ABSTRACT
In 1528, a group of Strasbourg orphans found themselves being reprimanded (for the third time) for singing devotional songs to Mary and the saints. Religious songs and popular song genres both played parts in people’s lives, and studying them in parallel is the only way to approach a fuller understanding of how religious upheaval affected music, and in turn how music affected religious upheaval. The songs that appeared in print in Strasbourg during the first two decades of the sixteenth century were very often devotional, either to the Virgin Mary or to other saints such as St Katherine. The beginning of the Reformation in Strasbourg coincided with a considerable reduction in the number of popular songs being printed.161 A glance through Chrisman’s Bibliography of Strasbourg Imprints would suggest that popular music almost died out during the first two or three decades of the Reformation,162 but there are in fact several titles that escaped Chrisman’s attention.
