Chapter XXXVI

., III.

[298] It is printed in Migne 209. Cf. _post_, p. 230, note 1.

[299] The _Ligurinus_ is printed in tome 212 of Migne’s _Patrol. Lat._ On its author see Pannenborg, _Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte_, Band ii. pp. 161-301, and Band xiii. pp. 225-331 (Göttingen, 1871 and 1873).

[300] Alanus de Insulis, _De planctu naturae_ (Migne 210, col. 447). A translation of the work has been made by D. M. Moffat (New York, 1908). For other examples of Sapphic and Alcaic verses see Hauréau in _Notices et extraits, etc._, 31 (2), p. 165 _sqq._

[301] Wilhelm Meyer, a leading authority upon mediaeval Latin verse-structure, derives the principle of a like number of syllables in every line from eastern Semitic influence upon the early Christians. See _Fragmenta Burana_ (Berlin, 1901), pp. 151, 166. That may have had its effect; but I do not see the need of any cause from afar to account for the syllabic regularity of Latin accentual verse.

[302] Again Wilhelm Meyer’s view: see _l.c._ and the same author’s “Anfänge der latein. und griech. rhythmischen Dichtung,” _Abhand. der Bairish. Akad. Philos., philol. Klasse_, 1886.

[303] _Poet. Lat. aev. Car._ i. 116. Cf. Ebert, _Gesch. etc._ ii. 86. For similar verses see those on the battle at Fontanetum (A.D. 841), _Poet. Lat. aev. Car._ ii. 138, and the carmen against the town of Aquilegia, _ibid._ p. 150.

[304] Cf. _ante_, Vol. I., pp. 227, 228.

[305] Traube, _Poetae Lat. aevi Car._ iii. p. 731. Cf. Ebert, _Gesch. etc._ ii. 169 and 325.

[306] _Poet. Lat. aev. Car._ iii. 733.

[307] Du Meril, _Poésies populaires latines_, i. 400.

Perhaps the most successful attempt to write hexameters containing rhymes or assonances is the twelfth-century poem of Bernard Morlanensis, a monk of Cluny, beginning with the famous lines:

“Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus. Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus.”

Bernardi Morlanensis, _De contemptu mundi_, ed. by Thos. Wright, Master of the Rolls Series, vol. 59 (ii.), 1872. Bernard says in his Preface, as to his measures: “Id genus metri, tum dactylum continuum exceptis finalibus, tum etiam sonoritatem leonicam servans....”

[308] “Carmina Mutinensia,” _Poet. Lat. aev. Car._ iii. 703. The poem has forty-two lines, of which the above are the first four. The usual date assigned is 924, but Traube in _Poet. aev. Car._ has put it back to 892.

[309] See further text and discussion in Traube, “O Roma nobilis,” _Abhand. Bairish. Akad. Philos., philol. Klasse_, 1891.

[310] The verbal Sequence or _prosa_ was thus a species of _trope_. Tropes were interpolations or additions to the older text of the Liturgy. The Sequences were the tropes appended to the last Alleluia of the _Gradual_, the psalm chanted in the celebration of the Mass, between the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel. Cf. Leon Gautier, _Poésie liturgique au moyen âge_, chap. iii. (Paris, 1886); _ibid._ _Œuvres poétiques d’Adam de Saint-Victor_, p. 281 _sqq._ (3rd ed., Paris, 1894).

[311] On the Sequence see Leon Gautier, _Poésie liturgique au moyen âge_ (Paris, 1886), _passim_, and especially the comprehensive summary in the notes from p. 154 to p. 159. Also see Schubiger, _Die Sängerschule St. Gallus_ (1858), in which many of Notker’s Sequences are given with the music; also v. Winterfeld, “Die Dichterschule St. Gallus und Reichenau,” _Neue Jahrbücher f. d. klassisch. Altertum_, Bd. v. (1900), p. 341 _sqq._

The present writer has found Wilhelm Meyer’s _Fragmenta Burana_ (Berlin, 1901) most suggestive; and in all matters pertaining to mediaeval Latin verse-forms, use has been made of the same writer’s exhaustive study: “Ludus de Antichristo und über lat. Rythmen,” _Sitzungsber. Bairisch. Akad. Philos., philol. Klasse_, 1882. See also Ch. Thurot, “Notices, etc., de divers MSS. latins pour servir à l’histoire des doctrines grammaticales au moyen âge,” in vol. xxii. (2) of _Notices et extraits des MSS._ pp. 417-457.

[312] “May our trumpet be guided mightily by God’s right hand, and may He hear our prayers with gentle and tranquil ear: for our praise will be accepted if what we sing with the voice a pure conscience sings likewise. And that we may be able, let us all beseech divine aid to be always present with us.... O good King, kind, just, and pitying, who art the way and the door, unlock the gates of the kingdom for us, we beg, and pardon our offences, that we may praise thy name now and through all the ages.”

[313] G. M. Dreves, “Die Prosen der Abtei St. Martial zu Limoges,” p. 59 (vol. vii. of Dreves’s _Analecta hymnica medii aevi_; Leipzig, 1889). “Let every band sing with fount renewed and the Spirit’s grace with joyful praise and clear mind. Now is made good the tenth part (_i.e._ the fallen angels), undone by fault; and thus that celestial casting out is made good in divine praise. Lo! the bright day of the Lord gleams through the broad spaces of the world: in which all the redeemed people exult because everlasting death is destroyed.”

[314] Published by Boucherie, “Mélanges Latins, etc.,” _Revue des langues romanes_, t. vii. (1875), p. 35.

“Alleluia! O flock, proclaim joy; with melodious praise utter deeds divine now fixed by revealed doctrine. Through the great sacrifice of Christ thou art liberated from death; the gates of hell destroyed, opened are heaven’s doors. Now He rules all things celestial and terrestrial by eternal power; wherein by the Father’s authority He gives judgment always just.”

[315] See Gautier, _Poésie liturgique_, p. 147 _sqq._ It came somewhat earlier in Italy. See Ronca, _Cultura medioevale, etc._, p. 348 _sqq._ (Rome, 1892).

[316] While Sequences may be called hymns, all hymns are not Sequences. For the hymn is the general term designating a verbal composition sung in praise of God or His saints. A Sequence then would be a hymn having a peculiar history and a certain place in the Liturgy.

[317] Contained in Migne 178, col. 1771 _sqq._ They have not been properly edited or even fully published.

[318] Reference should also be made to the six laments (_planctus_) composed by Abaelard (Migne 178, col. 1817-1823). They are powerful elegies, and exhibit a richness and variety of poetic measures. It may be mentioned that the pure two-syllable rhyme is found in hymns ascribed to Saint Bernard.

[319] Leon Gautier, the editor of the _Œuvres poétiques d’Adam de Saint-Victor_, in his third edition of 1894, has thrown out from among Adam’s poems our first and third examples. On Adam see _ante_,