The study of Orlando di Lasso's polyphonic Latin hymn cycle found one of its earliest stimuli in the work of Julius Joseph Maier (1821–89), the first “Conservator der Musikalischen Abteilung der Kgl. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek,” now the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. His 1879 catalogue, Die musikalischen Handschriften der K. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek in München, identified three manuscript sources of Lasso's hymn cycle, all of which are still preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek as Mus. Mss. 55, 75, and 520. In his landmark study of 1958, Wolfgang Boetticher provided a brief overview of the hymn cycle, focusing on questions of dating and authenticity in the oldest manuscript source, Mus. Ms. 55, as well as on its relationship to the two later Munich sources identified by Maier. He also pointed out a fourth source among manuscripts in Augsburg. In her 1980 edition of the hymn cycle, Marie Louise Göllner brought to the fore a fifth manuscript source whose provenance may be traced to Munich's Frauenkirche.

Subsequent to Boetticher's and particularly Göllner's investigation of these sources, and her preparation of a critical edition, a nexus of contextual questions remains to be explored. Why did Lasso compose a hymn cycle in 1580–1? What was the functional context for the creation and use of this repertory? Was there a specific liturgical stimulus? To pose such questions is to assert that beyond source studies, and beyond investigations of musical style and structure, there remain important lines of inquiry regarding the relationship between liturgical rite and musical repertory, and, more broadly, the symbolic role of liturgy within a particular religious culture.