Hymns -- History and criticism; Lutheran Church -- Hymns -- History and criticism
We close our study of mediaeval hymnody with a story about St. Gall. St.
Gall is a very remarkable old monastery. Men of quite different minds
and dispositions got along very amicably under the Benedictine rule at
St. Gall. Among its one hundred monks there were in the ninth century
four monks whose names were well known throughout the Western Church,
namely, the learned Ratpert, the enthusiastic Notker, the highly gifted
and greatly admired artist Tutilo, and the unrivalled hand-printer of
books, Sintram, whose very beautiful handwriting was greatly admired
throughout Europe. Ratpert, a stern educator, never sparing the rod, and
not deeply interested in his devotional exercises—a great scholar.
Notker Balbulus (stammerer), the saint-like, ascetic tune-writer and
plant specialist, who had strange visions and lived in another world—a
dreamer. Then there was also the ingenious, humorous Tutilo. These three
monks were as different as three highly gifted persons could be, and yet
they were always as one soul. Ratpert respected Tutilo’s fine
scholarship; at night they were often found with Notker Balbulus in the
writing-room, comparing and improving the works that Sintram was about
to copy. Notker who wrote many fine hymn tunes, wanted them sung by
Tutilo who was a good singer and clever performer upon several musical
instruments. Tutilo wrote several excellent hymn tunes, and he also
produced several noble hymns of which the most popular are Hodie
cantandus, Viri Galilei, and Gaudete et cantate.
Notker’s genuine affection for Tutilo was not disturbed by Tutilo’s
good-natured submission to unreasonable monastic regulations, which
Notker regarded as symbolically significant. The Benedictine regulations
were meant for the monasteries of southern Italy, and did not suit the
convent of St. Gall very well. A midday nap was one of the Benedictine
regulations, and so the monks of St. Gall had to retire and sleep two or
three hours at midday every day. The Benedictine rule prescribed a diet
of fish, fruit and vegetables—the usual diet of southern Italy. But fish
and fruit were difficult to secure at St. Gall; meat, which was
plentiful, was forbidden. And so the diet of St. Gall consisted mainly
of pulse and pap. Notker who was the guardian of the discipline of the
monastery, never had an occasion to bring up any reproach against
Tutilo. Tutilo observed the midday nap, and flavoured with merriment the
monotonous diet which maintained his splendid mortal clay.
SECTION V
LUTHERAN HYMNOLOGY
1520—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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