Christ Episcopal Church, Cooperstown

Hymns through History: Session 2

Hymns of the Medieval Church

Monastic life dominates Christian worship in the early Middle Ages

  • The Barbarian invasions of the fifth century lead to an economic and cultural collapse
  • Church leadership had been centered in Mediterranean cities after the conversion of Constantine, but influence shifts to large monasteries, which become centers of literary and theological work
  • Monastic Prayer is centered on cycle of offices: prayer 8 times a day [Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline], mostly using Psalms
  • Office hymns are composed for these eight services: variable hymns at seasons and feasts for Greater Hours [Matins, Lauds, Vespers], fixed hymns at lesser hours
  • Western chant tradition [Gregorian] largely fixed by sixth century—unaccompanied, unison singing, requiring substantial training—significant use confined to monasteries, cathedrals, large urban churches
  • Music played very little role in worship in most parish churches, where the regular service was Daily Mass with very limited congregational participation

Monastic Office Hymns: celebrate the major doctrinal themes of the seasons and feasts of the Church Year

  • Theologically rich and symbolically complex: designed for literate worshippers, who would experience the hymns continually
  • Objective and communal in tone: definitely for group usage, not expressions of individual experience: appropriate for using in closely-knit communities
  • Set metrical schemes, consistent ending with doxology [praise to Triune God] and Amen

The Glory of these Forty Days: Office Hymn at Matins from Lent 3-Passion Sunday

attributed to Gregory the Great, known to date from 10th Century

The glory of these forty days
We celebrate with songs of praise;
For Christ, by Whom all things were made,
Himself has fasted and has prayed.

Alone and fasting Moses saw
The loving God Who gave the law;
And to Elijah, fasting, came
The steeds and chariots of flame.

So Daniel trained his mystic sight,
Delivered from the lions’ might;
And John, the Bridegroom’s friend, became
The herald of Messiah’s Name.

Then grant us, Lord, like them to be
Full oft in fast and prayer with Thee;
Our spirits strengthen with Thy grace,
And give us joy to see Thy face.

O Father, Son, and Spirit blest,
To thee be every prayer addressed,
Who art in threefold Name adored,
From age to age, the only Lord.

Medieval Devotional Hymns: various religious reforms in medieval Christianity inspire poetry expressing the experience of love for God and devotion to Christ—esp. Cistercians [12th cent], Franciscans [13th cent], Devotio Moderna [14th-15th cent.]

  • More personal, emotional: 1st person voice
  • Tends to focus on Christ’s humanity—especially in relation to his birth and crucifixion
  • Not generally intended for public worship, many texts from this era not used as hymns until much later—used as meditation texts, or for small group gatherings
  • As Latin became less familiar, this kind of poetry increasingly written in vernacular: e.g. Christmas carols

Humbly, I Adore Thee

[attributed to Thomas Aquinas, 13th cent.]

Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen,
who thy glory hidest 'neath these shadows mean;
low, to thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed,
tranced as it beholds thee, shrined within the cloud.

Taste and touch and vision to discern thee fail;
faith, that comes by hearing, pierces through the veil.
I believe whate're the Son of God hath told;
what the Truth hath spoken, that for truth I hold.

O memorial wondrous of the Lord's own death;
living Bread that givest all thy creatures breath,
grant my spirit ever by thy life may live,
to my taste thy sweetness neverfailing give.

Anglican reclaiming and translation: many medieval hymns remained in use within the Latin Daily Office used by Roman Catholics, but most were lost to English-speaking church world at Reformation. Most translations we use today are 19th century, made by Anglicans

  • Romantic era sees renewal of interest in medieval culture
  • Oxford Movement brings Catholic revival to Anglicanism from 1830’s—part of this is reclaiming doctrine and piety that had been lost at the Reformation
  • By mid-19th century, English hymnody was strongly associated with “non-conformist Churches’ [Baptist, Congregationalist, Methodist] and sentimental content—bringing medieval hymns back into use was a Catholic-minded alternative
  • Using the hymns was also a way of claiming that medieval spirituality was not just the property of Roman Catholics: esp. true of Irish hymnody

Saint Patrick’s Breastplate

[6th cent. text attributed to St. Patrick, but translated by Cecil Frances Alexander]

I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.

I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven
the glorious sun's life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
around the old eternal rocks.