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I Syng of A Mayden
“I Syng of a Mayden,” sometimes titled “As Dewe in Aprille” is a Middle English Marian lyric (or perhaps more accurately, a carol) about the virgin Mary, with reference to the Annunciation story in Luke 1:26-38. The Middle English is 15th century, with enough oddities that I hesitate to speculate about the dialect. “I Syng of A Mayden” is preserved in a single British Library manuscript MS Sloane 2593 f.10v, a collection of 71 carols and songs or lyrics on paper, with the exception of a strip of parchment used to mend a folio. The MS. has been damaged; a number of folios are missing from the beginning. The first poem…
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Adam Lay Ybounden
Adam lay i-bowndyn, 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 never our lady a ben hevene quen. Blyssid be the tyme that appil take was! Therefore we mown syngyn Deo gratias! This Middle English carol is from the British Library’s manuscript Sloane 2593, ff.10v-11, c. 1400, so the carol is roughly contemporaneous with Chaucer, though it’s not in Chaucer’s London dialect of Middle English. The thematic core of the carol is the idea that if…
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Angelus ad virginem
“Angelus ad virginem” is a Medieval Latin carol celebrating the Annunciation by the angel Gabriel telling the Virgin that she would conceive and bear the Christ child. The Latin lyrics are (here’s a rough translation): 1. Angelus ad virginem Subintrans in conclave. Virginis formidinum Demulcens inquit “Ave.” Ave regina virginum, Coeliteraeque dominum Concipies Et paries Intacta, Salutem hominum. Tu porta coeli facta Medella criminum. 2. Quomodo conciperem, quae virum non cognovi? Qualiter infringerem, quae firma mente vovi? ‘Spiritus sancti gratia Perficiet haec omnia; Ne timaes, sed gaudeas, secura, quod castimonia Manebit in te pura Dei potentia.’ 3. Ad haec virgo nobilis Respondens inquit ei; Ancilla sum humilis Omnipotentis Dei. Tibi…
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Boar Hunt
At this time of year, I always think about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, because the tale opens and closes with references to Christmastide. It also features a boar hunt, the second of three hunts that Sir Gawain’s host at Haut Desart, Sir Bertilak engages in while, back at the castle, Sir Gawain is pursued by the lady of Haut Desart. This image from The Morgan Library’s ms. of Gaston Phoebus’ Le Livre de la chasse/The Book of the Hunt (MS M. 1044 (fol. 64r) shows that the lymerer and his lymer, the huntsman with a dog who flushes the boar into the open, have forced the boar into…
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The Boar’s Head Carol
There was a Medieval Christmastide tradition of ceremonially cooking and presenting the boar’s head as a main course at a feast. Indeed, Queen’s college still celebrates a notable boar and an alum in “The Boar’s Head Carol.” Tradition says, or at least William Henry Husk, Librarian to the Sacred Harmonic Society, says that the boar’s head tradition of a feast at Queens derives from Where an amusing tradition formerly current in Oxford concerning the boar’s head custom, which represented that usage as a commemoration of an act of valour performed by a student of the college, who, while walking in the neighbouring forest of Shotover and reading Aristotle, was suddenly…
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Soul Cake and Souling
Soul, soul, a soul cake! I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake! One for Peter, two for Paul, Three for Him what made us all! Soul cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake. An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, anything good thing to make us all merry. One for Peter, one for Paul, and three for Him who made us all. All Souls’ Day is one of the feast days of the Roman Catholic Church. All Souls’ is observed on November 2. Special prayers are offered for the deceased souls in Purgatory, believed to be waiting for eventual release. All Souls’ follows All Saints’…
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Garlic
Now Glutton begins to go to shrift And takes his way toward the church to tell his sins. But Betty the brewer bade him good morning And she asked him where he was going. “To Holy Church,” he said, “to hear mass, And then I shall be shriven and sin no more.” “I’ve good ale, good friend,” said she. “Glutton, will you try it?” “Have you,” he asked, “any hot spices?” “I have pepper and peony and a pound of garlic, A farthing-worth of fennel seed for fasting days.” Piers the Plowman Passus V Piers the Plowman is a fifteenth century Middle English religious narrative. This particular passage is part…
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Nowel nayted onewe
60. Wyle Nw Ȝer watz so ȝep þat hit watz nwe cummen, 61. Þat day doubble on þe dece watz þe douþ serued. 62. Fro þe kyng watz cummen wiþ knyȝtes into þe halle, 63. Þe chauntre of þe chapel cheued to an ende, 64. Loude crye watz þer kest of clerkez and oþer, 65. Nowel nayted onewe, neuened ful ofte; 66. And syþen riche forþ runnen to reche hondeselle, 67. Ȝeȝed ȝeres-ȝiftes on hiȝ, ȝelde hem bi hond, 68. Debated busyly aboute þo giftes; 69. Ladies laȝed ful loude, þoȝ þay lost haden, 70. And he þat wan watz not wroþe, þat may ȝe wel trawe. 71. Alle þis…
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The Cherry-Tree Carol
The Cherry-tree Carol: O then bespoke Mary, so meek and so mild: “Pluck me one cherry, Joseph, for I am with child.” O then bespoke Joseph, with words most unkind: “Let him pluck thee a cherry that brought thee with child.” The Cherry-tree Carol appears to have first been collected in Britain in the seventeenth century. Francis James Child printed three versions, calling the song “The Cherry-Tree Carol,” and publishing it as Child Ballad 54. It was collected previously, and subsequently, in versions from all over the British isles, and from America’s Appalachia region, where Jean Ritchie popularized the Cherry-tree Carol, in a version memorialized by Joan Baez and others.…
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Þis kyng lay at Camylot vpon Krystmasse
3 37. Þis kyng lay at Camylot vpon Krystmasse 38. Wiþ mony luflych lorde, ledeȝ of þe best, 39. Rekenly of þe Rounde Table alle þo rich breþer, 40. Wiþ rych reuel oryȝt and rechles merþes. 41. Þer tournayed tulkes by tymez ful mony, 42. Justed ful jolile þise gentyle kniȝtes, 43. Syþen kayred to þe court caroles to make. 44. For þer þe fest watz ilyche ful fiften dayes, 45. Wiþ alle þe mete and þe mirþe þat men couþe avyse; 46. Such glaum ande gle glorious to here, 47. Dere dyn vpon day, daunsyng on nyȝtes, 48. Al watz hap vpon heȝe in hallez and chambrez 49. Wiþ…
