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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2015
A venerable form of petitionary prayer, the litany emerged as a key aural expression of Counter-Reformation Catholicism around the turn of the seventeenth century, particularly in the confessionally contested borderlands of the Holy Roman Empire. Its explicit projection of the dogma of sanctoral intercession, rejected soundly by Protestant theologians, helped to make the litany a flashpoint for religious controversy. Especially in the duchy of Bavaria, the northern bastion of the Counter-Reformation, the litany flourished in a wide variety of monophonic and polyphonic forms that reflected its fluid position on a spectrum between oral and written traditions. This essay explores the usage and significance of the litany in Counter-Reformation Germany, focusing especially upon the Thesaurus litaniarum (Treasury of Litanies, 1596) by Georg Victorinus, music director of the Munich Jesuits. Intimately connected with currents of Catholic reform in German-speaking lands, this great anthology illustrates the varied and creative ways in which composers responded to the litany’s distinctive ebb and flow of titles and petitions to holy intercessors.
1 Church ordinance for Calenberg and Göttingen (Erfurt, 1542), repr. in E. Sehling (ed.), Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Erste Abtheilung. Sachsen und Thüringen, nebst angrenzenden Gebieten. Erste Hälfte. Die Ordnungen Luthers. Die ernestinischen und albertinischen Gebiete (Leipzig, 1902), p. 366.
2 See Roth, J., Die mehrstimmigen lateinischen Litaneikompositionen des 16. Jahrhunderts (Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung, 14; Regensburg, 1959)Google Scholar and Blazey, D. A., ‘The Litany in Seventeenth-Century Italy’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Durham, 1990)Google Scholar. See also more recent essays by Kendrick, R. L., ‘“Honore a Dio, e allegrezza alli santi, e consolazioni alli putti”: The Musical Projection of Litanies in Sixteenth-Century Italy’, in S. Ditchfield (ed.), Plasmare il suono: Il culto dei santi e la musica (secc. XVI–XVIII) (Sanctorum, 6; Rome, 2009), pp. 15–46Google Scholar, and ‘Litanies and their Texts, 1600–1700’, in A. Addamiano and F. Luisi (eds.), Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Musica Sacra. In occasione del centenario di fondazione del PIMS, Roma, 26 maggio – 1 giugno 2011 (Vatican City, 2013), ii, pp. 703–10; Marx-Weber, M., ‘Palestrinas sechsstimmige Marienlitanei und ihre autographe Quelle’, in U. Konrad (ed.), Musikalische Quellen – Quellen zur Musikgeschichte: Festschrift für Martin Staehelin zum 65. Geburtstag (Göttingen, 2002), pp. 175–186Google Scholar; and Konrad, , ‘Römische Vertonungen der Lauretanischen Litanei: Palestrina – Cifra – Graziani – Foggia – Cesarini’, Analecta Musicologica, 33 (2004), pp. 211–236Google Scholar. On the medieval litany in its liturgical context see Brockett, C. W., Letania and Preces: Music for Lenten and Rogations Litanies (Ottawa, 2006)Google Scholar. The early modern litany north of the Alps, by contrast, has received relatively little attention. On Mozart’s Eucharistic litanies see Rosenthal, K. A., ‘Mozart’s Sacramental Litanies and their Forerunners’, Musical Quarterly, 27 (1941), pp. 433–455CrossRefGoogle Scholar. David Crook has discussed Bavarian litanies in their religious context in his Orlando di Lasso’s Imitation Magnificats for Counter-Reformation Munich (Princeton, 1994), esp. pp. 69–77. I am indebted to Crook’s discussion as well as to Peter Bergquist’s introduction to and edition of Orlando di Lasso’s litanies in Litaneien, Falsibordoni und Offiziumssätze (Orlando di Lasso, Sämtliche Werke, Neue Reihe, 25; Kassel, 1993).
3 The Council of Trent decreed during its Twenty-fifth Session concerning the invocation, veneration and relics of the Saints and holy images, that the faithful were to be instructed that ‘the Saints, reigning together as one with Christ, offer their prayers to God on behalf of men, and that it is good and useful to invoke them humbly, and, for the favours received from God through his son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour, to have recourse to their prayers, aid and help’(‘Sanctos, una cum Christo regnantes, orationes suas pro hominibus Deo offerre: bonum atque utile esse suppliciter eos invocare et ob beneficia impetranda à Deo per filium eius Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum, qui solus noster Redemptor et Salvator est, ad eorum orationes, opem auxiliumque confugere’). Quoted here from Canones et decreta sacrosancti oecumenici, & generalis Concilii Tridentini (Cologne, 1577), pp. 343–4.
4 Roth, , Die mehrstimmigen lateinischen Litaneikompositionen, pp. 4–5Google Scholar.
5 Brockett, , Letania and Preces, p. 3Google Scholar.
6 de Clerck, P., La ‘Prière universelle’ dans les liturgies latines anciennes (Münster, 1977), pp. 170–172Google Scholar.
7 See M. Huglo et al., ‘Litany’, Grove Music Online, oxfordmusiconline.com.
8 On the background of the Litany of the Saints and its liturgical use, see Blazey, , ‘The Litany in Seventeenth-Century Italy’, pp. 14–16Google Scholar.
