From the creation of the Latin hymn in the fourth century by the
earliest writers to the efforts of poets heralding the Renaissance,
Christian hymnody left its imprint upon contemporary verse both secular
and religious. The field of inquiry suggested by this thesis has never
been fully explored although it abounds in fascinating possibilities for
the student of medieval culture. The subject, of course, cannot be
treated within the limits of this chapter but such hints may be offered
as have resulted from a partial study of particular areas or fall within
the bounds of reasonable assumption.
Perhaps the most pervading influence and the simplest to trace is the
metrical. The iambic dimeter of Ambrose, both in its quantitative and in
its rhythmical form, became a standard for poetry of all types,
appearing even in the modern age as the long meter of the metrical
versions of the Psalms. Trochaic verse, initiated in hymns by Hilary,
employed most effectively by Fortunatus and always a favorite, rivalled
the iambic in the vernaculars. As the metrical features of the Victorine
sequence became increasingly popular, they were taken over bodily by
secular poets writing both in Latin and in the modern European
languages. Classical meters fostered by Prudentius and later by the
Carolingian poets showed less vitality as poetical models. The
liturgical hymn and the sequence are of prime importance in their
metrical aspects but the meters of the _piae cantiones_ and other
religious lyrics were also widely appropriated. The origin of rhyme is a
related problem which in the opinion of W. B. Sedgwick “centers around
the Christian hymn.”[1] Numerous publications by scholars who, like
Sedgwick, have spoken with authority, bear witness to the general
linguistic and literary interest attaching to these subjects of
research.
Aside from aspects of meter and rhyme, medieval secular verse in Latin
borrowed generously from the hymn; witness the songs of the wandering
scholars as recorded in the collection edited under the title _Cambridge
Songs_ and also the goliardic poetry of the _Carmina Burana_.[2]
Well-known hymns are frequently parodied and, in general, the liturgical
models are employed to create humorous allusion or pungent satire. The
student song _Gaudeamus igitur_ is a familiar illustration of this
general group.
The adaptation of the sequence to secular purposes resulted in a novel
type of verse, the _modus_, already cited in connection with the origin
of the sequence, illustrated by the _Modus florum_ of which many
examples have been preserved varying in beauty and poetic conceit.
Reference has been made in an earlier chapter to the deeper problems
underlying sequence origins on the poetical side. Discussion among
scholars as to the priority of the religious or secular Latin lyric is
still active.[3] Some would say that popular Latin verse arose by virtue
of the hymnodic influence. Others would posit a vernacular impulse which
eventuated in the Latin lyric both secular and religious.[4]
Apart from the lyric, there are in the general field of Latin verse many
resemblances to hymnic models. The lengthy narrative poems of the
_Peristephanon_ in which Prudentius recounted the sufferings of the
martyrs, St. Laurence, St. Vincent, St. Agnes, St. Eulalia and others,
and celebrated their spiritual victories, have been called hymns. It has
been argued that they were actually sung,[5] in full, upon the festival
days of the saints in question although the praises of St. Vincent, for
example, are expanded to 576 lines, other hymns varying from 66 to 1140
lines. It may have been possible in the more leisurely tempo of medieval
life to render the martyr hymns of Prudentius in their entirety. A far
more provocative suggestion makes them the starting point for the
medieval saints’ legend of which illustrations exist in lengthy Latin
poems and later, in vernacular verse.
The contribution of hymns to the liturgical drama of the Church has been
noted in connection with the sequence, _Victimae paschali laudes_. It is
nowhere contended that the hymn created the drama but that the dramatic
phraseology is often reminiscent of the hymn and that the role of the
singers in the _schola cantorum_ and the choir, as actors in the
liturgical play, becomes significant in connection with the hymnic
origins of these productions within the church.[6]
Finally, an interesting group of Latin poems having an interrelation
with the hymn is illustrated by _O Roma nobilis_, a tenth century lyric
praising the apostles and martyrs of the Eternal City (_A. H._ 51.
