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Victims of Compromise: The Elizabethan Psalm Tunes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2021

NICHOLAS TEMPERLEY
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Abstract

The music of The Whole Book of Psalms (first printed in 1562) was not a product of English tradition, but a new congregational system brought home from Geneva. Psalm tunes in Edward VI’s time had been secular, iambic and based on dance rhythms; in so far as Thomas Sternhold’s metrical psalms were sung in church, they were chanted by choirs to Sarum tones. The tunes created for congregational use by the Marian exiles had to satisfy Calvin’s principle that they must be distinct from secular songs. They avoided strong rhythms and imitated the Huguenot psalter, which catered for a very different French prosody. Elizabethan congregations were enthusiastic about singing, but did not take to many of these tunes. Evidence shows a growing tendency for the printed tunes to be ignored in practice, and to be replaced by orally transmitted ‘common tunes’ restoring the secular Edwardian idiom. These, rather than the Elizabethan tunes, became the lasting model for the English hymn tune.

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Article
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Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 146 , Issue 1 , May 2021 , pp. 3 - 46
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© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Musical Association

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Footnotes

The editor of JRMA is extremely grateful to Professors Joseph Herl and Beth Quitslund for their generous assistance, especially with regard to bibliographical matters, in preparing this article for posthumous publication.

References

For the abbreviations used in this article, see Appendix 1 on p. 42.

1 First complete edition London: John Day, 1562 (see Appendix 2 on pp. 43–6, no. 7). For a critical edition of the Elizabethan editions of this work and their predecessors, see WBPCE. I am indebted to Professor Beth Quitslund for many of the ideas we developed in that edition, as well as her help with countless other matters.

2 See Ian Green, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 52–3, 247–8, 506–9, 513. Between 1562 and 1861, English printers produced more than a thousand editions, of which 148 have survived from the reign of Elizabeth I; many more have probably been lost (see WBPCE, 513). At least 452 of them – the latest in 1688 – included printed tunes, all of which are listed with their tune content in HTI, i, 115–29.

3 See, for instance, Friedrich Blume (in collaboration with Ludwig Finscher, Georg Feder, Adam Adrio, Walter Blankenburg, Torben Schousboe, Robert Stevenson and Watkins Shaw), Protestant Church Music: A History, with a Foreword by Paul Henry Lang (New York and London: Victor Gollancz, 1975), esp. chapters I and V.

4 See Frost; MEPC, i, 53–61; Robert Illing, The English Metrical Psalter 1562, 3 vols. (Adelaide: n.p., 1983);‘GP’, 121–36, 316–19; and Alice Tacaille, ‘Faire chanter l’assemblée au temps des premiers exils: La musique et la nécessité (Genève, Londres, Édimbourg, 1535–1564)’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 158 (2012), 405–32. MPPP compares the English and Scottish psalters and explores the later history of both books.

5 The Genevan psalms were used on 21 September 1559 at St Antholin, London, when Morning Prayer was begun ‘in Geneva fashion’, with all the congregation singing. This marked the introduction of congregational singing into English churches. See MEPC, i, 43. London churchwardens’ accounts record the purchase of psalms for singing in both book and broadsheet form in 1559; see WBPCE, 1023–4. Leaver (‘GP’, 317) prints a list of 13 tunes from WBP which he heads ‘Phase 1: England c. 1547–53 / London’ and calls (on pp. 233–4) ‘English’. But he offers no evidence that they originated in England. In fact, no source of any of them earlier than the Geneva psalm book of 1556 has been found, except for an ancestor of Ps. 119 (see note 74 below).

6 Illing, The English Metrical Psalter, i, 30. Leaver calls it ‘complete’ and terms subsequent editions ‘essentially reprints’ (‘GP’, 255). Frost lists no edition after 1570.

7 Thomas Whythorne’s memoirs from the 1570s leave no doubt that Sternhold’s psalms, like those of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey, were part of a tradition at the Tudor court of solo song accompanied by lute, keyboard or harp. See The Autobiography of Thomas Whythorne, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 13–14, cited in WBPCE, 509.

8 For a full account, see RR, chapter 2. WBPCE includes, as Appendix 2, a collated edition of the Edwardian sources.

9 Many examples are cited in ‘GP’ and in Pierre Pidoux, Le psautier huguenot du XVIe siècle: Mélodies et documents (Basle: Bärenreiter, 1962); Walter Blankenburg, ‘Church Music in Reformed Europe’, in Blume et al., Protestant Church Music, 507–90; Trocmé-Latter, Daniel, The Singing of the Strasbourg Protestants, 1523–1541 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 288 Google Scholar; and Bertoglio, Chiara, Reforming Music: Music and the Religious Reformations of the Sixteenth Century (Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2017), 254–6, 327–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 William Forrest, ‘Certaigne Psalmes of David in Meeatre’. BL, Royal MS 17.A.xxi, fol. 1v. I am grateful to Beth Quitslund for transcribing this passage, and for explaining that Atropos is the Fate with shears who cuts the thread of life and that ‘all Psalmysters rowe’ is the class of persons who make psalms.

