Miserere Mei: The Penitential Psalms in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (ReFormations: Medieval and Early Modern) [1 ed.] 9780268033248, 0268033242, 9780268084615

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MISERERE MEI The Penitential Psalms in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

C lare C ost le y Ki ng ’ oo

MI S ER ER E M E I

m ed i ev a l a n d ea r l y mo d er n Series Editors: David Aers, Sarah Beckwith, and James Simpson

MISERERE MEI The Penitential Psalms in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

Clare Costley King’oo

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright © 2012 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data King’oo, Clare Costley. Miserere mei : the penitential Psalms in late medieval and early modern England / Clare Costley King’oo. p. cm. — (Reformations: medieval and early modern) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-268-03324-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 0-268-03324-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-268-08461-5 (e-book) 1. Penitential Psalms—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—History. I. Title. BS1445.P4K56 2012 223'.200942—dc23 2012008947

This book is printed on recycled paper.

For

Kyele

Contents

List of Figures

ix

Abbreviations xiii Other Conventions

xv

Acknowledgments xvii Introduction: The Seven Penitential Psalms

On the Origins of a Genre

1



Penitential Hermeneutics

8



Doing Penance and Praying for the Dead



Overview of Miserere Mei 20

3

13

one

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms 25

King David, Sinner/Psalmwriter

32



Sexualizing Sin

41



Adultery, Catechesis, and Pedagogy

52

viii  Contents

two

The Conflict over Penance 63

Reading Suffering in the Penitential Psalms

69



John Fisher and the Economics of Penance

73



Martin Luther’s Metanoia 82

three

Plotting Reform 95



Sir Thomas Wyatt among the Evangelicals

98



Richard Maidstone, Thomas Brampton, and John Croke: The Penitential Psalms as Common Property

104



Wyatt’s Paraphrase, David’s Conversion(s)

118

four

From Penance to Politics 129



Repentance, Paranoia, and Consent in Elizabeth’s Prayer Book

132



John Stubbs, Theodore Beza, and the Importation of Genevan Exclusivity

144

fiv e

Parody and Piety 157



Move Over, David, or, George Gascoigne’s De Profundis 158



Sir John Harington’s Antipenitential Hermeneutics

166



Reappropriation in the Odes of Richard Verstegan

175

Afterword: A Brief Reflection on Discipline and Method 187 Appendix: John Harington of Stepney and Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms 193 Notes 199 Works Cited 249 Index 267

Figures

Fig. 1.1. Psalm 1. The psalter or boke of psalmes both in Latyn and Englyshe. [Trans. Miles Coverdale.] London: R. Grafton, 1540. STC 2368. Sigs. a1v to a2r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.111.aa.30.  27 Fig. 1.2. The Penitential Psalms. The primer in English and Latin, after Salisburie vse. London: R. Caly, 1556. STC 16073. Sig. M6r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.35.b.21.(1.). 29 Fig. 1.3. Illustration for 2 Samuel 11. The byble in Englyshe. [Paris: F. Regnault]; London: R. Grafton and E. Whitchurch, 1539. STC 2068. [Great Bible] Part 2, fol. 40v. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark G.12215. 31 Fig. 1.4. The Penitential Psalms. Horae, Dominican Use. Italy (Siena), ca. 1470. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis E 118, fol. 132v. 38 Fig. 1.5. The Penitential Psalms. Horae, Use of Dol and Rennes. France (Paris), ca. 1405. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Widener 4, fol. 76r. 39

ix

x  Figures

Fig. 1.6. The Penitential Psalms. Hore presentes ad vsum Sarum. Paris: P. Pigouchet for S. Vostre, 1498. STC 15887. Sig. k4r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark IA.40335.  43 Fig. 1.7. Leaf from Horae. France (Rouen), [early?] sixteenth century. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis M11.10a.  44 Fig. 1.8. The Penitential Psalms. Horae, Use of Paris. France (Paris), early sixteenth century. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis E 97, fol. 68r.  45 Fig. 1.9. The Penitential Psalms. Orarium seu libellus precationum per regiam maiestatem & clerum latinè aeditus. London: R. Grafton, 1546. STC 16042. Sig. E2v. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.35.b.18.  47 Fig. 1.10. The Penitential Psalms. This prymer of Salysbury vse. Paris: T. Kerver for J. Growte [in London], 1532. STC 15978. Fol. 126v. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.35.a.14.  49 Fig. 1.11. The Penitential Psalms. Hore beatissime virginis Marie ad vsum Sarisburiensis ecclesie. Paris: T. Kerver for W. Bretton [in London], 1510. STC 15909. Sig. q1r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.25.k.4.  51 Fig. 1.12. First sermon. John Fisher, This treatise concernynge the fruytfull saynges of Dauyd in the seuen penytencyall psalmes. London: W. de Worde, 1508. STC 10902. Sig. aa2r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark G.12026.  55 Fig. 1.13. 2 Samuel 11. Biblia the bible. [Cologne?: E. Cervicornus and J. Soter?], 1535. STC 2063. [Coverdale Bible] Sig. hh2r. By permission of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. Shelfmark Fol. BS145 1535.  57 Fig. 1.14. Commandment against adultery. A necessary doctrine and erudition for any christen man. London: J. Mayler, 1543. STC 5175. [The King’s Book] Sig. N3r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.21.a.13.  58

Figures  xi

Fig. 1.15. The alphabet. The New England Primer. Worcester, MA: S. A. Howland (publisher); J. M. Shumway (printer and binder), ca. 1849. Page 13. Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society. Shelfmark N532 H864 1849.  59 Fig. 1.16. Detail from fig. 1.15.  60 Fig. 3.1. Title page. Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid. London: T. Raynald and [i.e., for] J. Harington (“Harryngton” in the imprint), 1549. STC 2726. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Shelfmark Syn.8.54.156.  100 Fig. 3.2. From the dedication to Lord William Parr. Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid. London: T. Raynald and [i.e., for] J. Harington (“Harryngton” in the imprint), 1549. STC 2726. Sig. A1v. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Shelfmark Syn.8.54.156.  101 Fig. 3.3. The Penitential Psalms. This prymer in Englyshe and in Laten. London: [R. Redman, 1537]. STC 15997. Sig. P2v. By permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Shelfmark STC 15997.  106 Fig. 3.4. Prologue to the second Penitential Psalm. Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid. London: T. Raynald and [i.e., for] J. Harington (“Harryngton” in the imprint), 1549. STC 2726. Sig. B3r. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Shelfmark Syn.8.54.156.  120 Fig. 4.1. Frontispiece with engraving of “Elizabeth Regina.” Christian prayers and meditations. London: J. Day, 1569. STC 6428. By permission of the Trustees of Lambeth Palace Library. Shelfmark (ZZ) 1569.6.  134 Fig. 4.2. Illustration for Psalm 1 depicting David in prayer. Gallican Psalter with Calendar, Canticles, Litany, and Collects. Flanders (Bruges), ca. 1470. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis E 182, fol. 7r.  136

xii  Figures

Fig. 4.3. “A meditation vpon the 102 Psalme.” Theodore Beza, Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes of the prophet Dauid. [Trans. John Stubbs.] London: C. Barker, 1582. STC 2004. Sigs. F2v-F3r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark 3090.aaaa.7.  151 Fig. 5.1. Title page with emblem of winged heart (and monogram IHS). Richard Verstegan, Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes, with sundry other poemes. [Antwerp: A. Conincx], 1601. STC 21359. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.38.b.29.  176 Fig. 5.2. First two stanzas of Psalm 51, with melody. William Hunnis, Seuen sobs of a sorrowfull soule for sinne. London: H. Denham, 1583. STC 13975. Page 35. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.37.a.7.  184

Abbreviations

CCSL EETS e.s. o.s. EW LW MT ODNB OED PL STC WA WA.Br

Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina Early English Text Society extra series original series The English Works of John Fisher, Part I, ed. John E. B. Mayor Luther’s Works: The American Edition, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann Masoretic Text Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online, 2004–11 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., online, 1989–2011 Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina A Short-Title Catalogue, 2nd ed., print, 1976–91 Weimarer Ausgabe, D. Martin Luthers Werke, ser. 1, Schriften Weimarer Ausgabe, D. Martin Luthers Werke, Ser. 4, Briefwechsel WA.DB Weimarer Ausgabe, D. Martin Luthers Werke, Ser. 3, Die Deutsche Bibel

xiii

Other Conventions

Textual Note For early works, I have silently expanded abbreviations and contractions. I have also removed double capitalization occurring at the beginning of sentences and updated obsolete characters (such as thorn and yogh, the long s, and ligatures). In general, however, I have kept modernization light. Translations for Non-English Sources Wherever possible, I give English translations for non-English sources (Augustine, Cassiodorus, Luther, and so on) from the standard versions. These translations are referenced in my notes. The remaining English renderings are mine. Quotations and Translations from the Vulgate Bible All quotations from the Vulgate Bible are taken from Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, edited by Bonifatius Fischer et al., and revised by Robert Weber. It should be noted that the Fischer/Weber edition xv

xvi  Other Conventions

i­ ncludes two different Psalters translated by Jerome: the Psalterium Gallicanum and the Psalterium iuxta Hebraicum. I use the Psalterium Gal­ licanum, Jerome’s Latin version of the Septuagint Psalter, which circulated more widely than the Psalterium iuxta Hebraicum in the late Middle Ages. English translations of all Latin Vulgate Bible texts are from the Douay-Rheims Bible. I use the 1941 edition published by the Douay Bible House in New York, with the title The Holy Bible. Where necessary, I have amended this text from British to American spelling. Psalm Numbers There are two different systems for subdividing and numbering the psalms. The first is represented in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate Bibles and their derivatives, including the Douay-Rheims Bible. The second is found in the Masoretic Text (the standard Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, compiled between the seventh and the tenth centuries CE) as well as in most Protestant Bibles. In this book, I use the ­system relevant to the literature in question in any given chapter. Thus, for the medieval period I follow the Vulgate, and for the Reformation period, I follow the Masoretic Text.

Acknowledgments

I could not have completed this study without the generous support of my home institution, the University of Connecticut. I am especially grateful to the University of Connecticut English Department for grant­ing me a semester of research leave in the fall of 2009. This time away from my teaching and advising duties gave me a crucial oppor­ tunity to reinvigorate my project by looking afresh at the Penitential Psalms. Before that, a Junior Faculty Fellowship from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation, in the summer of 2007, allowed me to indulge in three months of reading nothing but Luther. I would have accomplished very little writing had it not been for the provision of ­carrel space in the Homer Babbidge Library on campus. Further material aid came from outside the university, in the form of a Northeast MLA Summer Research Fellowship, which funded a necessary trip to the United Kingdom in July 2010. My research for this book benefited enormously from the assistance of many librarians, archivists, curators, imaging technicians, and permissions staff—on both sides of the Atlantic. I would like in particular to thank Lynne Farrington, John Pollack, and Daniel Traister (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania); Richard Bleiler (Homer Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut); Steven K. Galbraith and Rebecca Oviedo (Folger Shakespeare Library); Joanne Kennedy, Joël Sartorius, and Joseph Shemtov (the Free Library xvii

xviii  Acknowledgments

of Philadelphia); Cornelia S. King (the Library Company, Philadelphia); Don C. Skemer (Princeton University Library); Colum P. Hourihane (Index of Christian Art, Princeton University); Jaclyn Penny (American Antiquarian Society); Nicholas Smith and Don Manning (Cambridge University Library); Gabriel Sewell and Clare Brown (Lambeth Palace Library); Justin Clegg (the British Library); and Phillipa Grimstone (Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge). An earlier version of chapter 1 appeared in Renaissance Quarterly, and a portion of chapter 3 was published in Psalms in the Early Modern World. I am grateful to the Renaissance Society of America and the University of Chicago Press on the one hand, and Ashgate on the other hand, for permission to reproduce my work here in revised form. Full copyright information is given in my notes to the relevant chapters. My interest in the Penitential Psalms first took seed when I was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, and I owe thanks to  my advisors—Peter Stallybrass, Margreta de Grazia, and David ­Wallace—not only for allowing me to follow up on my hunch that there might be something worth investigating (and writing about) in this esoteric topic, but also for helping me to understand the wider significance of my discoveries as they occurred. Though each member of my advisory committee had a profound impact on my growth as a scholar, Peter Stallybrass deserves special mention for directing me to important archives, as well as for demystifying the often peculiar practices of knowledge production in our field. At Penn, I also received helpful suggestions from Professors E. Ann Matter, David M. Stern, and Margo Todd. In addition, I count myself highly fortunate to have been able to participate in the university’s “med-Ren” seminar—an experience that taught me to reexamine everything I thought I knew about medieval and early modern literature and culture. Lively conversations with my peers (including Jessica A. Boon, Jane Hwang Degenhardt, Marissa Greenberg, Miriam Jacobson, Stephanie A. V. G. Kamath, Michelle Karnes, Erika Lin, and Elizabeth Williamson) were formative, and I have recalled them often while working on the Penitential Psalms. Many other minds must be thanked for their involvement in this book. Christel McNeill (a long time ago now) and Michaela Lowrie (more recently) both helped me to decipher Luther’s German, while

Acknowledgments  xix

Erica Gelser checked my first set of transcriptions from the near-­ impenetrable “Weimarer Ausgabe” (Weimar edition). Emily Greenwood answered a relentless onslaught of questions about Latin and Greek from afar. I am also grateful to Ty Buckman, Hannibal Hamlin, Scott  C. Lucas, Anne Lake Prescott, Frederic Clarke Putnam, Beth Quitslund, Michael D. Reeve, and Nigel Smith for sharing their expertise along the way (and setting me straight where necessary, too). At the University of Connecticut, I have received sage counsel from my colleagues C.  David Benson, Frederick M. Biggs, Wayne Franklin, F.  Elizabeth Hart, Robert J. Hasenfratz, Brendan Kane, Gregory M. Colón Semenza, and Kathleen A. Tonry. It was Jennifer Summit who first informed me about the ReFormations series. The series editors—David Aers, Sarah Beckwith, and James Simpson—encouraged me to see this project through to publication and guided me in shaping my book as a book; I am deeply indebted to them for their advice at every stage of the process. In addition, an anonymous reviewer wrote a judicious and extremely useful critique of my typescript. The acquisitions, editorial, and production teams at the University of Notre Dame Press oversaw all practical matters with great competence and grace. I would especially like to acknowledge Susan Berger, Rebecca DeBoer, Barbara Hanrahan, Stephen Little, Elisabeth Magnus, Wendy McMillen, and Kathryn Pitts for their assistance. My biggest thanks are reserved for my family. My parents, Rea Costley and Alan E. Costley, have contributed to my academic efforts in countless ways ever since I decided—before I had made it through primary school—that I wanted to be a professor. Miserere Mei may be the first tangible return on their investment to date. (Mum, if I had inherited your talent for languages, I would have been able to complete this much sooner; Dad, I’m sorry it’s not about plasma diagnostics.) My sister, Helen Anderson, and her husband, Alex Anderson, have offered me hospitality on multiple occasions, making the London libraries relatively accessible to a resident of New England. My husband, A. Kyele King’oo, and our son, Edward Kibo King’oo, have endured my evening and weekend disappearances with indefatigable patience. Kyele has also been my toughest, and thus my most valuable, interlocutor and critic. This book is dedicated to him, with much love and ­gratitude.

MI S ER ER E M E I

Introduction The Seven Penitential Psalms

This book charts the rich and, at times, tumultuous history of the seven Penitential Psalms in England in the late medieval and early modern era. During this period, the Penitential Psalms inspired an enormous amount of creative and intellectual work: in addition to being copied and illustrated in Books of Hours and other prayer books, they were ­expounded in commentaries, imitated in vernacular translations and paraphrases, rendered into lyric poetry, and even modified for singing. It is the task of Miserere Mei to explore these various material and generic transformations. Combining the resources of close literary analysis with those of the history of the material text, this study reveals not only that the Penitential Psalms lay at the heart of Reformation-age debates over the nature of repentance but also, and more significantly, that they constituted a site of theological, political, artistic, and poetic engagement across the many polarities that supposedly separate late medieval from early modern culture. The Penitential Psalms are the seven psalms numbered 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, and 142 in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate ­Bibles; and 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 in the Hebrew Masoretic 1

2  M I S E R E R E M E I

Text (as well as in the majority of Protestant Bibles). The convention of according these psalms heightened significance as a subset of the Book of Psalms and associating them with repentance belongs entirely to what Harry P. Nasuti has termed “the interpretive community of western Christianity.”1 This tradition did not originate in ancient Judaism, nor has it ever been embraced by the Eastern Orthodox Church.2 Yet within Western Christendom it boasts an impressively long life, emerging in patristic times and enduring among theologians to this day.3 Miserere Mei examines the fate of this resilient tradition in England, in an era when the seven psalms held great sway over the religious and the lay alike—roughly from the end of the fourteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. In terms of vernacular literature, then, this study stretches broadly from the Middle English metrical paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms by Richard Maidstone (composed in the late 1380s or early 1390s) to the early modern English “odes,” or songs, based on those same psalms by Richard Verstegan (first published in 1601). Yet this book also focuses more narrowly on the fortunes of the Penitential Psalms in the mid- to late sixteenth century, when the sequence became caught up in Reformation controversy. The objective of this endeavor (that is, of the simultaneous adumbration of both a longer and a shorter history of the Penitential Psalms) is not to insist upon the much-invoked opposition between late medieval and early modern modes of expression. Rather, it is to highlight how certain Reformation and post-Reformation habits of reading and writing ­derive directly from (and may depend crucially on) important pre-­ Reformation antecedents. To put it plainly, the Penitential Psalms are of significance precisely because they survived—because they made it through the turbulent years of the mid-sixteenth century as a unit, and continued to bear meaning in a range of contexts (not just religious but also social and political, artistic and poetic), even after undergoing intense reevaluation. Prior to the Reformation, these psalms served both as important prayers of repentance and as valuable petitions for the souls of the dead. Deeply embedded in liturgical and devotional practice, and virtually indispensable to the Latin Church’s economy of salvation, they could easily have been jettisoned from post-Reformation culture. Yet in the decades following the upheaval of the Reformation the Penitential Psalms were

Introduction  3

not cast away but instead adopted, adapted, and appropriated—in some cases radically so. Indeed, the literary, cultural, and material history of England in the period of the Reformation bears witness to a remarkable eruption of activity around the Penitential Psalms, as the series was translated, paraphrased, contested, fragmented, set to music, copied, printed, marketed, smuggled across the Channel, and so on. The list of English individuals who engaged explicitly with the Penitential Psalms between the first years of the Reformation and the end of the sixteenth century includes, but is not limited to, figures as ­diverse as John Croke, Sir Thomas Wyatt, John Day, John Stubbs, George Gascoigne, Sir John Harington, William Byrd, and William Hunnis. (There is also some evidence that Edmund Spenser produced a rendition of the seven psalms, though, unfortunately, this particular adaptation appears to be no longer extant.)4 Reworking the sequence in ways that were sometimes subversive, sometimes reactionary, these translators, poets, printers, courtiers, and choir masters refashioned a Western religious convention that was approximately one thousand years old at the time when they made their claims upon it. Miserere Mei tries to get at both how (or in what specific forms) and why (or to what ends) they might have done so. The ensuing sections lay down the necessary foundations for this investigation. First I look into the original selection of the seven Penitential Psalms from the Psalter, while also tackling the issue of the genre of these prayers from a form-critical viewpoint. Then I explain the significance of Augustinian hermeneutical practices to the establishment and maintenance of the series. Next I delineate the various liturgical and devotional purposes to which the seven psalms were put in the centuries between the patristic era and the Reformation. Finally, I provide an outline of Miserere Mei as a whole and address further some of the ways in which this project might contribute to current scholarship. On the Origins of a Genre The origins of the Penitential Psalms—when the grouping came about, who instigated it, and why—cannot be pinned down with absolute ­certainty. In the late Middle Ages one custom held that the seven

4  M I S E R E R E M E I

­ enitential Psalms were selected out of the Psalter by Saint Augustine.5 P This belief, which is almost certainly erroneous, likely resulted from a provocative statement in a short fifth-century Vita (Life) of Augustine by Possidius, bishop of Calama.6 Possidius writes of Augustine that in the days of his final illness he had “the Davidic Psalms, the few that were written about penitence, transcribed for his benefit” and placed on the wall opposite him so that, lying in bed, he would gaze upon them and weep “copiously and continually.”7 The problem for literary historians is that while Possidius indicates that Augustine recognized certain psalms as exceptionally effective for penitential purposes, he does not specify which psalms these were, or even how many of them Augustine picked out. Moreover, there is no evidence from any of Augustine’s own writings—not even from his extensive expositions of the psalms ­themselves—that the bishop of Hippo ever considered the seven Penitential Psalms of later tradition to function as a group. Though the Penitential Psalms were probably not selected out of the Book of Psalms by Augustine, the genesis of the series may nonetheless have been motivated by the saint’s deathbed contrition, especially as it is narrated by Possidius: for the consolidation of the sequence of seven texts seems to have occurred in the century or so immediately following Augustine’s death (which occurred in the year 430). While it  is fairly common for early patristic commentators to class specific psalms, and particularly Psalm 50, as penitential in nature, the first explicit reference to the seven Penitential Psalms as a set appears in Cassiodorus’s mid-sixth-century Expositio Psalmorum (Explanation of the Psalms).8 In this treatise Cassiodorus provides an exposition of every psalm in the Book of Psalms. But, as he proceeds, he makes a point of highlighting each of “the penitents’ psalms,” while also delineating several thematic connections between them. Moreover, on two separate occasions he provides a complete list of the Penitential Psalms. At the beginning of his commentary on Psalm 6, Cassiodorus invites his audience to “remember” that this text is “the first of the penitents’ psalms” and gives the numbers for the remaining psalms in the group.9 He then itemizes all seven of the Penitential Psalms again at the end of his commentary on Psalm 142, where he notes that with this psalm—the last in the sequence—“the affliction of the suppliants and the course of their blessed tears are brought to a close.”10

Introduction  5

Given such unambiguous statements, it is tempting to point to Cassiodorus as the inaugurator of the grouping; but because the theologian expects his audience to recall an established tradition, it would appear instead that the seven psalms must have been associated with penitence for some time prior to the composition of his commentary.11 Regarding the question of beginnings, then, the conclusions of modern scholarship are necessarily limited. It seems reasonable to assume that the Penitential Psalms were selected out of the Book of Psalms at some point between Possidius’s Vita of Augustine and Cassiodorus’s Expositio Psalmorum—that is, between the middle of the fifth and the middle of the sixth century. But the precise moment of origin, and the identity of the originator (or, perhaps, originators), cannot be established with certainty. Unlike the fifteen Gradual Psalms (the other significant subset of the Book of Psalms), the seven Penitential Psalms do not constitute a consecutive series in the Psalter.12 What, then, do they have in common? Why were they grouped together in the fifth or sixth century? And what has held them together from that time until today? These questions are not as easy to answer as one might imagine, largely ­because, while they are in essence questions about genre, they cannot be answered satisfactorily by pointing to the inherent formal qualities of the seven psalms alone. In fact, ever since the establishment of modern biblical form criticism by Hermann Gunkel and Sigmund Mowinckel in the first decades of the twentieth century, it has been evident that the coherence of the sequence of the Penitential Psalms relies only in part on the intrinsic formal characteristics (such as theme, structure, tone, or affective technique) of the seven individual prayers. Although the principal goal of form criticism in relation to the Psalter was always to uncover the ways in which different types of psalms were deployed in the worship of ancient Israel, Gunkel and Mowinckel (and their colleagues) advanced their project initially by privileging formalist over historicist methods of analysis. And in taking this approach, they came not only to uncover some significant structural variation among the seven psalms traditionally grouped together as the “Penitential Psalms” but also to challenge the designation of “penitential” for a number of the texts in the series.13

6  M I S E R E R E M E I

From a form-critical perspective, the seven Penitential Psalms all differ from one another in several ways. The most obvious odd man out, however, is Psalm 31. Written largely, though not completely, in the past tense, this psalm gives an account of a spiritual conversion. The psalmist (or “speaker” of the psalm) explains that once, when he found himself terribly troubled (he was groaning so much that his bones started to waste away), he acknowledged his sin and received divine forgiveness. Now he rejoices in his absolution and, somewhat didactically, urges others to follow his example—both by pursuing righteousness for themselves and by joining him in praise of the God who delivered him. While this psalm certainly foregrounds the theme of penitence, formcritical analysis suggests that in ancient Israel it would likely have been considered either a psalm of thanksgiving or a psalm of wisdom—or a combination of both.14 In contrast to Psalm 31, the six remaining psalms in the sequence are composed predominantly in the present tense. These are not particularly happy psalms. Indeed, the psalmist protests about, and begs for respite from, a host of unbearable hardships. Not only does he suffer from a wide range of physical problems (sickness, weakness, weariness, disability, or old age), but he is also burdened with emotional distress (he bows low with mourning or succumbs to fits of weeping) and is subject to one or another kind of social alienation (his closest friends and relations have abandoned him and/or he finds himself surrounded by his worst enemies). Modern form-critical scholars generally concur that these prayers would have been understood, in the setting of early Israelite worship, primarily as individual psalms of lament.15 But the degree to which any of these petitions for divine aid would have been comprehended not just as a psalm of lament but also as a psalm of penitence depends upon the degree to which the psalmist first rationalizes his abject circumstances as the result of his own iniquity and then attempts to do something about it. In form-critical terms, it depends upon how much of the psalmist’s complaint is also a confession, a plea for forgiveness, or an expression of a desire to turn from wickedness to righteousness.16 And the psalms of lament are far from consistent in this regard.17 Indeed, on the basis of these criteria, one might imagine the six laments as lying along a continuum, with Psalms 50 and 37 at one end (highly penitential), Psalms 6 and 101 at the other

Introduction  7

(barely, if at all, penitential), and Psalms 129 and 142 somewhere in ­between.18 In those laments at the “highly penitential” end of the scale, the psalmist not only posits a direct connection between his misfortune and his sin but also explicitly confesses his iniquity and expresses a longing to make amends and/or to receive God’s forgiveness. Psalm 37 exemp­ lifies this tendency. Here the psalmist draws a triangular association ­between his physical pain, his transgressions, and God’s anger: “There is no health in my flesh because of thy wrath: there is no peace for my bones, because of my sins.”19 Thus, while he complains about his wretched condition, he also intimates that he might actually deserve to suffer. Later in the psalm, he even announces an intention to own up to his sin and receive punishment for it: “For I am ready for scourges: and my sorrow is continually before me. For I will declare my iniquity: and I will think for my sin.”20 In those psalms at the “barely penitential” end of the scale, however, the psalmist does not attempt to explain his dire situation by reference to a theology of divine retribution. When, in Psalm 101, for instance, he complains that he has been left to wither away, alone and surrounded by his foes, he fails to admit to any iniquity on his own part. He does indicate that he is subject to the full force of God’s wrath. But he makes no suggestion to the effect that this bitter treatment is justified. Instead, he gets close to accusing the divinity of handling him in an arbitrary fashion, exalting him one minute and abandoning him the next: “For I did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,” he laments, adding, “Because of thy anger and indignation: for having lifted me up thou hast thrown me down.”21 This psalm, then, leaves open the rather terrifying possibility that the psalmist suffers at the indiscriminate (or, at least, the inscrutable) whim of the divine. In sum, an analysis of the seven Penitential Psalms based on formcritical methods unearths the rather uneven, perhaps even inorganic quality of the grouping. Such an analysis, that is, does a very good job of underscoring that these psalms may never have been held together by a common emphasis on sin, confession, or repentance. What form criticism fails to explain, though, is precisely how, given their unequally penitential status (in formal terms, and thus also in the worship of ­ancient Israel), these seven psalms became and remained so thoroughly

8  M I S E R E R E M E I

penitential in the Western Church. To paint a more complete picture of the formation and preservation of the sequence, it is necessary to turn to both interpretive custom and religious use. Penitential Hermeneutics It is my contention that a great labor of imagination (theological and liturgical, literary and artistic) went into the construction and preservation of these seven psalms as a coherent sequence with a focus on penitence. In late medieval and early modern England that labor manifested itself, by and large, in the many different forms taken by the seven psalms—the focus of this book. Yet it actually began much earlier, with the commentaries of the church fathers.22 Of primary interest here is Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos (Expositions on the Book of Psalms) (ca. 392-420), which provided the cornerstone for almost all thought about the psalms (in general) in the Western Middle Ages.23 As I have already mentioned, there is no evidence that Augustine ever considered the seven Penitential Psalms to represent a special subcategory within the Psalter. However, Augustine certainly exercised what I will call peni­tential hermeneutics on these texts. And this interpretive approach was adopted later by commentators who inherited the seven Penitential Psalms as an established sequence. What I mean by penitential hermeneutics is a relatively systematic reading practice that foregrounds the concept of God’s wrathful (and simultaneously righteous) judgment and consequently interprets the psalmist’s multiple afflictions (such as his sickness and his suffering at the hands of his enemies) in an almost wholly spiritual light. Of the seven Penitential Psalms, three make specific mention of God’s anger (ira in Latin), while the remaining four make some kind of allusion, ­either explicit or implicit, to God’s justice.24 And, as Lynn Staley has observed, in the commentaries on the Penitential Psalms this theme becomes the dominant exegetical frame for the sequence.25 In other words, the Augustinian tradition characteristically positions the Penitential Psalms in the context of the inevitable moment when God will bring his perfectly just, yet utterly intimidating, sentence to bear upon mankind, separating (as the Gospel of Matthew puts it) the sheep from

Introduction  9

the goats, sending the upright to eternal bliss and the wicked to everlasting punishment.26 The opening verse of the first Penitential Psalm reads: “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation, nor chastise me in thy wrath.”27 Staley contends that the governing verbs in this petition—arguas (reprove) and corripias (chasten)—immediately place the psalmist “within a judicial and accusatory setting.”28 But I would suggest that this is not really the case for Psalm 6 itself, since the prayer incorporates no statement at all regarding the guilt (or innocence, for that matter) of the psalmist. Rather, it is only by virtue of penitential hermeneutics that the verbs in the psalm’s first verse take on a judicial valence.29 A little bizarrely, Augustine comes close to pointing out this incongruity himself. He begins his commentary on Psalm 6 by meditating on the Day of Judgment—the day when, he asserts, all of humanity will face the severity of God’s justice. But he also notes that there is a gap of sorts between his own judicial interpretation and the language of the psalm: the term corripias, which “availeth toward amendment,” he argues, seems to be “rather too mild a word”; indeed, the psalmist’s use of this verb is peculiar, he suggests, because “for him who is reproved, that is, accused, it is to be feared lest his end be condemnation.”30 As far as Augustine is concerned, then, corripias does not fit very well with the presumed setting of the Day of Judgment, when damnation ought to be near at hand. Thus, even while Augustine situates Psalm 6 within a thoroughly eschatological context, he simultaneously admits that the opening verse is not actually as terrifying as his interpretation, or his ­interpretive approach, requires it to be. Later exegetes follow Augustine in accentuating the wrath of divine justice in their readings of the Penitential Psalms. In fact, Augustine’s successor Cassiodorus, who interprets the Book of Psalms largely as a rhetorical handbook, extends the Augustinian emphasis on God’s judgment to the entire series. Explaining, in the conclusion to his commentary on Psalm 6, why it is important to pay attention to all seven of the psalms in the sequence, he remarks: “They form a sort of judicial genre, in which the defendant appears before the sight of the Judge, atoning for his sin with tears, and dissolving it by confessing it.”31 ­Vernacular commentators also reiterate the Augustinian emphasis on God’s juridical ire. The fifteenth-century translator Dame Eleanor

10  M I S E R E R E M E I

Hull, for example, echoes Augustine closely in her Middle English rendition of an Old French commentary on the Penitential Psalms. She elucidates the first verse of Psalm 6 by arguing that the psalmist intends to distinguish himself from those who are most likely to be damned “by ryght” at the final doom and goes on to define this unfortunate crowd as all who “repentyd them not of ther synnys that were oryble” and “toke no penaunce”; it is these folk, she writes, who shall “goo in-to the fyre of helle, in-to the derke and oryble pryson of helle.”32 It should be underscored that although the Penitential Psalms do not, in and of themselves, provide a consistent explanation for the numerous afflictions of the psalmist, Augustinian penitential hermeneutics does. For whenever the seven psalms are interpreted by reference to the specter of God’s wrathful judgment, the psalmist’s physical troubles are—almost by logical necessity—represented as (on the one hand) a direct symptom of iniquity or (on the other hand) a severe warning designed by God to inspire contrition on the part of the sinner. And this is the case even for those laments in which the psalmist makes no mention of sin at all (Psalms 6 and 101). For Augustine, reading suffering as sin in the psalms is an extended exercise in denying the literal in favor of the allegorical, or, to put it another way, in subordinating the body to the soul. In the Enarrationes, that is, the psalmist’s physical agony is taken repeatedly as a manifestation of a tormented soul, spirit, or psyche (the key term in Latin is anima) overburdened, in the face of God’s anger, by a recognition of its own wretched sinfulness.33 Consider, for a moment, Augustine’s elucidation of Psalm 6:3–4. In these verses, the psalmist asks God for help in his time of need: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. And my soul is sore troubled exceedingly: but thou, O Lord, how long?”34 Here the psalmist complains that he is extremely unwell, both physically and spiritually, and asks God why relief is taking so long to arrive. But he gives no reason for his wretchedness. Augustine, on the other hand, infers a root cause for the problem from the first verse of the psalm (quoted above). Taking the notion of God’s indignation from the opening of Psalm 6 as the primary frame for the psalmist’s sickness, Augustine argues that the tormented, suffering psalmist is actually subject to a divine plan. The psalmist’s bones and

Introduction  11

soul, he contends, are one and the same, for the bones are intended to be a figure for the soul.35 And he goes on to intimate that the text provides a picture of “a soul struggling with her diseases” while her physician tarries, in order that she (the soul) “may be convinced what evils she has plunged herself into through sin.”36 Augustine makes at least three rather surprising hermeneutical moves here. First, he suggests that physical suffering is in essence spiritual suffering—that the psalmist’s bodily pain is merely an allegory for a sick soul. Second, he argues that God does not simply allow the psalmist to experience suffering but actually contributes to the extent of his misery by deliberately tarrying in offering aid. And third, he posits that this delay is an act not of retribution but of mercy: for it is only through prolonged abjection that the psalmist will learn to examine himself thoroughly and thus recognize the gravity of his wickedness. Writing largely under the influence (both direct and indirect) of Augustine, Eleanor Hull also interprets the physical suffering of the psalmist in relation to the condition of his spirit. And, like Augustine, she conflates bones and soul, paraphrasing the request for divine aid in Psalm 6:3–4 as follows: I [haue] grete nede that ye haue mercy on me for I am ful syke for al my body ys so [foul] spottyd with dedly venym of my synnys that the rotynnes of corupcyon ys dyscendyd into the marow of my bonys. . . . I am so pore and feble that I may not ner dar not suffre thy iustyce, as he that ys not lytyl syke; and truly I feyne not for my syknes schewyht hym to the for he hathe now towchyd my bonys, . . . that ys, the strenght of my soule and that gretly.37 Hull understands physical sickness not merely as an allegorical ­figure for but also as a literal result of a troubled spirit. Nevertheless, she explains the distress of the psalmist by underscoring the inner turbulence of his soul as he stands before—and contemplates—the fierce and impending judgment of God. While Augustine and those who follow him repeatedly comprehend the psalmist’s pain as a symptom of his iniquity, they also interpret the psalmist’s adversaries as various forms of temptation. And this tendency again constitutes a denial of the literal (or bodily) and an

12  M I S E R E R E M E I

e­ xaltation of the allegorical (or spiritual). The interpretive custom regarding the psalmist’s complaint about his enemies in a further passage from Psalm 6 is a case in point. In the biblical text the psalmist protests, somewhat crossly, that he is surrounded by those who mean him harm. “I have grown old amongst all my enemies,” he cries, before addressing his antagonists directly: “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity: for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.”38 There is nothing in the psalm to suggest that these adversaries are meant to be taken as anything other than literal figures. But the exegetical tradition derived from Augustine turns to allegoresis to understand them. In Augustine’s opinion, when the psalmist laments that he is among his enemies, he means either that he is beleaguered by his own most grievous “vices” or that he is surrounded by those men who “will not be converted to God” and who therefore do whatever they can to “draw the others [those who have been converted] into punishment with them.”39 Augustine’s view is adopted and modified by Cassiodorus, who suggests that the psalmist is bothered either by “diabolical spirits” or by “our sins”: these agents of evil, Cassiodorus asserts, are rightly called “inimical” because “they lead souls into hell and continue with their deadly enticements even today.”40 Similarly, in a series of sermons on the Penitential Psalms dating from the early sixteenth century, John Fisher defines the “enemies” of the psalmist as “the flesshe, the worlde, & the deuylles,” and the “workers of iniquity” as “the doers of wyck­ ednes . . . whiche besyeth themselfe & be about to cause synnes to be done” (EW 20). Within penitential hermeneutics, then, the threat of real physical violence embodied in the psalmist’s literal or bodily foes is altered into a purely spiritual danger—that of the provocation to abjure righteousness.41 The total effect of this patristic and medieval habit of interpretation (penitential hermeneutics) is that it unites seven somewhat disparate psalms into a largely uniform or cohesive series. Indeed, the Augustinian understanding of the problem of suffering in the Penitential Psalms—an understanding that construes the psalmist’s pain as the direct result of a juridical confrontation between God’s wrath and human sin—essentially smoothes out the many variations in the sequence. To be even more direct: when the psalmist’s abjection is viewed as a symptom of his iniquity, and when his enemies are read as agents of tempta-

Introduction  13

tion, the seven separate psalms are all but transformed into one long and unbroken prayer of confession.42 It is also worth noting here that this particular hermeneutical practice finds a direct counterpart in the material culture of the period discussed in this study. To read the Penitential Psalms today, one generally has to locate each psalm individually in the Book of Psalms. But this was not typically the case in the late medieval and early modern age, when the seven psalms often circulated together (but apart from the Psalter) as a single textual unit—referred to in England, for instance, as “the booke of the vii. Psalmes” or even “the Psalme of a penitent sinner.”43 Presumably, such material embodiments of the unified nature of the sequence had the effect of fostering certain metonymic or synecdochic modes of interpretation: any particular psalm in the series might be explicated by association with any other psalm, or by reference to the greater whole. Doing Penance and Praying for the Dead In addition to employing penitential hermeneutics when reading the seven psalms, theologians and preachers publicized the vital role of these prayers within religious practice—and this advocacy further confirmed both the coherence and the penitential focus of the series. In fact, from the very beginning exegetes insisted that all seven of the psalms could be of great use or great profit in the pursuit of divine clemency. This kind of argument is evident as early as Cassiodorus’s Expositio Psalmorum. Opening his exposition of Psalm 6, for example, Cassi­ odorus pauses to comment on the entire set of “penitents’ psalms”: “Do not believe that there is no significance in this aggregate of seven,” he states, “because our forbears said that our sins could be forgiven in seven ways: first by baptism, second by suffering martyrdom, third by almsgiving, fourth by forgiving the sins of our brethren, fifth by diverting a sinner from the error of his ways, sixth by abundance of charity, and seventh by repentance.”44 Here Cassiodorus draws a rather enigmatic connection between the Penitential Psalms and the methods deployed traditionally by repentant sinners to attain forgiveness.45 Clearly the two sets involved in the analogy (“the penitents’ psalms” and the

14  M I S E R E R E M E I

standard means of gaining absolution) are linked by their both being composed of seven elements.46 But they appear to have more in common than simply a particular sacred number. Indeed, the point of Cassiodorus’s comparison seems to be that the seven psalms may be just as valuable, just as effective, as any of the seven long-established methods of securing God’s pardon, such as being baptized or suffering martyrdom. What Cassiodorus emphasizes, then, is the function of the psalms: they are penitential, as a group of seven prayers, because they provide a useful way for penitents to find grace.47 In accord with patristic theological suggestions like Cassiodorus’s about the high functional worth of the Penitential Psalms, the church in the West quickly put these seven biblical prayers to use. Indeed, this sequence of psalms was considered an indispensable aid not just to practicing penitence—in all of its manifold varieties—but also to praying for the souls of the dead. In this section, I will thus briefly outline the complex relationship between the seven psalms and the penitential and mortuary rites of the medieval church. It would be misleading to characterize ecclesiastical penance (or penitence) in the Latin Middle Ages as a static or homogeneous tradition. In truth, between the time of the church fathers and that of the Reformation—a period of approximately one thousand years—the church theorized and practiced penance in a multiplicity of ways.48 Yet what is most noteworthy as far as this current project is concerned is that however (and by whomever) penance was undertaken in the West, the Penitential Psalms were almost always woven into its procedures. Perhaps the most recurrent use of the Penitential Psalms in association with repentance was by members of the religious orders. Throughout the Middle Ages, indeed, the seven psalms were repeated frequently by the religious as a solemn penitential devotion. This was particularly the case during the time of fasting and self-reflection leading up to Easter every year, though the act of praying the Penitential Psalms in repentance was by no means confined to the Lenten season. Whereas the papal court tradition and the Franciscan books prescribed the Penitential Psalms with the Litany as a penance on ferial days in Lent, other traditions extended the practice to include festival days as well, and some communities stipulated the recitation of the Penitential Psalms even beyond the Lenten period.49 The Winchester Regularis concordia

Introduction  15

(Monastic Agreement), which dates from about 970 and provides a snapshot of monastic practices in England in the second half of the tenth century, suggests that in the majority of English monasteries at that time the Penitential Psalms were said year-round. The sequence was ­recited with the Litany after the hour of Prime on ferial days in both winter and summer, while also providing the basis for an important version of the trina oratio, or threefold prayer, itself repeated at three points in the day.50 During Lent, the seven psalms took an even more prominent role in daily worship: at each of the canonical hours (except Nocturns), the monks lay prostrate on the floor of the oratory to recite one of the Penitential Psalms and one of the Gradual Psalms.51 In addition, the series was said on Good Friday, as a penitential devotion in honor of the holy cross.52 While the seven psalms held a central place in the divine worship of the religious orders, they also played a crucial part in the penitential rituals of the laity. Indeed, by the time that the Regularis concordia was produced in England, the Penitential Psalms had already been incorporated, at least on the European continent, into the practice of public penance. This penitential process first took shape in the second and third centuries and remained the predominant means of penance until about the sixth century. In the ninth and tenth centuries it was reinstated in a revised form, predominantly in Frankish lands, as a means of handling exceptionally serious sins. According to the Carolingian version of the procedure, repentant sinners were expected to undergo a rite of excommunication (involving the imposition of ashes and a hair shirt), renounce sin, perform penitential exercises in public, and then be formally reinstated into the community of the faithful.53 The earliest indication of the way in which the Penitential Psalms were used in canonical public penance appears in Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis (Two Books Concerning Synodical Cases and Church Discipline), a collection of conciliar canons compiled around 906 by Regino, abbot of Prüm. One of the canons anthologized by Regino suggests that the seven psalms were read aloud during the dramatic and severe ritual of excommunication, which took place on Ash Wednesday.54 According to the canon, all sinners who were to embark on public penance at the beginning of Lent had to present themselves to the bishop at the doors of the church, barefoot and wearing only

16  M I S E R E R E M E I

sackcloth. Having enjoined penance “according to the measure of [each penitent’s] guilt,” the bishop led them all “into the church and, prostrate upon the floor . . . , chant[ed] with tears, together with all the clergy, the seven penitential psalms, for their absolution.”55 Finally, the bishop concluded the ritual by imposing ashes on the penitents and casting them out of the church.56 Regino’s canon had a significant impact on Ash Wednesday liturgies across Europe in the Carolingian period and beyond, largely because it was included in the Ash Wednesday rite in an influential Romano-Germanic pontifical composed in Mainz between 950 and 963 and copied by both Burchard of Worms and Johannes Gratian.57 But it does not represent the only way that the laity interacted with the Penitential Psalms in the Middle Ages. In fact, the Penitential Psalms were said regularly at public mass from at least the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Pope Innocent III (papacy 1198–1216) stipulated that they were to be prayed liturgically on all Lenten ferial days.58 Additionally, and more significantly for the purposes of this book, as soon as penance was established as a sacrament, the Penitential Psalms were integrated in its rituals. Penance was included by theologians among the seven sacraments of the Western Church from the twelfth century, and by the thirteenth century it had made its way into official ecclesiastical documents.59 As a sacrament, it played a central role in late medieval parish life, not only because it conferred divine grace upon its participants, but also because it assisted them in their efforts to avoid eternal damnation and to reduce the number of years that they would have to spend in purgatory.60 It ­almost always comprised three essential elements: contritio cordis (contrition of the heart, or repentance), confessio oris (auricular confession, usually to a priest), and satisfactio operis (works of satisfaction, or penitential exercises). The structure of the sacrament was based on a private penitential procedure, known as the tariff system, that first emerged among Irish monks as early as the sixth century. According to this Celtic practice, the penitent revealed his sins individually to a confessor, who imposed penitential exercises designed to atone for the particular kind of offenses he had committed. In the seventh century, the tariff system began to spread to the Continent, where it soon gained popularity and eventually took precedence over canonical public penance.61

Introduction  17

For the laity, the sacrament of penance was especially affiliated with Lent, which, by the later Middle Ages, had come to be understood as a season of repentance not just for penitents or those in the religious ­orders but for every member of the church.62 The connection between repentance and Lent was advanced significantly by the twenty-first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which famously declares: All the faithful of either sex, after they have reached the age of discernment, should individually confess all their sins in a faithful manner to their own priest at least once a year, and let them take care to do what they can to perform the penance imposed on them. Let them reverently receive the sacrament of the [E]ucharist at least at Easter unless they think, for a good reason and on the advice of their own priest, that they should abstain from receiving it for a time. Otherwise they shall be barred from entering a church during their lifetime and they shall be denied a Christian burial at death.63 Because parishioners were expected (on pain of excommunication) not only to confess to a priest at least once per year but also to be ready to receive the sacrament of the altar on Easter Day, the period of Lent steadily became the natural time for the completion of their works of satisfaction. The Penitential Psalms were linked to the sacrament of penance in two distinct yet related ways. First, priests prescribed the recitation of the Penitential Psalms as a work of satisfaction for specific sins. Second, since most parishioners confessed to a priest and received absolution infrequently—perhaps no more than the once per year required of them by Lateran IV, if that—they often turned privately to the Penitential Psalms in the meantime as a way to deal with their everyday transgressions.64 To put it another way, late medieval parishioners were allowed a surprising degree of spiritual self-management in penitential matters; by reciting the seven psalms, they could maintain the purity of their souls before God without needing frequent ecclesiastical mediation. Moreover, praying the Penitential Psalms helped them not only to obtain forgiveness for the sins they had committed but also to avoid committing further sins, and thus, perhaps, to avoid having to confess to a

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priest too regularly.65 Indeed, it was not uncommon to recite each psalm as a counter to one of the Seven Deadly Sins.66 Besides being linked to penance (for both the religious and the lay), the Penitential Psalms were often said as intercessory prayers, or suffrages, for the souls of the dead.67 There is evidence that the Penitential Psalms were used by the religious orders as suffrages for the deceased as early as the eighth century, and by the late Middle Ages they were included in lay folks’ primers as part of an established sequence of such prayers.68 Comprising the Penitential Psalms, the Litany, the Office for the Dead (the Placebo and Dirige), and the Commendations (plus, on occasion, the Psalms of the Passion), the sequence as a whole was recited both to shorten the period that the dead would have to spend in purgatory and to help them endure their suffering while they remained there.69 Within this intercessory sequence, the Penitential Psalms, the Litany, and the Placebo and Dirige would have been particularly familiar to the laity, since they were used in church, in the votive masses that followed a death. Many testators specified that these suffrages, and especially the sixth Penitential Psalm (Psalm 129, the De profundis), were to be recited in one or another combination for their own souls—usually by the poor, to whom they left funds for the service. Some parishioners may even have paid for these psalms to be said on their behalf before they died. Thus in the famous apologia of the C-text of Piers Plowman, the fourteenth-century poet William Langland, or at least his fictional alter ego, included these supplications among the tools of his trade: And so y leue yn London and opelond bothe; The lomes [tools] that y labore with and lyflode deserue Is pater-noster and my prymer, placebo and dirige, And my sauter som tyme and my seuene psalmes. This y segge for here soules of suche as me helpeth, And tho that fynden me my fode fouchen-saf, y trowe, To be welcome whanne y comme, other-while in a monthe, Now with hym, and now with here; on this wyse y begge Withoute bagge or botel but my wombe one [my stomach alone].70 It would appear that Langland’s ability to earn his keep (as a chantry clerk, perhaps) was based on a widespread belief that the repetition of a

Introduction  19

short series of prayers—a series that included the “seuene psalmes” (i.e., the Penitential Psalms)—was efficacious in easing the passage of the dead through purgatory.71 The same belief is also reflected in the Middle English poem The Gast of Gy, with additional emphasis on the Penitential Psalms. As Eamon Duffy points out, while the entire Office for the Dead is lauded in the poem, the Penitential Psalms and the Litany are said to be “the devoutist orisouns to the soulis in purgatory” because the seven psalms cancel out the Seven Deadly Sins.72 To summarize, then, in the latter years of the Middle Ages the Penitential Psalms played several key roles in day-to-day lay piety: they were recited to fulfill the third element of the sacrament of penance (works of satisfaction), to counter past and future sins in the interim between confessions, and to relieve the purgatorial suffering of the souls of the deceased. Of course, since the Penitential Psalms were so closely associated with both penance and suffrages in the late Middle Ages, it was almost inevitable that they should become entangled in Reformation debate. In the sixteenth century, both the sacrament of penance and prayers for the dead came under intense scrutiny by reformers, who eventually dismissed them (along with the entire devotional structure relating to purgatory and good works) as superstitious rites.73 From the perspective of early modern evangelicalism, therefore, the Penitential Psalms no longer possessed any sacramental or liturgical justification. Yet, as I have indicated above, this sequence of seven texts, which had been connected to the rituals of the Latin Church for so many ­centuries, was not discarded from (or even downplayed in) evangelical ­culture—not immediately, at any rate. To be sure, the seven psalms were included in the canonical Scriptures that were valued so highly by the reformers. However, since these psalms were not found together in the Bible, and since the sequence as a whole was associated with several forms of religious practice that came to be viewed with great suspicion, it might have seemed natural to the reformers to disregard the grouping. But the earliest evangelicals did just the opposite. Favoring a strategy of subtle appropriation over outright rejection, the reformers turned quickly to the Penitential Psalms to develop their own theories of repentance, as well as to intervene in larger doctrinal debates about the relative worth of good works and divine grace in effecting salvation.

20  M I S E R E R E M E I

Overview of Miserere Mei While the Penitential Psalms became a key site for doctrinal dispute in the Reformation, they continued to play a significant part in English devotional life. Furthermore, they were used increasingly in contexts beyond those that had been established for them by the medieval church. The chapters of my book thus constitute a series of interdisciplinary case studies, each one seeking to investigate a different material or generic recasting of the psalm texts. Beginning with an exploration of manuscript and print illustration, I move on to consider theological commentary, verse paraphrase, lyric poetry, political polemic, and devotional song. Although my own training has been in literary studies, I have found this interdisciplinary structure to be absolutely necessary, since the literary impact of the Penitential Psalms in the late medieval and early modern period was achieved not in isolation but rather in collaboration with numerous other forms of communication—artistic, homiletic, liturgical, political, and so on. Throughout this project, though, my approach is to merge the tools of close analysis with the methods of the history of the material text. I examine what happened to the Penitential Psalms by investigating how the poetics of penance intersected with the making, marketing, and reading of books. And I suggest that while the Penitential Psalms at times served as a locus of conflict between adherents to the traditional faith and followers of the new religion, they also functioned as an important devotional and lyric resource that was able to migrate over the confessional divide with surprising ease. In chapter 1 I examine the illustrations that accompanied the Peni­ tential Psalms in late medieval and early modern Books of Hours. I note that in the early Horae the seven psalms are typically glossed with a depiction of David repenting for his sins, but from the late fifteenth century this image is customarily replaced with a representation of David spying on Bathsheba. Both motifs, I argue, provide a consistent penitential context for the seven psalms. But they also have different emphases: while the early illustrations encourage imitation of David’s legendary penance, the later images participate in a reorganization of confessional practice around sexual concerns. I end the chapter by con-

Introduction  21

sidering the afterlife of the image of David and Bathsheba. This subject, I point out, rapidly traveled from Books of Hours into a variety of devotional, catechetical, and educational texts. It even crossed the Atlantic to colonial America, where, in The New England Primer, it was used to teach children how to read. These details, I contend, call attention to a startling interplay of pre- and post-Reformation art forms. My second chapter considers two theological commentaries on the Penitential Psalms dating from the early sixteenth century: This treatise concernynge the fruytfull saynges of Dauyd in the seuen penytencyall psalmes, composed in about 1504 by John Fisher, and Martin Luther’s Die sieben Bußpsalmen (The Seven Penitential Psalms), written in 1517 and revised in 1525. Reading these overlapping yet divergent expositions alongside one another, I demonstrate how the Penitential Psalms became central to Reformation controversy. Fisher employs the seven psalms to justify and promote the penitential systems of the orthodox church, including the sacrament of penance and prayers for the dead. Luther, on the other hand, takes the opportunity not only to query the theological foundations upon which those systems were originally constructed but also to propose a radical revision of the church’s understanding of repentance. This chapter thus reveals that the key concerns of Reformation-era ­debate—concerns about justification and sanctification, about human suffering and divine grace—were addressed through, and at times even inspired by, the very medium of the Penitential Psalms. Chapter 3 explores the writing and printing of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s mid-sixteenth-century verse paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms in the context of emerging attitudes toward penance. I begin by asking what kind of work Wyatt’s rendition of the Penitential Psalms might have accomplished in Reformation England, and I note that the first printed edition was sponsored by a number of radical reformers. I then turn to the poetry itself to understand why it would have been of interest to evangelicals of the time. In this latter inquiry, I employ Roland Greene’s phenomenological schema of ritual and fictional modes of ­apprehension to contrast Wyatt’s poem with other options that might have been available to its publishers (metrical paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms by Richard Maidstone, Thomas Brampton, and John Croke). Subsequently, I argue that Wyatt’s fictionalizing reading of the Penitential Psalms manipulates the widespread late medieval belief

22  M I S E R E R E M E I

(embodied, for instance, in the tale of David included in Caxton’s Golden Legend of 1483) that David did penance for his sins in a wholly exemplary manner. In Wyatt’s narrative prologues, as well as in the dialogue that develops between the prologues and the psalms, David converts not merely from sinner to saint but also from conservative (or orthodox) to evangelical penitent. Thus Wyatt’s paraphrase extends the polemical thrust of Luther’s Die sieben Bußpsalmen, redefining the nature of penance for its English audiences. In my fourth chapter I investigate some of the renderings of the Penitential Psalms from the second half of the sixteenth century that were designed to be used in new ritual contexts. For although it was popular in the period to fictionalize the Penitential Psalms, attaching them (as Wyatt’s paraphrase does) to the story of King David’s great sin and even greater repentance, it was also customary to adapt them for recitation by contemporary Christians. In other words, any believer, or any group of believers, could stake a claim on the Penitential Psalms. I pay particular attention to Christian prayers and meditations (1569), an anthology published by John Day for Queen Elizabeth’s personal use, as well as a 1582 English translation by John Stubbs of Theodore ­Beza’s Christian meditations vpon eight Psalmes (which includes an exposition of each of the seven Penitential Psalms along with a meditation on Psalm 1). These prayer books, I argue, adapt medieval liturgical uses of the Penitential Psalms for more social purposes, turning the seven psalms into instruments used both to sustain specific Reformed communities and to launch rhetorical attacks against the perceived antagonists of those communities. My fifth and final chapter offers a series of reflections on the continued popularity of the Penitential Psalms in England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Here my focus falls especially on the seven psalms as lyric poetry and song, and my goal is twofold: to uncover new, or modified, interpretations of the psalm sequence and to reveal an important return to traditional exegetical and liturgical practices. I begin by looking at the metrical psalm translations of George Gascoigne and Sir John Harington. In these works, I suggest, it is evident that by the end of the period covered by this study English poets had begun to experiment with the Penitential Psalms as vehicles for the expression not just of piety, or even of polemic, but also of personal

Introduction  23

forms of politics. In the second half of the chapter, I turn my attention to Richard Verstegan’s Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes—an adaptation into song, intended for English recusants. In several deliberate ways, I posit, this text calls upon the fundamental principles of penitential hermeneutics, enacting a reappropriation of the seven psalms for devotional purposes. As the preceding chapter outline suggests, Miserere Mei examines the Penitential Psalms from a variety of different angles and offers a collection of open, exploratory, and intentionally experimental essays. This scheme is not meant to be encyclopedic. Neither is it intended to resolve everything that might be said about the Penitential Psalms into a single pithy or memorable thesis. Yet when the separate case studies of this book are read together a couple of consistent themes do emerge— and these should make a significant intervention in late medieval and early modern literary studies. The impact of the Psalter as a whole on early English literature has resurfaced as a popular topic of late, especially, though not solely, in scholarship on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Along with several key articles by Anne Lake Prescott, Margaret P. Hannay, Carol V. Kaske, and others, the most valuable works in the area include Hannibal Hamlin’s Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature (2004) and Beth Quitslund’s The Reformation in Rhyme: Sternhold, Hopkins, and the English Metrical Psalter, 1547–1603 (2008). These recent investigations build on earlier foundational studies, such as Rivkah Zim’s English Metrical Psalms: Poetry as Praise and Prayer, 1535–1601 (1987) and M. P. Kuczynski’s Prophetic Song: The Psalms as Moral Discourse in Late Medieval England (1995). The above-mentioned publications are together to be commended for their compelling investigations of the critical role played by the Psalter in the shaping of English literary and cultural history. Nevertheless, almost without exception, each of these studies focuses on the Book of Psalms in either the early modern or (in the case of Kuczynski) the late medieval era. And, as a consequence, our understanding of psalmic literature across the established period divide remains incomplete. Miserere Mei takes a different tack. Concentrating solely on the seven Penitential Psalms (which have received little scholarly attention

24  M I S E R E R E M E I

on their own, as a subset of the Psalter), and using a transhistorical lens, this book contributes to the conversation in two specific ways. First, it addresses what I take to be a current imbalance in early modern research. A great deal of recent work has focused on the sacrament of the Eucharist, representing it as both the foremost site of Reformation debate and the ritual holding the most symbolic weight in the sixteenth century. This scholarship, motivated in large part by an obsession in literary and cultural studies with the nature of metaphor, has certainly been both enlightening and provocative. Nevertheless, it has had the inadvertent effect of diverting notice away from other equally important sacramental issues.74 An examination of the debates about penance that emerged directly from rereadings and rewritings of the Penitential Psalms starts to reveal that at least as much as—and perhaps even more than—the Eucharist, penance played a vital role in the development of Reformation thinking.75 Indeed, because penance intersected with almost every aspect of the church’s theology and ecclesiology of reconciliation, when Luther attacked the sacrament he challenged the entire system of traditional soteriology.76 Second, where current scholarship tends to suggest an insurmountable gulf between late medieval and early modern—or “Catholic” and “Protestant”—writing, my book highlights how the religious literature of the pre-Reformed past was not cast aside but rather gradually and complexly reshaped in Reformation England. It is often argued, implicitly if not explicitly, that the Reformation did away with medieval religious literary culture. Yet (as I have already begun to indicate) this study discloses that a substantial part of Reformation-era devotional and poetic consciousness was fashioned directly from what came before it.77 Indeed, to delve into the Penitential Psalms is to discover that they cross purported boundaries of historical epoch, of religious confession, and of literary form in unexpected and challenging ways: these seven prayers belong to both late medieval and early modern culture, to both pre- and post-Reformation piety, and to both devotional and polemical discourse. To date, the remarkable manner in which their influence transverses the period from the end of the fourteenth century to the ­beginning of the seventeenth century has not yet been sufficiently ­recognized—a fact that this book aims to rectify.

C h a p ter One

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms

From the time of Cassiodorus up to (and in many cases beyond) the Reformation, the Penitential Psalms were considered, by the religious and the lay alike, to constitute a particularly effective, and particularly comforting, set of supplications. These psalms were hailed not only as “the seven weapons wherewith to oppose the seven deadly sins” and “the seven prayers inspired by the sevenfold Spirit to the repentant sinner” but also as “the seven guardians for the seven days of the week” and “the seven companions for the seven Canonical Hours of the day.”1 And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that in the later medieval ­period (especially after the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215) lay folk turned to them with ever increasing enthusiasm—to fulfill the third element of the sacrament of penance (works of satisfaction), to counterbalance the temptation to sin in the period between confessions, and even to assist the souls of the departed, suffering in purgatory. If the laity turned to the seven psalms regularly, they must have done so in a metaphorical sense—reciting them all the way through from memory, for example, or meditating privately on select verses. But they must have turned to them in a literal way, too. For parishioners 25

26  M I S E R E R E M E I

would have had access to the Penitential Psalms in their Books of Hours, where the group appeared, usually after the fifteen Gradual Psalms, as the first component in a series of suffrages for the deceased.2 In this chapter I want to think specifically about what the medieval and early modern parishioners who turned the page to the Penitential Psalms in their Books of Hours would have seen there—and I do mean seen rather than read: my focus here is not so much on the text(s) of the seven psalms as it is on the illustrations that marked out the opening of the sequence in all but the most inexpensive of the Horae. I have chosen to start with a study of the Horae (or primers, as they were known in England), since these books were so enormously popular in their own time. Designed specifically with lay folk in mind, they were produced in vast quantities from around the middle of the thirteenth century and soon became the most commercially viable texts on the book market. In fact, as Roger Wieck notes, “From the mid–­ thirteenth to the mid–sixteenth century, more Books of Hours were commissioned and produced, bought and sold, bequeathed and in­ herited, printed and reprinted than any other text, including the Bible.”3 To put it another way, Books of Hours came closer than any other work in the era to achieving what one might call mass circulation. And far more Horae than can be accurately counted (but tens of thousands, to be sure) survive in libraries and rare book collections to this day. To investigate the illustrations in extant Books of Hours, then, is to consider how the Penitential Psalms were represented to, and received by, the laity on as wide a scale as possible for the period. Of course, the critical role that art played in shaping popular belief and practice at a time when literacy rates (in both Latin and the vernacular) were relatively low has been amply documented elsewhere; I take it as a given that the illustrations for the Penitential Psalms played just one small part in the church’s larger program of instructing and inspiring the laity through visual media.4 But my concern in this chapter is with exactly what the lay consumers of Books of Hours were supposed to learn from those illustrations.5 I find my inspiration for this investigation in the British Library copy of Miles Coverdale’s 1540 Latin and English Psalter. Here, directly above an image printed on the verso of the title page, an early modern hand has carefully inscribed a brief annotation (fig. 1.1). The annotation comprises the Latin phrase “Septem Psalmi poenitentiales”

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms  27

Fig. 1.1. Psalm 1. The psalter or boke of psalmes both in Latyn and Englyshe. [Trans. Miles Coverdale.] London: R. Grafton, 1540. STC 2368. Sigs. a1v to a2r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.111.aa.30.

