No doubt: Everyone's favorite St. Thomas hymn

The first Sunday after Easter is often called “low Sunday,” or sometimes as “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” Since the first English prayer book in 1549, the gospel reading has been from John 20:19-23, where Jesus greets the 11 and establishes auricular confession. More recently, that’s been extended toby adding verses 24-31, with the entire story of “Doubting” Thomas, appointed for all three years of the RCL and ACNA lectionaries. That was what we heard this morning at our 1928 BCP parish.

As I wrote in 2012, there is one hymn suitable for this date: “O sons and daughters let us sing!” set to the tune O Filii et Filiae. Here are excerpts from the Hymnal 1940 Companion (p. 73-74):

[The Latin original] was written by Jean Tisserand, a Franciscan monk, who died at Paris in 1949. It is first found in a small booklet without title printed between 1518 and 1536, probably at Paris.…The translation by John Mason Neale has been frequently altered since it was first published in his Mediævel Hymns and Sequences, 1851. 

The tune, O filli et filiae, is probably the original contemporary melody since none other has been used with the text. The earliest known form is a four-part setting … [from] 1623.

This hymn is #99 in my favorite hymnal (H40), with nine verses. The author notes that H40 drops three of the verses from Neale’s original, but it appears that the 1986 New English Hymnal adds a 10th verse after a very different adaptation of the same nine Neale verses.

All verses can be sung on Easter, but verses 1,5,6,7,8 are normally sung on low Sunday. The same hymn is #142 in Book of Common Praise 2017 (aka Magnify the Lord), the first hymnal published for ACNA usage, mainly as an update for H40 for traditional-language parishes.

As I noted earlier, Hymnal 1982 split this hymn into two separate hymns with the same tune: #203 with five Easter verses and #206 with six Doubting Thomas verses.

This month, I have been researching the second of my two-part review of Sing Unto the Lord, a 2023 hymnal published as a replacement for H82 for more contemporary language ACNA parishes. SUL replicates the H82 pattern (as it does in many other areas), with #170 with five Easter verses and #169 with six Doubting Thomas verses.

Since Covid, I've been monitoring the online bulletins for six Episcopal and ACNA parishes. Three sang the translated Tisserand text today: two H82 parishes sang #206, and one H40 parish sang #99, as we did at our Continuing parish.

Sadly, the Savannah, Georgia ACNA parish that is the home of Sing Unto the Lord did read John 20:19-31, but did not schedule hymn #169 from its hymnal. Instead, it had two regular Easter hymns (part of the overflow from Easter Sunday that often happens throughout early Eastertide).

Still, I think the message is clear: for those who focus on the Doubting Thomas story for low Sunday, there is one clear choice of a hymn — Neale’s opening verse, his five verses about John 20:19-31, plus (in some cases) three other verses from Neale’s longer original hymn — all set to the earliest known (if not only) tune used for this text.

Caravaggio, Incredulità di San Tommaso

How John Mason Neale helps us celebrate Easter

This morning, for family reasons we ranged afar from our normal parish, worshipping at an Anglo-Catholic ACNA parish. (Yes, they exist outside of Texas). The parish doesn’t have (and, in my lifetime, rarely has had) a choir. The music was provided by the organist and congregational singing.

Of the four hymns from Hymnal 1940, two were translations byJohn Mason Neale. This made me wonder how many Easter hymns are by Neale.

When I got out of church, my library of American and English hymnals was miles away. So I started with Hymnal 1940, of which five of the 17 Easter hymns were Neale translations. Later on, I found that four were also in Hymnal 1982 and Book of Common Praise 2017:

• 93: “Thou hallowed chosen morn of praise”
• 94: “Come ye faithful, raise the strain” (H82: 200; BCP17: 138)
• 96: “The day of resurrection! Earth tell it all abroad” (H82: 210; BCP17: 123)
• 98: “That Easter day with joy was bright”  (H82: 193; BCP17: 134)
• 99: “O sons and daughters let us sing” (H82: 203; BCP17: 142)

From my forthcoming book chapter on Neale, I know that the first four are also among of the 28 Neal translations in Hymnal 1940 that are translations from the first millennium. For H82 and BCP17, it is 3/21 and 3/15 respectively.

The first three are 8th century texts attributed to St. John of Damascus, and are among 10 from his book Hymns of the Eastern Church that were republished in Hymnal 1940. The fourth does not list Neale in the hymnal, but in The Hymnal 1940 Hymnal Companion, the editor concedes that the 1940 version is “based on that of Neale’s Hymnal Noted”. (For those not familiar with Hymnal Noted, I posted a longer article on the influential Neale-led compilation back in 2018).

The fifth hymn is a translation of a 15th century text by Franciscan monk Jean Tisserand, a translation published in Neale’s compilation Medieval Hymns and Sequences. That was our closing hymn this morning, soon after we sang “The day of resurrection” for communion.

So more than 150 years after his death, Neale’s translations are still influencing everyday worship by American Anglicans.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas Carols

Today was both the 12th day of Christmas, and the last service of Christmastide. As with most Anglican churches, our music director had to schedule something from the Christmas section of the hymnal — after using many of the best known hymns on Dec. 24 (two services), Dec. 25 and Dec. 29 (1st Sunday after Christmas). As we prepare for 353 days without Christmas carols until the afternoon of December 24, three pieces of music this music stood out.

Sussex Carol

My daughter was thrilled that the offertory anthem was the David Willcocks arrangement of the Sussex Carol (”On Christmas night all Christians sing"). She is a huge King’s College fan, and after listening to the 100 Years of Nine Lessons and Carols for the past year, she has the melody, words and many of the descants memorized (particularly those of Willcocks and Philip Ledger). Although I have a number of recordings of this carol, the Willcocks is instantly recognizable on the third verse, the first of two verses with a descant: the boy sopranos are soaring over the top with choral colorings that accentuate the harmonies (but have little to do with the words).

Hymnary says this carol is found in 39 hymnals

• Lutheran (ELCA): Lutheran Worship (1978), Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2008)
• Presbyterian Church USA: Glory to God (2013)
• Southern Baptist Convention: the unofficial Celebrating Grace (2010), more progressive than the official Baptist Hymnal (2008)

As far as I can tell, these do not list descants in the main hymnal (but sometimes these have auxiliary descant books). However, the Willcocks arrangement with descant is in his Carols for Christmas.

Of the Father’s Love

Beyond the King’s favorite, my heart was gladdened that two of the three hymns were by John Mason Neale, the great Victorian hymn translator (and subject of my first music publication). The communion hymn was “Of the Father’s love begotten.” (H40: 20; H82: 82). This hymn was the subject of one of my first posts on this blog, back 11 years ago.

The text (at the end of the 4th century) by Prudentius. The Neale translation of “Of the Father sole begotten” first appeared in his 1851 Hymnal Noted. According to my 2018 paper in The Hymn, it was the 4th most popular hymn in 20th century US hymnals of the 105 texts and tunes in Hymnal Noted.

The Latin text (“Corde natus ex parentis”) was intended as a Christmastide evening hymn, and the tune (Divinum mysterium) was listed by Neale as a 13th century melody. The initial verse was later changed to “Of the Father’s love begotten” by H.W. Baker for  Hymns Ancient & Modern.

Hymnal Noted had 6 verses, but H40 only has 5 (H82 has only 4). The English Hymnal (#613) has 9 and the New English Hymnal (#33) has 7, but both use a later translation by R.F. Davis (“Of the father’s heart begotten”).

My favorite verse today — one I hadn’t noticed before — is V4 in H40:

Thee let old men, thee let young men,
Thee let boys in chorus sing;
Matrons virgins, little maidens,
With glad voices answering:
Let their guileless songs re-echo,
And the heart is music bring,
Evermore and evermore!

