My Heart Is Woe (When That My Sweet Son Was Thirty Winter Old)

DESCRIPTION: "When that my sweet son was thirty winter old, Then the traitor Judas waxed very bold." He betrays Jesus on Maundy Thursday with a kiss. The Jews demand crucifixion. Longeus spears his body
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1537 (Richard Hill MS., Balliol Coll. Oxf. 354)
KEYWORDS: Jesus betrayal money mother MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #163, pp. 122-123, "(Whan that my swete Son was thirti wynter old)" (1 text with variants)
Sidgwick/Chambers-EarlyEnglishLyrics LXXVIII, pp. 142-143, "(no title)" (1 text)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #4023
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #6423
ADDITIONAL: Roman Dyboski, _Songs, Carols, and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol Ms. 354, Richard Hill's Commonplace Book_, Kegan Paul, 1907 (there are now multiple print-on-demand reprints), #50, pp. 40-41, "(O my harte is wo! Mary, she sayd so)" (1 text)
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. 32-34 [14-16], "(no title)" (1 text)
Celia and Kenneth Sisam, _The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse_, Oxford University Press, 1970; corrected edition 1973, #255, p. 533, "Winterfall" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSRichardHill}, The Richard Hill Manuscript, Oxford, Balliol College MS. 354, page 481
ST MSOMHIWo (Partial)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Judas" [Child 23] (themes)
NOTES [1279 words]: As is usual with Middle English carols, there is no evidence that this is traditional -- although one of the two surviving sources is the Richard Hill manuscript, which contains substantial folk material. The other source is the first substantial surviving book of Christmas Carols, the Kele collection of c. 1545. Based on the date, it does not appear Hill could have gotten the text from Kele, and Kele could not have gotten it from Hill. On the other hand, there is good reason to think Kele took texts from an earlier carol book by Wynkyn de Worde, and Hill might have gotten his text from de Worde; it's just that the de Worde book is almost entirely lost and we don't know what it contained. So we might have two sources -- but we might not. The differences between the two texts, while not trivial, are not so substantial as to preclude a common source -- especially since many of the differences are short omissions in the Hill manuscript which could well be immediate copying errors.
So why do I include the song in the Index? Not because I'm particularly convinced that it's traditional. Instead, I'm indexing it because there are a number of references which are reminiscent of "Judas" [Child 23]. Could it be that that song survived long enough to influence this one? I'm not convinced, but I'm putting this piece in the Index to give you the chance to decide for yourself.
Notes on the song itself:
Chorus: The claim that Mary had no other sons is widespread in folklore, which claimed she was a perpetual virgin, but Mark 3:31 and parallels explicitly state that Jesus's mother and brothers visited him, and Mark 6:30 lists his brothers as James and Joses and Judas and Simon. Nothing is known of the latter three, but Jesus's brother James is well-attested -- e.g. Paul calls him "James the Lord's brother" in Galatians 1:19, and he is even mentioned in Josephus as Jesus's brother! ("Ananus... brought before [the Sanhedrin] a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ" -- Josephus, Antiquities XX.200=XX.ix.1; Josephus/Feldman, pp. 106-109.) The notion that Mary was a perpetual virgin was probably originated by heretics who condemned carnality, which somehow was accepted by Catholics; the official line became that James et al were children of Joseph by a previous marriage. The only evidence for this is folklore; see the discussion under "The Cherry-Tree Carol" [Child 54]. It is very unlikely, but the belief in Mary's ongoing virginity was accepted by Catholics.
Stanza 1, line 1: Jesus is said to be "thirty winter old." Luke 3:23 says that Jesus was ABOUT (Greek ωσει, hosei, "as") 30 years old at the time he began his ministry. If he were exactly 30 years old at the time the ministry started and we accept the synoptic gospels' view that his ministry lasted only one year, then he would likely have been 31 at the time of the crucifixion. (John's chronology requires a ministry of three or more years.) However, Luke 3:1 says the ministry started in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, which is 29 C.E., so the crucifixion would have been in 30 C.E. But Luke 1:5 says that Herod the Great was king when Jesus was born (and Matthew also says Herod was king), and Herod died in 4 B.C.E. Thus Jesus must have been at least 34 at the time of the crucifixion, and since he was likely born at least two years before Herod's death, an age of 36 or 37 is much more likely -- and if John's chronology was right, an age of about 40 would be reasonable. This is, flatly, a case of taking Luke 3:23 much too literally.
