WITHER, George

by George Wither

£6,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Rare first edition of the first English hymn book. Composed by the poet George Wither with the music of Orlando Gibbons it is the first hymn book for Church of England congregations and was dedicated to James I. Wither's hymnbook is the first book of congregational song that focuses exclusively on hymnody rather than psalmody. George Wither was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist. His Hymnes and Songs of the Church (1622 1623) were aimed to counter exclusive psalmody, represented by the Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter. Orlando Gibbons provided the music for seventeen of them which represents almost the entire body of his sacred music published in his lifetime. They were issued under a patent of King James I ordaining that they should be bound up with every copy of the authorized metrical psalms offered for sale. This patent was opposed, as inconsistent with their privilege to print the singing-psalms, by the Stationers Company, to Wither's great mortification and loss, and a second similar patent was finally disallowed by the House of Lords. Wither defended himself in The Schollers Purgatory (1624). In this document, a 140-page diatribe against the Stationers Company for their refusal to print his work, Wither blames them for his financial ruin and hardship. Before the restoration, non-scriptural hymns were regarded by most with suspicion as being relics of Popery . However, the origins of English hymnology are to be found in the early seventeenth century. It was during

• Binding: Hardcover

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