John Merbecke

John Merbecke, also spelled Marbeck or Merbeck, was an English organist, composer, theological writer, and biblical scholar born about 1505, probably at Beverley in Yorkshire. He became a lay clerk and then organist at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. In 1543 he was convicted of heresy and sentenced to death, but he received a pardon; his unfinished English Bible concordance was confiscated and destroyed. Merbecke reconstructed the project and in 1550 published the first concordance to the whole English Bible. His career therefore belongs to both the musical and literary history of the English Reformation.

In the same year he issued The Booke of Common Praier Noted through Richard Grafton. Written for the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, it provided mostly syllabic, plainsong-derived melodies for English prose liturgy, including the Communion service. The 1552 revision of the prayer book quickly displaced the volume, and Merbecke devoted much of his later life to theological and devotional writing; his Booke of Notes and Common Places appeared in 1581. Nineteenth-century Anglican musicians revived and adapted his service music for later prayer books, often adding rhythms or harmonies not found in the unison original. Modern scholars date his birth about 1505 rather than treating the older estimate of 1510 as certain; he died about 1585. The Sanctus melody associated with this United Methodist item comes through that long history of publication, revival, and denominational adaptation.