Erhart Hegenwalt

Hegenwalt, Erhart. Of this writer very little is known. He appears to have studied and graduated M.A. at Wittenberg. On Jan. 29, 1523, he attended the disputation of Zwingli, by which Zurich was won to the Reformation; and published an account of it in the same year. This narrative is dedicated to his friend and patron J. J. Rusinger, Abbot of Pfaffers (Pfeffers), and dated Zurich, May 3, 1523. Whether he is the same as Erhart Hegenwalt, who was admitted M.D. at Wittenberg, 1526, and was afterwards in practice at Frankfurt-am-Main, c. 1540, is not clear. The only hymn ascribed to him is:—
Erbarm dich mein, O Herre Gott. Psalm li. First published on a broadsheet dated "Wittenberg freytag nach Epiphanie im 1524 Jar. Erhart Hogenwalt." Thence in Eyn Enchiridion, Erfurt, 1524, Wackernagel, iii. p. 48, the Unverfälscher Liedersegen, 1851, No. 366, &c, in 5 stanzas. of 8 lines. Translated as: (1) "O God, be mercyfull to me," by Bp. Coverdale, 1539 (Remains, 1846, p. 576). (2) "Shew pity, Lord! O Lord forgive," by J. C. Jacobi, 1722, p. 59 (1732, p. 95), and as No. 120 in pt. i. of the Moravian Hymn Book, 1754. Jacobi borrows a good many lines from Isaac Watts's version of Ps. li. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology