Ursulines’ 1736 songbook preserved by HNOC

Singing at Mass surely had to have fostered the Catholic faith of the Ursuline nuns who came to New Orleans in 1727 as missionary educators of girls in French Louisiana. But now music historians can speculate that some of those hymns might also have helped to alleviate the sisters’ homesickness, having been set to familiar secular tunes originally composed in their native France.