11 Edmond Howes, ‘An Historicall Preface’ added to John Stow, Annales, or, Generall Chronicle of England (London: Thomas Adams, 1615), fol. 6v. The galliard was in triple time; the measure was ‘like the pavan […] a slow dance in duple time’ (see Robert Mulally, ‘Measure (i)’, Grove Music Online, <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com>, accessed 13 March 2020). Later efforts to combat such associations included Howes’s suppression of the words ‘consisting of gallyards and measures’ in the 1631 edition (MEPC, i, 36).

12 Yale University Library, James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Music MS 13. The music is transcribed in Nicholas Temperley, ‘“All Skillful Praises Sing”: How Congregations Sang the Psalms in Early Modern England’, Renaissance Studies, 29 (2015), 531–53 (p. 534), and in WBPCE, 516, Ex. 1. See also Music for Elizabethan Lutes, ed. John Ward, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), ii, 110, no. 86, and Christopher Page, The Guitar in Tudor England: A Social and Musical History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 144. Ward’s discussion leaves little doubt that this source is Edwardian. John Milsom, personal communication, November 2010.

13 Milsom, personal communication.

14 Sternhold used an abcb rhyme scheme and may have thought of his verses as ‘fourteeners’, but they were more easily printed as 8.6.8.6 in the early octavo editions: see WBPCE, 520. Hopkins used abab, more clearly defining a four-line metre. Some of the early tunes embraced four lines (CM) and some eight (DCM), but the latter often left an extra four lines unaccounted for at the end of the psalm.

15 For details of these collections, see RR, 72–109; summarized in WBPCE, 522.

16 The two complete editions have identical title pages: The Actes of the Apostles, translated into Englyshe Metre, and dedicated to the Kynges moste excellent Maiestye, by Christofer Tye, Doctor in Musyke, and one of the Gentylmen of hys graces moste honourable Chappell, wyth notes to eche Chapter, to synge and also to play vpon the Lute, very necessarye for studentes after theyr studye, to fyle theyr wyttes, and also for all Christians that cannot synge, to reade the good and Godlye storyes of the lyues of Christ hys Appostles (London: N. Hill for Wyllyam Seres, 1553; STC nos. 2984 and 2985). The tunes are edited in Christopher Tye, i: English Sacred Music, ed. John Morehen, Early English Church Music, 19 (London: Stainer & Bell, [c.1977]), and in Frost, nos. 295–308.

17 For the full harmonized tune, see Frost, no. 296, and Temperley, ‘“All Skillful Praises Sing”’, 535–8.

18 BL, Add. MS 15166. Its historical implications were first discussed in MEPC, i, 45, and in John Milsom ‘Songs, Carols and Contrafacta in the Early History of the Tudor Anthem’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 107 (1980–1), 34–45.

19 See Milsom, ‘Songs, Carols and Contrafacta’, 39–41. The earliest examples he found are in ‘Henry VIII’s Manuscript’, dated c.1515 by John Stevens in Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 4.

20 Four of these (Pss. 2, 3, 5 and 29) are also found in another treble partbook: BL, Harley MS 7578, fols. 89r–91v.

21 BL, Add. MS 30513, fol. 80v. The Mulliner Book, consisting mostly of keyboard music, was compiled over a considerable period, between 1545 and 1570.

22 See Peter le Huray’s account of this period in Music and the Reformation in England, 1559–1660 (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1967), 7–30.

23 At Worcester Cathedral a zealous Protestant dean, John Barlow, anticipated the official date, introducing the English services as early as Easter Tuesday, 23 April. The choir would have sung Ps. 113, the proper psalm set for that day, in Coverdale’s translation from the Great Bible, to one of the familiar Sarum versions of a Gregorian chant, probably in faburden, just as they would have sung a Latin text the previous day. See Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘Worcester: A Cathedral City in the Reformation’, The Reformation in English Towns, 1500–1640, ed. Patrick Collinson and John Craig (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), 94–112 (p. 104).

24 London: Richard Grafton, dated 27 November 1548; STC no. 2375.5. Parts of it seem to have been available in 1547. Many churches bought copies, including all London churches with extant records: see Fiona Kisby, ‘Books in London Parish Churches before 1603: Some Preliminary Observations’, The Church and Learning in Late Medieval Society, ed. Caroline M. Barton and Jenny Stratford (Donington, Lincs.: Shaun Tyas, 2002), 305–26 (p. 317).

25 See Le Huray, Music and the Reformation, 158–60; Milsom, ‘English-Texted Chant before Merbecke’, Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, 1 (1992), 77–92; and Kisby, ‘Books in London Parish Churches’, 318.

26 RR, 105. See also MEPC, i, 15.

27 The Psalter of Dauid newely translated into Englysh metre in such sort that it maye the more decently, and wyth more delyte of the mynde, be reade and songe of al men. Wherunto is added a note of four partes, wyth other thynges, as shall appeare in the Epistle to the Readar ([London]: Robert Crowley, 1549; STC no. 2725). See MEPC, ii, 31, and WBPCE, 523, Ex. 3. Crowley made it clear that he intended the owner of the book ‘to delyte in the readynge and hearynge of these Psalmes’, not in singing them (The Psalter of Dauid, fol. ++1v).

28 See Reading St Laurence Churchwardens’ Accounts 1498–1570, Part I, ed. Joan Dils, Berkshire Record Society, 19 (Reading: Berkshire Record Office, 2013), 71, 74. The religious changes there were dominated by William Gray, the leading property owner of Reading, an active reformist and one of the closest advisers to the Lord Protector, the Earl of Somerset. See Jeanette Martin, ‘Leadership and Priorities in Reading during the Reformation’, The Reformation in English Towns, 1500–1640, ed. Patrick Collinson and John Craig (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), 113–29 (p. 121).

29 Churchwardens’ accounts and publishing records such as the Stationers’ Company consistently used the term ‘psalm book’ for metrical psalms, as distinct from ‘psalter’ for prose psalms. See John Craig, ‘Psalms, Groans and Dogwhippers: The Soundscape in the English Parish Church, 1547–1642’, Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe, ed. Will Coster and Andrew Spicer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 104–23 (p. 106), and WBPCE, 1024.

30 Kew, National Archives, 1552 Dissolution Inventories, E 117/4/70; kindly sent to me by Anne Heminger, author of ‘Confession Carried Aloft: Music, Sound, and Religious Identity in London, c.1540–1560’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2019). She discusses the purchase of Sternhold’s psalms by St Dionis Backchurch on p. 101.

31 A thankes geuing to God vsed in Christes churche on the Monday Wednisday and Friday ([London]: Richard Grafton, 1551; STC no. 16504); modern edition in National Prayers: Special Worship since the Reformation, 4 vols. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013−), i: Special Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings in the British Isles 1533–1688, ed. Natalie Mears, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor and Philip Williamson with Lucy Bates, Church of England Record Society, 20 (2013), 34–41. This special service was enjoined in an order to the bishops dated 18 June 1551. I am grateful to the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, for providing images from their unique copy of this publication and allowing their reproduction here.

32 Fols. A5v–A6r, A6r–A7v and A8v–B1v respectively.

33 ‘GP’, 136. Milsom, however, considers that many such pieces from this period were intended for secular use (‘Songs, Carols and Contrafacta’, 38, 42).

34 F[rancis] S[eagar], Certayne Psalmes select out of the Psalter of Dauid, and drawen into Englyshe Metre (London, 1553). The same tune is used for all 12 psalms in the book.

35 Le Huray, Music and the Reformation, 172.

36 The tenor partbook is missing. Modern reconstructions of this piece can be found in The Wanley Manuscripts, ed. James Wrightson, 3 vols., Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, 99−101 (Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1995), ii, no. 42, and in MEPC, ii, no. 40. It seems likely that the peculiar text selection, with a semantic disconnect between the two psalms, was the result of an error or misunderstanding.

37 The Wanley Manuscripts, ed. Wrightson, ii, no. 25.

38 For a modern edition, see Philip van Wilder, Collected Works, ed. Jane A. Bernstein, 2 vols., Masters and Monuments of the Renaissance, 4 (New York: Broude Bros., 1991), i, 1–9. Milsom considers that this was written for a royal wedding (personal communication, November 2010).

39 Leaver, ‘GP’, 136, 139, 317; Alec Ryrie, ‘The Psalms and Confrontation in English and Scottish Protestantism’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 101 (2010), 114–37 (p. 122).

40 For details of these services, see Frank E. Brightman, The English Rite: Being a Synopsis of the Sources and Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer, with an Introduction and an Appendix, 2nd edn, 2 vols. (London: Rivingtons, 1921), i, pp. cxlvi, clvi–clxv; ii, pp. clvi–clxi; and Michael S. Springer, Restoring Christ’s Church: John a Lasco and the Forma ac ratio (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 79.

41 This is in a letter from Charles V’s ambassador to England, addressed to the Imperial Council and dated 7 December 1547: ‘Mass is still celebrated here, but the common people are beginning to sing psalms in their own language in their own churches.’ It is difficult to make sense of this at so early a date, as Ryrie points out. See Ryrie, ‘The Psalms and Confrontation’, 121–2; RR, 105–6; and WBPCE, 532 n. 65.

42 A Brieff discours off the troubles begonne at Franckford in Germany Anno Domini 1554. Abowte the Booke off off [sic] common prayer and Ceremonies and continued by the Englishe men theyre, to thende off Q. Maries Raigne in the which discours the gentle reader shall see the very originall and beginninge off all the contention that hathe byn and what was the cause off the same ([Heidelberg: M. Schirat], 1574; STC no. 25442); ed. Edward Arber as A Brief Discourse of the Troubles at Frankfort, 1554−1558 A.D. (London: Edward Arber, 1907); cited in MEPC, i, 28, and in ‘GP’, 219. See also Timothy Duguid, ‘The Troubles at Frankfurt: A New Chronology’, Reformation and Renaissance Review, 14 (2012), 243–68. This important study takes into account 35 recently discovered letters and other documents at the Denbighshire Records Office.

