House of Piast and House of Jagiellon (Polish Royal Dynasties)

Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Officium Parvum BMV) — court Hours usage

Officium Parvum Beatae Mariae Virginis

The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a daily cycle of eight canonical Hours — Matins through Compline — composed of Psalms, Marian hymns, antiphons, and responsories drawn from the Latin liturgical tradition. It forms the devotional core of both the Prayer Book of Sigismund I (1524, British Library Add. MS 15281) and the Hours of Bona Sforza (1527, Bodleian MS Douce 40), both illuminated by Stanisław Samostrzelnik and structured around the royal couple's daily chapel observance at Wawel. The opening versicle — Deus in adiutorium meum intende — anchors every Hour and has structured Christian prayer across monastic, royal, and lay communities since the early Middle Ages. Still recited today by tens of thousands of lay Catholics and religious, it is among the most continuously prayed liturgical texts in the Western Christian tradition.

Codex Gertrudianus (Egbert Psalter with Gertrude's Prayers)

Psalterium Egberti cum Precibus Gertrudae

The Codex Gertrudianus is an illuminated tenth-century psalter originally made at Reichenau for Archbishop Egbert of Trier, brought to Kyiv by Gertrude of Poland — daughter of Mieszko II Lambert and Richeza of Lotharingia — upon her marriage to Iziaslav I around 1043–1050. Between 1078 and 1086 Gertrude added approximately ninety Latin prayers of her own composition in margins and on additional folios, accompanied by five Byzantine-style miniatures — depicting herself and her son Yaropolk before St Peter, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, and the enthroned Christ — executed by Kyivan craftsmen. Her prayers are intensely personal: she petitions for her exiled husband's restoration, for her son Yaropolk's protection and spiritual redemption, and for her own courage in sustained political crisis, making this one of the most intimate royal devotional documents from eleventh-century Europe. Gertrude is widely regarded by Polish scholars as the first Polish writer known by name; the codex is preserved in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cividale del Friuli (Ms. CXXXVI).

Gesta Principum Polonorum (Deeds of the Princes of the Poles)

Gesta principum Polonorum

Poland's oldest narrative chronicle, the Gesta Principum Polonorum was composed at the ducal court of Bolesław III Wrymouth by an anonymous Western monk working in the tradition of Einhard's Vita Caroli. It models Christian kingship through exemplary portraits of Piast rulers, praising martial courage inseparable from prayer, generosity to the church, and dynastic unity, while condemning fratricide and pride. The text functioned as living political theology: it was read at court, transmitted to later tutors, and shaped how the Piast dynasty understood its providential role in Latin Christendom. A critical edition with English translation by Paul Knoll and Frank Schaer was published by CEU Press in 2003.

Omni die dic Mariae (Daily, Daily Sing to Mary) — Hymn found with St Casimir

Omni die dic Mariae

Omni die dic Mariae is a Latin Marian hymn of 48 stanzas drawn from Bernard of Cluny's De Contemptu Mundi (c. 1140), which became inseparably identified with the Jagiellonian prince Casimir (1458–1484) when a personal copy was reportedly found in his coffin during the translation of his relics in 1604. Contemporary hagiographers describe Casimir as spending nights in prayer before locked church doors, refusing marriage in honour of his vow of virginity, and devoting his interior life entirely to Mary and the Eucharist — the hymn's spirit perfectly reflects that formation. Casimir was canonized in 1521 and his feast (March 4) elevated to a feast of Poland-Lithuania; from the early 17th century the hymn circulated explicitly as 'the prayer of St Casimir,' embedding it in Jagiellonian dynastic piety. The 1604 coffin discovery is treated by some historians as a pious tradition rather than a verified archaeological find, but the cult association is firmly documented from that date onward.

Chronica Polonorum (Chronicle of the Poles) by Vincentius Kadłubek

Chronica Polonorum

Composed at the behest of Duke Kazimierz II the Just and completed before Wincenty's consecration as Bishop of Kraków in 1208, the Chronica Polonorum presents Polish history as a providential narrative in which just Piast rulers are rewarded and tyrannical ones punished by God. Written in dialogue form and saturated with classical and biblical allusion, it drew on Cicero, canon law, and Scripture to construct a theology of legitimate rulership. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was required reading for Polish educated clergy and nobility; Jan Długosz, royal tutor to the Jagiellonian princes, drew directly on it. Wincenty Kadłubek retired as a Cistercian monk at Jędrzejów and was beatified in 1764.

