Psalmodies of the Scottish Reformation
This extract is taken from David Hay Fleming’s book, The Reformation in Scotland.
Vital importance was attached to preaching and prayer, but praise, though regarded as profitable, was not deemed absolutely necessary in the services of the sanctuary. ‘In some churcheis,’ says the Book of Discipline, ‘Psalmes may be convenientlie sung, in utheris, perchance, thay cannot.’ (1) Nevertheless, it declares that men, women, and children should be exhorted ‘to exercise thame selvis in the Psalmes, that when the churche convenith, and dois sing, thai may be the more abill togither with commoun heart and voice to prayse God.’ (2) As it had even been questioned whether singing might be used in a Reformed Church, it is shown, in the preface to the Order of Geneva (1556), that God’s Word approves of it, and that antiquity bears witness to it, and this statement is made –
‘ As musike or singinge is naturall unto us, and therfore every man deliteth therein; so our mercifull God setteth before our eyes, how we may rejoyce and singe to the glorie of his name, recreation of our spirites, and profit of our selves. But as ther is no gift of God so precious or excellent that Satan hath not after a sort drawen to himself and corrupt, so hath he most impudentlye abused this notable gifte of singinge, chieflye by the Papistes his ministers, in disfiguring it, partly by strange language, that cannot edifie, and partly by a curious wanton sort, hyringe men to tickle the eares and flatter the phantasies.’(3)
Not only was the curious singing which tickled the ear, and flattered the fancy, condemned; but in one of the rubrics it is said, ‘The people singe a Psalme all together, in a playne tune.’(4) Every rubric which refers to singing, refers to the singing of a Psalm; and in the preface it is said –
‘There are no songes more meete than the Psalmes of the prophet David, which the Holy Ghoste hath framed to the same use, and commended to the Churche, as conteininge the effect of the whole Scriptures.’(5)
The first edition of the Order of Geneva (1556) contains ‘one and fiftie Psalmes of David in Englishe metre‘. The 1561 edition contains eighty-seven; and the 1564-65 edition, the whole hundred and fifty.(6) The Psalms indeed formed such an important part of the Book of Common Order that the general assembly, in December 1564, in prescribing its use, refers to it as the Psalm Book –
‘It was ordained, that everie minister, exhorter and reader sall have one of the Psalme Bookes, latelie printed in Edinburgh, and use the order contained therein in prayers, marriage, and ministration of the sacraments.’(7)
One or two editions, however, seem to have been issued without the Psalms.(8) It may have been one of these, or a copy which had lost the Psalms, which was reprinted two centuries ago in The Phenix, and which the editor characterised as ‘a grave demure piece, without either responses or Psalms, or hymns, without fringe or philactery; but terribly fortify’d and pallisado’d with texts of Scripture.’(9) Each of the fifty-one Psalms in the 1556 edition was provided with a tune; to the eighty-seven Psalms of the 1561 edition there were sixty tunes; and to the completed Psalter of 1564-65 there were a hundred and five tunes.(10) So anxious were the Reformers to provide psalmody for the people, that, in 1562, the general assembly resolved to lend Lekprevik, the printer, 200 Scots, ‘to help to buy irons, ink, and paper, and to fie craftisman,’ for printing the Psalms.(11) The version completed in 1564-65 held the field in Scotland, until superseded by the present version in 1650.
In the 1556 edition there is a metrical version of the ten commandments; in the 1561 edition there were also three metrical versions of the Lord’s Prayer, and one version of the Song of Simeon. These were passages of Scripture more or less paraphrased, which Dr. Begg would have distinguished from mere human hymns; but in the completed version of 1564-65 they were all left out.
