Custodes hominum psallimus Angelos. [Guardian Angels.] This hymn is ascribed to Cardinal Bellarmine. According to Gavanius it was added to the Roman Breviary in 1608, by command of Paul V. It was not formally incorporated in the Breviaryuntil after 1632, and, in common with "Aeterne Rector siderum" (q.v.), is in the Venice edition, 1635, in an Appendix with independent pagination and a separate title-page. It is for Vespers in the Office for "the Holy Guardian Angels. Double of the second class," Oct. 2. It is also one of the few hymns from the Roman Breviary given in modern French Breviaries. In the latter, however, it has a different doxology, and the text varies. The Roman Breviary text is in Daniel, ii. p. 375; and the Paris Breviary in Cardinal Newman's Hymni Ecclesiae, 1838 and 1865. Translated as:—
And are there then celestial habitants? by I. Williams, in his Hymns translation from the Paris Breviary, 1839, p. 254. This was repeated in the Child's Christian Year, 1841, and later editions, where it is appointed for "St. Michael and All Angels." It is also translated as:—"Praise we those ministers celestial." E. Caswall. 1849. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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Custodes hominum psallimus Angelos, p. 274, ii. F. W. E. Roth, in his Latin Hymnen, 1887, No. 157, cites this as in the manuscript 852 of the Darmstadt Library, and informed me that it is there in a hand of the beginning of the 16th century. It therefore cannot be by Bellarmine, who was born 1542, and died 1621. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)
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