9 A history of the litany from an explicitly Lutheran perspective may be found in T. Kliefoth, Zur Geschichte der Litanei, repr. from the Neues Mecklenburgisches Kirchenblatt (Güstrow, 1861). Among the more prominent polyphonic settings of Luther’s 1529 litany are those by Lucas Lossius (1553), Johannes Rhau (1598), Melchior Vulpius (1604), Michael Praetorius (1613; see also commentary below on Praetorius’s preface), Hans Leo Hassler (1619), Johann Hermann Schein (1627) and Heinrich Schütz (1657). In the early Anglican church the litany also had a limited career, with a vernacular version first appearing in the second edition of Marshall’s Primer in 1535, and codified for use by Thomas Cranmer in 1544; initially it was designated for processional use as ordered by Henry VIII. See Huglo et al., ‘Litany’, for general background. This Protestant litanic tradition, while certainly less vibrant than the Catholic, has yet to be studied in great detail. On the Lutheran reception and altering of intercessory language in the Marian antiphons, see also Frandsen, M. E., ‘Salve Regina/Salve Rex Christe: Lutheran Engagement with the Marian Antiphons in the Age of Orthodoxy and Piety’, Musica disciplina, 55 (2010), pp. 129–218Google Scholar.
10 Calvin, Jean, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, trans. F. L. Battles (London, 1961), ii, pp. 879–880Google Scholar.
11 Chemnitz, Martin, Examen Concilii Tridentini, ed. Eduard Preuss (Berlin, 1861), p. 4Google Scholar. Translation mine.
12 Preface to Michael Praetorius, Kleine und Grosse Litaney, ed. Friedrich Blume (Praetorius, Gesammelte kleinere Werke – Schlussbericht; Gesamtausgabe der musikalischen Werke von Michael Praetorius, 20; Wolfenbüttel, 1960).
13 Ibid., p. viii.
14 Hospinianus, Rudolphus, De templis: hoc est, de origine, progressu, usu et abusu templorum, ac omnino rerum omnium ad templa pertinentium (Zurich, 1587)Google Scholar. I quote here from the 1603 edition (Zurich), whose section ‘De litaniis, rogationibus, & supplicationibus’ falls on pp. 350–64.
15 ‘Atq[ue] hoc modo ex commemoratione Sanctorum, tandem ad Invocationem eorum deventum fuit. Inprimus aute[m] postquam in publicas Ecclesiae preces Gregoriana forma Invocationis Sanctorum (S. Maria ora pro nobis) Lege ab Honorio Papa sancita & recepta esset, sine fine & modo postea progressa est, ut omnia fermè, quae Dei & Christi propria sunt: a Sanctis nominatim & publicè peterentur.’ Ibid., p. 359.
16 In this passage Hospinianus cites medieval writings by Guillaume Durand and Jacobus de Voragine, citing the latter as follows: ‘Ideò, inquit, Crux in Processione defertur & Campanae pulsantur, ut daemones in ipso aëre existentes territi fugiant, & ab hominum infestatione desistant. Daemones enim, qui sunt in isto aëre caliginoso, vehementer metuunt, quando tubas Christi, scilicet Ca[m]panas pulsari sentiunt, & vexilla, id est, Cruces conspiciunt. Et ista dicitur esse ratio, quare Ecclesia Campanas consuevit pulsare, quando tempestates concitari videt: ut scilicet daemones, qui hoc faciunt, tubas aeterni Regis audiant, & sic territi fugiant, & à tempestatis concitatione conquiescant.’ Ibid., p. 360.
17 Quoted from Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. H. J. Schroeder (Rockford, Ill., 1978), p. 215.
18 Weinstein, . and Bell, R. M., Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000–1700 (Chicago, 1982), p. 146Google Scholar.
19 As argued, for example, in Soergel, P. M., Wondrous in His Saints: Counter-Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria (Berkeley, 1993), esp. pp. 28–29Google Scholar.
20 Dithmar, Remigius, Lutherana veteris Catholicaeque litaniae correctio, ad gymnasticam incudem, ab erudito artium liberalium Magistro Remigio Dithmaro, vocata (Würzburg, 1589)Google Scholar. Little is known about Dithmar; his brother was Johannes, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Aldersbach, and the dedicatee of this volume.
21 Ibid., sig. Br–v.
22 ‘At Deo dicimus: Miserere nobis; Sanctis: Orate pro nobis. Hoccine idololatria? Nunquid Deo dicere liceat; sancte Deus, ora pro nobis?’ Ibid., sig. B3r.
23 Keller, in his Litaniae Catholicae: ad Christum, Beatam Virginem, et Sanctos: earum catalogum proxima post praefationem pagella continet. Accessit litaniarum Catholicarum a corruptelis et calumniis sectariorum vindicatio (Ingolstadt, 1589), acknowledges in his index that this ‘Defensio Litaniarum Catholicaru[m]’ was ‘issued not long ago in Würzburg’ (‘non ita pridem Herbipoli edita’), without naming Dithmar as the author. Serarius, in his Litaneutici, seu de Litaniis. Libelli Duo: In quorum Priore monstratur earum natura & fructus, haereticaque perinepta earundem correctio. In Posteriore de iisdem, & Sanctis, eorumque invocatione multiplices tractantur quaestiones (Cologne, 1609), acknowledges neither Dithmar nor Keller as the source for the first part of his book. On Serarius, see Kendrick’s, discussion in ‘“Honore a dio”’, pp. 21–24Google Scholar.