(Seven Penitential Psalms), followed by the numbers of those psalms: 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, and 142.6 The numerical list functions as an index, pointing to where the Penitential Psalms are found in Coverdale’s Psalter.7 And the task of locating these seven psalms appears to have been particularly important to the annotator, who signed his name as “Georgius Harrison I:P” on the title page of the book.8 Indeed, he labeled each of the Penitential Psalms in turn. Psalm 6, for example, is titled “primus psalmus poenitentialis” (First Penitential Psalm), while Psalm 37 carries the tag “Tertius psalmus poenitentialis” (Third Penitential Psalm), and Psalm 142, “Septimus psalmus poenitentialis” (Seventh Penitential Psalm).9

28  M I S E R E R E M E I

The woodcut just below Harrison’s list is a rather startling one: it depicts a messenger delivering a note from a king (wearing his crown and royal garments) to a woman bathing (nearly naked) in a fountain. Is there, one might ask, any connection between this printed illustration and the handwritten list? And if so, what is it? What inspired Harrison to inscribe the numbers of the Penitential Psalms where he did, almost as though he were providing a caption to the woodcut? And what was it about the image that led him to search through the Psalter and highlight each one of the seven psalms individually? As I will demonstrate, the juxtaposition of the handwritten index with the printed image is no mere coincidence; in fact, the annotation represents an adoption or ­appropriation on Harrison’s part of a tradition that was already widespread by the middle of the sixteenth century. The tradition I am referring to is rendered immediately visible in a  bilingual Book of Hours for Salisbury Use published in 1555 and 1556.10 In this text the very same woodcut printed at the opening of the Coverdale Psalter reappears at the beginning of the Penitential Psalms (fig. 1.2). Harrison may have seen a copy of this particular text. And he may have noticed that the woodcut for the Penitential Psalms was identical to that in the Psalter. But he need not have done so in order to have been inspired to write “Septem Psalmi poenitentiales” as a caption to the Psalter’s image. For there were numerous Horae in circulation in his own time (in England and on the Continent), and in the majority of these the Penitential Psalms were introduced with a representation of a king peering at—and dispatching a messenger to—a woman taking a bath. The repeated use in the Horae of an image of a voyeuristic king, a dutiful messenger, and a female bather fortifies an association between the seven Penitential Psalms and a particularly racy biblical tale, namely that of 2 Samuel 11–12. In this narrative, King David commits adultery with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite. He makes her pregnant, then tries to cover up his sin by calling Uriah home from war, plying him with food and drink, and encouraging him to sleep with his wife. When the plan fails, David sends Uriah to his chief of staff, Joab, with a letter commanding that the bearer (that is, Uriah himself ) be posted on the front lines, where he will meet certain death. David is subsequently chastised for his sins of adultery and murder by the prophet Nathan. He repents and is forgiven, but the son born of his adulterous affair dies.

Fig. 1.2. The Penitential Psalms. The primer in English and Latin, after Salisburie vse. London: R. Caly, 1556. STC 16073. Sig. M6r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.35.b.21.(1.).

30  M I S E R E R E M E I

There can be no doubt that the depictions of a king and a female bather that accompany the Penitential Psalms in the Horae derive from this narrative of royal scandal, since similar illustrations are found along­side 2 Samuel 11–12 in Bibles of the time. To give just one per­ tinent example: the woodcut used both at the opening of the 1540 Coverdale Psalter and at the beginning of the Penitential Psalms in the 1555/56 Salisbury Hours seems to have been designed initially for the Great Bible of 1539, where it appears above the first passage in the story of King David’s transgressions: And it chaunced in an euenynge, that Dauid arose out of his bed, and walked vpon the roufe of the kynges palace, and from the roufe he sawe a woman wasshyng her selfe: and the woman was very ­bewtyfull to loke vpon. And he sent to enquyre what woman it shuld be, sayeng: is it not Bethsabe the daughter of Eliam, & wyfe to Urias the Hethite? And Dauid sent messengers, and fett her. And she came in vnto hym and he laye with her. And (immediatly) she was purified from her vnclennesse, and returned vnto her house. And the woman conceaued, and sent and tolde Dauid, and sayde: I am wyth chylde.11 In the Great Bible, the woodcut carefully embodies the principal elements of this tale (fig. 1.3).12 It may not represent the text in an exact way (“the roufe of the kynges palace” becomes a casement or balcony, and the several “messengers” sent by David to fetch Bathsheba are reduced to a single courier handing over a letter), but it does capture the drama—the tension—of the scene of temptation.13 It is almost certain that a visual representation of David’s adultery would have appeared to Harrison and his contemporaries in the sixteenth century as the inevitable or “default” accompaniment not just to 2 Samuel 11–12 but also to the Penitential Psalms. That is to say, the connection between David’s sin of adultery and the seven psalms must have seemed so natural by Harrison’s time that when an image of a king, a messenger, and a nearly naked woman appeared apart from the sequence (as in the Coverdale Psalter) the impulse to index the Penitential Psalms above it was all but automatic. But the illustrations of David and Bathsheba that accompany the seven psalms in the Horae

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms  31

Fig. 1.3. Illustration for 2 Samuel 11. The byble in Englyshe. [Paris: F. Regnault]; London: R. Grafton and E. Whitchurch, 1539. STC 2068. [Great Bible] Part 2, fol. 40v. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark G.12215.

actually correspond to a relatively late stage in a long process of naturali­ zation. In this chapter, I both denaturalize the connection between the Penitential Psalms and images of David’s voyeurism and consider the development of that connection (particularly in Books of Hours)—­ discussing some of its effects as I proceed. To begin with, I note that there were actually two dominant subjects associated with the Penitential Psalms in Books of Hours. In the early Horae the seven psalms were usually glossed with an illustration of David repenting, but from the end of the fifteenth century they were more often marked out with a depiction of David peering at Bathsheba. By relying on Davidic narrative, I argue, both types of image proposed not just a sole author but also a single moment of composition for the

32  M I S E R E R E M E I

psalms—and thereby participated in the transformation of seven unequally penitential texts into a more consistent series. However, the two subjects also possessed differing emphases. While the early illustrations highlighted (and perhaps encouraged imitation of ) David’s legendary penance, the later images contributed to an increasing reorganization of penitential thought and practice around the issue of sexuality. A further concern of this chapter is with the afterlife of the David and Bathsheba motif. As I demonstrate, the subject of David spying on Bathsheba, initially popularized in the later Horae, was a remarkably ­tenacious one. In fact, it soon strayed from the Books of Hours into a range of devotional, catechetical, and pedagogical texts and eventually traveled across the Atlantic to colonial America, where, in The New England Primer, it was used to reinforce the teaching of basic literacy. I thus posit in addition that the image of David and Bathsheba ­exemplifies a surprising degree of continuity between pre- and post-­ Reformation artistic custom. King David, Sinner/Psalmwriter The subject of David and Bathsheba seems to have emerged as the favorite visual topic for the Penitential Psalms in the last couple of decades of the fifteenth century. Prior to that time, Books of Hours sometimes used images of the Last Judgment, of Christ enthroned, or of David playing a musical instrument.14 Most commonly, though, they deployed illustrations of David repenting for his sins. The shift of focus from David’s repentance to David’s sin is certainly significant, and I will return to it shortly. But it is worth highlighting first that the two principal motifs, early and late, share a common source and to some extent participate in the same project. The custom of glossing the Penitential Psalms with images of David—either falling into temptation or repenting for having fallen— seems to have originated with the fourth psalm in the sequence, Psalm 50. Throughout the medieval period, this psalm (known as the Mis­e­ rere, after its opening word) was generally considered to be the most consequential, the most compelling, of all the 150 psalms in the Psalter.15 In the Vulgate Bible, it is tied directly to the story in 2 Samuel

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms  33

11–12 by its titulus, or superscription, which reads, “Unto the end. A psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had sinned with Bethsabee.”16 The Masoretic Text also includes this reference to David and Bathsheba atop the psalm (Psalm 51 in the Hebrew Scriptures). In both cases, the heading captures a tradition of intrabib­ lical hermeneutics with its roots in the ancient Middle East.17 And this tradition was picked up and underscored by exegetes—Jewish as well as Christian—in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Commenting on 2 Samuel 11 in the Talmud Sanhedrin, for example, Rabbi Raba has David repeat the words of Psalm 51:6 immediately after committing adultery with Bathsheba: “Against You alone have I sinned, and I have done what is evil in Your sight, in order that You be justified in Your conduct, and right in Your judgment.”18 Here Raba picks up on the psalm’s only verbal echo of the narrative in 2 Samuel 11–12, for according to the scriptural version of the tale, David responds to Nathan’s admonition by declaring, “I have sinned against YHWH!”19 Perhaps more immediately significant for the Christian context of the illustrations discussed in this chapter are the remarks made by Augustine of Hippo at the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century. In his sermon on Psalm 50, written for a Carthaginian audience, Augustine expresses deep dismay at the contents of the psalm’s titulus: “Bersabee was a woman, wife of another. With grief indeed we speak, and with trembling.”20 But he understands that David’s sin, as recorded in both 2 Samuel and the title to Psalm 50, must nevertheless be acknowledged: But yet God would not have to be hushed what He hath willed to be written. I will say then not what I will, but what I am obliged; I will say not as one exhorting to imitation, but as one instructing you to fear. Captivated with this woman’s beauty, the wife of another, the king and prophet David, from whose seed according to the flesh the Lord was to come, committed adultery with her. This thing in this Psalm is not read, but in the title thereof it appeareth; but in the book of Kings [2 Samuel] it is more fully read. Both Scriptures are canonical, to both without any doubt by Christians credit must be given. The sin was committed and written down.21

34  M I S E R E R E M E I

Augustine gives the impression that if he could have avoided talking in his sermon about the psalm’s title he almost certainly would have done so. From his perspective, David’s adulterous affair with Bathsheba is a potential danger not only to the reputation of the great “king and prophet” himself but also to the purity of the bloodline of Christ ­(David’s “seed”).22 Yet Augustine concedes that Holy Writ is Holy Writ, that Christians are not permitted to read the Bible selectively, and that the titulus of Psalm 50 cannot therefore be ignored. He thus draws from that titulus what amounts to a tropological angle on the entire episode, urging his listeners not to mimic David’s transgression but rather to be afraid lest they should fall into sin themselves. Far from trying to dispense with the connection between the Mise­ rere and the narrative of David’s sin and repentance, the illustrations for the Penitential Psalms in the Horae appear to play up the association. Indeed, whether they depict a self-indulgent David on the verge of committing adultery or a remorseful David kneeling in prayer, they extend the link made in the titulus to Psalm 50 to the entire group of seven psalms. Yet it is important to recognize that this extension is a certain kind of erasure, too. In the Book of Psalms, each of the seven Penitential Psalms is introduced with its own superscription. And the six superscriptions that are not reflected in the illustrations provide a range of alternative contexts for the psalms. The titulus to Psalm 142, for instance, alludes to a different episode in the life of David: “A psalm of David when his son [Absalom] pursued him.”23 Three others—those for Psalms 6, 31, and 37—make mention of David, but without attaching the psalm to a specific event or period in his life.24 And the remaining two do not bring up David at all: Psalm 101 is introduced as “The prayer of the poor man, when he was anxious, and poured out his supplication to the Lord”; and Psalm 129 is categorized simply, and liturgically, as “A gradual canticle” (it is one of the fifteen Gradual Psalms).25 In the Horae, however, the variety of contexts provided by these psalm titles is basically obliterated by the use of illustrations that refer to the tale of David and Bathsheba. This movement of extension and erasure has several effects. Many are subtle. But it is important not to overlook the most obvious: the provision of a single author (David) and a uniform motivation (the problem of David’s sin) for the sequence. To put it another way, the il-

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms  35

lustrations in the Books of Hours play a crucial role in harmonizing a group of psalms that might otherwise appear inconsistent and only partially penitential. Intimating that all seven of the Penitential Psalms are—like Psalm 50—associated with David’s transgression and repentance, these images participate in the church’s presentation of the entire series as one long and unified supplication for forgiveness. I have mentioned that the most prevalent visual theme for the Peni­tential Psalms in Books of Hours produced between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries is that of David in repentance. And these images, perhaps even more than the later illustrations of David and Bathsheba, regularly modify the biblical narrative: like numerous extrabiblical legends dating from the period, they tend to alter the nature of David’s reaction to Nathan’s rebuke, positing that after being confronted by the prophet the king performed extensive works of satisfaction for his transgressions. According to the text of 2 Samuel 12, David receives pardon for his sins of adultery and murder during a remarkably brief conversation with Nathan—and without much fuss at all. The prophet first accuses David of striking down Uriah with the sword of the Ammonites and taking Uriah’s wife as his own, and then conveys a catalogue of severe threats from God: “Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house; and I will take thy wives before thy eyes and give them to thy neighbor: and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing in the sight of all Israel, and in the sight of the sun.”26 At this point David makes his famous declaration of guilt—“peccavi Domino” (I have sinned against the Lord)—and Nathan absolves him immediately. David does lie on the ground and refuse to eat for seven days.27 However, he does not engage in this extreme behavior in order to gain God’s forgiveness (he already has that). Rather, the biblical text is clear that David mortifies himself in desperate response to a warning from Nathan that, because he has “given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme,” the son Bathsheba has recently borne him will have to die.28 The king ends his fast as soon as he learns that his attempt to save his child has failed. From early in the history of Christian biblical interpretation, exegetes made subtle adjustments to this tale, amplifying the extent of

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­ avid’s repentance. By proactively seeking his own pain and humili­ D ation, they intimated, David was able to set right his own wrongs. Jerome, for example, puts it this way: “If holy David, meekest of men, committed the double sin of murder and adultery, he atoned for it by a fast of seven days. He lay upon the earth, he rolled in the ashes, he forgot his royal power, he sought for light in the darkness.”29 Jerome stretches the biblical narrative here, and he does so with a delicately polemical edge. His point is that it was only by engaging in a program of strenuous self-abjection that the king was able to offset his grievous offenses. But this re-presentation of the tale also functions as a recommendation, for, as Charles Huttar has pointed out, the location of this passage in Jerome’s text suggests specifically that the whole episode is to be taken as an example of public penitence.30 If Jerome’s recasting of the Davidic narrative embodies one of the first steps in the church’s eventual development of a systematic theology of penance, the illustrations of David in the medieval Horae reflect a much later stage in the same process. Frequently, David is shown kneeling in prayer in images that also expand on the narrative in 2 Samuel.31 Margareth Boyer Owens claims that the motif of the supplicant David was first created for the Penitential Psalms by French illuminators at the beginning of the fifteenth century.32 This date is surely too late. Two of the historiated initials for the Penitential Psalms in the de Brailes Hours (the earliest extant English Book of Hours, created ca. 1240) depict David kneeling in prayer with his hands raised.33 And in a French Psalter-Hours from the second half of the thirteenth century, the Penitential Psalms begin with an illustration of David kneeling before Christ, who appears above an altar, holding a book and raising his hand in a blessing.34 In truth, paintings of David kneeling in repentant prayer are found repeatedly in thirteenth-, fourteenth-, and fifteenthcentury Horae. In these miniatures King David is sometimes represented praying indoors, as in a French Book of Hours from around 1480. This manuscript’s illustration for the Penitential Psalms depicts David kneeling at a prie-dieu, having laid aside his famous harp; behind him stands an altar framed by golden arches.35 Elsewhere David is portrayed either with a city behind him or in the middle of a wild landscape, in conjunction with stories that, like a Muslim legend, have the king depart from

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms  37

the city into the wilderness to repent of his sins (fig. 1.4).36 Although David is often represented wearing royal garments, his crown or turban is regularly cast aside in an iconographic reflection of how the king of Israel, overwhelmed with remorse for his transgressions, was said to have temporarily abdicated his royal authority (see, again, fig. 1.4, and Jerome, above). Other illustrations of the penitent David modify the biblical account of the way in which the king gained forgiveness even further, intensifying his repentance with morbid activities like self-burial. Take, for example, a lavish miniature painted by the Luçon Master (fl. 1401– 17) for the Penitential Psalms in an early fifteenth-century French Book of Hours (fig. 1.5).37 David stands alone in a rocky landscape with one foot in a hole and his arms crossed in front of his chest; the divinity appears in the corner of the tessellated sky and reaches out a hand to bless him as he repents. Likewise, David is found buried up to his waist in one of the seven historiated initials for the Penitential Psalms in the de Brailes Hours.38 It is worth mentioning that the regular use of the penitent David in the Horae coincides chronologically with the insertion of stories about David’s repentance into medieval rood legends. Derived from earlier Greek and Old Slavonic tales, the rood legends, which concern themselves with the long history of the wood of the cross, first circulated in  Latin and other western European languages in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.39 Typically, they posit that the cross was made from a holy tree with a genealogy stretching back as far as the Garden of Eden. But from the thirteenth century on, they also frequently assert that David once sat under that same tree and did penance for his sins—­ usually by composing psalms. The earliest version of this ancillary claim is found in an anonymous rood legend in Latin. The legend stipulates that David discovered three twigs on Mount Tabor and planted them in a well in Jerusalem, where they took root and grew into a single tree. Every year David positioned a silver ring around the trunk of that tree, until he became aware that he had fallen into sin: “When thirty years had elapsed and the holy tree had grown to maturity, David, after the great sin that he had committed, began to weep under that holy tree in penance for the sin that he had committed, saying to the Lord, ‘Miserere mei deus, etc.’

Fig. 1.4. The Penitential Psalms. Horae, Dominican Use. Italy (Siena), ca. 1470. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis E 118, fol. 132v.

Fig. 1.5. The Penitential Psalms. Horae, Use of Dol and Rennes. France (Paris), ca. 1405. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Widener 4, fol. 76r.

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Having proceeded through the entire Psalter, David began to build the temple of the Lord in expiation for the sins that he had committed.”40 While the Vulgate Bible (and specifically the titulus to Psalm 50) links the story of David and Bathsheba to only one psalm, this new anecdote in the rood legend enlarges the association to include the entire Book of Psalms. It also imagines that David’s penance extends from writing psalms all the way to the construction of the temple in Jerusalem (where the psalms would be sung liturgically). Most vernacular versions of the additional tale make similarly expansive moves. The David section from The Northern Passion, translated into Middle English from an Old French text at the beginning of the fourteenth century, is exemplary in this regard:41 And than dauid he fell in syn He come to that tre sore wepyng And fell on knees thore in that tyde And sorowd his synnes the tre besyde And thare in sorowe he made this psalme to vs That is the first Miserere mei deus And so he made the salter buke And than the tempill he gan to luke.42 Here, again, the writing of the Miserere leads straight to the composition of the Psalter (“And so he made the salter buke”), which then extends to the inauguration of temple worship (“And than the tempill he gan to luke”). According to these interpolated anecdotes, then, it was not enough for David to repent of his sins by crafting Psalm 50. To atone for his misdemeanors, he had to come up with all of the remaining psalms as well and start planning for the temple—no easy ­penance!43 It has been argued that the relatively late insertion of the story of David’s repentance into the rood legends is best understood as a reflection of the great enhancement of penitential theology undertaken by the church in the thirteenth century.44 The illustrations of the penitent David in the Horae, I would suggest, must be associated with the same phenomenon. In the wake of Lateran IV, the church needed, urgently, to educate both priests and parishioners in the several elements of the

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms  41

sacrament of penance (contrition, confession, and works of satisfaction). While penitential manuals were developed for the clergy, the laity had their Books of Hours. The images of David in the Horae, therefore, must have helped not only to validate and commend the sacrament to the laity but also to endorse the use of the seven Penitential Psalms in accordance with its procedures. Sexualizing Sin The images for the Penitential Psalms in Books of Hours created during and after the 1480s testify to a remarkable shift in focus. First, they repeatedly call attention to David’s sin rather than his repentance; and second, they focus on the sexual element in the transgression, portraying the moment when the king first caught sight of Uriah’s wife and was tempted to commit adultery. This late substitution of David’s sin (and particularly his sexual sin) for his penance as the favorite subject for the Penitential Psalms has already been noted in passing by several art historians.45 Here I will pause to consider its significance. It is only fair to emphasize that images of David and Bathsheba were not, by any means, invented in the fifteenth century; rather, they first appeared a long time before the production of the earliest Horae. A ninth-century manuscript of the Sacra parallela (Sacred Parallels) of John of Damascus, for instance, includes a representation of Bathsheba bathing to illustrate a chapter titled “De poenitentia et confessione” (“On Penance and Confession”), and similar images are found in conjunction with Psalm 50 in early Psalters.46 The subject of David and Bathsheba was also called upon by medieval artists representing the power of women.47 Nevertheless, before the end of the fifteenth century depictions of David and Bathsheba were rare—and extremely so in Books of Hours. The routine association of the seven Penitential Psalms with David’s adultery in book illustrations appears to have begun at about the same time that printed Horae first flooded the market—that is, in the last three decades of the fifteenth century and the first three decades of the sixteenth century. (A Book of Hours was printed in Rome as early as 1473, and regular production of printed Horae began in Venice in

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1474. Starting in the 1480s these texts multiplied across Europe; at least a quarter of a million Books of Hours were published between 1485 and 1530.)48 It would be wrong, though, to imply that the subject of David and Bathsheba was devised exclusively with the printing press in mind. Instead, the material evidence from the period suggests that templates of Bathsheba at her bath were used in the creation of manuscript illuminations as well as of engravings for printed texts. The design that would have been most familiar in both France and England in the sixteenth century is a case in point. Created at the end of the fifteenth century, it depicts Bathsheba standing in an elaborate fountain while David watches from a window or veranda above. Bathsheba is accompanied by a small number of ladies in waiting, each of whom proffers a different (and highly symbolic) object, such as a comb, a mirror, or a bowl of fruit. This motif appeared initially in a manuscript illumination in the Heures de Séguier by, or perhaps in the style of, the Master of Anne of Brittany (fl. ca. 1480–1510).49 It was then turned into an engraving for a large number of Horae printed in Paris beginning in 1496, for use both on the Continent and in England (fig. 1.6).50 In the early years of the sixteenth century the key compositional elements of the scene, with minor adjustments only, were deployed again in a range of illuminations for manuscript Books of Hours—some of which leave practically nothing to the imagination when it comes to the sexualized, womanly figure of Bathsheba (see figs. 1.7 and 1.8 for just two examples among many).51 And in 1545 a reversed copy of the 1496 engraving surfaced in The King’s Primer, the first English-­language primer to be granted royal authorization.52 Three important qualifications must be made at this juncture. First, images of David repenting did not disappear completely after the 1480s. In fact, the custom of representing David in penitent prayer both continued in manuscript Horae and made its way into printed texts.53 Its extension in print is particularly evident in a woodcut designed for an Antwerp Book of Hours of 1542 and reused in the 1546 Latin edition of Henry VIII’s authorized English primer (fig. 1.9).54 Rebuked by a prophet (who may or may not be Nathan), David kneels on the ground outside a city while an angel appears in the sky above, displaying a sword, an arrow, and a skull.55 Here the figure of the angel appears to derive from a visual convention associated with a tale from 2 Samuel 24

Fig. 1.6. The Penitential Psalms. Hore presentes ad vsum Sarum. Paris: P. Pigouchet for S. Vostre, 1498. STC 15887. Sig. k4r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark IA.40335.

Fig. 1.7. Leaf from Horae. France (Rouen), [early?] sixteenth century. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis M11.10a.

Fig. 1.8. The Penitential Psalms. Horae, Use of Paris. France (Paris), early sixteenth century. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis E 97, fol. 68r.

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(and 1 Chronicles 21). In this story, David commands a military census of Israel and Judah, and God gives him the choice of famine, war, or plague as a punishment. Medieval artists often represented David’s impossible decision by depicting an angel bearing a sword, an arrow (or spear), and a scourge (or skull).56 Second, a small number of later artists favored subjects that had not been associated with the seven psalms previously, such as David’s victory over Goliath. This is the case, for instance, in a Book of Hours composed in Florence for the Serristori family around 1500: the Penitential Psalms are illustrated by a circular miniature of the young David, who stands over the head of the Philistine giant with one hand resting on his hip and the other on his sword.57 The image, as John Harthan suggests, must have been inspired by two bronze statues of David—by Donatello and Verrochio—that were familiar to Florentines at the time the Book of Hours was painted. (The boy David featured prominently in the art of Florence, where he was taken as a symbol of the ­republic’s resistance to tyrannical government.)58 Other representations of the Goliath narrative portray David in action, using his slingshot to launch a stone at his opponent’s head, as at the opening of the Penitential Psalms in a late fifteenth-century Book of Hours designed for Paris Use.59 Third, in some of the most extravagant of the later primers, the Penitential Psalms are illustrated with seven images that together combine the story of David and Bathsheba with additional incidents from the long sweep of Davidic biography. The illuminations for the Penitential Psalms in a Book of Hours produced in southern France around 1530 do exactly this. The first painting occupies almost an entire page.60 It depicts a pregnant (but clothed) Bathsheba pointing accusingly at David with one hand while gesturing with the other toward her dead husband; the victim of David’s murderous plot lies at her feet, still clutching the letter that sent him to his death. The whole scene is watched over by a celestial messenger who hovers ominously above the infamous fountain, brandishing a sword, an arrow, and a scourge. Six smaller images throughout the Penitential Psalms in the Book of Hours embody supplementary events from David’s vita. They represent, in sequence, Nathan rebuking David (Psalm 31); David praying before an angel with a flaming sword (Psalm 37); David praying over his infant

Fig. 1.9. The Penitential Psalms. Orarium seu libellus precationum per regiam maiestatem & clerum latinè aeditus. London: R. Grafton, 1546. STC 16042. Sig. E2v. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.35.b.18.

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son (Psalm 50); David outside the palace walls (Psalm 101); David praying indoors, with a woman behind him (Psalm 129); and, in conclusion, David looking away from his son Absalom, who is caught in a tree (Psalm 142).61 But when the Penitential Psalms are embellished with a series of ­illustrations, the opening image is usually of David and Bathsheba. Consider the case of a Salisbury primer printed in 1532 and 1533 by Thielman Kerver in Paris.62 The first Penitential Psalm is signaled here with a cut of David sending a messenger to Bathsheba, who stands naked in a window, apparently showing off her breasts (fig. 1.10). Each of the other psalms has its own illustration drawn from a different moment in David’s life story: Uriah dying in battle, Nathan rebuking David, David’s choice of punishments, David sacrificing a lamb, David enthroned, and David transferring his royal power to Solomon. In instances such as this, the presence of the additional images might seem to diminish the effect of Bathsheba’s body. Nevertheless, because Bathsheba appears in the first and therefore the most prominent of the seven illustrations, she remains the crucial emblem for the Penitential Psalms as a whole. Furthermore, only those primers aimed at the high end of the book-buying market deploy a series of illustrations for the Penitential Psalms. Most of the late Horae use a single image, and that image typically represents David observing a naked, or nearly naked, Bathsheba. In toto, then, the evidence from the Horae suggests that a significant alteration to the visual tradition associated with the Penitential Psalms occurred at the end of the fifteenth century: illuminators and print illustrators alike turned from David’s repentance to David’s sin. And this alteration matters—a great deal. For not only do the images of David and Bathsheba in the late Horae tie the seven Penitential Psalms to a particularly embarrassing episode in David’s life, but they also have a more general ethical (and possibly even psychological) effect. To put it plainly, they associate sin with sexual transgression. Of course, David committed not just one grave sin but two. As well as engaging in an adulterous liaison with Bathsheba, he arranged for Uriah to be killed on the front lines. This means that if the later illustrators had wanted to associate the Penitential Psalms with a nonsexual sin, they could certainly have chosen to depict David’s homicidal

Fig. 1.10. The Penitential Psalms. This prymer of Salysbury vse. Paris: T. Kerver for J. Growte [in London], 1532. STC 15978. Fol. 126v. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.35.a.14.

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treachery against Bathsheba’s husband. And, in fact, a group of Parisian artists working on Horae for both the French and English markets at the turn of the sixteenth century did exactly that.63 Their images for the Penitential Psalms show Uriah receiving from David the letter that commands his own death while the king’s attendants look on (see, for example, fig. 1.11).64 It is interesting to note that the fatal communiqué represented in these images of David and Uriah reappears in numerous early modern illustrations of Bathsheba bathing, where it is transformed into a love letter; the biblical account of David’s adultery makes no mention at all of a written message.65 However, the most important point here is that depictions of the murder of Uriah never occupied more than a marginal position in the visual tradition compared to those of David’s adultery with Bathsheba. Perhaps the depictions of David and Bathsheba gained ground over the illustrations of David and Uriah simply because the ­indirect nature of the homicide meant that the sin could not be represented in a single dramatic illustration: David was not present when Uriah lost his life in battle, and the murder involved several different layers of deception and betrayal. Regardless, by focusing on adultery rather than murder, the favored images (of David and Bathsheba) made illicit sex representative of all sin. The double association figured in the relationship between text and image—the association of the Penitential Psalms with sin, and of sin with sexual transgression—gives some support for Michel Foucault’s hypothesis in The History of Sexuality that sex increasingly became the central focus of the late medieval rite of confession. Foucault argues that this rite “compel[led] individuals to articulate their sexual ­peculiarity— no matter how extreme,” thereby transforming sex into “a privileged theme” in the disclosure of sin.66 By the end of the Middle Ages, Foucault claims, penance and sex were inextricably related via confession, and, as a result, all sin was condensed into sexual iniquity. Where there had once been seven deadly sins, then, all of these were now effectively epitomized by a single sin. Foucault’s thesis is not, of course, universally accepted. Thomas Tentler, for example, cautions against overemphasizing the late medieval church’s preoccupation with sex. Nevertheless, Tentler agrees that “sexuality holds a special place in medieval religion”: “While it is

Fig. 1.11. The Penitential Psalms. Hore beatissime virginis Marie ad vsum Sarisburiensis ecclesie. Paris: T. Kerver for W. Bretton [in London], 1510. STC 15909. Sig. q1r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.25.k.4.

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true that the medieval church could excoriate all kinds of vices and all kinds of sins,” he writes, “it was inordinately concerned with the sexual.”67 Significantly, the penance recommended for sexual sin in confessional handbooks of the late medieval period was very often the recitation of the seven Penitential Psalms themselves.68 Whether or not one accepts the entirety of Foucault’s argument, then, the astonishing pro­ liferation of images of David and Bathsheba alongside the Penitential Psalms in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Books of Hours must be seen as a significant development in the organization of confession and other penitential practices around sex and sexuality. Adultery, Catechesis, and Pedagogy A number of modern scholars have conjectured that the images of David and Bathsheba in the late Horae not only portray a scene of seduction but also embody a seductive force of their own. Roger Wieck, for example, posits that such illustrations—which, he says, “seem to offer less of an admonition against sin than an occasion for it”—were intended to be provocative; and John Harthan claims that, just like images of Saint Sebastian and of the zodiacal sign Gemini, these depictions of the temptation of David allowed manuscript illuminators to “safely give their patrons a mild erotic frisson by portraying nudity.”69 Max Engammare makes a similar point, suggesting that engravings of David and Bathsheba in Bibles “are above all spaces for erotic expressions that transgress the bounds of the text.”70 These illustrations do indeed shift the focus of the biblical narrative from David’s illicit gaze to its object. By placing David in a corner of the image and positioning Bathsheba in the center, and /or by displaying a large Bathsheba in contrast to a fairly minute David, they draw particular attention to Bathsheba’s body and its contours. However, there is little evidence from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries to suggest that contemporaries saw anything salacious in them. Instead, images of David and Bathsheba were soon transplanted from Books of Hours into a range of devotional, catechetical, and educational texts, even those intended for children. This trend is particularly noteworthy because it indicates how easy it was for a single motif to traverse what

Illustrating the Penitential Psalms  53

are often conceived of today as fixed and impenetrable historical or religious boundaries. One exception to the rule that nobody complained about the scandalous nature of the images might be Desiderius Erasmus. In his Christiani matrimonii institutio (The Institution of Christian Marriage) of 1526, Erasmus compares the iconography of ancient religions to that of his own.71 Thanking God that his modern Christian faith involves “nothing which is not chaste and modest,” he goes on to denounce those artists who nevertheless pollute their religious themes: “All the more grievous is the sin of those who inject shamelessness into subjects that are chaste by nature. Why is it necessary to depict any old fable in the churches? A young man and a girl lying in bed? David looking from a window at Bathsheba and luring her into adultery? To show David embracing the Shunamite woman who had been brought before him? Or the daughter of Herodias dancing?”72 But Erasmus, who seems to be concerned more with David’s lustful gaze than with Bathsheba’s ­nakedness, does not suggest that depictions of Bathsheba are intrinsically arousing. He simply includes the tale of David and Bathsheba, along with the stories of David embracing the Shunamite woman and of Herodias’s daughter dancing, in a list of biblical narratives that tend to suffer corruption when represented visually. He continues: “These subjects, it is true, are taken from Scripture; but when it comes to the ­depiction of females how much naughtiness is there admixed by the artists?”73 Thus not only does Erasmus deflect attention away from Bathsheba’s bath toward David’s voyeurism, but he also castigates the painters who portray Bathsheba. In other words, his statements reflect his more general bias against artists.74 Moreover, he is extremely atypical, at least for his time, in finding any problem at all in representations of the scene of temptation.75 In actuality, rather than being singled out as dangerously seductive, these images became increasingly popular, and even crossed confessional lines in the Reformation era. That is to say, although David’s fall into voyeurism and adultery was initially popularized in pre-­ Reformation Books of Hours, the subject was rapidly adopted by artists affiliated with the new religion.76 The first edition of Martin Luther’s complete German Bible (printed in Wittenberg in 1534), for example, makes use of a modest engraving of David and Bathsheba produced

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in the w ­ orkshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553).77 It is significant that the Lutheran image features a maid washing Bathsheba’s feet—an element that was used initially in German illustrations prior to Luther’s break with Rome and that continued to be reproduced across Europe well into the sixteenth century in texts associated with the established (papal) church.78 The topic of David and Bathsheba was also taken up enthusiastically in the mid–seventeenth century by artists in the Low Countries (primarily in the Protestant cities of Amsterdam and Haarlem), who seem to have vied with each other to paint the most beautiful, the most eye-catching, Bathsheba.79 Of the many works that emerged from this fierce competition, the one that stands out most is Rembrandt’s (1606– 69) enigmatic painting of 1654 (Musée du Louvre, Paris), over which much critical ink has already been spilled.80 The masterpiece depicts a naked but not brazen Bathsheba, holding a letter and wrapped in thought. In this rare instance, the king is not present in the image at all. While depictions of Bathsheba taking a bath (usually with a lustful David observing her) assumed an extraordinary prominence across the otherwise conflicting visual cultures of a divided Christendom, these images also migrated freely from one genre of text to another. Here it is worth following two specific engravings that crossed both religious and generic boundaries, one originally English, the other originally ­German. The first image began life in 1508, as an illustration to a homiletic exposition on the Penitential Psalms by John Fisher, This treatise concernynge the fruytfull saynges of Dauyd in the seuen penytencyall psalmes.81 The woodcut in Wynkyn de Worde’s publication of the exposition portrays David looking out slightly askance from a window above Bathsheba (fig. 1.12). It was copied in an unauthorized edition printed by Richard Pynson in 1510, and de Worde used it again in 1512 to illustrate “The hystorye of Dauyd” in his edition of the Legenda aurea (Golden Legend ).82 Later it appeared in a variety of primers, ranging from de Worde’s 1514 Latin Salisbury Horae to Robert Redman’s bilingual primer.83 A reversed version was even included in John Mayler’s English prayer book designed for children, published around 1539.84 The second image was designed by Sebald Beham (1500–1550) and printed initially in two different German Bibles of 1534.85 Soon after, this classicizing engraving was used in the Coverdale Bible of

Fig. 1.12. First sermon. John Fisher, This treatise concernynge the fruytfull saynges of Dauyd in the seuen penytencyall psalmes. London: W. de Worde, 1508. STC 10902. Sig. aa2r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark G.12026.

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1535 as an accompaniment to 2 Samuel 11 (fig. 1.13).86 It was then deployed to represent the Penitential Psalms in a 1539 English primer ­titled The manuall of prayers, as well as to warn against the sin of adultery in a 1543 illustrated edition of the King’s Book (fig. 1.14).87 This particular German version of the scene of temptation looks somewhat peculiar to twenty-first-century eyes, since the artist’s attempt at perspective results in an (almost grotesquely) oversized Bathsheba. But what must be stressed most is that both in this case and in the case of the woodcut designed for Fisher’s This treatise, a single image depicting David’s observation of Bathsheba was reused in a wide range of texts, tying the narrative of David’s adultery to the Penitential Psalms and associating scriptural history with sixteenth-century religious practice. The purpose of the David and Bathsheba images was not only devotional but also catechetical and pedagogical. On the one hand, these illustrations became a standard feature of Horae and alternative manuals of piety, where they were associated with intercessory and penitential prayer. On the other hand, they were turned into instruments for instructing adults and children alike in the essential elements of Christianity (such as the Ten Commandments) and in the building blocks of literacy (such as the letters of the alphabet).88 Nowhere is the movement of these images from devotional texts into catechetical and pedagogical works more evident than in The New England Primer. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries children in America learned their alphabet from this educational text, which sold more than six million copies and was rivaled on the American book market only by almanacs.89 In most editions, young readers were confronted at the letter “U” with the rhyme “Uriah’s beauteous wife / Made David seek his life,” accompanied by a small woodcut of David watching Bathsheba (figs. 1.15 and 1.16). Representations of David’s sexual sin thus became as familiar to American Puritans and their descendants as they had been to the devout late medieval and early modern Euro­ peans. Moreover, the images in The New England Primer regularly reflected the continuing influence of cuts that were printed in handbooks of prayer and/or catechetical texts two or three centuries earlier (compare, for example, figs. 1.15 and 1.16 with figs. 1.13 and 1.14). It is not all that surprising that the same, or very similar, illustrations were used at once for devotional, catechetical, and pedagogical

Fig. 1.13. 2 Samuel 11. Biblia the bible. [Cologne?: E. Cervicornus and J. Soter?], 1535. STC 2063. [Coverdale Bible] Sig. hh2r. By permission of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. Shelfmark Fol. BS145 1535.

Fig. 1.14. Commandment against adultery. A necessary doctrine and erudition for any christen man. London: J. Mayler, 1543. STC 5175. [The King’s Book] Sig. N3r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.21.a.13.

Fig. 1.15. The alphabet. The New England Primer. Worcester, MA: S. A. Howland (publisher); J. M. Shumway (printer and binder), ca. 1849. Page 13. Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society. Shelfmark N532 H864 1849.

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Fig. 1.16. Detail from fig. 1.15.

purposes. From at least the thirteenth century, if not before, religious practice (and particularly the practice of penance) was combined with catechesis, which in turn was related to training for literacy. This phenomenon is especially obvious in the texts used by petty scholars, the youngest pupils in the reading schools.90 These elementary schoolbooks typically combine certain essential elements with a small number of ­optional extras.91 The essentials comprise key catechetical texts, the most significant being the three items that parishioners were required to recite before they could be shriven: the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Creed.92 The optional extras include the exorcism, the Beatitudes, and the sayings of St. Augustine. In addition, many of these books are preceded by an alphabet. They therefore unite the indispensable starting point for the teaching of reading and writing with both the central elements of the ritual of penance and the rudiments of Christian catechesis.93 Like Books of Hours, these schoolbooks were referred to in England as primers. Of course, this name was later given to The New England Primer. And just like the medieval schoolbooks, The New England Primer combined catechesis and literacy: in addition to the alphabet (with its astonishing rhymes and illustrations) it usually included the Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1647—a series of questions and ­answers on the central elements of the faith, including the Ten Commandments. Elementary schoolbooks and Books of Hours may have been called primers for different reasons: schoolbooks were known as primers ­be­cause they were the first (the primary) books used by students, and Horae because they began with the hour of prime.94 But however these

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two texts came about their names, the shared designation reminds us that there was a tight relationship in the Middle Ages and beyond ­between instruction and religious practice and that it was considered perfectly appropriate to catechize children, and to teach them how to read, by using the same illustrations that adults used in their own prayer books. Thus fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European Books of Hours and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American primers alike linked penitential and catechetical practices to the first steps in l­iteracy—and they tied penance, catechesis, and reading to an image of a naked woman and an adulterous king. To conclude, a word of caution is in order. From a modern psychological perspective, the sexual subject matter of the David and Bathsheba illustrations seems utterly inappropriate in either a religious or an educational context: post Freud, it is difficult not to read these persistent images as pretending to give a pious warning while in reality appealing to the viewer’s prurience. But such a reading simply naturalizes and universalizes modern intuitions. Moreover, it absurdly proposes that adult Christians not only derived a furtive pleasure out of images of David and Bathsheba but also made that furtive pleasure the compulsory entrance into literacy for their children. And the evidence from the late medieval and early modern texts fails to support this theory. It was not until the nineteenth century, and the dominance of new conceptions of childhood innocence, that such images (together with the repeated images of death that play such a large part in the alphabet of The New England Primer) were no longer considered appropriate gateways to literacy.95 Until then depictions of Bathsheba bathing and David sneaking a peek formed a habitual, and even valuable, part of both day-to-day piety and institutionalized pedagogical practice.

C h a p ter T w o

The Conflict over Penance

On May 24, 1530, an assembly of clerics and learned university men convened at the edict of Henry VIII to pass judgment on several religious works deemed suspect by the king. Led by William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, and Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of Durham, this gathering condemned as heretical seven books, among them an ­unauthorized vernacular primer that had been in circulation since the previous year.1 Most primers in the late Middle Ages contained the Calendar, a number of short passages from the Gospels, the Hours of the Virgin, the Hours of the Cross, the Hours of the Holy Spirit, and two popular petitions to the Virgin (the Obsecro te and the O intemerata), followed by a series of texts used as intercessory prayers for the dead: the seven Penitential Psalms, the Litany (prayers to the saints), the Office for the Dead (the Placebo and Dirige), and the Commendations. The editor of the condemned primer—probably the evangelical reformer George Joye—had apparently excluded the prayers to the Virgin as well as the Litany and the Dirige, thereby betraying his opposition to several key practices of the church at that time.2 The formal 63

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charge against him was laid out in a “publick instrument” drawn up by the assembly. The text of this “instrument” was preserved in the register of Archbishop Warham (now in Lambeth Palace Library); from the middle of the sixteenth century it also circulated widely in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (or Book of Martyrs).3 It condemns the primer’s ­editor like this: “He puttith in the booke of the vii. Psalmes, but he leveth owt the whole latanie [Litany], by which apperith his erronyous opynyon agenst praying to saints. He hath left owt all the ympnes and anthomys [hymns and anthems] of our lady, by which apperith his erronyous opynyon agenst praying to our lady.”4 The denunciation makes perfect sense on all counts except one—namely, the puzzling statement that the editor “puttith in the booke of the vii. Psalmes.” This is an odd objection, since the Penitential Psalms had not been put in the primer but simply left in. Nevertheless, the charge was reiterated in similar terms a couple of years later by the Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More, who had participated in the original assembly. Commenting, in The confutacyon of Tyndales answere (1532), on dangerous vernacular translations of religious works, More remarks: “The Psalter was translated by George Iay [ Joye] the preste, that is wedded now / and I here say the Primer to, wherein the seuen psalmes be set in wythout the lateny, leste folke shold pray to sayntes. And the Dirige is lefte out clene / lest a man myght happe to pray theron for hys fathers soule.”5 More follows the rhetoric of the “publick instrument” fairly closely, his set in echoing the assembly’s put in. In both cases, the language suggests that while the authorities worried about what had been omitted from the primer in question, they were equally disturbed by what had been retained. Or, to be more precise, they seem to have been especially concerned about what had been kept in relation to what had been discarded. But why were they so troubled by the preservation of the Penitential Psalms without the Litany, the Dirige, or the hymns to the Virgin? This particular group of seven prayers, it seems, had become tightly caught up in the heated controversies of the time—controversies about theology on the one hand and religious practice on the other. It was perhaps unavoidable that the Penitential Psalms would find themselves at the center of doctrinal dispute in the Reformation era, since they had been so tightly connected with both the penitential and the mortuary customs of the church in the West for many centuries

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prior to that time. From the early medieval period the seven psalms were recited by members of the religious orders as a Lenten penitential devotion, and records dating back as far as the beginning of the tenth century indicate that they were used on Ash Wednesday in rites of ­canonical public penance. In the later Middle Ages, the Penitential Psalms also became associated with the sacrament of penance, with its three elements of contritio cordis (contrition of the heart), confessio oris (auricular confession), and satisfactio operis (works of satisfaction). Additionally, they were recited regularly by the laity as intercessory prayers for the souls of the dead.6 In the sixteenth century, the emergent evangelical congregations vehemently rejected both the sacrament of penance and intercessory prayers, disparaging them as arrogant (and ineffective) attempts to bargain with God. It would thus not have been surprising if the Penitential Psalms had also been subjected to a similar devaluation. What happened instead was that these seven texts took on added significance in evangelical circles, where the nature of penance itself was undergoing radical redefinition. This chapter explores how the Penitential Psalms became a locus of religious conflict by considering two important commentaries from the beginning of the sixteenth century: This treatise concernynge the fruytfull saynges of Dauyd in the seuen penytencyall psalmes, by John Fisher, and Die sieben Bußpsalmen (The Seven Penitential Psalms), by Martin Luther. The authors of these expositions held much in common. Both men had dedicated themselves to lives of Christian ministry, and both were also deeply invested in the academic world. Yet while one (Fisher) was to maintain an orthodox stance throughout his life—and even when faced with his death—in practically all matters theological and ecclesiastical, the other (Luther) was to make a name for himself as one of the most passionate and most uncompromising reformers of all time.7 By focusing on Fisher and Luther, this chapter risks suggesting that the two exegetes represent, respectively, all pre- and post-­ Reformation thought about penance and the Penitential Psalms. They do not. However, their commentaries are particularly valuable for scholarship today because they provide an immediate theological context for, and thus help to illuminate, pressing textual and material concerns like the controversy over the “booke of the vii. Psalmes” in Joye’s primer.

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Reading the expositions of Fisher and Luther side by side reveals that the two theologians interpreted the Penitential Psalms in overlapping yet also contradictory ways. Both Fisher and Luther approached the sequence from the perspective of sin, conversion, judgment, and the after­ life. But where Fisher employed the psalms to endorse the penitential systems of the church, including the sacrament of penance and prayers for the dead, Luther put them to work to undermine the foundations upon which those systems were first built. Nevertheless, Luther was not interested in doing away with penance altogether. Rather, he used the Penitential Psalms to redefine exactly how penance should be done (or, more accurately, not done) in order to obtain divine forgiveness. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and chancellor of Cambridge University, composed his exposition of the Penitential Psalms right at the turn of the sixteenth century (probably in 1504) as a series of ten sermons to be delivered privately before his aristocratic patroness, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and her household.8 But the work soon found a wide and enthusiastic audience. First published in 1508 by Wynkyn de Worde (with the title This treatise), it became a huge commercial triumph almost immediately and remained so for several decades: de Worde republished the text five times before 1529, while further editions were issued by both Richard Pynson (in 1510) and Thomas Marshe (in 1555).9 Indeed, as Eamon Duffy puts it, This treatise actually constituted one of “the runaway best-sellers of the first quarter of the century” in England—testimony to an extraordinary degree of lay interest in the principal concerns of Fisher’s sermons: penitential theology, sacramental practice, and the fate of the soul after death.10 Because This treatise explains and celebrates a number of widespread practices relating to the afterlife, it points to some of the vital roles that the Peni­ tential Psalms played in the church in the years just prior to the Reformation. While This treatise was keeping printers and booksellers busy in England, Martin Luther, member of the Augustinian Eremite order and professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, released Die sieben Bußpsalmen onto the German book market. Published sometime in the spring of 1517, this work combines a vernacular rendition of the seven psalms with a line-by-line commentary.11 It represents, remarkably, not only Luther’s first attempt at biblical translation but also the

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first independent publication to which the reformer gave his name. However, it has received only meager consideration to date, especially by scholars publishing in English.12 Indeed, in much of the modern critical literature, the crucial appearance of Die sieben Bußpsalmen in the early months of 1517 seems to have been eclipsed by the legendary posting of the Ninety-Five Theses later that same year.13 At the same time, the manner in which the young Luther came to a revised understanding of the workings of divine justice (or divine justification), and hence to an alternative theology of penance, has been pursued predominantly through analyses of the reformer’s Latin writings. The lectures on the Book of Psalms (first series, 1513–15; second series, 1518–21), as well as on the Epistle to the Romans (1515–16), have been of particular interest in this endeavor.14 And it must of course be observed that Luther wrestles significantly with the Penitential Psalms in these writings: in his lectures on the Book of Psalms, he engages with each of the Penitential Psalms as he encounters them (while proceeding through the Psalter); and in his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, he discusses pivotal verses from two of these psalms, because the epistle itself happens to bring them up.15 Nevertheless, there are at least three reasons why Die sieben Bußpsalmen is worth serious consideration. First, Luther himself paid extremely close attention to it. Indeed, upon completing the translation and commentary in 1517, the theologian expressed a great deal of personal satisfaction at the result of his efforts. A letter written by him to Johann Lang on March 1 of that year includes the following statement that almost certainly refers to Die sieben Bußpsalmen: “I have translated the Psalms and explained them in German; even if they should please no one else, nonetheless they please me exceedingly well” (LW 48:40).16 Moreover, Luther returned to the work eight years later, in 1525, publishing an amended version with a new translation of the seven psalms and an updated commentary to complement it. He did not by any means abandon the exposition as a youthful, frivolous, or irrelevant ­enterprise. The second reason that Die sieben Bußpsalmen demands critical notice today is that, just like This treatise, it earned rapid and widespread acclaim in its own time. In contrast to Luther’s Latin lectures, this vernacular work was intended from the very beginning not for an elite or

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academic circle but rather for the common, uneducated members of the Saxon population.17 And its publication history indicates that many of these folk were in fact keen to purchase their own copies: the first version of the commentary ran through an impressive nine editions between 1517 and 1525, and the second was issued four or five times in quick succession, and then again in 1585.18 Without a doubt, these ­bibliographical details make it imperative to give focused attention to the work. Third, in this chapter (as in the book as a whole), I argue for the value of grappling with what the Penitential Psalms can be made to signify when they circulate as a series, apart from the Psalter. My point is that, as an isolated group, these psalms interact to a different degree with matters of sin and suffering, works, grace, and salvation, than when they are considered as components of the Book of Psalms—or when they appear in the Epistle to the Romans.19 Since Luther expressed a significant degree of pleasure at the completion of Die sieben Bußpsalmen in 1517, and since he must have been aware of the first version’s market success, one might wonder what led him to amend and republish it in 1525. In his brief preface to the second version, Luther claimed that the revised work constituted a considerable improvement on the first version, in which he frequently failed to interpret the text as precisely as he would have liked: “Among my first booklets I also published at that time the seven penitential psalms with an exposition. And although I still do not find anything wrong in it, yet I often missed the meaning of the text. This usually happens to all teachers at their first attempt” (LW 14:140).20 Explaining why he held such confidence in the accuracy of his revisions, he noted that the new edition was now based on what he called “den rechten text” (the right text)—presumably, the Hebrew Psalter rather than a Latin translation (LW 14:140; WA 18:479).21 He also tied his alterations both to the broad dissemination of evangelical thought in Europe and to his own recent theological discoveries: “Now, however, since the Gospel has reached high noon and is shining brightly, and I also have made some progress in the meantime, I considered it good to publish the work again” (LW 14:140).22 Luther thus hinted that his renewed interest in the Penitential Psalms was wrapped up in his ongoing program of theological and ecclesiastical reform. Precisely how (and for what pur-

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poses) the seven psalms became tied up in Luther’s doctrinal agenda will emerge over the course of this chapter’s analysis. Reading Suffering in the Penitential Psalms In their expositions, Fisher and Luther appear to have the same goals in mind: to help sinners recognize their own iniquity and to encourage them to deal with it in this life, while grace is yet available. The Penitential Psalms are particularly useful texts for the two exegetes in this regard. Both interpreters take it for granted that human suffering is integral to the discovery and eradication of sin. And there is just so much wretchedness, so much abjection, to be found in this sequence of seven prayers. The current chapter is interested primarily in what they do with it all. Both Fisher and Luther accept the traditional, millennium-old, classification of the seven psalms as penitential, and both, in turn, ­submit these seven psalms, and the multiple afflictions documented in them, to a version of penitential hermeneutics. Following Augustine (and the later commentators who adopt an Augustinian approach), that is, they place the entire series predominantly within the context of the inevitable confrontation between divine wrath and human sin, construing the psalmist’s woes as signs of his iniquity, fashioning his enemies as various forms of temptation, and thus privileging (by and large) the spiritual sense over the literal sense as they each perform their exegeses.23 The primary frame of reference for the two theologians as they read the Penitential Psalms is the Day of Judgment—the day when God, in his righteous indignation, will determine the destination of each and every soul, sending the just to heaven, the wicked to hell, and (especially in Fisher) the in-between to purgatory.24 Both interpreters, therefore, begin their commentaries by stressing that all persons will, of necessity, be subject to divine adjudication. Discussing the opening verse of Psalm 6 (“O Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation, nor chastise me in thy wrath”), for instance, Fisher writes: “Of a trouth euery man & woman shall stande before the trone of almyghty god at the daye of Iugement” (EW 9).25 And Luther, explaining the meaning of the same verse, makes an equivalent claim: “All saints and Christians

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must recognize themselves as sinners and fear God’s wrath, for this psalm is general and excludes no one” (LW 14:141).26 The two commentators thus insist that Psalm 6, and by extension the other psalms to follow, are to be understood in an eschatological manner—namely, in the light of God’s judicial ire and the dreadful possibility of condemnation in the afterlife. It is only a small step from positioning the Penitential Psalms within the theological framework of God’s wrathful justice to interpreting the physical and social suffering of the laments’ psalmist (his sickness and weariness, his isolation and loneliness) in relation to the apparently universal problem of human sin. Both Fisher and Luther make this move without hesitation, reading the psalmist’s various agonies, at least on one level, as a direct result of iniquity. For example, even though Psalm 6 makes no mention of sin, Luther insists that the words of this prayer “are spoken by a sinner or in the person of a sinner” (LW 14:141).27 Similarly, when the psalmist complains about the terrible distress that plagues his bones and his soul, Fisher asks rhetorically, “Wherof cometh this grete trouble but onely of synne[?]” (EW 12).28 If the unbearable affliction of the psalmist is comprehended as a consequence of the problem of sin, then it is also interpreted, somewhat counterintuitively, as a big part of the solution to that problem. Fisher and Luther reiterate a long-established Augustinian convention on this issue, too, arguing that God chastises the sinful by subjecting them to temporal suffering in this life so that they may avoid the eternal retribution of hell (and maybe even the extended punishment of purgatory) in the afterlife. Thus the affliction recorded by the psalmist in the Penitential Psalms is taken as a merciful gift. Indeed, as Luther explains, it is far better for a sinner to be disciplined in the short term, as a child is corrected by his father, than to encounter God ultimately in the role of a stern judge and receive at that final point a sentence of enduring castigation.29 While temporal discipline may be a divine gift, it must nonetheless be taken very seriously. When a sinner suffers, these theologians suggest, it is because God has abandoned him, purposefully leaving him to experience, for a time, a painful and frightening solitude of the soul.30 And this step is absolutely necessary if the wretched person is ever to receive God’s grace. Luther thus writes that when God desires to “dis-

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pense His strength and consolation and communicate it to us,” he first “withdraws all other consolation and makes the soul deeply sorrowful, crying and longing for His comfort” (LW 14:142).31 Yet if this divine abandonment is to be effective, it must motivate the lonely sufferer to a drastic response: he must come to recognize how embroiled he is in his sin—and thus how profoundly, how urgently, he requires forgiveness. This process of rehabilitation is explained as a series of deliberate turnings and re-turnings, by God on the one hand and by man on the other.32 Fisher, for example, makes the idea of conversion central to an extended analogy that he draws between the troubled condition of the psalmist and the troubled condition of the Sea of Galilee, right before it is calmed, miraculously, by Jesus.33 The great “trouble and vnquyetnesse” of the water in the Gospel narrative, Fisher suggests, actually “sygnefyeth the trouble of the soule whan almyghty god tourneth away his face from the sinner” (EW 12). Moreover, he posits, this “vexacyon of the soule” is not mitigated until the offender is “conuerted from his synfull lyfe”—and it is only when this second turning has occurred that God will once again “tourne hymselfe vnto the synner” (EW 13). In a similar fashion, Luther argues repeatedly that whenever a sinner experiences extreme grief or pain it is a sure sign that he must do an aboutturn, rejecting human wickedness (the life of the flesh) and reorienting himself instead toward divine righteousness; it is a clear indication, in other words, that he must repent. Just in case the foregoing discussion has not made this point obvious, it is worth stressing that Fisher and Luther alike participate in a process of universalizing, or naturalizing, the psalmist’s experiences. Both writers, that is, take it for granted that the psalmist functions as an exemplary Christian penitent. Thus while they find in the Penitential Psalms a drama of conversion (a drama that, as Lynn Staley puts it, “begins in abject self-consciousness and ends in the acceptance of God’s merciful sovereignty”), they also understand that drama as wholly ­archetypal.34 They both, therefore, generalize outwards from the sequence, arguing that whatever there is to be said about the Penitential Psalms must be relevant to every believer and that the suffering of the psalmist ought to remind all Christians who encounter these seven texts of the need to engage in penitence. Nevertheless, the two exegetes differ considerably regarding the question of how one is meant to bring

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that penitence to fruition. To put it simply: while Fisher argues that sinners must undertake to do penance (on a recurring, though not necessarily permanent basis), Luther insists rather that they must be re­ pentant. One of the principal reasons that Fisher and Luther are at variance over the matter of how to effect conversion, or penitence, is that they hold somewhat divergent ideas about the very nature of the underlying predicament—human sin—itself. In patristic and early medieval commentaries on the Penitential Psalms, the psalmist’s sinfulness is usually seen, in an Augustinian (or even Pauline) fashion, as his native degeneracy, while in later medieval commentaries it is typically interpreted as the sum of his isolated transgressions.35 Fisher generally underscores the second line of thinking, while Luther returns to and elaborates on the first. This is not to say that Fisher demonstrates no knowledge of the doctrine of original sin. Nor is it to imply that Luther cares nothing about committed sins. But, overall, Fisher depicts the problem of human wickedness mainly as the dilemma of wrongdoing, while Luther represents it chiefly as an inherited and ontological crisis. These different perspectives on sin are evident in the specific language that the two interpreters use to explain exactly what the psalmist must recognize about himself when God causes him to suffer temporally. Their respective comments on the festering wounds of the psalmist, as described in Psalm 37:6 (MT 38:5), for instance, highlight their divergent emphases. Here the psalmist declares, “My sores are putrefied and corrupted, because of my foolishness.”36 Rendering this verse from Latin into English, Fisher makes explicit reference to the manifold ­iniquities that the psalmist seems to have committed: “The olde tokens of my synnes waxe roten agayne by myn owne folysshenes” (EW 61, emphasis added). Luther, on the other hand, finds in the complaint an ­allusion to the innate corruption of mankind: “Just as wounds and swell­ings of the body decay, fester, and stink, so also the evil sores of human nature get worse and begin to stink,” he cautions, “if they are not treated and healed daily with the ointment of grace and the water of the Word of God” (LW 14:158, emphasis added again).37 For Fisher, then, the psalmist’s foul lesions are caused by his own sinful actions; for Luther they are instead an embodiment of his utterly degenerate human heritage. But the point to be underlined is that each exegete’s

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perspective on the problem of sin has a significant bearing on the kind of conversion, the kind of repentance, that he advocates. And each theologian’s understanding of penitence has several important sacramental, liturgical, and psychological implications. The following two sections will tease out some of these threads—beginning with Fisher and then moving on to Luther. John Fisher and the Economics of Penance First, then: Fisher. Throughout his ten sermons on the Penitential Psalms, the bishop of Rochester argues repeatedly that if sinners wish to avoid God’s wrathful punishment in the afterlife they must deal with their manifold iniquities themselves, in this life. Fisher, in other words, takes it as a given that if sins are done, they can also be done away with. And he makes his case by quoting a crucial verse from the Book of Ezekiel, which, in the Vulgate Bible, reads as follows (the Latin version is provided here, since—as will become obvious—the wording is important): “idcirco unumquemque iuxta vias suas iudicabo domus Israhel ait Dominus Deus / convertimini et agite paenitentiam ab omnibus ­iniquitatibus vestris / et non erit vobis in ruinam iniquitas” [Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God. Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin] (Ezekiel 18:30). And this is what Fisher does with it, in his sermon on the De profundis, Psalm 129: “God almyghty promysed by his prophete Ezechiel that euery true penytent wyllynge to forsake his synfull lyfe shoulde haue forgyuenes, & neuer after his wyckednes to be layd to his charge. These be his wordes. Conuertimini et agite penitentiam ab omnibus iniquitatibus vestris et non erit vobis in ruinam iniquitas. Be ye turned from your synfull lyfe do penaunce for your synnes & they neuer after shall be imputed to you, ye shall neuer be dampned” (EW 221). Translating the Latin of the Vulgate into a loose English paraphrase, Fisher interprets a prophetic charge communicated to the people of Israel as a promise given to every person, throughout time. He also transforms a statement about the here and now into an anagogical declaration. Whoever converts by doing penance, Fisher affirms, can be certain to be granted freedom from the consequences of his sins—even in the afterlife.38

