The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

by Samuel Willoughby Duffield

PUER NATUS IN BETHLEHEM.

The child in Bethlehem is born,

Hail, O Jerusalem, the morn!

Here lies he in the cattle-stall

Whose kingdom boundless is withal.

The ox and ass do recognize

This Child, their Master from the skies.

Kings from the East are journeying,

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh they bring.

Who, entering in turn the place,

The new King greet with lowly grace.

Seed of the woman lies he there,

And no man’s son, this Child so fair.

Unwounded by the serpent’s sting,

Of our own blood comes in the King.

Like us in mortal flesh is he,

Unlike us in his purity.

That so he might restore us men

Like to himself and God again.

Wherefore, on this his natal day,

Glad, to our Lord, we homage pay.

We praise the Holy Trinity,

And render thanks, O God, to thee!

What Ruskin remarks of the disposition of the art of the time to dwell on the darker side of things—to insist on the seeming preponderance of darkness over light, death over life—is seen also in its hymns. The Advent hymn, Veni, veni, rex gloriae, is as gloomy a lucubration as ever was associated with a Church festival. The Homo tristis esto, which is a study of the Lord’s passion apart from His resurrection, is hardly more gloomy. But other poets have more joyful strains. In the Haec est dies triumphalis we have an Easter hymn, and an Ascension hymn in the Coelos ascendit hodie, which are fittingly joyful; and in the Spiritus sancte gratia an invocation of the Comforter more prosaic than its great predecessors, but with its own place in the presentation of that great theme. A rather fine Trinity hymn is the O Pater, sancte, mitis atque pie, written in a sort of sapphic verse with iambic feet before the caesura, and trochaic following it, the feet in each case being determined by accent, not quantity. Mr. Chambers and Mr. Hewett both have translated it.

Of the innumerable hymns and sequences to the saints, we notice that our Lord’s grandmother comes in for an increasing share. Mone in his third volume gives twenty-five, of which sixteen belong to this century and eight to the fourteenth. It is significant that one of them, O stella maris fulgida, is a hymn to Mary, which was altered to the new devotion to her mother. She is hailed in others as the “refuge of sinners” (peccantibus refugium), and declared immaculate (Anna labe carens), and exalted in a way which suggests that the other members of the genealogical line which connects our Lord with Adam have been neglected most unfairly. Why stop with His grandmother and exclude His grandfather? It was in the next century that the cult of Joseph came to the front. Of the Marian hymns of this time the Virginis in gremio is about the best, and the Ave hierarchia comes next. The Ave Martha gloriosa, in commemoration of Martha of Bethany, is a fine hymn in itself, and interesting as one of a group of hymns composed in Southern France in honor of this particular saint. A Church myth brings her to Provence to kill the monster (τερας) from which Tarascon takes its name, and the Church at Arles still bears a sculptured representation of the victory. Her real function in Provence was to take the place of the Martis or Brito-Martis, who was the chief loyal deity, and from whom Marseilles probably took its name. She was either of Cretan or Phoenician origin, and corresponded to the Greek Artemis, her name meaning Blessed Maiden. So her myth was transferred to the over-busy woman of Judea

Per te serpens est subversus,

which saved a great deal of trouble.

A hymn to the crown of thorns, Sacrae Christi celebremus, is quite in the manner of Adam of St. Victor; the same marvellous ingenuity of allusion to remote Scripture facts, and the same technical mastery of flowing verse. The Novum sidus exoritur is the oldest Transfiguration hymn—that being now a Church festival—and by no means the worst.

The sequence on the Three Holy Kings (or Magi), who brought offerings to the infant Saviour, which begins Majestati sacrosanctae, is referred by some critics to the next century. But as it occurs in the list of sequences which Joachim Brander, a monk of St. Gall, drew up in 1507 for Abbot Franz von Gaisberg of that monastery, it probably belongs to the fifteenth century. Brander enumerates three hundred and seventy-eight sequences, specifying their subjects and authors, the latter not always successfully, and closes with that which Franz von Gaisberg composed in honor of Notker Balbulus. His list will be found in Daniel’s fifth volume. Of this, in commemoration of the three kings, whose relics are supposed to rest in the cathedral at Koeln (Cologne), he says that it is beautiful and one of the best. Mr. Duffield has left a translation of part:

“A threefold gift three kings have brought

To Christ, God-man, who once was wrought

In flesh and spirit equally;

A God triune by gifts adored—

Three gifts which mark one perfect Lord,

Whose essence is triunity.