43 A Brief Discourse, ed. Arber, 24–5; cited in MEPC, i, 28, and in ‘GP’, 219. The Brieff discours also offers ‘A Description of the Liturgy, or Book of Service, that is used in England’, in which ‘The Minister, having put on a white garment, which they call a Surplice, beginneth with some sentence of Holy Scripture’; there is no mention of metrical psalms at any point in any service (ed. Arber, 44–9).

44 The Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. John Gough Nicholls (London: Camden Society, 1848), 212, 228.

45 This point was made, for instance, by Richard Chambers, one of the Prayer Book party. See MPPP, 17.

46 Liturgy of the Frankfurt Exiles 1555, ed. Robin A. Leaver (Bramcote: Grove Books, 1984), 6; RR, 120. Since the singing of metrical psalms by the congregation was required by the Frankfurt authorities, it cannot also ‘imply’, as Leaver suggests (‘GP’, 139), that ‘the custom had begun in England before the Marian exile’.

47 RR, chapter 4; WBPCE, 527–30.

48 ‘Il y a tousiours à regarder, que le chant ne soit pas leger & volage: mais ait pois & maiesté, comme dit sainct Augustin. & ainsi, qu’il y ait grande difference entre la musique qu’on fait pour resiouir les hommes à table & en leur maison: & etre les Pseaumes, qui se chátent [sic] en l’Eglise, en la presence de Dius & de ses Anges.’ PSEAUMES OCTANTETROIS DE Dauid, mis en rime Francoise. A Sauoir, quara[n]teneuf par Clement Marot, auec le Cantique de Simeon & les dix Commandemens. Et trentequatre par Theodore de Besze, de Vezelay en Bourgongne (Geneva: Jean Crespin, 1551; facsimile edn, New Brunswick, NJ: Friends of the Rutgers University Libraries, 1973), fol. A5v. The translation is my own.

49 Page 11, quoted in ‘GP’, 227.

50 OCTANTE TROIS PSEAUMES DE DAVID, MIS EN rime François: A scauoir, quaranteneuf par Clément Marot, avec le Cantique de Siméon & les dix commandemens: Et trente quatre par Théodore de Besze. Avec six Pseaumes traduictz de nouveau par ledict de Besze (Geneva: Jean Crespin, 1554); OCTANTETROIS PSEAUMES DE DAVID, MIS EN rime Françoise. Assavoir, Quaranteneuf par Clement Marot, avec le Cantique de Simeon & les dix commandemens : Et trente quatre par Theodore de Besze. Avec Six Pseaumes traduicts de nouveau par ledict de Besze (Geneva: Jean Crespin, 1555). There were an additional four Genevan editions in 1556.

51 The French tunes for Pss. 114 (9.8.9.8.D) and 128 (7.6.7.6.D) were adapted to DCM, while new translations were written to fit French tunes for Ps. 130 (7.6.7.6.D) and the Commandments (LM). Details can be found in Frost, and in the tune notes in WBPCE.

52 Ps. 23 is in CM; Pss. 30 and 79 are in triple CM; Pss. 25 and 115 are in DSM; Whittingham’s new Ps. 51 is in DLM; and Ps. 120 is 6.6.6.6.6.6.

53 ‘And concerning singing in the church, Mr. Whittingham did soe farre allowe of that as he was very carefull to provide the best songs and anthems that could be got out of the Queen’s chapel, to furnish the quire with all, himself being skillful in musick.’ ‘Life of Mr. William Whittingham, Dean of Durham, from a MS. in Antony Wood’s Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford’, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green, Camden Miscellany, 6 (London: Camden Society, 1870), 22−3 (p. 23). He possessed a virginal at the time of his death, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (<https://www.oxforddnb.com>, accessed 13 March 2020). I have assigned Whittingham primary responsibility for the tunes to simplify the discussion; but in fairness to him, there is no proof of it. He added his signature to psalm texts only.

54 Christina Garrett, in The Marian Exiles: A Study in the Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), gives the most complete biographical information about the members of the community.

55 The likeliest Geneva candidate is Pierre Dagues (d. 1571?), cantor at St Peter’s Church from 1556, whom Blankenburg identifies as the ‘Maître Pierre’ said to have composed the later melodies published in the completed French psalter in 1562 (‘Church Music in Reformed Europe’, 520). Earlier writers such as Douen and Pratt conjectured that ‘Maître Pierre’ was a singer named Pierre Dubuisson, who obtained Genevan citizenship in 1565.

