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ADAM of St Victor. d. Paris, 1146. The earliest identification of this figure is probably the signature 'Subdeacon Adam' in a 1098 charter of Notre Dame cathedral, Paris. He was certainly precentor there by 1107, although he became an Augustinian canon* at the Abbey of St Victor in Paris ca. 1133 after being part of a failed attempt to impose the Augustinian rule on the cathedral canons. A vita of Adam was later written by a monk of the Abbey of St Victor, William of St Lô (d. 1349).
In modern...
Adoro te devote, latens Deitas. Thomas Aquinas* (ca. 1224/5-1274).
This hymn is of uncertain date, but St Thomas Aquinas is known to have been writing on the Eucharist during his second stay in Paris, and it may therefore have been written ca. 1260. It is ascribed to Thomas Aquinas in the majority of manuscript witnesses, many of which are associated with Naples and/or Dominicans. The hymn did not enter liturgical use during the middle ages, although its focus is the Eucharist. Instead, it had...
VINET, Alexandre. b. near Lausanne, 17 June 17, 1797; d. Clarens, 4 May 1847. Vinet was a literary critic, with essays on Pascal, Racine and Châteaubriand, pastor in the Canton of Vaud, moralist, and poet.
Vinet studied theology in Lausanne. He taught French and French literature at the Basel gymnasium as early as 1817, before being ordained in his native town in 1819. During this period he acted as a stand-in for other pastors in Basel. In 1819 he became a privat-docent at the University,...
ANSELM. b. Aosta, Italy, 1033; d. 21 April 1109. Anselm studied under Lanfranc at the Norman abbey of Bec where he became a monk in 1060, prior in 1063, and abbot in 1078. He was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. A philosopher and theologian, he is famous for formulating the ontological argument for the existence of God: nothing greater than God can be imagined and reality consists of more than what is imagined, therefore God exists in reality. 'Quid commisisti, dulcissime puer'*,...
BOURIGNON, Antoinette. b. Lille, France, 13 January 1616; d. Franeker, the Netherlands, 30 October 1680. She early demonstrated an enthusiasm for religion: she refused the husband chosen for her by her father and devoted her life to a mystical and spiritual life. She had a vision that she was chosen to restore the church to a primitive Christianity, and she was engaged for much of her life in controversy with established religion. She later lived in Ghent and in Amsterdam, where her voluminous...
PICTET, Bénédict. b. Geneva, 19 May 1655; d.10 January?/9 June? 1724. Pictet was the son of André Pictet and Barbe Turrettini. He was a Calvinist theologian who revised the Psalter, and who was a pioneer in writing hymns in French-speaking Reformed circles. He was educated by his maternal uncle and godfather, the professor of theology François Turrettini (1623-87), an influential figure in the Reformed Church of Geneva and a defender of the strictest Calvinism. At the age of 14, he entered the...
HUIJBERS, Bernard . b. Rotterdam, 24 July 1922; d. Espeilhac, France, 15 April 2003. Huijbers studied under Ernest Mulder during his Jesuit course of training, graduating as a schoolmaster in 1960 and serving (in the tradition of many continental liturgical musicians) as school master and master of music at the St Ignatius College, Amsterdam, until 1969. More importantly he became associated with the Dominicuskerk where he collaborated with the librettist Huub Oosterhuis*. He left the Jesuits...
BERNARD of Clairvaux. b. Fontaines-lez-Dijon, Côte-d'Or, ca. 1090 ; d. 1153. He was born, probably in 1090, at the castle of the son of Tescelin le Saur, lord of Fontaine, vassal of the duke of Burgundy, and of Aleth de Montbard. He studied with the canons of Saint-Vorles at Châtillon-sur-Seine. In 1112, Bernard, accompanied by thirty followers, entered Cîteaux Abbey (founded in 1098 by Robert de Molesme); he took vows one year later. In 1115, at the request of Abbot Stephen Harding, Bernard...
BERNARD of Cluny. Dates unknown, 12th century. Little is known of Bernard's life. He is sometimes referred to as 'Bernard of Morlaix' (for example by John Mason Neale*). Neale believed that Bernard had been born in Brittany of English parents, but this is not certain. He entered the monastery at Cluny, and was a monk there under Peter the Venerable*, abbot from 1122 to 1157. He dedicated his great poem, De Contemptu Mundi, to 'Peter his abbot'. It is a remarkable work of 2966 lines, written in...
Bonaventura da Bagnoregio (Giovanni di Fidanza) b. Bagnoregio, Italy, ca. 1217; d. Lyons, France, 14 July 1274. The rise of St Bonaventura from young scholar to prominent theologian and mystic, minister general of the Order of Friars Minor, prelate, and advisor of popes is one of the remarkable stories of the Middle Ages. There is no contemporary source of biographical information about Bonaventura. The earliest are a 15th-century biography by Mariano of Florence and a Chronicle of the...
COFFIN, Charles. b. Buzancy, 4 October 1676; d. 20 June 1749. Buzancy is a small town in the present-day département of Ardennes, in the diocese of Rheims. Coffin left there in 1693 for Paris to complete his education. He was an outstanding student: as the favoured successor of Charles Rollin, he became a tutor of the Collège de Beauvais and then (1712) its head. In 1718 he was elected rector of the University of Paris and did much to reorganize its finances. He was entrusted with delivering...
