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.

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 Scots 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. Following the regulative principle of worship, many Reformed churches adopted the doctrine of exclusive psalmody: every hymn sung in worship 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. 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. 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 the Reformation, the Huguenot Psalter, was authored for the Protestant churches of France and Geneva (called the Huguenots). 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

The French psalms were set to Gregorian and popular, secular, sometimes unpublished melodies that were harmonized and altered for congregational singing. Music for the Genevan psalter was furnished by Louis Bourgeois and Claude Goudimel. Goudimel harmonized it 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 Huegenot Psalter is Psalm 24 from the French Psalter:

La terre au Seigneur appartient

Tout ce qu'en sa rondeur contient

Et ceux qui habitent en elle;

Sur mer fondements lui donna,

L'enrichit et l'environna

De mainte rivière très belle.

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 English

Robert Crowley

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 Te Deum, Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, Quicumque Vult, and Benedicite. 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 fourteeeners 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:

The earth and al that it holdeth,



do to the lorde belonge:

The world and al that dwel therin as wel the olde as yonge.

For it is he that aboue al the seas hath it founded:

And that aboue the freshe waters hathe the same prepared.

For the sake of comparison, here is how the same text is rendred in contemporary English Bibles:

The earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is: the compass of the world, and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it upon the seas and prepared it upon the floods. (Psalm 24:1-2 Coverdale, 1535)

The earth is Gods and all that therin is: the worlde, and they that dwell therin.

For he hath laide the foundation of it vpon the seas: and he hath set it sure vpon the fluddes. (Psalm 24:1-2 Bishop's Bible, 1568)

The earth is the Lordes, and all that therein is: the worlde and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it vpon the seas: and established it vpon the floods. (Psalm 24:1-2 Geneva Bible, 1587)

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 Authorised, 1611)

Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter

Thomas Sternhold published his first, short collection of Certayn Psalmes in or around 1549, with new editions in the years following. With John Hopkins in 1556, Sternhold produced a psalter with fifty-one psalms in it, and in 1562 Sternhold and Hopkins brought together 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. An instant hit, 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.

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 Church of Scotland produced a Scots 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. Attitudes towards the Biblical text itself had also changed, with closer emphasis being paid on its exact phrasing. This new regard for the letter of the Biblical text diminished the appeal of the psalters' paraphrases; those who sang them no longer felt they were singing Scripture. 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

Geneefse psalmen