The Medieval Latin Hymn

Ruth Ellis Messenger, Ph.D.

Te decet hymnus
Deus in Sion

Psalm 65:1

CAPITAL PRESS
1731—14th St., N. W.
WASHINGTON, D. C.

Copyright, 1953
by
Ruth Ellis Messenger

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
LITHOGRAPHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To
J. Vincent Higginson

Contents

Chapter Page [Preface] ix [I. Early Middle Ages: Latin Hymns of the Fourth Century] 1 [II. Early Middle Ages: The Old Hymnal] 9 [III. The Ninth Century Revival: Hymns] 19 [IV. The Ninth Century Revival: Sequences] 35 [V. Late Middle Ages: Hymns and Sequences] 46 [VI. Late Middle Ages: Processional Hymns] 61 [VII. Influence and Survival of Latin Hymns] 74 [Illustrative Hymns] 83 [Notes] 113 [Bibliography] 123 [Index] 135

Preface

The purpose of this volume is to trace the history of the medieval Latin hymn from the point of view of usage. It must be evident to any student of a subject which is spread over a thousand years of human experience in the widening environment of an entire continent that a guiding thread is needed to show the way. One must not, at the same time, ignore the fact that a monumental religious literature in the poetic field is involved. But the hymn is functional, having its greatest significance as a lyric when employed in an act of worship. Latin hymnology, moreover, is an aspect of ecclesiastical studies following the history of the Church through the classical and medieval ages into modern times.

A wider cultural background than the immediate interest of theology and religion is reflected in the hymns of any age. Here often lie secrets of interpretation which make possible an appreciation of contemporary thought.

As the study of the medieval hymn is followed from the standpoint of life and usage, the antiquarian and the literary critic, who cannot fully satisfy the quest of the student for reality, must give place to the medieval worshiper himself who has revealed in its entirety each successive phase of a hymnological history not yet ended.

For information about the Christian hymn as it existed prior to the medieval era, the author’s Christian Hymns of the First Three Centuries, Paper IX, a publication of The Hymn Society of America, may be consulted. This account of primitive Christian hymnody, although pre-medieval, serves as an introduction to the subject matter of the present volume.

The pages which follow are intended for the general reader rather than the specialist in medieval culture or in the classical languages. Biographies of hymn writers have not been attempted since the literature of this subject is already extensive. Documentation has been reduced to a minimum. A [bibliography] has been provided for any who are interested in specialized fields.

It is hoped that this brief study will have a modest part in opening up to the general reader a field which has never been fully explored in any language, especially English. An inclusive treatment is not offered here but one which represents the fruits of a generation of research.

My grateful thanks are due to my friends and co-workers in the fields of classical studies, hymnology and medieval history who have assisted me in countless ways, particularly to Dr. Adelaide D. Simpson and Dr. Carl Selmer, both of Hunter College of the City of New York, who have read the entire manuscript and offered invaluable criticisms and suggestions. Among the many librarians who have assisted me in varied centers of study, I am most indebted to the staff of the Library of Union Theological Seminary of New York, under Dr. William Walker Rockwell and later under Dr. Lucy Markley. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my obligation to those authors and publishers who have granted permission to use certain translations of Latin hymns which appear in this volume.

CHAPTER ONE
Early Middle Ages: Latin Hymns of the Fourth Century

I. The Early Hymn Writers

The first mention of Christian Latin hymns by a known author occurs in the writings of St. Jerome who states that Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers (c. 310-366), a noted author of commentaries and theological works, wrote a Liber Hymnorum.[1] This collection has never been recovered in its entirety. Hilary’s priority as a hymn writer is attested by Isidore of Seville (d. 636) who says:

Hilary, however, Bishop of Poitiers in Gaul, a man of unusual eloquence, was the first prominent hymn writer.[2]

More important than his prior claim is the motive which actuated him, the defense of the Trinitarian doctrine, to which he was aroused by his controversy with the Arians. A period of four years as an exile in Phrygia for which his theological opponents were responsible, made him familiar with the use of hymns in the oriental church to promote the Arian heresy. Hilary wrested a sword, so to speak, from his adversaries and carried to the west the hymn, now a weapon of the orthodox. His authentic extant hymns, three in number, must have been a part of the Liber Hymnorum. Ante saecula qui manens, “O Thou who dost exist before time,” is a hymn of seventy verses in honor of the Trinity; Fefellit saevam verbum factum te, caro, “The Incarnate Word hath deceived thee (Death)” is an Easter hymn; and Adae carnis gloriosae, “In the person of the Heavenly Adam” is a hymn on the theme of the temptation of Jesus.[3] They are ponderous in style and expression and perhaps too lengthy for congregational use since they were destined to be superseded.

In addition to these the hymn Hymnum dicat turba fratrum, “Let your hymn be sung, ye faithful,” has been most persistently associated with Hilary’s name. The earliest text occurs in a seventh century manuscript. It is a metrical version of the life of Jesus in seventy-four lines, written in the same meter as that of Adae carnis gloriosae.[4]

Pope Damasus, a Spaniard by birth (c. 304-384), is believed to have written hymns in addition to the Epigrams on the martyrs which constitute his authentic poetry. It would seem probable that his activities in identifying and marking the sites associated with the Roman martyrs might have been supplemented by the production of hymns in their honor. Two hymns bearing his name are extant, one in praise of St. Andrew the Apostle and one for St. Agatha. Upon internal evidence the ascription is dubious for they bear the mark of authorship too late to be considered among the poems of this famous Pope.

As a matter of fact, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (340-397), remains the uncontested originator of the medieval Latin hymn as it becomes familiar to us in a uniform series of metrical stanzas adapted to congregational use. Like Hilary, Ambrose was born in Gaul.[5] He was the son of Ambrose, Prefect of the Gauls, and like his father he attained official appointment under the Roman government as Consular of Liguria and Aemilia, with Milan as place of residence. Theological controversy between the Arians and the orthodox was raging at Milan, the Bishop himself, Auxentius, having adopted the Arian position. Ambrose at this time was a catechumen but at the death of Auxentius was obliged to preserve order when the election of his successor took place. At that very moment the popular mandate created Ambrose Bishop of Milan at the age of thirty-four years. The period immediately following his election found him constantly battling for orthodoxy in a contest which passed beyond the limits of theological debate to the actual siege of orthodox churches by the Arian forces.

Ambrose was acquainted with the Syrian practice of hymn singing, and like Hilary, he recognized the effective use of the hymn by the proponents of the Arian heresy. It was not long before the congregations in the basilica at Milan were chanting antiphonally the praises of the Trinity in a similar form. Ambrose himself recorded his achievement, his biographer Paulinus mentions the event and Augustine in his Confessions describes the congregational singing which he himself had heard.

We, though as yet unmelted by the heat of Thy Spirit, were nevertheless excited by the alarm and tumult of the city. Then it was first instituted that according to the custom of the eastern regions, hymns and psalms should be sung, lest the people should faint through the fatigue of sorrow.[6]

Ambrose wrote hymns appropriate for morning and evening worship, four of which now extant, can be proved to be of his authorship, Aeterne rerum conditor, “Maker of all, eternal King,” Deus creator omnium, “Creator of the earth and sky,” Iam surgit hora tertia, “Now the third hour draws nigh,” and Veni redemptor gentium, “Come Redeemer of the earth.”[7] Many others in keeping with his style and inspiration have been preserved and subjected to critical study with the result that eighteen hymns on varied themes are generally conceded to be Ambrosian. Had Ambrose never conferred upon the church his gift of hymnody he would still remain one of the great Latin Fathers of the fourth century, in his functions as statesman, organizer and scholar. His contribution to ecclesiastical poetry and music have made him influential century after century. In this role he has spoken directly to multitudes of Christians throughout the world, many of whom have been unacquainted with his name or unaware that they were following the Ambrosian tradition of congregational song. (See [Illustrative Hymns, I.] Splendor paternae gloriae, “O Splendor of God’s glory bright.”)

Spain shares the honors with Gaul as the birthplace of the earliest hymn writers, claiming first Damasus and then Prudentius, (348-413?), a lawyer, judge and poet of his era. Little is known of his life aside from his literary work which includes two collections of hymns, the Cathemerinon, a series for the hours of the day and the ecclesiastical seasons and the Peristephanon, a series of much longer poems in praise of the great martyrs of the early church. In his effort to learn more of the circumstances attending their martyrdom, Prudentius went to Rome to visit the scenes made sacred by their death and sufferings. Neither of these collections was written for liturgical use but for devotional reading. Both were destined to be appropriated by compilers of hymnaries, especially in Spain. Hymns from the Cathemerinon, either in their original form or in centos, spread throughout the Christian church while the martyr hymns were also drawn upon but to a lesser extent. The hymns selected for festival use are perhaps most familiar today, for example, for Advent, Corde natus ex parentis ante mundi exordium, of which the translation “Of the Father’s love begotten,” suggests the original meter. The Epiphany hymn, O sola magnarum urbium, “Earth hath many a noble city,” is also well known.[8]

Considered merely as Latin poetry, the hymns of Hilary, Ambrose and Prudentius are transitional in their literary character. They belong neither to the poetry of the Silver Age of Latin literature nor do they represent the medieval literary tradition. Of the metrical aspect something will be said presently. By some the Ambrosian hymn is regarded as a daring innovation and the model from which vernacular European verse was later to develop. In that case, it constitutes a class by itself. For evidence of the continuity of Latin poetry from the classical to the medieval age we must turn to the Carmina of Venantius Fortunatus.

Fortunatus (c. 530-600) was born near Treviso and lived as a youth in northern Italy, studying at Ravenna. The greater part of his life, however, was spent in Gaul which he visited first as a pilgrim to the shrine of St. Martin at Tours, who, he believed, had been instrumental in restoring his eyesight. At Poitiers he met Queen Rhadegunda, wife of Clothair, King of Neustria. She had founded a convent at Poitiers and there lived in retirement. This was his introduction to a life of travel and of intercourse with the great. He was acquainted with bishops, noblemen and kings whose praises he sang in many graceful tributes, occasional poems and epitaphs. Through the influence of Rhadegunda, his lifelong patron and friend, he was ordained, and after her death he became Bishop of Poitiers, 597, where he lived until his death. As a churchman he was an admirer and biographer of the saints of Gaul, preeminently St. Martin whose life and miracles he recounted in poetic form.

Fortunatus seems to have carried with him from the Italian scenes associated with the poetry of Virgil—an inspiration which was never entirely lost. His poems suggest a familiarity with the literary background of classical verse. During his mature life he lived in the environment of sixth century Gallic society which was already assuming its medieval Frankish outlines. Natural beauty and human companionship were alike important to him. He was acquainted with men and women of every degree from the monarch to the slave.

Although the spirit of religious devotion and of orthodox belief is evident in many of the hundreds of lyrics which he composed, four only may be classed as hymns. Three of these are concerned with the theme of the Holy Cross, Pange lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis, “Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,” Vexilla regis prodeunt, “The banners of the king advance,” and Crux benedicta nitet, “Radiant is the blessed cross.” The fourth, Tempora florigero rutilant distincta sereno, “Season of luminous days, marked bright with the birth of the flowers,” is a Resurrection hymn.[9] It is impossible to indicate here the extraordinary influence which this group of hymns has exerted in the evolution of Christian hymnody, continuing in Gaul the tradition, as it were, which Hilary first established. The circumstances of their origin and their lasting values will be considered in connection with processional hymns in [Chapter VI].

(See [Illustrative Hymns, II.] Vexilla regis prodeunt, “The banners of the king advance.”)

II. Metrical Forms

The problem of metrical forms and the prosody of the earliest Latin hymns, in general, is a phase of the same problem affecting Latin poetry as a whole. The subject is both complicated and obscure, entangled with that of Latin rhetorical prose style, the transition from the quantitative accent of ancient classical poetry to the stress accent of medieval and modern verse and with the origin of rhyme. It is a problem for specialists among whom opinions are now divergent. Toward a practical understanding of the metrical values of the hymns of Hilary, Prudentius, Ambrose and Fortunatus, the pragmatic test of what is singable may be applied. The ancient balanced rhythms of Semitic poetry as illustrated in the Hebrew psalms had been sung for generations. The metrical lyrics of ancient Greece were sung to an instrumental accompaniment as were the Latin lyrics of the Golden Age of Rome. These highly polished classical forms were for the elite. Of popular poetry which was sung in the period immediately preceding the appearance of the Latin hymn, very little is known. The early writers were experimenters. Hilary used classical meters with alterations, of which the trochaic tetrameter catalectic proved most acceptable.[10] It is illustrated in Adae carnis gloriosae and also in hymns by Prudentius and Fortunatus. Prudentius used a variety of meters in addition to the trochaic which proved adaptable in actual liturgical practice but by that time stress accent was beginning to obscure the original quantitative values. Ambrose used the unrhymed iambic dimeter, a simple and singable form which has been in vogue ever since, at first unrhymed after the original models and later rhymed. The popular trochaic meter familiarized by Hilary, Prudentius and Fortunatus, when transformed by stress accent and rhyme, is easily recognized both in Latin and the vernaculars. Fortunatus popularized the elegiac meter in hymns for a thousand years by demonstrating its use in Tempora florigero. Prior to the ninth century revival of hymnody, the Ambrosian hymn, considered as a metrical model, in comparison with all other existing models, dominates the field equally with its prestige as an expression of Christian theology and devotion.

III. Hymns in Worship

It is evident that the fourth century was one of innovation in the custom of congregational singing as the Ambrosian hymn was more widely diffused. Our knowledge of what actually took place is very incomplete, based first upon the writing of Ambrose and his contemporaries and later upon the hints derived from monastic usage. That morning and evening services of prayer and praise were common is well known. That the singing of the new fourth century hymns was an integral part of such services is largely assumed. Prudentius wrote hymns for the evening ceremony of the lucernare or lighting of the candles, a Christian practice adopted from the Greek church, to which many references are found. The fact that the hymns of Prudentius were in existence long before they appeared in the records of formal worship points to early Christian usage, however dimly perceived.

Concerning music we learn from the most recent researches that “nothing definite is known of the melodies that were actually applied to the hymns of St. Ambrose.”[11] The traditional liturgical music of Milan is known as the Ambrosian Chant. It cannot be traced to Ambrose himself but is supposed to have existed in a simpler form than that which appears in available manuscripts beginning with the twelfth century. At least it may be said to have existed prior to the Roman Chant and perhaps have influenced the latter. With a frank acknowledgement of ignorance as to the antiphonal melodies which thrilled St. Augustine at Milan, the possibility must be admitted that they reflected to some extent the formal music of the synagogue or the music of the Greeks or the elements of contemporary folk music because these were the musical materials of which the Christians had experience. All three may have been represented, but for a hymn of the Ambrosian type, the chant as evolved in rendering the Gospels or the Psalms may have given place to a form of song more characteristic of the lyric.

IV. Themes

The tradition of Christian hymnology which upholds a way of life is fundamental in Ambrosian and contemporary hymns. The “way” is the first term by which Christianity was designated in the Scriptures. Thus to the Scriptures the hymn writers turned for the living characterization of their themes. The call to a virtuous life is sounded in Splendor paternae gloriae quoted above. Similarly throughout these hymns, the high ideal of faith, purity, hope, patience, humility and love and the ethical teachings derived from the words of Jesus and from the early exemplars of the Christian religion are clearly expressed and enjoined. Not alone for contemporaries in a period of crisis and controversy were these hymns effective. They have continued to speak the same words in the same spirit of joy and devotion derived from contact with the earlier springs of faith to every succeeding century.

