text, image, body, and gaze into a whole.
It’s a bit like “craft knowledge.” The rubric assumes some proficiency; the supplicant will know when the prayer might be useful, But it guides her through specificity of where she should stand, what she should face, and how she should let the image structure her attention. In so doing, it invokes a practice of visual, affective, and bodily meditation.
Yet this “rule” is supple too; this isn’t necessarily the crucifix of the main altar at the parish church. She could read this prayer in front of the crucifix by the convent refectory, or the one in her cell, or by flipping back a few folios and gazing at the image of the Crucifixion that adorns OENB 11750 folio 8r. The gaze will guide, but how she achieves the gaze is flexible enough to accommodate a variety of circumstances.
That’s a nuance that I didn’t think to talk about when thinking of the instruction as choreography. So, one point for Daston’s utility.
Rules for transitions
A rubric makes the page actionable, but can also provide guidance for time-of-day transitions, from the mundane to the spiritual, from the world-oriented to the spirit-oriented, from the activity of daytime to the closure of bedtime ritual.
If the crucifix rubric shows how a rule can organize devotional attention around an object, the bedtime rubric for our next prayer (OENB 11750 fol. 3v-5r) shows how a rule can organize an ordinary daily transition. I like this intervention, since it gives the actions as a set: first the rubric provides a label, then the confession, then the guiding script to ready the supplicant for bed:
Bedtime ritual (OENB 11750 fol. 3v-5r, excerpts): Volgen schuene gebet so man schlafen geeth The following are beautiful prayers to be said before going to sleep.
So du ietzund wilt ſchlafen gen: so sprich dise bekantnus der ſunden. Alſo. ICH bekenne dir Herr Allmechtiger Gott erſchaffer himel vnd der Orden alle meine ſünd die ich gethon hab von meiner Iugent an bis diſe zeit vnnd ſtund... So now you wish to go to sleep: then say this confession of sins. Thus: I confess to you, Lord Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, all my sins that I have committed from my youth until this time and hour….
Wan du gleich in dz Beth schlaffenn gehst so bezaichne dich mit dem Zeihen des ehilligen Creitz an dem stirn, und sprich also: Iesus von Nazareth sey allezeit mein abeschiirmer. (An deiner mund) Jesus von Nazareth sei allezeit in meinen mu/ond. (An dein brüst) Jesus von Nazareth sey al zeitt in meinem hertznn. Amen. [PRAYER]: O Lieber herr Jesu Christe, nur will / ich dise rüo vnd aüffenthalltung meines leibs empfahenn, in der verantigunng deiner lieb gegen vns dardürch dü vns den ſchlaf zu guttem geben hast auch desselben… When you go to sleep in your bed, make the sign of the holy cross on your forehead, and say thus: Jesus of Nazareth, be my protector at all times. (On your mouth) Jesus of Nazareth, be always in my mouth. (On your breast) Jesus of Nazareth, be always in my heart. Amen. [PRAYER] O dear Lord Jesus Christ, I now wish to receive this rest and repose of my body, in acknowledgment of your love for us, through which you have given us sleep for our good, and also... |
It’s sort of like the modern ritual: first you turn off the TV, then you brush your teeth, then you climb into bed and take up the work of stilling your mind.
What’s special in the Thalbach rubric is that it provides a bodily procedure, marking the forehead, mouth, and breast, along with accompanying words. It’s apotropaic, yes, spiritually protective, but it’s also that kind of Daston middle-ground. The instruction is specific, but it’s non-narrative. There’s no need to explain every theological or bodily assumption. It presupposes habit – a practitioner who already has insider knowledge: how to make the sign of the cross, why sleep is spiritually vulnerable, and how short verbal formulae can guard thresholds.
The rubric turns ordinary sleep into a devotional exercise. It does not regulate sleep bureaucratically; it ritualizes that regular daily transition. It is, to use the common convention, a habit-stacking rule.
Again, “choreography” thinking me was VERY excited about all the actions in this rubric, but the “rule”-based assessment is more empathetic to the time-of-day and purpose-driven nature of the actions involved.
Prayer as craft knowledge
Early modern rules, in Daston’s account, assume prior experience and promise improvement, particularly when the stem from the artist’s workshop. They systematize and extend experience rather than replacing it. They are designed, she argues, to be learned but also practiced.
“To formalize craft knowledge into rules was to give it voice and dignity but not to remove it from the workshop. Dürer intended his instructions as a 'thorough introduction' to be expanded by 'daily use,' which in turn would deepen understanding and kindle invention.” (Daston p. 51)
This observation was particularly exciting to me, since there are so many similarities here with prayer as codified in prayerbooks. Prayer as something learned through repeated, bodily, attentive practice. If we draw the parallel out, we could think of prayer in prayerbooks as a mechanical art, separate from the theological and argumentatively-grounded work of the university setting. As a craft, it fits into a realm of acquired-and-enacted wisdom.
The fit is imperfect, of course. Daston’s artisans are often making things: pictures, fortifications, meals, calculations. The Thalbach reader is not producing an external artifact in the same sense. She is cultivating attention, protection, repentance, and memory. The “thing” being shaped is not primarily an artifact but the praying self: attention, contrition, memory, bodily readiness, protection, and receptivity and capacity to return to God. That difference matters because the prayerbook rule is not only guiding what she does; it is helping shape how she becomes disposed to pray.
