The Abelard Hymnal: Medieval Christian Songs Translated Into English

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This hymnal is a collection of early Christian poems translated into English and set to melodies from the medieval period. The 56 poems are selected from ‘One Hundred Latin Hymns: Ambrose to Aquinas’ (OHLH), edited by Peter G. Walsh and Christopher Husch. OHLH is number 18 in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series and is a critical edition of early Christian poems written between the 4th and 13th centuries. The 183 melodies for the poems are taken from ‘Die mittelalterlichen Hymnenmelodien des Abendlandes’ (HA), volume 1 in Barenreiter’s Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi series. HA, written by Bruno Stablein, is a catalogue of hymns from medieval Europe and contains well over 1000 different melodies. The melodies that were selected come from manuscripts that date between the 11th and 15th centuries. The translations for the poems are taken from a variety of sources, though most are from 19th-century England.