Gaul, then, was the scene of a conflict in which the Latin hymn was contending, and that successfully, for its very life. On the monastic side, anonymous clerics, using the Ambrosian model, gradually provided the full complement of hymns for the annual festivals in harmony with the liturgical year which began to emerge and resemble somewhat its present form. Wherever the Benedictine Order penetrated into the territories of western Europe, the use of hymns likewise increased. Their diffusion must be regarded as comparable with that of an organization which within two hundred years of the death of its founder boasted hundreds of monasteries and convents throughout western Christendom, augmented by Irish and other foundations which had adopted the Benedictine Rule. Missionary zeal had played a significant role in this expansion. Fulda, for instance, a community with 400 monks and many missionaries at its disposal, was able under Willibald to extend its influence through numerous subordinate monasteries and convents. Royal favor, already enjoyed by St. Gall and now conferred upon new establishments, rivalled that of popes and synods, which at the time of Pippin’s coronation in 750 or 752, combined to insure the success of the Benedictine program.[8] On the side of secular worship, the hymnal used by Benedict and his successors gradually gained a foothold in the church through diocesan centers which adopted the monastic cycles. Or perhaps it may be said, with the reservation that we are in the realm of theory and not of fact, that the ancient hymns written prior to the sixth century had been circulated and continued to be circulated in the west in a way not at present understood, in connection with the Gallican or ancient liturgy of Gaul. If so, the _Old Hymnal_ is the Gallican hymnal which Benedict appropriated and his followers maintained to its acknowledged prestige by the year 750.