Metrical psalter

A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation: a paraphrase of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry, meant to be sung as hymns in a church. The composition of metrical psalters was a large enterprise of the Protestant Reformation, especially in its Calvinist manifestation.

psalm tune, a famous hymn from the metrical psalters

Table of contents

1 Biblical bases 2 The psalters themselves 2.1 The French metrical psalter 2.2 The Dutch metrical psalter 3 Metrical psalters in English 3.3 Sternhold and Hopkins 3.4 Other versified psalms in English 3.5 Later English metrical psalters 4 References 5 External links

Biblical bases

During the Protestant Reformation, a number of Bible texts were interpreted as requiring reforms in the music used in worship. The Psalms were particularly commended for singing; James 5:13 asks, "Is any merry? let him sing psalms." (KJV) Colossians 3:16 states that:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Note also should be taken of the frequently quoted thoughts of Erasmus, who in the preface to his edition of the Greek New Testament wrote that:

I would have the weakest woman read the Gospels and the Epistles of St Paul. I would have those words translated into all languages, so that not only Scotss and Irishmen, but Turks and Saracens might read them. I long for the ploughboy to sing them to himself as he follows the plow, the weaver to hum them to the tune of his shuttle, the traveler to beguile with them the dullness of his journey.

The Reformers, taking their cue from these Scriptures and from Erasmus, shared a common interest in Scripture that would be singable.

Various Reformers interpreted these texts as imposing strictures on sacred music. The psalms, especially, were felt to be commended to be sung by these texts. A revival of Gregorian chant, or its adaptation to the vernacular, was apparently not considered; few Gregorian chants are merry in any case. Instead, the need was felt to have metrical vernacular versions of the Psalms and other Scripture texts, suitable to sing to metrical tunes and even popular song forms.

A number of other strictures and legalisms arose during this period. The belief arose at this time that every hymn must be a close paraphrase of a Psalm or some other Biblical passage. Some Reformed churches, especially the Calvinists, rejected the use of instrumental music and organs in church, preferring to sing all of the music a cappella. This practice is maintained to this date among some of the smaller Calvinist churches.

The psalters themselves

During the pre-reformation days, it was not customary for lay members of a church's congregation to communally sing hymns. Singing was done by the priests and other clergy; communal singing of Gregorian chant was the function of professional choirs, or among communities of monks and nuns. John Calvin, inspired by Erasmus's comments, desired singable versions of the Psalms and other Christian texts for the communal use of the Reformed churches.

The French metrical psalter

One of the greatest metrical psalters produced during this period was made for the Protestant churches of France and Geneva, by the poet Clément Marot and the theologian Theodore Beza. Marot and Beza's psalms appeared in a number of different collections, published between 1533 and 1543; in the latter year Marot published Cinquante Pseaumes, a collection of 50 psalms rendered into French verse. The full psalter containing all 150 canonical Psalms, collectively translated by Marot and Beza, appeared in 1562. [1] Music for the Geneva psalter was furnished by Louis Bourgeois and Claude Goudimel. Being produced by good poets and writers, the French metrical psalter continued in uninterrupted use to the present by the Huguenot and other French speaking Protestant churches.

The Dutch metrical psalter

A metrical psalter was also produced for the Calvinist Reformed Church of the Netherlands by Petrus Datheen in 1566. This Psalter borrowed the hymn tunes from Marot and Beza's French psalter. The Dutch psalter was revised on orders of the Dutch legislature in 1773, in a revision which also added non-paraphrase hymns to the collection. This psalter also continues in use among the Reformed community of the Netherlands, and was recently revised in 1985.

Metrical psalters in English

Sternhold and Hopkins

The English speaking reformed churches were not so fortunate. An attempt to produce an English metrical psalter was made by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins; in 1556 they printed a version with fifty-one psalms in it, and in 1562 they printed metrical versions of all 150 psalms, together with versified versions of the Apostles Creed, the Magnificat, and other Biblical passages or Christian texts. Most of the Sternhold and Hopkins tunes were borrowed from the French Geneva psalter. The Sternhold and Hopkins Psalms were used for almost 150 years. However, despite living during a period in which English literature was flowering, for Sternhold and Hopkins the seed appears to have fallen among the thorns. From the Sternhold and Hopkins rendition of Psalm 24:

The earth is all the Lord's, with all

her store and furniture;

Yea, his is all the work, and all

that therein doth endure:

For he hath fastly founded it

above the seas to stand,

And placed below the liquid floods,

to flow beneath the land.

