Hermann Bonnus

Bonn, Hermann (or Gude), son of Arnold Gude, Councillor at Quakenbrück near Osnabrück, was born at Quakenbrück about 1504. He matriculated at Wittenberg in 1523, and after studying under Luther and Melanchthon, he was for some time employed as a tutor. In 1530 he was appointed Rector of the newly founded St. Mary's School, in Lübeck; and in 1531, Superintendent of Lübeck. In 1543 at the request of the burgesses of Osnabrück he proceeded thither, and in the course of that year as the result of his work the principality was won to the cause of the Reformation. He died at Lübeck, Feb. 12, 1548 (Koch, i. 428-436; Allg. Deutsche Biographie, iii. 133).
As a hymn-writer his work consisted mainly of revisions of the older Latin hymns, and translations of some of them and of a few High German hymns into Low German. His hymns appeared as Etlike schone Geistlike gesenge appended to the Magdeburg Gesang-Buch, 1542-43. The only one translated into English is:—
0 wir armen Sünder. [Fall & Redemption). First published 1542 as above in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and thence in Wackernagel, iii. p. 735. It begins "Och wy armen sünders! unse missedadt," and first appeared in High German in the Magdeburg Gesang-Buch, 1588. Based on the old Judas hymn, c. 1400, "O du armer Judas." Translated as "We wratcheit sinnaris pure" in the Gude and Godly Ballates (edition 1567-68, folio 13), edition 1868, p. 21. (2) "'Twas our great transgression," in the Christian Examiner, Boston, U.S., Sept. 1860 [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)