Charming, also, are the songs of ivy and holly, which were
sung in connection with some little ceremony of the season.
sung in connection with some little ceremony of the season.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v02
L.
II.
OH. XV.
## p. 370 (#388) ############################################
370
Scottish Education
a particular lustre from the person of its first principal. This was
Hector Boece, correspondent of Erasmus and historian, who had
held the appointment of professor of philosophy in the college
of Montaigu at Paris.
The Scottish universities were directly clerical in origin; and
the briefest examination of the statutes of their colleges demon-
strates their thoroughly ecclesiastical character. The Scottish
episcopal founders worked hand in hand not only with monks
but with friars. It is noteworthy that bishop Kennedy founded
a Franciscan convent in St Andrews, where the Dominicans had
been established by one of his early predecessors (1272—9); and
the provincial sub-prior of the Dominicans was, with the minister
of the Franciscans, included among the seven electors to the
provostship of St Mary's. In the result, while the Scottish
university was, in its first days, an ecclesiastical seminary, its
education assumed, with the advent of colleges, the purely con-
ventual type. St Leonard's, which may be selected as a typical
college, was, under its canon regular principal, as a college of
philosophy and theology, a glorified monastic school.
The subjects of instruction comprised grammar, oratory, poetry,
Aristotelian philosophy and the writings of Solomon as preparatory
to the study of divinity. Prior Hepburn forbade the admission
of a student under fifteen years of age; but the university
statutes permitted determination at the age of fourteen.
From mere boys, in the Scotland of the fifteenth century, no
serious preparatory equipment could be demanded. The council
at Edinburgh, in 1549, urged the rectors of the universities to
see to it ne ulli ad scholas Dialectices sive Artium recipiantur
nisi qui Latine et grammatice loquuntur; and called upon the
archdeacon of St Andrews to appoint a grammar school master for
that city? Other indications assist to show the low standard of
the current Latin. There was no professor of the Humanities in
St Andrews, 'the first and principal university' in the sixteenth
century.
A reforming commission, in 1563, complained of the lack of
teaching of sciences and specially they that are maist necessarie,
that is to say the toungis and humanities. ' James Melville testifies
that, in 1571, neither Greek nor Hebrew was to be gottine in the
land. ' When at length, in 1620, a chair of Humanity was endowed
in St Leonard's college, the local grammar master complained that
its occupant drew off his young pupils by teaching the elements
· Herkless and Hannay, The College of St Leonard, p. 160.
## p. 371 (#389) ############################################
Scottish University Studies
371
of Latin grammar. There was no professor of Greek in St Andrews
until 1695. The modern superiority of Scotland in philosophy is
traceable, in fact, to a belated medievalism. The Scottish reforma-
tion caught the universities of the northern kingdom still directly
under church control, the clerical instructors clinging to their
Aristotle and their Peter Lombard. The results were temporarily
disastrous. In spite of the assertion of Hector Boece that, in
early days, the university excrevit in immensum, the numbers
of no Scottish university in the fifteenth or sixteenth century
exceeded the membership of one of the smaller English colleges,
such, for example, as Peterhouse. In 1557, there were thirty-one
students in the three constituent colleges of St Andrews; in 1558
there were but three. Glasgow and Aberdeen dwindled in like
fashion. Yet the Scottish universities reproduced the Parisian
distribution into four nations under the local quarterings of Fife,
Lothian, Angus and Albany. The description which John Major
gave of his contemporary Glasgow is, with the variation of the
local reference, equally applicable to St Andrews or to Aberdeen:
“The seat of an Archbishop, and of a University poorly endowed
and not rich in scholars; but serviceable to the inhabitants of the
west and south. '
In one particular the northern kingdom advanced beyond her
southern sister. A Scottish act of parliament of 1496 declared
that:
It is statute and ordanit throw all the realme that all barronis and frehaldaris
that ar of substance put thair eldest sonnis and airs to the sculis fra thai
be aucht or nine yeiris of age and till remane at the grammar sculis qahill
thai be competentlie foundit and have perfite latyne. And therefter to
remane thre yers at the soulis of Art and Jure sua that thai may have
knowledge and underst ding of the lawis. Throw the quhilkis Justice may
reigne universalie throw all the realmel.
This enactment was enforceable by a penalty of forty pounds.
That net of compulsory education, with which nineteenth
century England enmeshed her lower orders, was endeavoured
to be thrown over her young nobility and lairds by the Scotland
of that gallant monarch, whose courage disastrously outran his
generalship on the slopes of Branxton Hill.
1 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, a, 239; Tytler, 1v, 25.
242
## p. 372 (#390) ############################################
CHAPTER XVI
TRANSITION ENGLISH SONG COLLECTIONS
In France, a large number of manuscripts have survived from
the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to testify to the
songs that were sung by the gallant, the monk, the minstrel and
the clerk. English literature has been less fortunate, and yet
there are extant a goodly number of Middle English songs
With the exception of two notable anthologies of love lyrics
and religious poems, these songs were not committed to writing
until the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The inference
is not to be drawn, however, that they were mainly the product
of the late Transition period, since, evidently, they had been
preserved in oral form for a considerable time. This is proved
by the existence of different versions of the same song, by allusions
to historical events earlier than the fifteenth century, by elements
of folk-song embedded in the songs, by the essential likeness of
the love lyrics and religious poems to those in the two thirteenth
century collections, and by the fact that certain songs are of types
which were popular in France in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and were probably brought to England at the time of
their vogue at home. The songs can therefore be regarded as
more or less representative of the whole Middle English period.
Of the folk-song element, a word may well be said at the outset,
for, though no pure folk-songs have survived, the communal verse
has left its impress upon these collections.
The universal characteristics of folk-poetry are, as to substance,
repetitions, interjections and refrains; and, as to form, a verse
accommodated to the dance. Frequent also is the call to the
dance, question and answer and rustic interchange of satire.
Though no one song illustrates all of these characteristics, they
are all to be found in the songs taken collectively.
The refrain is so generally employed that a song without it
is the exception. In the majority of cases, it is a sentence in Latin
## p. 373 (#391) ############################################
The Folk-song Element
373
or English, which has more or less relation to the theme of the
song, as the refrain:
Now syng we right as it is,
Quod puer natus est nobisi,
which accompanies a carol of the Nativity. Frequently, however,
meaningless interjections are run into such a refrain ; thus:
Hay, hey, hey, hey,
I will have the whetston and I may;
Po, po, po, po,
Loue brane & so do mos,
Such interjections are of great antiquity, and, in a far distant past,
were the sole words of the chorus. Sometimes the interjections
are intelligible words, which, however, have been chosen with an
eye to their choral adequacy, as :
Gay, gay, gay, gay,
Think on drydful domis day.
Nova, nova, ave fit ex Evas.
Some of the songs have preserved refrain, interjection and repe-
tition as well, as in the case of the following poem :
I have XII. oxen that be fayre & brown,
& they go a grasynge down by the town;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawyste you not myn oxen, you litill prety boy?
I have XII. oxen & they be ffayre & whight,
& they go a grasyng down by the dyke;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawyste not you myn oxen, you lytyll prety boy?
I hane XII. oxen & they be fayre & blak,
& they go a grasyng down by the lak;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawyste not you myn oxen, you lytyll prety boy?
I haue XII. oxen & they be fayre & rede,
& they go a grasyng down by the mede;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawiste not you my oxen, you litill prety boy 6?
Presumably this song is the product of a conscious artist, yet
it is representative of that amoebean verse which invariably
results in the evolution of poetry when individual singers detach
1 VS Baliol 354, ff. 2116, 227b-Anglia, xxvi, 264.
3 Ibid. ff. 226 6, 248 6- Anglia, XXVI, 270.
* Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 29 6—Percy Society, LXXIII, 42.
* MS Sloane 2593, f. 8a-Warton Club, iv, 10.