24 Cited here are Thyraeus, Petrus and Hamilton, Francis, De sanctorum invocatione (Würzburg, 1596)Google Scholar, and Serarius, Nicolaus and Zittard, Johannes, Quaestiones de sanctis, eorumque invocatione, ac litaniis, variae (Mainz, 1608)Google Scholar.
25 Her role in the Christian victory over the Turkish navy at Lepanto in 1571 was a signal event, and led to the inclusion of the invocation ‘Auxilium Christianorum’ as a standard title in the Litany of Loreto. See Roth, , Die mehrstimmigen lateinischen Litaneikompositionen, p. 29Google Scholar.
26 Stinger, C. L., The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington, Ind., 1988), p. 42Google Scholar. On Sixtus IV’s patronage of the shrine, see Goffen, R., ‘Friar Sixtus IV and the Sistine Chapel’, Renaissance Quarterly, 39 (1986), p. 229CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Gumppenberg, Wilhelm, Atlas Marianus, sive de imaginibus Deiparae per orbem christianum miraculosis (Ingolstadt, 1657)Google Scholar. On the reception of the Loreto cult in the Bavarian region see Pötzl, W., ‘Volksfrömmigkeit’, in W. Brandmüller (ed.), Handbuch der bayerischen Kirchengeschichte, ii: Von der Glaubenspaltung bis zur Säkularisation (St. Ottilien, 1993), pp. 895–902Google Scholar. The network of Loreto shrines in the north is discussed in Pötzl, , ‘Loreto in Bayern’, Jahrbuch für Volkskunde, 2 (1979), pp. 187–218Google Scholar.
28 On the popularity of the Loretan text generally, which was due not only to the eponymous pilgrimage but also the text’s relative brevity and symmetry, see Kendrick, ‘“Honore a dio”’, pp. 38–42.
29 Ordnung der Letaney von unser lieben Frawen, wie sy zu Loreto alle Samstag gehalten wird (Dillingen, 1558). See discussion in Pötzl, ‘Volksfrömmigkeit’, 895. Canisius’s efforts to introduce the Loretan litany in the north are discussed in Paulus, N., ‘Die Einführung der lauretanischen Litanei in Deutschland durch den seligen Petrus Canisius’, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 26 (1902), pp. 574–600Google Scholar. The earlier history of Marian litanies is the subject of de Santi, A., Les Litanies de la Sainte Vierge: Étude historique et critique (Paris, 1900)Google Scholar.
30 Kendrick, , ‘“Honore a dio”’, pp. 17–18Google Scholar.
31 Roth, in Die mehrstimmigen lateinischen Litaneikompositionen, pp. 30–51, offers a taxonomy of five major litany types, some variants of which were not entirely dogmatic and reflected varying theological conceptions. These include litanies for All Saints, the Litany of Loreto, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary ex sacra scriptura, the Litany of the Name of Jesus and the Litany of the Venerable Sacrament.
32 Sailly, Thomas, Thesaurus litaniarum ac orationum sacer. Cum suis adversus Sectarios Apologiis (Brussels, 1598)Google Scholar.
33 V of Bavaria, Wilhelm, Fasciculus sacrarum litaniarum ex sanctis scripturis et patribus (Munich, 1600)Google Scholar, with later editions (Munich, 1602; Dillingen, 1606; Munich, 1607; Augsburg, 1614; Munich, 1618).
34 Blazey, in ‘The Litany in Seventeenth-Century Italy’, pp. 16–17 and 27, discusses the various functions of the Litany of Loreto in the seventeenth century, ranging from performance after Compline in the newly approved (1615) Office of the Immaculate Conception, to various forms of para-liturgical and non-liturgical observance.
35 Ibid., p. 17. The Saturday litanies were one part of a vibrant musical culture cultivated at the German College, particularly under the rectorship of Michele Lauretano (1573–87) and the musical leadership of Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1573–c. 1577), Francesco Martini (c. 1577–c. 1578) and Annibale Stabile (c. 1578–c. 1591), who was a prolific composer of polyphonic litany settings. On music at the German College see esp. Culley, T. D., SJ, Jesuits and Music, i: A Study of the Musicians connected with the German College in Rome during the 17th Century and of their Activities in Northern Europe (Sources and Studies for the History of the Jesuits, 2; Rome and St. Louis, 1970), esp. pp. 25–94Google Scholar.
36 Reported in Flotto, Adam, Historia Provinciae Societatis Jesu Germaniae Superioris. Ab Anno 1601 ad 1610 (Augsburg, 1734), p. 190Google Scholar.
37 Litaniae novae. Ad Deum et eos præcipue Sanctos, quorum memoriae vel reliquiæ in basilica nova S. Michaelis Archangeli honorifice seruantur. Additæ sunt notæ breviusculæ, sive ad maiorem de Sanctis illis notitiam, sive ad augendam pietatem (Munich, 1597); and the Newe Letaney Zu Gott vnd denen Heyligen, als freunden Gottes, welcher Gedächtnuß, Reliquien vnd Heyligthumb, in der newgeweichten Kirchen deß H. Ertzengels vnnd Himmelfürsten Michaelis, nach uraltem Catholischen brauch demütig verehret vnd herrlich auffbehalten werden (Munich, 1597).
