The Hymns They Deserve

Extract

The Middle Ages will provide a wealth of hymnody, most of which lies unhappily neglected upon the library shelves. The output was prodigious, and was of varying quality. The most outstanding literary form is the Sequence, which found its way into the Mass and was sung immediately before the Gospel. Its originator was a Benedictine monk, Notker Balbulus, the Stammerer or perhaps the Garrulous—he has left most entertaining gossip of his hero Charlemagne. He found it hard, we are told, to commit to memory the long melodies sung on the last syllable of the Alleluia and to counteract this failing he forestalled Mr. Pelman by setting the notes to a simple form of words. In the next three centuries this elementary device evolved into a definite literary form, written finally in metre and rhyme. The Easter Sequence, Victimae Paschali laudes, shows it in its earlier stages and the Whit Sunday Sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus, shows it fully developed as a recognized form of rhymed composition.

Before dealing with the Sequence, however, we must refer to a series of hymns more familiar in their English than in their Latin form. The original from which they have been quarried is the 12th century production of Bernard of Morlas, a monk of Cluny: Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus: “The world is very evil, the times are waxing late; Be sober and keep vigil, the Judge is at the gate.” It is for the most part a long denunciation of an evil world fast moving towards the abyss of destruction. In it he attacks vice with a savage candour that lacks both restraint and reticence. But from this majestic diatribe are drawn those well-known Anglican hymns: “Brief life is here our portion” and “Jerusalem the golden.”