(Musée Condé, Chantilly.)
The Reformation marks a change in the character of Christmas poetry in England and the larger part of Germany, and, instead of following its development under Protestantism, it will be well to break off and turn awhile to countries where Catholic tradition remained unbroken. We shall come back later to Post-Reformation England and Protestant Germany.
In French[{1}] there is little or no Christmas poetry, religious in character, before the fifteenth century; the earlier carols that have come down to us are songs rather of feasting and worldly rejoicing than of sacred things. The true Noël begins to appear in fifteenth-century manuscripts, but it was not till the following century that it attained its fullest vogue and was spread all over the country by the printing presses. Such Noëls seem to have been written by clerks or recognized poets, either for old airs or for specially composed music. “To a great extent,” says Mr. Gregory Smith, “they anticipate the spirit which stimulated the Reformers to turn the popular and often obscene songs into good and godly ballads.”[{2}]
Some of the early Noëls are not unlike the English carols of the period, and are often half in Latin, half in French. Here are a few such “macaronic” verses:—
“Célébrons la naissance
Nostri Salvatoris,[56]
Qui fait la complaisance
Dei sui Patris.
Cet enfant tout aimable,
In nocte mediâ,
Est né dans une étable,
De castâ Mariâ.
* * * * *
Mille esprits angéliques,
Juncti pastoribus,
Chantent dans leur musique,
Puer vobis natus,
Au Dieu par qui nous sommes,
Gloria in excelsis,
Et la paix soit aux hommes
Bonae voluntatis.
* * * * *
Qu'on ne soit insensible!
Adeamus omnes
A Dieu rendu passible,
Propter nos mortales,
Et tous, de compagnie,
Deprecemur eum
Qu’à la fin de la vie,
Det regnum beatum.”[{3}]
The sixteenth century is the most interesting Noël period; we find then a conflict of tendencies, a conflict between Gallic realism and broad humour and the love of refined language due to the study of the ancient classics. There are many anonymous pieces of this time, but three important Noëlistes stand out by name: Lucas le Moigne, Curé of Saint Georges, Puy-la-Garde, near Poitiers; Jean Daniel, called “Maître Mitou,” a priest-organist at Nantes; and Nicholas Denisot of Le Mans, whose Noëls appeared posthumously under the pseudonym of “Comte d'Alsinoys.”