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Introduction
African American Spirituals are considered the first distinctive music genre of African people in the American diaspora. These unique folk songs, born out of the substance and experience of an oppressive sociological environment combined with the natural musical gifts of African peoples in the American diaspora, subsequently became the foundation of ALL African American music forms. Their continued existence and usage around the world attests to the spiritual depth of their roots...
[This article considers congregational song in the Church of England (later, The Anglican Church of Canada) in that part of British North America which became known as Canada. It does not deal with hymnody in Newfoundland, a separate British colony until 1949, when it became a Canadian province.]
Systematic British settlement in Canada began in 1763, after France ceded sovereignty to Britain. During the 18th century, the singing repertoire and practices of the Church of England in Canada...
Liturgical use in early Anglo-Saxon England
No complete hymnal survives from Anglo-Saxon England before the late 10th century. A list given by Thomas of Elmham (early 15th cent.) of the contents of a hymnal purportedly sent to St Augustine of Canterbury by Gregory the Great* seems to suggest a document of considerable antiquity (i.e. possibly authentically Gregorian or at least pre-900 AD) but we cannot be sure of its provenance. We are on firmer ground, however, with two 8th-century...
Asian and Asian American hymns, USA
This essay updates a portion of Carlton R. Young*'s earlier study (1998) on the inclusion of ethnic congregational song in hymnals published 1942-95 by the Protestant Episcopal Church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church, The Christian Reformed Church, The United Methodist Church, The Presbyterian Church (USA), The Southern Baptist Church, The United Church of Christ, and the Disciples of Christ. His detailed work noted a distinct increase of ethnic minority...
The term 'Augustinian canon regular' is used to refer to the clergy of a wide range of religious establishments in the Middle Ages. From the late 11th century onwards the Rule of St Augustine of Hippo* was adopted widely by congregations of clergy who wished to live communally in the manner of the Apostles. Houses of canons subscribing to St Augustine's Rule were founded across the whole of Europe, covering the continent from Poland to Spain and from Scandinavia to Italy (Dickinson, 1950, p....
Baptists in England were divided into two main groupings until the end of the 19th century: the General Baptists, who were Arminian in theology, and the Particular Baptists, who were Calvinist. These groupings reflected different historical origins, and different theologies and practices, including attitudes to congregational singing. Most churches of both groups formed the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland (now the Baptist Union of Great Britain — BUGB) in the 19th century, though a...
Baptist hymnody, USA
17th and 18th Centuries
Baptist beginnings in the American colonies occurred with the establishment of churches at Providence (1639) and Newport (1644), Rhode Island. By the end of the 17th century there were 24 churches, all but one of them located in New England or the middle colonies.
These early congregations were principally formed by British immigrants and their song practices generally reflected those of Baptists in the Mother Country (see Baptist hymnody, British*)....
Bohemian Brethren hymnody
The early history of the Bohemian brethren is closely connected with the Moravian Church (see 'Moravian hymnody'*). In both Bohemia and Moravia, the memory of Jan Hus* and his martyrdom at the Council of Constance in 1415 were influential in the creation of small independent churches in the region, dedicated to the reform of abuses and the preaching of the gospel in the vernacular. The first leaders were Peter Chelčický, who gathered his followers into a congregation...
The Brethren Church is a denomination in the heritage of the Brethren movement that had its origins in Schwarzenau, Germany in 1708. This movement is not to be confused with the Plymouth Brethren or the Czech Brethren (Moravians). The Brethren movement developed from the Pietist and especially the Radical Pietist reform efforts in Germany, but also was heavily influenced by the Anabaptist movement. Most of the Brethren emigrated to North America by the 1730s. The Brethren Church formally...
The early Brethren emphasized the unity of believers: 'one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren' (Matthew: 23:8). While not all Brethren have practised this truth, it remains a basic principle. They began in about 1825 in Dublin, whence they spread to Plymouth, and established the first assembly. When members went out preaching, people called them 'brethren from Plymouth'. Brethren believe in the two views of the church that they find in scripture, namely the universal church -...
See also 'Byzantine rite'*, 'Greek hymnody'*, 'Rite of Constantinople'*, 'Rite of Jerusalem'*, 'Greek hymns, archaeology'*.
This is a highly sophisticated and powerful literary tradition of religious poetry intended for the liturgical services of the Eastern Orthodox Church and for private, devotional purposes. Profoundly doctrinal, Byzantine hymnody mirrored the major developments in Christology and Trinitarian theology throughout the first millennium of Christianity. At the same time, it was...
Contrary to popular belief, Calvin was not against trained singers leading worship song. While excluding organs and performing choirs, Calvin did allow a designated leader to teach children to sing the unaccompanied, unison, vernacular psalms in metrical paraphrase. The children, who were probably placed at the ends of the benches, supported congregational song. Loys Bourgeois* was Calvin's director of congregational singing, and director ('maître des enfants') of the Geneva community...
