“They bring him myrrh, frankincense, gold;
Outweighing wealth of kings untold—
A type in which the truth is known.
The gifts are three, the emblems three:
Gold for the king, incense to deity,
And myrrh, by which his death is shown.”
Of hymn-writers, the most prolific is Jean Momboir, generally known by his Latin name Johannes Mauburnus. He was born in 1460 and died in 1503, and was a Canon Regular in the congregation founded by the Brethren of the Common Life in the Low Countries. He lived for a time at Mount St. Agnes, which makes his emphatic testimony as to the authorship of the De Imitatione of especial importance. His huge ascetic work, the Spiritual Rosegarden (Rosetum spirituale) made him famous, and he was invited to France to reform the Canons Regular, according to the strict observance used in the Low Countries. He was thus, like John Staupitz, a representative of the current revival of that age, which tended to greater austerity, not to faith and joy. He spent the last six years of his life in this labor, dying at Paris in 1503. He was the friend and correspondent of Erasmus. His hymns generally begin with an O, and seem to be written on a system like that of the scholastic treatises. Indeed, his Rosegarden, both by its bulk and its method, suggests a Summa of Christian devotion. From his poem, Eia mea anima, given, there has been extracted the pretty Christmas hymn, Heu quid jaces stabulo, which has been translated several times into English and German.
Next to him comes Casimir, Crown Prince of Poland, whose Omni die dic Mariae is a Marian hymn in one hundred and twenty six verses. Father Ragey, however, asserts in Les Annales de Philosophie Chretienne for May and June, 1883, that Casimir is not the author but the admirer of these verses, that they are an extract from a poem in eleven hundred verses, and that Anselm of Canterbury is the probable author. On this he bases an argument for the reconciliation of England to the Church, which is devoted to the cult of our Lord’s mother. The poem, whosoever wrote it, is a fine one—too good, Protestants will think, for the theme, and too good to take its place among the other verses ascribed to Anselm of Canterbury. Here also there is room to ask a close examination of the manuscripts to which Father Ragey appeals, with reference to their dates. The controversy over the antiquity of the Quicunque vult salvus esse and the authorship of the Imitation suggest caution in taking the ipse dixit of diplomatists.
To an unknown Babo, and to Jacob, schoolmaster of Muldorf, are attributed Marian hymns of no great value. More important is Dionysius Ryckel (1394-1471), a Belgian Carthusian, the character of whose multitudinous writings is indicated by his title, Doctor Ecstaticus. He wrote a Comment on Certain Ancient Hymns of the Church (Enarratio in Hymnos aliquot veteres ecclesiasticos), which puts him next to Radulph de Rivo (ob. 1403) among the earliest of the hymnologists. To Dionysius is ascribed also the long poem on the Judgment, from which Mone has given an extract—Homo, Dei creatura, etc.—by way of comparison with the Dies Irae and the Cum revolvo toto corde. It evidently has been influenced by the former, but is devoted to a picture of eternal torment.
To John Huss we owe the beautiful Communion hymn, Jesus Christus, noster salus, which shows that his alleged heresies did not touch the Church doctrine on this point.