Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Popular music of the olden time > Volume 2

401
PURITANISM,
IN ITS EFFECTS UPON MUSIC AND ITS ACCESSORIES.
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. Accord-
ing 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
churches, 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 alter-
ation 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."
a According to Neal, " Puritan is a name of reproach, at least, were ultra-Calvinists. The more vehement Puri-
derived from the Cathari, or Puritani, of the third century tans in Elizabeth's reign were called " Barrowists," or
after Christ, but proper enough to express their desires of "Brownists." They maintained "that it is not lawful
a more pure form of worshipand discipline in the Church. " to use the Lord's prayer publicly in the church for a set
He gives no authority for this derivation, and if, as Hentz- form of prayer, and that all set and stinted prayers are
ner says (1598), they were first called Puritans by the mere babbling in the sight of the Lord, and not to he used
Jesuit Sandys, it may be doubted whether he sought in public Christian assemblies." See the paper drawn up
in so remote a period for a name. In The Travels of by the Lord Keeper Puckring, printed by Strype (iv. 202,
Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Tuscany, in England in 1669, 8vo., Oxford, 1824), This was the sect that afterwards
the writer says, "They are called Puritans from considering prevailed.
themselves pure and free from all sin, leaving out, in the b This injunction is imperfectly printedin Neal's History
Lord's prayer, Et dimitte nobis debita nostra," "And forgive of the Puritans (i. 152, 8vo., 1732). It will be found in
us our trespasses." This is a probable derivation, as some Hawkins' History, ii. 543, 8vo. ; and Bumey, iii. 18.