IL Modern Hymnography. — 1. German. — The origin •of German hymns, which are without question the rich- est of any in modern tongues, may be traced to the 9th century. But the history of German hymnology, strict- ly speaking, does not begin earlier than the Keforma- tion. For "it was not until the people possessed the Word of God, and liberty to worship him in their own language, that such a body of songs could be created, though vernacular hymns and sacred lyrics had existed in Germany througliout the Middle Ages. It was then that a great outburst of national poetry and music took place which reflected the spirit of those times ; and on a somewhat smaller scale the same thing has happened both before and since that time, at every great crisis iu the history of the German people." The most marked of these periods are, besides the Reformation, the 12th and 13th centuries, or the Crusading period, and the latter part of the 17th, and 18th centuries. The earliest attempts at German hymns are traced to the 9th cen- tury. For some centuries preceding the Roman Church had abandoned congregational singing, and the hymns formed part of the liturgical service performed by the priests and the canonical singers. In some cliurches, however, the people still continued '-'the old practice of uttt'ring the response Kyrie Eleison, Christe E/eison, at certain internals during the singing of the Latin hymns and psalms, wliich finally degenerated into a confused clamor of voices. The first attempt to remedy this was made by adding, soon after Notker, who originated the Latin Sequence or Prose, a few German rhymes to the Kyrie Eleison, " from the last syllables of wliich these earliest German hymns were called Leisen." But as they were never used in Mass service, but were confined to popular festivals, pilgrimages, and the like, they did not come into general use, and it may be said that the real employment of Leisen (or Leiche, as they were also called) did not begin before the 12th century. At that time they had become the common property of the Ger- man people, anil hymns in the vernacular were freely produced, among tliem the oldest German Easter liynni, C/iristus ist uferstanden, attributed to Spcrrvogcl, which lias descended to our own day as a verse of one of Lu- ther's best hymns :
Christ the Lord is risen, Out of death's dark prison ; Let us all rejoice to-day, Christ shall be our hope and stay: Kyrie eleison. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia !
Several of the great Latin hymns were also trans- lated into German, and although their use in the Cliurcli was more or less restricted, and was alwavs regarded
with suspicion by the more papal of the clergy, yet they continued to be favored by the people, as is fully evinced by the quantity of sacred verse written from this time onwards. Thus Wackernagel, in his work on religious poetry, prior to the Reformation {Das deutsc/ie Kirclienlied v. d. alt est. Zeit bis zu Anfang d. 17'"" Juhr- hundert), exhibits nearly 1500 specimens, and the names of no less than 85 different poets, with many anonymous authors. Among tlie writers named we find not a few of the celebrated knightly minne-singers, as Hartmann von der Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von dcr Vogelweide, and others. But the German sacred songs of this time, like the old Latin hymns, were confined to addressing the saints, and, above all, the Virgin Mary. " The former class is not very important, either as to number or to quality; but the Marien-Lieder, and, in a minor degree, Annen-Lieder (hymns to Mary and to Anne), constitute a very large and well-known class among the poems of the ante-Reformation times in Ger- many. . . . They form a sort of spiritual counteriir.rt to the minne-songs or love-songs addressed to his earth- ly lady by the knight. It was easy to transfer the turn of expression and tone of thought from the earthly ob- ject to the heavenly one, and the degree to Avhich this is done is to us very often startling. . . . Tlie honors and titles belonging to our Lord Jesus Christ are attrib- uted to his mother; God is said to have created the world by her, and to have rested in her on the seventh day; she is said to have risen from the grave on the third day, and ascended into heaven ; she is addressed not only as a persuasive mediator with her Son, but as herself the chief source of mercy and lielp, especially in the hour of death and at the day of judgment. By de- grees, her mother is invested with some of her own at- tributes ; for it is said, if Christ would obey his own moth- er, ought not she much more to obey hers? So a set of liymns to Anne sprang up, in which she is entreated to afford aid in death, and obtain pardon for the sinners from Christ and Mary, who will refuse her nothing" (Winkworth, Chiistian Singers oj Germany, p. 96, 97). See HypEUDUi.iA. It is no wonder that in the face of such extravagances Wacivernagel is constrained to say that the existence of so many godless hymns addressed to tlie Virgin and the saints, or teaching the whole doc- trine of indulgences, is an indisputable testimony to the degeneracy into which the nation had fallen, rendering the Reformation necessary; and that the existence of so many breathing an unstained Christianity is at the same time a witness to the preservation of so much true religion as made the Reformation at all possible. The use of German liymns was taken up by the heretical sects that began to spring up under the persecuting in- fluence of Rome. The (ierman Flagellants, the Bohe- mians, the Waldenses, and the Mystics, who all encour- aged the study of the Scriptures, of course favored the singing of German hymns ; and they contributed not a few sacred songs themselves to those already existing. Thus the Mystic Tauler (q. v.) (to whom was long at- tributed the Theologia Germania, in all probability the work of Nicholas of Basle) wrote several hymns, which became widely known. His best, perhaps, are the fol- lowing :