History of the Christmas Carol

One of my favorite things at Christmas is to sing Christmas carols. The first carols, sung in Europe hundreds of years ago, were not Christmas Carols. They were pagan songs, sung at the Winter Solstice celebrations as people danced round stone circles. The Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year, usually taking place around the 22nd December.

In 129 AD , a Roman Bishop decreed that a song called 'Angel's Hymn' should be sung at a Christmas service in Rome. Shortly after 760 AD composers all over Europe started to write carols. The majority of these early Christmas carols were written and sung in Latin, a language that peasant people couldn't understand so their “carols” more closely resembled the “pagan” songs of Winter Solstice. By the time of the Middles Ages most people had lost interest in celebrating Christmas altogether – whether due to threat or persecution or whether the custom was lost is unclear.

In 1223, St. Francis of Assisi started Nativity Plays in Italy. The actors in the plays sang songs or 'canticles' that told a story. Sometimes, the choruses of these new carols were in Latin; but normally they were all in a language that the people watching the play could understand and join in! These new carols spread to France, Spain, Germany and other European countries.

The earliest of the St. Francis Assisi carols was written in 1410, sadly only a very small fragment of it still exists. The carol was about Mary and Jesus meeting different people in Bethlehem. Most carols from this time were very loosely based on the Christmas story and the holy family. They were seen as songs for entertaining rather than religious songs. Thus, they were usually sung in homes rather than in churches! Traveling singers or minstrels started singing these carols and the words were changed for the local people wherever they were traveling. An example of a carol like this is 'I Saw Three Ships' – very generic:

I saw three ship come sailing in,

on Christmas day on Christmas day.

I saw three ship come sailing in,

on Christmas Day in the morning.

When Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came to power in England in 1647, the celebration of Christmas and singing carols was stopped. However, this time, the carols survived as people still sang them in secret. Carols remained “unsung” until Victorian times, when they rose to popularity again. Carol singing in public was common. Official carol singers were called 'Waits'. These groups were usually led by important local leaders and they only sang on Christmas Eve. This was the time of 'Good King Wenceslas' and ‘Silent Night’.

The candlelight service was born out of the same era as carollers as it was customary to hold a candlelight service in the local church on Christmas. Today, the tradition continues as carols by candlelight services are held in countries all over the world.

One of the most famous carol services, is the service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College in Cambridge, UK. This service takes place on Christmas Eve and is broadcast live on BBC Radio. The service was first performed in 1918 as a way of the college celebrating the end of World War I. It is always started with a single choir boy singing a solo of the first verse of the carol 'Once in Royal David's City'. A service of Nine Lessons and Carols, has nine bible readings, or lessons, that tell the Christmas story with one or two carols between each lesson.