Rinkhart, Martin

German, 1586–1649. Born in Eilenburg, Saxony, he was a choirboy at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, where Johann Sebastian Bach was later music director. As archdeacon of Eilenburg during the Thirty Years’ War, he was left as the sole clergyman of the crowded city after other clergymen had fled or died. His was the grim task of burying the victims of famine and pestilence, and he sometimes had to read forty or fifty funeral services a day. In addition to hymns, he wrote dramas in commemoration of Martin Luther.

Now Thank We All Our God, 95 (Text)