The Medieval Latin Hymn

by Ruth Ellis Messenger

(See [Illustrative Hymns, XVII.] Salve festa dies, “Hail thee, festival day.”)

CHAPTER SEVEN
Influence and Survival of Latin Hymns

I. Late Medieval Influence

From the creation of the Latin hymn in the fourth century by the earliest writers to the efforts of poets heralding the Renaissance, Christian hymnody left its imprint upon contemporary verse both secular and religious. The field of inquiry suggested by this thesis has never been fully explored although it abounds in fascinating possibilities for the student of medieval culture. The subject, of course, cannot be treated within the limits of this chapter but such hints may be offered as have resulted from a partial study of particular areas or fall within the bounds of reasonable assumption.

Perhaps the most pervading influence and the simplest to trace is the metrical. The iambic dimeter of Ambrose, both in its quantitative and in its rhythmical form, became a standard for poetry of all types, appearing even in the modern age as the long meter of the metrical versions of the Psalms. Trochaic verse, initiated in hymns by Hilary, employed most effectively by Fortunatus and always a favorite, rivalled the iambic in the vernaculars. As the metrical features of the Victorine sequence became increasingly popular, they were taken over bodily by secular poets writing both in Latin and in the modern European languages. Classical meters fostered by Prudentius and later by the Carolingian poets showed less vitality as poetical models. The liturgical hymn and the sequence are of prime importance in their metrical aspects but the meters of the piae cantiones and other religious lyrics were also widely appropriated. The origin of rhyme is a related problem which in the opinion of W. B. Sedgwick “centers around the Christian hymn.”[1] Numerous publications by scholars who, like Sedgwick, have spoken with authority, bear witness to the general linguistic and literary interest attaching to these subjects of research.

Aside from aspects of meter and rhyme, medieval secular verse in Latin borrowed generously from the hymn; witness the songs of the wandering scholars as recorded in the collection edited under the title Cambridge Songs and also the goliardic poetry of the Carmina Burana.[2] Well-known hymns are frequently parodied and, in general, the liturgical models are employed to create humorous allusion or pungent satire. The student song Gaudeamus igitur is a familiar illustration of this general group.

The adaptation of the sequence to secular purposes resulted in a novel type of verse, the modus, already cited in connection with the origin of the sequence, illustrated by the Modus florum of which many examples have been preserved varying in beauty and poetic conceit. Reference has been made in an earlier chapter to the deeper problems underlying sequence origins on the poetical side. Discussion among scholars as to the priority of the religious or secular Latin lyric is still active.[3] Some would say that popular Latin verse arose by virtue of the hymnodic influence. Others would posit a vernacular impulse which eventuated in the Latin lyric both secular and religious.[4]

Apart from the lyric, there are in the general field of Latin verse many resemblances to hymnic models. The lengthy narrative poems of the Peristephanon in which Prudentius recounted the sufferings of the martyrs, St. Laurence, St. Vincent, St. Agnes, St. Eulalia and others, and celebrated their spiritual victories, have been called hymns. It has been argued that they were actually sung,[5] in full, upon the festival days of the saints in question although the praises of St. Vincent, for example, are expanded to 576 lines, other hymns varying from 66 to 1140 lines. It may have been possible in the more leisurely tempo of medieval life to render the martyr hymns of Prudentius in their entirety. A far more provocative suggestion makes them the starting point for the medieval saints’ legend of which illustrations exist in lengthy Latin poems and later, in vernacular verse.

The contribution of hymns to the liturgical drama of the Church has been noted in connection with the sequence, Victimae paschali laudes. It is nowhere contended that the hymn created the drama but that the dramatic phraseology is often reminiscent of the hymn and that the role of the singers in the schola cantorum and the choir, as actors in the liturgical play, becomes significant in connection with the hymnic origins of these productions within the church.[6]

Finally, an interesting group of Latin poems having an interrelation with the hymn is illustrated by O Roma nobilis, a tenth century lyric praising the apostles and martyrs of the Eternal City (A. H. 51. 219).[7]