The Old Version
& the related Tunes
INTRODUCTION
The monophonic psalm book with music, excluding harmonized editions, was printed over and over, running to nearly 500 editions from 1562 to 1700.(4) The British Museum Catalogue in 1971 (See appendix 1) shows us how the version flourished in the past, comparing it to the New Version, (which first appeared in 1696), and the version by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), in 1719. In the first stage, before the New Version appeared, no other versions "succeeded in dislodging the Old Version from its hold over the affections of ordinary people" because "in the Church of England there was a well entrenched belief that the Old Version was the only one authorized by law for use in church."(5) In fact, John Day (1522-1584) , who began to publish the Old Version, obtained a royal privilege in the printing of music in 1559, and the Company of Stationers, founded by his successors,were granted the monopoly in 1603 by James I. However, there was no restriction against the use of other versions in public worship. In spite of the royal authorization for the New Version in the second stage, "conservatism won the day" and "the Old Version was in no sense replaced by the New in 1696."(6) Even after the Watts' version appeared, the Old Version was still dominant among them well into the second half of the eighteenth century.
Most of the Old Version psalters included more than the psalm texts. Canticles were included from the first Anglo-Genevan edition of 1556, and divided before and after the psalms from the 1561 London edition. Some editions from 1561 on contained the longer musical introduction with woodcuts of the gamut and musical notes, and some from 1569 on the shorter one. What Is called the "Middleburg Psalms," which contained not only the metrical versions but also the biblical prose texts in the margin space, appeared from 1599 to 1649. The tunes first appeared in the Anglo-Genevan editions. Some later editions from 1620 on did not have a tune, and finally from 1687 on, there was no edition which contained tunes .
The Old Version has a complicated history and several problems so that this study is not intended to be a fully comprehensive one. I will concentrate here on: musically speaking, not harmonies but exclusively tunes; chronologically, 1547 to 1600; geographically, England and some continental exile cities. The history and characteristics of the texts and tunes will be observed first, then as specific examples, the edition of 1562 and the tune of the Old 100th will be examined. Finally, the texts and tunes related to the Old Version and which are still in use today will be proposed .
Since the publication of George Joyce's (1495-1553) English prose psalter in 1530(7), there appeared more than 70 different new versions of psalters in English. As to the metrical versions, Miles Coverdale's (1488 1568) Goostly psalmes and spirituall songes around 1535, including 15 metrical versions(8) played a unique role. However, Zim. says that there is neither "evidence that Sternhold knew Coverdale's Coostly psalmes" nor "trace of this Influence in those of Sternhold. "(9)
The history of the Old Version began with Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the PsaJter of David . ., published some time between 1547 and 1549.(10) The psalms were not intended to be used for public worship, but for "private reading,singing, and making mental comparisons between his intepretative imitations and the normative liturigical translations."(11) The literary characteristics of his psalms are described as: literary conservatism and occasional stylistic ineptitudes; preference for pairs of alliterative synonyms and repetition of sound, word and idea; metrical requrarity and simple rhyme schemes.(12) The last item points out the connection between Sternhold and the common metre.(13)
The translators of both English and French metrical psalms intended to be faithful to Hebraic truth so that the titles of several editions said they were conferred with the Hebrew language. According to Pidoux "the faithfulness to the Bible texts is, however, a faithfulness of the second degree" because " neither Morot nor de Beza rhymed the Psalms from the Hebrew text" but from "a French translation."(14) This is the case of not only the French Metrical psalms but also the English ones. Sternhold's source for his version was the Latin Vulgate and Coverdale's Great Bible translated in 1539.(15) Coverdale himself used only several specific English, German and Latin versions because he "could not translate directly frm Hebrew and Greek."(16)
The second edition contained 44 psalms, consisting of 19 from the first edition, 18 newly composed by Sternhold and 7 by Hopkins. The number of the psalms expanded during the following decades in London and the continental exile cities (See appendix 2) , and the complete English metrical psalter first appeared in 1562. From the London edition of 1560, some versions are replaced by or added to other versions so that by the time the 1573 edition was published, in which the final textual addition to the London edition(17) took place, there were 28 textual duplications (Ps.23, 36, 47, 50, 51, 54, 58, 62, 67, 70, 71, 85, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 100, 101, 115, 117, 125, 129, 134, 135, 138, 142 & 149) (18) In the Anglo-Genevan edition of 1556, considerable texual revisions of the versions by Sternhold and Hopkins were probably made by William Whittingham (d. 1579). (19) Since the principle of his revisions was not the poetic and devotional but didactic and theological concerns, "his attempts to improve the literal accuracy of the paraphrase too often end in a metrical disaster."(20)
There were 11 contributors to the Old Version psalm texts,(21) more precisely, to the 179 different versions of the 150 psalms. Most of them are clergymen and none of them were remembered as notable poets of the mid-sixteenth century.(22) The contributors are: John Hopkins for 61 psalms, Thomas Sternhold for 41, William Kethe and Thomas Norton each for 25, William Whittingham for 16, John Marckant for 3, Thomas Becon, Robert Wisdom and John Pulain each for 2 , and Pont Robert and an anonymous author each for 1. About two-thirds of the psalms were by Sternhold and Hopkins, and the works by the first 5 authors cover more than 90% of the psalms.
The origins of the tune s of the Old Version can be classified into four types; English folk or ballad songs, German hymns, French metrical psalmody, and original tunes.
We know that "there is no music in any of the early editions printed by 1553, . . . nor are there any directions for named, existing tunes to be applied to them," i.e. to Sternhold's metrical psalms.(23) It is reported that Sternhold sang his psalms to popular ballad melodies. (24) Therefore "at court they were probably sung to secular tunes, or possibly to adapted plainsong melodies."(25) In addition to these melodies, "there is evidence that some melodies which have not survived were specifically written during the Edwardian period."(26)
The first musical edition of the Old Version was the Anglo-Genevan edition of 1556. It consists of 44 psalms by Sternhold and Hopkins, and 7 by Whittingham, each with its own tune for all psalms (See appendix 3) . With regard to metre, 43 out of 51 were in Double Common Metre (DCM=8686/ 8686) , 2 in Double Short Metre (DSM=6666/ 6666) , each 1 in Common Metre (CM=8686) and Double Long Metre (DLM= 888818888), and 4 in other metres. As to the origin of the tunes, 3 are obviously from French sources and some contain 27 French or German incipits or stylistic characteristics;(27) however, almost all the other tunes are of English origin. It is said that "none of the English tunes of 1556 or 1558 appears to be drawn from English folk songs of the time."(28) Therefore, they may have been composed in England before the exile. However, Temperley observes that "more probably they were the works of the best musicians that could be found in the small band of exiles."(29)
The number of the tunes expanded from edition to edition. Since replacements and omissions of the older tunes took place in each edition, the actual number of the tunes was not cumulative in each edition. The development of the numbers of the tunes which related to the Old Version in 16 important musical versions from 1556 to 1677 is summarized here (Appendix 4).(30) There were 220 tunes in all; 183 are of English origin, 29 French and 6 German. Several different numberings can be found in articles by scholars partly because they use their own available editions, not all editions existing today.(31) Moreover, most tunes were "slightly revised from time to time"(32) especially in the rhythmic aspects. Illing explains the reasons for the intentional revisions was "to characterize words of the first verse" other than the systematic revisions in the 1560 London edition.(33) Additionally there were many trivial misprints as well as extensive revisions.(34)
Of the 19 tunes which are found in all musical editions of the Old Version from 1562 to 1687 (Appendix 5), six were popular by the time of Playford, which are tunes for Ps. 50, 81, 100, 113, 119 and 148,(35) and five of them (Ps.81, 100, 113, 119, and 148) were "printed or recommended during the Commonwealth." Two of them (Ps.50, 100) are of French origin, one German (Ps 113) and three English (Ps.81, 119, 148; See Appendix 6) . Two are in DCM (Ps.88, 119), one in LM (Ps.100), and others are in irregular metres.
The first complete English metrical psalter was published in 1549 by Robert Crowley (d.1588) with a fauxbourdon setting for all psalms.(36) All 150 psalms were written in the Common Metre so that all could be sung with one tune. It was probably intended for the liturgical use, but did not achieve popularity.(37)
The complete psalter of the Old Version first appeared in 1562, the same year the French complete psalter was published In Geneva. The Old Versions were made mainly in folio, quarto or octavo size(38), and the 1562 edition was in quarto size. The title page (See Appendix 7) says:
The main body consists of 156 psalm texts, including 6 textual duplications (Ps.23, 50, 51, 100, 125, 136) . 131 of them are in CM or DCM, 6 in SM, 3 in LM, 16 in irregular metres. Of the 22 texts which were rejected for the edition, 16 were by Kethe which first appeared in the Anglo-Genevan edition of 1560. Among his 25 contributions to the Old Version, only Ps.134 was competitive enough to surpass its rival, and Ps. 100 and 125 are employed with their rivals.
As to the tunes, it contained 46 tunes for 150 psalms; 13 seem to have been composed before the Marian exiles in England, 13 at the continental exile cities, and 21 between 1561 and 1562 in London. The famous Old 100th is rejected here. Illing examined the tunes of the edition especially on rhythmic and tonal aspects and concluded; first , two-thirds of the verses are in the Common Metre; second, two-thirds of the verses with unusual rhythms have French melodies and most were added to the Genevan 1560 edition; third, three-quarters of the English melodies are in C major, F major, or D minor.(41)
The origins of the melodic and textual contents of the edition are clearly proposed by Leaver (See Appendix 8).
As pointed out \above, melodic alterations often happened due to a variety of reasons. With the Old 100th, one of the most popular tunes of the day and still in use today, I will present here how these alterations happened.
The tune first appeared in the Genvan psalter of 1551 as 9-<1>(See Appendix 9), and it was conferred by the 1562 Genevan complete edition(42) so that the tune in the 1551 edition did not contain misprints. In the 10 editions which are available to me in the original manuscript or facsimile form, there are 6 variants of the tune (See 9-<11>). [A] and [C] have no melodic changes, only rhythmic modifications, but [B] , [D] , and [E] have some melodic changes. [B-2] , lacking a note, [B-3] and [B-6] sound very strange to us, and did so even for the congregation in the sixteenth century because others do not have such melodic and rhythmic irregularity. [D-1&2] change their melodic line, but we do not know whether it was intentional revisions or not . If there was an accolnpanying instrument which could play the bass part, [E-2] could be possible; however, we can hardly think that the editor intentionally altered the tune to be used for such a special occasion. Among the modern English hymnals which I consulted, only the Lutheran Worship (1982) faithfully follows the Genevan original melody. All other hymnals employed the tune of [G] which contains only one rhythmic alteration. In the Japanese edition of [F] , there is no melodic alteration, however, the rhythm is altered into an extremely simple mode .
I consulted 14 modern hymnals published or revised during 1970 and 90.(43) Four are British, 8 American and 2 Japanese. In addition to these hynnals, I consulted Hymns and Tunes: An Index (1966) which covers 78 hymnals in English published between 1892 and 1966. Therefore 92 hymnals published in 3 countries during 1892 and 1990 are examined. To identlfy tunes, I will refer to the tune numbering system by Frost(44) with metre.
Only 5 iunes survive in modern hymnals; tunes to Ps.25 (F.44, DSM), 44 (F.63, DCM), 81 (F.99, DCM), 132= ST. FLAVIAN (F.150, CM=1st half of the original tune), 137 (F. 157, DCM) . Of these old tunes, only the tune for Ps.132 (ST. FLAVIAN) exists. Most hymnals after 1970 have the tune, and 38 out of 78 old hymnals did it. The tune to Ps.81 was one of the most popular tunes by the time of Playford. However, only few older hymnals employed the tune. Two other tunes Playford mentioned, which are tunes for Ps.119 (F.132, DCM) and 148 (F.174, 6666/4444), also originated in the period, but we can not find them in our hymnals.
Three out of 4 tunes in this period have their own tune names. They are CHESHIRE (Ps.146; F.172. DCM) , SOUTHWELL (Ps.45; F.65, SM), WINCHESTER OLD (Ps.84; F.103, CM), and all of these tunes first appeared in harmonic editions. The tune without a specific name is associated with Ps.120 (F.l35, 666666) Some old and new hymnals include Ps.120 and the tune CHESHIRE. Two other tunes, WINCHESTER OLD and SOUTHWELL, are very popular among English-language hymnals. Only OLD 100TH surpasses the popularity of WINCHESTER OLD.
Although the focus of this study is the Old Version published by 1600, I will point out some popular tunes which appeared in the 1621 edition by Ravenscroft . Among the 5 popular tunes in this edition, BRISTOL (Ps.16&64; F.?, CM in modern hymnals) is the most popular one. Less common tunes are DURHAM(Ps.28&76; F.?, CM) , LINCOLN (Ps.7&56; F.?, CM) , ST DAVID (Ps 42&95; F ? ,CM) and Ps 104 (F.1I19, 55556565).
As we observed above, 29 Genevan and 8 German tunes , were employed in the Old Version. It is not easy to identify the tunes in this category because the psalm texts to which the melodies were fixed varied language by lanquage. Seven popular tunes can be pointed to in this cateaory; they are tunes to Ps.50 (Ge.=1; F.69, 10/10/10/l0/11/11), 81 (Ge.=33; F 100, 9898665665), 100 (Ge.=134; F.114, LM), 113 (Gr .=68; Ge.36; F.125, 8888/ 8888/ 8888), 124 (Ge.=124. F. 139, 10/10/10/10/10), 127 (Ge.=127; F.146, 888888) ,and 134 (=ST MICHAEL, Ge.=101; F.153,SM). The tunes to Ps.124, 134, 100, the OLD 124TH, ST. MICHAEL, and OLD 100TH, are the most popular tunes of all hymn tunes in this category. In addition to the almost all modern English hymnals, two Japanese hymnals include these tunes although almost all other Old Version tunes are rejected in these hymnals. Three out of 6 tunes Playford mentioned are in this category; they are tunes to Ps, 50, 100, and 113. Only a few older hymnals contained the tune to Ps. 50 and some modern American hymnals include the tune to Ps.113.
I conclude here that among the tunes related to the Old Version, the tune to Ps.100, the OLD 100TH has been the most popular one since its first appearance in Geneva.
8. For a full description of the contents, see Leaver (1987), 66-69.
9. Zim, 113. Bruce, F. F. Histor of the En lish Bible. 3rd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
10. Leaver (1991, 325)says 1547; Temperley (1979, 24) and Zim (1984, 224) 1549; Illing (1983, vol.1, 36) 1548 plus or minus 2.
13. "There is reason to believe that, at that time, the metre was one among a number of possibilities, and that it was not really "common" until the popularity of Sternhold's psalms made it so; indeed, in the 1550s it was called "Sternhold's Metre. " The success of Sternhold's metrical psalms explains why in English hymnody there has been a preponderance of CM tunes. " Leaver ( 1991) , 325.
17. Excluding the Scottish editions of the Old Version.
18. 0nly Ps.67 has three different versions.
21. Excluding contributors only to the Scottish editions and Canticles .
31. Frost (1953) used 16 editions from 1566 to 1677; Illing (1983) 10 editions from 1556 to 1564. However, there are more editions. See A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland, 1475-1640 (1976-1991), in which are reported about 152 editions from 1547 to 1600 only in England. Vol.2, 103-107.
36. The title page says "The Psalter of David newely translated into Englysh metre in such sort that in maye the more decently, and wyth more delyte of the mynde, be reade and songe of al men. Wherunto is added a note of four partes, wyth other thynges,as shall appeare in the Epistle for the Reader . Translated and Imprinted by Robert Crowley." Zim, 223.
38. See the "Chart of Editions" of the Old Version in A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in En land, Scotland, & Ireland, 1475-1640, vol 2 (1986), 99-103.
42. LES PSAUMES EN VERS FRANSSAIS avec leurs melodies. Facsimile de l'edition genevoise de Michel Blanchier, 1562. (1986), 447.
44. Frost (1953).