URBAN VIII AND THE REVISION OF THE LATIN HYMNAL
by Vincent A. Lenti
The election of Urban VIII as pope in the year 1623 was the cause of fairly
universal rejoicing in Catholic Europe. A former <nuncio> to Paris, he had
been made a cardinal at the relatively young age of thirty-eight, and was
known for his great knowledge and for his love of art and literature. The
new pope was the fifth son of Antonio Barberini and Camilla Barbadori and
was given the name Maffeo Vincenzo on April 5, 1568, at his christening in
the baptistery of the Cathedral of Florence. Educated by the Jesuits in the
city of his birth, Maffeo earned a doctorate in law at Pisa and became a
respected and skilled jurist. A truly learned and cultured man, Pope Urban
VIII was an unusually appropriate selection as pope, and his
accomplishments during a reign of almost twenty-one years were quite
considerable in many areas. Yet, upon his death on July 29,1644, there was
widespread rejoicing in the streets of Rome. A man of lavish artistic
tastes, he had spent recklessly on beautifying Rome, and he had been guilty
of the worst forms of nepotism in enriching his brothers and nephews. The
Roman people were characteristically unforgiving for his extravagance in
these and other matters. Three and a half centuries later, however, Urban
VIII is remembered more as the pope who consecrated the new St. Peter's
and, above all, as the pope who condemned Galileo for his espousal of
Copernicus and the theory of a heliocentric universe. His handling of
Galileo most certainly has earned Urban VIII universal scorn, all the more
tragic, however, because he had been a personal friend and protector of
Galileo for many years.
Yet, Urban's most lasting legacy had nothing to do with his nepotism, or
his extravagance, or his condemnation of Galileo. That legacy was the
damage done to the Latin hymns of Catholicism, which were revised and
rewritten, not only under Urban's orders, but also with his active
participation. As noted, the pope was a man of learning and an appreciator
of the artistic life. He utilized his long association with the great
baroque master, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, not only for many of the most notable
aspects of the interior of Saint Peter's Basilica, but also for the
restoration and enrichment of many other important Roman churches. The
Barberini pope also had a keen interest in music and kept a watchful eye on
the music of the Roman Church. It was Urban VIII who made Gregorio Allegri,
composer of the famous <Miserere> for double choir, a member of the papal
choir in 1629. But, however varied his artistic interests, he was first and
foremost a poet, having begun to compose Italian, Latin and Greek poetry at
a rather early age. The first Latin poems of Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini
appeared in 1606 at Perugia, and collections of his works were published in
Paris in 1618 and 1620. After his elevation to the papacy, his Latin poems
appeared in many editions from the year 1624 to the year 1643, the most
notable of these publications appearing in a 1631 Roman edition published
by the Jesuits of the Roman College with decorative artwork being provided
by none other than the illustrious Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Numerous
translations of Barberini's poetry also appeared, including translations
into Greek, French, Spanish and Dutch. At best, history might judge the
Barberini pope to be an adequate and skillful poet who wrote in a style
typical of the period, a period which was characterized by an artistic
exuberance generally noted in Roman baroque art. Urban VIII, in short, was
a cultured and artistically inclined person and a poet of considerable
talent, someone who might seem least likely to despoil a great literary
heritage.
The repertory of hymns which fell victim to Urban's ill-advised revision
contained some material which had been in more or less continuous use for
almost a thousand years. Because of concerns that hymn texts might convey
unorthodox or even heretical texts, the early Church chose to favor
biblical canticles and psalms for its liturgy, and the history of the Roman
Mass was one characterized by an absence of hymnody until the Second
Vatican Council in the twentieth century. Hymnody, however, found a role in
the various hours of daily prayer collectively known as the divine office.
These hours of prayer generally consisted of vigils or matins during the
night, lauds in the morning, vespers in the evening, and compline prior to
retiring at day's end, plus the "lesser prayer hours" of prime, terce, sext
and none recited at the first (6:00 a.m.), third (9:00 a.m.), sixth (12:00
noon), and ninth (3:00 p.m.) of the day. The development of hymns and their
introduction into these liturgies closely paralleled the'-development of
the calendar and liturgical year. Therefore, important observances in the
church year were assigned hymns appropriate to the specific liturgical
theme of the day or season. The earlier hymns date from the sixth and
seventh centuries and a few, such as those of St. Ambrose,[1] from the latter
part of the fourth century. By the twelfth century, the medieval Latin
hymnal was fairly complete. Evidence would seem to suggest that, at least
for a substantial period of time, hymns were used only in monastic
communities and were not part of the office celebrated by the so-called
secular clergy. By the thirteenth century, however, the use of hymns in the
divine office was wide-spread and generally observed.
