The Latin Hymn-writers and Their Hymns

by Samuel Willoughby Duffield

Somehow Salomon conceded even this, and one day brought a splendid gift—a gold box encrusted with jewels and containing relics—which he offered to the abbey. All this looked in the direction that the monks feared; and they therefore rejected his present with some scorn. But it did not take long to lift Salomon the Simonist to the Abbacy of Reichenau, and then Archbishop Sfortto contrived at length to secure the wealthy St. Gall for his favorite. Thus Salomon, the detested, became, in spite of all opposition, the abbot of that celebrated cloister.

But St. Gall itself had always prospered, apparently as the sun does according to the theories of some astronomers, for it had been continually receiving cometary accessions that dropped into it unexpectedly. One such was an antiphonary, which, on the principle that “to him that hath shall be given,” fell into the hands of these musical monks through the burning of the Abbey of Jumieges in 851. This was the true origin of the “sequence.” It solved the problem of Notker in a novel manner when he finally examined it, for he had been puzzled at the immense prolongation of the final syllable ia in the Alleluia, which was sung to cover the retreat of the deacon as he ascended to the rood-loft to chant the Gospel. This Alleluia came between the Epistle and the Gospel, and as the deacon had some space to traverse, the ia was nearly interminable; for even a very few seconds became on such an occasion a most perceptible and wearisome interval of time.

This Jumieges antiphonary, in which words were fitted to the Gregorian tones, suggested another treatment of the difficulty. Notker consequently composed the Laudes Deo concinat, and afterward the Coluber Adae male suasor. Iso, his master, approved of them, and Maengal afterward gave him considerable help. The “sequence” in its standard form had a “note to each syllable,” as in modern church music. And this was the beginning of that Book of Sequences perfected by him in 887, and which has gained a merited prominence for the name of Notker Balbulus.

Ekkehard tells certain legends (which may or may not be trustworthy) regarding the suggestion whence some of these sprung. The droning rotation of a slow mill-wheel gave rise, he says, to the sequence Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia; and this is far more credible than the additional information that Notker sent it to “the Emperor” Charles and got back the famous Veni Creator Spiritus—a story which Mabillon utterly confutes. This Emperor was certainly not Charles the Great—who was long ago dead—and it might have been Charles “the Bald” or Charles “the Fat” (the usurper), or Charles “the Simple,” but there seems an antecedent improbability that any such nickname could belong to the grave and great poet of that splendid hymn. And, indeed, we are now positive that it is the composition of Rabanus Maurus, Bishop of Mayence (Mainz), who died in 856.

There is probably some show of reason in the idea that the groaning machinery of a mill should have helped to originate the extended notes of the sequence. The picturesqueness of the story is really its best claim to our notice. I well remember a mill by which I used often to pause in the stillness of night, listening to the wailing protracted cadences of the huge wheel which slowly turned in its bed as the buckets successively filled from the shut, but leaky gates. Hearing this, and comparing it with the “sequence” of the Catholic service, or with the long-drawn tones of a German choral, it is impossible not to be struck by the resemblance.

Then there is another story—indeed, there are several in the Latin which could scarcely be inserted here—but there is certainly one other which both Baring-Gould and Maitland have had sufficient geniality to extract. It refers to the manner in which Notker, Ratpert, and Tutilo—“the three inseparables”—attended to the eavesdropping of one of Abbot Salomon’s spies. This spy was Sindolf, the refectorarius, or steward, a sour-visaged, crab-appleish kind of man, who was never so happy as when he had an evil speech to retail. He particularly delighted in fretting the temper of the abbot with reference to these poets and musicians, but they suspected his design and “set a watch because of him.”

One evening after “lauds” the three were in the “writing-room” (scriptorium) where the manuscripts were prepared and kept, busy with their conversation and having thereto the permission of the prior. Sindolf sniffed scandal in the air, and flattened his ear against the opaque glass, where a convenient crack suffered him to listen to their words. It was night, and Tutilo, a shrewd, lively fellow (homo pervicax), was glad enough to get this occasion against the slinking traitor. In the Acta Sanctorum, and again in Mabillon, copied into the one hundred and thirty-first volume of Migne, we have old Ekkehard’s grim report of this monkish fun.

“There he is with his ear to the glass,” cried Tutilo. “Do you, Notker, because you are a timid little chap (timidulus), go away into the church. But Ratpert, my friend, take down the whip that hangs in the chimney corner and run out-doors. And then comfort my heart (cor meum confortare) by laying on to him with all your might (esto robustus). For I, when you get close enough, will throw open the window in a hurry, catch him by the hair and hang on with a will” (ad me pertractum violenter tenebo). Off went the timorous Notker; out slipped the cheerful Ratpert; open went the window, and the vigorous Tutilo clutched Sindolf by ears and hair together! Then Ratpert rained on the lashes (a dorso ingrandinat), and Sindolf twisted and howled and kicked, and lights began to fly around, and the brethren came running. But Tutilo held on and called for a light and shouted that he had caught the devil; while Ratpert vanished into the night and Notker had entirely disappeared in the church. “Where are Notker and Ratpert?” was the first question. “Oh, they smelled the devil and ran away to ask succor from heaven,” said Tutilo. “And here was I, left to do the best I could with this thing that walks in darkness. And I believe an angel has been sent to chastise him in the rear!”

The sneaky Sindolf was completely abashed, but his temper did not improve under the chastisement. Even Salomon, his patron, laughed at him along with the others, which made the matter worse. So one day, finding a beautiful copy of the Canonical Epistles in Greek which Liutward, Bishop of Vercelli, had sent as a present to Notker, what does the malicious wretch do but cut it to pieces with his knife! Ekkehard adds that the mutilated copy could still be seen in the library of St. Gall.

These two worthies, Ratpert and Tutilo, heartily deserve the place which Ekkehard accords them in his life of Notker. Ratpert walked usually between Notker and Tutilo; a very punctual, studious man who “wore out two pairs of shoes in the year;” a man who seldom left the abbey walls, and who regarded “expeditions” as being to the full “as dangerous as kisses;” a negligent fellow about the offices and masses, claiming that he taught them often enough to his pupils; and finally, a composer of good litanies; dying October 25th, A.D. 900.