Time signatures and values exceeding the bar?

Question

I'm looking at a modern edition (1984)1 of Van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lusthof (a XVI century collection of old songs with variations for recorder flute that's been and still is the bread and butter of countless recorder players), there are some interesting time signatures/bar values relationship. For instance, the very first piece (after the prelude), is notated in common time, yet every bar has two whole notes and 6 half notes. That's rather puzzling, and I wonder if the editor just stuck a time signature where none was given? It is a very well-known hymn:

Edit: @Ramillies I think you are right, the C in the time signature is from the old mensural notation---which I am not familiar with, except to know that it was quite different from modern notation. The original edition looks like this:

1 Link to UR-text, which is in the Public Domain outside of the USA: https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/356761/hfgk

Answer 1

The edition in question is a faithful rendition of the original notation, but with the note shapes modified to their modern equivalents.

"Onse Vader in Hemelryck", as printed in the first edition of Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lusthof

(IMSLP)

The original notation was typeset during the transition period between mensural notation and modern notation. At that time, the basic unit of counting was the semibreve (whole note), and the mensuration symbol C indicated a binary metrical pattern, but did not indicate the number of beats in a measure -- measures in the modern sense having not yet been established.^1,2

The mapping from the mensural C to modern time signatures is open to a degree of interpretation, so can be 2/4, 2/2, or 2/1, depending on which modern notation is taken to represent the basic pulse.

In modern notation, the piece could be rendered this way:

X: 1
T: Onse Vader in Helemryck
M: 2/1
K: C
L: 1/2
A2 | A F | G A | G E | D2 || A2 | A G | c A | F G | A2 || A2 | c d | f e | d ^c | d2 ||
d2 | e d | c B | A ^G | A2 || D2 | c A | c A | A G | F2 || A2 | _B A | F G | F E | D2- | D2 |]

The problem that arises by notating the piece this way is that it suggests a regular metrical stress pattern. However, it should be played more like a chant, as can be heard in a variety of recordings. Here's one. Note there are not obvious stresses on the "downbeats".

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¹ _{Regarding the basic time unit, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation#Mensurations.}

² _{"mensuration symbols" were a precursor to modern "time signatures". The symbols are explained at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation#Mensurations.}