ABSTRACT
Around 1523, an anonymous pamphlet circulated containing a contrafactum of a Marian folksong, ‘Von erst so woll wir loben’. Rather than praise Mary, the new version argued in twenty-eight strophes that God had sent Martin Luther to save Christians from the Antichrist, there revealed to be the Roman pope. Although to modern minds it is difficult to imagine such a lengthy political song finding an audience, the contrafactum fitted in well with the musical culture of early modern Germany. Not only did it provide scandalous information, but it did so to a very familiar tune, one that might help it and its messages spread. Music was an important part of the daily lives of the common people, functioning as devotion, news and gossip, and entertainment. Singing and playing were not activities restricted to professional musicians, as evidenced by the hundreds of broadside and pamphlet songs published in the sixteenth century. Because music-making was such an integral part of popular culture, the popular song was a ready-made tool for spreading information. Reformation polemicists quickly pressed it into service, taking advantage of the way song could spread in an illiterate society much more easily than could the printed word.
