Chapter X. Worship and Ceremonies
Comp. vol. III. ch. VII., and Neander III. 123-140; 425-455 (Boston ed.).
92. The Mass
Comp. vol. III. § 96-101 and the liturgical Lit. there quoted; also the works on Christian and Ecclesiastical Antiquities, e.g. Siegel III. 361-411.
The public worship centered in the celebration of the mass as an actual, though unbloody, repetition of the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world. In this respect the Eastern and Western churches are fully agreed to this day. They surround this ordinance with all the solemnity of a mysterious symbolism. They differ only in minor details.
Pope Gregory I. improved the Latin liturgy, and gave it that shape which it substantially retains in the Roman church. He was filled with the idea that the eucharist embodies the reconciliation of heaven and earth, of eternity and time, and is fraught with spiritual benefit for the living and the pious dead in one unbroken communion. When the priest offers the unbloody sacrifice to God, the heavens are opened, the angel are present, and the visible and invisible worlds united.
Gregory introduced masses for the dead, in connection with the doctrine of purgatory which he developed and popularized. They were based upon the older custom of praying for the departed, and were intended to alleviate and abridge the penal sufferings of those who died in the Catholic faith, but in need of purification from remaining infirmities. Very few Catholics are supposed to be prepared for heaven; and hence such masses were often ordered beforehand by the dying, or provided by friends. They furnished a large income to priests. The Oriental church has no clearly defined doctrine of purgatory, but likewise holds that the departed are benefited by prayers of the living, “especially such as are offered in union with the oblation of the bloodless sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, and by works of mercy done in faith for their memory.”
The high estimate of the efficacy of the sacrament led also to the abuse of solitary masses, where the priest celebrates without attendants. This destroys the original character of the institution as a feast of communion with the Redeemer and the redeemed. Several synods in the age of Charlemagne protested against the practice. The Synod of Mainz in 813 decreed: “No presbyter, as it seems to us, can sing masses alone rightly, for how will he say sursum corda! or Dominus vobiscum! when there is no one with him?” A reformatory Synod of Paris, 829, prohibits these masses, and calls them a “reprehensible practice,” which has crept in “partly through neglect, partly through avarice.”
The mysterious character of the eucharist was changed into the miraculous and even the magical with the spread of the belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation. But the doctrine was contested in two controversies before it triumphed in the eleventh century.
The language of the mass was Greek in the Eastern, Latin in the Western church. The Latin was an unknown tongue to the barbarian races of Europe. It gradually went out of use among the descendants of the Romans, and gave place to the Romanic languages. But the papal church, sacrificing the interests of the people to the priesthood, and rational or spiritual worship to external unity, retained the Latin language in the celebration of the mass to this day, as the sacred language of the church. The Council of Trent went so far as to put even the uninspired Latin Vulgate practically on an equality with the inspired Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.
93. The Sermon
As the chief part of divine service was unintelligible to the people, it was all the more important to supplement it by preaching and catechetical instruction in the vernacular tongues. But this is the weak spot in the church of the middle ages.
Pope Gregory I. preached occasionally with great earnestness, but few popes followed his example. It was the duty of bishops to preach, but they often neglected it. The Council of Clovesho, near London, which met in 747 under Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury, for the reformation of abuses, decreed that the bishops should annually visit their parishes, instruct and exhort the abbots and monks, and that all presbyters should be able to explain the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the mass, and the office of baptism to the people in the vernacular. A Synod of Tours, held in the year 813, and a Synod of Mainz, held under Rabanus Maurus in 847, decreed that every bishop should have a collection of homilies and translate them clearly “in rusticam Romanam linguam aut Theotiscam, i.e. into French (Romance) or German,” “in order that all may understand them.”
The great majority of priests were too ignorant to prepare a sermon, and barely understood the Latin liturgical forms. A Synod of Aix, 802, prescribed that they should learn the Athanasian and Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer with exposition, the Sacramentarium or canon of the mass, the formula of exorcism, the commendatio animae, the Penitential, the Calendar and the Roman cantus; they should learn to understand the homilies for Sundays and holy days as models of preaching, and read the pastoral theology of Pope Gregory. This was the sum and substance of clerical learning. The study of the Greek Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures was out of the question, and there was hardly a Western bishop or pope in the middle ages who was able to study the divine oracles in the original.
