Hail Thee, Festival Day

Representative text cannot be shown for this hymn due to copyright.

Author: Venantius Honorius Fortunatus

Venantius Honorius Clematianus Fortunatus (b. Cenada, near Treviso, Italy, c. 530; d. Poitiers, France, 609) was educated at Ravenna and Milan and was converted to the Christian faith at an early age. Legend has it that while a student at Ravenna he contracted a disease of the eye and became nearly blind. But he was miraculously healed after anointing his eyes with oil from a lamp burning before the altar of St. Martin of Tours. In gratitude Fortunatus made a pilgrimage to that saint's shrine in Tours and spent the rest of his life in Gaul (France), at first traveling and composing love songs. He developed a platonic affection for Queen Rhadegonda, joined her Abbey of St. Croix in Poitiers, and became its bishop in 599. His Hymns far all th… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Bright and in likeness of fire
Title: Hail Thee, Festival Day
Author: Venantius Honorius Fortunatus
Meter: Irregular
Source: Tr. Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978
Language: English
Refrain First Line: Hail thee, festival day
Publication Date: 1982
Copyright: © 1978 "Lutheran Book of Worship"

Tune

SALVE FESTA DIES (Vaughan Williams)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (PHH 316) composed SALVE FESTA DIES as a setting for Venantius H. Fortunatus's (PHH 400) famous text "Hail Thee, Festival Day." The tune, whose title comes from the opening words of that text, was published in The English Hymnal of 1906. Like SINE NOMINE (505), this tune is vi…

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Instances

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Lutheran Worship #159

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