FLAGELLANT SONGS recorded by HUGO SPECHTSHART

The Geisslerlieder, or flagellant songs, were sung by the wandering companies of flagellants who overspread Europe in the 13th century and again in 1349, during the Black Death.

The first period of the flagellants began in northern Italy, where the plague of 1259 and long-continued political turmoil, warfare, famine and moral decay created a fever of desperation and apocalyptic expectation. This was manifested in great penitential processions, in which men, women and children of all ages and ranks marched from city to city, whipping and beating themselves and singing penitential songs. The words of many of these songs were recorded, but little music has survived.

The Black Death, earthquakes and clerical scandals brought about a return of the flagellants and the Geisslerlieder in 1349. The movement spread throughout Europe, reaching Poland, Denmark and England. Hugo Spechtshart of Reutlingen, a priest and musician, was impressed by what he witnessed, and transcribed the songs that he heard; his work is one of the earliest examples of a folk-song collection: the Chronicon Hugonis sacerdotis de Rutelinga.

In 1900, Paul Runge, a German scholar, published a study of Hugo's chronicle. The pages below are taken from Professor Runge's book, which can be downloaded in its entirety here.

[Runge, Paul. Die Lieder und Melodien der Geissler des Jahres 1349 nach der Aufzeichnung Hugo's von Reutlingen, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1900]