We owe the preservation of the earliest Latin hymns to monastic
practice. When the founders of monasticism in the west, Caesarius and
Aurelian who were famous bishops of Arles (6th C.), and Benedict (d.
543), founder of the Benedictine Order, organized the regulations and
routine for the communities under their charge, they incorporated Latin
hymns already existing into the daily worship of the monastery.[1] These
were sung at the services of the canonical hours and were known as hour
hymns or office hymns.
A continuity can be traced, although faintly, from primitive Christian
observances. Beginning with the vigil of Saturday night in preparation
for the following Sunday, the first three centuries of Christian history
developed public services for prayer at candlelight, night time, and
dawn. By the fourth century, the tide of devotional practice had set in,
bringing with it daily worship in the church at the third, sixth and
ninth hours. At the end of the fourth and during the fifth century the
cycle was completed with new offices at sunrise and nightfall. The full
series, therefore, included the nocturnal cursus; vespers, compline,
matins (nocturns and lauds), and the diurnal cursus; prime, terce, sext
and nones.[2] An opportunity was afforded to unify the services and at
the same time to make use of the symbolic number seven by reference to
_Psalm 119: 164 (Ps. 118, Vulgate)_, “Seven times a day do I praise thee
because of thy righteous ordinances.” From the simple assemblies of
early Christianity, therefore, and the daily offices of prayer, a fully
elaborated cycle of hymns in time developed, appropriate to the
symbolism of the seven hours and to the needs of the annual feasts.
Constantly increasing in number and variety, these cycles were preserved
in psalters together with the psalms or in a hymnary by themselves. In
fact, the word _hymn_ came to mean specifically an office hymn later to
be associated with the breviary, and the word _hymnal_, a cycle or
collection of office hymns.
At first the cycles were brief. Five extant manuscripts reveal the sixth
century group of hymns of which the best representative, the so-called
Psalter of the Queen from the famous collection of Queen Christine of
Sweden, probably dates from the time of Charles Martel (d. 741).[3] This
group of hymns is usually referred to as the _Old Hymnal_, the initial
version of which numbers thirty-four hymns but at the close of the sixth
century had increased to perhaps sixty hymns in actual use.[4] The
thirty-four original hymns of the _Old Hymnal_ are listed in the
Appendix to this chapter where the appropriate location of each is
indicated, whether for daily or seasonal worship.
Due to the influence of Benedict who had enjoined the use of the
Ambrosian hymn, the authentic verse of Ambrose was preserved and
extensively imitated among the regular clergy. What had become of the
hymn in secular worship?
The old prejudice against non-scriptural hymns and in favor of the
Psalms had never died out. By a canon of the Council of Laodicea (c.
364), _psalmi idiotici_ or “private hymns” were forbidden, a mandate
which was valid during the lifetime of Ambrose who, nevertheless,
ignored a restriction intended to safeguard orthodoxy but hardly
applicable in his case. In the sixth century the secular clergy of Spain
were forbidden to use hymns by the Council of Braga, 563.[5] The paradox
of encouraging non-scriptural hymns in the monastery and forbidding
their use in the church at large has been explained by reference to the
contemporary appearance of early forms of vernacular speech in western
Europe. Latin, the language of the church, its liturgy and its clergy,
was now threatened by a possible inroad of the vernacular.[6] Hymn
writing was regarded, perhaps, as a prerogative of the clergy to be kept
within bounds. To throw open to the church everywhere these privileges
might be dangerous alike for theology and worship. Learning in the Latin
tongue tended to be concentrated in the monastery, for other centers of
scholarship were few and far between; hymnology became largely a
function of the monastic group.
It should be remembered that these centuries embraced a period of the
greatest political, economic and social confusion in western Europe
during which we know relatively little about Christian worship in
widespread congregations except for the rite of the mass. Yet in the
sixth century the opposite tendency toward greater freedom in writing
and singing hymns was apparent. The Council of Tours, 567, permitted the
secular clergy to use Ambrosian and other hymns.[7] If viewed in this
light, the religious verse of Fortunatus takes on a new significance,
illustrative of the freedom which the Church in Gaul, always highly
individual, now experienced in the realm of hymnology.
Gaul, then, was the scene of a conflict in which the Latin hymn was
contending, and that successfully, for its very life. On the monastic
side, anonymous clerics, using the Ambrosian model, gradually provided
the full complement of hymns for the annual festivals in harmony with
the liturgical year which began to emerge and resemble somewhat its
present form. Wherever the Benedictine Order penetrated into the
territories of western Europe, the use of hymns likewise increased.
Their diffusion must be regarded as comparable with that of an
organization which within two hundred years of the death of its founder
boasted hundreds of monasteries and convents throughout western
Christendom, augmented by Irish and other foundations which had adopted
the Benedictine Rule. Missionary zeal had played a significant role in
this expansion. Fulda, for instance, a community with 400 monks and many
missionaries at its disposal, was able under Willibald to extend its
influence through numerous subordinate monasteries and convents. Royal
favor, already enjoyed by St. Gall and now conferred upon new
establishments, rivalled that of popes and synods, which at the time of
Pippin’s coronation in 750 or 752, combined to insure the success of the
Benedictine program.[8]
On the side of secular worship, the hymnal used by Benedict and his
successors gradually gained a foothold in the church through diocesan
centers which adopted the monastic cycles. Or perhaps it may be said,
with the reservation that we are in the realm of theory and not of fact,
that the ancient hymns written prior to the sixth century had been
circulated and continued to be circulated in the west in a way not at
present understood, in connection with the Gallican or ancient liturgy
of Gaul. If so, the _Old Hymnal_ is the Gallican hymnal which Benedict
appropriated and his followers maintained to its acknowledged prestige
by the year 750.
An episode of significance for hymnology during the period under
consideration in this chapter is the activity of Gregory the Great who
occupied the papal throne from 590 to 604. A member of the Benedictine
Order, he is noted for his enthusiastic support of its missionary
program and for his interest in ecclesiastical music and poetry. His
role in the extension of the Roman Rite and of the Benedictine Order to
Britain is familiar to all.[9] His authority in the western church is a
matter not of controversy but of fact. That he was deeply interested
both in hymn writing and singing may be safely assumed for there are too
many reports of his activity to be ignored. His actual role in the
development of the chant which bears his name and the authorship of
eight to eleven hymns attributed to him, have not been determined. For
Gregory’s contribution to the ritual music of the church the reader is
referred to the discussion of this subject by specialists in the field
of liturgical music. For his contribution to the hymn cycles, modern
hymnologists have judged even the eight hymns singled out as Gregorian
by Benedictine editors, to be doubtful although the nocturn and vesper
hymns may be authentic.[10] Aside from critical research the fact
remains that all these hymns appear in the cycles of the day and several
have been in liturgical use to the present time. They are representative
of the hymnology of the transition between the _Old Hymnal_ and the
later cycles whose hidden origins Gregory may have influenced.
(See Illustrative Hymns, IV. _Nocte surgentes vigilemus omnes_, “Father
we praise Thee, now the night is over.”)