The Carmelites began as a group of hermits in the area of Mount Carmel known as the wadi 'ain es-siah at the end of the 12th or the beginning of the 13th century. Singing hymns necessarily played a minimal role in the liturgical life of the original Carmelites, since as hermits they did not chant the Divine Office together. The rule or way of life they received from Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem 1206-1214, made it clear that they were to come together to celebrate Mass daily but that each...
The Catholic Apostolic Church, founded in 1835, is generally associated with the charismatic Scottish preacher (and friend of Thomas Carlyle*), Edward Irving (1792-1834); members of the denomination were often referred to as 'Irvingites'. Irving did lay some of the theological foundations of the Church, but he died in the very early years of the movement and before its foundation as a church, leaving John Bate Cardale (1802-77) and Henry Drummond (1786-1860), a well-to-do banker and Member of...
Christian charismatic communities and churches are extremely diverse in their theology and ecclesiology. This analysis will be mainly focused on material emanating from John Wimber*'s Vineyard Churches, the 'Toronto Blessing' movement, and the like. They have been chosen because of their pre-eminent status in contemporary Charismatic Renewal: their songs have affected styles and concepts in worship that have touched virtually every denomination in every corner of the globe. Wimber, indeed,...
Chorister's Prayer, The
The Chorister's Prayer is prayed regularly by those who sing in choirs associated with the Royal School of Church Music*, and other choral groups in the UK and North America.
Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants,who minister in Thy temple. Grant that what we sing with our lipswe may believe in our hearts,and what we believe in our hearts,we may show forth in our lives.Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Although no original source for this prayer is acknowledged, the...
Origins and chief tenets of the Christian Science Church
The Christian Science Church or, as it is more formally called, the First Church of Christ (Scientist) was officially incorporated in Boston, Massachusetts in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddy* (1821-1910). Eddy's seminal publication, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, appeared in Boston in 1875 followed by the first official denominational hymnal (Boston, 1892). Reading the Bible alongside Science and Health is fundamental to the...
Church of the Brethren hymnody
The roots of the Church of the Brethren lie with a small group of believers in Schwarzenau, Germany, who under the strong influences of Pietism sought to model their lives on the patterns of the church found in the New Testament and who were rebaptized in December, 1708. Under the leadership of Alexander Mack, Sr. (1679-1735), they rejected infant baptism, practiced footwashing as a church ordinance, claimed the Bible as sole authority in discerning matters of...
Churches of Christ in Great Britain and Ireland came into existence from the mid-1830s as congregations were formed, usually breaking away from Scotch Baptist churches. They were influenced by the ideas of Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), son of an Anti-Burgher Seceder Presbyterian minister in Ireland, Thomas, who emigrated to the USA in 1807. The Campbells became two of the four main leaders of the movement in the USA, from which three distinct 20th-century groups derive: Churches of Christ,...
The Churches of Christ in the United States trace their beginnings to 1906 when they became generally recognized as a distinct Christian group of congregations. These congregations were previously associated with the Restoration Movement, also known as the Stone-Campbell Movement (Foster, p. 1779; see Disciples of Christ hymnody*). Because there are no national administrative offices, boards, publishing houses, or conferences, it is difficult to refer to them as a 'denomination'. Indeed, there...
The Cistercian movement, originating at the beginning of the 12th century, was founded on the desire to return to the rule of St Benedict (see Rule of Benedict*), which gave instructions for the chanting of Ambrosian hymns during the Offices of Nocturn, Lauds and Vespers. Cistercian brothers went to Milan to seek out St Ambrose*'s compositions, returning with a list of hymns. However, because of additions made during the intervening centuries, the Cistercians adopted a mixture of more recent...
Historical background
Community of Christ is an international Christian denomination with approximately 250,000 members in more than 50 countries. Until 2001, the denomination, which has its headquarters in Independence, Missouri, was known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly abbreviated as 'RLDS'). The church shares a common beginning with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ('LDS'), founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844). After the...
Congregational Christian Church and United Church of Christ hymnody, USA
The United Church of Christ (UCC) was formed by a 1957 merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Church, and has a present membership of 1.1 million with 5100 churches in the United States. The diversity of theology among local congregations is great, from liberal to conservative and all points in between, with individual congregations enjoying 'local church autonomy'—a remnant of the...
Congregational Church hymnody in Britain
The term 'Congregational hymnody' is significant for all churches and liturgical traditions where the congregation takes an active and full part in the singing of hymns (contrasted with those places or occasions where the hymns are the province of a specialised choir or the practice of a religious community). This article, however, is limited to an account of hymnody in churches of the Congregational order in England and Wales, during a period beginning...