It has significant modifications from Neale’s V5

Thee let age, and Thee let manhood,
Thee let choirs of infants sing;
Thee the matrons and the virgins,
And the children answering:
Let their modest song re-echo,
And their heart its praises bring,
Evermore and evermore.

Even so, there are two reasons I like it. First, it suggests the true joy of singing to the gift of the Christ child from God the Father. Second, it alludes to an antiphonal or responsive style of singing — 1000+ years before Neale and the Victorian choirs — which is a wonderful image of continuity for such a timeless hymn.

We closed out this unison hymn with a descant written by our music director that (AFAIK) is only sung at our church.

Good Christian Men Rejoice

We closed with the familiar “Good Christian men, rejoice!”. It was first published in 1853 by Neale and Thomas Helmore in Carols for Christmastide.  As Neale’s preface explains, the texts (except for Good King Wenceslas and Toll! Toll!) are free translations from the 16th century Swedish Lutheran Piae Cantiones (available online in a 1910 reprint). In Neale’s book, “Good Christian Men” is listed as “perhaps 14th century.” Our hymnal (H40)— like the original text — includes only three verses: at a normal tempo, the carol seems like it’s over almost as soon as it’s begun.

The 1853 book included Helmore’s adaptation of medieval tunes for each carol — in this case, the instantly recognizable In Dulce Jubilo. The harmonization in Hymnal 1940 is credited to Hymnal 1916 (#549), from the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA (PECUSA).

Interestingly, the harmonization was done by Winfred Douglas. In 1916, the name might not have meant much, but twenty years later, he had edited and published Hymnal 1940. Unlike Hymnal 1916 and 1906's The English Hymnal, H40 contained a section with settings of mass and daily office chants for regular, congregation-sung chanting. The hymnal thus played a key role in 20th century American hymnody by introducing (or re-introducing) to the world many plainchant settings, adaptations and harmonizations.


Hymnary says this carol in 197 hymnals. This total includes the gender-neutered variant “Good Christian friends” that was introduced by the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship, and then copied by Hymnal 1982 and subsequent Methodist, Presbyterian and even Catholic hymnals — as well as Celebrating Grace.

Alas, the 1853 book held an influence far past its modern-day holdings: it’s not on the British, Oxford or Cambridge libraries, and WorldCat lists only one copy, in the Royal College of Music. No copies have been scanned by Archive.org or Google Books, but all the texts are included in the posthumous 1914 Collected Hymns, Sequences and Carols of John Mason Neale.

Thomas, John, Jean and John

I previously wrote about the quintessential “doubting Thomas” hymn, “O sons and daughters let us sing” (H40: 99; H82: 206). The English translation by John Mason Neale (of the Latin text “O Filli et Filiae”) was first published in his Medieval Hymns and Sequences (1851).

For the first Sunday after Easter, the doubting Thomas passage (John 20:19-31) is found in Years A,B and C of the Revised Common Lectionary as it was in the one year lectionary of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The 1549, 1559 and 1662 BCP only read John 20:19-23, which has the fearful disciples in a locked room and Jesus showing his hands, but not Thomas satisfying his doubts.

However, I said little about the author of the original Latin text, Jean Tisserand. Little is known about him, other than he was a Franciscan monk, founded a women’s order, and died in Paris in 1494. His text is his most enduring legacy.

Even more mysterious is the origin of the tune, appropriately dubbed O Filli et Filiae, of which the oldest extant source is a Paris publication from 1624. The Hymnal 1940 Companion (1951, p. 74) says

The tune, O fillii et filiae, is probably the original contemporary melody since none other has been used with the text.

Thirty years later, the Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship (p.236) concluded essentially the same thing

O FILLI ET FILIAE belongs to this text and probably is contemporary with it.

Thus, I think it’s safe to say this is one of the oldest pairings of text (translated into the vernacular) with its corresponding tune. (The likely prize-winner is the plainsong Lord’s prayer, which is believed to be from the patristic era.)

As I’ve argued before, a central part of our Christian heritage is not just the teachings and beliefs of the church, but also the liturgy and music used to catechize those beliefs. Let us hope that the Church keeps Friar Tisserand’s contribution for another 500 years.

The Day of Resurrection

Among the canon of Anglican hymns for the Feast of the Resurrection is, appropriately enough, “The Day of Resurrection,” a hymn translated from the Greek by John Mason Neale.

The text is attributed to eighth century Greek Theologian, St. John of Damascus. According to Hymnary, the hymn is published in more than 450 hymnals.

Hymns of the Eastern Church

While my previous research has emphasized Neale’s translations from Latin, Neale also translated Greek hymns. In 1862, he published his pathbreaking translations of more than fifty hymns from the Greek in his book Hymns of the Eastern Church. As John Julian summarized in his 1892 Dictionary of Hymnology (p. 788):

Dr. Neale conferred even greater boon upon the lovers of hymnology than by his translations from the Latin, when he published, in 1862, his Hymns of the Eastern Church. In his translations from the Latin be, did what, others had done before; but in his translations from the Greek he was opening entirely new ground. “It is,” he says in his preface to the first edition, “a most remarkable fact, and one which shows how very little interest bas been hitherto felt in the Eastern Church, that these are literally, I believe, the only English version of any part of the treasures of Oriental Hymnology.”

As early as 1838 he had printed a few of his versions in The Ecclesiastic, but it was not till the appearance of the complete volume that the interest of the general public was awakened in them. Then they became wonderfully popular. His translations “Christians, dost thou see them?”, “The day is past and over,” “’Tis the day of Resurrection,” and his Greek-inspired “Art thou weary,” and “O happy band of pilgrims,” are almost as great favourites as “Jerusalem the golden,” and the first in his Hymns of the Eastern Church, “Fierce was the wild billow,” deserves to be. Dr. Neale had a far more difficult task before him when he undertook these Greek hymns than he had with the Latin, and he appeals to the reader “not to forget the immense difficulty of an attempt so perfectly new as the present, when I have had no predecessors and therefore could have no master.”

Beyond “The Day of Resurrection,” and “Jerusalem the Golden,” perhaps the most popular in this collection is “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain,” a second Easter hymn by St. John of Damascus.

Hymnal 1940, #96, 1st tune

The Day of Resurrection

In Hymns of the Eastern Church, “The Day of Resurrection” is one of 12 by St. John of Damascus — nine for Easter and three for Doubting Thomas Sunday (now celebrated July 3).

As noted, translation from Greek is trickier than from Latin. However, Neale’s 1862 translation is almost completely unchanged:

’Tis the Day of Resurrection: Earth! tell it out abroad!
The Passover of gladness! The Passover of GOD!
From Death to Life Eternal,— From this world to the sky,
Our CHRIST hath brought us over, With hymns of victory.

Our hearts be pure from evil, That we may see aright
The LORD in rays eternal Of Resurrection-Light:
And, listening to His accents, May hear, so calm and plain,
His own—All Hail!—and hearing, May raise the victor strain!

Now let the Heav’ns be joyful! Let earth her song begin!
Let the round world keep triumph, And all that is therein:
Invisible and visible Their notes let all things blend,—
For CHRIST the LORD hath risen,— Our joy that hath no end.

It was picked up (naturally) in Hymns Ancient & Modern (2nd edition, 1877), which initiated the three changes we keep today:

• Drop the “’Tis” in the first phrase
• “From this world to the sky” became “From earth unto sky”
• “Invisible and visible their notes let all things blend” became “Let all things seen and unseen their notes together blend.”

These three same verses were used in The English Hymnal (1906) and — as far as I can tell — all subsequent publications in Anglican hymnals.