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Yet how, exactly, is a sinner meant to “do penaunce”? How is he meant to receive God’s mercy and be granted forgiveness in this life? He must, Fisher argues, engage himself in yet more suffering. Misery, the preacher insists, plays a vital role not just in instigating self-­awareness or in prompting conversion but also in actualizing ­redemption—­especially when it is purposefully sought after. The right kind of penitence, he explains, takes the form of self-imposed, propitiatory, suffering. And it works because God, in his righteousness, will not allow any sinner to be punished more than once for the same offense: “The goodness of almyghty god gyueth us tyme and space to punysshe our owne selfe by doynge dewe penaunce for our trespasses,” he posits (while providing a theological context for the weeping and groaning of the psalmist in Psalm 6), “and that done suffycyently he is content so to forgyue vs without ony more punysshement” (EW 16).39 Humiliation of the self, performed temporally, Fisher asserts, allows for restoration later; disquiet pursued in this life, he argues, leads to peace in the afterlife. David, of course, is the primary model for Fisher here. Indeed, Fisher insists not only that it is the voice of this particular “holy prophete” that is heard in the Penitential Psalms but also that the suffering of David, as detailed in these prayers, amounts to an exemplary, active, ­response to the scriptural call to “do penaunce.” Although the great king of Israel suffered as a result of the malady of sin, Fisher argues, he eventually found a cure; and all those who suffer like him would do well to mimic his penitential behavior. Discussing Psalm 37, for instance, Fisher asks, “Is not the same medycyne & remedy which he [David] vsed, that is to say penaunce[,] present and redy at hande to vs all?” And he goes on to answer his own question: “Yes truly, for it was sayd to euery persone. Penitenciam agite. Do penaunce” (EW 72). Past and present are collapsed in Fisher’s rhetoric, but J. W. Blench is mistaken in stating that the preacher “shows no historical sense” in his sermons.40 Rather, Fisher carefully (and, I believe, deliberately) folds together biblical history and penitential theology with the aim of encouraging his listeners to enroll in a demanding program of regular self-discipline. Lest anyone among Fisher’s audience should remain uncertain about how to engage correctly in the activity of punishing the self, the preacher points to an existing structure within which that activity might take place: the sacrament of penance. The wretched condition of the

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psalmist in the Penitential Psalms, that is, reminds Fisher repeatedly of the importance not just of pursuing pain or wretchedness in a general way, but also of engaging specifically in the triadic sequence of contrition, confession, and satisfaction.41 For it is precisely by suffering in and through these practices, Fisher asserts, that “a synful wretche” can be certain to be cleansed, or “delyuered fro thabomynacion [sic] of synne,” miraculously, by “the vertue of crystes precious blode” (EW 127).42 Thus throughout his sermons he reiterates the tripartite scheme, emphasizing that each part of the sacrament was designed by God—and that each is, therefore, absolutely crucial to the forgiveness of sin.43 At times, Fisher is so dedicated to the idea of suffering-as-­ sacrament that he has to bring in additional scriptural texts to prove his point. This is the case, for example, when he introduces the first verse of the De profundis—“Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord.”44 For Fisher, this expression of profound despair brings to mind the figure of Jonah, who cried to God to be delivered after spending three terrifying days in the depths of “the whalles bely”—three days that (Fisher asserts) prophetically “sygnefy the .iii. partes of penaunce” (EW 209– 10).45 Elsewhere, Fisher extends his passion even further, constructing all sorts of lengthy similes that involve triads. The psalmist’s request for forgiveness in Psalm 50:3b, for instance—“And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my iniquity”—inspires the preacher to compare contrition, confession, and satisfaction to the three consecu­ tive actions (rasing, washing, and wiping) needed to clean a “table” or tablet (EW 98).46 Not surprisingly, when the psalms themselves provide Fisher with a triplet of any kind, he makes the most of it, as his elucidation of Psalm 101:7–8 reveals. Here the psalmist laments his desperate social alienation, comparing himself to three birds in three different locations: “I am become like to a pelican of the wilderness: I am like a night raven in the house. I have watched, and am become as a sparrow all alone on the housetop.”47 And Fisher is quick to explicate this tripartite analogy as an endorsement of the entire sacrament: “There be thre partes of penaunce,” he says, “whiche this holy prophete sheweth derkely and fyguratyuely by the symylytude of thre dyuers byrdes” (EW 151). He then goes on to describe, at length, how each bird corresponds to a different stage of this process of active suffering. The pelican, who pierces

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her own breast when she finds her young ones dead, stands for a penitent who mourns contritely over his misdeeds; the owl, who cries out in the dark, one who grieves over his sins in confession; and the sparrow, who knows how to avoid snares and traps, one who carefully performs his works of satisfaction.48 Fisher is not unique in turning to allegoresis to explain this rather mysterious section of Psalm 101. Augustine, for example, interprets the three birds as Christ, who was born in loneliness (like the pelican in the wilderness), suffered for the sins of mankind “in the darkness of the Jews” (like the owl in the ruins of the house at night), and eventually ascended into heaven where he intercedes for his church (like the sparrow on the rooftop).49 Eleanor Hull also picks up on this anti-Semitic line of interpretation, arguing that the sparrow betokens the Resurrection, the pelican points to the shedding of Christ’s blood for both “beleuers” and “mysbeleuers,” and the owl, which “louyth more derknes then lyht,” signifies “the Jues” who chose “Baraban the thefe” to be released but delivered “Ihesu the verrey saueour . . . to the dethe.”50 Fisher, then, does not diverge too far from his predecessors in his allegorical ingenuity. But the outcome of his method—his emphasis at this juncture on contrition, confession, and satisfaction (rather than on Christ’s passion)— demonstrates just how keen he is to underscore the redemptive value of suffering through participation in the sacrament. It is worth observing that in the midst of this ardent interpretive pursuit of the sacrament (a pursuit that is at least as much endogetical as it is exegetical), Fisher rehearses an essentially economic explanation of salvation—an explanation derived predominantly from the key terms of Latin penitential theology. Late medieval preachers like Fisher had every reason to stress the necessity of engaging in the entirety of the sacrament, since, from beginning in the twelfth century, Western theologians had posited that to commit a sin was to incur both culpa (guilt deserving eternal damnation) and poena (a debt of temporal punishment). A penitent’s culpa was removed by his contrition and confession, along with the priest’s absolution, while his poena was canceled out by his works of satisfaction. Any penitent who failed to complete his works of satisfaction (or penances, as they were referred to colloquially) before death would have to pay off his remaining poena in purgatory.51 Such a failure was to be avoided at all costs, since the punishment ­inflicted on

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a sinner in purgatory would be far more painful than any physical woe he might suffer during his lifetime. Or, as the Cursor mundi, a ­fourteenth-century Northumbrian poem, puts it: “And he that does a sinful deed, / Of heavy penance has he need. / For it is better here for to mend. / Than in the cleansing fire be brend [burned].”52 A penitential procedure like this requires some exceptionally careful spiritual accounting, and Fisher makes no qualms at all about it in his sermons. In fact, he regularly underscores the absolute necessity of balancing one’s spiritual ledger, emphasizing the difference in severity between the pains of this life and those of the next. Discussing the first clause of Psalm 37 (“Rebuke me not, O Lord, in thy indignation”), for example, he takes the opportunity to remind his listeners that even those penitents who have been saved by God’s mercy from the eternal flames of hell may nevertheless find themselves suffering for a time in the fire of purgatory—“whiche fyre is so hote and full of dyuersyte of payne, that all tourmentes and dyseases of this worlde be no thynge to be compared to it” (EW 54).53 He then goes on to pose another of his trademark rhetorical questions—“Be there not some greuous paynes in this lyfe [?]”—and answers it at once by ruminating on an extensive catalogue of excruciating bodily ailments and ordeals (EW 54–55). One of Fisher’s most pressing aims, then, is to emphasize that all sinners (all persons, indeed) must make every effort to suffer in life in order to clear their temporal obligations before death. He explains the system in his sermon on Psalm 31: “All be it after contrycyon & confessyon synne be done away, yet a duty remayneth in the soule that nedes must be payed & perfourmed by suffrynge payne. For all though by contricyon and confessyon the payne eternall that we sholde haue suffred be done away, neuertheles there abydeth in the soule a certayne taxacion or duty whiche without doubte must nedes be content & satysfyed eyther here in this lyf by temporal payne or elles after this lyfe in purgatory” (EW 24). Fisher thus thinks like a bookkeeper, balancing the amount of pain endured by a penitent before death against the taxa­ tion or duty—later in the same sermon he calls it the “bonde” (EW 32)—that remains after contrition and confession. From a modern (post-Lutheran) perspective, this insistence on the need to manage one’s debt of sin so carefully, so minutely, might appear to be rather terrifying. How can a sinner be sure that he has done his

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sums correctly? How can he know that he has suffered sufficient pain in this life? These anxious psychological questions, however, are barely relevant to Fisher’s model of redemption. For the preacher is confident that the sacrament of penance (and especially its third component— satisfaction) gives sinners exactly what they need to set their books straight: “But where as ony creature haue made due satisfaccyon in this lyfe,” he promises, “he neuer after shal suffre more payne, & also he is clene out of dette & nothynge after that shall euer be claymed of hym” (EW 24). Any works performed as part of the sacrament in this life, that is, will go directly toward writing off whatever obligation would otherwise have to be quitted in the afterlife.54 If Fisher persistently reads the Penitential Psalms as justifications for—and endorsements of—the sacrament of penance, he also maintains that the seven psalms are extremely useful tools for penitents. For Fisher, in other words, the Penitential Psalms are not only doctrinal proof texts: they are the very instruments whereby sinners can repent of their transgressions, receive God’s grace, and be restored to a right relationship with the divine.55 They are, actually, designed to be recited frequently and devoutly, first and foremost as personal penitential prayers but also, on occasion, as supplications for the souls in purgatory. To endorse the recitation of the Penitential Psalms as effective prayers of repentance, Fisher turns again to David. And he frames the narrative of his rehabilitation, just as he frames the sacrament of penance, in economic terms. Fisher does not, it must be said, pay much ­attention to the biblical account of the king of Israel. This is probably because (as the evangelical reformers were soon to point out) the rather barebones scriptural story of David’s atonement provides little support for any of the three components of the sacrament of penance. In 2  Samuel 12, David is forgiven for his adultery and murder without needing to mourn contritely over his sins, confess to a priest, or engage in any obvious work of satisfaction.56 But while Fisher does not find much utility in the biblical narrative of David, he does draw on some of the popular extrabiblical legends in which the king composes one or more psalms in order to make amends with God.57 The belief that David reconciled himself with God by composing the Penitential Psalms was well established by Fisher’s time. Indeed, late medieval miniaturists often tied David’s repentance to his author-

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ship of the seven texts, as exemplified in a full-page illustration for the Penitential Psalms in the Sobieski Hours, created in France in the first half of the fifteenth century (and now housed in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle). The illustration provides a sequential account of David’s transgression and rehabilitation in six images. As Margareth Boyer Owens notes, these depict in turn “David watching Bathsheba and sending her a message, David welcomed by Bathsheba, Uriah before David, Uriah killed in battle, David before Nathan, and finally, David in prayer”; in the concluding image, a scroll held in David’s hands—which are clasped together in a gesture of supplication—displays the opening phrase of Psalm 50, in Latin: “Miserere mei deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam” (“Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy”).58 Together the six images imply that David’s repentance is epitomized in the writing of the Miserere—which in turn stands for the complete set of seven texts. Time and again Fisher reiterates the notion that David engaged himself in penance by composing one or more psalms. He does not lay out, precisely, the way in which David’s psalm making fits into the three-part sacramental scheme.59 But he does stress that David’s creation of the psalms amounted to doing penance following his misdemeanors. In fact, Fisher’s dedication to the belief is evident right from the outset of This treatise. Fisher begins his sermon on Psalm 6 by rehearsing the scriptural account of David’s reconciliation with God after his fall. He explains (accurately) that to win absolution for his sins of adultery and murder the king had only to recognize and confess his guilt: “Our blyssed lorde almyghty god of his Infynyte goodnes and mekenes sent a prophete vnto hym the whiche warned hym of his grete offences. And as soon as Dauyd was in wyll for to knowlege hymselfe gyltye, and sayd. Peccaui Domino. I haue offended my lorde god, anone forthwith all his synnes were forgyuen. Is not the grete mercy & mekenes of almyghty god gretely to be magnyfyed and spoken of that he shewed to Dauid, . . . after his greuous offences and very grete vnkyndnesse soo soone for to gyue hym mercy and forgyuenesse. Yes truely” (EW 6–7).60 But Fisher goes on to claim that later, after commanding his census of Israel and Judah, David needed to do much more to make amends:

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Anone he forgate the goodnes of almyghty god & agayn fell to synne in the synne of pryde, beynge proude of the grete nombre and multytude of his people ayenst the commaundement of the lawe of god, wherby all his grete vnkyndnesse before was renewed more and more. What thynge myght he than trust to haue but onely the punysshement of god whiche he gretely ferynge was meruaylously penytent and knowleged hymselfe greuously to haue offended our lorde god askynge hym mercy, made this psalme with grete contrycyon & sorowe in his soule, wherby agayne he obteyned forgyuenes. Now ye vnderstande who made this psalme, what occasyon caused hym to wryte it, & what proufyte he gate by the same. (EW 7)61 In this passage Fisher diligently answers the three questions that were common to the medieval accessus (or literary preface) tradition: Who wrote the text? When was it written? To what end was it written?62 But the important issue is that here, just as when he explains the value of works of satisfaction, he deploys a fundamentally fiscal scheme. Indeed, he implies that David’s initial appeasement of God was incomplete from an accounting point of view. Although the king’s sins of adultery and murder had been formally forgiven, some part of them had remained stubbornly debited to him. Consequently, when David commanded the census at a later date, his new sin of pride “renewed” the burden from the first set of sins “more and more,” like mounting interest. This increased debt was equal to God’s punishment—a punishment that could only be offset by the “proufyte” (profit) gained in the penitent creation of a psalm. Accordingly, it was not until David had both “knowleged hymselfe greuously to haue offended our lorde god” and “made” Psalm 6 “with grete contrycyon & sorowe in his soule” that he could be forgiven entirely. While Fisher endorses the widespread notion that David did penance by composing the seven psalms, he also adds to it the suggestion that the king cleansed himself before God (and thereby prepared himself to enter heaven after his death) by frequently reciting the penitential prayers that he had already authored. For instance, in his second sermon on Psalm 37, Fisher declares: “For euery man knoweth this

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prophete Dauyd was a wretched and greuous synner, neuertheles afterwarde he lyued holyly, & by the merytes of his lyfe was lyfte vp vnto heuen. The medycyne and remedy that he vsed for doynge awaye his synnes was pure and clere penaunce, which he laboured so moche by ofte sayenge these psalmes that anone he was made perfytely clene” (EW 71–72). Fisher’s claim is that David’s sinful soul, once in dire straits like an ailing body, was wholly restored by the curative “medycyne and remedy” of penitential work (Fisher calls it labor) in the form of repeated, almost incantatory, psalm saying. Additionally, Fisher argues, in a typological (or, to be more specific, a tropological) manner, that such an effective act of self-cleansing can be reproduced by any Christian. This he does, for example, in his introductory remarks to Psalm 6. Having explained that David “dyde holsome penaunce” and “was restored to his soules helth” by composing this psalm, Fisher goes on to emphasize the value of the text to presentday sinners (EW 7). Once again he deploys an economic lexicon to underscore his point: “We in lyke wyse by ofte sayenge and redynge this psalme with a contrite herte as he dyde, . . . shall without doubte purchase and gete of our best and mercyfull lorde god forgyuenesse for our synnes” (EW 7). Elsewhere, Fisher directly prescribes the repetition of the Penitential Psalms. Discussing Psalm 37, for example, he begins by implying that the pattern of sin and repentance familiar to contemporary Christians mirrors David’s fall and restoration, for, as he puts it, the king of Israel “was a synner as we be and a besy folower for forgyuenes” (EW 73). He then contends that David succeeded in winning pardon for his sins not only by composing these seven “lettres of supplycacyon” but also by repeating them before God on a daily basis; and he suggests that the faithful, aware of the “vertue and effycacy” of David’s psalms, ought also to recite them fervently as they petition God for mercy (EW 73). Finally, Fisher does not forget that the Penitential Psalms, and especially Psalm 129, are used by the church in funeral masses and other services for the dead. Thus in his sermon on the De profundis he encourages his listeners to say the psalm as a prayer of intercession: “Let vs ofte repete this sayd verse for them that be in the paynes of purgatory, for whome crystes chirche hath ordeined specially this psalme to be sayd, the soules beynge in these grete paynes abyde euer lokynge for

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the grete mercy of god, also one droppe of it to swage theyr paynes by the helpe of our prayers, therefore as hertely as we can let vs all saye this for theyr comforte. De profundis clamaui ad te domine: domine exaudi vocem meam” (EW 209). Fisher appears to interrupt his sermon here so that the psalm can be recited at once for those suffering souls whose penalty of sin is yet to be fully disbursed.63 It is not enough merely to suggest that Psalm 129 works extremely well as a suffrage; in Fisher’s opinion, the agonies of those in purgatory demand an immediate response in the form of corporate, liturgical prayer. In sum, by positing that the Penitential Psalms provide Christians with a means to pay off their debt of sin, and by exhorting his audience to pray for (and speed the redemption of ) those who did not manage to balance their own books before death, Fisher reinforces established ecclesiastical practices. His interpretive technique, in other words, is an ingeniously circular one.64 He takes seven psalms drawn from penitential and mortuary customs and reads them, brilliantly and obsessively, for a theology of suffering through penance. In addition, he associates David’s atoning self-humiliation with the recitation of these texts. He is thus able to posit not only that the Penitential Psalms provide a sacramental and intercessory model for removing the debt of sin but also that the church’s rituals—which involve the regular repetition of the seven psalms in a variety of contexts—are indispensable to the economics of salvation. Martin Luther’s Metanoia Now, back to Luther. In Die sieben Bußpsalmen, the German theologian takes a vastly different approach to the question of how a sinner is meant to convert, or turn back to God. Like Fisher, though, Luther is influenced in his understanding of the way a sinful wretch ought to effect penitence by his perception of the nature of sin. And, as noted above, that perception is largely Augustinian.65 Drawing a clear binary between outward (or enacted) sin and inner (or native) sin, Luther consistently plays up the import, the gravity, of the latter. This approach leads him in turn to adumbrate a wholly revised soteriology. Luther’s comments on Psalm 50:4 (51:2) are particularly instructive in this regard. Here the psalmist addresses God with a bold demand: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from

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my sin!” (LW 14:165).66 And this verse inspires Luther to assert that the real problem is not so much what the psalmist has done as what he has inherited. Thus if he prays for forgiveness just for those transgressions that he has committed, he may be wasting his effort: “Anyone who looks upon sin as something outward only,” Luther contends, “cannot remain in [God’s] grace but must slide backwards and thus remain without grace and become worse than before, although he does not see or realize it” (LW 14:167).67 But while Luther underscores his theory that what the psalmist (or any sinner) has to deal with most is an innate problem—a problem derived inevitably from his forefathers—he also begins to develop from that theory a reimagined theology of penitence: “Now with us,” he writes, “the situation is that Adam must get out and Christ come in, Adam become as nothing, and Christ alone remain and rule” (LW 14:167).68 Because sin is not merely outward, Luther intimates, it cannot be dealt with in an exclusively outward way; because it is not simply enacted, there is little that can be done on the part of the sinner to get rid of it. Instead, Luther suggests, a form of usurpation must take place within the soul, with Christ (the redeemer) mysteriously replacing Adam (the first sinner) as sovereign. This careful return to an Augustinian theology (one might call it a poetics) of sin may appear rather innocuous—at least on the surface. But in Luther’s work on the Penitential Psalms it constitutes part of a radical attack on the idea of doing penance in general, as well as on the sacrament of penance in particular. I say part of because Luther’s revised interpretation of the Penitential Psalms relies not only on a recovery of an Augustinian understanding of iniquity but also on an embrace and extension of several key linguistic discoveries made by Luther’s contemporaries. Indeed, the emphasis on original rather than committed sin in Die sieben Bußpsalmen becomes especially challenging to the whole concept of penitential practice at precisely the point where it intersects with humanist philology. Luther, that is, relies heavily on the work of humanist translators as he outlines the particular conditions of suffering that might enable Christ to expel Adam from a sinner’s soul. To explain the relevance of Luther’s philological thinking to his emergent theology of sin and penitence, it is necessary to return to, and highlight, the biblical language that supported the concept of penitential activity and the sacrament of penance over the course of the Middle Ages. This sacrament was formulated principally in response to two

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New Testament texts, which, in the Vulgate translation, closely echo Ezekiel’s admonition to do penance. Both passages are from the Gospel of Matthew. In the first, the evangelist records a warning given by John the Baptist to his disciples (again, the word choice in Latin is crucial): “In diebus autem illis venit Ioannes Baptista praedicans in deserto ­Iudaeae et dicens / paenitentiam agite adpropinquavit enim regnum caelorum” [And in those days cometh John the Baptist preaching in the desert of Judea. And saying: Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand] (Matthew 3:1–2). In the second, he notes that after John was imprisoned Jesus immediately took up the Baptist’s message: “Exinde coepit Iesus praedicare et dicere / paenitentiam agite adpropinquavit enim regnum caelorum” [From that time Jesus began to preach and to say: Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand] (Matthew 4:17). In the Latin of the Vulgate Bible, then, John the Baptist and Jesus make the same announcement: “paenitentiam agite.”69 This phrase translates the Greek term metanoeite, but where the Greek imperative means only one thing—convert—the Latin command can mean both repent (be penitent, be contrite) and do penance (undertake some form of self-mortification).70 Thus in its elucidation of Matthew 3:2, the Glossa ordinaria (the chief Bible commentary of the Middle Ages) argues that paenitentiam agere signifies not only to bewail one’s sins but also to inflict punishment on oneself: Poenitere est ante acta deflere, et deflenda non committere. . . . Prima virtus est, per poenitentiam perimere veterem hominem, et vitia odisse: quod qui non facit, non modo virtutes non comprehendit, sed nec etiam supplicia fugit. Poenitentiae virtus timore con­ cipitur, qui est initium sapientiae. Poenitentia a puniendo, qua quisque punit quod illicite commisit. To repent is to deplore things done in the past, and not to commit deplorable acts. . . . The first virtue is to destroy the old man through penance, and to hate sins, because whoever does not do this not only does not understand the virtues, but does not even escape the penalties. The virtue of penance is conceived in fear, which is the beginning of wisdom. Poenitentia [penance] comes from puniendo [the activity of punishing], by which every man punishes that which he has done illicitly.71

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For the Middle Ages, therefore, paenitentiam agere involved doing penance (punishing oneself ) as well as repenting (mourning over one’s transgressions): the two pursuits were considered complementary, not contradictory. And the late medieval sacrament of penance—with its successive elements of contrition, confession, and satisfaction—made the most of this double signification. As a young monk, Luther famously pursued forgiveness through the established sacrament of penance. While at the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, he found himself tormented with great anxiety as to how he might be certain that he had confessed and atoned for all of his sins. Indeed, in attempting to secure absolution, Luther exasperated his confessors, seeking them out at all hours of the day and night in order to divulge even the most trivial of offenses.72 He was thus extremely reluctant to strip penance of its sacramental status and did not do so conclusively until The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520).73 Finally, though, Luther determined that the established ecclesiastical ritual was illegitimate. He argued that while the Bible taught that all Christians (as sinners in need of redemption) ought to assume a lifelong attitude of penitence, it did not endorse doing penitential works or actively seeking self-punishment. This alternative understanding of penance appears to have been developed by Luther in concert with the challenge launched in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries against the Vulgate Bible’s Latin version of the Greek New Testament. A number of humanist scholars, including Lorenzo Valla and Desiderius Erasmus, scrutinized pivotal texts such as Matthew 3:1–2 and 4:17 and proposed alternative Latin translations. In his Novum instrumentum (1516), for instance, Erasmus rendered the Greek imperative metanoeite not as paenitentiam agite, but as poeniteat vos (be penitent, be contrite); then, in 1527, he changed his mind and translated it as resipiscite (change your mind, recover your senses).74 These revised translations contributed to Luther’s development of a soteriology that favored penitential disposition over penitential action.75 Indeed, in his own history of the events leading up to the publication of the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther suggests that his pivotal attack on indulgences at the end of 1517 was influenced greatly by humanist investigations into the word paenitentia. Writing to the theologian

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J­ohann von Staupitz, Luther opens by thanking his friend for being the first to show him that penance is not authentic unless it grows out of a passion for justice and for God.76 But he goes on to suggest that humanist translators helped him see yet another side of paenitentia: “It happened that I learned—thanks to the work and talent of the most learned men who teach us Greek and Hebrew with such great ­devotion—that the word poenitentia means metanoia in Greek; it is derived from meta and noun, that is, from ‘afterward’ and ‘mind.’ Poenitentia or metanoia, therefore, means coming to one’s right mind and a comprehension of one’s own evil after one has accepted the damage and recognized the error. This is impossible without a change in one’s disposition and [the object of one’s] love” (LW 48:66–67).77 Luther implies that, for him, theological discovery went hand in hand with linguistic research: it was only after he had understood the etymology of the Greek noun metanoia that he could begin to grasp the meaning of its Latin counterpart, paenitentia. Moreover, he recalls that by delving deeper into the Greek term he came to a fresh opinion on the nature of penance: “Then I progressed further and saw that metanoia could be understood as a composite not only of ‘afterward’ and ‘mind,’ but also of the [prefix] ‘trans’ and ‘mind’ . . . , so that metanoia could mean the transformation of one’s mind and disposition. Yet it seemed to express not only the actual change of disposition but also the way by which this change is accomplished, that is, the grace of God” (LW 48:67).78 According to Luther’s own account, then, language study played a crucial role in the alteration of his understanding of penance. After investigating the origin and the meaning of the Greek word metanoia, Luther concluded that what God required was not a series of outward penitential works (to treat the problem of committed sins) but rather an inner recognition of one’s innate sinfulness—a recognition, in fact, that could be effected only by divine grace.79 It is worth pausing briefly to note that analogous concerns about language continued to occupy both reformers and their opponents for several decades—in England as well as on the Continent. Such concerns reappear, for instance, in the writings that represent the longwinded debate between Thomas More and William Tyndale—a debate contemporaneous with the short-lived circulation of George Joye’s controversial primer on the English book market. Thus in The obedience of

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a Christen man (1528) Tyndale charges those who promote the established sacrament with deliberately mistranslating the Greek in order to lead the common people astray: “Penaunce is a worde of their awne forginge to disceave vs with all / as many other are. In the scripture we fynde penitentia repentaunce. Agite penitentiam / do repente / ­Peniteat vos / let it repente you. Metanoyte in greke / forthinke ye / or let it ­forthinke you. Of repentaunce they / have made penaunce / to blynde the people and to make them thinke that they must take payne and doo some holy deades to make satisfaction for their synnes / namely soch as they enioyne them.”80 And in his Dyaloge of 1529, More complains that Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament is full of heresies, quoting its substitution of repentance for penance as a prime example: “Confessyone he traunslateth in to knowledgynge. Penaunce in to repentaunce. A contryte herte he chaungeth in to a troubled hart. And many mo thingis lyke / and many textys vntrewly traunslated for the mayn tenaunce of heresye.”81 Interpreting the Penitential Psalms in Die sieben Bußpsalmen, Luther takes the opportunity to further explore the consequences both of his renewed understanding of paenitentia and of his recovery of an ­Augustinian definition of sin. In apparent agreement with Fisher, he stresses that God’s greatest desire is to dispense his mercy to penitent sinners. Yet the German theologian departs radically from his English counterpart in his understanding of the way in which that mercy will be distributed. Like Fisher, he argues that sinners are redeemed when they embrace affliction. But as he reads the manifold hardships of the psalmist in reference to the process of conversion, he draws a clear distinction between suffering actively and outwardly on the one hand, and suffering passively and inwardly on the other—dismissing the former while endorsing the latter. The comments of Fisher and Luther on Psalm 37:5 (38:4) might begin to clarify the contrast between the two exegetes. The text is a complaint on the psalmist’s part about the unbearable weight of his sin: “For my iniquities are gone over my head: and as a heavy burden are ­become heavy upon me.”82 Fisher finds in this verse an encouraging ­example of how Christians can expel even the most tenacious of transgressions from their souls:

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Our holy prophete [i.e., David] had in experyence the heuy burden of synne whiche sayd . . . . My synnes be heuy vpon me lyke to an heuy burden. God forbede that we saye no man may caste out synne from the soule ones entred in to it, we say not that, for yf it were so all we sholde despayre, bycause why no persone is without synne. But we saye it is ryght harde vtterly to expulse synne suffred so longe at lyberte & hath had so moche lycence to abyde in the soule. . . . Synnes may be expulsed, but how? truly by grete contrycyon, dylygent confessyon, & not a lytell bodyly satysfaccyon. (EW 60–61) Here Fisher moves rapidly from the “experyence” of iniquity in David’s life to the psalm verse itself, in which he discovers not only that sin, once committed, resides obstinately in the soul but that it can (and will, of certainty) be cast out by the hard work of contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Luther, on the other hand, suggests that the faithful must do nothing other than hope for divine grace to rid them of their immorality: “Thus our sin treads us underfoot, until grace comes, treads sin underfoot, and raises our head above it so that we become master and rule over sin, not sin over us” (LW 14:157).83 The striking double chiasmus in this passage underscores Luther’s assertion: a believer will remain crushed by and subject to sin until God purposefully crushes sin, making it subject to the believer. The concept of David as biblical penitent par excellence fades into the background in Luther’s interpretation of the Penitential Psalms. ­Instead, as Luther himself suggests in his elucidation of Psalm 142 (143), the kind of reading performed in Die sieben Bußpsalmen privileges Christ wherever possible: “Every psalm, all Scripture,” Luther writes, “calls to grace, extols grace, searches for Christ, and praises only God’s work, while rejecting all the works of man” (LW 14:196).84 And subtle allusions to the redeeming labor of the cross (rather than to the penitential work of David) abound throughout Luther’s exposition.85 From the Crucifixion, in fact, Luther draws three interrelated arguments. First, sinners are liberated from their sin when they hope in Christ’s salvation—and in that alone. Second, men’s attempts to rescue

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themselves through penitential suffering (or their own works of any kind) are essentially meaningless. And third, since Christ willingly endured affliction, sinners are to emulate his sufferance.86 This is not to say that the idea of penitential suffering disappears completely in Die sieben Bußpsalmen. It is simply redefined: instead of a sacrament it becomes a psychology. Nowhere is Luther’s approach more pronounced than at the outset of his observations on Psalm 37 (38), where he declares that this text as a whole reveals “the manner, words, acts, thoughts, and gestures of a truly penitent heart ” (LW 14:156, emphasis added).87 But throughout Die sieben Bußpsalmen, Luther contends that penance is meant to be, not a series of external and visible practices, but an internal and unseen abjection, or submission, of the soul. This Lutheran version of penitential suffering entails, above all else, an encounter with the depths of human wickedness of the kind that Christ experienced when he suffered in his passion, taking upon him all the sin of humanity. More than any theologian before him— more even than Augustine—Luther underscores the soteriological necessity of dwelling on one’s native degeneracy.88 When a sinner becomes aware that he is being disciplined by God, in other words, he must not rush immediately into punishing himself but must rather linger in the fearful consciousness of his own corruption. This point is particularly evident in Luther’s observations on Psalm 37:4b (38:3b). Here the psalmist laments, “There is no health in my bones because of my sin” (LW 14:155).89 And Luther paraphrases the clause like this: There is no health in my bones. For God’s wrath terrifies me to such an extent that my bones shiver and my flesh and marrow fade away. Because of my sin. Because of the consciousness of my sin. For the arrows of God and His angry words make real the sin within the heart. This causes restlessness and terror in the conscience and in all the powers of the soul, and it makes the body sick throughout. Moreover, Luther continues: “Where this is the case, things are right with man; for the same thing happened to Christ” (LW 14:157).90 When God’s temporal chastisement arrives, then, there is no immediate outward action to be taken; instead, a sinner who suffers must submit

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inwardly to the workings of God’s wrath by accepting—in his soul, ­indeed, in his flesh and bones—the dreadful extent of his sinfulness. At times, the kind of internal abjection that Luther advocates becomes so extreme that it looks rather like a form of self-annihilation. Luther’s comments on Psalm 6:7b (6:6b) make this evident. The psalmist laments here about his inability to cease lamenting—“Every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping” (LW 14:139)91—and Luther insists that this complaint should not be interpreted in a literal fashion: This is not really possible, nor has anyone ever heard or read that it has happened to a saint. Hence the words are spoken figuratively and must be understood in a figurative sense, namely, that his soul is so severely burdened with affliction that, if it were possible for the body, he would weep that much. Therefore, so far as he is concerned, it is as if it had happened. And if his body were to act like a soul which thoroughly feels the chastisement of God, he would melt and dissolve like snow in less than an hour. (LW 14:144)92 This is a difficult passage to decipher, but it seems to suggest that a sinner succeeds in fully recognizing both the extent of his wickedness and the punishing force of God’s ire only when he is truly prepared to subject his soul to a thorough dispersion.93 Simply put, the real suffering of conversion for Luther amounts to nothing short of a wholesale acknowledgment of one’s own depravity. Or, as the theologian himself argues when commenting on the beginning of the Miserere: “A true and penitent heart sees nothing but its sin and misery of conscience” (LW 14:166).94 It is an idea that is taken up by many Reformation and post-Reformation writers, including the English priest and poet George Herbert. Indeed, in The Country Parson (published posthumously in 1652), Herbert sounds almost exactly like Luther when he argues that repentance is “an act of the mind, not of the body”—an act that, in essence, “consisteth in a true detestation of the soul, abhorring and renouncing sin, and turning unto God in truth of heart and newness of life.”95 On a number of occasions in Die sieben Bußpsalmen, Luther explicitly attacks the potentially reassuring economic underpinnings of the

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sacrament of penance by condemning its third component—works of satisfaction—outright. When the psalmist remembers, in Psalm 31:5a (32:5a), that he once confessed to God and was forgiven, Luther elaborates on the memory, extending it into an acknowledgment of the absolute worthlessness of human works: “I acknowledged my sin to Thee. Now I see that there is nothing better than to confess before Thee that there is only sin in me and nothing good, so that only Thy grace may be praised and desired, and all pride and trust in merit and good works may cease” (LW 14:150).96 The problem with good works, Luther claims, is that they are never actually good: indeed, they cannot be good, since they are conceived of, and enacted in, a state of corruption. Thus it is logically impossible for a sinner ever to justify himself. A similar idea emerges in Luther’s discussion of Psalm 6:9a (6:8a)—“Depart from me, all you workers of evil”—where Luther comes up with a truly revolutionary, truly evangelical, and truly bizarre interpretation of the psalmist’s foes (LW 14:139).97 Within the tradition of penitential her­ meneutics, the enemies mentioned in the psalms of lament are typically interpreted as those vices or devilish agents that motivate the psalmist to do evil.98 But Luther construes them instead as morally respectable persons who tempt him to do good: That this does not mean all kinds of unjust persons, but those of outstanding virtue and wisdom, is clear from Matt. 7:22, where the Lord Jesus quotes this half of the verse against those who on the Last Day will say: “Yes, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and do many mighty works?” These wise and holy ones are called workers of evil by Christ because they do not perform the good in the right way. And now he attacks the proud holy ones who have never felt the wrath of God or come to a knowledge of their sins. Therefore they do not believe, trust, call upon, know, or teach the goodness of God; but they mislead themselves and others through works and the bold presumption of merit before God. (LW 14:145)99 Luther transforms the psalmist here into Christ, who then launches an attack at the psalmist’s enemies. But this startling move enables the exe­gete to stress that the psalmist (or the general sinner) is endangered

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far more by the well-meaning than by the wicked: he must watch out, especially, for those who have never suffered under the pressure of God’s wrath. For such seemingly upright persons will be able neither to acknowledge their intrinsic iniquity nor to see the absolute futility of their supposedly righteous deeds. Perhaps the greatest problem with works as far as Luther is concerned is that they cause sinners to indulge their inherently iniquitous natures even more. Those who attempt to secure forgiveness for themselves, he contends, cannot avoid becoming arrogant: “The proud try to find satisfaction and redemption in their own good works, attempt to work their own way out and be their own helper, redeemer, and source of mercy. They try to earn themselves truth and righteousness. But what results from these attempts?” (LW 14:194).100 Good works, Luther intimates, turn sinful persons into prideful little gods of their own. By striving to win righteousness for themselves, therefore, sinners mimic the divine (who alone is their “helper, redeemer, and source of mercy”) in exactly the wrong way. Thus not only do human efforts amount to nothing, but they also set humans up to become God’s rivals. Luther suggests, indeed, that sin becomes “deadly” (tödlich) at the very moment when pride in works causes a sinner to believe in his own piety (LW 14:149; WA 18:487). And it is principally for this reason that ­Luther argues in his commentary on Psalm 129 (130) that “if anyone wants to amount to something before God, he must insist on grace, not on merit” (LW 14:191).101 But insisting on, and anticipating, God’s grace is also its own kind of suffering. In his commentary on Psalm 129:6b (130:7a)—“O Israel, hope in the Lord!” (LW 14:189)102—Luther argues that the true Israelites (the true followers of Christ) are those who expect the divinity to intervene on their behalf: “This means: All spiritual and inwardly new people take the position . . . that their whole life is one trusting and hoping in God and a relying on, waiting for, Him; for Israel was the peculiar people of God, and such waiting behooved them. This name, too, is suitable; for Israel means a ‘wrestler with God’ (Gen. 32:8). Now all who wait for the Lord so firmly that they wrestle, as it were, with God are the true Israelites” (LW 14:193).103 Luther accentuates his argument here with an odd paradox: sinners must remain resolutely passive until their passivity is, eventually, transformed into action—until they

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wrestle or struggle (kempffen) with God, just as Israel ( Jacob specifically, as well as his descendants more broadly) once did. In Luther’s formulation, then, the Penitential Psalms reveal that the real work of repentance lies not in doing something outwardly but rather in learning how to do absolutely nothing while hoping inwardly for divine salvation. One might be tempted to “deconstruct” this passage—that is, to call ­attention to the collapse of Luther’s binary system here. While Luther makes every effort to represent being repentant as entirely antagonistic to doing penance, and while the idea of waiting for the gift of Christ’s grace might seem to stand in direct opposition to the concept of deliberately pursuing propitiatory suffering, that waiting ultimately becomes its own kind of striving. But then again, this seems to be precisely Luther’s own point. Overall, Luther asserts that only when sinners put their hope directly in Christ will they come to know God’s forgiveness. Thus as he wraps up Die sieben Bußpsalmen, he argues: “Christ is God’s grace, mercy, righteousness, truth, wisdom, power, comfort, and salvation, given to us by God without any merit on our part” (LW 14:204, em­ phasis added).104 There is no room for bookkeeping, no space for accounting, in this model of conversion. Indeed, according to Luther, the Penitential Psalms teach sinners not that they must purchase but rather that they must receive divine forgiveness—which arrives in the conspicuously antieconomic, and therefore subtly disconcerting, form of a totally free gift. Unlike Fisher, who highlights the value of the Penitential Psalms for the ritual practices of the church, Luther does not touch on either the sacramental or the intercessory uses of these texts; he never once mentions that the psalms might be recited as works of satisfaction or as suffrages for the souls in purgatory. The Penitential Psalms are exceptionally important to Luther, but not as instruments to achieve ­righteousness or reconciliation. Rather, if they are prayers at all, their purpose is to remind penitent sinners to recognize their inescapably ­inherent depravity, to assume a Christ-like sufferance, and to wait for God’s donation of grace.105 Die sieben Bußpsalmen thus undermines the church’s focus on the liturgies and activities involved in the sacrament of penance and suffrages for the dead. And as it does so it challenges not

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just the practices to which the Penitential Psalms have been w ­ edded for so long but also the fiscal mind-set that relies so heavily upon them.106 In conclusion, Luther’s reading of the Penitential Psalms, which divorces the texts from the established beliefs, rites, and customs of the church but does not discard them altogether, sheds light on the otherwise perplexing statement featured at the beginning of this chapter— that made in May 1530 by Archbishop Warham’s assembly of clerics and learned men about the editor of the condemned primer: “He puttith in the booke of the vii. Psalmes.” George Joye, who advertised himself as an evangelical reformer by excluding the prayers to the Virgin, the Litany, and the Dirige from the primer, was not yet ready to reject the Penitential Psalms. Instead, he purposefully detached them from the sequence of prayers with which they had been associated for ­decades. This was likely far more unsettling than if he had dismissed the Penitential Psalms outright—as indicated by the assembly’s complaint that the editor put the seven psalms in the primer, when in reality he simply left them there. In the reworked primer the Penitential Psalms were no longer tied to any recognizable structure; they thus suddenly became theologically, ecclesiastically, and psychologically unsafe.

Ch a p ter Thr e e

Plotting Reform

In January 1541 Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, charged Sir Thomas Wyatt with treason, reviving an accusation that he had first made against the courtier three years previously.1 Bonner’s chief allegation was that, while serving as Henry VIII’s ambassador to the Spanish court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, Wyatt had aligned himself with Cardinal Reginald Pole (and the larger “papist” community) in opposition to the English king.2 Imprisoned in the Tower of London, Wyatt defended himself from Bonner’s charge with characteristic evasiveness: “Ye bring in now that I shulde have this intelligens with Pole by cawse of our opinions that are lyke[,] and that I am papyste,” he wrote, adding equivocally, “I thynke I shulde have much more adoe with a greate sorte in Inglande to purge my selffe of suspecte of a Lutherane then of a Papyst.”3 By addressing the issue of what others might claim about his beliefs rather than that of his own convictions, Wyatt managed to respond to Bonner’s accusation without either condemning Pole or associating himself categorically with any one religious party. Wyatt remained in the Tower from mid-January to the end of March 1541, and it was probably around the time of his imprisonment 95

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that he composed his verse paraphrase of the seven Penitential Psalms.4 This lengthy poem is based on a variety of sources, including, most notably, I sette salmi de la penitentia di David, an Italian prose paraphrase by Pietro Aretino, first published in Venice in 1534.5 From Aretino’s work Wyatt adapted not just the seven psalms but also a series of seven narrative prologues that inscribe those psalms into the story, recounted in 2 Samuel 11–12, of King David’s adulterous affair with Bathsheba and subsequent murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah. These prologues provide a unifying framework for the psalms, transforming them into seven prayers composed by David as he repents for his sins. Modern critics have endeavored to find a veiled polemic in Wyatt’s reworking of Aretino, examining the relationship between the Italian source and the autograph text of Wyatt’s paraphrase in the Egerton manuscript for clues to the English poet’s purposes.6 However, the poem has proven as resistant to these readings as has Wyatt’s evasive statement of defense. Scholars generally concur that Wyatt relies more heavily on Aretino’s text at the opening of his poem (that is, in the first two or three prologues and psalms) than at the end.7 But there is little agreement about why Wyatt chose Aretino as a source or what he intended when he translated and reshaped the Italian paraphrase.8 Approaches to these questions range from the biographical to the political to the religious. Biographical critics liken the psalmist of the English paraphrase to Wyatt himself, arguing that David’s situation mirrors Wyatt’s in 1541. Thus both Alistair Fox and Raymond Southall, for example, suggest that David’s repentance for his adulterous liaison with Bathsheba in the paraphrase reflects the fact that, after his trial in 1541, Wyatt was charged by Henry VIII to abandon his longstanding relationship with his mistress, Elizabeth Darrell, and return to his wife, Elizabeth Brooke.9 Taking an alternate tack, political readers claim that Wyatt’s engagement with the Penitential Psalms was rather more complex than a strict identification of the figure of David with the poet alone might allow. Stephen Greenblatt, for instance, proposes that David’s sexual aggression in Wyatt’s work was meant to “glance, slyly and indirectly, at Henry VIII”; Ellen Lifschutz agrees, positing that Wyatt intended his version of the seven psalms to function as “a moral persuasion specifically, though not explicitly, addressed to Henry VIII”; and Lynn Staley asserts that “Wyatt’s careful handling of the story of King David . . .

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suggests ways in which the Penitential Psalms could be used to analyze the nature of secular sovereignty.”10 As evidence for their arguments, Greenblatt, Lifschutz, and Staley all quote from Wyatt’s contemporary, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, who, in a sonnet published on the occasion of Wyatt’s death, appears to explain the paraphrase once and for all by situating it in the tradition of specula principum. In Wyatt’s psalms, Surrey posits, “Rewlers may se in a myrrour clere / The bitter frewte of false concupicense.”11 The third class of interpreters looks to sixteenth-century religious controversy to explain Wyatt’s objectives. The consensus generally holds that in his paraphrase Wyatt takes the opportunity to advance his own evangelical (and, as some scholars believe, specifically Lutheran) convictions.12 Several critics argue in particular that Wyatt transforms the ideal “Catholic” penitent of I sette salmi into an exemplar for “Protestant” repentance, thereby subtly promoting the furtherance of the Reformation at a time when the Henrician church mandated a more conservative theology. According to R. A. Rebholz, for instance, Aretino’s psalmist—who is “caught up” in a “continuing cycle of sin and for­ giveness and sin”—is refashioned by Wyatt into “the type of the Reformed Christian who experiences the genuinely profound, almost despairing sense of his sinfulness only once before the critical act of believing that God forgives him.”13 Likewise, Elizabeth Heale maintains that in ­Wyatt’s version of the Penitential Psalms “Aretino’s thoroughly Roman Catholic conversion narrative becomes a distinctly, but cautiously, Reformed one.”14 But the consensus about Wyatt’s religious purposes in his adaptation of Aretino is not without its detractors. Raymond Waddington, for example, complicates the picture by challenging the very assumption that Aretino’s paraphrase represents orthodox Roman Catholicism in the first place.15 And Greg Walker argues that, far from advocating a subversive form of Protestantism in his paraphrase, Wyatt carefully and deliberately abides by the theological positions laid out in the authorized documents of Henry VIII’s church—such as the Ten Articles of 1536 and The Bishops’ Book of 1537.16 In sum, it has been virtually impossible to provide an authoritative answer to the principal question that Wyatt scholars have asked for ­decades: What did the poet hope to convey when he adapted Aretino’s paraphrase? It would seem, in fact, that Wyatt’s purposes must

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r­emain a mystery. Yet if the question of what Wyatt intended cannot be solved, perhaps another question can be—namely, What kind of work could Wyatt’s rendition of Aretino be expected to execute (or what kind of ­effect could Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms be relied upon to produce), and why?17 This question is especially intriguing because, as has already been demonstrated, the Penitential Psalms themselves occupied a highly ambiguous symbolic space in Reformation-era England. In this current chapter I look primarily to book history to answer the first part of this alternative query (what?), and mainly to poetics to answer the second (why?). I begin by exploring the circumstances in which the first printed edition of Wyatt’s paraphrase was produced, and I note that the publication was sponsored by a number of radical reformers. Keeping this early textual history in mind, I then examine the poetry itself to understand why it would have been of interest to evangelicals of the time. In this second inquiry, I employ Roland Greene’s phenomenological schema of ritual and fictional modes of apprehension to contrast Wyatt’s poem with other options that might have been available to its first publishers (late medieval metrical paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms by Richard Maidstone and Thomas Brampton, and a sixteenth-century version by John Croke). Finally, I argue that Wyatt’s fictionalizing interpretation of the Penitential Psalms manipulates the widespread medieval belief that David did penance for his sins in a wholly exemplary manner. In Wyatt’s narrative prologues, as well as in the conversation that emerges between the prologues and the psalms, David converts not just from unredeemed to redeemed sinner but also from conservative (or orthodox) to evangelical penitent. Wyatt’s poem thus takes up in poetic form the theological drive of Luther’s Die sieben Bußpsalmen, reformulating the nature of penance for its English au­ diences. Sir Thomas Wyatt among the Evangelicals With the exception of a few short pieces included in the miscellany The Court of Venus, none of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poems made it to press before the poet’s death in 1542.18 In fact, Wyatt’s paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms, issued posthumously at the end of 1549 with the title

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Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, was the first of his works to circulate independently in print.19 And the publication details of this printed edition indicate that Wyatt’s rendering of the Penitential Psalms was picked up in the mid–sixteenth century by (and for) the reformist agenda. The slim volume of 1549 was dedicated to Lord William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, printed in London by Thomas Raynald, and apparently edited by the man whose name is given with Raynald’s in the imprint of the text as “John Harryngton” (see figs. 3.1 and 3.2). I identify this last individual, who also signed the dedication to Parr, as John Harington of Stepney—poet, anthologist, and father to the Elizabethan courtier and translator Sir John Harington of Kelston.20 But the fact worth underlining here is that all three of the key figures associated with Wyatt’s Certayne psalmes were linked with evangelicalism in the mid–sixteenth century. The editor (Harington) and the dedicatee (Parr) in particular left some fairly clear traces of their religious allegiances and objectives. Like Wyatt, both Harington and Parr were familiar with the precarious nature of Tudor politics. And, again like Wyatt, both were subject to periods of imprisonment. Yet neither of them shared Wyatt’s taste for, or skills in, evasion or equivocation when it came to spiritual matters.21 As a young man, John Harington studied music at court and attracted the notice of Henry VIII by writing an antimonastic hymn, which the king is said to have sung frequently.22 He was incarcerated twice in his life—the first time during the protectorate of the Duke of Somerset (I will return to this in a moment) and the second at the beginning of the reign of Mary, when he was suspected of collaborating in the abortive revolt against the queen led by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger, the poet’s son. He also attended the princess Elizabeth while she was confined in the Tower and remained on good terms with her after she ascended the throne.23 In the late 1540s, he benefited greatly from the dissolution of the monasteries, coming into the possession of former conventual properties in Somerset, Berkshire, and Gloucestershire.24 William Parr’s affiliations with the new religion were perhaps even stronger than Harington’s. Having taken a pivotal role in suppressing the 1536 “Catholic” uprising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the

Fig. 3.1. Title page. Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid. London: T. Raynald and [i.e., for] J. Harington (“Harryngton” in the imprint), 1549. STC 2726. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Shelfmark Syn.8.54.156.

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Fig. 3.2. From the dedication to Lord William Parr. Certayne psalmes ­ chosen out of the psalter of Dauid. London: T. Raynald and [i.e., for] J. Harington (“Harryngton” in the imprint), 1549. STC 2726. Sig. A1v. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Shelfmark Syn.8.54.156.

younger brother of Queen Katherine Parr made a name for himself as a leading evangelical during Edward’s reign.25 Like Harington, he was imprisoned in the Tower by Mary on two occasions—in 1553, for playing a key part in the attempt to secure the crown for Protestant Lady Jane Grey, and again in 1554, when he, too, was accused of involvement in the Wyatt fiasco. In 1549, both Parr and Harington were caught up in the tumultuous business of evangelical reform. Both men, indeed, began the year accused of conspiring with the Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour against the Lord Protector Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset.26 Parr narrowly avoided imprisonment on this occasion, but Harington was confined in the Tower and questioned heavily about his role in several

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schemes associated with radical evangelicalism, including an alleged plot to marry Edward VI to Lady Jane Grey. Throughout his incarceration, which lasted until the spring of 1550, Harington appears to have engaged himself in a range of scholarly and poetic pursuits, and he must have edited Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms at this time. He produced an English version of Cicero’s De amicitia (On Friendship). This text was published after his release with a dedication to Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk—a former intimate of Katherine Parr and a generous patron of evangelical publications.27 It may also have been during his imprisonment that Harington prepared for print a set of metrical psalm translations by the reformist zealot William Hunnis; he had this work published in 1550.28 While Harington was spending the year reading, writing, and undergoing interrogation in prison, Parr was keeping himself equally busy, if not more so, on behalf of further reform. In the summer of 1549, he made an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to put down the Norfolk ­rising led by Robert Kett.29 And in the autumn, he became involved in the coup against Somerset staged by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, which put effective political control of England in Warwick’s hands and led to a greater consolidation of evangelicalism in the nation. He also attended a series of disputations about the sacrament of the Eucharist, where he openly supported the reformist denial of the Real Presence. (When a similar set of disputations was arranged in 1551, Parr was present again, this time with Harington).30 There is, then, plenty of evidence that both the editor and the dedi­ catee of Certayne psalmes backed the advancement of the Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century. And it therefore comes as no surprise to find that the book’s printer was also connected with reformist activities. Little is known of Raynald outside his achievements in the London book market. But these achievements are telling nonetheless. Over the course of four or five years, beginning in 1548 and ending at around the time of Mary’s accession to the throne, the printer issued works by a host of famous evangelicals, including John Bale, Thomas Becon, George Joye, William Tyndale, and Ulrich Zwingli.31 While the biographies and achievements of the three men involved in the publication of Wyatt’s paraphrase situate that text within an evangelical milieu, so too does the timing of its release. According to its

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colophon, Certayne psalmes was published on “the last day of December” in 1549. This means that Wyatt’s paraphrase would have appeared on the book market during a period of rapidly escalating political and religious turmoil.32 Indeed, it would have surfaced less than a week after Warwick’s new council, afraid of losing ground to religious conservatives (and/or their sympathizers), had ordered the bishops in England to confiscate and destroy all Latin service books, along with any other books, such as breviaries or primers, that might have hindered the use of the Book of Common Prayer. The council’s order was issued on December 25, 1549. It was encoded and extended in the January 1550 Act for the Defacing of Images, which called upon local officials to oversee the destruction of all books and images affiliated with the papal church—and thus led to months of book burning and iconoclasm across the country.33 Given the allegiances of those involved in the publication of Wyatt’s paraphrase, it is likely that the emergence of Certayne psalmes was timed specifically to add support to this aggressive antitraditionalist campaign. The specific date for the printing and marketing of Wyatt’s paraphrase is worth underscoring because the timing has been both mis­ represented and misunderstood in recent criticism. Greg Walker, for instance, gives the publication date as “the first day of September” instead of “the last day of December”—a small error with potentially big consequences when one is endeavoring to interpret the work in relation to the swiftly changing political arena at the midpoint of the sixteenth century.34 And Brian Cummings argues that the publication of Certayne psalmes “indicates a new phase in Tudor religious polity, in which the Lord Protector Seymour attempted to entrench the Edwardian evangelical faith with reams of printed evangelical piety.”35 But this suggestion unfortunately misses the fact that Wyatt’s paraphrase appeared after Seymour had been deposed in October 1549. The publi­ cation is thus far more likely to have been associated with Warwick’s attempts to secure religious and political authority in the nation. A couple of significant textual details also speak to the publication’s links with the cause of religious reform. First, the extended title of the printed volume boasts that Wyatt’s paraphrase will prove “very pleasaunt & profettable”—to, precisely, “the godly reader” (fig. 3.1).36 Second, in his dedicatory letter, Harington celebrates Parr’s support for the

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­ roject using a distinctly reformist vernacular.37 After extolling both the p martial and the scholarly virtues of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Harington writes: “I thought that I could not find a more worthy patron for soch a mans worke than your Lordship, whom I haue allwayes knowen to be of so godlye a zeale, to thee furtheraunce of gods holy & a secret gospel” (A2v). With evangelical (and perhaps also evangelistic) gusto, then, Harington confirms the Marquis of Northampton’s commitment to the Reformation, while also implicitly associating Wyatt, and Wyatt’s poem, with that commitment. But if the publication of Certayne psalmes was meant to add weight to the expansion of the new religion in the winter of 1549–50, why might it have been expected to accomplish such a role? What qualities, in other words, might three Edwardian reformers—Harington, Parr, and Raynald—have found valuable in Wyatt’s paraphrase? And why did these evangelically minded men choose to publish Wyatt’s paraphrase in particular—as opposed to, say, any other paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms in English verse? These questions are addressed in the following sections. Richard Maidstone, Thomas Brampton, and John Croke: The Penitential Psalms as Common Property It is not possible to ascertain with certainty which, if any, alternative verse paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms in English may have been known directly to the Edwardian publishers of Wyatt’s poem. But it is worth considering that at least three such paraphrases were in circulation in manuscript form by the mid-sixteenth century: those of Richard Maidstone (a late fourteenth-century Carmelite), Thomas Brampton (an early fifteenth-century Franciscan), and John Croke (one of the six clerks of chancery in the first half of the sixteenth century).38 And although these alternative paraphrases differ from each other considerably in terms of technique, style, and mood, they all share a particular way of capturing (that is, of receiving and representing) the Penitential Psalms—one to which Wyatt’s paraphrase implicitly stands in contrast. It is useful to bring in at this point a bilingual devotional guide published in 1537 by Robert Redman with the title This prymer in En­

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glyshe and in Laten.39 This prayer book, which garnered a wide lay readership in its time, introduces the Penitential Psalms with a small yet typical woodcut of David peering at Bathsheba (fig. 3.3).40 It also provides a brief explanation of how the seven psalms came by their shared designation. And that explanation, like the woodcut, alludes to Davidic myth: “Why that these .vii. psalmes folowynge are called penitentiall, and be chiefely noted aboue other, the common opinion and mynde of many wryters is and hath ben, that the kynge and prophete Dauid compuncte and stryken with hartie repentaunce of his greuous adulterie committed with Bersabe & the detestable murther of Urie her husbande, beinge his knyght and seruaunt (after he was admonyshed by Nathan, the prophete of god) shulde make them specially to declare his inwarde sorowe, & depe contrition that he toke for the same.” Here the primer’s editor justifies the application of the title penitential to the seven psalms by alluding to the legendary connection between those psalms and the tale of David’s great fall. The label is generally considered appropriate for these psalms, he observes, because, according to numerous authorities, David composed all of them at once, in a moment of profound remorse for his sins of adultery and murder. But the editor then casts doubt on this explanation. It may well be the case that “many wryters” have linked the creation of the Penitential Psalms to the story of David’s transgression and repentance, he allows, “but whether it were done vpon that occasion or not, that I referre to the iudgement of other, because that in the psalter they stande not ­together orderly.” He notes, therefore, that he has some reservations about the context traditionally given for the seven psalms: because those psalms do not appear as a consecutive sequence in Scripture, he points out, it is in fact feasible that they were not all written upon the same ­occasion. Such uncertainty regarding the genesis of the Penitential Psalms threatens—just for a moment—to dissolve both their unity as a set and their collective theme or title. But rather than allowing such a dissolution to occur, the editor proposes a second rationale for the customary grouping and naming of the seven psalms, based on their content and utility. Their Davidic origin may not be verifiable, he acknowledges, “yet this is very certayne, that they may well and of good congruence be called penitentiall, for so moche as penaunce in them is so diligently,

Fig. 3.3. The Penitential Psalms. This prymer in Englyshe and in Laten. London: [R. Redman, 1537]. STC 15997. Sig. P2v. By permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Shelfmark STC 15997.