The word 'Copt' comes from the Greek word 'Aigyptios' ('Egyptian') and was disfigured by the Arabs to 'Copt'. The Greek word is the name of the sanctuary near Memphis 'Het-Ka-Ptah' ('The dwelling of the 'Ghost'(ka) of Ptah'). Hence this word is used to designate the Egyptian people. The Egyptians used the Egyptian Language (Hieroglyphic and later Coptic) until the conquest of Alexander the Great, when Greek was used. After the Arab conquest, Arabic was imposed.
According to the Gospel of...
The Cymanfa Ganu is a distinctive contribution of Wales to hymn singing. As experienced in the 21st century in Wales and in Welsh communities around the world it is a festival of hymns, largely familiar to those within the culture, sung with great fervour under the direction of a conductor, who also leads the occasion with remarks on the hymns and on the manner in which they are to be sung. It is felt to be a success if a strong emotional response to the hymns is generated. Those present look...
The Devotio Moderna (Modern Devotion or New Devotion) was a movement of religious revival that started in what is now the Netherlands in the late 14th century. Its main characteristics were an inward-looking piety, asceticism and the fostering of the virtuous life. Its instigator was Geert Grote (1340-1384). After having started an ecclesiastical career, a period of severe illness led to a process of inner conversion (1372). After several years of retreat he re-entered public life in 1379,...
One way to describe the Disciples is as a 19th-century religious experiment planted on North American soil from Scots-Irish and United States Presbyterian roots sprinkled with Baptist and Congregationalist waters. Three of the four acknowledged founders of this religious experiment were first generation immigrants to the United States. Only Barton Warren Stone (1772-1844) was born on US soil, near Port Tobacco, Maryland. Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) and his son Alexander (1788-1866) arrived in...
Dohnavur Hymns were those written in various books by the missionary Amy Carmichael* (1867-1951), who founded the Dohnavur Fellowship in India in 1901.
In keeping with her ideas about the importance of assimilating the local culture for missionary work, Carmichael wrote hymns for the children of the mission to suit their particular circumstances. In order to be accessible, she frequently used ideas and images from nature; one hymn, 'Sunset', paints a picture of a sunset deepening into the dark...
The Dominican order was founded by Domingo de Guzman (St. Dominic, ca. 1170-1221), a Spanish priest who emphasised humility and preaching the Gospel in his attempts to persuade Cathar heretics to return to the Roman Catholic church. He gained papal approval in 1216 to found a new order, the Ordo Praedicatorum, based on the rule of St Augustine* and emphasising the importance of preaching and confession. Medieval Dominicans were mendicant preachers and missionaries, often studying theology at...
Of all the German sectarian groups in colonial Pennsylvania, perhaps one of the most widely known was the Ephrata Cloister. It was founded in 1732 by George Conrad Beissel (b. Eberbach, Germany, 1691, died Ephrata, 1768). The full blossoming of the Cloister occurred in the 1740s and 1750s, when its population consisted of about 80 celibates and some 200 householders. It was waning as Beissel died in 1768, and it ceased to exist in 1814.
Beissel's skills and talents were manifold, but he is best...
Episcopal Church Hymnody, USA
The Introduction is by Raymond F. Glover. The historical survey is by Robin Knowles Wallace.
Introduction
Among the vast number of persons who came as settlers beginning in 1607 to what is now known as the United States of America were many who brought with them a pattern of worship consistent with the liturgies of the Book of Common Prayer, the singing of metrical Psalms from the 'Old Version'* of Thomas Sternhold* and John Hopkins*, perhaps a few hymns of human...
Lauluraamat Piiskoplikule Metodistikirikule Eestis (Tallinn, 1926; The Estonian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal). The Estonian Methodist Episcopal hymnal (cited as ESMEH 1926), like its Lithuanian and Latvian counterparts (see 'Lithuanian Methodist hymnody'* and 'Latvian Methodist hymnody'*), was strongly dependent on the Gesangbuch der Bischöflichen Methodisten Kirche in Deutschland und der Schweiz ('Hymnbook of the German and Swiss Methodist Episcopal Church', Bremen, 1896, cited as GBMK 1896). It...
German Reformed
Immigration and Organization
German Reformed immigrants came to America largely from the Palatinate in south-west Germany on the Rhine River. There, in 1562 at Heidelberg University, Caspar Olevianus (1536-1587) and Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583) prepared the Heidelberg Catechism and the Palatinate Liturgy. This area received the Reformation about the time of Luther's death (1546), became a seedbed of religious rivalry, and especially after the beginning of the Thirty Years' War...
The Evangelical Covenant Church today consists of about 850 congregations in North America and Canada. While non-creedal, it bases its beliefs firmly in scripture, and explains its applied doctrine by means of six affirmations that connect it to the larger evangelical Protestant community:
We affirm the centrality of the word of God.
We affirm the necessity of the new birth.
We affirm a commitment to the whole mission of the church.
We affirm the church as a fellowship of believers.
We...
First New England School. This label refers to the first group of native-born composers and tune compilers active in New England between about 1770 and 1810. William Billings*, who was deemed the unofficial leader of the school, published his ground-breaking tune collection The New-England Psalm-Singer (Boston, 1770). In addition to being the first collection of tunes composed by a single American composer, this book considerably influenced American compositional activity in the decades to...
The original Jubilee Singers was a choral group of students sponsored by Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee (founded 1866), and sponsored by the American Missionary Association (see Anderson 2010). From Oct. 1872 until June 1878 the singers toured the northern U.S. and England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany singing a repertory of hymns, parlor songs, and most significantly, spirituals. They were responsible for popularizing spirituals in mainstream white society and...
Franciscan Hymns and Hymnals
Since the foundation of their order in 1209 or 1210, the contribution of Franciscan writers to western Christianity has been immense, particularly in the areas of theology, preaching, and hymn composition. Since their hymns address both the needs of liturgy and their vocation as preachers, Franciscan writing reflects the ambitions of learned society and the varied tastes of vernacular culture. Their major contributions include a reform in the 13th century of the...
French Protestant Psalms
16th Century
French and German Reformers, such as Jean Calvin* (1509-1564), Guillaume Farel (1489-1565), Martin Luther* (1483-1546) and Martin Bucer* (1491-1551) were very conscious of the impact of singing. They wished to introduce, very early on in the Reformation, a new liturgy and hymnody, mainly for worship. Their task was to supply the new reformed Church with its specific liturgy and hymnody. The language was an essential problem to be solved, because everyone...
Global hymnody
'Global' is often used interchangeably with world, ethnic, international, or multicultural music. 'Third-World music' may be used occasionally, but is inaccurate and carries vestiges of colonialism. 'Global hymnody', however, also presents some difficulties. The first relates to perspective: What hymnody is global and what hymnody is not? Though Christian song has been transmitted across language groups and cultures since the apostolic era, the first wave of global song in recent...
The gospel song or gospel hymn is a genre of Christian worship-song that developed in revivals held in Great Britain and the USA, 1865-74. Its primary antecedents were camp meeting songs which joined personal witness and freedom of expression. and the widely popular Sunday school song. Start-up music publishers (see Publishing and publishers, USA*), exploited the product of pittance-paid, albeit talented songwriters and composers, and banded with organizers, preachers and song leaders of white...
Great Awakenings, USA
The Great Awakenings is the name given to periods of religious revival that occurred in colonial British North America and the United States in the early to mid-18th century, in the early national period to the middle of the 19th century, and in the Reconstruction era to about 1910. These awakenings profoundly changed the course of American religious history, and to a lesser degree that of other countries. By the middle of the 19th century, the dominant character of...
Although the concept of 'hymnody' has been applied to Hebrew sacred poetry in modern times, the specifics of this phenomenon in Jewish culture differ in many aspects from the sacred poetry of other monotheistic religions. Hebrew sacred hymns are generically known as piyyutim (liturgical or religious poems; sing. piyyut, from the Greek poesis). These are lyrical compositions intended to embellish obligatory prayers and paraliturgical or religious events, communal or private, in Jewish life. In...
Holiness hymnody refers to a body of song associated with the Holiness Movement that grew out of American Methodism in the late 1830s, associated with Phoebe Worrall Palmer and Walter C. Palmer (nda), Sarah Lankford (1806-96 ), Thomas Upham (1799-1872), William Boardman (1810-86), Hannah Tatum Whitehall Smith (1832-1911) and her husband, Robert Pearsall Smith (1827-98). Their collective teachings emphasized a second work of grace by the Holy Spirit in the believer's life to cleanse from sin and...
Texts
From the early times of the reformed movement onwards (les Luthériens), many poets expressed their perception of the new religious feelings through the writing of cantiques, odes, sonnets, hymnes and other poems 'pleins de piété': among them were Antoine de Baïf (1532-1589) who composed a Psautier (1587); Eustorg de Beaulieu (1495-1552), pastor in Thierrens (Swiss Jura) and author of La Chrétienne Réjouissance (1546) as well as many chansons; Pey de Garros (1530-1585) with his...
This essay examines Jewish hymnals, primarily English language ones, published in the United States and represents to a large extent the Reform tradition and only to a lesser extend the Conservative branch of Judaism. Traditional Jewish hymnody is covered in two articles: Hebrew hymnody* (piyyut) and Jewish Sabbath hymns*.
19th century
Although Jewish communities existed in the United States as early as 1654, the early settlers were primarily Portuguese (Sephardic) and hymnody beyond the...
