PROSKE
486
PROSKE
first person who did this? In St. Gall, certainly; but
elsewhere this might have taken place long before-
hand. Besides it is very doubtful on other grounds
whether the " Procemium of Notker" is genuine and
authentic. Until the last two decades our knowledge
of sequence material was entireh' inadequate. The
older sequences, and especially their melodies, were
only known to us through the St. Gall tropers, whose
importance was enhanced bj' their number; other
old tropers from Germany, of which scarcely sLx were
known, were treated as copies of those of St. Gall.
What France, England, or Italy had done in the pro-
duction of sequences was scarcely suspected, and one
had no idea at all of the relation which their melodies
had to the St. Gall melodies. Subsequently it be-
came plain that the St. Gall composer was more than
once influenced by an older French exemplar; what
has been said above as to the development of
the Sequence — it was based on the most extensive
collection of original material — undoubtedly goes
to prove that all the peculiarities of the sequences
in their early stage are found in those of France,
whilst those of St. Gall (i. e. the German ones) show
signs of a relatively later period and of a phase of
greater development, even in the matter of the name
of the sequence and of titles of melodies. Further
proofs cannot be given here, and we must content
ourselves with referring to the discussion in "Ana-
lecta hymnica", LIII, the results of which may be
summed up in three sentences: (1) proses or se-
quences did not originate in St. Gall. Notker Bal-
bulus was not their first inventor, although he was
their first and most prominent exponent in Germany.
Their origin goes further back, probably to the
eighth century; (2) failing more definite evidence,
it is difficult to say exactly what sequences are to be
attributed to Notker Balbulus; meanwhile, we cannot
determine what sequences of the first epoch and
clearly of German origin come from St. Gall and what
from other German abbej-s or dioceses; (3) all that
has hitherto been discovered as to the origin and de-
velopment of sequences shows France to have been
the original home of the "versus ad sequentias" and
of the "sequentia cum prosa". As to the precise
locality of that home in France — whether it was
Luxeuil, or Fleury-sur-Loire, or Moissac, or St-
Martial, must be a matter for conjecture.
In what countries and to what extent France made its influence felt in the composition of sequences can- not yet be decided with accuracy. At the end of the tenth and especially in the eleventh century se- (juences were certainly verj' widely spread and popular in all countries of the West — even in Italy, which until lately has been overlooked as having scarcely any share in this branch of composition. Not only in Northern but also in Southern Italy, in the neighbourhood of Benevento and Monte Cassino, were schools for sequences, as the discoveries of Bannis- ter at Benevento have proved. Of all these sequences of the first epoch there were some in the eleventh century which were found only in a given country and were therefore local products; others (but they were relatively few) were the common liturgical prop- erty of all countries of the West. Besides these, there are two particular groups to be distinguished, viz. such as were used only in France, England, and Spain, and such as were used only in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. This being the case, we may classify sequences as Gallo-.Vnglican or Gerniano- Italian: to the first class belong the Spanish; to the second those of Holland and Belgium. Between the countries which belong to one class, there existed a more or less free exchange of sequences, whilst sequences which belong ti) the other class were :is a whole excliiilcd and only rarely introduced. Thus, between France and Italy, as well as between Eng- land and Germany, there existed sometimes a friendly
exchange, but scarcely ever between France and Ger-
many. This fact probably played some role in the
development of sequences in various countries and
in the influence which one country exercised upon
another. Of the composers of sequences unfor-
tunately only a few names have been preserved;
after the great Notker Balbulus of St. Gall (d. 912),
the first rank is taken bv Ekkehard I of St. Gall
(d. 973), Abbot Berno of Reichenau (d. 1048), Her-
mann Contractus (d. 1054), and Gottschalk of Lim-
burg (d. 1098). If the honom- of the invention of
sequences belongs to France, the honour of bringing
sequences to perfection during the first epoch be-
longs to Germany.
During the second epoch the picture changes: Lq the abbey of the Canons Regular of St. Victor in Paris the Sequence with rhj-thm and rhyme reached artistic perfection, combining spendour of form with depth and seriousness of conception. This was the case with Adam of St. Victor (d. 1192); it is un- fortunately uncertain whether many of the sequences ascribed to him are really his or belong to his prede- cessors or imitators. The new style met with an enthusiastic reception. The sequences of Adam of St. Victor came into liturgical use almost everjTvhere, and found eager and frequently even successful imitation. In French Graduals almost all the se- quences of the first epoch were supplanted by the later ones, whereas in Germany, together with the new ones, a considerable number of those which are supposed to be Notker's remained in use as late as the fifteenth century. Some precious contributions were furnished by England. Italy on the other hand falls quite beliind during the second epoch. How- ever, the two noble sequences still in use, the "Stabat mater" and the "Dies irae", are the works of two Italian Franciscans, their composition being with some probability assigned to Jacopone da Todi (d. 130.5) and Thomas of Celano (d. about 1250); both these works, however, were originally written as rhymed praj-ers for private use and were only afterwards used as sequences. St. Thomas of Aquinas too (d. 1274) has bequeathed to us the im- mortal sequence, " Lauda Sion salvatorem ", but that is the only one he WTote. Sequences like hjinns declined in the fifteenth centiu^-, and reached their lowest stage of decadence where they had most floiu'ished in the twelfth and thirteenth (viz. in France). 5000 sequences of the most var}'ing value have al- ready come to light ; they are a testimony to the Chris- tian literary activity in the West during seven centu- ries, and are especially significant for the influence they exercised on the development of poetry and music. For the Gregorian melodies were taken over by them and preserved with fidelity and conservatism; with the admission of sequences and tropes into the liturgy, ecclesiastical music found its opportunity for further development and glorious growth.
Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry chiefly Lyrical (London, 1849, 1864, and 1S74); Neale. Sequenlice ez missalibus . . . coUectfZ (London, 1832); Fsere, The Winchester Troper (London, 1894); Weale and Misset, Analecta liturg. (London and Lille, ISSS- 92); JnUAN, Did. of Hymnology (2nd ed., London, 1907); Bahtsch, Die lalein. Sequemen des Milleiallers (Rostock, 1868); ScHUBlGER. Die Sdngerschule St. Gatlens (Einsiedeln and New York, 1838): Kehrein, Latein. Sequenzen des MUlelalters (Mainz, 1873); Werner, Notkers Sequenzen (Aarau, 1901); Marxer, Zur spatmittelaUerl. Choralgesch. St. Gatlens (St. Gall, 1908): MrssET and AtTBHEy, Le^ proses dWdam de Saint- Victor (Paris, 1900); Blume and T)re\es, Analecta hymnica medii ari. VII-X. XXXIV, XXXVIL XXXIX, XL, XLII, XLIV, LIII (Leipzig, 1889-1911): vols VII-X were edited by Dreves, XL by Bannister, LIII by Blume and Bannister. and the others by Blume: vols. LIV and LV will conclude the collection uf all proses or sequences. CleMENS BlTIME.
Proske, Karl, b. at Grobing in Upper Silesia, 11 Feb., 1794; d. 20 Dec, 1861. He took his degree as Doctor of Medicine at Halle, after which he be- came court physician at Oppein. From 1813 to 1820 he followed the profession of medicine, and was army
