Metrical psalter
Encyclopedia
A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation
: a book containing a metrical
translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular
poetry
, meant to be sung as hymn
s in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or even harmonizations. The composition of metrical psalters was a large enterprise of the Protestant Reformation
, especially in its Calvinist
manifestation.
texts were interpreted as requiring reforms in the music
used in worship
. The Psalms were particularly commended for singing; asks, "Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise." states "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."
In the preface to his edition of the Greek
New Testament
, Erasmus wrote:
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. 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.
Following 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.
members of a church's congregation to communally sing hymns. Singing was done by the priest
s and other clergy
; communal singing of Gregorian chant was the function of professional choirs, or among communities of monks
and nun
s. 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.
, was authored for the Protestant churches of France
and Geneva
(called the Huguenot
s). 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 gospel canticle "Cantique de Siméon
" ("Song of Simeon"), appeared in 1562.
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 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 motet
s. 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 24 from the French Psalter:
by Petrus Datheen in 1566. This Psalter borrowed the hymn tune
s 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.
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 (1996) 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 (102) of the Protestant hymn book from 1998 in German Switzerland.
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 (red and black on the first four leaves) in this era, which makes it visually resemble medieval manuscript psalters. (Christopher Tye
and Francis Seager later included musical notation in their psalters, and the Sternhold and Hopkins psalter eventually incorporated a basic tune with the Anglo-Genevan edition of 1556. John Day
's The Whole Book of Psalmes (1562) contained sixty-five psalm tunes.) 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 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 fourteener
s 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:
published his first, short collection of nineteen Certayn Psalmes between mid-1547 and early 1549. In December of 1549, his posthumous Al such psalmes of Dauid as Thomas Sternehold ... didde in his life time draw into English Metre 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 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 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
:
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
. Another musical contributor to this volume was John Milton
, senior, the father of the poet.
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 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." Sternhold and Hopkins render the beginning of the 24th Psalm this way:
, who in around 1540 made verse versions of the six penitential Psalms. His version of Psalm 130, the famous De profundis clamavi, begins:
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:
(1640), 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:
Nicholas Brady
and Nahum Tate
(who was later named poet laureate
) produced A New Version of the Psalms of David
in 1696; their Augustan version shows somewhat more polish than the 17th century versions:
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:
But by the time better metrical psalms were made in English, the belief that every hymn sung in church had to be a Biblical translation 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 translation 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' previous versions; 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 translation of Scripture. Now, many hymnals contain Biblical references to the passages that inspired the authors, but few are direct translations of Scripture like the metrical psalters were.
is used,in accordance with the Westminster Assembly of Divines Directory for Public Worship. The corpus of tunes has shrunk over the years with only about twenty-four in general use.
(RPCNA) produced psalm books based on the Scots Metrical Psalter, with the intention of making the words more modern and the translation more accurate. These were produced in 1889 (a split-leaf
brown book), 1911 (unpopular due to musical complexity), 1920 (a green book) and 1929 (also green, an expanded version of the 1920 one), 1950 (a blue book), and 1973 (a maroon one) called The Book of Psalms for Singing. A further revision has been undertaken by the RPCNA, again for the purposes of making the words more modern and the translation more accurate, and also to replace some of the more difficult-to-sing tunes, such as Psalm 62B, with tunes that are easier to sing. The new edition, The Book of Psalms for Worship, was released in 2009.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland
, however, produced a split leaf version of the Scots Metrical Psalter, but with additional "Alternative versions" of the words included as the second half of the book. These were culled from a number of sources, including the RPCNA books mentioned above. Whenever a new version was necessary, they merely expanded their old book, without removing any of the old translations. One of these editions was produced in 1979. They were available in staff or sol-fa. A revised Psalter in more modern idiom was published in 2004 under the title The Psalms for Singing.
The Melbourne Congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia
produced The Complete Book of Psalms for Singing with Study Notes in 1991. Music in staff format is provided in a variety of meters to mostly established tunes. The texts draw from the best of older versions but providing much new material with an emphasis on accuracy.
The Free Church of Scotland
published Sing Psalms in 2003, being a completely new translation.It is available in words only, and Staff and Sol-fa split leaf formats.
