The "Coventry Carol" is an English
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French ori ...
dating from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
as part of a
mystery play
Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the represe ...
called ''
The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors''. The play depicts the
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
story from
chapter two in the
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and form ...
: the carol itself refers to the
Massacre of the Innocents, in which
Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in
Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
to be killed, and takes the form of a
lullaby
A lullaby (), or cradle song, is a soothing song or piece of music that is usually played for (or sung to) children (for adults see music and sleep). The purposes of lullabies vary. In some societies they are used to pass down cultural knowledg ...
sung by mothers of the doomed children.
The music contains a well-known example of a
Picardy third
A Picardy third, (; french: tierce picarde) also known as a Picardy cadence or Tierce de Picardie, is a major chord of the tonic at the end of a musical section that is either modal or in a minor key. This is achieved by raising the third of the ...
. The author is unknown; the oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the oldest known setting of the melody dates from 1591. There are alternative, modern settings of the carol by
Kenneth Leighton
Kenneth Leighton (2 October 1929 – 24 August 1988) was a British composer and pianist. His compositions include church and choral music, pieces for piano, organ, cello, oboe and other instruments, chamber music, concertos, ...
and another by
Philip Stopford.
History and text
The carol is the second of three songs included in the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, a
nativity play
A Nativity play or Christmas pageant is a play which recounts the story of the Nativity of Jesus. It is usually performed at Christmas, the feast of the Nativity.
Liturgical
The term "Nativity Drama" is used by Wellesz in his discussion of the ...
that was one of the
Coventry Mystery Plays
The Coventry Mystery Plays, or Coventry Corpus Christi Pageants, are a cycle of medieval mystery plays from Coventry, West Midlands, England, and are perhaps best known as the source of the "Coventry Carol". Two plays from the original cycle ar ...
, originally performed by the city's
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
s.
The exact date of the text is unknown, though there are references to the Coventry guild pageants from 1392 onwards. The single surviving text of the carol and the pageant containing it was edited by one Robert Croo, who dated his manuscript 14 March 1534.
Croo, or Crowe, acted for some years as the 'manager' of the city pageants. Over a twenty-year period, payments are recorded to him for playing the part of God in the Drapers' Pageant, for making a hat for a "pharysye", and for mending and making other costumes and props, as well as for supplying new dialogue and for copying out the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant in a version which Croo described as "newly correcte".
Croo seems to have worked by adapting and editing older material, while adding his own rather ponderous and undistinguished verse.
Religious changes caused the plays' suppression during the later 16th century, but Croo's
prompt book The prompt book, also called transcript, the bible or sometimes simply "the book," is the copy of a production script that contains the information necessary to create a theatrical production from the ground up. It is a compilation of all blocking ...
, including the songs, survived and a transcription was eventually published by the Coventry
antiquarian Thomas Sharp in 1817 as part of his detailed study of the city's mystery plays.
Sharp published a second edition in 1825 which included the songs' music. Both printings were intended to be a facsimile of Croo's manuscript, copying both the orthography and layout; this proved fortunate as Croo's original manuscript, which had passed into the collection of the
Birmingham Free Library, was destroyed in a fire there in 1879.
Sharp's transcriptions are therefore the only source; Sharp had a reputation as a careful scholar, and his copying of the text of the women's carol appears to be accurate.
Within the pageant, the carol is sung by three women of Bethlehem, who enter on stage with their children immediately after Joseph is warned by an angel to take his family to Egypt:
Sharp's publication of the text stimulated some renewed interest in the pageant and songs, particularly in Coventry itself. Although the Coventry mystery play cycle was traditionally performed in summer, the lullaby has been in modern times regarded as a
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French ori ...
. It was brought to a wider audience after being featured in the BBC's Empire Broadcast at Christmas 1940, shortly after the
Bombing of Coventry in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, when the broadcast concluded with the singing of the carol in the bombed-out ruins of the Cathedral.
Music
The carol's music was added to Croo's manuscript at a later date by Thomas Mawdyke, his additions being dated 13 May 1591. Mawdyke wrote out the music in three-part harmony, though whether he was responsible for its composition is debatable, and the music's style could be indicative of an earlier date.
[Duffin, ''A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music'', Indiana University Press, 259] The three (alto, tenor and baritone) vocal parts confirm that, as was usual with mystery plays, the parts of the "mothers" singing the carol were invariably played by men.
The original three-part version contains a "startling"
false relation
A false relation (also known as cross-relation, non-harmonic relation) is the name of a type of dissonance that sometimes occurs in polyphonic music, most commonly in vocal music of the Renaissance.
The term describes a "chromatic contradiction" ...
(F in treble, F in tenor) at "by, by".
Mawdyke, who may be identifiable with a tailor of that name living in the St Michael's parish of Coventry in the late 16th century, is thought to have made his additions as part of an unsuccessful attempt to revive the play cycle in the summer of 1591, though in the end the city authorities chose not to support the revival. The surviving pageants were revived in the Cathedral from 1951 onwards.
A four-part setting of the tune by
Walford Davies
Sir Henry Walford Davies (6 September 1869 – 11 March 1941) was an English composer, organist, and educator who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941. He served with the Royal Air Force during the First World War, dur ...
is shown below:
\new ChoirStaff <<
\new Staff
\new Staff
>>
"Appalachian" variant
A variant of the carol was supposedly collected by folklorist
John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles (April 28, 1892 – March 1, 1980) was an American composer, singer and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers," Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 195 ...
in
Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Gatlinburg is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee, United States. It is located southeast of Knoxville and had a population of 3,944 at the 2010 Census and a U.S. Census population of 3,577 in 2020. It is a popular vacation res ...
, in June 1934 (from an "old lady with a gray hat", who according to Niles's notes insisted on remaining anonymous). Niles surmised that the carol had been transplanted from England via the
shape note singing tradition, although this version of the carol has not been found elsewhere and there is reason to believe that Niles, a prolific composer, actually wrote it himself.
[Crump (ed). ''The Christmas Encyclopedia'', 3rd ed., McFarland, 2001, p. 154] Joel Cohen uncovered an early shape note choral song from the 18th century which also includes some of the lyrics to the Coventry Carol and has a tune at least marginally resembling Niles' variant. For this reason, Cohen argued that the Appalachian variant was likely to be authentic and that Crump et al. have been too quick to assume chicanery on Niles' part due to his proclivity for editing some of his collected material.
Although the tune is quite different to that of the "Coventry Carol", the text is largely similar except for the addition of an extra verse (described by
Poston as "regrettable"):
A number of subsequent recorded versions have incorporated the fifth verse.
See also
*
List of Christmas carols
This list of Christmas carols is organized by country, language or culture of origin. Originally, a "Christmas carol" referred to a piece of vocal music in carol form whose lyrics centre on the theme of Christmas or the Christmas season. The d ...
References
External links
Sheet musicfor voice and SATB from Cantorion.org
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16th-century hymns
Christmas carols
Coventry
Lullabies
Massacre of the Innocents
Music based on the Bible
Songs inspired by deaths