[1] Reference has been made to a source originating in a battle song of the year 912 by Notker the Stammerer, a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gall: however, the Synod of Cologne declared in 1316 no one should sing this without prior permission of the residing bishop.
[1] Media vita in morte sumus quem quaerimus adjutorem nisi te, Domine, qui pro peccatis nostris juste irasceris?
[7] Popular in the Baroque period, the Latin phrase was translated into the vernacular early and has continued to circulate especially widely in German and English, in literature and in song.
The Latin phrase was translated by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, whose English-language version became part of the burial service in the Book of Common Prayer.
Cranmer's contemporary and fellow Anglican bishop Miles Coverdale wrote a poetic rendering of Luther's "Mytten wir ym leben synd", beginning "In the myddest of our lyvynge.
"[9] Catherine Winkworth made another English version of "Mytten wir ym leben synd" in her Lyra Germanica: Hymns for the Sundays and Chief Festivals of the Christian Year, beginning "In the midst of life, behold.