Everything about The Bay Psalm Book totally explained
The
Bay Psalm Book was the first
book printed in British
North America.
The book is a
Psalter, first printed in
1640 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. The
Psalms in it are metrical translations into
English. The translations are not particularly polished or poetic, and none have remained in use, although some of the tunes to which they were sung have survived (for instance, "
Old 100th.") However its production, a mere 20 years after the
Pilgrim Fathers arrived at
Plymouth, Massachusetts, represents a considerable achievement. It went through several editions and remained in use for well over a century.
History
The early residents of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony brought with them several books of psalms: the
Ainsworth Psalter (
1612), compiled by
Henry Ainsworth for use by
Puritan "separatists" in Holland; the
Ravenscroft Psalter (
1621); and the
Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter (
1562, of which there were several editions). Evidently they were dissatisfied with the translations from Hebrew in these several psalters, and wished for some that were closer to the original. They hired "thirty pious and learned Ministers", including
Richard Mather and
John Eliot, to undertake a new translation, which they presented here. The tunes to be sung to the new translations were the familiar ones from their existing psalters.
The first edition of the Bay Psalm Book to include music was the ninth edition, of
1698, which included tunes from
John Playford's
A Breefe Introduction to the Skill of Musick (London, 1654).
Title page
The title page of the first edition of 1640 reads:
The Whole Booke of Psalmes
Faithfully
TRANSLATED into ENGLISH
Metre.
Whereunto is prefixed a discourse
declaring not only the lawfullnes, but also
the necessity of the heavenly Ordinance
of singing Scripture Psalmes in
the Churches of God.
Cambridge, Mass. Stephen Day
Imprinted, 1640
Extant copies
Eleven copies of the first edition of the Bay Psalm Book are known still to exist, one of them in the
Library of Congress.
The discovery of a twelfth complete copy was one of the plot points in
David Baldacci's 2006 thriller novel,
The Collectors
.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bay Psalm Book'.
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