God be in my head

From this personal medieval prayer-poem a unique congregational hymn has been born, with music as the midwife. It may still work better as a solo or choir piece, but at least from the early 20th c onwards it has been available for others to sing. The anonymous words appear first in a 1514 ‘Book of Hours’ printed (in London, for use at Salisbury or Sarum) by Richard[um] Pynson, whose name is sometimes given as the author. It is printed on the title-page beneath a woodcut picture of the Annunciation. It was intended as a prayer for individual use (with its tenfold ‘my/mine’) before or after the saying of the Daily Offices, or regular monastic services through the day; Bishop Cosin printed it as the first preparatory prayer in his book of private devotions. Other 16th-c mss contain the words, and one of the French copies is dated in the 1490s: Jésus soit en ma teste et mon entendement has an half-rhyme pattern impossible in the English, and uses ‘Jesus’ rather than ‘God’ throughout. Either way, Ephesians 4:17, Colossians 1:27 illustrate its petitions. In 1908 The Oxford Hymn Book was the first to revive the use of the English verse, followed by a printed leaflet in 1910, a St Paul’s Cathedral book (for the London Church Choir Association) in 1912, and soon afterwards a full range of main church hymnals. The original text had ‘myn’ (mine) before the vowels of the 2nd and 5th clauses, and no ‘and’ in the 5th and final one. The tune which gave these words a new lease of life is by H Walford Davies, and called GOD BE IN MY HEAD. It appeared with them from the 1910 leaflet onwards, and in the composer’s own Hymns of the Kingdom (A Students’ Hymnal) in 1923. He marked it Andante, ‘at a walking pace’, in order for it not to be dragged. Other tunes have also been composed for the texts but none has so far rivalled this in popularity; the Dec 2008 Church Music Quarterly includes a ‘musical retrospect’ of the text and its tunes, by Kenneth Shenton.

Aka the Sarum Book of ‘Hours’, the Daily Offices prescribed for its monastic house, which Richard Pynson printed in London; one copy survives, at Clare Coll Cambridge. This was one of a series of medieval liturgical productions from the cathedral church of Salisbury, Wilts. The ‘Hours’ refer to the set rhythm of prayer through each 24-hour period. Some of their rediscovered traditions have influenced 20-th c trends in the CofE. No.839.