Media vita in morte sumus

Media vita in morte sumus. Latin antiphon, perhaps 8th century. This antiphon was credited to Notker Balbulus* by the St Gall historian J. Metzler in 1613, with a story about workmen building a bridge and placing themselves in danger; but this attribution is insecure. It was found in Germany in the Middle Ages as ‘En mitten in des lebens zeyt’ and as ‘Mytten wir ym leben synd/ mit den todt umbfangen’ (Wackernagel, Das Deutsche Kirchenlied II. 749-50). Martin Luther* altered and expanded this into his ‘Mitten wir im Leben sind’* of 1524, which emphasised the saving blood of Christ and the mercy of God. A version is still in EG and in Gotteslob. In English translation, ‘In the midst of life...

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