219).[7]
The transition from Latin to vernacular languages took place as soon as
the latter were sufficiently developed to produce Christian verse. The
Gospels were rendered into Germanic rhymed verse in the ninth century by
Otfried the Frank who inserted a hymn of ten stanzas as a poetic version
of the opening of St. John’s Gospel. It is written in seven-syllable
couplets with four or six to a stanza.[8] Otfried is said to have been
influenced by Rabanus Maurus and with good reason since the latter was a
recognized leader in mediating Latin patristic and other writings to the
Germanic world of his day.
Otfried was the first of many medieval poets whose religious lyrics in
the vernacular, often revealing the inspiration of the Latin hymn, have
been preserved. Their verse appears in Wackernagel’s great collection in
which he has edited 1448 specimens from the time of Otfried to that of
Hans Sachs.[9]
Celtic churchmen were pioneers among medieval Latin hymnists, their
earliest contribution dating from the sixth century. Religious lyrics in
the Celtic tongue must have been produced and recorded before the Danish
invasions although the destruction of these manuscripts delayed the
compiling of new vernacular collections until the eleventh century. The
hymn _Hymnum dicat turba fratrum_, written in trochaic tetrameter, and
preserved in the Bangor Antiphonary, to which reference has been made in
Chapter One, apparently influenced the metrical system of Celtic poetry.
The metrical pattern used by Otfried, a quatrain of seven-syllable lines
with rhymed couplets, is commonly found.[10] Latin influence is at least
tentatively acknowledged by scholars in the rhyme and stanza structure
of Celtic poetry prior to the eleventh century.[11]
After the creation of the Latin sequence, vernacular poetry is
overwhelmingly affected by this new type of hymn. Germanic poets
followed the leadership of Notker. The Victorine school, rejecting the
strophic system and rhythmic model of the Germans, built the couplet and
rhyme, already existing in hymns, into a characteristic structure which
proved to be easily transferable to vernacular uses. It has been
asserted that the lyric poetry of the Middle Ages, in German, French,
Provençal and English was reborn in this conquest of the vernacular by
the Latin sequence.[12] At the same time, the possible influence of the
vernacular over the Latin must not be ignored. There is a resemblance,
for instance, between the narrative elements of sequences written in
honor of saints and the ballads of secular poetry.[13] Whatever the
conflicting currents may have been in the period of origins, the
smooth-flowing stream of the vernacular religious lyric with its many
tributaries, refreshed the spirit of medieval man and recalled to memory
his religious heritage.
The vitality of this new religious poetry which flourishes in the later
centuries, in which the Latin hymn suffered so marked a deterioration,
suggests that the future of the hymn, like other media of Latin
literature, was to be realized in a new linguistic environment. It was
not the verity but the language that was destined to change.
In order to appreciate the variety and interest of that vernacular lyric
poetry which arose within the sphere of influence of the Latin hymn,
illustrations may be culled from many parts of Europe. _Mary-Verse in
Meistergesang_ is the title chosen by Sister Mary Schroeder for her
study of one aspect of the German lyric.[14] A very large proportion,
perhaps two-thirds of the songs are religious in content, showing to a
degree, their dependence upon hymnal poetry, while nearly one-fourth of
them are devoted to the praise of the Virgin. Occasionally, a Latin
sequence has been freely translated, paraphrased or elaborated.
The Swedish vernacular is represented by the patriotic poem of Bishop
Thomas of Strängnäs, who, in the fourteenth century, wrote in praise of
the national hero, Engelbrekt. Metrical and stanza form are both of the
hymnal type.[15]
The Romance languages afford myriad examples of the sequence form. St.
