<h1>XII <br/> GREAT LATIN HYMNS AND CHURCH MUSIC.</h1>
<p>One of the most precious bequests of the Thirteenth Century to all the
succeeding centuries is undoubtedly the great Latin hymns. These
sublime religious poems, comparable only to the Hebrew psalms for
their wondrous expression of the awe and devotion of religious
feeling, present the beginnings of rhymed poetry, yet they have been
acclaimed by competent modern critics as among the greatest poems that
ever came from the mind of man. They come to us from this period and
were composed, most of them at least, during the Thirteenth Century
itself, a few, shortly before it, though all of them received during
this century the stamp of ecclesiastical and popular approval, which
made them for many centuries afterward the principal medium of the
expression of congregational devotion and the exemplar and incentive
for vernacular poetry. It is from these latter standpoints that they
deserve the attention of all students of literature quite apart from
their significance as great expressions of the mind of these wondrous
generations.</p>
<p>These Latin hymns have sometimes been spoken of with perhaps a certain
degree of contempt as "rhymed Latin poetry," as if the use of rhyme in
conjunction with Latin somehow lowered the dignity of the grand old
tongue in which Cicero wrote his graceful periods and Horace sang his
tuneful odes. As a matter of fact, far from detracting from the
beauties of Latin expression, these hymns have added new laurels to
the glory of the language and have shown the wonderful possibilities
of the Roman speech in the hands of generations long after the
classical period. If they served no other purpose than to demonstrate
beyond cavil how profoundly the scholars of this generation succeeded
in possessing themselves of the genius of the Latin language, they
would serve to contradict the foolish critics who talk of the
education of the period as superficial, or as negligent of everything
but scholastic philosophy and theology.</p>
<p>At least one distinguished philologist, Professor F. A. March, who has
now for the better part of half a century occupied the chair of
comparative philology at Lafayette College, does not hesitate to say
that the Latin hymns represent an expression of the genius of the
Latin people and language, more characteristic than the classical
poetry even of the golden or silver ages. "These hymns," he says,
"were the first original poetry of the people in the Latin language,
unless perhaps those Latin critics may be right who think they find in
Livy a prose rendering of earlier ballads. The so-called classic
poetry was an echo of Greece, both in substance and in form. The
matter and meters were both imitated and the poems were composed for
the lovers of Grecian art in the Roman Court. It did not spring from
the people, but the Christian hymns were proper folk poetry, the Bible
of the people—their Homeric poems. Their making was not so much
speech as action. They were in substance festive prayers, the simplest
rhythmic offering of thanks and praise to the Giver of Light and of
rest both natural and spiritual, at morning and evening and at other
seasons, suited to the remembrance and rhythmical rehearsal of the
truths of the Bible." Prof. March's opinion has been echoed by many
another enthusiastic student of these wonderful hymns. It is only
those who do not know them who fail to grow enthusiastic about them.</p>
<p>This of itself would stamp these great poems as worthy of careful
study. There is, however, an additional reason for modern interest in
them. These hymns were sung by the whole congregation at the many
services that they attended in the medieval period. In this regard it
seems well to recall, that it was the custom to go to church much
oftener then than at present. Besides the Sundays there were many holy
days of obligation, that is, religious festivals on which attendance
at Church was obligatory, and in addition a certain number of days of
devotion on which, because of special reverence for some particular
saint, or in celebration of some event in the life of the Lord or his
saints, the people of special parts of the country found themselves
drawn to attendance on church services. It seems probable that instead
of the sixty or so times a year that is now obligatory, people went to
Church during the Thirteenth Century more than a hundred times
in the year. Twice a week then, at least, there was the uplifting
cultural influence of this congregational singing of wonderful hymns
that are among the greatest poems ever written and that belong to
literature of the very highest order. The educational value of such
intimate contact with what is best in literary expression could
scarcely fail to have a distinct effect upon the people. It is idle to
say that the hymns being in Latin they were not understood, since the
language of them was close akin to the spoken tongues, the subjects
were eminently familiar mysteries of religion and constant repetition
and frequent explanation must have led to a very general comprehension
even by the least educated classes. For anyone with any pretension to
education they must have been easy to understand, since Latin was
practically a universal language.</p>
<p>It is not always realized by the students whose interests have been
mainly confined to modern literature, in what estimation these Latin
hymns have been held by those who are in the best position to be able
to judge critically of their value as poetry. Take for example the
Dies Irae, confessedly the greatest of them, and it will be found that
many of the great poets and literary men of the Nineteenth Century
have counted it among their favorite poems. Such men as Goethe,
Friedrich and August Schlegel, Scott, Milman and Archbishop Trench
were enthusiastic in its praise. While such geniuses as Dryden,
Johnson and Jeremy Taylor, and the musicians Mozart and Hayden, avowed
supreme admiration for it. Herder, Fichte and August Schlegel besides
Crashaw, Drummond, Roscommon, Trench and Macaulay gave the proof of
their appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century hymn by devoting
themselves to making translations of it, and Goethe's use of it in
Faust and Scott's in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, show how much
poets, whose sympathies were not involved in its religious aspects,
were caught by its literary and esthetic merit.</p>
<p>In very recent times the Latin hymns have been coming more to their
own again and such distinguished critics as Prof. Henry Morley, and
Prof. George Saintsbury, have not hesitated to express their critical
appreciation of these hymns as great literature. Prof.