The writings of men familiar with Roman civilization and trained in classical culture would naturally be presumed to retain the flavor of a non-Christian literature. Christianity had already appropriated from the pagan philosophers those teachings which were congenial to its own. Ambrose reveals both in his poetic and prose writings his acquaintance with classical thought and literary models. Prudentius mingles the classical and the Christian. Fortunatus was inspired by classical poetry to a Christian expression of beauty in form and content. But in every case, these characteristics are marginal. The core of their hymns is the scriptural narrative. Not only is the subject matter faithfully reproduced but the actual text is sometimes embedded in the verse. The result is a rare objectivity and a lack of embellishment especially in the works of Ambrose which became the preferred standard for later writers.[12]

The life of Jesus is a favorite theme particularly in those episodes which were described and expanded in hymns for the Nativity, Epiphany, Passion, Easter and Pentecost. From the episode of the Nativity the praise of the Virgin was developed. The doctrine of the Trinity was everywhere upheld in hymns, even as its defense had been influential in their creation.

The group of hymns which praise the early Christian leaders, either directly or by incidental mention, form a nucleus for the impressive medieval hymnology of the saints. The Apostles have first place both in chronology and importance. Prudentius praised the Roman martyrs and Ambrose those of Rome and Milan as well. Both honored Laurence the Deacon and Agnes the Virgin. To the praise of the whole group “the noble army of martyrs,” the hymn Aeterna Christi munera, “The eternal gifts of Christ the King,” was written, unrivalled as a martyr hymn in any period of Latin hymnology.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, III.] Aeterna Christi munera, “The eternal gifts of Christ the King.”)

CHAPTER TWO
Early Middle Ages: The Old Hymnal

I. The Hymn Cycles

We owe the preservation of the earliest Latin hymns to monastic practice. When the founders of monasticism in the west, Caesarius and Aurelian who were famous bishops of Arles (6th C.), and Benedict (d. 543), founder of the Benedictine Order, organized the regulations and routine for the communities under their charge, they incorporated Latin hymns already existing into the daily worship of the monastery.[1] These were sung at the services of the canonical hours and were known as hour hymns or office hymns.

A continuity can be traced, although faintly, from primitive Christian observances. Beginning with the vigil of Saturday night in preparation for the following Sunday, the first three centuries of Christian history developed public services for prayer at candlelight, night time, and dawn. By the fourth century, the tide of devotional practice had set in, bringing with it daily worship in the church at the third, sixth and ninth hours. At the end of the fourth and during the fifth century the cycle was completed with new offices at sunrise and nightfall. The full series, therefore, included the nocturnal cursus; vespers, compline, matins (nocturns and lauds), and the diurnal cursus; prime, terce, sext and nones.[2] An opportunity was afforded to unify the services and at the same time to make use of the symbolic number seven by reference to Psalm 119: 164 (Ps. 118, Vulgate), “Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous ordinances.” From the simple assemblies of early Christianity, therefore, and the daily offices of prayer, a fully elaborated cycle of hymns in time developed, appropriate to the symbolism of the seven hours and to the needs of the annual feasts. Constantly increasing in number and variety, these cycles were preserved in psalters together with the psalms or in a hymnary by themselves. In fact, the word hymn came to mean specifically an office hymn later to be associated with the breviary, and the word hymnal, a cycle or collection of office hymns.

At first the cycles were brief. Five extant manuscripts reveal the sixth century group of hymns of which the best representative, the so-called Psalter of the Queen from the famous collection of Queen Christine of Sweden, probably dates from the time of Charles Martel (d. 741).[3] This group of hymns is usually referred to as the Old Hymnal, the initial version of which numbers thirty-four hymns but at the close of the sixth century had increased to perhaps sixty hymns in actual use.[4] The thirty-four original hymns of the Old Hymnal are listed in the [Appendix] to this chapter where the appropriate location of each is indicated, whether for daily or seasonal worship.

Due to the influence of Benedict who had enjoined the use of the Ambrosian hymn, the authentic verse of Ambrose was preserved and extensively imitated among the regular clergy. What had become of the hymn in secular worship?

The old prejudice against non-scriptural hymns and in favor of the Psalms had never died out. By a canon of the Council of Laodicea (c. 364), psalmi idiotici or “private hymns” were forbidden, a mandate which was valid during the lifetime of Ambrose who, nevertheless, ignored a restriction intended to safeguard orthodoxy but hardly applicable in his case. In the sixth century the secular clergy of Spain were forbidden to use hymns by the Council of Braga, 563.[5] The paradox of encouraging non-scriptural hymns in the monastery and forbidding their use in the church at large has been explained by reference to the contemporary appearance of early forms of vernacular speech in western Europe. Latin, the language of the church, its liturgy and its clergy, was now threatened by a possible inroad of the vernacular.[6] Hymn writing was regarded, perhaps, as a prerogative of the clergy to be kept within bounds. To throw open to the church everywhere these privileges might be dangerous alike for theology and worship. Learning in the Latin tongue tended to be concentrated in the monastery, for other centers of scholarship were few and far between; hymnology became largely a function of the monastic group.

It should be remembered that these centuries embraced a period of the greatest political, economic and social confusion in western Europe during which we know relatively little about Christian worship in widespread congregations except for the rite of the mass. Yet in the sixth century the opposite tendency toward greater freedom in writing and singing hymns was apparent. The Council of Tours, 567, permitted the secular clergy to use Ambrosian and other hymns.[7] If viewed in this light, the religious verse of Fortunatus takes on a new significance, illustrative of the freedom which the Church in Gaul, always highly individual, now experienced in the realm of hymnology.

Gaul, then, was the scene of a conflict in which the Latin hymn was contending, and that successfully, for its very life. On the monastic side, anonymous clerics, using the Ambrosian model, gradually provided the full complement of hymns for the annual festivals in harmony with the liturgical year which began to emerge and resemble somewhat its present form. Wherever the Benedictine Order penetrated into the territories of western Europe, the use of hymns likewise increased. Their diffusion must be regarded as comparable with that of an organization which within two hundred years of the death of its founder boasted hundreds of monasteries and convents throughout western Christendom, augmented by Irish and other foundations which had adopted the Benedictine Rule. Missionary zeal had played a significant role in this expansion. Fulda, for instance, a community with 400 monks and many missionaries at its disposal, was able under Willibald to extend its influence through numerous subordinate monasteries and convents. Royal favor, already enjoyed by St. Gall and now conferred upon new establishments, rivalled that of popes and synods, which at the time of Pippin’s coronation in 750 or 752, combined to insure the success of the Benedictine program.[8]

On the side of secular worship, the hymnal used by Benedict and his successors gradually gained a foothold in the church through diocesan centers which adopted the monastic cycles. Or perhaps it may be said, with the reservation that we are in the realm of theory and not of fact, that the ancient hymns written prior to the sixth century had been circulated and continued to be circulated in the west in a way not at present understood, in connection with the Gallican or ancient liturgy of Gaul. If so, the Old Hymnal is the Gallican hymnal which Benedict appropriated and his followers maintained to its acknowledged prestige by the year 750.

An episode of significance for hymnology during the period under consideration in this chapter is the activity of Gregory the Great who occupied the papal throne from 590 to 604. A member of the Benedictine Order, he is noted for his enthusiastic support of its missionary program and for his interest in ecclesiastical music and poetry. His role in the extension of the Roman Rite and of the Benedictine Order to Britain is familiar to all.[9] His authority in the western church is a matter not of controversy but of fact. That he was deeply interested both in hymn writing and singing may be safely assumed for there are too many reports of his activity to be ignored. His actual role in the development of the chant which bears his name and the authorship of eight to eleven hymns attributed to him, have not been determined. For Gregory’s contribution to the ritual music of the church the reader is referred to the discussion of this subject by specialists in the field of liturgical music. For his contribution to the hymn cycles, modern hymnologists have judged even the eight hymns singled out as Gregorian by Benedictine editors, to be doubtful although the nocturn and vesper hymns may be authentic.[10] Aside from critical research the fact remains that all these hymns appear in the cycles of the day and several have been in liturgical use to the present time. They are representative of the hymnology of the transition between the Old Hymnal and the later cycles whose hidden origins Gregory may have influenced.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, IV.] Nocte surgentes vigilemus omnes, “Father we praise Thee, now the night is over.”)

II. Mozarabic Contributions

The list of hymns in the Old Hymnal (See [Appendix]) reveals at a glance the presence of nine Mozarabic hymns. Mozarabic is a term applied to the Christian inhabitants of Spain under Moslem rule and also to the rites of the Christian Church prevailing throughout the Visigothic and Moslem periods. It is the former or Visigothic period extending from the foundation of the Kingdom by Euric, 466, to the entry of the Moslems in 711, which claims our attention here. Connections between Spain and Gaul at this time were very close for the Visigoths ruled a large part of what is now southern France from the Atlantic to the Maritime Alps. The great churchmen of Spain, especially Isidore, Archbishop of Seville (d. 636), performed the same service for Christian hymns in Spain which the monastic leaders performed in Gaul. In his Etymologiae and his De officiis ecclesiasticis, Isidore considers the subject of music and liturgy. His Regula monachorum, built partly on older rules observed in Spain, is an evidence of his interest in monastic reform. As presiding bishop of the IV Council of Toledo, 633, he was at the height of his reputation.[11] Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa, (631-651), his pupil and literary executor, bears witness to his fame.[12] He himself maintained the liturgical tradition which was continued with great success by Eugenius II, Primate of Toledo, (646-657), Ildefonsus who held the same rank, (659-667), and others. As the result of the literary and liturgical movement initiated by these leaders, supported by the councils and schools, the Mozarabic hymnology was rapidly developed. The canons of the IV Council of Toledo, for which Isidore may have been personally responsible, require uniformity of the rites and offices throughout Spain and Gaul. The thirteenth canon upholds the validity and appropriateness of hymns by Christian authors against those who would restrict the hymnody of the Church to the Psalms of the Old Testament. After a discussion of the old prohibitions and the reasons for approving the new compositions, Canon 13 reads:

“As with prayers, so also with hymns written for the praise of God, let no one of you disapprove of them but publish them abroad both in Gaul and Spain. Let those be punished with excommunication who have ventured to repudiate hymns.”[13]

Building upon the work of Ambrose, Sedulius and notably Prudentius, their own countryman; adapting ancient traditions of congregational worship and monastic usage, the liturgists of the seventh century must have collated for the use of the clergy approximately sixty-five hymns from sources originating prior to their own day. These ancient hymns form the nucleus of the Mozarabic Hymnal, the earliest manuscript of which dates from the tenth century. They reveal interrelations between the Spanish and Gallican churches and they indicate a continuity of hymn singing from primitive congregational usage like the Ambrosian to the seventh century revival and extension of non-scriptural hymns.[14]

(See [Illustrative Hymns, V.] Alleluia piis edite laudibus, “Sing alleluia forth in duteous praise.”)

III. Celtic Hymns

The Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles from the period of the introduction of Christianity maintained individual features of liturgy and organization, especially in their monastic groups. The contemporary Saxon Church of the seventh century, however, had been drawn into the Roman sphere of influence by Gregory the Great who was also in touch with Celtic leadership. The ancient record of the interchange of hymns written respectively by St. Columba of Iona and by Gregory preserves more than a report incapable of proof.[15] It points to reciprocal interest in the evolving hymnology of the sixth and seventh centuries in Celtic and continental regions.

The so-called Bangor Antiphonary of the seventh century is the earliest manuscript containing hymns, twelve in number.[16] Its contents are otherwise miscellaneous, including a list of the abbots of Bangor. Hilary’s supposed hymn from this collection, Hymnum dicat turba fratrum, has already been cited. An ancient communion hymn, Sancti venite Christi corpus sumite, “Draw nigh and take the body of the Lord,” is included and Mediae noctis tempus est, “It is the midnight hour,” an office hymn common to the hymnals of Spain and Gaul. Among other important sources is the Irish Liber hymnorum, preserved in an eleventh century manuscript of Dublin which contains Columba’s hymn, Altus prosator, “Ancient of days,” honoring God the creator, and the Lorica or Breastplate Hymn of St. Gildas (6th C.), Suffragare trinitatis unitas, unitatis miserere trinitas, “Grant me thy favor, Three in One, have mercy on me, One in Three.”[17]

On the whole Celtic hymns exhibit great variety in subject matter and purpose with many departures from the type of hymn cycle in use on the continent. Indeed, the group of from fifteen to twenty hymns produced in the centuries under consideration are highly distinctive. The Ambrosian tradition is not apparent. Non-Ambrosian meters are illustrated in all three hymns cited above while alliteration, the abcd form, repetition of initial words and other metrical devices are found throughout the collection. There are hymns for the offices and communion, metrical prayers and a group of hymns for saints, some bearing witness to local cults. Poetic individuality marks them all.[18] Contemporaneous with the flowering of Celtic hymnology, the seventh century saw the beginning of the cultural invasion of the continent by Celtic scholars, teachers and missionaries whereby two streams of culture, previously isolated, united with significant results for the hymnology of the future.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, VI.] Sancti venite Christi corpus sumite, “Draw nigh and take the body of the Lord.”)

IV. Summary

The account of the Christian hymns of necessity accompanies that of the Christian organization, moving from the shores of the Mediterranean and the Christian centers in Roman provincial areas into the “regions beyond” of missionary effort. Although congregational singing in the Ambrosian sense appears to have been submerged in this process, the traditional hymnody was preserved, new hymns added and the foundation laid for the ninth century revival.

Anonymity is the rule and known authorship the exception for the hymns produced in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth centuries. This continued to be the rule during the whole medieval period since the names of those who wrote the non-scriptural parts of religious rites were lost or unknown or perhaps of little importance in communal worship. The fact that the hymns which survive have been gathered from liturgical manuscripts and not from the work of individual authors except in rare cases, should make anonymity more intelligible.

Hymn sources are scanty and interconnections, dimly perceived, can rarely be established. Continuity of evolution is often broken or replaced by new poetical inspiration. However, the fourth century appeal to the objective, the direct, the simple, is seldom varied by the subjective theme. The biblical narratives and the symbolism connected with the various offices and feasts add substance and character to the cycles and to the concept of the liturgical year.

In the heart of the Dark Ages, popularly considered, western European civilization was in confusion and its fate problematical. One could scarcely expect the fruits of peace and security to flourish. Yet in these very centuries there were created and circulated many of the best loved hymns of Christianity, a number of which have been in unbroken use to the present day. Among them are the illustrations inserted above and Lucis Creator optime, “O blest creator of the light;” the Advent hymns, Verbum supernum prodiens, “High Word of God who once didst come,” and Conditor alme siderum, “Creator of the stars of night;” the Easter hymn, Claro paschali gaudio, “That Easter day with joy was bright;” for the dedication of a church, Urbs beata Jerusalem, “Blessed city, heavenly Salem” with the more familiar second part, “Christ is made the sure foundation.” Two hymns honoring the Virgin date from this period: Ave maris stella, “Hail, Sea-Star we name Thee,” and Quem terra pontus aethera, “The God whom earth and sea and sky,” initiating the Marian hymnology of the Middle Ages.[19]

(See [Illustrative Hymns, VII.] Ave maris stella, “Hail, Sea-Star we name Thee.”)

Created and preserved in a clerical and for the most part a monastic environment these hymns express the Christian thought and faith of the era which was thus treasured up for wider circulation and influence in a later and more settled society. The words of the late Canon Douglas, a great American hymnologist, are memorable in this connection:

“What does have a practical bearing on our subject is, that whatever may have been the older cycle, it was enriched to an extraordinary degree in the early medieval centuries. What began in Milan, and achieved its permanent recognition at Monte Cassino, was soon to bring about a Mozarabic Hymnal in Spain, a Gallican hymnal in northern Europe, an Anglo-Irish cycle in Britain: and from all these various increments not only enlarged the growing Hymnal but also richly diversified it.”[20]

Appendix
Old Hymnal (See Anal. Hymn., 51, Introduction p. xx).

