Posted by Edward Mills
15 December 2023The Centre for Medieval Studies here at Exeter plays host to a number of reading groups. One of these, the Medieval French Reading Group, recently celebrated the end of term with a special session in which we explored a Christmas song from 13th-century England. The text itself (no. 148 in Ruth Dean and Maureen Boulton’s Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts) is recognisably Anglo-French, with numerous features that mark it out as different from the slowly-emerging continental standard, and in the spirit of the season, we’ve decided to share it with the readers of this blog.
One thing we can’t do, however, is provide a link back to the original manuscript containing the text, housed at the British Library: MS Royal 16 E VIII. This is due not to the recent cyberattack — in response to which we’d like to express our heartfelt thanks to our colleagues and collaborators at the BL as they work to restore services — but instead to the unusual provenance of that particular volume. Specifically, it has been unaccounted for since 7th June 1879, a loss which has been attributed variously to accident, personal greed, and philologically-inflected nationalism. For more on this intriguing history, see the recent publication by Carla Rossi.
Fortunately for our purposes, the manuscript had received its fair share of attention from scholars prior to this point, and several editions of our piece had already appeared by 1879. They were followed by more still in subsequent years, including that of Jeanroy and Långfors in 1921 from which our text is taken. Translations, by contrast, have been less frequent, and have tended towards the poetic, often to the detriment of anyone looking to understand the sometimes-challenging vocabulary of the original text. In putting together this tentative translation, we have necessarily found ourselves taking difficult decisions, and warmly welcome readers of the blog to add their own comments and suggestions.
If you’re based in or around Exeter and are interested in joining the Medieval French Reading Group from January, you’re warmly invited to contact the convenors (Tom Hinton and Edward Mills) via email. For more information, see the page linked above.
On behalf of the group, merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Translated by Lucy Berridge, Peter Cramer, Tom Hinton, Edward Mills, Philippa Johnson, and Susan Tranfield
Seignors, or entendez a nus :
De loing sumes venuz a vous
Quere Noël,
Car l’em nus dit que en cest hoste
Soleit tenir sa feste anvel
A hicest jur.
Deus doint a tuz cels joie d’amurs
Qui a danz Noël ferunt honors !
Seignors, je vus di ben por veir
Que danz Noël ne velt aveir
Si joie non,
E replenie sa maison
De pain, de char e de peison
Por faire henor.
Deu doint a tuz cés joie d’amurs
Qui a danz Noël ferunt honors !
Seignors, il est crié en l’ost
Que cil qui despent bien e tost
E largement
E fet les granz henors sovent,
Deu li duble quanque il despent,
Por faire henor.
Deu doint a tuz cels joie d’amurs
Qui a danz Noël ferunt honors !
Seignors, escriez le malveis,
Car vus nel troverez jameis
De bone part.
Botun, batun, ferun gruinard,
Car tot dis a le quer cuuard
Por feire henor.
Deu doint a tuz cels joie d’amurs
Qui a danz Noël ferunt honors !
Noël beit bien le vin engleis
E le gascoin e le franceys
E l’angevin ;
Noël fait beivere son veisin,
Si qu’il se dort le chief enclin
Sovent le jor.
Deu doint a tuz cels joie d’amurs
Qui a danz Noël ferunt honors !
Seignors, je vus di par Noël
E le sire de cest hostel :
Car bevez ben !
E jo primes beverai le men,
E pois après chescon le soen,
Par mon conseil :
Si je vus di a trestoz : Wesseil !
Dehaiz eit qui ne dira : Drincheyl!
Lords, hear us now:
We have come to you from afar
In search of Christmas;
For we have heard that in this household
Its yearly feast has typically been held
On this day.
May God give the joy of love
To all those who will honour Lord Christmas!
Lords, truly I say to you well
That Lord Christmas wants nothing
If not joy,
And he fills his house
With bread, meat and fish
To honour Lord Christmas.
May God give the joy of love
To all those who will honour Lord Christmas!
Lords, it is said among the people
That he who spends richly
And generously,
And who greatly and generously honours others,
Sees God double whatever he spends
To honour [Lord Christmas].
May God give the joy of love
To all those who will honour Lord Christmas!
Lords, denounce evil,
For you will never find it
In [these] good parts.
[With] branches, sticks, let us strike the grinch
Who always has too miserly a heart
To honour [Lord Christmas].
May God give the joy of love
To all those who will honour Lord Christmas!
At Christmas wine is drunk, whether English,
Gascon, French,
Or Angevin;
Christmas makes one’s neighbour drink
So that he skeeps, his head drooping
All through the day.
May God give the joy of love
To all those who will honour Lord Christmas!
Lords, I say to you in the name of Christmas
And the lord of this hosehold:
Drink up, drink well!
I first will drink my fill,
And then let everyone drink their fill,
As I say:
First, I will say to all, ‘Wassail!’,
And a pox on him who does not reply, ‘Drinkhail!’