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Dec. 21, 2000 - Bill Cooper
55:22
Carols and Customs #1
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Time Text
Why is it always the power? Leave me alone!
Lead the hour of the time.
Light the hour for the broken.
and the world seems to be falling apart.
I'm not sure.
Good evening.
You're listening to the Hour of the Time and I'm Michelle.
In an effort to give Bill and his family some time to wrap holiday gifts and enjoy the festivities
of the Christmas season, a series of programs has been prepared by which we can all indulge
our senses a bit and simultaneously learn something new about the traditions of the
holiday.
Thank you.
What better gift to give a loved one than real money?
Consider for your gift list real silver dollars minted in the birth year of one of your relatives, or those beautiful special holiday pressings of silver rounds, or gold coins.
Imagine how full and heavy a Christmas stocking would be filled with free 1964 American Circulation silver coins, or the thrill that would be experienced upon opening a gift box containing a bar of platinum.
Don't let this holiday season pass you by without giving a gift that will keep on giving no matter what the future holds.
Precious metals.
Real money.
And remember, with precious metals, all gifts are age appropriate, no batteries are ever needed, one size fits all, and most importantly, no assembly is required.
King don't marry a bride in anger and mourning King don't marry a bride in big religious meetings
Oh, glory, glory, glory!
Oh, glory, glory, glory!
Jesus, you who dwell in the deep and the vast, I pray that you may be with us always.
Oh, glory, glory, glory!
May you be with us always, May you be with us always,
May you be with us always, May you be with us always.
Glory, glory, glory!
Oh, glory to you, oh, glory, glory!
Oh, glory, glory, glory!
Oh, glory to you, oh, glory, glory!
Noels, or Christmas carols, says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, are a kind of air wedded to certain canticles sung by the
people in celebration of Christmas.
The word noel is derived from natalis, Latin meaning birthday, while carol comes from the Italian word carolare, and suggests the medieval ring dance, which, like all old dances, was always accompanied by singing.
Tonight is the first of at least two episodes of the Hour of the Time in which we will be discussing the history and development of Christmas carols and the origins of some of our holiday customs.
As we go through the teaching material you'll have an opportunity to hear and enjoy some very fine recordings of these wonderful songs.
Let's begin with the foundational background information.
Relax and enjoy this special holiday presentation of The Hour of the Time.
In the Gospel according to St.
Luke, we read, And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.
And they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you.
Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.
From this very familiar scriptural reference, it is most enlightening to note that there is absolutely no mention of
angels singing in any biblical account of the birth of Christ,
nor are there any other biblical references to angels ever singing.
This glaring omission, however, has never stopped ancient or modern Christendom from attributing to angels great vocal and harmonic skills.
In virtually every form of Christmas tradition, which by all reasoning has to be reduced to nothing more than the doctrines of men, angels sing, burst forth in glorious anthems of praise, play golden harps, and probably dance on the heads of pins in great numbers.
Most historians credit the Emperor Constantine with turning the celebration of the birth of Christ into a Christianized version of the pagan Roman Saturnalia festival.
However, this mixing into paganism actually began as early as the second century A.D., and it is in that century that we find the first recorded instructions to early Christians to celebrate the Nativity in song Just like the angels in the Gospel of Luke, even though no angels ever sang to anyone at any time.
Clement, who flourished in the first century, admonished early Christians with these words, quote, Brethren, keep diligently the feast days, and truly, in the first place, the day of Christ's birth.
End quote.
This appears to be the earliest reference to the Feast of the Nativity.
As early as the year 129 A.D., Telesphorus, Bishop of Rome, instituted the custom of celebrating the Nativity with songs of Noel or Christmas carols.
In his Decretal Epistle, Telesphorus says that it was ordained, that in the holy night of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, they do celebrate public church services, and in them solemnly sing the angels' hymn Because also the same night he was declared unto the shepherds by an angel, as the truth itself doth witness."
Telesphorus simply failed to note that technically there was no angel hymn, as in the scriptural record the angels are said to have spoken and not sung to the shepherds.