Anglo-German Tune: Ellacombe

Ellacombe (which Anglicans sing today) was not the first tune for “The Day of Resurrection.” In Hymns A&M (#132 in the 1877/1889 edition), the tune was Rotterdam (by Berthold Tours). Hymnary says it’s the third most popular hymn for the text over the last 150 years.

The most popular hymn (according to Hymnary) is Lancashire by Henry Smart. This seems to be the most popular tune for this texts in American Protestant hymnals: it is used (for example) by Methodist (United Methodist Hymnal, 1989), Southern Baptist (Celebrating Grace, 2010), Presbyterian (Glory to God, 2013) and Lutheran (The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941; Christian Worship, 1993; Lutheran Service Book, 2006) hymnals.

The second most popular tune is Ellacombe. According to Hymnary.org and The Cyberhymnal, the original tune for Ellacombe was published in a German Catholic hymnal in 1784, and then revised by various German hymnals in the 19th century.

The current version and harmonization was by William Henry Monk, music editor of Hymns Ancient & Modern, for the first (1868) supplement to Hymns A&M. The text is “Come, sing with holy gladness”. The name (for a village in Devon) also dates to Hymns A&M. The tune was also used later for “Hail to the Lord’s anointed.”

The English Hymnal was the first to pair Neale’s (modified) text with Ellacombe.

The English Hymnal (1906), #137

Among Anglicans in the former colonies:

• Hymnal 1916 (#171) gave a choice of two tunes: 1) Rotterdam and 2) Greenland (by Michael Haydn). 
• Hymnal 1940 (#96): first tune is Ellacombe from TEH, and the second is All Hallows — written in 1892 by George Clement Martin (1844-1916). It is a rare example of when H40 has multiple tunes but doesn’t keep at least one of those used in H16.
• Hymnal 1982 (#210) just has Ellacombe
• Book of Common Praise 2017 (#123) not surprisingly also only has Ellacombe.

The text and tune also stand unchanged in hymn #217 of the New English Hymnal (1986).

Conclusion

We can thank Neale for preserving and making accessible a 1300-year-old Easter text by one of the greatest theologians of the Eastern church. By hymnal standards, Neale’s 1862 translation has well stood the test of time. 

Meanwhile, we must say “Alleluia” to William Henry Monk for publishing an adaptation of this stirring tune in Hymns Ancient & Modern —  and to Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams for pairing the text with this tune.

References

• John Julian, ed., “John Mason Neale,” A Dictionary of Hymnology, New York: Scribner’s Sons (1892), 785-791.
• J.M. Neale, trans., Hymns of the Eastern Church, London: J.T. Hayes, 1862, available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/hymnseasternchu01nealgoog/

Fortunatus and Neale teach us about the cross

Some of the oldest hymns in the Anglican canon are by Fortunatus, the 6th century cleric who was the leading Latin poet of his era — the first century after the fall of Rome — and a contemporary of Gregory the Great. His best known are probably the Easter hymns “Hail thee, festival day” and “Welcome happy morning.”

As with so many things ancient and medieval, much of what we know and use of Fortunatus’ work is owed to John Mason Neale, who did the original translation of “Hail thee, festival day.” Today for Good Friday we sang two of the Fortunatus’ hymns for Holy Week that were translated by Neale:

• Pange lingua gloriosi: “Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle” (a slightly different arrangement than #66 in Hymnal 1940)
• Vexilla Regis prodeunt: “The royal banners forward go,” sometimes credited to Theodulph of Orleans. We sang the H40 #63 version, transposed down one step (from G to F).

The Royal Banners Forward Go

The latter begins

The royal banners forward go,
The cross shines forth in mystic glow,
Where he, as man, who gave man breath,
Now bows beneath the yoke of death.

This translation was first published in 1851 (without music) by Neale in his Medieval Hymns & Sequences. In this book, he explains the text thus:

This world-famous hymn, one of the grandest in the treasury of the Latin Church, was composed by Fortunatus, on occasion of the reception of certain relics by S. Gregory of Tours and S. Radegund previously to the consecration of a church at Poitiers. It is therefore strictly and primarily a processional hymn, though very naturally afterwards adapted to Passiontide.

As with all popular Neale translations, it later was picked up by Hymns Ancient & Modern and The English Hymnal.

The Hymnal 1940 Companion lists eight latin verses:

Vexilla regis prodeunt
Fulget crucis mysterium
Quo carne carnis conditor
Suspensus est patibulo.

Confixa clavis viscera
tendens manus, vestigia
redemptionis gratia
hic inmolata est hostia.

Quo vulneratus insuper
Mucrone diro lanceae
Ut nos lavaret crimine
Manavit unda et sanguine.

Impleta sunt quae concinit
David fideli carmine
Dicens In nationibus
Regnavit a ligno Deus.

Arbor decora et fulgida
Ornata Regis purpura
Erecta [sic] digno stipite
Tam sancta membra tangere.

Beata, cujus brachiis
Saecli pependit praemium
Statera facta corporis
Praedam que tulit Tartari.

O crux ave, spes unica
Hoc passiones tempore
Auge piis justitiam
Reisque dona veniam.

Te summa Deus trinitas
Collaudet omnis spiritus:
Quos per crucis mysterium
Salvas, rege per saecula.

It also said

Since the tenth century it has been the Vesper office hymn from Passion Sunday to Wednesday in Holy Week. The “vexillum” was the old Roman cavalry standard which, after Constantine, was surmounted by a cross instead of the Roman eagle.

The six verses in H40 are V1,4,5,6 of Fortunatus, and two concluding stanzas from the 10th century office hymn. The H40 HC says the text has been in the Episcopal Hymnal since 1874, making it one of the first of Neale’s hymns adopted for U.S. use. According to Hymnary, the text is reprinted in 118 hymnals.

Sarum Plainchant

H40 has two tunes. The second tune, Parker, was written in 1894 for this text.

As for #63 (First Tune), Hymnal 1940 Companion says

The first tune, Vexilla Regis, is the Sarum form of the traditional melody for this text, undoubtedly as old as the words themselves.

Hymnal 1982 (#162) retains this text-tune pairing, but says the oldest record of the tune is a 12th century Roman manuscript. It is dropped from the Book of Common Praise 2017;  the text (with the other H40 tune) was published in the 1939 Book of Common Praise.

Medieval Lutheran Hymnody

Next to Anglicans, the Lutherans are the most respectful of our medieval (and ancient) liturgical and musical patrimony. Thus, it was not completely surprising that Thursday Issues Etc. broadcast a new one-hour segment on this hymn, with an enthusiastic endorsement by LCMS pastor (and chief liturgist) Will Weedon.

This hymn is part of the Lutheran canon, although (as Weedon alludes to) the latest LCMS hymnal, the 2006 Lutheran Service Book, provides a less Gregorian and more hymn-like chant (#455), with reduced melisma, barred to a consistent 3-beat rhythm.

Pastor Weedon noted that the hymn had several Holy Week applications, including Maundy Thursday and the veneration of the cross at Good Friday. (Today we sang it after the veneration of the cross). In his view, the “royal banners” would be better understood as battle standards, as when Romans (or Christians) were going to fight the enemy.

Weedon was excited that the third verse was a quote from a reference to the cross in Psalm 96:10 in the Old Latin, pre-Vulgate (presumably Vetus Latina) book of psalms. In the 6th century, the Vulgate was less than 200 years old and Fortunatus would have known the earlier (Septuagint-derived) psalter. In the earlier psalm, the verse refers to the “wood,” i.e. the wood of the cross.

