Anonymity is the rule and known authorship the exception for the hymns produced in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth centuries. This continued to be the rule during the whole medieval period since the names of those who wrote the non-scriptural parts of religious rites were lost or unknown or perhaps of little importance in communal worship. The fact that the hymns which survive have been gathered from liturgical manuscripts and not from the work of individual authors except in rare cases, should make anonymity more intelligible.
Hymn sources are scanty and interconnections, dimly perceived, can rarely be established. Continuity of evolution is often broken or replaced by new poetical inspiration. However, the fourth century appeal to the objective, the direct, the simple, is seldom varied by the subjective theme. The biblical narratives and the symbolism connected with the various offices and feasts add substance and character to the cycles and to the concept of the liturgical year.
In the heart of the Dark Ages, popularly considered, western European civilization was in confusion and its fate problematical. One could scarcely expect the fruits of peace and security to flourish. Yet in these very centuries there were created and circulated many of the best loved hymns of Christianity, a number of which have been in unbroken use to the present day. Among them are the illustrations inserted above and Lucis Creator optime, “O blest creator of the light;” the Advent hymns, Verbum supernum prodiens, “High Word of God who once didst come,” and Conditor alme siderum, “Creator of the stars of night;” the Easter hymn, Claro paschali gaudio, “That Easter day with joy was bright;” for the dedication of a church, Urbs beata Jerusalem, “Blessed city, heavenly Salem” with the more familiar second part, “Christ is made the sure foundation.” Two hymns honoring the Virgin date from this period: Ave maris stella, “Hail, Sea-Star we name Thee,” and Quem terra pontus aethera, “The God whom earth and sea and sky,” initiating the Marian hymnology of the Middle Ages.[19]
(See [Illustrative Hymns, VII.] Ave maris stella, “Hail, Sea-Star we name Thee.”)
Created and preserved in a clerical and for the most part a monastic environment these hymns express the Christian thought and faith of the era which was thus treasured up for wider circulation and influence in a later and more settled society. The words of the late Canon Douglas, a great American hymnologist, are memorable in this connection:
“What does have a practical bearing on our subject is, that whatever may have been the older cycle, it was enriched to an extraordinary degree in the early medieval centuries. What began in Milan, and achieved its permanent recognition at Monte Cassino, was soon to bring about a Mozarabic Hymnal in Spain, a Gallican hymnal in northern Europe, an Anglo-Irish cycle in Britain: and from all these various increments not only enlarged the growing Hymnal but also richly diversified it.”[20]
Appendix
Old Hymnal (See Anal. Hymn., 51, Introduction p. xx).
Ad nocturnas horas Mediae noctis tempus est (Mozarabic; in Bangor Antiphonary) Rex aeterne Domine Magna et mirabilia Aeterne rerum conditor Tempus noctis surgentibus
Ad matutinas laudes Deus qui caeli lumen es Splendor paternae gloriae Aeternae lucis conditor (Mozarabic) Fulgentis auctor aetheris (Mozarabic) Deus aeterni luminis (Mozarabic) Christe caeli Domine Diei luce reddita
Ad parvas horas Postmatutinis laudibus Certum tenentes ordinem (Mozarabic) Dicamus laudes Domino (Mozarabic) Perfectum trinum numerum (Mozarabic)