Well, it the Second Sunday of Advent and we have had only one seasonal religious song. Time for diversity! So step into the Way Back Machine for a visit to Achen in Midievel Germany when it was still a part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Nowhere in Christendom were Advent and Christmas so revered and culturally sacred than among the Germanic peoples.
Aachen has one of the best preserved and still functioning medieval cathedrals in Northern Europe.
Sei uns wilkommen, Herre Christ (Be Ye Welcome, Lord Christ) may have origins stretching back to the early 11th Century but it was first recorded as a fragment in the Liuthar Gospels found in the Achen Cathedral Treasury and dating to the 14th Century. Known as the Aachener Fragment it was most commonly sung from the choir stalls of the Cathedral by the schoffen, appointed honorable citizens involved in the general government and jurisdiction of the Bishopric. It was not a folk song passed on in homes.
The earliest surviving version is a manuscript from Erfurt dating to 1394. In 1861 Agust Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben reconstructed a translation from the Erfurt version into Old High German.
The hymn is also known as the Aachener Weihnachtslied ( Aachen Christmas Carol) or Aachener Schoffenlied (Aachen Junior Carol.) It is the oldest recorded German seasonal hymn and versions are iinclude in both Catholic and Lutheran hymnals today.
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