Saintsbury says in his volume of the Thirteenth Century literature:
[Footnote 20]</p>
<p class="footnote">
[Footnote 20: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory,
Volume II. of Periods of European Literature, Edited by George
Saintsbury, New York, Scribners, 1899.]</p>
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ST. FRANCIS PROPHESIES THE DEATH OF CELANO (GIOTTO, UPPER CH., ASSISI)</p>
<p class="cite">
"It will be more convenient to postpone to a later chapter of this
volume a consideration of the exact way in which Latin sacred poetry
affected the prosody of the vernacular; but it is well here to point
out that almost all the finest and most famous examples of the
medieval hymns, with perhaps the sole exception of the Veni Sancte
Spiritus, date from the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries. Ours (that
is, from this period) are the stately rhythms of Adam of St. Victor,
and the softer ones of St. Bernard the Greater. It was at this time
that Jacopone da Todi, in the intervals of his eccentric vernacular
exercises, was inspired to write the Stabat Mater. From this time
comes that glorious descant of Bernard of Morlaix, in which, the
more its famous and very elegant English paraphrase is read beside
it (Jerusalem the Golden), the more does the greatness and the
beauty of the original appear.
<br/><br/>
"And from this time comes the greatest of all hymns, and one of the
greatest of all poems, the Dies Irae. There have been attempts—more
than one of them—to make out that the Dies Irae is no such
wonderful thing after all; attempts which are, perhaps, the extreme
examples of that cheap and despicable paradox which thinks to escape
the charge of blind docility by the affectation of heterodox
independence. The judgment of the greatest (and not always of the
most pious) men of letters of modern times may confirm those who are
uncomfortable without authority in a different opinion. Fortunately
there is not likely ever to be lack of those who, authority or no
authority, in youth and in age, after much reading or without much,
in all time of their tribulation and in all time of their wealth,
will hold these wonderful triplets, be they Thomas of Celano's or
another's, as nearly or quite the most perfect wedding of sound to
sense that they know."</p>
<p>This seems almost the limit of praise but Prof. Saintsbury can say
even more than this: "It would be possible, indeed, to
illustrate a complete dissertation on the methods of expression in
serious poetry from the fifty-one lines of the Dies Irae. Rhyme,
alliteration, cadence, and adjustment of vowel and consonant
values—all these things receive perfect expression in it, or, at
least, in the first thirteen stanzas, for the last four are a little
inferior. It is quite astonishing to reflect upon the careful art or
the felicitous accident of such a line as:</p>
<p class="cite">
Tuba mirum spargens sonum,</p>
<p>with the thud of the trochee falling in each instance in a different
vowel; and still more on the continuous sequence of five stanzas, from
<i>Judex ergo</i> to <i>non sit cassus</i>, in which not a word could be
displaced or replaced by another without loss. The climax of verbal
harmony, corresponding to and expressing religious passion and
religious awe, is reached in the last—</p>
<p class="cite">
Quaerens me sedisti lassus,<br/>
Redemisti crucem passus:<br/>
Tantus labor non sit cassus!</p>
<p>where the sudden change from the dominant <i>e</i> sounds (except
in the rhyme foot) of the first two lines to the <i>a's</i> of the last
is simply miraculous and miraculously assisted by what may
be called the internal sub-rhyme of <i>sedisti</i> and <i>redemisti</i>. This
latter effect can rarely be attempted without a jingle: there is
no jingle here, only an ineffable melody. After the Dies Irae,
no poet could say that any effect of poetry was, as far as sound
goes, unattainable, though few could have hoped to equal it,
and perhaps no one except Dante and Shakespeare has fully
done so."</p>
<p>Higher praise than this could scarcely be given and it comes from an
acknowledged authority, whose interests are moreover in secular rather
than religious literature, and whose enthusiastic praise is therefore
all the more striking. Here in America, Schaff, whose critical
judgment in religious literature is unquestionable and whose
sympathies with the old church and her hymns were not as deep as if he
had been a Roman Catholic, has been quite as unstinted in laudation.</p>
<p class="cite">
"This marvelous hymn is the acknowledged masterpiece of Latin
poetry, and the most sublime of all uninspired hymns.
… The secret of its irresistible power lies in the awful grandeur of the
theme, the intense earnestness and pathos of the poet, the simple
majesty and solemn music of its language, the stately meter, the
triple rhyme, and the vowel assonances, chosen in striking
adaptation to the sense—all combining to produce an overwhelming
effect, as if we heard the final crash of the universe, the
commotion of the opening graves, the trumpet of the archangel
summoning the quick and the dead, and saw the 'king of tremendous
majesty' seated on the throne of justice and of mercy, and ready to
dispense everlasting life and everlasting woe."</p>
<p>Neale says of Thomas Aquinas' great hymn the Pange Lingua: "This hymn
contests the second place among those of the Western Church, with the
'Vexilla Regis,' the 'Stabat Mater,' the 'Jesu Dulcis Memoria,' the
'Ad Regias Agni Dapes,' the 'Ad Supernam,' and one or two others,
leaving the 'Dies Irae' in its unapproachable glory," thus furnishing
another supreme testimony to the hymn we have been discussing, which
indeed only needs to be read to be appreciated, since it will
inevitably tempt to successive readings and these bring with them ever
and ever increasing admiration, showing in this more than in any other
way that it is a work of sublime genius.</p>
<p>With regard to rhyme particularly the triumph of art and the influence
of the Latin hymns is undoubted. This latest beauty of poetry reached
its perfection of expression in the Latin hymns. It is rather curious
to trace its gradual development. It constitutes the only feature of
literature which apparently did not come to us from the East. The
earlier specimens of poetry of which we know anything among the
Oriental nations other than the Hebrews, are beautiful examples of the
possibilities of rhythm and the beginnings of meter. As poetry goes
westward meter becomes as important as rhythm in poetry and these two
qualities differentiated it from prose. Both of these literary modes,
however, are eastern in origin. Rhyme comes from the distant West and
seems to have originated in the alliteration invented by the Celtic
bards. The vowel assonance was after a time completed by the addition
of consonantal assonance and then the invention of rhyme was
completed. The first fully rhymed hymns seem to have been written by
the Irish monks and carried over to the Continent by them on
their Christianizing expeditions, after the irruption of the
barbarians had obliterated the civilization of Europe. During the
Tenth and Eleventh centuries rhyme developed mainly in connection with
ecclesiastical poetry. During the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries it
reached an acme of evolution which has never been surpassed during all
the succeeding generations.</p>
<p>It must not be thought that, because so much attention is given to the
Dies Irae, this constitutes the only supremely great hymn of the
Thirteenth Century. There are at least five or six others that well
deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. One of them, the famous
Stabat Mater of Jacopone da Todi, has been considered by some critics
as quite as beautiful as the Dies Irae in poetic expression, though
below it as poetry because of the lesser sublimity of its subject.
Certainly no more marvelously poetic expression of all that is saddest
in human sorrow has ever been put into words, than that which is to be
found in these stanzas of the Franciscan Monk who had himself known
all the depths of human sorrow and trial. Most people know the opening
stanzas of it well enough to scarce need their presentation and yet it
is from the poem itself, and not from any critical appreciation of it,
that its greatness must be judged.</p>
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VIRGIN AND CHILD (PISA, CAMPO SANTO, GIOV. PISANO)</p>
<p>Stabat mater dolorosa<br/>
Juxta crucem lacrymosa,<br/>
Dum pendebat filius,<br/>
Cuius animan gementem,<br/>
Contristantem at dolentem<br/>
Pertransivit gladius.<br/>
<br/>
O quam tristis et afflicta<br/>
Fuit illa benedicta<br/>
Mater unigeniti.<br/>
Quae moerebat et dolebat<br/>
Et tremebat, dum videbat<br/>
Nati poenas inclyti.<br/>
<br/>
Quis est homo, qui non fleret,<br/>
Matrem Christi si videret,<br/>
In tanto supplicio?<br/>
<br/>
Quis non posset contristari,<br/>
Piam matrem contemplari<br/>
Dolentem cum filio!<br/></p>
<p>As in the case of the Dies Irae there have been many translations of
the Stabat Mater, most of them done by poets whose hearts were in
their work and who were accomplishing their purpose as labors of love.