Nevertheless, with the words of Telesphorus, There is a definite statement that the Gloria in Excelsis Deo was the first carol of the Church, meaning the Church that developed into the Catholic Church.
As to the precise day upon which it was sung, we are left in no doubt, since Theophilus, Bishop of Caesarea, also in the second century AD, recommended, quote, The observance, or celebration, of the birthday of our Lord shall be On what day, soever, the 25th of December shall happen."
And with that religious edict, we have the first official recognition that the ancient Roman Saturnalia festival would be equated with the birth of Christ.
Constantine, in the fourth century, had very little to do but to put his official stamp of approval on activities which had already been well underway for at least a century.
It has never been any great secret that our December celebration of the birth of Christ has nothing whatsoever to do with that birth other than bearing a name designation by virtue of Roman decree.
It is well known that the Emperor Constantine, in his efforts to unify the Roman Empire, did his best to combine and co-mingle long-established pagan traditions with the newer beliefs of the early Christians Thus preventing the division of the empire on religious grounds.
December 25th, long celebrated as the winter festival of the Saturnalia, replete with its merriment, drunkenness, gift-giving, and song-singing, seemed a likely candidate with which to connect the birth of Christ to the benefit of those early Christians.
How logical it must have seemed at the time to correlate the birth of the S-U-M God with the birth of the S.O.N.
of God.
The celebration of the Saturnalia had long been observed by the ancient Romans, and before them by the Greeks, as a form of Mithraism, or pagan sun worship.
This winter festival was called the Nativity of the S.U.N.
Sun.
Its official name was Natalis Invicti, or Nativity of the Unconquered Sun, S.U.N.
And of course the devotion to the sun god stretches many thousands of years back in history to the Zep Tepi, or earliest times of the gods of ancient Egypt.
Constantine was the most successful of all in his efforts to mix paganism and Christian belief, although such a mixture was already well established by his day.
In the partying and revelry of the annual pagan winter solstice season, The admonitions of St.
Paul to the Galatians were quickly forgotten.
In Galatians chapter four, verses nine through eleven, Paul writes, Albeit then, when he knew not God, he did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
But now, after that he have known God, or rather are known of God, I'll turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage.
Ye observe days and months and times and years.
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.
Nevertheless, even to this day, most people continue to be observers of days.
Especially if some religious custom can be attached to them, or if one gets a feel-good charitable glow from the experience.
Christians and non-Christians alike get caught up in the celebratory hysteria of the holiday season, a season most notably marked by great music, and, most traditionally, by the carols we have all come to enjoy.
Perhaps my greatest pleasures of the holiday season are the carols and the more popular secular music which has become associated with the general madness of December.
Recognizing the pagan origin of some of our Christmas carols has never stopped that music from speaking deeply to us or from moving us in some way emotionally, nor does that knowledge lessen our enjoyment of the music.
When we hear or sing Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe help to make the season bright.
We are not actively participating in the ancient Celtic ritual of worshipping the sacred mistletoe.
So please recognize that there is a balance to all things in life, including Christmas.
With that balance in mind, and with those words of introduction out of the way, let's proceed into history.
Essentially pastoral, A few are the carols which do not in some way celebrate the season with its joys and cares, picturesquely glancing at the shepherds and their flocks, though neither one nor the other would be out freezing in the wintry Judean hills much later than October.
According to Eastern custom, in the late summer or early autumn of the year, a farmer in the biblical lands would often hire shepherds to keep their flocks in his field overnight.
In this way the sheep's manure would fertilize his field.
In December, the month in modern times when Jesus Christ's birth is celebrated, it is far too cold for shepherds to watch their sheep at night in fields or pastures.
The coldest temperatures, frost, heavy rains and even snow occur from November to February at those latitudes of the Middle East.
Shepherds would not be grazing sheep at night during those months Nor would a Roman registration, taxation, or census be conducted during that time of year, because travel would be so difficult.
