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