The Erfurt Enchiridion

The Erfurt Enchiridion of 1524 is the earliest protestant hymn book. As it states, in the past many had spent “the whole day standing in the choir, shouting like the priests of Baal in unclear cries”; even “members of Collegiate Churches and Monasteries had often not understood what they sing or read”, and had “cried like the forest-donkeys to a deaf God”.

The Erfurt Enchiridion aimed to change this - and was a remarkable success. It was reprinted repeatedly, its melodies were set to four-part music by Johann Sebastian Bach and others, and it became the core of many later hymn books.

To enable today’s choirs to understand and sing the hymns in the Erfurt Enchiridion, we reprint the original and present for many of them Bach’s four-part settings with traditional singable English translations, thus supporting to “a continuous practice and contemplation of spiritual hymns and psalms”, as did the Erfurt Enchiridion in 1524.