Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
5-1972
Keywords
music, shakers, musical notation
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Music
Abstract
About the year 1747, a few members from the Society of Quakers in Bolton, England (near Manchester) organized themselves into a separate community called the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing. They chose as their leaders a devout couple, Jane and James Wardley, both tailors by trade. The new society was partly influenced by a Huguenot sect called the Camisards, or French Prophets, whose spiritual movement had first extended itself to England in 1706. Two important influences which the group of Believers adopted from the Camisard practices were: the belief that the second appearing of Christ was approaching, and the physically active manner of worshipping. The latter influence was especially significant for it was from these spiritually manifested movements that the new society received its descriptive title of Shaking Quakers, later shortened to simply Shakers. The movements included such diverse elements as whirling, running, jumping, and a violent agitation of the body, hence the appropriateness of the title. Also included in the worship ritual were purely oral transmissions of a trance or vision. Random singing and periodic shouting were the most common of these divinely inspired outpourings.
Recommended Citation
Hall, Roger L., "The Shaker letteral system : an approach to music notation" (1972). Graduate Dissertations and Theses. 442.
https://orb.binghamton.edu/dissertation_and_theses/442