Bible translations
The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Indeed, the full Bible has been translated into over 450 languages, although sections of the Bible have been translated into over 2,000 languages....
: a book containing a metrical
Meter (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, meant to be sung as hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or even harmonizations. The composition of metrical psalters was a large enterprise of the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, especially in its Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
manifestation.
Biblical basis
During the Protestant Reformation, a number of BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
texts were interpreted as requiring reforms in the music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
used in worship
Worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...
. The Psalms were particularly commended for singing; asks, "Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise." states "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."
In the preface to his edition of the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, Erasmus wrote:
- I would have the weakest woman read the GospelGospelA gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
s and the EpistleEpistleAn epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians...
s of St PaulPaul of TarsusPaul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
. I would have those words translated into all languages, so that not only ScotScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
s and IrishmenIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, but TurksTurkic peoplesThe Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
and SaracenSaracenSaracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
s 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
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
, or its adaptation to the vernacular, was apparently not considered. 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.
Following the regulative principle of worship
Regulative principle of worship
The regulative principle of worship is a teaching shared by some Calvinists and Anabaptists on how the Bible orders public worship. The substance of the doctrine regarding worship is that God institutes in the Scriptures everything he requires for worship in the Church and that everything else is...
, many Reformed churches adopted the doctrine of exclusive psalmody
Exclusive psalmody
Exclusive psalmody is the particular worship practice of several small Protestant denominations worldwide which use a metrical version of the Book of Psalms from the Bible as the only manual of songs that may be sung in their services...
: 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
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
in church, preferring to sing all of the music a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
. Even today, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America
Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America , a Christian church, is a small Presbyterian denomination with churches throughout the United States, in southeastern Canada, and in a small part of Japan. Its beliefs place it in the conservative wing of the Reformed family of Protestant churches...
, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland
Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland
The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland was formed in 1893 and claims to be the spiritual descendant of the Scottish Reformation...
, and other Reformed churches of the Scottish tradition maintain this practice.
The psalters themselves
During the pre-reformation days, it was not customary for layLayman
A layperson or layman is a person who is not an expert in a given field of knowledge. The term originally meant a member of the laity, i.e. a non-clergymen, but over the centuries shifted in definition....
members of a church's congregation to communally sing hymns. Singing was done by the priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s and other clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
; communal singing of Gregorian chant was the function of professional choirs, or among communities of monks
Monasticism
Monasticism is a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work...
and nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
s. John Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
, 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 Genevan PsalterGenevan psalter
The Genevan Psalter is a collection of metrical psalms created under the supervision of John Calvin.-Background:Before the Protestant Reformation the singing of the Psalms was generally done by a select group of performers, not by the entire congregation. John Calvin understood that the entire...
, was authored for the Protestant churches of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
(called the Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
s). 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
Clément Marot
Clément Marot was a French poet of the Renaissance period.-Youth:Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot , whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman from the Caen...
and the theologian Théodore de Bèze
Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...
. 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 gospel canticle "Cantique de Siméon
Nunc dimittis
The Nunc dimittis is a canticle from a text in the second chapter of Luke named after its first words in Latin, meaning 'Now dismiss...'....
" ("Song of Simeon"), appeared in 1562.
The French psalms were set to Gregorian
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
and popular, secular, sometimes unpublished melodies that were harmonized and altered for congregational singing. Music for the Genevan psalter
Genevan psalter
The Genevan Psalter is a collection of metrical psalms created under the supervision of John Calvin.-Background:Before the Protestant Reformation the singing of the Psalms was generally done by a select group of performers, not by the entire congregation. John Calvin understood that the entire...
was furnished by Loys Bourgeois
Loys Bourgeois
Loys "Louis" Bourgeois was a French composer and music theorist of the Renaissance. He is most famous as one of the main compilers of Calvinist hymn tunes in the middle of the 16th century...
and others like Guillaume Franc and a certain Maistre Pierre. The composer Claude Goudimel
Claude Goudimel
Claude Goudimel was a French composer, music editor and publisher, and music theorist of the Renaissance.-Biography:...
harmonized
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
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 motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s. Even more elaborate musical arrangements were composed in the seventeenth-century by Paschal de l'Estocart
Paschal de l'Estocart
Paschal de l'Estocart was a French Renaissance composer.Not much of his life is known. He was in Lyons between 1559 and 1565, and was married in the latter year. In his youth he is known to have visited Italy, but the exact years are not known...
and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ...
