(Lat.: ‘praises to the paschal victim’).
The sequence for Easter (LU, 665; HAM, no.16a). The text is ascribed to Wipo of Burgundy (d c1050). It was one of the four sequences retained by the Council of Trent (1545–63), following which the first part of the final double versicle, containing an uncomplimentary reference to the Jews, was normally omitted. It occupies a position midway between the early type and that of Adam of St Victor (see Sequence (i), §9); there is some rhyme, but the metre is still very irregular even though it was not apparently written to a pre-existing melody. It was frequently incorporated into liturgical dramas at Easter (see Medieval drama). There is a primitive organum setting in the Las Huelgas manuscript (E-BUhu; early 14th century), and an anonymous 15th-century alternatim setting survives in Trent (I-TRmnp 88). In addition there are settings by Busnoys, Josquin (two), Willaert (two), Lassus, Palestrina (four), Victoria (an incomplete setting beginning at ‘Dic nobis’), Fernando de las Infantas and Byrd. It was used as a cantus firmus in Isaac's setting of a different Easter sequence, Laudes Salvatori, and there is a partial setting, beginning at ‘Agnus redemit oves’, in Johannes Hähnel's Easter Mass. This latter is largely based on the German tune Christ ist erstanden, itself derived from parts of the plainsong of Victimae paschali, from which it was absorbed into the stream of Lutheran melodic style (see Psalms, metrical, §II, 2 for the Calvinist use of the tune).
JOHN CALDWELL