Samantha Arten Dissertation
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The Whole Booke of Psalmes, Protestant Ideology, and Musical Literacy in Elizabethan England by Samantha Arten Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Thomas Brothers, Supervisor ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht ___________________________ Robert Parkins ___________________________ Jeremy Begbie ___________________________ Kerry McCarthy Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 i v ABSTRACT The Whole Booke of Psalmes, Protestant Ideology, and Musical Literacy in Elizabethan England by Samantha Arten Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Thomas Brothers, Supervisor ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht ___________________________ Robert Parkins ___________________________ Jeremy Begbie ___________________________ Kerry McCarthy An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 Copyright by Samantha Arten 2018 Abstract The Whole Booke of Psalmes, first published in 1562, was not only the English Reformation’s primary hymnal, but also by far the most popular printed music book published in England in the sixteenth century. This dissertation argues that in addition to its identities as scriptural text and monophonic musical score, the WBP functioned as a music instructional book, intended by its publishers to improve popular music education in Elizabethan England. Motivated by Protestant ideology, the WBP promoted musical literacy for the common people. This dissertation further demonstrates that the WBP made a hitherto unrecognized contribution to music theory in early modern England, introducing the fixed-scale solmization system thought to originate at the end of the sixteenth century. Drawing upon musicology, book history, and the study of Reformation theology, this dissertation makes a contribution to post-revisionist English Reformation scholarship, arguing that the WBP and its music-educational materials formed part of the process of widespread conversion from Roman Catholicism to English Protestantism. John Day’s highly successful claim to monarchical authorization and religious authority for the WBP made the book the most prominent guide to a Protestant musical aesthetic for the common people. According to the WBP, the English Protestant musical iv identity was characterized by several features: communal singing of easy monophonic melodies, particularly by the laity rather than clergy and musical professionals; a broad selection of appropriate texts that encompassed Scripture (particularly the psalms), liturgical canticles, and catechetical texts; regular singing both devotionally as a household and as a congregation in church settings; and performance with instrumental accompaniment. Musical literacy was an imperative: if being a Protestant meant becoming an active part of musical worship, then it was crucial to teach all the laity to sing well, enabling them to fully inhabit that identity. For this reason, many of the 143 known editions published from 1562 to 1603 contained one of two features intended to teach basic musical literacy: a letter to the reader which served as an introductory music theory treatise, and a special font that assigned solmization syllables to individual pitches for ease of sight-reading, which was accompanied by its own single-page explanatory preface. These prefaces made the WBP unique among the music-theoretical works produced in sixteenth-century England, the prefaces being neither the sort of introductory essays found in instrumental instruction books nor freestanding music theory textbooks. Their content was simple and accessible, with the goal of educating their common readers in the musical skills necessary for the singing of psalms (but not improvisation or composition, critical topics in other sixteenth-century English music theory treatises), and both prefaces employed religious language that gave sacred meaning to music education. The WBP’s simplified v solmization system made an important advance in the history of music theory, one that has up until now been thought to originate thirty years later with music theorists Thomas Morley and William Bathe. Yet as we know from early Jacobean documents and practices, the average early seventeenth-century churchgoer remained unable to read music and was therefore unable to utilize the WBP as a musical score. I contend that the failure of the WBP’s didactic content was due to music printing errors that significantly hindered the psalter’s capacity to improve musical literacy. Despite John Day’s introduction of the music preface and printed solmization syllables and the general policy of his successors to maintain Day’s general structure, content, and Protestant message, the usefulness of the WBP in promoting musical literacy and Protestant musical devotion was severely hampered by seemingly musically-illiterate compositors and a lack of editorial oversight. vi Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. xi List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xii Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................... xv Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 This Project in Post-Revisionist English Reformation Scholarship ................................. 7 This Project in Musicological Scholarship ........................................................................ 11 Chapter Overview ................................................................................................................ 14 Chapter 1. “Faithfully perused and alowed”: Claims of Authority and Authorization for The Whole Booke of Psalmes .......................................................................................................... 19 Positioning The Whole Booke of Psalmes as an Authoritative Protestant Text ................ 19 Protestant Authority ............................................................................................................ 28 Monarchical Authorization ................................................................................................. 35 Evidence of Church Use ...................................................................................................... 37 Evidence from Patents ......................................................................................................... 50 Legitimizing Congregational Song .................................................................................... 51 Chapter 2. For “all sortes of people” “in one accorde”: Constructing an English Protestant Ideology of Music .................................................................................................... 53 Versification as Interpretation ............................................................................................ 53 “For it is good vnto our God to synge”: Music and the Psalms .................................... 57 “All sortes of people”: The Songs of a Christian Community ....................................... 66 vii “In psalmes, Hymnes & spirituall songs”: Genre in The Whole Booke of Psalmes ......... 82 “Now in thy congregations” and “priuately for their solace & comfort”: When and Where to Sing ........................................................................................................................ 88 “Prayse ye the Lorde with harp and songe”: Aesthetics and Instrumentation ........... 93 The Whole Booke of Psalmes’ English Protestant Musical Identity ................................. 100 Chapter 3. ‘Without any other help sauing this book’: Musical Literacy, General Literacy, and Music Instructional Texts ................................................................................................. 104 General Literacy Rates in Elizabethan England ............................................................. 112 Methods of Obtaining Musical Literacy .......................................................................... 116 Elizabethan Music Instructional Texts ............................................................................ 125 Learning From Printed Texts Without Knowing How to Read ................................... 132 Chapter 4. ‘For the helpe of those that are desirous to learne to sing’: The Whole Booke of Psalmes’ Music-Educational Prefaces ..................................................................................... 138 Frequency of the Prefatory Material ................................................................................ 141 Group 1: Music Preface and Athanasius Preface (11 editions, 8.27%) ................. 146 Group 2: Athanasius Preface (35 editions, 26.32%) ................................................. 147 Group 3: Solmization (44 editions, 33.08%)