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"PHOEBUS waxed old, and huéd like laton;

That in his hot declination

Shone as the burnéd gold, with streams bright,
But now in Capricorn adown doth light
Wherein he shone full pale, I dare well sain.
The bitter frosts with sleet and rain
Destroyed have the green in every yard.
Janus sits by the fire with double beard,
And drinketh of his bugle horn the wine!
Before him stands brawn of the tuskéd swine,
And NOWEL crieth every lusty man."

DIVISION I.

THE FRANKLIN'S TALE.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS, FROM THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD TO THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION.

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IVE hundred years ago, Chaucer, who, in his racy verse, has preserved the exactest descriptions of the manners of the age in I which he lived, incidentally sketched the above slight picture of the Christmas scason. Unfortunately, it furnishes us with but few points to dwell upon. The wintry sun no longer shining like burnished gold, and throwing out broad rays of light, but of a dull brazen hue; the bitter frosts, that with sleet and rain have destroyed the last vestiges of the garden's green; these, relieved by an incident allegorical of the jovial feasting which never failed to usher in the festival of the Saviour's nativity, comprise not only the whole of this little sketch, bnt all that the father of English poetry-the "morning star of Song"-has left us connected with our subject. It is not, therefore, by extracts from his works that we shall be enabled to illustrate the customs and festivities of the Christmas season among our forefathers at this early period of our history. The materials for this purpose will have to be culled from more fugitive sources, and will be mainly comprised of poems which were chaunted forth by the minstrels of old, at a time when a scanty measure of devotion furnished the excuse for the most extravagant revelry.

Among the primitive Christians, the festival of the Saviour's nativity was doubtless ushered in by the display of a calm, religious feeling, unmingled with the consideration of mere worldly enjoyments; but in course of time, when this important feast of the Christian

The French word Noel, signifying Christmas.

Church had come to be incorporated with those heathen rites of the northern nations, which were celebrated towards the end of the year, it degenerated, for the most part, into a mere display of boisterous festivity. Such we find it to have been during the Anglo-Saxon period, and such it continued under the line of Norman kings; though one good feature connected with the celebration of the Christmas festival by these latter monarchs, was the practice that prevailed with them, of assembling upon the occasion the chief prelates and nobles of the kingdom, when the general affairs of the country were taken into consideration. As a relief, however, to these grave deliberations, the guests were feasted with a series of grand banquets; and one of the metrical romances of the period has the following allusion to the circumstance:—

"Christmas is a time full honest;

King Richard it honoured with great feast,
All his clerks and barons

Were set in their pavilions,

And served with great plenty

Of meat, and drink, and each dainty."

And, in truth, the company were served with "meat and drink in great plenty;" for we find it recorded, that at several of the entertainments of the period, as many as thirty thousand dishes were set before the famished guests. Some of the "dainties" would perhaps be regarded as questionable by modern tastes; they may be judged of, however, by an enumeration of the favourite dishes of the period, which will be found contained in one of the Boar's Head Carols, a few pages further on. Days thus spent in feasting and deliberation gave place to nights of revelry, at which masques and mummings, varied with games of chance, and the tricks of jugglers and mountebanks, formed the chief features of the evening's entertainment. A continual round of pleasure was thus kept up throughout the whole of the twelve days forming the feast of Yule; and it was rarely, until the expiration of the closing night's debauch, that a time was found for the return to a more sober course of proceeding.

The earliest existing Carol known to antiquaries, is in the AngloNorman language. It was discovered written on a blank leaf in the middle of one of the manuscripts† preserved in the British Museum. The date assigned to it is the thirteenth century. As but few of our readers would readily comprehend a reprint of the poem in its present form, we have preferred to insert a new translation of it, wherein the style and language of the original have been very closely adhered to. We may suppose this Carol to have been one of those in use among the bands of professional minstrels - half vagrants, half troubadours, who wandered from one to the other of the different castles of the Norman nobility, "discoursing sweet sounds" for the gratification of the assembled guests, and who were certain of a ready welcome on so jovial an occasion, as the celebration of the Christmas feast.

Richard Cour de Lion, in Weber's Metrical Romances. + Bibl. Reg. 16, E. VIII.

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"Tis to day!

May joy come from God above,

To all those who Christmas love!

Lordings, I now tell you true,
Christmas bringeth unto you

Only mirth;

His house he fills with many a dish
Of bread and meat and also fish,
To grace the day.

May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.

Lordings, through our army's band

They say who spends with open hand
Free and fast,

And oft regales his many friends

God gives him double what he spends,

To grace the day.

May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.

Lordings, wicked men eschew,
In them never shall you view

Aught that's good;

Cowards are the rabble rout,

Kick and beat the grumblers out,

To grace the day.

May joys come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.

To English ale, and Gascon wine,

And French, doth Christmas much incline

And Anjou's, too;

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Here then I bid you all Wassail,

Cursed be who will not say Drinkhail.*

The following very early Carols, with their mixture of Scriptural allusions and invitations to hard drinking, are such as were doubtless sung by the tribe of professional minstrels during the several periods of feasting into which the day of Yule was divided. A peculiar instance, showing, that even in a subsequent age, music and singing were held in greater account than devotion, and that eating and drinking were rated far above all, is found in the accounts of the Stationers' Company for the year 1510, which contain the following entry:—

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The first of the two following Carols is omong the additional MSS. in the British Museum.† The other will be found in the Sloane MSS. Ritson considers this latter manuscript to be of the time of Henry VI.; but in all probability the Carols themselves belong to a considerably earlier date. In the original version of the first Carol, some of the phrases are in French; these have been translated, and the spelling has been modernised in both instances, for it was so corrupt, and the abbreviations were so numerous, that, had they been followed, the Carols could only have been deciphered with considerable labour.

• Wassail and Drinkhail are both derived from the Arg.o-Saxon. They were the common drinking pledges of the age. Wassail is equivalent to the phrase, "Your health," of the present day. Drinkhail, which literally signifies "drink health," was the usual acknowledgment of the other pledge.

+ No. 5665, fol. 6, vo.

# No. 2593, fol. 79, ro.

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