38 Described in Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München [hereafter BayHStA], Jesuitica 39, ‘De ritibus ecclesiasticis Soc. Jesu’, pp. 95–9.
39 Ritus cantandi et legendi Litanias in Ciuitate et Dioecesi Bambergen[sis]: tempore expeditionis contra Turcam (Bamberg, 1594).
40 For examples, see mandates by V, Duke Wilhelm, 12 Nov. 1593 (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München [hereafter BSB], Kloeckeliana 21/19)Google Scholar; and by the Bishop of Freising, Ernst of Bavaria, 23 June 1595 (Archiv des Erzbistums München und Freising, Generalien, 23 June 1595).
41 Examples of such mandates include that of Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria, 29 May 1610 (exemplar in BSB, 2 Bavar. 960 III 39); that of Bishop Heinrich V von Knöringen of Augsburg, 9 June 1619 (exemplar in BayHStA, Geistlicher Rat 1209/18); and that reported by Munich court altist Johannes Hellgemayr in his diary for 11 May 1631 (BSB, Oefeliana 160, p. 54). A modern edition of Hellgemayr’s diary may be found in Leuchtmann, H., ‘Zeitgeschichtliche Aufzeichnungen des Bayerischen Kapellaltisten Johannes Hellgemayr 1595–1633: Ein Beitrag zur Münchner Stadt- und Musikgeschichte’, Oberbayerisches Archiv für vaterländische Geschichte, 100 (1975), pp. 142–221Google Scholar.
42 BayHStA, , GL 2708/569, cited in M. Schattenhofer, Die Mariensäule in München (Munich, 1970), pp. 31–36Google Scholar; Woeckel, G. P., Pietas Bavarica: Wallfahrt, Prozession und Ex voto-Gabe im Hause Wittelsbach in Ettal, Wessobrunn, Altötting und der Landeshauptstadt München von der Gegenreformation bis zur Säkularisation und der ‘Renovatio Ecclesiae’ (Weißenhorn, 1992), p. 80Google Scholar; and Steiner, P., Altmünchner Gnadenstätten: Wallfahrt und Volksfrömmigkeit im kurfürstlichen München (Munich, 1977), p. 42Google Scholar.
43 BayHStA, GL 2708/568 (for 13 Aug. 1639; see also Schattenhofer, Die Mariensäule in München, p. 32 n. 35); also BayHStA, Hofzahlamtsrechnungen for 1639, 1640, 1641, 1643, 1646, 1647, 1648 and 1649.
44 Schattenhofer, , Die Mariensäule in München, pp. 33–34Google Scholar.
45 See Tambiah, S. J., A Performative Approach to Ritual (London, 1981), pp. 140–141Google Scholar.
46 See Jakob Gretser, De sacris et religiosis peregrinationibus libri quatuor. Eiusdem de Catholicae Ecclesiae processionibus seu supplicationibus libri duo. Quibus adiuncti: de voluntaria flagellorum cruce, seu de disciplinarum usu libri tres (Ingolstadt, 1606), esp. ch. 9, pp. 56–64, attacking the arguments of the aforementioned Calvinist theologian Rudolphus Hospinianus in his De templis, hoc est, de origine, progressu, usu et abusu templorum, p. 350 ff. See also Serarius, Nikolaus, Sacri peripatetici, sive de sacris ecclesiae Catholicae processionibus (Cologne, 1607), pp. 124–172Google Scholar.
47 On the role of litanies in Italian processions see, for example, O’Regan, N., ‘Processions and their Music in Post-Tridentine Rome’, Recercare, 4 (1992), pp. 52–69Google Scholar; Getz, C., Music in the Collective Experience in Sixteenth-Century Milan (Aldershot, 2005), esp. p. 254Google Scholar; and Kendrick, R. L., The Sounds of Milan, 1585–1650 (Oxford and New York, 2002), esp. pp. 142–145Google Scholar.
48 Luther, , ‘On Rogationtide Prayer and Procession’, trans. M. H. Bertram, in Luther’s Works: American Edition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), xlii, pp. 83–93Google Scholar.
49 On the Donauwörth Fahnenschlacht and its consequences see esp. F. Stieve, Der Kampf um Donauwörth im Zusammenhange der Reichsgeschichte (Munich, 1875). In his chronicle of Augsburg (c. 1640) Reginbald Möhner, a Benedictine monk from the basilica of SS Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, writes that litanies would have been an expected part of the traditional Catholic processions in Donauwörth, processions that until 1606 had to be conducted with great modesty due to Lutheran resistance. Möhner writes: ‘Donawertenses quoque qui Evangelici videri volebunt, contrà expressam Religionis pacem notebant pati, ut Catholici in eo urbe constituti diebus Rogationum, iuxta antiquißimum Ecclesiæ veræ ritum cum Crucibus et vexillis Litanias decantantes publicè procederent.’ From Möhner, ‘Annales Augustani’, Archiv des Bistums Augsburg, Hs 52, ii, p. 1268. We are informed by a later chronicler of the Benedictine monastery of the Holy Cross in Donauwörth, Cölestin Königsdorfer, that the procession was accompanied by a ‘Schaar junger Musiker in Linnen gekleidet’, but their repertory is not described. See his Geschichte des Klosters zum Heil. Kreuz in Donauwörth . . . Zweiter Band. Vom Jahre 1518 bis 1648 (Donauwörth, 1825), ii, p. 271.
