The Book of Psalms or the Psaltery derives from the Greek psalmós, a poem to be accompanied with stringed instruments. The repertoire consists of 150 poems of praise and pleas to God in which man expresses both his joy and sorrow, imploring his intercession and help. One of the lesser-known, but no less intense, chapters in the history of this poetic and musical repertory was the Renaissance Protestant period. The Psalms, in particular their translation from Latin into French, formed the basis of the liturgy of the Reformation during the mid-sixteenth century. Protestant religious life was immersed in the psalmodic chant that accompanied the daily liturgy in churches, as well as the adversity of persecutions, everyday activities such as work songs or emblematic hymns those condemned to death sang as they walked to the scaffold.

This Protestant repertoire consists of the French translation in verse of the 150 poems, 49 by Clément Marot and the rest the work of Théodore de Bèze. The present corpus also consists of the Comendements (Exodus, 20) and the Cantique de Simenon (Luke, 2) versified by Marot. All the texts had been composed with simple melodies to be sung by the faithful, both in the liturgical setting of the reformed assembly and privately in a domestic environment. Their use as work songs was also significant. The constitution of this corpus was the result of a long process that commenced in the year 1530 in the Protestant communities of Romanic Switzerland (Geneva and Lausanne) as well as in Strasbourg, where a group of French Protestants who were in contact with the community of Lyon resided.

Ronsard: the miseries of this period

Figures such as Calvin, Bourgeois, De Bèze, Marot, Garros, Saleta, Lejuene, Goudimel, among others, played a central role in a cultural activity whose social transcendence would endure over centuries. The singing of Psalms as an expression of spirituality in churches was only a small part of life in the convulsed world of sixteenth century Europe. Psalm texts functioned as an aesthetic and ideological counterpoint of the utmost importance and contributed to the intellectual progression of a Renaissance ideology based on literary experimentation. This overhaul was led by Pierre de Ronsard (c. 1524-1585) and Joachim du Bellay (c. 1522-1560) and would give rise to the group known as La Pléiade. Ronsard was constantly involved in music and deserves detailed study. As early as 1551 Claude Goudimel composed numerous melodies for the French maestro’s poems (sonnets and odes), and that very year he participated in the musical supplement to Amours together with other composers such as Pierre Certon, Clément Janequin and Marc-Antoine de Muret.