Hora novissima

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 and pious men concerning the corrupt state of the church’) published in Basel in 1557, when it clearly suited the reformers’ agenda to publish a book about the corruption of the medieval church;...