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often, and manifestly treated, repeted, and commended, as in the selfe psalmes is easely perceyued.” Thus the title penitential makes perfect sense for these seven psalms, he stresses, because they all reiterate, and all endorse, the practice of penance—or at least because they can be read as doing so. This primer therefore preserves two dissimilar approaches to the Penitential Psalms. The first approach interprets them diachronically, as seven prayers composed by a particular person (in this case, David) at a specific moment in history; the second takes them as universal and synchronic models—as general templates—by which any Christian might undertake penance at any point in time. And although the primer’s ­editor is less certain about the first of these readings than he is about the second, he nevertheless allows them to remain alongside each other in the prayer book as equally pertinent glosses to the sequence—if not in the prose introduction itself, then in the slightly awkward relation on the page between that introduction (which gets close to dismissing David) and the image (which recalls him). I designate these two understandings of the Penitential Psalms fictional and ritual respectively, appropriating a binary that Roland Greene developed in Post-Petrarchism, his transhistorical and principally phenomenological study of the Western lyric sequence, as well as in a related essay on the psalms of Sir Philip Sidney. For Greene, fictional and ritual refer to two divergent modes or structures of apprehension that operate in a dialectical fashion in almost all lyric texts and that ultimately govern how those texts are perceived.41 I contend that while the paraphrases of Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke apprehend the Penitential Psalms primarily in their ritual mode, Wyatt’s paraphrase relies mostly on capturing them in their fictional dimension. Furthermore, it was specifically Wyatt’s attention to (and manipulation of ) the fictional element in the Penitential Psalms that caught the interest of the reformers who first published his work. It should be noted that, just like the commentaries of Fisher and Luther, each of the paraphrases I explore in this chapter, including ­Wyatt’s, operates within, and thus advances, the Augustinian exegetical tradition that I have termed penitential hermeneutics. Not one of them challenges the supposed thematic coherence of the group around the issue of repentance. In fact, each situates the sequence within the context of God’s impending judgment, conceives of the physical and social

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suffering delineated in the laments as either a sign or a symptom of human sin, and posits that this group of seven prayers plays a crucial role in effecting conversion and/or securing God’s mercy. The important task, then, is to consider the ways in which fictional and ritual means of reading and writing—as essentially poetic (rather than merely theological) responses to the Penitential Psalms—interact in the early English verse paraphrases with this interpretive tradition. According to Roland Greene’s phenomenological theory, when a lyric (or a lyric sequence—not unlike the sequence of the seven Penitential Psalms) is apprehended in its ritual mode, it is accepted first and foremost as “directions for performance”: that is to say, its first-person utterance is understood as a script, open and adaptable to the voices of a wide range of readers.42 This is the form in which the editor of Redman’s primer captures the seven psalms when he argues that they are rightfully categorized as penitential not because of their Davidic roots but rather as a result of their diligent treating, repeating, and com­ mending of penance—the underlying assumption being that the seven psalms belong equally to any penitent who wishes to make use of them in prayer. And it is also the manner in which Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke comprehend and characterize the seven psalms. These English versifiers are not at all interested in the origination of the sequence: they do not concern themselves with the historical moment when David invented these seven supplications, nor do they care what state of mind (or soul) the king of Israel was in when he composed them. They are, however, deeply invested in reading the series as an ­always-already extant, and therefore always potentially universal, expression of repentance. Each of the three English metrical paraphrases under consideration includes a prologue or preface of sorts. And, in its own way, each prologue rehearses an understanding of the Penitential Psalms as synchronic, available, and reiterable. Take Richard Maidstone’s, for instance. This comprises eight lines, or two linked quatrains, of verse: To Goddis worschipe that dere us boughte, To whom we owen to make oure mone [lament] Of alle the synnes that we haue wroughte [committed] In youthe, in elde, many oone; In these psalmys thei ben thorugh sought [sought through],

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In schame of alle oure goostli foon [spiritual foes], And in to Englische thei ben brought, For synne in man to be fordon [destroyed].43 This prologue aspires to objectivity and generality. It casts the Penitential Psalms as applicable to, and repeatable by, any penitent, guilty of any sin, at any point in time. And it uses several strategies to achieve this end. Most obviously, it creates a thoroughly universalized context for the psalm sequence to follow by incorporating its readers or auditors into a broad first-person plural (“we,” “us,” “oure”), as well as by insisting that the seven psalms are useful in countering not merely one particular sin (e.g., adultery) or one particular temptation (e.g., lust) but rather “alle the synnes that we haue wroughte” and “alle oure goostli foon” (emphasis added). Additionally, and more subtly, it situates the Penitential Psalms in an enduring and unbounded present: as it makes its case for the importance of these supplications in the discovery, confession, and eradication of transgression, the prologue suggests that the sequence looks both to the past and to the future. While all the sins ever committed by man have been “thorugh sought” (sought through or examined) in the seven psalms, it argues, “synne in man” will be “fordon” (destroyed or prevented) by those same psalms at some imminent yet always still-approaching moment. The psalm sequence thus hovers somewhere between what has been, and what remains still to be, completed. Finally, while this prologue fails to mention the primary act of authorship for these psalms, it concludes by highlighting the secondary fact of their translation.44 Here the vernacular language is represented as a neutral vehicle that far from altering or diminishing the beneficial content of the Penitential Psalms actually facilitates it. Indeed, the last two lines of the prologue (“And in to Englische thei ben brought, / For synne in man to be fordon”) suggest that in the ongoing spiritual battle against iniquity the English psalms are just as valuable to all of humanity as any other version might be—if not more so.45 The prologue to Thomas Brampton’s paraphrase also captures the seven psalms in their ritual mode, as preexisting documents of common interest and common value. Significantly longer than Maidstone’s prologue (six eight-line stanzas as opposed to one), this preface takes the form of a first-person-singular narrative in the past tense. It begins like this:

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In wynter, whan the wedir was cold, I ros at mydnyght fro my rest, And prayed to Jesu that he wold, Be myn helpe, for he myght best. In myn herte anon I kest How I had synned, and what degre: I cryed, knockyng up on my brest, “Ne reminiscaris, Domine!”46 The situation adumbrated here, in an opening passage that is more than vaguely reminiscent of an incipit to a medieval dream vision, might seem for a moment to represent a framing fiction of its own—a unique and historically specific alternative to the famous story of David’s great sin and repentance. And yet as the tale unfolds, it emerges that this drama is entirely un-circumstantiated. Indeed, the figure who rises to pray on a cold winter’s night and becomes aware of his iniquitous state conforms thoroughly to a familiar sacramental template. Overwhelmed with sorrow for his sin, and desperate to do something about it, he immediately seeks out his “Confessour” and shrives himself “clene.”47 The confessor, in return, comforts the sinner with a pronouncement of forgiveness, advises him to amend his life, and instructs him to recite the (extant and available) sequence of seven psalms as a work of satisfaction. There is nothing idiosyncratic about this series of events; the peni­ tential behavior of the speaking “I,” and the paternalistic response of the religious authority, are both utterly typical. The condition of sin in which the penitent finds himself is also wholly generic: when this speaker looks for forgiveness and relief, it is simply from the predicament of his “wyl, and woord, and wicked dede.”48 Last, while critics have tended to read this repentant sinner as male (perhaps identifying “him” with Brampton), it is worth noting that “he” may not actually be gendered at all. The confessor makes this statement as he comforts the repentant sinner: “No synful man he [God] wille forfare, / That sory of his synnes wylle be.”49 This declaration might suggest that the confessor is addressing a male penitent. On the other hand, it could instead be a general assertion, applicable to all persons. Ultimately, then, even if Brampton’s prologue appears to capture the Penitential Psalms in a per-

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sonal or particular mode, it actually embodies an impartial interpretation of the sequence—one that renders the seven psalms adaptable to each and every sinner in need of God’s mercy. John Croke’s prologue is far shorter, and far more emblematic, than either Maidstone’s or Brampton’s. Yet it, too, participates in a ritual situ­ating of the Penitential Psalms. This prefatory statement amounts to no more than a two-line epigraph in Latin: “Hos mea me coniunx psalmos Prudentia fecit / Vertere: nec tedet suasum, Virtutis amore” (These psalms, my wife Prudence made me translate: nor, being persuaded, am I wearied by the task, due to love of Virtue).50 Circling around the Croke family motto, “Virtutis amore,” this pithy declaration raises a series of tantalizing questions.51 Why did Prudence want Croke to render (or turn) these psalms into English verse? When Croke bowed to his wife’s request, did he translate the psalms as a penitential exercise or as a poetic one? Furthermore, where is, or was, the object of Croke’s love (Virtue) located? And, finally, could there be a suggestion of extramarital infidelity in the translator’s affection for this second abstract feminine noun (in addition to, or instead of, Prudence)?52 But these queries cannot be answered. For although the epigraph hints at particularity, it reveals nothing at all about John’s relationship with ­Prudence—or with anyone else for that matter. Like Brampton’s longer prologue, then, Croke’s fleeting dedication simultaneously promises the subjective and denies it. In truth, its whole purpose seems to be to model the vast capacity of the Penitential Psalms, in their ritual mode, to absorb into themselves the specific circumstances of all who encounter them. In their emphasis on objectivity and universality, the three prologues just discussed—Maidstone’s, Brampton’s, and Croke’s—all prime their audiences for a particular kind of interaction with the vernacular paraphrases that follow. Roland Greene has argued that while lyric’s ­ritual mode “tends to celebrate the idea and experience of selfhood,” the “acting out of such a celebration” implicitly involves “a self-­abandonment or self-dismantling that can be stunningly mercurial.”53 Any person who engages a lyric or a lyric sequence ritually, as a “timeless, infinitely repeatable act,” Greene suggests, submits to what amounts to a “collective score”: such a participant, that is, discards “his or her all-too-specific person” and, at least for the length of the performance, adopts “the

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speaking self of the poem.”54 In doing so, he or she “attains an experiential unity with some subset of his or her culture,” or comes face to face with something akin to what the music theorist Victor Zuckerkandl calls “the reality of an all-together in which every body—composer, performer, listener—stands together and gazes, as it were, with the eyes of the work in the same direction.”55 I would argue that the three prologues introduce (and, in the case of Croke, even begin to enact) the idea that engaging with the Penitential Psalms may require exactly this kind of depersonalization, exactly this kind of self-effacement, as a means of entering into a shared or collective experience.56 This ritual process is fully actualized in the psalm paraphrases themselves. And here it is worth stressing a basic, but easily overlooked, point. These three works (like Wyatt’s) are paraphrases in English verse. They may pretend to transport the Penitential Psalms from Latin into the vernacular in a neutral or unbiased manner. But to participate in a recitation of any of these poems—whether by reading or by listening, whether in private or in public—is not at all the same thing as to rehearse the seven psalms from a Latin (or even a bilingual) Book of Hours. It is, rather, to engage with those psalms in a version that has been altered and interpreted to a far greater degree. These paraphrases, indeed, translate the seven psalms in and toward their ritual dimension—not just linguistically but also formally and conceptually. How, then, do Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke realize their substitution of the collective and synchronic for the particular and historical in their psalm paraphrases? Form has quite a bit to do with it. The works in question are both poems and paraphrases. But the measured, systematic way in which these two literary kinds are combined makes them look and sound, in addition, like meditations. All three poems extend their biblical models considerably, dilating each line of Latin psalm into an entire stanza of English verse (eight lines in Maidstone and Brampton, four in Croke). All three also make use of relatively simple and repetitive varieties of meter and rhyme—varieties that might encourage contemplative recitation not just on an individual basis but also, perhaps, in a communal situation. (Maidstone and Bramp­ton deploy iambic tetrameter, with Maidstone rhyming abab abab and Bramp­ton abab bcbc; Croke’s quatrains are cross-rhymed and each line is usually octosyllabic).57 On a macro level, the end result in each case is

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a product that, even more than the psalm sequence in Latin, reads like a prolonged and collectively oriented incantation. Furthermore, all three of these hymnlike meditations take place in a context that is as accessible as possible. First, the sin that is dealt with in the paraphrases remains broadly defined, even when the biblical psalm text and the authorities on that text offer opportunities to narrow it down. The responses of Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke to Psalm 50:16—“Deliver me from blood, O God, thou God of my salvation and my tongue shall extol thy justice”—exemplify this phenomenon.58 The commentary tradition provides two major possibilities regarding what the word blood (Latin “bloods”) in this verse refers to. On the one hand, blood is taken to indicate the results of innate human corruption (or, as Eleanor Hull, the great fifteenth-century synthesizer of the tradition, puts it, the “many synnys” that derive directly “of the flessche and of the blode of man”); on the other hand it is seen as pointing to the specific sins of murder and illicit sex that David once committed (Hull calls these “the blood of Vrie” and “the blode of a-voutrie”).59 Drawing on these two interpretive options, each of the three English poets finds a way to ensure that the psalm verse remains general enough to be uttered by any sinner. In the paraphrases of Brampton and Maidstone, for instance, the speaker asks to be delivered from “fleschly lust” and “blameful bloode” respectively—phrases that might be applied not just to adulterous behavior but to any transgressive desire (as well as to the human condition of inherited or original depravity).60 And Croke’s paraphrase quite ingeniously turns the psalmist’s plea for deliverance into a universally relevant preemptive appeal: “Lord God of all my health the flowre / Graunt that I nother slee, nor kyll.”61 Not one of the three poets brings up David, Bathsheba, or Uriah at this point. Second, the chronological setting of these paraphrases is as wide as the boundaries of human experience itself—a sense of scope that may derive from several verses in Psalm 101. At the end of this particular ­lament, the psalmist recalls the idea that a person’s days on earth are numbered, emphasizing the transitory quality of human existence by drawing a contrast between the limited life of man and the eternal, undeviating nature of God. In a lengthy metaphor, he depicts the heavens and the earth as items of clothing that will be replaced by the divinity when they start to become ragged: “In the beginning, O Lord, thou

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foundedst the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art always the selfsame: and thy years shall not fail.”62 This moving analogy might be said to provide license for the three English poets to position the Penitential Psalms within a chronological expanse as grand as the distance between the creation and the destruction of the universe. Croke, who translates the psalms in a fairly literal fashion, adds no explicit references in his paraphrase to any other historical circumstances. In the paraphrases of Maidstone and Brampton, the two defining events of these verses in Psalm 101 (i.e., the beginning of the world and the demise of the same) are frequently overlaid with references to the more overtly Christian events of the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment. But in all three works, the situation of the Penitential Psalms in time is so open as to be almost out of time; and thus to recite these poems is both to remain fixed in the present and to move beyond the limits of history.63 If the kind of meditation that takes place in these paraphrases occurs in a generalized, ahistorical context, then it is also strikingly cyclical. And it is primarily in regard to this matter that the function of capturing the Penitential Psalms as ritual texts becomes most evident. Roland Greene has intimated that it is the ritual dimension of lyric that lies at the heart of the genre’s “involvement in ideological suasion”— that when a participant abandons his or her self and experiences col­ lectivity in a ritual performance of lyric poetry, that self is essentially “restructured or reanimated” in the process.64 The verse paraphrases of Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke read the Penitential Psalms in their ritual mode for equivalent purposes. Of the three poems, Brampton’s is perhaps the most overtly recursive, since it returns regularly, and compulsively, to its succinct Latin refrain: “Ne reminiscaris, Domine.” This text represents an abbreviated form of an antiphon included at the end of the Penitential Psalms in medieval breviaries and frequently referenced at the beginning of the sequence in Books of Hours (see, e.g., fig. 3.3).65 The antiphon itself opens with an entreaty: “Remember not, Lord, our offenses, nor the offenses of our forefathers, neither take thou vengeance of our sins.”66 In Brampton’s poem, that entreaty is introduced at the opening of the pro-

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logue (as quoted above) and then woven into each stanza of the paraphrase as its final line—that is, for a grand total of 124 times.67 The refrain materializes in Brampton’s work in a couple of different ways. Characteristically, it closes the stanza as a petition, incorporated into the paraphrase as if it were just one more of the psalmist’s cries for mercy: Sprede thi grace on me amonge, When y haue synned in ony degre. For trust to the, this is my songe, “Ne reminiscaris, Domine!”68 Yet on other occasions it functions as a metonym for the seven Penitential Psalms or for the entire sacramental system in which the Penitential Psalms and the antiphon together play a significant role: If I seke grace, lete me it fynde; And goodly thyn erys bowe to me. Fro synne may no thynge me unbynde, But, “Ne reminiscaris, Domine!”69 What is most remarkable about this Latin tag is its ability to fix the meaning of the psalm sequence absolutely. It brings every single line from that sequence back to exactly the same cluster of concepts, operating as a perpetual and nagging reminder—to God, that he must not remember the sins of man on Judgment Day; and to man, that he must not forget to seek mercy (again and again) in this life. Simply put, this refrain makes it almost impossible to see anything in the Penitential Psalms other than penance and the Penitential Psalms. Hermeneutically, it is totalitarian: it presents its own version of the psalm sequence as the only reality and is utterly resistant to alternatives. With its repeated liturgical refrain, Brampton’s poem might appear to be more cyclical than either Croke’s or Maidstone’s. Yet all three incline toward the recursive, especially at the psychological level. In the paraphrases, each of the psalms generally runs into the next with little or no signal of any kind of transition.70 And since each psalm in its Latin form moves (at least schematically) from despair to hope, or from

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lament to praise, the emotional effect of these conjunctions tends to be the opposite of progressive. On several occasions, indeed, a joyful stanza representing the end of one psalm leads directly into a woeful stanza derived from the beginning of the subsequent psalm.71 The juncture between the end of Psalm 101 and the beginning of Psalm 129 in Maidstone’s paraphrase exemplifies this pattern. After lamenting the transitory and fleeting nature of life, Psalm 101 comes to a close with an anticipatory, even triumphant, assertion: “The children of thy servants shall continue: and their seed shall be directed for ever.”72 Maidstone paraphrases it this way: Thi seruauntis sones schulen dwelle & dure, And in al the world her seed schal sprede; For ceertis thei ben not vnsure, That thee wil serue in word & deed. Therfore now, Ihesu, do thi cure, Ne dampne us not whanne we ben dede, But, eer we passe, make us pure, To the lond of lijf that thou us lede.73 In the first quatrain of this stanza, Maidstone reproduces the affirmation of the psalm verse; in the second, he adds a supplication to that affirmation. Thus, as a whole, these eight lines express both assurance in (“For ceertis thei ben not vnsure”) and hope of (“Therfore now, Ihesu, do thi cure”) salvation. The following stanza, however, tells a different story. This is drawn from the famous plea for an audience with the divinity at the beginning of Psalm 129: “Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.”74 Maidstone renders the appeal as follows: Fro dalis depe to thee I criede; Lord, Lord, listne the voys of me! This depe prisoun that I in abyde, Breke it up, Lord, for thy pyte! Be thou my socour and my gyde, My goostely Lord, to whom I fle, And lete out of thin herte ryde That I haue doon ageynes thee.75

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All at once, and without warning, the psychological tenor of the paraphrase shifts dramatically for the worse. Recognizing his sin, the petitioner launches into an agitated cry, an urgent attempt to draw the attention of God to his need for mercy. And he makes his plea from a place of utter fear and wretchedness—from a dungeon or “depe ­prisoun” of emotional and spiritual bondage that does not seem too far removed from hell itself.76 With this new stanza, then, the confidence in salvation expressed in the previous lines regresses immediately into anguish and the prospect of damnation. Robert Kellerman has suggested that “treating the psalms this way”—that is, failing to impose any kind of psychological development upon the sequence, and perhaps even exaggerating the emotional disjunctions between the end of one psalm and the beginning of the next—reflects a “rhetorical understanding of penitence”: “If these paraphrases are cyclical,” Kellerman notes in relation to Maidstone and Brampton, “so then is the penitential cycle, the speaker sinning, absolved, and sinning again.”77 This is an astute comparison, but I would extend it further. The three paraphrases under consideration require those who meet them in performance to live out this repetitive penitential scheme. These poems might teach their readers or auditors about penance. But they also absorb or enroll them into a penitential program. And it is ultimately this kind of incorporative process that is effected by the Penitential Psalms in their ritual dimension. I have proposed that the paraphrases of Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke all apprehend the Penitential Psalms in their ritual mode. I have also argued that, in so doing, the three poems translate the seven psalms into lengthy meditations that not only enact a temporary writing-over of historical selves but also integrate those who encounter them into a collectively oriented and recursive experience of the penitential system. It is now appropriate to return to Wyatt’s paraphrase, which takes a contrary approach to rendering the same psalms in English. Earlier in this chapter, I asked what several mid-sixteenth-century evangelical reformers ( John Harington, William Parr, and Thomas Raynald) might have found valuable in Wyatt’s paraphrase—and why these three men decided to publish Wyatt’s version of the Penitential Psalms instead of any other English paraphrase in circulation at the time. The answer, I believe, is indicated by what they chose to emphasize in Wyatt’s work: a tale of repentance that emerges not from a ritual but from a fictional reading of the psalms.

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Wyatt’s Paraphrase, David’s Conversion(s) As Roland Greene explains, to apprehend a lyric (or a lyric sequence) in its fictional mode is, above all, to conceive of that poem not as an immediate or potentially accessible utterance but rather as reported or represented speech. Moreover, it is to imagine that this reported speech occurs entirely “within a hypothetical context” (a context that maintains, as definitively as possible, “the boundaries between self and things, subject and object, and so on”)—and, consequently, to comprehend that “the history evoked by the work is not merely coextensive with its performance.” More importantly, to construe a lyric poem as fiction is to expect that the text demands not so much to be experienced as to be examined and evaluated. And this is precisely how Wyatt captures the Penitential Psalms.78 As I have mentioned, for his English verse paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms Wyatt adopts from Aretino’s Italian prose version seven extensive narrative prologues that provide a unifying framework for the sequence, inscribing the psalms into the story of David’s great sin and even greater repentance. This means that there are two voices in Wyatt’s poem, the first belonging to the narrator of the prologues and the second to the psalmist, David. These voices are clearly differentiated from one another: the narrator uses stanzaic ottava rima and speaks predominantly (though not entirely) in the third person, while David expresses himself in terza rima and speaks in the first person.79 This distinction plays at least three key roles in Wyatt’s development of a fictional apprehension of the psalms. To begin with, the movement between the two voices, the one using the third person and the other the first person, immediately transforms the psalms into seven prayers created—and sung or spoken—by a particular person (King David) at a particular moment in time (after being rebuked by Nathan) and with a particular purpose in mind (to repent of his sins of adultery and murder). In Wyatt’s poem, therefore, the psalms are situated diachronically: they take place in historical time rather than in an ongoing present, and the narrator reports on them after the fact, in the past tense. They thus become dramatic m ­ onologues— or what Barbara Herrnstein Smith (as quoted by Roland Greene) calls “fictive utterances” or “fictive verbal acts.”80

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In addition, the distinction between the voice of the prologues and the voice of the psalms in the poem establishes a certain degree of observational distance from David’s repentant psalm making. By regularly switching back and forth between objective and subjective points of view, and by drawing clear lines between these two perspectives, Wyatt’s paraphrase persistently disrupts any kind of experiential or associational reading of the psalms. In fact, it suggests that there are questions to be asked about the conditions under which the psalms were initially produced—questions about the moral authenticity of the producer, for example, or the spiritual effectiveness of the products. Whereas in the ritualized paraphrases (of Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke) the Penitential Psalms require identification and self-effacement on the part of those who read or hear them, in Wyatt’s fiction they beg for interpretation and analysis instead.81 Last, while the presence of the two voices in the poem positions the psalms in such a way that they demand scrutiny, the prologues actually direct that interpretation. In other words, the narrator’s third-person, retrospective point of view provides a detailed, knowing, and seemingly insightful analysis of David’s pursuit of forgiveness. Indeed, it is the narrator and not the psalmist who takes charge of the poem. And this narrator critiques, rather than merely reports on, David’s penitential words and actions. If Wyatt apprehends the Penitential Psalms in their fictional dimension, and if he heightens this fictional reading in his seven prologues (as well as in the conversation between those prologues and the psalms), then there is significant evidence that this is exactly what the first publishers of his paraphrase found most useful about his work. The two voices of the poem, the third-person narrator of the prologues and the first-person speaker of the psalms, are clearly distinguished in Wyatt’s autograph text. But in the 1549 edition the narrator’s voice is differentiated from the psalmist’s in an additional, and more immediately conspicuous, way; for the prologues, which are left un­ titled in the Egerton manuscript, are now furnished with headings attributing them to “The Auctor” (see, for example, fig. 3.4).82 The import of these headings in the 1549 edition is made manifest when the printed text is compared not just to the Egerton manuscript but also to the only two remaining handwritten copies of Wyatt’s paraphrase dating from the mid-sixteenth century (both perhaps derived

Fig. 3.4. Prologue to the second Penitential Psalm. Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid. London: T. Raynald and [i.e., for] J. Harington (“Harryngton” in the imprint), 1549. STC 2726. Sig. B3r. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Shelfmark Syn.8.54.156.

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from a combination of the Egerton manuscript and Certayne psalmes).83 The first of these copies appears in the Arundel Harington manuscript, a verse collection housed at Arundel Castle.84 As in Wyatt’s autograph version, its prologues are not given any titles at all. The second copy is found in a pocket-sized manuscript dedicated to Wyatt’s paraphrase alone, now part of the Royal Collection at the British Library.85 In this second copy each prologue is titled either “The Prologue” or “The prologue,” except for the first, which is labeled “The prologue to the sixst psalme of Dauid,” and the fifth, which has no title at all. In sum, while the manuscript in the Royal Collection marks off the narrative links from the psalms, it is only in Certayne psalmes that the narrator is invoked as the “auctor”—a term that, in sixteenth-century English, meant not just “creator” but also “authority.”86 The 1549 publication is therefore exceptional among contemporary versions of the paraphrase, since it not only sets the narrator’s voice apart from David’s but also privileges that voice, giving it extra command. In addition, the publishers of Certayne psalmes encourage their audience to pay particular attention to the prologues in two further ways. First, the lengthy description of the work on its title page gets close, with its meandering syntax, to suggesting that it is not so much the psalms themselves as the “prologe[s] of the auctore” that will turn out to be most valuable, most “pleasaunt & profettable,” to the “godly reader” (fig. 3.1). Second, in his dedication to Parr, Harington uses the same term that is deployed in the prologue headings to praise the creator of the entire poem and thus subtly ties the knowing perspective of the narrative sections to the poet. Explaining why he set about to publish the paraphrase, Harington writes that he determined to put it into print specifically so “that the noble fame of so worthy a knighte, as was thee Auctor hereof, Syr Thomas Wyat, shuld not perish but remayne as wel for hys synguler learning, as valiant dedes in mercyal feates” (A2v; emphasis added). In the 1549 edition, then, the prologues derive extra clout from being associated with the incomparable wisdom and courage of Wyatt himself. In the remainder of this chapter, I will consider exactly what might have been gained in the winter of 1549/50 by giving special prominence to Wyatt’s fictionalizing prologues. I will focus both on the prologues themselves and on the dialogue that emerges between the

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prologues and the psalms—to determine more precisely what the Edwardian reformers might have seen in Wyatt’s paraphrase. Roland Greene has noted that when a lyric or a lyric sequence is apprehended as fiction, an “implicit plot” is generally found to play out within that poem’s “hypothetical world.”87 As might be expected, then, Wyatt draws out of the Penitential Psalms a pattern of emotional development—or superimposes an explicitly progressive structure upon the cyclical psychology of his psalmic material. In Wyatt’s poem, that is, David pursues forgiveness through his composition of one psalm after another, and, even though he experiences several significant setbacks along the way, eventually achieves redemption.88 Yet this tale has a surprising twist to it; while it is true that Wyatt’s prologues “supply the details of the drama of conversion that the Penitential Psalms themselves were thought to epitomize” (as Lynn Staley has suggested), the teleology of the work as a whole actually revises conventional understandings of repentance.89 It was widely held in the medieval and early modern period that after being rebuked by the prophet Nathan, David did penance for his sins in a wholly exemplary manner. But Wyatt’s paraphrase seems to rewrite this tradition. For in this poem David first attempts to atone for his sins by following the customary pre-Reformation model of penance (or, at least, an evangelical representation of such), then exchanges that model for a new, Reformed, ­alternative. It is only after David has made this switch, the work seems to suggest, that his ultimate reconciliation with God is worthy of imitation. Wyatt’s fictionalized reading of the Penitential Psalms, in other words, provides a story of conversion not merely from sinner to saint but from one kind of penitent to another. The David introduced by the narrator at the opening of Wyatt’s paraphrase is the David of extrabiblical myth. At times, in fact, he even comes across like the hero of a late medieval romance. Thus in the first prologue he is led astray by “Loue,” who, appearing “in the eyes of ­Barsabe the bryghte,” tempts him to commit the sins of murder and adultery (A3r). As soon as David’s “trecherye” has been “spied, out” by the prophet Nathan (who shows him “threates” from heaven), the king of Israel is gripped with fear and anguish and embarks on a course of extravagant atonement for his misdemeanors (A4v).90 Wyatt’s first prologue unusually suggests that David sent Uriah to his death before he

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began his affair with Bathsheba, and not the other way around. But, on the whole, sixteenth-century readers of Certayne psalmes would have been thoroughly familiar with this David. They would have known him as the David whose exploits in love and war were frequently depicted in Books of Hours and recounted at length in legends and in sermons (like John Fisher’s).91 Most significantly, they would have known him as the David whose catastrophic and embarrassing fall into sin was successfully offset by his subsequent arduous penance.92 Indeed, at the opening of the paraphrase, Wyatt’s David bears a strong resemblance to—for instance—the David of William Caxton’s hugely popular Legenda aurea (Golden Legend), who, to make amends for his transgressions, subjects himself to grueling physical torture while composing the fourth Penitential Psalm, the Miserere.93 The Legend’s chapter on David follows the biblical text of 2 Samuel as far as Nathan’s rebuke of the adulterous king.94 Then the narrator launches into a lengthy account of a conversation he once had about “the hystorye of Dauid” while riding in the company of “a noble knyght named Syr John Capons”: This said noble man told me that he had redde that dauid dyde this penaunce folowyng for thyse said synnes / that he dalf hym in the ground standyng nakyd vnto the heed so longe that the wormes began to crepe in his flesshe / and made a verse of this psalme Miserere / and thenne cam out / and whan he was hole therof / he wente in agayn / and stode so agayn as longe as afore is said and made the second verse / and so as many tymes he was doluen in the erth as ben verse[s] in the said psalme of Miserere mei deus / and euery tyme was abydyng therin tyl he felte the wormes crepe in his flesshe / This was a grete penaunce and a token of grete repentaunce / For ther ben in the psalme xx. verses / And xx tymes he was doluen . . . / Therfor god toke away this synne and forgaue it hym / but the sone that she brought forth deyed.95 Here Caxton furnishes David’s penance with a certain poetic—or, to be more specific, a certain psalmic—form. First, he establishes a precise correspondence between the number of verses in the psalm and the king’s reiterative self-burial.96 David interred himself until worms

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“began to crepe in his flesshe,” Caxton writes, “as many tymes . . . as ben verse[s] in the said psalme of Miserere mei deus.” He goes on to argue that the correlation between David’s repeated self-humiliation and the number of verses in the psalm was integral to the magnitude of the king’s penance: “This was a grete penaunce and a token of grete repentaunce,” he notes, “for there ben in the psalme xx. verses / and xx tymes he was doluen.” In conclusion, he links the intensity of David’s repentance to God’s forgiveness: “Therfor god toke away this synne and forgaue it hym.” Caxton’s “therfor” merits attention; it implies that by burying himself repeatedly, by allowing worms to penetrate his flesh, and by engaging in the slow and painful composition of a psalm, David was able to win absolution for himself. The David of Wyatt’s paraphrase sets out to redeem himself in a similar way. Immediately upon being discovered by Nathan, the horrorstruck king exchanges his royal accoutrements for a type of “vyle clothe” that only “scantlye” covers “hys nakednes,” hurriedly picks up his harp, and flees to “a darke caue / Within the ground” (a cave which the narrator likens to a “pryson or graue”); there he drops to his knees, offering “playnts hys soule to saue” (A5r–v). The point I want to stress, though, is that while Wyatt’s narrator carefully records each one of David’s early attempts at doing penance, he also casts suspicion on the value of these activities.97 The late medieval sacrament of penance involved three components: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Any sinner who carefully performed all three of these would cleanse himself both of his culpa (his guilt deserving damnation) and of his poena (the spiritual debt he had incurred by sinning), thereby making himself right with God. At the beginning of Wyatt’s paraphrase, David’s penitential effort (which includes sighing, crying, sorrowing, hiding half-naked in a cave/grave, playing his harp, acknowledging his transgressions, and composing his psalms) encompasses all three parts of the sacrament in what appears to be an exemplary—if rather exaggerated—way.98 But what is striking is that this torturous endeavor does very little good for David. Indeed, when David stops for breath after the first psalm, the narrator makes it plain that the king has hitherto failed to relieve himself of the burden of his sins: he is (the narrator says) akin to a diseased man who, although he may enjoy a “truce” in his fever, is in reality “not yet healed” (B3r–v).

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To be more precise, on almost every count the David introduced initially by the narrator fits the classic mid-sixteenth-century evangelical caricature of a conservative (or “papist”) penitent. Thus it is not at all astonishing that his problem is represented as a matter of the heart. In the first couple of prologues especially, the fear-bound king seems to be engaged far less in grieving over his sins than in carefully crafting and delivering a series of highly rhetorical speeches that (he hopes) will convince God to pardon him. David does not pour out his soul in natural remorse; instead, as the narrator puts it in the opening prologue, he looks for the best way to “appease” God, “sekyng to conterpase [counterpoise] / Hys songes wythe syghes” (A6r). Additionally, the narrator suggests that David may be merely feigning penitence: “More lyke was he, the same repentaunce / Then statelye prynce, of worldelye gouernance” (A5v; emphasis added). At the beginning of the paraphrase, then, David acts exactly as Martin Luther, in his commentary on the Penitential Psalms, warns the faithful not to act. He tries to procure his own redemption. And he fails. It is not until the third prologue that this caricatured and even somewhat laughable penitent begins to make tangible progress in his reconciliation with God; and this progress seems to accompany a gradual shift on David’s part toward a newer, more Lutheran, understanding of penance. After singing in the second Penitential Psalm of the great benefits of “knowledgynge” (confessing) one’s sins, the psalmist pauses to consider the nature of divine mercy—a mercy that has never been “denied, but where it was wythstande [resisted]” (B5r, B8r). David has caught a brief glimpse of God’s willingness to grant forgiveness to sinners without being cajoled into doing so. Now the narrator likens the king to a delinquent servant who, upon being pardoned for his misdemeanors, meditates upon his master’s “greate goodnes” and “grace” and sheds tears “as gladsome recompence” (B8r). Significantly, it is at precisely this moment of grace-recognition that the presence of God makes its first intervention in the drama: the darkness of the cave is suddenly pierced by a sunbeam that, falling on David’s golden harp, is reflected into the eyes of the king, surprising him with “ioye, by pennaunce of the harte” (B8v).99 Even after this experience, David does not immediately submit to the workings of God’s grace: he still has quite some way to go on his

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spiritual journey before he is able to reject completely a merit-based model of forgiveness. Nevertheless, there are increasing signs that he has begun to give his consent to an alternative soteriology. In the third Penitential Psalm, for example, David admits that while he had once relied on his virtues to assist him, as soon as a crisis arose he discovered that they amounted to very little: And when myne enemyes, dyd me most assayle My frendes most sure, wherin I set most trust Myn owne vertues, sonest then dyd fayle And stode aparte. . . . (C2v) This passage diverges considerably from the psalm itself, in which friends are just friends, even if they do abandon the psalmist in his time of need.100 Thus in the Coverdale Bible, one of Wyatt’s principal sources, the text reads: “My louers & frendes stonde lokyng vpon my trouble, and my kynsmen are gone a farre of.”101 Wyatt’s (admittedly ambiguous) translation seems to transform David’s friends into his own virtues—virtues in which David placed his hope until they proved inadequate to save him. At this point David appears to have recognized that there is little he can do by himself to ensure that he is forgiven. Moreover, toward the end of the fourth Penitential Psalm, the Miserere, David draws what might be taken as a Lutheran distinction between inner and outer penance: “I wold haue offered, vnto the sacrifice,” the psalmist says to God, “but thou delytest not, in no soche glose / Of outeward dede, as men dreame and deuyse” (C8v).102 He goes on to explain that the kind of offering God requires is spiritual rather than material: The sacrifice, that the lorde lyketh moste Is spirite contryte, lowe harte in humble wyse Thou doeste accepte, O God, for pleasaunt hoste [sacrifice] Make Syon, Lorde, accordynge to thy wyll Inward Syon, the Syon of the hoste [sic; “ghost” in Egerton MS] Of hartes, Jerusalem strengthe thy walles stylle. (C8v)

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Wyatt’s David argues three things: first, that God is interested in hearts rather than acts; second, that if any heart is to impress God, it must be a lowly one; and third, that on his own a man cannot make his heart— his inner Zion—lowly enough to be acceptable in God’s sight. According to David, therefore, God alone is the master builder who is able to construct humility in the city of the spirit. Heale remarks that this passage represents “the most clearly evangelical expression of the importance of grace and the error of reliance on good works that we have had so far.”103 And it must have seemed that way to the Edwardian ­publishers of the text, too—even if, as Walker notes, “the striking image of the inward Zion, the Zion of the ghost or spirit,” actually derives from Aretino (and possibly other more theologically conservative sources as well).104 Hence the fourth Penitential Psalm marks a turning point for David—at least, as Wyatt’s narrator tells the story. In the prologue that follows the Miserere, the narrator suggests that things are looking up for the psalmist: having just sung “of mercye, of fayth, of frayltie, of grace / Of goddes goodnesse, and of iustyfynge,” the penitent is now able to “measure / Measureles mercye” against “measureles fautes” ­(D1r–v). Furthermore, while the key accessories to David’s penitential work—his harp and his dark cave—are highly visible in the first four prologues, the narrator fails to mention them from the fifth prologue on.105 These things seem to disappear from sight (the narrator’s sight, and thus ours also) as David’s understanding of his penitential obligation changes.106 David’s last significant relapse occurs just before the sixth Penitential Psalm, when the king temporarily reverts to his old ways: judging himself “by penaunce, cleane oute of thys case,” David gives credit for the remission of his sins to his personal “payne and peni­tence” (D6v). Yet he is at last able to bring his own lessons to bear on the matter. Correcting himself, he damns his deeds and declares that the name of “ryghtfull penitence” may be borne only by a “sore contryte hart, that doth his faulte bemone” (D7r). Whereas in the first six prologues and psalms the poem traces David’s difficult path from pre- to post-Reformation penitent, the final prologue reveals how this path has pleased the divinity. Over the course of the paraphrase, David has learned that true penance is not a work that earns forgiveness but rather a readiness of the soul to receive grace.

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In addition, he has come to the point where, at the close of the penultimate psalm, he can encourage all of Israel to trust in God, who, by his “grace and fauor,” will “redeme” their “iniquitie” (D8v). A moment later, David is the recipient of a mystical, prophetic vision that far surpasses the sunbeam of the third prologue—a vision of heaven itself, complete with God’s redemption of man “when ful rype tyme shulde come” (E1r). Moreover, not only does the divinity reveal himself to David the Reformed penitent, but he does so in an emblematically Reformed fashion; for what David “beholdes” in “the hyghte of heauen” is Christ “thee worde” that promises to destroy death (E1r).107 Reading and editing Wyatt with Edwardian eyes, then, Harington, Parr, and Raynald must have identified with the narrator (or, as he was called in their edition, “the auctor”), whose privileged perspective gives a reformist slant to the story of David’s penance. To put it another way, Wyatt’s fictional interpretation of the Penitential Psalms—an interpretation that challenges the traditional penitential system—must have worked exceptionally well for these reformers at a time when they desperately needed to shore up their religious and political power. If their appropriation of the Penitential Psalms for the evangelical cause is surprising to us (given the long association of these psalms with the sacrament of penance and prayers for the dead), they were building upon a history of such appropriations that began with Luther at the very moment of his break with Rome. The first evangelicals might have rejected penance as a sacrament, but, as the Edwardian edition of Wyatt’s paraphrase reveals, that made it all the more important for them to develop a model of what proper repentance—or “ryghtfull penitence”— should be.

C h a p ter Four

From Penance to Politics

In his paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms, Sir Thomas Wyatt effects a certain fictionalization of the seven texts, translating and adapting a prologue sequence by Pietro Aretino that sets the psalms’ composition within the biblical story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the related murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah. To be sure, the impetus to fictionalize the Penitential Psalms was not limited to Aretino and Wyatt. Indeed, the Horae in which most lay folk would have first encountered the Penitential Psalms in the late medieval period consistently gloss the seven texts with illustrations that interpret them as key elements in the tale of David’s fall and subsequent exemplary repentance. Yet while it had become customary by the sixteenth century to fictionalize the Penitential Psalms, it had also become common to read them in a ritual manner, as a series of prayers accessible to present-day sinners: the seven psalms were understood to belong—as scripts for penance (or repentance)—to all Christians as much as to the famous King David.1 Ritual readings of the seven Penitential Psalms were endorsed by numerous statements made by theologians (from the patristic era 129

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through the Reformation) about the spiritual efficacy and contemporary relevance of the complete Psalter. The metaphor favored above all others in this context was that of a mirror. Thus Athanasius (as he is quoted in Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Psalter of 1567) declares that the psalms are a “glasse” wherein whoever sings them “maye beholde the whole affections of his soule”;2 and reformer Martin Luther exhorts his readers in the following manner: “If you would see the holy Christian church painted in living color and shape, comprehended in one little picture, then take up the Psalter. There you have a fine, bright, pure mirror that will show you what Christendom is. Indeed you will find in it also yourself and the true gnóthi seautón [know thyself ], as well as God himself and all creatures” (LW 35:256–57).3 In a sermon on Psalm 30 (Vulgate), Augustine offers basically the same image. Proposing that “all that is here written, is a mirror for us,” he argues that individual Christians must imitate closely, must enter into, the actions and emotions of the psalmist: “and if the Psalm pray, do ye pray; and if it ­lament, do ye lament; and if it joy, do ye rejoice; and if it hope, do ye hope; and if it fear, do ye fear.”4 Advice such as this concerning the entire Psalter may well have been responsible for the fact that ritual approaches to the seven Penitential Psalms were often privileged over fictional approaches by church authorities. It was not uncommon for ministers or theologians to use the story of David’s great sin and even greater repentance primarily to promote the earnest repetition of the seven psalms by the laity, or to suggest that a fictional understanding of the seven psalms was valuable only insofar as it supported a ritual interpretation of the same texts. Thus in a series of sermons written in the first decade of the sixteenth century, John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, moves from a Davidic to a universalized reading of the Penitential Psalms specifically to underscore the importance of reciting those psalms regularly (in concert with the tripartite sacrament of penance), while in Robert Redman’s bilingual primer of 1537 the editor introduces the Penitential Psalms by first recalling the story of David and Bathsheba and then insisting on the necessity of apprehending the psalms within a generalized penitential setting.5 When the historical narrative of David’s adultery was deployed in relation to the Penitential Psalms, therefore, it was brought up most frequently to frame the sequence as a crucial resource for spiritual conversion or renewal in the present.

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This approach remained the case well into the sixteenth century. For although the early reformers rejected the sacrament of penance, they did not immediately challenge the kind of reading of the seven psalms that relied on what I have called penitential hermeneutics. Take Thomas Bentley, for example. When this ambitious Elizabethan church­warden compiled The monument of matrones (1582), a massive anthology of devotional materials for use chiefly by women, he included the Penitential Psalms (in English) in the work, with prefatory materials that not only linked those psalms to King David but also made them valuable to contemporary Christians pursuing righteousness.6 The twofold title for this section in the anthology—“The Dolefvll Doove, or David’s penitentiall Psalmes”—suggests both a ritual and a fictional understanding of the psalm sequence. And in the introduction that ­follows, Bentley indicates exactly how the psalms are to be deployed. These seven texts, he maintains, are verie necessarie to be vsed (as most effectual praiers) of all godlie and deuout Christians, especiallie when being afflicted and chastised of the Lord for their sinnes, either by sicknes or otherwise, in bodie or mind, they feele Gods heauie hand, and feare his dreadfull threats, whereby they are mooued, not onlie trulie to conuert and turne vnto him by hartie repentance, earnest contrition, and humble confession of their faults and infirmities; but also by earnest and feruent petitions in fasting, weeping, lamentation, & mourning, most desirouslie to craue at Gods hands, as well mercie and forgiueness of their sinnes; as also mitigation of their present miseries, and deliuerance from all euils bodilie and ghostlie.7 As far as Bentley is concerned, the real value of the Penitential Psalms lies in their capacity to assist the Protestant faithful (“godly and deuout Christians”) in their efforts to respond to divine discipline, seek God’s mercy, and lessen their suffering. And Bentley does not diverge too far from Fisher when he argues that those who find themselves “inwardlie thirsting and longing in soule, not onelie to be restored to Gods grace and fauour againe; but also to be gouerned by his holie spirit, the better to spend the rest of their life in the true feare and seruice of God,” will find a reassuring model in “Dauid that holie man, and his [i.e., God’s] chosen vessell”—who also sought forgiveness, “to the glorie of God,

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and our euerlasting comfort.”8 Like Fisher before him, Bentley contends that the Penitential Psalms provide a pattern for Christian conversion and supports his argument by making reference to the supposed circumstances of the psalms’ composition. As he does so, he continues to make use of, and thus reinforce, the long-standing (Augustinian) tradition of penitential hermeneutics. In this chapter, though, I focus on adaptations of the seven psalms that, while apparently operating within that very tradition, actually add to it something rather edgy, perhaps even aggressive. To be more ­specific, I examine prayers drawn from the Penitential Psalms in two devotional manuals: Christian prayers and meditations, an anthology published in 1569 (and associated in several ways with Queen Elizabeth), and John Stubbs’s 1582 translation of Theodore Beza’s Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes. Though these texts were produced at different moments in Elizabeth’s reign and represent different confessional affiliations, both, I argue, adapt medieval and early modern ritual uses of the Penitential Psalms not merely for the purposes of repentance but also for social and/or political ends. Repentance, Paranoia, and Consent in Elizabeth’s Prayer Book I have discussed how, in Fisher’s sermons, as well as in the introductions to the Penitential Psalms in Redman’s primer and Bentley’s anthology, two different readings—fictional and ritual—are placed side by side. An analogous pairing of interpretations is achieved in a particularly unusual incarnation of the Penitential Psalms. This version of the seven texts actually survives in two works, both printed in London by John Day: an anthology of 1569 titled Christian prayers and meditations, and a single edition of The pomander of prayer—a popular work by the reformer Thomas Becon.9 (Although The pomander [or pomaunder] was published by John Day in at least eight editions between 1558 and 1578, the Penitential Psalms appear in only one of these, which cannot be dated with certainty.)10 In this section I consider Christian prayers and meditations, the compilation of which has been attributed—with little evidence, in fact—to John Day’s son, Richard Day.11 In this extensive (but none-

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theless portable) handbook of Protestant piety, often referred to as Elizabeth’s prayer book, the Penitential Psalms appear to have been customized carefully and strategically for Queen Elizabeth I and her English subjects. To understand the specific role of the Penitential Psalms in this text, however, it is necessary first to examine some important features of the publication in general. John Day’s Christian prayers and meditations, which imitates the traditional format of a late medieval Book of Hours, is one of the most lavishly illustrated English printed books of the era.12 The woodcut border on the title page provides an intricate representation of the Tree of Jesse, linking the infant Jesus and his mother Mary with a series of Old Testament figures, including Jesse, David, Solomon, and Abia. In addition, skillfully engraved borders depicting either the dance of death or scenes from biblical narratives frame every page of the text. More provocative than all the other illustrations, though, is the frontispiece image titled “Elizabeth Regina”—a very fine example of mid-Tudor ­religio-political propaganda (fig. 4.1).13 This engraving, which features a likeness of the queen in prayer, highlights the fact that the anthology as a whole seems to have been both endorsed by Elizabeth and designed with her personal devotional interests in mind. Indeed, it is extremely unlikely that John Day would have been able to put together such a volume (and get away with it) without Elizabeth’s express permission, for the queen’s own coat of arms is reproduced on the first and last leaves of the book, while other elements of her royal iconography, such as the Tudor rose, the Beaufort portcullis, and the fleur-de-lis, are incorporated into many of its lower borders.14 Moreover, in a hand-painted copy of the text that once belonged to Elizabeth (now housed in Lambeth Palace Library), the petitions that refer to the queen in the Litany and Suffrages have been altered in print from the third to the first person, likely suggesting that she was meant to recite them herself.15 And there is even some evidence that the prayers preserved in the closing section of the ­anthology—prayers in French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek—may have been compiled (or written) by her. As Elizabeth’s modern editors have pointed out, in these foreign-language petitions, “gendered self-­ references are feminine throughout,” while “the frequent anglicisms are characteristic of Elizabeth’s habitual practice.”16

Fig. 4.1. Frontispiece with engraving of “Elizabeth Regina.” Christian prayers and meditations. London: J. Day, 1569. STC 6428. By permission of the Trustees of Lambeth Palace Library. Shelfmark (ZZ) 1569.6.

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Presumably, if the queen endorsed the production of this prayer book, she must also have endorsed the way in which she was represented in the frontispiece. Here the queen is depicted kneeling in a sumptuously decorated private chamber or chapel. Holding her hands together in a gesture of supplication, she reads from a book (perhaps a prayer book, like Christian prayers and meditations) resting open on a prie-dieu in front of her. Her crown is placed on the prie-dieu above the book, while her sword of state lies on the ground, cut short by the border of the illustration. Below the image, a Latin epigraph from the Vulgate Bible gives the prayer of adoration offered up by King Solomon when he knelt before the congregation of Israel to dedicate his newly completed Temple to God: “O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven nor in earth: who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants, that walk before thee with all their hearts.”17 Yet while the Latin epigraph beneath the image likens Elizabeth to Solomon, the image itself likens her to Solomon’s more famous pro­ genitor, David. Indeed, Elizabeth’s posture in the woodcut is unequivocally Davidic. For it was David more than any other Old Testament figure who was represented kneeling in prayer in medieval and early modern Bibles, Psalters, and Horae; and it was David who was most regularly portrayed as having subordinated his regal trappings to acts of humble penitence and devotion. Thus (to take just one example of literally hundreds) in a half-page illumination at the opening of a late ­fifteenth-century Psalter made in Flanders for the English book market, David is depicted kneeling outside the walls of a palace or city, with his hands clasped in prayer (fig. 4.2).18 His harp leans against a priedieu, while his turban sits on the prie-dieu’s upper shelf. The deity appears in the sky in the right-hand corner of the illustration, holding an orb in one hand, while raising the other hand to bless the supplicant. According to the combination of image and text at the opening of Christian prayers and meditations, then, “Elizabeth Regina” follows in the exemplary footsteps of not one but two God-fearing monarchs: the father (King David), renowned for composing the most important liturgical texts of ancient Israel; and the son (King Solomon), who saw the construction of the Temple through to completion.19 It almost goes without saying that in 1569 this double analogy would have contributed significantly to what was perhaps the most crucial marketing e­ ffort

Fig. 4.2. Illustration for Psalm 1 depicting David in prayer. Gallican Psalter with Calendar, Canticles, Litany, and Collects. Flanders (Bruges), ca. 1470. Used by permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. MS Lewis E 182, fol. 7r.

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of the early years of Elizabeth’s reign—the campaign not only to maintain a close political alliance between church and state but also to promote Elizabeth’s status as the most appropriate, the most authoritative, leader of both. If, in addition to being associated textually with Solomon, Elizabeth is associated iconographically with David in the frontispiece of Christian prayers and meditations, she must also, by extension, be associated with David’s compositions—the Penitential Psalms—that appear in the prayer book itself. And it is to these that I now turn. I will argue that to recite the Penitential Psalms from John Day’s publication is to speak with David; to speak with David is to speak with Elizabeth; and to speak with Elizabeth is to speak with (and for) the church that she both presides over and embodies as queen of England. The segment dedicated to the Penitential Psalms in Christian prayers and meditations has a markedly patch-worked quality about it. Each of the seven psalms is sandwiched between a narrative preface and one or two prayers “taken out of ” (i.e., inspired by) that psalm; and although all three of these elements (psalms, prefaces, and prayers) are provided in English, they actually derive from a range of pan-European sources representing both Lutheran and Calvinist thought. The seven psalms themselves are acquired, with just a few minor variations, from the Psalter that usually circulated in the period with the Book of Common Prayer—that is, the version translated by Miles Coverdale for his Great Bible of 1539.20 The prefaces are almost identical to those provided in the Book of Psalms in the 1560 Geneva Bible.21 And the prayers “taken out of ” the psalms are excerpted from a lengthy series of Latin petitions based on the whole Psalter by Peter Martyr Vermigli.22 Vermigli’s petitions were published posthumously in Zurich in 1564, under the title Preces sacrae (Sacred Prayers); it is not clear who translated them for Christian prayers and meditations, though this task may also have been accomplished by Elizabeth, who was well versed in Latin.23 It is noteworthy that the three elements are printed in three different fonts: the psalms in black letter, the prefaces in italic, and the prayers in roman type. This varied typographical scheme underscores the thoroughly macaronic nature of the representation of the Penitential Psalms in Christian prayers and meditations. Yet it also points to the

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fact that, in Elizabeth’s prayer book, the psalms themselves tend to serve as bridges (not just conceptually but also physically, on the page) between Davidic myth and universalized, communal, supplication. Like the illustrations of David in the primers and Psalters, five of the seven Genevan prefaces included in Christian prayers and meditations give a specific Davidic setting for the psalms.24 Coverdale’s psalm texts are thus presented as dramatic monologues, uttered in the first person by King David, and dating from some point in the distant past. In this sense, Elizabeth’s prayer book recalls Wyatt’s verse paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms. But the prayers “taken out of ” the psalms adopt an alternative perspective—one that replaces fiction with ritual, and individual with community. The framing of the first Penitential Psalm (Psalm 6) in Elizabeth’s prayer book might be considered exemplary. The preface introducing the psalm asserts that this text was composed by David, in repentant fear of God’s judgment: “When Dauid by his sinnes had prouoked Gods wrath, and now felte not onely his hand against hym, but also conceyued the horrors of death euerlasting, he desireth forgeuenes, ­bewailing that if God tooke him away in his indignation, he should lacke occasion to prayse him as he was wont to do whiles he was among men. Then sodenly feelyng Gods mercy, he sharply rebuketh hys enemies which reioyced in his affliction” (A1r). The psalm itself begins, in Coverdale’s translation, with what appears (especially after this introduction) to be a singular, Davidic plea for mercy: “O Lorde rebuke me not in thine indignation: neither chasten me in thy displeasure” (A1r). The prayer “taken out of ” Psalm 6, however, leaves behind both the third-person-singular “he” of the Genevan prefatory history and the first-person-singular “I” of the Coverdale psalm translation, favoring a  more assimilatory form of supplication: “We deserue without dout (O  almighty God) for our wicked offences and infinite sinnes, to be seuerely chastised of thee: but trustyng to thy great mercy, we most humbly beseech thee that thou wilte not punishe vs in thy wrath, nor in thy heauye displeasure” (A2r). This petition extends the psalm’s Davidic associations, enabling those who read it to pray alongside the renowned king of Israel, and perhaps also alongside that latter-day David featured in the prayer book’s frontispiece—Elizabeth. Yet because it is a firstperson-plural “we” (rather than a first-person-singular “I”) that calls out

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to God for forgiveness, the “wicked offences and infinite sinnes” mentioned in the prayer cannot be said to belong to any specific person, to any individual sinner. Rather, they are owned by an entire community, a community that acknowledges its collective need for divine clemency.25 A passage from Anthony Gilby’s 1580 English translation of a paraphrase of the whole Book of Psalms by Theodore Beza sheds some light on how the Penitential Psalms function in Christian prayers and meditations. Introducing his translation, Gilby declares that his text contains “the zealous & feruent prayers, which both the whole Church generally, & the saintes of God particularly haue vsed from time to time.”26 This statement is fairly accurate, since throughout Christian history (as throughout Judaic history) the Psalter has been recited in both communal and individual worship settings.27 In Elizabeth’s prayer book, the section devoted to the Penitential Psalms moves between these two ritual contexts, shifting, via Coverdale’s psalms, from storytelling to entreaty, and simultaneously passing from singular to collective confession. That is to say, while John Day’s Christian prayers and meditations was designed for a very “particular” audience (Elizabeth I, who may herself have played a part in compiling some sections of the anthology and/or translating its contents), it was almost certainly intended for a more “general” readership as well—for “the whole Church,” led by Elizabeth. Thus the Penitential Psalms are repeatedly interpreted in this prayer book not just as David’s, or Elizabeth’s, petitions but also as ­supplications addressed to God by, and for the benefit of, “the church.” For instance, the Genevan preface to the fifth Penitential Psalm (Psalm 102), duly reprinted in Christian prayers and meditations, intermingles Old Covenant history and New Covenant presentism, asserting on the one hand that the psalm originated when Israel was in exile in Babylon and on the other hand that its subject matter is principally ecclesiastical: “It seemeth that this prayer was appoynted to the faithfull to pray in the captiuitie of Babilon. A consolation for the buildyng of the churche, whereof followeth the prayse of God to be published vnto all posterities. The conuersion of the Gentiles, and the stabilitie of the church” (D2v). And in the first of two prayers drawn from the psalm, the petitioners use similarly Christianized terms when they ask for God’s help in defying their enemies: “Then we pray thee to turne thy force and

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power against those that slaunder and blaspheme the name of thy sonne and his holy doctrine. Haue mercy now we beseche thee, on Zion, that is, thy churche, for now it seemes to be tyme that thou shew her thy favour” (E1v–E2r). Like many passages in the prayers, this one reworks patristic and medieval allegorizing of the City of David as the Christian collective (note the deceptively simple naturalization of such her­ meneutics in “Zion, that is, thy churche”). In the prayers drawn from the Penitential Psalms, then, it is the church that sins, the church that suffers, and the church that needs to be redeemed. But it is important to keep in mind that the church that really ­matters in Day’s Christian prayers and meditations is not the church universal. It is, very specifically, Elizabeth’s church. And the patch-worked segment dedicated to the Penitential Psalms in the prayer book actually plays a vital part in consolidating that particular congregation. To put it another way, the switch into the first-person plural “we” in the prayers “taken out of ” the Penitential Psalms in Elizabeth’s prayer book might be best understood as the imaginative construction of what Brian Stock has called a “textual community,” where individuals are woven together into a single group through their conceptual participation in, and repeated utterance of, a collectively owned narrative.28 In this case, the collectively owned narrative is, mythically at least, Davidic. It is a story not just of transgression and repentance but also of pain and persecution. And it provides plenty of material useful for the integration of ­diverse English “saintes” into the Protestant national ecclesia recently ­reconstituted under the leadership of the queen. In addition to using the first-person plural and referring frequently to “the church,” the prayers “taken out of ” the psalms in Christian prayers and meditations deploy several further integrative strategies. Just why this integrative drive might be necessary in the first place becomes apparent in the first of two prayers based on the central Penitential Psalm, the Miserere. This prayer concludes: “Shew forth thy good will to Zion, that is, to thy church. Thou seest in how great daunger she is tossed, she is oppressed both within and without. We beseche thee deliuer her not only from outward enemies, but also inwardly so reforme and renew her, that she may be accompted worthy of thee her spouse, through Iesus Christ our lord. Amen” (D1r). And so it emerges that the church in question, the Elizabethan church, is threatened by internal division—and that, to the more passionate of reformers within,

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those who resist, or who have not fully embraced, its post-Marian course of renewal look very much like (or are most easily represented as) oppressors. Yet what is most conspicuous about these prayers is how energetically they attempt to create a sense of social agreement among members of the church. One of the most evident ways these prayers produce concurrence in the Elizabethan ecclesiastical community is by asserting a thorough­ going unity of purpose in entreaty. Thus the first supplication based on the Miserere, the prayer that ends with an oblique acknowledgment of internal division within the church, actually begins: “We do with one whole consent and with harty prayers craue of thy mercy (O almightye God) that we maye be cleansed, washed, and wyped from our wickednesses, sinnes and offences” (C4r); while the supplication immediately following the final Penitential Psalm (Psalm 143) starts: “We do earnestly desire (O lord God) that thou wilt encline to our common petitions, and for thy truth and mercies sake heare the prayers that we poure out before thee” (F3r).29 The prospect of even contemplating dissent in the Elizabethan church seems to be kept in check by these adamantly harmonious pleas. Indeed, it is nigh impossible to recite these prayers without agreeing, at least in word if not in sentiment, with everyone else who happens to repeat them. Perhaps more significantly, though, in Christian prayers and meditations the agreeable “we” that rehearses these prayers “taken out of ” the Penitential Psalms is fashioned not just as a repentant but also as an oppositional “we.” This church-in-one-accord, in other words, is modeled as an intensely paranoid collective—a community defined almost entirely in relation to, and especially against, the specter of external ­enemies.30 And it is largely as a consequence of such paranoia that the tradition of penitential hermeneutics comes under pressure in Elizabeth’s prayer book, since the petitions translated from Vermigli vacillate between contrite self-examination (or confession) on the one hand and fear (leading to accusatory vituperation) on the other, with the emphasis very frequently falling on the latter. Consider how this devotional guide handles the third Penitential Psalm (Psalm 38). The historical preface reads thus: “Dauid lying sicke of some greuous disease, acknowledgeth himselfe to be chastised of the Lorde for his sinnes, and therfore prayeth God to turne away his wrath. He vttereth the greatnes of his griefe by many wordes

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and circumstances, as wounded with the arrowes of Gods ire, forsaken of hys frendes, and euill intreated of his enemies. But in the end with firme confidence he commendeth his cause to God, and hopeth for spedy helpe at his hand” (B2v). This prelude rehearses a fairly standard form of penitential hermeneutics, arguing that the psalmist’s sickness is a sign of his sin, that his suffering is intended to trigger self-­ understanding (and therefore to lead, eventually, to conversion), and that the social dislocation and persecution mentioned by the psalmist are essentially metaphors for the immensity (or depth) of the spiritual turmoil in which he finds himself. By this account, the psalmist, as a sinner, is his own worst enemy. And the psalm that follows the preface begins suitably not merely with a cry to God for relief from pain but with a confession too: Put me not to rebuke (O Lord) in thine anger, neyther chasten me in thy heauy displeasure. For thine arrowes stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no health in my flesh because of thy displeasure, ­neither is there any rest in my bones, by reason of my sinne. For my wickednes are gone ouer my head, and are like a sore ­burthen to heauy for me to beare. (B2v–B3r) In these opening verses, the psalmist recognizes that his distress is caused by his own errancy: God’s displeasure feels to him like “arrowes” stuck in his flesh, but he frames this physical discomfort as a consequence of his own “sinne” and “wickednes.” The psalmist, then, claims full responsibility for his suffering. In contrast, the prayer “taken out of ” these verses renders ambiguous the responsibility for the troubles of the petitioning community: “Rebuke and chastice vs (O Lord) as children, but withdrawe thy wrath and heauy hand from our present distresses. For we feele thy hande and the daungers wherin we be: we perceyue them to be past the cure of mans remedy, which happeneth vnto vs not vnworthely for our deseruing. For sinnes and wickednesses haue euery way ouerwhelmed vs, wherewith we are ouerburdened and pressed downe farre more than we be able to beare” (B4v–C1r). Those who join this communal “we” in calling out to God simultaneously both acknowledge and deny their sin.

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Urgently, immediately, they recognize their “present distresses.” And yet it is unclear here whether the pain or punishment they are experiencing is actually warranted. While they claim that the “daungers” in which they stand are happening to them “not vnworthely for [their] deseruing,” they also distance themselves from the concept of “sinnes and wickednesses”: these transgressions not only have some agency of their own (they have “ouerwhelmed” the petitioners) but also seem to be of unknown genesis (Where did they come from, and to whom do they belong?).31 In fact, the prayer goes on to suggest an exterior source for the community’s problems. The petitioners are disturbed by the presence of foes bent on ambushing them—and there is nothing at this point in the prayer to suggest that these enemies are merely metaphors for the community’s sinfulness: “Hereof commeth our sorrow and that we be in maner fainted with griefefulnes of harte. We see our neighbours and frendes estranged from vs, our enemies to lay snares for vs, and to attempt all the wayes to our destruction” (C1r). Immediately after this, the supplicants do, for a moment, align themselves with the tradition of penitential hermeneutics in recognition of their own iniquity: “Thou therefore (O God) for thy great mercy, first reconcile vs to thy selfe, in pardonyng all those thynges that we haue most wickedly committed against thee, and then make hast to helpe vs” (C1r). But this moment of repentant self-knowledge soon passes. At the conclusion of the prayer, the church returns to addressing God from the perspective of a persecuted community, a community under attack: “Thou art not ignoraunt how, while we are thus shaken with aduersities, antichristes do triumphe against vs, and they daily increase in strength & number that do wrongfully hate vs. Wherefore we beseech thee, good father, forsake vs not in so great afflictions, sith thou art our onely safety, make hast (we pray thee) to helpe thy church, and to succor her now beyng in extremest perill, for Iesus Christes sake. Amen” (C1v).32 As the petitioners ask God to rescue them from the “perill” of the assault—as they say a collective “Amen”—they are united specifically in hostility toward their external adversaries, who not only hate them for no real reason (“wrongfully”) but also “triumphe against” them. But there is an additional layer to this oppositional manufacturing of agreement, for the church’s enemies are defined here (as elsewhere in the sequence) as “antichristes.” Of course, by the second half of the sixteenth century this highly charged label was already

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well established in the Protestant imagination as a referent for the pope and his faithful followers. Thus the supposedly penitential prayer “taken out of ” Psalm 38 ultimately ends up sounding a lot less like a confession of iniquity than like an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. As John Patrick Donnelly has argued, Vermigli’s Sacred Prayers was probably written in the context of the First Schmalkaldic War, which ended with the defeat of the German Lutheran alliance by the forces of Charles V at Mühlberg in April 1547.33 According to Donnelly, “there is little doubt that Vermigli had the Pope and Roman Catholic forces in  mind when he referred to the Antichrist and Antichrists in his prayers.”34 John Day’s Christian prayers and meditations brings Vermigli’s prayers to bear on the political situation in England, where, at the close of the 1560s, Elizabeth’s Protestant rule was threatened—or perceived to be threatened—by the recent arrival in the country of Mary Stuart (the legitimate queen of England, as far as the majority of Roman Catholic Europe was concerned), the establishment of William Allen’s seminary at Douai (for the express purpose of training Catholic missionaries and sending them to England), and the Northern Rebellion (led by the disillusioned Catholic Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland). Elizabeth’s situation in England in 1569 was certainly not as dire as that of the defeated Lutherans in Germany in 1547. However, the historical facts only underscore even further the political genius of this particular version of Penitential Psalms. To put it simply, choosing ­Vermigli’s prayers and associating them with the queen deliberately and purposefully exaggerates the threat of Catholicism to the monarch, the nation, and the English church: in Elizabeth’s prayer book, internal (Protestant) agreement is shaped—­perhaps even forced—not just in ­recurring collective repentance, but also in ongoing resistance to an ­inflated external (Roman Catholic) menace. John Stubbs, Theodore Beza, and the Importation of Genevan Exclusivity Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes of the prophet Dauid, an English translation by John Stubbs of Theodore Beza’s Chrestiennes méditations sur huit psaumes du prophete David, further blurs the line between confessing sinful depravity and pointing the finger of blame in polemical

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attack.35 Like Elizabeth’s prayer book, this work is associated materially with the monarch and her close political circle—for it was printed (in 1582, and again shortly thereafter) by Christopher Barker,36 a shrewd and ultimately very successful entrepreneur who not only sought after royal patents to publish English Bibles from early in his career but also, with the help of Sir Francis Walsingham and the queen’s Privy Council, eventually succeeded in purchasing the title of “queen’s printer” from Sir Thomas Wilkes in 1577.37 But while the translation is linked, through its publishing history, to Queen Elizabeth, it is also connected in several ways to the family of Elizabeth’s first Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Nicholas Bacon (who died in 1579). In fact, it includes dedicatory epistles to Lady Anne Bacon twice over, since Stubbs not only translated Beza’s original French dedication to Lady Anne (Cooke) Bacon, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke and recent widow of Sir Nicholas, but also supplemented it with a new dedication to Lady Anne (Butts) Bacon, daughter of Edmund Butts and wife of Sir Nicholas Bacon the Younger, son of the Lord Keeper. Additionally, the imprimaturs for both editions of the English text inform us that Stubbs’s translation was produced by Christopher Barker (or, rather, the “printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie”) “in Bacon house”; Barker first rented this particular property near Foster Lane in 1579, the year that Sir Nicholas Bacon the Elder died, and eventually purchased it from Sir Nicholas Bacon the Younger in 1585.38 The Bacons, and particularly the two Lady Anne Bacons honored in the Beza and Stubbs dedications, were renowned, not just in England but also on the Continent, for their commitment to radical Protestantism; they were known, that is, for actively supporting the advancement of Calvinist theology and practice within the English church in the second half of the sixteenth century. And Stubbs’s translation of Beza’s devotional text, which includes an extended meditation on each of the seven Penitential Psalms as well as on Psalm 1, would most likely have suited their political and religious sensibilities far more than it did those of Queen Elizabeth.39 For quite unlike Elizabeth’s prayer book of 1569, this thoroughly Genevan import makes almost no  effort at all to effect a rapprochement between different positions within English Protestantism; it is puritanical, exclusivist, and reform oriented through and through.

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It is important to stress at the outset that Beza’s meditative prayers, as translated by Stubbs, for the most part accept and represent the Penitential Psalms as ritual texts, hugely beneficial to all those who (to employ an image drawn from Psalm 1) have wandered along wicked ways and now desire to set themselves back on the path toward righteousness.40 The first-person-singular “I” of these meditations remains adaptable to a range of repentant voices, and it is noteworthy that in his dedication to Lady Anne (Butts) Bacon, Stubbs describes the work as a whole in a manner that reiterates many centuries of commentary upon the psalm sequence. Recommending his translation of Beza not just to Lady Anne but “to euery Christian Reader,” he writes that while this text will bring “common helpe . . . to all, for more cleare understanding and expounding those eight psalmes,” it might be considered especially “medicinable to wounded and cast downe consciences, who after their laborsome combate with sinne, and profitable humiliation therethrough, may againe by these sweete Meditations rise with ioy, finding happie issue of their troubles” (A2r). Not only are Beza’s prayers of value from an exegetical or hermeneutical perspective, Stubbs insists, but they are also therapeutic to any soul engaged in confrontation with the problem of sin. The long-established fictionalizing belief that the Penitential Psalms were originally composed by David after his adultery with Bathsheba does not feature much at the opening of this work. It is true that Stubbs mentions David in his dedication to the second Lady Anne. But he does so largely for economic reasons. David, the original composer of the psalms, and Beza, the author of the eight meditations upon the psalms, are ushered into the opening epistle together, in an effort to ­bolster the translator’s bid for patronage. “I Trust (Madame),” Stubbs writes to his benefactor, “the alone names of Dauid and Beza, which is the honourable title of this litle booke, will not alone procure it a reuerende welcome into your hands, but withall against all men will both warrant and defend the translators price to be woorth his labor, as that which will recompence his fewe spent houres, with the much profite and pleasure of many”; and he goes on to describe himself as no more than a mere twinkling “Pleiade” in comparison to the greater lights of David the “Sunne” and Beza the “Moone”—no more, that is, than “a stammering trucheman [interpreter]” to “so worthy an Hebrew, and to

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such a Frenchman” (A2r–v). Here Stubbs uses David (and Beza) ­strategically—to assert that his confidence in asking for remuneration rests, not upon an inflated sense of his own skill as a linguist, but instead upon his text’s association with established authorities who provide a trustworthy “double voucher” for “the matter of [his] translation” (A2v). After Stubbs’s dedication to Lady Anne, David makes very few appearances in the text, with one important exception: the prayer upon Psalm 51 belongs to David, and to David alone; it simply cannot be anyone else’s. Indeed, the “I” that grieves and howls over his sins in the Beza/Stubbs meditation upon the Miserere is regularly reminded of the atrocity of his sins of adultery and murder. “My wickednesse,” he laments, “continually presents it selfe before my poore spirite”; and he elaborates as follows, speaking with a kind of fractured consciousness, both in himself and of himself: Me thinkes I doe euen still see with mine eyes that poore woman bayning [bathing] her selfe: me thinkes I see Dauid troubled in spirit, and while he resisteth his conscience, to receiue thine enemie and his owne into his bosome, yeelding himselfe his willing captiue: mee thinkes I yet see those, whome I did vse in that businesse, alack, too too obedient seruants were they to so euill a commandement: I see, woe is me, the filed and defiled bedde whereat once I imbraced both sinne and death: I see thee thou disloyall and murderous heart, and thou trayterous hand whereby those two murderous letters, and that at seuerall times were written, not with ynke, but with the blood of that poore guyltlesse seruant: . . . I see thee, O my loyall seruant, ouerthrowen on the grounde, bathing thee in  thy bloode shedde in his seruice, that betrayed thee to death.­ (E3v–E4v)41 Thus the history of vile transgression that, according to tradition, lies hidden under the text of the Miserere now rises uncannily to the surface in a series of alarming hauntings. In this meditation, the petitioner, David, seems to be unable to escape terrorization by a succession of ghosts who parade before his eyes one after another—the ghosts of his lover Bathsheba, of his self submitting to temptation, of his faithful soldier Uriah, and of the faithful servants who had no choice but to do the dirty work of luring Bathsheba to his bed.

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This, then, is the most fictionalized of the eight meditative prayers, and in its historical and psychic specificity it gets close to becoming useless from a ritual standpoint. It is reined in—given a working devotional context—only by a brief prologue that not only adopts a different, more generalized perspective but also provides a reminder of David’s importance as both a universal model of perfect penitence and a reflection of the redemptive nature of the deity: “O God, which hast set before vs in one and selfe same person of Dauid, a very maruaylous example of sinne and repentance, and of thy compassions: giue mee vnderstanding and good consideration of his waylings, well to apply them to mine owne vse and thy glorie” (E1v). Setting aside this idiosyncratic meditation on the Miserere, it makes most sense to characterize the Beza/Stubbs work as a sequence of highly ritualized penitential prayers in a predominantly Calvinist theological vein. In fact, the form of repentance advocated and enacted by this particular dilation of the Penitential Psalms takes Luther’s Augustinianism to a depth that neither Augustine nor Luther would likely ever have imagined. Extending Augustine, Luther stressed that real penitence involves not just recognizing but also dwelling in or lingering upon one’s own innate human depravity.42 But Stubbs’s translation of Beza’s prayers, embodying Genevan evangelicalism in one of its starkest forms, converts that already desperate pursuit of abjection and selfloathing into a wholly terrifying, and even at times suicidal, nightmare. To put it bluntly, the suffering endured by the petitioner of these meditations in recognition of his seemingly inevitable human unrighteousness is altogether and inescapably severe. In the Beza/Stubbs version of Psalm 38, for instance, the supplicant explains exactly why he is justified in yelling or screaming to God for help using a series of analogies that suggest brutal physical torture: “Alas, my reynes [loins, kidneys] howe they burne, . . . I am altogether made vp into sorrowe, I am brayed [crushed] as in a morter, I am ground as it were in a myl, so as I can not hold, but cry, or roare rather” (D7r). And in the meditation on Psalm 6, he comes dangerously close to experiencing live burial: “It yrketh the earth to beare so vnhappie a creature, and already shee openeth that great throat of her gulfe to swallow me in, and to redemaund my selfe to her selfe, as hauing too much abused that earthly matter which shee ministred to my maker when he fa-

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cioned me” (B8v–C1r). But while coming face to face with this voracious Reformation-era avatar of hell’s mouth might seem at first to represent the ultimate form of repentant abjection, it turns out not to do so. The meditation continues: “All that nourishment which I receiue from other creatures, is giuen me onely to entertaine me in this extreme torment. Death it selfe recules [recoils] fro[m] mee, lest she might giue at the least some senselesnes of dolor to this miserable body, by dispatching it at once out of the way” (C1r). Thus the real problem for the Beza/Stubbs petitioner is not the approach of mortality but its (or her) hurried retreat; escape from wretched suffering via death is not even an option for this most repulsive of sinners. The intensity of the repentant self-hatred embodied in the Beza/ Stubbs meditations might be rather surprising initially. But it is worth recognizing that suicidal despair is (counterintuitively) cherished in this text as a manifestation of God’s saving grace. After contemplating live burial in the meditation on Psalm 6, for example, the supplicant is inspired to examine the origins of his self-destructive desire. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that God must be responsible for all of it. Addressing the divinity directly, he cries out as follows: “Is there no more hope? Am I quite without recouery? No, no, my God: For whence comes this bewayling of my sinnes? This hatred of my self? This confidence to call vpon thee? this desire to amend? From whence springs it, that I speake yet, and can call thee my God? Certainely it is thy grace: For whence comes any good, but fro[m] thee?” (C5r). Here self-­ deprecation is understood not, as one might expect, as a sign of being abandoned in one’s transgressive depravity but rather as a redemptive gift, bestowed upon the otherwise hardened sinner. To put it another way, in the Beza/Stubbs meditations, anguish and self-disgust designate those who have been chosen by God to be saved, while at the same time the practice of calling upon the divinity from a state of utter desolation is an absolutely crucial early step on the road toward conversion and redemption.43 There is, therefore, no shortage of abject evangelical languishing on behalf of the lamenting “I” in the Beza/Stubbs meditations. Yet these prayers, like those in Elizabeth’s prayer book, also at times abandon confession in favor of excuses and retorts. And, as I will demonstrate, the fierceness with which they do so is quite astonishing.

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Figure 4.3 reproduces two pages from the first printed edition of the Stubbs translation. It should be noted that Stubbs gives the Geneva Bible version of each psalm, verse by verse, in the margin next to his translation of Beza’s meditative exposition. And this layout makes it relatively easy to spot where the Beza/Stubbs prayer either expands upon or, alternatively, diverges from the standard Calvinist version of the psalm text. When the two renditions of the Penitential Psalms (the Geneva Bible translation and the Beza/Stubbs meditative version) are read in parallel, it becomes apparent that Stubbs’s “I” is, on occasion, less penitential and more polemical than the “I” of the Geneva Bible Psalms. Indeed, where the “I” of the Genevan psalm text is an active, acting (or sinning) subject, the “I” of the Beza/Stubbs text is at times rendered as a passive object, as acted upon. One example will suffice, and for this I return to the Penitential Psalm often associated with the Babylonian exile: Psalm 102. In the fourth verse of this psalm, the speaker of the Geneva Bible text laments, “Mine heart is smitten & withereth like grasse, because I forgate to eate my bread” (fig. 4.3, bottom right margin). The Genevan psalmist failed to nurture himself and must suffer the consequences as a result. Compare the tone of the Beza/Stubbs version: “That wonted courage so stoute against Sathan and his complices, is now withered as haye, and dryed like grasse cut down by the mower” (F3r). The principal difference between the two renditions lies in the apportioning of culpa­ bility; where the Geneva Bible translation attaches blame directly to the speaker of the psalm, the Beza/Stubbs version fashions the petitioner as a victim of an attack engineered by Satan and his minions. Moreover, the beleaguered speaker of the Beza/Stubbs meditation, associated metaphorically with grass that has been cut down and dried, might in some manner recall Stubbs himself. For Stubbs’s right hand was cut off when he was sent to the Tower in November 1579, following his infamous attack in print on the proposed marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the French Duke of Anjou.44 Stubbs published his English translation of Beza’s meditations less than a year after his release from the Tower, and this moment in Psalm 102 is not the only trace of his punishment that appears in the text. Indeed, Stubbs’s catastrophic amputation is evident even at the outset of the book, where the English translator signs his dedicatory epistle “I. S. S.” for “Iohn Stubbe Sceua” ( John Stubbs, Left-Handed).45

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Fig. 4.3. “A meditation vpon the 102 Psalme.” Theodore Beza, Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes of the prophet Dauid. [Trans. John Stubbs.] London: C. Barker, 1582. STC 2004. Sigs. F2v-F3r. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark 3090.aaaa.7.

Although Stubbs’s translation of Beza might constitute, in small part, a rejoinder to a troubled “particular” or individual history, the personal nuances of the meditations tend to be subordinated to a larger ideal of community building in the face of persecution. Stubbs’s emphasis on Christian (and especially Calvinist) community is evident in his dedication to Lady Anne (Butts) Bacon. Before signing off, Stubbs writes: “I . . . beseech the Lorde Iesus to blesse you and Sir Nicholas,

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t­ ogether with his mease [portion] of religious brethren, so as growing in faith and loue, they may be a fast holding bundle of brethren in Christ, who keepe you all euer his, and one anothers” (A3v). Like the compilers of Elizabeth’s prayer book, Stubbs is thoroughly invested in the consoli­ dation of a Christian collective. And yet it is also evident that Stubbs’s interest lies primarily in the preservation of a niche population—an idealized, reform-minded brotherhood that extends somewhat beyond the family of Sir Nicholas Bacon the Younger but that nevertheless ­remains closely knit. Formally speaking, the Beza/Stubbs meditations upon the Penitential Psalms differ from the supplications in the 1569 prayer book in one significant way: where Elizabeth’s prayer book employs a first-­ person plural in its Vermiglian prayers “taken out of ” the psalms, Stubbs presents his Bezan meditations in the first-person singular. This might seem to privilege the individual, rather than the communal, voice. However, Stubbs is careful to ensure that his “particular” speaking “saint” prays not merely on his own behalf but also on behalf of “the whole Church generally.” “A meditation vpon the 102 Psalme” is especially remarkable in this regard. The opening of Psalm 102, drawn from the Geneva Bible, paves the way for a private, possibly even intimate, conversation between an individual supplicant and the divinity: “O Lorde, heare my prayer, and let my cry come vnto thee” (fig. 4.3, top left margin). The Beza/Stubbs text, on the other hand, reprimands the deity for delaying in bringing relief to a community under siege: “O eternal God, it is now high tyme for thee to heare the prayer of thy poore desolate Church, whose distresses sithe they force her not to speake, but to cry with a full voyce, let not her crie vanish in the aire, but come to thee, who art euery where to heare such as call to thee” (F2v). And from this point on, the remainder of the meditation on Psalm 102, including the passage I have already mentioned that comes across like a personal complaint on Stubbs’s part about the brutal amputation of his hand, is actually presented as a prayer offered up to God by the entire church. To this end, in fact, the petitioning voice is carefully gendered female throughout this dense and bitter meditative lament. But if “A meditation vpon the 102 Psalme” embodies a ritual mode in which the singular speaking “I” cries out to God on behalf of the whole church, it does so with a degree of violence

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that is quite uncharacteristic of traditional penitential hermeneutics. For while the female supplicant, speaking as and for the church, does make some efforts to acknowledge and repent of her sins, she appears on the whole to be far more concerned about ensuring that her enemies are punished for their misdemeanors. This particular meditation might, in other words, be said to pay better attention to the indignant or vituperative moments in the psalm text itself than it does to the long history of exposition (theological, devotional, and more broadly creative) upon those moments. The first important move that the Beza/Stubbs meditation makes toward a politicizing of the psalm is to interpret the physical body of the Geneva Bible psalmist as the metaphorical body of the church. Thus where the psalmist complains that he suffers from disease, pain, weakness, old age, and so on, the petitioner of the meditation, the church, bewails her condition as a desperately troubled, or critically ill, community, calling out to God from a state of misery and starvation: “Nowe the heauens and the earth doe ring of my lamentable cryes,” she moans, “woe begone that I am lying on the ground, and languishing like her that hath nothing left, but the skinne bounde to the bones” (F3v). To this collectivist allegorical reading of the psalmist’s physical troubles, the meditation adds an extensive delineation of the many antagonists of the church—as well as of the numerous torments to which she is subjected by those antagonists: “I see nothing but enemies rounde about mee,” the supplicant protests, before going on to ask, “and what maner enemies?” (F4v). This is, of course, a wholly rhetorical question, and the petitioner answers it immediately, at great length, and with great excitement. Yet as she defines her enemies, she provides a clearer picture of herself as well. Once again, an understanding of the bounds of the church emerges precisely when that community is placed in oppositional relation to a perceived threat. Here, in the meditation on Psalm 102, the petitioner claims that her enemies (the enemies of the true church) are of three kinds: “First, that great deuouring Lyon, which hath spoyled, torne, and swallowed so many of my poore children from the beginning of the worlde”; second, “those Inchanters which by their coloured wordes and reasons, in very deede vnreasonable, set together by their bibble babble, haue suborned very many of my children . . . . those snares of

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conscience, wolues masking like pastours, paunches belching out sacriledges, deuouring, O God, thy people as bread, swallowing vp the poore widowes and orphanes vnder the shadowe of prayer”; and third, “them that are yet worse, to witte”—“these cursed ones, which gnawe mee within my bowels, these heretiques, murderers, rending in pieces the members from the bodie, whereof thou art the head: Uery soule quellers [executioners], coniured enemies against thy trueth, turners ­vpside downe of thy right wayes, mouthes for the father of lyes, folke without shame or conscience, rasers vnder the name of buylders” (F4v– F5r). In other words, the church’s greatest foes are (1) the devil, who, according to 1 Peter 5:8–9, prowls around just like a roaring lion, searching out all those he can consume; (2) Roman Catholic ministers, as depicted, grotesquely, by evangelical propagandists from John Bale to Edmund Spenser and beyond; and (3) those “heretiques” who, while they pretend to be members of the church body, are really just shrewd infiltrators—that is, those less-than-fully-radicalized Protestants who, by resisting evangelical reform, destroy rather than build, kill rather than give life. With these three sets of enemies, then, the true church is circumscribed not just as a Protestant subset within the church universal but as an elite or exclusive orthodox remnant within the supposedly Reformed church. Finally, the Beza/Stubbs meditation on Psalm 102 develops a passionate sense that the true church has done nothing to justify its persecution at the hands of these three kinds of enemies. Threatened both verbally and physically by her antagonists, the petitioner refuses to concede to having provoked such harsh treatment. “Alack, I hurt no body, yea I render good for euill,” she claims sanctimoniously, and contends that the numerous accusations made against her by her enemies are no more than slanders: “There is no crime which they laye not to my charge, no rage which exerciseth not it selfe against mee: I am the daughter of peace, and yet charge they me as mother and nource of al hurliburlies that tosse and tomble the world. Patience is my marke, and yet I am accused as a stirrer of all sedition: I keepe a schoole of all trueth, yet am I condemned as a lyar, and the fountaine of leasings [lies]: I praye for my very enemies, yet will they needes make me vengeable and irreconcilable” (F5r–v). This insistence on the righteousness of the true church eventually crescendos into the dramatic climax of the

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­ editation—an apostrophe to the elements that have claimed the lives m of many faithful Christians, witnesses to the purest kind of evangelicalism: “O earth drunken with the blood of mine innocent children: ye waters, whose streames haue bene oft stopped, and their hue changed by the poore murdered bodies: O ayre, which has receyued so many of their grones and sighes: yee flames which haue consumed so many martyrs to the trueth: yee swordes, which haue wounded, hewen, and chopt off so many of my members, are ye not sufficient witnesses to me, that I complayne not without most iust cause?” (F5v–F6r). A little later, the supplicant seems for a moment to relent. She admits that her punishment derives ultimately from God, and that it may be justified after all: “But alas, I see and confesse, that what the wicked doe vniustly, thou doest it iustly for the iniquitie of [the] most part of my riotous children, it being a thing right reasonable, that the bringing into order beginne at thine owne house, and that they which haue least excuse, bee with the first most rigorously chastised” (F6v–F7r). But even this confession is limited. While it grants that the “most part” of the church’s members have indeed fallen prey to sin, it also reiterates the idea that there remains within the community a true and faithful (evangelical) minority completely free of iniquity. The psychological context that first produced both the self-­ destructive aggression and the exclusivist vituperation of these meditations must surely have been Theodore Beza’s deep concern about the progress of the Reformation, particularly in his native France. As the most influential advisor to (and principal representative of ) French evangelicals in the second half of the sixteenth century, Beza despaired greatly over the violent persecution of his co-religionists and thoroughly lamented what Derek Brice has described as the “hi-jacking of the Protestant movement by ambitious nobility and political adventurers.”46 Imported into England by Stubbs, the meditations’ projection of wickedness onto sly heretics within the church might have appeared excessive. However, Stubbs, who had recently lost his hand in a dangerous bid to prevent his queen from aligning herself with a French Catholic, may well have decided to translate and publish this version of the Penitential Psalms specifically to extend his efforts at internal reform. All told, Stubbs’s 1582 translation of Beza’s Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes, like Elizabeth’s prayer book of 1569, suggests that

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English Protestants paid careful attention to the Penitential Psalms in  the second half of the sixteenth century. While they offered these psalms to the public as prayers of repentance, they also put them (and the Davidic history with which they were associated) to use to consolidate their own communities, as well as to undermine those communities that they could frame, in an ostensibly penitential psalmic mode, as spiritual antagonists.

C h a p ter Fi v e

Parody and Piety

This final chapter begins with an observation: while the central liturgical text of the Church of England, the Book of Common Prayer (first issued under Edward VI in 1549), prescribed the reading of the whole Psalter once per month, it did not make use of, or even refer to, the Peni­tential Psalms as a group. In the Reformed Tudor church, that is, the seven psalms were typically encountered only individually, as part of a sequential recitation of the 150 psalms at Matins and Evensong—a recitation that followed the nonchronological, or even antiteleological, order of the Book of Psalms.1 With this important liturgical detail in mind, literary historians might expect to find that interest (both clerical and lay) in the seven psalms declined in England over the course of the second half of the sixteenth century. But contemporary textual evidence suggests instead that the Penitential Psalms continued not only to provide inspiration for English writers but also to earn significant revenue for English printers and booksellers for many years. Indeed, if the shift away from rehearsing the Penitential Psalms as a group within a setting endorsed by the official church in England had 157

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any direct effects on the habits of the producers—or the appetites of the consumers—of English religious texts, those effects seem to have been fairly subtle, and in some cases even at odds with one another. On the one hand, for instance, extant iterations of the seven psalms indicate that the customary framing of the series as a unified, coherent, penitential sequence, and the traditional association of that sequence with the myth of David and Bathsheba, both began to face challenges. Yet on the other hand, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poets and musicians appear to have turned with renewed fervor to the age-old set, fashioning works based on the Penitential Psalms almost entirely within the long-standing interpretive tradition that I have called penitential hermeneutics. What I offer in this chapter, then, is a series of reflections on the sustained popularity of the Penitential Psalms in England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. My concern is especially with the seven psalms as lyric poetry and song, and my aim is twofold: first, to uncover innovative, or modified, approaches to the established psalm sequence in the immediate wake of the Reformation; and second, to reveal an interesting reclamation of traditional exegetical and liturgical practices. In the first two sections of the chapter, I consider the metrical psalm translations of George Gascoigne and Sir John Harington. In these works, I argue, it becomes clear that by the end of the sixteenth century English poets had begun to experiment with the Penitential Psalms as vehicles for the expression not just of piety, or even of polemic, but also of personal forms of politics. In the third section of the chapter, I turn to a version of the Penitential Psalms designed to be sung by English Catholics: Richard Verstegan’s Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes (1601). In several deliberate ways, I posit, this sequence once again calls upon the fundamental principles of penitential hermeneutics, enacting a reappropriation of the seven Penitential Psalms for fairly conventional religious purposes. Move Over, David, or, George Gascoigne’s De Profundis The liturgical abandonment of the Penitential Psalms by the evangelical Tudor church around the middle of the sixteenth century must

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be responsible, at least in part, for an unusual degree of lyric experi­ mentation with the series as a whole, as well as with its individual components, in the second half of the sixteenth century.2 Indeed, lyric renditions of the Penitential Psalms from the period are found not only in published works but also in unpublished diaries, verse anthologies, and commonplace books. Most of these retain all seven of the psalms in their original sequence. However, some explore, in great depth, the details of a lone psalm as it unfolds. Such is the case in A meditation of a penitent sinner, appended to a 1560 English translation by Anne Vaughan Lock of the Sermons of Iohn Caluin vpon the songe that Ezechias made after he had bene sicke.3 Here, a poet, purportedly a “frend” of Lock’s, provides a total of twenty-six sonnets based on the Miserere (the first five sonnets function as a preface, while the remaining twenty-one translate and amplify the psalm itself ).4 It is also the case in George Gascoigne’s extended paraphrase of the De profundis, which transforms each verse of the biblical psalm into an eleven-line stanza. I focus on Gascoigne’s work in this chapter, for although Lock’s version of Psalm 51 has been the subject of a consid­ erable amount of critical analysis over the past two decades or so, ­Gascoigne’s adaptation of Psalm 130 has received comparatively little scholarly attention—with the exception of two somewhat pious essays by Roy T. Eriksen (both published in the 1980s) and Hannibal Hamlin’s significantly more nuanced appraisal of the poem in Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature (2004).5 Gascoigne may have written his verse rendition of Psalm 130, “Gascoignes De profundis,” as early as April 1562.6 The poem first emerged in print, though, in 1575, in The posies of George Gascoigne ­esquire—a revised edition of Gascoigne’s 1573 compilation A hundreth sundrie flowres.7 It is not irrelevant that the psalm translation appeared initially in the 1575 (rather than the 1573) edition of the anthology. In the amended publication, Gascoigne responded explicitly to certain “reuerende Diuines” who had apparently objected to “sundrie wanton speeches and lasciuious phrases” in his earlier collection; and he did so not only by suggesting that the first version of the anthology was unauthorized but also by expressing regret over the licentiousness of his youth and by presenting the revised version as a thoroughly “gelded,” or chastened, text.8

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Current criticism on Gascoigne generally proposes that the poet’s authorial self-presentation in The posies should be comprehended as series of complex and mischievous charades: the unauthorized status of the 1573 edition, the remorse of the writer in 1575, the purgation of the second edition, and even the offense taken by the unnamed reverend divines may all, in fact, amount to no more than a satirical interweaving of extravagant fabrications.9 I agree with this skeptical reading of Gascoigne, and I also support Hannibal Hamlin’s assertion that Psalm 130 in particular provides the hypothetically reformed writer with an unparalleled opportunity to take on the role of the penitent while simultaneously mocking his critics (past or future, real or imagined).10 Here, however, I explore exactly how Gascoigne manages to subvert the longestablished meaning of this psalm, turning several centuries’ worth of religious interpretation on its head, and thereby transporting a devotionally oriented text audaciously into the realm of the literary and the ironic. In one of the three introductory letters published with The posies in 1575, Gascoigne remarks that his goal in the revised anthology is not “to displease any man” but rather “to content most men,” and he elaborates as follows: “I meane the diuine with godly Hymnes and Psalmes, the sober minde with morall discourses, and the wildest will with suf­ ficient warning. The which if it so fall out, then shall I thinke my selfe right happie. And if it fall out otherwise, I shall yet neuer bee ashamed to become one of their corporation which reape floutes and reprehension for their trauayles.”11 Explaining that he has made a great effort to include a little something for everyone, Gascoigne alleges that those who (ostensibly) found his earlier publication distasteful—“the ­diuine”—ought now to be satisfied with the inclusion in his anthology of “godly Hymnes and Psalmes.” But any sixteenth-century minister who actually set about to locate these edifying materials in The posies would have been sorely disappointed. For “Gascoignes De profundis” is the only psalm (or hymn, for that matter) to be found in the collection, and its status as a “godly” text is far from guaranteed. To start with, Gascoigne’s version of the De profundis is included in The posies in a conspicuously odd place.12 The poems, plays, and prose works compiled in the 1575 publication are divided into three large ­categories—“Floures” (or “Flowers”), “Hearbes,” and “Weedes”—and Gascoigne’s psalm translation is inserted in the first of these sections.13

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It is thus located not with the “morall discourses, and reformed inu­ entions” that readers should, according to Gascoigne, find “more profitable than pleasant” (i.e., not with the “Hearbes”), but rather in the section that Gascoigne devotes entirely to those compositions that, having been “inuented vpon a verie light occasion,” are deemed “more pleasant than profitable.”14 This strange positioning of the De profundis must, I believe, be understood as an outright affront to the established interpretive tradition that insisted, time and again, upon the religious worth—the spiritual profit indeed—to be gained by reading, reciting, and meditating upon the Penitential Psalms. In Gascoigne’s anthology, then, the psalm migrates from the space of sacred liturgy and prayer into a new realm of entertainment or pleasure. The various materials that together act as a prologue to “Gascoignes De profundis” also seem to embody a significant challenge to the customary ways of interpreting and praying any or all of the Penitential Psalms in a devotional context. Gascoigne’s psalmic poem does not appear in The posies unannounced; rather, it is prefaced with a tripartite frame. All three parts of this frame are in fact included (without the psalm translation itself ) in the 1573 version of the anthology A hundreth sundrie flowres. The third part is then reprinted (with the psalm) in The posies of 1575. Each of these is worth dissecting.15 The first element of the frame is an eccentric and tantalizing message, written in the voice of the fictional editor of the anthology. It discusses Gascoigne’s translation of Psalm 130 along with several other of the poet’s shorter works: “These good Morowe and good nyght, together with his Passion, his Libell of diuorce, his Lullabye, his Recantation, his De profundis, and his farewell, haue verie sweete notes adapted vnto them: the which I would you should also enioy as well as my selfe. For I knowe you will delight to heare them. As also other verie good notes whyche I haue for dyuers other Ditties of other mens deuyse whiche I haue before rehersed.”16 The editor contends that a number of Gascoigne’s poems, including the metrical version of the De profundis, have been set to music. He insists that he has heard and enjoyed this music. And he avows that he would love to share it with Gascoigne’s audiences. But there is no music included in either the 1573 or the 1575 anthology, and the editor’s note turns out to be a tease. Instigating, and then immediately frustrating, a desire for some “verie sweete notes” to accompany Gascoigne’s compositions, it might even serve as a

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jibe at the contemporary vogue (discussed further below) for buying and selling verse collections, and especially psalm books, with printed melodies. The next two elements of the frame comprise a prose narrative (again in the voice of the compilation’s fictional editor) and a sonnet (in the voice of Gascoigne’s poetic persona). Both of these are printed immediately following the title “Gascoignes De profundis” in A hundreth sundrie flowres, while the sonnet alone is reproduced ahead of the psalm translation in The posies, with its own title (“The introduction to the Psalme of Deprofundis” [sic]). The prose narrative describes the circumstances in which both the sonnet and the psalm were purportedly composed by Gascoigne: The occasion of the wrighting hereof (as I haue herde Master Gascoigne say) was this, riding alone betwene Chelmisforde and London, his minde mused vppon the dayes past, and therewithall he gan accuse his owne conscience of muche time misspent, when a great shoure of rayne did ouertake him, and he beeing vnprepared for the same, as in a Ierken [jerkin] without a cloake, the wether beeing very faire and vnlikely to haue changed so: he began to accuse him selfe of his carelesnesse, and therevppon in his good disposition compiled firste this sonet, and afterwardes, the translated Psalme of Deprofundis [sic] as here followeth.17 This narrative gives two potential motivations on the part of Gascoigne for the writing of the metrical psalm: regretting a past “misspent,” and neglecting to take a cloak when riding into the city of London. While the first reason (moral self-examination) may seem to be the more appropriate trigger for deciding to translate one of the seven Penitential Psalms, the sonnet actually elaborates upon the second (a wardrobe miscalculation) from a first-person lyric perspective: The Skies gan scowle, orecast with mistie cloudes, When (as I rode alone by London way, Clokelesse, vnclad) thus did I sing and say: Behold quoth I, bright Titan how he shroudes His hed abacke, and yelds the raine his reach,

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Till in his wrath, Dan Iove haue soust the soile, And washt me wretch which in his trauaile toile. But holla (here) doth rudenesse me appeach, Since Iove is Lord and king of mightie power, Which can commande the sunne to shew his face, And (when him list) to giue the raine his place. Why doe not I my wery muses frame, (Although I bee well soused in this shoure,) To wrighte some verse in honor of his name?18 Together, the fictional editor’s prose introduction and this classicizing sonnet might be best interpreted in relation to the sixteenth-­century commonplace-book tradition whereby old sententiae would be decontextualized only to be later recontextualized. Indeed, when the editor asserts, at the end of his narrative prologue, that Gascoigne composed “the translated Psalme of Deprofundis” on the road between Chelmsford and London, he may be pointing, elliptically, at precisely this kind of transposition—for the prefatory materials fully extricate the psalm from the biblical tale to which it is usually attached and locate it instead within an entirely alternate compositional history.19 The brand-new context that Gascoigne provides for the psalm might be said to subvert the established interpretive tradition in at least three ways. First, it provides a pagan rather than a Judaic or Christian rationale for the creation of the psalm: according to the sonnet, especially, “Gascoignes De profundis” was written on the spur of the moment to honor the name of the Roman deity Jove, and not to ask forgiveness of the God of the Hebrews. Second, the prologue and the sonnet in combination trivialize the conventional import of the psalm, undermining the potential of the text to be used as a penitential supplication: the deep, dark, place from which the psalmist calls out to the divinity in Psalm 130 no longer represents the abject emotions of fear and despair but is instead converted into a (perhaps excessive) humanistic response to having been caught in the rain without suitable protection. Finally, the revised setting pushes David completely aside. Hamlin argues that Gascoigne’s frame must be influenced by Wyatt’s (and Aretino’s) Davidic prologues and that Gascoigne looks, albeit with a satirical eye, to David as a model for penitence.20 But what really matters here is

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that Gascoigne fails to mention David (or Bathsheba or Uriah) at all. It is, of course, true that Gascoigne’s prefatory materials, like Wyatt’s prologues, are fictionalizing devices. But the specific fictional details that Gascoigne lays out in these introductory texts insert the psalm into a radically different story. There is no indication in either A hundreth sundrie flowres or The posies that the psalm originated with the most famous of Israel’s kings. This particular De profundis is the work solely of Gascoigne, even if it also happens to be translated.21 What is there to be said about the psalm translation itself? According to Gascoigne, all of the texts anthologized in the “Floures” section of The posies are characterized by “some rare inuention and Methode before not commonly vsed” (it is this quality, in fact, that makes these works “pleasant” rather than “profitable”).22 And Gascoigne’s amplified translation of Psalm 130 plays, self-consciously, with a wide array of poetic techniques.23 Merely extending each verse of the biblical psalm into a stanza of eleven metrical lines (nine of pentameter, and two of dimeter) might already be considered quite a poetic feat. Yet in addition, as Hamlin has pointed out, Gascoigne seems purposely to cultivate archaic varieties of style and diction (including a Chaucerian vocabulary and an alliterative Langlandian line) that not only hearken back to the chief medieval poets but also prophetically anticipate Spenser.24 The most striking of the poetic devices in “Gascoignes De profundis,” however, is the rhetorical technique of anaphora: the repetition of a specific word, or a specific sequence of words, at the opening of several successive clauses. Though it is not present in Psalm 130, anaphora is moderately common in the Book of Psalms, and Gascoigne sets out to beat the psalmist at his own lyrical game. The majority of Gascoigne’s stanzas begin with four anaphoric lines, as does the first: From depth of doole wherein my soule doth dwell, From heauy heart which harbours in my brest, From troubled sprite which sildome taketh rest. From hope of heauen, from dreade of darkesome hell. O gracious God, to thee I crye and yell. My God, my Lorde, my louely Lord aloane, To thee I call, to thee I make my moane.25

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In the final stanza of the translation, Gascoigne increases the anaphoric content to span a total of eight lines: Hee will redeeme our deadly drowping state, He wyll bring home the sheepe that goe astraye, He wyll helpe them that hope in him alwaye: He wyll appease our discorde and debate, He wyll soone saue, though we repent vs late. He wyll be ours if we continewe his, He wyll bring bale to ioye and perfect blisse. He wyll redeeme the flocke of his electe.26 Eriksen has argued that the multiplication of anaphora in Gascoigne, along with the use of several other fancy rhetorical devices, largely contributes “to creating a feeling of intense and urgent prayer.”27 But I am doubtful about this claim. While the repetition in the final stanza makes for a dazzling crescendo to the poem, that crescendo may not be quite as sincere as Eriksen believes. It may, actually, be designed as an exuberant display of technical virtuosity, in which the poet demonstrates that he can say exactly the same thing eight times over, in eight subtly different ways. It would, of course, be oversimplifying matters to suggest that displays of rhetorical and poetic artifice must in all cases be taken to be disrespectful or sacrilegious.28 However, in Gascoigne’s case, this supposedly penitential psalm takes on a defiantly unrepentant bent, and not just because of its jocular humanistic frame.29 On the surface, Gascoigne’s poem, with its emphasis on the redemption of “the flocke of [God’s] electe,” might look like a devout Calvinist paraphrase of the De profundis. Yet the text displays an unusual kind of self-confidence. Where evangelical interpreters tend to emphasize the despairing ab­ jection of the sinner before the terrible wrath of God, Gascoigne, playing the part of the repentant psalmist, displays an atypical assurance in his salvation.30 He may well “crye and yell” and “make [his] moane,” as he does in the opening stanza of the poem, but surprisingly little is ­required of him to secure his redemption. Indeed, while Gascoigne stresses in the third stanza of his poem that no sinner would ever ­really want to stand before God’s “frowne” or attempt to make “scuses”

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for himself on Judgment Day, the version of the divinity that he addresses in the stanza following is remarkably proactive in bestowing forgiveness: But thou art good, and hast of mercye store, Thou not deligh[t]st to see a sinner fall. Thou hearknest first, before we come to call. Thine eares are set wyde open euermore, Before we knocke thou commest to the doore. Thou art more prest to heare a sinner crye, Then he is quicke to climbe to thee on hye.31 The salvation of this psalmist, then, seems pretty close to certain all along; it is simply clinched (and celebrated, enthusiastically) in the exuberantly anaphoric lines from the final stanza, quoted above. I would argue, then, that Psalm 130 operates for Gascoigne less as an urgent penitential prayer or as an aid to sincere conversion than as a means to query or cast doubt on the very notion that moral or spiritual reform might be required in the first place. Sir John Harington’s Antipenitential Hermeneutics Where George Gascoigne extracts a single psalm from the Penitential Psalms and, mainly by giving it a new compositional setting, or an alternate fiction, thoroughly undermines its value as an instrument of repentance, Sir John Harington of Kelston deploys the entire series against itself. For in his verse translation of the seven psalms Harington subtly contests the long-standing interpretive tradition of penitential ­hermeneutics—the very tradition that held this group of psalms together as a coherent sequence from the patristic age all the way through to the Reformation. Harington seems to have composed his rendition of the Penitential Psalms in the waning of the Elizabethan era—that is, at the very end of the sixteenth or very beginning of the seventeenth century. At around that time, certainly, he copied his translation into the famous Egerton manuscript, just a few folios after the verse paraphrase of Sir Thomas

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Wyatt.32 And he appears to have turned to (and revised) his work again when producing a version of the whole Book of Psalms under King James I: as Karl E. Schmutzler has noted, the seven psalms transcribed in the poet’s own hand in the Egerton manuscript read very much like early forms of the same psalms as they are found in the two extant manu­scripts of the complete Harington Psalter.33 Like Gascoigne’s De profundis, Harington’s translation of the Penitential Psalms has suffered from a dearth of criticism—perhaps because it was not available in printed form (and thus not readily accessible to contemporary scholars) until it was edited and published by Steven W. May in 1991, or perhaps (and this is more likely) because Harington’s translation comes across as such a poor neighbor to Wyatt’s, especially from the standpoint of poetic and/or linguistic innovation. Describing the Egerton manuscript in their 1969 edition of Wyatt’s poetry, Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thomson refer to Harington’s translation of the Penitential Psalms as “a rival version” to Wyatt’s paraphrase.34 And if the two renditions of the seven psalms are evaluated in comparison to one another with either formal invention or rhetorical technique in mind, Harington’s will inevitably come up short. But it may be an error to stake too much on the proximity between Harington’s and Wyatt’s psalms in the Egerton manuscript. For there is almost nothing in Harington’s translation to suggest that it was ever intended to compete (on poetic grounds, anyway) with the earlier paraphrase. Indeed, it is astonishing that the influence of the former poet is so little manifest in the work of the latter—a point made all the more remarkable when one takes into account the fact that Sir John Harington’s father, John Harington of Stepney, appears to have been closely ­involved in the publication of Wyatt’s Certayne psalmes in 1549.35 Harington must surely have been aware of Wyatt’s imaginative midcentury paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms when he prepared his own metrical translation. Yet he seems to have ignored it almost entirely. It is particularly striking that while Wyatt introduces every one of the seven psalms with a fictionalizing prologue (and thus presents them as Davidic monologues), Harington provides no framing device for his psalm translations whatsoever. Moreover, whereas Wyatt renders the psalms into terza rima—an intricate, recurring, verse form derived from Italian poetry—Harington relies instead upon three relatively simple

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stanzaic structures: the familiar sextain (rhyming ababcc) for the first four psalms, the septet or rhyme royal stanza (rhyming ababbcc) for the fifth, and the octave (rhyming abbaabcc or ababbacc) for the final two.36 Moreover, in his diction and word order, Harington appears to have been influenced far less by Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms than by the extraordinary metrical Psalter composed by Sir Philip Sidney and his sister, Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, as well as by the two English prose translations of the Book of Psalms that most in­ fluenced Sidney and Pembroke: Miles Coverdale’s translation for the Great Bible of 1539 (which circulated in a slightly modified form with the Book of Common Prayer) and, more directly, the version included in the Geneva Bible of 1560.37 Of course, Harington’s achievement (or nonachievement) as a metrical translator of the Penitential Psalms looks even less dazzling when it is placed next to what May has called “the demanding technical and rhetorical standards” set by the Sidney Psalter than it does when situated alongside Wyatt’s already complex poetic paraphrase.38 In this context, it seems perfectly fitting to pronounce a judgment of “competent but uninspired” upon Harington’s translation, and I am not even going to attempt to redeem this particular version of the Penitential Psalms on aesthetic terms alone.39 I would, however, like to posit that, in his own peculiar way, Harington is surprisingly original—even subversive. To be more specific, while Harington maintains the established grouping of the seven psalms in his adaptation, he also cleverly sabotages it, rendering the sequence into a series of prayers that is irreverent on the one hand and politically risky on the other. That Harington’s translation of the Penitential Psalms refuses, in some significant ways, to respect several of the most important strategies of traditional penitential hermeneutics is signaled at the very outset of the sequence. It is worth recalling that, at the beginning of the scriptural version of Psalm 6, the psalmist cries out in his suffering, complaining to God that the pain he endures is too much to bear and begging for urgent relief from his affliction. In the Geneva Bible, the first two verses of the psalm read like this: “O Lord, rebuke me not in thine angre, nether chastise me in thy wrath. / Haue mercie vpon me, ô Lord, for I am weake: ô Lord heale me, for my bones are vexed.”40

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There is no mention of sin in these lines (or anywhere else in the psalm for that matter), but medieval and early modern interpreters generally explain the import of this lament by making reference to the inevita­ bility of human iniquity, the severity of God’s justice, and the distressing prospect of condemnation to hell: the psalmist suffers because of his wickedness, and he asks for mercy because he is afraid of what will take place when he stands before the throne of God at the Last Judgment. This foregrounding of human sin, divine wrath, and eternal ­damnation—totally standard by the sixteenth century—is encapsulated in the various materials that supplement the opening of the psalm in the Geneva Bible. For example, the preface introducing the lament ­begins, “When Dauid by his sinnes had prouoked God’s wrath, and now felt not onely his hand against him, but also conceiued the horrors of death euerlasting, he desireth forgiuenes”; and a marginal note to the first verse of the psalm paraphrases the sentiment of the psalmist this way: “Thogh I deserue destruction, yet let thy mercie pitie my frailtie.”41 The notion that, because of his iniquity, the psalmist warrants God’s punishment also surfaces in the Sidney Psalter, in the opening lines of Psalm 6—which accentuate the sinner’s abject awareness of his sinful condition: Lord, let not me, a worm, by thee be shent [shamed, punished] While thou art in the heat of thy displeasure: Ne let thy rage, of my due punishment Become the measure.42 In John Harington’s rendition of the first two verses of Psalm 6, however, this hermeneutical tradition is altered considerably. Harington’s psalm begins like this: O doe not Lord correct me in thy wrath Nor chasten mee in fury of thy Choller, Though many strypes my fault deserved hath That in thy schoole am such a trewant scholler; My naked soule too tender is, o God, Too sensible of such a smarting rod.43

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In lines that seem to echo the first sonnet of Astrophil and Stella much more than they do Psalm 6 in the Sidney Psalter, Harington’s psalmist casts himself as a lazy or ill-disciplined schoolboy, while God is made to play the role of a (perhaps excessively) stern teacher, eager to get started on a thorough thrashing.44 And although the psalmist-as-pupil admits that he deserves to be castigated for his delinquency, he also suggests that his error is merely a juvenile one and that he is just too sensitive (“too tender” and “too sensible”) to be beaten by his master. In a single instant, then, the psalmist’s wrongdoing is rendered inconsequential, the severity of God’s judgment greatly minimized, and the possibility of eternal damnation written out of the drama altogether. These lines at the beginning of Psalm 6 might be said to set the tone for the rest of the translation: if Harington makes light of interpretive tradition in his opening metaphor, then he continues to do so throughout the sequence—in ways that are both theologically and politically motivated. At times, in fact, Harington’s version of the Penitential Psalms comes remarkably close to parody. Just how close it comes might be demonstrated by considering a couple of moments in Psalm 32. The “original” psalm text begins with two declarations in the pattern of synonymous parallelism common to biblical wisdom literature. The Geneva Bible translates them this way: “Blessed is he whose wickednes is forgiuen, & whose sinne is couered. / Blessed is the man, vnto whome the Lord imputeth not iniquitie, & in whose spirit there is no guile.”45 Exactly what it meant for a man’s wickedness to be covered, and precisely how a sinful person might be imputed to be without blame, were, of course, hot topics in the sixteenth century. These matters, indeed, lay at the core of intense theological debates about the nature and processes of God’s justifying grace.46 And while it is not necessary to go into all the details of the religious controversy here, it is important to note nonetheless that at least one post-­ Lutheran position—a position that was disseminated widely in England in the second half of the sixteenth century—relied upon a delicate paradox. A marginal note to Psalm 32:1 in the Geneva Bible explains that “to be iustified by faith, is to haue our sinnes frely remitted, and to be reputed iust”—implying that justification involves being made righteous on the one hand, as well as being declared, or considered righteous (if perhaps still somewhat tarnished by sin) on the other.47

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In his translation of Psalm 32, Harington makes a point of underscoring the absurdity of this somewhat contradictory “already-but-notyet” formulation. He does so by giving the psalm an unusual twist: Thrice blessed hee whose faults such favor wynn Hee can by grace conceale his knowne demerit; Thrice blest to whome the Lord imputes no sinne Nor fynds no fraud nor falshood in his spirit.48 Here Harington’s psalmist espouses an entirely eccentric theology of salvation. He insists that a sinner is “blessed” (thrice over!), not when his wickedness is forgiven, or deliberately overlooked, by God, but rather when he earns enough grace to be able to hide his own failings. He argues, in other words, that a sinner is justified when, by his own “faults,” he is granted the ability to mask his otherwise-obvious iniquity (his “knowne demerit”) himself, thereby making it impossible for a now-limited divinity to locate any “fraud” or “falshood” in him. While this ostensibly wise, but undeniably impertinent, theorizing about justification on the part of Harington’s psalmist represents a radical challenge to sixteenth-century Reformed soteriology, it also engages with, and counters, penitential hermeneutics more generally. Positing that it is more valuable to conceal one’s sinfulness than to confess it, the opening of Psalm 32 in Harington’s translation advocates for a form of behavior that directly opposes what genuine penitents (Reformed or otherwise) were always encouraged to do. A similar moment of destabilization occurs in the following stanza of Psalm 32 in Harington’s translation. The biblical psalmist narrates how, after recognizing the pressure of God’s discipline upon him, he readily confessed his sin.49 But Harington’s psalmist tells a different story: For daies and nights thie heavie hand did presse mee And waste my strength like flowrs with summer’s heate Till halfe inforst I said I would confesse mee And open lay my fault both foule and greate.50 In this unconventional translation, the iniquitous psalmist (who believes that it is better to hide his sin than reveal it) is subjected to an

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e­ xperience akin to prolonged torture until, “halfe inforst,” he eventually admits his “fault,” and finds (to his discomfort) that he has been exposed. This notion of God extracting a declaration of sin by intimidation is utterly foreign to the vast majority of readings of the Penitential Psalms, which usually emphasize that confession must be given freely, willingly, and contritely if it is to be effective. In sum, these lines contribute to Harington’s larger project of forcing the sequence to speak back to, or even unravel, itself. Not all of the antipenitential irreverence in Harington’s rendition of the Penitential Psalms takes a theological angle. In fact, several passages in this metrical sequence seem to be shaped more by the poet’s personal politics than by anything else. One such passage surfaces toward the end of Harington’s translation of Psalm 102. As I have discussed elsewhere, although Psalm 102 was thought to have been composed during the exile of the Jews in Babylon, allusions to Zion in the lament were frequently interpreted by Christian exegetes as referring to the church.51 Without actually using the word church in his translation, Harington continues this tradition of typological presentism—but only to criticize the pitiable condition of the post-Reformation church in England and indicate what he believes should be done about it. It is worth quoting the relevant passage from Psalm 102 in the ­Geneva Bible before moving on to Harington’s translation: “Thou wilt arise & haue mercie vpon Zión: for the time to haue mercie thereon, for the appointed time is come. / For thy seruants delite in the stones thereof, and haue pitie on the dust thereof. / Then the heathen shal feare the Name of the Lord, & all the Kings of the earth thy glorie, / When the Lord shal buylde vp Zión, & shal appeare in his glorie. / And shal turne vnto the praier of the desolate, and not despise their praier.”52 Much like the psalmist in the Geneva Bible, Harington’s psalmist reminds the divinity that it is “high tyme” to “take on Sion pitie.” But he elaborates as follows: For why, thy servants see with greife and shame Her monuments thus broken and defac’t, But tyme will come that heath’n shall feare thy name, Yf earthly kings to honour thee shall haste And Sion shall with glory new bee grac’t

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When God shall bend his eare to poore men’s cries, And shall their just petitions not despise.53 Two alterations in Harington’s translation stand out in particular. First, in the poem God’s servants mourn specifically over “monuments” that have been “broken and defac’t,” while in the Geneva Bible text they lament simply that the city of Zion has been reduced to “stones” and “dust.” Second, where the Genevan psalmist expects that Zion will be restored (and “all the Kings of the earth” converted) when God decides to begin the work of rebuilding, Harington’s psalmist suggests, rather, that Zion will be reestablished only if earthly kings take the initiative and choose to honor God. These changes are highly significant. They transform the psalmic complaint over the destruction of the holy city into a requiem of sorts for the art and architecture of the church in ­England, damaged, severely, by decades of reformist iconoclasm. And they also embody a pointed political argument: the church may at some point be restored to her former glory, but not without the proactive ­intervention of the monarchy in the effort of rebuilding.54 There is much more to be noted about the surfacing of personal politics in Harington’s Penitential Psalms. I limit myself here, though, to a brief consideration of just one further selection from the translation. At the close of Psalm 38, the psalmist pleads for respite from the torments of his adversaries, asking God to rescue him from those who revile him. In the Geneva Bible, the petition goes like this: “Then mine enemies are aliue & are mightie, and they that hate me wrongfully are manie. / They also, that rewarde euil for good, are mine aduersaries, ­because I followe goodnes. / Forsake me not, ô Lord: be not thou farre from me, my God. / Haste thee to helpe me, ô my Lord, my saluation.”55 These concluding thoughts, devoid of any historical specificity, might be deployed in any number of ritualized settings. Harington’s translation, though, shifts them a little closer to fiction: And though my foes confirme their wicked faction Ungratefully for kyndnes rendring harme, And though they seke by slander and detraction [defamation] To weaken my good name and mee disarme, Yet Lord thou art my strength and succour cheefe, Make haste then I thee pray to my releife.56

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The terms faction, slander, and detraction immediately suggest a s­ixteenth-century courtly milieu (Astrophil and Stella comes to mind again). And fittingly this psalmist seems to be concerned primarily about preserving his “good name,” his reputation, in the face of a conspiracy directed against him by those to whom he once showed some “kyndnes,” or favor. But if the translation engages in an underhanded assessment of the unpleasant realities of court life in these lines, it may also embody a sly critique of the monarch and her closest advisors. In 1599, Harington found himself in trouble with the queen (not for the first time, either) after he accepted a knighthood from the Earl of Essex in Ireland. He was temporarily banished from court, and Elizabeth very nearly stripped him of his new title.57 Harington’s psalmist, who protests that his enemies seek, by their “slander and detraction,” to “disarme” him, might therefore ventriloquize the poet’s bitter reaction to the poor treatment he received from the queen (and from the court at large) in return for his service in the Irish campaign.58 Situating Harington among “the half-dozen late Elizabethan cour­ tiers who wrote religious verse,” May argues that collectively these poets’ works bear witness “to the final triumph of this long-denigrated art form as an accepted component of their innermost personal lives.”59 I would assert that, in the case of Harington’s Penitential Psalms, met­ rical translation may constitute less of a private spiritual exercise than it  does an impertinent response to both religion and politics at the end  of  Elizabeth’s reign.60 In Harington’s hands, the seven psalms—­ promulgated for centuries as superior models of self-examination, confession, and repentance—become devices for undercutting penitential hermeneutics, challenging confessional practice, and even articulating potentially seditious political dissatisfaction. I have discussed how, in the latter decades of the sixteenth century, post-Reformation English poets appropriated the Penitential Psalms for novel and even subversive ends, transposing them from their established devotional setting (the religious realm of conversion-via-­ abjection) into the more literary and political contexts of satire, parody, and personal indictment. And I have suggested that, in so doing, these poets tested the limits of the traditional means of interpreting the seven psalms as a unified and profitable sequence of supplications. In the final section of this chapter, however, I consider a reclamation of sorts, en-

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capsulated in Richard Verstegan’s Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes (1601). Comparing Verstegan’s Odes to the translations of Gascoigne and, especially, Harington, I argue that Verstegan was able to reappropriate the seven psalms for English Catholic piety at the turn of the century by using several different strategies, including a pointed renewal of Augustinian penitential hermeneutics. Reappropriation in the Odes of Richard Verstegan In 1601, the Roman Catholic antiquarian, controversialist, informant, and publisher Richard Verstegan, also known as Richard Rowlands, issued his Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes, featuring a translation of the familiar psalm sequence along with “Sundry other Poemes and ditties tending to deuotion and pietie” (see fig. 5.1).61 It should be noted that the adaptation of the Penitential Psalms in this text is not the first (or the only) Elizabethan version of the sequence to be published by an Englishman with Roman Catholic affiliations; in 1589 the recusant William Byrd released his popular work Songs of sundrie natures, which includes the seven psalms, in English, set to three parts.62 Nevertheless, it does constitute the first overtly Roman Catholic adaptation of this psalm series produced for English buyers after the mid-sixteenth century. Published in the safe haven of Antwerp, Verstegan’s book, as a whole, promotes devotional practices associated explicitly with Counter- (or Catholic-) Reformation piety. The verses, meditations, hymns, and prayers that it contains in addition to the Penitential Psalms boast such conspicuously Catholic titles as “The Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosarie,” “Epithetes of Our Blessed Lady,” “Our Blessed Ladies Lullaby,” “The Triumphe of Feminyne Saintes,” and “Of the Invention, or Fynding of the Crosse of Christ.”63 And the text’s association with the Counter-Reformation is evident even on its title page, which is decorated with an emblem of a winged heart bearing the monogram IHS (see, again, fig. 5.1). Although I have not been able to locate this particular emblem elsewhere, the monogram IHS, which derives from the first three letters of the name Jesus in Greek, was used by the Western Church throughout the Middle Ages to represent Christ and in 1541

Fig. 5.1. Title page with emblem of winged heart (and monogram IHS). Richard Verstegan, Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes, with sundry other poemes. [Antwerp: A. Conincx], 1601. STC 21359. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.38.b.29.

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was adopted by Ignatius of Loyola, the general of the Society of Jesus (or the Jesuits), as part of his seal.64 Verstegan’s paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms, which are in verse, were designed to be sung, not merely recited. Moreover, they were designed to be sung collectively and publicly. In the dedicatory epistle addressed to “the vertuous ladies and gentlewomen readers of [his] ditties,” Verstegan declares that he first penned these poems for his “owne priuate recreation,” not at that time intending to “make them publyke,” but was soon urged by a friend to develop them further and “affoord them the libertie of open view.”65 Explaining why, once he had been persuaded of the value of the project, he chose to dedicate the book to these women readers, he states: “I knew no better way then to make dedication of them vnto your selues, whose sweete voyces or virginalles may voutsafe so to grace them, as that thereby they may be much bettered, and the rather yf it shal please you to obtaine of some skilful Musitian, such requisite tunes, as may vnto them be best fitting.”66 Thus, despite his initial declaration that his paraphrases were composed as “priuate recreation,” Verstegan promotes their public use: he imagines that his odes will be sung by a number of female voices, in chorus, accompanied by musicians playing instruments like virginals.67 Precisely who Verstegan’s anticipated singers may have been (and where they resided) is still up for debate. In his recent study, Antwerp and the World, Paul Arblaster takes it for granted that Verstegan intended for his Odes to be sung by members of cloistered female communities in the Low Countries, such as the English Augustinian canonesses at Saint Ursula’s in Louvain or the English Benedictine nuns in Brussels.68 Yet I think it is just as likely (if not more so) that Verstegan prepared this volume specially to be smuggled into England, like many of the other devotional and polemical works that he published in Antwerp at the time. If that is the case, he may well have hoped that his songs would find their way to those English Catholic gentlewomen who were obliged—in order to participate in religious services—to meet in secret, in the houses of the aristocracy. The reception history of Verstegan’s text actually suggests not only that the Odes made it to England (fairly rapidly) in the early seventeenth century but also that the work found an eager audience among the Catholic nobility there. The Norfolk recusant Lady Elizabeth Grymeston, for instance, included

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Verstegan’s rendition of the Penitential Psalms in a book of advice for her son, first published in London in 1604, and reissued several times in the years following.69 But whether Verstegan expected that his version of the Penitential Psalms would be sung in the female cloistered communities on the Continent or whether he intended for it to circulate among recusants in England, he must certainly have hoped that it would bring spiritual ­edification to Catholic gatherings. In the remainder of this chapter, I explore how he adapted these psalms for such a purpose. And I suggest that if Verstegan’s objective was to effect a reclamation of the Penitential Psalms for turn-of-the-century English Catholic communities, it was necessary for him first to restore the psalms to a purely devotional setting (by recalling the tradition of penitential hermeneutics) and then to specify that the form of conversion advanced in the psalms was predominantly liturgical and sacramental in nature. The first strategic move that Verstegan makes toward returning the psalms to a devotional context may in fact be encoded in the title of the work itself, Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes. Rivkah Zim has argued that the term Odes represents Verstegan’s “perceptions of [the] psalms as a lyric genre,” but she finds it anomalous nonetheless, since Verstegan makes “no attempt to imitate classical form” in his work.70 Perhaps, however, Verstegan does not mean to refer to the Roman poet Horace in his choice of the title Odes but rather to glance at an ancient characterization of the Book of Psalms reproduced in a well-known sixteenth-century Protestant Psalter—that of Archbishop Matthew Parker. For among the patristic writings anthologized with The whole psalter, Parker includes several passages from Eusebius; and in one of these passages the wise teachings of David, in verse form, are described specifically as “Odys and songes.”71 There are two related reasons why Verstegan might choose to allude to this particular representation of the Book of Psalms in his title. The first, and most basic, is that in his paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms Verstegan experiments with a wide range of metrical and stanzaic schemes—and this formal experimentation is legitimated by several statements authored by Eusebius’s ancient colleagues and printed right alongside the comments of Eusebius at the beginning of The whole psalter. Here Jerome, for instance, suggests that the psalms are

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“written and composed in diuers Meters,” and Josephus elaborates: “When Dauid was at rest from warres and other such daungers, and had now peace at will, he composed songes and hymnes to God of diuers Metres, some trimetres and some quinquemetres, and caused diuers instruments to be made, and he taught the Leuites how they shoulde in their diuersities sing and playe hymnes on the Sabboth and other feastiuall daies.”72 It is not too difficult to imagine that this re­ iteration of the importance of diversity (“diuers Metres,” “diuers in­ struments,” and the “diuersities” of the Levites) might have inspired Verstegan, whose seven separate odes rely upon seven entirely different poetic structures.73 The second reason why Verstegan might have picked up on Eu­ sebius in the title of his work is that, according to both the ancient ­philosophers and the church fathers, this metrical diversity has a pedagogical purpose and achieves moral ends. Indeed, one of the excerpts from Eusebius compiled by Parker includes this reworking of Plato: “Plato that deuine Philosopher, iudged that Metres ought to be sung, for (sayth he) disciplines be fit for education and bringyng vp of Children, to traine them to a right life & lawful conuersation. To the entent therfore that childrens myndes might follow the lawe, that therwith they should both ioy & mourne, let them learne Metres and songes, and let them sing oft such.”74 While Verstegan does not seem to have composed his odes with children particularly in mind, he may well have estimated that, in all of their metrical and stanzaic diversity, these poems would encourage his singers to both “ioy and mourne”—to engage, that is, in the two primary emotions that patristic, medieval, and early modern interpreters, reading within the tradition of penitential hermeneutics, most often found and highlighted in the seven psalms. Verstegan continues to signal that his primary intention is devotional (rather than poetic) in a prologue of three stanzas, inserted ­immediately after the dedicatory epistle at the beginning of the 1601 publication: The vaine conceits of loues delight I leave to Ouids arte, Of warres and bloody broyles to wryte Is fit for Virgils parte.

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Of tragedies in doleful tales Let Sophocles entreat: And how vnstable fortune failes Al Poets do repeat. But vnto our eternal king My verse and voyce I frame And of his saintes I meane to sing In them to praise his name.75 Here Verstegan leaves secular subjects to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Love, he argues, belongs to Ovid, war to Virgil, and tragedy to Sophocles. And although he refrains from disparaging these worldly matters outright, he does suggest that it is better to use one’s “verse and voyce” to praise the name of the “eternal king” than to deal in such topics. Verstegan is certainly not unique among religious writers of his time when he articulates such a sentiment. However, this particular expression of distaste for the classical and the profane takes on a rather atypical angle in the context of adaptations of the Penitential Psalms. Sparring (either wittingly or unwittingly) with the sonnet prefacing Gascoigne’s translation of the De profundis, it seems to indicate that there are correct and incorrect ways of deploying any or all of the seven psalms: using them for the right, Christian, spiritual, purposes glorifies God; deploying them (like Gascoigne) in honor of Greek or Roman mythology does not. Given the gist of this verse preface, it is not surprising to discover that a fairly standard form of penitential hermeneutics returns in Verstegan’s translations of the psalms themselves. The first three stanzas of Psalm 6 exemplify this phenomenon: When my misdeedes o God May thee to anger mooue, Amiddes the rigour of thy rage Voutsafe mee not reprooue. Nor when for my offence Thy chastisement must bee,

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In thy displeasure o deere Lord Let it not light on mee. Thy mercies Lord I craue Of strength I am bereft, O salue the sorenesse that my sin Vpon my bones hath left.76 Where Harington deploys his “trewant scholler” metaphor at the opening of his Psalm 6 to minimize the threat of God’s wrath, as well as to point up the disjunction between the psalm itself (which does not make reference to the psalmist’s sin) and pious penitential readings of the psalm (which typically do), the opening of Verstegan’s translation, sparing in its use of figurative language, performs an opposing, reappropriative function. Without querying established interpretive strategies, it represents the aching bones of the psalmist as a sign of serious transgression, expresses real fear at the prospect of future punishment, and begs for the divinity to act in mercy. Similarly, while Harington deploys Psalm 32 to undercut ­sixteenth-century debates about what it means to be imputed free of sin, and even to undercut the possibility of willing confession in postReformation religion, Verstegan translates the same psalm (Psalm 31 for him) by ushering in an essentially Augustinian penitential logic:77 O how much blest may they remaine That pardon for their guylt obtaine, And whose great il and each offence Lies hid in contryte penitence. What happy state may hee be in To whom our Lord imputes no sin, Whose conscience doth no guyle retaine That can himself beguyle againe.78 Even though the first of the two stanzas quoted above might just suggest a distinction between being declared righteous and being made righteous (contrition might hide, but not necessarily remove, the in­ iquity of the ideal penitent), the second stanza does away with this

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t­ heory altogether: it argues that to be imputed free of sin is, precisely, to be purged of “guyle”—and so completely that one cannot later “beguyle” oneself. Moreover, the emphasis of the entirety of Psalm 31 in Verstegan’s version falls, not upon finding a way to “conceale” one’s “demerit” from God (as Harington puts it), but rather upon being ready and eager to acknowledge one’s failings. Verstegan’s psalmist explains here that when he once felt the weight of God’s “heauy hand” upon him he knew his “conscience” to be “prickt as with a thorne” and immediately started to divulge his innermost iniquity: “Lo then o Lord I did begin / To vtter all my secret sin, / No longer list I ought conceale / But each iniustice to reueale.”79 This willing disclosure is a far cry from the “halfe inforst” confession of Harington’s psalm. If Verstegan’s translation of the seven psalms stands rather squarely within the tradition of Augustinian penitential hermeneutics, then it also delicately restores to the sequence a Roman Catholic articulation of the processes of spiritual conversion and renewal. Most obviously, Verstegan’s adaptation refuses to use the more evangelically nuanced term repentance at any point, favoring instead the nouns penitence (see the first stanza of Psalm 31, quoted above) or penance, as in these lines from Psalm 37: “My sutes o Lord tend all to thee / Thow knowest my case, / My plaintes and penance Lord accept / That so I may haue grace.”80 While both penitence and penance resonate closely with the Latin of the Vulgate Bible (and of the official documents of the church), the second term, specifically, suggests the holy sacrament through which sinful congregants were believed to be reconciled with their God. The affiliation of Verstegan’s adaptation with Catholic penitential theory is also evident in what is perhaps the most striking formal feature of the sequence: the addition of the Gloria patri to the end of each psalm, in the verse form selected for that particular poem. This traditional prayer appears at the end of Psalm 50, for example, as a commonmeasure quatrain: To thee o Father glory bee And glory to the Sonne, And glory to the holy Ghost Eternally be donne.81

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And it becomes a stanza of six tetrameter lines at the culmination of Psalm 142: All glory bee to thee o God, The Father of eternal might: And to the Sonne, and holy Ghoste, Three in an vndeuyded plight: As now it is, and was of yore, And shal endure for euermore.82 Returning seven times in seven different ways throughout the sequence, the Gloria patri serves as an artful refrain: it weaves the seven metrically diverse psalms together with the common thematic thread of sacred praise for the Trinity. Yet its purpose extends beyond mere poetics, for it also draws upon and, quite literally, echoes the worship of the cloisters, the cathedral, and the parish church—and thus imaginatively, perhaps even nostalgically, resituates both penitence and the Penitential Psalms within the spheres of the liturgical and the ecclesiastical.83 I must conclude this chapter by acknowledging that, like most reappropriations, Verstegan’s reclamation of the Penitential Psalms for English Catholic devotional uses at the beginning of the seventeenth century does not remain unaffected, or unaltered, by those sixteenthcentury appropriations that preceded it (and from which it recovers its primary materials). Let me give just two examples. First, as I have already pointed out, Verstegan stipulates in his dedi­ cation that his Odes ought to be sung and not simply read or recited. This stipulation might be interpreted in a general fashion, as a clever manipulation of the widespread craze for psalm singing inaugurated among the English populace by the Genevan Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter (first printed with music in 1556).84 It might also be understood more specifically as a response to those sixteenth-century publications that present the seven Penitential Psalms, in particular, as a series of seven songs. William Byrd’s Songs of sundrie natures (1589), mentioned above, falls into this category. And so does Calvinist William Hunnis’s enormously popular work, Seuen sobs of a sorrowfull soule for sinne (1583),

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Fig. 5.2. First two stanzas of Psalm 51, with melody. William Hunnis, Seuen sobs of a sorrowfull soule for sinne. London: H. Denham, 1583. STC 13975. Page 35. © The British Library Board. Shelfmark C.37.a.7.

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which contains several melodies to which versions of the Penitential Psalms, all vastly dilated, are to be sung (see fig. 5.2, for example).85 But there is, in the end, something a little irregular about Verstegan’s stated interest in song. For while Verstegan indicates, in his dedicatory letter, that his poems ought to be rehearsed to “such requisite tunes, as may vnto them be best fitting,” and while the head title to the Odes claims that these psalms are set “to so-many seueral tunes of Musick,” Verstegan fails to print any music at all with his edition.86 Less like Byrd and Hunnis, and more like the fictional editor of Gascoigne’s A hundreth sundrie flowres, then, Verstegan establishes an expectation for song and then frustrates it, leaving his female addressees on their own to find suitable accompaniment(s) for his poetic compositions. A second example of an adjustment that surfaces in this early ­seventeenth-century reappropriation of the Penitential Psalms, perhaps in reply to sixteenth-century English adaptations, is to be found in Verstegan’s rendition of Psalm 101. Here the political claims made upon the meaning of Zion in earlier Protestant publications (like Elizabeth’s prayer book, or Stubbs’s Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes), as well as in Harington’s ambiguously affiliated translation of the Penitential Psalms, return—now with an unequivocal recusant valence.87 Thus, where the voice of Stubbs’s meditation on Psalm 102 petitions God to bring aid to his Calvinist church, and where Harington’s psalmist laments the defacing of English church “monuments,” the speaker (or singer) in Verstegan’s rendition of the same psalm subtly details the rise and fall of Catholicism in England: Voutsafe o Lord in puissance to aryse, To raise thy Sion that depressed lies: Now is the tyme, the tyme doth now expyre, It mercy wantes, and mercy doth desyre. This glorious woork was first begun by thee, Thy seruants earst were glad the stones to see: And they wil grieue with hartes-afflicted care, If so the ruynes thow do’st not repare.88 In these stanzas, Verstegan diverges significantly from his principal source, the Vulgate Bible, which reads: “Thou shalt arise and have

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mercy on Sion: because it is time to have mercy on it, for the time is come. / For the stones thereof have pleased thy servants: and they shall have pity on the earth thereof.”89 Here, just like many psalm translators (Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist) before him, Verstegan allegorizes Zion, transmuting the Vulgate psalmist’s mention of the historical city of David into a present-day ecclesiastical reference (in fact, he repeatedly elides the terms Zion and Churche in this psalm). More significantly, though, he very carefully spells out the history that, according to tradition, lies behind the psalmist’s cries for mercy—the exile of the Israelites to Babylon. In Verstegan’s version of the psalm, the city of Zion was built (by God), then destroyed (presumably by man), and must now be built again (by God). English Catholics at the beginning of the seventeenth century—either exiled on the Continent or in hiding in ­England—would almost certainly have seen the fortunes of their own spiritual community paralleled in a narrative such as this. Indeed, this psalmic analogy must have seemed particularly pertinent, and particularly encouraging, in 1601, when hopes that the aging and frail Elizabeth might be replaced by a monarch who was either a member of the Catholic church or at least sympathetic to Rome ran high among the English faithful both at home and abroad.

Afterword A Brief Reflection on Discipline and Method

This study has a long history of its own. In fact, the seeds of the project were sown more than a decade ago, when, as a beginning graduate student in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania, I took a course with Margreta de Grazia on the materiality of language in the age of Shakespeare. With the task of pinpointing a seminar paper topic in mind, I made my way to the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library on campus. At the farthest (eastern) end of the third floor, I located a small, closetlike space known as the Short Title Catalogue Room and discovered that most of the books microfilmed for UMI’s Early English Books I collection had been printed out, bound, and stored away there. I recognized at once that the STC Room would be an invaluable resource for an aspiring early modernist. I also recognized that this obscure chamber was a significant health hazard: not only was it poorly lit, but it was also dusty, moldy, cold, and even a little bit creepy, since a number of peculiar objects, including several prosthetic devices and an “alas-poor-Yorick” skull, had been left atop the card catalogues (presumably after having been abandoned elsewhere in the library).1 187

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Still, I started to keep an around-the-clock watch there. For days on end, I took one book after another off the shelves. And what I found, within just a week or two, was that the Penitential Psalms kept showing up—over and over again, and in many different forms. It soon became apparent that these seven supplications must have been ubiquitous in late medieval and early modern England: not only were they reproduced (sometimes with quite sexy illustrations) as prayers for repentance in the primers, but they were also expounded in sermons and commentaries, dilated in meditations, translated and paraphrased in verse, and converted into song. I had many questions about why this should have been the case. What was it about these psalms that made them so popular? Where did they come from? What did they signify? In what ways did their meaning change over the course of the Reformation period? And why did such a large number of sixteenth-century English writers and publishers want to appropriate them, even after penance had been jettisoned as a sacrament? In the end, it would take a book-length study, and not merely a twenty-page seminar paper, to provide some answers. But the origins of the project in the STC Room left their mark. Setting up camp in one corner, removing books from the shelves and stacking them up on desks, made evident to me just how much physical space the Penitential Psalms occupied in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (a lot). And the memory of all those dusty microfilm printouts returned to me many times during my subsequent research and writing. In the STC Room, the age of Shakespeare started to turn into the age of Fisher, Joye, Wyatt, Croke, Stubbs, Gascoigne, Hunnis, and Verstegan. Rather than play scripts, I began to see primers and prayer books, Psalters and commentaries. And as I progressed beyond my graduate studies into the writing of this book, that transformative experience—my own personal metanoia—continued to inform my ­ work. Finding the Penitential Psalms on the shelves of the STC Room impressed upon me the necessity of caring more about late medieval and early modern practices of reading, writing, copying, and publishing than about modern literary concerns. It also made evident what could be gained by digging through materials in an archive, even if the archive at hand was only a ghostly reproduction of an already-ghostly collection of reproductions.2

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— • —

The STC Room was just a starting point. Later, I visited real archives in both the United States and the United Kingdom, transcribing marginalia, comparing editions, ordering photographs. I soon realized that to get behind this mass of material—to grasp the significance of the Penitential Psalms in the period—I actually had to reconfigure my understanding of what early modern literary scholarship might involve and of what kind of knowledge it might produce. These seven ancient prayers, reinvented many times, did not respect the lines drawn by modern institutional structures, and working with them demanded a certain intellectual agility that my specialized training in the discipline of ­English literature (with a particular focus on “the Renaissance”) had not given me. Indeed, it necessitated stretching into adjacent academic fields (especially history, art history, and religious studies), thinking across multiple periods (from the patristic era to the early seventeenth century), and becoming familiar with several “foreign” languages (Latin, German, Middle English). At a fundamental level, it meant figuring out how to read all over again—with a modified set of skills and priorities. Moreover, examining the Penitential Psalms (and writing a book about them) required not just an increased flexibility from me as a reader but also an overarching method of analysis. The approach I settled upon—the only approach that seemed to do justice to the phenomenon under investigation—was to put the concerns of the history of the material text into conversation with the resources of literary close reading. This is not to suggest that I found it possible, or even desirable, to give equal weight to both book-historical scrutiny and formalist critique at all moments in the project; some of the chapters in this study rely more heavily on one mode than the other. Nevertheless, I did aim to move as smoothly as possible between these two perspectives as I progressed—and to let them challenge or amend one another where necessary. This strategy turned out to be profitable. Broadly speaking, I found that foregrounding the pivotal place of the Penitential Psalms in the book culture of the period, while also meditating on the intricacies of

  190  M I S E R E R E M E I

literary form, helped me to take penance (and its evangelical counterpart, repentance) seriously, to temper my academic predisposition toward skepticism with a degree of sympathy for late medieval and early modern religious life, and to ensure that the emphases of contemporary critical theory were not privileged over the textual appetites and habits of an earlier era. More specifically, though, placing material and economic affairs alongside issues of language and poetics was what rendered visible the vast amount of labor invested in establishing, maintaining, and propagating, as well as eventually querying, the seven Penitential Psalms as a sequence in the period. These seven prayers were able to remain a vital source for devotional life, and to speak to matters of penitence, all the way through the Reformation and beyond precisely because of an elaborate praxis—penitential hermeneutics— that had as much to do with copying, editing, illustrating, printing, and marketing as it did with reading and writing. In sum, while I had been able to unearth, fairly rapidly, a widespread obsession with seven short biblical prayers in late medieval and early modern England, it was only by putting pressure simultaneously on both textual and linguistic details that I was able to comprehend either the profound import or the impressive tenaciousness of that obsession. There is much more work to be done on the Penitential Psalms, and I hope that future students of literary and religious culture will immerse themselves in the materials discussed in this current book, seek out further instances of revision and alteration (especially outside the temporal and geographic precincts of my study), and subject all of these to intense inspection. One of the most intriguing areas for future research on the Penitential Psalms might be the issue of “audience analysis.” Although my approach has elucidated some of the processes involved in producing and reproducing these seven prayers, it has been less successful, I think, at getting at the more anthropological question of how the many rewritings of the sequence were received by “end users.” What did late medieval and early modern consumers (readers, auditors, or viewers) actually think or feel when they encountered an adoption, adaptation, or appropriation? The Penitential Psalms must surely have been lived and experienced, and not just passively ­absorbed— but the form of this living and experiencing remains rather elusive. One final note. From its very origins, this project on the seven psalms compelled me to look anew at the Reformation era in ­England—

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to see it as a period, not so much of extensive invention and originality (as it is so often advertised and taught), as of subtle change amid a great deal of continuity. Working in archives, reading across established boundaries between historical periods and religious confessions, and even presuming to tread on territory belonging typically to disciplines other than literature, brought to light delicate adjustments more than momentous upheavals. In this regard, I suspect that the Penitential Psalms are best considered as only one example among many.

Appendix John Harington of Stepney and Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms

Sir Thomas Wyatt’s verse paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms was first published in December 1549, with the title Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, commonlye called thee .vii. penytentiall psalmes, drawen into englyshe meter by Sir Thomas Wyat knight.1 This octavo volume gives the names of three different men who were connected in one way or another with the publication. The first is the text’s printer, Thomas Raynald, who, in 1549, was conducting business at the sign of the Star in St. Paul’s Churchyard.2 The second is the dedicatee: Lord William Parr, Marquis of Northampton and younger brother of Katherine Parr. This appendix is concerned primarily with the third—a certain “John Harrington” (or “John Harryngton”), who signed the dedication to Parr and whose name appears alongside Raynald’s in the imprint on the title page.3 My goal here is to clear up some unrestrained imaginings in the scholarly literature regarding the identity of this particular figure. To begin with, the “Harrington” or “Harryngton” connected with the publication of 1549 is, I contend, John Harington of Stepney (b. ca. 1517, d. 1582)—literary collector, poet of minimal talent, and father of the more famous Sir John Harington of Kelston (1560–1612), who not 193

194  Appendix

only translated Ariosto’s Orlando furioso into English but also wrote his own version of the Penitential Psalms. This identification has been made before; in fact, it was proposed just over a century ago.4 But it has also been challenged and complicated, quite needlessly, by Ruth Hughey and Richard Harrier. These scholars (whose works on Harington and Wyatt dating from the 1970s are still cited today) both argue that John Harington of Stepney could not have been involved in the production of Certayne psalmes at the end of 1549 because he was imprisoned in the Tower at the time.5 They also posit that there was a different “John Harrington,” a London bookseller (or printer) who died at some point in 1550, and that it was in fact this man who collaborated with Thomas Raynald on the publication of Wyatt’s paraphrase. — • —

I will respond to the specific arguments made by Hughey and Harrier shortly. Before doing so, though, I must stress that it is not particularly difficult to link John Haringon of Stepney with the 1549 publication of Wyatt’s psalms for two principal reasons: (1) he was involved in the preservation of the Wyatt canon more broadly; and (2) he was also associated with Lord William Parr—to whom, as I have already mentioned, the 1549 text is dedicated. First, the famous Egerton manuscript,6 containing many of Wyatt’s poems (including the paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms) in the poet’s own hand, came into the possession of John Harington of Stepney at some point around the middle of the sixteenth century, and many of Wyatt’s poems were later copied from it (with some revisions) into the lesser-known but nonetheless important Arundel Harington manuscript.7 It has not been possible to pin down the precise date when the Egerton manuscript was transmitted to Harington.8 Nor has it been possible to ascertain whether Certayne psalmes was prepared from that manuscript, or from another manuscript, or from a combination of the Egerton manuscript and another manuscript.9 However, it is clear that John Harington of Stepney cared about collecting and preserving ­Wyatt’s work. And this fact should not be dismissed too easily. Second, John Harington of Stepney must have known Lord ­William Parr personally. Indeed, although Harington was undoubtedly Parr’s social inferior, there is significant evidence that the two men

Appendix  195

moved in the same circles. The Haringtons owned property in Westmoreland, close to the ancestral estates of the Parrs (in Westmoreland and Lancashire), and it is likely that the two families had established an amicable relationship with one another.10 Moreover, the political and religious allegiances of John Harington of Stepney and William Parr were very similar. When Harington was arrested in January 1549, for example, Parr only narrowly escaped imprisonment. And Harington and Parr both ended up in the Tower in 1554 after being suspected of involvement in the failed rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger (the son of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet). The two men were also present together at a series of religious disputations held at the home of Sir William Cecil in 1551.11 — • —

But wasn’t there a London bookseller (or printer) named “John Harrington”? And what about the fact that John Harington of Stepney was in prison in 1549? It should be noted that evidence for the existence of a bookseller named “John Harrington” (and the purported death of said bookseller in 1550) is, at best, extremely slim. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the name “John Harrington” appears in the printed publication details of only one other work from the period (besides the edition of Wyatt’s paraphrase): a collection of reformist metrical psalms titled Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, and drawen furth into Englysh meter by William Hunnis. This text was published (according to its colophon) in 1550 “by the wydowe of Jhon Herforde, for Jhon Harrington.”12 Hughey, however, claims that yet another work from the middle of the sixteenth century bears the name “Harrington” (presumably in its imprint or colophon), and Harrier follows her lead. Both scholars refer specifically to an edition of Thomas Sternhold’s metrical psalms that they claim was printed in 1550 “at London by the wydowe of John Harrington”—and both take the widow mentioned in this publication as proof that a certain bookseller known as “Harrington” was in operation up to 1549 and then dropped dead suddenly at some point during 1550.13 But this third text is nothing more than a fabrication, invented by William Herbert in an erroneous entry added to Joseph Ames’s eighteenth-century history of print.14

196  Appendix

It should be recognized, too, that nothing seems to have prevented John Harington of Stepney from engaging in a variety of literary pursuits while he was in the Tower. During his incarceration, Harington not only wrote poetry but also taught himself French and then translated a version of Cicero’s De amicitia (On Friendship) from French into English. This work was published in 1550 (after Harington’s release), as The booke of freendeship.15 Moreover, in the dedicatory epistle included with the published version of the translation and addressed to Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, Harington comments explicitly that there were plenty of books at his disposal in the Tower and that he made the most of them.16 Contra Hughey and Harrier, therefore, it is quite possible that John Harington of Stepney encountered Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms (perhaps even in the Egerton manuscript) while he was in prison and found a way to transmit the paraphrase to Thomas Raynald for printing.17 It is also possible that the very same John Harington sponsored the production of the 1550 edition of Hunnis’s metrical psalms, either while inside the Tower or after his release, and that the second psalmic publication was meant to complement the first—or, at the very least, to attract a similar readership.18 — • —

Identifying the “John Harrington” of Wyatt’s Certayne psalmes with John Harington of Stepney simplifies a couple of issues that have hitherto been rendered complex for no justifiable reason. The dedicatory epistle, addressed to William Parr and signed by “John Harrington,” for instance, makes much more sense coming from Harington of Stepney than from anyone else. An elaborate (and even rather tortured) request for Parr’s continued patronage, this letter speaks of the generosity shown to both its author (“Harrington”) and his predecessors by both Parr and his predecessors. As a means of seeking continued support, that is, it includes a public declaration of generational debt. There is no need to explain this declaration by conjecturing, as Hughey does, that an obscure London bookseller must have “claimed descent from the same ancient family” as John Harington of Stepney.19 Additionally, associating Wyatt’s Certayne psalmes with John Harington of Stepney should mean that it is not necessary to find (as Har-

Appendix  197

rier has done) an additional person to play the role of editor for Wyatt’s paraphrase. Harrier argues that the Penitential Psalms were edited by Nicholas Grimald, the poet who is best known for his contributions to the first edition of Tottel’s Miscellany (1557).20 As witness to his case, he calls upon John Bale, who, in his contemporary bibliographical Index, attributes to Grimald a work titled Restitutionem psalmorum Thome Viati librarijs corruptorum cum prefatione ad Marchionem, li. i. (A Restoration of the Psalms of Thomas Wyatt, Corrupted by Copyists, with a Preface to the Marquis. 1 vol.).21 Harrier also notes that at some stage Grimald left his own editorial marks on the Egerton manuscript and asserts that the insertion of numerous punctuated caesurae into Wyatt’s lines of verse in Certayne psalmes is a sure sign of Grimald’s heavy-handed meddling. Again, however, this argument is built on flimsy evidence. As Grimald’s biographer L. R. Merrill points out, much of Bale’s information regarding Grimald and his achievements is not only “hazy” but also “quite misleading.”22 In addition, Grimald left no marks at all on ­Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms in the Egerton manuscript.23 Furthermore, Grimald was certainly not the only poet of the era with a penchant for punctuating a line of verse in the middle: John Harington of Stepney’s own poems are plagued, almost as much as Grimald’s, with the punctuated caesura.24 I would argue, then, that the bulk of the editing for Certayne psalmes must have been carried out by the same person who wrote, while requesting William Parr’s patronage in the dedication, that he “determined to put [the paraphrase] in printe”—that is, by John Harington of Stepney.25

Notes

Throughout the notes, STC works are cited by STC number (with author, if any, and title following in parentheses), to accord with their listing and ordering by STC number in the Works Cited. Introduction 1. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 38. 2. Wieck writes that the Penitential Psalms formed a part of Jewish liturgy by the third century; see Painted Prayers, 91, and “Book of Hours,” 500. However, as far as I can tell, the Penitential Psalms have not been employed as a group in Jewish worship at any time. 3. For evidence that the tradition continues to be of interest to theologians in modern times, see Brueggemann, Message of the Psalms (1984), and Anderson, Out of the Depths (2000). Brueggemann devotes a section of his commentary to “The Seven Psalms” (94–106) while Anderson dedicates several pages to “The Seven Psalms of Penitence” (78–89). Slightly older, but perhaps also relevant, is Snaith, Seven Psalms (1964). For alerting me to these works, I am grateful to Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, esp. 30 n. 1, 42 n. 35. 4. Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 4 and Appendix, entry 86. 5.  The selection of the seven Penitential Psalms from the Psalter is, for example, attributed to Augustine in a fifteenth-century French manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cod. Fr. 17064), which describes the sequence this way: “Les sept Pseaulmes lesquelles sont appellees penitenciales, que Saint Augustin a choisi et esleu entre les Pseaulmes” (The seven psalms called Penitential, which Saint Augustine chose and elected from among the psalms). 199

200  Notes to Pages 4–6

See Rains’s introduction to Christine de Pisan, Les sept psaumes allégorisés, 24. Rains cites as her source Omont, Catalogue général des manuscrits français 2, 3. 6.  Possidius was one of Augustine’s closest disciples. His account of the saint’s life was composed sometime between the end of the siege of Hippo Regius in 431 and the capture of Carthage in 439. 7. Possidius, Sancti Augustini vita, 140: “Quod et ipse fecit ultima qua defunctus est aegritudine: nam sibi iusserat Psalmos Davidicos, qui sunt paucissimi de poenitentia scribi, ipsosque quaterniones iacens in lecto contra pa­ rietem positos diebus suae infirmitatis intuebatur et legebat, et ubertim ac iugiter flebat.” Though Weiskotten, Possidius’s editor, does provide a translation of the Latin, the English version given is mine. 8. Nasuti indicates that “the first unequivocal reference to the seven penitential psalms as a group” belongs to Cassiodorus. He also points out that Tertullian (ca. 160–ca. 220) and Athanasius (ca. 293–373) both mention the penitential character of Psalm 50. See Defining the Sacred Songs, 33, esp. n. 13. 9. Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 97:71 (Psalm 6, lines 43–47): “Memento autem quod hic paenitentium primus est psalmus, sequitur tricesimus primus, tricesimus septimus, quinquagesimus, centesimus primus, centesimus uicesimus nonus, centesimus quadragesimus secundus.” The English translation is from Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 51:90. 10. Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 98:1280 (Psalm 142, lines 244–51): “Finita est quidem afflictio supplicantium et felicium cursus ille lacrimarum. . . . Incohauit enim a psalmo sexto uenit ad trigesimum primum, deinde ad tri­ gesimum septimum, inde ad quinquagesimum, inde ad centesimum primum, deinde ad centesimum uigesimum nonum, ac postremum ad praesentem centesimum quadragesimum secundum.” The English translation is from Cassi­ odorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 53:412. 11.  As Nasuti suggests, “Although it is possible that Cassiodorus is referring to a previous establishment of the tradition on his own initiative, this does not seem likely.” See Defining the Sacred Songs, 34 n. 16. 12. The Gradual Psalms, also known as the Songs of Ascent, are those numbered 119–33 in the Vulgate and 120–34 in the MT. They were said to represent the steps taken (by pilgrims) up to the Temple in Jerusalem. 13.  My understanding of the arguments of form-critical scholarship in ­relation to the Penitential Psalms (as represented here and in the following five paragraphs) has been aided by the excellent summary of the work of Gunkel and Mowinckel provided in Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, esp. 31–32, 35. 14. Gunkel, Die Psalmen, 135. 15.  The general category of individual laments (or individual complaints) is discussed at length in Gunkel, Einleitung in die Psalmen, ch. 6; Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel’s Worship, ch. 8 (in vol. 2).

Notes to Pages 6–8  201

16.  See, for example, Gunkel’s definition of psalms of penitence in Einleitung in die Psalmen, 251–52 (esp. 251 n. 9). For Gunkel, in those individual psalms of lament that distinguish themselves as penitential, the speaker confesses his sinfulness, expresses a yearning for forgiveness, and begs for an abatement of divine wrath and/or an inner transformation that will be pleasing to God—all while relying on a divine willingness to grant absolution. 17.  I disagree with Kellerman, who, in “Miserere Mei,” 3, posits that the seven Penitential Psalms “are linked by their common theme of penitence.” 18.  While I use Gunkel’s criteria, I actually end up with a different sense of which of the six laments are the most penitential. Of the seven traditional Penitential Psalms, Gunkel classes only Psalms 51 and 130 (MT) as wholly penitential. See Gunkel’s list of the genuine penitential psalms in Einleitung in die Psalmen, 251 n. 9, as well as his comments on Psalms 6 and 143 (MT) in Die Psalmen, 21, 602. See also Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 1:214 n.  47. The difference between my perspective and that of the form-critical scholars only goes to show how difficult it is to define psalmic genres once and for all. 19.  Vulgate, Psalm 37:4: “non est sanitas carni meae a facie irae tuae / non est pax ossibus meis a facie peccatorum meorum.” 20.  Vulgate, Psalm 37:18–19: “quoniam ego in flagella paratus / et dolor meus in conspectu meo semper / quoniam iniquitatem meam adnutiabo / et cogitabo pro peccato meo.” 21. Vulgate, Psalm 101:10–11: “quia cinerem tamquam panem manducavi  / et poculum meum cum fletu miscebam / a facie irae et indignationis tuae / quia elevans adlisisti me.” 22.  In fact, it may even have originated within the Judaic tradition. Mays notes that Psalm 6 “became a penitential prayer” and “was moved to a different hermeneutical situation” when it ceased to be read as the supplication of a specific sick person and instead took on a liturgical function (in Israel) as “the general prayer of all who as sinners confessed the ‘sickness’ of sin”; see Psalms, 62. Within Western Christianity, this tendency was extended to all of the Penitential Psalms. 23.  See Kuczynski, Prophetic Song, 20–21. Kuczynski notes that “it would be impossible to overstate the importance of the Enarrationes throughout the Middle Ages.” He also provides statistics suggesting that copies of the Enar­ rationes circulated in enormous numbers in medieval England, especially after the Norman Conquest. 24.  Psalms 6, 37, and 101 refer to God’s wrath. The other psalms in the sequence include references to God’s judgment, God’s justice, or God’s record of human sins.

202  Notes to Pages 8–12

25.  Staley writes that commentaries on the seven psalms typically “begin by framing them within the boundaries of divine justice as it affects self-­ understanding”; see “Penitential Psalms,” 225. 26.  See Matthew 25:31–46. Discussions of this passage appear frequently in commentaries on the Penitential Psalms. 27.  Vulgate, Psalm 6:2: “Domine ne in furore tuo arguas me / neque in ira tua corripias me.” Psalm 37 also begins with this appeal. 28.  Staley, “Penitential Psalms,” 225. 29.  Unlike Psalm 37, Psalm 6 does not suggest that divine wrath must be equated with divine justice. 30. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 38:29 (Psalm 6, para. 3, lines 6–8): “Corripias mitius uidetur; ad emendationem enim ualet. Nam qui arguitur, id est accusatur, metuendum est ne finem habeat damnationem.” The English translation is from Augustine, Expositions, 1:36. 31. Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 97:78 (Psalm 6, lines 329–31): “Est enim quoddam iudiciale genus, in quo reus conspectibus iudicis praesentatus assistit, peccatum suum lacrimis diluens et confitendo dissoluens.” The English translation is from Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 51:98. 32. Hull, Seven Psalms, 10. 33. On this reading strategy, see Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 39. ­Nasuti posits that Augustine interprets the psalmist’s physical pain as indicating “the torments of a guilty conscience.” But this formulation may be a little too modern. 34.  Vulgate, Psalm 6:3–4: “miserere mei Domine quoniam infirmus sum / sana me Domine quonium conturbata sunt ossa mea. / et anima mea turbata est valde / et tu Domine usquequo.” 35.  See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 38:29 (Psalm 6, para. 4, lines 4–5): “Dicit ergo anima fortitunidem suam esse turbatam, cum ossa nominat”; Augustine, Expositions, 1:37: “The soul therefore says, that her strength is troubled, when she speaks of bones.” 36. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 38:30 (Psalm 6, para. 4, lines 10– 12), asks: “Quis non intellegat significari animam luctantem cum morbis suis, diu autem dilatam a medico, ut ei persuaderetur in quae mala se peccando praecipitauerit?” The English translation is from Augustine, Expositions, 1:37. 37. Hull, Seven Psalms, 11. 38.  Vulgate, Psalm 6:8b and 9: “inveteravi inter omnes inimicos meos / discedite a me omnes qui operamini iniquitatem / quoniam exaudivit Dominus vocem fletus mei.” 39. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 38:32–33 (Psalm 6, para. 9, lines 5–14): “In omnibus autem inimicis meis, uel inter ipsa uitia dicit, uel inter homi-

Notes to Pages 12–14  203

nes qui nolunt ad Deum conuerti . . . . Nam si possint, eos secum ad poenas trahunt.” The English translation is from Augustine, Expositions, 1:40–41. 40. Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 97:77 (Psalm 6, lines 263–66): “Inter omnes inimicos meos, siue inter spiritus diabolicos siue inter nostra peccata. Ipsa sunt enim ueraciter aduersa, quae animas in tartarum deducunt et adhuc feraliter blandiuntur.” The English translation is from Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 51:96. 41.  Nasuti encapsulates the way in which the psalmist’s enemies are read in the Augustinian tradition: “The enemies that play such a large role in the lament psalms are often understood as the sins that oppress the psalmist. Alternatively, they are seen as those human or supernatural agents who attempt to ensnare the psalmist into sinful acts. Gone, for the most part, are any historical enemies who are actually inflicting physical pain on the psalmist for reasons not necessarily connected with that person’s sinfulness.” See Defining the Sacred Songs, 39. 42. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 39–40, argues that the seven psalms all become versions of Psalm 50 (the Miserere), with its quintessential confession of sin. I discuss the important role of this central psalm in chapter 1, below. 43.  See Wilkins, Concilia, 3:733; STC 1892–94 (Bentley, The monument of matrones), Lamp 5 (STC 1893), sig. G8r (p. 109). 44. Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 97:71–72 (Psalm 6, lines 48–54): “Quos non credas incassum ad septenarium numerum fuisse perductos, quando et maiores nostri septem modis peccata nobis dimitti posse dixerunt: primo per baptismum; secundo per passionem martyrii; tertio per eleemosynam; quarto per hoc quod remittimus peccata fratribus nostris; quinto cum conuerterit quis peccatorem ab errore uiae suae; sexto per abundantiam caritatis; septimo per paenitentiam.” The English translation is from Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 51:90–91. 45.  The tradition of the seven means of forgiveness goes back to Origen’s Homilies on Leviticus. However, Origen is not associated with the Penitential Psalms in any way. See Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 35 n. 20. 46.  On the symbolic importance of the number seven, see Rains’s summary in Christine de Pisan, Les sept psaumes allégorisés, 25–32. 47.  This point about the effectiveness of the Penitential Psalms recurs at the end of Cassiodorus’s exposition on Psalm 142, again in conjunction with the number seven. See Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 98:1280 (Psalm 142, lines 251–53): “Forte ut, sicut in hac hebdomada peccamus, quam mundi istius temporis ductus excurrit, ita et in eodem numero remedialis paenitentiae munere saluaremur”; and Explanation of the Psalms, 53:412: “It is perhaps the case

204  Notes to Pages 14–16

that just as we sin in the seven days which represent the extent of a week in the world, so we may be saved by the gift of healing repentance through this same number.” 48.  It is beyond my purview here to provide a comprehensive history of penance. Besides, thorough studies have already been completed in this area. Braswell, Medieval Sinner, which addresses intersections between the development of penitential doctrine (and psychology) on the one hand and medieval English literature on the other, remains a classic. See also Watkins, History of Penance; Tentler, Sin and Confession. 49.  For the use of the Penitential Psalms by the religious orders, see van Dijk and Walker, Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy, 20, 121, 138, 270, 274, and 348, and Appendix, entry 17. 50.  For an overview of the daily worship of the monks as laid out in the Regularis concordia, see the two tables (one for winter and one for summer) provided in Symons, Monastic Agreement, xliii–xliv. The trina oratio was recited (1) before Nocturns, (2) before either Tierce (in the winter) or Prime (in the summer), and (3) after Compline. The first two of these recitations appear to have been structured around the seven Penitential Psalms, split into three subsets. That is, the monks prayed three psalms for themselves; two for the king, queen, and benefactors; and two for the faithful deceased. They followed each subset with the Paternoster and a collect. The third recitation of the trina oratio seems to have made use of a different selection of psalms. See Symons, Monastic Agreement, 12–13 (esp. 12 n. 2), 16, 23–24, 53–54. 51. Symons, Monastic Agreement, 33–34. This ferial-day practice stretched from the start of Lent until Maundy Thursday. 52. Symons, Monastic Agreement, 43–44. For this Good Friday devotion, the Penitential Psalms were again divided into three subsets. Each subset was recited in conjunction with a collect petitioning for mercy, forgiveness, and the gift of true repentance. 53.  On the history of public penance, see Burgess, “‘A fond thing vainly invented,’” 60; Collinge, Historical Dictionary of Catholicism, the entry titled “Reconciliation”; Gy, “Penance and Reconciliation,” 102–8, 110–12. 54.  For the canon in question, see Regino, Libri duo de synodalibus causis, 136–37. Regino attributes the rite to the pre-Carolingian Council of Agde, though it is not found in the canons of that—or any other—church council. See McNeill and Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance, 315 n. 6; Regino, Libri duo de synodalibus causis, 136 n. to “Ex Concil. Agath.” Mansfield, Humiliation of Sinners, 171, argues that the rite described is simply the procedure practiced in Germany during Regino’s own lifetime. 55. Regino, Libri duo de synodalibus causis, 136: “Et secundum modum culpae poenitentiam per praefixos gradus iniungat; post haec in ecclesiam eos

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introducat, et cum omni clero septem poenitentiae psalmos in terram prostratus cum lacrymis pro eorum absolutione decantet.” The English translation is from McNeill and Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance, 315. 56.  The Old Gelasian Sacramentary, preserved in a mid-eighth-century manuscript (Vatican Library, Cod. Reg. Lat. 316), includes a brief rite for dismissing penitents on the Wednesday before the first Sunday in Lent. This rite, which has its roots in the sixth century, does not mention the Penitential Psalms. It is possible, therefore, that the seven psalms were not deployed in public penance until its Carolingian revival. See Mohlberg, Eizenhöfer, and Siffrin, Liber sacramentorum Romanae Aeclesiae, 17–18 (bk. 1, rites 15 and 16); Gy, “Penance and Reconciliation,” 105. 57. In the Romano-Germanic pontifical, Regino’s skeletal model for public penance is fleshed out with late Carolingian rites for private penitents, such as a creed and a confession; see Mansfield, Humiliation of Sinners, 171–78. 58.  See Wieck, Painted Prayers, 91, and “Book of Hours,” 500. Later, after the Council of Trent (1545–63), Pope Pius V (papacy 1566–72) limited the liturgical recitation of the Penitential Psalms to ferial Fridays in Lent; according to his directive, they were to be said, kneeling, after the hour of Lauds. See Sodi and Triacca, Breviarium Romanum, 1025; John, Marquess of Bute, Roman Breviary, 1183. Pius V also attached an indulgence of fifty days to the saying of the Penitential Psalms; see Batiffol, History of the Roman Breviary, 201 n. 2. 59.  Gy, “Penance and Reconciliation,” 102. The six other sacraments were baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, extreme unction (i.e., anointing of the sick), holy orders, and matrimony. 60.  The doctrine of purgatory developed at roughly the same time as (and in relation to) that of the sacrament of penance. See Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory, for a fascinating account of the emergence of purgatory as a theological concept. 61.  See Burgess, “‘A fond thing vainly invented,’” 60; Collinge, Historical Dictionary of Catholicism, the entry titled “Reconciliation”; Gy, “Penance and Reconciliation,” 108–10; McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 117–18; Tentler, Sin and Confession, 9–12. Gy, “Penance and Reconciliation,” 110, states that according to the rites of the tariff system the priest and penitent “prostrated themselves before the altar and recited several penitential psalms,” possibly after the penitent’s confession. However, he gives no evidence for this assertion, and I have been unable to locate any. 62.  The promotion of Lent as a period of general repentance began in the Roman tradition at least as early as the eleventh century. In 1091, in a council at Benevento, Pope Urban II (papacy 1088–99) stipulated that at the start of Lent all Christians—and not just penitents, clerics, and monks—ought to receive ashes. See Mansfield, Humiliation of Sinners, 181–82.

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63.  “Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis, postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, omnia sua solus peccata confiteatur fideliter, saltem semel in anno proprio sacerdoti, et iniunctam sibi poenitentiam studeat pro viribus adimplere, suscipiens reverenter ad minus in pascha eucharistiae sacramentum, nisi forte de consilio proprii sacerdotis ob aliquam rationabilem causam ad tempus ab eius perceptione duxerit abstinendum; alioquin et vivens ab ingressu ecclesiae arceatur et moriens christiana careat sepultura.” Both the original Latin and the English translation are from Tanner, Decrees, 1:245. 64.  How regularly most lay folk confessed is hard to judge; it is probably not wise to assume too firm of a connection between decree and practice. On the other hand, the most devout of believers would have paid close attention to the sacrament of penance throughout the year (one might consider the example of Margery Kempe in this regard). 65. Donovan, de Brailes Hours, 104–5; Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 40. Evangelical reformers in the early modern period would surely have found this idea appealing. 66.  Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 52; Wieck, Painted Prayers, 91, and “Book of Hours,” 500. The Seven Deadly Sins were often given as pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth. However, this list was far from constant and could vary according to locale. 67.  The practice of praying for the dead can be traced back to the patristic era. It later contributed to (and was itself enhanced by) the development of the doctrine of purgatory; see Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory, esp. 134–35, 289. 68.  A document from the second half of the eighth century detailing the observances of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino suggests that the monks recited the Penitential Psalms and the litany after Vespers whenever one of their brethren was buried. Moreover, in 817, a general assembly of abbots at Aachen resolved that the Penitential Psalms should be said for benefactors as well as the deceased. See Bishop, “On the Origin,” xvii, xix. 69. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 220, argues that this series constituted “the single most important element in the primer” after the Hours of the Blessed Virgin. See also Twombly, “Thomas Wyatt’s Paraphrase,” 348: “The frequency with which the penitential psalms are recommended in the primers indicated a wide use among the laity.” 70. Langland, Piers Plowman, 5:44–52. 71.  On the basis of this passage, Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 220, writes that Langland “seems to have made a living as a lay chantry clerk both in ­London and in the country.” However, this segment of Piers Plowman is, as D. Vance Smith puts it, “increasingly coming to be read as the poem’s summational fiction”; see Book of the Incipit, 59. It is worth noting that Langland also

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mentions the seven psalms in the episode of Mede at Westminster. See Piers Plowman, 3:463–66, where Conscience says: “Prestes and persones placebo and dirige, / Here sauter and here seuene psalmes for alle synful preyen; / Haukyng or huntyng yf eny of hem hit vse / Shal lese therfore his lyflode and his lyf parauntur.” 72. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 372. See also Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, 178, 414 n. 158. 73.  Historical evidence suggests that in England as early as the 1530s and 1540s, the same reform-minded priests who were removing images from churches and encouraging the laity to read the Bible were also refusing to say the De profundis for the dead. However, in many regions, changes like this were not accepted by the general populace for quite some time. Church authorities had to make a special effort throughout the reign of Elizabeth I to stop lay folk from reciting the De profundis for their deceased neighbors—as attested both by visitation records for the Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry in 1565 and by the complaints of ministers in Lancaster and Cheshire in 1590. See Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 436–37, 572, 578. 74.  For an important work in medieval studies that does not follow this general trend, see Beckwith, Signifying God, esp. ch. 6 (on the critical role of penance in the York Corpus Christi Plays). 75.  Burgess, “‘A fond thing vainly invented,’” 59–60, makes a similar point about the primary importance of the sacrament of penance (as opposed to the Mass, as modern scholarship would suggest) in the fifteenth-century church. I agree with his sentiments and propose extending them to the sixteenth century. 76. As Thomas Tentler notes, Philipp Melanchthon thought that Luther’s greatest accomplishment was to redefine penance. Tentler writes that, in this assessment of Luther, “Melanchthon identified a practice and theological idea that encompassed every major contested issue in the theology of forgiveness: justification, grace and works, contrition, confession, satisfaction, absolution, indulgences, purgatory, and hell and heaven.” See Tentler’s entry titled “Penance” in Hillerbrand, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. 77.  Scholars who have already made important progress in rethinking the divide between the “late medieval” and the “early modern” include Eamon Duffy and James Simpson. Chapter One.  Illustrating the Penitential Psalms An earlier version of this chapter was published in article form. See Clare L. Costley, “David, Bathsheba, and the Penitential Psalms,” Renaissance Quarterly

208  Notes to Pages 25–27

57, no. 4 (Winter 2004): 1235–77. © 2004 by The Renaissance Society of America. All rights reserved. I am grateful to the Renaissance Society of America and the University of Chicago Press for permission to adapt my contribution for use in this book. 1.  See the introductory material to Psalm 6 in Neale and Littledale, Commentary on the Psalms, 1:125. I was directed to this reference by Snaith, Seven Psalms, 1. 2.  For more on this series of suffrages, see my Introduction, above. 3. Wieck, Painted Prayers, 9; see also Wieck, “Book of Hours,” 473. 4.  The oft-quoted aphorism (derived from Pope Gregory I) that religious images functioned as “books for the illiterate” certainly does not do justice to the multiple ways in which Christian art could signify (for both the literate and the illiterate) in the Middle Ages. Recent scholarship has, however, begun to address the diverse purposes of visual art in medieval spiritual life. See, for example, Rosewell, Medieval Wall Paintings, ch. 5. 5.  It is noteworthy that in many of the extant primers a significant residue of finger-grease is to be found alongside the illustrations to the Penitential Psalms. This evidence suggests that the lay folk who owned and read the Horae turned repeatedly to the series of suffrages for the deceased (perhaps using the illustrations as an easy way to locate these prayers). 6.  The number 141 is also included in the list, after 129 (it is close to the central binding and thus barely visible in fig. 1.1). It appears that the number 142 was added at a later point to correct this slipup. 7.  The psalms are numbered in this Psalter according to the system in the Septuagint and Vulgate Bibles. 8.  The Psalter must have been annotated by at least two sixteenth-­century readers; the name “Georgius Harrison I:P” on the title page has been scored out by a later annotator, who identifies himself as “Jacob Brent.” The ­inscription on the verso of the title page is in Harrison’s hand, not Brent’s. Harrison also made a mark beside an individual verse in three different psalms (Psalms 30, 31, and 67) and inscribed various alphabetical notes in the Psalter’s margins (see, for example, the margins to Psalm 1 in fig. 1.1). Brent seems to have read the Psalter to develop his Latin; his mostly interlinear annotations, which run from Psalm 1 to Psalm 8, supply English glosses for difficult words in the Latin psalm texts. 9.  The following labels are legible: Psalm 6, “primus psalmus poenitentialis”; Psalm 37, “Tertius psalmus poenitentialis”; Psalm 101, “Quintus psalmus poenitentialis”; Psalm 129, “Sextus psal: poeni.”; Psalm 142, “Septimus psalmus poeni==tentialis” [sic]. Harrison’s annotations to Psalms 31 and 50 are damaged because the pages of the book have been cropped. The label for Psalm 31 reads only “poenitentialis,” and that for Psalm 50 “Quartus psalmus.”

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10.  STC 16062 and STC 16073 (The primer in English and Latin [1555 and 1556]). The Use of Salisbury, also known as the Use of Sarum, was the most widely accepted form of divine service in England; see Butterworth, English Primers, 2–3. 11. STC 2068 (The byble in Englyshe [Great Bible]), 2 Samuel 11. 2 Samuel is also titled 2 Kings in the Great Bible, in accordance with the Vulgate. (The four sequential books known in the Hebrew tradition and in Protestant Bibles as 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings are called the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Books of Kingdoms in the Septuagint, and First, Second, Third, and Fourth Kings in the Vulgate.) 12.  By the way, this image of David and Bathsheba appears again in the Great Bible, among a set of sixteen woodcuts assembled as the title-page border for Part 3; see STC 2068 (The byble in Englyshe), Part 3, fol. 1r. Part 3 of the Great Bible comprises twenty-one books: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and the prophetic books (including Lamentations); it does not contain 2 Samuel (which is actually in Part 2). Presumably, then, the illustration of David and Bathsheba in the title-page border functions as a metonym for the whole Book of Psalms. For a complete list of the woodcuts on the title page to Part 3, see Luborsky and Ingram, Guide to English Illustrated Books, 1:100–101. 13.  The Great Bible was published in London by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch. It is noteworthy that both of these businessmen went on to recycle their Bible’s woodcut of David and Bathsheba in Psalters that they issued—Grafton in the Coverdale Psalter of 1540 (discussed above), and Whitchurch in George Joye’s English translation of Martin Bucer’s Psalter; see STC 2374 (The psalter of Dauid in english), facing page to Psalm 1. The Bucer/ Joye Psalter is usually dated to 1544. However, it may have been printed as early as 1541; see Butterworth, English Primers, 227. In Paris, the Great Bible was published by François Regnault. 14.  For a half-page miniature of the Last Judgment, see Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E 104, fol. 70r; on the same page, the initial D of the first Penitential Psalm contains an image of David with his harp. For an image of Christ enthroned, see Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Widener 6, fol. 114r; Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 103–5. 15.  On the special qualities of Psalm 50, see Kuczynski, Prophetic Song, 37–38. Incidentally, while Psalm 50 was often thought to epitomize the Book of Psalms, the Psalter was itself, from the patristic era through the early modern period, frequently taken to epitomize the whole Bible; see Prescott, “King David.”

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16.  Vulgate, Psalm 50:1–2: “In finem psalmus David cum venit ad eum Nathan propheta quando intravit ad Bethsabee.” 17.  The superscriptions in the Book of Psalms were most likely not part of the “original” psalmic compositions. The field of biblical studies tends to date them to the postexilic period. For more details, see Childs, “Psalm Titles.” 18. Wojcik, “Discriminations against David’s Tragedy,” 28. Psalm 51:6 is quoted from Rosenberg, Psalms. Rabbi Raba (or Rava) lived ca. 270—ca. 350 CE. 19.  E. Fox, Give Us a King! 2 Samuel 12:13. 20. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 38:600 (Psalm 50, para. 2, lines 3–4): “Bersabee erat mulier uxor aliena. Cum dolore quidem dicimus et tremore.” The English translation is from Augustine, Expositions, 2:367. 21. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 38:600 (Psalm 50, para. 2, lines 4–13): “Sed tamen Deus noluit taceri quod uoluit scribi. Dicam ergo non quod uolo, sed quod cogor; dicam non exhortans ad imitationem, sed instruens ad timorem. Huius mulieris uxoris alienae pulchritudine captus rex et propheta Dauid, ex cuius semine secundum carnem Dominus uenturus erat, adulterauit eam. Hoc in isto psalmo non legitur, sed in titulo eius apparet; in libro autem Regnorum plenius legitur. Vtraque scriptura canonica est, utrique sine ulla dubitatione a christianis fides adhibenda est. Commissum atque conscriptum est.” The English translation is from Augustine, Expositions, 2:367. 22.  For a thorough discussion of the embarrassment that Augustine articulates in this sermon regarding David’s sin, see Kuczynski, Prophetic Song, 22–28. 23. Vulgate, Psalm 142: “Psalmus David quando filius eum perseque­ batur.” 24.  Vulgate, Psalm 6: “In finem in carminibus pro octava psalmus David” (“Unto the end, in verses. A psalm for David, for the octave”); Psalm 31: “Huic David intellectus” (“To David himself, understanding”); Psalm 37: “Psalmus David in rememorationem de sabbato” (“A psalm of David. For a remembrance of the Sabbath”). 25. Vulgate, Psalm 101: “Oratio pauperis cum anxius fuerit et coram domino effuderit precem suam”; Psalm 129: “Canticum graduum.” 26.  Vulgate, 2 Samuel 12:11–12: “itaque haec dicit Dominus / ecce ego suscitabo super te malum de domo tua / et tollam uxores tuas in oculis tuis et dabo proximo tuo / et dormiet cum uxoribus tuis in oculis solis huius / tu enim fecisti abscondite / ego vero faciam verbum istud in conspectu omnis Israhel et in conspectu solis.” 27.  David’s fast is narrated in 2 Samuel 12:16–23.

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28.  Vulgate, 2 Samuel 12:14: “verumtamen quoniam blasphemare fecisti inimicos Domini propter verbum hoc / filius qui natus est tibi morte mori­ entur.” 29. Jerome, Epistolae, 692 (Letter 77): “David sancti et mansuetissimi viri homicidium pariter et adulterium, septem dierum emendavit fames (2 Reg. 11.12). Jacebat in terra, volutabatur in cinere, et oblitus regiae potestatis, lumen quaerebat in tenebris.” The English translation is from Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 159; it is also quoted in Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 45. 30.  Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 45. David’s repentant behavior is recounted by Jerome in a paragraph treating “Fabiolae poenitentia publica” (the public penitence of Fabiola); see Epistolae, 692. 31.  On the widespread use of the supplicant David as a subject for the Penitential Psalms, see Owens, “Image of King David,” 23; Wieck, Painted Prayers, 93, and “Book of Hours,” 501. 32.  Owens, “Image of King David,” 26, 36. 33.  British Library, MS Additional 49999. For discussions of the historiated initials, see Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 48–49; Owens, “Image of King David,” 30; Donovan, de Brailes Hours, 104–10. 34.  Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Widener 9, fol. 234r; Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 54–56. 35.  Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E 212, fol. 127r. This image is busier than most: in one corner, the young David flings a rock at Goliath, while God watches over the whole scene from the upper right. 36.  For the Muslim legend, see Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 41–42. Huttar also notes that in The Life of Solitude Petrarch uses the idea of David’s departure from the city into the wilderness to underscore the value of the solitary life (47). For details on the manuscript in fig. 1.4, see Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 100– 101; the miniature for the Penitential Psalms was probably painted by Liberale di Jacopo, known as Liberale da Verona (1445–1527/29). 37. Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 96–98. 38.  In the de Brailes Hours, David is shown buried in the earth at Psalm 31. Furthermore, at Psalm 50 he undergoes a thorough scourging for his sins, administered by a tonsured cleric! 39.  For the origins of the rood legends, see Quinn, Quest of Seth, 9–10 and ch. 3. 40. Suchier, Denkmäler Provenzalischer Literatur, 189–90: “Exactis .XXX. annis adulta arbore sancta post peccatum grande quod commiserat David cepit sub arbore sancta penitendo flere peccatum quod commiserat, dicens domino: ‘Miserere mei deus etc.’ Peracto psalterio toto cepit David edificare templum

212  Notes to Pages 40–42

domini in expiatione peccatorum suorum commissorum.” For alternative versions of the same passage, see Horstmann, “De ligno sce crucis,” 468; Meyer, “Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes,” 143–44. 41. When The Northern Passion was translated from the Old French text, many additional sources were used, including the anonymous Latin rood legend quoted above. The English version was well known; Foster writes that The Northern Passion was included in the Northern Homily Collection “and thus became part of the regular course of sermons delivered from parish pulpits.” See Foster, Northern Passion, 2:65–74 (on the sources) and 2:81 (on the homilies). 42. Foster, Northern Passion, 1:144 (MS Camb. Gg. 5. 31). 43.  The same idea appears, with slight variations, in further renditions of the passage; see Foster, Northern Passion, 1:159–60 (MS Harley 4196) and 1:160 (MS Additional 31042). Compare also the English “Song of Creation” in Horstmann, “Canticum de creatione,” 327–28, as well as the Cornish Ordinalia in Norris, Ancient Cornish Drama, 1:170–71, and a popular southern-English rood legend in Morris, Legends, 30–31. 44.  Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 52. 45. Harthan, Books of Hours, 29, 170; Mâle, Religious Art in France, 75; Wieck, Painted Prayers, 95, and “Book of Hours,” 501. 46. The Sacra parallela illustration is found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cod. Gr. 923, fol. 282v. For a discussion of both this image and the illuminations in early Psalters, see Kunoth-Leifels, Über die Darstellungen, 9–10, 20. 47.  S. Smith, Power of Women, 150–51, 193–94, 249 n. 16, 250 n. 42, and figs. 20, 39, and 43. 48.  Erler, “Devotional Literature,” 496, 500–501. 49.  Musée Condé, Chantilly, MS 82; the illumination is reproduced in Meurgey, Les principaux manuscrits, pl. 102. For the Master of Anne of Brittany, see Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures, 269. Mâle, Religious Art in France, 75, attributes the motif of Bathsheba and her attendants to Jean Bourdichon (1457–1521), but I have found no evidence to substantiate the ­attribution. 50.  From 1496 the engraving was used repeatedly by the printer Philippe Pigouchet in a series of Horae produced for the publisher Simon Vostre; see Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures, 268–70; Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 115–16. The first Pigouchet-Vostre Horae to be marketed in England was STC 15887 (Hore presentes ad vsum Sarum), published in 1498. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 227–28, notes that the successful Pigouchet-Vostre partnership “produced at least six editions of the Sarum Hours before 1512.” Other printers also used the engraving of Bathsheba in Horae designed for the English

Notes to Pages 42–46  213

market. See, for example, two texts printed by J. Jehannot: STC 15888 (Hore beate marie virginis secundum vsum Sarum) and STC 15890 (Hore ad vsum ­Sarrum). 51.  Another similar image can be found in Princeton University Library MS Taylor 7, fol. 60r; this manuscript is a French Book of Hours for Paris Use, probably created in the early sixteenth century. For details on the manuscript in fig. 1.8, see Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 119–20. 52.  See the Penitential Psalms in STC 16034 (The primer, set foorth by the kynges maiestie [The King’s Primer]). This first edition was published by Richard Grafton. A later edition of the same year, published by Edward Whit­ church, also includes the reversed version of the Pigouchet image; see STC 16037. 53.  For a late fifteenth-century manuscript illumination depicting David kneeling in prayer, see Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E 108, fol. 91v; Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 111–12. 54.  For the first use of the image, see STC 16023 (Hore beate Marie virginis secundum verum vsum insignis ecclesie Sarisburiensis). This was published by Matthias Crom in Antwerp but designed for the English market. 55.  A similar angel, this time with a sword and an arrow, appears to David at the start of the seven psalms in STC 15992 (This prymer of Salysbery vse, bothe in Englyshe and in Laten). Various illustrations for the Penitential Psalms in manuscript Horae also include such angels. For example, the miniature in a Book of Hours compiled in northern France in the first quarter of the sixteenth century shows David kneeling in prayer before an angel who raises a sword and an arrow; see the Library Company of Philadelphia, MS 24, fol. 81v; Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 114–16. At times the angel carries only a sword. This is the case, for instance, in a Book of Hours produced in Rouen ca. 1470; see the Library Company of Philadelphia, MS 5, fol. 84r; Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 76–78. 56.  Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 46–47; Owens, “Image of King David,” 27. 57.  Victoria and Albert Museum, London, MS L. 1722–1921, fol. 108v. The miniature is reproduced in Harthan, Books of Hours, 154. 58. Harthan, Books of Hours, 156. 59.  Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E 96, fol. 83r. For a double woodcut in which David slays Goliath (in one image, above) and displays the severed head to a group of women (in a second image, below), see STC 15880 (Hore intemerate beatissime virginis secundum vsum Sarum). Another new episode used to gloss the Penitential Psalms was the anointing of David; see STC 15885 (Hore beate Marie virginis secundum vsum Sarum).

214  Notes to Pages 46–53

60.  Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E 112, fol. 48r. 61.  Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E 112, fols. 49r, 50r, 52r, 53v, 55r, and 55v. The tale of David and Bathsheba predominates in these images, though the story is embellished with a scene taken (unusually) from the narrative of Absalom’s death recounted in 2 Samuel 18. 62. STC 15978 (This prymer of Salysbury vse) and STC 15979 (Thys prymer off salysburye vse). 63.  Many of these French Horae were printed on velum and then painted by hand to look like manuscripts; see Erler, “Devotional Literature,” 508. For sixteenth-century Horae printed in France for the French market, see Harvard College Library Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts, 1:363–408. For the importation into England of Continental (including Parisian) Horae, in both manuscript and print form, see Erler, “Devotional Literature,” 498–506. 64.  For a slightly different engraving of the same scene, printed in 1511, see the Penitential Psalms in STC 15912 (Hore beatissime virginis Marie). This cut seems to have influenced a manuscript illumination for the Penitential Psalms in an Horae for Rome Use produced in France ca. 1525; see Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E 214, fol. 86r. 65.  See Bal, “Reading Bathsheba,” 126–28. 66. Foucault, History of Sexuality, 61. 67. Tentler, Sin and Confession, 165; see also 163, 223. 68.  Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 52. 69. Wieck, Painted Prayers, 95; Harthan, Books of Hours, 24–26. Medieval artists usually portrayed Saint Sebastian tied to a post, wearing only a loincloth and shot through with arrows. The sign of Gemini, associated with the month of June in the calendar, was often represented by a naked man and woman in an embrace. 70. See Engammare, “La morale ou la beauté?” 476: “Ces images sont surtout des espaces d’expressions érotiques qui débordent le texte.” 71. The Christiani matrimonii institutio was printed in Basel but dedicated to Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England. 72. Erasmus, Opera omnia, 5: col. 719, D–E: “Agamus gratias Deo, quod nostra Religio nihil habet non castrum & pudicum. At tanto gravius peccant, qui rebus natura castis invehunt impudicitiam. Primum, quid est necesse quasvis fabulas in Templis depingere? juvenem ac puellam eodem in lecto cubantem? David contemplantem e fenestra Bethsabeam, & ad stuprum evocantem: aut amplectentem ad se delatam Sunamitin. Herodiadis filiam saltantem?” The English translation is from Panofsky, “Erasmus,” 209–10.

