Hymns

Although its functional origin as a liturgical practice may be linked to the psalms, readings, and prayers of Jewish synagogue worship around the time of Christ, the history of medieval hymnody is, in the main, the history of Christian Latin poetry. Influenced first by early hymn-writers’ education in classical grammar and rhetoric, the hymn quickly assumed the role assigned it by Augustine: “the praise of God, when sung,” framed broadly at first, and then acquiring typical habits of meter and rhyme and a specific liturgical function. Poetic texts penned by early Christian authors attained fame and were assumed into collective liturgical practice. They were joined by newly-written medieval hymns, constructed with the liturgical context in mind and often written for a particular occasion (i.e., the liturgical observance of a saint’s day). Some later medieval Latin poetry served more overtly devotional purposes. The earliest extant Latin hymns were written by Ambrose of Milan in the 4th century. These, together with others, were incorporated into the structures of liturgy set out by the architects of monastic life, including Saint Benedict. Other “hymns” were drawn from sacred Latin poetry in longer form and from across the Christian West, and many more were written through the Carolingian Renaissance. Even more hymns were written for specific occasions in the liturgical calendar up to the end of the Middle Ages, many anonymous but some written by literary luminaries such as Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas. These proper hymns replaced those of the day or of the relevant portion of the Common of Saints. By Augustine’s definition, hymns are sung praises, but relatively little work has been done on the music to which the much more extensively studied texts are sung. This may be a consequence of two factors. First, the melodies were broadly interchangeable, since the texts had been written in a limited number of meters. Second, they tended to vary quite considerably. Hiley’s Western Plainchant: A handbook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) suggests that thirty or fewer hymns were sung to the same melodies across the whole of Europe. They do not always correspond to the conventions of other liturgical melodies in terms of structure, cadence, or text-setting, making them difficult to compare with the chants for other genres.