“They bring him myrrh, frankincense, gold;

Outweighing wealth of kings untold—

A type in which the truth is known.

The gifts are three, the emblems three:

Gold for the king, incense to deity,

And myrrh, by which his death is shown.”

Of hymn-writers, the most prolific is Jean Momboir, generally known by his Latin name Johannes Mauburnus. He was born in 1460 and died in 1503, and was a Canon Regular in the congregation founded by the Brethren of the Common Life in the Low Countries. He lived for a time at Mount St. Agnes, which makes his emphatic testimony as to the authorship of the De Imitatione of especial importance. His huge ascetic work, the Spiritual Rosegarden (Rosetum spirituale) made him famous, and he was invited to France to reform the Canons Regular, according to the strict observance used in the Low Countries. He was thus, like John Staupitz, a representative of the current revival of that age, which tended to greater austerity, not to faith and joy. He spent the last six years of his life in this labor, dying at Paris in 1503. He was the friend and correspondent of Erasmus. His hymns generally begin with an O, and seem to be written on a system like that of the scholastic treatises. Indeed, his Rosegarden, both by its bulk and its method, suggests a Summa of Christian devotion. From his poem, Eia mea anima, given, there has been extracted the pretty Christmas hymn, Heu quid jaces stabulo, which has been translated several times into English and German.

Next to him comes Casimir, Crown Prince of Poland, whose Omni die dic Mariae is a Marian hymn in one hundred and twenty six verses. Father Ragey, however, asserts in Les Annales de Philosophie Chretienne for May and June, 1883, that Casimir is not the author but the admirer of these verses, that they are an extract from a poem in eleven hundred verses, and that Anselm of Canterbury is the probable author. On this he bases an argument for the reconciliation of England to the Church, which is devoted to the cult of our Lord’s mother. The poem, whosoever wrote it, is a fine one—too good, Protestants will think, for the theme, and too good to take its place among the other verses ascribed to Anselm of Canterbury. Here also there is room to ask a close examination of the manuscripts to which Father Ragey appeals, with reference to their dates. The controversy over the antiquity of the Quicunque vult salvus esse and the authorship of the Imitation suggest caution in taking the ipse dixit of diplomatists.

To an unknown Babo, and to Jacob, schoolmaster of Muldorf, are attributed Marian hymns of no great value. More important is Dionysius Ryckel (1394-1471), a Belgian Carthusian, the character of whose multitudinous writings is indicated by his title, Doctor Ecstaticus. He wrote a Comment on Certain Ancient Hymns of the Church (Enarratio in Hymnos aliquot veteres ecclesiasticos), which puts him next to Radulph de Rivo (ob. 1403) among the earliest of the hymnologists. To Dionysius is ascribed also the long poem on the Judgment, from which Mone has given an extract—Homo, Dei creatura, etc.—by way of comparison with the Dies Irae and the Cum revolvo toto corde. It evidently has been influenced by the former, but is devoted to a picture of eternal torment.

To John Huss we owe the beautiful Communion hymn, Jesus Christus, noster salus, which shows that his alleged heresies did not touch the Church doctrine on this point.

To Peter of Dresden, schoolmaster of Zwickau in 1420, and afterward described as a Hussite or a Waldensian, is ascribed the

“In dulci jubilo

Nu singet und seit fro,”

which is the type of the mixed hymns of this age. It was his purpose to secure the introduction of hymns in the vernacular into the Church services, as his friend Jakob of Misa sought to do in Bohemia. In mixed hymns of this kind he seems to have tried to find the sharp end of the wedge. Some ascribe to him the Puer natus in Bethlehem, which also exists in the mixed form. Both hymns long stood in the Lutheran hymn-books in the mixed form,—for instance, in the Marburg Hymn-Book, which was used by the Lutherans of Colonial Pennsylvania.

