Why Christmas Carols? (Coventry Carol)

Art creates a world where the infinite things of God become ephemerally tangible, briefly real. Rarely are these words so fully illustrated than in the story of one of the season’s most popular carols.

Expressing joy, comfort, sorrow and despair, the Coventry Carol as it has been come to be known is a brilliant example of how art often permeates and penetrates human reasoning more than words.

In fifteenth and sixteenth century England, towns and villages would come together as a whole for the holiday season. Every season, the various guilds (basically unions without the whining – see No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…!) would produce a short play called a pageant because it was performed on top of wagons (pageants) in the markets and open spaces of the town.

Coventry, a town in the midlands of England, was notorious for its lavish and well sponsored Christmas plays. Kings and dignitaries from all over England would journey to Coventry during Christmastide to see all the pageantry.

One unknown Christmas in the late 1400’s, the guilds of the Shearmen and Tailors came together to perform a new pageant. As was often the case, the words and actions of the play were often accompanied by a well known song with new lyrics. For some reason, the Shearmen and Tailors took the tune of a well known and popular lullaby and ordered the words around Herod’s edict “to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under.” (Mat.2:16)

What emerged was a terrifying and beautiful melding of popular culture, Biblical history, and raw human emotion.

Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.

Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

For the full text of the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, click here and check the bookmarks for specific pages.

~ by sholander on December 28, 2007.