History
The territory of present-day Latvia, a country of approximately 25,400 square miles, situated on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, has been inhabited since 9,000 BCE and by Baltic tribes since 2,000 BCE. These tribes settled various regions that have come to be known by their tribal names – Kurzeme (Courland), Zemgale (Semigallia), Latgale (Letgallia) and Vidzeme (Livland). These regions differed linguistically, with all but the Livs, who were Finno-Ugric speakers like their...
Dseesmu Grahmata Biskapu Metodistu baznizai Latwija (Rigâ, 1924) [The Latvian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal].
The Latvian Methodist Episcopal hymnal (cited as LAMEH 1924) has some similarities with that of the Lithuanian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal (cited as LIMEH 1923, see 'Lithuanian Methodist hymnody'*). Both hymnals included a preface by George Albert Simons*, the Methodist Episcopal Superintendent of the Baltic States; both were heavily dependent on the Gesangbuch der Bischöflichen Methodisten...
Lietuviška Giesmių Knyga (Kaunas, 1923) [The Lithuanian Methodist Episcopal Hymnal]. This hymnbook (cited as LIMEH 1923) was published in 1923 with Lithuanian Methodist Episcopal pastors Karlas Metas and Jonas Tautoraitis as editors. Like the other Methodist hymnbooks of the Baltic states (see 'Estonian Methodist hymnody'*and 'Latvian Methodist hymnody'*) it was heavily dependent on the Gesangbuch der Bischöflichen Methodisten Kirche in Deutschland und der Schweiz ('Hymnbook of the German...
The London Hospitals and their hymns
The mid-18th century saw a remarkable burst of new London hospitals (in the wider sense of charitable homes), some of which played an important part in the development of hymnody.
The reasons for the rapid rise of philanthropy are various. Greater sexual promiscuity resulting from early industrialization, urbanization, and the decline of the Puritan ethic had led to soaring numbers of births outside marriage, and to increases in prostitution and venereal...
Immigration and Organization
Danish Lutherans came to Hudson Bay in 1619 with Rasmus Jensen (d. 1620) and probably Den danske Psalmebog (Copenhagen, 1569) of Hans Thomissøn (1532-73) (see Danish hymnody*). Within a year they died or returned home. Lutherans from the Netherlands came to New York City in 1623. In 1657 when Johannes Gutwasser (fl. 1650s) led services, he was arrested by the Reformed authorities and in 1659 sent home. Swedish Lutherans came in 1638 to the Delaware River with...
History
The Maronite Church is an Eastern Antiochene Church whose liturgy uses mainly the Syriac language. It owes its name to a 4th-century saint called Maron, who lived in the north of Syria. After his death in about 410, his tomb became an important place of pilgrimage, and his followers built there the famous Monastery of Saint Maron. It was in this monastery that the Maronite Church was born. Following the Council of Ephesus in 431, condemning the Nestorian heresy, and that of Chalcedon...
Medieval Hymns and Hymnals.
This entry is by various authors. See below.
Hymns have been a part of Christian worship since the earliest times, but the use of Latin in worship appears to postdate the acceptance by Emperor Constantine of Christianity as the official Roman faith in 313. On the patristic Latin hymn repertory, see Latin hymns*.
Medieval hymns vary in their poetic structure, some being metrical, some accentual, and others are organized according to syllable count together with final...
British Methodist Hymnody
During the time of John Wesley
John Wesley* and Charles Wesley* sang hymns in the Holy Club which Charles had founded at Oxford in 1729, of which John became the acknowledged leader on his return there later in the same year. They would have used traditional English psalm tunes (see Leaver, 1996, p. 31). However, their interest in the potential of hymns as important aids to worship and spirituality developed strongly on the ship that took them to America in 1735-36....
Methodist Hymnody, USA
Hymns were used within the Methodist movement for teaching of doctrine, for evangelism (of the unsaved and to revive those who faith was lagging), for praise and confession. Important doctrines for the Wesleyan movement are Arminianism, the understanding that Christ died for everyone, not just the elect; the Christian journey as the way of salvation, on a continuum of God's prevenient grace (which comes before one is awakened to God's call), justifying and...
Milanese hymns. The hymns of Ambrose of Milan* were sung in the Milanese Church from the end of the 4th century onwards, and were quickly diffused in the West (cf. AVG. conf. 9,7,15 ; PAVL. MED. vita Ambr. 13), but nothing leads one to suppose that a Liber hymnorum was compiled during Ambrose's lifetime. The oldest preserved witnesses of the Milanese, or 'Ambrosian', hymnal are no older than the last third of the 9th century. These are the psalter-hymnals Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl., Clm....
Missions and mission hymnody, Britain and Ireland
The idea of 'Mission' is as old as the church itself. One of the last commands of our Lord was to the disciples: 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature' (Mark 16: 15), and the events of the first Pentecost (Acts 2) were those of inspiration followed by preaching and healing. Since that time, it has always been a priority of the church to spread the gospel to places where it has not been heard. St Patrick became the...