Ad nocturnas horas Mediae noctis tempus est (Mozarabic; in Bangor Antiphonary) Rex aeterne Domine Magna et mirabilia Aeterne rerum conditor Tempus noctis surgentibus

Ad matutinas laudes Deus qui caeli lumen es Splendor paternae gloriae Aeternae lucis conditor (Mozarabic) Fulgentis auctor aetheris (Mozarabic) Deus aeterni luminis (Mozarabic) Christe caeli Domine Diei luce reddita

Ad parvas horas Postmatutinis laudibus Certum tenentes ordinem (Mozarabic) Dicamus laudes Domino (Mozarabic) Perfectum trinum numerum (Mozarabic)

Ad vesperas Deus creator omnium Deus qui certis legibus (Mozarabic) Deus qui claro lumine Sator princepsque temporum

Ad completorium Christe qui lux es et dies (Mozarabic) Christe precamur adnue

Proprii de tempore Intende qui regis Illuminans altissimus Dei fide qua vivimus Meridie orandum es Sic ter quaternis trahitur Hic est dies verus Dei Iam surgit hora tertia Iam sexta sensim volvitur Ter hora trina volvitur Ad cenam agni providi Aurora lucis rutilat

De communi martyrum Aeterna Christi munera

CHAPTER THREE
The Ninth Century Revival: Hymns

I. Background of Carolingian Culture

To explain fully the origin of a great literary movement must always be difficult, for the subtle influences affecting its beginnings elude a scientific analysis of facts. One observes the revival of Latin hymnology between 750 and 900 A.D. with amazement. The voices of Ambrose, his contemporaries and his immediate imitators had been silenced for centuries. Venantius Fortunatus had stood forth, a solitary survival of the old Latin poetic genius or, perhaps more accurately, a solitary herald of the new medieval awakening. Then a flowering of religious poetry spread over western Europe, not to be withered by new barbarian invasions but to be the permanent possession of the Christian Church.

In this period the older cycles of office hymns were revised and expanded and fresh cycles created in such numbers as to justify the new terminology of the Later Hymnal or Ninth Century Hymnal. The sequence arose in the formal worship of the mass, affording a new inspirational to clerical poets and resulting in a body of sacred verse of increasing influence. The processional hymn and its related forms appeared in response to the new impulse toward a hymnic accompaniment to ceremonial acts. In effect, the hymn during the period under consideration, was well established in every aspect of formal worship.

In the background of the age which created this literature must be sought the trends and motivation which make intelligible the voices of its interpreters. Accordingly, in the years from 750 to 900 A.D. when the Carolingian rulers, Pippin, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald were guiding the destinies of the Franks, the various influences affecting public worship must be surveyed. The most important were the liturgical reforms undertaken or sponsored by the Carolingian rulers; their promotion of ecclesiastical music and singing; their interest in the reform and expansion of the Benedictine Order; the literary activity of members of the Carolingian court circles who devoted themselves to liturgical studies or poetic expression; the part played by Celtic culture; the infiltration of Byzantine ideas and arts and the rise of Germanic genius.

The introduction and permanent establishment of the Roman liturgy in Frankish realms form the background of public worship in the Carolingian era. When Pippin ascended the throne in 752, the Gallican Rite prevailed. When the reign of Charles the Bald came to a close in 877, the Roman Rite was supreme.[1] Charlemagne received the Gregorian Sacramentary from Pope Hadrian I.[2] Stimulated by his desire to unify the Germanic peoples under papal as well as imperial authority, he brought about by royal edicts or capitularies a widespread reform in the western continental church. Those features of his program which affected hymnology include requirements that priests must be educated, that monks observe their monastic rule, that the singing of the psalms and the gloria be improved, that schools of singing and grammar be founded in monastic and diocesan centers, that both regular and secular clergy be urged to acquire knowledge and skill in singing, that the Roman Chant be ordained, that a singing school be established at Aix-la-Chapelle, that the clergy read and sing well.[3] Charlemagne’s successors, Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald continued his reforming policy.

In the legislation cited above, Charlemagne had followed his father’s example which favored a training in Gregorian music under Roman teachers, as developed in the schools of Rome.[4] Pippin’s interest had resulted in the establishment of a musical center of great repute at Metz[5] which also possessed a cathedral school representative of the finest institutions which flourished at this time side by side with monastic centers of learning.

Charlemagne was presented with a copy of the Benedictine Rule with choir rules, office and festival hymns, by Theodomar, Abbot of Monte Cassino, sometime between 787 and 797.[6] It became his chosen duty to promulgate the Rule, to require its observance everywhere within his realms and further to extend the influence of the Order in general. Consequently, monastic centers of music arose, for example, at St. Gall where the hymnody of the offices was fostered and gradually made available for the bishoprics as well. Louis the Pious, (814-840), and Charles the Bald, (843-877), in their turn continued the patronage of the Benedictine Order. Already fortified by the efforts of Charlemagne, the Benedictines entered a period of religious and cultural influence which was later merged into the age of the universities. Linked directly with the program for monastic reform, the impulse to write new hymns and the encouragement to finer musical performance together created the annual cycles of this period in which the older hymns were retained and supplemented by the new.

The writers and literary leaders of the Carolingian period were by virtue of their clerical profession actively engaged in liturgical studies. Alcuin compiled the missal which established the Gregorian Sacramentary in Frankish realms and constituted a recension acceptable to the Roman Church.[7] A significant innovation for hymnology was the decorative procession.[8] Alcuin was also influential through his devotional works which supplemented the public worship of the mass and offices. Paulus Diaconus and Angilbert were second to Alcuin in promoting liturgical studies. The works of the great writers were accompanied by numerous writings of lesser importance which bear witness, as will be evident below, to the increasing practice of hymn-singing. The influence of the Roman Rite, largely barren of hymns, was at the same period, in contact with the influence of Benedictine precedent in hymn singing which in the end prevailed.

The Latin poetry associated with the Carolingian era has been edited and published in a monumental form under the title Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini.[9] The collection, produced in the spirit of a classical revival by a circle of court poets, includes secular as well as religious verse.

Carolingian culture not only in the specific field of literature but in the broader sense afforded a medium for the spread of Celtic, Byzantine and Germanic genius. The Celtic portion of the poetry in the early monastic cycles has already been described in connection with the Old Hymnal. Prior to the eighth century, a transfer of Celtic scholarship to the continent began to take place. The missionaries, Columbanus, Gall, Foilan, Disibod and others, came first, during the seventh and eighth centuries. Refugees, fleeing before the Norse invasions of the late eighth and ninth centuries, followed. Wanderers and pilgrims crossed the Channel, among them peregrini who left their homeland to live in new countries as a means of spiritual satisfaction and reward. Scholars came also who hoped for a more sympathetic reception for their teachings among the continentals.[10] On the whole, Celtic immigrants found a welcome. Charlemagne himself favored them.[11] Celtic teachers were proficient in orthography, grammar, Greek, scriptural and liturgical subjects and the arts.[12] They brought with them manuscripts, the influence of which was felt, not only in their subject matter but in musical notation and characteristic scripts.[13] The Bangor Antiphonary, the hymns of which have already been considered, came to the continent at this time. Among the famous teachers of music was Marcellus[14] who, at St. Gall, instructed Notker, Tutilo, Waltram and Hartmann, a fraternity devoted to finer ecclesiastical music and hymnody.

The role of Byzantine influence cannot be ignored in any account of the cultural and historical background of ninth century literature. One should recall that the Carolingian period was an era of general European intercourse which could not fail to have an effect upon society. The foreign relations of the Frankish Empire necessitated much traveling, visiting and correspondence. Warlike as well as peaceful movement, commercial or cultural, increased the interchange of ideas. There was an overlapping of boundary lines, too, which amalgated populations. The infiltration of Byzantine influence might be conceived as a by-product of European intercourse.

Insofar as hymnology is concerned, musical contacts between the Byzantine and Frankish realms were frequent. As early as Pippin’s reign, Byzantine musicians appeared at the Frankish court with a gift of an organ from the Emperor Constantinus Copronymus.[15] Many refugee monks who fled to the west during the iconoclastic controversy remained there even after its close in 787, enjoying monastic hospitality and imperial favor. Charlemagne permitted them to use the Greek language in worship and was so much impressed by the music employed in chanting the psalms that he caused it to be adopted for the Latin version also.[16] The paramount influence of Byzantine music upon liturgical practice in the west will be considered more fully in connection with the sequence.

Verifiable traces of Byzantine influence had already appeared with the activities of Gregory the Great and are entirely comprehensible, so far as he is concerned, in view of his residence at Constantinople, 579-585, as papal envoy of Pelagius II.[17] The importation of litanies into the west illustrates this type of influence. When Charlemagne received the Sacramentary from Pope Hadrian I, it was labelled “Gregorian.” But in the interval between the lives of Gregory and Charlemagne, popes of eastern origin, ruling at the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth century were responsible for western practice.[18] The influence of the Eastern upon the Western Church seems to have been cumulative, with Charlemagne in his day acting as the agent for its diffusion throughout the Frankish Church.

In matters concerning the church and its worship the Greeks were an acquisition not only as musicians but as scholars and as experts in the fine arts. Their scholarship was in demand in New Testament studies. Illustrations of Greek and of oriental inspiration in general are numerous in architecture, painting, sculpture, ivories, work in precious metals and the decoration of manuscripts.[19] Perhaps it was a natural desire to emulate the splendor and ornament of eastern rites which led Charlemagne to favor Greek elements in western observance at the expense of the Gallican.

In the midst of Gallic, Celtic, Italian, Byzantine and oriental influences mingled in Carolingian culture, the presence of native genius is strongly felt. Charlemagne has been criticized for his devotion to classical rather than Germanic culture. Sacred poetry as produced in the Carolingian literary circles, was written in Latin and clothed in classical garb. It could hardly have been otherwise since Latin was demanded by the Church and the vernacular languages of western Europe were then in their early infancy. But in spite of the studied artificiality of this verse, a note is sometimes heard in harmony with the poetry of later centuries which emanates from Germanic sources.

Such in brief is the background of that revival of hymnody which appears in the Carolingian period. It remains to trace, in detail, the evolution of the monastic hymnal known as the Later or Ninth Century Hymnal.

II. The Later Hymnal

The enlargement and diversification of the Hymnal to which Canon Douglas referred in the words quoted at the close of Chapter Two, occurred within the general historical limits of the Carolingian era and with the exception of Spain and the British Isles, within the general geographical limits of Carolingian political influence. The hymn cycles of the period, recorded in manuscripts which reflect the numerical increase in hymns as well as their diffusion upon the continent, are associated with religious centers, for example, St. Martial, Laon, Douai, Moissac, St. Germain-des-Prés, Corbie, Jumièges, Reichenau, Treves, Schäftlarn near Munich, Murbach, Rheinau, St. Gall, Einsiedeln, Bobbio, Monte Cassino, Benevento, Padua, Toledo, Canterbury, Naples and many other places. The nucleus of the Later Hymnal has been identified with the hymn cycle found partly in a hymnarium of the ninth century from St. Paul’s in Lavantthal, Carinthia, and partly in a similar manuscript from Karlsruh, both manuscripts being associated with Reichenau.[20] The basic hymns from this group of sources current in the Carolingian period are listed in the [appendix] to this chapter. A complete list of the manuscript sources (prior to 1100), including the above and others, with an index of the hymns which they contain, approximately 800 in number, was provided by James Mearns, the English hymnologist, in his Early Latin Hymnaries.[21]

So much for the evidence as to the actual hymns in use from sources available at the period when the Later Hymnal flourished. The origin of the Later Hymnal, however, is far from clear. It has been defined as a collection arising about the seventh century which superseded the Old Hymnal and has since prevailed.[22] This opinion advanced by Blume and affirmed by Walpole, depends upon the theory that the later cycle had been in use in the British Isles since the period of Gregory the Great. An Anglo-Irish cycle therefore, was posited which took possession of the continent, usurping the original Benedictine hymnal. As early as 1911, Blume’s theory was questioned by Wilmart, the Benedictine scholar, who asserted that the early cycle constituted a Gallican hymnal only,—a possibility mentioned above. He thought that the Later Hymnal was a new version of the Benedictine cycle representing a normal growth through the centuries. Other critics of note have adopted one or the other viewpoint, Frere following that of Blume; and Raby, that of Wilmart.[23] A final solution is obviously impossible for lack of manuscript evidence.

At the accession of Charlemagne, 768, the future of liturgical hymnody was uncertain as the forces of Roman usage and Benedictine practice were in conflict and the possibility of transferring the Benedictine heritage to the church extremely doubtful, as the preceding survey has already made clear. Secondary forces, however, were at work to achieve this very end. First, the early gains made in compiling the Gallican Hymnal and extending it to the secular clergy were never entirely lost. A precedent had been set. Second, the Benedictine cycle was enjoined wherever the Rule was effective and its use was further stimulated by royal capitularies upon the subject of music and singing. Third, the establishment of monastic centers of music in the leading Benedictine abbeys was productive of literary as well as musical effort, attested by the very manuscripts of hymn collections gathered there. The manuscripts of St. Gall, for example, cover every department of contemporary medieval hymnology.

Charlemagne was particularly interested in St. Gall but was also concerned with the monastic centers at Mainz, Fulda, Treves, Cologne, Bamberg, Hersfeld, Lorsch, Würzburg and Reichenau.[24] He founded Neustadt and endowed twelve monasteries in Germany. Meanwhile missionary zeal had guided Benedictine pioneers beyond the old boundaries, and Bavaria and Frisia had already been opened to missions and incidentally to the full round of Benedictine activities. Louis the Pious was active in monastic reform through his association with Benedict of Aniane; he was a special patron of St. Gall and he stimulated the efforts of leaders from Corbie to found New Corbie. Charles the Bald was a benefactor of Marchiennes, Compiègne, Prum and St. Denis.[25] Prior to this period, the numerous and influential foundations established on the continent by Irish monks had adopted the Benedictine Rule, swelling the total number of centers devoted to religious and educational activities.

The numerical increase in the Benedictine abbeys offers in itself presumptive evidence of a greater use of hymns. What is known of the monastic centers and their store of hymnaries offers direct proof. A closer bond between the Order and the cultural activities of the age is found in the great personalities drawn from Benedictine ranks to serve the imperial designs. Of particular interest here are the statements regarding hymns and hymn singing which appear in contemporary writings.

Alcuin was chiefly interested in the Roman liturgy as such but he wrote De psalmorum usu, Officia per ferias and the Epistolae, the last of which shows a special interest in music. Rabanus Maurus testifies to the general use of hymns by secular as well as regular clergy. Amalarius of Metz mentions the use of hymns outside the monasteries. Walafrid Strabo traces the use of hymns from the time of Ambrose and repeats the Canon of Toledo recommending hymns. He says that churches which do not use hymns are exceptional.[26] The testimony is scattered but it points to the adoption of the hymnal by the secular clergy. It should also be recalled that the Ambrosian tradition of musical independence was constantly maintained at Milan.

As the Latin language became more and more an exclusive clerical possession, the old safeguards provided by monastic walls were no longer necessary. The whole body of clergy whether regular or secular became the custodians of the hymnaries used in monastic and diocesan centers of music and scholarship.[27] The Christian laity of Europe at this period may have been largely ignorant of their hymnic heritage because the Carolingian extension of hymn writing and hymn singing occurred within clerical ranks. There was at this time scant indication of the future course of Latin hymnology which would ultimately restore to the layman his original possession handed down from the Early Christian Church.

