This is how we, and others across many different religious faiths, begin Holy Week. It has been traditional in the Episcopal Church since it first appeared in our Hymnal in 1871. Once the palms are blessed from the front steps of the church, we form a procession and go around the church singing this hymn and waving our palm branches, and then we enter the church.
The hymn is based on the Gospel account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. See Mathew 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-19; Luke 19:28-44; John 12:12-19. On Palm Sunday, we will hear this account from one of the Gospel writers during the Liturgy of the Palms outside on the church steps. Other scripture references include Zechariah 9:9 (Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.); and I Timothy 1:17 (To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.). [This quote from I Timothy brings to mind another hymn, Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise, H1982 No. 423.]
It would be hard to imagine Holy Week without this start. Both text and tune have that feeling of triumph that begins Holy Week. The original Latin text, by Theodulph of Orléans (c. 760-821), was written in 820, in the time of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. Theodulph was a leading intellectual figure in Charlemagne’s court, Abbot of Fleury, and Bishop of Orléans. When Charlemagne died, and his son, Louis the Pious, succeeded him as emperor, there was a power struggle between Louis and an Italian rival. Suspecting that Theodulph supported the rival, Louis removed Theodulph from his post as bishop and put him under house arrest at Angers. It was during that time that Theodulph wrote Gloria, laus et honor for Palm Sunday. Though apocryphal, a story from the 16th century tells that Louis heard this hymn one Palm Sunday, and was so moved that he had Theodulph released and also ordered this hymn to be sung every Palm Sunday.
This hymn came into English usage in the 19th century, with John Mason Neale’s (1818-1866) translation. It was first published in London in The Hymnal Noted, Part 2 (1854). We are deeply indebted to Neale for his many translations of Latin hymns. Our hymnbook has numerous translations by Neale.
The original Latin hymn has a refrain and 38 stanzas. It is hard for us to imagine a hymn with 38 stanzas. Yet, in earlier times, people processed throughout the town as they sang it on Palm Sunday, so that might take all 38 stanzas. Over the years, many of those stanzas dropped out of general use. Neale only translated the refrain and five stanzas that are in our hymnbook. It is easy to see why this stanza fell out of use:
Be Thou, O Lord, the Rider,
And we the little ass;
That to God’s Holy City
Together we may pass.
When noting that verse had been dropped in the 17th century, Neale himself noted its “pious quaintness,” at which “we can scarcely avoid a smile.”
The tune is called VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN in our hymnbook. In some hymnbooks, it is called ST. THEODULPH. How this came to be is complicated. A Lutheran hymn for the dying titled Valet will ich dir geben (Farewell I Gladly Bid Thee) was written by Valerius Herberger, a German theologian, in 1613 during an epidemic. It was published with two tunes by Melchior Teschner (1584-1635), a German Lutheran cantor and pastor. The second of those two tunes was first paired with All Glory, Laud, and Honor in 1861 in the great English hymnal, Hymns Ancient and Modern, which called the tune ST. THEODULPH, for obvious reasons. So now, the tune has two names. We sing this same tune to an Advent hymn, Blessed Be the King Whose Coming, H1982 No 74. This tune also appears in several works by Bach.
For this month, we will suspend our usual practice of singing the Hymn of the Month on every Sunday of the month. All Glory, Laud, and Honor is specific to Palm Sunday, and it just doesn’t fit anywhere else.
— Carolyn Parmenter, Music Director