Chorus novae Ierusalem. Perhaps by Fulbert of Chartres* (d. 1028). It is ascribed to St Fulbert, although, as Milfull points out, if it was by him it must have become popular very quickly (Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 452), since it is found in two 11th century MSS (British Library, Vesp. D. xii, f. 72b and St Gall 387). It is written in the Ambrosian iambic dimeter (8+8+8+8 syllables in each verse).
It is an Eastertide hymn, with the first verse inviting 'colens cum sobriis paschale...
URHAN (Auerhahn), Chrétien. b. Montjoie, near Aix-la Chapelle (now Aachen, Germany), 16 February 1790; d. Belleville, Paris, 2 November 1845. He came from a musical family, and was taught by his father: he became an accomplished violin, viola, and piano player. In 1805 the Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, ordered him to Paris, where he became a specialist in the violon-alto, a violin with a C string added. Berlioz requested him for the viola solo in the first performance of Harold...
Christe, qui sedes Olympo. Jean-Baptiste de Santeuil* (1630-1697).
First published in the Cluniac Breviary of 1686, and then in Santeuil's Hymni Sacri et Novi (1689), for the Feast of St Michael and all angels, 'XXIX Septembris'. In 1689 the first lines were:
Christe, summi Rex Olympi,Par Deo Patri DeusQuem tremiscunt intuendoSanctiores Spiritus:
It had seven stanzas. It was translated by William Palmer* in his Short Poems and Hymns (1845) as 'Christ, in highest heaven enthronèd'*, a first...
BENOIT, Claire-Lise de. b. Calcutta 28 August 1917; d. Geneva (?) 15 November 2008. She was the eldest of seven children born to Pierre and Renée de Benoit. Her father was a Missionary Doctor in India. She became a Scripture Union pioneer worker in French-speaking Switzerland, and a well known Evangelical hymnwriter.
From 1939, remaining single, she developed children's work over forty years through holiday camps and publishing. She represented the Scripture Union at an international level....
SANTEUIL, Claude de. b. 3 February 1628; d. 29 September 1684. Born into a prosperous Parisian family, he became a secular ecclesiastic at the Seminary of St Magloire, Paris, taking the name 'Santolius Maglorianus'. He was invited by Cardinal Péréfixe and Archbishop Harlay to revise the Paris Breviary, which appeared in 1680, containing some of his hymns and those of his younger brother, Jean-Baptiste de Santeuil*. He is best known for the hymn 'Prome vocem, mens, canoram', translated by John...
GOUDIMEL, Claude. b. Besançon, ca. 1520 ; d. Lyon, 28-31 August 1572. Goudimel played a leading part in the creation of the French Psalter (1539; see French Protestant psalms*) with his harmonizations of melodies created by Loys Bourgeois*, Pierre Davantès*, Guillaume Franc* and other musicians from Strasbourg such as Matthäus Greiter*. The exact year of Goudimel's birth is not known (the Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary proposes 1505, certain American, English and German musicologists...
LE JEUNE, Claude (Claudin). b. Valenciennes, ca. 1530; d. Paris, 1600 (buried 26 September). Le Jeune was an outstanding protestant French composer of psalms, and the best theorician and composer of the so called 'musique mesurée à l'antique' in France. He was educated in or near his native town, belonging at that time to the Low Countries. In 1552, he first composed four chansons published in Louvain (with works by Thomas Crecquillon, Clemens non Papa and Hubert Waelrant). As a Protestant, he...
SERMISY, Claudin de. b. ca. 1490; d. Paris, 13 October 1562. Very little is known about Sermisy's youth. In 1508, as one of the lower clergy in the Sainte Chapelle du Palais (Royal Chapel, Paris), he was called 'Claudin'. By 1510, he was a singer in the Queen's private chapel, and a cleric in the Noyon diocese. Before 1515, he is mentioned as a member of the Chapelle du Roy (the King's household chapel). From 1532 to at least 1555 he was the successor of Antoine de Longueval (or Longaval) as...
MAROT, Clément. b. Cahors, 1496; d. Turin/Torino, Italy, 1544. He was the son of the poet and rhetorician Jean Marot. He played a leading role in the development of French poetry and hymnology. He had possibly received a musical education, allowing him to sing and play an instrument. He was first at the service of Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, and secondly, around 1519, of Marguerite d'Alençon (1492-1549), sister of Francis I. In 1527, he was appointed as a 'valet de chambre'. In...
Clichtoveus. b. Nieuwport, Flanders, 1572; d. Chartres, France, 22 September 1543.
During the Renaissance it was common for learned authors to Latinize their names (cf. Andreas Gryphius*, Paul Speratus*). Judocus Clichtoveus Neoportuensis, usually referred to as 'Clichtoveus' was the name for Josse van Clichtove, educated at Leuven (Louvain) and Paris. He became Librarian of the Sorbonne before moving back to Flanders in 1519 with Louis Guillard, Bishop of Tournai. He later moved with Guillard...
RIMAUD, Didier. b. Carnac, Morbihan, Brittany, 6 August 1922; d. Lyon, 24 December 2003. Rimaud was educated at l'Externat St Joseph and the Lycée St Marc at Lyon. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1941, and after studying classics and philosophy in addition to his training as a Jesuit, he was ordained priest in 1955. He taught in colleges in France before being appointed to the Centre National de Pastorale Liturgique in 1950. This institution was engaged in producing a modern...