The poetical writings of the era included a substantial body of religious verse from which hymns are attributed to the following authors: Paulus Diaconus, 1; Paulinus of Aquileia, 7; Alcuin, 3; Theodulphus, 1; Rabanus Maurus, 2; Walafrid Strabo, 5; Florus of Lyons, 2; Wandelbert of Prum, 1; Paulus Albarus of Cordova, 1; Cyprian and Samson, 2; Sedulius Scottus, 2; Milo, 2; Ratbod, 2; Hucbald, 1; Hartmann, 4; Ratpert, 4; Eugenius Vulgarius, 1; these with 73 of doubtful authorship make a total contribution of 114 hymns.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, VIII.] Ut queant laxis resonare fibris, “In flowing measures worthily to sing,” Paulus Diaconus.)

Ambrosian meters are set aside in favor of the classical meters of the Greeks, the Sapphic and elegiac meters proving to be the most popular thereafter. To what extent this influence is actually observable in hymn cycles may be determined by a comparison of the list of Carolingian hymns with the lists of hymns provided by Blume, Julian or Mearns. Batiffol selected thirteen as found in later breviary lists[28] but the actual direct contribution is much larger if other than breviary hymns are admitted. Moreover, the literary and liturgical studies of the time broadened the original Benedictine concept that the hymns of the monastic cycle should be Ambrosian in style. The hymns of Sedulius and particularly of Prudentius and Fortunatus were recognized, introduced or freely adapted to ecclesiastical usage.

The direct influence of Celtic culture upon the new hymn cycles must be associated with the introduction of biblical and liturgical works containing hymns into Frankish territory. Later, hymns were written by Celtic scholars, for instance, Samson, Sedulius Scottus (enumerated above) and possibly others who are anonymous. Blume’s theory of the Anglo-Irish hymn cycle, originally sponsored by Gregory the Great and finally transferred to the continent, illustrates the most decisive form which Celtic influence has so far been presumed to have exerted. The list of hymns (see [Appendix]) bears, on the contrary, no resemblance to the group of contemporary Celtic hymns.[29] It seems much more probable that Gregory, the Benedictine Pope, approved the use in Anglo-Irish lands, of the continental hymn cycle which the Order was responsible for carrying northward with it when it entered Britain. In any case, the Benedictine cycles from the ninth century onward are enriched from every aspect of the diverse culture of the age, in which the Celtic contribution, both direct and indirect, is important.

At this period hymnology in the Greek-speaking world was at its height. Yet proof is sought in vain that Greek hymns were used in the west, either in the Greek language or in translation. The hymnal of the Western Church received from Greek sources its recorded tunes, not its words. Although the earliest liturgical manuscript with musical notation dates from the ninth century, the Greeks had already given their neumes to the west. As for the hymn melodies which are crystallized in these manuscripts when they do appear, theories of origin abound. A definite system of notation was in existence from the seventh century but hymns had been sung from the fourth century.

In modern times through the consecrated efforts of Benedictine students of the chant, working chiefly at Solesmes, a collation of the existing musical manuscripts produced in the Middle Ages, has been made. Their object has been to determine the authentic melodies of the Benedictine cycle throughout its long history. Today the results of their scholarship are available to the public and the great hymns which they have fostered may be heard as well as read in their medieval form.

The assimilation by the Franks, of alien cultures whether through conquest or peaceful interchange, may have been to a certain extent inevitable and involuntary. Such phenomena occur in every period of history. It is the conscious appropriation by the Carolingian leaders of a cultural heritage and its organization through existing institutions which reveals their true genius. This same process had taken place when Roman genius secured and conserved the achievement of the Greeks. In the field of religious culture with which this volume is concerned, an unbroken continuity had been maintained from the days of the primitive church. Even in the minor category of Christian hymnology, the hymnal as such, created in the fourth century, was to flourish all the way into our own times and might have done so without any special intervention. Historically speaking, in the ninth century and under Frankish auspices, a transformation took place which must be attributed to the conscious effort of Frankish churchmen who, receiving the old hymnology, restored it to formal worship with a much larger content and a greatly diversified form. Herein lies the fundamental contribution of Germanic genius to the Later Hymnal.

Individual hymn writers of the Carolingian age have been named above as far as they are known, of whom Theodulphus of Orleans, Rabanus Maurus and Walafrid Strabo are perhaps the most notable.

A Goth by race, a Spaniard by birth, Theodulphus, (c. 760-c. 821), belonged to that population dwelling north and south of the Pyrenees which the Franks had amalgamated into their kingdom. He was learned in all the wisdom of that age and a man of action in a sense understandable in any age. Bishop of Orleans, courtier, officer in the administration of Charlemagne, he served the church and the state with equal distinction. Theodulphus as a poet of sacred verse is best known for his Palm Sunday processional hymn, Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit, “All glory, laud and honor,”[30] which he wrote during the period of his fall from royal favor under Louis the Pious. This beautiful processional hymn, a triumph of Carolingian verse, invested with all the attraction of legend and religious pageantry, has been a favorite in every period of Christian history. Theodulphus was not a member of the regular clergy and he did not, as far as we know, write hymns for the monastic cycle. He represents the contemporary trend which brought the hymn into new areas of worship in the offices and ceremonies of the cathedral.

Rabanus Maurus, (780-856), of Germanic origin, was primarily a theologian. His boyhood studies were completed at Fulda. As a young man he became a pupil of Alcuin at Tours. In his maturity he returned to Fulda reaching the climax of his career as Abbot of Fulda and later, as Archbishop of Mainz. As a writer, Rabanus undertook to hand on, through excerpts, the knowledge of his predecessors. He wrote commentaries on the Bible, discussed ecclesiastical organization and discipline, theology, liturgy and worship and the liberal arts. He made translations into German with the collaboration of Walafrid and a Latin-German glossary for the Scriptures. In connection with worship he became interested in the Latin hymns which were rapidly spreading through the west. He discussed the Psalms as hymns and then the hymns of Hilary and Ambrose, saying of the Ambrosian hymns, how widespread had become their prestige in his day. We know from other evidence that he was acquainted also with the hymns of Sedulius, Columba and Bede. It seems almost certain that he practiced the art of poetry although we are restricted to a very small remnant of verse conceded to be his. The poems include a number of hymns for the festivals of the seasons and of the saints, illustrating the vogue for the classic in metrical forms. Like Theodulphus, he wrote for processional ceremonies. The Pentecostal hymn, Veni, creator spiritus, has been persistently associated with the name of Rabanus but without adequate proof. It is a lasting hymn of the ninth century.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, IX.] Veni, creator spiritus, “Creator-Spirit, all-Divine.”)

Walafrid Strabo, (809-c. 849), was like Rabanus of Germanic origin and like him a member of the regular clergy. At Reichenau he received his early education and at Fulda his theological training under Rabanus. Walafrid was drawn into the courtly circle of Louis the Pious whose son Charles he tutored and whose wife Judith became his literary patron. His life was one of scholarship, prosperity and contentment almost to the end of his career. Louis had appointed him Abbot of Reichenau, a place dear to him from boyhood. From these happy surroundings and from his garden which he immortalized in careful and loving description, he was ousted during the civil conflict following the death of the emperor. At the end he was restored to Reichenau and there he died. His hymns like those of Theodulphus and Rabanus, although few in number, were written in the spirit of the classical revival. Some were intended for festivals and others which will be described in connection with processional hymnody, were written to honor royal patrons.

In reviewing the basic hymns of the Later Hymnal (see [Appendix]), one finds only two of Mozarabic origin whereas nine were duplicated in the Old Hymnal in Spain and Gaul. The new cycles in areas under Frankish influence appear to diverge from the Mozarabic as they become more diversified. At the same time, Mozarabic sources reveal a parallel evolution of the hymnal in the Iberian peninsula. The existing manuscripts were collated and edited in 1897 by Blume in volume twenty-seven of the Analecta Hymnica under the title Hymnodia Gotica, comprising 312 hymns of which 210 were identified by him as Mozarabic in origin.

The hymns of Spain, first assembled under the auspices of Gothic churchmen as recounted in [Chapter Two], continued to increase with the encouragement and participation of Mozarabic liturgists, scholars and prelates. The generation that supported Isidore of Seville was succeeded two hundred years later by the group associated with Eulogius, Archbishop of Cordova (d. 859), who fostered the old traditions under Moslem control.[31] In spite of a ruling power alien in every aspect of culture, Christian hymnology held its own. After the Moorish invasions, it is estimated that between thirty and forty hymns were written, several of which contain references to the yoke of the oppressor and petitions for its removal.[32] When the movement toward the expulsion of the Moors had been successfully initiated and the Roman Rite introduced (1089) the Mozarabic hymnals were comparable to the finest of the continental cycles. In certain instances the contacts between Spain and Gaul were close and direct even under the rule of the Moslems. Theodulphus of Orleans combined the Gothic and Carolingian trends. Alcuin was indebted to Mozarabic sources in his reform of the Frankish rites.[33] Hymns of Mozarabic origin appeared in other parts of western Europe and vice versa.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, X.] Deus immensa trinitas, “O glorious immensity.”)

The possible influence of Arabian music and poetry upon the Christian hymn has been a tempting idea and one most elusive of pursuit. Studies of medieval Spanish music and musical instruments have failed to demonstrate that the ecclesiastical chant in Spain was thereby affected. Such novelties as it may have possessed have been traced to influences similar to those which had long before affected the Ambrosian chant and been transmitted to the west. As for the tentative assumption that Arabian lyric poetry influenced contemporary hymn writers in Spain, the evidence narrows to the mono-rhyme or repeated end-rhyme common to Arabian poetry and to several Mozarabic hymns.[34] The whole subject of the Arabian impact, highly controversial as it is, appears to be concerned with influences, which when scrutinized, are observed to spring from cultures prior both to Christianity and to Islam.

The Mozarabic Hymnal in its fully developed version possessed an unusually large number of hymns honoring local saints. This feature must be referred to the history of the Roman persecution in the Iberian peninsula where the complete destruction of the Church was intended and martyrdom was the rule. Again the Hymnal is unique in its hymns for public occasions either of mourning and intercession in time of war, pestilence, drought and flood or of joy, in festivals of the consecration of bishops, the coronation of kings and thanksgiving for full harvests.

III. Characteristics

For the most part the hymn writers of the later hymn cycles are anonymous, like their predecessors in this field. Anonymity is then the first characteristic to be noted concerning the hymnal in this period, which makes it necessary to survey the whole as an objective achievement of the age, not of a few individuals.

Next to the anonymity of its authorship, possibly the most conspicuous feature of the new hymnal is the enlargement of each of its general divisions, the Common and the Proper of the Season and the Common and the Proper of Saints. The old hymn cycle, it will be recalled, comprised thirty-four hymns as listed by Blume. The later cycle in its nucleus numbers thirty-seven hymns of which seven are repeated from the old cycle. In ten representative tenth century hymnals, the hymns number from about fifty to about one hundred, many of them common to several lists.[35]

Not only is the total number of hymns increased but festival hymns are multiplied, the ecclesiastical year as it was later known being fully established in hymnology. Advent, Nativity, Epiphany, Lent, the Passion, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity have their own groups of hymns. The various feasts of the Virgin and that of All Saints are honored. Among the Apostles, Sts. Peter, John and Andrew are praised; of other biblical saints, Sts. John the Baptist, Stephen, Paul; of the angels, St. Michael; of martyrs, the Innocents and St. Laurence; of local saints, Sts. Martin of Tours, Gall, Germanus, Martial, and a number of others. So stands the record of manuscripts of the tenth century when hymnal gains had been consolidated. The process went steadily onward as Latin hymns for the offices continued to be written to the end of the Middle Ages. A few have been added since the sixteenth century but, with certain exceptions, the great body of office hymns of the medieval church was permanently established by 1100, the date which Mearns selected as a boundary line. The same sources enriched the present-day Roman breviary which by a paradox of history, has preserved to modern times the representative hymns to which the Roman liturgy of that early period was so inhospitable.

As a matter of fact, in the interval between and including the fourth and the eleventh centuries, the Latin hymn, considered in its literary implications and in its liturgical usage, was founded for the ages. Attaching to the word hymn its strictest sense and narrowest function, that of the office hymn, the student perceives the great significance of this department of medieval hymnology as compared with the sequence, processional and extra-liturgical hymns of the Middle Ages. It becomes more evident that here is the core and heart of Latin hymnody. The Church could and did in the event, dispense with much of its medieval collection, but never with the hymnal. Here was preserved the ethics of the Christian life, the intimacy of the scriptural narrative, the presentment of the Christian feasts and the praise of God and of his saints.

Appendix
Later Hymnal (See Anal. Hymn., 51, Introduction p. xx-xxi)

Ad parvas horas Iam lucis orto sidere Nunc sancte nobis spiritus Rector potens verax Deus Rerum Deus tenax vigor

Ad vesperas Lucis creator optime Immense caeli conditor Telluris ingens conditor Caeli Deus sanctissime Magnae Deus potentiae Plasmator hominis Deus Deus creator omnium (In Old Hymnal) O lux beata trinitas (Mozarabic)

Ad nocturnas horas Primo dierum omnium Somno refectis artubus Consors paterni luminis Rerum creator optime Nox atra rerum contegit Tu trinitatis unitas Summae Deus clementiae

Ad matutinas laudes Aeterne rerum conditor (In Old Hymnal) Splendor paternae gloriae (In Old Hymnal) Ales diei nuntius Nox et tenebrae et nubila Lux ecce surgit aurea Aeterna caeli gloria Aurora iam spargit polum

Ad completorium Christe qui lux es et dies (In Old Hymnal; Mozarabic) Te lucis ante terminum

Proprii de tempore Ad cenam agni providi (In Old Hymnal) Aurora lucis rutilat (In Old Hymnal)

De communi sanctorum Martyr Dei qui unicum Rex gloriose martyrum Aeterna Christi munera (In Old Hymnal) Sanctorum meritis inclita gaudia Virginis proles opifexque Iesu corona virginum Summe confessor sacer

CHAPTER FOUR
The Ninth Century Revival: Sequences

I. Origin

The problem presented by the origin of the sequence is perhaps the most difficult of all those connected with the evolution of medieval hymnology. So far the available information on the subject has never been brought together in one place. To do so is a baffling task which has by no means been completed here nor is that which follows either exhaustive or conclusive. It is merely an attempt to trace the origin and early development as far as the evidence at hand makes it possible, at the same time referring the reader to those scholars who have investigated special topics in detail.

The alleluia of the mass is the starting-point of the sequence. Inherited from the synagogue and incorporated in the Byzantine rite, it was nevertheless brought independently to Rome. The extension of the final a constituted a musical phrase, called a iubilus or iubilatio. This elaborated alleluia with iubilus is Gregorian.[1] It became necessary for the sake of breathing, to divide the extended iubilus into musical phrases, each a sequentia and the whole sequentiae. Some iubili however, remained single while others were sung by two choirs with a repetition of phrases. The next step was the composition of a text for some of the iubili, which text was written below the musical notation. Finally a text was supplied for every such melody, which resulted in the sequentia cum prosa.[2]

It is one thing to note the preceding succession of steps as objective phenomena. It is quite another to explain the origin of the idea which transformed the alleluia into the larger iubilus. This is the most obscure point in the musical development of the sequence, which, for lack of manuscript evidence cannot at present be clarified. At least three hypotheses have been offered. Arguing from the appearance of the trope, some have suggested that the iubilus is a musical interpolation just as the trope is a textual interpolation. This is quite possible but perhaps too simple for an adequate solution. A much more tempting hypothesis has appealed to a variety of scholars,—that of the introduction of Greek melodies.[3] To these students it has seemed more than probable that the intercourse between western Europe and the Byzantine realms in the reign of Charlemagne constitutes a sufficient explanation for the appearance of fresh musical themes. Again, a possibility only has been suggested. So far manuscript evidence for the Greek melodies from which the Gregorian alleluiae and their iubili are derived, has not appeared. Blume, whose treatment of the subject forms the basis of this chapter, not only questions the hypothesis of Greek melodies but he offers a third suggestion and that tentatively; Gregory, he thinks, shortened the alleluia brought over by the Greeks. When, later, a tendency was felt to elaborate the forms of worship, the longer melodies were once more revived in the sequence. This very interesting suggestion, if one day capable of proof, would harmonize the Byzantine and Gregorian influences which produced the initial extension of the final a of the alleluia.

