Kingo's hymnal, originally titled (The Prescribed New Church Hymnal), is a

hymnal A hymnal or hymnary is a collection of hymns, usually in the form of a book, called a hymnbook (or hymn book). They are used in congregational singing. A hymnal may contain only hymn texts (normal for most hymnals for most centuries of Christia ...

that was approved by royal decree for use in all churches in

Denmark–Norway Denmark–Norway (Danish language, Danish and Norwegian language, Norwegian: ) is a term for the 16th-to-19th-century multi-national and multi-lingual real unionFeldbæk 1998:11 consisting of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway (includ ...

in 1699. The hymnal contains 86 hymns by the bishop of Odense,

Thomas Kingo Thomas Hansen Kingo (15 December 1634 – 14 October 1703) was a Danish bishop, poet and hymnwriter born in Slangerup, near Copenhagen. His work marked the high point of Danish baroque poetry. Early life and education His parents were Hans ...

. It also bears Kingo's name on the title page because the selection was made based on a hymnal that Kingo had edited ten years earlier.

History

In Denmark, Kingo's hymnal has been replaced by '' Den Danske Salmebiog''. Kingo's hymnal was in use in a large part of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

until the 1870s, when it was replaced by '' Landstads kirkesalmebog'' (Landstad's Church Hymnal) and Andreas Hauge's '' Psalmebog for Kirke og Hus'' (Hymnal for Church and Home). The Strong Believers, a conservative Norwegian group, still use Kingo's hymnal.

Content

The hymnal is arranged according to the

liturgical year The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be obse ...

so that suitable hymns are designated for every holiday during the year. The hymnal contains

collect The collect ( ) is a short general prayer of a particular structure used in Christian liturgy. Collects come up in the liturgies of Catholic, Lutheran, or Anglican churches, among others. Etymology The word is first seen as Latin ''collēcta'' ...

epistle An epistle (; ) is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The ...

s, and

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

readings for each holiday, and it also contains church prayers and other prayers.

References

{{authoritycontrol 1699 non-fiction books 1699 in Denmark Church of Denmark * Danish song books Church of Norway Lutheran hymnals