The Library
1780 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
201–300
1 work
c. 280–300
Greek
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1786
Anonymous
The tail of a hymn to the Trinity on the back of a grain account, written with Greek vocal notation above the words — let all the powers cry amen, amen, might and praise to the only giver of all good things.
501–600
1 work
c. 500–510
Latin
De Institutione Musica
Boethius · c. 477–524
Music treated as a branch of mathematics rather than an art, dividing it into the music of the cosmos, of the human person, and of instruments.
901–1000
1 work
c. 900
Latin
Musica Enchiriadis
Anonymous
A manual for teaching chant that turns, halfway through, into something new: instructions for singing a second voice against the melody at a fixed interval, with worked examples of organum on liturgical texts.
1101–1200
2 works
c. 1151
Latin
Ordo Virtutum
Hildegard of Bingen · 1098–1179
A sung drama in which a soul is pulled between sixteen Virtues, who sing, and the Devil, who can only shout because he has no music.
c. 1150–1170
Latin
Symphonia
Hildegard of Bingen · 1098–1179
Seventy-seven liturgical songs with soaring melodies of her own composition, in a Latin full of invented images — greenness, viridity, the fiery breath of the Spirit.
1201–1300
2 works
13th century; authorship disputed
Latin
Attributed to Thomas of Celano · c. 1185–c. 1265
A sequence on the day of wrath, the trumpet, the opened book, and a final quiet plea from the accused to the judge who once sat down weary seeking him.
13th century; authorship disputed
Latin
Attributed to Jacopone da Todi · c. 1230–1306
Twenty stanzas at the foot of the cross, asking to be allowed to stand with the mother and share her grief.
1501–1600
3 works
1524
German
Martin Luther, Paul Speratus, and others
The first evangelical hymnbook — eight hymns, four by Luther — followed within months by larger collections for congregational use.
c. 1527–1529
German
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
A paraphrase of Psalm 46 for congregational singing, with the devil as a real adversary and one little word able to fell him.
completed 1562
French
Clément Marot and Theodore Beza
All one hundred and fifty psalms in French metrical verse with tunes, sung in unison and unaccompanied by whole congregations.
1601–1700
2 works
1640
English
Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Weld
The psalms turned into metre for singing, with a preface admitting the verse is rough because fidelity to the Hebrew mattered more than polish.
c. 1645–1676
German
Paul Gerhardt · 1607–1676
Hymns of trust written through the Thirty Years' War and the deaths of four of his five children, including the passion hymn O Sacred Head Now Wounded.
12 of 1780 works