In accord with this view, the Adam Clarke commentary identifies multiple quotations of this earlier psalm translation by the patristic fathers:

Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth - Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, quotes this passage thus: Ειπατε εν τοις εθνεσι, ὁ Κυριος εβασιλευσε απο του ξυλου, "Say among the nations, the Lord ruleth by the wood," meaning the cross; and accuses the Jews of having blotted this word out of their Bibles, because of the evidence it gave of the truth of Christianity. It appears that this reading did exist anciently in the Septuagint, or at least in some ancient copies of that work, for the reading has been quoted by Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, Augustine, Cassiodorus, Pope Leo, Gregory of Tours, and others. The reading is still extant in the ancient Roman Psalter, Dominus regnavit a ligno, and in some others. In an ancient MS. copy of the Psalter before me, while the text exhibits the commonly received reading, the margin has the following gloss: Regnavit a ligno crucis, "The Lord reigns by the wood of the cross." 

Musical Recordings

iTunes lists three vocal recordings, from Ely Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral, and St. John’s College Cambridge. The Gloucester Cathedral recording is of tune Gonfalon Royal, the alternate tune (#128.ii) for the text (#79) in the New English Hymnal. It is not obvious what St. John’s singing.

The Ely recording is the only recording I could find of the Sarum tune. Shazam™ says that it is also the one used in the Issues Etc. broadcast.

So while this is one of Neale’s less popular texts, nonetheless it continues on 150 years later as a testimony in the third millennium from the middle of the first millennium.

Faithful Saint Matthias

The red-letter feast of Saint Matthias is designated for February 24 in every American Book of Common Prayer, the same date designated by the Church of England from 1549 to 1662. This year it is transferred from Sunday to Monday (February 25).

Since 1789, the American Book of Common Prayer has used this (lightly) modernized version of the 1549-1662 collect:

ALMIGHTY God, who into the place of the traitor Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the twelve Apostles; Grant that thy Church, being alway preserved from false Apostles, may be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Through the 1960s, the Catholic church celebrated February 24 but today the US Catholic Church celebrates May 14. Today the Church of England celebrates on  May 14 (or February 24 as an alternate).

Naturally, the Epistle reading is Acts 1:15-26, where the apostles choose Matthias (over Joseph Barsabbas) to replace Judas. From 1549-1928, the Gospel is Matthew 11:25-30 (“my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”), but the 1979 BCP uses other readings.

What is an appropriate hymn? The Catholic Culture website suggests stanzas from the Menaea (Eastern Breviary) and includes these verses

O blessed Mathias! spiritual Eden! thou didst flow, like a full river, from the divine fountain; thou didst water the earth with thy mystic rivulets, and make it fruitful. Do thou, therefore, beseech the Lord that he grant peace and much mercy to our souls.

O apostle Mathias! thou didst complete the sacred college, from which Judas had fallen; and by the power of the Holy Ghost, thou didst put to flight the darkness of idolatry by the admirable lightnings of thy wise words. Do thou now beseech the Lord that he grant peace and much mercy to our souls.

It attributes it to a translation by John Mason Neale’s Hymns of the Eastern Church, but I can’t find it in my 1882 edition. So instead, I kept digging to other sources.

Hymnal 1982

Hymnal 1982 has a unique (and I would say admirable) solution to minor feast days: Hymn #231, “By all your saints still striving.” It includes two fixed verses, and a variable middle verse for one of 12 days (St Andrew, St Thomas, St Stephen, St John, Holy Innocents, Confession of St Peter, Conversion of St Paul, St Matthias, St Joseph, St Mark, St Philip/St James, St Barnabas).

The tune is King’s Lynn by Ralph Vaughan Williams, an English folk tune adaptation first published in The English Hymnal. It was originally used with “O God of Earth and Altar,” by GK Chesterton (TEH #562), which is also in Hymnal 1940 (#521) and H82 (#591).

The hymn is adapted from an 1864 text by Horatio Nelson, editor of the Salisbury Hymn-Book (1857), later the Sarum Hymnal (1868) — perhaps the most successful of the Hymnal Noted knock-offs. Nelson’s 19-verse hymn was originally titled “For all thy saints in warfare,” but that was too militaristic for H82. His original text

From all Thy saints in warfare,
For all Thy saints at rest,
To Thee, O blessèd Jesus,
All praises be addressed;
Thou, Lord, didst win the battle,
That they might conquerors be;
Their crowns of living glory
Are lit with rays from Thee.

became verse 1 of Hymn 231:

By all your saints still striving,
for all your saints at rest,
your holy Name, O Jesus,
for evermore be blessed.
You rose, our king victorious,
that they might wear the crown
and every shine in splendor
reflected from your throne.

H82 preserves almost intact Nelson’s final, doxological verse:

Then praise we God the Father,
And praise we God the Son,
And God the Holy Spirit,
Eternal Three in One;
Till all the ransomed number
Fall down before the throne,
And honor, power, and glory,
Ascribe to God alone.

The middle part of Nelson’s hymn makes direct (but unnamed) reference to major NT saints, including John the Baptist, Peter, Paul and the gospel writers. Hymnal 1982 seems to keep many of the original Nelson verses — including Holy Innocents, Peter, Paul, Mark, Barnabas — but explicitly adds their names for the less Biblically literate 20th century.

The Nelson’s text for St. Matthias was

Lord, Thine abiding presence
Directs the wondrous choice
For one in place of Judas
The faithful now rejoice.
Thy Church from false apostles
Forevermore defend,
And by Thy parting promise
Be with her to the end.

which Hymnal 1982 made into

For one in place of Judas,
the apostles sought God's choice
the lot fell to Matthias
for whom we now rejoice
May we like true apostles
your holy church defend
and not betray our calling
but serve you to the end.

Tune: St. Matthias

Finally, William Henry Monk (1823-1889), music editor of Hymns Ancient & Modern, wrote a tune St. Matthias, one of more than 70 that he composed. Naturally, it appeared first in Hymns A&M for

• #28 (2nd tune): “Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go”
• #191: “Jesu, my Lord, my God, my All”
• #348: “Behold us, Lord, before Thee met”
• #357: “How blessèd, from the bonds of sin”

#28 survives as an evening hymn in Hymnal 1940 (#182). However, neither the hymn nor any version of the tune appears in The English Hymnal, the New English Hymnal, Hymnal 1982 or Book of Common Praise 2017.

19th Century Hymn for St. Matthias

Perhaps more intriguing in A&M is #408, the only hymn in this most Anglo-Catholic of hymnals specifically for St. Matthias the Apostle. To the tune of Sherborne (also by Monk), the text explicitly links the Matthias story to that of the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-19):

Bishop of the souls of men,
When the foeman’s step is nigh,
When the wolf lays wait by night
For the lambs continually,
Watch, O Lord, about us keep,
Guard us, Shepherd of the sheep.

When the hireling flees away,
Caring only for his gold,
And the gate unguarded stands
At the entrance to the fold,
Stand, O Lord, Thy flock before
Thou the guardian, Thou the door.

Lord, whose guiding finger ruled
In the casting of the lot,
That Thy Church might fill the throne
Of the lost Iscariot,
In our trouble ever thus
Stand, good Master, nigh to us.

When the saints their order take
In the New Jerusalem,
And Matthias stands elect,
Give us part and lot with him,
Where in Thine own dwelling place
We may witness face to face.

The tune is unfamiliar but has straightforward voice leading. The words are completely appropriate. So for an evensong on St. Matthias’ day, this would be my first choice.

Veni Emmanuel out of sync thanks to Hymnal 1982

Differences between hymnals — either in updates or between dominations — usually cause confusion due to the change in words. Differences in harmony are also widespread, but only impact those who sing parts (in my experience, less than 10% of those in the pews in most churches).