56 Sample sizes in each source are stated in parentheses. The totals combine all instances of a given scale type, including transpositions. The figure provided for ‘Henry VIII’s MS’ − BL, Add. MS 31922, edited in Music at the Court of Henry VIII, ed. John Stevens, Musica Britannica, 18 (London: Stainer & Bell, 1969) − omits duplicates of the same tune and two puzzle canons with changing modes (nos. 25 and 53). ‘Edwardian tunes’ consist of the 14 in Tye’s Actes and the 39 modally unambiguous ones in BL, Add. MS 15166. The Byrd items, from Cantiones (1575) and Cantiones sacrae (1589, 1591), are summarized in Jessie Ann Owens, ‘Concepts of Pitch in English Music Theory, c.1560–1640’, Tonal Structures in Early Music, ed. Cristle Collins Judd (New York and London: Garland, 1998), 184–245 (p. 230, Ex. 33). The Palestrina figures come from a handout Professor Owens made for a lecture entitled ‘Singing in a Mournful Key’ at a conference of the North American British Music Studies Association at Oberlin College in June 2004, which she kindly shared with me. I am grateful to David Temperley for designing the diagram.

57 Music at the Court of Henry VIII, ed. Stevens, xvii–xviii.

58 LES PSEAUMES MIS EN RIME FRANCOISE PAR CLEMENT MAROT ET THEODORE DE BEZE ([Geneva]: Jean de Laon, 1562). There were many different imprints from various Genevan presses in 1562 to meet demand.

59 The tune for Ps. 43 has its final on E with a key signature of one flat (see Frost no. 62) and does not appear to be misprinted. In the only known harmonization of this tune, by John Hake in Day’s companion of 1563 (The whole psalmes in foure partes; see Appendix 2, no. 8), the final is changed to F, but the tune is not convincing in the transposed Aeolian scale.

60 This allows for an occasional syncopation where single minims come before and after one or more semibreves. In the few examples of a single minim upbeat at the beginning of a line, it is preceded by a minim rest instead of the usual semibreve rest.

61 See Albert di Cristo, ‘Vers une modélisation de l’accentuation du français’, French Language Studies, 9 (1999), 143–79 (p. 160), and 10 (2000), 27–44 (p. 28).

62 For further discussion, see Jacqueline Flescher, ‘French’, Versification: Major Language Types, ed. William K. Wimsatt (New York: Modern Language Association, 1972), 177–90; Frédéric Deloffre, Le vers français, 3rd edn (Paris: Société d’Édition d’Enseignement Supérieur, 1973), 15; and Nicholas and David Temperley, ‘Stress−Meter Alignment in French Vocal Music’, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 134/1 (July 2013), 520–7.

63 ‘Le vers français, reposant sur le syllabisme, la césure et la rime, était evidemment adapté au caractère phonétique du français, avec ses syllabes nettes et la richesses de ses timbres vocaliques finaux.’ Deloffre, Le vers français, 102.

64 Waldo Selden Pratt, The Music of the French Psalter of 1562: A Historical Survey and Analysis, with the Music in Modern Notation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 26; Maurice Frost, Historical Companion to Hymns Ancient and Modern (London: William Clowes & Sons, 1962), 36. Pratt, in transcribing the tunes, obscured the issue by halving all the note values except the last of each line, which he represented as a semibreve whatever its original value, and by failing to include the significant minim rests (for deceptive examples, see Pss. 43, 110 and 115).

65 This did not apply strictly to the even-numbered lines, with six syllables in DCM. They often began with two minims or a syncopated minim−semibreve.

66 Percy A. Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), s.v. ‘Gathering note’; MPPP, 96, 158.

67 Andrew Gant, O Sing unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music (London: Profile Books, 2015; repr. with a new preface, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 177.

68 This is quite distinct from syncopation, which merely exchanges the position of a minim and a semibreve. It is further evidence against the theory that many of these tunes originated in Edwardian English use, though some Edwardian tunes did begin with semibreves.

69 For detailed discussion of the contents of this source, see Nicholas Temperley, ‘The Anglican Communion Hymn’, The Hymn, 30 (1979), 178–86; MEPC, i, 31–3; ‘GP’, 199–213; and RR, 126–42.

70 ‘The implication is clear. The compiler had a copy of the Geneva book [with its revised texts of the psalms], but instead of copying from it throughout, he retained the original versions of the old psalms because they were already well-known to the congregation that would use the book.’ MEPC, i, 31, cited in ‘GP’, 202. Leaver says this is ‘an obvious hypothesis’, though he does not seem to adopt it. Since the psalms by Whittingham are signed ‘Ge.’ or ‘Gene.’, they are evidently taken from the Geneva book, where they are anonymous.

71 The Wesel source will be further discussed below.

72 Of the 76 phrases in 1556 containing an odd number of minims, 39 were in tunes rejected in 1558; 28 were corrected in 1558, in a way that restored duple time; and nine remained uncorrected; but there were five new cases (in Pss. 14, 68 and 71).

73 Pss. 50(1), 121, 124 and 127.

74 ‘Wir glauben all an einem Gott’ (1524). Leaver (‘GP’, 129–31) concludes that ‘the adaptation […] was most likely done in England, long before the exile’ and that the tune was taken from Coverdale’s Goostly Psalmes [c.1535–6], where it had the unlikely metre of 8.11.8.8.8.10.8.10.9.9.10 (HTI no. 7). But if it was widely known in England it would surely have been included in the 1556 edition. The Marian exiles may have heard it at Strasbourg and found it in the hymnals used there, which Leaver identifies as the likely origin of other WBP tunes (p. 194).

