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HYMNS TO POPULAR TUNES, ETC. 765 |
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a-nd the language induces him to believe that the author flourished in England about' the time of King Stephen. The following four lines form part of the narrative of the death of Koland, and will serve as a specimen of the poem :—
" Co sent Rollans que s'espee li tolt, ' Men escientre ! tu n'ies mie des noz.'
Uverit les oilz, si li ad dit un mot: Tient l'olifan que unques perdre ne volt." . . .
Biog. Brit. Lit., ii. 122. Dr. Crotch may have obtained the tune from one of the musical manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, or from Douce, the antiquary, who was possessed of some of very early date. (I have only seen the musical manuscripts in the Music School at Oxford.) As Dr. Crotch says, "probably a French tune," I suppose he derived it from an English source.
p. 9. The Norman Conquest.—We may date the custom of singing hymns to secular tunes from this time, if, indeed, it may not be carried back to the time of St. Aldhelm. William of Malmsbury records of Thomas, Archbishop of York (created in 1070), that " whenever he heard any new secular song or ballad sung by the minstrels, he immediately composed sacred parodies on the words, to be sung to the same tune:
" Nee cantu nee voce minor, multa ecclesiastica composuit carmina: si quis in •uditu ejus arte joculatoria aliquid vocale sonaret, statini illud in divinis laudes effigiabat."
In a contribution to Notes and Queries (ii. 385), Mr. James Graves gives a curious list of eight songs similarly parodied, in The Red Booh of Ossory, a manuscript of the fourteenth century, which is preserved in the archives of that see. Six of the songs are English (there are two parodies upon one of them), and the remaining two are Anglo-Norman. The Latin hymns seem to have been written by Eichard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory from 1318 to 1360. The names of the six English songs are as follows, the spelling being here modified :—
1. Alas ! how should I syng, yloren is my playinge.
How should I with that olde man, l _ „ ,,
_ , , , , t Sweetest of all, singe.
To leven and let my leman. )
2. Have mercie on me, frere, barefoot that I go.
3. Do, do, nightingale, syng ful mery. Shall I never for thine love longer kary.
4. Have good day, my leman, &c.
5. Gaveth me no garland of greene,
But it ben of wythones [withies—wyllowes?] yrought.
6. Hey, how the chevaldoures woke all nyght.
p. 17,1. 2. Pope Vitalian sent singers into Kent.—This was to secure conformity with Rome in the performance of the ritual throughout the year, and was rendered necessary by the state of musical notation at the time. The points, accents, hooks, and up-and-down strokes written over the words (called neumce), being without lines or spaces, were a very uncertain guide for any to learn by, although they would serve to refresh the memory of those who had received oral instruction.
p. 18. Airs and graces of Church singers.—A still more curious description of Church singers at this period will be found in the note commencing at p. 404. This was written by Ethelred or Ailred about twenty years before the attack upon them by John of Salisbury, but I did not discover the passage in time for insertion in the order of chronology. |
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