Earlier this week I witnessed a train wreck that I’d never seen before — due to a difference in the melody that everyone sings. Specifically, the congregation at an Anglican church was confused due to a unique change in the meter made by Hymnal 1982 to the oldest — if not the greatest† — Advent hymn of all time: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

To cut to the chase, today there are four different meters used for the tune Veni Emmanuel:

1. There is the original version by John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore in Hymnal Noted, published from 1851-1854.
2. There is the way used by Hymns Ancient & Modern, The English Hymnal, the New English Hymnal, and any CD or YouTube video of English choristers that you might listen to. This also appears to be the way that most American Protestant hymnals do it: I’ve looked at Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist hymnals, and they all match this.
3. There is the version of Hymnal 1940 and its recent update, the REC’s Book of Common Praise 2017.
4. There is the unique version of Hymnal 1982.

At Sunday’s service, the organ and instruments were doing #4, while the choir and most of the congregation (largely ex-Baptist and Methodist) were doing #2 (perhaps some doing #3). After two verses, everyone gave in to the organ, but the confusion was clearly something that any parish would want to avoid.

1. Hymnal Noted

Earlier this year I published an academic article in The Hymn on the impact of Hymnal Noted upon 20th century American hymnody. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” was the second most popular hymn in the American hymnals, with Neale’s translation credited in 16 of 24 hymnals; four hymnals included the hymn, but used a updated translation (based on Neale’s) that did not credit Neale.†† Here is how I summarized the origins of the text:

Neale translated “Veni Emmanuel” by selecting five daily Advent antiphons that date to the eighth century, compiled in the twelfth century and later published in a 1710 Cologne Latin psalter.  Neale re-ordered the final (Dec. 22) antiphon to be the first verse…

All versions of the hymn used a version of the tune arranged by Helmore. Here is how I summarized the tune:

All of these hymnals use the tune Veni Emmanuel from Volume 2 of HN (Figure 1). It was adapted by Helmore from a French missal discovered by Neale in Portugal, a manuscript that others have been unable to locate. In the 1960s, a parallel fifteenth-century processional from a French nunnery was rediscovered in the National Library in Paris and subsequent discoveries suggest that the tune may have originally been a Franciscan funeral chant.¶ However, the characteristic refrain that begins “Rejoice! Rejoice!” was of Helmore’s own creation.

Here is the first phrase. Note that each phrase of the chant ends with a two-beat note:

2. English Hymnals

The hymn was quickly picked up by Hymns Ancient & Modern, the most influential (and commercially successful) of all Victorian English hymnals. The text was slightly modified, most notably by changing Neale’s “Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel” to the now-familiar “O come, O come, Emmanuel.”

It was hymn #36 in the original A&M, while the much revised 2nd edition of 1875 lists it as #49. (The same numbering was retained in the 1889, 1916 and 1924 editions). Below is how the first phrase appears in the 1889 edition:

Note that each phrase ends on a three-beat note. Later on, in the refrain Helmore’s original “Rejoice, Rejoice” had 1,1,1,2 beats, while A&M uses 1,3,1,3.

In The English Hymnal (1906), the phrases of hymn #8 are counted as in A&M. The rejoice is counted the same, but the “joice” is listed as a two beat note with a one beat rest. Musically this is different, but for the purposes of congregation singing it would count the same.

Update: I found my copy of New English Hymnal, and Hymn #11 is almost like HN: one beat at the end of the first phrase, and two beats for the final note of 2nd, 3rd, 4th phrases — with the “Rejoice” matching TEH. (1 beat, 2 beat, 1 beat rest). I have recording of this hymn by three English cathedral choirs (King’s College Cambridge, Salisbury, Wells) that usually sing hymns as written in the NEH. In the KCC and Wells, they are clearly singing the NEH words but not rushing through the first phrase as NEH implies.

For this blog posting, I didn’t have a chance to look at all 24 hymnal. However, in the Baptist Hymnal 1991, Baptist Hymnal 2008, The Lutheran Hymnal (1940) and the United Methodist Hymnal (1989), all seem to follow the A&M pattern.

3. Hymnal 1940

In Hymnal 1940, hymn #2 goes back to Helmore’s two beat phrase endings rather than the three beat of the English (and subsequent American Protestant) hymnals:

The two beat pattern is also used on each Rejoice.

I won’t argue it’s morally superior to the English/Methodist/Lutheran approach — it’s just the way we’ve done it. In fact, it doesn’t feel all that different. If were singing from H40 (or BCP17) with an ecumenical audience, I might be inclined to add a breath (lift) after each phrase, to give the visitors a chance to keep up.

The one non-standard change, however. In the Helmore, A&M, TEH, Baptist and other versions of this hymn, the first syllable of “exile” is two beats. H40 changes it to one beat:

I believe that’s why the H40/BCP17 version was not used Sunday, and thus indirectly caused the train wreck.

4. Hymnal 1982

Hymnal 1982 made the most dramatic changes to the hymn of any hymns I’ve seen. Here I’ll respond to the effects of the changes in text and music — the cause of Sunday’s problems — and not to the reasons they chose to do so. 

In updating H40, H82 changed the words here and there (as they loved to do). They also repeat verse 1 as verse 8. In this case, with the words printed in the program, they were not the source of confusion.

For the music, they use a non-standard chant notation — neither modern Western nor the medieval neumes. However, anyone who’s opened H82 has seen it, and it’s easy enough to get used to — certainly easier than Helmore’s notation from Hymnal Noted. (Fortunately, the accompaniment uses conventional notation).

The even number phrases and the Rejoice match Hymnal 1940 by ending on a two-beat note. The extra beat of “exile” is restored from the English originals.

However, the odd number phrases (#1, #3) do not have any extra beat:

Whenever I sang from H82, this always rattled me — if for no other reason than I needed a breath. This certainly is what caused Sunday’s problem — the musicians went on without the choir and the congregation until eventually people figured out what was going on.

Since the very first time I sang it, this part of H82 seemed to be what IT people would call a needless incompatibility. I’m sure the editors had their reasons; to be fair, I would need to consult the Hymnal 1982 Companion, but I don’t have the $600 for this four volume set. And perhaps it makes sense if you’re going to get every ECUSA church in the country to buy your new hymnal (as most denominations try to do to make money). But for our current era of weakened denominational loyalty, today it appears to have been a mistake. For congregations that use H82, it would be more welcoming to add a breath or lift after the odd (or all) phrases to make the hymn more visitor-friendly.

Summary

To avoid problems like this in the future, here’s a summary of the different meters:

• Breaks at the end of the phrase: 2 beats in Hymnal Noted, Hymnal 1940; 3 beats in Hymns A&M, The English Hymnal and (apparently) most modern Protestant U.S. hymnals. Hymnal 1982 does 1 beat for odd phrases, 2 beats for even phrases
• The first syllable of “exile” has an extra beat in every hymnal except Hymnal 1940 (and the similar REC’s Book of Common Praise 2017)
• The refrain “Rejoice, rejoice” has two beats for “joice” in H40/H82/BCP17, while the others have three beats. The original HN only lengthened the second “Rejoice”

References

• J. M. Neale and Thomas Helmore, Hymnal Noted: Parts I & II (London: Novello, 1851, 1856), available at https://books.google.com/books?id=2E3Dya5ON5oC
• J. West, “Neale’s Hymnal Noted and its Impact on Twentieth-Century American Hymnody,” The Hymn, 69, 3 (Summer 2018): 14-24.

Footnotes

† Yes I know the Lutherans would say “Wake, awake, for night is falling” by Philip Nicolai. And obviously many Protestants are partial (as am I) to “Come, thou long expected Jesus”, justifiably the first hymn in my favorite hymnal.

