‘An Odour of Sanctity?’: The Late Medieval Carol in Dance and Devotion

Ideology, Society, and Medieval Religion Seminar Series 

In 1935, Richard Leighton Greene published Early English Carols, a collection of over four hundred lyrics on a wide range of subjects characterised by ‘uniform stanzas and a burden’. In his introduction, Greene explored the carol’s origins in dance song, its relationship to the French carole, and its development as an ‘English’ form. Greene also dismissed Rossell Hope Robbins and Margit Sahlin’s arguments that the carol evolved from a more sacred context, arguing that the carol has ‘no odour of sanctity’. In addition, he stated that Robbins’s claim that the Franciscan friar William Herebert played a key role in the carol’s development was ‘exaggerated.’ Robbins, in turn, criticised Greene’s suggestion that the carol stemmed from ‘nebulous Middle English dance songs.’ Twentieth-century scholars thus sought a clear linear developmental model for the carol.

This paper argues that such a categorised approach to the history of the medieval carol has constrained our understanding of the form and that the influences of mendicant orders and dance traditions are not mutually exclusive. In relation to the mendicant orders, I will also suggest that Franciscan friars experimented with the carol form as early as the fourteenth century, building on their experience of secular song as a vehicle for conveying Christian messages and presenting salvation history in an immediate and accessible way. As such, I will demonstrate the complexity of the carol’s history, illustrating that its development was shaped by multiple influences and remains far from fully understood.

This seminar will last approximately 90 minutes including a Q&A, and will begin at 18:00 GMT on Mon 12 May 2025. This is an online event which will be broadcast on Zoom; a link will be emailed to you upon registration via Ticketsource. Please check your spam/junk folder for this email if you cannot find it. This talk will not be recorded.

If you have any questions, please email the convenors Tess Wingard (wingardt@tcd.ie) or Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow (emmie.price-goodfellow@york.ac.uk). For more information on the ISMR series, please see our website.