Audi, benigne conditor

Audi, benigne conditor. Latin, anonymous. Daniel’s attribution to Gregory the Great* in Thesaurus Hymnologicus I. 178 is entirely unfounded. It entered the liturgical tradition in the 9th-century New Hymnal (see ‘Medieval hymns and hymnals’*), where it is commonly found as the ferial Vespers hymn during Lent. Milfull’s translation of verse 1 makes its explicitly Lenten character clear: ‘Benign creator, hear our prayers accompanied by weeping, poured out during this holy forty-day period of fasting.’ A partial survey of sources preserved in modern day Germany and Austria provides a useful illustration of the varied - but consistently Lenten - uses to which this hymn was put through the...