History on Carols: Carols were first sung in Europe thousands of years ago, but these were not Christmas Carols. They were pagan songs, sung at the Winter Solstice celebrations as people danced round stone circles. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, usually taking place around 22nd December. The word Carol actually means dance or a song of praise and joy! Carols used to be written and sung during all four seasons, but only the tradition of singing them at Christmas has really survived. Christmas, remembering the birth of Jesus, then started to be celebrated at the same time as the solstice, so the early Christians started singing Christian songs instead of pagan ones. In 129, a Roman Bishop said that a song called “Angel’s Hymn” should be sung at a Christmas service in Rome. Another famous early Christmas Hymn was written in 760, by Comas of Jerusalem, for the Greek Orthodox Church. Soon after this many composers all over Europe started to write ‘Christmas carols’. However, not many people liked them as they were all written and sung in Latin, a language that the normal people couldn’t understand. By the time of the Middles Ages (the 1200s), most people had lost interest in celebrating Christmas altogether. This was changed by St. Francis of Assisi when, in 1223, he started his Nativity Plays in Italy. The people in the plays sang songs or ‘canticles’ that told the story during the plays. Sometimes, the choruses of these new carols were in Latin; but normally they were all in a language that the people watching the play could understand and join in! The new carols spread to France, Spain, Germany and other European countries. The earliest carol, like this, was written in 1410. Sadly only a very small fragment of it still exists. The carol was about Mary and Jesus meeting different people in Bethlehem. Most Carols from this time and the Elizabethan period are untrue stories, very loosely based on the Christmas story, about the holy family and were seen as entertaining rather than religious songs. They were usually sung in homes rather than in churches! Traveling singers or Minstrels started singing these carols and the words were changed for the local people wherever they were traveling. One carols that changed like this is ‘I Saw Three Ships’. Carol-singing men on a square in Ljubljana. Carol-singing men on a square in Ljubljana – Johann Weikhard von Valvasor . When the Puritans came to power in England in 1640s, the celebration of Christmas and singing carols was stopped. However, the carols survived as people still sang them in secret. Carols remained mainly unsung until Victorian times, when two men called William Sandys and Davis Gilbert collected lots of old Christmas music from villages in England. Carols were sung as folk songs in places like pubs but they often weren’t thought of as ‘proper’ or ‘nice’ songs by the middle or upper classes. (Singing carols in pubs still happens today and there are some very famis carol sings pubs in the north of England, especially in North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.) Before carol singing in places like churches became popular, there were sometimes official carol singers called ‘Waits’. These were bands of people led by important local leaders (such as council leaders) who had the only power in the towns and villages to take money from the public (if others did this, they were sometimes charged as beggars!). They were called ‘Waits’ because they sang on Christmas Eve (This was sometimes known as ‘watchnight’ or ‘waitnight’ because of the shepherds were watching their sheep when the angels appeared to them.), when the Christmas celebrations began. Also, at this time, many orchestras and choirs were being set up in the cities of England and people wanted Christmas songs to sing, so carols once again became popular in churches and concert halls. Many new carols, such as ‘Good King Wenceslas’, were also written in the Victorian period. New carols services were created and became popular, as did the custom of singing carols in the streets. Both of these customs are still popular today! One of the most popular types of Carols services are Carols by Candlelight services. At this service, the church is only lit by candlelight and it feels very Christmassy! Carols by Candlelight services are held in countries all over the world. The most famous type of Carol Service might be a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, where carols and Bible readings tell the Christmas Story. Ding dong! merrily on high Author: George Ratcliffe Woodward Translator: J. M. Neale John M. Neale’s life is a study in contrasts: born into an evangelical home, he had sympathies toward Rome; in perpetual ill health, he was incredibly productive; of scholarly temperament, he devoted much time to improving social conditions in his area; often ignored or despised by his contemporaries, he is lauded today for his contributions to the church and hymnody. Neale’s gifts came to expression early–he won the Seatonian prize for religious poetry eleven times while a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, England. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1842, but ill health and his strong support of the Oxford Movement kept him from ordinary parish ministry. So Neale spent the years between 1846 and 1866 as a warden of Sackvi. Neale translated the opening line as “Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel” for his volume of translations, Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences. It appeared in The Hymnal Noted, Part 2 in 1854 with a tune supplied by Thomas Helmore entitled VENI EMMANUEL. The heading in this hymnal stated: “From a French Missal in the National Library, Lisbon.” Scholars have not been able to locate the French missal, but Sister Thomas More (Dr. Mary Berry) located the tune in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, identifying it as a 15th-century “Processional” for French Franciscan nuns. The famous Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) used Neale’s revised translation, which continues to be employed in many hymnals. The block chords of the original musical were eventually replaced with more freely flowing plainsong settings. There are numerous textual variations in many hymnals, including even the order of the stanzas. Laurence Hall Stookey, recently retired worship professor at Wesley Seminary, retranslated portions of the hymn to reflect more accurately the original Latin. Many hymns found in our hymnals transcend centuries, cultures, translations and many variations until we find them in the form that we sing. With this hymn, the essence of the original Latin text remains. By singing “O come, O come, Emmanuel” with the antiphons interspersed, Christians today may participate in a sacred Advent ritual at least 11 centuries old.
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
