1 of Poictiers, who acknowledges that he brought some of his hymns from the East, and Ambrose, the great bishop of Milan in the fourth century, in establishing a definite form for Latin hymns, avowedly followed the custom of the East. About a hundred hymns are attributed to Ambrose and his school. In style they are objective; they are simple and rugged, intended for daily use - hymns of praise and prayer for guidance and help. The prevailing metre is the iambic dimeter, - the English Long Metre which still continues Ambrosian tradition in the character of the hymns which it frames, but with little regard for classical quantities. Alcaics and Sapphics with an occasional dactylic rhythm are exceptionally used in religious poems, but for congregational singing the iambic proved to be the measure best fitted to the genius of the Latin language and to the popular taste. As a means of inculcating orthodox doctrine hymns were found to be of the greatest value; and the example had already been given by heretics, both in the East and in the West, who had demonstrated their efficiency in conveying error. These hymns were incorporated into the Ambrosian breviary, and were also adopted by Benedict for the use of his order of monks, being selected and appointed for the various occasions of the day and season; they became widely known, and even at the present day the hymns of the canonical hours and the monastic services are still Ambrosian. From the fourth to the eleventh century there was not much change in subject-matter and style. The objective character still remained; the metrical treatment tended more and more to the purely accentual instead of the quantitative; and the vocabulary and syntax, while showing plainly the increasing remoteness of the Augustan age, are yet remarkably pure in comparison with the prose of the same period. The Bible in its Latin form was the principal source of the hymn writers, and whatever objection may be made to the Vulgate on the ground of rhythm and word order, so markedly different from the Ciceronian flow, it cannot be denied that its Latin shows an energetic vigor and lively force that harmonize well with the power of the new and victorious religion which adopted its Latinity as peculiarly its own. The prominent names in this second period are Prudentius, Sedulius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Juvencus, Venantius Fortunatus, Gregory the Great, the Venerable Bede, Paul the Deacon, Theodulphus, Fulbert, Peter Damiani, closing with Bernard of Clairvaux. In this list are laymen as well as clergy of all orders, monks and seculars, popes, bishops, and deacons. Some, like Prudentius, were literary men purely, some were monastic scholars, some were citizens of the world, and some were contemplative poets. In addition were many anonymous hymns rivalling in sweetness and beauty those attributed to definite authors; and even the authorship of some, which are connected with explicit names, is highly uncertain. These hymns are found in various places - in collected works of their supposed authors, in Graduals, Antiphonals, Breviaries, and other collections, and like the hymns in modern hymn-books, they were changed to suit the editors in many ways, -in length, in order, in words, and sometimes even in metre. The hymn was freely adapted to its intended use, there was little consideration of literary proprietorship, and authorship was a matter of no moment. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Latin hymnody reflected plainly the change that had come over the church. The principal sacred poets were devout monks who, secluded from the world, gave themselves up to meditation and contemplation. Occupied with the life of the monastery, with its settled order of prayer and praise, poetic effort was certain to manifest itself |