The best, therefore, that the priests and deacons, and even most of the bishops could do was to read the sermons of the fathers. Augustin had given this advice to those who were not skilled in composition. It became a recognized practice in France and England. Hence the collection of homilies, called Homiliaria, for the Gospels and Epistles of Sundays and holy days. They are mostly patristic compilations. Bede’s collection, called Homilice de Tempore, contains thirty-three homilies for the summer, fifteen for the winter, twenty-two for Lent, besides sermons on saints’ days. Charlemagne commissioned Paulus Diaconus or Paul Warnefrid (a monk of Monte Cassino and one of his chaplains, the historian of the Lombards, and writer of poems on saints) to prepare a Homiliarium (or Omiliarius) about a.d. 780, and recommended it for adoption in the churches of France. It follows the order of Sundays and festivals, is based on the text of the Vulgate, and continued in use more or less for several centuries. Other collections were made in later times, and even the Reformed church of England under Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth found it necessary to provide ignorant clergymen with two Books of Homilies adapted to the doctrines of the Reformation.
In this connection we must allude again to the poetic reproductions of the Bible history, namely, the divine epos of Caedmon, the Northumbrian monk (680), the Saxon Heliand” (Heiland, i.e. Saviour, about 880), and the “Christ” or Gospel Harmony of Otfrid (a pupil of Rabanus Maurus, about 870). These works were effective popular sermons on the history of redemption, and are at the same time the most valuable remains of the Anglo-Saxon and old high German dialects of the Teutonic language.
It was, however, not till the Reformation of the sixteenth century that the sermon and the didactic element were restored and fully recognized in their dignity and importance as regular and essential parts of public worship. I say, worship, for to expound the oracles of God, and devoutly to listen to such exposition is or ought to be worship both on the part of the preacher and on the part of the hearer, as well as praying and singing.
94. Church Poetry. Greek Hymns and Hymnists
See the Lit. in vol. III. § 113 and § 114, and add the following:
Cardinal Pitra: Hymnographie de l’église grecque. Rome 1867. By the same: Analecta Sacra Spicilegio Solesmensi parata, T. I. Par. 1876.
Wilhelm Christ et M. Paranikas: Anthologia Graeca carminum Christianorum. Lips. 1871. CXLIV and 268 pages. The Greek text with learned Prolegomena in Latin. Christ was aided by Paranikas, a member of the Greek church. Comp. Christ: Beiträge zur kirchlichen Literatur der Byzantiner. München 1870.
L. Jacobi (Prof. of Church Hist. in Halle): Zur Geschichte der griechischen Kirchenliedes (a review of Pitra’s Analecta), in Brieger’s “Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch., “vol. V. Heft 2, p. 177-250 (Gotha 1881).
For a small selection of Greek hymns in the original see the third volume of Daniel’s Thesaurus Hymnologicus (1855), and Baessler’s Auswahl altchristlicher Lieder (1858), p. 153-166.
For English versions see especially J. M. Neale: Hymns of the Eastern Church (Lond. 1862, third ed. 1866, 159 pages; new ed. 1876, in larger print 250 pages); also Schaff: Christ in Song (1869), which gives versions of 14 Greek (and 73 Latin) hymns. German translations in Bässler, l.c. p. 3-25.
[Syrian Hymnology. To the lit. mentioned vol. III. 580 add: Gust. Bickell: S. Ephraemi Syri Carmina Nisibena, additis prolegomenis et supplemento lexicorum syriacorum edidit, vertit, explicavit. Lips.] 1866. Carl Macke: Hymnen aus dem Zweiströmeland. Dichtungen des heil. Ephrem des Syrers aus dem syr. Urtext in’s Deutsche uebertragen, etc. Mainz 1882. 270 pages. Macke is a pupil of Bickell and a successor of Zingerle as translator of Syrian church poetry.]
The general church histories mostly neglect or ignore hymnology, which is the best reflection of Christian life and worship.
The classical period of Greek church poetry extends from about 650 to 820, and nearly coincides with the iconoclastic controversy. The enthusiasm for the worship of saints and images kindled a poetic inspiration, and the chief advocates of that worship were also the chief hymnists. Their memory is kept sacred in the Eastern church. Their works are incorporated in the ritual books, especially the Menaea, which contain in twelve volumes (one for each month) the daily devotions and correspond to the Latin Breviary. Many are still unpublished and preserved in convent libraries. They celebrate the holy Trinity and the Incarnation, the great festivals, and especially also the Virgin Mary, the saints and martyrs, and sacred icons.
