Ambrosian hymns

Latin hymnody in from the 4th century. Contained in the Old and New Hymnals. The Ambrosian hymns are a collection of early hymns of the Latin liturgical rites, whose core of four hymns were by Ambrose of Milan in the 4th century. The hymns of this core were enriched with another eleven to form the Old Hymnal, which spread from the Ambrosian Rite of Milan throughout Lombard Italy, Visigothic Spain, Anglo Saxon England and the Frankish Empire during the early medieval period (6th to 8th centuries); in this context, therefore, the term “Ambrosian” does not imply authorship by Ambrose himself, to whom only four hymns are attributed with certainty, but includes all Latin hymns composed in the style of the Old Hymnal. The Frankish Hymnal, and to a lesser extent the “Mozarabic (Spanish) Hymnal” represent a reorganisation of the Old Hymnal undertaken in the 8th century. In the 9th century, the Frankish Hymnal was in turn re organised and expanded, resulting in the high medieval New Hymnal of the Benedictine order, which spread rapidly throughout Europe in the 10th century, containing on the order of 150 hymns in total.

The earliest Latin hymns were built on the template of the hymns (ῠ̔́μνοι) of the Greek and Syriac churches of the second to third centuries. The first Latin hymns were composed by Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367), who had spent in Asia Minor some years of exile from his see, and had thus become acquainted with the hymns of the Eastern Church; his Liber Hymnorum has not survived. Hilary, who is mentioned by Isidore of Seville as the first to compose Latin hymns, and Ambrose (d. 397), styled by Dreves (1893) “the Father of Church song”, are linked together as pioneers of Western hymnody. The Old Hymnal consists of the extant Latin hymns composed during the 4th and 5th centuries. The hymns of the Old Hymnal are in a severe style, clothing Christian ideas in classical phraseology, and yet appealing to popular tastes. At the core of these is the hymn Te Deum. Since the spread of the Old Hymnal is closely associated with the Ambrosian Rite, Te Deum had long been known as “the Ambrosian Hymn”. While it certainly dates to the 4th century, Ambrose's authorship is no longer taken for granted, the hymn being variously ascribed to Hilary, Augustine of Hippo, or Nicetas of Remesiana. Isidore, who died in 636, testifies to the spread of the custom from Milan throughout the whole of the West, and first refers to the hymns as “Ambrosian”.

The Ambrosian strophe has four verses of iambic dimeters (eight syllables), e. g. —

Aeterne rerum Conditor, / noctem diemque qui regis, / et temporum das tempora / ut alleves fastidium. The metre differs but slightly from the rhythm of prose, is easy to construct and to memorize, adapts itself very well to all kinds of subjects, offers sufficient metric variety in the odd feet (which may be either iambic or spondaic), while the form of the strophe lends itself well to musical settings (as the English accentual counterpart of the metric and strophic form illustrates). This poetic form has always been the favourite for liturgical hymns, as the Roman Breviary will show at a glance. But in earlier times the form was almost exclusively used, down to and beyond the eleventh century. Out of 150 hymns in the eleventh century Benedictine hymnals, for example, not a dozen are in other metres; and the Ambrosian Breviary re edited by Charles Borromeo in 1582 has its hymns in that metre almost exclusively. It should be said, however, that even in the days of Ambrose the classical metres were slowly giving place to accentual ones, as his work occasionally shows; while in subsequent ages, down to the reform of the Breviary under pope Urban VIII, hymns were composed most largely by accented measure.

The term “Old Hymnal” refers to Benedictine hymnals of the 6th to 8th centuries. Gneuss' (1968) distinguished the core “Old Hymnal I” of the 6th century, with about 15 hymns, from the 8th century “Old Hymnal II”, with about 25 hymns, including both additions and deletions in comparison with Old Hymnal I.
Gneuss (1974) renamed his “Old Hymnal II” to “Frankish Hymnal”. The Frankish Hymnal represents a revision of the Old Hymnal taking place in the Frankish Empire during the 8th to early 9th centuries. By contrast, the Old Hymnal came to Anglo Saxon England with the Gregorian mission, and the Anglo Saxon church does not seem to have adopted the Frankish Hymnal. Sometimes also distinguished is a “Mozarabic Hymnal” or “Spanish Hymnal”, which adopted some but not all innovations of the Frankish Hymnal. The Frankish Hymnal itself was replaced by the so called New Hymnal, beginning in the 9th century. This development was possibly associated with the reforms of Benedict of Aniane, but its rapid success also suggests support form the secular authorities (the Carolingians, viz. Louis the Pious and his successors). The New Hymnal spread rapidly throughout Europe by the early 10th century, and reached England with the English Benedictine Reform in the late 10th century. The earliest extant form of the New Hymnal has 38 hymns. Gneuss (1968) lists a total of 133 hymns of the New Hymnal based on English Benedictine manuscripts of the 10th and 11th centuries. The Cistercian order in the 12th century again simplified the New Hymnal to a core of 34 hymns which they thought were purely Ambrosian, but this was again expanded with an additional 25 hymns in 1147. Peter Abelard composed more than 90 entirely new hymns, and large numbers of further new hymns were composed by members of the Franciscans and Dominicans in the 13th century, resulting in a very large body of Latin hymns beyond the Benedictine New Hymnal preserved in manuscripts of the late medieval period. The New Hymnal was substantially revised in the 17th century, under the humanist Pope Urban VIII, whose alterations are inherited in the current day Roman Breviary.

Gneuss (1968) lists 133 hymns of the New Hymnal, based on their sequence in Durham Cathedral Library B. III.32. Gneuss' index of the “Old Hymnal” includes hymns of the Frankish Hymnal (called “Old Hymnal II” in Gneuss 1968).