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Analecta Hymnica 2 no. 97 st. 4, 1: Caeduntur gladiis more bidentium
The Vespers Hymn of the Common of Many Martyrs (Sanctorum meritis) ' had been the cause of one of the controversies between Hincmar and GottschaUi. There the passage at issue was the opening line of the hymn's final stanza: te, trina deitas unaque, poscimus (st. 6, 1). Since to Hincmar the phrase trina deitas smacked of tritheism, he had incurred Gottschalk's displeasure by substituting for it the words summa deitas2. The present article on the other hand is concerned with the opening line of the antepenultimate stanza of the same hymn: caeduntur gladiis more bidentium (st. 4, 1 ). Whereas the theological dispute over the wording of the sixth stanza had belonged to the rnid-ninth century, the aim of the present investigation is to trace the literary fortune of this exordium to stanza 4 throughout the twelfth century. Hugh Primas composed Oxford Poem 16 at the start of the 1150's 3 . There the poet takes the opportunity to speak of the kindness shown him by two young men on the occasion of his visit to Sens: nec erant pilosi more bidencium, I nec murmur resonans contradicencium (11. 93f.) 4 . No allusion here to the
1 Edd. G. M. Dreves and C. Blume, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi 2, Leipzig 1888, 75 (n. 97). The same hymn is also found ihid., 50, Leipzig 1907, 204 (n. 153). 2 Cf. H. Schrors, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims: Sein Leben und seine Schriften, Freiburg/B. 1884, 152-3. 3 So C. J. McDonough, «Hugh Primas and the Bishop of Beauvais», Mediaeval Studies 45 (1983) 399-409. 4 Ed. C. J. McDonough, The Oxford Poems of Hugh Primas and the Arundel Lyrics, Toronto 1984 (Tor. Med. Lat, Texts 15) 57.
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