While we realize how many beautiful translations there are, it is
almost pitiful to think what poor English versions are sometimes used
in the devotional exercises of the present day. One of the most
beautiful translations is undoubtedly that by Denis Florence
MacCarthy, who has been hailed as probably the best translator into
English of foreign poetry that our generation has known, and whose
translations of Calderon present the greatest of Spanish poets, in a
dress as worthy of the original as it is possible for a poet to have
in a foreign tongue. MacCarthy has succeeded in following the
intricate rhyme plan of the Stabat with a perfection that would be
deemed almost impossible in our harsher English, which does not
readily yield itself to double rhymes and which permits frequency of
rhyme as a rule only at the sacrifice of vigor of expression. The
first three stanzas, however, of the Stabat Mater will serve to show
how well MacCarthy accomplished his difficult task:</p>
<p>By the cross, on which suspended.<br/>
With his bleeding hands extended,<br/>
Hung that Son she so adored,<br/>
Stood the mournful Mother weeping.<br/>
She whose heart, its silence keeping.<br/>
Grief had cleft as with a sword.<br/>
O, that Mother's sad affliction—<br/>
Mother of all benediction—<br/>
Of the sole-begotten One;<br/>
Oh, the grieving, sense-bereaving,<br/>
Of her heaving breast, perceiving<br/>
The dread sufferings of her Son.<br/>
What man is there so unfeeling.<br/>
Who, his heart to pity steeling.<br/>
Could behold that sight unmoved?<br/>
Could Christ's Mother see there weeping,<br/>
See the pious Mother keeping<br/>
Vigil by the Son she loved?<br/></p>
<p>A very beautiful translation in the meter of the original was also
made by the distinguished Irish poet, Aubrey de Vere. The last two
stanzas of this translation have been considered as perhaps the most
charmingly effective equivalent in English for Jacopone's wonderfully
devotional termination that has ever been written.</p>
<p>May his wounds both wound and heal me;<br/>
His blood enkindle, cleanse, anneal me;<br/>
Be his cross my hope and stay:<br/>
Virgin, when the mountains quiver,<br/>
From that flame which burns for ever,<br/>
Shield me on the judgment-day.<br/>
<br/>
Christ, when he that shaped me calls me,<br/>
When advancing death appalls me.<br/>
Through her prayer the storm make calm:<br/>
When to dust my dust returneth<br/>
Save a soul to thee that yearneth;<br/>
Grant it thou the crown and palm.<br/></p>
<p>Even distinguished professors of philosophy and theology occasionally
indulged themselves in the privilege of writing these Latin hymns and,
what is more surprising, succeeded in making poetry of a very high
order. At least two of the most distinguished professors in these
branches at the University of Paris in the latter half of the
Thirteenth Century, must be acknowledged as having written hymns that
are confessedly immortal, not because of any canonical usage that
keeps them alive, but because they express in very different ways, in
wondrously beautiful language some of the sublimest religious thoughts
of their time. These two are St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan, and St.
