4-o8 



POPULAR SONGS. 



most fruitful in ingenuous works which bear the impress of the faith and piety 

 of our forefathers, for in France the people have always been sincerely 

 attached to religion. It is true that popular religious songs were sometimes 

 of a slightly facetious and bantering tone, but this was merely a natural 

 emanation of the Gallic character and temperament. The Church very 

 properly opposed the introduction of profane songs into the sanctuary, 

 though, as we saw in the chapter on Popular Beliefs, the " Prose of the Ass " 

 long held its own against the condemnations of councils and synods. We 

 may believe, therefore, that in many dioceses during the Middle Ages the 

 religious songs in the vulgar tongue, known under the generic title of Noels 



Allegretto. 



tr. 



Ai lai Na-li - vi - tai Chanton. je vo i 



lai Na-li - vi - tai Clianton, je 

 tr. 



Levarbeam- 





mail-ld-taiJeusqueai nos'hu mi - li 

 Ir. 



e, Po no dechar-bd - tai Duco-dou 



qui no li - <,. 



Fig. 323. A Carol in Burgundy Patois, with the Music annotated. After the " Noel Borguignon 

 de Gui Barozai," published by Bernard de La Monnoye. 



(Christmas Carols), were sometimes mixed up with the sacred hymns which 

 celebrated the birth of Jesus in the stall at Bethlehem. These songs in the 

 vulgar tongue were simg during the solemn procession which was formed 

 during the night of Christmas, to the sound of instruments, and in the dress 

 of shepherds, around the crib of the infant Jesus (Fig. 323). The persons 

 who represented the shepherds are said to have sung, as early as the 

 thirteenth century, a carol which began 



" Seignors, or entendez a nous. 



De loin sommes venus a rous 



Pour querre Noel." 



Another carol of the same period, which was entirely rewritten in the 



