Swedish Hymns

Liber cantus, in quo glorificationes, hoc est: kyrie et venite, nec non: sequentiae ac antiphonae, in summis & simplicibus festis, atque; diebus dominicalibus usitatae, continentur.
Uppsala: Eskil Matzson, 1620. (BRB1086)

This Swedish Lutheran hymnal offers important evidence of the gradual transition to worship in the vernacular. Sweden separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1526, under King Gustav I Vasa. Although the Church of Sweden became officially Lutheran after the Uppsala Synod in 1593, many Catholic traditions remained within the liturgy, which continued to be performed in Latin for several decades thereafter. In this hymnal, plainchants in Latin and Swedish are provided for use by both the clergy and the laity. The music exhibited on the book’s right-hand page is for the Kyrie and the Gloria, to be sung in Swedish on ordinary Sundays (in translation): “Lord, have mercy on us; Christ, have mercy on us; Lord, have mercy on us; Glory to God in the highest. . . .”