Oxfordshire.
Previous to the Reformation a requiem mass is said to have been performed every May-morning at an early hour on the top of Magdalen tower, Oxford, for the repose of the soul of Henry VII., who had honoured that college with a visit in 1486-7. The choristers continue to execute in the same place, at five o’clock in the morning of the same day, certain pieces of choir-music, for which service the rectory of Slimbridge in Gloucestershire pays the yearly sum of £10. The ceremony has encouraged the notion that Henry contributed to the erection of the tower, but his only recorded act of favour to the college is the confirmation of its claim to the rectory charged with the annual payment.
The following hymn is sung on the occasion of this ceremony:
“Te Deum Patrem colimus,
Te laudibus prosequimur,
Qui corpus cibo reficis
Cœlesti mentem gratia.
Te adoramus, O Jesu!
Te, Fili unigenite!
Te, qui non dedignatus es
Subire claustra Virginis.
Actus in crucem factus es,
Irato Deo victima;
Per te, Salvator unice,
Vitæ spes nobis rediit.
Tibi, æterne Spiritus,
Cujus afflatu peperit
Infantem Deum Maria,
Æternum benedicimus!
Triune Deus, hominum
Salutis Auctor optime,
Immensum hoc mysterium
Ovanti lingua canimus.”
A correspondent of N. & Q. (2nd S. vii. p. 446) thinks this hymn was composed by Dr. Thomas Smith, a very learned fellow of Magdalen College, soon after the Restoration, and that it was not sung till about the middle of the last century.[57]—Akerman, History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 251; Wade, Walks in Oxford, 1817, vol. i. p. 132.
[57] Whilst making some researches in the library of Christchurch, Oxford, Dr. Rimbault discovered what appeared to him to be the first draft of the hymn in question. It has the following note:—“This hymn is sung every day in Magdalen College Hall, Oxon, dinner and supper, throughout the year for the after-grace, by the chaplain, clerks, and choristers there. Composed by Dr. Benjamin Rogers, Doctor of Musicke, of the University of Oxon, 1685.” It has been popularly supposed, says Dr. Rimbault, to be the Hymnus Eucharisticus, written by Dr. Nathaniel Ingelo, and sung at the civic feast at Guildhall on the 5th of July, 1660, while the King and the other exalted personages were at dinner; but this is a mistake, for the words of Ingelo’s hymn, very different from the Magdalen hymn, still exist, and are to be found in Wood’s Collection in the Ashmolean Museum.
Dr. Rimbault, in a communication to the Illustrated London News (May 17th, 1856), speaking of this custom, says:—In the year of our Lord God 1501, the “most Christian” King Henry VII. gave to St. Mary Magdalen College the advowsons of the churches of Slimbridge, county of Gloucester, and Fyndon, county of Sussex, together with one acre of land in each parish. In gratitude for this benefaction, the college was accustomed, during the lifetime of their royal benefactor, to celebrate a service in honour of the Holy Trinity, with the collect still used on Trinity Sunday, and the prayer, “Almighty and everlasting God, we are taught by Thy Holy Word that the hearts of kings,” &c.; and after the death of the king to commemorate him in the usual manner. The commemoration service ordered in the time of Queen Elizabeth is still performed on the 1st of May, and the Latin hymn in honour of the Holy Trinity, which continues to be sung on the tower at sun-rising, has evidently reference to the original service. The produce of the two acres above mentioned used to be distributed on the same day between the President and Fellows; it has however for many years been given up to supply the choristers with a festal entertainment in the college-hall.
It was also the custom at Oxford a generation ago for little boys to blow horns about the streets early on May-day, which they did for the purpose of “calling up the old maids.” “I asked an aged inhabitant,” says a correspondent of N. & Q. (4th S. vol. vii. p. 430), “how long the horn-blowing had ceased, and he replied, ever since the Reform Bill came in; but that he remembered the time when the workhouse children were let out for May-day early in the morning with their horns and garlands, and a worthy alderman whom he named always kept open house on that day, and gave them a good dinner.” “Calling up the old maids” no doubt refers to the practice of calling up the maids, whether old or young, to go a-maying. Hearne, in his preface to Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, alluding to the custom (p. 18) says:—“’Tis no wonder, therefore, that upon the jollities on the first day of May formerly the custom of blowing with, and drinking in, horns so much prevailed, which, though it be now generally disused, yet the custom of blowing them prevails at this season, even to this day at Oxford, to remind people of the pleasantness of that part of the year, which ought to create mirth and gayety.”
Aubrey has this memorandum in his Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme (MS. Lansd. 266, p. 5):—At Oxford the boys do blow cows’ horns and hollow canes all night; and on May-day the young maids of every parish carry about garlands of flowers, which afterwards they hang up in their churches.
At Combe, in the same county, troops of little girls dressed up fantastically parade the village, carrying sticks, to the top of which are tied bunches of flowers, and singing the following song:—
“Gentlemen and ladies,
We wish you a happy May;
We’ve come to show our garlands,
Because it is May-day.”
The same verse, substantially, is the May-day song at Wootton, an adjoining parish. The last two of the four lines are sometimes as follow:—
“Come, kiss my face, and smell my mace,
And give the lord and lady something.”
N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. vii. p. 425.
At Headington, about two miles from Oxford, the children gather garlands from house to house. Each garland is formed of a hoop for a rim, with two half hoops attached to it and crossed above, much in the shape of a crown; each member is adorned with flowers, and the top surmounted by a crown imperial or other showy bunch of flowers. Each garland is attended by four children, two girls dressed in all their best, who carry the garland, supported betwixt them by a stick passed through it between the arches. These are followed by the “lord and lady,” a boy and girl, who go from house to house and sing the same song as is sung at Combe. In the village are upwards of a dozen of these garlands, with their “lords and ladies,” which give to the place the most gay and animated appearance.—Literary Gazette, May 1847.
At Islip the children, carrying May-garlands, go about in little groups, singing the following carol:—
“Good morning, mi-sus and master,
I wish you a happy day;
Please to smell my garland,
Because it is the first of May.”
Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 219.