The "Golden Sequence," "Veni, sancte Spiritus" ("Holy Spirit, Lord of Light"), is an early example of the transition of sequences from a simply rhythmical to a metrical form. Archbishop Trench, who esteemed it "the loveliest of all the hymns in the whole circle of Latin sacred poetry," inclined to give credit to a tradition which ascribes its authorship to Robert II., king of France, son of Hugh Capet. Others have assigned to it a later date--some attributing it to Pope Innocent III., and some to Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury. Many translations, in German, English and other languages, attest its merit. Berengarius of Tours, St Bernard of Clairvaux and Abelard, in the 11th century and early in the 12th, followed in the same track; and the art of the Victorine school was carried to its greatest perfection by Adam of St Victor (who died between 1173 and 1194)--"the most fertile, and" (in the concurrent judgment of Archbishop Trench and Neale) "the greatest of the Latin hymnographers of the Middle Ages." The archbishop's selection contains many excellent specimens of his works. Dies Irae. Stabat Mater. Aquinas. But the two most widely celebrated of all this class of compositions--works which have exercised the talents of the greatest musical composers, and of innumerable translators in almost all languages--are the "Dies Irae" ("That day of wrath, that dreadful day"), by Thomas of Celano, the companion and biographer of St Francis of Assisi, and the "Stabat Mater dolorosa" ("By the cross sad vigil keeping") of Jacopone, or Jacobus de Benedictis, a Franciscan humorist and reformer, who was persecuted by Pope Boniface VIII. for his satires on the prelacy of the time, and died in 1306. Besides these, the 13th century produced the famous sequence "Lauda Sion salvatorem" ("Sion, lift thy voice and sing"), and the four other well-known sacramental hymns of St Thomas Aquinas, viz. "Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium" ("Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory"), "Verbum supernum prodiens" ("The Word, descending from above"--not to be confounded with the Ambrosian hymn from which it borrowed the first line), "Sacris solemniis juncta sint gaudia" ("Let us with hearts renewed our grateful homage pay"), and "Adoro Te devote, latens Deitas" ("O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore Thee")--a group of remarkable compositions, written by him for the then new festival of Corpus Christi, of which he induced Pope Urban IV. (1261-1265) to decree the observance. In these (of which all but "Adoro Te devote" passed rapidly into breviaries and missals) the doctrine of transubstantiation is set forth with a wonderful degree of scholastic precision; and they exercised, probably, a not unimportant influence upon the general reception of that dogma. They are undoubtedly works of genius, powerful in thought, feeling and expression. Medieval hymns.