Hymn in honour of *Leocadia (virgin and confessor of Toledo, Spain, S01367), composed in Latin in Hispania, possibly in the 7th c.
E06847
Liturgical texts - Hymns
Literary - Poems
Hymnodia Hispanica, Hymn 148
The hymn begins by announcing that today is the feast of Leocadia which commemorates her death (strophe 1), and exhorts everybody to come and praise God (strophe 2). Strophes 3–6 tell about her sufferings during persecution, her arrest, and finally her death. Strophe 6 mentions also Eulalia of Mérida who supposedly died during the same persecutions.
(6) Sed mox beate Eulalie
mortem sacratam conperit,
in carcerali uinculo
celo refudit spiritum.
(7) 25 Nunc, uirgo sancta, quesumus
et lacrimando poscimus,
ut probra nostra diluas
et uota Xristo deferas.
(8) Tu nostra ciuis inclita,
30 tu es patrona uernula,
ab huius urbis termino
procul repelle tedium.
(9) Non hostis hic preualeat,
non morbus aut penuria,
35 recedat omne noxium,
et conferatur commodum.
(10) Sic uita rebus affluat,
ne corda luxu sordeant,
cunctisque propter crimina
40 donetur indulgentia.
'(6) But soon (when) she learnt of the holy death of the blessed Eulalia, in prison shackles she breathed out her spirit to Heaven.
(7) Now, o holy virgin, we ask you and we beg you with tears to wash away our wicked deeds and take our prayers to Christ.
(8) You are our great citizen, you are our patron and fellow city dweller. Keep far away any misery from the walls of the city.
(9) Let not the enemy, illness or poverty overcome us, repel all noxious things and bring us prosperity.
(10) But let life be rich in things in a way that would not pollute our hearts with debauchery. Let indulgence be given to all for their crimes.'
Here follows the strophe with the doxology.
Text: Sánchez 2010, 543-545.
Translation and summary: M. Szada.
Service for the saint
Chant and religious singing
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Composing and translating saint-related texts
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Source
The hymn, written in rhythmic iambic dimeters, has been usually dated to the 7th century (Diaz y Diaz 1983, 363; Szöverffy 1998, 33, 36). Pérez de Urbel (1926, 119) ascribed the hymn tentatively to Eugenius of Toledo because of its similarity to the hymn in honour of Hippolytus by Eugenius (see E06107). Fábrega Grau (1953, 67–78) thought that the hymn was a Toledan composition of the 7th century but noted rather similarities with the hymns to Eulalia of Mérida by Prudentius (E00787) and Eulalia of Barcelona (E05431). See also Castro Sanchez 2010, 840–41. For the 7th century prose martyrdom of Leocadia see E08525.The hymn is transmitted in the following manuscripts: Psalmi Cantica et Hymni, Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, ms. 10001 (9th–11th c.); Emilianensis, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, ms. 30 (10th c.); Psalmi Cantica et Hymni, British Library in London, ms. 30851 (11th 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.
Bibliography
Edition:Castro Sánchez, J., Hymnodia hispanica (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 167; Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).
Castro Sánchez, J., Himnodia 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).
Férotin, M., Le Liber Mozarabicus sacramentorum et les manuscrits mozarabes (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912).
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 | S01367 | Leocadia, virgin and confessor of Toledo | Leocadia | Certain |
|---|
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