75 See WBPCE, 774–5.

76 MPPP, 30–3. For a criticism of this theory, see WBPCE, 560 n. 164.

77 See MPPP, 24–48.

78 The often-quoted sentence at the end of the nineteenth article of the 1559 Royal Injunctions for Religion reads, ‘There may be sung an hymn or such like song to the praise of Almighty God, in the best sort of melody and music that may be conveniently devised, having respect that the sentence of the hymn may be understood and perceived.’

79 John Strype, The History of the Life and Acts of […] Edmund Grindal (London: John Hartley, 1710), 49–50; Patrick Collinson, ‘Grindal, Edmund’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (<https://www.oxforddnb.com>, accessed 13 March 2020); Garrett, Marian Exiles, passim.

80 See Krummel, Donald W, English Music Printing 1553–1700 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1975), 11–15 Google Scholar, and WBPCE, 538.

81 The use of non-scriptural texts such as the Te Deum in worship had been one element in the split between the Coxians and Knoxians in Frankfurt (see ‘GP’, 223).

82 See ibid., 207.

83 As we have seen, these had sometimes replaced their prose equivalents in Edward’s time, and would do so again under Elizabeth. See Peter Heylyn, Examen historicum, or, A discovery and examination of the mistakes, falsities, and defects in some modern histories. Occasioned by the partiality and inadvertencies of their severall authours, 2 vols. (London: Printed for Henry Seile and Richard Royston, 1659), i, 119–20, and John Addy, The Archdeacon and Ecclesiastical Discipline in Yorkshire 1598–1714: Clergy and the Churchwardens, St Anthony’s Hall Publications, 24 (York: St Anthony’s Press, 1963), 13.

84 It is reproduced in Early English Books Online (<https://search.proquest.com/eebo/index>, accessed 13 March 2020); and Illing (The English Metrical Psalter) prints facsimiles of all the tunes.

85 See Krummel, English Music Printing, 42–6. Day’s imprint is not found on the title page, as it is on that of every other psalm book he published.

86 All except four of them were from the Genevan psalm books and presumably were used in Wesel. For details, see WBPCE, Appendix 5. The only tunes new to the 1560 edition that would become a permanent part of WBP were those for the Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Lord’s Prayer (2) and the Creed (Frost nos. 3, 4, 180 and 181).

87 It is hinted at in WBPCE, 541.

88 This occurs at least 199 times in the surviving 48 tunes of the book. That figure includes only cases where the dot can be clearly seen and is not present in any earlier edition of the same tune.

89 Those for Pss. 1, 3, 15, 16, 21, 30, 37, 41, 44, 68, 71, 73, 78, 79, 103, 119 and 121.

90 Those for Pss. 9 and 51, the Benedictus, the Magnificat and the Creed suggest 4/2, while Pss. 2 and 25 suggest 3/2.

91 He was evidently in a hurry to go into print, for reasons discussed in MPPP, 58–60, and in RR, 209–10; an additional motive may have been to forestall another Seres edition. The inclusion of the metrical canticles and Apostles’ Creed may have been a compromise with the Prayer Book party.

92 Those for Pss. 100, 104, 111, 113, 122, 125, 126 and 134.

93 THE TENOR Mornyng and Euenyng prayer and Communion, set forthe in foure partes, to be song in churches, both for men and children, wyth dyuers other godly prayers & Anthems, of sundry mens doynges (London: John Day, 1565; STC no. 6419), sigs. Q2r–v. The title under which the book is usually known, Certaine Notes, comes from the cancel title page of STC no. 6418: BASSUS CERTAINE notes set forth in foure and three parts to be song at the morning Communion, and euening praier, very necessarie for the Church of Christe to be frequented and vsed: & vnto them added diuers godly praiers & Psalmes in the the like forme to the honor & praise of God (London: John Day, 1560 [1565]).

94 For a detailed account, see RR, 211–25.

95 Those for Pss. 35, 46, 59, 61, 77, 88 and 95 (Hopkins); Pss. 132 and 135, the Lamentation of a Sinner and the Humble Suit of a Sinner (Marckant).

96 John Milsom, ‘Tallis, the Parker Psalter, and Some Unknowns’, Early Music, 44 (2016), 207–18.

97 See, for instance, Alexander Pope, The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace: To Augustus, lines 229−40, in The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt et al., 11 vols. (London: Methuen, 1939–69), iv (1939), 215.

98 See Konrad Ameln, ‘Lateinischer Hymnus und Deutsches Kirchenlied’, Musik und Kirche, 3 (1934), 138–48.

99 For the tune content of differing editions, see HTI, i, 116–28; MPPP, 112–16; and WBPCE, 561–80.

100 See WBPCE, xliv, 792–3.

101 HTI series ✻P E25. It is impossible to tell which edition was the first to suffer this drastic cut, because several issues survive only in incomplete copies, but The whole booke of psalmes with the note (London: John Day, 1581; see Appendix 2, no. 11) certainly did.

