“To be songe to the tune of [the] 25th psalme”: Adapting The Whole Booke of Psalmes for Personal Devotion and Communal Singing

By the end of the sixteenth century, The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1562, with yearly reprints) had become a symbol of English Protestantism, and its monophonic metrical psalms a hallmark of English Protestant music. Yet the psalter’s success, illustrated by its rapid and enthusiastic adoption by the E...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Arten, Samantha (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group 2022
In: Reformation
Year: 2022, Volume: 27, Issue: 1, Pages: 65-84
IxTheo Classification:HB Old Testament
KAG Church history 1500-1648; Reformation; humanism; Renaissance
KBF British Isles
KDE Anglican Church
RD Hymnology
Further subjects:B printed music
B John Day
B marginal annotations
B metrical psalms
B Reformation England
B common tunes
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:By the end of the sixteenth century, The Whole Booke of Psalmes (1562, with yearly reprints) had become a symbol of English Protestantism, and its monophonic metrical psalms a hallmark of English Protestant music. Yet the psalter’s success, illustrated by its rapid and enthusiastic adoption by the English people for public worship and private devotion, was due in part to audiences failing to use it as directed. Close study of 133 editions, 222 book-copies, shows that in their use of the book, many readers of the WBP freely adapted this psalter to navigate a myriad of problems related to its printing—memorization demanded by page turns, conflicting tune references, and music typesetting errors—and to accommodate their own religious and musical desires. Congregations and individuals interacted with their WBPs in a dynamic process, freely adapting its texts, music, and even the pages themselves for purposes of convenience, recreation, and devotion.
ISSN:1752-0738
Contains:Enthalten in: Reformation
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13574175.2022.2051292