For purposes of clearness a differentiation should be made between the musical and poetical development of the sequence as soon as the sequentia cum prosa is reached. Manifestly it is impossible to do so, in any complete fashion, where words and music are so inextricably interwoven in a common development. It is better, however, to attempt the impossible and for the present, to ignore overlappings.[4]

The origin of the word sequentia itself, in the phrase sequentia cum prosa has often been discussed because of its significance in tracing the musical development of the forms in question. To some scholars sequentia means merely sequela, i.e. notes following the a of the alleluia, a simple and tenable theory. To the great majority, however, sequentia is a translation of the Greek akoulouthia. In fact it has been generally accepted as such, although sequentia conveys the idea of continuation in the Greek word rather than its technical meaning of a continuation specifically of songs, etc. If this is valid, Greek influence upon the origin of the sequence is inferred.[5] Another form of the theory of Greek influence is evident in the suggestion that sequentia means hirmos, that is, a regular continuation of tones. Hirmos may refer to poetry also.[6] A derivation of sequentia from Greek terms, if proven, would of course, buttress the theory of Byzantine influence upon the whole development; but the weakness of the derivation from akoulouthia, for example, is its dependence upon a misunderstanding of the Greek form of worship to which the word applies.[7] An entirely different suggestion as to origin arises from the formula used in the liturgy to announce the Gospel, Sequentia Sancti Evangelii secundum etc.[8] Often some practical consideration, extraneous condition or unrelated incidental circumstance has affected liturgical change or development. Consequently, even a slight suggestion like this provokes thought.

Whatever may be the correct origin of the word sequentia the place of origin of the sequence is generally conceded to have been France sometime in the eighth century. The part played by other lands in the origin of the sequentia cum prosa cannot be wholly determined at present. It must suffice to study the evidence available. It has been demonstrated how the early French sequences have a closer tie with the alleluia and how the word is sometimes retained to introduce the prosae which accompany the music. There is considerable evidence supporting French priority over the Germans in the creation of these new musical forms, the chief centers of composition being St. Martial, Luxeuil, Fleury-sur-Loire, and Moissac, the outstanding rival of St. Martial. An origin for the sequence in France is independently probable due to the interest in liturgical music stimulated by Charlemagne, who, as shown in the preceding chapter, favored Gregorian and Byzantine innovations at the expense of Gallican forms.

One of the suggestions mentioned to account for the original lengthening of the alleluia in the iubilus is connected with the trope. The word has long been defined as a textual interpolation.[9] Gastoué, however, contends that it was originally and primarily musical, a vocalization in the existing chant and that it was created in the music school. The ancient form of trope is a neuma triplex added to the response In medio etc. for the Feast of St. John the Apostle, or to Descendit de caelis for Christmas. This vocalism is described by Amalarius of Metz and indeed Metz may be its place of origin. Alcuin has been named as the possible originator, a theory strengthened by the fact that Amalarius was one of his pupils.[10] At any rate Amalarius seems to have been the first to call the melody following the alleluia, a sequentia,[11] from which it is evident that the iubili must have been regarded in some other light prior to his writing. The sequentia in connection with the alleluia may very reasonably have been considered a trope, since vocalisms like these had already appeared elsewhere in rites of worship, and sequences in addition to those which belong to the alleluia of the mass have been found in antiphonaries. To repeat, Gastoué describes a musical interpolation or trope originating in the music schools of the Franks and appearing in various liturgical settings. He likens the iubilus to a trope which Amalarius called a sequentia. The original divisions created by the musical phrases in the iubilus now appear in a series, each repeated a certain number of times with introduction and conclusion and thus the completed sequence structure comes into being. The germ of its formal construction, Gastoué finds in certain Gregorian sources. The ancient alleluia, Justus ut palma florebit, shows such characteristics and reveals the liturgical Latin origin of the sequence, its melody going back to the versus alleluiaticus.

In spite of the evidence which would make the sequence a native musical product of western Europe, the theory of Greek origin is still persistently held by certain scholars. For that reason it must be considered in greater detail. Gregory’s adoption of Greek novelties forms the starting point of this theory, while Charlemagne’s well-known enthusiasm for Greek innovations carries its proponents still further. The fact that the original Greek melodies which are assumed to have been used in the west, have never been produced in evidence, is not a proof of their non-existence. An extensive study of certain sequence melodies has been made in order to determine whether they are modeled upon Greek originals, since the Greek names for these melodies and features of notation point to such an origin.[12] But such names are secondary, the original and natural name being the first phrase of the Latin words accompanying the melodies and the Greek word a suggested title. A Greek melody, called Organa, for instance, might be assumed to retain its name in Latin. The opposite is the case for the name Filia matris is original and Organa the suggested title.

Regarding the argument from notation it is a matter of common knowledge that the neume is native to Greek-speaking lands and may have existed as early as the sixth century.[13] Neumes took firm root at St. Gall, the great German center for the propagation of the sequence, so much so, that they persisted until the twelfth century even after the invention of the staff and in the interval were spread by teaching. Moreover, neumes were written in the manner of the eastern church, i.e. in a straight line, not at different levels to indicate pitch.[14] It is unfortunate that the dearth of manuscripts showing neumes makes a gap in the evidence just where support is most needed, for the earliest musical manuscripts with this notation date from the ninth century;[15] but the assumption in favor of Greek originals is at least strong enough to forbid its being ignored.

An additional circumstance which supports the theory of Greek origin is the fact of musical parallelism in the structure of the sequence. This is an important point of contact between the sequence and Byzantine musical forms, although it has not been universally convincing. On the contrary, some have traced this phenomenon of musical parallelism to one of those extraneous conditions, affecting liturgical practice, namely, the use of antiphonal choirs.[16]

Nothing can be more unsatisfactory to the student who is trying to force the sequence into any particular theory of musical origin than the contemplation of what is actually known on this subject, for the question seems destined to remain undecided. A better perspective may be reached by examining the poetical development of the sequence which began with the sequentia cum prosa and ended in a new form of Latin hymn for which melodies were in turn composed.

The text written below the alleluia melody is generally accepted as of French origin and likewise the naming of that text. As the text became important the melody too was named so that the melody and text were differentiated from each other, the latter as a prosa. It is unknown whether the name sequentia instead of prosa was chosen deliberately as differing from the French usage. Amalarius was apparently the first to use the word sequentia in connection with the music. Later the term was destined to supersede the name prosa for the poetical text.

We owe to Notker, whose part in creating the sequence will be considered in greater detail below, an account of his invention of words as an aid to memorizing the elaborate melody of the alleluia trope. Whether Notker was the first to see the value of this device and to employ it, is unknown.[17] As a theory of origin it has always been popular, being held by Frere and many others. For the present it may be acknowledged that it is a reasonable theory for, of course, only the choir leader had a musical codex to refer to and the musical ability of the average monk was unequal to the difficulties of memorization by ear alone. Moreover, this theory can always be accepted with others, although it seems inadequate by itself.

A second explanation of origin arises from the possibility that sequence poetry originated in the imitation of Greek hymn models. The statement has been made definitely that sequence poetry shows the transference of the Byzantine structure of hymnody to Latin church poetry, especially Notker’s.[18] With every circumstance favoring such a transfer it is amazing that the Franks who heard so much of Greek hymns and could have translated them into Latin and sung them to the same tunes, evidently did nothing of the kind. Some other explanation of similarity must be found. Metrical parallelism, which is characteristic of the Latin sequence and contemporary Greek hymns, in Gastoué’s opinion, can be accounted for only by reference to Hebrew poetry as the ultimate inspiration of liturgical poetry.[19] Thus a Byzantine theory of origin breaks down when metrical sources are subjected to closer scrutiny. After all, the sequence is unknown in the Byzantine ritual and therefore the Byzantine influence could never have been direct.

A third theory emphasizes the metrical form of the alleluia melody as the determining factor in creating a new poetical rhythm.[20] Here, the desire to create fitting expressions of praise is not explained so much as the form in which the praises are cast. Von Winterfeld thought that rhythmical prose was inseparable from the liturgical music which had already been composed, just as the Greek chorus and the Wagnerian music drama found their complement in a dignified and sonorous prose rhythm.[21] This theory may well be called the liturgical. It is most significant for the lyrical movement in general since a new metrical form is created differing from the Ambrosian meter or the revived classical meters popular among Carolingian poets. The lyric is born again, as Meyer expresses it, in the music of the church.[22] A poem arises consisting of a series of parallel strophes with introduction and conclusion, a lyric counterpart to the musical phrases of the sequentia.

II. Sequences of the German School

The importance played by St. Gall in the development of the sequence has given rise to the theory that it originated there. Present-day opinion, as indicated above, concedes that sequences arose in France and that St. Gall is not a place of origin but like St. Martial, a prominent center for their composition and diffusion. Other centers were Metz, Murbach, Fulda, Echternach, Kremünster and St. Florian. Reichenau, too, was important in music and in the spread of sequence poetry.[23]

Notker Balbulus, (840?-912), was largely responsible for the enviable reputation enjoyed by St. Gall. Born in Switzerland, Notker had entered the Benedictine monastery at St. Gall as a child to be educated and there he continued as a member of the Order until his death. A pupil and later a teacher of the music school in the period of Louis the Pious and Louis the German, he shared the life of the Abbey during the height of its reputation, when its doors were open to travelers from every land and every rank of society. Notker himself tells of the refugee from the French monastery of Jumièges who brought with him his famous Antiphonary. Tradition has it that Notker composed words to fit the forms of the alleluia-iubilus, note for note, already in use in his monastery, and thus originated the sequence, finding his inspiration, not in the Ambrosian hymns but in the liturgy.[24] The Jumièges Antiphonary reached St. Gall about 860, by which time prosae were already known in France. There is evidence, moreover, from manuscripts, that texts existed before Notker’s time in St. Gall. He is not their first composer nor are the sequences emanating from St. Gall necessarily all Notker’s work. “Notkerian” means for sequences what “Ambrosian” means for hymns.

The problem of the authentic Notkerian sequences was subjected to critical study and variously solved by Schubiger in 1858, Wilmanns in 1872, and Werner in 1901. More recent students have re-examined the evidence and expressed their critical opinions as to Notker’s poetical and musical prestige: Singer in 1922, Van Doren in 1925 and Clark in 1926. Of more than 100 sequences attributed to Notker, 47 were judged to be authentic and edited in volume 53 of the Analecta Hymnica. Notker’s ability as a musician appears to be a matter of controversy. A new review of the Notkerian problem and its literature has been offered by the Swiss scholar, Wolfram von den Steinen, together with an edition of the sequences of the St. Gall school.[25] What scholars in general have taken away from Notker with one hand they return with the other, for if not an originator he is conceded to be the leading agent in introducing the sequence into Germany and setting a standard for this type of poetry which included from Notker’s pen a notable group of sequences for the festivals of the whole year. His sequence for Pentecost is representative of the achievements of the German school.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, XI.] Sancti spiritus adsit nobis gratia, “The grace of the Holy Ghost be present with us.”)

It is not surprising that scholars interested in the theory of Greek influence upon sequence poetry should seek confirmation of their views in Notker’s work. There is a majestic quality and a vigorous resounding praise in these poems which has been thought a reflection of Byzantine hymns. Reference has already been made to the Byzantine strophic system and its probable influence upon Notker’s poetical technique. When one considers that the monastery of St. Gall was always a port of call for refugees and travelers from the east and in the preceding century may have harbored many of them, it is reasonable to suppose that Notker was acquainted with contemporary Greek hymnody. Whatever may be the explanation of the metrical system employed by Notker, he undoubtedly named his melodies in such a way as to suggest a Greek identification.[26]

There remains another line of research, which is relatively unimportant, yet should be noted when the question of Greek influence is raised. It has been stated that Greek words are used in Latin sequences, thereby proving contact with Greek-speaking contemporaries on the part of their authors, or with Greek literary sources. Whenever this test is applied to any medieval writing produced by churchmen it should not be forgotten that the Vulgate was the one great continuous source, inspiration and standard of the Latin language as employed in the Middle Ages. Throughout the period, all Latin hymns which include a narrative element or refer in any other way to biblical statements are greatly indebted to the Vulgate. A considerable number of Greek words, naturally, appear in the Vulgate. Applying the criterion of Greek words to Notker’s sequences, one reaches no definitive results whatever. In the forty-one sequences attributed to Notker by Wilmanns, some seven Greek words appear which are not in the Vulgate.[27] If this proves anything in Notker’s case, it is significant only in connection with other evidence from Greek originals which has not been advanced.

Having considered the separate development of the musical and poetical aspects of the sequence, as far as they can be sundered, it remains to view certain factors which may have affected that development but have not as yet been stated.

The history of medieval music, quite apart from the creation of the iubilus and the sequentia, should not be overlooked by the student who is trying to understand liturgical music in this general period. Perhaps during the eighth and certainly from the ninth century, polyphonic and harmonic forms began to appear. New melodies for sequences were in demand and were produced, which in turn were influenced by popular and secular music, with an interaction of words and music taking place, sometimes with words, sometimes with music leading the way.[28] The history of the sequence, when complete, will owe much to the studies of medieval music now in progress by musicologists, some of whose conclusions have been noted above. The history of musical instruments is relevant here but in any case it must always be remembered that the church possessed the musical notation and was able to dominate the field.

If the course of secular and ecclesiastical music accompanying the sequence remains uncertain, so are the currents of medieval religious and secular verse in Latin still uncharted. Which is the original stream? Latin secular poetry existed contemporary with the early sequence, the secular form of which was known as a modus,[29] which, like the sequence, was inseparable from its musical accompaniment for the minstrel both sang and played his unrhymed lay. Some have taken the extreme point of view of the part played by secular influence and have regarded the sequence as a popular lyric in worship, perhaps even a Volkslied.[30] But the question as to the predominance of influence whether religious or secular, remains open.

The argument for influence from vernacular verse upon the sequence is equally weak. Prior to the ninth century vernacular lyrics in the Germanic tongues are so rare as to be valueless in this discussion. Celtic lyrics from the seventh and eighth centuries are also rare. It is possible that they were known to Celtic teachers on the continent but too much should not be assumed from this possibility or from the fact that the oldest form of Celtic lyric exhibits rhythmic parallelism.[31] French, Spanish and early English vernacular lyrics appear too late to be significant in the problem of origins. In any case, the question hinges upon metrical technique which can be adequately explained without recourse to vernacular lyrics, which, insofar as they do exist, may be regarded as themselves imitations of earlier Latin forms.

The evidence offered by secular lyrics, Latin or vernacular, in the early Middles Ages points to an outstanding growth from the sequence rather than a creative source for the sequence. As a matter of fact the sequence breaks away from the church and itself becomes secular, as the history of poetry in the later Middle Ages bears witness.

