Gabriel Radle specializes in early and medieval Christian liturgy, with a particular focus on the Mediterranean world. His research contextualizes the historical practice of Christianity through the comparative reading of liturgical manuscripts across traditions and by engaging these sources with visual and material culture, hagiography, homiletic literature, and legal documents, both canonical and civil.
His recent monograph, Marriage in Byzantium: Christian Liturgical Rites from Betrothal to Consummation (Cambridge University Press), examines the Christianization process whereby Greco-Roman wedding rituals were gradually altered into formal liturgical rites. This work brings together a large corpus of unedited manuscripts in order to trace the variety of rituals that constituted the Byzantine nuptial process from the imperial palace to the village house and unpack their social and theological contexts.
Radle’s current monograph project expands upon this intersection of ritual, Christianization and family life by investigating a different genre of late antique and medieval liturgy, namely a series of rites of passage practiced by Byzantine and Latin communities for stages of infancy, childhood and adolescence.
Among his other publications are articles and chapters dedicated to eucharistic texts, liturgical posture, prayer books on Sinai, marriage in the medieval West, lay ritual practice, and the unique religious history of Southern Italy, as well as four co-edited books on Eastern Christian liturgy. Radle has lectured internationally and held research fellowships at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard University), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Regensburg (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellow). Prior to coming to Yale, Radle was the Rev. John A. O’Brien Assistant Professor of Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he also served as Director of Graduate Studies for the university’s sacred music program.