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,
Qua fuit assumpta virgo Maria pia. (A. H. 11. 55)
Hail thee, festival day, blest day that is hallowed forever,
On which the holy Virgin Mary was assumed.
A lengthy hymn of twenty stanzas for the Feast of the Purification which had been observed for so many centuries, appears in a twelfth or thirteenth century manuscript from Kremsmünster, Laetetur omne saeculum (A. H. 4. 54), “Let every age rejoice.” The biblical scene of the Presentation in the Temple is described and reference is made to the carrying of lighted candles.
Later medieval practice perpetuated other earlier customs. From the original station processions at Rome had developed the ceremonies to celebrate the translation of relics of saints in western European lands. Pope Callistus II (d. 1124) wrote a processional hymn honoring St. James of Campostella, Versus Calixti Papae, cantandi ad processionem sancti Jacobi in solemnitate passionis ipsius et translationis ejusdem (A. H. 17. 194), or Versus of Pope Callistus, to be sung at the procession of St. James in the celebration of his passion and translation. A hymn for St. Kyneburga (d. 680) commemorated the restoration of her relics to their original burial place in Peterborough Minster from which they had been removed during the Danish invasions.[31] (A. H. 43. 218)
A procession in which the relics were carried for the veneration of the worshipers was familiar in many places. Records from St. Gall testify that St. Magnus was honored with such a procession and an appropriate hymn of praise (A. H. 50. 261). The relics of saints treasured at Exeter were borne in procession with the singing of a hymn which mentions their miraculous powers. (A. H. 43. 277)
In an era marked by municipal drama and civic display as well as religious festivals, the pageantry of the procession was understandably popular. Rome always had its great processions. Accounts are extant of ceremonies accompanied by hymns, in Tournai, Strasburg, Nuremberg and other medieval towns, aside from those prescribed by episcopal and monastic manuals of the day for the great cathedrals and abbeys.
The music to which the processional hymn was sung is, in some cases, available. The St. Gall manuscripts, as Gautier noted, were furnished with musical notation. This is occasionally true of later manuscripts, especially as we enter the closing medieval centuries. The traditional melodies of certain hymns, like the Salve festa dies and Gloria laus et honor are known to-day. Musicologists and students of liturgical music are currently engaged in bringing this music to present-day knowledge. For example, the hymn used in procession before the reading of the Gospel appears in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a conductus or conductum which, in turn, is related to the cantio.[32] A conductus for the festival of St. James of Campostella (A. H. 17. 199), illustrates the evolution of a minor type of processional hymn from Hartmann’s solemn versus, mentioned above, to the festive style of the late medieval period. The recent study of the conductus by Leonard Ellinwood reflects the growing interest of musicians in these forms, both secular and religious, which preceded the Renaissance.[33]
To summarize the characteristic marks of the processional hymn which are constant and quite independent of the date of their appearance, the student must recall the underlying motives: 1) supplication in the litanies, 2) re-enactment of biblical scenes and 3) religious pilgrimage. Respecting usage, the special interest of a ceremony devoted to a particular occasion is present in processional hymns, additional to other rites. Lastly, a group of hymns has come into existence, not to be classified with the more formal categories of the office hymn and the sequence but dedicated to an extra-liturgical purpose.
As a group, the processional hymns are not well-known or frequently used in translation with the exception of the ageless hymns of Theodulphus and especially of Fortunatus whose processionals usurped the medieval field for over one thousand years and are still current to-day.
(See [Illustrative Hymns, XVII.] Salve festa dies, “Hail thee, festival day.”)