The Greek church poetry is not metrical and rhymed, but written in rhythmical prose for chanting, like the Psalms, the hymns of the New Testament, the Gloria in Excelsis and the Te Deum. The older hymnists were also melodists and composed the music. The stanzas are called troparia; the first troparion is named hirmos, because it strikes the tune and draws the others after it. Three or more stanzas form an ode; three little odes are a triodion; nine odes or three triodia form a canon. The odes usually end with a doxology (doxa) and a stanza in praise of Mary the Mother of God (theotokion). A hymn with a tune of its own is called an idiomelon.
This poetry fills, according to Neale, more than nine tenths or four fifths of the Greek service books. It has been heretofore very little known and appreciated in the West, but is now made accessible. It contains some precious gems of genuine Christian hymns, buried in a vast mass of monotonous, bombastic and tasteless laudations of unknown confessors and martyrs, and wonder-working images.
The Greek church poetry begins properly with the anonymous but universally accepted and truly immortal Gloria in Excelsis of the third century. The poems of Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 390), and Synesius of Cyrene (d. about 414), who used the ordinary classical measures, are not adapted and were not intended for public worship.
The first hymnist of the Byzantine period, is Anatolius patriarch of Constantinople (d. about 458). He struck out the new path of harmonious prose, and may be compared to Venantius Fortunatus in the West.
We now proceed to the classical period of Greek church poetry.
In the front rank of Greek hymnists stands St. John of Damascus, surnamed Mansur (d. in extreme old age about 780). He is the greatest systematic theologian of the Eastern church and chief champion of image-worship against iconoclasm under the reigns of Leo the Isaurian (717-741), and Constantinus Copronymus (741-775). He spent a part of his life in the convent of Mar Sâba (or St. Sabas) in the desolate valley of the Kedron, between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. He was thought to have been especially inspired by the Virgin Mary, the patron of that Convent, to consecrate his muse to the praise of Christ. He wrote a great part of the Octoechus, which contains the Sunday services of the Eastern church. His canon for Easter Day is called “the golden Canon” or “the queen of Canons,” and is sung at midnight before Easter, beginning with the shout of joy, “Christ is risen,” and the response, “Christ is risen indeed.” His memory is celebrated December 4.
Next to him, and as melodist even above him in the estimation of the Byzantine writers, is St. Cosmas of Jerusalem, called the Melodist. He is, as Neale says, “the most learned of the Greek poets, and the Oriental Adam of St. Victor.” Cosmas and John of Damascus were foster-brothers, friends and fellow-monks at Mar Sâba, and corrected each other’s compositions. Cosmas was against his will consecrated bishop of Maiuma near Gaza in Southern Palestine, by John, patriarch of Jerusalem. He died about 760 and is commemorated on the 14th of October. The stichos prefixed to his life says:
“Where perfect sweetness dwells, is Cosmas gone;
But his sweet lays to cheer the church live on.”
The third rank is occupied by St. Theophanes, surnamed the Branded, one of the most fruitful poets. He attended the second Council of Nicaea (787). During the reign of Leo the Arminian (813) he suffered imprisonment, banishment and mutilation for his devotion to the Icons, and died about 820. His “Chronography” is one of the chief sources for the history of the image-controversy.
The following specimen from Adam’s lament of his fall is interesting:
“Adam sat right against the Eastern gate,
By many a storm of sad remembrance tost:
O me! so ruined by the serpent’s hate!
O me! so glorious once, and now so lost!
So mad that bitter lot to choose!
Beguil’d of all I had to lose!
Must I then, gladness of my eyes, —
Must I then leave thee, Paradise,
And as an exile go?
And must I never cease to grieve
How once my God, at cool of eve,
Came down to walk below?
O Merciful! on Thee I call:
O Pitiful! forgive my fall!”
The other Byzantine hymnists who preceded or succeeded those three masters, are the following. Their chronology is mostly uncertain or disputed.
Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople in the reign of Heracleus (610-641), figures in the beginning of the Monotheletic controversy, and probably suggested the union formula to that emperor. He is supposed by Christ to be the author of a famous and favorite hymn Akathistos, in praise of Mary as the deliverer of Constantinople from the siege of the Persians (630), but it is usually ascribed to Georgius Pisida.
Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem (629), celebrated in Anacreontic metres the praises of Christ, the apostles, and martyrs, and wrote idiomela with music for the church service
Maximus the Confessor (580-662), the leader and martyr of the orthodox dyotheletic doctrine in the Monotheletic controversy, one of the profoundest divines and mystics of the Eastern Church, wrote a few hymns.
Germanus (634-734), bishop of Cyzicus, then patriarch of Constantinople (715), was deposed, 730, for refusing to comply with the iconoclastic edicts of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741), and died in private life, aged about one hundred years. He is “regarded by the Greeks as one of their most glorious Confessors” (Neale). Among his few poetical compositions are stanzas on Symeon the Stylite, on the prophet Elijah, on the Decollation of John the Baptist, and a canon on the wonder-working Image in Edessa.
Andrew of Crete (660-732) was born at Damascus, became monk at Jerusalem, deacon at Constantinople, archbishop of Crete, took part in the Monotheletic Synod of 712, but afterwards returned to orthodoxy. In view of this change and his advocacy of the images, he was numbered among the saints. He is regarded as the inventor of the Canons. His “Great Canon” is sung right through on the Thursday of Mid-Lent week, which is called from that hymn. It is a confession of sin and an invocation of divine mercy. It contains no less than two hundred and fifty (Neale says, three hundred) stanzas.
John of Damascus reduced the unreasonable length of the canons.
Another Andrew, called Ἁνδρέας Πυρός or Πυρρός, is credited with eight idiomela in the Menaea, from which Christ has selected the praise of Peter and Paul as the best.
Stephen The Sabaite (725-794) was a nephew of John of Damascus, and spent fifty-nine years in the convent of Mar Sâba, which is pitched, like an eagle’s nest, on the wild rocks of the Kedron valley. He is commemorated on the 13th of July. He struck the key-note of Neale’s exquisite hymn of comfort, “Art thou weary,” which is found in some editions of the Octoechus. He is the inspirer rather than the author of that hymn, which is worthy of a place in every book of devotional poetry.
Romanus, deacon in Berytus, afterwards priest in Constantinople, is one of the most original and fruitful among the older poets. Petra ascribes to him twenty-five hymns. He assigned him to the reign of Anastasius I. (491-518), but Christ to the reign of Anastasius II. (713-719), and Jacobi with greater probability to the time of Constantinus Pogonatus (681-685).
Theodore of the Studium (a celebrated convent near Constantinople) is distinguished for his sufferings in the iconoclastic controversy, and died in exile, 826, on the eleventh of November. He wrote canons for Lent and odes for the festivals of saints. The spirited canon on Sunday of Orthodoxy in celebration of the final triumph of image-worship in 842, is ascribed to him, but must be of later date as he died before that victory.
Joseph of the Studium, a brother of Theodore, and monk of that convent, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica (hence also called Thessalonicensis), died in prison in consequence of tortures inflicted on him by order of the Emperor Theophilus (829-842). He is sometimes confounded (even by Neale) with Joseph Hymnographus; but they are distinguished by Nicephorus and commemorated on different days.
Theoctistus of the Studium (about 890) is the author of a “Suppliant Canon to Jesus,” the only thing known of him, but the sweetest Jesus-hymn of the Greek Church.
Joseph, called Hymnographus (880), is the most prolific, most bombastic, and most tedious of Greek hymn-writers. He was a Sicilian by birth, at last superintendent of sacred vessels in a church at Constantinople. He was a friend of Photius, and followed him into exile. He is credited with a very large number of canons in the Mencaea and the Octoechus.
Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople (784), was the chief mover in the restoration of Icons and the second Council of Nicaea (787). He died Feb. 25, 806. His hymns are unimportant.
Euthymius, usually known as Syngelus or Syncellus (died about 910), is the author of a penitential canon to the Virgin Mary, which is much esteemed in the East.
Elias, bishop of Jerusalem about 761, and Orestes, bishop of the same city, 996-1012, have been brought to light as poets by the researches of Pitra from the libraries of Grotta Ferrata, and other convents.