.
An example of the Huguenot 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 NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
by Petrus Datheen in 1566. This Psalter borrowed the hymn tune
Hymn tune
A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm , and no refrain or chorus....
s 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 (1515–1585) in 1573 "Psalter des königlichen Propheten Davids" and were sung a capella to Goudimel's harmonies for over two centuries. The Lowasser- psalms are still in use in the AmishAmish
The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
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
Emden
Emden is a city and seaport in the northwest of Germany, on the river Ems. It is the main city of the region of East Frisia; in 2006, the city had a total population of 51,692.-History:...
. 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 (1996) 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 (102) of the Protestant hymn book from 1998 in German Switzerland.
Robert Crowley
Robert Crowley (printer)
Robert Crowley also Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, Robarte Crole, and Crule , was a stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman who was among the Marian exiles at Frankfurt...
and was printed by him, Richard Grafton
Richard Grafton
Richard Grafton , was King's Printer under Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was a member of the Grocers' Company and MP for Coventry elected 1562-63.-Under Henry VIII:...
and/or Stephen Mierdman. Crowley's psalter is a rare example of two-color printing (red and black on the first four leaves) in this era, which makes it visually resemble medieval manuscript psalters. (Christopher Tye
Christopher Tye
Christopher Tye was an English composer and organist, who studied at Cambridge University and in 1545 became a Doctor of Music both there and at Oxford.He was choirmaster of Ely Cathedral from about 1543 and also organist there from 1559...
and Francis Seager later included musical notation in their psalters, and the Sternhold and Hopkins psalter eventually incorporated a basic tune with the Anglo-Genevan edition of 1556. John Day
John Day (printer)
John Day was an English Protestant printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets, and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of psalms...
's The Whole Book of Psalmes (1562) contained sixty-five psalm tunes.) Crowley also included a calendar for calculating feast days as in the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
, 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
Sarum Rite
The Sarum Rite was a variant of the Roman Rite widely used for the ordering of Christian public worship, including the Mass and the Divine Office...
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
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
's mandate for the reformed Edwardian liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
. 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
Te Deum
The Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
, Benedictus, Magnificat
Magnificat
The Magnificat — also known as the Song of Mary or the Canticle of Mary — is a canticle frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn...
, Nunc Dimittis
Nunc dimittis
The Nunc dimittis is a canticle from a text in the second chapter of Luke named after its first words in Latin, meaning 'Now dismiss...'....
, Quicumque Vult, and Benedicite
Benedicite
The Benedicite is a canticle that is used in the Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, and is also used in Anglican and Lutheran worship. The text is either verses 35–65 or verses 35–66 of The Song of the Three Children...
. These are the Cantica Prophetarium retained in the Book of Common Prayer from the Sarum psalter — key parts of the Divine Office
Liturgy of the hours
The Liturgy of the Hours or Divine Office is the official set of daily prayers prescribed by the Catholic Church to be recited at the canonical hours by the clergy, religious orders, and laity. The Liturgy of the Hours consists primarily of psalms supplemented by hymns and readings...
.
Crowley's lyrics are mainly based on Leo Jud
Leo Jud
Leo Jud , known to his contemporaries as Meister Leu, Swiss reformer, was born in Guémar, Alsace....
's Biblia Sacrosancta, which was in turn a fresh translation from the Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
that maintained fidelity to its lyrical arrangement. Crowley rendered all the psalms in simple iambic fourteener
Fourteener (poetry)
A Fourteener, in poetry, is a line consisting of 14 syllables, usually having 7 iambic heptametric feet, most commonly found in English poetry produced in the 16th and 17th centuries...
s 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 rendered 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 CoverdaleGreat BibleThe Great Bible was the first authorized edition of the Bible in English, authorized by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Sir Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry...
, 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 BibleGeneva BibleThe Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
, 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 AuthorisedKing James Version of the BibleThe Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...