Notes to Pages 53–54  215

73. Erasmus, Opera omnia, 5: col. 719, E: “Argumenta sumta sunt e Divinis Libris: sed in exprimendis foeminis quantum admiscent artifices nequitiae?” The English translation is from Panofsky, “Erasmus,” 210. 74.  Panofsky, “Erasmus,” 210. 75.  It should be noted, however, that at the end of the sixteenth century Erasmus’s denunciation of representations of David and Bathsheba was quoted approvingly by Johannes Molanus in his De historia sanctarum imaginum et picturarum; see Freedberg, “Johannes Molanus,” 240–41. Engammare, “La morale ou la beauté?” 460–61, points out that some images of David and Bathsheba in printed European Bibles have been defaced, but he does not date the occurrence of the censorship. 76.  Engammare, “La morale ou la beauté?” 466, 476. 77.  Ibid., 455–56. For a 1526 painting of the same subject by Lucas Cranach the Elder, as well as for other representations of David and Bathsheba by Cranach’s workshop and by Lucas Cranach the Younger (1515–86), see ­Kunoth-Leifels, Über die Darstellungen,” 29–32, and figs. 19, 21–24. 78. An illustration of Bathsheba taking a footbath appeared first in a Bible of 1478, published in Cologne; later versions were used in Bibles and Horae printed not just in Germany but also in Italy (Venice) and France (Lyon). Bathsheba is clothed in these images, as she is in the engraving from the Cranach workshop; often a maid attends to one of her feet. For an overview, see Engammare, “La morale ou la beauté?” 449–56. Sluijter, “Rembrandt’s Bathsheba,” 50–51, is mistaken in suggesting that the motif of the maid attending to one of Bathsheba’s feet originated in a mid-sixteenth-century composition by Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574). 79.  Sluijter, “Rembrandt’s Bathsheba,” 81. Kunoth-Leifels, Über die Dar­ stellungen, 64–74, gives a systematic account of seventeenth-century Dutch ­images of Bathsheba. Criticism of the arousing quality of representations of Bathsheba increased in the Low Countries around the time that Uriah’s wife became a popular subject of naturalistic nude painting; see Sluijter, “Rembrandt’s Bathsheba,” 78–79. However, this rise in criticism did not prevent artists from further developing the tradition. 80.  See, for example, Adams’s collection of essays, Rembrandt’s Bathsheba. 81.  The first edition of This treatise was published by Wynkyn de Worde, who republished the text five times before 1529. Richard Pynson and Thomas Marshe published one edition each, in 1510 and 1555 respectively. 82.  STC 10905 (Fisher, This treatise), first sermon; STC 24879 (Voragine, [Legenda aurea]), “The hystorye of Dauyd.” 83.  STC 15919 (Hore beate marie virginis), STC 15997 (This prymer in Englyshe and in Laten), and STC 16008 (This prymer in Englyshe and in Latyn),

216  Notes to Pages 54–60

the Penitential Psalms. Redman’s primer is discussed further in chapter 3, below. 84. STC 16011 (The primer in English moste necessary), the Penitential Psalms. 85.  For the German provenance of the image, see Engammare, “La morale ou la beauté?” 456–57; Kunoth-Leifels, Über die Darstellungen, 43–44, and fig. 32. Kunoth-Leifels dates the image to 1519, but Engammare seems to be correct in stating that it first emerged in 1534. 86.  The same cut appears again alongside 2 Samuel 11 in 1549; see STC 2077 (The byble [a revision of the “Matthew” Bible]). 87. For The manuall of prayers, see STC 16010. 88.  Significantly, Foucault, History of Sexuality, 67–68, argues that “beginning in the sixteenth century” the ritual of confession, “which in the Christian West was the first technique for producing the truth of sex,” slowly separated itself from the sacrament of penance and “emigrated toward pedagogy, relationships between adults and children, family relations, medicine, and psy­ chiatry.” 89.  On the publication statistics for The New England Primer, see Crain, Story of A, 15. 90.  Reading schools (also known as song schools) were attended by children of about seven to ten years of age; see Orme, English Schools, 60; Courtenay, Schools and Scholars, 16. 91.  For the contents of these elementary textbooks, of which very few are now extant, see Moran, Growth of English Schooling, 42–43. 92. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 53, argues that these three articles constitute the “irreducible core” of the late medieval church’s educational program for the laity. He cites an inscription on a fourteenth-century font in the parish church of Bradley, Lincolnshire, that reads: “Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Criede, / Leren the childe yt is nede.” This injunction was directed to godparents and was a formal part of the rite of baptism in late medieval England. Writing in the fourteenth century, John Mirk instructs priests to preach “the pater noster and the crede” to their parishioners “twyes or thryes in the yere” and to bid their charges to say the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Creed “wyth gode entent euery day.” He also tells his priestly audience to begin a confession by asking the penitent, “Const thow thy pater and thyn aue / And thy crede [?]” If the penitent replies that he “con hyt not,” then the priest must turn him to “suche penaunce . . . / That wole make hym hyt to lerne.” See Mirk, Instructions for Parish Priests, lines 404–9, 917–22. 93.  For more on the complicated relationship between penance, catechesis, and pedagogy in the Middle Ages, see Woods and Copeland, “Classroom and Confession.”

Notes to Pages 60–66  217

94.  In relation to Books of Hours, Butterworth, English Primers, 3, suggests alternatively that the name primer was applied “to what was naturally regarded in many households as their first book (liber primarius), either because it was in such constant service, or, more likely, because it was useful in learning to read, especially in Latin.” This draws an even closer association between schoolbooks and Horae. However, as Butterworth himself points out, “No evidence at hand is of sufficient antiquity” to settle the etymological question definitively. 95.  According to Foucault, History of Sexuality, 69, 104, it was over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that sex became “an object of great suspicion” and that “children were defined as ‘preliminary’ sexual beings, on this side of sex, yet within it, astride a dangerous dividing line.” Chapter Two.  The Conflict over Penance 1. The condemned primer was likely published in 1529; see Butterworth, English Primers, 11–17. 2.  For evidence that Joye edited the primer in question (as well as a similar devotional text printed in 1530 and titled Ortulus anime), see Butterworth, English Primers, 18–27. 3.  For the text of the “instrument” as recorded in Foxe, see STC 11222 (Actes and monuments), sigs. DDDd2r–DDDd6v (pp. 1335–44). The version from the register of Archbishop Warham is reproduced in Wilkins, Concilia, 3:727–37. 4. Wilkins, Concilia, 3:733. The substance of the complaint made against the primer cannot be verified, since no extant copy of the book has been located. 5.  STC 18079, sig. Bb2r. 6.  See my Introduction, above, for a more detailed history of the relationship between the Penitential Psalms and the rites of the Latin Church. 7.  Fisher was executed in 1535, just days before Sir Thomas More. Both men refused to pledge their support for Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy. 8. Lady Margaret Beaufort was mother to Henry VII (and therefore grandmother to Henry VIII). The date when Fisher presented the sermons to her household is contested. Stafford, “Repentance,” 316, votes for 1507, and Dowling, Fisher of Men, 76, puts in a bid for 1508. But the majority of scholars agree on 1504 as the most likely year; see, for example, Duffy, “Spirituality of John Fisher,” 208; Rex, Theology of John Fisher, 32; Surtz, Works and Days, 238. 9.  For the first published edition, see STC 10902.

218  Notes to Pages 66–68

10. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 79. On the popularity of This treatise in its own time, see also Dowling, Fisher of Men, 87; Mueller, Native Tongue, 170; Rex, Theology of John Fisher, 34, 48, 215 n. 25. It is also of note that This treatise was reprinted in 1697 and 1714—suggesting that Fisher’s sermons ­remained of interest into the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; see Staley, “Penitential Psalms,” 257, 264 n. 98. 11.  Die sieben Bußpsalmen emerged in print in either March or April of 1517; see WA 1:155. For the German text of the 1517 edition, see WA 1:158– 220. There is no published English translation. 12. For two studies on Luther’s Die sieben Bußpsalmen specifically, see Süß, “Über Luthers Sieben Bußpsalmen”; and Wicks, Man Yearning for Grace, 165–77. 13.  The story that Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, may be legendary in both senses of the word—not only famous but also mythical. For the lack of historical evidence to substantiate the tale, see Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 45 n. 7, 87–88 n. 4, 91 n. 21. 14. For a recent, meticulous, investigation of Luther’s early exegetical processes—focusing largely on the lectures on the Book of Psalms and on the Epistle to the Romans—see Cummings, Literary Culture, ch. 2. Here Cummings also provides a helpful overview of modern scholarship on the young Luther and highlights a peculiar obsession in the field with trying to pinpoint the precise moment of the reformer’s evangelical “breakthrough.” 15.  Romans 3:4 quotes Psalm 50:6 (MT 51:4); and Romans 4:7–8 quotes Psalm 31:1–2 (MT 32:1–2). 16.  WA.Br 1:90: “Psalmi translati a me et explanati vernacula si nulli placerent, mihi optime placerent.” 17.  See Luther’s letters to Scheurl, May 6, 1517, and to Spalatin, May 6, 1517 (or shortly thereafter), in WA.Br 1:93–97. Wicks suggests that Die sieben Bußpsalmen was “the very first work Luther wrote for the general public.” He also posits that it was meant for those people who “were most susceptible to the indulgence preachers like Johann Tetzel.” See Man Yearning for Grace, 165. 18. The early editions of the two versions of Die sieben Bußpsalmen are listed in WA 1:155–57 and WA 18:474–75. 19.  Preus unfortunately misses this point when he extracts what Luther has to say about the seven Penitential Psalms from the reformer’s first series of lectures on the Book of Psalms: see From Shadow to Promise, ch. 11. 20. WA 18:479: “Vnter meynen ersten büchlin lies ich dazu mal auch ­ausgehen die sieben bus psalmen mit einer auslegunge. Und wie wol ich noch nichts schedlichs drinnen finde geleret, So ist doch offt mals des texts meinunge gefeilet, wie denn pflegt zu geschehen am ersten aus flug allen lerern.”

Notes to Pages 68–70  219

21. While preparing Die sieben Bußpsalmen in 1517, Luther appears to have worked largely from several Latin translations of the Book of Psalms, though he also consulted a bilingual Hebrew/Latin edition of the Penitential Psalms published by Johann Reuchlin in 1512: see Luther’s 1517 preface, WA 1:158; Pahl, Quellenstudien, 1–10. As time went on, Luther became more expert in Hebrew. He began to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew into German at least as early as 1522 and published the first version of his complete German Psalter in 1524 (in the third installment of his Old Testament). It is possible that “den rechten text” refers not to the Hebrew Psalter at all but rather to Luther’s own German translation of the seven psalms. 22.  WA, 18:479: “Nu aber das Euangelion auff den mittag komen helle leucht, vnd ich auch sind der zeit weiter komen bin, hab ichs fur gut angesehen, dasselb widder aus zu lassen.” 23.  For more on the tradition of penitential hermeneutics, see my Introduction. 24.  Luther makes much less of purgatory than Fisher, though the concept of this third, or intermediary, place is nevertheless present in Die sieben ­Bußpsalmen—even in the amended edition of 1525. 25.  Vulgate, Psalm 6:2: “Domine ne in furore tuo arguas me / neque in ira tua corripias me.” 26.  WA 18:480: “Darumb müssen alle heyligen und Christen sich sunder erkennen, und Gottes gericht furchten, Denn disser psalm allen gemeyn ist und niemant auszeucht.” Unless otherwise stated, I will refer from here on to the 1525 version of Die sieben Bußpsalmen, not only because it constitutes the furthest development of Luther’s thought on the Penitential Psalms, but also because it was published within four years of the publication of Joye’s primer. I will use the standard English translation in the American Edition, even though this is not always as accurate or as nuanced as one might hope. I will also provide the German text from the Weimarer Ausgabe in my notes. 27.  See WA 18:480: “Das aber disse wort von eynem sunder gesprochen werden, odder doch ynn der sunder person, folget daraus, das er die straffe ­nennet.” 28.  See Vulgate, Psalm 6:3–4: “miserere mei Domine quoniam infirmus sum / sana me Domine quonium conturbata sunt ossa mea / et anima mea ­turbata est valde / et tu Domine usquequo” (“Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. And my soul is troubled exceedingly: but thou, O Lord, how long?”). 29.  See WA 18:480; LW 14:140–41. 30.  I realize that my language in these theological discussions is not typically gender-inclusive. However, it reflects the commentary tradition, in which the model Christian penitent tends to be male.

220  Notes to Pages 71–74

31.  WA 18:481: “Darumb das Gott müge seyne krafft und trost ausgeben, und uns mitteylen, so zeucht er hyn allen andern trost, und macht die seele hertzlich betrübt, schreyend und sehnend nach seynem trost.” 32.  Fisher and Luther are not exceptional in emphasizing the concept of turning. As Staley notes, medieval and early modern interpreters regularly pick up on the use of verbs like convertere, avertere, and revertere in the seven psalms; see “Penitential Psalms,” 222–23. 33. This episode is in all three of the synoptic Gospels; see Matthew 8:23–27, Mark 4:35–41, and Luke 8:22–25. 34.  Staley, “Penitential Psalms,” 230. 35.  See Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 40. Dame Eleanor Hull’s commentary on the Penitential Psalms (a fifteenth-century translation from a twelfth- or thirteenth-century French source) juxtaposes the two positions. Hull insists that the psalmist’s troubles result from a combination of his ­“orygynal synne” and his “voluntarye synne.” She also posits that original sin leads to the death of the body, while voluntary sin results in the damnation of the soul. See Hull, Seven Psalms, 70-71. 36.  Vulgate, Psalm 37:6: “putruerunt et corruptae sunt cicatrices meae / a facie insipientiae meae.” I will use the psalm (and verse) numbering system in the Vulgate as my base in this chapter. Whenever I reference Luther, though, I will give the numbers from MT in parentheses. (The American Edition of ­Luther follows MT; the Weimarer Ausgabe is inconsistent.) 37.  WA 18:493: “Gleich wie wunden und schwülste faulen, eyttern und stincken am leibe, also auch die bösen gebrechen der natur, verterben und stickend werden, so man nicht teglich yhr wartet und heylet mit der salbe der gnaden und mit wasser des worts Gottes.” 38.  For more on Fisher’s paraphrase of Ezekiel, see Rex, Theology of John Fisher, 38. For the general tendency of Fisher to translate Latin texts into interpretive paraphrases, see Mueller, Native Tongue, 171–72; Stafford, “Repentance,” 335. 39. See also this: “God is ryghtwyse, wherefore he may not of ryght ­punysshe twyse for one and the same cause, an offence ones punysshed it is no ryght that the same be punysshed agayne” (EW 16). 40.  According to Blench, Preaching in England, 11, Fisher’s lack of historical understanding is evident in the fact that he calls Uriah a “good knyght” and describes Martha as “a woman of noble blode to whom by enheritaunce belonged the castel of bethany.” I quote Fisher directly (EW 6, 290). For a more sympathetic analysis of this exegetical technique in Fisher’s sermons, see Stafford, “Repentance,” 336–37.

Notes to Pages 75–76  221

41. Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 118, writes that “everywhere in the seven psalms, Fisher sees injunctions of the proper threefold method of doing penance: contrition, confession, and satisfaction.” Twombly, “Thomas Wyatt’s Paraphrase,” 348, makes a similar point, as does Duffy, “Spirituality of John Fisher,” 208. However, as Rex, Theology of John Fisher, 36, notes, the sacrament is discussed in depth only in the single sermon on Psalm 31 and the first of the two sermons on Psalm 101. 42.  Elsewhere, Fisher makes this comment, which seems to refer to all the sacraments (and not just penance): “And as ofte as the holy sacramentes be yterated and vsed accordynge to the commaundement of Crystes chyrche, so ofte is the blyssed blode of our lorde sprencled abrode to clense and put away synne” (EW 111). For further analysis of the role of Christ’s blood in the sacraments, see Duffy, “Spirituality of John Fisher,” 208–9; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 107–9; Rex, Theology of John Fisher, 37; Stafford, “Repentance,” 323–25, 333. 43. Late medieval authorities generally encouraged penitents to take every part of the sacrament seriously. They differed, of course, from several ­earlier theologians (including Peter Abelard, Peter Lombard, and Johannes Gratian), who emphasized the first element of the sacrament, stressing the importance of personal remorse and inner spiritual conversion (turning away from sin and toward God) above all else. 44.  Vulgate, Psalm 129:1: “De profundis clamavi ad te Domine.” 45.  Commenting on the opening of Psalm 129, Eleanor Hull also mentions Jonah. However, she does not bring up the sacrament of penance. See Hull, Seven Psalms, 174: “Notyht here the anguyse of this repentant that lythe in the depnes of synne, that so expresly schewyth his fallynge-downe to the souereyne benyng pyte [benign pity], . . . in the forme and maner of Ionas the prophet, that from the depnes of the wombe of the whale he cryed to God so that the depnes of the water ner the thyknes of the body of the mounstre nether the derke pryson of the bowelys wher he lay myght not close hys preyer but that sche came to the erys of God.” 46. Vulgate, Psalm 50:3b: “et secundam multitudinem miserationum ­tuarum / dele iniquitatem meam.” In Fisher, the term table seems to refer to a board on which a picture might be painted. 47. Vulgate, Psalm 101:7–8: “similis factus sum pelicano solitudinis / ­factus sum sicut nycticorax in domicilio / vigilavi et factus sum sicut passer ­solitarius in tecto.” 48.  See EW 151–61. As Surtz intimates, “no summary can possibly convey” the “rich and complex weaving and interweaving” of the “allegorical threads” in this section of Fisher’s exposition; see Works and Days, 250.

222  Notes to Pages 76–79

49. See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 40:1431–32 (Psalm 101, serm. 1, para. 8, lines 1–60); Expositions, 5:9–11. See esp.: “Deinde natus in solitudine, quia solus ita natus; passus in tenebris Iudaeorum tamquam in nocte, in praeuaricatione tamquam in ruinis” (“Born in the wilderness, because so alone born; suffering in the darkness of the Jews as it were in night, in their sin, as it were in ruins”). Augustine also reads the three birds as representative of a single preacher of God’s word, and the three places as three different classes of men to whom the preacher might be sent (nonbelievers, relapsed or back­ slidden believers, and lukewarm believers). See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 40:1430–31 (Psalm 101, serm. 1, para. 7, lines 1–40); Augustine, Expositions, 5:8–9. 50. Hull, Seven Psalms, 148–49. Hull reproduces not just the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Augustine but also the extremist sentiments of her twelfth- or ­thirteenth-century source(s). 51. Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory, 320, clarifies the relationship between purgatory and the sacrament of penance: “Purgatory is closely related to penance: either penance delivers the soul from Purgatory, or Purgatory completes the penitential process.” See also Burgess, “‘A fond thing vainly invented,’” 61– 67; Rex, Theology of John Fisher, 40; Stafford, “Repentance,” 320. 52.  As quoted by Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory, 70. Here Greenblatt explains: “The pain of mere flesh was supposed to be infinitely preferable to the agony suffered by the strange virtual body (similitudo corporis) of the soul.” 53.  Vulgate, Psalm 37:2a: “Domine ne in furore tuo arguas me.” 54.  See also this passage: “For synne must nedes be punysshed eyther by our owne selfe, or elles by almyghty god, whiche payne or punysshemente yf that we take vpon vs with a good wyll, it is thought than we make satysfaccyon to almyghty god for our trespasses” (EW 84). 55.  This idea was fairly common in the late medieval period; see Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 40. 56.  For an example of the evangelical claim that none of the components of the sacrament of penance are supported by Scripture, see STC 13602 (Holme, The fall and euill successe of rebellion), sigs. E4v–F1r. Here Holme brings up David’s admission of sin as evidence that the Bible endorses general, but not private, confession. 57.  These legends are discussed in chapter 1, above. 58.  Owens, “Image of King David,” 27 and fig. 5. 59.  Huttar, “Frail Grass,” 52, writes that various medieval traditions present David “composing psalms as a work of penance by which to complete the penitential process as it had come to be understood in Catholic doctrine: contrition, confession, and satisfaction.” Fisher does hint at the idea of completion

Notes to Pages 79–84  223

on occasion, but he also seems to suggest that David’s composition of the Penitential Psalms satisfies all three requirements of sacramental penance. 60. Fisher returns to this biblical moment in his funeral sermon for Henry VII. His text for the sermon is Psalm 114, which begins (in the Vulgate), “Dilexi quoniam exaudiet Dominus vocem orationis meae” (I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer). Fisher links this statement of adoration with David’s confession in 2 Samuel 12:13 and commends Henry VII for following the example established in both of these declarations (see EW 272). 61.  For the biblical account of the census, see 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chroni­ cles 21. 62.  For an analysis of medieval prefaces, see Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 9–72. For examples, see Minnis and Scott, Medieval Literary Theory, 12–36. 63. Dowling, Fisher of Men, 89. 64.  Stafford writes that “the chief passages of scripture in Fisher’s sermons . . . emerge out of the institutions of the church’s devotion, and lead ­directly back to them”; see “Repentance,” 336. 65.  For Augustine as Luther’s favorite authority, especially regarding the question of sin, see Campbell, “Martin Luther,” 104–6. Luther’s dependency on (and complex relationship with) Augustine is also examined in depth in Cummings, Literary Culture, ch. 2; Steinmetz, Luther in Context, ch. 2. 66.  This is the English translation of the verse as given in LW. For Luther’s German version, see WA 18:498: “Wasche mich wol von meyne misse­ that, und reynige mich von meyner sunden.” 67.  WA 18:500: “Ynn wilcher nicht bestehen, ia widder zu rücke gehen, die allein wircklich eusserlich sunde ansehen und daruber mit verlust der gnaden verharren und erger werden denn vorhin, wie wol sie das nicht sehen noch meinen.” 68.  WA 18:500: “Nu ists mit uns also, das Adam aus mus, und Christus eingehen, Adam zu nichte werden, und Christus allein regiren und sein.” 69. There are no variants in the Vulgate: for both passages the text is ­stable and accepted as “paenitentiam agite.” 70.  For the semantic fields of the Greek and Latin terms, see Collinge, Historical Dictionary of Catholicism, the entry “Penance”; Mansfield, Humili­ ation of Sinners, 16–17; McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 126. See also Vulgate, Mark 1:14–15: “Postquam autem traditus est Iohannes / venit Iesus in Galilaeam / Praedicans evangelium regni Dei et dicens / quoniam impletum est tempus et adpropinquavit regnum Dei / paenitemini et credite evangelio” (And after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the

224  Notes to Pages 84–88

kingdom of God, And saying: The time is accomplished and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel). Here the Greek command metanoeite is translated as “paenitemini,” but once again the Latin imperative can mean both repent and do penance. 71. Strabo, Opera omnia, col. 79, B. The idea that paenitentia was linked etymologically to punire goes back as far as the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (ca. 560–636); see McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 126 n. 303. 72. See Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:67–69; Dillenberger in Luther, Selections, xv–xvi. 73.  For Luther’s rejection of penance as a sacrament, see McGrath, Reformation Thought, 174–78. 74.  See McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 126; Simpson, Burning to Read, 73–74. 75.  As Simpson notes (in relation to this particular linguistic crux), “Discussion of philology, or the meaning of words, takes us quickly into nonphilological territory, because so much is at stake in the choice of one translation over another”; see Burning to Read, 75–76. 76.  See WA 1:525; LW 48:65. This history is from a cover letter for Luther’s Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute (Explanations of the Theses Concerning the Value of Indulgences). The letter is dated May 30, 1518. 77.  WA 1:525: “Accessit, quod studio et gratia eruditissimorum virorum, qui nobis graeca et hebraea officiosissime tradunt, didici, idem verbum graece ‘Metanoea’ dici a ‘meta’ et ‘noyn,’ id est a ‘post’ et ‘mentem,’ ut sit poenitentia seu metanea resipiscentia et post acceptum damnum et cognitum errorem intelligentia sui mali, quod sine mutatione affectus et amoris fieri est impossible.” 78.  WA 1:526: “Denique profeci et vidi, ‘Metanoean’ non modo a ‘post’ et ‘mentem,’ sed a ‘trans’ et ‘mentem’ posse deduci . . . , ut ‘Metania’ transmutationem mentis et affectus significet, quod non modo affectus mutationem, sed et modum mutandi, id est gratiam dei, videbatur spirare.” 79.  Cummings points out that “[Luther’s] conversion consists in nothing less than a new understanding of conversion”; see Literary Culture, 62. 80. STC 24446, fol. 94v. For more on the debate between More and ­Tyndale over penance/repentance, see Mason, Humanism and Poetry, 213–14; Simpson, Burning to Read, 74–75. 81.  STC 18084, fol. 81r. 82. Vulgate, Psalm 37:5: “quoniam iniquitates meae supergressae sunt caput meum / sicut onus grave gravatae sunt super me.” 83.  WA 18:493: “Also tritt uns die sunde mit füssen, bis das die gnade kome und trette die sunde mit fussen, und erhebe unser heubt uber sie, das wyr yhr, und nicht sie unser mechtig sey und regire.” 84.  WA 18:522: “Alle psalmen, alle schrifft, ruffet zu der gnaden, preiset die gnade, sucht Christum und lobet alleine Gottes werck, aller menschen

Notes to Pages 88–90  225

werck aber verwirfft sie.” Luther proposes a similar approach in his earlier lectures on the Book of Psalms; see WA 55(1):6–8; LW 10:7. 85. This Christocentrism represents an amalgam of patristic, medieval, and early modern exegetical theories; see Campbell, “Martin Luther,” 106–8. 86.  In the 1517 edition, Luther actually suggests that believers are to imitate the Crucifixion itself; see WA 1:162–63. A correct life, he says here, “nit steet yn vilen wercken, als die Juden meynten . . . . Sundern es steet nur yn eynem creutzigen und todten des alten menschen, alßo das des eußern menschen wandel . . . soll zu nichte werden” (does not consist of many works, as the Jews thought . . . . But it consists only in a crucifying and putting to death of the old man, so that the way of the outward man . . . should be destroyed). 87.  WA 18:492: “Disser psalm malet ab auffs aller klerste die weise, wort, werck, gedancken und berden eins waren, rewigen hertzen.” 88.  Steinmetz remarks that, in his anthropology, Luther adopted “an Augustinianism more thoroughgoing and severe than the position of Augustine himself ” and that this was part of Luther’s attack on his Occamist teachers; see Luther in Context, 70–71. Steinmetz’s point is reiterated in Campbell, “Martin Luther,” 106. 89. WA 18:491: “Und ist keyn frid ynn meynen gebeynen fur meyner sunde.” 90.  WA 18:492–93: “Und ist keyn fride ynn meynen gebeynen. Denn Gottes zorn erschreckt so seer, das auch die beyne zittern, und fleisch und mark verschwindet. Fur meyner sunde. Fur dem erkentnis meiner sunder, denn die pfeile Gottes und zornige sprüche machen kegenwertig die sunde ym hertzen, und davon wird ynwendig unruge und erschrecken des gewissens und aller krefft der seelen und macht gantz kranck den leichnam, und wo es also stehet, da stehet es recht mit dem menschen, denn so hat es Christo gangen.” (Here I follow LW in correcting an awkward transposition of the psalm verse in WA.) 91. WA 18:479: “Ich schwemme meyn bette die gantze nacht, Und wayche mit meynen threnen meyn lager.” 92.  WA 18: 483: “Das ist aber nicht müglich, und auch nie gehort odder gelesen von eynem heyligen geschehen nach laut der wort, darumb sind die wort ym geyst gered, auch ym geyst zuverstehen, also, das seyne seel so hefftig mit leyden beladen ist, das, wenn es dem leybe müglich were, möchte er so viel weynen, darumb als viel als an yhm ist, ists gleych als geschehen, und solte der leychnam folge thun eyner seelen, die die grundlich Gottes straffe fület, er müst neher denn ynn eyner stunde zufliessen wie der schnee und vergehen.” 93. It is noteworthy that, for Fisher, the psalmist who weeps over his bed all night is the model penitent who, recalling his sins sorrowfully, “one after an other,” eventually washes them away just like “a greate shoure or a flode” (EW 18).

226  Notes to Pages 90–94

94. WA 18:499: “Einem warhafftigen, rewigen hertzen ligt nichts fur augen, denn seine sunde und elend ym gewissen.” 95. Herbert, Complete English Works, 246–47. 96.  WA 18:487: “Darumb thu ich kund meyne sunde. Nu mercke ich, das nichts bessers ist, denn fur dir bekennen, das eitel sunde mit mir ist und kein guts, auff das alleine deyne gnade gepreiset und begerd werde, und auffhöre aller trotz und zuversicht der verdienst und guten werke.” 97.  WA 18:479: “Weychet von myr all ubelthetter.” 98.  See my Introduction, above. 99.  WA 18:483–84: “Das ynn dissem nicht allerley ungerechten verstanden seyen, sondern die grosser heyligkeit und weisheit sind, bewert sich aus Math. 7., da der HERR Christus eben dissen halben vers einfuret widder die, die am iüngsten tage werden sagen: ‘Ey, HERR, haben wyr nicht ynn deynem namen geprediget und viel wunder zeichen than?’, etc., dissen klugen und heyligen wird hie durch Christum gegeben, das sie heyssen operarij iniquitatis, ubelthetter, darumb das sie das gute nicht recht thun, So feret er nu hie mit an die hoffertigen heyligen, so noch nie Gottes zorn gefulet, noch zur erkentnis yhrer sunden komen sind, darumb sie auch Gottes gütte widder gleuben, trawen, anruffen, noch kennen, noch leren, Verfuren aber sich und ander mit sich durch werck und sicher vermessenheit der verdienste fur Gott.” 100.  WA 18:520: “Wie wol die hoffertigen bey yhn selbs wöllen gnug­ thuunge und erlösunge finden mit yhren wercken, sich eraus erbeiten, yhr selbs helffer, erlöser, erbarmer sein, und yhnen selbs warheit, gerechtigkeit erwerben. Aber was folget ynn dissem beschlus?” 101.  WA 18:518: “Wer fur Gott etwas sein wil, der mus alleine auff seine gnade pochen, nicht auff verdienst.” Luther added this passage in 1525; it is not in the 1517 edition of his commentary. See WA 1:208. 102.  WA 18:516: “Israel warte auff den Herrn.” 103.  WA 18:520: “Das ist, alles was geistlich und ynwendig new volck ist, das stehet also . . . das sein gantz leben ist ein trawen, verlassen, warten, harren auff Gott, denn Israel war das sonderlich volck Gottes, dem solch harren gebürt. Dazu stimmet auch der name, denn Israel heisst ein kempffer mit Gott. Alle die nu so fest harren, das sie gleich mit Gott drüber kempffen, das sind rechte Israeliten.” 104.  WA 18:529: “Christus ist Gottes gnaden, barmhertzigkeit, gerech­ tikeit, warheit, weisheit, stercke, trost und seligkeit, uns von Gott gegeben on allen verdienst.” 105. For this understanding of the Penitential Psalms in Reformation readings more generally, see Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs, 41. 106.  To put it another way, in the Penitential Psalms Luther found justification for a wholly revised understanding of Christian soteriology. It might

Notes to Pages 95–97  227

even be argued that, just like his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, Luther’s work on the Penitential Psalms played a vital role in the formulation of his doctrine of sola fide, or salvation by faith alone. Chapter Three.  Plotting Reform An earlier rendition of the Wyatt portion of this chapter appeared as “Rightful Penitence and the Publication of Wyatt’s Certayne Psalmes,” in Psalms in the Early Modern World, ed. Linda Phyllis Austern, Kari Boyd McBride, and David L. Orvis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) 155–74. Copyright © 2011. Thanks are due to the publishers for permission to reproduce my work here in expanded form. 1. Bonner first issued a complaint against Wyatt in September 1538. Wyatt’s friend Thomas Cromwell suppressed the accusation, but it came to light again after Cromwell’s execution in July 1540. 2.  Pole was descended from the Plantagenet line and thus held a claim to the English throne; his elder brother, Henry Pole, Lord Montague, was beheaded in December 1538 for treasonous conspiracy. 3. Muir, Life and Letters, 195–96. 4.  Most scholars believe that Wyatt wrote his paraphrase before, during, or after his imprisonment in 1541, though some argue that he composed it in response to an earlier imprisonment in 1536. For overviews of the dating discussion, see Lifschutz, “David’s Lyre,” 108–10; Wyatt, Complete Poems, 455; Walker, Writing under Tyranny, 520–21 n. 1. 5. Aretino’s paraphrase was not published in English until 1635; see STC 19910.5 (A paraphrase upon the seaven penitentiall psalmes). For easily accessible summaries of Wyatt’s sources, see Wyatt, Collected Poems, 356–57; Wyatt, Complete Poems, 452–53; Walker, Writing under Tyranny, 355 and 522 n. 13. For more detailed studies of this matter, see Baron, “Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Seven Penitential Psalms”; Lifschutz, “David’s Lyre,” 108–23; Mason, “Wyatt and the Psalms.” Wyatt does not acknowledge any of his sources explicitly. 6.  Wyatt’s paraphrase is written in his own hand in British Library MS Egerton 2711, fols. 86r–98v. 7. Heale, Wyatt, 161; Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 44. 8.  Waddington, “Pietro Aretino,” 291. 9.  A. Fox, Politics and Literature, 280–85; Southall, Courtly Maker, 168. 10. Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 121; Lifschutz, “David’s Lyre,” 143; Staley, “Penitential Psalms,” 253. The debate is complicated further by Simpson, Reform and Cultural Revolution, 328: “Wyatt may . . . be registering protest against Henry  .  .  .  , but the evangelical form of the protest equally

228  Notes to Pages 97–99

­ eutralizes it, since evangelical theology, in Henrician England at any rate, n played directly into royal interests.” 11.  Surrey’s poem was later copied into the Egerton manuscript; see British Library MS Egerton 2711, fol. 85v. 12.  For the theory that Wyatt uses David as an instrument to proclaim his own Protestant faith, see Mason, Humanism and Poetry, 217; Muir, Life and Letters, 256; Lewalski, Protestant Poetics, 237. For the idea that Wyatt’s beliefs are specifically Lutheran, see A. Fox, Politics and Literature, 282; Cummings, Literary Culture, 225. 13. Wyatt, Complete Poems, 454. 14. Heale, Wyatt, 160, who adds: “A continual stress on merit in the Italian original is replaced by an insistent emphasis on the primacy of grace.” See also 170. In addition, Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 115, contends that “Wyatt captures the authentic voice of early English Protestantism, its mingled humility and militancy, its desire to submit without intermediary directly to God’s will, and above all its inwardness.” 15.  Pointing out that Aretino cultivated lasting friendships with several reformers and apostates, Waddington, “Pietro Aretino,” 291–92, suggests that it may in fact have been the Italian writer’s “scripture-based, Christ-centered religion with its emphasis on justification by faith” that led Wyatt to choose I sette salmi as a source. 16.  See Walker, Writing under Tyranny, 375: “We misunderstand Wyatt’s position . . . if we see his Penitential Psalms as motivated by a Lutheran doctrinal impulse at odds with the official position of the Henrician church. In doctrine his text was carefully conformist, following the contours of the official statements of faith even where they were implicitly contradictory.” 17.  Waddington, “Pietro Aretino,” 284, makes a similar point about Are­ tino’s religious writings: “Authorial intention and reception are two distinct issues; the probably insoluble question of Aretino’s own ‘sincerity’ perhaps is less important than the question of how his writings were understood.” 18.  The general title The Court of Venus refers to three separate volumes of verse published between 1537 and 1564. For a modern edition, see Fraser, Court of Venus. 19.  STC 2726. There are only three surviving copies, two in Cambridge and one in Dublin. Signature numbers for this publication will be given in parentheses. 20.  The person whose name is recorded as “John Harryngton” in the imprint (on the title page) and “John Harrington” in the dedication to Parr is almost certainly John Harington of Stepney—and not a bookseller with the same name, as some scholars have posited. For more information about this identification, see my Appendix, below.

Notes to Pages 99–103  229

21. My biographies of Harington and Parr are based principally on Hughey, John Harington, 3–81, and James, Kateryn Parr, 71–86, 343–402. I have also consulted the ODNB entries for both men; see Scott-Warren, “Harington, John (c. 1517–1582)”; James, “Parr, William, Marquess of Northampton (1513–1571).” 22. Hughey, John Harington, 15–16. Harington probably arrived at the court of Henry VIII in 1538. 23.  Elizabeth was godmother to his son, John Harington of Kelston, born to his second wife, Isabell Markham. 24.  He acquired these dissolved monastic lands in 1547, partly as a result of his first marriage—to Ethelreda Malte (a natural daughter of Henry VIII). The estate of Kelston in Somerset, a former rectory, eventually became the principal country estate of the Harington family. 25. The Pilgrimage of Grace was a militant uprising in the northern counties, in protest of Henry VIII’s various attempts to break from Rome. It was suppressed in the early months of 1537, and by the summer of that same year many of its leaders had been executed. 26.  Harington had entered the service of Sir Thomas Seymour by the spring of 1546. After the death of Henry VIII, Seymour became Lord Admiral (and fourth husband to Katherine Parr). 27.  Harington’s translation of Cicero was published in 1550 with the title The booke of freendeship; see STC 5276. For Katherine Willoughy, see Wabuda, “Bertie, Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk (1519–1580).” 28.  STC 2727 (Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid). The ­colophon on the unnumbered final page includes Harington’s name (spelled “Jhon Harrington”). 29.  Although Kett’s revolt of 1549 was largely focused on the issue of enclosures, it began as an act of religious rebellion when the people of Wymondham, Norfolk, broke the law to celebrate the life of Saint Thomas Becket. 30. For the religious disputations of 1549 and 1551, see Hughey, John Harington, 39. According to James, Kateryn Parr, 370, William Parr’s convictions were “a mix of humanist philosophy, Lutheran dogma, and Calvinist ­embroidery.” 31.  It is likely that there were two printers—a father and a son, perhaps— named Thomas Raynald. I estimate that it was the younger of the pair who produced Wyatt’s psalms. See my Appendix, note 2, for more information. 32.  Quitslund summarizes the turbulence of late 1549 as “a political crisis that looked to some at the time like an ecclesiastical one”; see Reformation in Rhyme, 100. 33.  For more details on the act and its consequences, see Brigden, London, 502; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 469; Rex, Tudors, 123.

230  Notes to Pages 103–109

34. Walker, Writing under Tyranny, 522 n. 16. 35. Cummings, Literary Culture, 228. 36.  The title given to Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms echoes that given to the first edition of Thomas Sternhold’s psalms, most likely published in 1548; see STC 2419 (Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid). Quitslund remarks upon this connection in Reformation in Rhyme, 73. A new, enlarged, edition of Sternhold’s psalms was released at around the same time as Wyatt’s paraphrase; see STC 2420 (Al such psalmes of Dauid); the publication date in the colophon of this edition is December 24, 1549. 37.  Whether Parr actually provided any kind of backing for the 1549 publication remains open to question. The writers of early modern dedications often honored their “patrons” with more hope than assurance. The complexities of the literary patronage system in the period are summarized in Scott-Warren, Early Modern English Literature, 49–58. 38.  Croke was one of the six clerks of chancery from 1523 to 1549, and he seems to have written his paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms (as well as of five and a half further psalms plus the first chapter of Ecclesiastes) during this period. He then became a master in chancery but died in office five years later. See Baker, “Croke, John (1489–1554).” 39.  STC 15997. For the publication date of this mildly reformist text, see Butterworth, English Primers, 141. 40.  Redman’s primer held a prominent place on the English book market for about two years, during which time it was copied frequently; see Butterworth, English Primers, 154. 41. Greene, Post-Petrarchism, esp. 5, 11. See also Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” esp. 20, 22. 42. Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 5–7; Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 20–21. 43.  I quote from Mabel Day’s EETS edition (Maidstone, “Seven Penitential Psalms”). This passage is stanza 1, lines 1–8. 44. Discussing rewritings of Petrarch’s Rime sparse, Greene notes that translation is itself “one particularly concrete manifestation of the ritual ­impulse”—that is, of the desire to “re-experience” a poem; see “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 23. 45.  An addition to the prologue names Maidstone as the translator and underscores his membership in the Carmelite order. For the text of this addi­ dden’s tion (which was almost certainly not written by Maidstone), see Valerie E edition of the paraphrase, Richard Maidstone’s Penitential Psalms, 109, n.  to line 8.

Notes to Pages 110–112  231

46.  I quote from William Black’s Percy Society edition; see Brampton, “Paraphrase.” This passage is stanza 1. Lines are not numbered in this edition. 47.  Brampton, “Paraphrase,” stanza 4. In a variant version of Brampton’s paraphrase, which includes several (possibly Lollard) alterations, the speaker of the prologue is prevented from sleeping because of sickness. When he confesses his sin, it is, significantly, to a “brodir” (brother) rather than to a “Confessour.” See the first six stanzas in “Thomas Brampton’s Metrical Paraphrase,” edited by James R. Kreuzer for Traditio. 48.  Brampton, “Paraphrase,” stanza 4. 49.  Brampton, “Paraphrase,” stanza 5. 50. Croke’s paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms survives in two ­sixteenth-century manuscripts, both in the British Library: MS Stowe 956 (a tiny gold-bound girdle book, opening with a miniature of Henry VIII on fol. 1v) and MS Additional 30981. The Latin epigraph is written on fol. 2r in the second of these. It is also included in the only printed edition of John Croke’s paraphrase, prepared by John Croke’s nineteenth-century descendant Alexander Croke; see Croke, “Thirteen Psalms,” B2. Alexander Croke must have used MS Additional 30981 as his base text. 51. The motto “Virtutis amore” is, for instance, inscribed on the Elizabethan porch at Studley Priory—a property that remained in the possession of the Croke family from 1539 (when our psalm translator appropriated it) to 1877. See also Croke, “Thirteen Psalms,” B2 n. 52.  Alexander Croke tries to pin down some of these issues in his translation (and dilation) of the two-line epigraph for his “Memoir of John Croke, Esquire.” His four-line version reads: “To turn these psalms to English verse, injoined / By my much valued wife, Prudentia hight, / Love, stationed in the virtues of her mind, / My pen directed, and the task was light”; see Croke, “Thirteen Psalms,” 56. It strikes me that by trying to erase so much of the ­ambiguity in the brief Latin dedication, this rendition does it a great disservice. 53. Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 6–7. 54. Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 6; see also Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 20. 55. Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 6; Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 20. Greene quotes from Zuckerkandl’s Man the Musician. 56.  Discussing Maidstone and Brampton, Kuczynski, Prophetic Song, 129, writes that their prologues “are calculated to prepare the reader for meditation on the penitential psalms themselves by objectifying the reader’s situation.” This comment might also be applied to Croke. 57. Quitslund, Reformation in Rhyme, 14, notes that Croke’s paraphrases “look very much . . . like an outgrowth of the rhymed hymns in English Books

232  Notes to Pages 113–115

of Hours”; she argues, however, that they were “probably not meant for singing,” since the syllable count is not always exact and the stress pattern is uneven. My sense of Croke is that he aimed for an iambic meter but was not skilled enough as a poet to maintain it in a consistent fashion. 58.  Vulgate, Psalm 50:16: “libera me de sanguinibus Deus Deus salutis meae / exultabit lingua mea iustitiam tuam.” 59. Hull, Seven Psalms, 128–29. 60. Brampton, “Paraphrase,” stanza 68; Maidstone, “Seven Penitential Psalms,” stanza 63, line 1. 61.  Croke, “Thirteen Psalms,” 18. 62. Vulgate, Psalm 101:26–28: “initio tu Domine terram fundasti / et opera manuum tuarum sunt caeli / ipsi peribunt tu autem permanes / et omnes sicut vestimentum veterescent / et sicut opertorium mutabis eos et mutabuntur / tu autem idem ipse es et anni tui non deficient.” 63.  On these issues in Maidstone and Brampton, see Kellerman, “Mise­ rere Mei,” 75. 64.  The first quotation is from Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 21; the second is from Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 6. 65.  For the full form of the antiphon, as well as an explanation of its origins, see Brampton, “Paraphrase,” stanza 2, and Black’s notes to this stanza (on pp. 55–56). The antiphon is also discussed in Kuczynski, Prophetic Song, 128. 66. “Ne reminiscaris, Domine, delicta nostra, vel parentum nostrorum; neque vindictam sumas de peccatis nostris.” I reproduce the translation given by Black (from the Book of Common Prayer, into which the antiphon was eventually adopted). Brampton translates the antiphon himself in stanzas 2 and 3 of his prologue. 67.  There are 124 stanzas in both of the edited versions. 68.  Brampton, “Paraphrase,” stanza 76. 69.  Brampton, “Paraphrase,” stanza 75. 70.  In Brampton, there are no indicators when one psalm ends and the next begins. In Maidstone, there is an occasional “Amen” written into the manuscript at the end of a psalm: see “The Seven Penitential Psalms,” stanza 11, line 88 (end of Psalm 6); stanza 25, line 200 (end of Psalm 31); stanza 68, line 544 (end of Psalm 50); stanza 119, line 953 (end of Psalm 142). The Croke manuscripts gesture in only small ways toward separating the psalms: MS Stowe 956 highlights the beginning of every psalm by using color for the initial letters and also leaves a blank page between the psalms; in MS Additional 30981, the first letter of each psalm is missing (presumably, rubrication was intended).

Notes to Pages 116–122  233

71.  See Kellerman, “Miserere Mei,” 89–90. 72.  Vulgate, Psalm 101:29: “filii servorum tuorum habitabunt / et semen eorum in saeculum dirigetur.” 73.  Maidstone, “Seven Penitential Psalms,” stanza 97, lines 769–76. 74. Vulgate, Psalm 129:1–2a: “De profundis clamavi ad te Domine / ­Domine exaudi vocem meam.” 75.  Maidstone, “Seven Penitential Psalms,” stanza 98, lines 777–84. 76.  Staley, “Penitential Psalms,” 235, notes that Maidstone’s paraphrase of the opening of Psalm 129 “is alive to the terror of God not hearing our cries.” 77.  Kellerman, “Miserere Mei,” 90. 78.  For the definition(s) of fictional apprehension expressed in this paragraph, see Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 10–11; Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 21–22. 79. Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 47. 80. Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 10; Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 21. Greene takes the phrases “fictive utterances” and “fictive verbal acts” from Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s On the Margins of Discourse. 81. Staley, “Penitential Psalms,” 253, makes a similar argument about Aretino’s paraphrase: “By moving between third- and first-person narration, Aretino slips back and forth between object and subject, preventing us from the process of identification that the Penitential Psalms were meant to foster. We may speak with David, but we also observe him as a sinful king.” 82.  As noted in Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 47, 73, and 275 n. 21. The first prologue in Certayne psalmes is titled “The Prologe of the Auctor,” while each of the subsequent six prologues is labeled “The Auctor.” 83.  For the relationship between the different sixteenth-century versions of Wyatt’s paraphrase, see Muir, “Texts.” Compare Hughey, Arundel Harington Manuscript, 1:44–50; Hughey, John Harington, 16–17, 38–39. 84. Arundel Harington MS, fols. 108r–118r. The manuscript has been ­edited by Ruth Hughey. 85.  British Library MS Royal 17 A XXII, fols. 3r–36r. The manuscript is 6 × 4 ¼ inches. 86.  OED, author, n., 1 and 4. 87. Greene, Post-Petrarchism, 10; Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 21. 88. I disagree with Halasz, “Wyatt’s David,” 323, who argues that the final prologue “presents an unregenerate David” and therefore opposes “the ­implied teleology of the psalm sequence.” 89.  Staley, “Penitential Psalms,” 254.

234  Notes to Pages 122–125

90.  Many of the lines in Certayne psalmes are broken at the midpoint with a comma, indicating a caesura. I have retained these commas in my quotations from the text, even though doing so occasionally disrupts the sense of my prose. 91.  For illustrations of David, see chapter 1, above; for John Fisher’s sermons, see chapter 2, above. 92.  Halasz makes a related point about Aretino’s version of David: “Aretino’s poem [sic] is typical of the extrabiblical development of David’s story in which the penitential example of the psalms provides concrete evidence that David merits redemption and is therefore an appropriate model for (Catholic) Christian conduct”; see “Wyatt’s David,” 321. 93.  Caxton first published his version of the Golden Legend in 1483, or perhaps in 1484; see STC 24873. The text was issued once again by Caxton (in a partial reprint of 1487) and was subsequently republished by Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, and Julian Notary. 94. White, Tudor Books, 33–34, suggests that in his Old Testament lives Caxton generally followed the Scriptures so carefully that he made “a modest contribution to the spread of the Bible in English,” even though a 1408 prohibition against circulating the Bible in the vernacular was still in force when he published his Legend. 95.  STC 24873 (Voragine, [Legenda aurea]), fol. 70r. 96.  The myth of David’s self-burial appears to interpret the narrative of 2 Samuel 12 in light of God’s judgment on Adam after the Fall. See Vulgate, Genesis 3:19: “In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus est / quia pulvis es et in pulveram reverteris” (In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eate bread, til thou returne to earth, of which thou wast taken: because dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt returne). Various penitential rites, including one described in the tenth century by Regino, made use of this biblical passage as a response; see Regino, Libri duo de synodalibus causis, 136–37; Gy, “Penance and Reconciliation,” 111. 97. As Heale, Wyatt, 166, notes: “In Wyatt’s development of Aretino’s prologues . . . David’s agency in the work of redemption, especially that of his art, imaged by the playing of his harp and his tuning voice, is critically scrutinized.” 98.  Except that David confesses directly to God rather than to a priest. 99.  I differ somewhat from Hinely, “‘Freedom through Bondage,’” 152– 53, who argues that the sunbeam falling on the harp is a sign that God approves of David’s art (rather than of David’s new understanding of grace). The image of the beam of light (or sunbeam) is not original to Wyatt; it seems to come most directly from Fisher: “From the eyen of almyghty god whiche may be called his grace shyneth forth a meruaylous bryghtnes lyke as the beme that

Notes to Pages 126–130  235

cometh from the sonne. And that lyght of grace stereth and setteth forthwarde the soules to brynge forth the fruyte of good werkes. Euen as the lyght of the sonne causeth herbes to growe & trees to brynge forth fruyte” (EW 37). ­Wyatt’s use of Fisher is noted in Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 57, 276 n. 28. 100.  Hinely, “ ‘Freedom through Bondage,’” 159–60. 101.  STC 2063 (Biblia the bible [Coverdale Bible]), Psalm 37. 102.  Not only does this heavily charged statement drive a wedge between outward performance and inner merit, but it also summons all the negative ­valences associated with glossing in evangelical polemic of the time. 103. Heale, Wyatt, 167. For similar arguments, see Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 115; Twombly, “Thomas Wyatt’s Paraphrase,” 375–76. 104. Walker, Writing under Tyranny, 368. The biblical text does not imply that the Zion and Jerusalem mentioned by the psalmist are meant to be taken as anything other than their historical locations. The corresponding passage in the Coverdale Bible reads: “The sacrifice of God is a troubled sprete, a broken and a contrite hert (o God) shalt thou not despise. O be fauorable and gracious vnto Sion, that the walles of Jerusalem maye be buylded”; see STC 2063 (Biblia the bible [Coverdale Bible]), Psalm 50. But, as Walker points out, Aretino’s commentary on Psalm 101 includes this statement: “Il Signore ha e­ dificato Sion nelle sincere menti de gli huomini eletti dallo Spirito santo” (The Lord has built Sion in the pure minds of the men elected by the Holy Spirit). 105. Heale, Wyatt, 166–71; Hinely, “‘Freedom through Bondage,’” 156. 106.  Though at the opening of the sixth Penitential Psalm, David himself points out that he is speaking from within a cave (see D7v). 107.  See Heale, Wyatt, 169–70: “Where Aretino’s corresponding prologue dwells on the traditional Roman Catholic iconic details of the angel of the annunciation, the Virgin, Christ’s birth, the cross, the harrowing of Hell and the final ascent into Heaven, Wyatt’s focuses attention on the revealed Word and its redemptive power.” Chapter Four.  From Penance to Politics 1.  The binary of “fictional” and “ritual” readings was developed by Roland Greene in relation to Western lyric poetry; for more details, see chapter 3, above. I discuss illustrations of the Penitential Psalms in chapter 1. 2.  STC 2729 (The whole psalter), sig. C1v. 3.  WA.DB 10(1):104: “Wiltu die heilige Christlichen kirche gemalet sehen, mit lebendiger farbe vnd gestalt, ynn einem kleinen bilde gefasset, so nym den Psalter fur dich, so hastu einen feinen, hellen, reinen spiegel, der dir zeigen wird, was die Christenheit sey, ia du wirst auch dich selbs drinnen,

236  Notes to Pages 130–133

vnd das rechte Gnotiseauton finden, dazu Gott selbs, vnd alle Creaturn.” The ­ancient philosophical maxim “Know thyself ” was inscribed in Greek in the forecourt of the temple of Apollo in Delphi. There seems to have been some contemporary confusion over what it was that Luther was referring to when he described the Psalter as a mirror; see Prescott, “King David,” 144. 4. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 38:213 (Psalm 30, enarr. 2, serm. 3, para. 1, lines 11–14): “et si orat psalmus, orate; et si gemit, gemite; et si gratu­ latur, gaudete; et si sperat, sperate; et si timet, timete. Omnia enim quae hic conscripta sunt, speculum nostrum sunt.” The English translation is from Augustine, Expositions, 1:263. 5.  For Fisher’s sermons, see chapter 2, above; for Redman’s primer, see chapter 3, above. 6.  The Penitential Psalms are printed in the fourth volume, or Lamp, of Bentley’s anthology. See STC 1892 (The monument of matrones), sigs. Ttt7r– Uuu3r (pp. 895–903). 7.  STC 1892 (The monument of matrones), sig. Ttt7r (p. 895). 8.  STC 1892 (The monument of matrones), sig. Ttt7r (p. 895). 9. For Christian prayers and meditations, see STC 6428. Signature numbers for this publication will be given in parentheses. For the relevant edition of Becon’s work, see STC 1747.5 (The pomaunder of prayer). Bailey, Thomas Becon, 105, writes the following about Becon’s theological leanings: “It appears . . . that during Henry’s reign Lutheranism was the dominant influence in his theology, but after 1548 he seems to have adopted Zwinglian views, and to have retained these, with perhaps a little modification in a Calvinistic direction, until the end of his life.” 10.  The edition in question opens with a portrait of Becon drawn in 1553, the year in which the reformer was imprisoned by Mary in the Tower under charges of seditious preaching. However, it must have been printed sometime after 1560, because it contains material from the Geneva Bible. 11.  Richard Day almost certainly did not compile this text. He was born in 1552 and would have been only seventeen years old in 1569. More significantly, the prayers in the first section of the anthology derive directly from a 1568 devotional collection with a similar title: STC 4028 (Henry Bull’s Christian prayers and holy meditations). 12.  Many have noted the affinities between John Day’s Christian prayers and meditations and medieval Horae. See, for example, King, Tudor Royal Iconography, 114; Elizabeth I, Collected Works, 144 n. 1. 13. The frontispiece and the woodcut borders, including the border for the title page, reappear in STC 6429 (A booke of christian prayers [1578]), also printed by John Day; see King, Tudor Royal Iconography, 112. According to

Notes to Pages 133–137  237

Strong, Gloriana, 56, the design for the portrait of Elizabeth may have originated with Flemish miniaturist Levina Teerlinc (b. ca. 1510, d. 1576). 14.  As King points out, the fleur-de-lis appears in the book “in recognition of the queen’s claim to France”; see Tudor Royal Iconography, 112. 15.  The prayers that refer to the queen in the Litany and Suffrages are printed on sigs. G3r–v and I1r–v in Christian prayers and meditations. Alterations are found in these prayers in Lambeth Palace Library, Shelfmark (ZZ) 1569.6 (formerly MS 1049). This unique hand-painted version of the compilation was featured in the recent “Treasures of the Lambeth Palace Library” exhibition (in 2010). A full description of the text is given in the publication accompanying the exhibition; see Harding, “Prayer Book.” An earlier description is given in Kershaw, Art Treasures, 87–89. King discusses the shaping of this book for the queen’s own use in Tudor Royal Iconography, 112, 114. 16.  Elizabeth I, Collected Works, 144 n. 1. See also Elizabeth I, Autograph Compositions, 129 n. 1. In Christian prayers and meditations, the foreign-­ language prayers are found on sigs. Hh1r–Qq1v. Further prayers composed in English in the voice of the queen, such as “A Prayer for wisedome to gouerne the Realme” (sigs. p2v–p4v) and four prayers “In time of sicknes” (sigs. I2v– N2r), must have been approved by Elizabeth, even though they were probably not written by her; see Harding, “Prayer Book,” 111; May, “Queen Elizabeth Prays,” 206. 17.  The Latin text of the epigraph reads: “Domine Deus Israel, non est ­similis tui Deus in coelo & in terra, qui pacta custodis & misericordiam cum seruis tuis, qui ambulant coram te in toto corde suo.” This Scripture is taken from the Vulgate text of 2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 6:14. 18.  For more information on this manuscript, see Tanis, Leaves of Gold, 45, 58–59. 19. King, Tudor Royal Iconography, 114, describes how Solomon functions symbolically as a predecessor for Elizabeth: “This epigraph suggests that Eliza­ beth, like Solomon, is an ideally religious ruler. The great Hebrew king pre­ figures Christ in the Tree of Jesse depicted in the title-page border, and he offers a biblical model for the queen’s capacity as a wise governor who has re­ established the Lord’s Temple by imposing a Protestant settlement in religion and bringing peace to England.” King, however, does not comment on the Davidic resonances in the frontispiece’s depiction of Elizabeth. 20.  Thomas Bentley includes the same version of the Penitential Psalms in The monument of matrones. For the Great Bible, see STC 2068 (The byble in Englyshe). 21.  For the Geneva Bible, see STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures).

238  Notes to Pages 137–141

22.  Apart from being one of the most revered scholars of his age, Ver­ migli was an Augustinian monk turned evangelical reformer, who spent significant time in England at the invitation of Thomas Cranmer. 23.  It may not be possible to ascertain who translated Vermigli’s prayers for Elizabeth’s prayer book. In his Christian prayers and holy meditations, Henry Bull includes translations of the first five (based on Psalms 1 and 2), along with the suggestion that one of the “godly learned” might like to take on the “worthy enterprise” of translating the rest; see STC 4028, sigs. Y3r–Y6r (pp. 341–47). An English rendition by Charles Glemhan of the entire set of Vermigli’s prayers appeared in 1569; see STC 24671 (Vermigli, Most godly prayers). However, the translations anthologized in Elizabeth’s prayer book do not follow Glemhan’s work. 24.  The Genevan prefaces to Psalms 102 and 130 do not make reference to David: Psalm 102 is associated with the captivity of the Israelites in Babylon; Psalm 130 is said by “the people of God from their bottomles miseries.” The preface to Psalm 143 fails to mention David by name but nevertheless implies that the psalm is his: “An earnest prayer for remission of sinnes, acknowledging that the enemies did thus cruelly persecute hym by Gods iust iudgement.” See STC 6428 (Christian prayers and meditations), sigs. D2v, E3r, F1v. 25.  A parallel might be drawn with the Book of Common Prayer, which, as Ramie Targoff has argued, carefully integrates individual into collective worship; see Common Prayer, esp. ch. 1. Targoff also posits here that the assimilation of personal into communal devotion occurs more fully in the second version of the text (1552) than in the first (1549), because the second version frequently replaces “I” with “we.” 26.  STC 2033 (The psalmes of Dauid), sig. ¶4r. Beza’s paraphrase of the Psalter was first published in Latin in 1579. 27. Kuczynski, Prophetic Song, xx, writes: “The speaking voice of the Psalms is always both singular and plural, the utterances of an individual poetic voice and the sentiments of a community (synagoga or ecclesia, an assembly of people). . . . In the exquisite poetry of the Psalms, David articulates the sinful and righteous sentiments of all.” See also 12. 28. Stock, Implications of Literacy. 29.  Emphasis added in both quotations. 30. The frequent occurrence of both paranoia and schism among ­sixteenth-century evangelical readers of the Bible (and of the Book of Psalms in particular) is analyzed in depth in Simpson, Burning to Read, ch. 5. Simpson finds a tight but paradoxical relationship between the key Lutheran doctrines

Notes to Pages 143–145  239

of sola fide and sola scriptura on the one hand, and the emergence of a general sense of being persecuted, along with a tendency toward factionalism, on the other hand. 31.  The doubling “sinnes and wickednesses” may derive from the general confession written by Thomas Cranmer for the 1549 Book of Common Prayer’s Communion service: “Almightie GOD, father of oure Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all thynges, iudge of all menne, we knowlege and bewaile our manifold sinnes and wyckednes, whiche we from tyme to tyme, most greuously haue committed, by thoughte, woorde[,] and dede, agaynste thy diuine maiestie.” See STC 16270 (The booke of the common prayer), fol. 117v. This wording was retained in the 1552 version of the book; see STC 16279 (The boke of common prayer), sig. N4v. 32.  The relevant Great Bible psalm text, as it is reproduced in Elizabeth’s prayer book, reads: “But mine enemies liue and are mighty, & they that hate me wrongfully are many in number. / They also that reward euil for good are agaynst me, because I knowe the thyng that is good. / Forsake me not (O Lord my God:) be not thou far fro me. / Hast thee to helpe me O lord (God) my saluation” (B4v). 33. Vermigli, Sacred Prayers, xvi–xvii. 34. Vermigli, Sacred Prayers, xx. For more on the composition of Sacred Prayers in relation to the political and religious climate in Germany in the mid1540s, see Campi, “Preces Sacrae.” 35.  John Stubbs’s name is sometimes given as “Stubbe” or “Stubbes.” Beza’s Chrestiennes méditations was published in Geneva in 1581 or 1582. 36. For the first edition of Stubbs’s Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes, see STC 2004; for the second, see STC 2005. The year of the second edition is unknown, though 1583 seems likely. Unless otherwise noted, I will quote from the first edition, giving signature numbers in parentheses. 37.  Barker was not a member of the Stationers’ Company when he bought the title from Wilkes, and many printers objected to his bid for this office. The title itself gave Barker exclusive rights to printing English Bibles. See Kathman, “Barker, Christopher (1528/9–1599).” 38.  Bacon House soon became the hub of Barker’s printing business. See Kathman, “Barker, Christopher (1528/9–1599).” 39.  Beza may have decided to add Psalm 1 to the seven Penitential Psalms because it was often considered an introduction to (or summary of ) the entire Psalter. In his dedicatory epistle to the work, though, he ignores the extra psalm, noting merely that he chose to write meditations upon “the seuen Psalmes called some time Penitential ” for his own “particular instruction and consolation” (A4r–v).