The Moravian Church is an international Protestant Church tracing its roots to the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus* (1369-1415) who championed congregational singing at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. Following his martyrdom by the Council of Constance in 1415, groups of his followers arose in Bohemia to continue his reforming ideas. One such group formed the jednota bratrská in 1457, establishing their own ministry ten years later. Known officially as the Unitas Fratrum or Unity of the Brethren,...
This is the name given to the liturgy used by Christians in the Iberian peninsula living under the rule of the moors before the reconquest of Spain. Because it was in use before the coming of the Arabs, the designation 'Mozarabic' tends to be avoided by modern scholars; 'Old Hispanic' is usually preferred. This liturgical rite was superseded, not without resistance, when the Roman liturgy was imposed on Spain by order of the Council of Burgos in 1080. It remained in use in some Toledan parish...
The origins of the Muggletonians are to be found in the ferment of religious and political ideas that followed the breakdown of established authority at the start of the English Civil War. The two London tailors who founded the sect, John Reeve (1608-1658) and his cousin Lodowick Muggleton (1609-1698), were both from a Puritan background and were for a time attracted to the Ranters, whom they subsequently denounced. It was Reeve who, on 3, 4 and 5 February 1651 received a series of visions,...
Social Hymns
Robert Owen, the great philanthropist, took over the mills at New Lanark in 1800, and turned them into an institution that combined profitability and humane working practices. Published in what is often referred to as the 'sectarian' phase of the Owenite socialist movement, Social Hymns for the Use of Friends of the Rational System Society is a collection of ideological songs for The Association of All Classes of All Nations. The Association, which was established by Robert Owen in...
This is the name given to a movement within the Church of England which endeavoured to resist government interference in the church affairs and reaffirm the authority of the church as a holy and divinely authenticated institution. Its origins were political as well as religious (Nockles, 1994). The early adherents of the movement were concerned at the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832; at the appointment of bishops and Regius Professors of Theology by the government; at what they saw as a...
Postcolonial and Decolonial Perspectives on Hymnody
Introduction
The recent adoption of the language of 'postcolonial' and 'decolonization' in the fields of hymnology and church music is part of a growing trend to address issues in ecclesial settings with post- and decolonial theoretical and theological lenses. Other academic disciplines are also widely adopting these theoretical approaches. For the purposes of this essay, postcolonial theory refers to intellectual analysis of the dynamic...
Presbyterian hymnody and hymnals, USA
The Calvinist settlers who came from Scotland, and the Scots who came by way of Ireland (Scotch-Irish) in the 17th and early 18th centuries were firstly Puritans who leaned toward either the Presbyterian or the Congregational form of church organization. New England Puritans tended more toward the Congregational model, those in Pennsylvania and New York toward the Presbyterian. Doctrinally, however, the differences were not sufficient to keep Presbyterian...
Presbyterian hymnody, Canadian
Canadian Presbyterian congregations for the most part have adopted hymnals sanctioned by their General Assemblies for congregational singing of hymns: Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church in Canada was issued in 1880 (full music edition in 1881), and The Book of Praise in 1897, 1918, 1972 and 1997.
Two seminal figures in the hymnody of the early Presbyterian Church in Canada were Daniel James Macdonnell (1843-1896), whose career within the church is extensively...
British Public School hymnody.
'What is a college without a chapel?' Bishop Christopher Wordsworth* asked a canon of Winchester Cathedral. 'An angel without wings' was the reply. This incident neatly expresses the central importance of daily worship in the life of a Victorian educational institution in Britain. Wordsworth was referring to a teacher training college, but his remark applied equally to a public school. It was these leading boys' schools that educated many of the professional men...
The fact that the meetings for worship of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain are held on the basis of silence does not mean that there were no hymns in Quaker worship in the past, nor that hymns are not sung by Quakers in other parts of the world. From the beginning of their movement in 17th-century England Quakers sang psalms, but their attitude to them differed from that of other Christian groups. Robert Barclay, the early Quaker theologian, wrote in An Apology for the...
A distinctive feature of the Reformation of the 16th century, as it developed in different ways across Europe, was the introduction of congregational hymnody into the newly-devised Protestant forms of worship. While this psalmody and hymnody in these new contexts was 'new' in the experience of the worshippers, the Reformers who introduced congregational singing knew that they were not creating something that had never been done before, but rather re-introducing an established practice of the...
Hymnody and Hymnals of the Reformed Church in America. The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is an offshoot of the Dutch Reformed Church, or Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk. It dates itself from the founding of a congregation in New Amsterdam (now New York City) by Jonas Michaelius (1577-1638) in April of 1628. Now with approximately 1,000 congregations in the United States and Canada, the RCA claims the oldest continuous Protestant ministry in North America, as well as the oldest theological...
