The Singing of the Strasbourg Protestants, 1523–1541 by Daniel Trocmé-Latter (review)

It is hyperbole to suggest that everyone, in any given culture, enjoys music, and speculation to imagine that all people sang hymns in their homes. It is no exaggeration to argue that music facilitated a variety of reformations in sixteenth-century Europe. But it is important to keep in mind that vernacular singing and congregational participation were not unheard of in the Middle Ages in connection to movements of religious reform. The Hussite tradition is one example, albeit so much of that vibrant history has languished in the shadow of Luther and his Protestant colleagues and has been further obscured by the linguistic barrier which demarcates the medieval Czech world. With that caveat in mind, it is not difficult to recognize the significant achievement developed and articulated by Daniel Trocmé-Latter in this study of music in Strasbourg. With respect to the Czech context, it should be noted that four volumes of hymns by the Bohemian Brethren were printed at Strasbourg in the 1530s, although this does not reflect the popular richness of the Hussite vernacular ethos.