Considered merely as Latin poetry, the hymns of Hilary, Ambrose and Prudentius are transitional in their literary character. They belong neither to the poetry of the Silver Age of Latin literature nor do they represent the medieval literary tradition. Of the metrical aspect something will be said presently. By some the Ambrosian hymn is regarded as a daring innovation and the model from which vernacular European verse was later to develop. In that case, it constitutes a class by itself. For evidence of the continuity of Latin poetry from the classical to the medieval age we must turn to the Carmina of Venantius Fortunatus.
Fortunatus (c. 530-600) was born near Treviso and lived as a youth in northern Italy, studying at Ravenna. The greater part of his life, however, was spent in Gaul which he visited first as a pilgrim to the shrine of St. Martin at Tours, who, he believed, had been instrumental in restoring his eyesight. At Poitiers he met Queen Rhadegunda, wife of Clothair, King of Neustria. She had founded a convent at Poitiers and there lived in retirement. This was his introduction to a life of travel and of intercourse with the great. He was acquainted with bishops, noblemen and kings whose praises he sang in many graceful tributes, occasional poems and epitaphs. Through the influence of Rhadegunda, his lifelong patron and friend, he was ordained, and after her death he became Bishop of Poitiers, 597, where he lived until his death. As a churchman he was an admirer and biographer of the saints of Gaul, preeminently St. Martin whose life and miracles he recounted in poetic form.
Fortunatus seems to have carried with him from the Italian scenes associated with the poetry of Virgil—an inspiration which was never entirely lost. His poems suggest a familiarity with the literary background of classical verse. During his mature life he lived in the environment of sixth century Gallic society which was already assuming its medieval Frankish outlines. Natural beauty and human companionship were alike important to him. He was acquainted with men and women of every degree from the monarch to the slave.
Although the spirit of religious devotion and of orthodox belief is evident in many of the hundreds of lyrics which he composed, four only may be classed as hymns. Three of these are concerned with the theme of the Holy Cross, Pange lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis, “Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,” Vexilla regis prodeunt, “The banners of the king advance,” and Crux benedicta nitet, “Radiant is the blessed cross.” The fourth, Tempora florigero rutilant distincta sereno, “Season of luminous days, marked bright with the birth of the flowers,” is a Resurrection hymn.[9] It is impossible to indicate here the extraordinary influence which this group of hymns has exerted in the evolution of Christian hymnody, continuing in Gaul the tradition, as it were, which Hilary first established. The circumstances of their origin and their lasting values will be considered in connection with processional hymns in [Chapter VI].
(See [Illustrative Hymns, II.] Vexilla regis prodeunt, “The banners of the king advance.”)
II. Metrical Forms
The problem of metrical forms and the prosody of the earliest Latin hymns, in general, is a phase of the same problem affecting Latin poetry as a whole. The subject is both complicated and obscure, entangled with that of Latin rhetorical prose style, the transition from the quantitative accent of ancient classical poetry to the stress accent of medieval and modern verse and with the origin of rhyme. It is a problem for specialists among whom opinions are now divergent. Toward a practical understanding of the metrical values of the hymns of Hilary, Prudentius, Ambrose and Fortunatus, the pragmatic test of what is singable may be applied. The ancient balanced rhythms of Semitic poetry as illustrated in the Hebrew psalms had been sung for generations. The metrical lyrics of ancient Greece were sung to an instrumental accompaniment as were the Latin lyrics of the Golden Age of Rome. These highly polished classical forms were for the elite. Of popular poetry which was sung in the period immediately preceding the appearance of the Latin hymn, very little is known. The early writers were experimenters. Hilary used classical meters with alterations, of which the trochaic tetrameter catalectic proved most acceptable.[10] It is illustrated in Adae carnis gloriosae and also in hymns by Prudentius and Fortunatus. Prudentius used a variety of meters in addition to the trochaic which proved adaptable in actual liturgical practice but by that time stress accent was beginning to obscure the original quantitative values. Ambrose used the unrhymed iambic dimeter, a simple and singable form which has been in vogue ever since, at first unrhymed after the original models and later rhymed. The popular trochaic meter familiarized by Hilary, Prudentius and Fortunatus, when transformed by stress accent and rhyme, is easily recognized both in Latin and the vernaculars. Fortunatus popularized the elegiac meter in hymns for a thousand years by demonstrating its use in Tempora florigero. Prior to the ninth century revival of hymnody, the Ambrosian hymn, considered as a metrical model, in comparison with all other existing models, dominates the field equally with its prestige as an expression of Christian theology and devotion.
III. Hymns in Worship
It is evident that the fourth century was one of innovation in the custom of congregational singing as the Ambrosian hymn was more widely diffused. Our knowledge of what actually took place is very incomplete, based first upon the writing of Ambrose and his contemporaries and later upon the hints derived from monastic usage. That morning and evening services of prayer and praise were common is well known. That the singing of the new fourth century hymns was an integral part of such services is largely assumed. Prudentius wrote hymns for the evening ceremony of the lucernare or lighting of the candles, a Christian practice adopted from the Greek church, to which many references are found. The fact that the hymns of Prudentius were in existence long before they appeared in the records of formal worship points to early Christian usage, however dimly perceived.
Concerning music we learn from the most recent researches that “nothing definite is known of the melodies that were actually applied to the hymns of St. Ambrose.”[11] The traditional liturgical music of Milan is known as the Ambrosian Chant. It cannot be traced to Ambrose himself but is supposed to have existed in a simpler form than that which appears in available manuscripts beginning with the twelfth century. At least it may be said to have existed prior to the Roman Chant and perhaps have influenced the latter. With a frank acknowledgement of ignorance as to the antiphonal melodies which thrilled St. Augustine at Milan, the possibility must be admitted that they reflected to some extent the formal music of the synagogue or the music of the Greeks or the elements of contemporary folk music because these were the musical materials of which the Christians had experience. All three may have been represented, but for a hymn of the Ambrosian type, the chant as evolved in rendering the Gospels or the Psalms may have given place to a form of song more characteristic of the lyric.