communal song books

This type of song books contained songs recited after the sermon, songs written for celebrations, occasional pieces and funeral songs. It provided a wider avenue for new, special Protestant genres, such as the gradual. The popular psalm paraphrases and jeremiads also appeared here. By the second half of the 16th century Lutheran (for example, the Várad song book, 1566) and Calvinist communal song books were separated. It was Gergely Szegedi (1537-1566)'s Debrecen song book (1569), which contained Helvetian religious principles first, and it considered psalms the highest form of songs.

ÁP-SzJú