6 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. 1. 27 a—Percy Society, LXXIII, 36.
6 MS Balliol 354, f. 178 b-Anglia, XIVI, 197.
## p. 374 (#392) ############################################
374 Transition English Song Collections
1
6
themselves from the chorus, and sing in rivalry. Moreover,
it is representative of the simplest and most universal type of
such verse, the improvising of variations to accompany a popular
initial verse or phrase.
Another common form of the amoebean verse is question and
answer. This is beautifully illustrated by a song of the early
fourteenth century, a stray leaf of which has, fortunately, been
preserved? The song is arranged in recitative, but, relieved of
these repetitions, is as follows:
Maiden in the moor lay
Seven nights full and a day.
'Well, what was her meet? '
"The primrose and the violet. '
•Well, what was her dryng? '
The chill water of (the) well spring. '
"Well, what was her bower? '
"The rede rose and the lilly flour. '
On the same folio is a quaint poem, which has retained the
invitation to the dance :
Ich am of Irlaunde,
Am of the holy londe
Of Irlande;
Good sir, pray I 30,
For of Saynte Charite,
Come ant daunce wyt me in Irlaunde.
The call to the dance is also preserved in several fifteenth and
sixteenth century May poems.
A poem in which the song of a swaying mass is clearly to be
heard' is the familiar repetitionary lyric:
Adam lay ibowndyn,
bowndyn in a bond,
Fowre thowsand wynter
thowt he not to long;
And al was for an appil,
an appil that he tok,
As clerkes fyndyn wretyn
in here book.
Ne hadde the appil take ben,
the appil taken ben,
Ne hadde neuer our lady
a ben Hevene quene.
Blyssid be the tyme
that appil take was!
Therfore we mown syngyn
Deo gracias
1 MS Rawlinson, D. 913, f. 1. 2 MS Sloane 2593, f. 112-Warton Olub, rv, 32.
## p. 375 (#393) ############################################
Minstrels
375
Many an ecclesiastical denunciation testifies to the prevalence
of this communal singing in medieval England; but so much more
potent are custom and cult than authority that women, dressed in
the borrowed costumes of men, continued to dance and sing
in wild chorus within the very churchyards, in unwitting homage
to the old heathen deities.
Some of the song collections are anthologies taken from the
popular songs of the minstrel, the spiritual hymns of the monk
and the polite verse of the court; others are purely the répertoire
of minstrels; and still others are limited to polite verse.
Of the latter, fortunately, there is preserved the very song-book
that was owned by king Henry VIII, containing the lyrics of love
and good comradeship that he composed when a young man; and
there are, in addition, the books which were in part compiled, and
in part composed, by the authorised musicians of the courts of
Henry VII and Henry VIII These have preserved types of
chivalric verse based upon French models, as well as songs in
honour of the royal family, and songs composed for the revels and
pageants which were a brilliant feature of the court life in the
early decades of the sixteenth century.
The collections of minstrels' songs are especially rich. The
minstrel no longer confined himself to songs of rude and humble
ancestry, but encroached both on the devotional verse of the
monk, and on the songs of the gallant. This readily explains
itself, if one is mindful to identify these minstrels with that class
of men who had more and more usurped the prerogatives of
minstrelsy, the scolares vagantes, those irresponsible college
graduates and light-hearted vagabonds, who were equally at home
in ale-house, in hall, in market-place or in cloister, and who could
sing with equal spirit a ribald and saucy love song, a convivial
glee, a Christmas carol, a hymn to the Virgin, or a doleful lay
on the instability of life or the fickleness of riches. Most of them
were men who had taken minor orders, and who, therefore, knew
missal, breviary and hymnal; their life at the university had given
them some acquaintance with books, their wayside intercourse
with the minstrel had given them his ballads and his jargon of
washed-out romantic tales and their homely contact with the
people had taught them the songs of the street and of the folk-
festival ; they were, therefore, the main intermediaries between
the learned and the vernacular letters of the day, and they tended
to reduce all to a common level. If they compelled the rude
folk-song to conform to the metres of the Latin hymns, they
## p. 376 (#394) ############################################
376 Transition English Song Collections
compensated for this by reducing to these same simple metres
the artistically fashioned stanzas of highly wrought spiritual songs,
as well as by introducing the popular refrain into lyrics of every
kind. When they sang of the joys of Mary, of the righteousness
of a saint, or of a prince renowned for his deeds, they received the
approbation of bishop or abbot ; when they satirised his cupidity,
or sang wanton songs at banquets, they called down the bishop's
indignation; but, bishop or no bishop, they never lacked an
audience.
As the ability to read became more general, and as taste was
refined by the possession of books of real poetic merit, the minstrel,
even if one who had tarried in the schools, found his audience more
and more limited to the common folk; but, even in the fifteenth
century, though his wretched copies of the old romances, with their
sing-song monotony, might be the laughing-stock of people of taste,
his Christmas carols would still gain him admission to the halls of
the nobility.
As the minstrel thus trespassed upon the provinces of religious
and polite poets, so each of these in turn invaded the fields of
others, with the result that the monk adopted the formulary of
amatory address for his love songs to the Virgin, and the gallant
introduced elements from the folk-poetry into his embroidered
lays.
Considering this confusion, for purposes of discussion it is more
satisfactory to classify the songs with reference to types than with
reference to authorship. Romances and tales have been dealt with
elsewhere: though they are to be found in the collections, and
were, probably, chanted in humdrum fashion to the accompani-
ment of a harp, they are narratives, and not at all lyrical.
The carol was brought to England from France at an early
date, and there are extant Norman carols that were sung in
England in the late twelfth century. In essentials, there is little
difference between these carols and some of those that were sung
in England three centuries later. They observe the refrain, which
is most commonly a repetition of the word 'noel'; they open
with an invocation to those present,
Seignors ore entendez a nus,
De loinz sumes venuz @ vous,
Pur quere Noell;
and their theme is the Nativity and the attendant gladness.
· Sandys, Festive Songs, 6.
## p. 377 (#395) ############################################
Carols
377
It is probable that the composition of carols was widely
cultivated in the thirteenth century, for most of the carols are in
simple Latin metres, and Latin lines are employed either as refrain,
or as an integral part of the stanzas. Such a tradition must
look back to a period when the English composer felt the need of
relying upon the support of Latin metres, and it was in the
thirteenth century, as extant religious poems demonstrate, that
English metres were thus being conformed to the models of Latin
hymns?
The metre most commonly employed is the simplest, a one-
rime tercet of iambic tetrameters, followed by a refrain, usually
Latin. Thus:
Gabriell that angell bryst,
Bryster than the sonne is lyzt,
Fro hevyn to erth he (too)k hys flygt,
Regina celi letare?
Sometimes the Latin verse rimes with the English, making a
quatrain, or a Latin line may be introduced into the tercet itself.
The quatrain with alternate rimes is also used, though less
frequently. Other popular metres are the rimed couplet, and the
ballade stanza, which, however, is confined to the longer narrative
carols. Occasional carols are composed in the highly wrought
French metres, but they seem exotic.
The Latin lines in the carols are familiar verses from the
hymns, canticles, sequences, graduales and other parts of the
service in missal or breviary, relating to the Christmas season; and
practically all can be found in the Sarum Use.
Of the refrain there are various types. Sometimes it is a
stanza or verse from a Latin hymn, as :
Ihesus autem hodie
Egressus est de virgines;
sometimes an English verse and a Latin verse combined :
Be mery all, that be present,
Omnes de Saba venient";
sometimes merely the word 'nowel' or 'noel’ in recitative; and
sometimes an invocation to be merry:
Make we mery in hall & bowr,
Thys tyme was born owr savyowr5.
* Cf. Morris, Old English Misc. , E. E. T. S. XLII, 1872.
• Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 26 a–Percy Society, LXXIII, 33.
