Page:The Methodist Hymn-Book Illustrated.djvu/37

Rh refers to a hymn sung by Bede in his last illness. No collection of mediaeval English hymns has yet been made. If some one would undertake this task, considerable light might be thrown on the devotions of the laity in olden times. But if we know little of English hymnody in these early days, Latin hymns were widely used in our island down to the time of the Reformation. The English Reformers unhappily refused them a place in the Book of Common Prayer, even though they formed an integral part of the offices on which that book was based. Luther, on the other hand, who had learned to love these hymns in the monastery, freely used them after he broke with Rome. Two renderings of 'Veni Creator' are the only traces of Latin hymnody in the Book of Common Prayer. But if such hymns were dying out, 'the fashion of Psalm-singing was mastering the people.' It quickly became an integral part of the national life. On the accession of Elizabeth, the enthusiasm aroused by the Psalter was almost as great as that with which Clement Marot's version had been greeted in France, or at the field-preaching in the Netherlands. Sometimes six thousand voices were thus raised in praise at St. Paul's Cross after the sermons of the bishops. Psalms were introduced at St. Antholin's, and quickly spread to other London churches. It is amusing to read that certain men and women from London disturbed the six-o clock matins in Exeter Cathedral by singing psalms. They were prohibited by the Dean and Chapter, but were supported by the Queen's Visitors, Jewel, and other influential men, who sharply reproved the authorities. The Dean and Chapter appealed to Archbishop Parker, but he bade them 'permit and suffer' congregations to 'sing or say the godly Prayers set forth and permitted in this Church of England.' This use of godly prayers as equivalent to psalms is interesting. In June, 1559, permission to sing hymns in public worship was granted by a royal injunction. 'For the comforting of such as delight in music, it may be permitted that in the beginning or end of Common Prayer, either at morning or evening, there may be sung an hymn or such-like song to the praise of Almighty God in the best melody and music that may be devised, having respect that the sentence of the hymn may be understood and perceived.'

Thomas Sternhold, the father of English metrical psalmody, died ten years before this injunction was issued. He was groom of the robes to Henry VIII, who bequeathed him a