The above presentation of what is known as to the origin of the sequence can scarcely be satisfactory to the scientific historian of medieval culture. Full of inconvenient gaps and baffling inconsistencies the evidence remains totally inadequate. One conclusion alone may be advanced and that tentatively; the sequence appears to have been created wholly within the liturgy of the mass. The troparium or tropary, later the gradual and missal contained the sequences for the annual feasts just as the hymnarium or hymnary, later the breviary had contained the hymn cycles of the offices.

The appearance of the sequence in the history of medieval hymnody was an episode of the greatest importance not only in the evolution of Latin religious and secular poetry but in their vernacular counterparts. In order to understand the extraordinary popularity and wide diffusion of the sequence it must be emphasized that it is not just another hymn, but an ornament to the mass, individually created for each and every festival with a particular theme in mind. The seasons of Advent, Nativity, the Passion, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, the Virgin festivals of the Nativity, Annunciation, Visitation, Purification and Assumption, the feasts of the Apostles and other biblical Saints, the Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins formed a great series which challenged the finest efforts of the clerical poets. Herein lies the essential interest of this hymnody. The original Latin hymn was associated with daily secular worship and then with the canonical hours of the monastery. The sequence was associated with the celebration of the divine sacrifice.

As a closing illustration for this chapter the Alleluiatic sequence has been selected. Based upon the canticle, Benedicite omnia opera, and often attributed to Notker, this superb sequence reaches a height of expression comparable to the noblest hymns of the ninth century revival.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, XII.] Cantemus cuncti melodum nunc Alleluia, “The strain upraise of joy and praise.”)

CHAPTER FIVE
Late Middle Ages: Hymns and Sequences

Beginning with the twelfth century the large number of new hymns and sequences produced point to a degree of creative activity that continued through the High Middle Ages. A recent historian of medieval literature, De Ghellinck, sees the religious poetry of the twelfth century rivalling the secular, and points out that ten thousand specimens of every type of religious verse, from 1060 to 1220, are edited in the Analecta Hymnica.[1] Maurice Hélin, whose attractive volume is available in English translation, considers the poetic product of the twelfth century the peak of Latin poetry and “its most original contribution to the intellectual patrimony of the west.”[2]

It is easier to repeat such a statement than to present acceptably the relevant evidence in the field with which this chapter is concerned. One might expect a larger proportion of known authors but anonymity remains the rule. The exceptions command recognition among the most notable writers of hymns and sequences in any period of their production.

I. Sequences of the French School

The sequence, originally a product of France, already perfected as a poetical form by Notker and the German school of ecclesiastical hymn writers, attained a greater influence and popularity under Adam of St. Victor. In 1130 Adam entered the Augustinian Abbey of St. Victor on the outskirts of Paris and there he remained until his death. Whether a native of France or England is unknown. Like Notker, he followed in his poetic themes the annual festivals. To him have been attributed more than 100 sequences which appear in the manuscripts of St. Victor. They were published first by Leon Gautier in 1858 and in the later nineteenth century were subjected to critical analysis by Misset who regarded 45 sequences as authentic.[3] Blume, who edited the Victorine sequences in volumes 54 and 55 of the Analecta Hymnica, attributed 48 to Adam’s authorship.

Adam’s poetical concepts are centered in the mystical interpretation of biblical narratives and of Christian theology as it was taught in the schools of Paris. Hugh and Richard of St. Victor were his contemporaries but Adam was poet as well as theologian. Praise was to him an essential harmony of voice and life. His verse departed from the earlier prose rhythms of the German poets and was cast in a metrical form already popularized in the hymn. A group of rhymed trochaic lines of eight syllables with a caesura after the fourth syllable at the end of a word, closes with a seven syllable line. This scheme with its many variants characterizes the work of Adam and his imitators in countless Latin and later, vernacular lyrics. Adam’s sequence for the Feast of St. Stephen has been selected as illustrative of his finest work.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, XIII.] Heri mundus exultavit, “Yesterday with exultation.”)

To appreciate fully the function of the sequence in worship at this time as well as its appeal to popular imagination, one should isolate a single theme for more intimate enjoyment. For this purpose, the sequences written for the five feasts of the Virgin are best suited. While manifold saints were honored in the hymnology of the day, the veneration of the Virgin reached at this time, its pinnacle of expression. Notker had provided sequences for her Nativity, Purification and Assumption. Adam of St. Victor, poet of the Virgin, drew upon all the resources of medieval symbolism in his Salve, redemptoris mater, “Hail, mother of the Redeemer,” a masterpiece of medieval religious verse. Clerical poets everywhere met the challenge of his example. The result was indicative not only of their devotion and their poetic skill which was at times indifferent, but of the actual use of the Virgin sequences in the numerous feasts which honored her and their familiarity to wide congregations of clergy and laity.

During this period great sequence writers appeared, some known and distinguished, the majority anonymous. To the latter group belongs the author of the Easter sequence, Victimae paschali laudes, “Christians, to the Paschal Victim,” which represents the transition between the Notkerian and Victorine styles. The growing relationship between Latin hymnology and the arts becomes obvious in this sequence which was of importance in building the liturgical drama for Easter. The dialogue embedded in the poem,

“Speak, Mary, declaring

What thou sawest wayfaring?”

and her reply, ending

“Yea, Christ my hope is arisen:

To Galilee he goes before you.”

contributed, with other sources, to the fully developed Easter Play.

The so-called Golden Sequence for Pentecost, Veni sancte spiritus, “Come, thou Holy Spirit, come,”[4] also of undetermined authorship, attained perhaps the greatest prestige, having now been heard in Christian worship for more than eight hundred years.

The activities of the French school are largely responsible for the popularity of sequences in the twelfth century and for their multiplication in every part of western Europe. Other factors played a part. Just as the Latin hymn can best be understood in the historical setting of the late Roman Empire or of the early Germanic kingdoms, so the development of the sequence must be interpreted in connection with the social and cultural environment of the age. The universities, notably that of Paris, were dominating intellectual life. Economic opportunity offered by the revival and expansion of craftsmanship, commerce, urban life and geographical knowledge resembled the achievement of Roman days. The European centralized states had emerged and were assuming the national features which mark them today. The modern languages of Europe were highly developed in their literary treasures and in everyday speech. Under reforming popes such as Innocent III, the church was entering an era of unity and spiritual renewal. Side by side with the reformed Benedictine Order, the Augustinian canons with their ancient prestige, the Franciscan, Dominican and other religious orders were taking their part in the work for the regeneration of society and the triumph of the Faith. Pilgrimages and crusades were in vogue for two hundred years from 1095. The hymnody of the church took on new vitality in an era of European awakening.

II. Later Hymns

Although the sequence had apparently occupied the center of attention, the writing of office and festival hymns had never been interrupted and certainly had never ceased. Gathering up the sources after the period of ninth century influence described in [Chapter Three], one pauses at the verse of Peter Damian, (988-1072), Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Superior of the monks of the Holy Cross. His theme was the joys of paradise in the hymn Ad perennis vitae fontem, “To the fount of life eternal,” a topic about which a distinguished hymnody was ultimately created.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, XIV.] Ad perennis vitae fontem, “To the fount of life eternal.”)

Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres (d. 1028), is best known for his Easter hymn, Chorus novae Ierusalem, “The chorus of the New Jerusalem,”[5] in which the militant ideal in its knightly form finds expression as the warriors of the faith acclaim the victory of their royal and divine leader.

In the twelfth century, a complete new hymnary in all its parts was written by Abelard, (1079-1142), for the Convent of the Paraclete of which Heloise was the abbess.[6] A collection of 91 hymns, it has never been highly praised by critics, yet it has provided the hymn, O quanta qualia, “How mighty are the Sabbaths,” in praise of the Sabbath and the Good Friday hymn, Solus ad victimam procedis, Domine, “Alone to sacrifice Thou goest, Lord,” both of which have found a place in recent hymnals. Helen Waddell’s translations of the two illustrate modern renderings at their best. The same century saw the achievement of Bernard of Cluny or Morlaix, (fl. 1122), whose long poem, De contemptu mundi furnished the selections on the heavenly country, Hora novissima, popularized by the translations of John Mason Neale. Perhaps the best-known of these, Urbs Sion aurea, “Jerusalem the Golden,” in its English rendering has attained a vernacular status independently of its Latin original. The great anonymous hymn, Jesu dulcis memoria, “Jesu, the very thought of Thee,” is also of the twelfth century. Its authorship has been variously ascribed but never certainly determined.

The thirteenth century was marked by the rise of hymn writing in the new religious orders founded by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic. The Franciscan Bonaventura (1221-74), wrote Recordare sanctae crucis, “Be mindful of the Holy Cross,” on the theme of the Cross. To read this hymn side by side with the Vexilla regis prodeunt of Fortunatus, is to apprehend more fully the increasing subjectivity of the Latin hymn in 500 years of its history. The passion of Christ is, moreover, a favorite theme and object of devotion of the friars, ever present to their thinking. Thomas Aquinas, (1227-74), greatest of the Dominicans, wrote the hymns for the Feast of Corpus Christi, established by Pope Urban IV in 1265. Of these, Pange lingua, gloriosi corporis mysterium, “Sing my tongue, the Saviour’s glory,”[7] modeled after the form of the Pange lingua of Fortunatus, is in its subject matter a poetic version of the mystical subtleties implicit in the dogma of the feast. John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, (1240-92), wrote Ave vivens hostia, “Hail, true Victim,” a fine hymn upon the same theme which suggests the inspiration of Aquinas.

III. Later Sequences

From the sequences of the later Middle Ages only a few have gained eminence but in certain cases as high a place as any in the whole range of their composition. Thomas Aquinas shows himself master of the sequence as well as the hymn in his Lauda Sion Salvatorem, “Praise, O Sion, praise thy Saviour,” a model of the Victorine technique.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, XV.] Lauda Sion Salvatorem, “Praise, O Sion, praise thy Saviour.”)

Dies irae, “Day of wrath,” most majestic of all sequences, universally acknowledged as the greatest achievement of Latin hymnology, was probably written by the Franciscan Thomas of Celano. It was originally used at Advent, later for All Souls’ Day and for requiem masses. The Judgment theme is obviously inspired by the words of the Prophet Zephaniah (1:15) from which the opening line Dies irae, dies illa is taken. A special literature, together with a multitude of translations, has grown up around this hymn which deserves consideration impossible here. It should be read not only with reference to its biblical sources but with the great Judgment portals of the medieval cathedrals in mind, since the sculpture and literature of the age here find a meeting place.[8] No less significant for its interpretation is the prevalence of the Black Death in the ages which produced it.[9] The thought of a period in which pain and death were so tragically familiar and before which the medieval man stood helpless, is faithfully reflected in contemporary hymns.

The lament in its poetic form is associated with the Marian hymnology of the fourteenth century. The Stabat mater dolorosa, “By the Cross her vigil keeping,”[10] its finest expression, like the Dies irae, needs little comment in these pages.

(See [Illustrative Hymns, XVI.] Stabat mater dolorosa, “By the Cross her vigil keeping.”)

In this period it seems, at least to the present writer, that the Italian-born poets of the religious lyric come into their rightful heritage. The poets of England and of the French, German and Spanish-speaking lands had at one time or another held the palm in the field of hymnody. At the very moment, so to speak, when the genius of Dante and Petrarch had established the fame of Italian letters, the Christian hymn found new spokesmen in a literary medium which had originated in the same environment a thousand years before.

What has already been said of the multiplication of new feasts as the medieval ages progressed, is true in an even greater degree in the later centuries. The Feast of Corpus Christi is only one of many which marked this period of religious devotion, and incidentally required new sequences. If the collection of liturgical proses edited by Daniel in his Thesaurus Hymnologicus and reprinted in volumes 54 and 55 of the Analecta Hymnica be accepted as a guide, the new demands become clear. From the period of Adam of St. Victor, 174 feasts were furnished with sequences, many times over in the case of the more important festivals. The actual liturgical collections from which the Analecta Hymnica was compiled constitute a more specific source of information. If the attention of the student is fixed upon the sequences used in well-known missals and troparies from the thirteenth century and later, in the leading ecclesiastical centers of Europe, a wealth of material is revealed. Many of these sequences in the great collections are unfamiliar to the modern student, some have never been translated into English, but as a whole they are truly representative of this body of poetry in the period of its greatest interest. A tropary of St. Martial of the thirteenth century contains an anonymous Easter sequence, Morte Christi celebrata (A. H. 8. 33), “Christ’s passion now is o’er,”[11] which bears comparison with the better-known sequences which have been named above.

IV. Liturgical Collections

To determine the actual usage of the hymn or sequence rather than its mere existence as a specimen of religious verse, the liturgical collection is indispensable. The old hymnaries and psalters and other books used in the offices were examined by liturgists of the period who compiled the breviaries of the later Middle Ages. Working under episcopal or monastic authority they subjected the hymnic material at their disposal to a selective process which necessarily discarded many hymns in favor of those rendered sacred by their inclusion in the old cycles, or of hymns of recognized merit. The Mozarabic Breviary had been compiled and its hymns determined by this process in an earlier century. After the re-conquest of the Spanish peninsula and the introduction of the Roman Rite in 1089, a version of the Roman Breviary was introduced. Episcopal centers in England, such as Hereford, York and primarily Salisbury, compiled their service books and developed them continuously to the close of the Middle Ages. The process was repeated throughout Christian Europe.

From the troparies and local collections of sequences the selections for the gradual and missal were made, just as the hymns had been for the breviary. These liturgical sources offer to the modern student the range of medieval hymnody at its best. The episcopal rites are, perhaps, more official and authoritative in their selection of hymns and sequences but the monastic rites often reveal the legends of local saints or the more intimate flavor of traditional piety. It should be understood that in countries where the Roman Rite prevailed there was no departure from its authority in the matter of hymnody. At the same time the greatest latitude was observable. A fine illustration is provided by the books of the Rite of Salisbury, England, or the Sarum Rite, which were compiled and developed by great liturgists from the time of Bishop Osmund in the eleventh century to the close of the Middle Ages. The Sarum Breviary contains 119 hymns, 25 of which were written after 1100 and the Missal contains 101 sequences, 54 of which were written about 1100.[12] The figures are revealing in the case of hymns, of the influence of the older cycles and in the case of sequences, of the multiplication of feasts in the later centuries of the Middle Ages.

The Processional book as a bearer of hymns will be treated in the following chapter. It remains here, to mention the Books of Hours or medieval Primers which also contained their quota of hymns. The Horae may be defined as a series of devotions, at first additional to the Seven Hours of the daily office but in the twelfth century elaborated in a separate book. Specifically the additions consisted of the penitential psalms, the Office of the Dead, the Cursus of All Saints, that of the Holy Cross, and that of the Blessed Virgin. Even before its separation from the Canonical Hours, the Cursus of the Blessed Virgin had assumed an importance which gave to the new collection its characteristic title of Horae or Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the fourteenth century the single volume came to be known in England as Primarius Liber or Primarium from which the more familiar name Prymer or Primer is derived.[13] Its popularity may be judged by the fact that 265 printed editions were later known in England and 1582 on the continent.[14] Hymns are interspersed throughout the Horae. In the York Hours there are eighteen hymns and sequences of varied periods of which thirteen are centered in devotion to the Virgin.[15] In other words, the hymns which were chosen for these books of popular devotion are representative of later medieval favorites in hymnody, indicating to what extent the older hymns were known and loved and to what extent later poems had been accepted by lay folk as well as clergy. The Horae are primarily valuable as a source for the later Marian hymns upon the themes of the Joys and of the Sorrows of the Virgin. The appearance of the beloved Stabat mater dolorosa, without doubt the finest expression of the poetry of sorrow, bears witness to the discriminative process by which the Horae were compiled. It seems remarkable that the liturgists of the later period, in which the Latin hymn was beginning to show signs of deterioration, were able to skirt as successfully as they did, the limits of trashy sentimentality and worse poetry which were passing current under the name of hymnody.

To those who are interested in the relations between literature and the fine arts an examination of the Virgin hymns, as of the Dies irae, will yield similar interrelations. The hymns which were written from the twelfth century onwards upon the Virgin theme may be closely correlated with the sculptured forms which portray the Mother apart from the Son in her Sorrows and more particularly in her Joys, laden with her distinctive honors and regnant as the Queen of Heaven.

V. Influences affecting Hymnody

Once the typical hymns and sequences of the later period have been reviewed, it remains to trace the influences operating from the contemporary environment upon their evolution. The problem of possible influence of an ultimately oriental origin has already arisen in connection with earlier hymns. It has been considered in the relation of Byzantine culture to the origin of the sequence, and also in the form of Arabian influence upon the Mozarabic hymnody. In both fields the evidence is tenuous and especially in the latter where the imprint of Arabian cultural forms would seem to be most probable. In the centuries which produced the troubadours, the problem takes the form of a possible indirect influence from Arabian origins through the Provençal singers upon the evolution of the sequence.[16] It is true that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries boasted at least four hundred troubadours whose poetry is extant. The names of others are known but not their poems. As the popularity of their songs is unquestioned, an appreciable affect upon religious lyrics might be presumed. Granted that the influence of Arabian poetry may be demonstrated upon the metrical aspects of troubadour lyrics, it must still be demonstrated that the impact of the latter was felt upon the Latin hymn. Future studies may throw light upon these problems of medieval literature where obscurity now prevails. Metrical similarities undoubtedly exist between Arabian and Latin verse, as already illustrated in the field of late Mozarabic hymns. Perhaps the most convincing evidence, aside from these, is found in processional hymns, the subject of a later chapter.

Much more obvious and one distinctly to be traced is the all-pervading influence of the new religious orders upon medieval society and culture in general. Hymn writers belonging, as cited above, to the Franciscan, Dominican and other orders of friars, to say nothing of the Cistercians, played a leading role among contemporary poets; their names and themes have already been mentioned. Many others must be numbered with the anonymous majority. The veneration of the Virgin reflected so faithfully in contemporary hymns may be largely attributed to their devotion. As itinerant preachers, moreover, the friars translated hymns into the vernacular and brought them directly to their hearers, thus imparting the lessons of faith and morals.[17] It might be asserted, at least tentatively, that the friars were responsible for one of the earliest attempts to bridge the gap between the ritual and the popular use of hymns.

A less tangible influence was at work emanating from schoolmen. This was the age of the universities in which thousands of students were pursuing the studies of theology, law and medicine. Early theological discussion in the schools of Paris, prior to the founding of the universities, is implicit in the sequences of Adam of St. Victor. Later, Thomas Aquinas, Professor of Theology at the University of Paris, created a poetical counterpart in his hymns, to the prose exposition of dogma. No one else reached his stature in this particular but hundreds of European clerics having theological degrees or a partial preparation for them, were active in the church and in secular life. It is only fair to suppose that they must be included in the great anonymous group which assisted in making that unique contribution to medieval literature which was preserved in contemporary liturgical collections. Without the university-trained cleric how is it explicable that in the very age in which the vernacular languages came to their full development in speech and in literature, Latin religious verse was at a peak of expression? In the High Middle Ages the alumni of the great universities were influential in every phase of society. It is conceivable, if not demonstrable, that the clerics among their ranks played an important although hitherto unrecognized role in the evolution of Latin hymnody.

Contemporary pilgrimages take the student far afield from the centers of learning. The crusading enterprise of two centuries which carried the knightly companies of Europe and their entourage to the East was a pilgrimage of continental proportions. Local shrines favored by pilgrims abounded in the West from Canterbury and Walsingham to Campostella. What effect, if any, had this wave of religious zeal or of adventurous self-seeking upon the hymnology of the age? We know that the familiar Latin hymns of the breviary were sung by the clerics who conducted the services of religion in the crusading armies. We possess the texts of a variety of vernacular hymns and songs heard among the wandering bands who traversed the highways of Europe or traveled by sea to distant shrines. We are told of the singing of Latin hymns at the destination of pilgrimage but their texts are rare. A formal collection of Latin hymns associated with the shrine of St. James of Campostella, the Carmina Campostellana, has been edited in the seventeenth volume of the Analecta Hymnica. As might be supposed, they voice the praises of St. James, Ad honorem regis summi, “To the honor of the King,” (A. H. 17. 210) being a favorite in both Latin and vernacular versions.[18] As a matter of fact, the hymnody of pilgrimage must have been largely patronal, a conclusion supported by existing Latin texts. Unfortunately we possess no great body of Latin hymns arising from the religious impulse which animated the crusader or the devotee of local shrines. It is possible, however, that the multiplication of hymns for saints at this time may be attributed in part to the multiplication of shrines of pilgrimage. If true, an influence is seen at work, which, from the time when Ambrose built a church in Milan to receive the relics of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius and wrote a hymn in their honor, never ceased to operate in the intervening centuries.[19]

With the pilgrim we come face to face with the layman and are once more confronted with the question of lay participation in the singing of Latin hymns, which hinges upon the further question of the degree to which the layman could sing or even understand the Latin hymn, from the twelfth century onward. The pious injunctions of Alexander of Hales and Henricus de Gorichen (15th C.) to sing hymns, merely repeat a dictum of St. Apollonius regarding the observance of the Lord’s Day in the second century and must not be taken too seriously by the modern student.[20] It is indeed slight evidence for the singing of Latin hymns by the laity. The problem is in reality linguistic and revolves about the question of who was acquainted with Latin at this time. Setting aside the clergy in their numerous ranks, who are often said to have had the complete monopoly of the hymn in an age when congregational singing was unknown, one must consider the remaining classes of society from the point of view of contemporary education.

Beginning with the university it should be recalled that the text books and other sources of information were in Latin and that Latin was the medium of instruction. In this respect the aspirant for a degree in law or medicine was on a par with the would-be clergyman. Many students took degrees in two and occasionally in all three disciplines, and the majority were destined for the church if only in minor orders. On the other hand, it is certain that, as in our own day, a large number of students never attained any degree although they had the Latin qualification. In any case, the lay alumnus or former student of the universities, with a Latin training, was a familiar figure in secular affairs.

The degree and extent of elementary and secondary education upon which the university instruction was necessarily founded, have been the subject of several recent studies. It seems certain that schools for children and youth existed from the ninth century onward in cathedral and other centers and that, as Lynn Thorndike says, “in the period of developed medieval culture elementary education was fairly wide-spread and general.”[21] Without entering into the details of this program, illuminating as they are, we note that the curriculum was founded upon the Latin language and Latin studies. The contemporary growth of towns involved an expansion of education which was marked by the appearance of schools sponsored by municipal authority. The Latin school flourished everywhere. There is evidence that every social class participated to some extent in the new education although illiteracy must at the same time have been common. It seems clear that the layman who had received these early educational advantages could understand Latin hymns or read them if the texts were available. Both sexes shared elementary education and lay women as well as nuns occasionally had access to advanced instruction. Such considerations as the above presuppose a degree of familiarity especially with the breviary hymns, on the part of laymen, even if singing or chanting was restricted to the choirs and clergy.

The university movement was accompanied by the rise of the wandering scholars and poets whose verses, for example, from the Carmina Burana, are familiar today in translation. Popular entertainers, they sang their Latin lyrics at ale house doors and in the market places. They must have been at least partially understood by the populace. Other municipal entertainment was provided by the religious drama of the times which made considerable demand upon the Latin resources of the spectator who had to be somewhat bilingual if he were to enjoy the public presentation of the mystery plays.

Again, the bilingual or macaronic poetry which sprang up in the period of rivalry between Latin and the vernacular may be viewed both as a means and a result of understanding Latin hymns. Macaronic verse was both secular and religious in its forms, favorite phrases from well-known Latin hymns often being combined with the vernacular tongue. The practice might even have spread to the ritual of the Church had it not been forbidden by ecclesiastical decree.[22] The cantio of the later medieval centuries and the familiar carol offer a wealth of evidence that macaronic religious verse was extremely popular. Indeed, this may have been the earliest manifestation of actual hymn singing on the part of medieval laymen.

Even if congregational singing was not practiced, the use of Latin hymns in private devotion is well authenticated. The Horae which were included in the liturgical collections listed above, were circulated among laymen from the fourteenth century onward, and often used as text books or Primers from which children were taught to read. The variant title, Lay Folks Prayer Book, also bespeaks its popular availability.

While it would be unsound to infer a universal knowledge of Latin hymnody among the laity of Europe upon any or all of the evidence here assembled, it is logical to suppose that this treasury of verse lay within the boundaries of average education and cultural ability. Combined with the effectiveness of visual means of conveying religious truths through architecture, sculpture and stained glass, popular acquaintance with the teachings of Christian hymnody must be supposed to have overflowed the limits of clerical restriction, if indeed, any such existed.

VI. Characteristics

To close this somewhat rambling account of the Latin hymn and sequence in the later medieval centuries, which is necessarily discursive even as the civilization itself was everywhere expanding, the characteristics of this poetry should be reviewed in comparison with those of earlier Latin hymns.

An increasing variety of subject matter is first to be noted, to accompany the diversification of worship brought about by new feasts and the appearance of new religious agencies. Hymns for the festivals of saints provide the best illustrations of this tendency which has been amply treated above.

A marked trend toward the compilation of local liturgical collections and the differentiation of service books accompanies the unification of rites in various European lands. This tendency was observed in earlier centuries, particularly in Spain where the Mozarabic hymnal prevailed. St. Gall had provided a monastic center of influence in German-speaking lands in its day. Now, the great diocesan and monastic centers, on a much larger scale, are furnished with a full complement of ritual books and guides to hymnody. In England, the Sarum collection achieved great prominence, acquiring national rather than diocesan proportions.

Within the hymnic poetry itself changes are seen both in form and spirit. A full development of metrical forms takes place, some of which had appeared much earlier in isolated examples and were now widely accepted; others were characteristic of late medieval literary art. The meters and rhythm of sequence poetry were popularly favored. Subjective qualities and attitudes which had been infrequent in the earlier hymns devoted to biblical themes and theological expression are much more obvious in later hymns. The personal petition and the direct address to deity and the saints are frequent. It has been suggested above in considering hymns upon the theme of the Cross, that a comparison of hymns from the earlier and later groups is instructive. But any of the great themes may be selected for this purpose, for example, the Pentecostal theme, with a group of hymns in which the earlier ones are simple narratives following the biblical account of the descent of the Holy Spirit; the later ones are exemplified by Veni, sancte spiritus, “Come, Thou Holy Spirit, come,” already cited, in which the Spirit is addressed and invoked for personal blessings and the sevenfold gifts.

With the waning of the medieval centuries came a characteristic decadence in the poetical quality of Latin hymns and in their spiritual vitality. This was true of the sequence and most obvious, perhaps, in those which were devoted to the praise of the saints. Reference to this phenomenon will be made in a later chapter in connection with the possible reason for the loss of religious significance which must be admitted although deplored by students of the subject.

Finally, one observes that certain hymns of these later centuries rival, if not surpass, the representative hymns of the first half of the Middle Ages. Four of the five sequences retained in the present-day Roman Missal were all selected from this group, namely: Lauda Sion Salvatorem, Veni sancte spiritus, Dies irae, and Stabat mater dolorosa. Other illustrative hymns and sequences mentioned above prove to be almost as familiar.

On the contrary, decadent hymns have tended to disappear. Unworthy of their theme and purpose, a multitude of examples may be unearthed from their present burial places in the Analecta Hymnica or other collections by the curious investigator. So far as actual usage is concerned they have been gradually discarded and forgotten in the process of time. Similarly those of greater merit have possessed a survival value sufficient to insure recognition in every succeeding century.

CHAPTER SIX
Late Middle Ages: Processional Hymns

I. Origins

The procession as a practice of the Christian Church originates in the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. All four evangelists record the event and all four make mention of the hosannas and acclamations of the people which accompanied it.[1] True, the procession is older than Christianity and wider in observance. It seems to be a natural impulse of humanity in all ages and in all lands to make orderly progress from one place to another for the expression of communal joy or lamentation or to seek the aid and blessing of supernatural power in the activities and vicissitudes of life.

Processional ceremonies as they were observed in ancient oriental civilizations or in the culture of Greece and Rome are not considered here, except as they may have affected Christian origins. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the background and setting of processional forms which, in their evolution, gave rise to a continuity of hymns; to trace the origin, development and distinguishing features of such processional hymns in the Middle Ages and to display processional hymnody in its distinctive character as a separate category of medieval Latin hymnology.

Prior to the fourth century the record is obscure. Miscellaneous notices begin to appear in the last quarter of the century. Basil notes a procession in the form of a litany (c. 375). Ambrose mentions a procession of monks (c. 388) and also refers to a procession in Rome honoring Sts. Peter and Paul, in his hymn, Apostolorum passio, “The passion of the Apostles,” (A. H. 50. 17). Chrysostom was active in organizing processions in Constantinople to offset Arian influence (390-400).[2] At the same period, 379-388, Aetheria (St. Sylvia of Aquitania?) made her pilgrimage to the holy places of Palestine, describing in her journal in detail, the ceremonies enacted in the worship of the Christian Church at Jerusalem.[3]

Remarkable in all respects, Aetheria’s narrative is obviously written in a spirit of devotion with eager curiosity and joyful appreciation. She describes, among other observances, the Hour services, especially the lucernare when hymns were sung, the Sunday procession to the Anastasis or Church of the Resurrection which marked the tomb of Jesus and the procession and rites for the Feasts of the Epiphany, Ypapanti or Presentation of Christ in the temple, Palm Sunday and Easter.[4] Hymns in which the laity as well as the clergy participated are mentioned in connection with these ceremonies but no specific hymn is named. The immediate purpose of the processions at Jerusalem appears to have been the enactment of scenes in the life of Jesus in the places where they occurred, introducing a dramatic element which pervades medieval processional observances throughout their history.

Aetheria uses the words psalm, antiphon and hymn in connection with the musical parts of the worship she observed, but not indiscriminately. She was probably familiar with hymns as they had developed in the fourth century both in the eastern and western churches. It has been assumed that the hymn sung at the daily lighting of the candles was Phos hilaron, “O gladsome light.”[5] The hymns she heard at the Good Friday observance have been tentatively identified as the Idiomela for Good Friday, traditional in Byzantine ritual.[6] In any case they were true hymns, perhaps of a metrical, or more probably of a rhythmical type. It is impossible to identify the processional hymns of which she speaks. All that can be asserted is that non-scriptural, as well as scriptural hymns, were sung in the processions at Jerusalem.

In Constantinople, contemporary processions have already been mentioned. The practice of Jerusalem was also adopted there. In the sixth century under Justinian, the Feast of Ypapanti was introduced.[7] However, the history of Byzantine processions must be omitted from this study which is devoted primarily to the Latin West.

In Rome, the Christian procession had an independent origin, being derived in part from the memorial honors paid to the Christian martyrs and in part from the Christianization of pagan ceremonies. When the period of persecution of Christianity had come to a close and the triumphant Church was able to assert publicly her influence and authority at Rome, processions were made as early as the fifth century to the places where martyrs had suffered. This is the origin of the later station procession, followed by the celebration of mass in the various churches where the remains of martyrs removed from the catacombs were buried. A century earlier in Milan, Ambrose had discovered and removed the bodies of St. Protasius and of St. Gervasius from their original burial place to a church newly erected in their honor.[8] Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) observed the Roman stations and Pope Sergius (687-701) completed their organization.[9] The processions were accompanied by the chanting of psalms but there is no record of non-scriptural hymns. The symbolism of the procession, however, was enriched by the idea of pilgrimage to a spot made sacred by martyrdom, a continuing processional motive throughout the Middle Ages.