Thomas of Aquin, the Dominican. St. Bonaventure's hymns on the Passion
and Cross of Christ represent what has been most beautifully sung on
these subjects in all the ages. St. Thomas' poetic work centers around
the Blessed Sacrament in whose honor he was so ardent and so devoted
that the composition of the office for its feast was confided to
him by the Pope. The hymns he wrote, far from being the series of
prosy theological formulas that might have been expected perhaps under
such circumstances, are great contributions to a form of literature
which contains more gems of purest ray in its collection than almost
any other. St. Thomas' poetic jewels shine with no borrowed radiance,
and their effulgence is not cast into shadow even by the greatest of
their companion pieces among the Latin hymns of a wonderfully
productive century. Neale's tribute to one of them has already been
quoted in an earlier part of this chapter.</p>
<p>It has indeed been considered almost miraculous, that this profoundest
of thinkers should have been able to attain within the bounds of rhyme
and rhythm, the accurate expression of some of the most intricate
theological thoughts that have ever been expressed, and yet should
have accomplished his purpose with a clarity of language, a simplicity
and directness of words, a poetic sympathy of feeling, and an utter
devotion, that make his hymns great literature in the best sense of
the word. One of them at least, the Pange Lingua Gloriosi, has been in
constant use in the church ever since his time, and its two last
stanzas beginning with Tantum Ergo Sacramentum, are perhaps the most
familiar of all the Latin hymns. Few of those most familiar with it
realize its place in literature, the greatness of its author, or its
own marvelous poetic merits.</p>
<p>It must not be forgotten that at the very time when these hymns were
most popular the modern languages were just assuming shape. Even at
the end of the Thirteenth Century none of them had reached anything
like the form that it was to continue to hold, except perhaps the
Italian and to some extent the Spanish. When Dante wrote his Divine
Comedy at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, he was tempted to
use the Latin language, the common language of all the scholars of his
day, and the language ordinarily used for any ambitious literary
project for nearly a century later. It will not be forgotten that when
Petrarch in the Fourteenth Century wrote his epic, Africa, on which he
expected his fame as a poet to rest, he preferred to use the Latin
language. Fortunately Dante was large enough of mind to realize, that
the vulgar tongue of the Italians would prove the best
instrument for the expression of the thoughts he wished to
communicate, and so he cast the Italian language into the mold in
which it has practically ever since remained.</p>
<p>His very hesitation, however, shows how incomplete as yet were these
modern languages considered by the scholars who used them. It was at
this very formative period, however, that the people on whose use of
the nascent modern languages their future character depended, were
having dinned into their ears in the numerous church services, the
great Latin hymns with their wonderful finish of expression.
Undoubtedly one of the most effective factors of whatever of sweetness
there is in the modern tongues, must be attributed to this influence
exerted all unconsciously upon the minds of the people. The rhythm and
the expressiveness of these magnificent poems could scarcely fail to
stamp itself to some degree upon the language, crude though it might
be, of the people who had become so familiar with them. It is, then,
to no small extent because of the influence of these Latin hymns that
our modern languages possess a rhythmic melodiousness that in time
enabled them to become the instruments for poetic diction in such a
way as to satisfy all the requirements of the modern ear in rhyme, and
rhythm, and meter. A striking corresponding effect upon the exactness
of expression in the modern languages, it will be noticed, is pointed
out in the chapter on the Prose of the Century as representing,
according to Professor Saintsbury, the greatest benefit that was
derived from the exaggerated practise of dialectic disputation in the
curriculum of the medieval Universities.</p>
<p>Those who would think that the Thirteenth Century was happy in
creative genius but lacking in the critical faculty that would enable
it to select the best, not only of the hymns presented by its own
generations but also of those which came from the preceding centuries,
should make themselves acquainted with the history of these Latin
hymns. Just before the Thirteenth Century the monks of the famous
Abbey of St. Victor took up the writing of hymns with wonderful
success and two of them, Adam and Hugh, became not only the favorites
of their own but of succeeding generations. The Thirteenth
Century received the work of these men and gave them a vogue which has
continued down to our own time. Some of the hymns that were thus
acclaimed and made popular are among the greatest contributions to
this form of literature, and while they have had periods of eclipse
owing to bad taste in the times that followed, the reputation secured
during the Thirteenth Century has always been sufficient to recall
them to memory and bring men again to a realization of their beauty
when a more esthetic generation came into existence.</p>
<p>One of the hymns of the immediately preceding time, which attained
great popularity during the Thirteenth Century—a popularity that
reflects credit on those among whom it is noted as well as upon the
great hymn itself—was Bernard of Cluny's or Bernard of Morlaix's
hymn, concerning the contempt of the world, many of the ideas of which
were to be used freely in the book bearing this title written by the
first Pope of the century, Innocent III, whose name is usually, though
gratuitously associated with quite other ideas than those of contempt
for worldly grandeur. The description of the New Jerusalem to come,
which is found at the beginning of this great poem, is the basis of
