"No night is now with hymn or carol blest."[198:B]
Upon the first of these passages Mr. Steevens has observed that the "pious chansons were a kind of Christmas carols, containing some scriptural history thrown into loose rhymes, and sung about the streets by the common people;" and upon the second, that "hymns and carols, in the time of Shakspeare, during the season of Christmas, were sung every night about the streets, as a pretext for collecting money from house to house."
Carols of this kind, indeed, were, during the sixteenth century, sung at Christmas, through every town and village in the kingdom; and Tusser, in his Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, introduces one for this season, which he orders to be sung to the tune of King Salomon.[198:C]
The chief object of the common people in chaunting these nightly carols, from house to house, was to obtain money or Christmas-Boxes, a term derived from the usage of the Romish priests, who ordered masses at this time to be made to the Saints, in order to atone for the excesses of the people, during the festival of the Nativity, and as these masses were always purchased of the priest, the poor were allowed to gather money in this way with the view of liberating
themselves from the consequence of the debaucheries of which they were enabled to partake, through the hospitality of the rich.
The convivial or jolie carols were those which were sung either by the company, or by itinerant minstrels, during the revelry that daily took place, in the houses of the wealthy, from Christmas-Eve to Twelfth Day. They were also frequently called Wassel Songs, and may be traced back to the Anglo-Norman period. Mr. Douce, in his very interesting "Illustrations of Shakspeare and of Ancient Manners," has given us a Christmas-carol of the thirteenth or fourteenth century written in the Norman language, and which may be regarded, says he, "as the most ancient drinking song, composed in England, that is extant. This singular curiosity," he adds, "has been written on a spare leaf in the middle of a valuable miscellaneous manuscript of the fourteenth century, preserved in the British Museum, Bibl. Regal. 16, E. 8."[199:A] To the original he has annexed a translation, admirable for its fidelity and harmony, and we are tempted to insert three stanzas as illustrative of manners and diet which still continued fashionable in the days of Shakspeare. We shall prefix the first stanza of the original, as a specimen of the language, with the observation, that from the word Noel, which occurs in it, Blount has derived the term Ule or Yule; the French Nouël or Christmas, he observes, the Normans corrupted to Nuel, and from Nuel we had Nule, or Ule.[199:B]
"Seignors ore entendez a nus,
De loinz sumes renuz a wous,
Pur quere Noel;
Car lem nus dit que en cest hostel