240  Notes to Pages 146–159

40.  The meditation on Psalm 1 returns several times to the metaphor of right versus wrong paths (for righteous versus wicked living). At one point, for example, it provides this prayer requesting God’s aid: “But O my God, retire my feete from those crooked wayes wherein I haue gone too farre already: and since thou hast put in me the desire of blessednesse, shewe me also the ready addresse thereunto, giue mee a will to follow it, and strength to pursue it, euen till I may attaine it to thine honour and glorie” (B1v). 41.  For the “two murderous letters,” see chapter 1, above. 42.  For Luther, see chapter 2, above. 43.  See also this passage at the beginning of the meditation on Psalm 130, in which the supplicant admonishes himself: “Goe no further then downward, but lift vp thine heart together with thy crye, and saye not in thy selfe, God hath reiected mee from before him, for, such language God likes not. Thou cryest vnto God, and wherefore, but onely because hee hath awakened thee?” (G5r). 44. Stubbs attacked Elizabeth I’s proposed marriage to the Catholic Francis, Duke of Anjou, in STC 23400 (The discouerie of a gaping gulf ), published in August 1579. He spent eighteen months in the Tower for this offense; for his biography, see Stubbs, John Stubbs’s “Gaping Gulf,” ix–lvi. 45.  In the 1582 edition, he signs with the abbreviated “I. S. S.” (A3v). However, in the second edition of the same work, he signs in full, “Iohn Stubbe Sceua.” “Sceua” (usually “Scaeva”) is interpreted as “with his left hand” in Stubbs, John Stubbs’s “Gaping Gulf,” xl n. 49. 46.  Brice, “Theodore Beza,” 38. For an extended study that places Beza’s theology in its historical context, see Manetsch, Theodore Beza. Chapter Five.  Parody and Piety 1.  See, for example, “A table for the ordre of the Psalmes, to be sayed at Matins and Euensong,” in STC 16270 (The booke of the common prayer [1549]), sig. A4r. Subsequent editions of the text use basically the same scheme. It is also worth noting that in many lectern Bibles dating from the sixteenth century the psalms are annotated with the letters M and E, for Matins and Evensong (or Morning and Evening Prayer). 2.  To make this point is not, of course, to suggest that lyric experimentation with the Penitential Psalms began in England with the Reformation— only that the Reformation seems to have led to a heightened interest in these psalms on the part of lyric poets. 3.  STC 4450. The Meditation does not have signature or folio numbers. For an annotated modern edition prepared by Susan Felch, see Lock, Collected Works, 62–71.

Notes to Pages 159–163  241

4. Lock introduces the sonnets with these words: “I haue added this meditation folowyng vnto the ende of this boke, not as parcell of maister Caluines worke, but for that it well agreeth with the same argument, and was deliuered me by my frend with whom I knew I might be so bolde to vse & publishe it as pleased me.” Roland Greene, who attributes the Meditation to Lock herself, writes that it is “formally the first sonnet sequence in English,” although he also notes that it is “much more a prolonged incantation than a fiction like the amatory sequences that were to arrive later in the century”; see Greene, “Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalms,” 24–25. 5.  For these analyses of Gascoigne, see Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 112–18; Eriksen, “Typological Form” and “George Gascoigne’s and Mary Sidney’s Versions.” Anne Vaughan Lock has (not surprisingly) been of particular interest to scholars working on early modern women’s writing. A recent assessment of the Meditation is provided in Coles, Religion, Reform, ch. 4. 6.  The date of April 1562 derives from comments made by Gascoigne in both the dedicatory epistle and the concluding note for The complaynt of Philomene (1576); see Gascoigne, Complete Works, 2:177 and 207, and Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (ed. Pigman), 648–49, n. to 66.0.3–4. 7. For A hundreth sundrie flowres (1573), see STC 11635; for The posies (1575), see STC 11636 and 11637. 8.  See Gascoigne’s epistle “To the reuerende Diuines” at the opening of STC 11637 (The posies). Gascoigne draws the term gelded from Theodore ­Beza’s Poëmata castrata. 9.  This position derives mostly from two separate studies published in 1997: Clegg, Press Censorship, ch. 5; Hughes, “Gascoigne’s Poses.” 10. Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 114. 11. See the epistle “To the Readers generally” at the opening of STC 11637 (The posies). 12. Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 115. 13.  The division of the anthology into three sections is new to The posies (it is not present in A hundreth sundrie flowres). 14.  See the epistle “To al yong Gentlemen” at the opening of STC 11637 (The posies). 15. Modern anthologies give an inaccurate impression of Gascoigne’s poem when they include it without its framing materials—as noted by Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 113. 16.  STC 11635 (Gascoigne, A hundreth sundrie flowres), sig. 2Y2v (p. 372). 17.  STC 11635 (Gascoigne, A hundreth sundrie flowres), sig. 2Y3r (p. 373). 18.  I quote from STC 11635 (Gascoigne, A hundreth sundrie flowres), sig. 2Y3r (p. 373). For the version in The posies, see STC 11637, sig. b5r (p. 25). ­Although the orthography differs slightly, the two renditions of the sonnet are essentially the same.

242  Notes to Pages 163–168

19.  One might keep in mind that the Latin noun translatio designates, broadly, the process of carrying across.” 20. Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 112–15. For more on Wyatt and Aretino, see chapter 3, above. 21. The title for the psalm translation, “Gascoignes De profundis,” also suggests that the poem is thoroughly Gascoigne’s; see Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 114 n. 12. 22.  See the epistle “To al yong Gentlemen” in STC 11637 (The posies). 23.  On the self-consciousness of Gascoigne’s artistry, see Eriksen, “George Gascoigne’s and Mary Sidney’s Versions,” 1; Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 116–18. 24. Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 116–17. 25.  STC 11637 (Gascoigne, The posies), sig. b5v (p. 26). 26.  STC 11637 (Gascoigne, The posies), sig. b6v (p. 28). Regarding the anaphoric increase in the translation, see Eriksen, “George Gascoigne’s and Mary Sidney’s Versions,” 2–3; Hamlin, Psalm Culture, 118. 27.  Eriksen, “George Gascoigne’s and Mary Sidney’s Versions,” 4. 28.  Many poets have, of course, wrestled with this particular issue. George Herbert, whose work relies heavily on the Penitential Psalms, might be considered a prime example. 29. Eriksen does not appear to take Gascoigne’s framing devices into ­account in either of his analyses of the psalm translation. 30. For despairing Calvinist abjection, see John Stubbs’s translation of Theodore Beza’s meditations on the seven Penitential Psalms (as discussed in chapter 4, above). 31.  STC 11637 (Gascoigne, The posies), sigs. b5v–b6r (pp. 26–27). 32. British Library, MS Egerton 2711; Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms are transcribed on fols. 86r–98v, and Harington’s on fols. 104r–107r. Anthony G. Petti, using paleographical analysis, dates Harington’s transcription of his Penitential Psalms to around 1600 or a little earlier; see English Literary Hands, 81. 33.  Schmutzler, “Harington’s Metrical Paraphrases,” esp. 241–44; see also May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 213, 329. As both Schmutzler and May explain, Harington prepared a copy of his complete Psalter for the printing press, and sent it to King James with a request for patronage, around the year 1612. However, Harington was never able to get his Psalter published, and it has remained unpublished to this day. 34. Wyatt, Collected Poems, xi. 35.  For more details about the role of John Harington of Stepney in the publication of Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms, see chapter 3, above, and Appendix, below. 36.  Harington’s octaves could perhaps be considered modified versions of ottava rima, the stanzaic form that Wyatt used for his Davidic prologues. This

Notes to Pages 168–173  243

form usually rhymes abababcc. For more on Harington’s stanzaic structures, see May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 212. 37. For Harington’s sources, see May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 212; Schmuztler, “Harington’s Metrical Paraphrases,” 248. For the many versions of the Book of Psalms, English and otherwise, that influenced Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke, see Sidney and Herbert, Sidney Psalter, xviii–xix. 38. May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 212. 39. May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 213. 40.  Psalm 6:1–2, STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures [Geneva Bible]). 41.  Preface to Psalm 6, and marginal note to Psalm 6:1, STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures [Geneva Bible]). The Geneva Bible gives all of the psalm prefaces in italics. 42.  Sidney and Herbert, Sidney Psalter, Psalm 6, lines 1–4. 43.  Harington, “Sir John Harington’s Translation,” Psalm 6, lines 1–6. 44. See Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 1, where, “invention, nature’s child,” flees the corporal punishment of “step-dame study,” and the poet finds himself “biting his truant pen” and “beating [him]self for spite”—until his Muse intervenes. I quote from Sidney, Sir Philip Sidney. 45. Psalm 32:1–2, STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures [Geneva Bible]). 46.  For a useful introduction to sixteenth-century debates over justification, see McGrath, Reformation Thought, ch. 6; for an in-depth study, see McGrath, Iustitia Dei. The question of justification in relation to sixteenth-century readings of the Penitential Psalms (and especially of Psalm 32) is discussed in Cummings, Literary Culture, 223–31. 47.  Marginal note to Psalm 32:1, STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures [Geneva Bible]). This note also directs readers to Romans 4, where Paul picks up on the first verses of Psalm 32. 48.  Harington, “Sir John Harington’s Translation,” Psalm 32, lines 1–4. 49.  See, for example, Psalm 32:4–5a, STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures [Geneva Bible]): “(For thine hand is heauie vpon me, daie & night: & my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Sélah.) / Then I acknowledged my sinne vnto thee, neither hid I mine iniquitie.” 50.  Harington, “Sir John Harington’s Translation,” Psalm 32, lines 7–10. 51.  See chapter 4, above. 52.  Psalm 102:13–17, STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures [Geneva Bible]). 53. Harington, “Sir John Harington’s Translation,” Psalm 102, lines 21–28.

244  Notes to Pages 173–177

54.  Harington’s confessional sympathies have proven notoriously hard to pin down. These lines in Harington’s translation of Psalm 102 might indicate personal support either for recusant Catholicism or for the kind of reactionary ecclesiology that was gaining ground in the Church of England at the end of the sixteenth century (and that led eventually to the development of Lau­ dianism). 55. Psalm 38:19–22, STC 2093 (The bible and holy scriptures [Geneva Bible]). 56.  Harington, “Sir John Harington’s Translation,” Psalm 38, lines 31–36. 57. May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 327. See also Scott-Warren, “Harington, Sir John (bap. 1560, d. 1612).” 58.  The concept of disarming seems to be unique to Harington; I have not found it in any other version of the psalm. 59. May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 210–11. 60.  In the course of his argument about religious poetry and inner spirituality, May, Elizabethan Courtier Poets, 210, notes that Harington “apparently chose not to send his devotional works into general circulation.” The implication seems to be that, since Harington did not publish his translation of the Penitential Psalms, the work must represent a private, pious, meditation on the part of the poet. Perhaps, though, Harington kept his translation to himself ­because he knew that it would be likely to offend—in both religious and political circles—and thus get him into even more trouble with the queen. 61. STC 21359. The patronym Rowlands was assumed by Richard’s Dutch grandfather, Theodore Rowland Verstegan, upon his immigration into England in about 1500. When Richard was exiled to the Continent at the ­beginning of the 1580s, he reclaimed his ancestral family name, Verstegan. 62. STC 4256 (Byrd, Songs of sundrie natures). Byrd was a practicing Catholic, but he was also a Gentleman of Elizabeth I’s Reformed Chapel Royal. For Byrd’s dual existence (as a Catholic who composed music for a Protestant congregation), see Le Huray, Music and the Reformation, 227–30. The relationship between Byrd’s work and recusant poetics is highly complex and merits further investigation. 63.  Many of these verses and meditations are influenced by the work of Robert Southwell, Jesuit priest, poet, and martyr; see Arblaster, Antwerp and the World, 81–83. 64.  Concerning the winged heart: I do not think that this is meant to be a version of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a popular Counter-Reformation icon. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is not typically represented with wings; instead, it tends to be surrounded by flames. It is more likely that the winged heart symbolizes a human heart flying up to God in devotion. 65.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A2r.

Notes to Pages 177–185  245

66.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A2r. 67.  Today, we use virginal or virginals to refer to the relatively small keyed musical instruments played on the lap or on the top of a table. Such instruments were common in early modern England. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the terms virginal and virginals were regularly applied to full-size harpsichords, too. 68. Arblaster, Antwerp and the World, 80. Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 129, notes that Verstegan’s work “was dedicated to Catholic Englishwomen.” However, she does not speculate on the whereabouts of these singers. 69.  See “Odes in imitation of the seuen poenitentiall Psalmes, in seuen seuerall kinde of verse,” in STC 12407 (Grymeston, Miscelanea. Meditations. Memoratives), sigs. F1r–H1r. Oddly, the seven psalms appear here in reverse order: the sequence begins with Psalm 142 and ends with Psalm 6. 70. Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 130. 71.  STC 2729 (The whole psalter), sig. G1r: “As Dauid inspierd with the grace of gods holy sprite so described a blessed man in his Odys and songes longe before these dayes, teaching who is truely a blessed man, and who is contrary.” 72.  STC 2729 (The whole psalter), sigs. F4r ( Jerome) and F3v ( Josephus). 73.  See Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 130. 74.  STC 2729 (The whole psalter), sig. F4v. 75.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A2v. 76.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A3r (p. 1). 77.  Verstegan follows the psalm numbers in the Vulgate Bible. 78.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A4r (p. 3). 79.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A4v (p. 4). 80.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A6r (p. 7). 81.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A8v (p. 12). 82.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. B4v (p. 20). 83. Here one might recall the unifying refrain of “Ne reminiscaris” in Brampton’s fifteenth-century paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms. See chapter 3, above. 84.  For a thorough study of the development and influence of the “Sternhold and Hopkins” Psalter in the sixteenth century, see Quitslund, Reformation in Rhyme. 85.  For the first edition of Hunnis’s Seuen sobs, see STC 13975. This work was reprinted innumerable times, well into the reign of Charles I. It deserves further scholarly attention. 86.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. A2r and sig. A3r (p. 1). 87.  Elizabeth’s prayer book and Stubbs’s Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes are both analyzed in chapter 4, above.

246  Notes to Pages 185–194

88.  STC 21359 (Verstegan, Odes), sig. B1r–v (pp. 13–14). 89.  Vulgate, Psalm 101:14–15: “tu exurgens misereberis Sion / qui tempus miserendi eius / qui venit tempus / quoniam placuerunt servis tuis lapides eius et terrae eius miserebuntur.” Zim, English Metrical Psalms, 130, notes that Verstegan’s source is “the Vulgate rather than any of the newer translations derived from the Hebrew.” Afterword 1.  The STC Room has now been dismantled; its bound copies have been moved to the Penn Libraries Research Annex (LIBRA), a high-density storage facility in West Deptford, NJ. Thanks are due to John Pollack of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, for confirming these facts (e-mail communication, June 25, 2011). 2.  When I first came across the STC Room, Early English Books Online’s digitization project was still in its infancy, and very few texts were available in virtual format. While I now use EEBO frequently, I am not convinced that the Penitential Psalms would have been quite so obvious to me had I turned initially to an online resource. Appendix 1.  STC 2726. 2.  There seem to have been two printers named Thomas Raynald, one probably the son and apprentice of the other. Raynald the elder started printing in 1539 and produced mostly medical texts, while Raynald the younger began work in 1548 and favored religious literature. The combined Raynald operations apparently ceased around 1552. See Pollard, Short-Title Catalogue, 3:142– 43; and Gadd, “Raynald, Thomas ( fl. 1539–1552?).” I assume that it was Raynald the younger who published Wyatt in 1549. 3.  The imprint at the bottom of the title page reads: “Imprinted at London in Paules Churchyarde, at the sygne of thee Starre, By Thomas Raynald. and John Harryngton.” There is a period after “Raynald.” 4. Foxwell, Study of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Poems (1911), 1. 5.  John Harington of Stepney was arrested and questioned in January 1549 following the disgrace of his master, the Lord Admiral Sir Thomas Seymour. He remained in the Tower until the spring of 1550. 6.  British Library, MS Egerton 2711. 7. The Arundel Harington MS was discovered at Arundel Castle by Ruth Hughey in 1933.

Notes to Pages 194–197  247

8.  It has been suggested that John Harington of Stepney may have received the manuscript upon the death of Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1542, or upon the death of the Earl of Surrey in 1547, or upon the death of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger in 1554. See Hughey, John Harington, 16, 21, 49. No evidence has been found to settle this question definitively. 9.  See chapter 3, above, esp. n. 83. 10. The Haringtons owned Farleton in Kendal and additional lands in Westmoreland, while the Parrs were long established in Lancashire and acquired Kendal Castle in Westmoreland in the fourteenth century. See Hughey, John Harington, 37, and 228 n. 211. 11. Hughey, John Harington, 39. For more on the various affiliations of Harington and Parr, see chapter 3, above. 12.  STC 2727, unnumbered final page. 13. Hughey, Arundel Harington Manuscript, 1:45, esp. n. 59; Hughey, John Harington, 37–38, and 228 n. 213; Harrier, Canon, 6, and 89 n. 7. 14.  See Ames, Typographical Antiquities, 3:1309. For a brief explanation of Herbert’s error, see “Harrington, John,” in Pollard, Short-Title Catalogue, 3:77. 15.  STC 5276. 16.  See STC 5276 (Cicero, The booke of freendeship), sig. A2v. 17.  Alternatively, he may have owned a copy of the Penitential Psalms prior to entering the Tower and taken it into prison with him. It is fitting that the original composition of the verse paraphrase probably took place when Wyatt was himself imprisoned in the Tower (i.e., in 1536 or 1541). 18.  The titles of the two works in print are almost identical. 19. Hughey, John Harington, 38. 20. Harrier, Canon, 6–7. The first edition of Tottel’s miscellany included forty poems by Grimald; later editions omitted most of them. 21. Bale, Index, 304. 22. Merrill, Life and Poems, 20. 23. Grimald’s handwriting appears in only the first ten poems in the Egerton manuscript; see Hughey, Sir John Harington, 51. 24.  One might also observe that the printed text of Wyatt’s paraphrase fails to reflect Grimald’s idiosyncratic orthography. Harrier himself remarks as such; see Canon, 6–7. 25.  STC 2726 (Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid), sig. A1v.

Works Cited

Manuscripts Consulted British Library MS Additional 30981 John Croke’s paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms, five and a half further psalms, and the first chapter of Ecclesiastes. Mid–sixteenth century. MS Egerton 2711 Collection of poems, principally by Sir Thomas Wyatt (many in autograph). Includes versions of the Penitential Psalms by both Wyatt and Sir John Harington. Sixteenth century, with additions dating from the seventeenth century. MS Royal 17 A XXII Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Penitential Psalms. Mid–­ sixteenth century. MS Stowe 956 John Croke’s paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms and five further psalms. Mid–sixteenth century. Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia MS Lewis E 96 MS Lewis E 97 MS Lewis E 104

Horae, Use of Paris. France, late fifteenth century. Horae, Use of Paris. France (Paris), early sixteenth century. Horae, Use of Rome. Flanders, ca. 1460. 249

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MS Lewis E 108 MS Lewis E 112 MS Lewis E 118 MS Lewis E 182 MS Lewis E 212 MS Lewis E 214 MS Lewis M11.10a MS Widener 4 MS Widener 6 MS Widener 9

Horae, Use of Rome. Flanders (Bruges), late fifteenth century. Horae, Use of Rome. Southern France, ca. 1530. Horae, Dominican Use. Italy (Siena), ca. 1470. Gallican Psalter with Calendar, Canticles, Litany, and Collects. Flanders (Bruges), ca. 1470. Horae. France, ca. 1480. Horae, Use of Rome. France (Tours), ca. 1525. Leaf from Horae. France (Rouen), [early?] sixteenth century. Horae, Use of Dol and Rennes. France (Paris), ca. 1405. Horae, Use of Paris. France (Paris), ca. 1415. Psalter-Hours. Northeastern France ([Amiens?]), ca. 1270.

Library Company of Philadelphia MS 5 MS 24

Horae, Use of Rouen. France (Rouen), ca. 1470. Horae, Use of Thérouanne. Northern France, first quarter of sixteenth century.

Princeton University Library MS Taylor 7

Horae, Use of Paris. France, [early sixteenth century?]. Printed Works from the STC

Texts are organized in accordance with the numbered reference system in Pollard, A Short-Title Catalogue (2nd ed.). Titles are based on those established by Pollard, though abbreviations and contractions have been expanded and a small number of corrections made silently. Publication details have been simplified, and names of people and places standardized. With the exception of London as the place of publication, inferred details have been provided in square ­brackets. 1747.5 Becon, Thomas. The pomaunder of prayer. London: J. Day (n.d.). 1892–94 Bentley, Thomas. The monument of matrones: conteining seuen seuerall lamps of virginitie, or distinct treatises; whereof the first fiue concerne

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praier and meditation: the other two last, precepts and examples. London: H. Denham, 1582. 2004 Bèze, Théodore de. Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes of the prophet Dauid. [Trans. John Stubbs.] London: C. Barker, 1582. 2005 ———. [Anr. ed.] London: C. Barker, [1583?]. 2033 ———. The psalmes of Dauid, truely opened and explaned. Set foorth in Latine by that excellent learned man Theodore Beza. Trans. Anthony Gilby. London: J. Harrison and H. Middleton, 1580. 2063 Biblia the bible, that is, the holy scripture . . . translated out of Douche and Latyn in to Englishe. M.D.XXXV. [Cologne?: E. Cervicornus and J. Soter?], 1535. [Coverdale Bible] 2068 The byble in Englyshe, that is to saye the content of all the holy scrypture. [Paris: F. Regnault]; London: R. Grafton and E. Whitchurch, 1539. [Great Bible] 2077 The byble, that is to say all the holy scripture: nowe lately recognised. London: [S. Mierdman for] J. Day and W. Seres, 1549. [A revision of the “Matthew” Bible] 2093 The bible and holy scriptures conteyned in the olde and newe testament. Translated according to the Ebrue and Greke. With moste profitable annotations. Geneva: R. Hall, 1560. [Geneva Bible] 2368 The psalter or boke of psalmes both in Latyn and Englyshe, with a kalendar, & a table. [Trans. Miles Coverdale.] London: R. Grafton, 1540. 2374 The psalter of Dauid in english truly translated. Whereunto is annexed in thende certayne godly prayers thoroweoute the whole yere, commenly called collettes. [Trans. George Joye.] London: E. Whitchurch, [1544?]. 2419 Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, and drawen into Englishe metre by Thomas Sternhold. London: E. Whitchurch, [1548?]. 2420 Al such psalmes of Dauid as Thomas Sternehold didde in his life time draw into English metre. London: E. Whit­church, 1549. 2726 Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, commonlye called thee .vii. penytentiall psalmes, drawen into englyshe meter by Sir Thomas Wyat knight. London: T. Raynald and [i.e., for] J. Harington (“Harryngton” in the imprint), 1549. 2727 Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, and drawen furth into Englysh meter by William Hunnis. London: The Widow of J. Herforde for J. Harington (“Harrington” in the colophon), 1550. 2729 The whole psalter translated into English metre. [Trans. Matthew Parker.] London: J. Day, [1567?]. 4028 Bull, Henry. [Christian prayers and holy meditations]. London: T. East for H. Middleton, 1568.

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Index

Abelard, Peter, 221n43 accounting, spiritual, 77 Act for the Defacing of Images (1550), 103 Acts and Monuments (Book of Martyrs) (Foxe), 64 allegoresis Psalm 6 and, 12 Psalm 101 (102) and, 76 Allen, William, 144 Ames, Joseph, 195 analysis, fictional paraphrases and, 119 anaphora, rhetorical technique of, 164–65 angels in illustrations for Penitential Psalms, 213n55 Antwerp and the World (Arblaster), 177 Antwerp Book of Hours (1542), 42 Arblaster, Paul, 177 Aretino, Pietro Waddington on, 97, 228n15, 228n17 See also Sette salmi de la penitentia di David, I (Aretino) artists in the Low Countries and paintings of Bathsheba, 54

Arundel Harington manuscript discovery by Hughey, 246n7 Wyatt’s paraphrase in, 121, 194 Ash Wednesday, 15, 16, 65, 205n56 Astrophil and Stella, 170, 174, 243n44 Athanasius on penitential character of Psalm 50 (51), 200n8 use of mirror metaphor, 130 audience analysis, 190 Augustine on enemies of psalmist, 11–12 interpretation of psalmist’s physical pain, 202n33 penitential hermeneutics and, 8 Possidius’s life of, 4, 5, 200n6 on Psalm 6, 9, 10–11, 12 on Psalm 30 (31), 130 on Psalm 50 (51), 33–34 on Psalm 101 (102), 76, 222n49 sayings included in primers, 60 Babylonian Captivity of the Church, The (Luther), 85 Bacon, Lady Anne (Butts), 145 Bacon, Lady Anne (Cooke), 145 Bacon, Nicholas, the Elder, 145 Bacon, Nicholas, the Younger, 145, 152

267

  268  Index

Bale, John, 102, 154, 197 Barker, Christopher, 145, 239nn37–38 Bathsheba and David, illustrations of, 28–32 alongside 2 Samuel 11–12, 30 in Books of Hours —in Horae (France, sixteenth century), 44 —in Horae, Use of Paris, 45 —in Hore presentes ad vsum Sarum, 43 —in The primer in English and Latin, after Salisburie vse, 29 —in Redman’s primer, 106 —in Salisbury primer, 48, 49 in Bucer/Joye Psalter, 209n13 in The byble in Englyshe (Great Bible), 31 denounced by Erasmus, 53, 215n75 engraving crossing religious and generic boundaries, 54, 55, 56, 57 paintings by Low Countries artists, 54 purposes of, 56 seductive force of, 52 taking a footbath, 215n78 Beaufort, Margaret, 66, 217n8 Becon, Thomas, 102, 132 Beham, Sebald, 54 Bentley, Thomas, 131–32, 237n20 Beza, Theodore addition of Psalm 1 to the Penitential Psalms, 239n39 concern about the progress of Reformation, 155 paraphrase of Book of Psalms translated by Gilby, 139 See also Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes (Beza; Stubbs, trans.)

Bible, books of. See Book of Psalms; Ezekiel 18:30; Matthew, Gospel of; 2 Samuel 11–12 Bishops’ Book, The (1537), 97 Blench, J. W., 74 Bonner, Edmund (bishop of London), 95, 227n1 booke of freendeship, The (Cicero; Harington of Stepney, trans.), 102, 196, 229n27 Book of Common Prayer general confession written by Cranmer, 239n31 integration of individual into collective worship, 238n25 no reference to Penitential Psalms as a group, 157 Book of Hours for Salisbury Use (1555, 1556), 28 Book of Psalms Harington’s version under King James I, 167 Luther’s lectures on, 67 numbering of Penitential Psalms in, 1–2 superscription (titulus) to each Penitential Psalm, 34 Books of Hours French from around 1480, 36 illustrations of Penitential Psalms in, 79, 129 —change of focus from repentance to sin, 41 —early, 32 —in manuscripts, 213n55 —seven images, 46–47 —subjects of, 31 Penitential Psalms in, 26 physical proof of repeated reading of prayers for the deceased, 208n5 Brampton, Thomas, 104. See also paraphrase of Penitential Psalms by Brampton

Index  269

Brice, Derek, 155 Brooke, Elizabeth, 96 Bucer/Joye Psalter, 209n13 Bull, Henry, 236n11, 238n23 Burchard of Worms, 16 Burning to Read (Simpson), 224n75, 238n30 Byrd, William, 3 practicing Catholic, 244n62 See also Songs of sundrie natures (Byrd) Cassiodorus emphasis on God’s justice, 9 on enemies of psalmist, 12 first reference to the Penitential Psalms as a set, 4–5, 200n8 on Psalm 6, 9, 13–14 catechesis and literacy, 60–61 Caxton, William, 123–24 first edition of Golden Legend, 234n93 Old Testament lives, 234n94 Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid (Hunnis), 102, 195, 196, 229n28 Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid (Wyatt), 98–99, 117–28, 193 Aretino’s I sette salmi de la penitentia di David as source, 96, 97, 228n15 date of publication, 103 David in, 122–27 dedication to Parr, 99, 101, 121, 230n37 fictionalized reading of Penitential Psalms, 122 little influence on Harington’s translation, 167 original manuscript used for preparing, 194 political reading, 96–97

prologues —headings to, 119–20 —importance of, 121 —to second Penitential Psalm, 120 psalms as dramatic monologues, 118 title page, 100 Christiani matrimonii institutio (The Institution of Christian Marriage) (Erasmus) denouncing illustrations of Bathsheba, 53, 215n75 printing and dedication, 214n71 Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes (Beza; Stubbs, trans.), 22, 132, 144–56 link to Bacon family, 145 link to Queen Elizabeth, 145 meditation on Psalm 1, 240n40 meditation on Psalm 37 (38), 148–49 meditation on Psalm 50 (51), 147–48 meditation on Psalm 101 (102), 150, 151, 152–55 meditation on Psalm 129 (130), 240n40 Penitential Psalms as ritual texts, 146, 148 Christian prayers and holy meditations (Bull), 236n11, 238n23 Christian prayers and meditations (1569), 22, 132–39 compared to Stubbs’s translation of Beza, 145 illustrations, 133 —frontispiece, 133, 134, 135 Penitential Psalms in, 137 —prefaces, 138 —as supplications by “the church,” 139–40 prayers as integrative strategies for Elizabeth’s church, 140–41

  270  Index

Christocentrism, 225n85 church (Calvinist), enemies according to Stubbs/Beza meditation, 153–55 church of Elizabeth, 140 body of psalmist as metaphorical body of, 153 seen as persecuted community, 143 close analysis, methods of, 1, 20, 189 community, textual, 140 confession, rite of Fisher on, 75 increasing focus on sex, 50 as part of sacrament of penance, 16, 124 confession of iniquity in highly penitential psalms, 7 confutacyon of Tyndales answere, The (More), 64 contrition Fisher on, 75 as part of sacrament of penance, 16, 124 conversion, spiritual Fisher on, 71 Penitential Psalms and, 130 —in commentaries of Fisher and Luther, 66 Verstegan and, 182 in Wyatt’s paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms, 122 Country Parson, The (Herbert), 90 Court of Venus, The, 98 Coverdale, Miles, 137. See also Great Bible (1539) Coverdale Bible (1535) Bathsheba illustration in, 56 as source for Wyatt, 126 Coverdale Psalter (1540), 26–28, 27 reuse of Great Bible woodcut of David and Bathsheba, 209n13 Cranach, Lucas, the Elder, 54

Cranmer, Thomas general confession in Book of Common Prayer (1549), 239n31 Vermigli and, 238n22 Croke, Alexander, 231n50, 231n52 Croke, John, 3, 98, 104, 230n38. See also paraphrase of Penitential Psalms by Croke Crom, Matthias, 213n54 Cromwell, Thomas, 227n1 culpa, 76, 124 Cummings, Brian on Luther, 218n14, 224n79 on publication date of Certayne psalmes, 103 damnation, eternal, in Geneva Bible Psalm 6, 169 Darrell, Elizabeth, 96 David composition of Penitential Psalms, 78–79 extrabiblical legends on, 78 Halasz on Aretino’s version of, 234n92 in illustrations (see also Bathsheba and David, illustrations of ) —de Brailes Hours, 211n38 —kneeling posture, 135, 136 —repenting, 31, 32, 36–41, 38–39, 42, 46, 47 —victory over Goliath, 46 as model for doing penance in Fisher, 74 sin of adultery associated with Penitential Psalms, 30, 41–42 in Stubbs’s translation of Beza —in dedication, 146 —in meditation on Psalm 50 (51), 147 in Wyatt’s paraphrase, 122, 124–27

Index  271

—compared to David in Caxton’s Golden Legend, 123–24 —path from pre- to postReformation penitent, 127 Day, John, 3, 22, 132, 133 Day, Richard, 132, 236n11 Day of Judgment as frame of reference for Fisher and Luther, 66, 69 de Brailes Hours, 36, 211n38 degeneracy, native, Luther on necessity of dwelling on, 89 de Grazia, Margreta, 187 De historia sanctarum imaginum et picturarum (Molanus), 215n75 De profundis. See Psalm 129 (130) disarming, concept of, 173–74, 244n58 disposition, penitential, favored over penitential action by Luther, 85 Donnelly, John Patrick, 144 Duffy, Eamon, 19, 207n77 on This treatise, 66 Dyaloge, A (More), 87 Egerton manuscript Harington’s translation of Penitential Psalms in, 166–67 in possession of Harington of Stepney, 194 Wyatt’s paraphrase in, 96, 119 Elizabeth I (Queen of England) associated iconographically with David in Christian prayers and meditations, 134, 135, 137 See also church of Elizabeth Elizabeth’s prayer book. See Christian prayers and meditations (1569) Enarrationes in Psalmos (Expositions on the Book of Psalms) (Augustine), 8

allegorical reading of suffering as sin, 10 enemies of the psalmist interpreted as forms of temptation, 11–12 Nasuti on Augustinian tradition, 203n41 Engammare, Max, 52 English Metrical Psalms: Poetry as Praise and Prayer, 1535–1601 (Zim), 23 Erasmus, Desiderius denouncing illustrations of Bathsheba, 53, 215n75 translation of Gospel of Matthew, 85 See also Christiani matrimonii institutio (The Institution of Christian Marriage) (Erasmus) Eriksen, Roy T., on “Gascoignes De profundis,” 159 on anaphora in, 165 on Gascoigne’s framing devices, 242n29 Eusebius, 178, 179 evangelicals, Wyatt’s paraphrase and, 98–104 Expositio Psalmorum (Explanation of the Psalms) (Cassiodorus), 4–5 on Psalm 6, 13–14 on use of Penitential Psalms in pursuit of divine clemency, 13 Ezekiel 18:30, 73 fictional mode of apprehension Greene on, 107, 118, 122, 235n1 of Penitential Psalms —in Redman’s primer, 107 —by Wyatt, 98, 107, 119, 129 Fisher, John, 21 compared to —Bentley, 131–32 —Luther, 69–73

  272  Index

Fisher, John (cont.) on David’s composition of Penitential Psalms as satisfying all three requirements of sacramental penance, 222n59 on economics of penance, 73–82 on enemies of psalmist, 12 execution, 217n7 funeral sermon for Henry VII, 223n60 on Penitential Psalms, 130 on Psalm 37:5 (38:4), 87–88 sermons for Margaret Beaufort, 66 on sin, 72–73 See also This treatise (Fisher) form criticism on coherence of Penitential Psalms, 5–8 Foucault, Michel, 50, 52, 216n88, 217n95 Fox, Alistair, 96 Foxe, John, 64 Franciscan books on recitation of Penitential Psalms, 14 Gascoigne, George, 3, 22, 158 “Gascoignes De profundis,” 158–66 dating, 159, 241n6 motivations for writing, 162–63 placement in The posies, 160–61 prefatory materials, 161–64 —Verstegan and, 180 subverting established meaning of Psalm 129 (130), 160, 163–64 title, 242n21 Gast of Gy, The, 19 Geneva Bible (1560) Beza/Stubbs meditations compared to, 150, 151, 152, 153 influence on Harington’s translation, 168 —Psalm 6, 168–69 —Psalm 31 (32), 170 —Psalm 37 (38), 173

—Psalm 101 (102), 172–73 source of prefaces to Penitential Psalms in Christian prayers and meditations, 137 Gilby, Anthony, 139 Glemhan, Charles, 238n23 Gloria patri in Verstegan’s Odes, 182–83 God delaying help to psalmist as act of mercy —in Psalm 6, 11 justice of —allusions in Penitential Psalms, 8 —Cassiodorus’s emphasis on, 9 and temporal suffering, 70 wrath of —in Geneva Bible Psalm 6, 169 —psalms referring to, 8, 201n24, 202n29 Golden Legend (Caxton) editions of, 234n93 tale of David in, 22, 123–24 Wynkyn de Worde’s edition of, 54 Gradual Psalms, 5, 15, 26, 34, 200n12 Grafton, Richard, 209n13 Great Bible (1539), 209n13 illustration of Bathsheba, 30, 31, 209n12 influence on Harington’s translation, 168 source of Penitential Psalms in Christian prayers and meditations, 137 Greenblatt, Stephen, 96, 97 Greene, Roland, 21, 98 on fictional versus ritual modes of apprehension, 107, 235n1 —on fictional mode, 118, 122 —on ritual mode, 108, 111–12, 114 on Lock’s Meditation, 241n4 Grimald, Nicholas, 197, 247n23

Index  273

Grymeston, Elizabeth, 177–78 Gunkel, Hermann biblical form criticism and, 5 definition of psalms of penitence, 201n16, 201n18 Halasz, Alexandra, 233n88, 234n92 Hamlin, Hannibal, 23 on Gascoigne, 159, 160, 163, 164, 241n15 Hannay, Margaret P., 23 Harington, John, of Kelston, 3, 22, 99, 158, 166–75, 193–94 confessional sympathies, 244n54 knighthood from Earl of Essex in Ireland, 174 verse translation of Penitential Psalms, 166–75 —dating, 166, 242n32 —Psalm 6, 169–70, 181 —Psalm 31 (32), 171–72, 181 —Psalm 37 (38), 173–74 —Psalm 101 (102), 172–73 Harington, John, of Stepney, 99, 101–2, 128, 193–97, 228n20 benefiting from dissolution of monasteries, 99, 229n24 editor of Wyatt’s psalms, 99, 102, 167, 193–97 incarcerations of, 99, 101–2, 195, 196, 246n5 Parr and, 99, 101–2, 194–95, 247n10 Harington Psalter, 167 Harrier, Richard, 194, 195, 196, 197, 247n24 Harrington, John (bookseller or printer), invented, 194, 195, 196, 228n20 Harthan, John on illustration of David and Goliath, 46

on illustrations of David and Bathsheba, 52 Heale, Elizabeth on Wyatt’s paraphrase of Psalm 50 (51), 127 on Wyatt’s psalms and evangelicalism, 97 Henry VIII (King of England) authorized English primer (1546), 42, 46, 47 condemnation of heretical books, 63 Herbert, George influenced by Luther’s understanding of repentance, 90 influenced by Penitential Psalms, 242n28 Herbert, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, 168 Herbert, William, 195 hermeneutics, penitential, 8–13, 190 Bentley and, 131–32 Fisher and Luther and, 69 paraphrases of the Penitential Psalms and, 107–8 undercut by Harington of Kelston, 166, 168–74 under pressure in Christian prayers and meditations, 141–44 Verstegan and, 23, 158, 175, 180–82 Heures de Séguier, 42 History of Sexuality, The (Foucault), 50, 52, 216n88, 217n95 history of the material text, methods of, 1, 20, 189 Horae. See Books of Hours Horae, Dominican Use, 38 Horae, Salisbury Use (de Worde, 1514), 54 Horae, Use of Dol and Rennes, 39

  274  Index

Hore beatissime virginis Marie ad vsum Sarisburiensis ecclesie (1510), 50, 51 Hore presentes ad vsum Sarum (1498), 43 Hughey, Ruth, 194, 195, 196 discovery of Arundel Harington manuscript, 246n7 Hull, Eleanor influenced by Augustine, 10, 11, 222n50 on nature of sin of psalmist, 220n35 on opening of Psalm 129 (130), 221n45 on Psalm 6, 10 on Psalm 50 (51), 113 on Psalm 101 (102), 76, 222n50 hundreth sundrie flowres, A (Gascoigne), 159 Hunnis, William, 3, 102 presenting Penitential Psalms as songs, 183, 184, 185 Huttar, Charles, 36, 211n36, 222n59 identification, ritualized paraphrases and, 119 Ignatius of Loyola, 177 illustrations of Penitential Psalms, 20–21, 25–61 angels in, 213n55 in Books of Hours, 79, 129 —change of focus from repentance to sin, 41 —early, 32 —in manuscripts, 213n55 —seven images, 46–47 —subjects of, 31 David as subject (see also Bathsheba and David, illustrations of ) —de Brailes Hours, 211n38 —kneeling posture, 135, 136

—repenting, 31, 32, 36–41, 38–39, 42, 46, 47 —victory over Goliath, 46 and harmonization of Penitential Psalms, 35 in This prymer in Englyshe and in Laten (Redman), 105 incipit to medieval dream vision, Brampton’s prologue reminiscent of, 110 Innocent III (pope), 16 intercessory prayers for the souls of the dead. See prayers for the dead interpretation, fictional paraphrases and, 119 Jerome on David’s penitence, 36 in Parker’s Psalter, 178–79 Johannes Gratian, 16 emphasis on first element of sacrament of penance, 221n43 Josephus, 179 Joye, George primer of, 94 —condemnation of, 63–64, 65 —contemporaneous to More/ Tyndale debate, 86 published by Raynald, 102 translation of Bucer’s Psalter, 209n13 justification, theorizing about in Harington’s translation, 171 Kaske, Carol V., 23 Kellerman, Robert, 117 Kerver, Thielman, 48 Kett, Robert, 102, 229n29 King’s Book (1543 illustrated edition), 56, 58 King’s Primer, The, 42 Kuczynski, Michael P., 23, 201n23, 231n56, 238n27

Index  275

labor of the cross, Luther’s allusions to redeeming nature of, 88 laity doing penance, 15–16, 17 use of Penitential Psalms, 35–36 Lang, Johann, 67 Langland, William, 18–19, 206n71 Lateran Council, Fourth (1215), 17, 25, 40 Latin and English Psalter (Coverdale), 26–28, 27 Legenda aurea. See Golden Legend (Caxton) Lent promotion as period of general repentance, 205n62 recitation of Penitential Psalms during, 14, 15, 16, 65 repentance and, 17 Urban II on ashes at start of, 205n62 See also Ash Wednesday Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis (Two Books Concerning Synodical Cases and Church Discipline) (Regino), 15–16 Life of Solitude, The (Petrarch), 211n36 Lifschutz, Ellen, 96, 97 linguistic discoveries, Luther and, 83, 86–87 literacy, catechesis and training for, 60 liturgy Penitential Psalms in, 2, 205n57 Wieck on Penitential Psalms in Jewish, 199n2 Lock, Anne Vaughan A meditation of a penitent sinner, 159, 241n4 scholarly interest in, 241n5

translation of the Sermons of Iohn Caluin vpon the songe that Ezechias made after he had bene sicke, 159 Luçon Master, 37 Luther, Martin, 21, 66–69, 125 compared to Fisher, 69 German Bible illustration of David and Bathsheba, 53–54 influence on Herbert’s The Country Parson, 90 lectures on the Book of Psalms, 67 lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, 67 on metanoia, 82–94 new understanding of Christian soteriology —justified by Penitential Psalms, 226n106 on paenitentia, 86 on penance —redefinition of, 207n76 —sacrament of penance, 84–85 on Psalm 37 (38), 72–73, 87–88, 89–90 on reading of the psalms, 130 on sin, 72 See also sieben Bußpsalmen, Die (The Seven Penitential Psalms) (Luther) Maidstone, Richard, 104, 230n45. See also paraphrase of Penitential Psalms by Maidstone Manuall of prayers, The (1539), 56 Marshe, Thomas, 66, 215n81 Mary Stuart, 144 Masoretic Text numbering of Penitential Psalms, 1–2 masses, Penitential Psalms in public, 16 Master of Anne of Brittany, 42

  276  Index

Matthew, Gospel of alternative Latin translations of 3:1–2 and 4:17, 85 Glossa ordinaria on 3:2, 84 sacrament of penance and, 84 May, Steven W., 167, 168 on Harington, 174, 242n32 Mayler, John, 54 Mays, James L., 201n22 meditation of a penitent sinner, A (Lock), 159 Melanchthon, Philipp, 207n76 “Memoir of John Croke, Esquire” (A. Croke), 231n52 Merrill, L. R., 197 Mirk, John, 216n92 mirror, metaphor of, 130 Miserere. See Psalm 50 (51) misery’s role in actualizing redemption, 74 Molanus, Johannes, 215n75 monasteries, Harington’s benefiting from dissolution of, 99, 229n24 monks daily worship of, 204n50 prayers for the dead by, 206n68 repentance and use of Penitential Psalms, 14 Monte Cassino, Benedictine Abbey of, 206n68 monument of matrones, The (Bentley), 131–32, 237n20 More, Thomas debate with Tyndale, 86–87 on Joye’s primer, 64 Mowinckel, Sigmund, 5 Muir, Kenneth, 167 musicians and Penitential Psalms, 158

New England Primer, The, 21, 56, 60 illustrations, 59–60 —of David and Bathsheba, 32 Ninety-Five Theses (Luther), 67, 85, 218n13 Northern Homily Collection, 212n41 Northern Passion, The, 40, 212n41 Northern Rebellion, 144 Notary, Julian, 234n93 Novum instrumentum (Erasmus), 85

Nasuti, Harry P., 2, 200n8, 200n13, 202n33, 203nn41–42

paenitentia, humanist investigations of, 85

Obedience of a Christen man, The (Tyndale), 86–87 objectivity emphasis in prologues of Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke, 111 Odes, term, 178–79 Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes (Verstegan), 23, 158, 175–86 addition of Gloria patri at end of psalms, 182–83 designed to be sung collectively, 177–78, 183, 185 devotional intention, 179–80 praise for Trinity as thematic thread, 183 prologue, 179–80 Psalm 6, 180–81 Psalm 31 (32), 181–82 title page, 176 Old Gelasian Sacramentary, 205n56 On Friendship (Harington tr. of Cicero’s De amicitia), 102, 196, 229n27 orders, religious doing penance, 14–15 See also monks Owens, Margareth Boyer, 36, 79

Index  277

papal court tradition on recitation of Penitential Psalms, 14 paraphrase of Penitential Psalms by Brampton, 21, 98 meter and rhyme, 112 no division between psalms, 232n70 prologue, 109–11 Psalm 101 (102) in, 114 recursiveness, 114–15 ritual mode of apprehension, 107, 108 paraphrase of Penitential Psalms by Croke, 21 meter and rhyme, 112 prologue, 111 Psalm 101 (102) in, 114 ritual mode of apprehension, 107, 108 separation of Psalms, 232n70 surviving manuscripts, 231n50 paraphrase of Penitential Psalms by Maidstone, 2, 21, 98, 104 meter and rhyme, 112 prologue, 108–9 Psalm 101 (102) in, 114 ritual mode of apprehension, 107, 108 separation of psalms, 232n70 paraphrases as hymnlike meditations, 113, 114 Parker, Matthew, 130, 178 Parker’s Psalter (1567), 130, 178 parody, 157–86 Parr, William, 128, 193 Certayne psalmes dedicated to, 99, 121, 230n37 Harington of Stepney and, 99, 101–2, 194–95, 247n10 incarceration of, 101 suppression of Pilgrimage of Grace, 99, 101

penance, doing, 14–18 biblical language supporting, 83–84 compared to being repentant, 72 David’s composition of psalms as, 79 Fisher on, 72, 74 laity, 15–16, 17 religious orders, 14–15 penance, sacrament of, 16–17 biblical language supporting, 83–84 Fisher on, 74–75 importance of different elements, 221n43 Penitential Psalms and, 17, 65, 78 penance/penitence Penitential Psalms as instruments of, 78 as self-imposed suffering, 74 for sexual sin, 52 term used by Verstegan, 182 theology of —development, 36 —enhancement in thirteenth century, 40–41 —reimagined by Luther, 83 Wyatt on inner versus outer, 126–27 See also public penance; repentance; satisfaction, works of (penitential exercises) penitential hermeneutics. See hermeneutics, penitential Peter Lombard, 221n43 Petrarch, Francis, 211n36, 230n44 Petti, Anthony G., 242n32 Piers Plowman (Langland), 18–19, 206n71 Pigouchet, Philippe, 212n50, 213n52 Pilgrimage of Grace, 99, 101, 229n25 Pius V (pope), 205n58 Plato, 179

  278  Index

poena, 76, 124 poetry, Penitential Psalms in, 1, 20, 22, 158, 240n2 Pole, Henry, Lord Montague, 227n2 Pole, Reginald, 95, 227n2 politics in Harington’s translation, 172 reading of Wyatt’s Certayne psalmes and, 96–97 Stubbs’s meditation on Psalm 101 (102) and, 153 pomander of prayer, The (Becon), 132 Posies of George Gascoigne esquire, The, 159–61 Possidius, 4, 5, 200n6 Post-Petrarchism (Greene), 107 practice, Penitential Psalms in devotional, 2, 13 prayers for the dead by monks, 206n68 origin of practice, 206n67 Penitential Psalms and, 14, 18–19 Psalm 129 (130) and, 81–82, 207n73 Preces sacrae (Sacred Prayers) (Vermigli) partial translation in Bull’s Christian prayers and holy meditations, 238n23 source of prayers in Christian prayers and meditations, 137 time of writing, 144 Prescott, Anne Lake, 23 primer in English and Latin, after Salisburie vse, The (1556), 29 primers contents in late Middle Ages, 63 use of term, 60–61, 217n94 See also Books of Hours primers (schoolbooks), 60–61 Prophetic Song: The Psalms as Moral Discourse in Late Medieval England (Kuczynski), 23, 201n23, 231n56, 238n27

Psalm 1, 239n39, 240n40 Psalm 6 allegoresis and, 12 Augustine on, 9, 10–11, 12 as barely penitential lament, 6–7 Beza/Stubbs meditation on, 148–49 Cassiodorus on, 9, 13–14 in Christian prayers and meditations, 138–39 Fisher on, 69, 70, 74, 79–80, 81 in Geneva Bible, 168–69 Harington’s translation, 169–70, 181 Hull on, 10 Luther on, 69–70, 90, 91–92 Mays on, 201n22 physical suffering interpreted as spiritual suffering, 11 referring to God’s wrath, 201n24, 202n29 in Sidney Psalter, 169 Staley on, 9 titulus to, 34 Verstegan’s translation, 180–81 Psalm 30 (31), Augustine on, 130 Psalm 31 (32) application of form criticism to, 6 Fisher on, 77–78 in Geneva Bible, 170 Harington’s translation, 171–72, 181 Luther on, 91 titulus to, 34 Verstegan’s translation, 181–82 Psalm 37 (38) Beza/Stubbs meditation on, 148 connection between misfortune and sin, 7 Fisher on, 72–73, 74, 77, 80–81, 87–88 in Geneva Bible, 173 Harington’s translation, 173–74 as highly penitential lament, 6, 7

Index  279

Luther on, 72–73, 87–88, 89–90 prayers based on in Christian prayers and meditations, 142–44 preface to in Christian prayers and meditations, 141–42 readiness to receive punishment, 7 referring to God’s wrath, 201n24, 202n29 titulus to, 34 Verstegan’s translation, 182 Wyatt’s paraphrase, 126 Psalm 50 (51) Athanasius on, 200n8 Augustine on, 33–34 Beza/Stubbs meditation on, 147–48 Brampton’s paraphrase, 113 context extended to all Penitential Psalms through illustrations, 34–35 Croke’s paraphrase, 113 Fisher on, 75 as highly penitential lament, 6 importance in Psalter, 32 Luther on, 82–83, 90 Maidstone’s paraphrase, 113 A meditation of a penitent sinner based on, 159 prayers based on —in Christian prayers and meditations, 140–41 in rood legends, 37, 40 Tertullian on, 200n8 titulus to, 33 Verstegan’s translation, 182–83 Wyatt’s paraphrase, 126–27 Psalm 101 (102) Augustine on, 76, 222n49 as barely penitential lament, 6–7 Beza/Stubbs meditation on, 150, 151, 152–55 English paraphrases on, 113–14 Fisher on, 75–76 in Geneva Bible, 172

Harington’s translation, 172–73 Maidstone’s paraphrase, 116 no admission of iniquity in, 7 preface to in Christian prayers and meditations, 139–40 referring to God’s wrath, 201n24 titulus to, 34 Verstegan’s translation, 185–86 Psalm 129 (130) Beza/Stubbs meditation on, 240n43 established meaning subverted by Gascoigne, 160, 163–64 Fisher on, 73, 75 Hull on opening of, 221n45 Luther on, 92 Maidstone’s paraphrase, 116 titulus to, 34 use in funeral masses and services for the dead, 81–82, 207n73 See also “Gascoignes De profundis” Psalm 142 (143) Luther on, 88 titulus to, 34 Verstegan’s translation, 183 Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature (Hamlin), 23, 159 psalms singing of, 183 types of, 6 See also individual psalms public penance, 15 model for, 205n57 use of Penitential Psalms, 15–16, 65 purgatory, doctrine of, 16, 18, 205n60 Fisher and, 69, 76–77 prayers for the dead and, 19, 25, 78, 82 Pynson, Richard edition of This treatise, 54, 66, 215n81 republication of Caxton’s Golden Legend, 234n93

  280  Index

Quitslund, Beth, 23, 231n57 Raba, Rabbi, 33, 210n18 Raynald, Thomas evangelicalism of, 99, 102 printer of Wyatt’s Certayne psalmes, 99, 128, 193, 196 two printers by that name, 229n31, 246n2 (Appendix) works printed by, 102 Rebholz, R. A., 97 recursiveness in English paraphrases, 114–16 Redman, Robert. See This prymer in Englyshe and in Laten (Redman) Reformation Bacon family and radical Protestantism, 145 Bathsheba illustrations and, 53–54 Certayne psalmes linked to project of, 103–4 Penitential Psalms and, 2, 21, 64–65 prayers for the dead and, 19 sacrament of penance and, 19 Wyatt’s paraphrase and, 97 Reformation in Rhyme, The: Sternhold, Hopkins, and the English Metrical Psalter, 1547–1603 (Quitslund), 23, 231n57 Regino (abbot of Prüm), 15–16, 204n54, 234n96 Regularis concordia (Monastic Agreement), 14–15, 204nn50–52 Rembrandt, 54 renewal, spiritual Penitential Psalms and, 130 Verstegan and, 182 repentance form advocated by Beza/Stubbs, 148 term not used by Verstegan, 182 See also penance/penitence

repentant, being Luther on, 72 as opposed to doing penance, 93 Restitutionem psalmorum Thome Viati librarijs corruptorum cum prefatione ad Marchionem, li. i. (Grimald), 197 Reuchlin, Johann, 219n21 ritual mode of apprehension of Penitential Psalms, 98, 129–30 in Brampton’s paraphrase, 107, 108, 112, 117 —prologue, 109–11 in Croke’s paraphrase, 107, 108, 112, 117 —prologue, 111 favored over fictional approaches by church authorities, 130 in Maidstone’s paraphrase, 107, 108, 112, 117 —prologue, 108–9 in Redman’s primer, 107, 108 in Stubbs’s translation of Beza, 146 rood legends and stories of David’s repentance, 37, 40–41 Rowlands, Richard. See Verstegan, Richard sacraments of Western Church, 16 Eucharist —disputations on, 102 —scholarship focus on, 24 listed, 205n59 See also penance, sacrament of Sacra parallela (Sacred Parallels) ( John of Damascus), 41 Salisbury primer (Kerver, 1532 and 1533), 48, 49 salvation, economic explanation of, 76 2 Samuel 11–12 association with Penitential Psalms, 28 commentary by Rabbi Raba, 33

Index  281

David’s pardon in, 35, 78 exegesis and, 35–36 illustrations of Bathsheba, 30, 31 satisfaction, works of (penitential exercises) canceling poena, 76 condemnation by Luther, 91–92 Fisher on, 75–76 as part of sacrament of penance, 16, 124 Schmutzler, Karl E., 167, 242n33 Sebastian, portrayals of as martyr, 214n69 selection of Penitential Psalms, 3–8 Augustine and, 4, 199n5 Cassiodorus and, 4–5, 200n8 Redman’s primer on, 105 timing of, 5 unification through penitential hermeneutics, 12–13 self-burial of David in Caxton’s Golden Legend, 123–24 illustrations of, 37, 39 myth of, 234n96 self-deprecation as redemptive gift, 149 self-effacement, ritualized paraphrases and, 112, 119 self-hatred in Beza/Stubbs meditations, 149 self-management in penitential matters, 17 Septuagint numbering of Penitential Psalms, 1 Sermons of Iohn Caluin vpon the songe that Ezechias made after he had bene sicke (Lock, trans.), 159 Sette salmi de la penitentia di David, I (Aretino), 96, 97, 127, 227n5, 228n15, 233n81, 234n92, 235n104 prologues to the Penitential Psalms, 118, 129, 163, 235n107

Seuen sobs of a sorrowfull soule for sinne (Hunnis), 183, 184, 185, 245n85 Seven Deadly Sins, 18, 19, 25, 50, 206n66 Seven Penitential Psalms, The (Luther). See sieben Bußpsalmen, Die (The Seven Penitential Psalms) (Luther) Seymour, Thomas, 101, 229n26, 246n5 Sidney Psalter, 168 influence on Harington, 168 Psalm 6, 169 sieben Bußpsalmen, Die (The Seven Penitential Psalms) (Luther), 21, 65, 66–67 preface to second version, 68 sources used by Luther, 219n21 success of, 67–68 Wicks on, 218n17 Wyatt’s psalms and, 98 Simpson, James, 207n77, 224n75, 227n10, 238n30 sin of adultery by David, 30, 41–42 allegorical reading of suffering as, 10 Books of Hours illustrations and, 41 Fisher on, 66, 72 in Geneva Bible Psalm 6, 169 Hull on, 220n35 Luther on, 66, 72, 82 —emphasis on original, 83 outward and inner, 82 Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, 118 Sobieski Hours, 79 Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of, 101, 102 song, Penitential Psalms in, 22, 183 Odes and, 177–78, 183, 185 Songs of Ascent. See Gradual Psalms Songs of sundrie natures (Byrd), 175, 183

  282  Index

Southall, Raymond, 96 Southwell, Robert, 244n63 Spenser, Edmund, 3 Staley, Lynn on dominant exegetical frame for Penitential Psalms, 8 on Penitential Psalms as drama of conversion, 71, 122 political reading of Wyatt’s paraphrase, 96–97 Staupitz, Johann von, 86 Sternhold, Thomas, 195, 230n36 Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter (1556), 183 Stock, Brian, 140 structure, poetic of English paraphrases of Penitential Psalms, 112 of Harington’s translation, 167–68, 242n36 of Verstegan’s Odes, 178–79, 182–83 of Wyatt’s paraphrase, 118 Stubbs, John, 3, 22, 132 amputation of right hand, 150 dedication by, 146–47 emphasis on Christian (Calvinist) community, 151–52 variants of name, 239n35 See also Christian meditations vpon eight psalmes (Beza; Stubbs, trans.) suffering to clear temporal obligations before death, 77 interpreted in relation to sin, 70 Luther on distinction of actively/ outwardly and passively/ inwardly, 87 penitence and, 74 physical interpreted as spiritual, 11 as sacrament, 75

suffrages for the souls of the dead. See prayers for the dead Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, 97 Targoff, Ramie, 238n25 tariff system, 16 Ten Articles (1536), 97 Tentler, Thomas, 50, 52, 207n76 Tertullian, 200n8 This prymer in Englyshe and in Laten (Redman), 104–7 generalized penitential setting, 130 illustrations of Penitential Psalms, 54, 105, 106 popularity of, 230n40 ritual mode versus fictional mode in, 107, 108 on shared designation of Penitential Psalms, 105 This treatise (Fisher), 21, 54, 65 editions of, 215n81 illustration of Bathsheba in, 54, 55 reprintings in 1697 and 1714, 218n10 Thomson, Patricia, 167 Tottel’s Miscellany, 197 translations of Penitential Psalms by Harington, 166–75 —dating of, 166, 242n32 —originality of, 168 —Psalm 6, 169–70, 181 —Psalm 31 (32), 171–72, 181 —Psalm 37 (38), 173–74 —Psalm 101 (102), 172–73 by Luther, 66, 67 triads, Fisher on, 75 Tunstall, Cuthbert, 63 turning, concept of, 220n32 Fisher and Luther on, 71 Tyndale, William debate with More, 86–87 published by Raynald, 102

Index  283

universality emphasis in prologues of Maidstone, Brampton, and Croke, 111 universalization of psalmist’s experiences, 71 Urban II (pope), 205n62 Uriah, murder of, 28, 35, 48, 50, 51, 96, 122–23, 129, 147 Use of Salisbury (Use of Sarum), 209n10 Valla, Lorenzo, 85 Vermigli, Peter Martyr, 137, 238n22 unknown translator of prayers by, 238n23 See also Preces sacrae (Sacred Prayers) (Vermigli) Verstegan, Richard, 2, 23, 158 reappropriation of Penitential Psalms, 175 See also Odes. In imitation of the seaven penitential psalmes (Verstegan) Verstegan, Theodore Rowland, 244n61 virginals (musical instruments), 245n67 Vita (Life) of Augustine (Possidius), 4, 5, 200n6 Vostre, Simon, 212n50 Vulgate numbering of Penitential Psalms, 1 as source for Verstegan, 185 Waddington, Raymond, 97, 228n15, 228n17 Walker, Greg, 97 on publication date of Certayne psalmes, 103 on Wyatt’s paraphrase of Psalm 50 (51), 127 Walsingham, Francis, 145 Warham, William, 63, 94

Warwick, John Dudley, Earl of, 102 order to destroy Latin service books, 103 Whitchurch, Edward, 209n13 Wicks, Jared, 218n17 Wieck, Roger on illustrations of David and Bathsheba, 52 on Penitential Psalms in Jewish liturgy, 199n2 on popularity of Books of Hours, 26 Wilkes, Thomas, 145 Willoughby, Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, 102, 196 works of satisfaction. See satisfaction, works of (penitential exercises) Wyatt, Thomas, 3, 21–22 accused of treason by Bonner, 95, 227n1 fictional mode of apprehension of Penitential Psalms, 107, 129 incarceration, 95–96 paraphrase of Penitential Psalms —dating of writing, 227n4 —edited by Harington, 102 —title given to, 230n36 See also Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid (Wyatt) Wyatt, Thomas, the Younger, 99, 195 Wynkyn de Worde publication of This treatise, 54, 66, 215n81 republication of Caxton’s Golden Legend, 234n93 Zim, Rivkah, 23, 178 Zion, interpretation of by Christian exegetes, 172 by Harington, 173 by Verstegan, 185–86 Zuckerkandl, Victor, 112 Zwingli, Ulrich, 102

Clare Costley King’ oo is assistant professor of English at the University of Connecticut.

ReFormations: Medieval and Early Modern

“Seldom have I read a first book of such subtlety and sustained by such learning, particularly welcome for the way it so easily and gracefully crosses the artificial barriers we raise between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This is an original and often touching study of biblical materials that have seen a surge of interest. Those interested in the Psalms, in art history, in David, in translation, to say nothing of early modern sexuality, should rush to read it.” —Anne Lake Prescott, Barnard College and Columbia University “This is interdisciplinary scholarship of a high order: King’oo successfully approaches the Penitential Psalms through the avenues of manuscript and print illustration, theological commentary, verse paraphrase, lyric poetry, political polemic, and devotional song. In the process, she shows how penance—and its conversion to Protestant repentance—is at the heart of early modern debates about authentic Christian doctrine and experience. And King’oo reminds us that while we may imagine bright lines of before and after the Reformation, the lived reality involved plenty of surprising hybrids and bridging forms along the way.” —Christopher Hodgkins, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

“This excellent study traces the cultural trajectory of the seven Penitential Psalms in England from the late medieval period to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It provides essential historical background on the emergence of this group of psalms as a cultural unit bound up with repentance, and its five chapters eloquently discuss how individuals and communities engaged with these psalms for diverse religious, social, political, and artistic purposes. By focusing on late medieval, early modern, Catholic, and Protestant responses to the psalms (including those by Fisher, Luther, Wyatt, Stubbs, Harington, and Verstegan), King’oo draws our attention to previously overlooked instances of cultural continuity, adaptation, revision, and parody.” —Micheline White, Carleton University CLARE COSTLEY KING’OO is assistant professor of English at the University of Connecticut.

UNIVERSITY OF

NOTRE DAME PRESS Notre Dame, IN 46556 undpress.nd.edu