Reading the Davison psalms in manuscript and print

Abstract

This article discusses the production, dissemination, and reception of metrical psalms by Francis and Christopher Davison, using a full range of textual witnesses in manuscript and print. Although these metrical psalms have been well known through their transcriptions by the scribe Ralph Crane, the variety and extent of their material texts have not beenrecognised in previous scholarship. By paying attention to their contexts in manuscript and print, the article shows how a ‘book historical’ approach to early modern psalms informs us of many key issues in studies of early modern psalms. The Davison psalms were popular texts that attracted the attention of their readers and disseminators in various ways: initially circulated as devotional texts, they later found a home in far more miscellaneous contexts, where their copyists felt free to intervene and alter the texts as they saw fit. The Davison psalms may still remain minor texts in comparison with the most important early modern psalters, but their textual remains remind of how the period’s ‘psalm culture’ was sustained as much by eager readers as it was by enthusiastic authors.