But it is interesting to note, in light of the reading that it was "Longeus" and not "Longinus" who speared Jesus (a reading that agrees with Piers Plowman; see below) that Piers Plowman also says that Jesus was thirty winters old when he died: "Sith this barn was ybore ben thritti wynter passed," i.e. "since this bairn [child] was born been thirty winter(s) passed," B text, Passus XVIII, line 133, Langland/Schmidt, p. 312; Langland/Pearsall, p. 325, gives Passus XX, line 137 of the C text as "Sethe this barn was ybore brrn thritty wynter ypassed."
Stanza 1, line 3: Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 "plates" of money. Matthew 26:15 (only) says that the authorities promised Judas 30 pieces of silver (the vast majority of Greek manuscripts, plus the Latin which the English church of the period used, say only "30 of silver"; a few manuscripts -- D 1 1582* a b h q -- say "30 staters" or "30 staters of silver." The usual silver coin in the gospels was the denarius; the stater is mentioned elsewhere only in Matthew 17:27. The whole verse is a strange adaption by Matthew of Zech. 11:12, which also says "thirty of silver." For more on this, see the notes to "Thirty Pieces of Silver")
Stanza 2, line 1: "Shere Thursday" is the day we usually call Maundy Thursday," but note that "Shere Thursday" is the term used in "Judas."
Stanza 2, line 4: Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss in Matthew 26:48-49 and parallels
Stanza 3, line 1: The gospels agree that Jesus had a sort of preliminary hearing before the High Priest before being brought before Pilate, but they also agree that he ended up being tried by Pilate; Matthew 27:2 and parallels
Stanza 3, line 2: Peter's denial is also in all the Gospels, e.g. Matthew 26:69fff.
Stanza 3, line 4: The call to crucify Jesus is in all the gospels, e.g. Matthew 27:22-23
Stanza 4, line 1: The name "Calvary" is from Luke 23:33, which says that Jesus was crucified at the "place of the skull" (κρανιον, kranion); this was translated into the Latin Vulgate of 23:33 as "Calvariae," but the name is not properly Biblical (though someone living in the Middle English period, which knew only the Vulgate, likely would not know this).
Stanza 4, lines 3-4: We have (contradictory) lists of the women who were at the foot of the cross, but no men are named. John 19:26-27 however says that the "disciple that Jesus loved" was there with Mary, mother of Jesus. We do not know who the Beloved Disciple was, but it is cogently argued that it was John son of Zebedee. And the Beloved Disciple is credited as the source of the Fourth Gospel. Hence, John the Evangelist is credited in the song with being by the cross. The Bible nowhere says so explicitly, but it is not a ridiculous assumption.
Stanza 5, line 2: The earthquake when Jesus died is mentioned only in Matthew 27:51, which otherwise follows Mark 15 almost verbatim in this section.
Stanza 5, line 4: John 19:34 says that Jesus's side was pierced by a spear. This is not even hinted at in the other Gospels. There is no Biblical warrant for calling the soldier with the spear "Longus" or "Longeus" or "Longinus"; that's from folklore. (According to Jeffrey, p. 461, "The name of the soldier... arises only in the late sixth century (ca. 586) when it appears in a miniature or illumination in a Syriac manuscript." He was said in the "Gospel of Nicodemus" to be blind, and the blood of Christ cured his blindness, a story which also occurs in several mystery plays; the lance itself came to be part of the grail legend.) The fact that the name is spelled "Longeus" rather than "Longinus" is interesting, because "Longinus" is the form in the Gospel of Nicodemus, but the name is given as "Longeus" or "Longius" in Piers Plowman (in the B text, it's Passus XVIII, line 79, and it has been suggested as an emendation in line 82; Langland/Schmidt, pp. 309-310; in the C text, Passus XX, lines 82, 85; Langland/Pearsall, p. 323). Piers Plowman was very well-known in the Middle Ages; I wonder if it didn't influence this text. Especially given the fact that both inaccurately describe Jesus as being thirty winters old. - RBW
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