is proposition, which comes as a
corollary from the three preceding propositions, is one which is clearly
noted in our Breviary hymns. For by their very position in the Breviary,
side by side with the Psalms, Scripture extracts and words of the
Fathers, the Church shows her esteem and her use of these lyrics of
prayer and praise. Again, the Church's mind is shown by her retention of
her hymns in her liturgy, notwithstanding the many efforts made to
substitute a new hymnal. Up to the sixteenth century these Breviary
hymns were universally esteemed. They were admired by St. Augustine.
They are quoted and praised by St. Thomas in his Summa. Deays the
Carthusian {1402-1471} wrote a beautiful commentary on them. Amongst all
priests, secular and regular, the hymns were venerated and loved.
Although there were many men of genius in every age and in every part of
the Christian Church, the hymns escaped until the renaissance under Leo
X. (1475-1521).

The lovers of everything classic and pagan were pained and exasperated
at the venerable simplicity, the lack of prosody, the vagueness and
crudity of the wording of the liturgical hymns. In 1531, Wimpheling, a
priest of the diocese of Spire, produced a work, _Himni de tempore et de
sanctis_ ... _secundum legem carminis diligenter emendati_. Leo X.,
yielding to his own taste and the wishes of the learned innovators who
were ardent students of pagan antiquity, commissioned Ferreri to compose
a new hymnal for liturgical use. His book was allowed for liturgical
use, but was not prescribed. It omitted all the old hymns sanctioned by
the Church for centuries, and sung with fervour by thousands down the
ages. "There are found in the work of Ferreri," wrote Dom Gueranger,
"all the images and all the allusions to pagan beliefs and usages which
we find in Horace. Sometimes, it is only fair to say, his hymns are
beautiful and simple ... but they follow generally and too servilely the
pagan models ... but they are the work of strong and clear inspiration,
which under the mask of classic diction shows itself in every part."
(_Inst. Liturg._ t. I., p. 370.) During the reign of Pope Paul III. new
hymnals were issued, but the Breviary hymns were not removed. St. Pius
V. in his reform of the Breviary did not touch the Breviary hymns.
Clement VIII. in his reform added new hymns but did not remove nor
retouch the old ones. This work remained for Pope Urban VIII.
(1623-1644).

Urban VIII., Maffeo Ba