Dona Nobis Pacem: A Song History

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The words of this round, Latin for "grant us peace," are the closing petition of the Agnus Dei, the chant sung at the breaking of the bread in the Latin Mass. The New Catholic Encyclopedia explains that this ending was not part of the earliest texts: it replaced a third "have mercy on us" sometime in the tenth or eleventh century, probably because the chant had by then been moved to accompany the kiss of peace.[1] The three-part round that sets those words is another matter, and its author is unknown. Andreas Marti, commenting on its place in the German Protestant hymnal, notes that the canon's origin remains untraced, and that its very ubiquity has made its path of transmission impossible to reconstruct.[2] Hymnary.org catalogs the melody simply as a traditional canon.[3] Some editions have nevertheless attached famous names to it. The Choral Public Domain Library lists it, as an anonymous piece, within a set of canons that have been loosely credited to Mozart, while the 1985 Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal gives it as "attributed to" Palestrina.[4][5] None of the sources consulted here offers documentary evidence for either name, and no earliest printing of the round could be established.

Illuminated initial from a fifteenth-century choir book showing a group of monks singing from a large book on a lectern

Bartolomeo Gossi da Gallarate (or circle), Monks Singing in an Initial “K” from a Choir Book, tempera, ink and gold on parchment, Italian, 1476. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Monks singing from a choir book; it has no connection to the round.

The round has since become a fixture of hymnals across denominations and languages: Hymnary.org counts it in 65 books, among them The Hymnal 1982, The United Methodist Hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship and the German Evangelisches Gesangbuch.[3] Among the older books indexed by Hymnary.org is The Chapbook (1959), a youth songbook, where the round's source is marked unknown.[6] Marti also observes that this familiarity has a practical payoff: the round works even with groups who are not at home in the hymnal.[2]

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Sources

  1. Encyclopedia.com (New Catholic Encyclopedia): "Agnus Dei".
  2. Evangeliums.net (Andreas Marti): "Dona nobis pacem (Kanon)".
  3. Hymnary.org: "DONA NOBIS PACEM (Round)" (tune).
  4. Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki): "Canons (Various)".
  5. Hymnary.org: "Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal #471: Grant Us Your Peace".
  6. Hymnary.org: "The Chapbook (1959) #82: Dona Nobis Pacem".