Bogurodzica (Mother of God Hymn)

Bogurodzica

Bogurodzica ('Mother of God') is the oldest surviving religious hymn in the Polish language, a Marian intercession addressed first to the Virgin — asking her to 'win for us from her Son' a life of dignity — and then to Christ through John the Baptist's intercession, seeking paradise after death. Historian Jan Długosz called it the 'carmen patrium' (hymn of the fatherland), and it functioned as a royal battle hymn sung by Polish and Lithuanian knights before the Battle of Grunwald (1410) and reportedly before the Battle of Varna (1444), while under the Jagiellon dynasty it accompanied the coronation ceremonies of the first Jagiellonian kings. The earliest surviving musical notation (c. 1407) is held in the Jagiellonian Library, Kraków; the first printed appearance was in Bishop Jan Łaski's Statutes of 1506. Its use spanned from royal court to the battlefield to parish — an exceptionally broad reach for a medieval vernacular text.

Historia gloriosissimi Stanislai / Gaude Mater Polonia

Historia gloriosissimi Stanislai (Officium rhythmicum S. Stanislai) with hymn Gaude Mater Polonia

Composed by the Dominican friar Wincenty of Kielcza on the occasion of the canonization of Bishop Stanislaus of Kraków (September 8, 1253, Assisi; solemn celebration May 8, 1254, Kraków), the Historia gloriosissimi Stanislai is a complete rhymed liturgical office for the feast of the supreme patron of Poland, culminating in the vespers hymn Gaude Mater Polonia. Because Stanislaus was the pre-eminent royal saint, the office and its concluding hymn functioned as a de facto religious anthem of the Polish kingdom, performed at coronations, royal weddings, and celebrations of military victory throughout the Piast and Jagiellonian eras. The oldest surviving musical source is the Kielce Antiphonary (c. 1372); a parchment fragment discovered in the Berlin State Library in 2024 may contain an even earlier version, tentatively dated c. 1330–1375. The hymn has never fallen out of continuous liturgical use.

Psałterz Kingi — Psalms of Saint Kinga of Poland

Psałterz świętej Kingi

The 14th-century vita of Saint Kinga (written 1317–1329) records that she habitually recited all 150 psalms weekly in the Polish vernacular, cycling through the complete psalter — the earliest evidence for a Polish-language psalter in private royal devotional use. No original manuscript survives; a handwritten psalter preserved among Kinga's memorabilia at the Stary Sącz convent is of uncertain date and provenance. Modern scholars including Brückner and Wysocki regard the existence of a vernacular psalter for Kinga's use as historically plausible, but classify the specific surviving object as a reconstructed hypothesis rather than a contemporary document. The entry is retained as evidence for Piast female piety and the early vernacularisation of liturgical prayer in Poland.

Kazania Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross Sermons)

Kazania świętokrzyskie

The Holy Cross Sermons are the oldest surviving extended prose text in the Polish language: six complete sermons and fragments of others, in Polish interspersed with Latin, composed for the major feasts of the liturgical year at the Benedictine monastery of Łysa Góra. Discovered in 1890 by Aleksander Brückner, who found the parchment folios used as binding strips in a codex at the Imperial Public Library in St Petersburg, they are the foundational monument of Polish literary prose and are held today at the National Library of Poland (BN Rps 8001). Their theological content is strongly Marian and Christocentric, shaped by the homiletic tradition of the High Middle Ages. No documented connection to a named Piast royal household has been established; the texts belong to the monastic world that was court-adjacent in Piast Poland.

Vita Sanctae Kyngae ducissae Cracoviensis (Life of Saint Kinga)

Vita Sanctae Kyngae ducissae Cracoviensis

The Vita Sanctae Kyngae is a Latin hagiography of Princess Kinga (Kunigunde, 1224–1292), daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary and wife of Bolesław V the Chaste of Kraków, who founded the Poor Clares monastery at Stary Sącz and entered it as a widow. Composed within a generation of Kinga's death by an anonymous Franciscan author, the vita documents her miraculous deeds, her vow of conjugal chastity, her charitable works, and her practice — the earliest attested evidence for vernacular Polish psalm use in royal private devotion — of reciting all 150 Psalms weekly in the Polish language. Kinga was beatified in 1690 and canonized by John Paul II in 1999; her cult was actively promoted by successive Piast dukes of Kraków and embedded in the dynastic sanctity of the dynasty.