: MS Balliol 354, f. 178 a—Anglia, xxvi, 196.
• Ibid. f. 165 6Anglia, xxvi, 176.
• Ibid. f. 220 a-Anglia, XXVI, 231.
## p. 378 (#396) ############################################
378 Transition English Song Collections
There is also a very pretty introduction of the shepherd's pipe in
certain carols that sing of the shepherds watching their flocks by
night; thus,
Tyrly tirlow, tirly tirlow;
So merrily the shepherds began to blow1
As the Christmas season was a time for festivities and merry-
making as well as for worship, it was natural that some of the
carols should deal with sacred themes, and others with secular
themes ; indeed that some carols should confuse the two types.
The services within the church gave ample warrant for such a
confusion. Moreover, as Christmas theoretically supplanted a
pagan festival, but practically compromised with it, it was natural
that elements of pre-Christian rites should be reflected in carols.
Religious carols are, for the most part, narrative in content
The Nativity is, of course, the dominant theme, but, as the festival
season lasted from the Nativity to Epiphany, or even until
Candlemas, the events of Holy Week, and the lives of the saints
whose days occur at this season, furnish many of the themes.
It may be that carols were written to divert interest from
those pagan songs, with their wild dances, which, even as late as the
fifteenth century, made Christmas a trying and dangerous period
for the church? . Certainly, the folk-song element in carols
suggests the probability that at one time they were accompanied
by dancing
But, whatever the origin of carols may have been, it is clear
that they were much influenced by those dramatic elements,
which, prior to the advent of the mystery plays, were a popular
part of the Christmas services in the church ; for the episodes
dramatised in the services are the ones that most often figure in
carols. It seems not a little strange that carols were not more
often introduced into mystery plays of the Nativity. One of the
shepherd carols, however, is like the mystery in spirit. It intro-
duces the character of Wat, and, with it, homely, half-humorous
touches such as are characteristic of the plays :
Whan Wat to Bedlem cum was,
He swet, he had gon faster than a pace;
Lull well Ihesu in thy lape,
& farewell Ioseph, with thy rownd cape 3.
1 MS Balliol 354, f. 222 a-Anglia, XXVI, 237; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 60 a
-Percy Society, LXXIII, 95.
2 Cf. Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 8987 ff. , Chron. Vilod. 1022.
3 MS Balliol 354, 1. 224 2- Anglia, XIVI, 243.
## p. 379 (#397) ############################################
Carols
379
The themes of secular carols are the feasting and sports of Yule-
tide, customs that were inseparable from the great hall of the
nobleman's residence, where the whole community was wont to
assemble for the Christmas festivities. To be sure, these carols
were sometimes sung at other seasons, for did not the Green
Knight entertain Sir Gawain with
Many athel songez,
As conndutes of Kryst-masse, and carolez newe,
With all the manerly merthe that mon may of telle 1 ?
but Christmas week in hall was the proper setting. Several carols
relate to the custom of bringing in the boar's head. The classical
example is the familiar carol,
The boar's head in hand bring I,
Caput apri differos,
but others, though less well known, possess equal interest. In one,
the minstrel relates how, in 'wilderness,' he was pursued by a
wyld bor,' 'a brymly best. ' In the encounter that followed, he
succeeded in refting both life and limb from the beast, in testimony
of which he brings the head into the hall. Then he bids the
company add bread and mustard, and be joyful. In another,
warning is given that no one need seek to enter the ball, be he
groom, page, or marshal, unless he bring some sport with him".
In still another, the minstrel speaks in the character of Sir
Christmas, and takes leave of
kyng & knyght,
& erle, baron & lady bryghts,
but not without a fond wish that he may be with them again the
following year. He hears Lent calling, and obeys the call : a
lugubrious summons indeed to the luckless wanderer who must
turn his back on this genial hospitality for eleven months to come,
and depend on the fortuitous goodwill of the ale-house.
Charming, also, are the songs of ivy and holly, which were
sung in connection with some little ceremony of the season. In all
the songs, ivy and holly appear as rivals; and, whatever the
ceremony may have been, it certainly was a survival of those
festival games in connection with the worship of the spirit of
fertility, in which lads invariably championed the cause of holly,
1 E. E. T. S. f. 484 ff.
Of. MS Balliol 354, f. 212 - Anglia, IXV, 257.
3 Bodleian MS, Eng. Lit. E. I. f. 23 a—Percy Society, LXIII, 25. .
• MS Balliol 354, f. 223 – Anglia, XXVI, 241.
• Ibid. 1. 208 6- Anglia, XXVI, 245.
## p. 380 (#398) ############################################
380
Transition English Song Collections
and lasses that of ivy? We can fancy young men entering the
hall with branches of holly? :
Here commys holly, that is so gent,
To pleasse all men is his entent, etc. ;
singing the praises of the shrub, and warning their hearers not to
speak lightly of its ; while young women enter from an opposite
direction, and go through a similar performance with the ivy.
Thereupon, both young men and young women enter upon some
kind of a dance, which resolves itself into a contest in which the
boys drive the girls from the hall:
Holy with his mery men they can daunce in hall;
Ivy & her ientyl women can not daunce at all,
But lyke a meyny of bullokes in a water fall,
Or on a whot somer's day whan they be mad all.
Nay, nay, ive, it may not be iwis;
For holy must haue the mastry, as the maner is.
Holy & his mery men sytt in cheyres of gold;
Ivy & her ientyll women sytt withowt in ffold,
With a payre of kybid helis cawght with cold.
So wold I that euery man had, that with yvy will hold.
Nay, nay, ive, it may not be iwis;
For holy must have the mastry, as the maner ise.
This débat of holly and ivy, like other songs of winter and
summer, looks back to that communal period, when dialogue was
just beginning to emerge from the tribal chorus.
Related to Christmas carols are spiritual lullabies, for the
simplest of the three forms of the lullaby is, virtually, a carol, in
which, along with other episodes of Christmas Eve and Christmas
Day, the spectacle of Mary singing 'lulley' to the Infant is de-
scribed. The refrain is all that differentiates this carol from others :
Lullay, myn lykyng, my dere sone, myn swetyng;
Lulley, dere herte, myn owyn dere derlyngó
In the second type of lullaby, Mary and the Infant talk to one
another. Mary regrets that a child, born to be King of kings, is
lying upon hay, and wonders why He was not born in a prince's
hall. The Babe assures her that lords and dukes and princes will
come to worship Him. Then Mary would fain know how she
1 Cf. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, I, 251, and chapter m; Ellis and Brand,
Popular Antiquities, 1, 68, 519 ff.
Cf. Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 53 6—Percy Society, LXXIII, 84.
8 Ibid. ff. 30 a, 53 6-Percy Society, LXXIII, 44, 84.
MS Balliol 354, f. 229 6-Anglia, XXVI, 279.
SMS Sloane 2593, f. 32 Warton Club, iv, 94.
## p. 381 (#399) ############################################
Spiritual Lullabies
381
herself can best serve Him, and He replies, by rocking Him
gently in her arms and soothing Him to sleep:
Ihesu, my son, I pray ye say,
As thou art to me dere,
How shall I serue ye to thy pay
& mak the right good chere?
All thy will
I wold ffulfill,–
Thou knoweste it well in ffay-
Both rokke ye still,
& daunce the yer till,
& synge 'by, by; lully, lulley. '
Mary, moder, I pray ye,
Take me vp on loft,
& in thyn arme
Thow lappe me warm,
& daunce me now full ofte;
& yf I wepe
& will not slepe,
Than syng 'by, by; lully, lulley1
The third type is distinguished from this by the melancholy
character of the conversation. The Mother tries in vain to assuage
the grief of her Child, and, when she fails to do so, inquires the
cause of His tears; whereupon He foretells the sufferings that
await Him.
A variant of this type introduces an allegory, in which a maiden
weeps beside the couch of a dying knight:
a
Lully, lulley, lull(y), lulley;
The fawcon hath born my make away.
