From the sequences of the later Middle Ages only a few have gained
eminence but in certain cases as high a place as any in the whole range
of their composition. Thomas Aquinas shows himself master of the
sequence as well as the hymn in his _Lauda Sion Salvatorem_, “Praise, O
Sion, praise thy Saviour,” a model of the Victorine technique.
(See Illustrative Hymns, XV. _Lauda Sion Salvatorem_, “Praise, O Sion,
praise thy Saviour.”)
_Dies irae_, “Day of wrath,” most majestic of all sequences, universally
acknowledged as the greatest achievement of Latin hymnology, was
probably written by the Franciscan Thomas of Celano. It was originally
used at Advent, later for All Souls’ Day and for requiem masses. The
Judgment theme is obviously inspired by the words of the Prophet
Zephaniah (1:15) from which the opening line _Dies irae, dies illa_ is
taken. A special literature, together with a multitude of translations,
has grown up around this hymn which deserves consideration impossible
here. It should be read not only with reference to its biblical sources
but with the great Judgment portals of the medieval cathedrals in mind,
since the sculpture and literature of the age here find a meeting
place.[8] No less significant for its interpretation is the prevalence
of the Black Death in the ages which produced it.[9] The thought of a
period in which pain and death were so tragically familiar and before
which the medieval man stood helpless, is faithfully reflected in
contemporary hymns.
The lament in its poetic form is associated with the Marian hymnology of
the fourteenth century. The _Stabat mater dolorosa_, “By the Cross her
vigil keeping,”[10] its finest expression, like the _Dies irae_, needs
little comment in these pages.
(See Illustrative Hymns, XVI. _Stabat mater dolorosa_, “By the Cross her
vigil keeping.”)
In this period it seems, at least to the present writer, that the
Italian-born poets of the religious lyric come into their rightful
heritage. The poets of England and of the French, German and
Spanish-speaking lands had at one time or another held the palm in the
field of hymnody. At the very moment, so to speak, when the genius of
Dante and Petrarch had established the fame of Italian letters, the
Christian hymn found new spokesmen in a literary medium which had
originated in the same environment a thousand years before.
What has already been said of the multiplication of new feasts as the
medieval ages progressed, is true in an even greater degree in the later
centuries. The Feast of Corpus Christi is only one of many which marked
this period of religious devotion, and incidentally required new
sequences. If the collection of liturgical proses edited by Daniel in
his _Thesaurus Hymnologicus_ and reprinted in volumes 54 and 55 of the
_Analecta Hymnica_ be accepted as a guide, the new demands become clear.
From the period of Adam of St. Victor, 174 feasts were furnished with
sequences, many times over in the case of the more important festivals.
The actual liturgical collections from which the _Analecta Hymnica_ was
compiled constitute a more specific source of information. If the
attention of the student is fixed upon the sequences used in well-known
missals and troparies from the thirteenth century and later, in the
leading ecclesiastical centers of Europe, a wealth of material is
revealed. Many of these sequences in the great collections are
unfamiliar to the modern student, some have never been translated into
English, but as a whole they are truly representative of this body of
poetry in the period of its greatest interest. A tropary of St. Martial
of the thirteenth century contains an anonymous Easter sequence, _Morte
Christi celebrata_ (_A. H._ 8. 33), “Christ’s passion now is o’er,”[11]
which bears comparison with the better-known sequences which have been
named above.