regia Dei. Even the Te Deum was adapted to her by the distinguished St. Bonaventura so as to read
"Te Matrem laudamus, Te Virginem confitemur."^470
The Latin, as the Greek, hymnists were nearly all monks; but an emperor (Charlemagne?)
and a king (Robert of France) claim a place of honor among them.
The sacred poetry of the Latin church may be divided into three periods: 1, The patristic
period from Hilary (d. 368) and Ambrose (d. 397) to Venantius Fortunatus (d. about 609) and
Gregory I. (d. 604); 2, the early mediaeval period to Peter Damiani (d. 1072); 3, the classical period
to the thirteenth century. The first period we have considered in a previous volume. Its most precious
legacy to the church universal is the Te Deum laudamus. It is popularly ascribed to Ambrose of
Milan (or Ambrose and Augustin jointly), but in its present completed form does not appear before
the first half of the sixth century, although portions of it may be traced to earlier Greek origin; it
is, like the Apostles’ Creed, and the Greek Gloria in Excelsis, a gradual growth of the church rather
than the production of any individual.^471 The third period embraces the greatest Latin hymnists, as
Bernard of Morlaix (monk of Cluny about 1150), Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), Adam of St.
Victor (d. 1192), Bonaventura (d. 1274), Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), Thomas a Celano (about
1250), Jacopone (d. 1306), and produced the last and the best Catholic hymns which can never die,
as Hora Novisasima; Jesu dulcis memoria; Salve caput cruentatum; Stabat Mater; and Dies Irae.
In this volume we are concerned with the second period.
Venantius Fortunatus, of Poitiers, and his cotemporary, Pope Gregory I., form the transition
from the patristic poetry of Sedulius and Prudentius to the classic poetry of the middle ages.
Fortunatus (about 600)^472 was the fashionable poet of his day. A native Italian, he emigrated
to Gaul, travelled extensively, became intimate with St. Gregory of Tours, and the widowed queen
Radegund when she lived in ascetic retirement, and died as bishop of Poitiers. He was the first
master of the trochaic tetrameter, and author of three hundred poems, chief among which are the
two famous passion hymns:
"Vexilla regis prodeunt,"
"The Royal Banners forward go;"
and
"Pange, lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis,"
"Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle."
(^470) See the Marianic Te Deumin Daniel, II. 293; and in Mone, II. 229 sq.
(^471) A curious mediaeval legend makes the Te Deumthe joint product of St. Ambrose and St. Augustin, which was
alternately uttered by both, as by inspiration, while Augustin ascended from the baptismal font; Ambrose beginning: Te Deum
laudamus, Augustin responding; "Te Dominum confitemur." But neither the writings of one or the other contain the slightest
trace of the hymn and its origin. The first historic testimony of its existence and use is the eleventh rule of St. Benedict of
Nursia,a.d.529, which prescribes to the monks of Monte Casino: "Post guartum autem responsorium incipiat Abbas hymnum
Te Deum laudamus." But five or eight lines of the hymn are found in Greek as a part of the Gloria in Excelsis(Δοξαἐνὑψίστοις,
etc. ) in the Alexandrian Codex of the Bible which dates from the fifth century. See Daniel, II 289 sqq.;Christ p. 39 (from
καθ̓ἡμέρανto εἰςτοὺςαἰω̑νας), and Kayser, 437 sqq. Daniel traces the whole Te Deumto a lost Greek original (of which the
lines in the Cod. Alex. are a fragment), Kayser to an unknown Latin author in the second half of the fifth century, i.e. about
one hundred years after the death of St. Ambrose.
(^472) The dates of his birth and death are quite uncertain, and variously stated from 530 or 550 to 600 or 609.