Petrus Melartopaeuksen kirjeet ja virsisuomennokset: seremoniat, kansanusko ja runokieli 1500- ja 1600-luvun Suomessa

The introduction of Lutheran hymns represented a fundamental shift
in Finnish poetic language. The mainstream interpretation has claimed
that the Lutheran clergy avoided the features of the traditional Finnish
oral poetic idiom, which was considered pagan. Yet, paradoxically, with the
establishment of orthodox Lutheran confessionalism, visible features typical
of traditional Finnish poetics were adapted into Lutheran hymns. In this
wider context of Lutheran confessionalism, folk beliefs and traditional Finnish
poetics, this article concentrates on two letters (1595, 1596) and five hymn
translations (1605) written by Petrus Henrici Melartopaeus (c. 1550–1610).

At the Uppsala meeting in 1593, the Lutheran clergy announced, among
other things, that the Elevation of the Host and the use of candles and salt
should be abolished. As the praepositus (Dean) of Turku (Swe. Åbo) Cathedral,
Melartopaeus published two letters against these practices, asserting that
“papist superstition” should be stopped, just like ancient paganism had been
abolished previously. His list of pagan idols was modified from an earlier list
of pagan deities by Michael Agricola, and he also provided other examples of
local superstitions.

In the second Finnish Hymnal, Melartopaeus published translations of the
medieval songs In dulci jubilo, Ad coenam agni, Victimae Paschali and Surrexit
Christus hodie, as well as the famous psalm-based Ein feste burg ist unser Gott
by Martin Luther. Unlike his Finnish predecessors, Melartopaeus used abundant
alliteration and other occasional features of traditional oral poetics. At
the same time, he modified the hymns according to confessionalist Lutheran
theology. It is evident that Melartopaeus and his colleague Hemmingius de
Masco did not find the features of traditional Finnish poetics to be “pagan,”
“papist” or “superstitious.”