Resonet in laudibus

Resonet in laudibus. Latin, probably 14th century. This pre-Reformation text is one of the traditional medieval Christmas songs in the German-speaking tradition (cf. ‘In dulci iubilo’*). It may have originated in Bohemia, or in southern Germany/Austria (see ‘Austrian hymnody’*). It exists in a manuscript of the 14th century, the Moosburg (or Mosburg) Gradual (University Library, Munich), and (as ‘Resonemus laudibus’) in a manuscript from Aosta, northern Italy. In its German text (see below) it was associated with the custom of services in which a cradle was rocked. In The New Oxford Book of Carols (NOBC , 1992), from which this information is taken, it is described as a ‘Wechselgesang’,...