unt, fuerunt,
Quaeque post futura sunt
Saeculorum saeculis."[10]{3}

Other early hymns are "A solis ortus cardine" ("From east to west, from
shore to shore"), by a certain Coelius Sedulius (d. _c._ 450), still sung
by the Roman Church at Lauds on Christmas Day, and "Jesu, redemptor
omnium" (sixth century), the office hymn at Christmas Vespers. Like the
poems of Ambrose and Prudentius, they are in classical metres, unrhymed,
and based upon quantity, not accent, and they have the same general
character, doctrinal rather than humanly tender.

In the ninth and tenth centuries arose a new form of hymnody, the Prose
or Sequence sung after the Gradual (the anthem between the Epistle and
Gospel at Mass). The earliest writer of sequences was Notker, a monk of
the abbey of St. Gall, near |33| the Lake of Constance. Among those
that are probably his work is the Christmas "Natus ante saecula Dei
filius." The most famous Nativity sequence, however, is the "Laetabundus,
exsultet fidelis chorus" of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), once sung
all over Europe, and especially popular in England and France. Here are
its opening verses:--

"Laetabundus,
Exsultet fidelis chorus;
Alleluia!
Regem regum
Intactae profudit thorus;
Res miranda!

Angelus consilii
Natus est de Virgine,
Sol de stella!
Sol occasum nesciens,
Stella semper rutilans,
Semper clara."[11]{4}

The "Laetabundus" is in rhymed stanzas; in this it differs from most
early proses. The writing of rhymed sequences, however, became common
through the example of the Parisian monk, Adam of St. Victor, in the
second half of the twelfth century. He adopted an entirely new style of
versification and music, derived from popular songs; and he and his
successors in |34| the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wrote
various proses for the Christmas festival.

If we consider the Latin Christmas hymns from the fourth century to the
thirteenth, we shall find that however much they differ in form, they have
one common characteristic: they are essentially theological--dwelling on
the Incarnation and the Nativity as part of the process of man's
redemption--rather than realistic. There is little attempt to imagine
the scene in the stable at Bethlehem, little interest in the Child as a
child, little sense of the human pathos of the Nativity. The explanation
is, I think, very simple, and it lights up the whole