In addition to these may be mentioned Methodius (846) Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 891), Metrophanes of Smyrna (900), Leo VI., or the Philosopher, who troubled the Eastern Church by a fourth marriage (886-917), Symeon Metaphrastes (Secretary and Chancellor of the Imperial Court at Constantinople, about 900), Kasias, Nilus Xanthopulus, Joannes Geometra, and Mauropus (1060). With the last the Greek hymnody well nigh ceased. A considerable number of hymns cannot be traced to a known author.
We give in conclusion the best specimens of Greek hymnody as reproduced and adapted to modern use by Dr. Neale.
’Tis the Day of Resurrection.
(Ἁναστάσεως ἡμέρα.)
By St. John of Damascus.
’Tis the Day of Resurrection,
Earth, tell it out abroad!
The Passover of gladness,
The Passover of God!
From death to life eternal,
From earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over,
With hymns of victory.
Our hearts be pure from evil,
That we may see aright
The Lord in rays eternal
Of resurrection light:
And, listening to His accents,
May hear, so calm and plain,
His own “All hail!” — and hearing,
May raise the victor strain.
Now let the heavens be!
Let earth her song begin!
Let the round world keep triumph,
And all that is therein:
In grateful exultation
Their notes let all things blend,
For Christ the Lord hath risen,
Our joy that hath no end.
Jesu, name all names above.
(Ἱησοῦ γλυκύτατε.)
By St. Theoctistus of the Studium.
Jesu, name all names above,
Jesu, best and dearest,
Jesu, Fount of perfect love,
Holiest, tenderest, nearest!
Jesu, source of grace completest,
Jesu truest, Jesu sweetest,
Jesu, Well of power divine,
Make me, keep me, seal me Thine!
Jesu, open me the gate
Which the sinner entered,
Who in his last dying state
Wholly on Thee ventured.
Thou whose wounds are ever pleading,
And Thy passion interceding,
From my misery let me rise
To a home in Paradise!
Thou didst call the prodigal;
Thou didst pardon Mary:
Thou whose words can never fall
Love can never vary,
Lord, amidst my lost condition
Give — for Thou canst give — contrition!
Thou canst pardon all mine ill
If Thou wilt: O say, “I will!”
Woe, that I have turned aside
After fleshly pleasure!
Woe, that I have never tried
For the heavenly treasure!
Treasure, safe in homes supernal;
Incorruptible, eternal!
Treasure no less price hath won
Than the Passion of the Son!
Jesu, crowned with thorns for me,
Scourged for my transgression!
Witnessing, through agony,
That Thy good confession;
Jesu, clad in purple raiment,
For my evils making payment;
Let not all thy woe and pain,
Let not Calvary be in vain!
When I reach Death’s bitter sea,
And its waves roll higher,
Help the more forsaking me,
As the storm draws nigher:
Jesu, leave me not to languish,
Helpless, hopeless, full of anguish!
Tell me, — “Verily, I say,
Thou shalt be with me to-day!”
Art thou weary?
(Κόπον τε καὶ κάματον.)
By St. Stephen the Sabaite.
Art thou weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distrest?
“Come to me” — saith One — “and coming
Be at rest!”
Hath He marks to lead me to Him,
If He be my Guide?
“In His feet and hands are wound-prints,
And His side.”
Is there diadem, as Monarch,
That His brow adorns?
“Yea, a crown in very surety,
But of thorns!”
If I find Him, if I follow,
What His guerdon here?
“Many a sorrow, many a labor,
Many a tear.”
If I still hold closely to Him,
What hath He at last?
Sorrow vanquished, labor ended,
Jordan past!”
If I ask Him to receive me,
Will He say me nay?
Not till earth, and not till heaven
Pass away!”
Finding, following, keeping, struggling
Is He sure to bless?
Angels, martyrs, prophets, virgins,
Answer, Yes!”
95. Latin Hymnody. Literature
See vol. III. The following list covers the whole medieval period of Latin hymnody.
I. Latin Collections
The Breviaries and Missals. The hymnological collections of Clichtovaeus (Paris 1515, Bas. 1517 and 1519.), Cassander (Col. 1556), Ellinger (Frankf. a. M. 1578), Georg Fabricius (Poetarum Veterum ecclesiasticorum Opera, Bas. 1564). See the full titles of Breviaries and these older collections in Daniel, vol. I. XIII-XXII. and vol. II. VIII-XIV.
