Description

Click to View Coventry Carol Score

Listen (Computer Generated)

Coventry Carol is England’s oldest Christmas Carol.

It was first written down by Robert Croo in 1534 as part of a medieval mystery play, “The Pageant of the Shearmen and Taylors.”

1591 saw the addition of the melody by Thomas Mawdyke.

The carol was a song in the Nativity scene of the Coventry mystery plays. It portrays the Massacre of the innocents, when King Herod ordered the deaths of all male infants in Bethlehem.

The carol is sung by a mother soothing her children before they were taken for execution.

This arrangement preserves the melody in it’s original form.