MEDIAEVAL GERMAN HYMNS
Along with this Latin-clerical church song there existed in the Germanic mediaeval Church a religious popular poetry or congregational song. Under the hierarchic autocracy of the Gregorian song it had gone so far that the active participation of the congregation in public worship was reduced to a joining only in the response Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy upon us), repeated one hundred or more times at any one church service. But in the sad tones of this Kyrie Eleison, this cry for compassion from a people spiritually oppressed and enslaved, there emerged in the Germanic mediaeval Church the first attempts at congregational song in the vernacular. At the close of the ninth century they began to supply the tune of the mechanically repeated Kyrie Eleison with religious verses in the language of the people. Every verse of these songs ended with the refrain Kyrie Eleison. Thus arose the first German church hymns called Kirleison or Leisen, as they had grown out of and ended with the Kyrie Eleison.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when significant religious awakenings and the Crusades (1096-1273) stirred up great enthusiasm among the people, these German hymns took on new life and gained great favor among the people. These religious songs of the people were used more and more freely both in public worship and at other religious and secular festive occasions. Some of these mediaeval German hymns or Leisen are: Also heilig ist der Tag; Mitten wir im Leben sind; Christ ist erstanden; Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist. One of the best of these Leisen is,
Christ ist erstanden
Von der Marter Banden,
Des sollen wir alle froh sein,
Christ will unser Trost sein,
Kyrie Eleison.
But even though the people sang these hymns in the church services, such singing was merely tolerated and had no set place. These German hymns of the people were different from the Latin hymns of the cloisters. They possess a more simple, popular and hearty key-note, though their form may be poor and their style rugged. But these hymns, with their singable tunes, were greatly loved by the people, and so they lived and thrived in the hearts of the common people during the deplorable times and conditions of the mediaeval Church. The secular Minnesingers (thirteenth century) and the Meistersingers (fourteenth century) exerted considerable influence upon German hymnody, especially with respect to poetic form and music. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the “Brethren of the Common Life” (Netherlands) and the significant religious movements associated with John Wycliffe and John Huss gave to hymnody in the vernacular a powerful revival and a purer evangelical content. Desirable Latin hymns were translated and new hymns in the vernacular were written. The Germans and the Bohemians possessed, before 1500, about five hundred church hymns in the vernacular. In the fifteenth century the Bohemians sang these hymns in the regular church services.