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Hymn History: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God




As I discussed last week, Martin Luther was a prolific hymn writer, with over forty hymns attributed to him. He was well known for paraphrasing scripture into accessible stanzas for songs, many times set to common folk songs of Germany. However, his most famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, was a purely original song.

 

The hymn starts out with a paraphrase as Psalm 46, but quickly moves into original lyrics, making the hymn one of his true compositions. He wrote it sometime between 1527-1529, which is only the start of its uncertain origins.

 

While we can tell the piece was an original work by Luther, as to when and why he wrote it, there is little direct evidence. The idea of why he wrote it is clear, as it is often referred to as the “Battle Hymn of the Reformation.” The piece was meant to bolster the followers of the Reformation movement, as the beginning of the movement was a tumultuous time that faced many challenges from the Catholic Church, and, as it was so integrated with many governments, the law.

 

Different historians attribute different moments of the movement to be the impetus for this song, from a variety of different meetings with the Holy Roman Empire. These meetings were known as a ‘diet’ and included the name of the city where the meeting was held, leading to the somewhat confusing (and humorous in English) name ‘Diet of Worms’. Other theories suggest the piece was written as a tribute to Luther’s friend Leonhard Kaiser, or that it was a literal battle hymn for the Ottoman wars.

 

Even though the specific origins of the song are unknown, we can easily see how the song itself evolved. The video at the start of the blog is a performance of the original hymn as Martin Luther wrote it. Not only does this mean the text is in German, but anyone familiar with the tune may notice that the rhythm feels a bit different in this version.

 

The original ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’ was much more rhythmic than the tune is usually performed nowadays. It’s even in a very odd meter of 5/4, while the contemporary tune is in 4/4, as are most songs. Very few songs are in 5/4 at all, which is perhaps why, over time, the rhythm was simplified to make it more accessible to the average congregation.




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