[1173] Belethus, c. 70 ‘Debent ergo vesperae Natalis primo integre celebrari, ac postea conveniunt diaconi quasi in tripudio, cantantque Magnificat cum antiphona de S. Stephano, sed sacerdos recitat collectam. Nocturnos et universum officium crastinum celebrant diaconi, quod Stephanus fuerit diaconus, et ad lectiones concedunt benedictiones, ita tamen, ut eius diei missam celebret hebdomarius, hoc est ille cuius tum vices fuerint eam exsequi. Sic eodem modo omne officium perficient sacerdotes ipso die B. Ioannis, quod hic sacerdos fuerit, et pueri in ipso festo Innocentium, quia innocentes pro Christo occisi sunt, ... in festo itaque Innocentium penitus subticentur cantica laetitiae, quoniam ii ad inferos descenderunt.’ Cf. also c. 72, quoted on p. 275. Durandus, Rat. Div. Off. (1284), vii. 42, De festis SS. Stephani, Ioannis Evang. et Innocentium, gives a similar account. At Vespers on Christmas Day, he says, the deacons ‘in tripudio convenientes cantant antiphonam de sancto Stephano, et sacerdos collectam. Nocturnos autem et officium in crastinum celebrant et benedictiones super lectiones dant: quod tamen facere non debent.’ So too for the priests and boys on the following days.
[1174] Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma Animae, iii. 12 (P. L. clxxii. 646).
[1175] Ioannes Abrincensis (bishop of Rouen †1070), de Eccl. Offic. (P. L. cxlvii. 41), with fairly full account of the ‘officia.’
[1176] Ekkehardus IV, de Casibus S. Galli, c. 14 (ed. G. Meyer von Knonau, in Mittheilungen zur vaterländischen Gesch. of the Hist. Verein in St. Gallen, N. F., v.; M. G. H. Scriptores, ii. 84) ‘longum est dicere, quibus iocunditatibus dies exegerit et noctes, maxime in processione infantum; quibus poma in medio ecclesiae pavimento antesterni iubens, cum nec unum parvissimorum moveri nec ad ea adtendere vidisset, miratus est disciplinam.’ Ekkehart was master of the song-school, and von Knonau mentions some cantiones written by him and others for the feast, e. g. one beginning ‘Salve lacteolo decoratum sanguine festum.’ He has another story (c. 26) of how Solomon who was abbot of the monastery, as well as bishop of Constance, looking into the song-school on the ‘dies scolarium,’ when the boys had a ‘ius ... ut hospites intrantes capiant, captos, usque dum se redimant, teneant,’ was duly made prisoner, and set on the master’s seat. ‘Si in magistri solio sedeo,’ cried the witty bishop, ‘iure eius uti habeo. Omnes exuimini.’ After his jest, he paid his footing like a man. The ‘Schulabt’ of St. Gall is said to have survived until the council of Trent.
[1177] Frere, Winch. Troper, 6, 8, 10. The deacons sang ‘Eia, conlevitae in protomartyris Stephani natalicio ex persona ipsius cum psalmista ouantes concinnamus’; the priests, ‘Hodie candidati sacerdotum chori centeni et milleni coniubilent Christo dilectoque suo Iohanni’; the boys, ‘Psallite nunc Christo pueri, dicente propheta.’
[1178] Rock, iii. 2. 214; Clément, 118; Grenier, 353; Martene, iii. 38. These writers add several references for the triduum or one or other of its feasts to those here given: e. g. Martene quotes on St. Stephen’s feast Ordinarium of Langres, ‘finitis vesperis fiunt tripudia’; Ordinarium of Limoges, ‘vadunt omnes ad capitulum, ubi Episcopus, sive praesens, sive absens fuerit, dat eis potum ex tribus vinis’; Ordinarium of Strasburg (†1364), ‘propinatur in refectorio, sicut in vigilia nativitatis.’
[1179] Martene, iii. 38 ‘tria festa, quae sequuntur, fiunt cum magna solemnitate et tripudio. Primum faciunt diaconi, secundum presbiteri, tertium pueri.’
[1180] Grenier, 353 ‘si festa [S. Stephani] fiant, ut consuetum est, a diaconis in cappis sericis ... fit statio in medio choro, et ab ipsis regitur chorus ... et fiant festa sicut docent libri’; and so for the two other feasts.
[1181] Martene, iii. 38 ‘cum in primis vesperis [in festo S. Stephani] ad illum cantici Magnificat versiculum Deposuit potentes perventum erat, cantor baculum locumque suum diacono, qui pro eo chorum regeret, cedebat’; and so on the other feasts.
[1182] Cf. p. 315.