, 1611)
Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter
Thomas SternholdThomas Sternhold
Thomas Sternhold was an English courtier and the principal author of the first English metrical version of the Psalms, originally attached to the Prayer-Book as augmented by John Hopkins.-Life:...
published his first, short collection of nineteen Certayn Psalmes between mid-1547 and early 1549. In December of 1549, his posthumous Al such psalmes of Dauid as Thomas Sternehold ... didde in his life time draw into English Metre 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
Thomas Norton
Thomas Norton was an English lawyer, politician, writer of verse — but not, as has been claimed, the chief interrogator of Queen Elizabeth I.-Official career:...
, 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
Apostles' Creed
The Apostles' Creed , sometimes titled Symbol of the Apostles, is an early statement of Christian belief, a creed or "symbol"...
, the Magnificat
Magnificat
The Magnificat — also known as the Song of Mary or the Canticle of Mary — is a canticle frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn...
, 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
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
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
Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
, and their 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 tune from their version that has survived is the tune called Old 100th
Old 100th
"Old 100th" or "Old Hundredth" is a hymn tune from Pseaumes Octante Trois de David , and is one of the best known melodies in all Christian musical traditions...
, often used as a doxology
Doxology
A doxology is a short hymn of praises to God in various Christian worship services, often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns...
, and associated with words by William Kethe
William Kethe
William Kethe was a bible translator, especially of the psalms.Kethe is thought to have been Scots-born, although this has never been confirmed...
:
- 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
Thomas Ravenscroft
Thomas Ravenscroft was an English musician, theorist and editor, notable as a composer of rounds and catches, and especially for compiling collections of British folk music.He probably sang in the choir of St...
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 Morley
Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at St Paul's Cathedral...
, Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis was an English composer. Tallis flourished as a church musician in 16th century Tudor England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of England's early composers. He is honoured for his original voice in English...
, John Dowland
John Dowland
John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has...
, and Thomas Tomkins
Thomas Tomkins
Thomas Tomkins was an English composer of the late Tudor and early Stuart period. In addition to being one of the prominent members of the English madrigal school, he was a skilled composer of keyboard and consort music, and the last member of the English virginalist school.-Life:Tomkins was born...
. Another musical contributor to this volume was John Milton
John Milton (composer)
John Milton was an English composer and father of poet John Milton. Early in his life he converted to Protestantism and his own father, Richard Milton, subsequently disowned him. He moved to London around 1583 to work as an apprentice scrivener. His work largely pertained to business matters;...
, senior, the father of the poet.
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
Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
, and also most versions of the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
. 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
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
Thomas Warton
Thomas Warton
Thomas Warton was an English literary historian, critic, and poet. From 1785 to 1790 he was the Poet Laureate of England...
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." Sternhold and Hopkins render the beginning of the 24th Psalm this way:
- 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.
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 WyattThomas Wyatt (poet)
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a 16th-century English lyrical poet credited with introducing the sonnet into English. He was born at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent – though his family was originally from Yorkshire...
, 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
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...
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 BookBay Psalm Book
The Bay Psalm Book was the first book, that is still in existence, printed in British North America.The book is a Psalter, first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Psalms in it are metrical translations into English...
(1640), the first book published in the British colonies in America, was a new metrical psalter. In 1650, the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
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
Nicholas Brady
Nicholas Brady , Anglican divine and poet, was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland. He received his education at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford; he graduated from Trinity College, Dublin....
and Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate was an Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692.-Life:Nahum Teate came from a family of Puritan clergymen...
(who was later named poet laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
) produced A New Version of the Psalms of David
Tate and Brady
Tate and Brady refers to the collaboration of Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, which produced one famous work, New Version of the Psalms of David . This work was a metrical version of the Psalms, and largely ousted the old version of T. Sternhold and J. Hopkins...
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
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
, 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 the time better metrical psalms were made in English, the belief that every hymn sung in church had to be a Biblical translation had been repudiated by the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. A flowering of English hymnody had occurred under writers such as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...
, but their hymns were freed from the stricture that each verse had to be a translation 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' previous versions; 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 translation of Scripture. Now, many hymnals contain Biblical references to the passages that inspired the authors, but few are direct translations of Scripture like the metrical psalters were.
