Patriotic hymns in Latin
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,045
    I'm looking for Latin hymn texts that are broadly patriotic, or prayers for the nation, or for peace. If they have music with them, all the better. I don't recall the Analecta Hymnica having a topic index. Any ideas?
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    There may be some others here:
    https://www.latinisedhymns.org.uk/hymn/115
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    Well this is probably the wrong country, but it is patriotic, and it also calls for perpetual peace...
    https://societyofstbede.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/salvefestageorgi.pdf
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,371
    How would you sing the antepenultimate line, which seems to have two too many syllables?
  • Chrism
    Posts: 868
    The Analecta has a painful but useful liturgical index available at HathiTrust, and I remember seeing some Votive Masses in there including pro Pace. (I would be surprised if "for the nation" was much of a concept prior to the 16th Century, though.)

    Register 2 is the master index, with pp. 59-224 being by liturgy or feast. Register 2 is, however, only an index into Register 1. Once you get the number from Register 2, you have to look at Register 1.

    Register 1 (A-J) has index #'s 1-14740.

    Register 1 (K-Z) has index #'s 14741-28296.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,045
    Madorganist--how good are those translations grammatically? It's a really tempting site, practically speaking.
    Tomjaw-- that would be dandy, if I were English. But my people left ca. 1860.
    Chrism-- thanks, I'll check it out. As for "nation", there's the Agincourt Carol, so the idea was there, at least in terms of "a people"
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    No clue. I can generally get the gist of liturgical text or rubrics without a dictionary, but I'm no Latin scholar. Maybe some other forum members can render a better judgment.
  • Chrism
    Posts: 868
    Point taken. (And the same ten years later at Domrémy.)

    In the Church, the liturgical "patriotism" I've seen pre-Reformation has been:
    • Prayers for the King (and probably for the Republic in certain places, for example, Italian city-states), a list which includes the Laudes Regiae and Domine, salvum fac Regem [N.B., Google showed me this non-Catholic version for the President of Harvard University]
    • Crusader hymns and hymns from the other wars on Christendom's frontier, including Reconquista offices such as the Liberation of Granada, sometimes under the rubric of the Votive contra Paganos.
    • Hymns that seem nationalistic, but associated with a particular liturgical feast, such as Gaude felix Hungaria
    • Bellum sacrum chants - sacred war
    • Other prayers contra something, for example against enemies or against Albigensians.


    Of course in more recent times there is more patriotic material, such as the Domine, Salvum fac Galliam, but can any of it refer to our dear land? I have yet to come across any chant which refers to America Septentrionalis, but would love to learn of such a thing.
    Thanked by 1WGS
  • WGS
    Posts: 297
    Thank you for the "new" word.
    Septentrional - meaning "of the north " - a Latinate adjective which refers to the seven stars of the Big Dipper ,
Add a Comment