Hymn in honour of *Eulalia (virgin and martyr of Barcelona, S02047) composed in Latin in Hispania possibly in the 7th c. (possibly by Quiricius, abbot and bishop of Barcelona c. 650).
E05431
Liturgical texts - Hymns
Literary - Poems
Hymnodia Hispanica, Hymn 116
IN SANCTAE EVLALIAE. AD VESPERAS
'In honour of Eulalia. For the Vespers.'
The first three strophes exhort the inhabitants of Barcelona to come to the tomb of Eulalia, their fellow-citizen, who suffered martyrdom to proclaim the glory of the cross. Strophes 4 and 5 describe the tortures of Eulalia on the rack (cf. Martyrdom of Eulalia of Barcelona c. 6; Martyrdom of Eulalia of Mérida 11) and her crucifixion (cf. Martyrdom of Eulalia of Barcelona 9; Martyrdom of Eulalia of Mérida 17). In strophe 6 it is said that a dove flew from her mouth (cf. Martyrdom of Eulalia 8; Martyrdom of Eulalia of Mérida 17). Eulalia dies with joy and resides in heaven from where she can soothe the sorrow of the people (strophe 7).
(8) Lucida, felix per orbem, Barcinon adtolleris,
que sinu pignus retentas tam salubre, tam pium,
scilicet tanti habendo corporis consortium.
(9) 25 O beata sponsa Xristi, uirgo clementissima,
suscipe iam singulorum uota uel suspiria
postulans Xristum precatu, quo gementes audiat
(10) Non iniquis seruiamus mente factionibus,
non caro iugum rebellis suabe Xristi rennuat,
30 sed sacri caloris omnes sanctitate fulgeant
(11) Solbe, quod tedet, quod urguet mortis ad perniciem,
pestilens morbus recedat, mucro hostis subruat,
uita sit tranquilla cunctis, sint quieta tempora.
(12) Ciuibus occurre, ciues, et salutem porrige,
35 esto sic patrana nobis in relatu gratie,
sicut es uicina celis ad faborem glorie.
(13) Inter hec admixtus ipse conquirar et Quiricus,
qui tui locum sepulcri regulis monasticis
ad honorem consecrauit sempiterni numinis.
(14) 40 Vt mei post claustra carnis sis memor in etheris
et, minus quod hic peregi, tu ualenter suppleas,
hec tibi perlata uota uel camena consecrans.
'(8) O Barcelona, radiant and happy all over the world, you are distinguished by carrying in your bosom such a salubrious and pious pledge, that is, having such a body as a shared possession.
(9) O blessed virgin of Christ, the most clement virgin, hear prayers and sighs of everyone of us and ask Christ with your prayers to hear our moans.
(10) Let not our minds serve the wicked factions and our rebellious flesh refuse the sweet yoke of Christ. But let us all shine with the sanctity of the holy zeal.
(11) Remove what wearies us, what brings us to the danger of death, let the infectious disease leave us, let the sword of the enemy perish and let all have a quiet life and live in calm times.
(12) O citizen, come with help to your fellow-citizens and bring us salvation, be our patroness in thanksgiving just as you are close to heaven in respect of the favour of glory.
(13) Among these, might I myself, Quiricius, be found, who consecrated the place of your burial with the monastic rule for the honour of the everlasting God.
(14) Remember me in heavens after I will be freed from the carnal bonds, and may you sturdily make good failings in this life by sanctifying these prayers and verses offered to you.'
Text: Castro Sánchez 2010, 431-433.
Translation and summary: M. Szada.
Service for the saint
Chant and religious singing
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - unspecified
Cult building - monastic
Non Liturgical ActivityCeremonies at burial of a saint
Saint as patron - of a community
Saint as patron - of an individual
Prayer/supplication/invocation
Composing and translating saint-related texts
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - abbots
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Crowds
Women
Source
The hymn is written in an elegant trochaic tetrameter. Pérez de Urbel (1926, 135-136) proposed to identify the Quiricius mentioned in v. 37 with the abbot Quiricius who was one of the signatories of the Acts of the Eighth Council of Toledo in 653 and later, as a bishop, the Acts of the Tenth Council of Toledo in 656. Diaz y Diaz (1958, no. 352) doubts this identification and believes that the hymn is of a later date. Szöverffy (1998, 34) also hesitates over the authorship of Quiricius of Barcelona, and says that the meaning of strophe 13 'is open to further interpretations' (Szöverffy accepts those readings that give the verbs in the strophe in the third person instead of the first), but he accepts the dating to the 7th century. Fabrega Grau (1963, 1381-1382), however, not only believes that Quiricius was the author of the hymn, but also of the Martyrdom of Eulalia of Barcelona (E08558) and the mass in her honour ($E###). This literary and liturgical activity was supposedly linked with the restoration of the cult of Eulalia and the foundation of the monastery at her burial site. See also Castro Sánchez 2010, 830.The hymn is preserved in the following manuscripts: Psalmi Cantica et Hymni, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, ms. 10001 (9th/11th c.), and Emilianensis, Madrid, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia 30 (10th c.).
