Metrical psalter
A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation: a book containing a verse translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry, meant to be sung as hymns in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or harmonisations. The composition of metrical psalters was a large enterprise of the Protestant Reformation, especially in its Calvinist manifestation that is still practiced today.
Biblical basis
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. In particular, John Calvin said,When we have looked thoroughly everywhere and searched high and low, we shall find no better songs nor more appropriate to the purpose than the Psalms of David which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him
Various Reformers interpreted certain scriptural texts as imposing strictures on sacred music. The psalms, especially, were felt to be commended to be sung by these texts. One example is James 5:13
"Is any merry? let him sing psalms."
Another key reference is Colossians 3:16
"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."
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.
Following an interpretation of the regulative principle of worship, many Reformed churches adopted the doctrine of exclusive psalmody: every hymn sung in worship must be an actual translation 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. Even today, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and other Reformed churches of the Scottish tradition maintain this practice.
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. The reformers, perhaps inspired by Erasmus's desire for all to know the scriptures, pursued singable versions of the Psalms and other Christian texts for the communal use of the Reformed churches.The Genevan Psalter
One of the greatest metrical psalters produced during the Reformation, the Genevan Psalter, was authored for the Protestant churches of France and Geneva. It has been in uninterrupted use to the present day by the Huguenot and other French-speaking Protestant churches.The texts of the French Psalter were brought together from two independent sources: the poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze. 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, plus the Nunc Dimittis, appeared in 1562.
The French psalms were set to melodies that were harmonized and altered for congregational singing. Music for the Genevan Psalter was furnished by Loys Bourgeois and others like Guillaume Franc and a certain Maistre Pierre. The composer Claude Goudimel harmonized these melodies with great variation in the complexity of the music. In some cases each part matches note for note, while others are contrapuntal or even motets. Even more elaborate musical arrangements were composed in the seventeenth century by Paschal de l'Estocart and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.
An example of the Huguenot Psalter is Psalm 134 :
Qui, dévoués à son honneur,
Veillez la nuit dans sa maison,
Présentez-lui votre oraison.
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 the Genevan Psalter and consisted of a literal translation of Marot and Beza's French translation. 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. In 1968 a new metrical psalmbook appeared, which is incorporated in the Dutch hymnbook; Liedboek voor de kerken of 1973.Metrical psalters in German
The Genevan Psalms were translated into German by Ambrosius Lobwasser in 1573 "Psalter des königlichen Propheten Davids" and were sung a capella to Goudimel's harmonies for over two centuries. The Lobwasser psalms are still in use in the Amish congregations in North America, who took them with the Swiss Hymnbooks to the New World. The music edition of 1576 was reprinted in 2004, which was a result of the International Psalm Symposion in Emden. In 1798 the German pastor in Den Haag Matthias Jorissen gave out his: "Neue Bereimung der Psalmen" which replaced the old-fashioned psalm book for nearly 200 years. The present Hymnbook of the Evangelical-reformed Churches and the Old Reformed Churches of Germany contains the complete psalter with many psalms of Matthias Jorissen and other authors. It was an important decision of the synods to retain the psalms in the hymnbook with the Genevan tunes. The need and interest in the complete Jorissen- Psalter led to different new editions in 1931, 1951 and 2006. The last one was given out for singing of the people and not for scientific use only. Today, psalms make up a quarter of the Protestant hymn book from 1998 in German Switzerland.Another German psalter is the Becker Psalter.
Metrical psalters in English
Robert Crowley
The first complete English metrical psalter and the first to include musical notation was 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. Printed in 1549, it was the work of Robert Crowley and was printed by him, Richard Grafton and/or Stephen Mierdman. Crowley's psalter is a rare example of two-color printing in this era, which makes it visually resemble medieval manuscript psalters. Crowley also included a calendar for calculating feast days as in the Book of Common Prayer, to which Crowley's psalter appears to be intended as a supplement.The music provided in Crowley's psalter is similar to the Gregorian tones of the Latin Sarum Rite psalter, and it can be found in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. A single note is given for each syllable in each verse, in keeping with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's mandate for the reformed Edwardian liturgy. The goal was to emphasize simplicity and to encourage attentiveness to what was being sung by omitting complex vocal ornamentation. In addition to the Psalms, Crowley's psalter includes English versions of the canticles Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, and Benedicite, as well as the Te Deum and the Quicumque Vult. These are the Cantica Prophetarium retained in the Book of Common Prayer from the Sarum psalter—key parts of the Divine Office.
Crowley's lyrics are mainly based on Leo Jud's Biblia Sacrosancta, which was in turn a fresh translation from the Hebrew that maintained fidelity to its lyrical arrangement. Crowley rendered all the psalms in simple iambic fourteeners which conform to the single, short, four-part tune that is printed at the beginning of the psalter.
From Crowley's rendition of Psalm 24:
For the sake of comparison, here is how the same text is rendered in contemporary English Bibles:
Sternhold and Hopkins ('Old Version')
published his first, short collection of nineteen Certayn Psalmes between mid-1547 and early 1549. In December 1549, his posthumous :italic=no was printed, containing thirty-seven psalms by Sternhold and, in a separate section at the end, seven psalms by John Hopkins. This collection was taken to the Continent with Protestant exiles during the reign of Mary Tudor, and editors in Geneva both revised the original texts and gradually added more over several editions. In 1562, the publisher John Day brought together most of the psalm versions from the Genevan editions and many new psalms by John Hopkins, Thomas Norton, and John Markant to make up The Whole Booke of Psalmes, Collected into English Meter. In addition to metrical versions of all 150 psalms, the volume included versified versions of the Apostles' Creed, the Magnificat, and other biblical passages or Christian texts, as well as several non-scriptural versified prayers and a long section of prose prayers largely drawn from the English Forme of Prayers used in Geneva.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 bound with many editions of the Geneva Bible, and their versions of the Psalms were used in many churches. The Sternhold and Hopkins psalter was also published with music, much of it borrowed from the French Geneva Psalter. One setting from their collection that has survived is the metrical form of the Psalm 100 attributed to William Kethe, with the tune known as the Old 100th, often used as a doxology:
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 had been composed, since the original publication, by leading late Tudor and early Stuart English composers such as Thomas Morley, Thomas Tallis, John Dowland, and Thomas Tomkins. Another musical contributor to this volume was John Milton, the father of the poet of that name.
By any objective measure of circulation Sternhold and Hopkins's psalter was a success. As a separate volume, it was re-printed more than 200 times between 1550 and 1640; in addition, the psalms in this form were included in most editions of the Geneva Bible, and also in 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 after the sixteenth century, 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." In 1757, John Wesley described the verse of Sternhold and Hopkins as "scandalous doggerel".
Sternhold and Hopkins render the beginning of the 24th Psalm in this way: