In the Vale of Abraham

DESCRIPTION: "In the vale of Abraham, Christ himself he made Adam." Adam is shown "the bliss of paradise" and the Tree of Knowledge. The fiend lures him to eat. He sees that he is naked, and is driven into the desert
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1430 (British Museum -- Sloane MS. 2593)
KEYWORDS: religious MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #336, p. 230, "In the Vale of Abraham" (1 text)
Stevick-OneHundredMiddleEnglishLyrics 55, "(Now bethenk thee, gentilman)" (1 text)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #1568
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #2630
ADDITIONAL: Celia and Kenneth Sisam, _The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse_, Oxford University Press, 1970; corrected edition 1973, #183, pp. 426-427, "Adam Driven from Eden" (1 text)
Thomas G. Duncan, editor, _Late Medieval English Lyrics and Carols 1400-1530_, Penguin Books, 2000, #83, p. 103, "In the Vale of Abraham" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSSloane2593}, London, British Library, MS. Sloane 2593, folio 2
NOTES [372 words]: This piece occurs in only one manuscript, although the manuscript is a very important one (Sloane 2593, the "Sloane Lyrics"). Ordinarily that would not be enough reason to include the piece in the Index; there is no direct evidence that it is traditional.
There are some interesting indications, though, that -- although clearly a religious piece, and probably a carol -- it was not produced by the church.
For starters, it is set in "the vale of Abraham." If there is such a place in any Bible translation, I've never heard of it.
Second, it says that Christ -- not God, Christ -- created Adam. This may sound trivial, since orthodox doctrine says that God is three-in-one, but it has a strong whiff of several heresies about it.
Next, it says that the forbidden fruit was an apple. This is a widespread belief, but it is definitely not Biblical. There is a Hebrew word that is often rendered "apple" (although it's thought it might be an apricot or quince), but the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge *is not called by that term*; it's just a fruit, as anyone who reads Genesis will be able to tell (in the Vulgate text used in medieval England, the word is "fructus" -- e.g. Genesis 3:2).
The song says that "the fiend," not "the serpent," tempted Adam. Genesis says that it was the serpent, and only later was the serpent equated with the Devil. This equation would be accepted by the Church, but it doesn't come from Genesis, hinting that the song was written without reference to a Bible manuscript.
In the seventh stanza, Adam is mentioned as naked only *after* he eats the fruit. Greene suggests that this means that eating caused him to become naked. I don't think this necessarily so, but it's an interesting point.
But the key point is this: *Eve does not tempt Adam.* The fiend talks to Adam directly, and Adam, not Eve, eats the fruit. Eve is mentioned only obliquely, in verse 1; she has no part in the Fall. The medieval church was utterly misogynist; under no circumstances would they shift the blame from Eve to Adam. This is not a writing of the church, and would not have been accepted by the church. So I suspect it is "folk."
For more on manuscript Sloane 2593, see the notes to "Robyn and Gandeleyn" [Child 115]. - RBW
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