(Dut. from souter: ‘psalter’ and liedekens: ‘songs’).
Name given to the first complete metrical Dutch translation of the psalms. The text of this translation is traditionally (and probably rightly) ascribed to the Utrecht nobleman Willem van Zuylen van Nyevelt. The souterliedekens were published with melodies for all the psalms (and a few canticles) in 1540 by the Antwerp printer Symon Cock. Because Cock corrected his work during the print run there are differences among the extant copies; these are often erroneously thought to have originated from different editions. The melodies were drawn from various sources, such as Dutch folksongs, French chansons and Gregorian chant. Since the melodies of songs from the first half of the 16th century were rarely notated, the collection is an indispensable source for Dutch folksong of the period. While the rhyming of the psalm texts, which draw heavily on the ‘heretical’ Bible translations by Jacob van Liesveld (1526) and Willem Vorsterman (1528), may itself be seen as a reformatory act, the whole volume was set up in such a way that it could be acceptable and useful to Catholics as well as to Protestants: the corresponding Vulgate verses were printed in the margin and the edition was provided with a royal privilege. The collection was probably intended for the various religious communities of the Netherlands in the mid-16th century in a non-exclusive way. Subsequent editions of the souterliedekens were issued in Antwerp in 1559, 1564–6 and 1584, times of relative freedom in religious matters.
During the 1550s and 60s the souterliedekens were set polyphonically three times, by Clemens non Papa (four volumes, 1556–7; ed. in CMM, iv, 1953), Gherardus Mes (four volumes, 1561) and Cornelis Buscop (one volume with 50 pieces, 1568; ed. in UVNM, xxii, 1899). Clemens’s settings are three-part, in polyphonic style, with the melody in the tenor voice. Mes’s settings are four-part, use various homophonic and polyphonic styles and show greater variety in the treatment of the melodies: some settings use them as cantus firmi, others paraphrase them or cite only the incipits and still others do not use them at all. Buscop’s settings are in motet style and do not use the traditional melodies. Although difficult to prove, there is evidence of Protestant leanings in all these polyphonic settings: Clemens also set Marot’s table prayers, Mes’s settings were published by Susato shortly after his move to northern Alkmaar, and Buscop’s settings were dedicated to the Protestant Duke Erich of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
During the second half of the 16th century the souterliedekens were increasingly viewed as a Protestant metrical psalter. They were prohibited in the Spanish Netherlands and sung by Calvinist Protestants, especially by the Mennonites in the north. Editions appeared in Kampen (1562), Utrecht (1598–1613) and Amsterdam (1613). Their impact on Dutch song, sacred and secular, was considerable, as can be seen from the many times their melodies were cited for Protestant religious songs in the Low Countries. They were never accepted as the official metrical psalter, however, Petrus Dathenus’s translation of the Genevan psalter taking on that role soon after its publication in 1566. The souterliedekens became obsolete everywhere in the Netherlands after about 1620. See also Psalms, metrical, §II, 4.
D.F. Scheurleer: De Souterliedekens: bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der oudste Nederlandsche psalmberijming (Leiden, 1898/R)
F. van Duyse: Het oude Nederlandsche lied (The Hague, 1903–8)
E. Mincoff-Marriage: Souterliedekens: een Nederlandsch psalmboek van 1540 met de oorspronkelijke volksliederen die bij de melodieën behooren (The Hague, 1922/R1939 as Zestiende-eeuwsche Dietsche Volksliedies)
A. Averkamp: ‘De Souterliedekens’, TVNM, xii/2 (1927), 97–101
K.P. Bernet Kempers: ‘Die “Souterliedekens” des Jacobus Clemens non Papa’, TVNM, xii/4 (1928), 261–8; xiii/1 (1929), 29–43; xiii/2 (1929), 126–51
H.A. Bruinsma: The ‘Souterliedekens’ and its Relation to Psalmody in the Netherlands (diss., U. of Michigan, 1949)
S.J. Lenselink: De Nederlandse psalmberijmingen van de Souterliedekens tot Datheen (Assen, 1959, 2/1983)
A.G. Soeting: ‘De “Souterliedekens” en hun meerstemmige zettingen: de eerste Nederlandse psalmberijming’, Eredienst, xvii (1983), 49–60
J. van Biezen and M. Veldhuyzen, eds.: Introduction to Souterliedekens 1540 (Buren, 1984)
R.A. Leaver: ‘Goostly psalmes and spirituall songes’: English and Dutch Metrical Psalms from Coverdale to Utenhove 1535–1566 (Oxford, 1991)
L.P. Grijp: ‘De fascinatie van de Souterliedekens’, Tijdschrift voor Oude Muziek, ix (1994), 7–10
L.P. Grijp: ‘The Souterliedekens by Gherardus Mes (1561), an Enigmatic Pupil of Clemens non Papa, and Popular Song of the Mid-Sixteenth Century’, From Ciconia to Sweelinck: Donum natalicum Willem Elders, ed. A. Clement and E. Jas (Amsterdam, 1994), 245–54
J.W. Bonda: De meerstemmige Nederlandse liederen van de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw (Hilversum, 1996)
RUDOLF RASCH