The First Martyrs for Christ: The Holy Innocents

"The Coventry Carol" was part of a 16th century mystery play, "The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors", according to a 1534 prompt book by one Robert Croo, which enacted the events of Jesus's nativity story in St. Matthew's Gospel, depicting the slaughter of the young boys in Bethlehem as described in St. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 2, verses 16-18:

Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. (Douai-Rheims translation).

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,

By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,

For to preserve this day

This poor Youngling for

Whom we sing

By, by, lully, lullay?

Herod the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever morn and day

For Thy parting neither say nor sing,

By, by, lully, lullay.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,

By, by, lully, lullay.

Here is a performance from Westminster Cathedral.

Because Henry VIII proscribed these mystery plays, and the last authentic manuscript was burned in the 19th century, the words we have now are based on a transcription. There were two other carols in this play but we have only fragments of their texts. 

Who knows what other treasures the world has lost because of that era of plunder and destruction? 

There is another famous hymn for this Feast, very ancient, by Prudentius, Salvete flores Martyrum. The Catholic convert and Oratorian priest, Reverend Edward Caswall, translated the Latin thus:

Flowers of martyrdom, all hail! 

Smitten by the tyrant foe 

 On life’s threshold – as the gale 

 Strews the roses ere they blow.

First to bleed for Christ, sweet lambs! 

What a simple death ye died! 

Sporting with your wreath and palms 

At the very altar-side!

Honor, glory, virtue, merit, 

Be to Thee, O Virgin’s Son, 

With the Father, and the Spirit 

While eternal ages run. – Amen.

Feast of the Holy Innocents and the Coventry Carol

The Coventry Carol was part of a 16th century mystery play depicting the slaughter of the young boys in Bethlehem as described in St. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 2, verses 16-18:

Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. (Douai-Rheims translation).

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,

By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,

For to preserve this day

This poor Youngling for

Whom we sing

By, by, lully, lullay?

Herod the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever morn and day

For Thy parting neither say nor sing,

By, by, lully, lullay.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,

By, by, lully, lullay.

Because Henry VIII proscribed these mystery plays, and the last authentic manuscript was burned in the 19th century, the words we have now are based on transcriptions. Here is a performance from Westminster Cathedral.

There is another famous hymn for this Feast, very ancient, by Prudentius, Salvete flores Martyrum.
John Mason Neale collaborated on a translation:

1. All hail! ye infant Martyr-flowers,
Cut off in life’s first dawning hours:
As rosebuds, snapt in tempest strife,
When Herod sought your Saviour’s life.

2. You, tender flock of lambs, we sing,
First victims slain for Christ your King:
Beneath the Altar’s heav’nly ray
With Martyr-palms and crowns ye play.

3. For their redemption glory be,
O Jesu, Virgin-born, to thee,
With Father, and with Holy Ghost,
For ever from the Martyr-host. Amen.

Corpus Christi: Processions and Plays

The Feast of Corpus Christi which used to be celebrated the Thursday after Trinity Sunday but has been moved to Sunday, is the feast of the Eucharistic Body of Christ. This is the source and summit, the center of our Sacramental life.

Before the Reformation in England, it was a day of great ritual, with processions comparable to Holy Thursday and the performance of the Mystery Plays, which enacted salvation history from Creation to the Second Coming. This Feast was introduced in England during the early 14th century (1318) with the Office by St. Thomas Aquinas, but it gained almost immediate popularity among the English, according to Eamon Duffy and Miri Rubin. The English expressed their devotion to the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist with the formation of Corpus Christi Guilds to prepare for the annual celebrations. The cycle of Mystery plays also required months of preparation and fundraising for the decorations, so in York and other cities, the Catholic community worked together. Anthony Esolen interprets the Wakefield cycle of plays here.

Adoration and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was essential to pre-Reformation Catholic spirituality in England. The Corpus Christi was the center of the entire Paschal Mystery of Incarnation, Redemption and Resurrection. For the individual Christian, Christ's Real Presence in Mass and in adoration outside of Mass, symbolized their participation in that Mystery--even though they in the normal course of the liturgical year received Holy Communion rarely.