†† The most popular hymn was the Palm Sunday processional “All glory, laud and honour,” found in 22/24 hymnals — excluding only the Southern Baptist The Broadman Hymnal (1940) and The Lutheran Hymnary (1913)
¶ See Mother Thomas More, “O Come O Come, Emmanuel,” The Musical Times 107, no. 1483 (Sept. 1966): 772; C. E. Pocknee, “Veni, veni, Emmanuel,” Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland 118 (Spring 1970): 65-69; Chris Fenner, “VENI EMMANUEL and its Manuscript Sources,” THE HYMN 65, no. 1 (2014): 21-26.

Little-known ancient Advent hymn: Come thou, redeemer of the earth

With Advent starting Sunday, Neale's hymn “Come, thou Redeemer of the earth” seems perfectly suited to the season. It is well known to English congregations, but not here in the U.S.

From Ambrose to the 20th Century via John Mason Neale

Neale’s translation of “Veni, Redemptor gentium” appears in Hymnal Noted. Then as now, the original Latin text is attributed to St. Ambrose (340-397). My copy of the (1909) hymnal companion to the New Edition (1904) of Hymns Ancient & Modern says that Augustine himself attests to the authorship by Ambrose, and the text has been used in the Mozarbic (Iberian), Ambrosian and Latin rites. It is based on Matthew 1:23 in the Christmas birth narrative.

The hymnal companion lists the first verse as

Veni, redemptor gentium;
ostende partum virginis;
miretur omne saeculum,
talis decet partus Deo.

The hymn was picked up in various English hymnals. Here is the version in 1906's The English Hymnal (hymn #14)

Come, thou Redeemer of the earth,
and manifest thy virgin-birth:
let every age adoring fall;
such birth befits the God of all.

Begotten of no human will,
But of the Spirit, thou art still
The Word of God, in flesh arrayed,
The promise fruit to man displayed,

The virgin womb that burden gained
With virgin honour all unstained;
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in his temple dwells below

From God the Father he proceeds,
to God the Father back he speeds,
His course he runs to death and hell,
Returning on God's throne to dwell.

O equal to thy Father, thou!
Gird on thy fleshly mantle now,
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.

Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
and darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.

All laud to God the Father be,
All praise, eternal Son, to thee:
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the Holy Paraclete. Amen.

The 1986 New English Hymnal (#19) changes verse 2 to

Begotten of no human will,
but of the Spirit, thou art still
the Word of God, in flesh arrayed,
the Saviour, now to us displayed.

It also changes verse 7, as well as verse 8:

O Jesu, virgin-born, to thee
eternal praise and glory be,
whom with the Father we adore
and Holy Spirit, evermore. Amen.

Hymns A&M hews closer to Neale’s original, starting with “O come, Redeemer of the earth”.

I learned of the hymn while working on my next hymn research project. One of the people I met recommended Cantate Domino, a hymnal supplement (hymns #800-962) for traditional Episcopal parishes using Hymnal 1940. When I checked it out, #804 contains the Neale hymn.

Tune by Michael Praetorius

The two English hymnals list two tunes. One is the original tune from Hymnal Noted — listed as from the Salisbury Hymnal – which the A&M companion says is the tune used with the Sarum, York and Hereford hymns to this text. (As with all of Hymnal Noted, the tune was presumably adapted by its music editor, Thomas Helmore).

However, TEH and NEH list as an alternative Puer Nobis, the Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) tune that we already sing for Epiphany (“What star is this with beams so bright”) and Easter (“That Easter day with joy is bright”). 

All three hymnals use the 1901 harmonization by George Woodward (1848-1934); in Hymnal 1940, the harmony is listed (#47, #98) for accompaniment but the hymns are marked “unison” — i.e., few congregations have sung the parts. Hymnal 1940 lists a different harmonization (more like Praetorius’) for Hymn #158 (“O splendour of God’s glory bright”) while Hymnal 1982 (#124) lists a third harmonization attributed to Hymns Ancient & Modern, Revised Edition.

This Praetorius tune is found in the King’s College Cambridge recording on YouTube. The text skips verses 2 and 3, but follows the 1906 version except for the final verse (which is closer to but not exactly the same as the 1986 version). Unlike the Epiphany hymn, the tempo is almost dirge-like.

Inclusion in the Anglican Hymnal Supplement

My bishop doubts there will be demand for a 21st century Continuing Anglican hymnal, given the decline of books, traditional worship, and of course the 2017 publication of the REC hymnal. So instead he's encouraged me to think about what would go into a supplement to Hymnal 1940. (If H40 goes out of print, we might first have to assemble a public domain H40 based on Hymnal 1916 and other texts no longer in copyright).

Cantate Domino lists this for Advent, while the English list it for the 12 days of Christmas. An argument can be made for either one; for example, it was included in the 2016 Advent carols service by King’s College Cambridge. I would list it for Advent for two reasons. First, we need more good Advent hymns and don’t have enough time to sing all the Christmas hymns we have. Second, we already have a slightly different version of the tune (H40: 34) at Christmas, which would create even greater confusion.

For the text, I’m inclined to use the TEH text — improved through use over the 50 years after Neale’s original (but still out of copyright). With eight verses, at least some would need to be optional. Nowadays, there's an advantage to matching the recorded version, so I’d try to find the KCC text (and its copyright status).

The tune choice is much easier. In my research, I am realizing that beauty at the cost of complexity is still possible for choirs at medium or large sized Anglican (TEC, Continuing, ACNA…) churches. However, for hymns, a certain amount of realism is needed. I'm not sure that Helmore’s arrangement is worth the extra effort for the average choir or congregation, particularly when compared to this beautiful (and familiar) Praetorius tune.

Finally, I don't find the Woodward harmony particularly singable, and few Americans would know it already. So I would look at one of the other harmonizations, or even see about the original Praetorius version.

References

Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Cantate Domino: Hymnal Supplement G-2264 (Chicago, GIA: 1979).

William H. Frere, ed., Hymns Ancient and Modern: Historical Edition, London: Wm. Clowes and Sons Ltd. 1909.

J. M. Neale and Thomas Helmore, Hymnal Noted: Parts I & II (London: Novello, 1851, 1856), available at https://books.google.com/books?id=2E3Dya5ON5oC

The English Hymnal, London: A. R. Mowbray, 1906. URL:  https://archive.org/details/theenglishhymnal00milfuoft

Rev. John Mason Neale, D.D. (24 Jan 1818 – 6 Aug 1866)

On Wednesday, I gave a campus ministry talk on the influence of J.M. Neale, adapted from my recent research. Below is the handout I distributed to the students.

---

Born to Cornelius and Susanna Good Neale; named for Puritan cleric and hymn writer John Mason (1645–94). Cornelius was ordained a Church of England priest in 1822 and died in 1823. J.M. married Sarah Webster in 1842; three children: Agnes Neale, Vincent Neale, Mary Sackville (Neale) Lawson.

Cofounder of Cambridge Camden Society, later the Ecclesiological Society; from 1841-1866 co-editor (with Benjamin Webb) of its journal, The Ecclesiologist.

In 1846, he became warden of Sackville College, an almshouse in East Grinstead, but was inhibited by the local bishop from 1848-1860 for his “Puseyite” tendencies. In 1855, he founded the Society of St. Margaret, a women’s religious order that trained nuns to minister to the poor, which, after relocating to East Grinstead in 1856; his daughter Agnes was later its Mother Superior.

Died in 1866 at Sackville College, and buried 10 Aug 1866 in St. Swithun Churchyard, East Grinstead, West Sussex, England.

