The History of Christmas Carols and Caroling

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Hello everyone, Winnie Griggs here. I’m really pleased to be kicking off our series of posts about Christmas Carols with some of the backstory behind caroling itself.

And what a backstory it is. The history of Christmas carols and caroling is as rich and diverse as the songs themselves. And whether you belt these out solo or when you’re with friends, learning where these songs and practices come from, and how they’ve survived and evolved over the centuries, can help you appreciate them even more.

First did you know the word carol means celebration? That means when we say Christmas carol we are actually saying Christmas celebration. And what better way to celebrate than to sing songs of adoration and hope.

Now for a quick overview of the history.

Although most people associate Christmas carols with the Christian faith, the act of caroling was originally a dance and the accompanying songs in a pagan celebration during the winter solstice.

Then, in the early days of England, the tradition of wassailing began. You may have heard the word wassail before but not known what it meant or thought it referred to a drink. The word wassail comes from the Old Norse words ves heill which translates to the phrase “be well and in good health”. At first wassailing was carried out by folks going house to house during the cold, dark winter months to deliver well wishes to the occupants totally apart from Christmas.

But in the late 13th century St. Francis of Assisi appropriated the practice for Christian purposes. He added carols to his nativity plays and Christmas mass, in fact he actively encouraged members of his church to embrace music as part of their worship and celebration not only in services but also in the home. And in doing so, he began to shift the focus to Christmas specific carols. However, the songs were passed down orally from person to person across generations for several hundred years until the late 16th century when some of them were finally collected and written down.

As time passed, composers produced more and more Christmas carols. Celebrating the Savior’s birth, these songs were reflections of the deep spiritual emotions around the Christ child and His mother Mary. These carols continued to grow in quantity and popularity until the 17th century when the Protestant Reformation swept over continental Europe. The reformation shifted worship practices towards a more austere focus and many of the carols were banned and lost to time.

Of course caroling did eventually make a return to favor and came back stronger than ever. While countries around the world have their own unique take on Christmas celebrations and traditions, today caroling is an almost universal part of the festivities.

There you have it – a quick overview of the history of carols and caroling. Over the next several days my Filly sisters will do a deeper dive into the stories behind some of our favorite individual carols. And I think some of the stories will surprise and touch you.

Wishing everyone a very joyous and blessed Christmas Day.

 

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Winnie Griggs is the author of Historical (and occasionally Contemporary) romances that focus on Small Towns, Big Hearts, Amazing Grace. She is also a list maker, a lover of dragonflies and holds an advanced degree in the art of procrastination.
Three of Winnie’s books have been nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, and one of those nominations resulted in a win.
Winnie loves to hear from readers. You can connect with her on facebook at www.facebook.com/WinnieGriggs.Author or email her at winnie@winniegriggs.com.

42 thoughts on “The History of Christmas Carols and Caroling”

  4. I enjoyed the history lesson. We use to go caroling in nursing homes when I was a child. My father was a minister. Our homeschooling group went caroling too.

  5. Welcome and thainks for this bit of history. Very interesting. Thanks so much for sharing. May you and yours have a fabulous and healthy Christmas with lots of love and laughter

  7. our kids used to go caroling to the elder neighbors houses to keep them company during Christmas break from school! Merry Christmas to all!

  8. Winnie, thank you so much for the beginning of Caroling is very important in our history. Too many people do not even have the desire to delve into what used to be because they just do not care about their past. Hence the destruction of historical figures. So thankful to have you ladies to help us all to unearth out past and the importance it has in our lives. Looking forward to history behind our hymns/carols.

  9. This was so interesting information about caroling. One of my fav memories of caroling was at grade school, when the week before Christmas, we would all gather in the hall way of the school and Miss Grant would play the piano and we would all sing.

  13. Growing up, our church youth group would go caroling at the homes of older church members and to a local nursing home. That is the only time I remember seeing my dad’s great-aunt. She was a resident at the nursing home and my mom would make sure my sisters and I talked to her separately from the other residents. The year our youngest daughter, she was 23, was in the hospital in Seattle we spent some time with our son-in-law’s sister in the Ballard district. There we walked around enjoying the light displays and other home decorations and listening to several different groups of carolers who were walking through the residential neighborhood. Some families even had popcorn and hot chocolate available for sightseers and carolers. It was a very uplifting experience at a rough time in our lives.

    Thank you for the history of carols. I had not known how far back it went.

  14. Hi Winnie, first of all I did not know what the word carol means, so thank you for that, I enjoyed reading your post. I have done some Christmas caroling and I really enjoyed it. Have a great day.

  20. Thank you for an interesting post. I didn’t realize it had pagan roots including dance. I did know about those celebrations but not their relationship to caroling. I associated wassailing with caroling but did assume a warm drink might be involved. Sort of a Christmas trick or drink (a Halloween thing when the dads at one of our AF bases took the kids trick or treating. It was a base neighborhood and we were all friends.). It is really too bad that people don’t go caroling as much as they used to.

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