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Welcome back to another episode of 5

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Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we

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are talking about Calvin and the Psalter. The

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Reformation and the Reformers reformed

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all aspects of the church

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and of church life. We

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think of Luther as the father of

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hymnody, and there in the German Reformation,

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producing hymns in the German language for

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people to sing in their worship of

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God, and Luther also

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produced a German Psalter. Well,

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inspired by that, Calvin set

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his sights on producing a Psalter

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for the French people. Calvin, as

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you know, got to Geneva in 1536. And

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on January 16, 1537,

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Calvin and Guillaume Ferrell produced for

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the city council there at Geneva

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what they called the articles on

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the organization of the church and

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its worship. In

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there, Calvin addresses this very point

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of singing the Psalms. He

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writes, It is a thing most expedient

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for the edification of the church

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to sing some Psalms in the

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form of public prayers, by

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which one prays to God or sings

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his praises, so that

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the hearts of all may be

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roused to make similar prayers and

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to render similar praises and thanks

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to God with common love. Well,

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that resulted in

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the production of the Strasbourg

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Psalter in 1539. You

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might recall that in 1538, both

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Calvin and Ferrell were kicked out

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of Geneva. And so

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Calvin went to Strasbourg. And while

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he was there, of course, he preached

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to the French refugees that were in

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at the time what was a German

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city of Strasbourg. And there Calvin set

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to work on the Psalter.

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He was joined by Clement Merrow.

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And Marlborough provided 12 Psalms,

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Calvin provided six, and that

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was the publication of the

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first Psalter. In

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1541, Calvin was invited back to Geneva, and in

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the next year, 1542, and in the year after

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that, 1543, more editions of the Psalter were added.

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And at this point, Theodore

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Beza steps in. He

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was joined by the musician

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Louis Bourgeois, who redid many

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of the melodies and composed

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many new melodies for the

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Psalter, including the famous tune,

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The Old One-Hundredths. This

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is the tune for the hymn, All

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People That on Earth Do Dwell. So

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you might recognize that tune

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composed by Louis Bourgeois. Well,

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between this early work of Calvin and

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others and Beza, who

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himself contributed 34 Psalms

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to this new edition, they

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together published in 1551 a

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very much enlarged Psalter with

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83 Psalms. Eleven

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years later, 1562, two

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years before Calvin's death, after more

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people were working on it, a

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complete Psalter is

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published, all 150 Psalms. One

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figure in particular supervised the

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publication of the project, not

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the writing of the texts

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for the Psalms and not

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the composing of the tunes,

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but the actual publishing and printing

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of the Psalter. He

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was Antoine Vincent, and

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he employed 45 different printers. And

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in the year 1562

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alone, Vincent and

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his small army of printers printed

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somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 copies. of

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the Psalter. And in the

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years following 1562, many, many

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thousands more copies of the

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Psalter were printed. The

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Psalter was very influential among the

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Reformed churches in the

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16th century and even down to

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the church today. Well,

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there's a whole additional history to

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the English Psalter. It actually

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started two years before Calvin's

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production of the Psalter in Strasbourg.

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It started in 1537. But

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once Calvin's Psalter and the Geneva

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Psalter got rolling, it had quite

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an influence on the English Psalter.

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But alas, that history

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awaits a future episode. But

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for now, that's Calvin and his company

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of theologians, musicians, and even printers who

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produced the Geneva Psalter. And

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I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for listening to

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5 Minutes in Church History.