Until about the thirteenth century, the celebration of the divine office
had been an act of communal worship and had used a number of specific books
such as a Psaltarium for the psalmody, an <Antiphonale> for the antiphons,
a <Hymnarium> for the hymns, etc. Gradually there came into existence
various efforts at condensing the required texts into a single volume for
the benefit of clergy who needed to recite the daily office alone, and
these volumes were known as <epitomata> or <breviaria>. In time, the
private recitation of the office became the norm for most clergy, communal
celebration being retained only among monastic and mendicant orders, such
as the Benedictines and Dominicans. Assisting this liturgical evolution
from communal celebration to private recitation was the invention of the
printing press which made possible the distribution of individual
breviaries to the clergy. Some standardization in the celebration of the
divine office was achieved with the appearance in 1569 of Pius V's new
<Breviarium Romanum>. In publishing the new breviary, the Roman pontiff
abolished all earlier breviaries except those which could claim his
personal approval or those which had been in continuous use for over two
hundred years. The Roman breviary, therefore, became the standard text for
the celebration or recitation of the divine office in much the same manner
as the Roman missal became the standard text for the celebration of the
Mass.
Urban VIII was elevated to the throne of Peter only about a half-century
after the publication of Pius' breviary, but he soon decided that the hymns
of the breviary needed revision, being of the opinion, which was widely
held among the humanists of the time, that the old hymns were rather
tasteless and inelegant and could be improved with a reworking of the Latin
texts. He was not the first to have concluded that these ancient texts
needed improvement, since Leo X, the first of the Medici popes, had
encouraged the noted humanist, Zaccaria Ferreri, Bishop of Garda, in a
previous attempt at revision. Ferreri's labors were published in 1525 and
authorized for use by Clement VII, the second of the Medici popes.
Fortunately, this revision was not formally adopted in Pius V's <Breviarium
Romanum> of 1569. Unfortunately, the Barberini pope would succeed where
Ferreri and his Medici sponsors failed. Since he was not only Urban VIII,
the pope, but also Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, the poet, Urban was actively
involved in the task of rewriting and revising the Latin texts. As
collaborators, he selected four classically trained Jesuits: Famiano
Strada, Tarquinio Galuzzi, Girolamo Petrucci and Matthias Sarbiewski. The
results of their labors were nine hundred fifty-two corrections in the
ninety-eight hymns then contained in the breviary. Of the ninety-eight
hymns, eighty-one were subjected to such corrections, including altering
the first lines of more than thirty hymns. Some of the changes occurring in
the revised texts were relatively minor. For example, the original Latin
text of the Easter vesper hymn, <At the Lamb's high feast>,[2] began with the
words <Ad coenam Agni providi, et stolis albis candidi.> In Urban's
revision, the hymn now began with the words <Ad regias Agni dapes, stolis
amicti candidis>, the major distinction being the use of the word <dapes>
(i.e., a sacrificial feast or religious banquet) in place of <coenam>
(i.e., a meal, or specifically the principal meal of the day). By contrast,
however, some hymns were almost totally rewritten, and many thoughts and
ideas expressed in the original texts of hymns were totally lost. Compare,
for example, the following Latin texts from the opening of the Christmas
vesper hymn, <Jesus, redeemer of all men:>[3]
Revised Text
<Jesu, redemptor omnium,
Quem lucis ante originem
Parem paternae gloriae
Pater supremus edidit.>
Original Text
<Christe Redemptor omnium,
Ex Patre Patris Unice
Solus ante principium,
Natus in effabiliter.>
Even if one is completely ignorant of Latin, it is immediately obvious that
the opening of this ancient hymn has been almost totally rewritten. Even
the title of the hymn has changed because of the revision of the opening
line. Most of the so-called "corrections," however, involved rather
meaningless grammatical changes in the original text. Consider, for
example, the rearrangement of words in each of the following two lines from
the Pentecost hymn, <Come, Holy Ghost>:[4]
Revised Text
<Qui diceris Paraclitus
Altissimi donum Dei,
Original Text
<Qui Paraclitus diceris
Donum Dei altissimi>
Sometimes the rewriting by Urban and his associates appears so very
unnecessary that the logic behind the change is totally incomprehensible, a
good illustration being the transposition of the middle two lines ("Father
of might and grace, Father of eternal glory") of the following stanza from
the hymn <O splendor of God's glory:>[5]
Revised Text
<Votis vocemus et Patrem
Patrem potentis gratiae,
Patrem perennis gloriae,
Culpam releget lubricam.
Original Text
Votis vocemus et Patrem
Patrem perennis gloriae,
Patrem potentis gratiae,
Culpam releget lubricam.
Whatever their merits, the proposed changes in the hymn texts were approved
by the Congregation of Rites on March 29, 1629, and in July of the same
year a newly appointed commission began the task of revising the remainder
of the breviary. Authority to publish the newly revised <Breviarium
Romanum> was issued by the Barberini pope on January 25, 1631, in the
eighth year of his reign, the ill-advised revision of the Latin hymnal thus
becoming the normative texts for the majority of the Catholic world.