Regula Sancti Salvatoris

The Regula Sancti Salvatoris is the monastic rule that Birgitta claimed was revealed to her by Christ for the Order of the Most Holy Saviour. King Magnus Eriksson of the Folkunga dynasty granted the royal manor of Vadstena for the convent in 1346, directly enabling the Rule's institutional home. Approved by Pope Urban VI in 1378 as constitutions for the order, it was appended to the Augustinian Rule. A 15th-century parchment manuscript of the Regula is held at Yale University Library (catalog no. 2014432), and a bilingual Swedish-Latin edition is preserved at the Königliche Bibliothek Berlin (Germ. fol. 726).

Hedwig Codex (Codex of Saint Hedwig of Silesia)

Codex Hedvigianus / Vita Beatae Hedvigis

The Hedwig Codex is a luxurious illuminated manuscript of 204 folios produced in 1353 at the court workshop of Duke Louis I of Liegnitz-Brieg, a Silesian Piast, to celebrate his great-great-great-grandmother Saint Hedwig of Silesia (c. 1174–1243). Its 61 coloured drawings illustrate the life of Hedwig — duchess of Silesia, founder of the Cistercian convent at Trebnitz, lay Cistercian, and prolific miracle-worker — drawn from the vita composed c. 1300. The codex served the dual purpose of dynastic legitimation and devotional instruction, presenting Hedwig's rigorous asceticism, care for the poor, and eucharistic piety as the ideal model for aristocratic women. Kept in Silesia for nearly 250 years, it later passed to Bohemia; the original is now at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (Ms. Ludwig XI 7), and a second copy survives at Schlackenwerth.

Cantus Sororum (Birgittine Office of Our Lady)

Ordo Cantus Sororum Ordinis Sancti Salvatoris

The Cantus Sororum is the distinctive divine office of the Birgittine sisters, constructed by Birgitta and Petrus of Skänninge as a weekly Marian office cycle based on lessons from Birgitta's Sermo Angelicus. It is the only known medieval liturgical repertory composed specifically for performance by women. The mother-house at Vadstena Abbey — founded and endowed by the Folkunga King Magnus Eriksson in 1346 — was the original home of this office, and approximately 22 notated manuscripts survive from Vadstena and daughter-houses. The Birgittine Database (birgittine.org) catalogs 3,600 entries from these manuscripts covering c.1500–1881.

Sermo Angelicus

The Sermo Angelicus consists of 21 lessons — three for each day of the week — said by Birgitta to have been dictated by an angel and addressed to the Virgin Mary's role in salvation history. These lessons formed the lections for the Matins of the Birgittine sisters' distinctive office at Vadstena and all daughter-houses. The text was composed in Rome c.1353–1354 and became the theological heart of the Birgittine liturgy endowed by the Folkunga royal house. The Museum of the Bible holds an illuminated Birgittine manuscript containing the Sermo Angelicus as part of the sisters' office book.

Revelationes Caelestes (Liber Caelestis)

Revelationes Caelestes

The collected celestial visions of St. Birgitta of Sweden, recorded between 1344 and her death in 1373, comprising some 700 revelations in seven books covering penance, Marian devotion, political admonition to King Magnus Eriksson (the Folkunga king who endowed Vadstena in 1346), and meditations on the Passion. King Magnus Eriksson of the Folkunga dynasty gave the royal demesne of Vadstena to Birgitta's new order in 1346, making him direct patron of the text's monastic home. The Revelationes circulated in Old Swedish at Vadstena Abbey from the 1380s and were central to the devotional life of all who supported the Birgittine order. The first printed edition appeared in Lübeck in 1492, consolidating the text's pan-European spread.

