'', a Czech hand-written hymnbook from around 1430
Origins in Europe The earliest hand-written hymnals are from the
Middle Ages in the context of
European Christianity, although individual hymns such as the
Te Deum go back much further. The
Reformation in the 16th century, together with the growing popularity of
moveable type, quickly made hymnals a standard feature of Christian worship in all major denominations of Western and Central Europe. The first known printed hymnal was issued in 1501 in
Prague by
Czech Brethren (a small radical religious group of the
Bohemian Reformation) but it contains only texts of sacred songs. The
Ausbund, an
Anabaptist hymnal published in 1564, is still used by the
Amish, making it the oldest hymnal in continuous use. The first hymnal of the Lutheran Reformation was
Achtliederbuch, followed by the
Erfurt Enchiridion. An important hymnal of the 17th century was
Praxis pietatis melica.
Hymnals in Early America Market forces rather than denominational control have characterized the history of hymnals in the thirteen colonies and the antebellum United States; even today, denominations must yield to popular tastes and include "beloved hymns" such as
Amazing Grace and
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, in their hymnals, regardless of whether the song texts conform to sectarian teaching. The first hymnal, and also the first book, printed in
British North America, is the
Bay Psalm Book, printed in 1640 in
Cambridge,
Massachusetts, a
metrical Psalter that attempted to translate the
psalms into English so close to the
original Hebrew that it was unsingable. The market demand created by this failure, and the dismal nature of Calvinist "lining out the psalms" in general, was served by hymnals for
West gallery singing imported from England.
William Billings of
Boston took the first step beyond West Gallery music in publishing
The New-England Psalm-Singer (1770), the first book in which tunes were entirely composed by an American. The tune-books of Billings and other
Yankee tunesmiths were widely sold by itinerant singing-school teachers. The song texts were predominantly drawn from English
metrical psalms, particularly those of
Isaac Watts. All of the publications of these tunesmiths (also called "First New England School") were essentially hymnals. In 1801, the tunebook market was greatly expanded by the invention of
shape notes, which made it easier to learn how to read music.
John Wyeth, a
Unitarian printer in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who had apprenticed in Boston during the emergence of the First New England School, began to publish tunebooks in 1810 in German and English for various sectarian groups (but not Unitarians). He saw a virgin market in the Methodist and Baptist
revival movement. Singing in these
camp meetings was chaotic because multiple tunes were sung simultaneously for any given hymn text. Since he
lacked musical training, Wyeth employed
Elkanah Kelsey Dare to collect tunes and edit them.
Wyeth's Repository of Music, Part Second (1813) included 41 folk tunes, the first printed in America. This was also the birth of the "folk hymn": the use of a folk tune, collected and harmonized by a trained musician, printed with a hymn text. "Nettleton," the tune used in North America to sing "Come Thou Fount" (words written in 1758), first appeared here.
Southern Shape Note Hymnals (Tunebooks) '', showing the title "New Britain" ("
Amazing Grace") and
shape note music. Southerners identified with folk hymns of Wyeth's 1813
Part Second and collected more: the titles of
Kentucky Harmony (1816) of
Ananias Davisson, the
Tennessee Harmony (1818) of Alexander Johnson, the
Missouri Harmony (1820) of Allen D. Carden. and the
Southern Harmony (1835) of
William Walker drew attention to the fact that they contained regional folk songs for singing in two, three, or four parts. A new direction was taken by
B. F. White with the publication of the
Sacred Harp (1844): whereas others had gone on to produce a series of tunebooks, White stopped at one, then spent the rest of his life building an organization, modeled on church conventions, to organize singing events, with the result that the
Sacred Harp continues as a living tradition to the present. The other tunebooks eventually yielded to denominational hymnals that became pervasive with the development of railroad networks, with the exception of the
Southern Harmony, for which there is an annual singing in
Benton, Kentucky to the present day, and Walker's
Christian Harmony, published in 1866, with the first convention organized in 1875 (43 all-day singings in 2010); the
Kentucky Harmony was republished in altered form as the
Shenandoah Harmony in 2010, reviving the world of predominantly minor key melodies and unusual tonalities of Davisson's work.
The Better Music Movement in the Industrialized North In the North, the "
Better Music Boys," cultivated musicians such as
Lowell Mason and
Thomas Hastings who turned to Europe for musical inspiration, introduced musical education into the school system, and emphasized the use of organs, choirs, and "special music." In the long term this resulted in a decline of congregational singing. On the other hand, they also composed hymns that could be sung by everybody. Mason's
The Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music (1822) was published by the
Handel and Haydn Society of Boston while Mason was still living in
Savannah; nobody else would publish it. This never became a denominational hymnal but was well-received by choirs. Mason's famous hymns, which were also included in Southern tunebooks, appeared later editions or publications: Laban ("My soul, be on thy guard;" 1830), Hebron ("Thus far the Lord hath led me on," 1830), Boylston ("My God, my life, my love," 1832), Shawmut ("Oh that I could repent! 1835") Bethany ("
Nearer, My God, to Thee", as sung in the United States) (1856).
Hymns Ancient and Modern appears in England In England, the growing popularity of hymns inspired the publication of more than 100 hymnals during the period 1810–1850. The sheer number of these collections prevented any one of them from being successful. In 1861, members of the
Oxford Movement published
Hymns Ancient and Modern under the musical supervision of
William Henry Monk, with 273 hymns. For the first time, translations from languages other than Hebrew appeared, the "Ancient" in the title referring to the appearance of
Phos Hilaron, translated from Greek by
John Keble, and many hymns translated from Latin. This was a game-changer. The
Hymns Ancient and Modern experienced immediate and overwhelming success. Total sales in 150 years were over 170 million copies. As such, it set the standard for many later hymnals on both sides of the Atlantic. English-speaking Lutherans in America began singing the metrical translations of German chorales by
Catherine Winkworth and
Jane Laurie Borthwick, and rediscovered their heritage. Although closely associated with the
Church of England,
Hymns Ancient and Modern was a private venture by a committee, called the Proprietors, chaired by
Sir Henry Baker. ==See also==