Acknowledging that the birth of Christ most probably occurred during the month of September, we are once again thrown back into the pagan custom of singing in the winter solstice and its accompanying New Year season.
A mere alteration of the date of the celebration didn't stop 1st and 2nd century Christians from attaching their festival to the ancient pagan ritual.
And by Constantine's day, one might naturally assume that if the emperor said it was okay, God must also approve.
And so it has been for more than 1500 years.
We have become observers of days, ascribing to Christ the same so-called birthday as that of a pagan god.
And we celebrate that birth.
by performing rituals and customs of pagan origin without a second thought, even to the point of singing the same songs originally sung in homage to the fertility of spring, the abundance of summer, the gods of the autumn harvest, and the invocation of the gods in anticipation of the new year.
Some of those pagan songs have become our most beloved Christmas carols.
The celebration of Christmas Day on December 25th is most definitely a concession The custom of celebrating the seasons of the year in song is ancient and universal.
All over the world, about this season of the winter solstice, popular festivities were held.
Thus, the Persians opened the new year with agricultural ceremonies, which also had their counterpart in China.
The sacred books of the East emphasize the religious significance of such things.
Says the Zend-Avesta, quote, He who sows corn sows holiness.
He makes the law of Mazda grow higher and higher.
He makes the law of Mazda as fat as he can with a hundred acts of adoration, a thousand oblations, ten thousand sacrifices.
End quote.
Mazda?
Ah, yes, paganism accompanies even modern industry.
The Athenians had three sacred plowings, including one at the time of the winter solstice, while the old Druids chose this same season to march in great solemnity to gather the sacred mistletoe, inviting all the worlds to assist, singing, The new year is at hand, gather the mistletoe!
Yuletide, an Anglo-Saxon term for Merry, or the Merry Feast, corresponded with the winter solstice and the New Year's holidays.
Some have thought that Julos, the month in which the winter solstice occurs in that language, gave us the word Yule.
Yule was one of the principal feasts among the northern nations, though it survives today in name only.
The lighting of the Yule log became a Druidic custom.
The log was stored from the previous year, and was set ablaze to scare away evil spirits.
Among the Druids, the oak was sacred, and the Yule log was supposed to be from an oak tree, because of its alleged mystical powers to guard and protect.
England, under the dominion of the Romans, still indulged Druidical rites, and though there were temples to Diana and Minerva, such as those of London and Bath, and doubtless numerous altars to Jupiter and Venus, the inhabitants of these islands were chiefly worshippers of the sun, moon, mountains, rivers, lakes, and trees.
The ceremonies of All-Hallowmas, which some still observe as Halloween or the day before All Saints' Day, May Day, and Midsummer's Eve are all of druidical origin.
With the veneration of the sacred mistletoe, a parasitic form of evergreen, we find a tangible link with such pagan times.
Among the Romans, the sacred tree was the evergreen fir tree, which was decorated with red berries during the Saturnalia.
The Scandinavian god Odin was believed to bestow special gifts at Yuletide to those who approached his sacred fir tree.
All of these pagan beliefs and their accompanying rituals were coincident with the Roman Saturnalia, which itself harked back to the sun-worship of the Egyptians, and in those ancient observances had their true origin.
From these pagan cultures we have, over the centuries, absorbed and renamed many of their traditions and adopted their songs.
Christianity began to take firmer hold upon the people during the fourth century, with Constantine as protector of the faith.
The Feast of Christmas is mentioned by Gregory Nazianzen, who died in 389 A.D., and his seems to be the last voice of reason crying out against the adoption of the pagan customs of the times.
In his writings, He cautioned those who observed the Feast of the Nativity to guard against excess, and protested against dancing and crowning the doors with boughs and evergreens, which, he affirmed, was a heathen practice.
He exhorted them to celebrate the Feast after a heavenly rather than an earthly manner.
In his warnings, he cites the Scriptures of Jeremiah 10, verses 2-5.
10 verses 2 through 5.
Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs
of heaven.
For the heathen are dismayed at them.
For the customs of the people are vain.
For one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe.
