Homiliaries

A homiliarium is a collection of homilies, or familiar explanations of the Gospels.

From a very early time the homilies of the Fathers were in high esteem, and were read in connection with the recitation of the Divine Office (see also Breviary). That the custom was as old as the sixth century we know since St. Gregory the Great refers to it, and St. Benedict mentions it in his rule (Pierre Batiffol, History of the Roman Breviary, 107). This was particularly true of the homilies of pope St. Leo I, very terse and peculiarly suited to liturgical purposes.

As new feasts were added to the Office, the demand for homilies became greater and by the eighth century, the century of liturgical codification, collections of homilies began to appear (Batiffol, op. cit., 108). Such a collection was called a homiliarium, or homiliarius (i.e. liber) doctorum. In the early Middle Ages numerous collections of homilies were made for purposes of preaching.

Many homiliaria have come down to us, and there are medieval references to many others. Mabillon (De Liturgia Gallicana) mentions a very old Gallican homiliarium. In a manuscript of the eighth century we find reference to a homiliarium by Agimundus, a Roman priest. The Venerable Bede compiled one in England. In the episcopal library at Würzburg there is preserved a homiliarium by Bishop Burchard, a companion of St. Boniface. Alanus, Abbot of Farfa (770), compiled a large homiliarium, which must have been often copied, for it has reached us in several manuscripts. In the first half of the ninth century Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel compiled from the Fathers a book of homilies on the Gospels and Epistles for the whole year. Haymo, a monk of Fulda and disciple of Alcuin, afterwards Bishop of Halberstadt (841), made a collection for Sundays and feasts of the saints (Trithemius in Lingard, II, 313, note). Rabanus Maurus, another pupil of Alcuin, and Eric of Auxerre compiled each a collection of homilies. All these wrote in Latin.

...
Wikipedia