He bare hym vp, he bare hym down,
He bare hym in to an orchard browne.
(Ref. )
In that orchard there was an halle,
That was hangid with purpill & pall.
(Ref. )
And in that hall there was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.
(Ref. )
And yn that bed there lythe a knyght,
His wowndis bledyng day and nyght.
(Ref. )
By that bede side kneleth a may,
& she wepeth both nyght & day%.
(Ref. )
1 MS Balliol 354, ff. 210 b, 226 6-Anglia, XXVI, 250.
? Cf. ibid. ff. 210 a, 226 a-Anglia, XXVI, 249; MS Bodleian, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 20 a
--Percy Society, LXXIII, 19.
3 MS Balliol 354, f. 165 b-Anglia, xxvi, 175.
## p. 382 (#400) ############################################
382
Transition English Song Collections
All these poems are characterised by a lullaby refrain, and
it is the conventional introduction for the poet to describe the
scene as one that he himself witnessed 'this other night. ' The
device certainly savours of the French, but I have not yet dis-
covered a French poem of this character. Nor do there seem to
be corresponding poems in Latin or German. The metre of most
of the songs falters between the Teutonic four-stress alliterative
verse and the septenarius; the original type was, probably, English,
and later singers tried to conform it to a new metre. Moreover,
the word 'lulley,' which is the burden of the refrain, supports the
theory of English origin, and this supposition is also borne out by
the character of the secular lullaby, which has the same lugubrious
tone, with its regret that the little Child is ushered into a world of
sorrow. This is characteristically Teutonic.
Merging into the lullaby is the complaint of Mary, of which
many examples have survived. The song which blends these two
types is one of great beauty. As in other lullabies, the Virgin tries
in vain to soothe the Babe to sleep, and, distraught at His grief,
enquires its cause. Thereupon, the Child foretells the sufferings
that await Him, and each new disclosure calls forth a fresh burst
of grief from the afflicted Mother: 'Is she to see her only Son
slain, and cruel nails driven through the hands and feet that she
has wrapped? When Gabriel pronounced her “full of grace," he
told nothing of this. ' The medieval world thought long upon the
sorrows of Mary, as upon the passion of Christ, and this poem
portrays the crushing grief of the Virgin with the naïve fidelity
and tenderness characteristic of medieval workmanship.
The refrain of the poem shows that it was sung as a carol:
Now synge we with angelis
Gloria in excel(s)is.
Conversely, another carol, which is concerned with the events at
the cross, has, for its refrain, a complaint of Mary:
To see the maydyn wepe her sonnes passion,
It entrid my hart full depe with gret compassions.
Some of the complaints are monologues; others are dialogues
or trialogues. The monologue is usually addressed to Jesus or to
the cross, but, sometimes, it has no immediate relation to the
passion, and is not directed to any particular hearer. The
1 Cf. Guest, History of English Metres, 512.
: MS Balliol 354, f. 209 6, 225 6-Anglia, xxvI, 247.
3 Ibid. ff. 214 a, 230 a—Anglia, XXVI, 263.
* Ibid. 214 a-Anglia, XXVI, 262; E. E. T. S. XV, 233, xxrv, 126.
## p. 383 (#401) ############################################
Didactic Songs
383
a
dialogue is between Mary and Jesus, or Mary and the cross'.
In the trialogues, Mary, Jesus and John converse. John leads
the weeping Mother to the cross, she calls upon Jesus, and He
tenderly commits her to the care of the beloved disciple?
These complaints are based upon Latin hymns and similar
writings, upon Stabat Mater, Ante Crucem Virgo Stabat, Crux
de te Volo Conqueri, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Meditations
of Augustine and the Tractat of Bernard, and, while the English
poems display much lyrical excellence, they contribute little to
the tradition.
A similar type of poem is the complaint which the crucified
Christ makes to sinful man. This is usually a monologues, though
sometimes a dialogue, remorseful man responding to the appeal of
Christ, and pleading for mercy.
Other poems which celebrate the Virgin include prayers-some
in the form of carols, aves, poems upon the five joys of Mary, or
upon the six branches of the heavenly rose. Some of these songs
are translations, in whole or in part, of Latin poems; others seem
to be original. They perpetuate the intense ardour of devotion,
the mysticism, the warmth and rich colour of the earlier English
songs to Mary, and they heighten the effect by a superior melody.
Apart from the types of religious songs already considered,
there are a large number of moral and reflective poems. Some
of these are hortatory, urging man to know himself", to beware
of swearing by the mass, to make amends for his sins? , or to
acknowledge his indebtedness to God8. Others are contemplative,
and reflect upon the certainty of death°, the fickleness of riches
or fortune 10, the prevalence of vice", or the worldliness of the
clergy.
In their most highly developed form these poems are allegories,
12
1 Herrig's Archiv, LXXIIX, 263; E. E. T. S. XLVI, 131, 197, CXVII, 612; Bodleian MS,
Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 34 a–Percy Society, Lxxm, 50.
; MS Sloane 2593, f. 70 -Percy Society, iv, 10; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I.
f. 270 Percy Society, LXXIII, 38.
3 E. E. T. S. OxVII, 637.
• Add. MS 5465, f. 68 a-Herrig's Archiv, CVI, 63.
3 US Balliol 354, f. 156 6-Anglia, XXVI, 170.
& Ibid. ff. 214 a, 230 a-Anglia, XXVI, 263.
7 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 306—Percy Society, LXIM, 44.
& Ibid. f. 27b-Percy Society, LXXIII, 39.
Ibid. ff. 386, 48 a—Percy Society, LXXIII, 57, 74; MS Balliol 354, f. 1776-Anglia,
.
XXVI, 191,
10 M$ Balliol 354, ff. 194 a, 206 2–Anglia, XXVI, 207.
11 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. 1. 606-Percy Society, LXXII, 96.
12 US Balliol 354, f. 156 2–Anglia, XXVI, 169.
## p. 384 (#402) ############################################
384 Transition English Song Collections
with conventional introduction and conclusion, and a prelude,
which is commonly in Latin. In some of the songs, the allegory
is highly articulated. For example, the poet pictures himself
as sallying forth on a bright summer's morning in search of sport,
with his hawk in hand, and his spaniel leaping by his side.
A hen pheasant is flushed, and the hawk gives chase; but, while
the sport is at its height, the poet suddenly finds himself en-
tangled in a briar, on every leaf of which is written the warning
revertere:
My hart fell down ynto my to,
That was before full lykyngly;
I lett my hawke & fesavnt fare,
My spanyell fell down vnto my kne-
It toke me with a sighyng fare,
This new lessun "revertere'i.
The summer's day symbolises the period of youth; the hawk, its
fierce passions; and the briar, conscience. In the majority of the
songs, the allegory is less developed than in this.
Most often the poet represents himself as wandering through
a forest on a sunny morning. As he wanders, he hears the singing
of a bird, or of a company of birds, and the burden of their song
is some moral reflection or some exhortation. The allegory is
usually neglected after the introductory stanza. Almost invariably
the song concludes with a prayer for succour in death and deliver-
ance from the fiends. The conventionalised nature setting and the
allegory of these poems are clearly French, and the metres most
often used are the ballade stanza and the rime royal.
In the forms in which we have been considering them, these
songs were ill adapted to the ordinary audience of the minstrel,
and he, accordingly, popularised them by shortening them, intro-
ducing a refrain and substituting simple metres, in which the
rhythm is strongly marked.
These moral songs shade into another group of didactic poems, ,
which embody shrewd practical wisdom, of the type dear to
Polonius. They concern themselves with such homely advice as
to hold your tongue", to try your friends, to look out for a rainy
>
1 MS Balliol 354, f. 155 b-Anglia, xxvi, 168.
• Ibid. f. 1706-Anglia, XXVI, 180; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E.
