Christ ist erstanden

Christ ist erstanden. German, 11th or 12th century. This is the German version of the Easter Sequence, ‘Victimae Paschali’*. It is found in a 12th-century MS of a liturgical drama, but Leaver (The Hymnal 1982 Companion, 1994, 3A, p. 374) notes that the melody comes from the Latin sequence and speculates that it may have originated in the 11th century (but see the entry, 'Austrian hymnody*, where it is dated 1160, and located in a Salzburg Cathedral MS). In its original vernacular form, a 'Gesang des Volkes', it was a good example of the ‘Leise’*, a one-stanza text ending with ‘kyriel[eis]’: Christ der ist erstanden von der marter alle. des sull wir alle fro sein, Christ sol unser trost...