Josef Pérez de Urbell’s method of dating hymns:
The method is based on two preliminary assumptions:
a) that the bulk of the Hispanic liturgy was composed in the seventh century, the ‘golden age’ of the Hispanic church, and that important intellectual figures of this period (Braulio of Zaragoza, Isidore of Seville, Eugenius of Toledo, and others) participated in its creation;
b) that the liturgy was, nevertheless, still developing and changing in the period after the Arab invasion, and therefore, many texts which we find in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries liturgical manuscripts might be of more recent date. Some hymns can be dated with some confidence to the period after 711, for instance if they mention ‘hagaric oppression’ or if they are in honour of saints whose cult appears to have been imported into Hispania after the seventh century (since they do not feature in earlier literary and epigraphic evidence, nor are attested in the oldest liturgical book from Hispania, the Orationale Visigothicum).
It is more difficult to identify the hymns which are certainly from before 711. Pérez de Urbell, firstly and reasonably, attributed to this group hymns with what appear to be reliable attributions to authors from the seventh century (like Braulio of Zaragoza or Quiricius of Barcelona), and those which are stylistically close to the poetry of Eugenius of Toledo from the seventh century.
Pérez de Urbell then compared the two groups of hymns – those probably earlier than 711, and those probably later – and noticed the following:
a) late hymns contain barbarisms and solecisms, while early ones are written in correct Latin;
b) late hymns are composed in rhythmic metres, while early ones are in correct classical quantitative metres; authors of the eighth and ninth century who attempted to write in quantitative metres always made mistakes; also from the eighth century onwards we have no more poetic inscriptions in quantitative metres;
c) some rhythmical poetry could nevertheless be early;
d) although both early and late hymns sometimes have rhymes, perfect rhymes occur only in late hymns.
In the absence of any certain indications for dating, Pérez de Urbell assumed that a hymn is early if at least two requirements were met: the Latin is ‘correct’ and there are no perfect rhymes. He also considered early every hymn composed in a quantitative metre.
Discussion
The present hymn, the Martyrdom, and the mass for the saint's feast, all linked with each other and all probably datable to the 7th century, are the earliest documents of the cult of the virgin martyr Eulalia of Barcelona. Her martyrdom story is very similar to that of her more famous namesake, Eulalia of Mérida (S00407). For this reason, scholars have long discussed whether we have here two cults for the same saint or two cults for two different, though homonymous, saints. The first case was argued by Henri Moretus in 1911. Spanish scholars have supported the latter case, see Garcia Villeda 1920, and later Fábrega Grau 1963 (for further references see Sánchez 2010, 830).For our purposes – the study of the cult of the saints – what is beyond dispute is that Barcelona, by the 7th century, claimed to have its own Eulalia, martyred and buried in the city, and wholly independent of the Eulalia of Mérida, but somehow sharing a name and many details of her martyrdom with her earlier and much more famous namesake.
Bibliography
Edition:Castro Sánchez, J., Hymnodia hispanica (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 167; Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).
Castro Sánchez, J., Hymnodia hispánica (Corpus Christianorum in Translation 19; Turnhout: Brepols, 2014). Spanish translation.
Further reading:
Blume C., Die Mozarabischen Hymnen des alt-spanischen Ritus (Leipzig, 1897).
Diaz y Diaz, M.C., Códices visigóticos en la monarquía leonesa (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación "San Isidoro", 1983).
Fábrega Grau, Á., Pasionario hispánico (Madrid, Barcelona: Atenas A.G., 1953).
Fábrega Grau, Á., "Eulalie de Barcelone," in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, vol. 15 (Paris, 1963), col. 1380-1384.
Férotin, M., Le Liber Mozarabicus sacramentorum et les manuscrits mozarabes (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912).
Garcia Villeda, Z., "La persecución de los primeros cristia nos en España, IV, El problema de las dos Santas Eulalias," Rázon y fe 58 (1920), 166-186.
Moretus, H., "Les saintes Eulalies," Revue des questions historiques 89 (1911), 85-119.
Norberg, D., An Introduction to the Study of Medieval Latin Versification (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004).
Pérez de Urbel, J., "Origen de los himnos mozárabes," Bulletin Hispanique 28 (1926), 5-21, 113-139, 209-245, 305-320.
Pinell, J. M., "Fragmentos de códices del antiguo Rito hispánico," Hispania Sacra 17 (1964), 195-229.
Szövérffy, J., Iberian Latin Hymnody: Survey and Problems (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998).
Marta Szada
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S02047 | Eulalia, virgin and martyr of Barcelona | Eulalia | Certain |
|---|
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