Elisabeth Cruciger (née von Meseritz, c. 1500-1535) was born into a noble family in Eastern Pomerania. She was sent to a cloister while still a child. Influenced by the ideas of the Protestant Reformation, she left the cloister as a young adult and moved to Wittenberg, where she married the Protestant theologian Caspar Cruciger in 1524. Her husband was a student and assistant to Martin Luther, and Elisabeth Cruciger joined his circle of Reformers in Wittenberg. She wrote religious poetry and became the first female hymn writer of the Protestant Reformation. This hymn was originally titled “Ein Lobsanck vom Christo” and first printed in Martin Luther’s 1524 collection of Protestant hymns, Enchiridion. It is still sung during Protestant church services today.