Hymns

A great and mighty wonder All glory, laud, and honor Alleluia, song of gladness, Art thou weary, art thou languid Brief life is here our portion Christ is made the sure foundation Christian! Dost Thou See Them Come, ye faithful, raise the strain Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord Fierce was the wild billow For thee, O dear, dear country Good Christian men, rejoice Holy Father, thou hast taught me Jerusalem the golden, Jesus, name all names above Jesus, the very thought is sweet Lift up, lift up your voices now Now that the daylight fills the sky

O come, O come, Emmanuel O happy band of pilgrims O Lord of hosts, Whose glory fills O sons and daughters, let us sing O thou who by a star didst guide O Thou, Who through this holy week O what their joy and their glory must be O wondrous type! O vision fair Of the Father's love begotten Safe home, safe home in port That Easter day with joy was bright The day is past and over The day of Resurrection The day, O Lord, is spent The Royal Banners forward go The world is very evil To the name that brings salvation

References

• “J.M. Neale,” Hymnary.org, URL: https://hymnary.org/person/Neale_JM
• J.M. Neale, A Few Words to Church Builders (Cambridge: Cambridge Camden Society, 1841), URL: https://archive.org/details/fewwordstochurch00camb
• J.M. Neale and Benjamin Webb, The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments (London: T.W. Greene, 1843), URL: https://archive.org/details/symbolismchurch00webbgoog
• Eleanor A. Towle, John Mason Neale, DD: A Memoir (London: Longmans, Green, 1907), URL: https://archive.org/details/johnmasonnealeme00towl
• James F. White, The Cambridge Movement: the Ecclesiologists and the Gothic Revival. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1962).
• Barry A. Orford, “Music and Hymnody” in Stewart J. Brown, James Pereiro, and Peter Nockles, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Oxford Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 376-386.
• J. West, “Neale’s Hymnal Noted and its Impact on Twentieth-Century American Hymnody,” The Hymn, 69, 3 (Summer 2018): 14-24.
• J. West, “How Cambridge and John Mason Neale Continued the Oxford Movement,” Forward in Christ 11, 4 (October 2018): 18-20, URL: http://bit.ly/FIC-Neale-2018

New research on John Mason Neale

My first papers on church music were published last month, and one is now online. Both are on John Mason Neale, who — as I mentioned in January — is being honored in this the year of his bicentennial.

Neale’s Hymnal Noted

The main paper is about his most influential hymnal, Hymnal Noted, published with music editor Thomas Helmore. As the second paragraph summarizes:

In Hymnal Noted, Neale (1818-1866) and his colleagues compiled 210 hymns, with 105 unique texts translated from medieval Latin sources; many of these translations were later included in the major English hymnals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. AB this paper will show, the influence of Hymnal Noted also extended to the United States. Of the 105 texts, twenty-six were adopted by one or more of the twenty-four twentieth-century hymnals from the largest American Christian denominations, with hymns such as “All glory, laud and honor,” and “O come, O come, Emmanuel.”

The paper reviews the history of hymnody in the Church of England before the Oxford Movement, Neale’s career, his contribution to hymnody, and then specifically Hymnal Noted and its impact. It was published in The Hymn, the main US journal for scholarship on hymn music. I had presented the original version at the 2017 Society for Christian Scholarship in Music conference — my first appearance at any academic conference for religion, liturgy or music — and got great feedback, a sense of the norms of the field, and met some of today’s established and up-and-coming scholars.

The published paper benefitted greatly from the editorial process. In particular, I greatly appreciate the patience of interim editor Robin Knowles Wallace, an endowed chair at the Methodist seminary near Columbus.

How Cambridge and John Mason Neale Continued the Oxford Movement

Stained glass window in St Swithuns
Source: Forward in Christ, Oct. 2018

In writing the original paper, I felt that the Neale bicentennial should not go unremarked among American Anglo-Catholics; because of my involvement in the Forward in Faith church planting task force, I reached out to the Forward in Faith magazine, Forward in Christ. The editor, Fr. Michael Heidt, graciously agreed to run 1,650 words on Neale in the October issue.

While in my January blog post, I emphasized Neale’s hymns, I felt this audience would also be interested in Neale’s impact in other areas. One part was about how Neale and his Cambridge colleagues created the gothic revival in English church architecture — including in their showpiece Victorian Gothic church, All Saints’ Margaret Street, which I was fortunate to visit in June. The other was how Neale was among those who pushed the envelope of liturgical practice — sometimes at great risk to his career and livelihood – to reinstate medieval practices decried as “Romish” by many English Protestants. While incense and the chasuble remain controversial, it’s hard to remember that choir vestments, candles, and singing the communion service were also controversial 150 years ago.

The article appeared in the printed glossy magazine, and the full text is available for free on the Forward in Christ website. The website includes one of the pictures from the magazine: the stained glass window showing John Mason Neale and two others at St Swithuns, East Grinstead, where he was laid to rest on August 10, 1866. The other picture in the magazine is a recent interior picture of All Saints’ Margaret Street, which is available on their website.

References

• J. M. Neale and Thomas Helmore, Hymnal Noted: Parts I & II (London: Novello, 1851, 1856), available at https://books.google.com/books?id=2E3Dya5ON5oC
• J. West, “Neale’s Hymnal Noted and its Impact on Twentieth-Century American Hymnody,” The Hymn, 69, 3 (Summer 2018): 14-24.
• J. West, “How Cambridge and John Mason Neale Continued the Oxford Movement,” Forward in Christ 11, 4 (October 2018): 18-20, URL: http://bit.ly/FIC-Neale-2018

Thank you to everyone for their help and encouragement. I would be glad to email a scan of the printed copy of either article to anyone who’s interested — please contact me.

Bicentennial of John Mason Neale

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Mason Neale, the greatest hymn translator of the 19th century and a pioneer of the Anglo-Catholic liturgical revival that followed the Oxford Movement.

Neale (January 24, 1818-August 6, 1866) was the son and grandson of evangelical Anglican priests. His ordained ministry included being the rector of Sackville College (an almshouse founded in 1609) and, 1855, founding the Society of St. Margaret, an Anglican women’s order that provided nurses to the industrial poor (and today has chapters in England and Boston). Both groups are this week holding events marking the occasion.

As an undergraduate at Trinity College Cambridge, he cofounded the Cambridge Camden Society (later the Ecclesiological Society) which he headed for many years. The society focused on the aesthetics of church worship — both architecture and liturgy — and was credited with spurring the English gothic revival of the 19th century. Much of this was disseminated through the society’s journal (The Ecclesiologist), published from 1841-1868, for which Neale was one of the primary authors and co-editor.

Neale spent considerable time researching ancient and medieval liturgies of both the Eastern and Western church, publishing a five volume set: A History of the Holy Eastern Church as well as various Western liturgies in Latin and English translation. However, he made his greatest impact as a hymn writer and translator.

Neale’s Hymn Compilations

Neale was a prodigious author, translator and editor of hymns. The books of original hymns included

• Hymns for Children (1842) 
• Hymns for the Sick (1843)
• Hymns for Youth (1844)
• Hymns for Children, Third Series (1845) 

His compilations of translations (mostly his own) include

• Medieval Hymns and Sequences (1851)
• Hymnal Noted (various editions, 1851-1856)
• Carols for Christmas Tide (1853)
• Carols for Easter Tide (1854).
• Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862)
• Hymns Chiefly Medieval on the Joys and Glories of Paradise (1865)

Most of these books are on Google Books or the Internet Archive.

Lasting Impact

Neale is the top source of hymn texts for most US or American Anglican hymnals published from 1861-2000. He is listed as the author or translator of 45 texts in Hymnal 1982, and his influence was greater in Hymnal 1940, The English Hymnal (1906) and particularly Hymns Ancient & Modern in its various editions from 1861-1904.