Dieu, nous avons vu ta gloire en ton Christ. Didier Rimaud* (1922-2003).
This canticle, with music by Jean Langlais*, was first sung in July 1957 at a Catholic conference at Strasbourg when Rimaud was working for the Centre National de Pastorale Liturgique. The canticle was sung at the Vigil before Mass on the Sunday as the Bible was shown to the 3,000-strong congregation. It has since become well known and frequently used, especially in the English translation by Brian Wren* (verses) and Sir...
PIDOUX, Edmond.b. Mons, Belgium, 25 October 1908; d. 17 April 2004. He was a poet and dramatist, the son of the pastor-hymnwriter Louis Samuel Pidoux (1878-1953), and brother of the musicologist Pierre Pidoux*. He was educated at the University of Lausanne and became a teacher and lecturer. He published a collection, Anthologie romande de la litérature Alpestre (Lausanne, 1982) in a career which included theatrical pieces, such as L'Histoire de Jonas and L'Arche de jonc (on the Exodus). He was...
BERSIER, Eugène. b. Morges, Switzerland, 5 February 1831; d. Paris, 18 November 1889. He was a French Evangelical Reformed Pastor, liturgist, preacher, historian and hymnwriter. His Swiss parents, Jacques Bersier and Louise Coindet (she was born in England), were of French Huguenot descent. So Eugène was naturalised French in 1855. His grandmother, on his mother's side, taught him English. He lived in Geneva with his widowed mother from 1838 to 1848. She prayed the 'Prayer-Book' services with...
LA FEILLÉE, François de. b. and d. France, 18th century, dates unknown. La Feillée is thought to have been a priest attached to the cathedral at Chartres, but nothing definite is known about his life. He published Méthode pour apprendre les Règles du Plain-chant et de la Psalmodie (1745), which was influential in the movement in France to provide music that was independent of Rome (see Neo-Gallican chant*). His work was later revised by F.D. Aynès, in 1808 (the 1823 'Nouvelle Édition...
BARTHÉLÉMON, François Hippolyte. b. Bordeaux, France, 27 July 1741; d. Southwark, London, 20 July 1808. The son of a wig-maker, he may have served briefly in the army as a young man, but this is not certain. A talented violinist, he went to Paris where he played in the orchestra of the Comédie Italienne, moving to London in 1764. In London his skill was much valued: he gave solo recitals, and became the leader of the orchestra at the King's Theatre. He wrote an opera, Pelopida (1766), and an...
French Protestant Psalms
16th Century
French and German Reformers, such as Jean Calvin* (1509-1564), Guillaume Farel (1489-1565), Martin Luther* (1483-1546) and Martin Bucer* (1491-1551) were very conscious of the impact of singing. They wished to introduce, very early on in the Reformation, a new liturgy and hymnody, mainly for worship. Their task was to supply the new reformed Church with its specific liturgy and hymnody. The language was an essential problem to be solved, because everyone...
FULBERT of Chartres. b. ca. 960; d. 10 April 1028. Born possibly in Italy, he studied in Rome and later in Rheims. Between 984 and 987 he was at the court of the Frankish king. He moved to Chartres ca. 992, where he held a teaching office and that of singing-master. He was consecrated bishop of Chartres in 1006. He did much to enhance the spiritual and temporal power of the French bishops, and he began the rebuilding of the cathedral after the fire of 1020. The hymns ascribed to him are found...
Gloria, laus et honor. Theodulf of Orleans* (d. 821). Theodulf (or Theodulph) of Orleans was a prominent figure in the literary revival at the time of Charlemagne, but was imprisoned by the Emperor's successor, Louis (ca. 818) on suspicion of involvement in a rebellion (ca. 817). According to a charming legend in Clichtoveus' Elucidatorium Ecclesiasticum Paris (1516), he secured his freedom by writing 'Gloria, laus et honor': the King, passing by in the Palm Sunday procession, heard Theodulf...
Haec nox, carissimi, nox illa flebilis. Peter Abelard* (1079-1142).
From Hymnarius Paraclitensis, the hymnal that Abelard wrote for the religious house of The Paraclete, where Heloise was prioress (see Paraclete Hymnal*). It was written 'In Paraceve Domini. In 1 Nocturno' (for the first nocturnal office on the night of the preparation for the events of Good Friday and Easter Day). It had four stanzas:
Haec nox, carissimi, nox illa flebilis, Qua comprehenditur dies a tenebris, Piis...
Heloise (other names not known) b. 1090–97; d. 16 May 1163/4. She was the daughter of Herenade, who may have been a scion of the Montmorency family (as possibly was Heloise's father) in the region of Paris. Up to about 1116 she was educated at the convent of Argenteuil where she later returned as a nun after her affair with Abelard*, the birth of their son, and Abelard's castration after their clandestine marriage (1117-18) to which she was a most unwilling partner. Their separation after these...
CAPIEU, Henri. b. Bizerte, Tunisia 1909; d. Meudon, France 1993. Capieu was a French Reformed Pastor, ordained in 1933, who served at Clairac and at Les Salies de Béarn (1946-47). He was inspired by the discreet piety of his mother, biblical narratives, and the Protestant poet Antoine de la Roche Chandieu (1534-1591). He pastored the church in Algiers (1947-61) where he befriended Albert Camus, and worked against torture during the Algerian war. He then became pastor in central Paris at the...
HILARY of Poitiers. b. Poitiers, early 4th century; d. Poitiers, 13 January 367/8. Born into a wealthy pagan family, he converted to Christianity ca. 350. In 353 he was elected to the bishopric of Poitiers, despite his married status. He was a strong defender of orthodox Christianity against Arianism. This led to his exile after the Council of Béziers in 356 where he refused to condemn Athanasius; he was released from exile in 361 and died in 368. St Hilary is chiefly remembered for his...
HILDEGARD of Bingen. b. Böckelheim, 1098; d. 17 September 1179. The last of ten children of Mechthild and Hildebert, members of the minor nobility, Hildegard was a weak child whose illness was linked throughout her life with distinctive visions. Committed to the religious life as a sort of tithe, Hildegard lived for several years with Jutta of Sponheim, who taught her to read and chant the psalter before both were enclosed as anchorites at Rupertsberg Abbey on 1 November 1112. Hildegard...
HILDUIN. b. ca. 785; d. 22 November 855-61. A cousin of the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious (ruled 814-840), Hilduin was abbot of Saint Denis, near Paris, from 814 until 840, and also abbot of Saint Médard of Soissons, Saint Germain des Prés in Paris, and Saint Ouen in Rouen during this time. As Archicapellanus of Louis the Pious' chapel from 819 to 840, he was a member of the royal household, responsible for ecclesiastical legislation, and close to the centre of Carolingian politics. Hilduin...
Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus. Bernard of Cluny* (12th century: see also 'Cluny'*).
This is the opening line of a poem of 2966 lines, entitled 'Bernhardus Cluniacensis de contemptu mundi. Ad Petrum Abbatem suum' ('Bernard of Cluny on the contempt of the world. To Peter his abbot [of Cluny]'). See Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, IV. 292. It was printed in an edition of poems entitled Varia doctorum piorumque virorum de corrupto Ecclesiae statu Poemata ('Several poems of learned...
Texts
From the early times of the reformed movement onwards (les Luthériens), many poets expressed their perception of the new religious feelings through the writing of cantiques, odes, sonnets, hymnes and other poems 'pleins de piété': among them were Antoine de Baïf (1532-1589) who composed a Psautier (1587); Eustorg de Beaulieu (1495-1552), pastor in Thierrens (Swiss Jura) and author of La Chrétienne Réjouissance (1546) as well as many chansons; Pey de Garros (1530-1585) with his...
Hymni Sacri et Novi (1689). This is the title of a collection by Jean-Baptiste de Santeuil*, published in Paris and dedicated to Cardinal Bulloni, abbot-elect of Cluny. The author was 'Santolio Victorino' (de Santeuil's religious name, Santolius Victorinus). It contained 53 hymns for saints' days and the Great Festivals of the church's year, and 12 for collective and general use for martyrs, doctors, evangelists, confessors, and others. There followed a prayer and three poems, succeeded by 12...
Iam desinant suspiria. Charles Coffin* (1676-1749).
This hymn appeared in the Paris Breviary (1736) and in Hymni Sacri Auctore Carolo Coffin (1736). It was written for Matins on Christmas Day. It is a very attractive Christmas hymn, which has attracted much attention from translators (see JJ, pp. 576-7).
The Latin text was printed in John Chandler*'s Hymns of the Primitive Church (1837), in the 'Hymni Ecclesiae' (i.e. Latin) section. It had eight stanzas, beginning:
Jam desinant suspiria;...
BERTHIER, Jacques. b. Auxerre, France, 27 June 1923; d. Paris, 27 June 1994. Berthier was the son of the organist of Auxerre Cathedral. After initial encouragement and training in Auxerre, he went to the César Franck School in Paris. One of his teachers there was Guy de Lioncourt, whose daughter Germaine he later married. He was organist of the Jesuit church in Paris, St Ignace (named after Ignatius of Loyola), where he worked until his death on his 71st birthday.
In 1955 he was asked by the...
Je Te salue, mon certain Rédempteur. French Psalter, Strasbourg, 1545, possibly by Jean Calvin*.
Found in an edition of the French Psalter published in Strasbourg in 1545, this was printed in Corpus Reformatorum volume 34, Calvini opera vol. 6 (Braunschweig, 1867). It was placed at the end of a set of nine French metrical psalms by Calvin, but regarded by the editors as of doubtful authorship.
In the year following the publication of Corpus Reformatorum the text was translated by Elizabeth Lee...
CALVIN, Jean (John). b. Noyon en Picardie, France, 10 July 1509; d. Geneva, 27 May 1564. He attended the 'Collège des Capettes' in his native town. In May 1521, an ecclesiastic benefice was granted to him in the Cathedral of Noyon. Two years later, he studied at the 'Collège de la Marche' at Paris with the humanist Mathurin Cordier. Between 1524 and 1528, he received a scholastic training at the 'Collège Montaigu'. After having obtained the degree of 'Maître ès Arts', according to his father's...
DE BRÉBEUF, Jean, SJ. b. Condé-sur-Vire in Lower Normandy, France, 25 March 1593; d. Saint-Ignace, Canada, 16 March 1649. Born into a family that may have been related to the English Earls of Arundel, Brébeuf entered the Jesuit novitiate at Rouen at age 24, where he taught at the Collège de Rouen and was ordained priest in 1622 at Pontoise. A linguist, he was chosen to go to the missions in New France; he sailed from Dieppe in April 1625. After spending a winter with the Montagnais of the...
