This is an overview of the 150 psalms in Renaissance lute literature. The numbering most frequently used in lute sources is the so-called Masoretic numbering. Pierre Certon and Gabriel Bataille (for his airs spirituels) use the Septuagint numbering. Where this deviates from the Masoretic numbering, it has been noted.
Sources after 1560 mainly use the melodies as composed by Louis Bourgeois and Pierre Davantès (Maistre Pierre) for the Genevan Psalter. Sources from before 1560, such as those by Josquin des Prez or Pierre Certon, often feature their own unique melodies.
For each psalm, the incipit is provided in four languages: Latin, French, German, and Dutch. The French translations are by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze. The German translations are primarily by Ambrosius Lobwasser, who based his work mainly on the meter of the French translations. The texts by Martin Luther are personal reflections on the original Bible text rather than literal translations. Furthermore, in his Testudo Spiritualis of 1617, Daniel Laelius bases his Latin incipits on George Buchanan’s Psalmorum Davidis Paraphrasis Poetica.
The English psalms in the books by Richard Allison (The Psalmes of David in Meter, 1599) and Thomas Robinson (The Schoole of Musicke, 1603) form a separate chapter. They use their own melodies and draw inspiration from the Genevan Psalter only very sporadically. The psalms with English titles in Adrian Le Roy’s A briefe and plaine Instruction (1574) are all based on the Genevan Psalter, as this book is a translation of the original French edition from 1568.