Child is Born Among Men, A (Honnd by Honnd)

DESCRIPTION: "Honnd by honnd we schulle ous take, And joy and blisse schulle we make....." "A child is boren amoges man, And in that child was no wam [blemish], That child ys God, that child is man...." "Com to Crist, thy peys ys told."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: Not later than the fifteenth century (Bodleian MS. Bodley 26, folio 202 verso)
KEYWORDS: religious Jesus nonballad MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #12, pp. 9-10, "(A child is boren amo[n]ges man)" (1 text with variants)
Hirsh-MedievalLyric-MiddleEnglishLyricsBalladsCarols #25, "(Honnd by hnnd we schule ous take)" (1 text)
Stevick-OneHundredMiddleEnglishLyrics 41, "(Hond by Hond we shullen us take)" (1 text)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #29
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #20
ADDITIONAL: E. K. Chambers, _English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages_, Oxford, 1945, 1947, pp. 80-81 (no title)
Richard Greene, editor, _A Selection of English Carols_, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1962, #6, p. 59, "(Honnd by honnd we schulle ous take)" (1 text)
Carleton Brown, editor, _English Lyrics of the XIVth Century_, Oxford University Press, 1924, #88, pp. 110-111, Hand by Hand We Shall Us Take" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: Oxford, Bodley MS. 26 (Bodleian 1871), folio 202
MANUSCRIPT: London, University of London MS. 657 (formerly Helmington Hall LJ.1.7), folio 140 (1 verse only)
NOTES [794 words]: This item has never been collected in oral tradition, and perhaps should not be included in the Index. But Davies, p. 148, cites it as one of the earliest carols: "The opening words of one of the earliest surviving burdens (c. 1350) describe the singers joining hands in a ring-dance, 'Honnd by honnd we schulle us take....'"
Similarly Greene, p. 189, who calls it "the earliest Nativity carol yet discovered." Because of irregularities in the form, Greene suspects it is composite.
Reed, pp. xix-xx, explicitly declares it "The earliest English Christmas carol." Certainly the line about going "honnde by honnde" indicates a carol; the earliest carols seem to have been the musical accompaniment to ring dances where all held hands.
The only complete copy is found as part of a sermon. This is the version found on folio 202v of Bodleian MS Bodley 26. The date is slightly uncertain. Chambers includes it in his chapter "Fifteenth-Century Lyric" but dates the poem itself c. 1350. This is also the date given by Stevick and by Greene. Brown dates the hand "hardly later than 1350" and believes the writer a Franciscan. The notes that accompany the piece in the manuscript are in Latin.
Brown on p. 272 explains the context: "The homily in which these verses occur begins on fol[io] 201b with an exposition of the four locks by which the heart of the sinner is closed, of the several keys which will open these locks, and then of the banquet which Christ offers to those who will open the door to him." A section of the Latin follows, which quotes Rev. 19:9 ("Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb")
Fowler, p. 60: "The burden contains some interesting clues. From it we learn that the song was intended to accompany a dance in celebration of the Nativity, which is here viewed in light of its theological implications (the salvation of man). The fourth line may seem strange in its insistence that God's Son is made our 'mate,' but the meaning of this is clarified when we take note of the context for the song in the manuscript. The notes immediately preceding the Christmas carol as as follows (folio 201b): 'This is that mean spoken on in Apocalypse 19:9 of the blessed who are invited to the feast of the Lamb.' The biblical passage referred to contains a proclamation of the marriage of Christ and the Church (the Saints), ending with this exclamation: 'Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb' (Rev. 19.9). This messianic feast in heaven is of course far removed in time from the Nativity, but if we remember the dual emphasis of the liturgy of Advent on the first and second comings of Christ, an allusion to his return at the end of the world in a Nativity song should not be surprising. When the Child is born, can the marriage supper of the Lamb be far behind?"
In assessing the sermon it is important to look at the accompanying Latin text. The usual Greek and Latin versions of the verse are quite parallel; both would translate as
And [he/she/the angel] said to me, Write [this], blessed [are] th(ose) to the the feast the marriage [i.e. the marriage feast] of the Lamb called. And [he/she/the angel] said to me, These the words true [i.e. the true words] of God are.
(The Greek and Latin have different ways of saying "called," but this is trivial. They also differ in the word order of "These are the true words of God," and both Greek and Latin have differences in order of this phrase, but these make no difference in English. Some manuscripts also omit the second instance of "And [the angel] said to me," but this too is minor.)
The Latin text in Brown omits the word "marriage," which is a fairly significant distortion of the sense. Interestingly, however, the oldest Greek manuscript of the Apocalypse (ℵ*), and the fourth- or fifth-oldest (P), plus the many manuscripts of Andreas's Commentary on the Apocalypse, also omit the word. So do two early Latin witnesses, gig t. But the word is in every major manuscript of the Latin Vulgate, which would have been the text used by the writer of the sermon. It's hard to imagine the sermon author having use of a Greek manuscript, but maybe he had a Latin translation of Andreas's commentary. I don't know. It's a curiosity.
In addition to the full text of the carol in the Bodleian sermon, there is a copy of the third verse of the Bodleian text in University of London MS. 657 (Helmington Hall LJ.1.7). Neither manuscript contains very much poetry, and little of what they do have shows much evidence of being traditional.
Digging around trying to find a facsimile of the text, to try to see the handwriting, I didn't find the manuscript, but I found several "Communitarian" web sites which cited it. Whatever that tells you. - RBW
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