OH. XV.
## p. 370 (#388) ############################################
370
Scottish Education
a particular lustre from the person of its first principal. This was
Hector Boece, correspondent of Erasmus and historian, who had
held the appointment of professor of philosophy in the college
of Montaigu at Paris.
The Scottish universities were directly clerical in origin; and
the briefest examination of the statutes of their colleges demon-
strates their thoroughly ecclesiastical character. The Scottish
episcopal founders worked hand in hand not only with monks
but with friars. It is noteworthy that bishop Kennedy founded
a Franciscan convent in St Andrews, where the Dominicans had
been established by one of his early predecessors (1272—9); and
the provincial sub-prior of the Dominicans was, with the minister
of the Franciscans, included among the seven electors to the
provostship of St Mary's. In the result, while the Scottish
university was, in its first days, an ecclesiastical seminary, its
education assumed, with the advent of colleges, the purely con-
ventual type. St Leonard's, which may be selected as a typical
college, was, under its canon regular principal, as a college of
philosophy and theology, a glorified monastic school.
The subjects of instruction comprised grammar, oratory, poetry,
Aristotelian philosophy and the writings of Solomon as preparatory
to the study of divinity. Prior Hepburn forbade the admission
of a student under fifteen years of age; but the university
statutes permitted determination at the age of fourteen.
From mere boys, in the Scotland of the fifteenth century, no
serious preparatory equipment could be demanded. The council
at Edinburgh, in 1549, urged the rectors of the universities to
see to it ne ulli ad scholas Dialectices sive Artium recipiantur
nisi qui Latine et grammatice loquuntur; and called upon the
archdeacon of St Andrews to appoint a grammar school master for
that city? Other indications assist to show the low standard of
the current Latin. There was no professor of the Humanities in
St Andrews, 'the first and principal university' in the sixteenth
century.
A reforming commission, in 1563, complained of the lack of
teaching of sciences and specially they that are maist necessarie,
that is to say the toungis and humanities. ' James Melville testifies
that, in 1571, neither Greek nor Hebrew was to be gottine in the
land. ' When at length, in 1620, a chair of Humanity was endowed
in St Leonard's college, the local grammar master complained that
its occupant drew off his young pupils by teaching the elements
· Herkless and Hannay, The College of St Leonard, p. 160.
## p. 371 (#389) ############################################
Scottish University Studies
371
of Latin grammar. There was no professor of Greek in St Andrews
until 1695. The modern superiority of Scotland in philosophy is
traceable, in fact, to a belated medievalism. The Scottish reforma-
tion caught the universities of the northern kingdom still directly
under church control, the clerical instructors clinging to their
Aristotle and their Peter Lombard. The results were temporarily
disastrous. In spite of the assertion of Hector Boece that, in
early days, the university excrevit in immensum, the numbers
of no Scottish university in the fifteenth or sixteenth century
exceeded the membership of one of the smaller English colleges,
such, for example, as Peterhouse. In 1557, there were thirty-one
students in the three constituent colleges of St Andrews; in 1558
there were but three. Glasgow and Aberdeen dwindled in like
fashion. Yet the Scottish universities reproduced the Parisian
distribution into four nations under the local quarterings of Fife,
Lothian, Angus and Albany. The description which John Major
gave of his contemporary Glasgow is, with the variation of the
local reference, equally applicable to St Andrews or to Aberdeen:
“The seat of an Archbishop, and of a University poorly endowed
and not rich in scholars; but serviceable to the inhabitants of the
west and south. '
In one particular the northern kingdom advanced beyond her
southern sister. A Scottish act of parliament of 1496 declared
that:
It is statute and ordanit throw all the realme that all barronis and frehaldaris
that ar of substance put thair eldest sonnis and airs to the sculis fra thai
be aucht or nine yeiris of age and till remane at the grammar sculis qahill
thai be competentlie foundit and have perfite latyne. And therefter to
remane thre yers at the soulis of Art and Jure sua that thai may have
knowledge and underst ding of the lawis. Throw the quhilkis Justice may
reigne universalie throw all the realmel.
This enactment was enforceable by a penalty of forty pounds.
That net of compulsory education, with which nineteenth
century England enmeshed her lower orders, was endeavoured
to be thrown over her young nobility and lairds by the Scotland
of that gallant monarch, whose courage disastrously outran his
generalship on the slopes of Branxton Hill.
1 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, a, 239; Tytler, 1v, 25.
242
## p. 372 (#390) ############################################
CHAPTER XVI
TRANSITION ENGLISH SONG COLLECTIONS
In France, a large number of manuscripts have survived from
the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to testify to the
songs that were sung by the gallant, the monk, the minstrel and
the clerk. English literature has been less fortunate, and yet
there are extant a goodly number of Middle English songs
With the exception of two notable anthologies of love lyrics
and religious poems, these songs were not committed to writing
until the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The inference
is not to be drawn, however, that they were mainly the product
of the late Transition period, since, evidently, they had been
preserved in oral form for a considerable time. This is proved
by the existence of different versions of the same song, by allusions
to historical events earlier than the fifteenth century, by elements
of folk-song embedded in the songs, by the essential likeness of
the love lyrics and religious poems to those in the two thirteenth
century collections, and by the fact that certain songs are of types
which were popular in France in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and were probably brought to England at the time of
their vogue at home. The songs can therefore be regarded as
more or less representative of the whole Middle English period.
Of the folk-song element, a word may well be said at the outset,
for, though no pure folk-songs have survived, the communal verse
has left its impress upon these collections.
The universal characteristics of folk-poetry are, as to substance,
repetitions, interjections and refrains; and, as to form, a verse
accommodated to the dance. Frequent also is the call to the
dance, question and answer and rustic interchange of satire.
Though no one song illustrates all of these characteristics, they
are all to be found in the songs taken collectively.
The refrain is so generally employed that a song without it
is the exception. In the majority of cases, it is a sentence in Latin
## p. 373 (#391) ############################################
The Folk-song Element
373
or English, which has more or less relation to the theme of the
song, as the refrain:
Now syng we right as it is,
Quod puer natus est nobisi,
which accompanies a carol of the Nativity. Frequently, however,
meaningless interjections are run into such a refrain ; thus:
Hay, hey, hey, hey,
I will have the whetston and I may;
Po, po, po, po,
Loue brane & so do mos,
Such interjections are of great antiquity, and, in a far distant past,
were the sole words of the chorus. Sometimes the interjections
are intelligible words, which, however, have been chosen with an
eye to their choral adequacy, as :
Gay, gay, gay, gay,
Think on drydful domis day.
Nova, nova, ave fit ex Evas.
Some of the songs have preserved refrain, interjection and repe-
tition as well, as in the case of the following poem :
I have XII. oxen that be fayre & brown,
& they go a grasynge down by the town;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawyste you not myn oxen, you litill prety boy?
I have XII. oxen & they be ffayre & whight,
& they go a grasyng down by the dyke;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawyste not you myn oxen, you lytyll prety boy?
I hane XII. oxen & they be fayre & blak,
& they go a grasyng down by the lak;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawyste not you myn oxen, you lytyll prety boy?
I haue XII. oxen & they be fayre & rede,
& they go a grasyng down by the mede;
With hay, with howe, with hay!
Sawiste not you my oxen, you litill prety boy 6?
Presumably this song is the product of a conscious artist, yet
it is representative of that amoebean verse which invariably
results in the evolution of poetry when individual singers detach
1 VS Baliol 354, ff. 2116, 227b-Anglia, xxvi, 264.
3 Ibid. ff. 226 6, 248 6- Anglia, XXVI, 270.
* Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 29 6—Percy Society, LXXIII, 42.
* MS Sloane 2593, f. 8a-Warton Club, iv, 10.
6 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. 1. 27 a—Percy Society, LXXIII, 36.
