NOTKERUS VETUSTIOR I ANTIPHONA IN MORTE Media vita In morte sumus; Quem querimus adiutorem, Nisi te, Domine, Qui pro peccatis nostris Iuste irasceris! Sancte Deus, sancte fortis, Sancte et misericors Salvator, Amarae morti Ne tradas nos! II ANTIPHONA: GLORIA IN EXCELSIS Grates nunc omnes reddamus Domino Deo, Qui sua nativitate nos liberavit De diabolica potestate. Huic opportet, ut canamus cum angelis semper: Gloria in excelsis. NOTKER THE ELDER I ANTIPHON Of Death In midst of life In death are we; Whom shall we seek for aid, Except, O Lord, We call on Thee, O holy God, almighty One, To bitter sting of endless death II ANTIPHON: GLORY IN THE HIGHEST Now let us all give thanks to God, ROBERTUS, REX GALLIAE Robert II, son of Hugh Capet, was born at Orleans in the year 971 and died in 1031. He succeeded to the throne of France in 997. Archbishop Trench says, "The loveliest of all the hymns in the whole circle of Latin sacred poetry has a king for its author." "Sismondi," he continues," brings him very vividly before us in all the beauty of his character, and also in all his evident unfitness, a man of gentleness and peace, for grappling with the men of iron by whom he was surrounded." This praise must be taken with large allowance. Robert was weak, to put it mildly. He repudiated his first wife, on the plea that she was too old for him, and incurred the displeasure of Pope Gregory V by marrying a distant cousin, Bertha, whom he put away and married for his third wife Constance, reputed to have been a shrew. His natural son, Amauri, was the ancestor of the notorious Simon de Montfort. His long reign of thirty-four years was troubled above measure. He is said to have "supported three hundred paupers entirely and one thousand in part," and to have "founded four monasteries and built seven churches." He composed both music and hymns. ROBERTUS, REX GALLIAE AD SANCTUM SPIRITUM Veni, Sancte Spiritus, Et emitte coelitus Veni, pater pauperum, Veni, dator munerum, Consolator optime, O lux beatissima, |