HOTC #16: LSB 413, O Wondrous Type! O Vision Fair
Telling the tale of this hymn takes us deep into the history of medieval England, to imposing island monasteries, the cloisters of ancient cathedrals, and toward the very din of knightly battle. Our story is strewn with the aftershocks of the Norman Conquest, the liturgical history of the English church, and one of the sceptered isle’s greatest kings triumphing over all odds on a bloody field in France.
The Transfiguration, by Carl Heinrich Bloch, ca. 1865
The Author
The ruins of Osmund’s Norman cathedral at Old Sarum, England
Prior to the standardization of the Mass that came as a reaction to the Reformation (Council of Trent, 1545-1563, intermittently), various “regional” or “national” versions (called “uses”) were common throughout Europe. Twelve years after his victory at Hastings, William the Conqueror appointed his cousin and lord chancellor, Osmund, to be bishop of Salisbury, in the southwest of England. Salisbury was a new diocese - Osmund was only the second bishop there, after the previous bishop had combined two previous dioceses to create it. Indeed, when Osmund arrived at Salisbury in 1078, the cathedral had only just been begun (it would not be consecrated until 1092).
Osmund inherited the local customs and adaptations of the Roman Rite then in use, and appears to have begun extensively revising the service he had found being used in his new diocese, drawing on rites and uses familiar to him from Normandy and the Continent. Over time, this admixture of old English use and the innovations from Normandy into a series of books and manuals (just as our hymnals are today), mostly missals (instructions and texts for the celebration of the Mass) and breviaries (prayer books designed for praying the Liturgy of the Hours).
Mont St. Michel monastery, France
One such book is the Sarum Breviary, the oldest extant copies of which are one from Rouen, in Normandy, and one found in the breathtakingly spectacular fortress-monastery of Mont St. Michel, in the English Channel just off the Norman coast. It is in these books (dated to roughly 1491) that we find the earliest source for this text.
How old is it? We will likely never know. The basis of the Sarum Breviary certainly goes back to Osmund way back in 1078, but we have very few clues as to when the Sarum Use was standardized and regulated, nevermind who the specific author of this work hymn is or precisely when it was composed. The Canterbury Convocation of 1543 would go on to mandate the use of the Sarum Breviary for use in the nascent Church of England, and it would form the bedrock of Thomas Cranmer’s magnum opus, the Book of Common Prayer in 1549.
The Text
The initial language (and indeed, much of the language throughout) of John Mason Neale’s translation is quite archaic, and helps to reinforce the archaic and medieval ethos produced by the tune (more on that later). An example is the word “type” in “O wondrous type!” from the first verse. used here in a now-disused definition, “an image or figure.” This word, “type,” has a double meaning here, however, as a further definition of “type” is “a symbol of something in the future, as an Old Testament event serving as a prefiguration of a New Testament event.” In that sense, the “type” referred to at the beginning of the first verse refers to the “…glory that the Church may share,” in the second line of the same verse. The word order also reinforces the archaic feel of the text; some of the sentences and phrases sound almost Shakespearean.
The word order and phrasing also serve to obscure what is, really, a pretty straightforward text: the first two verses tell the two halves of the Transfiguration story, with the first verse capturing the amazement and delight of the disciples at this sight atop the mountain, and the second verse retelling the story of what went on there.
The third verse moves us forward from the story as found in the gospels to the present day, where Christ “With shining face and bright array / Christ deigns to manifest…” This is, clearly, a reference to the Second Coming. The fourth verse turns the focus to the singer of the hymn and the congregation, “…faithful hearts…” that are “raised on high / By this great vision’s mystery,” and closing with a reference to a “hymn of praise,” which this text self-evidently is.
The final verse is a simple doxology, made more topical by the by a reminder of the promise that, brought to His grace, we shall “…see Thy glory face to face,” just as the disciples did on the mountain that day.
The Tune
The most medieval thing about this is, clearly, the tune. It sounds odd to our modern ears: that whole step between the opening C and the Bb isn’t something we’re used to. Our ear wants that to be a half step - C to B - but we’re not in a major key (or a minor one, for that matter), we’re in Dorian mode. Without going deep into obscure music theory, essentially Dorian mode is a minor key with one of the flats removed (or a sharp added). So in this case, we’re in C Dorian: we start on C, we end on C, but we only have two flats, not the three we would expect in C minor. Dorian mode was extremely popular up through the end of the Baroque period, and even after. A few examples are Bach’s “Dorian” Toccata and Fugue, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Miles Davis’s “So What,” The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”
Henry V
The original text to this tune is poem celebrating the 1415 victory of England’s King Henry V at Agincourt, in what is now northern France. This background and history of the Agincourt campaign can be explored more deeply here. The short version, which may be familiar from Shakespeare’s play* on the subject: Henry V claimed the crown of France, and invaded Normandy in 1415. After initial success capturing the port city of Harfleur, the outnumbered and outmaneuvered English were effectively cornered at Agincourt as they tried to escape via Calais. The battle raged all through October 25, 1415, and by the end the peasant archers of the English army and their companion men-at-arms had massacred or captured between 6,000 and 10,000 French combatants at a cost of less than a thousand casualties. Vast swathes of the French nobility and aristocracy lay dead on the field, many of them felled by English and Welsh peasants utilizing their famous longbows.
While the campaign had been something of a disaster up to that point, Agincourt was a triumph for the English, and was celebrated widely upon the king’s return from Normandy. The poem initially associated with this tune celebrates that victory. A performance of that composition (with lyrics) is available here. It is highly likely that the text is associated with the king’s triumphal return to London, both from the wording of the poem (“oure kynge” clearly refers to Henry V, who died in 1422) and the production of a large banner with the Latin inscription “Deo gratias” (the prominent phrase of the poem’s refrain), which was placed along the processional route, near St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Some sources attribute this tune to John Dunstaple (or Dunstable), probably the preeminent English composer of that age, however this does not appear to have ever been definitively proved, though it is certainly possible.
The tune has become popular in church music, particularly in the 20th Century, and appears once more in Lutheran Service Book, where it sets another medieval Latin hymn text, “O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High,” LSB #544. One setting of note is by the Anglo-Canadian composer Healey Willan (a personal favorite of mine, and my prelude for church this morning).
*if you’ve never seen Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film adaptation of Shakespeare Henry V, you are missing out and should go watch it right now!
Settings of this hymn and/or tune can be found in:
For organ:
Concordia Hymn Prelude Library, Vol. 3
O God Beyond All Praising (the setting in this book is fantastic, and a lot of fun!)
Healey Willan: 30 Hymn Prelues, Set 2
Introductions, Harmonizations, Accompaniments, Interpretations, Vol. 6