Hymn in honour of *Saturninus (bishop and martyr of Toulouse, S00289) composed in Latin in Gaul possibly in the 5th century.
Evidence ID
E06849
Type of Evidence
Liturgical texts - Hymns
Literary - Poems
Hymnodia Hispanica, Hymn 163
The hymn starts with a stanza referring to the arrival of the King, and an allusion to Advent, the liturgical period in which the feast of Saturninus was celebrated (29 November, cf. E05086). Then, the next strophes make reference to events from the life and martyrdom of Saturninus – that he was the bishop of Toulouse and was martyred in this city (strophe 2), that his teaching caused the fall of idols and silenced the demons (strophes 3 and 4), that he was killed by being tied to a bull (strophe 5) and that he was buried and his tomb become a place of cult:
(6) Huius inlesi cineres dicato
rite transferri tumulo merentur,
quo fides cultu gemini honoris
20 aucta maneret.
'(6) His intact ashes deserved to be translated solemnly to the tomb so that faith may increase with the cult of the double honour [i.e. of virginity and martyrdom].'
The next strophe (7) addresses Christ, asking him to come and join his believers with the saints. Then follows praise of the Trinity (strophe 8).
Text: Sánchez 2010, 595-597.
Translation and summary: M. Szada.
Liturgical ActivitiesService for the saint
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Service for the saint
Chant and religious singing
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Composing and translating saint-related texts
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Source
The hymn is written in sapphic stanzas and the editors and commentators have noted its high quality (Blume 1897, 231; Pérez de Urbel 1926, 117). Pérez de Urbel believed that the hymn might have been composed in the 4th or 5th century in Visigothic Gaul, and even proposed that its author was Ausonius. Szöverffy (1998, 18–20) agrees with the 5th c. dating and notes that the hymn 'is worthy to be called an heir of the Prudentian hymn tradition'.The hymn is transmitted in Psalmi Cantica et Hymni, Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, ms. 10001 (9th/11th c.); in Codex Emilianensis, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia 30 (10th c.), with a lacuna in verses 1–11; Alia Officia Toletana, British Library, ms. 30845 (11th c., omits verses 1–4); and Psalmi Cantica et Hymni, British Library, ms. 30851 (11th c.). The hymn is also recorded in the 10th c. hymnary from Moissac (Dreves 1888: 89), so it was known also in the Gallic liturgical tradition.
Pérez de Urbel’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 7th 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 9th, 10th, and 11th c. 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 7th 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 Urbel, firstly and reasonably, attributed to this group hymns with what appear to be reliable attributions to authors from the 7th century (like Braulio of Zaragoza or Quiricius of Barcelona), and those which are stylistically close to the poetry of Eugenius of Toledo from the 7th century.
Pérez de Urbel 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 8th and 9th century who attempted to write in quantitative metres always made mistakes; also from the 8th 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 Urbel 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., 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).
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).
Record Created By
Marta Szada
Date of Entry
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00289 | Saturninus, bishop and martyr of Toulouse | Saturninus | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Marta Szada, Cult of Saints, E06849 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06849