However, claiming the privilege of exemption granted by Pope Pius V, the
Dominicans, Benedictines, Cistercians, and Carthusians refused to adopt the
revisions and retained the ancient hymn texts, nor were the revisions ever
accepted at St. Peter's or the Lateran in Rome itself. It was in this
manner that two distinct versions of the Latin hymnal were to coexist for
more than three hundred years. There is little, if anything, in Roman
Catholic liturgical publications to clarify this situation, and, to
understand whether a text is original or revised, one must consider the
particular publication in which the text is found. For example, the hymn
for Epiphany vespers as given in the <Antiphonale Monasticum>, a
publication for the Benedictine Order, begins with the words <Hostis
Herodes impie, Christum venire quid times>? while the hymn for Epiphany
vespers as given in the <Antiphonale Romanum>, a Roman publication, begins
with the words <Crudelis Herodes, Deum Regem venire quid times>? These are,
however, the same hymn and use the same chant melody, the distinction being
that the Benedictine publication retains the original text as written by
Caelius Sedulius in the fifth century,[6] while the Roman publication
utilizes the text as revised by Urban and his associates.
It is now almost universally conceded that the seventeenth century revision
of the Latin hymnal was a mistake, and that the despoiling of these ancient
hymns cannot possibly be defended or justified. The so-called improvements
which were made to the texts were, in fact, no improvement whatsoever. One
commentator[7] has wisely observed that "Ambrose and Prudentius took
something classical and made it Christian; the revisers and their imitators
took something Christian and tried to make it classical. The result may be
pedantry, and sometimes perhaps poetry; but it is not piety." Another fault
of the revision was to ignore its effect on the traditional musical
settings of these texts. It is doubtful that the Barberini pope considered
this, since he undoubtedly worked from a point of view which presupposed a
private recitation rather than communal singing of the texts. Therefore, it
would be fair to assume that considerations of music and text were totally
divorced in the process of revision, if, indeed, there was any
consideration of the music at all.
There are obvious lessons which may be learned from the story of Urban VIII
and the revision of the Latin hymnal, lessons perhaps most appropriate in
contemporary times which are so frequently characterized by modernization
and revision of the texts used in the Church's liturgies. It would be
unfair to characterize all such revisions as being unnecessary and wrong.
One can certainly build a plausible argument for changing language which no
longer conveys clear meaning, and one can also present a reasoned
explanation for modifying texts which were originally conceived from a
narrow perspective which might discourage their continued usage. But
Urban's revisions cannot really be defended in any like manner. Even though
he was motivated by the best of intentions, and even though he and his
colleagues were eminently suited for the task which they adopted, the
revision of the hymn texts was a tragic mistake. All that the Barberini
pope really succeeded in doing was to impose a seventeenth century view of
Latin poetical construction on subsequent generations of Roman Catholics.
It has taken the Roman Catholic Church three and a half centuries to undo
the harm done to its ancient repertoire of hymns. With the publication of
the <Liturgia Horarum>[8] as the successor to the <Breviarium Romanum>, the
Vatican has once again officially sanctioned the original hymn-texts and
has eliminated Urban's revisions. One must note, however, that this is a
hollow victory since so few clergy utilize the Latin texts for the
recitation of the divine office, preferring for the most part to use the
vernacular translations now available throughout the Catholic world.
ENDNOTES
1. St. Ambrose 340-397), Bishop of Milan, often called the Father of Latin
hymnody.
2. <Ad coenam Agni providi> (original title), probably written sometime
between the fourth and sixth century, author unknown.
3. <Christe redemptor omnium> (original title), probably dating from the
sixth century, author unknown.
4. <Veni, Creator Spiritus>, probably written in the ninth century, author
unknown.
5. <Splendor paternae gloriae>, written by St. Ambrose (340-397), Bishop of
Milan.
6. Both texts might be similarly translated as "Why, merciless (cruel,
hostile) Herod, are you afraid of God (Christ) coming as King?"
7. Rev. Joseph Connelly in <Hymns of the Roman Liturgy>, The Newmann Press,
West minster, Maryland, 1957.
8. <Liturgia Horarum juxta Ritum Romanum>, Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
1985.
This article appeared in the Fall 1993 issue of "Sacred Music." Published
by the Church Music Association of America, 548 Lafond Avenue, St. Paul, MN
55103.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The electronic form of this document is copyrighted.
Copyright (c) Trinity Communications 1994.
Provided courtesy of:
The Catholic Resource Network
Trinity Communications
PO Box 3610
Manassas, VA 22110
Voice: 703-791-2576
Fax: 703-791-4250
Data: 703-791-4336
The Catholic Resource Network is a Catholic online information and
service system. To browse CRNET or join, set your modem to 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit and no parity, and call 1-703-791-4336.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