Nor do I mean that prayer was mechanical in the sense of being merely manual, servile, or technical. But I do want to invoke Daston’s ideas to argue that prayer has craft-like dimensions. It is learned by repetition. It uses tools. It depends on timing, memory, posture, voice, attention, sequence, and correction. It can be done badly, habitually, fluently, intensely, communally, or with practiced skill.
Daston provides a summary of craft-rule guidance:
“rules were always framed in the imperative mood… , the knowledge in question was often gleaned from personal experience ….seldom addressed to rank beginners … the promised payoff of mastering the rules was improvement.”
Yes! That tracks for prayerbooks too:
1) Rubrics are typically imperative, if not always in a strict grammatical sense. Many are titles or summaries, occasions for use, or navigational cues. But they are directive all the same: they tell the reader how a text is to be used. I think that gets at the “imperative mood” element pretty effectively.
2) Similarly, they share the wisdom of previous enactments in capsule form.
3) They assume a familiarity with context and pattern, so are not “beginner books” (those are psalters!) but more the “intermediate-to-advanced” guide helpful to honing one’s personal practice. The implied reader already knows many of the gestures, formulae, and devotional contexts being cued.
4) And, as Daston argues, improvement is the goal.
In other words, OENB 11750 treats prayer as a practiced art both in the sense of being enacted and in the sense of being repeated. It assumes that technique will help devotion take on durable form.
The morning prayer sequence of Segen and prayer (OENB 11750 5v-7r) illustrates this practice. It’s not a beginner’s catechism; it’s a set of cues for someone already embedded in devotional habits. It uses cross-reference, and embodied action, and praise texts to start the day in a positive and spirtually grounded way:
Segen and prayer for morning (OENB 11750 5v-7r, excerpts): Segen vnnd Gebett: Wann man am morgen vom Schlaf auf steth IN dem Namen des Vatters des Suns vnd des heilligenn Geists…. Blessing and
Prayer: When one rises from sleep in the morning In the
name of the Father, the
Zaichne dich darauf / an dein stirn mit dem ʒeichen des heilligenn Creütz vnd ſprich. Jeſus von Nazareth ꝛc. wie oben steth. Darnach knien ider vnd sprich. ICH bette dich an vnd lobe dich O du heillige Driualtigkeit du mein Gott alles in allem ich ſage dir danckh für alle bewarung weissheit vnnd guettigkeit... Make the sign of the cross on your forehead with the sign of the holy cross and say: Jesus of Nazareth, etc., as stated above. Then kneel and say: I adore you and praise you, O holy Trinity, my God, all in all. I thank you for all protection, wisdom, and goodness... |
In the first portion, there’s no need to tell the informed reader that she’s to speak these words; the ink-color transition is obvious and her actions implicit. In the second half of this text, her knowledge of the standard Jesus of Nazareth formula that she’d said just the night before saves the scribe some valuable parchment space. In Daston’s terms, these rubrics offer a system and occasion for practice. But, as she reminds us, this was already a great deal: experience refracted through the lens of the rules of art was better ordered, more sharply focused, and above all broader than that of most craftsmen occupied with the pell-mell of particulars encountered in their own workshops” (Daston p. 69)
Again, yes for the prayerbooks too.
Conclusion: rubrics as supple rules for living
Thalbach’s devotional books preserve not only texts but habits of life. Their rubrics belong to a world in which rules were not necessarily the enemy of vitality. Rather, rules were one way of making practice durable. The question, then, is not simply whether rubrics direct practice. Of course they do. The more interesting question is what kind of practice they imagine, and here the answer is more nuanced. They imagine one that is repeated, embodied, adaptive, and interiorly formative.
To read rubrics as rules, then, is not to flatten prayer into procedure. It is to take seriously the practiced intelligence of devotional life. It is to treat prayer as practiced and ever-renewed: a craft of spirituality in which small guiding texts could lead to improvement -- a more ordered disposition, better attention, more durable memory, more ready access to words and gestures, a more practiced capacity to return to God.
I don’t think reading rubrics as rules replaces the choreography model so much as it shifts the emphasis. “Choreography” catches the embodied sequence; “rule” catches the learned, repeatable, adaptable form. Drawing on both perspectives gives us the fuller picture.
Considered through Daston’s lens, the Thalbach sister’s manuscript does not simply tell its reader what to say. Its rubrics teach the reader when to pray, how to begin, where to stand, what to face, what to repeat, how to move the body, and how to carry liturgical forms into the ordinary hours of life. Its rules are specific enough to guide action and, critically, supple enough to live with. In that sense, these prayerbook rubrics belong not only to the history of books, but to the history of how people learned to inhabit devotion.
WORKS CITED
Lorraine Daston, Rules: A Short History of What We Live By (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022).
On habit-stacking, I found Clear’s version substantially less smarmy than some of the more industrial “habit-stacking” banged-it-out-for-a-buck narratives out there on the market: James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (2018).
For a somewhat more choreographic assessment of such rubrics, see Cynthia Cyrus, "Praying Before the Image of Mary: Nuns’ Prayerbooks and the Mapping of Sacred Space" Religions 16, no. 10 (2025): 1277. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16101277, https://www.mdpi.com/3532324
Other posts on OENB 11750:
- Threefold Illumination: A Nun’s Prayer After Communion
- A Sixteenth-Century Segen for the Mass, Pt 1 and Pt 2
- Practicing Death: The “Seven Last Words” at Thalbach