For the sake of comparison, the text which these verses mean to represent is:

The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. (Psalm 24:1-2 KJV)

Sternhold and Hopkins wrote almost all of their Psalms in the "common" or ballad metre. Their versions were quite widely circulated at the time; copies of the Sternhold and Hopkins psalter were printed in many editions of the Geneva Bible, and their Psalms were used in many churches. The Sternhold and Hopkins psalter was also published with music for some of the tunes. One tune from their version that has survived is the tune called Old 100th, often used as a doxology, and associated with words by William Kethe:

All people that on earth do dwell,

sing to the Lord with cheerful voice:

Him serve with fear, his praise forth tell,

come ye before him and rejoice.

In 1621, Thomas Ravenscroft published an expanded edition of the Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter; Ravenscroft's edition added many more psalm tunes, some of which were composed since the first publication by leading late Tudor and early Stuart English composers such as Thomas Morley, Thomas Tallis, John Dowland, and Thomas Tomkins. Ravenscroft also supplied new versifications of several psalms; a very young John Milton contributed a versification of Psalm 27.

By any objective measure of circulation, Sternhold and Hopkins's psalter were a success. As a separate volume, they were re-printed more than 200 times between 1550 and 1640; in addition, they were included in most editions of the Geneva Bible, and also most versions of the Book of Common Prayer. They continued to be in regular use in some congregations until the late eighteenth century.

Literary opinion, on the other hand, was decidedly negative. In his 1781 History of English Poetry, British poet laureate Thomas Warton called the Sternhold and Hopkins psalter "obsolete and contemptible," "an absolute travesty," and "entirely destitute of elegance, spirit, and propriety." In 1819, Thomas Campbell condemned their "worst taste" and "flat and homely phrasing."

Other versified psalms in English

During the period of the English Reformation, many other poets besides Sternhold and Hopkins wrote metrical versions of some of the psalms. The first was Sir Thomas Wyatt, who in around 1540 made verse versions of the six penitential Psalms. His version of Psalm 130, the famous De profundis clamavi, begins:

From depth of sin and from a deep despair,

From depth of death, from depth of heart's sorrow

From this deep cave, of darkness deep repair,

To thee have I called, O Lord, to be my borrow.

Thou in my voice, O Lord, perceive and hear

My heart, my hope, my plaint, my overthrow. . . .

Sir Philip Sidney made verse versions of several Psalms, including Psalm 24, which he makes more literal and more readable by resorting to a longer line:

The earth is God's, and what the Globe of earth containeth,

And all who in that Globe do dwell;

For by his power the land upon the Ocean raigneth,

Through him the floods to their beds fall.

Later English metrical psalters

Later writers attempted to repair the literary inadequacies of the Sternhold and Hopkins version. The Bay Psalm Book, the first book published in the British colonies in America, was a new metrical psalter. In 1650. the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland produced a Scottish metrical psalter; this showed some improvements, but ballad metre remained ubiquitous:

The earth belongs unto the Lord,

and all that it contains;

The world that is inhabited,

and all that there remains.

For the foundations thereof

he on the seas did lay,

And he hath it established

upon the floods to stay.

Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate (who was later named poet laureate) produced a version of the Psalms in 1696; their Augustan version shows somewhat more polish than the 17th century versions:

This spacious earth is all the Lord's,

the Lord's her fullness is.

The world, and they that dwell therein,

by sov'reign right are his.

He framed and fixed it on the seas,

and his Almighty hand

Upon inconstant floods has made

the stable fabric stand.

as did Isaac Watts, who at long last breaks out of the ballad metre in his 1719 version, though he takes considerable liberties with the Biblical originals:

This spacious earth is all the Lord’s,

And men, and worms, and beasts, and birds:

He raised the building on the seas,

And gave it for their dwelling-place.

But by this time better metrical psalms were made in English, the belief that every hymn sung in church had to be a Biblical paraphrase had been repudiated by the Church of England. A flowering of English hymnody had occurred under writers such as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, but their hymns were freed from the stricture that each verse had to be a paraphrase of a scriptural text. The success of these newer hymns has largely displaced the belief that each hymn must be a direct paraphrase of Scripture. Now, many hymnals contain Biblical references to the passages that inspired the authors, but few are direct paraphrases of Scripture like the metrical psalters were.

References

• David Daniell, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence (Yale, 2003) ISBN 0300099304

External links

• The Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter
• Music for the Church of God
• Thomas Ravenscroft's Psalter (1621)

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