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The Hymns of St. Godric

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. W. Rankin
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Extract

Of the origin and composition of the Cantus Beati Godrici and of the life of the author we have fortunately a detailed contemporary account written by one Reginald of Coldingham. As Caedmon's hymn stands at the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry, so Godric's “hymns” are usually regarded as standing at the beginning of Middle English poetry. In each case the tradition of poetic gift is the same: the authors were supernaturally inspired in visions. With regard to Godric's song to the Virgin, Reginald tells us “Qualiter beata dei genetrix Maria cum beata Maria Magdalene ei visibiliter apparuit et eum canticum cum cantici ipsius melo edocuit .... Est autem canticum illud idiomatis Anglici ritmiceque compositum.... Precepit quidem, ut, quociens dolori vel tedio vel temptationi succumbere formidaret, hoc se cantico solaretur, et ait: ‘Quando sic me invocabis, meum sencies instanter auxilium.’” This means a rimed vernacular song, a sort of formula, by singing or chanting which Godric would receive immediate help in times of pain, weariness, or temptation. It is short and simple—two four-line stanzas. Zupitza's text reads as follows:

      Sainte Marie uirgine,
      moder Iesu Cristes Nazarene,
      onfo, scild, help þin Godric,
      onfang, bring hehlic wiþ þe in godes ric.
      Sainte Marie, Cristes bur,
      maidenes clenhad, moderes flur,
      dilie mine sinne, rixe in min mod,
      bring me to winne wiþ self god.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 1923 , pp. 699 - 711
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923

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References

1 Cf. Zupitza, “Cantus Beati Godrici,” Eng. St., XI, 401-432, for a thorough study of the life and hymns of Godric, based upon Reginald's and subsequent MSS. Godric was born in Norfolk, his parents being poor and simple people. When he grew up, he became a sort of pedler and prospered enough to acquire a half interest in a little vessel to be used for his business trips. After sixteen years of business life he decided to give himself to the service of God. He made two pilgrimages to Rome and two to Jerusalem. Then he became a hermit, lived for more than a year in a hut near Whitby and then in a hole in the ground near Durham. Here he built a little hut of wood, which he called St. Mary's Chapel; here he lived an incredibly ascetic life; here he beheld many visions, now of the devil appearing in divers forms to tempt him, now of the Virgin, of Mary Magdalene, of John the Baptist, of St. Nicholas, of St. Peter, and even of Christ; and here he died on May 20, 1170.

2 For the readings of the various MSS. cf. Zupitza, loc. cit., p. 414.

3 P. 423.

4 Five of the thirteen MSS. (but not the earliest) have clane (clene) before uirgine in the first line; and four (including the earliest) omit the second stanza, which may be a later addition. In none of the MSS. is there a division into verses or stanzas.

5 Zupitza, p. 429.

6 Ibid., p. 430.

7 One Ms. has hi trede.

8 Zupitza, p. 431f.

9 Brandi, Pauls Gr., p. 1097.

10 Zupitza, p. 431.

11 Pauls Gr., 1096.

12 Alexander Müller, Mittelenglische Geistliche u. Weltliche Lyrik, Studien zur Eng. Philol., XLIV. 44.

13 Cf. with regard to rime the Charm for the Toothache:

Saynt Margrete, the haly quene,
Saynt Katerin, the haly virgyne. (Rel. Ant., I, 126)

14 Cf. the writer's article on Rhythm and Rime before the Norman Conquest, P. M. L. A., XXXVI, 401ff.

15 Description of Wales, Ch. 12. Though there was rime (cantilenis rhythmicis) as in Godric's songs, alliteration (annominatione) was the chief ornament of artistic verse.

16 Zupitza, p. 407. This passage is based upon Reginald: “Postea ad ecclesiam sanctae Mariae...transmigravit; quia ibi pueris litter arum prima elementa discentibus interesse delegit. Ubi ea, quae prius didicit, arctius memoriae infixit et quaedam, quae antea non cognoverat, ibi audiendo, legendo- atque psallendo apprehendit ... In brevi igitur tantisper profecerat quod in psalmis, hymnis et orationibus nonnullis, quantum sibi sufficere credebat, firmus et certus exstiterat.” (Cf. note 4, p. 407) Reginald's interesting account of this elementary instruction suggests the little clergeon of the Prioresse:

This litel child, his litel book lerninge,
As he sat in the scole at his prymer,
He Alma Redemptoris herde singe,
As children lerned hir antiphoner;
And, as he dorste, he drough him ner and ner,
And herkned ay the wordes and the note,
Til he the first vers coude al by rote.

17 There may be unconscious humor in Reginald's account of the inspiration: “Textus vero verborum quibus canticum illud (hymn to the Virgin) componitur, verbis Anglice lingue contexitur. Quae omnia rithmico tenore contexunter et melo cantici quosdam sonos musicos audientibus imitari videntur” (Zupitza, p. 415). There is certainly no indication here that either words or tune suggested to any one who heard them any similarity whatever to Latin hymns.

