CHAPTER TWO Early Middle Ages: The Old Hymnal I. The Hymn Cycles We owe the preservation of the earliest Latin hymns to monastic practice. When the founders of monasticism in the west, Caesarius and Aurelian who were famous bishops of Arles (6th C.), and Benedict (d. 543), founder of the Benedictine Order, organized the regulations and routine for the communities under their charge, they incorporated Latin hymns already existing into the daily worship of the monastery.[1] These were sung at the services of the canonical hours and were known as hour hymns or office hymns. A continuity can be traced, although faintly, from primitive Christian observances. Beginning with the vigil of Saturday night in preparation for the following Sunday, the first three centuries of Christian history developed public services for prayer at candlelight, night time, and dawn. By the fourth century, the tide of devotional practice had set in, bringing with it daily worship in the church at the third, sixth and ninth hours. At the end of the fourth and during the fifth century the cycle was completed with new offices at sunrise and nightfall. The full series, therefore, included the nocturnal cursus; vespers, compline, matins (nocturns and lauds), and the diurnal cursus; prime, terce, sext and nones.[2] An opportunity was afforded to unify the services and at the same time to make use of the symbolic number seven by reference to _Psalm 119: 164 (Ps. 118, Vulgate)_, “Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous ordinances.” From the simple assemblies of early Christianity, therefore, and the daily offices of prayer, a fully elaborated cycle of hymns in time developed, appropriate to the symbolism of the seven hours and to the needs of the annual feasts. Constantly increasing in number and variety, these cycles were preserved in psalters together with the psalms or in a hymnary by themselves. In fact, the word _hymn_ came to mean specifically an office hymn later to be associated with the breviary, and the word _hymnal_, a cycle or collection of office hymns. At first the cycles were brief. Five extant manuscripts reveal the sixth century group of hymns of which the best representative, the so-called Psalter of the Queen from the famous collection of Queen Christine of Sweden, probably dates from the time of Charles Martel (d. 741).[3] This group of hymns is usually referred to as the _Old Hymnal_, the initial version of which numbers thirty-four hymns but at the close of the sixth century had increased to perhaps sixty hymns in actual use.[4] The thirty-four original hymns of the _Old Hymnal_ are listed in the Appendix to this chapter where the appropriate location of each is indicated, whether for daily or seasonal worship.