Note 512 — Chapter V · THE DIFFERENCING ELEMENTS OF COMMUNAL POETRY

St. Augustine tells how such songs were sung at the tomb of St. Cyprian: “per totam noctem cantabantur hic nefaria, et cantantibus saltabatur.” See also the well-known passage from Burchard of Worms: “cantasti ibi diabolica carmina et fecisti ibi saltationes”—i.e. at the “vigiliis cadaverum mortuorum.” Müllenhoff, work quoted, pp. 26 ff., gives some of these protests of the church. On p. 30 he notes that the songs themselves were improvised: extempore et subito facta. The older the rite, the more choral and communal it grows. The names (ibid., p. 25) are significant: dâdsisas, leidsang, chlagasang, etc., for older German; lîcsang, lîcleóð (epicedium), byrgensang (epitaphium), etc., for older English.