all the modern religious poems on this subject. Few hymns have been
more praised. Schaff, in his Christ in Song says: "This glowing
description is the sweetest of all the new Jerusalem Hymns of Heavenly
Homesickness which have taken their inspiration from the last two
chapters of Revelation." The extreme difficulty of the meter which its
author selected and which would seem almost to preclude the
possibility of expressing great connected thought, especially in so
long a poem, became under the master hand of this poetic genius, whose
command of the Latin language is unrivaled, the source of new beauties
for his poem. Besides maintaining the meter of the old Latin
hexameters he added double rhymes in each line and yet had every
alternate line also end in a rhyme. To appreciate the difficulty this
must be read.</p>
<p>Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus,<br/>
Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus<br/>
Imminet, imminet ut mala terminet, aequa coronet.<br/>
Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, aethera donet,<br/>
Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustae,<br/>
Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque juste.<br/>
<br/>
Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;<br/>
Non breve vivere, non breve plangere retribuetur;<br/>
O retributio! stat brevis actio, vita perennis;<br/>
O retributio! coelica mansio stat lue plenis;<br/>
Quid datur et quibus? aether egentibus et cruce dignis,<br/>
Sidera vermibus, optima sontibus, astra malignis.<br/></p>
<p>There are many versions, but few translators have dared to attempt a
close imitation of the original meter. Its beauty is so great,
however, that even the labor required for this has not deterred some
enthusiastic admirers. Our English tongue, however, does not lend
itself readily to the production of hexameters, though in these lines
the rhyme and rhythm has been caught to some extent:</p>
<p>"These are the latter times, these are not better times;<br/>
Let us stand waiting;<br/>
Lo! how with, awfulness, He, first in lawfulness,<br/>
Comes arbitrating."<br/></p>
<p>Even from this it may be realized that Doctor Neale is justified in
his enthusiastic opinion that "it is the most lovely, in the same way
that the Dies Irae is the most sublime, and the Stabat Mater the most
pathetic, of medieval poems."</p>
<p>While it scarcely has a place here properly, a word must be said with
regard to the music of the Thirteenth Century. It might possibly be
thought that these wondrous rhymes had been spoiled in their
effectiveness by the crude music to which they were set. To harbor any
such notion, however, would only be another exhibition of that
intellectual snobbery which concludes that generations so distant
could not have anything worth the consideration of our more developed
time. The music of the Thirteenth Century is as great a triumph as any
other feature of its accomplishment. It would be clearly absurd to
suppose, that the people who created the Cathedrals and made every
element associated with the church ceremonial so beautiful as to
attract the attention of all generations since, could have failed to
develop a music suitable to these magnificent fanes. As a matter
of fact no more suitable music for congregational singing than the
Gregorian Chant, which reached the acme of its development in the
Thirteenth Century, has been invented, and the fact that the Catholic
Church, after having tried modern music, is now going back to this
medieval musical mode for devotional expression, is only a further
noteworthy tribute to the enduring character of another phase of
Thirteenth Century accomplishment.</p>
<p>Rockstro, who wrote the article on Plain Chant for Grove's Dictionary
of Music and for the Encyclopedia Britannica, declared that no more
wonderful succession of single notes, had even been strung into
melodies so harmoniously adapted to the expression of the words with
which they were to be sung, than some of these Plain Chants of the
Middle Ages and especially of the Thirteenth Century. No more
sublimely beautiful musical expression of all the depths there are in
sadness has ever found its way into music, than what is so simply
expressed in the Lamentations as they are sung in the office called
Tenebrae during Holy Week. Even more beautiful in its joyousness is
the marvelous melody of the Exultet which is sung in the Office of
Holy Saturday. This latter is said to be the sublimest expression of
joyful sound that has ever come from the human heart and mind. In a
word, in music as in every other artistic department, the men of the
Thirteenth Century reached a standard that has never been excelled and
that remains to the present day as a source of pleasure and admiration
for intellectual men, and will continue to be so for numberless
generations yet unborn.</p>
<p>Nor must it be thought that the Thirteenth Century men and women were
satisfied with Church music alone. About the middle of the century
part singing came into use in the churches at the less formal
ceremonials, and soon spread to secular uses. As the Mystery Plays
gave rise to the modern drama, so church music gave birth to the
popular music of the time. In England, particularly, about the middle
of the century, various glee songs were sung, portions of which have
come down to us, and a great movement of folk music was begun. Before
the end of the century the interaction of church and secular music had
given rise to many of the modes of modern musical development,
and the musical movement was as substantially begun as were any of the
other great artistic and intellectual movements which this century so
marvelously initiated. This subject, of course, is of the kind that
needs to be studied in special works if any satisfactory amount of
information is to be obtained, but even the passing hint of it which
we have been able to give will enable the reader to realize the
important place of the Thirteenth Century in the development of modern
music.</p>
<p class="image">
<ANTIMG alt="" src="images/i208.jpg" border=1><br/>
ENTOMBMENT OF BLESSED VIRGIN (NOTRE DAME, PARIS)</p>
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