6 MS Balliol 354, f. 178 b-Anglia, XIVI, 197.
## p. 374 (#392) ############################################
374 Transition English Song Collections
1
6
themselves from the chorus, and sing in rivalry. Moreover,
it is representative of the simplest and most universal type of
such verse, the improvising of variations to accompany a popular
initial verse or phrase.
Another common form of the amoebean verse is question and
answer. This is beautifully illustrated by a song of the early
fourteenth century, a stray leaf of which has, fortunately, been
preserved? The song is arranged in recitative, but, relieved of
these repetitions, is as follows:
Maiden in the moor lay
Seven nights full and a day.
'Well, what was her meet? '
"The primrose and the violet. '
•Well, what was her dryng? '
The chill water of (the) well spring. '
"Well, what was her bower? '
"The rede rose and the lilly flour. '
On the same folio is a quaint poem, which has retained the
invitation to the dance :
Ich am of Irlaunde,
Am of the holy londe
Of Irlande;
Good sir, pray I 30,
For of Saynte Charite,
Come ant daunce wyt me in Irlaunde.
The call to the dance is also preserved in several fifteenth and
sixteenth century May poems.
A poem in which the song of a swaying mass is clearly to be
heard' is the familiar repetitionary lyric:
Adam lay ibowndyn,
bowndyn in a bond,
Fowre thowsand wynter
thowt he not to long;
And al was for an appil,
an appil that he tok,
As clerkes fyndyn wretyn
in here book.
Ne hadde the appil take ben,
the appil taken ben,
Ne hadde neuer our lady
a ben Hevene quene.
Blyssid be the tyme
that appil take was!
Therfore we mown syngyn
Deo gracias
1 MS Rawlinson, D. 913, f. 1. 2 MS Sloane 2593, f. 112-Warton Olub, rv, 32.
## p. 375 (#393) ############################################
Minstrels
375
Many an ecclesiastical denunciation testifies to the prevalence
of this communal singing in medieval England; but so much more
potent are custom and cult than authority that women, dressed in
the borrowed costumes of men, continued to dance and sing
in wild chorus within the very churchyards, in unwitting homage
to the old heathen deities.
Some of the song collections are anthologies taken from the
popular songs of the minstrel, the spiritual hymns of the monk
and the polite verse of the court; others are purely the répertoire
of minstrels; and still others are limited to polite verse.
Of the latter, fortunately, there is preserved the very song-book
that was owned by king Henry VIII, containing the lyrics of love
and good comradeship that he composed when a young man; and
there are, in addition, the books which were in part compiled, and
in part composed, by the authorised musicians of the courts of
Henry VII and Henry VIII These have preserved types of
chivalric verse based upon French models, as well as songs in
honour of the royal family, and songs composed for the revels and
pageants which were a brilliant feature of the court life in the
early decades of the sixteenth century.
The collections of minstrels' songs are especially rich. The
minstrel no longer confined himself to songs of rude and humble
ancestry, but encroached both on the devotional verse of the
monk, and on the songs of the gallant. This readily explains
itself, if one is mindful to identify these minstrels with that class
of men who had more and more usurped the prerogatives of
minstrelsy, the scolares vagantes, those irresponsible college
graduates and light-hearted vagabonds, who were equally at home
in ale-house, in hall, in market-place or in cloister, and who could
sing with equal spirit a ribald and saucy love song, a convivial
glee, a Christmas carol, a hymn to the Virgin, or a doleful lay
on the instability of life or the fickleness of riches. Most of them
were men who had taken minor orders, and who, therefore, knew
missal, breviary and hymnal; their life at the university had given
them some acquaintance with books, their wayside intercourse
with the minstrel had given them his ballads and his jargon of
washed-out romantic tales and their homely contact with the
people had taught them the songs of the street and of the folk-
festival ; they were, therefore, the main intermediaries between
the learned and the vernacular letters of the day, and they tended
to reduce all to a common level. If they compelled the rude
folk-song to conform to the metres of the Latin hymns, they
## p. 376 (#394) ############################################
376 Transition English Song Collections
compensated for this by reducing to these same simple metres
the artistically fashioned stanzas of highly wrought spiritual songs,
as well as by introducing the popular refrain into lyrics of every
kind. When they sang of the joys of Mary, of the righteousness
of a saint, or of a prince renowned for his deeds, they received the
approbation of bishop or abbot ; when they satirised his cupidity,
or sang wanton songs at banquets, they called down the bishop's
indignation; but, bishop or no bishop, they never lacked an
audience.
As the ability to read became more general, and as taste was
refined by the possession of books of real poetic merit, the minstrel,
even if one who had tarried in the schools, found his audience more
and more limited to the common folk; but, even in the fifteenth
century, though his wretched copies of the old romances, with their
sing-song monotony, might be the laughing-stock of people of taste,
his Christmas carols would still gain him admission to the halls of
the nobility.
As the minstrel thus trespassed upon the provinces of religious
and polite poets, so each of these in turn invaded the fields of
others, with the result that the monk adopted the formulary of
amatory address for his love songs to the Virgin, and the gallant
introduced elements from the folk-poetry into his embroidered
lays.
Considering this confusion, for purposes of discussion it is more
satisfactory to classify the songs with reference to types than with
reference to authorship. Romances and tales have been dealt with
elsewhere: though they are to be found in the collections, and
were, probably, chanted in humdrum fashion to the accompani-
ment of a harp, they are narratives, and not at all lyrical.
The carol was brought to England from France at an early
date, and there are extant Norman carols that were sung in
England in the late twelfth century. In essentials, there is little
difference between these carols and some of those that were sung
in England three centuries later. They observe the refrain, which
is most commonly a repetition of the word 'noel'; they open
with an invocation to those present,
Seignors ore entendez a nus,
De loinz sumes venuz @ vous,
Pur quere Noell;
and their theme is the Nativity and the attendant gladness.
· Sandys, Festive Songs, 6.
## p. 377 (#395) ############################################
Carols
377
It is probable that the composition of carols was widely
cultivated in the thirteenth century, for most of the carols are in
simple Latin metres, and Latin lines are employed either as refrain,
or as an integral part of the stanzas. Such a tradition must
look back to a period when the English composer felt the need of
relying upon the support of Latin metres, and it was in the
thirteenth century, as extant religious poems demonstrate, that
English metres were thus being conformed to the models of Latin
hymns?
The metre most commonly employed is the simplest, a one-
rime tercet of iambic tetrameters, followed by a refrain, usually
Latin. Thus:
Gabriell that angell bryst,
Bryster than the sonne is lyzt,
Fro hevyn to erth he (too)k hys flygt,
Regina celi letare?
Sometimes the Latin verse rimes with the English, making a
quatrain, or a Latin line may be introduced into the tercet itself.
The quatrain with alternate rimes is also used, though less
frequently. Other popular metres are the rimed couplet, and the
ballade stanza, which, however, is confined to the longer narrative
carols. Occasional carols are composed in the highly wrought
French metres, but they seem exotic.
The Latin lines in the carols are familiar verses from the
hymns, canticles, sequences, graduales and other parts of the
service in missal or breviary, relating to the Christmas season; and
practically all can be found in the Sarum Use.
Of the refrain there are various types. Sometimes it is a
stanza or verse from a Latin hymn, as :
Ihesus autem hodie
Egressus est de virgines;
sometimes an English verse and a Latin verse combined :
Be mery all, that be present,
Omnes de Saba venient";
sometimes merely the word 'nowel' or 'noel’ in recitative; and
sometimes an invocation to be merry:
Make we mery in hall & bowr,
Thys tyme was born owr savyowr5.
* Cf. Morris, Old English Misc. , E. E. T. S. XLII, 1872.
• Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 26 a–Percy Society, LXXIII, 33.
: MS Balliol 354, f. 178 a—Anglia, xxvi, 196.