They deck it with silver and with gold.
They fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not.
They must needs be born, because they cannot go.
Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good."
Even in the days of Jeremiah, believed to have lived around the year 660 B.C., the custom
of decorating evergreen trees with ornaments was recognized as a pagan religious ritual
symbolic of resurrection and eternal life.
An old Babylonish fable told of an evergreen tree which sprang out of a dead stump.
The old stump symbolized the dead Nimrod, and the new evergreen tree symbolized that Nimrod had come back to life again as Tammuz.
The evergreen trees mentioned in Jeremiah were elegantly carved into idols, and the round gold and silver ornaments with which the evergreen idols were decorated Some things never change, and the tradition of decorating evergreen trees in a nativity celebration predates the birth of Christ by many centuries.
It has, in fact, absolutely nothing to do with Christ or Christianity in any way.
This is but one more indication of how we have unquestioningly adopted pagan customs Dress them in Christian garb and think that by making these annual religious observances we are doing something pleasing to God.
We have simply forgotten to ask, which God?
Writers of the fourth century mention the Feast of the Nativity, which appears to have been widely known and observed as a regular feast by the end of that century.
St.
Jerome writes that primitive carols were in use in the 5th century in the religious celebrations of the Nativity.
In 407 A.D., the Romans had already withdrawn from England.
Druidism continued in Ireland, where St.
Patrick began his work in 432, long after the Roman withdrawal.
This period gave us the word Wassail, which so aptly applies to many of the Christmas songs.
Wassail derives from Wesshal.
Meaning, be thou whole, and is thus a form of salutation in a festive context.
We will cover the Wassail custom when we reach its musical place in our timeline.
Throughout the 5th and 6th centuries, we observed the growth of so-called sacred music and the establishment of schools of sacred singing.
At the beginning of the 7th century, Pope Gregory had the magnificent liturgical music of the time collected.
music which we have come to know as Gregorian chant.
These chants represent the earliest known form of Christmas music and predate the development of the carol as we now know it by approximately 200 years.
An example of this earliest Christmas music is Hodie Christus Natus Est,
meaning Today Christ is Born, traditionally sung at vespers on Christmas Day.
Hodie Christus Natus Est, Hodie salvator apoiui, Hodie in terra camuntandeli, cile vantur acandeli,
Hodie ecul pantur sicemnes, gloria in excelsis Deo, Alleluia.
Amen.
After the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, The common music and dancing of the booths and fairs gave birth to a new form of entertainment.
Dancing, music, and mimicry, by a natural development, led to a simple dramatic exhibition.
The priests of the Catholic Church, unable to suppress these presentations, either by proscription or excommunication, actually copied them, substituting sacred for profane material.
Here then was the assumed origin of the mystery or passion play and religious drama.
However, this phenomenon finds a much more ancient derivation, tracing back to the religious plays of Constantinople in the fourth century.
Behind those simple experiments loomed the great tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides.
It is certain that the Greeks introduced dramatic performances with music in their religious services having in their turn drawn from those most ancient of cultured peoples, the Egyptians and the Indians of Asia.
Thus the clergy of the ninth century turned actors, and in both churches and fairs presented episodes and legends from sacred books and the Bible, and later on the Passion Play.
Writes Sir John Stainer of the period, There can be no doubt, whatever, that the singing of Christmas carols as we know them grew out of the medieval mysteries and the habit of the priests of placing a crib containing either a living baby or a carved bambino in the chests of churches, in this way trying to teach rustics by means of pictorial representations."
In all such exhibitions, music naturally played a prominent part, and it is precisely here that some claim the origin of the carol, though it was doubtless in existence in a primitive form long before.
Moreover, as Charlemagne largely increased the number of fairs, most lasting several days, these succeeded in attracting merchants and traders of all countries, so that the influence of monkish exhibitions accordingly grew.
It appears that the priests went further than their forerunners as the buffoons of the fairs.
License begot extravagance and libertinism, which ran their full career of riot in the religious establishments.
