My Lady Went to Canterbury

DESCRIPTION: "My heart of gold as true as steel." "My lady went to Canterbury, The saint to be her bothe." Nonsense verses, ending, "Terlery lorpyn, the laverock sant, So merrily pipes the sparrow. The cow broke lose, the rope ran home; Sir, God give you good morrow."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1609 (Ravenscroft, Pammellia); c. 1545 (Kele)
KEYWORDS: nonsense humorous travel bird animal clothes
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #473, p. 318, "(My lady went to Caunterbury)" (1 text)
Sidgwick/Chambers-EarlyEnglishLyrics CLI, pp. 254-255, "(no title)" (1 text)
Rickert-AncientEnglishChristmasCarols, pp. 143-144, "My Heart of Gold" (1 text)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #2250.8
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #3620
ADDITIONAL: (no author listed), _Selections from the Works of Thomas Ravenscroft; A Musical Composer of the Time of King James the First_, Roxburgh Club, 1822 (available on Google Books), No XIII/p. 7, "My Lady's Gone to Canterbury" (1 text, 1 tune)
Edward Bliss Reed, editor, _Christmas Carols Printed in the Sixteenth Century Including Kele's Christmas carolles newely Inprynted reproduced in facsimile from the copy in the Huntington Library_, Harvard University Press, 1932, pp. 38-40 [20-22], "(no title)" (1 text)
Douglas Gray, _The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose_, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 174-175, "A Nonsense Song" (1 text)
ST EPMLWtCa (Partial)
NOTES [212 words]: There are only two copies of this, both printed, neither from a particularly traditional source: There is a copy in Kele's book of Christmas Carols, c. 1550, with refrain "My harte of golde as true as stele, As I melened to a bough, In fayth but yf ye loue me well, Lorde, so Robyn lough." The first verse is "My lady went to Caunterbury, The Saynt to be her bothe [i.e. probably "boot," helper], She met with Cate of Malmesbery; Why wepyst thou in an apple rote [root]." It has eight verses plus the chorus.
Half a century later, Ravenscroft's Pammelia has a piece "My heart of gold as true as steele, As I me leant into the bowers, But if my Lady love me well, Lord so Robin lowres." A later verse runs, "My Lady's gone to Canterbury, St. Thomas to be her boote, She met wit Kate of Malmesbury, Why weep'st thou maple Root?" It has four verses (what was Kele's chorus becomes the first verse) and a round, "Ut re me fa sol la, la so fa me re ut, Hey downe down, hey down down a," as a chorus.
Throw in the significant difference in time between the two printings, the substantial differences in the text, and the fact that this is one of the earliest English nonsense songs, there seems a real possibility that this is a folk song, and I felt it deserved indexing. - RBW
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File: EPMLWtCa

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