50 Werner Seutter to Georg Cuno, Stadtschreiber of Donauwörth, 6 Apr. 1598. BayHStA, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 352, fol. 38r.
51 See Spaemann, C. A., ‘Wallfahrtslieder’, in L. Kriss-Rettenbeck and G. Möhler (eds.), Wallfahrt kennt keine Grenzen: Themen zu einer Ausstellung des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums und des Adalbert Stifter Vereins, München (Munich, 1984), p. 181Google Scholar.
52 ‘In usum sodalitatum ac fraternitatum, ad loca sancta hinc inde peregrinantium: In primis verò Fraternitatis montis Sancti (vulgo Andechs appellati) in Bavaria, apud Cathedralem Ecclesiam Beatæ Mariæ virginis Augustæ Vindelicorum.’ From Johannes Haym von Themar, Litaniae, textus triplex. I. De dulcissimo nomine Iesu. II. De Beata Maria semper virgine. III. De omnibus sanctis, quibus singulis praefixa est quadruplex harmonia quatuor vocibus composita. Addita est in fine pulchra quaedam compositio, supra antiphonam, Regina coeli laetare, &c. (Augsburg, 1582); RISM A/I, H4905.
53 On the history and practice of falsobordone in this period see esp. Bradshaw, M. C., The Falsobordone: A Study in Renaissance and Baroque Music (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1978)Google Scholar. Unlike Haym, note that Georg Victorinus in his Thesaurus litaniarum (see below) prefers to render falsobordone passages in empty maximae rather than in mensural notation.
54 In a similar vein are the handful of simple polyphonic litanies included by Valentin Schlindel in his Catholisches Gesangbuch, in Kirchen, zu Hauß, in Processionibus vnnd Kirchfahrten, gar hailsam: nutzlich, löblich, vnd andächtigklich zugebrauchen (Munich, 1631); RISM B/VIII, 163106. Schlindel’s polyphonic litanies are not entirely orthodox from a liturgical perspective: we find a five-voice litany that substitutes for the opening Kyrie the prayer ‘Exaudi Domine preces nostras’ and an eight-voice Marian litany whose concluding Agnus Dei is followed by verses from the medieval sequence Ave praeclara maris stella. Both in a rudimentary, mostly chordal style, they sandwich an even more schematic set of ‘Lytaniæ vulgares’ whose four voices remain constricted to as narrow a range as possible, making the setting accessible to singers with elementary skills, and highly suitable for performance while under way.
55 Kendrick, , ‘“Honore a dio”’, 46Google Scholar.
56 Ein new Rueff-Büchlein, Von Etlichen sonderbaren Catholischen, Wahlfahrten-Gesängen, so Gott, seiner lieben Mutter, vnd dem heyligen Sacramenten deß Altars zu Ehren, gemacht, vnd füglich zum Preiß GOTTES mögen gesungen werden (Straubing, 1607).
57 Notable examples may be seen, for example, in the Schöne Christenliche Catholisch Weinnächt oder Kindtleß wiegen Gesang (Augsburg, 1590; RISM B/VIII, 159005) by the aforementioned Johann Haym von Themar; and in the aforementioned Catholisches Gesangbuch of Valentin Schlindel (1631). In these cases the litanic nature of pilgrimage songs follows partly from the deployment of frankly intercessory texts, but also of characteristic refrain structures.
58 Martin Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting. Das ist, Von der Uralten Capellen unser Lieben Frawen unnd dem Für. Stifft S. Philip und Jacob zu Alten Oetting: Was auch von den vilen Wunderzaichen, Haylthumb, Kirchfärten, Creützgängen, Erscheinungen vnd hülff der Hayligen &c. desselben vnd anderer ort, zu halten sey (Ingolstadt, 1571), fol. 126r–v.
59 Ibid., fols. 127v–128r.
60 Ibid., fols. 129v–130r.
61 Marbach, Johannes, Von Mirackeln und Wunderzeichen. Wie man sie auß unnd nach Gottes Wort, für waar oder falsch, erken[n]en soll (Strasbourg, 1571)Google Scholar, sig. qiv, also cited in Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints, 136.
62 Dithmar, Lutherana veteris Catholicaeque litaniae correctio, sig. B2v. In this place Dithmar approvingly cites Eisengrein’s Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, Gervais’s, MartinDivina quatuor energumenorum liberatio (Paris, 1583)Google Scholar, and another antagonist of Marbach, the Straubing priest and patron of the local Eucharistic shrine of Deggendorf, Johann Jakob Rabus, who wrote the Christlicher und wolgegründter Gegenbericht von Mirackeln uund wunderzaichen . . . Wider die . . . Lesterschrifft, welche Joh. Marpach Superint. zu Strassb., wider die wunderwerck der lieben Heyligen Gottes im Bapstum . . . hat lassen aussgehen (Dillingen, 1572). The story of the miraculous litany book left by Francis Xavier was first transmitted in a letter of the Jesuit priest Luis de Almeida in 1562, who visited the said citadel some years after the Jesuit’s departure. See Murdoch, James, A History of Japan (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, ii, p. 80, n. 5.
