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| St. Francis, painted shortly after his death |
This past week saw the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. The Franciscans were early adopters of harmony in their sacred music, most notably the Office (or Historia) of St. Francis which dates to the 1230s AD and which is still sun by the Franciscans today.
Well, the Historia was composed by Julian of Speyer, a Fransciscan who was almost certainly know to the Saint himself. Julian was from the German city of Speyer - alert readers will recognize a recent post here about the world's oldest bottle of wine which was discovered in a Roman grave in Speyer.
And so by coincidence I posted about wine from Speyer on the eve of the feast of St. Francis, whose music was composed by a guy from where the wine came from.
Alas, I can't find any of Julian's music online. Instead, here is an unusual (for this blog) but hauntingly beautiful song about St. Francis. Enjoy!
If you are on a serious History Jones these days Speyer is also famous as the place where the Codex Spirensis was found in the 1400's. Only a single page survives of the original, but contemporary copies show it was a compilation of documents from the final years of the Roman Empire including the Notitia Dignitatum a "list of offices" that was essential the complete order of battle of the late Roman army and a description of government offices.
ReplyDeleteRegards the latter lets hope that far distant civilizations remember us for something other than an organizational chart of our bureaucracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notitia_Dignitatum
TW
Sarah McLachlan has several very nice Christmas albums. A distinctive voice and an amazing talent.
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