Among the hymns Neale translated are

• All glory, laud and honor
• Christ is made the sure foundation
• Come ye faithful raise the strain
• Creator of the stars of night
• Good Christian Men, Rejoice
• Good King Wenceslas
• O come, O come Emmanuel
• O sons and daughters, let us sing
• Of the Father’s love begotten
• That Easter Day with joy was bright
• The Day of Resurrection

The accolades for Neale’s contributions are numerous, and I hope to summarize them another time.

Further Information

A good overview is provided by Julian’s A Dictionary of Hymnology; I have uploaded just the Neale entry here. Good capsule biographies are also found in HymnsAndCarolsOfChristmas.com and The CyberHymnal.

Two biographies by his daughters help considerably in understanding his history:

• Eleanor A. Towle, John Mason Neale, DD: A Memoir, London: Longmans, Green, 1907. Available at Google Books.
• Mary Sackville Lawson, ed., Letters of John Mason Neale, London: Longmans, Green, 1910. Available at Google Books and the Internet Archive.

They also supply the pictures that appear on Wikipedia and other websites (including the picture above from Towle’s memoir).

Because he died on August 6 (the Feast of the Transfiguration), the Anglican church remembers him on August 7. Anglican.org includes two prayers for Neale; the first appears taken from the Episcopal Church’s liturgies for lesser feasts and fasts:

Grant unto us, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know Thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant John Mason Neale, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what thou givest us to do, and endure what thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty God, beautiful in majesty, majestic in holiness, who Hast shown us the splendor of creation in the work of thy servant John Mason Neale: Teach us to drive from the world the ugliness of chaos and disorder, that our eyes may not be blind to thy glory, and that at length everyone may know the inexhaustible richness of thy new creation in Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Singing ancient Easter testimonies

Theologically, Easter is the greatest Christian feast, the culmination of the Christian year. It is also a great opportunity for mission, since it's one of the two Sundays where C&E Anglicans (or Catholics or Lutherans) will darken the church doors.

Thus it's not surprising that most churches schedule good hymns for Easter, as our Anglo-Catholic church did this morning, and at the blended service at daughter's college parish. And of course -- next to Christmas — there is the embarrassment of riches: 18 hymns (some with multiple tunes) in The English Hymnal, 17 hymns (three with multiple tunes) in Hymnal 1940, and 33 hymns (7 with multiple tunes) in Hymnal 1982.

Still, today I was struck that all four of the hymns sung at our Anglo-Catholic church were derived from Latin and Greek texts that trace back to  the pre-Reformation undivided church. I was also struck — not surprisingly given the original sources — the debt we owe to John Mason Neale for being able to sing them today.

Procession: Hail thee festival day! (H40: 86; H82: 175)

We sang all nine verses, alternating (as written) between women and men. It is based on the 6th century Latin text, “Salve festa dies,” by Venantius Honorius Fortunatus (b. 530-600/609), making it one of the oldest hymns in Anglican hymnody.

The texts have been translated multiple times since the 16th century. This version begins with Hymn 624 of The English Hymnal (1906) with the now-familiar tune Salva festa dies by music editor Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Hymnal 1940 Companion credits the H40 version to Hymn 389 of Songs of Praise, Enlarged Edition (1931). While SOPEE alternates between the two tunes, the idea of alternating verses between women and men seems to have originated with H40.

Gradual: The Day of Resurrection (H40: 96.1; H82: 210)

We sang three verses to the first tune, the middle verse in harmony; Hymnal 1982 also lists a descant. The 8th century Greek text is by St. John of Damascus.. Our hymnals use the translation by John Mason Neale from his Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862), a text that entered the ECUSA hymnary with its Hymnal 1874. The tune Ellacombe is from an 18th century German Catholic hymnal.

Communion: At the Lamb's high feast we sing (H40: 89; H82: 174)

Although I've sung this before, somehow I never really appreciated it. The Latin text is from the Roman Breviary created for Urban VIII (pope 1623-1644), but can be traced back to the 6th century text “Ad cenam Agni providi.” The 1850 translation is by Robert Campbell.

It is uniquely suited as the Easter communion hymn, and as the first of the four verses explain:

At the Lamb's high feast we sing
praise to our victorious King,
who hath washed us in the tide
flowing from his pierced side;
praise we him, whose love divine
gives his sacred Blood for wine,
gives his Body for the feast,
Christ the victim, Christ the priest.

Even better, is the 17th century tune Salzburg (best known for “Songs of thankfulness and praise” H40: 53). I enjoyed singing the middle two verses of the four-part harmony by J. S. Bach, a harmonization that in my book is hard to beat.

Recessional: Jesus Christ is Risen today (H40: 85; H82: 207)

As I texted our daughter this morning, the 1st commandment of Anglican hymn selection is to end on an upbeat tune. At Easter time, this seems eminently well suited.

For the recessional, we sang all four verses: 2nd and 3rd in harmony, 4th unison with descant. Hymnal 1982 also lists a descant from the 1950 edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern.

The 14th century text, Surrexit Christus hodie, has been translated multiple times since 1708. The H40 hymnal companion attributes the current version of the tune to a compilation by John Wesley and the final addition to the text to Charles Wesley.

Golden Age of Christmas Carols

Every reader of this blog knows about the importance of the Tractarian (Oxford) movement of 19th century England in revival traditional hymnody, notably with the efforts of John Mason Neale that culminated with the publication of Hymns Ancient & Modern in 1861.

However, thanks to the excellent BBC 4 series hosted by Jeremy Summerly, I realized that the 19th century brought a comparable advance (and preservation) of Christmas carols.

The sixth episode, “A Second Golden Age”, outlines the role of Neale and Sir John Stainer in the 19th century carol revival. The episode was broadcast Dec 16 (and the BBC inexplicably cancels their back episodes after 7 days). In the episode, the cause of Stainer is advocated by Prof. Ian Bradley, author of the familiar hymn reference.

The episode identifies the key books of carols of the 19th century, all of which are out of copyright and thus (most) are available free online.

In 1822, Davies Gilbert published a collection of medieval Christmas carols that included “A Virgin Most Pure” and “The First Nowel.” A second, enlarged edition was published in 1823.

Many years later, Neale acquired a copy of Piae Cantiones, a 16th century compilation of Latin carols from Swedish-speaking Finland. From this, in 1853 he and Thomas Helmore published their own collection that includes “Good Christian Men Rejoice” and his own carol, “Good King Wenceslas.”

From the same source, Neale translated the text “Of the Father’s love begotten”, which was later published in Hymns Ancient & Modern with modification by H.W. Baker.

Finally, with H.R. Bramley, Stainer published his own collection of 20 carols in 1867, expanded to 42 in 1871 and 70 in 1878. This included “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” “Once in Royal David’s City” and “What Child is This.” As Prof. Bradley notes, this put a large supply of singable carols in the hands of local vicars. Percy Deamer (the textual author of The English Hymnal and Songs of Praise) says “mainly to Bramley and Stainer that we owe the restoration of the carol”.

When looking for these books, I found background information at the website Hymns and Carols of Christmas (HCC) and so link that below. Some information can also be found at the IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project).

References

Theodoric Petri, Piae Cantiones, Greifswald, Sweden, 1582 (Reprinted in London 1910 and available from the U. Rochester Sibley Library). Summarized at HCC

Davies Gilbert, Some Ancient Christmas Carols, London, 1822 (available at Google Books) Summarized at HCC

Thomas Helmore and John Mason Neale, Carols for Christmas-tide, London, 1853. Summarized at HCC.

Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer, Christmas Carols, New and Old, London, 1871 (Available at the CCEL) Summarized at the HCC.

Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer, Christmas Carols, New and Old, London, 1878 (Available at the Internet Archive)

Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols, 1400-1700, London, 1910 (Available at Google Books) Summarized at the gcc.