John Mason Neale
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John Mason Neale (January 24, 1818 - August 6, 1866), English divine and scholar, was born in London, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Here he was affected by the Oxford Movement, and helped to found the Camden (afterwards the Ecclesiological) Society. Though he took orders in 1841, ill-health prevented his settling in England till 1846, when he became warden of Sackville College, an alms-house at East Grinstead, an appointment which he held till his death.
Neale was strongly high-church in his sympathies, and had to endure a good deal of opposition, including a fourteen years' inhibition by his bishop. In 1855 he founded a nursing sisterhood named St Margaret's. He occupies a high place as a hymnologist, but principally as a translator of ancient and medieval hymns, the best known being probably "All Glory, Laud and Honour" (from Theodulph's Gloria laus et honor), "The Day of Resurrection" (from John Damascene's "Αναστασεως ημερα"), and "Jerusalem, the golden", the last derived from a section of the poem by Bernard of Cluny, De Contemptu Mundi, which Neale translated in its entirety.
Neale's most enduring and widely known legacy among non-hymnologists, however, is probably his contribution to the Christmas repertoire, most notably "Good Christian Men, Rejoice" (a translation and monolingualization of the medieval Latin-German macaronic carol "In dulci jubilo, nun singet und seid froh") and his original legendary Boxing-Day carol, "Good King Wenceslas", set to the medieval spring carol tune "Tempus adest floridum". He was also responsible for much of the translation of the Advent hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel", based on the "O Antiphons" for the week preceding Christmas, and his "A Great and Mighty Wonder", a translation of Germanus's "Μεγα και παρχδοξον θαυμα", is often adapted to be sung to the tune "Es ist ein' Ros'".
Neale also published An Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church (1850, 2 vols); History of the so-called Jansenist Church of Holland (1858); Essays on Liturgiology and Church History (1863); and many other works.
References
- John Mason Neale, DD: A Memoir (1907), Eleanor Towle (his daughter)
- Memoir by his friend, Richard Frederick Littledale
- Letters of John Mason Neale (1910), selected and edited by Eleanor Towle
External links
- [Works of John Mason Neale online]
- [John Mason Neale and the Christian Heritage] by Dale J. Nelson, prefaced by links to more than one hundred of Neale's hymn texts in [The Cyber Hymnal]
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