Metrical psalter in Gaelic
The Scottish Gaelic Psalter was produced by the Synod of Argyll. By 1658, the first fifty psalms had been translated into ballad metre due to the work of Dugald Campbell, John Stewart and Alexander McLaine. A manuscript of the final 100 psalms was produced in 1691 with the entire Gaelic psalter, with revisions to the 'first fifty' being produced in 1694. The Gaelic Metrical Psalms are used to this day in the Scottish Highland Presbyterian Churches where the practice of lining outLining out
Lining out is a form of a cappella hymn-singing or hymnody in which a leader, often called the clerk or precentor, gives each line of a hymn tune as it is to be sung, usually in a chanted form giving or suggesting the tune...
is used,in accordance with the Westminster Assembly of Divines Directory for Public Worship. The corpus of tunes has shrunk over the years with only about twenty-four in general use.
Modern-day metrical psalters
Many churches continue to use metrical psalters today. For example, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North AmericaReformed Presbyterian Church of North America
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America , a Christian church, is a small Presbyterian denomination with churches throughout the United States, in southeastern Canada, and in a small part of Japan. Its beliefs place it in the conservative wing of the Reformed family of Protestant churches...
(RPCNA) produced psalm books based on the Scots Metrical Psalter, with the intention of making the words more modern and the translation more accurate. These were produced in 1889 (a split-leaf
Split-leaf psalter
A split-leaf psalter is a book of Psalms in metrical form, in which each page is cut in half at the middle, so that the top half of the pages can be turned separately from the bottom half. The top half usually contains the tunes, whereas the bottom half contains the words...
brown book), 1911 (unpopular due to musical complexity), 1920 (a green book) and 1929 (also green, an expanded version of the 1920 one), 1950 (a blue book), and 1973 (a maroon one) called The Book of Psalms for Singing. A further revision has been undertaken by the RPCNA, again for the purposes of making the words more modern and the translation more accurate, and also to replace some of the more difficult-to-sing tunes, such as Psalm 62B, with tunes that are easier to sing. The new edition, The Book of Psalms for Worship, was released in 2009.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland
Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland is a Presbyterian denomination in Ireland.-History:The denomination's roots date back to the 17th-century Plantation of Ulster by Scots Presbyterian settlers...
, however, produced a split leaf version of the Scots Metrical Psalter, but with additional "Alternative versions" of the words included as the second half of the book. These were culled from a number of sources, including the RPCNA books mentioned above. Whenever a new version was necessary, they merely expanded their old book, without removing any of the old translations. One of these editions was produced in 1979. They were available in staff or sol-fa. A revised Psalter in more modern idiom was published in 2004 under the title The Psalms for Singing.
The Melbourne Congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia
Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia
The Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia is a Presbyterian denomination which was formed in Sydney on 10 October 1846 by three ministers and a ruling elder...
produced The Complete Book of Psalms for Singing with Study Notes in 1991. Music in staff format is provided in a variety of meters to mostly established tunes. The texts draw from the best of older versions but providing much new material with an emphasis on accuracy.
The Free Church of Scotland
Free Church of Scotland (post 1900)
Free Church of Scotland is that part of the original Free Church of Scotland that remained outside of the union with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1900...
published Sing Psalms in 2003, being a completely new translation.It is available in words only, and Staff and Sol-fa split leaf formats.
English
- Psalter text & audio:
- Psalter text:
- Psalter audio:
- Audio recordings of Scottish metrical Psalms sung in Christian worship from Psalm Singing Online
- MIDI files of tunes arranged by meter
- Psalter miscellanea
- Calvin's Preface to Les Pseaumes mis en rime francoise par Clément Marot et Théodore de Béze(1565)
- Introduction to the Genevan Psalter
- The Reformers on Psalms and Hymns in Public Worship
- Bibliography and Discography for Reformed Psalters
- The Origins of the Melodies of the Reformed Psalter
- Music for the Church of God
- The Book of Psalms for Singing
- Isaac Watts' Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament
- The Sternhold and Hopkins Whole Booke of Psalms Is a Major Source for the Works of Shakespeare
- Psalm Echoes in Shakespeare's 1 Henry VI, Richard II, and Edward III