FÉCAMP, Jean de (Jean d'Allie, Jean de Ravenne). b. Ravenna, Italy, ca. 990; d. Fécamp, Normandy, ca. 1078. He was a disciple (not, as is sometimes stated, the nephew) of the celebrated reformer and architect, Guillaume de Volpiano (Guglielmo da Volpiano, 962-1031) who restored many French abbeys and built the chapel at Mont St Michel. Jean was a monk at one of the abbeys, Saint-Bénigne de Dijon, before being nominated by Guillaume to be prior of another, the re-founded Abbaye de la Trinité at...
TISSERAND, Jean. b. date and place unknown; d. 1494. Tisserand was a Franciscan friar, working in Paris in the late 15th century, where he founded an Order for penitent women. He was the author of two Easter hymns, 'Surrexit hodie' and 'O Filii et Filiae'*. His sermons were published after his death as Sermones Religiosissimi F. Jo. Tisserandi, quos tempore Adventus Parisiensibus disseminavit (Paris, 1517).
The authorship of 'O filii et filiae' was uncertain for many years. Tisserand was...
See 'Sponsa Christi quae per orbem'*
SANTEUIL, Jean-Baptiste de. b. Paris, 12 May 1630; d. Dijon, 5 August 1697. Born into a prosperous Parisian family, Jean-Baptiste de Santeuil became a regular canon of the celebrated Abbaye de Saint Victor in Paris, taking the name 'Santolius Victorinus'. His duties allowed him welcome opportunities for mingling with society, and he gained a reputation as a wit that was reflected, not entirely creditably, in Santeuilliania, a volume of sayings attributed to him that was published, ostensibly at...
LANGLAIS, Jean-Marie-Hyacinthe. b. La Fontenelle, Brittany, 15 February 1907; d. 8 May 1991. The eldest of four children born to a stonecutter and seamstress, Langlais became completely blind by the age of three. His handicap and the poverty of his family prevented him from studying music until the age of ten when he obtained a scholarship to study at the School for the Young Blind in Paris where his teachers were René Clavers, violin, Maurice Blazy, piano, and André Marchal, organ. In 1927, he...
GUYON, Jeanne Marie ('Madame Guyon'). b. Montargis, France, 13 April 1648; d. 9 June 1717. She was born Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe, of a well-to-do family. After a convent education, she was married (1664) to the wealthy Jacques Guyon (he was then aged 38, she was 16), who died in 1676. The years of her marriage were not happy, according to JJ 'partly from disparity of years, partly from the tyranny of her mother-in-law, partly from her own quick temper' (JJ, p. 475). She had been...
GELINEAU, Joseph. b. Champ-sur-Layon, Maine et Loire, France, 31 October 1920; d. Sallanches, France, 8 August 2008. Gelineau studied music at the École César Franck in Paris, and theology in the seminary at Lyon Fourvière. He became a member of the Society of Jesus in 1941, and was ordained in 1951. He was sent to Paris, to the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique, and also taught at the Institut Catholique. He became one of the most influential and best known sacred musicians in the Catholic...
Lauda Sion Salvatorem. Thomas Aquinas* (ca. 1224/5-1274). This is one of the sequences* by Aquinas for the feast of Corpus Christi. It was in three parts. Part I had ten 6-line stanzas, rhyming aabccb, followed by Part II beginning 'Ecce, Panis angelorum', and Part III beginning 'Bone Pastor, Panis vere'. Parts II and II have different stanza forms. A translation beginning 'Laud, O Sion, thy salvation' (from Orby Shipley*'s Divine Liturgy, 1863) is in EH, with Part II beginning 'Lo! the Angels'...
Les anges dans nos campagnes. French carol, perhaps from Lorraine, perhaps 18 century.
This is the original French carol from which several translations have been made into English. They include 'The angels we have heard on high' by James Chadwick* ('Angels we have heard on high'* in The Holy Family Hymns, 1860, and Crown of Jesus, 1862) , 'Bright angel hosts are heard on high' by R.R. Chope*, 'Angels, we have heard your voices' by Richard Runciman Terry*. There are variations in the text, both...
Louange et Prière (1939). Louange et Prière ('Praise and Prayer'), for the French Protestant churches, was published in 1939. It originated with the General Assembly at Marseilles in 1929, and the Commission interecclésiastique of 1931. Delegates from the different churches – Reformed (Calvinist), Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, and Independent - were invited to join a Souscommission, which began work in 1932.
The book was based on the preceding books of the various churches, notably the...
BOURGEOIS, Loys. b. Paris, ca. 1510–15; d. ca. 1559. Bourgeois was a composer of chansons who adhered to the Reformed religion. Born in Paris, he emigrated from Lyons to Geneva in 1545 and was granted citizenship in 1547. From 1539 to 1557 he worked as musical editor for successive editions of the Calvinist psalter of Clément Marot* and Théodore de Bèze* (see French Protestant psalms*), adapting old Latin hymn melodies (see Medieval hymns and hymnals*) and sequence* melodies, and composing some...
BUCER, Martin (BUTZER). b. Sélestat (Schlettstadt), Alsace, 11 November 1491; d. Cambridge, England, 28 February 1551. He was first educated in the Dominican Convent of his native town (1506 onwards); then he enrolled in the University of Heidelberg (31 January 1517) where he met Martin Luther*; he became an instant admirer of Luther and embraced his new doctrine and ideas. In 1521 he left the Order of St Dominic with which he had become totally incompatible. With the authorization of Rome, he...
Mille voix pour Te chanter/ A Thousand Tongues to Sing to You (2006)
This hymnal was the first French-language hymnal for United Methodists in Europe and Africa. It was edited by S T Kimbrough Jr.*, with Carlton R. Young* as music editor. They were assisted by Jane-Marie Nussbaumer, Claire-Lise Meissner-Schmidt, Abraham Arpellet, Nkemba Ndjungu, and Wesley Macgruder. It was published in the USA by the General Board of Global Ministries, New York, and in France in La Bégarde de Mazenc,...
Minuit, chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle. Placide Cappeau* (1808-1877)
Cappeau is believed to have written this Christmas hymn in 1843, at the request of the parish priest of his native town of Roquemaure in the Gard department of France. Cappeau himself said that he wrote it in a stage-coach travelling to Paris. It has three stanzas. Cappeau had a reputation as a Socialist and a free-thinker: this carol is the Incarnation seen through the eyes of a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
It is...
LE TOURNEAUX, Nicholas. b. Rouen, Normandy, 30 April 1640; d. Villers sur Fère, West of Rheims, 28 November 1686. Born into a poor family, he was educated by the Jesuits in Paris, and became a priest 'under the canonical age' (Frost, 1962, p. 574). He was appointed vicar of St Étienne des Tonneliers in his native Rouen, moving to the Sainte Chapelle, Paris, in 1675, before becoming Prior of the monastery at Villers sur Fère. Some of his hymns were included in the Paris Breviary of 1680, and the...
Nos coeurs te chantent (1979). This book ('Our hearts sing to thee') is the successor to Louange et Prière* (second edition 1945), the hymnbook of the Fédération Protestante of France, published in Paris and (appropriately) in Strasbourg. It contains the 150 psalms in metrical form, many by Clément Marot*, Théodore de Bèze* and Valentin Conrart* (1679) all except seven (5, 43, 93, 96, 133, 137, 149) revised by Roger Chapal in the version of 1970 (75 Psaumes, published at Strasbourg and Paris)...
O Filii et Filiae. Jean Tisserand* (d. 1494).
This hymn on the events of Easter, with an emphasis on the episode of St Thomas, is found in an untitled booklet printed between 1518 and 1536, probably at Paris. It was a 'Salut', a greeting to the Blessed Sacrament on Easter Day. It was entitled 'L'aleluya du jour de Pasques', and in translation it is prefaced by the three-fold 'Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!' There is some suggestion that the triple 'Alleluia' may have been sung between each...
O quanta qualia sunt illa sabbata. Peter Abelard* (1079–1142).
This is the only hymn by Abelard to survive in common usage. It is usually known in the translation by John Mason Neale,* 'O what their joy and their glory must be'*, and there are two other translations in 20th-century books. Unfortunately, none of them (even Helen Waddell*'s which comes the nearest) give much idea of the grandeur of the original text; nor do they reproduce Abelard's rhythm (and therefore do not fit Abelard's tune...
O the bitter shame and sorrow. Théodore Monod* (1836-1921).
This hymn was entitled 'The Altered Motto', referring to its transition from 'All of self, and none of Thee' (stanza 1) to 'None of self, and all of Thee' (stanza 4). Written during one of Monod's many evangelising visits to England in 1874 for a 'consecration meeting' at Broadlands, Hampshire, it was given to Lord Mount-Temple, who took it to another meeting at Oxford in the same year:
O the bitter shame and sorrow, That a time could...
O thou by long experience tried. Jeanne Marie Guyon* (1648-1717), translated by William Cowper* (1731-1800).
Madame Guyon's spiritual songs, entitled Poésies et Cantiques Spirituels (1722), were published after her death in 1717. Cowper translated 37 of them into English in 1782. His attention was drawn to them by his friend William Bull, the evangelical rector of Newport Pagnell. Bull published them after Cowper's death, as Poems Translated from the French of Madame de la Mothe Guion (1801)....
OLD HUNDREDTH.
This is the most durable of all hymn tunes in the English-language repertory. Associated with William Kethe*'s version of Psalm 100 ('All people that on earth do dwell'*) from its first printing in the Anglo-Genevan psalter of 1560, it was taken from the French Genevan Psalter* of 1551 (see 'French Protestant psalms'*). Indeed, like all Kethe's psalm versions, this one was written to fit the French tune.
Loys Bourgeois* had originally provided the tune for Théodore de Bèze*'s...
Omni die, dic Mariae. Latin, probably by Bernard of Cluny* (12th century).
This is a selection of lines from 'Ut jucundus cervus undas, aestuans desiderat' (from Psalm 42: 1), the opening of a cycle of poems known as the Mariale. The authorship of the cycle is uncertain, but James Mearns*, after assessing all the evidence, attributed it to Bernard of Cluny (JJ, pp. 1200-1202). Section 7 of the Mariale began 'Omni die, dic Mariae, mea, laudes, anima'.
For Catholics it is notable as the Latin...
Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis mysterium. Thomas Aquinas* (ca. 1224/5- 1274).
