To explain fully the origin of a great literary movement must always be
difficult, for the subtle influences affecting its beginnings elude a
scientific analysis of facts. One observes the revival of Latin
hymnology between 750 and 900 A.D. with amazement. The voices of
Ambrose, his contemporaries and his immediate imitators had been
silenced for centuries. Venantius Fortunatus had stood forth, a solitary
survival of the old Latin poetic genius or, perhaps more accurately, a
solitary herald of the new medieval awakening. Then a flowering of
religious poetry spread over western Europe, not to be withered by new
barbarian invasions but to be the permanent possession of the Christian
Church.
In this period the older cycles of office hymns were revised and
expanded and fresh cycles created in such numbers as to justify the new
terminology of the _Later Hymnal_ or _Ninth Century Hymnal_. The
sequence arose in the formal worship of the mass, affording a new
inspirational to clerical poets and resulting in a body of sacred verse
of increasing influence. The processional hymn and its related forms
appeared in response to the new impulse toward a hymnic accompaniment to
ceremonial acts. In effect, the hymn during the period under
consideration, was well established in every aspect of formal worship.
In the background of the age which created this literature must be
sought the trends and motivation which make intelligible the voices of
its interpreters. Accordingly, in the years from 750 to 900 A.D. when
the Carolingian rulers, Pippin, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious and Charles
the Bald were guiding the destinies of the Franks, the various
influences affecting public worship must be surveyed. The most important
were the liturgical reforms undertaken or sponsored by the Carolingian
rulers; their promotion of ecclesiastical music and singing; their
interest in the reform and expansion of the Benedictine Order; the
literary activity of members of the Carolingian court circles who
devoted themselves to liturgical studies or poetic expression; the part
played by Celtic culture; the infiltration of Byzantine ideas and arts
and the rise of Germanic genius.
The introduction and permanent establishment of the Roman liturgy in
Frankish realms form the background of public worship in the Carolingian
era. When Pippin ascended the throne in 752, the Gallican Rite
prevailed. When the reign of Charles the Bald came to a close in 877,
the Roman Rite was supreme.[1] Charlemagne received the Gregorian
Sacramentary from Pope Hadrian I.[2] Stimulated by his desire to unify
the Germanic peoples under papal as well as imperial authority, he
brought about by royal edicts or capitularies a widespread reform in the
western continental church. Those features of his program which affected
hymnology include requirements that priests must be educated, that monks
observe their monastic rule, that the singing of the psalms and the
_gloria_ be improved, that schools of singing and grammar be founded in
monastic and diocesan centers, that both regular and secular clergy be
urged to acquire knowledge and skill in singing, that the Roman Chant be
ordained, that a singing school be established at Aix-la-Chapelle, that
the clergy read and sing well.[3] Charlemagne’s successors, Louis the
Pious and Charles the Bald continued his reforming policy.
In the legislation cited above, Charlemagne had followed his father’s
example which favored a training in Gregorian music under Roman
teachers, as developed in the schools of Rome.[4] Pippin’s interest had
resulted in the establishment of a musical center of great repute at
Metz[5] which also possessed a cathedral school representative of the
finest institutions which flourished at this time side by side with
monastic centers of learning.
Charlemagne was presented with a copy of the Benedictine Rule with choir
rules, office and festival hymns, by Theodomar, Abbot of Monte Cassino,
sometime between 787 and 797.[6] It became his chosen duty to promulgate
the Rule, to require its observance everywhere within his realms and
further to extend the influence of the Order in general. Consequently,
monastic centers of music arose, for example, at St. Gall where the
hymnody of the offices was fostered and gradually made available for the
bishoprics as well. Louis the Pious, (814-840), and Charles the Bald,
(843-877), in their turn continued the patronage of the Benedictine
Order. Already fortified by the efforts of Charlemagne, the Benedictines
entered a period of religious and cultural influence which was later
merged into the age of the universities. Linked directly with the
program for monastic reform, the impulse to write new hymns and the
encouragement to finer musical performance together created the annual
cycles of this period in which the older hymns were retained and
supplemented by the new.
The writers and literary leaders of the Carolingian period were by
virtue of their clerical profession actively engaged in liturgical
studies. Alcuin compiled the missal which established the Gregorian
Sacramentary in Frankish realms and constituted a recension acceptable
to the Roman Church.[7] A significant innovation for hymnology was the
decorative procession.[8] Alcuin was also influential through his
devotional works which supplemented the public worship of the mass and
offices. Paulus Diaconus and Angilbert were second to Alcuin in
promoting liturgical studies. The works of the great writers were
accompanied by numerous writings of lesser importance which bear
witness, as will be evident below, to the increasing practice of
hymn-singing. The influence of the Roman Rite, largely barren of hymns,
was at the same period, in contact with the influence of Benedictine
precedent in hymn singing which in the end prevailed.
