Dutch hymnody

Pre-Reformation Netherlands hymnody Apart from a page of 10th century neumatic plainchant notation and the mystical vernacular hymns by the 13th century nun Hadewijch, the earliest written evidence of sacred music in the Netherlands dates from the 15th century. Two important sources for our knowledge of spiritual songs in the Netherlands are the manuscripts from the Tertiarissenklooster (Cloister of the Tertiaries) of St Margaretha in Amsterdam (ca. 1480: now in the Austrian National Library in Vienna) and the St Agnietenklooster of Utrecht (ca. 1500: now in the Library of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin). The latter was a community of the ‘Sisters of the Common Life’; the...