Very few copies of the early editions have survived. Of an edition of the Psalms possibly printed in 1567 only one leaf remains, so far as known. The front is the title-page, and on the back there are sixteen lines in metre. The first four form a short prayer, and so do the last four. The intermediate eight form a doxology. A rubric at the top reads: ‘Sing thir four veirs efter everie Psalme as followis.’ Over the doxology is this rubric: ‘And gif ye pleis to sing this Gloria Patri.’ It has been doubted whether this edition was ever really printed. The existing leaf is the last leaf of the concluding half-sheet of the earliest known edition of The Gude and Godlie Ballatis, and it has been suggested that the leaf was utilised in this way to serve as an advertisement of a forthcoming or projected edition of the Psalter.(12)
An edition dated 1571, without name of printer or place of printing, but which was probably printed in Geneva, has three spiritual songs – (1) The ten commandments, beginning ‘Hark, Israel,’ which version in the English Psalter has the initial ‘N.’ (2) ‘Nunc Dimittis,’ as in the English Psalter. (3) The Lord’s Prayer, a version which in some of the English Psalters is also marked ‘N,’ and which begins ‘Our Father which in Heaven art, Lord hallowed be thy name.’(13)
The 1575 edition of the Psalm Book contains the following spiritual songs : ‘The Lord’s Prayer, the X Commandments with the prayer following them, and the Second Lamentation: also Veni Creator, separate from the others.’ It also contains a ‘conclusion’, or doxology, for the 148th Psalm.(14) There is no doxology in any of the earlier known editions, save in the doubtful one of 1567.
In the 1587 edition (printed by Vautrollier, at London) this doxology again appears, and the number of spiritual songs is increased to ten; and these ten are reproduced in the 1594 edition (printed by Schilders, in Middleburg) ; and also in the 1595 edition (Edinburgh, Henrie Charteris). This 1595 edition is said to be the first which contains a set of metrical doxologies, one for each form of metre.(15) As regards the spiritual songs and doxologies, the subsequent editions are not uniform.(16) It is uncertain whether these additions were ever authorised by the general assembly, or whether the spiritual songs were intended to be used in public worship. No one has ever been able to produce satisfactory evidence of such sanction or use; and it is a significant fact that while the completed Scottish Psalter of 1564-65 was largely indebted to the English Psalter of 1562, it does not contain a single hymn, although there were about a score in that English Psalter which might have been borrowed.(17)
The volume best known as The Gude and Godlie Ballatis, though exceedingly popular, was never formally approved by the Church; and, indeed, hardly could have been, for several things in it are inconsistent with the teaching of the Book of Discipline.(18) If modern hymn-books are to be taken as the standard, some of its items, so far as sense and substance are concerned, are well worthy of being used in public worship; but others would probably be rejected by the most ardent of modern hymn-singers. Few, it may be presumed, would now care to sing in worship such an one as this, although the sentiment is good and the language vigorous –
God send everie priest ane wyfe,
And everie nunne ane man,
That thay mycht leve that haly lyfe,
As first the Kirk began.(19)
Neither in the Book of Common Order, nor in the Book of Discipline, nor in the Confession of Faith, is there any direct reference to instrumental music. The reason probably is that there were comparatively few organs in the English Church in Edward the Sixth’s time, and fewer still in Scotland before the Reformation. From several casual contemporary record references it appears that the few which were in Scotland were cast out of the churches; and apparently there was no desire to have them restored. The Dean of Guild of Edinburgh, in 1560-61, in his accounts, acknowledges to have received 6 for ‘three belleces of the orgains,” which he had sold, and a much bigger sum for a silver cross and two chalices.(20) In 1574 the Regent Morton ordered the organs to be removed from the church at Aberdeen and disposed of for the benefit of the poor.(21)
Several spiritual songs by Alexander Hume, minister of Logie, were printed in 1599. In one of them these lines occur
Blis thou my work, be my support,
My teacher, and my guyde,
Then sall my mouth thy praise report
Through all the world so wide.
Even on my jolie lute, by night,
And trimling trible string,
I sall with all my minde and might
Thy glorie gladlie sing.(22)
He was a musician as well as a poet; and his latter-will shows that he possessed a ‘luit’ and an ‘uther musicall instrument’;(23) but, nevertheless, he did not approve of instrumental music in public worship, for among the corruptions of the Church of England, he specially mentions organs.(24) Their use was also condemned by such men as Calderwood and Rutherfurd.(25) Indeed, it is only within the last half-century that, in Scotland, instrumental music in God’s worship has come to be regarded as compatible with Presbyterianism and evangelical preaching.
