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This is a collection of 56 hymns, processional verses and litanies from the monastery of Saint Gall. It includes pieces by the monk Hartmann, verses to be sung before the gospel, for the feast of the Holy Innocents and for Sunday processions, a Sapphic poem and litanies by anonymous monks, verses of Ratpert for the feast of Saint Gall, and a letter of Notker to his brother Lantbert. The opening hymn, sung as the gospel book is carried in, urges the congregation to purify body and heart and to listen attentively, then retells the parable of the sower and the different soils that receive the seed. Refrains are marked as they would be sung.
Saint Gall was one of the great centres of music and poetry in the Carolingian and Ottonian periods, and the work of Notker, Ratpert and Hartmann had a lasting influence on the liturgical poetry of the Middle Ages. These pieces were composed for use in the monastic liturgy, especially processions, and show how poetry and ritual were combined. They are a valuable source for medieval Latin hymnody and the musical culture of the abbey.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Corpus Corporum, the Latin text repository of the University of Zurich (edition: Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 87, Parisiis 1851), reused with attribution for non-commercial purposes (CC BY-NC-SA). Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.