Cardinal Jos. Maria Thomasius (Tomasi, 1649-1713, one of the chief expounders of the liturgy and ceremonies of the Roman church): Opera Omnia. Rom. 1741 sqq., 7 vols. The second volume, p. 351-403, contains the Hymnarium de anni circulo, etc., for which he compared the oldest Vatican and other Italian MSS. of hymns down to the eighth century. The same vol. includes the Breviarium Psalterii. The fourth (1749) contains the Responsorialia et antiphonaria Romanae ecclesia, and the sixth vol. (1751) a collection of Missals. Thomasius is still very valuable. Daniel calls his book “fons primarius.”
Aug. Jak. Rambach (Luth. Pastor in Hamburg, b. 1777, d. 1851): Anthologie christlicher Gesänge aus alien Jahrh. der christl. Kirche. Altona and Leipzig 1817-1833, 6 vols. The first vol. contains Latin hymns with German translations and notes. The other volumes contain only German hymns, especially since the Reformation. Rambach was a pioneer in hymnology.
Job. Kehrein (R.C.): Lat. Anthologie aus den christl. Dichtern des Mittelalters. Frankfurt a. m. 1840. See his larger work below.
[John Henry Newman, Anglican, joined the Rom. Ch. 1845]: Hymni Ecclesiae. Lond. (Macmillan) 1838; new ed. 1865 (401 pages). Contains only hymns from the Paris, Roman, and Anglican Breviaries. The preface to the first part is signed “J. H. N.” and dated Febr. 21, 1838, but no name appears on the title page. About the same time Card. N. made his translations of Breviary hymns, which are noticed below, sub. III.
H. A. Daniel (Lutheran, d. 1871): Thesaurus Hymnologicus. Lips. 1841-1856, 5 Tomi. The first, second, fourth and fifth vols. contain Lat. hymns, the fourth Greek and Syrian h. A rich standard collection, but in need of revision.
P. J. Mone (R. Cath. d. 1871): Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters. Freiburg i. B. 1853-’55, 3 vols. From MSS with notes. Contains in all 1215 hymns divided into three divisions of almost equal size; (1) Hymns to God and the angels (461 pages); (2) Hymns to the Virgin Mary, (457 pages); (3) Hymns to saints (579 pages).
D. Ozanam: Documents inédits pour servir a l’histoire littéraire de l’Italie. Paris 1850. Contains a collection of old Latin hymns, reprinted in Migne’s “Patrol. Lat.” vol. 151, fol. 813-824.
Joseph Stevenson: Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church; with an Interlinear Anglo-Saxon Gloss, from a MS. of the eleventh century in Durham Library. 1851 (Surtees Soc.).
J. M. Neale (Warden of Sackville College, high Anglican, d. 1866): Sequentiae ex Missalibus Germanicis, Anglicis, Gallicis, aliisque medii aevi collectae. Lond. 1852. 284 pages. Contains 125 sequences.
Felix Clément: Carmina e Poetis Christianis excerpta. Parisiis (Gaume Fratres) 1854. 564 pages. The Latin texts of hymns from the 4th to the 14th century, with French notes.
R. Ch. Trench (Archbishop of Dublin): Sacred Latin Poetry, chiefly Lyrical. Lond. and Cambridge, 1849; 2d ed. 1864; 3rd ed. revised and improved, 1874. (342 pages). With an instructive Introduction and notes.
Ans. Schubiger: Die Sängerschule St. Gallens vom 8ten bis 12ten Jahrh. Einsiedeln 1858. Gives sixty texts with the old music and facsimiles.
P. Gall Morel (R.C.): Lat. Hymnen des Mittelalters, grösstentheils aus Handschriften schweizerischer Klöster. Einsiedeln (Benziger) 1868 (341 pages). Mostly Marienlieder and Heiligenlieder (p. 30-325). Supplementary to Daniel and Mone.
Phil. Wackernagel (Luth., d. 1877): Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Anfang des XVII. Jahrh. Leipz. 1864-1877, 5 vols. (the last vol. ed. by his two sons). This is the largest monumental collection of older German hymns; but the first vol. contains Latin hymns and sequences from the fourth to the sixteenth century.
