The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hymnology \Hym*nol"o*gy\, n. [Gr. ? hymn + -logy: cf. F. hymnologie.]
The hymns or sacred lyrics composed by authors of a particular country or period; as, the hymnology of the eighteenth century; also, the collective body of hymns used by any particular church or religious body; as, the Anglican hymnology.
A knowledge of hymns; a treatise on hymns.
Wiktionary
n. The study of hymns; hymnody
Wikipedia
Hymnology (from Greek ὕμνος hymnos, "song of praise" and -λογία -logia, "study of") is the scholarly study of religious song, or the hymn, in its many aspects, with particular focus on choral and congregational song. It may be more or less clearly distinguished from hymnody, the creation and practice of such song. Hymnologists, such as Erik Routley, may study the history and origins of hymns and of traditions of sung worship, the biographies of the women and men who have written hymns that have passed into choral or congregational use, the interrelationships between text and tune, the historical processes, both folk and redactional, that have changed hymn texts and hymn tunes over time, and the sociopolitical, theological and aesthetic arguments concerning various styles of sung worship.
Hymnology is sometimes more strictly construed, as in A Dictionary of Hymnology, edited by John D. Julian, which concerns itself very largely with the history, textual changes, and translations of hymns, and with the biographies of hymnographers, and very little with the poetic metres of these hymns, or with the hymn tunes to which these are sung.
Usage examples of "hymnology".
Biggs is a student of hymnology, and we were soon in full swing on this mutually congenial subject.
Cases have been known of men without a scratch laughing and crying simultaneously after a too-close acquaintance with the German hymnology of hate.
Stamped upon every page of her divine liturgy, and permeating the beautiful prayers of her offices, and inwrought in her hymnology, is this deep and firm recognition and teaching with respect to a change of heart.
By and by, everybody who could make a tolerable rhyme seized some of the master-pieces of hymnology, and set them up on stiff philosophical stilts.
Christian hymnology is instinct with them and not a little of our noblest poetry.
Thus he was the real originator in England of the great system of appropriate hymnology, which has become almost universal, and many of his own are among the most beautiful voices of praise our Church possesses.