Johann Franck

Johann Franck (1618–1677) was a German Lutheran poet, lawyer, and civic leader whose sacred verse belongs to the major generation of hymn writing that emerged from the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War. Born in Guben in Lower Lusatia, he studied at schools in Guben, Cottbus, Stettin, and Thorn before entering the University of Königsberg in 1638 to study law. There he came into contact with the poet Simon Dach and the Königsberg literary circle. Returning to Guben, Franck practiced law and entered public service; he became a councillor in 1648, burgomaster in 1661, and later represented Guben in the Landtag of Lower Lusatia.

Franck wrote roughly 110 sacred songs and hymns. His poetry is marked by personal devotion to Christ, biblical imagery, and a strong theme of the soul’s union with the Savior. Johann Crüger published a number of Franck’s texts and supplied melodies that became enduring Lutheran chorales. Among Franck’s best-known hymns are “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” translated into English as “Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness,” and “Jesu, meine Freude,” known in English as “Jesus, Priceless Treasure.” His sacred poems were gathered in his Geistliches Sion and helped carry seventeenth-century Lutheran devotional poetry into later congregational worship and into the works of composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach.