Metrical psalter
[2] 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[3] Various Reformers interpreted certain scriptural texts as imposing strictures on sacred music.
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 texts of the French Psalter were brought together from two independent sources: the poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze.
An example of the Huguenot Psalter is Psalm 134 (tune given above): Vous, saints ministres du Seigneur, Qui, dévoués à son honneur, Veillez la nuit dans sa maison, Présentez-lui votre oraison.
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.
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.
A single note is given for each syllable in each verse, in keeping with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's mandate for the reformed Edwardian liturgy.
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 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.
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.
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.
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."
After he died in 1586, his sister, Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, completed the translation of the final two-thirds of the psalter.
The Sidney Psalter was not published in its complete form until the twentieth century, but it was widely read in manuscript, and influenced such later poets as John Donne and George Herbert.
[12] This showed some improvements, but ballad metre remained ubiquitous: One of the most widely known hymns in Christian worship, "The Lord's my Shepherd", is a translation of Psalm 23 appearing in the 1650 Scottish Psalter.
[citation needed] 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.
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.
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.
By 1658, the first fifty psalms had been translated into ballad metre due to the work of Dugald Campbell, John Stewart, and Alexander McLaine.
The Gaelic Metrical Psalms are used to this day in the Scottish Highland Presbyterian Churches where the practice of lining out is used, in accordance with the Westminster Assembly of Divines Directory for Public Worship.
For example, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) produced psalm books based on the Scots Metrical Psalter, with the intention of making the words more modern and the translation more accurate.
The Melbourne Congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia produced The Complete Book of Psalms for Singing with Study Notes in 1991.
The Canadian Reformed Churches have published and sing from Book of Praise, the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1961, 1972, 1984, 2014), containing English versifications for all the Genevan tunes.
In 2015 Premier Printing published New Genevan Psalter which consists of the 150 Psalms as found in the Book of Praise as well as the Ten Commandments and the Songs of Mary, Zechariah and Simeon.