A decree of the Roman Council forbade both bishops and clergy to use weapons or to maintain female musicians.
It further interdicted all concerts of music and plays and buffooneries.
Yet the fact remains that throughout Europe, mysteries were openly indulged, especially in times of festival.
From the religious houses, such performances naturally passed to the public schools and universities, so that long before the 15th century, all Europe, and especially England, indulged in the full liberties of an untrammeled stage.
During the 9th century, two-part harmony developed.
And the infancy of musical counterpoint had its Western origin.
France is particularly rich in carols, and French writers' fix upon the ninth century is that in which they actually came into existence, although no country can justly claim to have invented this type of song which spread throughout Europe.
Nevertheless, in 858, Gautier, Bishop of Orleans, condemned rustic songs and female dances in the Presbytery Feast.
About the same time period, Pope Eugenius II prohibited dancing in secular songs.
Neither of these rulings from on high seemed to have the slightest effect on the common people who sang and developed song as a vehicle for the expression of emotion apart from religion.
The antiphonal song sung in celebration of Christmas, Gaudete, is usually placed historically during the Middle Ages.
However, its lyrics and basic melodic structure are much, much older.
There is also some controversy over whether this song has its roots in Celtic tradition or in that of the French, as both countries claim an ancient attachment.
Just the same, as it has come down to us in a modernized form, the Laudate is quite beautiful.
And because of its ancient origin, deserves to be placed historically after the development of Gregorian chant, and before the folk song carol period of subsequent centuries.
In this recording, the Gaudete is harmonized in four parts, a characteristic it did not originally possess, and is sung as a processional, with the singers entering at the back of the church, marching in song to the front, and then circling back to exit the sanctuary.
God bless you.
Thanks, Maria, for tonight.
God I thank, God I thank, God I thank, Christopher Snopus.
Thanks, Maria, for tonight.
So, we are going to do that.
Beloved melodies of the common people were used and reused with different lyrics whenever an occasion demanded a new song.
In Spain, after midnight mass on Christmas Eve, the streets quickly filled with dancers and onlookers.
The Spanish Christmas dance, known as the Jota, has been handed down for hundreds of years, even to the present day.
Here is a lively example of a Spanish carol, which developed from the native dance music of the countryside.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
The melody of this carol, while performed in this recording by modern instruments, has
Spanish folk roots many centuries old.
Within the 10th century, minstrelsy was highly popular, and many of the French clergy forsook
their calling and actually risked excommunication by joining the minstrel orders.
According to the Canons of Alfred, made in 957, we find new instructions to the priests that those visiting the sick should sing over the ailing victims.
Music thus became an essential part in the ministrations of the Church.
Most of the treatises on music which now began to appear came from the monasteries.
In the meantime, the observances of Christmas were getting somewhat out of hand.
The Scalds, so famed in story, must have exercised a remarkable influence upon the minstrelsy of Europe.
At the height of their fame, in the early part of the eleventh century, when King Canute took possession of the English throne, numbers of such minstrels recited and sung the glorious event.
In 1012 William of Malmesbury described a lively incident of some fifteen young women, and as many young men, dancing and singing within the precincts of the church of St.
Magnus on Christmas Eve, disturbing one Robert, a priest.
Who is celebrating Mass at the time.
The writer, in something of a flight of fancy, and to add moral weight to his tale, affirmed that as a punishment, in answer to the priest's prayers, this merry party was forced, miraculously, to continue the diversion for a whole year, feeling neither heat, nor cold, nor any weariness, until the very earth beneath their feet failed them, and they were sunk as low as to the armpits.
Such revelries, whether resulting in armpit burial or not, were definitely wild in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
The first crusade, preached by Urban in 1095, drew together crowds from various nations, among whom we may be sure was a goodly number of monks and minstrels.
This would tend to spread far and wide the best and most entertaining art of the day.
The Virgin Mary plays all date from the early twelfth century, and specimens of these plays are preserved in both the British Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
One such manuscript of the twelfth century contains the miracle play entitled The Three Kings or The Adoration of the Magi.
