Den svenska psalmboken (1819)

Den svenska psalmboken – av Konungen gillad och stadfäst(ad) år 1819 ('The Swedish hymnal – approved and confirmed by the king in 1819'), also called the 1819 Hymnal and the Wallin Hymnal, was used in Sweden from 1819 to 1937 (with Haeffner's chorale book [sv]) and contained 500 hymns.^[1]

The hymnbook was "approved and confirmed by the king" on 29 January 1819,^[2] but was not introduced for exclusive use throughout the country by one collective decision. Rather, it was successively adopted by each parish in the Church of Sweden by a separate decision at parish board meetings. From 1921 it was used together with a supplement, Nya psalmer [sv], which included hymns by revivalists Lina Sandell and Carl Olof Rosenius.^[1][3]

The hymnal was in that sense the work of one man, as over half of the hymns were written or adapted by archbishop Johan Olof Wallin (1779–1839),^[4] but other poets such as Frans Michael Franzén (1772–1847) and Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847) were also involved.^[5] Other participants with numerous hymns include vicar Johan Åström [sv] (1767–1844) and professor Samuel Ödmann [sv] (1750–1829). Three hymns (0.6%) were written by women.

Its content and style have been described as "on the border of the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic Era."^[6]

Other collections of hymns and songs during this period included selections from the 1819 hymnal, sometimes with only certain verses included, such as in the Swedish Evangelical Mission's Sionstoner [sv] (1889) and the Stockholms söndagsskolförenings sångbok [sv] (Stockholm Sunday School Association's hymnal; 1882).