Liber Caelestis Imperatoris ad Reges (Revelaciones, Book VIII)

Liber celestis imperatoris ad reges

Book VIII of the Revelationes, titled Liber Caelestis Imperatoris ad Reges ('The Book of the Celestial Emperor for Kings'), was arranged by Alfonso Pecha as an explicit Mirror for Princes drawn from 58 of Birgitta's revelations addressing the duties and failings of rulers. The political critique of King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden is at its sharpest here, framing divine justice and mercy as twin poles of legitimate kingship. Scholars have confirmed its function as royal formation literature within the Birgittine milieu that Magnus himself founded. The critical edition was published by Hans Aili in 2002.

Revelationes Extravagantes

The Revelationes Extravagantes consists of 116 supplementary chapters of Birgitta's revelations compiled at Vadstena after her death and canonization in 1391, including four major prayers, the Angel's Discourse, and detailed practical instructions for monastic life. Old Swedish fragments of the Extravagantes from the Danish National Archives confirm their circulation in the Scandinavian region. The text was central to the daily devotional life of the Vadstena community, patronized across its history by members of the Folkunga and subsequent Swedish royal families.

Sankt Florian Psalter (Psałterz Floriański)

Psalterium trilingue / Psałterz floriański

The Sankt Florian Psalter is a richly illuminated trilingual psalter containing all 150 Psalms in Latin, Old Polish, and Middle High German, with two prologues by Ludolph of Saxony, the Athanasian Creed, and musical notation for canticles. Anjou heraldry, the letters 'mm,' and the Polish eagle device link it conclusively to Queen Jadwiga (r. 1384–1399), of the House of Anjou, wife of Władysław II Jagiełło; scholarly consensus holds that the commission was interrupted by her death in July 1399 and completed for another patron. The Polish text is the oldest surviving complete translation of the Psalter into Polish, making it a foundational document of both Polish literature and Polish Christian devotion. Held at St Florian Abbey in Austria from 1637 to 1931, it was purchased by the Polish government and now resides in the National Library of Poland, Warsaw (BN Rps 8002 III).

Sobieski Hours

The Sobieski Hours

Now in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (RCIN 1142248), the Sobieski Hours was made in Paris c. 1420–1430, possibly for Margaret of Burgundy, oldest sister of Philip the Good and daughter of John the Fearless, and possibly as a wedding gift for her 1423 marriage to Arthur III, Duke of Brittany. It passed to the Polish King John III Sobieski and through his granddaughter Maria Clementina Sobieska to James Stuart (the Old Pretender); his descendant Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York, bequeathed it to the future King George IV, through whom it entered the British Royal Collection. Its extraordinary dynastic journey across Catholic royal houses — Burgundian, Polish, and Stuart — over two centuries is fully documented in Eleanor P. Spencer's scholarly monograph (Academic Press, 1977). The manuscript stands as a remarkable witness to the role of the personal prayer book in sustaining Catholic identity across political exile and dynastic upheaval.

Prayer Book of Władysław Warneńczyk (Modlitewnik Władysława Warneńczyka)

Modlitewnik króla Władysława (Warneńczyka)

This illuminated Latin prayer codex held at the Bodleian Library (MS Rawl. liturg. d. 6, S.C. 15857) is associated by some Polish scholars with Władysław III Warneńczyk (r. 1434–1444), king of Poland and Hungary who died heroically at the Battle of Varna, though the Bodleian catalog and manuscripta.pl both raise the alternative attribution to Władysław II Jagiellończyk (king of Bohemia and Hungary, r. 1471–1516). The manuscript incorporates the name Władysław in its prayers alongside royal Polish heraldry, and its miniatures depict a crowned figure kneeling before holy figures in a posture of royal intercession. The contents follow standard 15th-century court devotion: suffrages to saints, Marian petitions, and prayers for protection in battle. The principal scholarly study remains the 1928 edition by Bernacki, Ganszyniec, and Podlacha (Lwów).

Jan Długosz's Formation Curriculum for the Jagiellonian Princes

Formation curriculum of Jan Długosz for sons of Casimir IV Jagiellon

From c. 1467, Jan Długosz served as formal tutor to the sons of Casimir IV Jagiellon, including the future kings Władysław II of Bohemia and Hungary, Jan Olbracht, Alexander, and Sigismund I, as well as the future saint Casimir. His documented curriculum integrated Latin, law, rhetoric, and history with a programme of religious formation rooted in traditional piety and liturgical observance. His Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae (completed 1480) functioned simultaneously as Poland's most authoritative chronicle and as a mirror for princes, embedding the Jagiellonian dynasty in a providential Christian history that gave each prince a model of sanctified rulership to imitate. His formation of Casimir — canonized in 1521, thirty-seven years after Długosz's death — stands as the most documented instance of successful Christian spiritual formation in the Jagiellonian court.

