Young—Officium Pastorum. 
317 
need, for the moment, observe only one, a well known literary 
embellishment of the responsory Verhum caro factum est: 
'Tiesponsorium: Verbum caro factum est et habitabit in 
nobis, cuius gloriam uidimus quasi unigeniti a Patre, plenum 
gracia et ueritate. <fol. I7 r > Versus: In principio erat 
uerbum, et uerbum erat aput Deum, et Deus erat uerbum. 
Plenum. Gloria Patn et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat 
in principio. 
Trophe : 
Quern ethera et terra atq Ue mare non preualent totum capere, 
Versus: Asine presepe infans implet, celos regens, ubera 
sugens. 
Versus: Factor maris factus hodie est de matre. 
Versus: Creans diem hodie creatus est in die. 
Versus: Hiascitur mundo oriens Gabriel, quern uocauit Em¬ 
manuel, nobiscum Deus. * 2 
ITnder these general circumstances, then, along with numer¬ 
ous other tropes, Quem quceritis in prcesepe found its way to 
Christmas Matins, taking a place at the end of the office, after 
the Te Deum Laudamus . 3 * The most obvious and most likely 
reason for this transfer is to be found, no doubt, in the analogy 
with Easter. Just as Quem quceritis in prcesepe Was indubitably 
modeled upon Quem quceritis in sepulchro * so the transfer of 
the Christmas trope from the Introit of the Miagna Missa to the 
end of Matins may well have been suggested by the similar 
transfer of the Easter trope. 5 6 i 
In this connection, however, it is interesting to observe one 
or two special liturgical manifestations at the end of Christmas 
Matins which may or may not be considered dramatic, and 
which may or may not have been influential in the development 
3 Oxford, Bibl. Bodl., MS. Miscell. Liturg 202, Liber Responsalis 
Allemanicus saec. xiii, fol. 16 v- 17 r. 
2 Followed immediately by the rubric: Hie imponatwr prima Missa. 
3 For a complete text of Christmas Matins, containing tropes, see 
below, Appendix B. 
4 See above pp. 301 ff., 
6 See Chambers, Vol. II, p. 25. 
