Hymns from the Protestant Reformation: History, Composition and Use Today

In order to understand the Protestant Reformation, one must first understand the role of the church in pre-reformation Europe. The modern-day faith traditions and groups that derive from the various movements that came about during the Protestant Reformation use hymnals that incorporate hymns written during the reformation era. With the intent of improving music pedagogy, the purpose of this research was to study hymns from the Protestant Reformation in modern-day hymnals. The particular problems of this study were to (1) trace the development of hymns during the Protestant Reformation; (2) identify use of Protestant-Reformation-era hymns in 11 modern-day hymnals; and (3) compare and contrast five hymns from the Reformation Era in the 11 hymnals. Each movement that arose during the Protestant Reformation era not only had its own set of theological beliefs, but its own style of worship music as well (sometimes influenced by theology). Although the harmonization, keys and lyrics vary, all 11 hymnals used in this research feature hymns written during the Protestant Reformation. The modern-day use of these hymns can be easily experienced at the worship services of many Christian churches in the United States of America today