In the midst of Gallic, Celtic, Italian, Byzantine and oriental influences mingled in Carolingian culture, the presence of native genius is strongly felt. Charlemagne has been criticized for his devotion to classical rather than Germanic culture. Sacred poetry as produced in the Carolingian literary circles, was written in Latin and clothed in classical garb. It could hardly have been otherwise since Latin was demanded by the Church and the vernacular languages of western Europe were then in their early infancy. But in spite of the studied artificiality of this verse, a note is sometimes heard in harmony with the poetry of later centuries which emanates from Germanic sources. Such in brief is the background of that revival of hymnody which appears in the Carolingian period. It remains to trace, in detail, the evolution of the monastic hymnal known as the _Later_ or _Ninth Century Hymnal_. II. The Later Hymnal The enlargement and diversification of the Hymnal to which Canon Douglas referred in the words quoted at the close of Chapter Two, occurred within the general historical limits of the Carolingian era and with the exception of Spain and the British Isles, within the general geographical limits of Carolingian political influence. The hymn cycles of the period, recorded in manuscripts which reflect the numerical increase in hymns as well as their diffusion upon the continent, are associated with religious centers, for example, St. Martial, Laon, Douai, Moissac, St. Germain-des-Prés, Corbie, Jumièges, Reichenau, Treves, Schäftlarn near Munich, Murbach, Rheinau, St. Gall, Einsiedeln, Bobbio, Monte Cassino, Benevento, Padua, Toledo, Canterbury, Naples and many other places. The nucleus of the _Later Hymnal_ has been identified with the hymn cycle found partly in a _hymnarium_ of the ninth century from St. Paul’s in Lavantthal, Carinthia, and partly in a similar manuscript from Karlsruh, both manuscripts being associated with Reichenau.[20] The basic hymns from this group of sources current in the Carolingian period are listed in the appendix to this chapter. A complete list of the manuscript sources (prior to 1100), including the above and others, with an index of the hymns which they contain, approximately 800 in number, was provided by James Mearns, the English hymnologist, in his _Early Latin Hymnaries_.[21]