Introduction
This piece was composed as one of the psalms of my larger work, Compline. The office of Compline, as observed in the Rule of St. Benedict (c. 480 to c. 547 C.E.), prescribes only Psalms 4, 90, and 133, but throughout the history of the church there has been some considerable variation as to how many and which psalms should be sung. Around the ninth century, Compline, and most of the western liturgy, took on a different appearance that fused the Carolingian practices of Charlemagne with the Latin Roman rite. The most significant Carolingian change to Compline was the addition of Psalm 30 to the already established three psalms. It is not quite clear if Charlemagne himself or one of his many trusted advisers (Alcuin, Angilbert, Theodulf, etc.) decreed this change, but it certainly took place during his rule.
When I had initially started to set the psalms of Compline to music, I had only planned on using the original three, but after knowledge of Charlemagne’s suggested involvement in the addition of a fourth psalm, I decided to give Psalm 30 another look. This knowledge sparked my interest considerably, because in 2007, I learned of a late distant cousin, Marjorie Kimball Templeton, who kept meticulous genealogical records of my family’s ancestry and had traced our lineage as far back as Charlemagne. Because of the ancestral link, I wanted to reference Charlemagne some way in my psalm settings, so I decided to look for Psalm 30 written in Charlemagne’s native tongue, Old Low Franconian.
This proved to be no easy task. Firstly, there seemed to be some ambiguity as to whether he actually spoke that language. Secondly, Old Low Franconian is a dead language whose only representation we have exists in just a few fragmentary written sources. But, I found in one of those fragments an old psalter written in Latin with a corresponding translation in Old Low Franconian. Alas, I had found my “needle in a haystack.” But, this psalter only contained Psalms 18 and 53:7–73:9. After realizing that Psalm 30 was not available, I decided to set to music Psalm 60, which is the second psalm (the other being Psalm 33) assigned to Compline for Wednesdays.
Through my research of Charlemagne, I also discovered the writings of the proverbial and endeared monk and educator, Alcuin. I had beforehand only been familiar with a few of Alcuin’s poems (translated from Latin to English), but was unaware of his massive contribution to the court of Charlemagne and to the foundation of our western educational system. It is for these reasons I have decided to juxtapose one of his Latin prayers, Preces Nocturnae (Prayer at Night), alongside the Old Low Franconian psalm text.
The Texts
The term “Old Low Franconian” refers to the language of the Franks who lived in the “Low countries” of what is now the modern day Belgian province of East and West Flanders. This is considered to be the language of Charlemagne and his court. The written evidence for Old Low Franconian is preserved in only four documents – two handwritten manuscripts and two printed editions. All four may be traced back to a single common source, now lost, to which is commonly referred to as the Wachtendonck Codex. This Codex apparently contained a Latin version of the Book of Psalms and of several hymns and creeds with interlinear translations from the Latin into Central Franconian (Psalms 1-9) and Low Franconian (Psalms 10-150, and the creeds and hymns).
The Wachtendonck Psaltery, thought to have been written in the ninth century, survives only in a few relatively late fragmentary copies known collectively as the Old Low and Central Franconian Psalms and Glosses. It was one of the earliest translations of the psalms into a German dialect. The existing fragments provide the most extensive textual evidence of those early translations. Most of the surviving descriptive accounts of this text are to be found in the correspondence of Flemish scholar Justus Lipsius. In a letter to Jan van der Does, dated 2 August 1591, Lipsius wrote he had obtained a Latin Psalter from Arnoldus Wachtendonck in Liege. He described this as containing word-for-word “Germanic” translations “from our earlier language,” and that he intended either to have it reproduced or to copy some passages from it himself. He also mentioned that the psaltery had earlier been in St. Amor, and it had probably been written around the time of Charlemagne (747-814).