For the ongoing feast of the Ascension, here is a sequence for it which was sung in the Uses of Sarum, York, and Hereford in England, and in those of Paris and Sens in France. (Despite its great antiquity, and its status as the capital of France, Paris was a suffragan diocese to Sens until 1622.) It is attributed, though far from certainly, to the Blessed Hermanus Contractus (Herman the Cripple), better known as the author of the great Marian antiphons Alma Redemptoris Mater and Salve, Regina. This recording is interesting for the way it alternates between a single voice and the full choir; in fact, sequences were most typically designed to be sung in some form of alternation like this. The Latin text with English translation, taken from Sequences from the Sarum Missal, with English Translations, by Charles Buchanan Pearson (Bell and Daldy; London, 1871. Click images to enlarge.)