The invention of printing from movable types, about 1452, by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz marks an era in Latin hymnology, because of the prompt use of the new method to multiply the Church books in use in the various dioceses. In every part of Western Europe, from Aberdeen, Lund, and Trondhjem, on the north, to the shores of the Mediterranean, the missals, breviaries, and hymnaries were given to the early printers, with the result of bringing to light many fine hymns and sequences whose use had been merely local. The Sarum Breviary and Missal and those of Rome and Paris were printed more frequently than any other. To the Sarum Breviary we owe the fine Transfiguration hymns—Coelestis formam gloriae and O nata lux de lumine and O sator rerum reparator aevi, which Anglican translators have made into English hymns; to the Missal the fine sequence on the crown of thorns, Si vis vere gloriari, of which Dr. Whewell published a translation in Frazer’s Magazine for May, 1849. To the York Processional (1530) we owe the four “proses” which begin Salve festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo, which suggest to Daniel that “in England also there was no lack of those who celebrated the divine majesty in very sweet hymns.”

To the Breviary and Missal of Trondhjem (Drontheim, anciently Nidaros) we owe some of the finest hymns and sequences recovered at this time. Of these the Jubilemus cordis voce is the most characteristic and perhaps the most beautiful—full of local color and characteristic love of nature. Mr. Morgan has translated it; but the dedication hymn, Sacrae Sion adsunt encaenia, has found more favor with Anglican translators, and commends itself by scriptural simplicity. Of course this breviary has fine hymns to St. Olaf, the king who did so much to make Norway a Christian country, although hardly so much as his neglected predecessor, Olaf Tryggveson. Similarly the Swedish missals honor King Eric and St. Birgitta.

The German Church books yield less that is novel probably because the earlier German sources have been so much more thoroughly explored. The breviaries of Lubec, of Mainz, of Koeln, and of Meissen furnish most, but chiefly in praises of the Mother of our Lord and the saints. The Gloriosi Salvatoris nominis praeconia of Meissen is an exception, and has found many admirers and several translators. From Mainz comes the fine hymn in honor of the apostles, Qui sunt isti, qui volant, and that for the martyrs, O beata beatorum, and the Passion hymn, Laus sit Regi gloriae, Cujus rore gratiae.

It is different with the French Church books and those of Walloon Belgium. From the Breton see of Rennes, and those of Angers, Le Mans, and Poitiers in the adjacent provinces of Northwestern France come some of the best hymns of this class. From Rennes comes the pretty and fanciful sequence on the Saviour’s crown of thorns, Florem spina coronavit; from Angers the Christmas hymn, Sonent Regi nato nova cantica, which shows how far the French lag behind the Germans of the same age in handling this theme; also the Advent sequence, Jubilemus omnes una, which suggests Francis’s “Song of the Creatures,” but lacks its tenderness. From Le Mans the Die parente temporum, which Sir Henry Baker has made English in “On this day, the first of days.” From Poitiers the fine Advent sequence, Prope est claritudinis magnae dies, translated by Mr. Hewett. From Noyon, in Northeastern France, the two Christmas hymns, Lux est orta gentibus and Laetare, puerpera, whose beauty is defaced by making the Mother and not the divine Child the central figure.

From the Missal of Belgian Tournay we have the Easter sequence, Surgit Christus cum tropaeo, and the transfiguration sequence, De Parente summo natum, which have found and deserved translators. From that of Liege several sequences, of which the best is that for All Saints Day, Resultet tellus et alta coelorum machina. In the South it is the breviaries of Braga, in Portugal, and Piacenza, in Italy, which have furnished most new hymns.

From the breviaries of the great monastic orders come many hymns, those of the Franciscans furnishing the greater number. That of the Cistercians furnishes the Domine Jesu, noverim me, noverim Te, one of the many hymns suggested by passages in the writings of Augustine of Hippo.

