THE LUTHERAN IDENTITY OF JOSQUIN’S MISSA PANGE LINGUA: RENAISSANCE OF A RENAISSANCE MASS

Abstract

In sixteenth-century Germany, both Catholics and Lutherans circulated and performed Josquin’s Missa Pange lingua, even though its model, the hymn Pange lingua, was associated with Eucharistic practices that were exclusively Catholic. This source-based study reveals how Lutherans selected the Missa Pange lingua for performance over other available masses and adapted it for their liturgical and pedagogical needs. Two printed sources of the mass offer perspectives on how Lutherans might have negotiated the polemical rituals and theology associated with the Missa Pange lingua alongside an aesthetic interest in the work. The intention of this study is not to de-emphasise the connection between the Missa Pange lingua and its borrowed melody or the initial Catholic identity of the mass. Rather, the Lutheran identity of the Missa Pange lingua provides an additional layer to the early reception history of this work and a case study of the Lutheran appropriation of Catholic music.