Hemminki of Masku


Hemminki of Masku was a Finnish priest, hymn writer, and translator. His work, particularly Yxi Wähä Suomenkielinen Wirsikirja greatly influenced hymnody in the Finnish language.

Life

Hemminki, son of Henrik, was born around 1550 into a bourgeois family in Turku. He studied at the Cathedral School in Turku, where he was taught by Eerik Härkäpää and Jacobus Finno, both of whom studied abroad. Hemminki himself probably also studied abroad, but it is not certain whether this is the case.
Hemminki was ordained and became the vicar of Masku near Turku in 1586. During this time, he expanded the work of Jacobus Finno’s earlier Finnish-language hymnal to publish Yxi Wähä Suomenkielinen Wirsikirja, the first edition probably in 1605 of which the earliest surviving imprint is the produced by Simon Johannis Carelius in 1607 Rostock.
Yxi Wähä Suomenkielinen Wirsikirja contained all of Jacobus Finno’s 101 hymns, as well as 141 new ones. The new part was mainly translated in a rather free style into Finnish by Hemminki from Swedish, German, Latin, and Danish hymns. Hemminki himself probably wrote 26 of them. In addition, there are 5 hymns by Petrus Melartopaeus, a dean of the cathedral.