ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the individual, and the processes of transmission and reception of religious doctrine, practice and sentiment which occurred through individuals’ interactions with music. It explores the musical media which contributed towards the process of religious education, taken in the broadest possible sense. 1 This ‘education’ was essentially a composite consisting of three associated sub-processes: pedagogical instruction resulting from didactic music; propaganda stemming from defamatory music; and Protestantisation, a useful shorthand for the spiritual and devotional functions of music. Like all analytical constructs these divisions are imperfect, and the boundaries between them were blurred. Devotional music could also fulfil pedagogical functions; musical propaganda could acquire devotional status; and Protestant didacticism often contained an element defamatory of Catholic belief. But broadly speaking, most Elizabethan religious music was either deliberately or functionally conceived primarily for one of these three purposes. In addition, by concentrating on the possible functions of religious music, rather than on divisions of content or genre, a fuller picture emerges of the range of musical responses to the religious imperative. This chapter consists of three sections, each concentrating on one of the functions of religious music outlined above. The first provides a brief summary of the intellectual weight which music possessed as an educational medium and deals with pedagogy and didacticism, including (but not limited to) formal schooling; the second treats propagandist and defamatory music; and the third the devotional works which contributed to the more informal process of Protestantisation.
