Non nobis

Non nobis is the incipit and conventional title of a short Latin Christian hymn used as a prayer of thanksgiving and expression of humility.

[5][6] Jean Mouton (c. 1459–1522) composed a motet to a text beginning with the Non nobis to celebrate the birth of Renée of France, a daughter to Louis XII and Anne of Brittany in 1510.

It provided a model for Byrd's famous Civitas sancti tui (Ne irascaris Domine Part II).

It laments the desolation of the Holy City in language derived from Jeremiah: Aspice Domine, quia facta est desolata civitas plena divitiis, sedet in tristitia domina gentium: non est qui consoletur eam, nisi tu Deus noster (2) Plorans ploravit in nocte, et lacrimae eius in maxillis eius.

[Translation:] Behold, Lord, for the city once full of riches is laid waste, she who ruled the peoples sits in sadness: there is none to console her but thou, our God.

This is clear from the earliest known notated source, the so-called Bull MS (also known as Tisdale's Virginal Book)[7] Shakespeare, in Henry V Act IV Scene 8, has the king proclaim the singing of both the Non nobis and the Te Deum after the victory at Agincourt.

There is no stage direction in the play to indicate the singing of Non nobis Domine , but if Shakespeare had a specific setting in mind he was probably thinking anachronistically of a Protestant metrical psalm tune.

When the kyng had passed through the felde & saw neither resistence nor apparaunce of any Frenchmen savyng the dead corsses [corpses], he caused the retrayte to be blowen and brought al his armie together about, iiij [4].

Non nobis domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam, whiche is to say in Englishe, Not to us lord, not to us, but to thy name let the glory be geven: whiche done he caused Te deum with certeine anthemes to be song gevyng laudes and praisynges to God, and not boastyng nor braggyng of him selfe nor his humane power.In England the canon came to form part of the repertory of glee clubs in the 18th and 19th centuries, and has traditionally been sung as a grace at public dinners.

It is the song of the St. Charles Garnier College, of Québec City, the oldest comprehensive secondary school in Canada.