Crown him with many crowns

including
Crown him with crowns of gold

with DIADEMATA

I. Text: Origins

Matthew Bridges (1800–1894) was raised in the Church of England and at one time was a staunch critic of the Catholic Church. Over time, he was influenced members of the Tractarian movement, a renewal movement with the Church of England to reclaim and restore ancient hymns, texts, and liturgical sensibilities, of which John Keble, J.M. Neale, and Edward Caswall were notable figures. Much like Caswall, Bridges converted to Catholicism around 1846 and subsequently published hymns for Catholics. His best-known hymn, “Crown him with many crowns,” was first published in the second edition of his Hymns of the Heart (London: Richardson & Son, 1851 | Fig. 1). In this printing, the hymn was headed “In capite ejus, diademata multa. Apoc. xix. 12,” which is from the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, referring to Revelation 19:12, “on his head are many diadems” (KJV). The text appeared in six stanzas of eight lines.

Fig. 1. Hymns of the Heart, 2nd ed. (London: Richardson & Son, 1851).

Bridges included this hymn in The Passion of Jesus (1852), without change, except there he titled it “Song of the Seraphs.” It was first used as a congregational hymn in The People’s Hymnal (1867).

II. Text: Analysis

Bridges’ original text was structured with the unifying device of initiating each stanza with the charge to “Crown him” with a particular title. The first stanza pictures the conquering king as described in Revelation, especially picturing the worship scene in chapter 5. The second focuses on his nature as the incarnate God born from a virgin’s womb (Is. 7:14, Matt. 1:23). The “Mystic Rose” refers to Mary, a longstanding name dating back several centuries (“rosa mystica”), based possibly on Song of Songs 2:1 (“Rose of Sharon”). Here Bridges has connected that image with the Christ-metaphor given in Isaiah 11:1 (“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit,” ESV). Lutheran scholar Steven P. Mueller explained how Jesus can be the stem if Mary is the rose:

Born of the Virgin, Jesus is the fruit of that rose. But as true God and Creator of all, He existed before His mother. He is her stem and root. Her life comes from Him even as His physical body was of her substance.[1]

In the third stanza, the name “Lord of love” is not directly from Scripture, but “God of love” is given in 2 Corinthians 13:11, while 1 John 4:8 says “God is love.” Bridges equated this love with the wounds of Christ, as in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (ESV). Angels are sometimes described as veiling their faces to the glory of God, as in Isaiah 6:2 (see also Matt. 17:2, Rev. 1:16, 1 Pet. 1:12).

From the fourth stanza, the name “Lord of peace” can be found in 2 Thessalonians 3:16, and similarly “God of peace” can be found elsewhere in the New Testament (Rom. 15:33, 16:20, Phil. 4:9, 1 Thess. 5:23, Heb. 13:20). After the defeat of Satan in Revelation 20, the Bible describes a time when there will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain (Rev. 21:4). The angel Gabriel prophesied in Luke 1:33, “he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” In the fifth stanza, the names “Lord of Years” and “Potentate of Time” are uncommon, but Scripture does say God is timeless, “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8), immortal (Rom. 1:23, 1 Tim. 1:17), infinite (Ps. 147:5), and eternal (Deut. 33:27, Rom. 1:20). From the final stanza, the name “Lord of Heaven” appears in a few places (Dan. 5:23, Matt. 11:25, Lk. 10:21, Acts 17:24), while “God of heaven” is more common. The hymn describes Jesus as “one with the Father,” which is declared in John 10:30, and he is the sender of the Spirit (Jn. 14:16, 15:26, 20:22), thus the hymn ends with a trinitarian nod.

III. Tune

DIADEMATA

Bridges’ text was adopted into the Appendix to Hymns Ancient & Modern (London: William Clowes & Sons, 1868 | Fig. 2), thus importing his Catholic hymn back into the Church of England. The editors were generally supportive of the hymnic aims of the Tractarian movement. The primary textual editor, Henry Baker, was known for altering texts, sometimes in memorable and lasting ways, but here Bridges’ work was subjected to only a bit of reduction by combining segments of the final two stanzas into one. The text was paired with DIADEMATA by George J. Elvey (1816–1893), first printed in this collection. Elvey served the royal family as organist, choirmaster, and composer for St. George’s Chapel from 1835 to 1882. Another of his tunes is named after his domain, ST. GEORGE’S WINDSOR.

Hymnologist Carl Daw noted the appropriateness of a royal musician composing a coronation tune, and remarked, “his tune is very nearly a textbook example of how to achieve a royal, dignified sound. . . . This slightly archaic, more formal style gives the tune a befitting dignity that serves the text well.”[2] J.R. Watson praised it, saying, “it makes a magnificent setting for the text, march-like and joyful without ever becoming mechanical or strident.”[3] The tune is through-composed (no repeated phrases), and every four-bar phrase ends on V except the last, which helps to propel the tune forward. Starting in the third phrase, the tune builds in a melodic sequence from 5 up to 1 before returning in predominantly stepwise motion back to the lower home tone.