While the station processions developed in the vicinity of Rome, the litany processions arose in Gaul. Mametus, the Bishop of Vienne, 474, inaugurated the litania minor or the public blessing of the fields and crops in the spring season. In 511, the Council of Orleans ordained the observance for Gaul, and the Council of Girona, in 517, for Spain. The litaniae minores or rogations, perpetuate in their intent, processions of the Roman era. The litaniae maiores which were prescribed by Gregory the Great, 598, and Leo III (795-816), were of similar origin and purpose. A litania septiformis was also organized by Gregory on the occasion of a pestilence at Rome.[10] The litania maior came to be observed on April 25, St. Mark’s day, and the litaniae minores in the three days preceding Ascension. Psalms but not hymns in the sense of non-scriptural compositions were heard in the litanies. The procession of supplication common alike to pagan and Christian practice is illustrated in the litanies, a constant motive and a constant observance in medieval rites.

It seems clear, therefore, that primitive Christian processions in Rome consisted of stations and litanies. Festival processions were introduced into the west gradually. Ascension is spoken of as an ancient feast but there is no specific evidence of its observance before the middle of the fourth century. The Ascension procession, implied by Aetheria in her journal, is unknown in Rome at this time.[11] Pope Sergius imported into Rome the festival procession for Candlemas or the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin. The Feast of Ypapanti or Presentation, originally observed in Jerusalem and later adopted in Constantinople, as noted above, gained in the transfer a new feature. The carrying of lighted candles, not mentioned by Aetheria, seems to have been added in Byzantine practice. The words spoken by Simeon of the infant Jesus, “a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Luke 2. 32) made the symbolic use of lights almost inevitable. The date of the Feast of the Purification, February 2, was approximately that of the pagan Amburbium or Amburbale, an early Roman procession of lustration which had taken place in that month. Possibly the procession for the Feast is reminiscent of this pagan practice.[12] It might be of interest to follow in closer detail the origin of the medieval Candlemas, but attention must be directed to the Candlemas hymns later to be written and sung in procession at this Feast.

The period of Christian processional origins which may be considered to close with the seventh century, saw the development of the processions at Jerusalem, their adoption in Constantinople and the evolution of the stations and litanies in the west. Festival processions also, were slowly making their way into the Western Church.[13]

II. Evolution in the Early Middle Ages

That the Latin processional hymn appeared first in Gaul should surprise no one. It has already been suggested that the hymns among the Carmina of Fortunatus were created in the atmosphere of freedom enjoyed by Gallic hymn writers in accordance with contemporary canons. Always a poet of the occasion, Fortunatus wrote three hymns for the reception of a relic believed to be of the true Cross, which was presented to Rhadegunda, his patron, by the Byzantine Emperor, Justin II and his wife Sophia, for the convent at Poitiers. As a final stage in the journey from Constantinople, the relic was borne in procession from Migné to Poitiers, accompanied by Euphronius, Bishop of Tours. On this day the hymn, Vexilla regis prodeunt, was first heard.[14] Two others, Pange lingua and Crux benedicta (see [Chapter One]) were devoted by Fortunatus to the same theme of the Holy Cross, although it cannot be proved that they were sung in the same procession.

The Resurrection hymn, Tempora florigero rutilant distincta sereno, “Season of luminous days, marked bright with the birth of flowers,” (Carm. 3. 9), was originally written for the Easter baptismal rites celebrated by Felix, Bishop of Nantes (d. 582). It was a poem of 110 lines or 55 elegiac couplets, from which the cento of 28 lines beginning Salve festa dies, “Hail thee, festival day,” was later selected for an Easter processional.[15]

The metrical models provided by Pange lingua of the trochaic pattern and Salve festa dies, the elegiac, continued to be employed throughout the Middle Ages for processional hymnody, the elegiac excelling in popularity. First in the original hymn, then in centos and finally in imitative verse adapted to a multitude of feasts, Salve festa dies was never superseded but maintained the influence of Fortunatus for centuries.

Spain must have known the processional hymn soon after its appearance in Gaul, perhaps in the seventh century. Here, the Palm Sunday festival seems to have been the source of inspiration for the procession and blessing of palms is mentioned by Isidore of Seville as an observance of his day.[16] Contemporary evidence indicates a similar procession in Italy.[17] The use of a processional hymn, however, is not as clearly indicated.

It seems probable that the seventh century hymn, Magnum salutis gaudium (A. H. 51. 73), “O great joy of salvation,” is one of the earliest to be assigned for Palm Sunday. It is a simple rendering in the Ambrosian style, of the events recounted in the biblical narrative.[18] In the early centuries when the concept of a specific processional hymn for a particular festival was almost unheard of, a familiar hymn from the old hymnals might be used in the new ceremonies. It has been suggested that Magnum salutis gaudium was known to Theodulphus, who in the ninth century wrote the Palm Sunday processional hymn, Gloria laus et honor, for all the ages.

Processions, thus far, have been thought of chiefly, as wholly or in part outside the church edifice. Processions within the edifice were also frequently observed. A procession of the clergy, in connection with which psalms and antiphons were sung, preceded the Sunday high mass; another took place as the Gospel codex was carried to its place for reading. Other ceremonies within the church, aside from the liturgy proper, were sometimes accompanied by hymns.[19]

Perhaps the earliest hymn in use at a special ceremony, once more a selection from the hymnal, was Audi, iudex mortuorum (A. H. 51. 80), “Hear Thou Judge of the dead,” sung on Holy Thursday at the consecration of the chrism.[20] The words O redemptor, sume carmen temet concinentium, “O Redeemer, accept the hymn of Thy people magnifying Thee,”[21] formed a refrain, a metrical feature which came to be the unmistakable mark of the processional hymn.

In this early period from the sixth to the tenth century, a new idea and a new practice came into being, the use of hymns apart from those of the canonical hours and the sequences of the mass. The ninth century revival of hymnody in all its branches was taking place in western Europe just as this period came to a close, in connection with which the processional hymn was inevitably affected as the office hymn and the sequence had been by a fresh inspiration to poetry and worship. The movement came to fruition at St. Gall where the musical and ceremonial aspects of that great monastic center were so highly developed, a center which had contributed so heavily to the Carolingian revival of literature and the arts.

The French liturgical scholar, Leon Gautier, whose contributions to the study of medieval hymnology have already been mentioned, was the first to identify the processional hymn as a trope or liturgical interpolation. In a study of the St. Gall processional hymns he observed that they were classified by the name versus which in itself points to a separate hymnic category. Other earlier hymns used in processions were there called versus. Gautier discovered that musical notation always appeared with the versus, an indication that these hymns were invariably chanted and he noted that the versus, in the manner of the hymn O redemptor, sume carmen, cited above, was without exception, accompanied by a refrain.[22]

The processional hymns of St. Gall, like the sequences, bore the characteristic marks of the hymnic group to which they belonged. From this stage in their evolution they were set apart by their music, classification and refrain.

The wider circle of Carolingian liturgical interest included hymn writers other than those of St. Gall: Theodulphus of Orleans, Walafrid Strabo of Reichenau, Rabanus Maurus of Fulda, Radbert of Corbie, who with Waldram and Hartmann of St. Gall wrote processional hymns. The hymns of Theodulphus and of Rabanus Maurus have been considered above.

Other great festivals of the ecclesiastical year and of the saints were now observed with processional honors for which new hymns were written; special ceremonies also, were thus recognized. Hartmann wrote the elegiac hymn Salve, lacteolo decoratum sanguine festum (A. H. 50. 251), “Hail festival, graced with the blood of the Innocents,” for the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The processional hymns of Rabanus Maurus were heard at Nativity, Easter and possibly the Feast of the Purification. The dramatic spirit, always present in the true processional is felt in all these hymns while the refrain reiterates the message of the feast:

for Easter,

R. Surrexit quia Christus a sepulcro,

Collaetetur homo choro angelorum. (A. H. 50. 190)

Since Christ has risen from the tomb,

Let man rejoice with the choir of angels.

for the Nativity,

R. Christo nato, rege magno

totus orbis gaudeat. (A. H. 50. 186)

Since Christ is born, the mighty king,

let the whole earth rejoice.

Processional hymns for saints are represented by Radbert’s hymn honoring St. Gall,

R. Annua, sancte Dei, celebramus festa diei,

Qua, pater, e terris sidera, Galle, petis. (A. H. 50. 241)

We celebrate, O Saint of God, our yearly feast on this day

When thou, father Gallus, dost leave the earth for heaven.

To celebrate the life and miracles of a patron saint was frequently the inspiration of a medieval procession, which, in the case of St. Gall, passed beyond the precincts of the monastery into the streets of the town.[23] It is no wonder that the tradition of these processions, furnished with all the splendor of festival vestments, of robed choirs, of monastic treasures and sacred banners should have made St. Gall unique.

The Sunday processions were sometimes accompanied by imposing hymns in the form of litanies. It should not be forgotten that the ancient Christian processions were, in great part, of this nature. Waldram, Hartmann and Radbert wrote such hymns but Hartmann’s was evidently a favorite, Summus et omnipotens genitor, qui cuncta creasti, “Mighty and omnipotent father, who hast created all things,” with the refrain,

R. Humili prece et sincera devotione

Ad te clamantes semper exaudi nos. (A. H. 50. 253)

With humble prayer and pure devotion,

Ever hear us as we cry to Thee.

It seems probable that the custom of singing a hymn in the procession before the reading of the Gospel originated at St. Gall. Hartmann provided a beautiful versus for this purpose,

Sacrata libri dogmata

Portantur evangelici. (A. H. 50. 250)

The sacred words of the

Gospel are borne.

A versus for the reception of the Eucharist was written by Radbert, Laudes omnipotens, ferimus tibi dona colentes (A. H. 50. 239), “In reverence, Almighty, we bring our praises as gifts to Thee.” The Blessing of the Font on Holy Saturday inspired his Versus ad Descensum fontis (A. H. 50. 242-3). Among the ceremonies most characteristic of medieval piety was that of Mandatum or foot-washing, commemorating the act of Jesus in washing his disciples’ feet, (John 13; 1-15). The name “Maundy Thursday” is a modern survival of the ancient terminology.[24] The hymn associated with this rite appears first in Gaul in the eighth or ninth century and may have been current in Italy in monastic centers. The antiphon, Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est, “Where charity is and love, God is there,” is at once the motive and refrain of this hymn, Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor (A. H. 12. 24), “The love of Christ has united us,” which follows the scriptural account.[25]

The student must turn once more to the great monastic centers of the Germanic world for processional hymns honoring royalty. Visits of kings and emperors to St. Gall and other noted monasteries were by no means uncommon; that colorful processions and demonstrations of loyalty were a part of their reception cannot be doubted. Walafrid Strabo celebrates the visit of Lothair to Reichenau with the hymn,

R. Imperator magne, vivas

semper et feliciter. (A. H. 50. 176)

Live, O mighty emperor

ever in felicity.

Walafrid Strabo praised Charles, son of Louis the Pious, and Radbert, the Empress Richgard. Other processionals could be used on the occasion of the coming of any royal visitor.

Vatican manuscripts offer evidence of contemporary processions in Italy and Rome, the city of their origin. From this source is derived the processional hymn Sancta Maria, quid est? (A. H. 23. 74), “Sancta Maria, what meaneth this?” written for the procession which marked the eve of the Feast of the Assumption, about the year 1000. Specific directions for the route, the order of precedence and every detail of the ceremonial are available, while the hymn itself depicts the devotion and human appeal attending this night time scene in Rome.[26]

III. Evolution in the Later Middle Ages

For the evolution of the processional hymn from this point to the close of the Middle Ages, we have in addition to hymnic manuscripts, the service books and manuals devoted to, or including, processional practice. The Ritual or Roman Pontifical was the earliest to include directions for processions, an illustration of which has been presented above in the case of Sancta Maria, quid est? In the course of time, since so many medieval processions were not thus provided for, the Processional came into existence, containing the order of processions for a particular diocese or monastery.[27] The St. Gall Processionals, for instance, are informative as to customs already described above. The specific name versus gave rise to the title Versarius for a book of processional hymns.[28]

In addition to the collections, liturgical writers discussed the procession. Of these, none was more influential than Durandus, Bishop of Mende, who, about 1286, produced his Rationale divinorum officiorum which among many other liturgical subjects, included processional rites.[29] Durandus was a leading authority upon ecclesiastical symbolism. Accordingly, he dwells upon every minute detail of the great processions for Easter, Ascension, Palm Sunday and the Purification as well as the Sunday procession and others of lesser importance, ascribing to each act a wealth of symbolic meaning. Much of this figurative interpretation is obvious and inherent in the feast to be celebrated but in other cases he gives full play to his sense of the symbolic, a phase of contemporary thought already so characteristic of Adam of St. Victor and other writers on religious themes. Finally he declares that whatever else is suggested, “the true procession is a progress to the celestial country.” (Ipsa vero processio, est via ad coelestem patriam.)[30] If the fundamental concepts which entered into their origins be reviewed, medieval processions apparently carried with them the familiar ideas of supplication, of dramatic representation or of pilgrimage to sacred places. Durandus reiterates and sublimates these concepts, giving them an added significance.

The processional manuals, especially of the English rites observed at Salisbury, York, Canterbury and other cathedral centers, offer descriptions and sometimes illustrations showing the order and vestments of the clergy, the position and functions of the choir, the appropriate acts involved, together with the complete text of the antiphons, psalms, other scriptural passages, hymns, prayers and rubrics. Turning to the processional hymns which were rendered in these centuries, one is impressed by the gradual disappearance of hymns typical of the efforts of the St. Gall school and its contemporaries. A tremendous vogue of the original Salve festa dies of Fortunatus which had never been lost sight of, together with its centos, variants and copies, takes possession of the field. There were in all, perhaps, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty true processional hymns in circulation throughout the whole medieval period, if one enumerates those which are edited in the Analecta Hymnica. One half of these may be considered to be of the Salve festa dies type while similar elegiac metrical forms are found in half of the remainder.

What has been said of the cultural background in which the sequence developed and multiplied is equally true for the processional hymn. The same influences which created new seasonal feasts and additional feasts for the saints, produced new processional hymns to accompany them. There is, however, a great disparity between the number of sequences and processional hymns that were written. The sequence was regnant in sacred and secular verse, both in Latin and the vernaculars. Office hymns, too, far outnumbered processionals. This may be another way of saying that the office hymns and the sequences had a liturgical function and setting, while the processional was always extra-liturgical and either superfluous or purely ornamental from this point of view. The antiphons and psalms were sufficient to satisfy the essential choral demands of any procession.

Unfortunately Thomas Aquinas did not include a processional hymn when he furnished the hymnody for the Feast of Corpus Christi. He could hardly have envisaged the thousands of Corpus Christi processions throughout Catholic Christendom which have marked the Feast even to this day. Nor could he have foreseen that his hymn Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium, written in the tradition of Fortunatus, would be widely appropriated for that purpose. Other processionals for Corpus Christi appeared almost at once, especially of the Salve type.

Contemporary devotion to the Virgin Mother and her festivals was felt in the expansion of the Marian hymnology for processions. The establishment of St. Osyth in Essex was a center in which new hymns were used for the Visitation,

Salve festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,

Qua Christi mater visitat Elizabeth. (A. H. 11. 51)

Hail thee, festival day, blest day that is hallowed forever,

On which Christ’s mother visits Elizabeth.

and the Assumption,

Salve festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,