churches, did not adopt the practice of hymn chanting in her liturgy for
centuries; why she did not precede or quickly follow the Eastern and
many parts of the Western Church in this matter of liturgical hymns.
"The Church," he says, "did not wish to alter by religious songs the
simplicity, or the meaning, of her great liturgical prayer. Nor did she
wish to adopt quickly any innovation in her liturgy or discipline"
(_Inst. Liturg._ I. 1, pp. 170-171).

No part of the Church's liturgy has met with such persistent, abusive,
and often ignorant criticism as her hymns have received.

The renaissance clerics, the Gallicans, the Jansenists, and the
Protestants poured forth volumes of hostile and unmerited criticism on
the matter and form of Rome's sacred songs. Becichemus, rector of the
Academy of Pavia in the sixteenth century, in his introduction to the
work of Ferreri, wrote of the hymns: "sunt omnes fere mendosi, inepti,
barbarie refecti, nulla pedum ratione nullo syllabarum mensu
compositi.... Ut ad risum eruditos concinent, et ad contemptum
ecclesiastici ritus vel literatos sacerdotes inducant.... Literatos
dixi: nam ceteri qui sunt sacri patrimonii helluones, sine scientia,
sine sapientia, satis habent, ut dracones stare juxta arcam Domini." The
remarks of the rector recall the saying of Lactantius, "literati non
habent fidem." Ferreri, who had been commissioned by Pope Clement to
revise and correct the Breviary hymns, wrote in his dedication epistle:
"I have given all my care to this collection of new hymns, because
learned priests and friends of good Latinity who are now obliged to
praise God in a barbarous style, are exposed to laugh and to despise
holy things." Santeuil (1630-1697) characterised the Breviary hymns as
the product of ignorance, the disgrace of the Latin language, the
disreputable relics of the early ages, the result of lunacy.