63 Menghi, Girolamo, Flagellum daemonum, exorcismos terribiles, potentissimos, et efficaces (Venice, 1586), pp. 30Google Scholar, 170–2.
64 I have used the 1625 edition of the Rituale Romanum Pauli V. Pont. Max. iussu editum (Antwerp, 1625), pp. 319–20. See also von Eynatten, Maximilian, Manuale Exorcismorum (Antwerp, 1619), pp. 37–38Google Scholar, 126–8, 141–5, 253.
65 von Templin, Prokop, Maria Hülff ob Passau. Gnaden-Lustgarten (Passau, 1668), ii, p. 29Google Scholar.
66 Gründtlicher Vortrag Dessen, Was sich bey dem wunderthätigen Gnaden-Bild der schmertzhafften Mutter Gottes in der Hertzog-Spital Kirchen zu München Anno 1690. zugetragen (Munich, 1691), pp. 2–3.
67 On the famed ‘Augenwende’ see Steiner, Altmünchner Gnadenstätten, p. 30.
68 Porta, Costanzo, Litaniae deiparae Virginis Mariae ex Sacra Scriptura depromptae, quae in alma domo Lauretana omnibus diebus Sabbati, Vigiliarum, & Festorum eiusdem Beatae Virginis decantari solent (Venice, 1575; RISM A/I, P1579)Google Scholar; a modern edition by Siro Cisilino and Giovanni M. Luisetto appeared in Costanzo Porta, Opera omnia (Padua, 1968), vii, pp. 1–23. For commentary see Kendrick, ‘“Honore a dio”’, p. 27.
69 See Crook, , Orlando di Lasso’s Imitation Magnificats, p. 75Google Scholar.
70 See ibid.
71 Letters from Maria Anna of Bavaria to Wilhelm V, 27 Dec. 1572, 22 Feb. 1573 and 22 July 1576, discussed in Crook, Orlando di Lasso’s Imitation Magnificats, pp. 74–5. It was perhaps Maria Anna’s enthusiasm for the litany that gained the genre a firm foothold in Habsburg imperial circles as well. In May 1573 she ordered the singing of the litany on all Saturdays and vigils of Marian feasts at the archducal chapel in Graz; in subsequent years composers at Graz and later at the imperial court in Vienna produced large numbers of polyphonic litanies (see, for example, the Inner Austrian choirbooks Graz, Universitätsbibliothek MS 97 and Ljubljana, Narodna in univerzitetna knjiznica MS 344, containing polyphonic litany settings by the Graz composers Pietro Antonio Bianco, Giovanni Battista Galeno, Simone Gatto and Francesco Rovigo). See discussion in Federhofer, Hellmut, Musikpflege und Musiker am Grazer Habsburgerhof der Erzherzöge Karl und Ferdinand von Innerösterreich, 1564–1619 (Mainz, 1967), pp. 23–24Google Scholar, n. 6. Ferdinand II’s devotion to the Virgin of Loreto was hardly less zealous than that of the Bavarian dukes and electors, as he ordered the construction of a Loreto chapel for the Augustinian church in Vienna in 1627 and incorporated litanies into his daily regime of prayer. See Saunders, S., Cross, Sword, and Lyre: Sacred Music at the Imperial Court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1619–1637) (Oxford and New York, 1995), pp. 53–54Google Scholar.
72 Letter of Orlando di Lasso to Wilhelm V, 3 Sept. 1575, quoted in Crook, , Orlando di Lasso’s Imitation Magnificats, p. 75Google Scholar.
73 For inventory see M. Bente et al. (eds.), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Katalog der Musikhandschriften. 1. Chorbücher und Handschriften in chorbuchartiger Notation (Kataloge Bayerischer Musiksammlungen, 1; Munich, 1989), pp. 77–81. Three other court manuscripts contain one Loretan litany setting each: Mus. ms. 2748 (anonymous setting for four voices), Mus. ms. 21 (a nine-voice setting by Lasso) and Mus. ms. 48 (a ten-voice setting by Lasso).
74 Lasso’s ex-voto depicts himself together with a representation of his coat of arms and a five-voice double canon setting the litany tag ‘Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis’. See Gentile, L. C., ‘Orlando di Lasso pellegrino a Loreto (1585): Vicende di un ex voto musicale’, Recercare, 19 (2007), pp. 221–229Google Scholar. On Lasso’s pilgrimage, see also Leuchtmann, Orlando di Lasso, i, pp. 200–1.
