One of the best known period carols really. I like it because it is dark and realistic. in period a lot of religious pieces focussed on the darker details of the bible. it’s written for the feast day of the innocents – the 28th of December.

Coventry Carol Sheet Music

MP3 Files:

Soprano

Alto

Tenor

Bass

All 3 parts together

Documentation:

William Studwell, The Christmas Carol Reader

The lyrics were written for the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors in Coventry. (The pageant was a medieval-style mystery play based on biblical stores. At least in the beginning, the pageant was connected with the two guilds.) The lilting melody, probably also composed for the same production, appears to be from the same period [e.g., the fifteenth century]. No person has been associated with the authorship of the lyrics except that the oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534. Likewise, there has been no personal attribution of the compelling melody, whose oldest known printing dates from 1591.

Robert Joseph, The Christmas Book:



This lullaby comes to us from the world of fifteenth century English theater. In those days, various guilds (comparable to today’s unions or workingman’s associations) would perform “mystery plays” that re-enacted Christmas scenes from the Bible. They were written in English, instead of Latin, and instead of being done in churches, were performed publicly on bi-leveled “Pageant Wagons.” The lower level served as a curtained dressing chamber. This was a sort of street theater in which the topic matter of the play (for example, the building of the ark) would relate to the particular guild that performed it (shipbuilders).

’The Coventry Carol’ was included in the “Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors.” Although the composer is unknown, the text was written in 1534 by Robert Croo. In the play itself, the women of Bethlehem sing this lullaby just before Herod’s soldiers come on-stage to slaughter their children.

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