494 Crown him with Many Crowns

Once again, our hymn of the week conversation concerns a discussion of conversion.  The author of the words is Matthew Bridges and he considered his hymn as a sermon in song.  His text was based on Revelation 19:12, ".....and on His head were many crowns."  He originally called his hymn, "The Song of the Seraphs" and it consisted of 6 verses.

Bridges once wrote a book condemning Roman Catholics; he later converted to Catholicism in 1848 and this hymn text was written in 1851.  He followed John Henry Newman out of the Church of England.  He lived for a while in Quebec, Canada before returning to England.

In 1874, a devout Anglican clergyman, Godfrey Thring, feared that Bridges' verses smacked too much of Catholic doctrine.  Bridges' verse 2 had references to the Virgin Mary and Thring decided to add some verses to the text.  Godfrey also wrote 6 verses.  Over the years, these 12 stanzas have become intermingled in hymnbooks, with editors mixing and matching verses.  Most hymnbooks contain 4 or 5 verses.

The composer of the tune, Diademata, was George Job Elvey.  Born into a musical family, Elvey started his musical career as a boy, singing at Canterbury Cathedral. Later, he received more formal training at the Royal Academy of Music. Around 1835, he was appointed master of the boys and organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor (one of his tunes, St. George’s Windsor, [the text usually used today with this tune is "Come Ye Thankful People Come"] takes its name from this location). He served at St. George’s for almost half a century. He was knighted in 1871 for his Festival March, played at the wedding of Princess Louise.  This hymn tune is not used for other texts in the mainline hymnals today.

In honor of Bridge's time in Canada, this weeks video contains not only the original text I grew up singing, but also some gorgeous photography from Canada.  Enjoy!