| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
401 |
|||
|
PURITANISM,
IN ITS EFFECTS UPON MUSIC AND ITS ACCESSOEIES. |
|||
|
Puritanism, which so long exercised a pernicious influence upon music in this country, has been traced to a division and separation between the exiles in Queen Mary's reign: one party being for retaining the whole order of service, as set forth in the reign of Edward VI.; and the other for using only a part. According to Neal, such of the clergy as refused to subscribe to the Liturgy, ceremonies, and discipline of the Church of England in 1564, were then first called Puritans.*
" Like the Church of Geneva," says Hentzner, " they reject all ceremonies anciently held, and admit neither organs nor tombs in their places of worship, and entirely abhor all difference in rank among churchmen, such- as bishops, deans," &c.
This, with their objections to the Liturgy, to surplices, copes, and square caps, was an early stage of that puritanism which, having once gained the ascendancy, aimed not only at the vices and follies of the age, but also at the innocent amusements, the harmless gaieties, and the elegancies, of life.
Queen Elizabeth shewed her desire for the retention of cathedral service in the first year of her reign. Among the injunctions issued to the clergy and laity in 1559, the forty-ninth was for the continuance and maintenance of singing in the church.b It recites, also, that" because in divers collegiate and some parish phurohes, there have been livings appointed for the maintenance of men and children, to use singing in the church, by means whereof the laudable science of music hath been had in estimation, and preserved in knowledge;" therefore the Queen's Majesty, not "meaning in any wise the decay of any thing that might tend to the use and continuance of the said science," commands that " no alteration be made of such assignments of living as have been appointed either to the use of singing or music in the church, but that the same do remain."
In her own chapel the service was not only sung with the organ and voices, but also " with the artificial music of cornets, sackbuts, &c, on festival days." |
|||
|
* According to Neal, " Puritan is a name of reproach, derived from the Cathari, or Puritani, of the third century-after CI rist, but proper enough to express their desires of a more jiure form of worship and discipline in the Church." He givi s no authority for this derivation, and if, a*s Hentzner says (1598), they -were first called Puritans by the Jesuit Sandys, it may be doubted whether he sought in so remote a period for a name. In The Travels of Cosmo Til., Grand Duke of Tuscany, in England in 1669, the writer says, "They are called Puritans from considering themselves pure and free from all sin, leaving out, in the Lord's i rayer, Et dimitte nobis debita nostra," "And forgive us our 1 respasses." This is a probable derivation, as some |
at least, were ultra-Calvinists. The more vehement Puritans in Elizabeth's reign were called " Barrowists," or "Brownists." They maintained "thatit is not lawful to use the Lord's prayer publicly in the church for a set form of prayer, and that all set and stinted prayers are mere babbling in the sight of the Lord, and not to be used in public Christian assemblies." See the paper drawn up by the Lord Keeper Puckring, printed by Strype (iv. 202; 8vo., Oxford, 1824). This was the sect that afterwards prevailed.
» This injunction is imperfectly printed in Neal's History, of the Puritans (i. 152, 8vo., 1M2). It will be found in Hawkins' History, ii. 543, 8vo.; and Bumey, Hi. 18. |
||