Rudiger, one of the confederates, was therefore set to watch for the coming of the intruding bishop, and when Salomon slipped along toward the church in the darkness the watcher suddenly thrust a light in his face and saw who it was. Then this valiant Rudiger swore the largest oath permitted in those sacred precincts, for he asseverated “by St. Gall” that no stranger in their conventual habit should be around the cloisters at night. Salomon offered endless apologies, and promised to secure permission from the abbot before he wore the surplice again. And he even turned his discomfiture into a partial victory by begging Rudiger to present this request in his behalf. The petition, so voiced, came duly before the “senate” of that monkish republic, which happened, unfortunately for the avaricious and rapacious Salomon, to include his four opposers—“Hartmann, who composed the melody to the _Sanctus humili prece_; Notker the Stammerer, who made _Sequences_; Ratpert, who wrote _Ardua spes mundi_, and Tutilo, who was the author of _Hodie cantandus_.” These men finally allowed him to come in as usual, provided he would entirely demit his canon’s raiment, and be nothing but a Benedictine monk while within the walls.
Somehow Salomon conceded even this, and one day brought a splendid gift—a gold box encrusted with jewels and containing relics—which he offered to the abbey. All this looked in the direction that the monks feared; and they therefore rejected his present with some scorn. But it did not take long to lift Salomon the Simonist to the Abbacy of Reichenau, and then Archbishop Sfortto contrived at length to secure the wealthy St. Gall for his favorite. Thus Salomon, the detested, became, in spite of all opposition, the abbot of that celebrated cloister.
But St. Gall itself had always prospered, apparently as the sun does according to the theories of some astronomers, for it had been continually receiving cometary accessions that dropped into it unexpectedly. One such was an antiphonary, which, on the principle that “to him that hath shall be given,” fell into the hands of these musical monks through the burning of the Abbey of Jumieges in 851. This was the true origin of the “sequence.” It solved the problem of Notker in a novel manner when he finally examined it, for he had been puzzled at the immense prolongation of the final syllable _ia_ in the _Alleluia_, which was sung to cover the retreat of the deacon as he ascended to the rood-loft to chant the Gospel. This _Alleluia_ came between the Epistle and the Gospel, and as the deacon had some space to traverse, the _ia_ was nearly interminable; for even a very few seconds became on such an occasion a most perceptible and wearisome interval of time.