Reformation hymnody

A distinctive feature of the Reformation of the 16th century, as it developed in different ways across Europe, was the introduction of congregational hymnody into the newly-devised Protestant forms of worship. While this psalmody and hymnody in these new contexts was ‘new’ in the experience of the worshippers, the Reformers who introduced congregational singing knew that they were not creating something that had never been done before, but rather re-introducing an established practice of the early church. Martin Luther* in Wittenberg, Martin Bucer* in Strassburg/ Strasbourg, and Jean Calvin* in Geneva, knew that in the earliest generations of the Christian church the whole congregation...