(1) Laing’s Knox, ii. 238.
(2) Ibid. ii. 241, 242.
(3) Ibid, iv. 164, 165.
(4) Ibid. iv. 182.
(5) Ibid. iv. 165.
(6) Laing’s Knox, iv. 166, 206; vi. 285, 290. In David Laing’s opinion it was highly probable that the 1564 edition was not completed till the early part of 1565. He only knew of one copy (the one in Corpus Christi College, Oxford) dated 1564, but all the copies dated 1565 have 1564 on the title-page of the Catechism (ibid. vi. 279, 280).
(7) Booke of the Universall Kirk, i. 54.
(8) Laing’s Knox, iv. 154, 156.
(9) The Phenix, ii. p. viii.
(10) Livingston’s Scottish Metrical Psalter, pp. 13, 41, 42.
(11) Bannatyne Miscellany, ii. 232. David Laing refers this to December 1561 instead of December 1562 (Baillie’s Letters, iii. 526).
(12) See Mitchell’s Gude and Godlie Ballatis, Scottish Text Society, p. lxxx., and the facsimile of this leaf. Dr. Mitchell was inclined to think that the complete Psalter had been printed, and had been bound up with The Gude and Godlie Ballatis. To me this seems improbable for two reasons. Had the Psalter and the Ballatis been bound up together as one book, surely the Psalter would have received the place of honour; and if the Psalter had been completed, or intended to be completed, it is not likely that the title-page would have been printed on the concluding leaf of a half-sheet.
(13) A copy of this very rare edition is in the library of Mr. William Cowan, Edinburgh, who has given me the above information concerning it.
(14) Livingston’s Scottish Metrical Psalter, p. 13.
(15) Ibid. p. 14; and appendix, p. iv. The 1595 edition is different from all other editions in having ‘a remarkable series of prayers in the Scottish dialect,’ one being appended to each Psalm, and ‘agreing with the mening thairof.’
(16) Ibid. p. 34; and appendix, p. ix.
(17) Ibid. pp. 13, 28.
(18) Such as Christmas carols.
(19) Mitchell’s Gude and Godlie Ballatis, p. 188.
(20) Edinburgh Dean of Guild’s Accounts, 1552-1567, pp. 117, 118.
(21) Register of Privy Council, ii. 391.
(22) Hume’s Hymns and Sacred Songs, Bannatyne Club, pp. 5, 6.
(23) Scott’s Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticance, ii. 735.
(24) Hume’s Hymns and Sacred Songs, app. p. 13.
(25) In contrasting Presbytery with Prelacy, Calderwood says: ‘The Pastor loveth no music in the house of God but such as edifieth, and stoppeth his ears at instrumental music, as serving for the pedagogy of the untoward Jews under the law, and being figurative of that spiritual joy whereunto our hearts should be opened under the Gospel. The Prelate loveth carnal and curious singing to the ear, more than the spiritual melody of the Gospel, and therefore would have antiphony and organs in the cathedral kirks, upon no greater reason than other shadows of the law of Moses; or lesser instruments, as lutes, citherns, or pipes, might be used in other kirks’ (The Pastor and Prelate, 1843, p. 4). Rutherfurd asks: ‘Who can say that the grace of joy in the Holy Ghost, wrought by the droning of organs, and the holinesse taught by surplice, is a work of the Spirit merited by Christ as our High Priest?’ And he avers that ‘altars, organs, Jewish ephods, or surplice, masse-cloaths, and Romish crossing, bowing to altars, images, are badges of Jewish and Popish religion’ (The Divine Right of Church-Government, 1646, pp. 136, 143). Very miscellaneous music seems to have suited the mass (infra, p. 440 n.).
