Later medieval visual stress muddied liturgical piety as much as 
electronic-field pressure has clarified it today.

*     One massive area to which scholars have turned recently 
is that of history of Christian liturgy. In an article on “Liturgy 
and Spiritual Personalism” in Worship  (October, 1960, p. 494) 
Thomas Merton points out:

          Liturgy is, in the original and classical sense of the 
     word, a political  activity. Leitourgeia  was “a public work”, 
     a contribution made by a free citizen of the polis . As 
     such, it was distinct from the economic activity or the 
     private and more material concern of making a living and 
     managing the productive enterprises of the “household”.. . . 
     Private life was properly the realm of those who were not 
     fully “persons”, like women, children and slaves, whose