Karl Bartsch (Prof of Germ. and Romanic philology in Rostock): Die lateinischen Sequenzen des Mittelalters in musikalischer und rhythmischer Beziehung dargestellt. Rostock 1868.
Chs. Buchanan Pierson: Sequences from the Sarum Missal. London 1871.
Joseph Kehrein (R.C.): Lateinische Sequenzen des Mittelalters aus Handschriften und Drucken. Mainz 1873 (620 pages). The most complete collection of Sequences (over 800). He divides the sequences, like Mone the hymns, according to the subject (Lieder an Gott, Engellieder, Marienlieder, Heiligenlieder). Comp. also his earlier work noticed above.
Francis A. March: Latin Hymns, with English Notes. N. York, 1874.
W. McIlvaine: Lyra Sacra Hibernica. Belfast, 1879. (Contains hymns of St. Patrick, Columba, and Sedulius).
E. Dümmler: Poëtae Latini Aevi Carolini. Berol. 1880-’84, 2 vols. Contains also hymns, II. p. 244-258.
Special editions of Adam of St. Victor: L. Gautier: La aeuvres poétiques d’ Adam de S. Victor. Par. 1858 and 1859, 2 vols. Digby S. Wrangham (of St. John’s College, Oxford): The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor. Lond. 1881, 3 vols. (The Latin text of Gautier with E. Version in the original metres and with short notes). On the Dies Irae see the monograph of Lisco (Berlin 1840). It has often been separately published, e.g. by Franklin Johnson, Cambridge, Mass. 1883. So also the Stabat Mater, and the hymn of Bernard of Cluny De Contemptu Mundi (which furnished the thoughts for Neale’s New Jerusalem hymns). The hymns of St. Bernard, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, are in the complete editions of their works. For St. Bernard see Migne’s “Patrol. Lat.” vol. 184, fol. 1307-1330; for Abelard, vol. 178, fol. 1759-1824.
II. Historical and Critical
Polyc. Leyser: Historia Poëtarum et Poëmatum Medii Aevi. Halae 1721.
Friedr. Münter: Ueber die älteste christl. Poesie. Kopenhagen 1806.
Edélstand Du Méril: Poésies populaires Latines anterieures au douzième siècle. Paris 1843. Poésies populaire’s Latines du moyen âge. Paris 1847.
Trench: Introd. to his S. Lat. Poetry. See above.
Bähr: Die christl. Dichter und Geschichtschreiber Roms. Karlsruhe 1836 , 2nd ed., revised, 1872 (with bibliography).
Edward Emil Koch: Geschichte des Kirchenlieds und Kirchengesangs in der christlichen, insbesondere der deutschen evangel. Kirche. Stuttgart, third ed. rev. and enlarged 1866-1876, 7 vols. This very instructive and valuable work treats of Latin hymnology, but rather superficially, in vol. I. 40-153.
Ad. Ebert: Allgem. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, vol. I. (Leipz. 1874), the third book (p. 516 sqq.), and vol. II. (1880) which embraces the age of Charlemagne and his successors.
Joh. Kayser (R.C.): Beiträge zur Geschichte und Erklärung der ältesten Kirchenhymnen. Paderborn, 2d ed. 1881. 477 pages, comes down only to the sixth century and closes with Fortunatus. See also his article Der Text des Hymnus Stabat Mater dolorosa, in the Tübingen “Theol. Quartalschrift” for 1884, No. I. p. 85-103.
III. English Translations
John Chandler (Anglican, d. July 1, 1876): The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first collected, translated and arranged. London 1837. Contains 108 Latin hymns with Chandler’s translations.
Richard Mant (Lord Bishop of Down and Connor, d. Nov. 2, 1848): Ancient Hymns from the Roman Breviary. 1837. New ed. Lond. and Oxf. 1871. (272 pages)
John Henry Newman: Verses on Various Occasions. London 1868 (reprinted in Boston, by Patrick Donahue). The Preface is dated Dec. 21, 1867, and signed J. H. N. The book contains the original poems of the Cardinal, and his translations of the Roman Breviary Hymns and two from the Parisian Breviary, which, as stated in a note on p. 186, were all made in 1836-38, i.e. eight years before he left the Church of England.
