12.41–47

The floor plan of the church is completely square. It has three altars, with three lamps on the central altar and two on each of the side altars. The altars and the utensils for Mass are made of crystal. The abbot sits in the middle, flanked by two choirs in a circular formation, of twelve monks each. There is no talking, and if a monk needs anything from the abbot the two communicate by a combination of telepathy (or gesture) and writing.

[41] dēbitum vespertīnāle: i.e., Vespers; dēbitum = officium.

[42] Erat enim quadrāta, tam longitūdinis quam lātitūdinis: appositional genitives (AG § 343.d), with quadrāta. A square church would be unusual; the description may reflect Revelation 21.16: “And the city lieth in a four-square, and the length thereof is as great as the breadth” (et civitas in quadro posita est, et longitudo eius tanta est quanta et latitudo).

et habēbat septem lūmināria: Revelation 4.5: “And from the throne proceeded lightnings and voices and thunderings, and there were seven lamps burning before the throne” (et septem lampades ardentes ante thronum).  The "seven lamps" in Revelation are generally understood as the seven lamps on a single menorah; here they are imagined as separate candlesticks.

tria ante altāre quod erat in mediō, et bīna ante alia duo altāria: Irish churches of this date had only a single altar; here too the description is of a fantasy church.  We are to imagine a main altar, in the middle at the east end of the church, and subsidiary altars to the two sides.

[43] patēnae, et calicēs, et urceolī: patens (for the bread) and chalices and cruets (for the wine).

[44] sedīlia vīgintī quātuor per circuitum: see on 12.30.

[45] ab illō ... et in illum: Each of the two choirs was in a circle, and each began with the abbot (ab illō) and ended with him (ad illum). The circles may have been concentric or (perhaps more likely) each one had at its center one of the two side altars.

Nūllus ... nisi praedictus abbās: The abbot sang all the verses of each psalm; the monks would have replied only with the Gloria Patri (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen”). In modern practice the congregation typically responds to the celebrant by completing each individual verse of the psalm.

[46] Sī aliquod opus necesse fuisset alicui frātrī: “if any brother needed anything”; literally “if any brother had had some thing (aliquod opus) that was essential” (dative of possession); in CL the verb would probably be esset. Necesse is called an adverb in recent dictionaries, but it functions like a (usually) indeclinable adjective, always in the predicative position.

postulāns in corde suō: i.e., he didn’t actually speak.

[47] per revēlātiōnem Deī: “in accordance with a revelation from God.”

et dabat frātrī: = et dabat (opus) frātrī.