Psałterz Puławski (Puławy Psalter)

Psałterz puławski (Psalterium ferianum)

The Psałterz Puławski is a parchment codex of 312 pages organised as a ferial psalter, with all 150 Psalms distributed through the days of the week in the tradition of the Divine Office, each psalm preceded by an allegorical and historical argument and introduced by an illuminated initial in late Gothic style. Held at the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków (ms. 1269), its earliest documented ownership is a 1533 dedication to the Komorowski family, placing it definitively in the Jagiellonian period though without proven court connection. The Old Polish translation is representative of the 15th-century Kraków school of vernacular biblical rendering and testifies to growing lay demand for Scripture in the native tongue. The manuscript is a landmark witness to the living psalter tradition that preceded the Reformation's explosion of Polish Bible translation.

Raj duszny (Hortulus Animae polonice) — The Soul's Garden

Raj duszny / Hortulus Animae polonice

Raj duszny ('Eden of the Soul') is a Polish adaptation of the Hortulus Animae prayer-book tradition, printed in Kraków in 1513 by Florian Ungler — among the very earliest prints entirely in the Polish language. Biernat of Lublin, a humanist physician and vernacular writer, adapted a Latin devotional compilation rooted in Nicholas Saliceto's Antidotarius animae, supplementing it with prayers already circulating in Polish. The book comprises the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, litanies, penitential psalms, and popular devotional prayers, and went through at least six editions by 1547, demonstrating strong lay demand. The last known complete copy was destroyed in World War II; eight pages survive in the Poznań Wielkopolska Digital Library, making it one of the most consequential lost monuments of Polish devotional literature.

Prayer Book of King Sigismund I the Old (Modlitewnik Zygmunta I Starego)

Modlitewnik Zygmunta I Starego

This small-format parchment codex (222 folios) was produced in 1524 for Sigismund I the Old (r. 1506–1548), king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania, and is the most sumptuous surviving Polish royal personal prayer book. It was illuminated by the Cistercian monk-painter Stanisław Samostrzelnik of Mogiła Abbey, Kraków, whose signed miniatures blend Italian Renaissance composition with Polish decorative motifs in a manner unique in Central European book painting. The devotional content consists of a Psalter of St Jerome followed by the Clipeus spiritualis — a structured compilation of suffrages, short prayers, and intercessory petitions — providing a complete personal liturgy of the Hours for private royal use. After Sigismund's death his widow Bona Sforza took the book to Bari around 1555–1556; it eventually passed to the British Library (Add. MS 15281), and a facsimile edition appeared in 2016 in the series Libri Precationum Illuminati Poloniae Veteris.

Prayer Book of Queen Bona Sforza (Hours of Queen Bona)

Modlitewnik Królowej Bony / Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis

This richly illuminated Book of Hours (271 parchment folios, 143 × 114 mm) was commissioned by Sigismund I the Old as a personal gift for his Italian-born consort Bona Sforza, queen of Poland. The manuscript includes a liturgical calendar, Gospel fragments, the Passion according to St John, the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, votive masses, the seven Penitential Psalms, litanies, the Office for the Dead, and intercessory prayers. Fifteen full-page miniatures were executed by Stanisław Samostrzelnik and signed S.C.f. (Stanislaus Claratumbensis fecit), while the border decoration incorporates the arms of Poland and the Visconti-Sforza dynasty throughout. Bona carried the volume to Italy after Sigismund's death in 1548; it was acquired by Francis Douce and bequeathed to the Bodleian Library in 1834 (MS Douce 40), where it remains one of the finest examples of Polish Renaissance illumination.

En Handbock på Svenska (A Manual in Swedish)

En handbock på svenska

Published in Stockholm in 1529 under the Vasa court's Lutheran programme, this Manual was the first vernacular service-book of the Reformation and the first vernacular prayer-book to appear anywhere in Europe. Commissioned within the Vasa reform framework, it provided Swedish-language rites for baptism, marriage, burial, and the visitation of the sick and condemned. Olavus Petri, whom King Gustav I Vasa had installed as court reformer, created the Manual as a practical expression of the principle that people must receive the Word in their own tongue. It was reprinted in 1533 and 1537.

Swenske Songer eller Wisor (First Swedish Hymnal)

Swenske songer eller wisor

The first preserved hymnal in the Swedish language, containing 47 hymns published in 1536, largely anonymous but attributed chiefly to Olavus Petri — the reformer installed in Stockholm by King Gustav I Vasa (founder of the Vasa dynasty) after the Diet of Västerås declared Sweden Lutheran in 1527. Petri edited three successive Swedish hymnals (1526, 1530, 1536), and this 1536 collection represents the settled form of Swedish Lutheran congregational song under Vasa patronage. Many hymns are translations of Latin and German originals. The hymnal was reprinted repeatedly until replaced by the Uppsala Psalmboken of 1645.

Gustav Vasa Bible

Biblia, thet är, all then Helgha Scrifft på Swensko

Commissioned by King Gustav I Vasa and published in Uppsala in 1540–1541, this was the first complete Bible in the Swedish language and the most ambitious typographical undertaking in 16th-century Sweden. Translated largely from Luther's German Bible by Laurentius Andreae and the Petri brothers under direct royal mandate, it became the central devotional and formation text of the Vasa dynasty's Lutheran church settlement. The Gustav Vasa Bible shaped Swedish orthography and syntax for centuries and has been called 'the birth certificate of the Swedish language.' It was the only complete Bible printed in Sweden in the entire 16th century.

Summa Doctrinae Christianae (Large Catechism) / Catechismus Minimus

Summa doctrinae christianae / Catechismus Minimus

Peter Canisius composed a set of three catechisms at the express request of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, who sought a Catholic counterpart to Luther's catechism; Canisius had preached at the Viennese court and exercised direct personal influence on the emperor. By Canisius's death in 1597, at least 300 editions of the catechisms had appeared across the major European languages, and for over two centuries most of Catholic Germany received its basic religious formation from them. The Catechismus Minimus, published in 1556 as an appendix to a Latin grammar, contained only 59 questions covering faith, hope, charity, the sacraments, sin avoidance, and good works. The work's reach extended beyond court and school into parish, convent, and household, giving it a genuinely public character rare among Counter-Reformation publications.

Swedish Church Ordinance 1571 (Canon Ecclesiasticus)

Kyrkoordningen 1571

The first complete Swedish church order following the Reformation, published by Archbishop Laurentius Petri under King John III of the Vasa dynasty, formalizing Lutheran worship, catechesis, and formation across the kingdom. Petri had worked toward this ordinance under three successive Vasa kings (Gustav I, Eric XIV, John III), finally securing John's permission in 1568. The ordinance defined sacramental practice, ordained clergy duties, and established a framework for parish education — including children's formation — making it the foundational document of post-Reformation Swedish court and parish devotional life.

Olov Svebilius Catechism

Förklaring öfwer Luthers Lille Cathechismum

Composed by Olov Svebilius, who served as court chaplain to King Charles XI of Sweden and was personally charged by the king with teaching theology to the young prince (the future Charles XI), this catechism became Sweden's official Lutheran formation text for children and adults. After Charles XI's coronation in 1675, the king declared learning Svebilius's translation of Luther's Small Catechism obligatory for all commoners; the 1689 edition held authority until 1810. Svebilius was also a key member of the commission that produced the 1686 Swedish Church Law mandating household catechism examinations.

Den svenska psalmboken 1695 (The Carolina Psalter)

Den svenska psalmboken

The first official hymnal of the Church of Sweden, known as the Carolina Psalter after King Charles XI (Carolina = Charles), published in 1695. Jesper Swedberg — court chaplain to Charles XI — was its driving force, and the psalter was accepted by the king. Containing around 482 hymns in Swedish along with a few in Latin, it found its way into nearly every Swedish home and remained the state church's official hymnal until 1819 (and in Finland until 1886). Swedberg later served as bishop of Skara and father of the mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. The 1697 koralbok (music edition) accompanied it.