Thomas Sternhold was an English courtier and the principal author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of the first English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 metrical version of the Psalms, originally attached to the Prayer-Book as augmented by John Hopkins.

Life

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...

 says that Sternhold entered Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

, but did not take a degree. The first definite date in his life is 1538, when the name of Thomas Sternhold appears in Thomas Cromwell's accounts. He became one of the grooms of the robes

Groom of the Robes

Groom of the Robes is an obsolete office in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of England, later Great Britain, ultimately the United Kingdom. It is equivalent to a Lady-in-Waiting for Queens Regnant.-List of Grooms of the Robes:...

 to Henry VIII, and was a favourite, to whom a legacy of a hundred marks was bequeathed him by the king's will. He may have been the Thomas Sternell or Sternoll who was elected for Plymouth to the parliament that met on 30 January 1545, and was dissolved by Henry VIII's death in January 1547.

Sternhold was born in Blakeney, Gloucestershire

Blakeney, Gloucestershire

Blakeney is a village in Gloucestershire, England. It is the largest village in the parish of Awre. It has views of the Forest of Dean.It dates back to AD 75, and was home to Thomas Sternhold, a groom of King Henry VIII's Robes.-References:*...

 and died on 23 August 1549. His will, dated August 1549, was proved on 12 September following. Among the witnesses to his will was Edward Whitchurch

Edward Whitchurch

Edward Whitchurch , was an English publisher of Protestant works.Whitchurch published the first complete version of the Bible in English. Other published works included The 1547 A Treatise of Morall Phylosophie, contayning the Sayinges of the Wyse, authored by William Baldwin.-References:Attribution...

, probably his publisher. His property consisted of land in Hampshire and at Bodmin

Bodmin

Bodmin is a civil parish and major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in the centre of the county southwest of Bodmin Moor.The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character...

 in Cornwall. Part of the Hampshire property might have been inherited. Slackstead, however, had been purchased recently, as it had been granted, as part of the possessions of Hyde Abbey

Hyde Abbey

Hyde Abbey was a medieval Benedictine monastery just outside the walls of Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was dissolved and demolished in 1538....

, to Sir Ralph Sadler in 1547. The Bodmin property also he had purchased from the crown in 1543, as part of the possessions of the dissolved priory of St. Petrock there.

Psalm translations

His earliest metrical versions of the Psalms may have been composed in Henry's reign; Miles Coverdale had published his ‘Goostly Psalmes,’ a translation of Luther's psalm versions, as early as 1539. In 1540 the earliest Psalms by Marot, valet de chambre to Francis I

Francis I of France

Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...

, were known at the French court, and soon afterwards passed into Protestant worship at Geneva. Sternhold, Marot, and Coverdale all wished to substitute the Psalms of David for the ballads of the court and people.

Sternhold (with the exception of Psalm cxx) used only one metre, and this the simplest of all ballad measures, the metre of Chevy Chace. This choice of metre became the predominant metre (C. M.) not only of the old and new versions of England and Scotland, but of other metrical psalters and English hymns in general. Sternhold is said to have sung his psalms to his organ for his own solace. (Strype). The only edition which Sternhold lived to publish he dedicated to the young king Edward VI. In this dedication he expresses a hope of ‘travayling further,’ and ‘performing the residue’ of the Psalter; but his total contribution to the old version consists of only forty psalms.

Sternhold is remembered as the originator of the first metrical version of the Psalms which obtained general currency alike in England and Scotland. The Versification of Certain Chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon has been attributed to him in error. Sternhold and Hopkins's version has had a larger circulation than any work in the language, except the authorised version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Sternhold's work forms its base. His first edition undated, but, as being dedicated to Edward VI, not earlier than 1547, contains nineteen psalms (i–v, xx, xxv, xxviii, xxix, xxxii, xxxiv, xli, xlix, lxxiii, lxxviii, ciii, cxx, cxxiii, cxxviii). It was printed by Edward Whitchurch, and is entitled ‘Certayne Psalmes chosē out of the Psalter of Dauid and drawē into Englishē Metre by Thomas Sternhold, grome of ye Kynges Maiesties Roobes’ (Brit. Museum). The second edition, printed after his death—apparently by John Hopkins, who adds seven psalms of his own in order to fill in a blank space—added to those of the former edition eighteen new psalms (vi–xvii, xix, xxi, xliii, xliv, lxiii, lxviii). It is entitled ‘Al such Psalmes of Dauid as Thomas Sternhold, late grome of the Kinges maiesties robes, did in his lyfetime drawe into English Metre,’ and is printed by Edward Whitchurche in 1549 (Cambridge University Library). Three more psalms (xviii, xxii, xxiii) are added to these in a rare edition of the growing Psalter printed by John Daye in 1561, and the complete number (40) appears in the full editions of 1562, 1563, and all subsequent ones. The only one of his psalms which remains current is the simple rendering of Psalm xxiii (‘My Shepherd is the Living Lord’). The text of his psalms, as found in all editions subsequent to 1556, follows the Genevan revision of that year.

The Sternhold-Hopkins psalter continued in general use till 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...

 and 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....

's 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...

of 1696 was substituted in 1717.

External links