Hymn Collection: The Bay Psalm Book (1640)
The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated in to English Metre (1640) also known as the Bay Psalm Book was the first book-length publication in the North American Colonies. Ten years after the landing at Plymouth the Puritans, an aristocratic group of settlers from England arrived north of Boston and decided to put this collection together. It was done to counter the influence of the current Ainsworth Psalter which was widely used among the Pilgrims.
John Cotton, the man who wrote the preface to the Bay Psalm Book sought to keep close the original text of scripture. These new English Puritans thought the Ainsworth Psalter, collected by Henry Ainsworth in 1612, was a diluted versification of scripture. The issue was “poeticall licence,” hence the need for specification of “Faithfully Translated” in the title. Below is an example of the faithful translation.
Common Version of Psalm 100
Make yee a joyful noise unto
Iehovah all the earth.
Serve yee Iehovah with gladnes:
before him come wit mirth.
Know, that Iehovah he is God,
not wee our selves, but hee
Hath made us: his people, & sheep
of his pasture are wee.
As “pure” as this feat was, this new collection had its metrical and singable drawbacks. The versification from the previous collections allowed for congregations to sing the songs easily; The Bay Psalm Book had metrical irregularity, little to no music, and little congregational involvement.
These issues with the original Bay Psalm Book resulted in Henry Dunster, the president of Harvard College, now known as Harvard University, completing a much needed revision with the congregation in mind. This was the 3rd edition of the Bay Psalm Book that was issued and given the new title of The Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs of the Old and the New Testament Faithfully Translated into English Metre. This new edition became the standard form of the collection for the next one-hundred years.
During the next one hundred years, this collection became popular and made its way throughout the American colonies and its jump over the ocean to Britain where another twenty editions followed. Fifty-eight years later in 1698, another edition of the Bay Psalm Book was the first to contain music and showed the earliest signs of musical notation in British North America.
One amazing edition of the Bay Psalm Book in particular was in 1661 when John Eliot, better known as the “Apostle to the Indians,” translated and published a versified edition in the vernacular for a Native American tribe; Wame Ketoohaomae Uketoohomaongash David (All the Singing Psalms of David.) This publication and translation was paramount in the entire Bible translation he created for the Native Americans and this was one of the first attempts at trying to evangelize to the Native Americans in the early seventeenth century.
The Bay Psalm Book was initiated as an attempt to be a faithful translation liberated from poetic dilution, however it did not focus on improving the singing of the congregation. Without the ability to have singing choirs or musical instruments, “lining out” the psalms was a common practice in many colonies. The psalm leaders would sing a line and the congregation would respond, I can only imagine, in a cringe-worthy ensemble.
The Bay Psalm Book, in its later editions with the addition of tunes, gave rise to the issue of participation in church singing, which in turn allowed Harvard-trained reformers to step in and introduce the “New Way” of singing. This “New Way” or Regular movement led into the early years the eighteenth century that focused on teaching colonists to read music notes.