• Ibid. f. 165 6Anglia, xxvi, 176.
• Ibid. f. 220 a-Anglia, XXVI, 231.
## p. 378 (#396) ############################################
378 Transition English Song Collections
There is also a very pretty introduction of the shepherd's pipe in
certain carols that sing of the shepherds watching their flocks by
night; thus,
Tyrly tirlow, tirly tirlow;
So merrily the shepherds began to blow1
As the Christmas season was a time for festivities and merry-
making as well as for worship, it was natural that some of the
carols should deal with sacred themes, and others with secular
themes ; indeed that some carols should confuse the two types.
The services within the church gave ample warrant for such a
confusion. Moreover, as Christmas theoretically supplanted a
pagan festival, but practically compromised with it, it was natural
that elements of pre-Christian rites should be reflected in carols.
Religious carols are, for the most part, narrative in content
The Nativity is, of course, the dominant theme, but, as the festival
season lasted from the Nativity to Epiphany, or even until
Candlemas, the events of Holy Week, and the lives of the saints
whose days occur at this season, furnish many of the themes.
It may be that carols were written to divert interest from
those pagan songs, with their wild dances, which, even as late as the
fifteenth century, made Christmas a trying and dangerous period
for the church? . Certainly, the folk-song element in carols
suggests the probability that at one time they were accompanied
by dancing
But, whatever the origin of carols may have been, it is clear
that they were much influenced by those dramatic elements,
which, prior to the advent of the mystery plays, were a popular
part of the Christmas services in the church ; for the episodes
dramatised in the services are the ones that most often figure in
carols. It seems not a little strange that carols were not more
often introduced into mystery plays of the Nativity. One of the
shepherd carols, however, is like the mystery in spirit. It intro-
duces the character of Wat, and, with it, homely, half-humorous
touches such as are characteristic of the plays :
Whan Wat to Bedlem cum was,
He swet, he had gon faster than a pace;
Lull well Ihesu in thy lape,
& farewell Ioseph, with thy rownd cape 3.
1 MS Balliol 354, f. 222 a-Anglia, XXVI, 237; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 60 a
-Percy Society, LXXIII, 95.
2 Cf. Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 8987 ff. , Chron. Vilod. 1022.
3 MS Balliol 354, 1. 224 2- Anglia, XIVI, 243.
## p. 379 (#397) ############################################
Carols
379
The themes of secular carols are the feasting and sports of Yule-
tide, customs that were inseparable from the great hall of the
nobleman's residence, where the whole community was wont to
assemble for the Christmas festivities. To be sure, these carols
were sometimes sung at other seasons, for did not the Green
Knight entertain Sir Gawain with
Many athel songez,
As conndutes of Kryst-masse, and carolez newe,
With all the manerly merthe that mon may of telle 1 ?
but Christmas week in hall was the proper setting. Several carols
relate to the custom of bringing in the boar's head. The classical
example is the familiar carol,
The boar's head in hand bring I,
Caput apri differos,
but others, though less well known, possess equal interest. In one,
the minstrel relates how, in 'wilderness,' he was pursued by a
wyld bor,' 'a brymly best. ' In the encounter that followed, he
succeeded in refting both life and limb from the beast, in testimony
of which he brings the head into the hall. Then he bids the
company add bread and mustard, and be joyful. In another,
warning is given that no one need seek to enter the ball, be he
groom, page, or marshal, unless he bring some sport with him".
In still another, the minstrel speaks in the character of Sir
Christmas, and takes leave of
kyng & knyght,
& erle, baron & lady bryghts,
but not without a fond wish that he may be with them again the
following year. He hears Lent calling, and obeys the call : a
lugubrious summons indeed to the luckless wanderer who must
turn his back on this genial hospitality for eleven months to come,
and depend on the fortuitous goodwill of the ale-house.
Charming, also, are the songs of ivy and holly, which were
sung in connection with some little ceremony of the season. In all
the songs, ivy and holly appear as rivals; and, whatever the
ceremony may have been, it certainly was a survival of those
festival games in connection with the worship of the spirit of
fertility, in which lads invariably championed the cause of holly,
1 E. E. T. S. f. 484 ff.
Of. MS Balliol 354, f. 212 - Anglia, IXV, 257.
3 Bodleian MS, Eng. Lit. E. I. f. 23 a—Percy Society, LXIII, 25. .
• MS Balliol 354, f. 223 – Anglia, XXVI, 241.
• Ibid. 1. 208 6- Anglia, XXVI, 245.
## p. 380 (#398) ############################################
380
Transition English Song Collections
and lasses that of ivy? We can fancy young men entering the
hall with branches of holly? :
Here commys holly, that is so gent,
To pleasse all men is his entent, etc. ;
singing the praises of the shrub, and warning their hearers not to
speak lightly of its ; while young women enter from an opposite
direction, and go through a similar performance with the ivy.
Thereupon, both young men and young women enter upon some
kind of a dance, which resolves itself into a contest in which the
boys drive the girls from the hall:
Holy with his mery men they can daunce in hall;
Ivy & her ientyl women can not daunce at all,
But lyke a meyny of bullokes in a water fall,
Or on a whot somer's day whan they be mad all.
Nay, nay, ive, it may not be iwis;
For holy must haue the mastry, as the maner is.
Holy & his mery men sytt in cheyres of gold;
Ivy & her ientyll women sytt withowt in ffold,
With a payre of kybid helis cawght with cold.
So wold I that euery man had, that with yvy will hold.
Nay, nay, ive, it may not be iwis;
For holy must have the mastry, as the maner ise.
This débat of holly and ivy, like other songs of winter and
summer, looks back to that communal period, when dialogue was
just beginning to emerge from the tribal chorus.
Related to Christmas carols are spiritual lullabies, for the
simplest of the three forms of the lullaby is, virtually, a carol, in
which, along with other episodes of Christmas Eve and Christmas
Day, the spectacle of Mary singing 'lulley' to the Infant is de-
scribed. The refrain is all that differentiates this carol from others :
Lullay, myn lykyng, my dere sone, myn swetyng;
Lulley, dere herte, myn owyn dere derlyngó
In the second type of lullaby, Mary and the Infant talk to one
another. Mary regrets that a child, born to be King of kings, is
lying upon hay, and wonders why He was not born in a prince's
hall. The Babe assures her that lords and dukes and princes will
come to worship Him. Then Mary would fain know how she
1 Cf. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, I, 251, and chapter m; Ellis and Brand,
Popular Antiquities, 1, 68, 519 ff.
Cf. Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 53 6—Percy Society, LXXIII, 84.
8 Ibid. ff. 30 a, 53 6-Percy Society, LXXIII, 44, 84.
MS Balliol 354, f. 229 6-Anglia, XXVI, 279.
SMS Sloane 2593, f. 32 Warton Club, iv, 94.
## p. 381 (#399) ############################################
Spiritual Lullabies
381
herself can best serve Him, and He replies, by rocking Him
gently in her arms and soothing Him to sleep:
Ihesu, my son, I pray ye say,
As thou art to me dere,
How shall I serue ye to thy pay
& mak the right good chere?
All thy will
I wold ffulfill,–
Thou knoweste it well in ffay-
Both rokke ye still,
& daunce the yer till,
& synge 'by, by; lully, lulley. '
Mary, moder, I pray ye,
Take me vp on loft,
& in thyn arme
Thow lappe me warm,
& daunce me now full ofte;
& yf I wepe
& will not slepe,
Than syng 'by, by; lully, lulley1
The third type is distinguished from this by the melancholy
character of the conversation. The Mother tries in vain to assuage
the grief of her Child, and, when she fails to do so, inquires the
cause of His tears; whereupon He foretells the sufferings that
await Him.
A variant of this type introduces an allegory, in which a maiden
weeps beside the couch of a dying knight:
a
Lully, lulley, lull(y), lulley;
The fawcon hath born my make away.
