For the most part the hymn writers of the later hymn cycles are
anonymous, like their predecessors in this field. Anonymity is then the
first characteristic to be noted concerning the hymnal in this period,
which makes it necessary to survey the whole as an objective achievement
of the age, not of a few individuals.
Next to the anonymity of its authorship, possibly the most conspicuous
feature of the new hymnal is the enlargement of each of its general
divisions, the Common and the Proper of the Season and the Common and
the Proper of Saints. The old hymn cycle, it will be recalled, comprised
thirty-four hymns as listed by Blume. The later cycle in its nucleus
numbers thirty-seven hymns of which seven are repeated from the old
cycle. In ten representative tenth century hymnals, the hymns number
from about fifty to about one hundred, many of them common to several
lists.[35]
Not only is the total number of hymns increased but festival hymns are
multiplied, the ecclesiastical year as it was later known being fully
established in hymnology. Advent, Nativity, Epiphany, Lent, the Passion,
Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity have their own groups of hymns.
The various feasts of the Virgin and that of All Saints are honored.
Among the Apostles, Sts. Peter, John and Andrew are praised; of other
biblical saints, Sts. John the Baptist, Stephen, Paul; of the angels,
St. Michael; of martyrs, the Innocents and St. Laurence; of local
saints, Sts. Martin of Tours, Gall, Germanus, Martial, and a number of
others. So stands the record of manuscripts of the tenth century when
hymnal gains had been consolidated. The process went steadily onward as
Latin hymns for the offices continued to be written to the end of the
Middle Ages. A few have been added since the sixteenth century but, with
certain exceptions, the great body of office hymns of the medieval
church was permanently established by 1100, the date which Mearns
selected as a boundary line. The same sources enriched the present-day
Roman breviary which by a paradox of history, has preserved to modern
times the representative hymns to which the Roman liturgy of that early
period was so inhospitable.
As a matter of fact, in the interval between and including the fourth
and the eleventh centuries, the Latin hymn, considered in its literary
implications and in its liturgical usage, was founded for the ages.
Attaching to the word _hymn_ its strictest sense and narrowest function,
that of the office hymn, the student perceives the great significance of
this department of medieval hymnology as compared with the sequence,
processional and extra-liturgical hymns of the Middle Ages. It becomes
more evident that here is the core and heart of Latin hymnody. The
Church could and did in the event, dispense with much of its medieval
collection, but never with the hymnal. Here was preserved the ethics of
the Christian life, the intimacy of the scriptural narrative, the
presentment of the Christian feasts and the praise of God and of his
saints.
Appendix
_Later Hymnal_ (See _Anal. Hymn., 51, Introduction_ p. xx-xxi)
_Ad parvas horas_
_Iam lucis orto sidere_
_Nunc sancte nobis spiritus_
_Rector potens verax Deus_
_Rerum Deus tenax vigor_
_Ad vesperas_
_Lucis creator optime_
_Immense caeli conditor_
_Telluris ingens conditor_
_Caeli Deus sanctissime_
_Magnae Deus potentiae_
_Plasmator hominis Deus_
_Deus creator omnium_ (In Old Hymnal)
_O lux beata trinitas_ (Mozarabic)
_Ad nocturnas horas_
_Primo dierum omnium_
_Somno refectis artubus_
_Consors paterni luminis_
_Rerum creator optime_
_Nox atra rerum contegit_
_Tu trinitatis unitas_
_Summae Deus clementiae_
_Ad matutinas laudes_
_Aeterne rerum conditor_ (In Old Hymnal)
_Splendor paternae gloriae_ (In Old Hymnal)
_Ales diei nuntius_
_Nox et tenebrae et nubila_
_Lux ecce surgit aurea_
_Aeterna caeli gloria_
_Aurora iam spargit polum_
_Ad completorium_
_Christe qui lux es et dies_ (In Old Hymnal; Mozarabic)
_Te lucis ante terminum_
_Proprii de tempore_
_Ad cenam agni providi_ (In Old Hymnal)
_Aurora lucis rutilat_ (In Old Hymnal)
_De communi sanctorum_
_Martyr Dei qui unicum_
_Rex gloriose martyrum_
_Aeterna Christi munera_ (In Old Hymnal)
_Sanctorum meritis inclita gaudia_
_Virginis proles opifexque_
_Iesu corona virginum_
_Summe confessor sacer_
CHAPTER FOUR
The Ninth Century Revival: Sequences