18 Zupitza, p. 414: “et eum canticum cum cantici ipsius melo edocuit.”

19 Pauls Gr., p. 1097.

20 P. 431.

21 Zupitza, p. 417. Quod genus cantici does not suggest Latin hymns.

22 Zupitza, p. 416.

23 For this song Zupitza (p. 430) discusses and finally rejects the incantation form. He would put a comma after hus and a semicolon after bare, and says: “Ferner der gedanke, dass jene worte (at þi burth, at þi bare) elliptisch stehen konnten = ‘bei deiner geburt, bei deiner bahre beschwören wir dich’ muss aufgegeben werden, da at bei schwören wohl im Altn., aber nicht in Englischen vorkommt. Ausserdem schiene mir die wahl dieser zwei substantive fiir eine beschwörung unpassend. Soviel ich sehe, bleibt nichts iibrig, als in jenen worten eine nachträgliche bestimmung zu godes drup zu sehen.” The meaning is confessedly obscure; but, if any meaning is to be had from it, one can hardly take at in the locative sense and connect the third line with ugodes druþ. The sense demands that the third line be taken with the fourth. It is not incredible that Scandinavian influence in the north of England in the 12th century should account for the colloquial use of at in the sense of by. However that may be, and whether we accept Zupitza's interpretation or not, in form the verses are more like an incantation than anything else.

24 E.g., of scamellum pedum (Ps. 98:5 and 109:1) and of in mamaus portabunt te, ne urnquam offendas ad lapidem pedum tuum (Ps. 90:12). Cf. Zupitza, p. 429.

25 Harl. 153 reads: “seinte Marie swa me iledde that ic on pis erthe ne sulde noth mine bare fote hi trede.” Cf. Zupitza, p. 426.

26 They are rather to be equated with such utterances as this of his: “Alia die dum solus resedisset, contigit ut subito altius elata voce quodam modulamine musico cujusdam cantici melodiam concineret. Post vocum dulciora modulamina, subnexit et verba, quae auditori simplici satis fuere perceptibilia, nam sermone Anglico usus est, at tamen cantilenae dulcedine cum ipsis sermonibus diutissime perfunctus est. Dixit enim haec verba Anglica, quae saepe ab ipso sunt iterando replicata, ‘Welcome, Simund; welcume, Simund’; quod Latino sermone sic exprimitur; ‘Bene venias, Symon; bene venias, Symon.‘ Verba his plura in canendo non protulit; sed dulcis cantilenae diversitate vocum sonoras arterias immutando saepius alternavit; nam quo ties eadem verba repetiit, semper novi ac disparis cantus melodias quibusque syllabis verborum apposuit.” (Stevenson, Libellus de Vita et Miraculis S. Godrici, Surtees Soc., p. 306f.

27 Cf. Pauls Gr. II, 37-43; 69f.; 958ff. Cf. also Wilhelm Grimm: “... so ist wohl glaublich, dass jene cantilenae vulgares schon darin irhe form gefunden hatten, nemlich in jenen einfachen, meist aus vier, manchmal aus sechs oder drei zeilen bestenenden absätzen, die beim volkslied nachweislich bis zum 13 jahrhundert fortgedauert haben.” (Zur Geschichte des Reims, Königl. Akad. der Wissenschaften, p. 179f.)

28 Cf. P. M. L. A., XXXVI, 401ff.

29 I can't resist the temptation to quote in this connection the Latin account of Godric's adjuration to his cow: “Praecipio tibi in nomine Domini, quatinus absque omni ductore quotidiedum orto sole tempus fuerit, sola ad tua pascua abeas; et omni meridie et vespere, dum opportunum tempus advenerit, sine omni ductoris ministerio domi redeas; et quando ubera tua prae lactis copia mulgenda fuerint, ad me ubi fuero, venias; et emulso ubere, iterum exonerata ad pascua, si tempus sit, redeas.” Mirandum plane et obstupendum! Ex die illa et deinceps, semper vacca illa termino competenti exiit et rediit, et quoties lactis pinguedine per diem ubera illius essent gravida, venit ad illum; et si forte fuisset in Ecclesia, illa stabat ad ostium foris, rugitum vel balatum proferens, et quasi eum advocans. (Stevenson, Op. cit., p. 121).

30 By introducing, for example, the Pater Noster and the names of Christ and the Virgin.

31 Some of the Christian hymns suggest the incantation: cf. the “Hymnus in Postulatione Pluviae” attributed to Ambrose.

32 Doubtless there were many cantica rustica et inepta in both Anglo-Saxon and Middle English times now lost to us. “St. Godric's hymn to the Virgin...escaped oblivion only by being imbedded in Latin texts of the life of that saint.” (Carleton Brown, Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse, Pt. II, p. xii).