Torrance Kirby has perceptively explored Hooker’s response, focusing in particular on his defense of music in worship, its neo-Pythagorean and Platonic foundation, and its implications for his explanation of sacramental instrumentality. I contribute to his discussion by looking at Hooker’s discussion of the virtues of antiphonal psalmody in particular and what it suggests about his approach to liturgics more generally. First, I consider what precisely the Prayer Book prescribed concerning the use of the Psalter in public worship, then the precise nature of the objection expressed through the tennis analogy, and finally how precisely Hooker responded to it. I argue that Hooker does not merely dismiss the analogy but rather accepts the essential congruity – the shared element of social play in both tennis and antiphonal reading/singing – and then represents this ludic quality as a virtue fundamental to how liturgy is supposed to work.
From 1549 onward the Book of Common Prayer required reading the whole book of Psalms each month in daily Mattins and Evensong, meaning the Psalter was read far more frequently than any other book of the Bible. It is not often remembered that the Psalter did not become an official part of the text of the Prayer Book until 1662 (excepting those psalms in the fixed liturgical script, like the Venite). The expectation was that the Psalms would be read from the authorized version of the Bible, which until 1611 was the version edited by Myles Coverdale, often called the Great Bible, of which every parish had been required to have a copy since 1539. The Prayer Book itself provided very few instructions on how to read the appointed Psalms in the Daily Office. The instructions were simply as follows:
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