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 in subjective outpourings of devotion and adoration, in meditative lyrics or in ecstatic dithyrambs, over the Christian promises and rewards. Hence devotional appeals to the Virgin and the saints became more numerous. Mone's second volume is given up entirely to hymns in honor of the former; and meditations on the Cross, on the joys of Paradise, on the sorrows and joys of the saints are increasingly frequent. And the staid, sober, iambic dimeter, was subordinated to trochaic and dactylic rhythms; bizarre effects were sought through alliteration, assonance, and intricate rhymes, for there was plenty of time in the monasteries for the poet to work out a verse scheme, no matter how difficult. The feeling for metrical quantity had quite passed away and rhyme was completely established. The favorite metre became the trochaic tetrameter, of course accentual, depending on the number of syllables, and aided by rhyme. This metre, often called Septenarius, from the number of its complete feet, was the foundation of stanzas of four and six verses, for the first half of the verse was detached and doubled, and likewise the second; and these elements were combined in manifold variety. For a clausula the second hemistich was taken, and the superb sequence metre of six lines was developed in Adam of S. Victor's: " Héri mundus exultavit Christi natalitia: The clausula being fixed and rhyming, various effects could be brought about by modifying the number of the other lines. In the tenth and eleventh centuries a new form of hymn came into use, called variously prose, trope, or sequence. A trope was a general term for a versicle or strophe added to a chant; the prose was originally an unmetrical composition, as its name implies; and the sequence was metrical, and was originally so called because it followed the Alleluia in the Mass. Ultimately all three terms became synonymous. The sequence, as distinguished from the hymn, was used in the Mass. The Gradual was the anthem which followed the Epistle and preceded the Gospel in that service, and this closed with an Alleluia; the -ia of the word alleluia was prolonged through a musical jubilation on a certain number of notes, called neumes, and Notker of S. Gall, about A.D. 900, composed new words to accompany these notes. These Notkerian proses were not metrical, but rhythmical, with the most exact correspondence to the musical phrase of the neumes to which they owed their existence. About the middle of the twelfth century the metrical sequence was perfected by Adam of S. Victor, and for centuries this form was the favorite one of sacred poetry. Hundreds were written and used all over northern Europe; they were less known in Italy, Spain, and southern France. They were often sung to popular airs; their subject-matter was as diverse as that of the hymns; and they were not limited to their original place in the Mass. The writers were Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Iacobus de Benedictis, Thomas a Celano among others. More than seven hundred are known, the Dies Irae and Stabat Mater being most famous, and, finally, they became so numerous, and, unhappily, so poor in quality, that the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, reduced their number to four, for insertion in the Missal - the Victimae Paschali, Veni Sancte Spiritus, Lauda Sion, and Dies Irae and in 1727 to these the Stabat Mater was added. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries numerous hymns were written, for the most part of unknown authorship. Hymns to the Trinity, for the holy seasons, for the saints and angels, and for the Virgin, were numerous; and some are not without merit, although the older and well-tested hymns still held their own. But as a whole, Latin hymnody had passed its period of highest development; and these later hymns lack the strength and rugged simplicity of those of earlier centuries. Some of them are mere condensations of the Nicene Creed, others are summaries of the life of Christ and of the saints; rhymed versions of the hours of the Passion; salutations to the Cross; to the face of Christ; versified accompaniments to the action of the Mass, in imitation of Thomas Aquinas; salutations beginning with "Ave"; and Psalters of Jesus. Many were meditations for private devotional use and not suitable for public worship, reflections on the vanity of earthly things and on the glories of the New Jerusalem. Their great characteristic, differentiating them from the Ambrosian hymnody, is their subjective character; they deal with the personal relation of the writer to the topic of the hymn. This is particularly true in the great increase in the number of the hymns to the Virgin. To be sure, the Ave Maris Stella, Salve Regina, Ave Regina Caelorum, had been written before the fourteenth century; but the number of festivals in the Virgin's honor had constantly grown, - that of the Visitation being instituted in 1389, - and there was need for a whole cycle of hymns for her Conception, Nativity, Annunciation, and Assumption. More than a hundred begin with "Ave" and "Salve"; and those on the dolours and joys of Mary are numerous. The Stabat Mater is the best of all of them. Many of the older hymns were recast in her honor: there is a Te Deum Marianum, and Litanies of Mary. The |