102 MPPP, chapter 4, provides a detailed account of the changing contents of the psalter.

103 This was also the first surviving edition to include the Scots Ps. 136 as an alternative, the only psalm or hymn added to the English psalm book between 1565 and the eighteenth century.

104 This is discussed at length in WBPCE, Appendix 4, where an edition of the entire psalter in its revised form is provided, collating the five editions of 1586 with Cosyn (see n. 105 below) and several later editions and companions.

105 Musike of Six, and Fiue partes. Made vpon the common tunes vsed in singing of the Psalmes. By Iohn Cosyn (London: John Wolfe, 1585; STC no. 5828). Six partbooks: cantus (lacking), altus, medius, tenor, quintus, bassus. It is passed over by both Frost and Illing. For a modern edition, see Mark C. Reagan, ‘John Cosyn’s Musike in Six and Five Partes Newly Notated and Completed’ (MA thesis, Washington State University, 2010). See also WBPCE, Appendices 5–6.

106 See WBPCE, 915.

107 See WBPCE, 912.

108 See Appendix 2, no. 14. This edition is discussed in context by Krummel, English Music Printing, 13.

109 One of them, later named Oxford by Thomas Ravenscroft (HTI no. 201a), was first printed in the Scots psalm book of 1564. All four had appeared in William Daman’s four-part THE PSALMES OF DAVID IN ENGLISH meter, with Notes of foure partes set vnto them, by Guilielmo Daman, for Iohn Bull, to the vse of the godly Christians for recreatyng them selues, in stede of fond and vnseemely Ballades (London: John Day, 1579; STC no. 6219).

110 The former Booke of the Musicke of M. William Damon, late one of her maiesties Musitions: conteining all the tunes of Dauids Psalmes, as they are ordinarily soung in the Church: most excellently by him composed into 4. parts. In which Sete the Tenor singeth the Church tune. Published for the recreation of such as delight in Musicke: By W. Swayne Gent. ([London]: T[homas] Este, 1591; STC no. 6220), cantus book, fol. A2v.

111 This page is reproduced in MEPC, i, 68.

112 This edition has only 47 tunes and omits those for Pss. 111, 120, 121, 125 and 130.

113 CERTAINE PSALMES OF DAVID, heretofore much out of vse, because of their difficult tunes. The number whereof are contained in the page following. Reduced into English meter better fitting the common tunes. By H. D. ([Edinburgh]: Robert Waldegrave, 1603; STC no. 2730). Dod provided a DSM version of Ps. 104, headed ‘Sing this to the tune of the 25. Psalme’, and DCM versions of Pss. 111, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126 and 130. All these except Ps. 120 had, in the WBP, been written for use with French tunes.

114 Discussed in detail in Nicholas Temperley, ‘Middleburg Psalms’, Studies in Bibliography, 30 (1977), 162–71; repr. in Temperley, Studies in English Church Music, 1550−1900 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 10–19. See also WBPCE, 578–80.

115 See Andrew Pettegree, ‘The Reception of Calvinism in Britain’, Calvinus sincerioris religionis vindex: Calvin as Protector of Purer Religion, ed. Brian G. Armstrong and William H. Neuser, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 36 (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1997), 267–90.

116 To avoid extensive resetting when they did have to substitute a short common tune for a long one, they sometimes used the second half of the discarded tune to fill the vacated space after the short one, resulting in a ‘nonsense’ tune which was often then copied into later editions. For details, see WBPCE, 1009.

117 Statistics compiled from the HTI show that the 48 psalms with proper tunes in WBP were printed with those tunes in an average of 41 musical publications between 1650 and 1820 (excluding HTI ‘subordinate sources’ that had the same tune content as an earlier source). The extreme case is Ps. 100, which appeared with its proper tune in 233 publications. In contrast, psalms that had only a cross reference to another psalm tune in WBP, as listed in Duguid’s admirable statistical compilation (MPPP, 236–62, ‘Pre-1604’ column), appear with that tune in an average of less than one musical publication between 1650 and 1820, showing that the tune suggestions were not widely adopted.

118 This total (156) includes the alternative versions for Pss. 23, 50, 51, 100, 125 and 136, but not the three psalm versions that were included among the ‘hymns’.

119 THE CL. PSALMES OF DAVID, in Prose and Meeter: With their whole vsuall Tunes, newly corrected and amended. HEREVNTO IS ADDED the whole Church Discipline, with many godly prayers, and an exact Kalendar for xxv. yeeres: and also the Song of Moses in Meeter, neuer before this time in print (Edinburgh: Andro Hart, 1615; STC no. 16592, HTI no. ✻P S17), fols. P7r–P8r.

120 Llyfr y Psalmau, WEDI EV CYFIEITHV, A’I CYFANSODDI AR FESVR CERDD, YN GYMRAEG. DRWY WAITH Edmwnd Prys ARCHDIACON Meirionnydd (London: [n.p.], 1621; STC no. 2745). Because the texts are not in English this work is not indexed in the HTI. For its tunes, see Frost nos. 405–8.

