und a mediaeval tradition that
has continued unbroken down to modern days; but we must now take a leap
backward in time, and consider the beginnings of the Christmas carol in
England.

Not till the fifteenth century is there any outburst of Christmas poetry
in English, though other forms of religious lyrics were produced in
considerable numbers in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
When the carols come at last, they appear in the least likely of all
places, at the end of a versifying of the whole duty of man, by John
Awdlay, a blind chaplain of Haghmon, in Shropshire. In red letters he
writes:--

"I pray you, sirus, boothe moore and lase,
Sing these caroles in Cristemas,"

and then follows a collection of twenty-five songs, some of which are
genuine Christmas carols, as one now understands the word.{26}

A carol, in the modern English sense, may perhaps be defined as a
religious song, less formal and solemn than the ordinary Church hymn--an
expression of popular and often naive devotional feeling, a thing
intended to be sung outside rather than within church walls. There still
linger about the word some echoes of its original meaning, for "carol"
had at first a secular or even pagan significance: in twelfth-century
France it was used to describe the amorous song-dance which hailed the
coming of spring; in Italian it meant a ring- or song-dance; while by
English writers from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century it was used
chiefly of singing joined with dancing, and had no necessary connection
with religion. Much as the mediaeval Church, with its ascetic tendencies,
disliked religious dancing, it could not always suppress it; and in
Germany, as we shall see, there was choral dancing at Christmas round the
cradle of the Christ Child. Whether Christmas carols were ever danced to
in England |48| is doubtful; many of the old airs and words have,
however, a glee and playfulness as of human nature following its natural
instincts of joy even in the celebration of the most sacred mysteries. It
is probable that some of the carols are religious parodies of love-songs,
written for the melodies of the originals, and many seem by their
structure to be indirectly derived from the choral dances of farm folk, a
notable feature being their burden or refrain, a survival of the common
outcry of the dancers as they leaped around.

Awdlay's carols are perhaps meant to be sung by "wassailing neighbours,
who make th