Chorale preludes & improvisations - a continuous tradition?

[davidh]

My favourite part of the organ repertoire is chorale preludes, especially those in the Dutch tradition. It seems to me that many modern CPs are very similar in structure to those of J S Bach - whose preludes were so varied that they don't leave too many possibilities uncharted - and many are not far from JSBs harmonisations.

 

Do these arise from a continuous tradition, in which case they are probably the only baroque form which has continued, or was there a "dead" period when these were neither written nor improvised, which would make their present popularity a "revival"?