Scarce. 1574 Cantica ex Sacris Literis..., by Georg Major. Protestant reformation music.

A scarce Protestant Reformation collection of songs, edited by the reformer Georg Major; between the Universal Short Title Catalogue and the Worldcat catalogue, only four copies are recorded in the world's libraries. Printed in Wittenberg, the cradle of the Reformation, by a printer (Laurenz Schwenck) that is known to have printed other Protestant music works.

About This Work -

The title describes the work well, roughly translated into English as:

Songs from sacred books, used to be sung in church, with hymns and collections, or ecclesiastical prayers, for the use of pastors, deacons, and scholastic youth, now revised and enlarged by D. Georg. Major.

This is the second edition, the Thesaurus Hymnologicus records a 1570 printing, and the above title states "revised and enlarged".

An interesting side note, an engraving of Moses portrays him with horns - this stems from an early interpretation of the Hebrew word describing the protrusions emanating from Moses after his time with the Lord as "horns", rather than "light" as it is now commonly (and rightfully) translated; this was corrected soon after in the King James translation.



About Georg Major -

In 1529, Major was appointed rector of the Johannisschule in Magdeburg, but in 1537 he became court preacher at Wittenberg and was ordained by Martin Luther. He began to lecture on theology in 1541.

In 1545 he joined the theological faculty, and his authority increased to such an extent that in the following year the elector sent him to the Conference of Regensburg. Like Philipp Melanchthon, he fled before the disastrous close of the Schmalkald war, and found refuge in Magdeburg. In the summer of 1547, he returned to Wittenberg, and in the same year became cathedral superintendent at Merseburg, although he resumed his activity at the university in the following year.

From 1558 to 1574 he was dean of the theological faculty and repeatedly held the rectorate of the university. He lived long enough to experience the first overthrow of Crypto-Calvinism in the Electorate of Saxony, and Paul Crell, his son-in-law, signed for him at Torgau in May 1574 the articles which repudiated Calvinism and acknowledged the unity of Luther and Melanchthon.


Bibliographic Details -

Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 617884; one copy at the Halle Germany Universitats und Landesbibliothek.

Worldcat catalogue entires:

OCLC 34061661 - one copy at Pitts Theological Library

OCLC 859398654 - one copy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Library

OCLC 1146393471 - one copy at the Darmstadt Universitats und Landesbibliothek

This copy sold for four hundred and eighty pounds (Lot 111) in the Dominic Winter 6 April 2020 auction.

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 13 x 7.5 x 1 cm. Signed in 12. Paper wrapper covers text block; stored in clamshell case.

Decorative border around the title page. The verso of the title page has an engraving of Moses, the pillar of fire, the Israelites and the drowning Egyptian army. At the last leaf (present) is a woodcut of the Lord holding Jesus' body, the verso of the colophon.

Pages - 91 numbered leaves, 3 unnumbered leaves of index, and one leaf of colophon

Collation - a-g12, h11 (a blank h12 is missing).

Condition -

See pictures. The clamshell binding has almost no wear. The book is worn, the wrapper older and showing some toning and thumbing with edge/corner wear. There are several names written on the front board of the wrapper. The text block edges are darkened and slightly out of square. Some small pieces of the wrapper are sticking to the title page at the hinge. No blank binder's endpapers. There is some toning to the paper, with occasional fox spots, thumbing, dog-eared page, etc. There are heavy annotations and underlining for a handful of the songs. The last leaf, a blank according to one of the catalogue entries, is not present. There are several stray ink marks/smudges. There is an occasional moisture mark in the fore-edge margin; only for a few leaves at the rear does it intrude into the text.