Martial, near Limoges, already cited as a center in the production of
the sequence, and Paris, the home of the Victorine school, are both
places of origin for vernacular lyrics. A close connection has been
traced between the sequence and the French romantic lyric, especially
the _lai_, a connection amply illustrated and tabulated for the
convenience of the student.[16] More familiar, perhaps, than the _lais_
are the appealing lines of François Villon, “Dame des cieulx, regente
terrienne,” which possesses all the charm of the Marian lyric at its
best.
About the year 1270, Alfonso X of Castile made a collection of 400 poems
in the Galician-Portuguese dialect, the _Cántigas de Santa María_ around
which a considerable literature has grown up. All are devotional in
subject matter. Alfonso X was a literary patron. Ramon Lull (c. 1315)
was himself a poet who wrote in the Catalan tongue although his mystical
writings are better known than his poetry. His _Hours of our Lady St.
Mary_ was modeled upon the hymn and set to a hymn tune.[17]
The Italian poets of religious verse flourished as writers both in the
vernacular and in Latin. St. Francis of Assisi, (1181-1226), whose
_Cantico di fratre sole_[18] is known and loved by countless persons in
our own day, was among the earliest poets of the _Laudi spirituali_. The
origin of the _laudi_ has been traced in part to the ejaculations of the
flagellants of northern Italy where bands of these penitents were
commonly seen in the thirteenth century. A century earlier, religious
societies of singers, the _laudisti_, were in existence in Venice and
Florence. Arezzo knew such a group as early as 1068.[19] Included among
the known writers of _laudi_ are Jacopone da Todi, (1230-1306), and
Bianco da Siena, (c. 1307), both classified today as writers of hymns.
The movement represented by the _laudisti_ spread to France,
German-speaking lands, the Low Countries and Poland. Everywhere the
vernacular was used with popular unison melodies. As we approach the
Renaissance, Florence is still conspicuous for her authors of the
religious vernacular lyric, among them Lorenzo di Medici and Savonarola,
(1452-1498), better known as the Florentine preacher whose passionate
denunciations of the evils of his day brought him into conflict with the
Church and resulted in his execution. His _Laude al crucifisso_ has been
translated in part by Jane F. Wilde as a hymn, “Jesus, refuge of the
weary.”
The English religious lyrics of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries may be read with enjoyment in the collections of Carleton
Brown whose appraisement of this poetry was the fruit of great learning
and a sympathetic discernment of human values.[20] Here the Latin hymn
may be found as it was translated, adapted and imitated in English
verse. The Latin sequence, as it increased in popularity, was taken over
by English poets with great success. Some of these writers who
appropriated the Latin models, like William Herebert, Jacob Ryman and
John Lydgate, are known to us by name while others are anonymous. Their
poetic themes are varied but Marian verse appears in many forms: hymns,
laments, and rhymed petition. Incidentally, a knowledge of the Latin
original must be presupposed on the part of the English laity of this
period. Chaucer wrote for the layman who must have understood his use of
the sequence _Angelus ad Virginem_ in the “Miller’s Tale” and the
sequence _Alma redemptoris mater_ in the “Prioress’ Tale.”
English macaronic verse best reveals the Latin hymn. Over and over
again, Latin quotations are used, sometimes embedded in the text,
sometimes added as refrains, an understanding of which is always vital
to the appreciation of the poem.
The carol, although extraneous to true hymnody, because of its
non-liturgical character and usage, was related to Latin origins; to
some extent, to the _cantio_ and the _conductus_. A form of vernacular
lyric, the carol often shares the macaronic features which were common
in the blended phraseology of the European languages with Latin in this
popular type of late medieval verse. It is relevant here as a religious
lyric which bears the unmistakable mark of the hymnic inheritance.
Whatever is true of the English carol is equally true of the carol in
other lands. To-day these lyrics are of great interest and of increasing
usage in the Christian Church at large. Their musical and poetic aspects
are both subjects of enthusiastic research. Many persons in our modern
society who have never studied the classical languages are able to sing
the Latin words and phrases they contain, with understanding, as did
their medieval predecessors.