Although biblical scripture ascribes no such number three to the wise men, nor are they ever biblically designated as kings.
Here is an excerpt from a 12th century manuscript known as the Laudario di Cortone, composed in celebration of the birth of Christ.
While the melodies and lyrics of the Laudario are 900 years old, you will hear them sung
accompanied by modern instruments and with more conventional harmonies.
The Laudario is a modern instrument that was invented in the 17th century.
It is a modern instrument that is used in the modern music of the 17th century.
foreign foreign
It is a modern instrument that is used in the modern music foreign
foreign it was a recognized principle with the minstrels to employ
a given melody in connection with any suitable metrical verse so that one tune often did duty for
numerous ballads We have already seen that the church musicians took possession of such secular airs as suited their purposes.
Noels were sung in the streets of Paris in the 13th century, as were Easter carols and May Day songs.
The wave of lyricism sweeping Europe finally spent itself on the shores of Italy in the mid-13th century.
This century, which gives the clue to the Middle Ages, brings into view the firm establishment of both language and music.
Finally, in this period, we find carols recognizable to us today, many of which owe their melodic content to celebrations of pagan origin.
Consider this well-known traditional Christmas song, which is, in actuality, a 14th century carol entitled Tempus Ades Floridum.
A carol sung in celebration of the vernal equinox and the coming of the fertility of spring.
Its original Latin lyrics begin, quote, Spring has now unwrapped the flowers, close quote.
The tune for this song was finally preserved in musical notation a century later and is included in a collection of manuscripts dated 1592.
This delightful tune, was sung for some 400 years in celebration of the beginning of spring until, in 1853, a man named Dr. John Neal substituted his own lyrics to the melody and the song was designated to be sung on St.
Stephen's Day or December 26th.
And there it has remained, in spite of its pagan origin, in the traditional repertoire of holiday music.
Here is a recording of Tempus Oddest Floridum in celebration of the fertility of spring
with its new adornments of Christianized lyrics sung in English.
This is Tempus Oddest Floridum in celebration of the fertility of spring with its new adornments of Christianized
lyrics sung in English.
Spooky, ghastly, lopsided, oh, come the feast of fear, and the snarling of the roe, deep and crisp and miserable.
I hear the drums of triumph cry, the woes of conquerors cry, when the world has made its cry, and its wisdom you have.
Here's a play that's planned by me, it's a book in many.
Come now, Heather.
Who is he?
Where and what is he saying?
I hear him, and who is he?
A man with a crown on his head, wearing a gift of golden thread.
I can learn it now, I'll say.
When we dance and when we ride, When we fight or feel like,
Times I will see him fight, And he will appear.
He can cover for me.
She can cover from the rain, or they bring together, to the room without a name, and you'll be forever gone.
I'm alive in God alone, and the wind will blow me.
If my heart I don't overcome, I can go no longer.
But I took them for thy sake, read thou it and told me.
and glory. Thou art my love in the grave, with my blood at home.
Sing in love and happy song, let us all be healed.
People in America, they spend days and weeks in there.
There are people who can take this road, but no one can complete it.
For the record, there was in Bohemia a wise and good man named Wenceslas, who lived from 903 to 935.
He was the Duke and patron of Bohemia.
Having received a Catholic education, he encouraged that brand of Christianity in Bohemia following the death of his father, and very much against the wishes of his mother.
While noted for his piety, Wenceslas was nevertheless murdered by his brother, Buleslav.
Over the years, his legend grew until he became known as King Wenceslas and ultimately as Good King Wenceslas.
And now, with the tune forever linked with his name and charitable reputation, the song is often sung at town carol concerts just before an appeal for funds is made, when the lyrics quoted are from the carol's fifth verse, quote, Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing."
Another traditional carol of Christmas had its origins in pagan ritual.
Midsummer carols marked the summer solstice, which, like that of Yuletide, was represented by a wheel in the old runic fasti, because of the sun's annual rotation.
In old times, The people of Britain lighted fires on Midsummer's Eve and danced before them with singing.