This hymn was described in JJ as 'one of the finest of the mediaeval Latin hymns; a wonderful union of sweetness of melody with clear-cut dogmatic teaching' (p. 878). It is found in Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus I. 251-2, and in Analecta Hymnica 50. 586, where the many references to Codexes indicate its rapid spread during the 13th and 14th centuries. The text was:
Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis mysterium, ...
Paraclete Hymnal (c.1131). Abelard's* preface to Book I of this hymnal (Hymnarius Paraclitensis) makes clear that he and Heloise* found the Cistercian* hymn repertory unsatisfactory. When Heloise's new community had been established at the Paraclete, she requested that Abelard provide her with a hymnal that would be worthy of the liturgy. Some of her objections to the traditional hymns were that they often referred to the wrong season or time of day, others displayed exaggerated or mawkish...
L'ESTOCART, Paschal de. b. 1539 or 1540 ; d. after 1584. His birth year is approximately identified through the mention of his age on a portrait accompanying the edition of the Octonaires de la Vanité du Monde: 'PASCHAL DE L'ESTOCART . AAGE . DE . XLII.ANS' (at the age of 42 in 1581, according to the dedication, or 1582, according to the edition). He probably died after 1584 in which year he took part in a musical competition (a 'puy') at Évreux. Little is known about his youth, but he...
ABELARD, Peter. b. le Pallet, near Nantes, Brittany, 1079; d. Châlons-sur-Saone, 21 April 1142. He was the son of Berengar, Lord of Pallet. His distinguished family background marked him out as a potential soldier, but he became a brilliant student of philosophy and theology, both at Paris and Laon. At 22 he was made a canon and teacher at the school attached to Notre Dame in Paris, where his lectures are said to have enthralled his students but alarmed his colleagues. However, one of them,...
PETER the Venerable (Peter of St. Maurice). b. 1092 or 1094; d. 25 December 1156. Petrus (Mauricius) Venerabilis, born at Montboissier, Auvergne, abbot of Cluny* 1122-1156, was one of the greatest of Cluny's abbots in its heyday in the 10th-12th centuries. He came of a noble family, became an oblate of Sauxillanges and entered Cluny under Abbot Hugh. He was prior of Vézelay (ca.1115-1120) and of Domène near Grenoble (1120-1122), in which year he was elected Abbot of Cluny. He led the monastery...
CORNEILLE, Pierre. b. 6 June 1606; d. 1 Oct 1684. Born at Rouen into an affluent bourgeois family, Corneille was educated at the Jesuit college and studied law at the university of his native town His skill in Latin verse composition was not matched by success in advocacy, so his father bought him a position in the local magistracy. Though Corneille took his legal duties seriously, he soon went to Paris where theatres were springing up after the Wars of Religion. After comedies and Le Cid, a...
DAVANTÈS, Pierre (Latin pseudonym: 'Antesignanus'). b. Rabastens (southern France, near Tarbes), ca. 1525; d. Geneva, 31 August 1561. Very little is known about his life, although he possibly worked in Lyon. Early in 1559 he moved to Geneva and was accepted as a citizen (bourgeois). Expert in philology, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, he was not only an outstanding humanist but also a theorist and melody writer. Contributing to the Renaissance practice of ad fontes (the return to original sources), he...
PIDOUX, Pierre. b. Neuchâtel 4 March 1905; d. Geneva 16 July 2001. He was the son of a pastor, Louis S. Pidoux (1878-1953), and elder brother of the writer Edmond Pidoux. He was a Swiss Romand protestant pastor, who was an authority on the Genevan Psalter*. He was also a composer and organist.
He gained a degree in theology at the Free Church University of Lausanne (1932). where he lectured in 'Hymnology between 1646 and 1965'. He received the degree of PhD, honoris causa from the Lausanne...
CAPPEAU, Placide. b. Roquemaure, Gard, France, 25 October 1808; d. Roquemaure, 8 August 1877. Cappeau was the son of a cooper and wine seller. He was destined to follow in his father's trade, but he lost a hand in a childhood accident. He studied at Nimes and Paris, and became a lawyer, but gave up the law to become a wine merchant in his native town. The catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris records several publications relating to his business, but he also had a strong interest in...
TRUNK, Roger Ernest. b. Fortschwihr near Colmar, 1930; d. Strasbourg, 4 December 2013. Trunk was a Lutheran Pastor in Alsace, and a musician and hymnwriter, who studied music and theology at Strasbourg and Geneva. He was a minister in Strasbourg from 1985. Between 1984-2000 he was the Secretary of the European Conference for Protestant Church Music (EKEK). He took part in the making of the German Evangelisches Gesangbuch (EG 1993) and the Franco-Swiss Protestant Hymnbook Alléluia (2005).
His...
SAILLENS, Ruben. b. 24 June 1855, Saint-Jean-du-Gard Cévennes; d. 5 January 1942, Condé-sur-Noireau, Normandy. He was a French Baptist Pastor, evangelist, journalist, poet and hymnwriter. Born into a Reformed family, his father served a Free Church in Lyon. He started work in a bank. During 1873-1874 he received Bible training at the East London Bible Institute. The Mission Populaire, founded in Paris after the Commune (1870-71) by a Congregationalist minister Robert W. McAll (1821-93),...
Solis ad victimam procedis, Domine. Peter Abelard* (1079-1142).
