THE MIDDLE ENGLISH RELIGIOUS LYRIC gt 
may, in fact, be due to the eternal ridiculing of old men with young wives 
in the semi-religious lyrics.” 
Middle English poetry contains an exceedingly rich body of Christmas 
songs.?. One might except to find that these had exerted a considerable 
influence upon the English Christmas plays. And there are, it is true, a 
few fragments of what may have once been Christmas lyrics.3 But if 
there were ever complete lyrics at the beginnings of the English shepherds 
plays, or at those points in the plays where the angels first address the 
shepherds—points at which we might expect to find them—they have been 
crowded out by material of another sort. In the Pageant of the Shear- 
men and Taylors, there are, of the three songs appended at the end, two, 
Nos. I and III, which bear unmistakable evidence of being Christmas 
lyrics. There is also another Christmas lyric which very evidently 
resembles those portions of the Christmas plays in which the shepherds 
make their offerings to Christ.5 In this case, however, it is the lyric 
which has been influenced by the miracle plays, rather than the reverse. 
Almost as widespread as the Christmas Carol, and far more uniform 
in its type, is the Testament of Christ, termed variously the Lament of 
the Redeemer, Christ’s Charter, and Christ’s Complaint.¢ Here again, as 
Christmas Carols (Percy Soc., Vol. IV), p. 52; Hone’s Ancient Mysteries, pp. 90 ff. See for the treat- 
ment of this theme in the fourth-century Greek homiletic writings, Cook, Journal of Germanic Philology, 
Vol. IV, pp. 421 ff. 
2 See Christmas Carols (Percy Soc., Vol. IV); Songs and Carols (Percy Soc., Vol. XXIII); Anglia, 
Vol. XXVI, pp. 180, 196, 231, 235, 253, 260, 265, 268, 271, 274, 279. A complete list of them would make 
a small-sized book of bibliography in itself. See also, for numerous Latin songs of much the same sort, Das 
deutsche Kirchenlied, Vol. 1, pp. 108 ff. 
3 Town., Shepherd’s Play, I, ll. 2095 ff.; II, ll. 638 ff.; The Adoration of the Shepherds, ll. 1-13. See 
also The Paco of the Shearmen and Taylors (Manly, Pre-S. Dr.), ll. 435 ff. 
4 Manty, Pre-S. Drama, Vol. I, pp. 151 ff.;ed. also by Craig, Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays (EETS), 
p. 32. Compare with No. 1, Rel. Ant., Vol. II, p. 76; for the same carol see also Songs and Carols (Percy 
Soc., Vol. XXIII), p. 12, and Anglia, Vol. XXVI, pp. 250 ff.; compare with No. III the lyric No. LXXIII 
of the Baliol MS, 354, Anglia, Vol. XXVI, pp. 237 ff. See Appendix, p. 23, for parallels. 
s Anglia, Vol. XXVI, pp. 243 ff., Poem No. LXXXII, stanzas 7, 8, 9. See Appendix, pp. 23 ff., for 
parallels. 
6 Cook, in The Christ of Cynewulf, pp. 208 ff., called attention to the frequent occurrence of this form 
in English and in other literatures, citing at the same time examples of its occurrence in the miracle-plays 
and inquiring into its origin. I add the following references: Chester, Vol. II, pp. 190 ff.; York, pp. 363, 
423, 450, 454; Town., pp. 265 ff., 341; Cov., pp. 207, 325, 320, 346; Minor Poems of V. MS, Vol. I, pp. 250, 
435; Vol. II, pp. 462, 625, 650; Pricke of Conscience, pp. 141, 145; An Old Eng. Misc. (EETS), pp. 81, 2313 
Herrigs Archiv, Vol. CVI, pp. 53, 62 (similar to version by Skelton, pp. 141 ff.), 69 ff.; Cursor Mundi, pp. 
1644 ff.; Polit., Relig. and Love Poems (re-ed. by Furnivall for EETS), pp. 141 ff., 182 ff., 100 ff., 254 if, 
262 ff., 276 ff.; Hymns to V. and C. (EETS), pp. 124 ff.; The Lamentation of Souls (ed. Lumby with Be 
Domes Daege), ll. 35 ff. (EETS); Twenty-six Polit. Poems (EETS), pp. 41 ff., 76 ff., 85 ff.; The M inor Poems 