Reichenau
The Benedictine monastery on the island of Reichenau in Lake Constance, close to the city of Constance, was founded according to tradition by St Pirmin in 724, the island being a gift from Charles Martel. The monastery quickly became a centre of learning, strongly supported by the Carolingians, and influential in ecclesiastical affairs at the imperial level. It gained its immunity from episcopal control in 815. From the 10th century only oblates of noble birth were admitted. After...
See 'Greek hymns, archaeology'*
Before the Second Vatican Council
English Catholic hymnody falls into two distinct phases: the era between the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 and the Second Vatican Council (1962-3) and the years between that time and the present day. In the first period Catholic hymnody had a distinctly different character from its Protestant counterparts, partly because of the history of the English Catholic community; but also because it served very different functions.
Between 1559 and the First...
Post-Colonial Era
Both the body of hymnody from and the publication of hymnals for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States at its founding and in the decades immediately following are quite small. The cause of this is two-fold: the inherited status of Roman Catholics under British governance and the role of the congregation at the Catholic Mass.
Until the Catholic Relief Act of 1778, Catholics in the colonies lived under the same rules of suppression as they did in England. Public...
[This entry is in two parts. The first, by Joseph Dyer, discusses Roman hymnody from its beginnings to the 15th century. The second, by Daniel Zager, details 16th-century developments.]
Early and Medieval hymnody
Rome proved very reluctant to introduce the singing of hymns in the Divine Office. They were accepted by the papal court and the major basilicas only towards the end of the 12th century. In this they probably differed from the urban monasteries that followed the Rule of Benedict*, but...
The Rule of Benedict (RB), composed in the first third of the 6th century by an abbot active in central Italy about whom little is known, provides a comprehensive guide to the organization and discipline of a monastery. It prescribes a firm yet flexible pattern of monastic deportment and defines the role of the abbot as the kindly but strict father of the monks under his care.
Chapters 8-20 concern the regulation of the monks' prayer in common, the 'opus dei,' over which nothing in the life of...
Salisbury hymns and hymnals
The Use of Salisbury or Sarum was the most influential and widespread secular liturgy in the British Isles in the later Middle Ages. (For a detailed overview of its history and influence see Sandon, 2001, pp. 159-60.) The origins and early development of the Use are obscure: the earliest surviving service book dates from the end of the 12th century. In the early 13th century the town of Old Sarum was moved to a new site two miles away, which became known as New Sarum...
The Sandemanian Church was formed in Scotland, ca. 1730, by John Glas (1695-1773), who was dismissed from his charge as minister of Tealing, near Dundee, and who formed an independent church of his followers, opposed to the authority of anything except Holy Scripture, and believing that the death of Jesus Christ was sufficient to present even the worst sinner spotless before God (this antinomian doctrine was the subject of James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,...
Most office services for St. James the Greater (Sant'Iago) use hymns from the Common of Apostles or Martyrs. However, the service at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, preserved in the 12-century Codex Calixtinus, used four proper hymns:
'Psallat chorus celestium' (f. 101v);
'Sanctissime O Iacobe' (f. 103r);
'Felix per omnes' (f. 104v); and
'Iocundetur et letetur' (f. 105v).
These hymns are spread across all the feasts of James celebrated at Compostela: the vigil (July 24), the...
Sarawak hymnody in the Chinese Methodist Church in Malaysia
Introduction
This article focuses on the development of hymns in a particular region of Malaysian hymnody*. The Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Malaysia (SCAC) began with the arrival of Foochow immigrants in Sibu on 16 March 1901. The immigrants, predominately Christians from the Methodist Episcopal Church, were led by the Chinese headman (港主), Wong Nai Siong (1849–1924), from Foochow, China. On Sunday,...
Medieval Secular Orders in England
The secular, or non-monastic, clergy of the medieval English church fulfilled a variety of roles, ranging from parish priests to the clergy of secular cathedrals and collegiate churches. Of England's nineteen cathedrals, in the later middle ages, ten were served by chapters of monks or regular canons and nine by chapters of secular canons. In addition to the dean and canons of the chapter, secular cathedrals also employed a college of ordained vicars choral to...
The shakers, or 'Shaking Quakers' (in worship they were 'taken with a mighty trembling' or 'a mighty shaking') were a dissident group of Quakers who emigrated from Manchester, England to the USA in 1774, led by Ann Lee (1736-1784), known as 'Mother Ann'. The full title of this body was 'The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing'; it was one of many millenarian sects that flourished at this time, but it was more interesting and successful, and more creative, than many of the...
Singers Glen, Virginia, is a hamlet in the Shenandoah Valley about eight miles north-northwest of Harrisonburg. It was originally named Mountain Valley by its German-speaking Mennonite settler, Joseph Funk*, who is buried in Singers Glen. It was renamed Singers Glen in 1860 when a post office was established there, and after Funk's music business had become successful.
Its significance is twofold: (1) it was the original base of the music-publishing business (known variously as Joseph Funk...
General
Southern Gospel is one of the multiple vernacular Christian music traditions that developed within American (and to some extent British) Protestant cultures during the 19th and 20th centuries, and part of the gospel music phenomenon that has flourished in Anglophone Christendom since the 1870s. It is also part of the Christian, but especially Protestant, practice of recreational musicking with vernacular songs and hymns.
'Southern Gospel' refers to a music tradition that dates arguably...
Gallus, an Irishman, companion of St Columbanus*, remained in Zürich because of illness when his master continued on his travels to Italy. His hermitage, established ca. 613, attracted disciples, and eventually in 720 St Othmar (ca. 689-759) founded a monastery. The Emperor Louis the Pious made it an independent royal abbey in 813. The period of its greatest cultural and intellectual achievement was the later 9th through to the first half of the 11th century. After a long period of mediocrity,...
Strengthen for Service. 100 Years of the English Hymnal, 1906-2006.
The English Hymnal was a landmark in Anglican worship. Looking back after 100 years provided an opportunity for a measured appraisal, both of its creation and of its effect on Church of England worship of the 20th century. Just as The First Fifty Years (1956) was a retrospective view of the book, with some remarkable reminiscences by Ralph Vaughan Williams*, the centenary was the justification for a more ambitious collection of...
Swedenborgian hymnody
Swedenborgians are the followers of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a distinguished Swedish mathematician and scientist, whose life was changed in 1745 by the 'opening of his spiritual sight', after which he taught a series of doctrines drawn from the Word of God coupled with his ability to see heaven and hell and converse with angels and spirits. He rejected the orthodox doctrine of the Atonement, preferring the idea that the end of creation is that human beings can...
Synod of Relief hymns
The 'presbytery of relief' was founded in 1761 by three Scottish ministers, Thomas Gillespie of Dunfermline, Thomas Boston of Jedburgh, and Thomas Collier of Conisburgh, Fife, formerly of Ravenstonedale, Northumberland. Gillespie, who had been educated at the University of Edinburgh and under Philip Doddridge* at Northampton, had been deposed as minister of Carnock, near Dunfermline by the General Assembly in 1752. He had opposed the imposition of ministers by patronage,...
Taizé is a tiny village in south-eastern France, not far from Cluny*, and is the name chosen by a community of brothers founded there just after World War II. A seminary graduate, Roger Schultz (1915-2005), resisted the career of pastoring a church in response to a strong inner call to live a monastic life (this was rather unusual for one coming from the Calvinist tradition).
In 1940, early in the Second World War, Brother Roger found a small house in this tiny village located a short distance...
The group of British churches which collectively came to be known as Unitarian have been characterized by significant and continuous developments in their theological positions, moving from an broadly Arian position at the beginning of the 18th century to a clear Unitarian Christian position by the end of the 19th. Since the beginning of the 20th century some ministers and congregations who have adopted a more Universalist (and not necessarily Theistic) theology have even begun to challenge...
The Methodist Church Canada, the Congregational Union of Canada and 70% of the Presbyterian Church in Canada united to form The United Church of Canada on 10 June 1925. The first hymnbook of the new church, The Hymnary, was published in Toronto in 1930 by The United Church Publishing House. In 1971 the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada issued a joint hymnal entitled The Hymn Book. It was the only product of a thirty-year dialogue towards church union. Voices United: the...
United Reformed Church Hymnody (British)
The United Reformed Church was formed in 1972 by the uniting of the Presbyterian Church of England (PCE) and the Congregational Church in England and Wales (formerly the Congregational Union of England and Wales); additional unification, with the Re-formed Association of Churches of Christ of Great Britain and Ireland and the Congregational Union of Scotland, took place in 1980 and 2000 respectively. The hymnody of the URC, in its early stages, was...
The Waldensians take their name from Peter Waldo (ca. 1140- late 12th century), a wealthy son of a merchant of Lyon, France, who followed the instructions of Jesus Christ to sell all he had and give to the poor. He translated the New Testament into Provençal: he and his followers led lives of poverty and simplicity. They regarded themselves as orthodox Catholics, and were represented at the Third Lateran Council (1179) under Pope Alexander III. Their independent teaching, including the...
York, hymns and hymnals. The Use of York was one of the major secular liturgies of the British Isles in the later Middle Ages. It was used at York Minster and in parish churches across northern England from at least the 13th century to the Reformation. The origins of York's hymn repertory are found in the New Hymnal, a 9th-century collection of hymns compiled in the Frankish Empire (see 'Medieval hymns and hymnals'*). Its first appearance in England was probably as a result of the 10th-century...