From Hymnarius Paraclitensis, the book of hymns that Abelard wrote for the religious house of The Paraclete, where Heloise was Prioress (see Paraclete Hymnal*). It was written for the third nocturnal office on Good Friday. It beautifully combines the lament for the solitary figure of Christ 'going forth' to His sufferings and death with the promise that if we share His sufferings ('Tu tibi compati sic fac nos, Domine') we may...
Sponsa Christi quae per orbem. Jean-Baptiste de Contes (1601-1679). From the Paris Missal of 1665. A later edition of 1739 identified de Contes (Dean of Paris from 1647 until his death, 4 July 1679) as the author. It was described in JJ as 'one of the finest of the more recent French Sequences' (p. 1080). The most notable translation into English is that of John Ellerton*, beginning 'Bride of Christ, whose glorious warfare'. It appeared in Church Hymns (1871) with the first line as 'Church of...
See 'Disposer supreme, and Judge of the earth'*
Taizé is a tiny village in south-eastern France, not far from Cluny*, and is the name chosen by a community of brothers founded there just after World War II. A seminary graduate, Roger Schultz (1915-2005), resisted the career of pastoring a church in response to a strong inner call to live a monastic life (this was rather unusual for one coming from the Calvinist tradition).
In 1940, early in the Second World War, Brother Roger found a small house in this tiny village located a short distance...
BÈZE, Théodore de (BEZA) (Latin surname: Deodatus). b. Vézelay, France, 24 June 1519; d. 13 October 1605. De Bèze (Beza) was a French theologian, a pastor, a humanist, a poet (the author of 101 Huguenot Psalm paraphrases in French), a jurist and a diplomat. Condemned by the Parliament after having published his collection Poemata juvenilia, he left Paris on 24 October 1548 and took refuge in Switzerland. He was a professor of Greek in Lausanne from 1549 to 1559, then Rector of the Academy of...
MONOD, Théodore. b. Paris, 6 November 1836; d. Paris, 26 February 1921. The son of a pastor in the French Reformed Church, he was educated at the University of Paris, where he studied law (1855-58). In order to train as a Protestant minister, he went to the USA, to Western Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania. He became a pastor to a French Canadian congregation at Kankakee, Illinois, south of Chicago (1861-63). During these years he published Regardant Jésus (1862, translated as Looking unto...
THEODULF of Orleans. b. Spain, ca. 760; d. Angers, France, 18 December 821. Theodulf was born and educated in Visigothic Spain. His flight to Francia was probably as a result of Moorish incursions; he was at the court of Charlemagne by the early 790s. An intimate of the court, Theodulf was made bishop of Orleans by Charlemagne c. 798 as well as being granted the abbacies of Fleury, Micy and Saint-Aignan, all in the neighbourhood of Orleans. Theodulf was involved in Frankish politics at the...
AQUINAS, Thomas (St). b. ca. 1224/5; d. Fossa Nuova, 7 March 1274. Born to a southern Italian noble family, Thomas Aquinas studied at the University of Naples before becoming a Dominican friar in the early 1240s, against the wishes of his family. He studied with Albertus Magnus at Cologne (probably arriving late in 1244) and accompanied Albertus to the University of Paris (1245-48), subseqently returning with him to Cologne. He began to teach in Paris in 1252, and travelled widely in the...
The word 'Ultreia' has the meaning of 'onward', or 'keep going', and is used as an encouragement to pilgrims on the way to the shrine of St James at Santiago de Compostella in north-west Spain. This was part of a Europe-wide movement of devotion and travel to shrines of importance (see 'In Gottes Namen fahren wir'*). Ultreia has given its name to a pilgrim hymn. In Pedro Echevarria Bravo's Cancionero de los Peregrinos de Santiago (1967), chapter 1 is entitled 'El Canto de “Ultreia”', with a...
FORTUNATUS, Venantius Honorius Clementianus. b. ca. 540; d. early 7th century. Born near Aquinum, Fortunatus was well educated in Ravenna in the pagan classics as well as in Christian writings. Probably drawing on contacts from his early years in Aquinum, he traveled north via a network of bishops, arriving in 567 at the Merovingian court in Metz for the high profile wedding of Sigibert, one of four royal brothers, with Brunhild, a Spanish Visigothic princess. From the flying start of an...
Victimae Paschali.
This Easter sequence* is usually attributed to Wipo of Burgundy* (ca.995 - after 1048), based on a marginal note in the 12th-century Einsiedeln manuscript, Einsiedeln 366, p. 17, although this may reflect the common medieval practice of attribution to eminent persons rather than being historically accurate. The sequence appears in Paris, BN lat. 10510, an 11th century manuscript from Echternach, possibly copied too early for Wipo to have been the author (Crocker, 2001).
In...
KÉLER, Yves. b. Metz, 25 April 1939; d. Haguenau, 12 June 2018. Kéler was a conservative Lutheran Pastor in Alsace, and a hymn writer who translated Martin Luther*'s hymns, and chorales by Paul Gerhardt* and Johann Heermann*. He was the author of Le Culte Protestante (2006).
The son of Pierre Kéler and Lucie Lischer, he was catechised and confirmed in Metz by a Lutheran pastor, Alfred Griesbeck. Griesbeck encouraged Yves to teach in Sunday School and to study theology after his schooling in...