Isaac Williams (formerly of Trinity College, Oxford, d. 1865): Hymns translated from the Parisian Breviary. London 1839.
Edward Caswall (Anglican, joined the R.C. Church 1847, d. Jan. 2, 1878): Lyra Catholica. Containing all the Breviary and Missal Hymns together with some other hymns. Lond. 1849. (311 pages). Reprinted N. Y. 1851. Admirable translations. They are also included in his Hymns and Poems, original and translated. London 2d ed. 1873.
John David Chambers (Recorder of New Sarum): Lauda Syon. Ancient Latin Hymns in the English and other Churches, translated into corresponding metres. Lond. 1857 (116 pages.)
J. M. Neale: Medieval Hymns and Sequences. Lond. 1862; 3d ed. 1867. (224 pages). Neale is the greatest master of free reproduction of Latin as well as Greek hymns. He published also separately his translation of the new Jerusalem hymns: The Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix, Monk of Cluny, on the Celestial Country. Lond. 1858, 7th ed. 1865, with the Latin text as far as translated (48 pages). Also Stabat Mater Speciosa, Full of Beauty stood the Mother (1866).
The Seven Great Hymns of the Medieval Church. N. York (A. D. F. Randolph & Co.) 1866; seventh ed. enlarged, 1883. 154 pages. This anonymous work (by Judge C. C. Nott, Washington) contains translations by various authors of Bernard’s Celestial Country, the Dies Irae, the Mater Dolorosa, the Mater Speciosa, the Veni Sancte Spiritus, the Veni Creator Spiritus, the Vexilla Regis, and the Alleluiatic Sequence of Godescalcus. The originals are also given.
Philip Schaff: Christ in Song. N. Y. 1868; Lond. 1869. Contains translations of seventy-three Latin hymns by various authors.
W. H. Odenheimer and Frederic M. Bird: Songs of the Spirit. N. York 1871. Contains translations of twenty-three Latin hymns on the Holy Spirit, with a much larger number of English hymns. Erastus C. Benedict (Judge in N. Y., d. 1878): The Hymn of Hildebert and other Medieval Hymns, with translations. N. York 1869.
Abraham Coles (M. D.): Latin Hymns, with Original Translations. N. York 1868. Contains 13 translations of the Dies Irae, which were also separately published in 1859.
Hamilton M. Macgill, D. D. (of the United Presb. Ch. of Scotland): Songs of the Christian Creed and Life selected from Eighteen Centuries. Lond. and Edinb. 1879. Contains translations of a number of Latin and a few Greek hymns with the originals, also translations of English hymns into Latin.
The Roman Breviary. Transl. out of Latin into English by John Marquess of Bute, K. T. Edinb. and Lond. 1879, 2 vols. The best translations of the hymns scattered through this book are by the ex-Anglicans Caswall and Cardinal Newman. The Marquess of Bute is himself a convert to Rome from the Church of England.
D. F. Morgan: Hymns and other Poetry of the Latin Church. Oxf. 1880. 100 versions arranged according to the Anglican Calendar.
Edward A. Washburn (Rector of Calvary Church, N. Y. d. Feb. 2, 1881): Voices from a Busy Life. N. York 1883. Contains, besides original poems, felicitous versions of 32 Latin hymns, several of which had appeared before in Schaff’s Christ in Song.
Samuel W. Duffield: The Latin Hymn Writers and their Hymns (in course of preparation and to be published, New York 1885. This work will cover the entire range of Latin hymnology, and include translations of the more celebrated hymns).
IV. German translations of Latin hymns:
(Mostly accompanied by the original text) are very numerous, e.g. by Rambach, 1817 sqq. (see above); C. Fortlage (Gesänge christl. Vorzeit, 1844); Karl Simrock (Lauda Sion, 1850); Ed. Kauffer (Jesus-Hymnen, Sammlung altkirchl. lat. Gesänge, etc. Leipz. 1854, 65 pages); H. Stadelmann (Altchristl. Hymnen und Lieder. Augsb. 1855); Bässler (1858); J. Fr. H. Schlosser (Die Kirche in ihren Liedern, Freiburg i. B. 1863, 2 vols); G. A. Königsfeld (Lat. Hymnen und Gesänge, Bonn 1847, new series, 1865, both with the original and notes).