Performing Piety[E]very morning and evening at six of the clock, which are the days for learning of scholars, and keeping of school, the scholars by two and two and the schoolmaster shall go from the school-house into the Parish Church, and there devoutly upon their knees before they do enter the choir say some devout prayer, and after the same they shall repair together unto the chapel or choir . . . and there sing together one of these psalms hereafter instituted, such as the schoolmaster shall appoint. 1 This passage from the statutes at Kirkby Stephen Grammar School reveals the theatrical quality of student devotion. Twice daily students paused in their regular instruction to engage in a performative activity that combined patterned movement (going from the schoolhouse "two by two" into the parish church), oration (the saying of prayers), and music-making (the singing of psalms). In so doing, they envoiced and embodied their Protestantism, moving, in this case physically, from the schoolroom to the church. This chapter maps how students moved, sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively, between church and schoolroom, and the purposes religious music-making served in these contexts.

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