Victimae Paschali Laudes Immolent Christiani

The first stanza of the Easter sequence. Medieval missals placed it on various days within the octave, but the Roman Missal assigns it daily from Easter to the following Saturday inclusively. On the authority of an Einsiedeln manuscript of the eleventh century, its authorship has been ascribed to Wipo (q.v.). With less apparent reason it has been ascribed to Notker Balbulus (q.v.) by Cardinal Bona, to Robert II of France by Durandus, and even to Adam of St. Victor (although found in manuscripts antedating his birth). It shares with certain of Notker's sequences their varying stanzaic form and almost casual assonance, but makes an advance in the frequency of rhyme; it thus marks a transition from the Notkerian sequences to the regular rhymic and stanzaic form of those of Adam of St. Victor. As the only sequence in quasi-Notkerian from retained in our Missal, it is of great interest hymnologically. "Vos" in the line "Praecedet vos in Galilaeam", in the typical Missal (1900), was replaced in the Vatican Graduale (1908) by "suos", the original word; this brings the line into appropriate syllabic conformity with the similar line in the preceding stanza, "Et gloriam vidi resurgentis". Although the lines in any one stanza will vary in syllabic length, a comparison of stanzas will show perfect numerical correspondence in the lines. +