Christmas Carols

The tradition of carolling and Christmas carols is believed to have originated in England when wandering musicians would go from town to town and visit castles and other homes of the rich to give impromptu performances. But there also is the belief that singing carols at Christmas likely came from the group of angels, shepherds and Wise Men who visited Jesus at his birth, because they worshiped the holy child, sang and proclaim praises unto Him. And after their visit, they continued their proclamations in the street.

The origin of the word carol however, is thought to come from the word 'caroller,' which is a French word that describes a circle dance with singers. And from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, the carol was highly popular as a dance song. The use of carols then evolved to festivals where they were sung as processional songs and others were used as part of religious mystery plays in Europe. Some traditional qualities of a carol were that the words expressed should celebrate a topic that was seasonal, have verses and a chorus arranged alternately and have music that was suitable for dancing.

Although many of the carols that are now popular at Christmas time are very old, there are others from earlier times that didn't survive. During the 17th century when the Protestants, led by Oliver Cromwell were in power in England, many Christmas carols were banned and consequently some were never heard again.The Christmas carols that survived the Protestant Reformation period didn't become very popular again until the mid-19th century to the start of the 20th century.

Many of the Christmas carols that were banned and early Christmas carols in general, had lyrics that expressed joyous and merry themes instead of the serious sombre words found in church hymns. During the time when carols were banned, some composers and musicians wrote non-religious songs that had highly varied choral music, which they called carols, for Christmas. After Christmas carols again became popular, many of those songs were re-arranged with new Christian lyrics and used by the church.