This notice of the early printed Church books, which Daniel, Neale, Morell, and Kehrein have brought under requisition, carries us over into the century of the Reformation, which also is that in which the Renaissance began to affect the matter and manner of hymn-writing. Already in the fifteenth century we have hymns of the humanist type by Aeneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II.); by Adam Wernher of Themar, a friend of Johann Trithemius, a jurist by profession, and the instructor of Philip of Hesse in the humanities; and by Sebastian Brandt, the celebrated author of the “Ship of Fools.” All these give careful attention to classic Roman models in the matter of both prosody and vocabulary. If we were to put Brandt’s Sidus ex claro veniens Olympo alongside the Puer natus in Bethlehem, we should see how little of the life and force of simplicity and reality there was in the new poetry.

The sixteenth century begins with the hymns of the humanist Alexander Hegius, a pupil of the school at Deventer and a protégé of the Brethren of the Common Life, who may have known Thomas à Kempis, as he was born in 1433, or at latest in 1445. He died in 1498, but his hymns appeared in 1501 and 1503. He was the friend of Rudolph Agricola and of Erasmus, and introduced the new learning, especially Greek, into Holland. His hymns are pagan in their vocabulary, although in accord with the orthodoxy of the time. Two lines of his,

“Qui te ‘Matrem’ vocat, orbis

Regem vocat ille parentem,”

might have suggested two of Keble’s, which have given no small offence,

“Henceforth, whom thousand worlds adore,

He calls thee ‘Mother’ evermore.”

To Zacharias Ferrari ample reference has been made in the chapter on the Breviaries. Specimens of his work may be found in Wackernagel’s first volume, as also of the hymns of Erasmus (1467-1536), of Jakob Montanus (1485-1588), of Helius Eobanus Hessus (1488-1540), and Marc-Antonius Muretus. To these Roman Catholic humanists—Eobanus Hessus afterward became a Lutheran—might have been added J. Ludovicus Vives (1492-1540), Marc-Antonio Flaminio (1498-1550), and Matthias Collinus (ob. 1566). Wackernagel does add Joste Clichtove (ob. 1543), and Jakob Meyer (1491-1552), who did not attempt original hymns, but recast in classic forms those already in use. Clichtove was a Fleming, and one of the earliest collectors.

The series of Protestant hymn-writers joins hard on to that of the Roman Catholic humanists. In the main they belong to the same school. Their hymns are not, like the Protestant German hymns, the spontaneous and inevitable outpouring of simple and natural emotion—a quality which puts Luther and Johann Herrmann beside Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas of Celano. They are the scholastic exercises of men singing the praise of God in a tongue foreign to their thought. Even the best of them, George Fabricius of Chemnitz, whose edition of the early Christian poets has laid us under permanent obligations, although the most careful to avoid paganisms in his hymns, and the most influenced by the earlier Latin hymns, never impresses us with the freedom and spontaneity of his verse. The series runs: Urbanus Rhegius (ob. 1541), Philip Melanchthon (1497-1572), Wolfgang Musculus (1497-1563), Joachim Camerarius (1500-74), Paul Eber (1511-69), Bishop John Parkhurst of Norwich (1511-74), Johann Stigel (1515-71), George Fabricius (1516-71), George Klee, or Thymus (fl. 1548-50), Nicholas Selneccer (1530-92), Ludwig Helmbold (1532-98), Wolfgang Ammonius (1579), and Theodore Zwinger (1533-88). Recasts of old hymns both as to literary form and theological content we have from Hermann Bonn (1504-48), Urbanus Rhegius, George Klee, and Andreas Ellinger (1526-82). The last-named was a German physician who graduated at Wittemberg in 1549. His Hymnorum Ecclesiasticorum Libri Tres (1578) is described by Daniel as the most copious collection he has seen, but worthless as an authority in its first and second books, as the hymns in these are altered for metrical reasons. Hermann Bonn was a Westphalian, who became the first Lutheran Superintendent in Lubeck, and introduced the Reformation into Osnabruck. He published the first hymn-book in Platt-Deutsch in 1547.

To a later generation belongs Wilhelm Alard (1572-1645), the son of a Flemish Lutheran, who fled to Germany from the Inquisition. Wilhelm studied at Wittemberg, and became pastor at Crempe in Holstein, and published two or perhaps three small volumes of original Latin hymns. Dr. Trench has extracted from one of these two hymns. Of that to his Guardian Angel, Chancellor Benedict, Dr. Washburn, and Mr. Duffield have made translations. This is Mr. Duffield’s: