The so-called Mandatum ceremony on Maundy Thursday, the Washing of the Feet, based on the narrative in the Gospel of John 13: 1-17, was considered by Karl Young to be a liturgical ceremony which ‘could have’ been turned into drama, but was not. In a modern discourse where the notion of ‘liturgical drama’ is no longer generally accepted to refer to a well-defined medieval phenomenon, these ceremonies need to be discussed anew in the liturgical context of Maundy Thursday and concerning their specific representational features. In this paper, I will take my point of departure in a newly discovered ceremony from an eleventh-century Aquitanian fragment, which will be discussed musically as well as in relation to its biblical background, also comparing it with other well-known versions, a.o. from the Regularis Concordia.

     Mandatum ceremonies translate the biblical narrative into an action that explicitly concerns the community in which they are carried out. The participants represent themselves at the same time as they re-enact the biblical narrative. For this reason, the ceremony can be said to stage a self-understanding of Christian communal ideals which in a monastic context constitutes an important element in the construction of a monastic identity. I shall discuss the role of the songs which form the main link to the biblical background of the ceremony and at the same time also connect the intimate ceremony with the traditional liturgical role of the participants.