Talk:Corpus Christi Carol

1. A classic tune like this, written by Benjamin Britten, should not become too associated with Jeff Buckley, regardless his great interpretation. But he is neither the composer nor the only one to record the carol. There are numerous interpretations in the "classic" field. So I suggest to shorten the Buckley Reference and to leave out the Grace-Cover-pic. 2. To me it is not clear a) if there were earlier compositions than the one of Britten, b) there is a „rumour“ that the song is from the work „A boy is born“, but then again I could not find in in that work (only on choral compilations). Googeling didn’t bring answers for thousand pages refer to Buckley.

I understand your point completely. As the person that set up the infobox, I'll mke it clear that I was just trying to get an infobox for each of the songs, and I did actually think about the fact that Jeff was just one of many musicians who've covered this carol. After seeing the same thing with Hallelujah (song), which I undboutedly believe would've deserved a higher reference on its page for it's influence, more than this song-and yet it hasn't so much-I'll see what I can do to change it. I think the main reason I put Buckley as main was so that the track listing links would work smoother.G.AC 18:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

right now there are two versions of this page, this one, Corpus Christi Carol, and Corpus Christi Carol (Jeff Buckley). This needs to be consolidated. Possible options are: merge, or, use a disambiguation page and maintain two pages. Thoughts? Dissolve 07:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I have just given a reason for deleting the second one, which would not be appropriate unless there is specific evidence that this particular song is notable. the infobox on this one is in any case inappropriate, and I have just removed it. If the specific rendition is notable, and you have references to prove it, remove the excess duplicate material from the other article. DGG (talk) 01:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't believe it was a particularly notable version as Buckley rarely sang it outside of the album context, i'm aware of perhaps only three live versions as opposed to almost a hundred versions of each of the other songs on the album. I believe the page was created solely for the purpose of making navigation of the songs from the album page much easier, hence my reintroduction of the infobox in the "main" version. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 03:36, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

History of song: Clarify?
I believe the earliest source (Hill's 1504 book) preserves only the lyrics, not the tune. The more modern (post-Renaissance) versions have new tunes. Is Hill's book the only ca. 1500 source? Is this lyric recorded in later manuscripts in the 16th century? Do any of them include a tune? I'd love to know if anyone finds anything!

It's also not obvious to me when the title "Corpus Christi Carol" got attached to this lyric. Was that Britten's doing? Or is it a shorthand that scholars adopted at some point? I'm pretty sure the 1504 source doesn't include the title. I also doubt the label "carol." Back then, I think a carol was a song that had a circle dance that went with it. A more modern folksong that is descended from this piece is quite explicitly a Christmas carol (in the modern sense), so perhaps the "carol" label got attached to the older (non-christmasy, non-carolly) lyric retroactively.

I've sketched out an idea below. Because I'm brand-new to wikipedia and don't know the rules yet, I'm confining my suggestions to the talk page instead of editing the article. Anyone else is welcome to act on my idea-- or not.:-)

The Corpus Christi Carol is an anonymous lyric written in Middle or Early Modern English. The earliest surviving record of the piece, dating from 1504, preserves only the lyrics and is untitled. (Any additional information about other Renaissance sources and when/how the title got added goes here.) It has survived in altered form in the folk tradition as the Christmas carol Down In Yon Forest.

(Paragraph about theories of interpretation goes here.)

Several composers have set the lyrics of this carol. (Stuff about Warlock, Britten, Buckley, Gerrish, and The Choirboys goes here.)

Here are some other random things that might be useful:

Another recording of this piece is "The Hern" by John Fleagle, on his album "World's Bliss: Medieval English Songs of Love and Death." Fleagle's version sets the lyrics to a Breton tune. That could be added to the new compositions section.

Fleagle's liner notes (dated Sept. 1996), are my source about "Down in Yon Forest." He says the song "survives in its sung form as 'Down in yon forest.'" I haven't figure out how to do citations yet-- sorry! I'm also not sure liner notes count as a good source.

I question whether this article belongs in the "classical music" project. Britten's piece might count, and possibly some of the others (I'm don't know them so couldn't hazard a guess as to genre). But the lyric itself is just an anonymous lyric that predates classical music by a couple centuries.

If anyone is curious, the Oxford library has scanned Hill's book and made it available online (but note their copyright restrictions-- you can't just do anything with it!). I haven't been able to find which page has the "lulley, lully" lyric yet. Can anyone else find it? Any conclusions drawn from this would be original research, though.

Quillspoint (talk) 04:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I made a couple of small edits to the "In music" section but I noticed that as the article now reads, little or no distinction is made between original musical compositions (such as Warlock's, Britten's and Gerrish's) versus so-called "versions" of the piece that are just different performances of or re-arrangements of Britten's well known melody and/or setting. Perhaps somebody is knowledgable enough to go through the various "versions" cited and group them "under" the actually appropriate composer and separate out any versions that are actually different from Britten's. I did so for Gerrish, who composed his own "version", but I am not familiar with any of the other performances except Buckley's. David Couch (talk) 08:25, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Corpus Christi Carol
Richard Hill's manuscript was being compiled at least through 1535 (he has chronicle entries current through that date), which would make it possible that the CCC was a response to 1534's Act of Supremacy (by which Henry VIII broke off the C of E from the pope). There is no tune preserved in the manuscript. We have extant tunes from the nineteenth century forward. There is a version of the carol recorded in the North Carolina mountains by John Jacob Niles with a different tune, although research on Niles's field notebooks indicates that the tune may be a fake. See "The Corpus Christi Carol and the Act of Supremacy" in _English Language Notes_ by David Parker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.162.60.245 (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Archie Fisher
Scottish singer-songwriter Archie Fisher performs a version of this song, 'Looly, Looly', on his album 'Will Ye Gang, Love' (1994). Shouldn't it be ...(1976)? See Archie Fisher article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.15.222.79 (talk) 17:43, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Discrepancy?
The article starts by saying that the CCC is 'a Middle or Early Modern English hymn (or carol), first found by an apprentice grocer named Richard Hill in a manuscript written around 1504'. Its section on the meaning of the carol ends with 'One recent interpretation is that it was composed about the execution of Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII, whose badge was a falcon'. If it were found by Hill c.1504, it could not be about Anne Boleyn. It's an interesting hypothesis, but if it's only based on a rather spurious heraldic connexion, it's not one that should remain on this page unchallenged - and certainly it should not contradict the first sentence. The language is arguably more 15th than 16th century, and the subject matter has a very 14th/ 15th-century feel (although feel is, of course, a bit woolly for Wikipedia). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Katiehawks (talk • contribs) 13:35, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Richard Hill continued to add to his manuscript between about 1504 and 1536, so the date when he started writing it doesn't rule out the possibility that the falcon represents Anne Boleyn. The theory comes from Richard Greene's 1960 article The Meaning of the Corpus Christi Carol where his claim is not that the song was about Boleyn's execution, but rather than it was about her stealing the affections of the king ("bearing my mate away", from Catherine's point of view). Greene did recognize that the language seems older than the 16th-century, and suggested the possibility that the carol was "adapted from a song already current in oral tradition" to fit the events of the 1530s. I don't find Green's theory particularly compelling, but it is notable enough for a mention in the article, so I've updated the claim with a reference. Gdr 17:14, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Corpus Christi Carol. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060508002054/http://jeffbuckley.com/rfuller/buckley/faq/13grace.html to http://www.jeffbuckley.com/rfuller/buckley/faq/13grace.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 09:09, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Corpus Christi Carol. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070115050945/http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2087868.ece to http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2087868.ece

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:37, 16 January 2018 (UTC)