IV. Text: Development

When Bridges’ text was included in Church Hymns (London: SPCK, 1871 | Fig. 3), it was extensively revised. Those revisions were not credited there, but were credited to Godfrey Thring (1823–1903) in other sources, for reasons that will be more clear below. At the time, Thring was dean of Wells Cathedral, Somerset, England. In this case, the first stanza was left untouched. In the second stanza, the references to Mary (the rose) were eliminated, the allusion to Isaiah 11:1 (Jesse’s stem) was strengthened, and Thring incorporated a different role, “eternal Shepherd of His fold.” The third stanza was left as-is, but a new fourth stanza, “Crown him the Lord of Life” was inserted after it, referring to the Resurrection and Ascension (this stanza is particularly useful if the hymn is used in connection with the liturgical church year). The fifth stanza (Lord of Peace) was altered to change the image of “flowers of Paradise” to a heavenly choir of a “thousand tones” “In concord ever sweet.” This latter image recalls the scene of “a great multitude that no one could number from every nation” joining to declare “Salvation belongs to our God” (Rev. 7:9–10).

The final two stanzas were both reworked. Thring replaced the “Lord of Years” with “Lord of Might” (Deut. 3:24), but otherwise kept the final quatrain of the penultimate stanza. Similarly, Thring removed the trinitarian language at the outset of the final stanza while preserving the end of it.

Fig. 3. Church Hymns (London: SPCK, 1871).

Three years later, another version beginning “Crown Him with crowns of gold” appeared in Thring’s Hymns and Sacred Lyrics (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1874), with a note explaining what had happened before:

The greater part of this hymn was originally written at the request of the Rev. H.W. Hutton, to supply the place of some of the stanzas in Matthew Bridges’ well-known hymn, of which he and others did not approve; it was afterwards thought better to rewrite the whole, so that the two hymns might be kept entirely distinct.

The first stanza here retained the general imagery of what Bridges had written. The second, in place of the incarnation, focuses more on Christ’s nature as eternal, pre-Creation, and on his prophetic name “Son of Man” (Dan. 7:13, Matt. 12:40). For the third stanza, Thring replaced the original “Lord of Love” with a tribute to the “Lord of Light” (similar to “Father of lights,” Jas. 1:17, or see Jn. 1:4–5, 8:12). The fourth was carried over from what he had supplied in 1871. The fifth has the same sense as Bridges’ ode to Christ’s reign before a heavenly choir, except here Thring offered the name “Lord of lords” (Rev. 17:14, 19:16) in place of the original “Lord of Peace.” The sixth stanza from 1871 was omitted (“Lord of Might,” which was revised from Bridges’ “Lord of Years”). The final stanza, which had been half-Thring, half-Bridges in 1871, was now fully by Thring.

Fig. 4. Hymns and Sacred Lyrics (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1874).

Very few hymnals have used Thring’s full version, whereas most use some combination of Bridges and Thring. Thring himself, when he edited A Church of England Hymn Book (1880), restored Bridges’ opening stanza but otherwise used his own words. J.R. Watson believed Bridges wrote the better text, asserting, “It may have offended some Victorians, but it is immensely superior to Thring’s version in its imaginative realization of the power and love of Christ.”[4]

Another attempt to rewrite Bridges was made by Percy Dearmer (1867–1936) for Songs of Praise, Enlarged Ed. (1931). Dearmer explained, “as it was not felt that this hymn was good, though the motive was a good one and had won favour, the editor undertook to write a new hymn in the same metre.”[5] Regarding Dearmer’s version, “Crown him upon the throne,” Albert Edward Bailey said, “It emphasizes the social rather than the theological reasons why Christ should be crowned.”[6] This version was not widely adopted. In this collection and in The English Hymnal (1906), the editors used an alternate tune, ICH HALTE TREULICH STILL, which is sometimes questionably attributed to J.S. Bach.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
26 May 2021

Footnotes:

1. Steven P. Mueller, “Crown him with many crowns,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (2019), p. 497.

2. Carl P. Daw Jr., “Crown him with many crowns,” Glory to God: A Companion (2016), p. 271.

3. J.R. Watson, “Crown him with many crowns,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (2002), p. 315.

4. J.R. Watson, “Crown him with many crowns,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (2002), p. 315.

5. Percy Dearmer, Songs of Praise Discussed (Oxford: University Press, 1933), p. 257.

6. Albert Edward Bailey, “Crown him with many crowns,” The Gospel in Hymns (1950), p. 207.

Related Resources:

John Julian, “Crown him with many crowns,” A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: J. Murray, 1892), p. 270: HathiTrust

Albert Edward Bailey, “Crown him with many crowns,” The Gospel in Hymns (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), pp. 206–207.

J.R. Watson & Kenneth Trickett, “Crown him with many crowns,” Companion to Hymns & Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing, 1988), pp. 173–174.

J.R. Watson, “Crown him with many crowns,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), pp. 314–315.

Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “Crown him with many crowns,” Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba, 2005), pp. 377–389.

Carl P. Daw Jr., “Crown him with many crowns,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), pp. 270–271.

Robert Cottrill, “Crown him with many crowns,” Wordwise Hymns (23 Oct. 2017): https://wordwisehymns.com/2017/10/23/crown-him-with-many-crowns-2/

Leland Ryken, “Crown him with many crowns,” 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2019), pp. 47–50.

Steven P. Mueller & Joe Herl, “Crown him with many crowns,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 496–498.

“Crown him with many crowns,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/crown_him_with_many_crowns

J.R. Watson, “Crown him with many crowns,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: http://www.hymnology.co.uk/c/crown-him-with-many-crowns