CAROL- SONG OF PRAISE AND JOY
- Sep 13, 2016
- 2 min read
Whenever is Christmas is knocking round the corner, the first thought thought that brings about a sense of merriment are the soulful Christmas carols. Carols originated a long way back and over the years many changes took place and the carol custom we see today is the evolved form through the past decades.
Carols were first sung in Europe, but these were not Christmas carols. These were pagan songs sung during winter solstice celebrations where people used to dance round in circles to these songs. Though carols were written for all four seasons but only Christmas carols are still prevalent today. Early Christians took over the pagan songs and instead brought about Christian songs among the people. one or two of the hymms did get popular but these soon faded out as these songs were written in Latin mostly and the normal people could hardly understand them. As a result people lost interest and Christmas celebrations almost came to a halt at this time. This was changed by St. Francis of Assisi when, in 1223, he started his Nativity Plays in Italy. The people in the plays sang songs that described the stories of the plays. These were written in a language that most people could understand and hence gained a lot of popularity and Christmas was celebrated by the people again.
The earliest carol that was written was a long time ago and sadly only a small part still exists. These generally describe the Mary and Jesus meeting different people in Bethlehem. During this time most of the stories were untrue and were mainly a source of entertainment. These songs were generally sung in homes rather than churches.
In 1647, the celebration of Christmas and singing carols was stopped when Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came to power in England. However, these did not vanish completely as these were sung in secret by the people at their homes. These carols came back to the limelight when two men called William Sandys and Davis Gilbert collected lots of old Christmas music from villages in England.
Waits, official carol singers had the power of asking for money without being charged as beggars, before singing carols in public became common existed. They generally used to sing these during Christmas eve. Simultaneously in England, orchestras were set up so that carols became popular among the people once again.
New carol services were created which became very popular. Singing carols at night on the streets became a custom. The famous Carol Service, carols by Candlelight has gained a lot of popularity. The most famous type of Carol Service might be a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, where carols and Bible readings tell the Christmas Story.
Carols have the power of making people happy as it imparts a Christmassy feeling among the people and set them in a festive mood. Christmas carols are very popular even today and everyone has joined hand to keep this beautiful custom alight and pure always.
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