That devotion is also expressed in the allegorical Corpus Christi Carol:

Lulley, lully, lulley, lully,
The faucon hath born my mak away.
He bare hym up, he bare hym down,
He bare hym into an orchard brown.
In that orchard ther was an hall,
That was hanged with purpill and pall.
And in that hall ther was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.
And yn that bede ther lythe a knyght,
His wowndes bledyng day and nyght.
By that bedes side ther kneleth a may,
And she wepeth both nyght and day.
And by that bedes side ther stondith a ston,
"Corpus Christi" wretyn theron.

The Feast and the festivities associated with it were suppressed, of course, by order of the government, although revived briefly during Mary I's reign. Celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi was forbidden early in the reign of Edward VI in 1548. The last record of any performance of the plays dates to 1575 in Chester, and the mayor was called to London and the Star Chamber for questioning. He was released and returned to Chester, playless until 1951, when the cycle was revived.

Blessed Dominic Barberi led the first post-Reformation Corpus Christi procession on June 10, 1844 at Aston in Staffordshire, where he had established the Passionist Order. Corpus Christi processions after Mass have also been revived in the Catholic Church in the USA. For a period after the Second Vatican Council, devotions to the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass were suppressed in a misinterpretation of the "spirit of Vatican II". (But that's a subject better suited to other blogs.) Nonetheless, the public display of our belief in and devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is definitely an unusual sign today. When the English processed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was in the midst of a community of belief. Although the 39 Articles of the Church of England deny any sacramental reality of the real presence in holy communion, the Feast of Corpus Christi is on the Kalendar--on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday!

Corpus Christi in Pre-Reformation England

The Feast of Corpus Christi which used to be celebrated the Thursday after Trinity Sunday but has been moved to Sunday, is the feast of the Eucharistic Body of Christ. This is the source and summit, the center of our Sacramental life.

Before the Reformation in England, it was a day of great ritual, with processions comparable to Holy Thursday and the performance of the Mystery Plays, which enacted salvation history from Creation to the Second Coming. This Feast was introduced in England during the early 14th century (1318) with the Office by St. Thomas Aquinas, but it gained almost immediate popularity among the English, according to Eamon Duffy and Miri Rubin. The English expressed their devotion to the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist with the formation of Corpus Christi Guilds to prepare for the annual celebrations. The cycle of Mystery plays also required months of preparation and fundraising for the decorations, so in York and other cities, the Catholic community worked together. Anthony Esolen interprets the Wakefield cycle of plays here.

Adoration and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was essential to pre-Reformation Catholic spirituality in England. The Corpus Christi was the center of the entire Paschal Mystery of Incarnation, Redemption and Resurrection. For the individual Christian, Christ's Real Presence in Mass and in adoration outside of Mass, symbolized their participation in that Mystery--even though they in the normal course of the liturgical year received Holy Communion rarely.

That devotion is also expressed in the allegorical Corpus Christi Carol:

Lulley, lully, lulley, lully,
The faucon hath born my mak away.
He bare hym up, he bare hym down,
He bare hym into an orchard brown.
In that orchard ther was an hall,
That was hanged with purpill and pall.
And in that hall ther was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.
And yn that bede ther lythe a knyght,
His wowndes bledyng day and nyght.
By that bedes side ther kneleth a may,
And she wepeth both nyght and day.
And by that bedes side ther stondith a ston,
"Corpus Christi" wretyn theron.

The Feast and the festivities associated with it were suppressed, of course, by order of the government, although revived briefly during Mary I's reign. Celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi was forbidden early in the reign of Edward VI in 1548. The last record of any performance of the plays dates to 1569, although they had been adapted to suit the new religious order.

Corpus Christi processions after Mass have been revived in the Catholic Church in the USA. For a period after the Second Vatican Council, devotions to the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass were suppressed in a misinterpretation of the "spirit of Vatican II". (But that's a subject better suited to other blogs.) Nonetheless, the public display of our belief in and devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is definitely an unusual sign today. When the English processed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was in the midst of a community of belief. Although the 39 Articles of the Church of England deny any sacramental reality of the real presence in holy communion, the Feast of Corpus Christi is on the Kalendar--on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday!