Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ

Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ. Martin Luther* (1483-1546), stanzas 2-7; pre-Reformation, stanza 1. The first stanza of this hymn dates from the 14th century: it is one of the German hymns found in the Medingen collections (see Northern German devotional manuscripts*) . It exists in a number of German forms, deriving from the Christmas Latin sequence ‘Grates nunc omnes reddamus Domino Deo, qui sua nativitate nos liberavit de diabolica potestate’ (‘Now let all give thanks to God, who in his Nativity has freed us from the power of the devil’). It is a Leise*, each verse ending ‘Kyrieleis’. Luther’s title in 1524 (see Jenny, Luthers geistliche Lieder, no. 5, p.165) was ‘Ain Deütsch hymnus oder...