75 On Victorinus’s biography see Haub, R., ‘Georgius Victorinus und der Triumphus Divi Michaelis Archangeli Bavarici’, Musik in Bayern, 51 (1995), pp. 79–84Google Scholar; Fisher, A. J., ‘Celestial Sirens and Nightingales: Change and Assimilation in the Munich Anthologies of Georg Victorinus’, Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 14, no. 1 (2008)Google Scholar, www.sscm-jscm.org/v14/no1/fisher.html; and Fisher, Music, Piety, and Propaganda: The Soundscapes of Counter-Reformation Bavaria (New York, 2014), Extended References 2.17, 2.41, 2.42, 3.24 (http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199764648/). The chapel of St Nicholas was part of a large complex adjoining the Jesuit church and college of St Michael that Wilhelm V occupied after his abdication in 1597. In 1616 Victorinus identified himself as ‘musicæ ad D. Michaelis & S. Nicolai præfectus’ on the title page of his anthology Siren coelestis, but it remains unclear what duties he performed in Wilhelm’s chapel. For an extensive study of the building of this so-called Wilhelminische Veste (later called the Herzog-Maxburg) and its later history see Helga Marie Andres, Rekonstruktion der Herzog-Maxburg in München (Schriften aus dem Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität München, 18; Munich, 1987).
76 On these two anthologies see Fisher, ‘Celestial Sirens and Nightingales’.
77 Palestrina’s two Marian litanies in five partes each are numbered individually as ten distinct items in the Thesaurus (resulting in a total number of sixty-seven litanies in the anthology, excluding the three motets), but here I will consider them as two settings, yielding a total of fifty-nine litanies.
78 The single Eucharistic litany here is the work of Cesare de Zacharia, who at the time of the Thesaurus’s publication served the Hohenzollern court at Hechingen. On the later vibrant history of polyphonic litanies of the Eucharist in the Salzburg orbit, see Rosenthal, ‘Mozart’s Sacramental Litanies and their Forerunners’.
79 According to Kendrick in ‘“Honore a dio”’, p. 29, Giuseppe Baini and Robert Eitner both cited a 1593 book of four-voice litanies by Palestrina, and a list of music books from the Milanese shop of Francesco and Simone Tini in 1596 includes Letanie a quattro Palestrina.
80 Number 40 in book 2, scored for two polyphonic choirs plus a third choir singing chant intonations alone, appears to have been explicitly prescribed by that college’s rector Michele Lauretano in 1587. Kendrick, ‘“Honore a dio”’, pp. 33–4.
81 Kendrick notes the significance of the Name of Jesus litanies to the Thesaurus in his ‘Litanies and their Texts, 1600–1700’, ii, p. 704.
82 ‘Quod ego, cùm diligentius mecum expendo, non possum non vehementer mirari nullum hactenus repertum, qui sparsas hinc inde collegerit, & in unum corpus iam pridem congesserit, tùm quod in peregrinationibus ad pia loca susceptis, maximus earum sit usus; tùm quod ea sit temporum conditio, ut, si unquam aliâs, nunc ad arma similia videatur confugiendum.’ From Victorinus, Thesaurus litaniarum, preface.
83 Litaniae Deiparae Virginis Mariae, ex sacra scriptura collectae, quae diebus Sabbathi, Vigiliarum & Festorum eiusdem B. Virginis, Laureti inprimis: Deinde quoque Monachij, Bauariae metropoli in Ducali Gymnasio Societatis IESU, Sacello MARIANAE Sodalitatis, cantari solent. CONSTANTIO FESTA Musico, Harmoniae autore (Munich, 1583; RISM A/I, F643). The setting is falsely attributed here to Costanzo Festa. For discussion see Kendrick, ‘“Honore a Dio”’, p. 40.
84 At the end of Part I Victorinus gives two Name of Jesus litany texts; at the end of Part II, the standard Litany of Loreto followed by the Marian litany ex sacra scriptura; and at the end of Part III, two sanctoral litanies.
85 In most of the following musical examples, the texture has been compressed onto fewer staves in order to save space.
86 As observed by Bergquist in his preface to his edition of Orlando di Lasso, Litaneien, Falsibordoni und Offiziumssätze, p. xix. In the following discussion the position of the works within the Thesaurus is indicated by the volume number (Roman numeral) and the position within that volume. Note that the two Loretan settings by Lasso for four and five voices appearing for the first time in the Thesaurus (nos. II/11 and II/14) show a very similar approach to the litanies of Mus. ms. 14.
87 A Caspar Püchler (or Pühler, Bühler) had long been an altist in the court chapel; at least two sons, Wilhelm and Conrad, are recorded in the court chapel ledgers (BayHStA, Hofzahlamtsrechnungen). Wilhelm, the eldest, had studied in Italy and was briefly engaged as an organist in the chapel between 1593 and 1595. See transcriptions in A. Sandberger, Beiträge zur Geschichte der bayerischen Hofkapelle unter Orlando di Lasso. Drittes Buch: Dokumente. Erster Theil (Leipzig, 1895), pp. 213, 218, 224. It is possible that Victorinus’s printer, Adam Berg, mistakenly substituted ‘Wolfgang’ for the latter. Heinrich de Plau [Plaw, Blau] is recorded in the court chapel ledgers from 1585 until 1613.
