Christmas Carols and Their Stories
Puzzle 01 · Carols of the Middle Ages · Page 13 in print
The Carol Dance
William Fitzstephen wrote that springtime dances like the carol could be seen in twelfth-century London. In time the dance and its song moved from the village green into the halls of the court.
Jump to a word
The words
Burden
The refrain the whole ring sang between the leader’s stanzas.
Greene, The Early English Carols (opens a new tab) · Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics (opens a new tab)
Carole
The medieval French ring dance with song from which the carol takes its name.
Chorus
The company of dancers who sang the burden.
Greene, The Early English Carols (opens a new tab) · Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics (opens a new tab)
Couplets
The paired lines the leader sang in a carole song.
Cursor Mundi
The poem of about 1300 where the English word carol first appears.
Dance Song
The sung music that carried a medieval ring dance.
Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics (opens a new tab)
Fitzstephen
William Fitzstephen, who saw ring dances in twelfth-century London.
Leader
The singer who led the carole and sang its stanzas.
Old French
The language that gave English the word carol.
Open Air
The outdoor setting of the carole dance.
Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics (opens a new tab)
Refrain
The repeated lines the dancers answered with.
Greene, The Early English Carols (opens a new tab) · Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (opens a new tab)
Ring
The circle in which carole dancers joined hands.
Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics (opens a new tab) · Greene, The Early English Carols (opens a new tab)
Rondeau
The later French verse form that grew from the carole’s dance-song.
Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics (opens a new tab)
Stanza
The verse the leader sang between burdens.
Greene, The Early English Carols (opens a new tab) · Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics (opens a new tab)
Village Green
The open ground where the ring dances began before reaching court halls.
Sources
- Richard Leighton Greene, ed., The Early English Carols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), Introduction; Digital Library of India scan on archive.org (in.ernet.dli.2015.185518)Internet Archive
- E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgwick, eds., Early English Lyrics: Amorous, Divine, Moral and Trivial (1907), incl. Chambers’s essay ‘Some Aspects of Mediaeval Lyric’ and ‘Sources of Texts’; archive.org scan early-english-lyricsInternet Archive
- E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903); archive.org scan mediaevalstagevo030649mbpInternet Archive