III. GREAT LATIN HYMNS
A more important figure in our study of Latin hymns is Rabanus Maurus (776-856), archbishop of Mainz, Germany, a great scholar, an influential teacher, a profound theologian, a voluminous writer, as well as a great hymn writer. He had been a notable figure in German church history before hymnological investigators proved that he was the writer of the great hymn, “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” the worthy successor of Fortunatus’ “Vexilla regis prodeunt.” Its authorship had been credited at different times to Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Charlemagne, and Notker Balbulus. It is the only metrical hymn officially recognized by the early English Church. It is sung at high ceremonies like the coronation of kings or the consecration of bishops. The accepted version is by Bishop Cosin. It appears in our leading hymnals.
The next bead in our rosary of great hymns is “Veni, Sancte Spiritus,” by the helpless little paralytic and humpback, Hermannus Contractus (1013-1054). An excellent historian, a renowned philosopher and theologian, a mathematician of unusual attainments, in short a universal and encyclopedic scholar, his chief glory now is that he wrote this hymn which Archbishop Trench rated “as the loveliest of all the hymns in the whole cycle of Latin sacred poetry.” There is space for one stanza only, the third of this great hymn:
“O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of thine,
And our inmost being fill;
Where thou art not, man hath naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.”
The tide of the years had been flowing quietly with only here and there rapids or an eddy, but now the current was hastening toward the great whirlpool of the Crusades. Hildebert, Peter the Hermit, Bernard of Clairvaux, Abelard, Peter the Venerable, Adam of St. Victor, stand out as lighthouses on an uncharted sea.