88 De Mel, in fact, was well connected with the family, having served Wilhelm’s brother Ernst (1554–1612), the Archbishop of Cologne and Liège, and having dedicated music publications not only to Ernst but also to Wilhelm, his consort Renate of Lorraine and his son Maximilian. See Corswarem, E., Schiltz, K. and Vendrix, P., ‘Der Lütticher Erzbischof Ernst von Bayern als Musik-Mäzen (1580–1612)’, in K. Pietschmann (ed.), Das Erzbistum Köln in der Musikgeschichte des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Kassel, 2008), pp. 318–322Google Scholar. At the time of the Thesaurus’s publication Sales was a tenor at the imperial court in Prague, but he had served briefly in the Munich court chapel under Lasso’s direction in 1580. See H. Federhofer and R. Flotzinger, ‘Sales [Sale, Salec, Saletz], Franz [François]’, Grove Music Online, www.oxfordmusiconline.com.
89 For discussion see Kendrick, ‘“Honore a dio”’, pp. 28–31. In many respects the Palestrina settings, designated explicitly for ‘the chapels of Society of the Holy Rosary’ according to the title page of their 1600 edition, seem to represent a parochial practice; probably it was the prestige of the composer that led Victorinus to include them in the Thesaurus and place them in such a prominent position.
90 Bergquist, preface to his edition of Orlando di Lasso, Litaneien, Falsibordoni und Offiziumssätze, p. ix, in response to Joachim Roth’s assessment of the litanies of Palestrina and Lasso in Die mehrstimmigen lateinischen Litaneikompositionen.
91 This group includes works by Orlando di Lasso (II/41) and Victorinus (II/44), as well as several anonymous settings. Nothing is known, sadly, about Martin Roeber, the author of no. II/43.
92 BSB Mus. ms. 21. See Bente et al. (eds.), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Katalog der Musikhandschriften, pp. 93–4. The modern edition is by Bergquist, in Lasso, Litaneien, Falsibordoni und Offiziumssätze, pp. 74–97. Here Lasso maintains the essential call-and-response pattern of the prayer by strictly separating his two choirs of four high voices (c1–c1–c1–c4) and five low voices (c1–c3–c4–c4–f3), the latter group continually echoing the former’s petitions in a more ample texture. What might ordinarily be a highly static harmonic profile in such a lengthy piece – firmly anchored in the tonal type [flat–c1–G] – is relieved by explorations of related tonal areas like B flat, F and E flat.
93 Kendrick, , ‘“Honore a dio”, pp. 33–34Google Scholar.
94 One possible model for this may be found in Lasso’s eight-voice Litany of Loreto (II/34), which features a similar, rapid exchange of ‘Regina’ titles between its two choirs. See Bergquist’s edition of Lasso, Litaneien, Falsibordoni und Offiziumssätze, pp. 59–63.
95 According to Patrick Macey in ‘Josquin, Good King René, and “O bone dulcissime Jesu”’, in D. Pesce (ed.), Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (New York and Oxford, 1997), p. 239, n. 22. See discussion in Silies, ., Die Motetten des Philippe de Monte (1521–1603) (Abhandlungen zur Musikgeschichte, 16; Göttingen, 2009), p. 593Google Scholar.
96 On the style of this motet see Silies, Die Motetten, p. 322.
97 E. F. Flindell, ‘Clavius, Christophorus [Christoph]’, Grove Music Online, www.oxfordmusiconline.com.
98 Bergquist’s preface to Lasso, Litaneien, Falsibordoni und Offiziumssätze, pp. xv–xvi. It is less surprising, of course, that the extant manuscript sources for Lasso’s larger-scored litanies are also folio-sized choirbooks intended for stationary choirs – see, for example, his Marian litany no. II/41 for nine voices, in BSB Mus. ms. 21, or his ten-voice Litany of Loreto (not in the Thesaurus; no. 10 in Bergquist’s edition), in BSB Mus. ms. 48. See ibid., p. xv.
99 This holds as well for Palestrina’s two Marian litanies published in 1600 as the Litaniae Deiparae Virginis quae in sacellis societatis SS. Rosarii Mariae Virginis ubique dicatis concinuntur (Venice, 1600); the wording of the title page, of course, implies a stationary rather than mobile choir, which corresponds to the prevailing motet-like, contrapuntal profile of these works.
100 On the stucco decorations see Schalkhaußer, E., ‘Die Münchner Schule in der Stuckdecoration des 17. Jahrhunderts: Die Stukkaturen der Michaelskirche und des maximilianischen Residenzbaues in München und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Entwicklung der Stuckdekoration in Altbayern, Schwaben und Tirol im 17. Jahrhundert’, Oberbayerisches Archiv für vaterländische Geschichte, 81/82 (1957), pp. 1–140Google Scholar, at 28–32; see also my discussion in Fisher, Music, Piety, and Propaganda, pp. 100–1. J. C. Smith, , in ‘The Art of Salvation in Bavaria’, in J. O’Malley, et al. (eds.), The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts 1540–1773 (Toronto, 1999), pp. 582–588Google Scholar, has also pointed to a similar decorative scheme for the Jesuit church of Unsere Liebe Frau in Neuburg (1616–18), a formerly Lutheran church, following on the conspicuous conversion to Catholicism of Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of Pfalz-Neuburg in 1613. Michele Castelli was one of several artists commissioned to execute the Neuburg stucco cycle.
101 Kendrick, , ‘“Honore a dio”’, pp. 45–46Google Scholar.