He bare hym vp, he bare hym down,
He bare hym in to an orchard browne.
(Ref. )
In that orchard there was an halle,
That was hangid with purpill & pall.
(Ref. )
And in that hall there was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.
(Ref. )
And yn that bed there lythe a knyght,
His wowndis bledyng day and nyght.
(Ref. )
By that bede side kneleth a may,
& she wepeth both nyght & day%.
(Ref. )
1 MS Balliol 354, ff. 210 b, 226 6-Anglia, XXVI, 250.
? Cf. ibid. ff. 210 a, 226 a-Anglia, XXVI, 249; MS Bodleian, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 20 a
--Percy Society, LXXIII, 19.
3 MS Balliol 354, f. 165 b-Anglia, xxvi, 175.
## p. 382 (#400) ############################################
382
Transition English Song Collections
All these poems are characterised by a lullaby refrain, and
it is the conventional introduction for the poet to describe the
scene as one that he himself witnessed 'this other night. ' The
device certainly savours of the French, but I have not yet dis-
covered a French poem of this character. Nor do there seem to
be corresponding poems in Latin or German. The metre of most
of the songs falters between the Teutonic four-stress alliterative
verse and the septenarius; the original type was, probably, English,
and later singers tried to conform it to a new metre. Moreover,
the word 'lulley,' which is the burden of the refrain, supports the
theory of English origin, and this supposition is also borne out by
the character of the secular lullaby, which has the same lugubrious
tone, with its regret that the little Child is ushered into a world of
sorrow. This is characteristically Teutonic.
Merging into the lullaby is the complaint of Mary, of which
many examples have survived. The song which blends these two
types is one of great beauty. As in other lullabies, the Virgin tries
in vain to soothe the Babe to sleep, and, distraught at His grief,
enquires its cause. Thereupon, the Child foretells the sufferings
that await Him, and each new disclosure calls forth a fresh burst
of grief from the afflicted Mother: 'Is she to see her only Son
slain, and cruel nails driven through the hands and feet that she
has wrapped? When Gabriel pronounced her “full of grace," he
told nothing of this. ' The medieval world thought long upon the
sorrows of Mary, as upon the passion of Christ, and this poem
portrays the crushing grief of the Virgin with the naïve fidelity
and tenderness characteristic of medieval workmanship.
The refrain of the poem shows that it was sung as a carol:
Now synge we with angelis
Gloria in excel(s)is.
Conversely, another carol, which is concerned with the events at
the cross, has, for its refrain, a complaint of Mary:
To see the maydyn wepe her sonnes passion,
It entrid my hart full depe with gret compassions.
Some of the complaints are monologues; others are dialogues
or trialogues. The monologue is usually addressed to Jesus or to
the cross, but, sometimes, it has no immediate relation to the
passion, and is not directed to any particular hearer. The
1 Cf. Guest, History of English Metres, 512.
: MS Balliol 354, f. 209 6, 225 6-Anglia, xxvI, 247.
3 Ibid. ff. 214 a, 230 a—Anglia, XXVI, 263.
* Ibid. 214 a-Anglia, XXVI, 262; E. E. T. S. XV, 233, xxrv, 126.
## p. 383 (#401) ############################################
Didactic Songs
383
a
dialogue is between Mary and Jesus, or Mary and the cross'.
In the trialogues, Mary, Jesus and John converse. John leads
the weeping Mother to the cross, she calls upon Jesus, and He
tenderly commits her to the care of the beloved disciple?
These complaints are based upon Latin hymns and similar
writings, upon Stabat Mater, Ante Crucem Virgo Stabat, Crux
de te Volo Conqueri, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Meditations
of Augustine and the Tractat of Bernard, and, while the English
poems display much lyrical excellence, they contribute little to
the tradition.
A similar type of poem is the complaint which the crucified
Christ makes to sinful man. This is usually a monologues, though
sometimes a dialogue, remorseful man responding to the appeal of
Christ, and pleading for mercy.
Other poems which celebrate the Virgin include prayers-some
in the form of carols, aves, poems upon the five joys of Mary, or
upon the six branches of the heavenly rose. Some of these songs
are translations, in whole or in part, of Latin poems; others seem
to be original. They perpetuate the intense ardour of devotion,
the mysticism, the warmth and rich colour of the earlier English
songs to Mary, and they heighten the effect by a superior melody.
Apart from the types of religious songs already considered,
there are a large number of moral and reflective poems. Some
of these are hortatory, urging man to know himself", to beware
of swearing by the mass, to make amends for his sins? , or to
acknowledge his indebtedness to God8. Others are contemplative,
and reflect upon the certainty of death°, the fickleness of riches
or fortune 10, the prevalence of vice", or the worldliness of the
clergy.
In their most highly developed form these poems are allegories,
12
1 Herrig's Archiv, LXXIIX, 263; E. E. T. S. XLVI, 131, 197, CXVII, 612; Bodleian MS,
Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 34 a–Percy Society, Lxxm, 50.
; MS Sloane 2593, f. 70 -Percy Society, iv, 10; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I.
f. 270 Percy Society, LXXIII, 38.
3 E. E. T. S. OxVII, 637.
• Add. MS 5465, f. 68 a-Herrig's Archiv, CVI, 63.
3 US Balliol 354, f. 156 6-Anglia, XXVI, 170.
& Ibid. ff. 214 a, 230 a-Anglia, XXVI, 263.
7 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. f. 306—Percy Society, LXIM, 44.
& Ibid. f. 27b-Percy Society, LXXIII, 39.
Ibid. ff. 386, 48 a—Percy Society, LXXIII, 57, 74; MS Balliol 354, f. 1776-Anglia,
.
XXVI, 191,
10 M$ Balliol 354, ff. 194 a, 206 2–Anglia, XXVI, 207.
11 Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E. I. 1. 606-Percy Society, LXXII, 96.
12 US Balliol 354, f. 156 2–Anglia, XXVI, 169.
## p. 384 (#402) ############################################
384 Transition English Song Collections
with conventional introduction and conclusion, and a prelude,
which is commonly in Latin. In some of the songs, the allegory
is highly articulated. For example, the poet pictures himself
as sallying forth on a bright summer's morning in search of sport,
with his hawk in hand, and his spaniel leaping by his side.
A hen pheasant is flushed, and the hawk gives chase; but, while
the sport is at its height, the poet suddenly finds himself en-
tangled in a briar, on every leaf of which is written the warning
revertere:
My hart fell down ynto my to,
That was before full lykyngly;
I lett my hawke & fesavnt fare,
My spanyell fell down vnto my kne-
It toke me with a sighyng fare,
This new lessun "revertere'i.
The summer's day symbolises the period of youth; the hawk, its
fierce passions; and the briar, conscience. In the majority of the
songs, the allegory is less developed than in this.
Most often the poet represents himself as wandering through
a forest on a sunny morning. As he wanders, he hears the singing
of a bird, or of a company of birds, and the burden of their song
is some moral reflection or some exhortation. The allegory is
usually neglected after the introductory stanza. Almost invariably
the song concludes with a prayer for succour in death and deliver-
ance from the fiends. The conventionalised nature setting and the
allegory of these poems are clearly French, and the metres most
often used are the ballade stanza and the rime royal.
In the forms in which we have been considering them, these
songs were ill adapted to the ordinary audience of the minstrel,
and he, accordingly, popularised them by shortening them, intro-
ducing a refrain and substituting simple metres, in which the
rhythm is strongly marked.
These moral songs shade into another group of didactic poems, ,
which embody shrewd practical wisdom, of the type dear to
Polonius. They concern themselves with such homely advice as
to hold your tongue", to try your friends, to look out for a rainy
>
1 MS Balliol 354, f. 155 b-Anglia, xxvi, 168.
• Ibid. f. 1706-Anglia, XXVI, 180; Bodleian MS, Eng. Poet. E.
