Thomas Sternhold facts for kids
Thomas Sternhold (born around 1500, died 1549) was an English courtier. He is best known for writing the first English versions of the Psalms as songs. These songs were meant to be sung, making the Bible's psalms more accessible to people. He worked on this project with John Hopkins.
Thomas Sternhold's Life
A historian named Anthony Wood said that Thomas Sternhold went to Christ Church, Oxford. However, he did not complete his degree there. We know for sure that in 1538, his name appeared in the records of Thomas Cromwell, a powerful minister.
Sternhold became one of the "grooms of the robes" for King Henry VIII. This was an important job, meaning he helped the king with his clothes and personal needs. King Henry VIII liked Sternhold so much that he left him a gift of one hundred marks in his will. Sternhold might have been the Thomas Sternell or Sternoll who was chosen to represent Plymouth in the English Parliament in 1545.
Thomas Sternhold was born in Blakeney, Gloucestershire. He passed away on August 23, 1549. His will, which is a legal document about his property, was approved on September 12, 1549. One of the people who witnessed his will was Edward Whitchurch, who was likely the person who printed his books. Sternhold owned land in Hampshire and in Bodmin, Cornwall. He had bought some of this land from the Crown.
Making Psalms into Songs
Thomas Sternhold started turning the Bible's psalms into songs during King Henry VIII's time. Other people, like Miles Coverdale, had also translated psalms earlier. In France, a poet named Marot also created psalm songs that became popular in Protestant churches. Sternhold, Marot, and Coverdale all wanted people to sing psalms instead of popular songs of the day.
Sternhold mostly used a very simple song structure for his psalms. This structure is called "common metre," and it became very popular for many English hymns and psalm books. It is said that Sternhold would sing his psalms while playing his organ.
The only book of psalms Sternhold published during his lifetime was dedicated to the young King Edward VI. In this dedication, he hoped to write more psalms. However, he only completed forty psalms in total for the famous "Old Version" of the psalms.
Sternhold is remembered for starting the first collection of metrical psalms that became widely used in both England and Scotland. His work, combined with that of John Hopkins, became one of the most widely circulated books in the English language, after the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.
His first book, published around 1547, contained nineteen psalms. After his death, a second edition was printed in 1549, adding eighteen more psalms. Later editions included even more of his psalms, reaching a total of forty. Today, the only one of his psalms still commonly sung is his simple version of Psalm 23, which starts "My Shepherd is the Living Lord."
The Sternhold-Hopkins psalter was used for a very long time. It was finally replaced in 1717 by a "New Version" of the Psalms written by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady.
See also
- Metrical psalter