More anciently, the Watch of London used to march two thousand strong on this eve, a custom arising with Henry III.
One particular thirteenth-century Midsummer carol, generally believed to be of Welsh derivation, sings of love and the abundance of summer with all of the latent sexuality of those warm and languid days.
One of its verses reads, quote, Oh, how soft my fair one's bosom!
Oh, how sweet the grove in blossom!
Oh, how blessed are the blisses!
Words of love and mutual kisses, end quote.
This is, of course, a far cry from any observation of the birth of Christ.
The traditional Midsummer's Eve love lyrics are no longer sung But the tune remains.
You will recognize it instantly, when you realize that the end of each line of its verses concludes with the phrase, Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
of the college.
Say the name of your big college.
Long without our gay and fair ones.
All the boys and the girls and the girls.
All the age groups, youth and care ones.
Say the name of your big college.
Long without our gay and fair ones.
All the boys and the girls and the girls.
All the age groups, youth and fair ones.
Say the name of your big college.
Long without our gay and fair ones.
All the boys and the girls and the girls.
All the age groups, youth and fair ones.
Say the name of your big college.
Long without our gay and fair ones.
Strike the ball and join the fun.
All the gay and fair ones.
All the boys and the girls and the girls.
All the age groups, youth and fair ones.
All the boys and the girls and the girls.
All the age groups, youth and fair ones.
All the age groups, youth and fair ones.
First away the older ones.
Every day the bad ones.
All the gay and fair ones.
All the age groups, youth and fair ones.
All the boys and girls and girls.
All the age groups, youth and fair ones.
One of the most important carols to come out of the 14th century was Indulci Jubilo, more commonly known today as Good Christian Men Rejoice.
Its melody is recorded in manuscripts dated 1537.
But its lyrics were not finalized until 1545.
The original words are said, by a 14th century writer, to have been sung by angels to a man named Henry Suso, a mystic, who died in 1366.
Legend has it that Suso was drawn in by the carol to dance with his celestial visitors, a most unlikely premise, And we can find no scriptural evidence that angels ever sang to anyone, much less engaged them in a quick do-si-do.
Nevertheless, the carol does appear in the last hymn book produced for Martin Luther, and carries to this day his final text editorship.
Luther himself is credited with writing the third stanza.
Here is Indulce Jugulo sung in English with the traditional lyrics,
Good Christian Men Rejoice.
Good Christian Men Rejoice, with heart and soul rejoiced, here to God we came.
Soon you'll see that life is all today.
Offer that before He comes.
And He's in a manger now.
Life is all today.
Christ is born today.
He is born today.
Oh ♪ ♪ It's time to wake the Lord.
♪ ♪ I hear the angels sing.
♪ ♪ Joy, joy, Jesus Christ was born for me.
♪ ♪ He hath o'er the earth been born.
♪ ♪ He hath died in Bethlehem of old.
and the earth is filled with joy, joy, in the Christ the Lord, the King.
He hath opened the heavens to the heavens and the earth above.
Christ the Lord, the King! Christ the Lord, the King!
To Jesus, the King of glory, we offer our soul and heart.
Now to Him, Jesus, we have prayed. Jesus, Jesus, Christ, our hope and faith.
All through the ages, all through all, to Him we have a loved before.
Christ the Lord, the King! Christ the Lord, the King!
There is much proof of the popularity of carol singing at this time in Germany.
Martin Luther has left it on record that, quote, at the time that the festival of Christ's birth was celebrated, we went from house to house and village to village singing popular Christmas carols in four-part harmony.
Luther had studied music at Erfurt as a boy and knew what he was talking about when he used the phrase
popular Christmas carols in four-part harmony.
This brings us to the 15th century and here we must stop for tonight.
The vast majority of carols recognizable to us today were written during the 16th and 17th centuries.
It is here on our Christmas Carol Timeline that we will begin in the next episode of this special holiday presentation of The Hour of the Times.
Until then, may God bless you and send you a happy new year.
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