All glory, praise and honour

This hymn and the next, usefully printed as adjacent texts here as in many other hymnals, conclude the section on Christ’s life and ministry and form a clear bridge into ‘His suffering and death’. Both are by 19th-c authors in the classic mould and concentrate specifically, if not exclusively, on the events of what came to be called Palm Sunday or ‘the Sunday next before Easter’. Both keep unmistakably in view the coming glory and reign of the Saviour—in stz 4 of this one, and 5 of 408. This is of course implied in the fact that we sing such hymns at all, to our Redeemer and King.

But the original Lat of this hymn, 78 lines normally much reduced for singing, was written by Theodulph of Orleans c820, in the prison at Angers, SW of Paris, where he died. Gloria, laus et honor was a processional hymn in a classic (elegiac) metre which bears little relation to the different rhythm of J M Neale’s paraphrase. In 1851 he had produced his own elegiacs in Medieval Hymns and Sequences, but Glory and honour and laud be to thee, Christ, King and Redeemer was soon overtaken by the more familiar text, from The Hymnal Noted of 1854. This was revised for the 1861 A&M, and modernised here as elsewhere in the 20th c. The use of stz 1 as a repeated refrain is very ancient, but this arrangement, though established with the ‘new’ metre and tune in A&M, is not always adopted today.Colin Hodgetts’ ‘you-language’ version appeared in 1969.

Various legends have accumulated around the hymn (in themselves a testimony to its impact), but its almost ‘magical charm’ can well survive without them; here is the art which conceals art. However, many books have replaced the potentially confusing ‘laud’ with ‘praise’ in line 1 of the refrain, and among others now revised are 1.4 (from ‘the King and Blessed One’) 2.3–4 (as in HTC, from ‘and mortal men and all things/ created …’). Stzs 3–5 show little change, though two of them are credited to Jubilate. The refrain contains a mini-borrowing from Isaac Watts, who has the line ‘with glad hosannas ring.’

The tune ST THEODULPH, given this later name in honour of the author, is adapted from one composed for an entirely different occasion. Valerius Herberger of Silesia wrote the funeral hymn Valet will ich dir geben (‘I will bid you farewell’), during the plague years. Melchior Teschner, cantor at the Lutheran church where Herberger was the pastor, composed two 5-part tunes for it; this is the 2nd, printed in a leaflet at Leipzig in 1615. But changes over many years have turned a solemn composition into one filled with joy; J S Bach’s harmonies are printed here. Further variations involve many different permutations of verse and chorus, each with its strong advocates. The melody bears a slight resemblance to William Byrd’s dance tune SELLINGER’S ROUND, c1580. In a strikingly contrasted musical style came Malcolm Williamson’s new tune in his Procession of Palms, c1970.

b at Lamb’s Conduit St, Bloomsbury, Middx (C London) 1818, d East Grinstead, Sussex 1866. He was taught privately and at Sherborne Sch; Trinity Coll Cambridge (BA 1840), then Fellow and Tutor at Downing Coll. On 11 occasions he won the annual Seatonian Prize for a sacred poem. Ordained in 1841, he was unable to serve as incumbent of Crawley, Sussex, through ill health, and spent 3 winters in Madeira. He became Warden of Sackville Coll, E Grinstead, W Sussex, from 1846 until his death 20 years later. This was a set of private almshouses; in spite of a stormy relationship with his bishop and others over ‘high’ ritualistic practices, he developed an original and organised system of poor relief both locally and in London, through the sisterhood communities he founded.

With Thos Helmore, Neale compiled the Hymnal Noted in 1852, which did much to remove the tractarian (‘high church’) suspicion of hymns as essentially ‘nonconformist’. Among his many other writings, arising from a vast capacity for reading, was the ground-breaking History of the Eastern Church and the rediscovery and rejuvenating of old carols (collections for Christmas in 1853 and Easter the year following). His untypical, eccentric but popular item Good King Wenceslas was a target for the barbs of P Dearmer, qv, who (like others since) voiced the hope in 1928 that it ‘might be gradually dropped’.

Neale and his immediate circle had a pervasive effect on many things Anglican, including architecture, furnishing and liturgy, which has lasted until our own day. He founded and led the Camden Society and edited the journal The Ecclesiologist in order to give practical local expression to the doctrines of the Tractarians. But his greatest literary work lay in his translation of classic Gk and Lat hymns. In this he pioneered the rediscovery of some of the church’s medieval and earlier treasures, and his academic scholarship blended with his considerable and disciplined poetic gifts which showed greater fluency with the passing years. Like Chas Wesley he was an extraordinarily fast worker, given the high quality of so much of his verse. His translations from Lat, mainly 1852–65, kept the rhythm of the sources; among his original hymns (1842–66) he was critical of his own early attempts to write for children. But he considered that a text in draft should be given plenty of time to mature or be improved; he voluntarily submitted many texts to an editorial committee. Even so, some were attacked by RCs because in translation he had removed some offensive Roman doctrines; others, because they leant too far in a popish direction. His own position was made clear by such gems as, ‘We need not defend ourselves against any charge of sympathising with vulgarity in composition or Calvinism in doctrine’.

Of his final Original Sequences and Hymns (1866), many were written ‘before my illness’, some over 20 years earlier, and ‘the rest are the work of a sick bed’—JMN, writing a few days before his death. His daughter Mary assisted in collecting his work, and many of his sermons were published. He was familiar with some 20 languages, and had a notable ministry among children, writing several children’s books. He had strong views on music, and was a keen admirer of the poetry of John Keble, qv. 72 items (most of them paraphrases) are credited to him in EH, and he has always been wellrepresented in A&M, featuring 30 times in the current (2000) edn, Common Praise. Julian gives him extended treatment and notes ‘the enormous influence Dr Neale has exercised over modern hymnody’. In A G Lough’s significantly titled The Influence of John Mason Neale (1962) and Michael Chandler’s 1995 biography, while the main interest of the writers lies elsewhere, there are interesting chapters respectively on his ‘Hymns, Ballads and Carols’ and his ‘Hymns and Psalms’. What Charles Wesley was with original texts, so was Neale with translations, not least in the sense that, as a contemporary put it, ‘he was always writing’. Nos.225, 297*, 338, 346, 371*, 407, 442, 472, 567, 881, 971.

b ?Spain c750, Angers, NW France 821. As a relatively young man he was abbot of a monastery in Florence. Favoured by Charlemagne (‘Charles the Great’), he was brought to France to be Abbot of Fleury and Bp of Orleans some time before 798. In 800 he took part in the trial of the much-troubled pope Leo III, who cleared himself and forthwith crowned Charles as the first head of the ‘Holy Roman Empire’. He was committed to his diocese, doing much to reform its standards of education, worship, architecture and art, including the encouragement of illuminated mss of the (Lat) Bible. But the intrigues continued, and after Charles’ death Theodulph was accused of conspiracy in 818, deposed, imprisoned and finally exiled to Angers in the Loire region, where he remained. He was possibly released but re-arrested; his death had some suspicious features which suggest poisoning. His theological writings included works on the Holy Spirit, on baptism and the creed. His verse gives a rare glimpse of life in the imperial court, and included the hymns of which one (in paraphrase) has become universally known. No.407.