Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/36

24 sufferings of numerous Saints—most especially into praises of the Blessed Virgin, on her dignity, on her Joys and Dolours.'

When Jumièges was destroyed by the Normans in 851, some of its monks took refuge at St. Gall, bringing their Gregorian Antiphonary with them. The anthem preceding the Gospel, which was known as the Gradual, ended on Festal days 'with a long Alleluia, which was a musical jubilation on a certain number of notes, called Neumes, without words, on the final A; also called the Sequentia, as following thereon.' These Neumes owed their origin to two chanters sent by Pope Adrian to Charlemagne. One opened a school at Metz, the other became musical preceptor in the monastery of St. Gall, where he was detained by illness. The Neumes were exceedingly difficult to remember. A young monk called Notker was therefore delighted to find that in the Jumièges music words had been attached corresponding to the number of the Neumes. This made it comparatively easy to recall the cadences. He set himself to contrive words for other musical Sequences sung at the different festivals of the year. Every note now had a corresponding word attached. These unrhymed Sequences became known as Notkerian Proses. Gradually they were rhymed, and increased in beauty and popularity. Then an entirely novel and original system both of versification and music, derived from popular airs, was introduced by the church musicians in the north of France. The Sequences composed by Adam of St. Victor are singularly fine and impressive. His musical and flowing verses are saturated with Scriptural truth and imagery. The Dies Irae, almost the solitary Sequence which Italy has produced, and the Stabat Mater dolorosa are among the most precious treasures thus bequeathed to Christendom. Its latest gems were due to Thomas Aquinas, but at the beginning of the fourteenth century the glory had departed from Latin hymnology.

King Alfred tells us that when Aldhelm saw how the people who had flocked to attend mass at Malmesbury trooped away from the church before the sermon, he took his stand, disguised as a gleeman, on a bridge which they must cross, and gathered them round him to hear his songs, with which he generally managed to weave a little instruction. The anecdote suggests that sacred songs formed part of the gleeman's repertory. The hymn which Cædmon composed whilst sleeping in the stable is the earliest piece of Saxon poetry extant. Cuthbert also