121 See Frost no. 361 and ‘GP’, 305.

122 See MEPC, i, 69–70.

123 THE Whole booke of PSALMES: WITH THE HYMNES Evangelicall, And Songs Spirituall. Composed into 4. Parts by sundry Authors, with such seuerall Tunes as haue beene, and are vsually sung in England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Italy, France, and the Nether-lands: Neuer as yet before in one volumne published. […] Newly corrected and enlarged by Tho: Rauenscroft Bachelar of Musicke. Gloria in excelsis Deo (London: [T. Snodham] for the Company of Stationers, 1621; STC no. 2575).

124 Frost nos. 227–51; HTI nos. 358–82.

125 HTI nos. ✻P E79 (1636) and ✻P E81 (1638) (STC nos. 2664 and 2667), each with one successor, assigned a dozen short tunes to the same texts as Ravenscroft, but they did not include any of the ones newly published by him.

126 For a detailed discussion, see Nicholas Temperley, ‘John Playford and the Metrical Psalms’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 25 (1972), 331–78 (pp. 332–6).

127 Wither, George, The Hymnes and Songs of the Church (London: for George Wither, 1623), 9 Google Scholar.

128 [Barton, William], The Book of Psalms in Metre (London: Matthew Simmons, for the Company of Stationers, 1642)Google Scholar. Barton’s tune selection is summarized in Frost, 453–7.

129 See Patrick, Millar, Four Centuries of Scottish Psalmody (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), 95 Google Scholar.

130 Temperley, ‘John Playford and the Metrical Psalms’, 331–9.

131 John Playford, A BREIF INTRODUCTION To the Skill of MUSICK: FOR SONG and VIOL. In two Books. First Book contains the Grounds and Rules of Musick, for Song. Second Book, Directions for the Playing on the Viol de Gambo, and also on the Treble-Violin. By J. Playford, Philo-Musico (London: W. Godbid, for John Playford, 1658; Wing P2448), 49.

132 Ibid. Needless to say, under the Commonwealth there could be no question of using any of these instruments in church, but as he explained, they were to help congregations to learn the tunes. He had published nine of the melodies in his A Booke of New Lessons FOR THE CITHERN & GITTERN: Containing many New and Excellent Tunes, both Easie and Delightfull to the Practitioner. With plain and easie Instructions, teaching the right use of the hand, and perfect tuning of both Instruments, never before Printed (London: T. H. for John Benson and John Playford, 1652; Wing P2446A).

133 One of these (Frost no. 25; HTI no. 536a), which he named ‘New Tune’, was a bizarre counterpoint to the old tune Oxford that must have arisen as an impromptu harmonization: see Temperley, ‘John Playford’, 345. The others were all pre-Ravenscroft, and included the four singled out by East as the most popular in 1594.

134 ‘The Tunes of the Psalms’, bound with THE PSALMS HYMNS, AND Spiritual Songs, OF THE Old & New Testament: Faithfully Translated into English Meetre. For the use, Edification and Comfort of the Saints in publick and private, especially in New-England. […] The Ninth Edition (Boston: B. Green and J. Allen, for Michael Perry, 1698; Wing B2612; HTI no. ✻TS Bay A a.). The section entitled ‘The TUNES of the PSALMS, With the Bass set under each Tune’ begins on p. 419.

135 ‘The Tunes of the Psalms’, bound with THE Psalms of DAVID IN METRE: Fitted to the Tunes used IN Parish-Churches (London: Printed for A. and J. Churchill and L. Meredith, 1698; Wing B2608; HTI no. ✻TS Pat A a.). Page [332] is followed by a new page 1 with the drop-title ‘The Tunes of the Psalms’.

136 THE TUNES OF THE PSALMS (London: J. Heptinstall for Henry Playford, 1698). Bound with A New Version OF THE PSALMS OF DAVID. Fitted to the Tunes Used in CHURCHES. BY N. Tate and N. Brady. The Second Edition corrected (London: M. Clark, for the Company of Stationers, 1698). The title page of The Tunes of the Psalms follows p. [316].

137 Words first printed in A SUPPLEMENT TO THE New Version OF PSALMS BY N. Tate and N. Brady; CONTAINING, I. The usual Hymns, Creed, Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments, all set to their proper Tunes; with Additional Hymns for the Holy Sacrament, &c. II. Select Psalms in particular Metres that are in the Old Version, with Duplicates to most of them, and Gloria Patri’s; and the Proper Tune for each Metre. With a Collection of the most usual Church-Tunes. All very usefull for the Teacher or Learner of Psalmody, either in the Old or New Version (London: J. Heptinstall, 1700). The tune still had semibreves for the first note of each phrase when reprinted with Ps. 84 in A Collection of PSALM TUNES, for the use of The Church of England, (Including those Harmonized by Allison in the Time of Queen Elizabeth,) Edited by William Cross, Organist of Christ Church Cathedral, Sṭ John’s College & the University Church Oxford. to which are prefixed some Observations upon the Proper Mode of Psalm Music (London: Printed for William Cross, [1818]). They were dropped only in 1861, when the tune was revived for ‘While shepherds watched’ in Hymns Ancient and Modern.