The Sangallensian poets are not, however, very numerous. Hartmann was probably the earliest composer of a “sequence”—a style of sacred poem which we shall consider presently. Then came Notker Balbulus, who has the greater renown. Tutilo and Ratpert and Walafrid Strabo complete the list. St. Gall was for years a noted centre of learning. It is well situated, and from its towers the waters of the Boden-See (from which it is distant but a few miles) can be readily discerned. Here, then, Notker began his religious life. He had probably seen the light in the green and fertile Thurgau not far away from St. Gall. And his talents were soon so noticeable that he rapidly advanced in the esteem of his associates. Meanwhile—for the Irish and Scottish monks made this a thoroughfare on their pilgrimages to Rome—there came along an Irish bishop named Mark, whose nephew, Maengal, strongly aroused the admiration of Notker. Maengal’s music especially affected him, and he devoutly prayed God to let the Irishman tarry with them at St. Gall. This indeed happened, and Maengal, rechristened Marcellus, remained in Switzerland. This good tutor now undertook the musical training of Notker, Ratpert, and Tutilo. And from this beginning arose the choral school of St. Gall. Ekkehard’s history of it is most suggestive. It was originally begun, he says, for the study of the Gregorian tones, but these Swiss people had by degrees lost the sweetness of the old Pope’s music. And he borrows the language of John the Deacon, in his life of Gregory, to satirize the “thundering voices” with which such “Alpine bodies” failed to secure the proper modulation. I borrow Baring-Gould’s idiomatic rendering of this significant passage. It runs as follows: “The barbarous hugeness of those tippling throats, when endeavoring to utter a soft song full of inflections and diphthongs, makes a great roar, as though carts were tumbling down steps headlong; and so, instead of soothing the minds of those who listen, it agitates and exasperates them beyond endurance.”