A History of Carols – Part 3

I found a nice second hand book on Christmas Traditions from 1931 at the Guide Dogs for the Blind biggest book sale, and as Christmas approaches, thought it might be interesting to share it with my readers.  Instead of my regular blog, I'm taking time off and posting some extracts from this here.

A History of Carols – Part 3

By William Mauir Ald

To the plain people Bethlehem seemed far away. They missed the magnificent strains of the Latin hymns and offices. He would bring the Nativity near, near, right home to their hearts, as the Blessed Francis had dramatically done at Greccio. "Come" he sings again in words which suggest, and may well have inspired, many a celebrated painting:

Come and look upon her child

Nestling in the hay!

See his fair arms opened wide,

On her lap to play!

And she tucks him by her side,

Cloaks him as she may;

Gives her paps unto his mouth,

Where his lips are laid . . .

She with left hand cradling

Rocked and hushed her boy,

And with holy lullabies

Quieted her toy . .

Little angels all around

Danced, and carols flung;

Making verselets sweet and true,

`Still of love they sung."'

[John Addington Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, Italian Literature, Pt. I, Appendix IV, p. 469f. " "On the Blessed Virgin's Bashfulness."]

The picture is perfect, recalling Crashaw's striking line:

'Twas once look up, 'tis now look down to Heaven."

Yet, as already hinted, it would be a great mistake to think of Jacopone, St. Francis, or any early Minorite, as sensible only to the human charm and pathos of the Nativity. They also felt it, so to speak, in their numinous consciousness, as holy, wonderful, mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is this peculiar blending, absent in the ancient Latin hymns, of homely feeling and numinous feeling, or as Yrjo Hirn would phrase it, "pious familiarity and reverent worship," that is the striking thing.

Precisely that for which the Christmas Collect renders thanks"the shining forth of the mysterious divine light from the bosom of Eternity" in the face of the Infant Christ-is what the poet and others see, but with an intimate and tender realism all their own.

A real Child is pictured lying naked in the thorny hay (nudo nel pungente s pino) , who kicks and cries to tears ; but the dear angels (gli Angeli diletti) are described caroling around Him with bashful wonder (tutti riverenti timidi e subietti) ; because after all He is the little Infant Prince of the elect (Bambolino Principe de gli eletti), a huomo divino, A Divine Man.

The temper of mind involved is difficult to describe fully. But in addition to Rudolf Otto's sense of the holy, it is akin to what Wordsworth calls "natural piety" and Ruskin theoria, the mood of reverent contemplation, which appreciates the golden glory of old romance, discerns That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, That Beauty in which all things work and move," produced the original Idylls of Bethlehem-those "matchless pictures of earthly beauty and pathos illumined and sublimed by heavenly love," conceived and communicated to that most hallowed Gospel of St. John its deathless transcendental glamour.

Nor does our rough, roving minstrel miss the fullness of the Christmas message; for he was a preacher of fine evangelical fervor. He will sing wondrously of the Nativity, as in his Cantico de la Nativity de Iesii Cristo, in strains that remind one of Paul Gerhardt's "All my heart this night rejoices" ; but ere his song is done he will cry:

O ye sinners, erring throng,

Serving evil lords so long,

Come and hail this Infant Birth!

Come to Him in penitence.

Penitence your hearts shall stay,

Driving every sin away,

Purging heart, and soul, and sense.

Verily the humble mind

Penitent, the truth shall find,

Blessedness and piety.'

[Shelley, Adonait, LIV.]

Sometimes the message is couched in more kindly notes, thus passing the more readily in at lowly

doors; and to that end chiefly Jacopone and his followers tuned their rustic Christmas lyres:

Now since He's here,

Show your heart's cheer

And high content . . .

Sweep hearth and floor;

Be all your vessels' store

Shining and clean.

Then bring the little guest

And give Him of your best

Of meat and drink. Yet more

Ye owe than meat.

One gift at your King's feet

Lay now. I mean

A heart full to the brim

Of love, and all for Him,

And from all envy clean."

[Evelyn Underhill, Jacopone da Todi, p. 417. Translated by Mrs. Theodore Beck." ° A. Macdonell, Sons of Francis, pp. 371-2. " Chapters II and III.]

Mr. Clement A. Miles, in his Christmas in Ritual and Tradition,' "gives numerous examples of these fresh and fragrant lyrics, wild flowers of song he calls them, gathered in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, England, and even in "dour Scotland." The German medieval carols are peculiarly interesting. Jacopone's little angels hovering around are not so noticeable; but the kindly sentiments which breathe through them are certainly unique and suggest scenes of cotters' homes, which only Robert Burns could describe:

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee things, toddlin' . . .

To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile ...

Into such surroundings the Christ Child is welcomed by all; and to these singers farther north there is always an intense sense of the cold on the first Weihnacht:

Da Jesu Krist geboren wart,

do was es kalt.

[Christian Singers of Germany, p. 85]

The fourteenth-century allegorical carol beginning, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, familiar in Miss Catherine Winkworth's rendering: "A spotless rose is blowing,"" is still popular at Christmas time all over the world; but it is not so good a sample of the German rustic carol of the Middle Ages as this one:

Das Kind is in der Krippen glogn,

So herzig and so rar!

Mei klaner Hansl war nix dgogn,

Wenn a glei schener war.

Kolschwarz wie d'Kirchen d'Augen sein,

Sunst aber kreidenweiss;

Die Hand so hiibsch recht zart and fein,

I hans angriirt mit Fleiss.

Aft hats auf mi an Schmutza gmacht,

An Hoscheza darzue;

O warst du mein, hoan i gedacht,

Werst wol a munter Bue.

Dahoam in meiner Kachelstub

Liess i brav hoazen ein,

Do in den Stal kimt liberal

Der kalte Wind herein."