The Latin poetry associated with the Carolingian era has been edited and
published in a monumental form under the title _Poetae Latini Aevi
Carolini_.[9] The collection, produced in the spirit of a classical
revival by a circle of court poets, includes secular as well as
religious verse.
Carolingian culture not only in the specific field of literature but in
the broader sense afforded a medium for the spread of Celtic, Byzantine
and Germanic genius. The Celtic portion of the poetry in the early
monastic cycles has already been described in connection with the _Old
Hymnal_. Prior to the eighth century, a transfer of Celtic scholarship
to the continent began to take place. The missionaries, Columbanus,
Gall, Foilan, Disibod and others, came first, during the seventh and
eighth centuries. Refugees, fleeing before the Norse invasions of the
late eighth and ninth centuries, followed. Wanderers and pilgrims
crossed the Channel, among them _peregrini_ who left their homeland to
live in new countries as a means of spiritual satisfaction and reward.
Scholars came also who hoped for a more sympathetic reception for their
teachings among the continentals.[10] On the whole, Celtic immigrants
found a welcome. Charlemagne himself favored them.[11] Celtic teachers
were proficient in orthography, grammar, Greek, scriptural and
liturgical subjects and the arts.[12] They brought with them
manuscripts, the influence of which was felt, not only in their subject
matter but in musical notation and characteristic scripts.[13] The
Bangor Antiphonary, the hymns of which have already been considered,
came to the continent at this time. Among the famous teachers of music
was Marcellus[14] who, at St. Gall, instructed Notker, Tutilo, Waltram
and Hartmann, a fraternity devoted to finer ecclesiastical music and
hymnody.
The role of Byzantine influence cannot be ignored in any account of the
cultural and historical background of ninth century literature. One
should recall that the Carolingian period was an era of general European
intercourse which could not fail to have an effect upon society. The
foreign relations of the Frankish Empire necessitated much traveling,
visiting and correspondence. Warlike as well as peaceful movement,
commercial or cultural, increased the interchange of ideas. There was an
overlapping of boundary lines, too, which amalgated populations. The
infiltration of Byzantine influence might be conceived as a by-product
of European intercourse.
Insofar as hymnology is concerned, musical contacts between the
Byzantine and Frankish realms were frequent. As early as Pippin’s reign,
Byzantine musicians appeared at the Frankish court with a gift of an
organ from the Emperor Constantinus Copronymus.[15] Many refugee monks
who fled to the west during the iconoclastic controversy remained there
even after its close in 787, enjoying monastic hospitality and imperial
favor. Charlemagne permitted them to use the Greek language in worship
and was so much impressed by the music employed in chanting the psalms
that he caused it to be adopted for the Latin version also.[16] The
paramount influence of Byzantine music upon liturgical practice in the
west will be considered more fully in connection with the sequence.
Verifiable traces of Byzantine influence had already appeared with the
activities of Gregory the Great and are entirely comprehensible, so far
as he is concerned, in view of his residence at Constantinople, 579-585,
as papal envoy of Pelagius II.[17] The importation of litanies into the
west illustrates this type of influence. When Charlemagne received the
Sacramentary from Pope Hadrian I, it was labelled “Gregorian.” But in
the interval between the lives of Gregory and Charlemagne, popes of
eastern origin, ruling at the end of the seventh and the beginning of
the eighth century were responsible for western practice.[18] The
influence of the Eastern upon the Western Church seems to have been
cumulative, with Charlemagne in his day acting as the agent for its
diffusion throughout the Frankish Church.
In matters concerning the church and its worship the Greeks were an
acquisition not only as musicians but as scholars and as experts in the
fine arts. Their scholarship was in demand in New Testament studies.
Illustrations of Greek and of oriental inspiration in general are
numerous in architecture, painting, sculpture, ivories, work in precious
metals and the decoration of manuscripts.[19] Perhaps it was a natural
desire to emulate the splendor and ornament of eastern rites which led
Charlemagne to favor Greek elements in western observance at the expense
of the Gallican.
In the midst of Gallic, Celtic, Italian, Byzantine and oriental
influences mingled in Carolingian culture, the presence of native genius
is strongly felt. Charlemagne has been criticized for his devotion to
classical rather than Germanic culture. Sacred poetry as produced in the
Carolingian literary circles, was written in Latin and clothed in
classical garb. It could hardly have been otherwise since Latin was
demanded by the Church and the vernacular languages of western Europe
were then in their early infancy. But in spite of the studied
artificiality of this verse, a note is sometimes heard in harmony with
the poetry of later centuries which emanates from Germanic sources.
Such in brief is the background of that revival of hymnody which appears
in the Carolingian period. It remains to trace, in detail, the evolution
of the monastic hymnal known as the _Later_ or _Ninth Century Hymnal_.