Make We Merry Both More and Less

DESCRIPTION: "Make we mery bothe more and lasse, For now is the time of Christimas." All who come to the feast are enjoined to bring some entertainment: A song, a sport, etc. "If he say he can nought do... But to the stokkes then let him go."
AUTHOR: unknown (contemporary tune by Martin Shaw)
EARLIEST DATE: before 1537 (Richard Hill MS., Balliol Coll. Oxf. 354)
KEYWORDS: carol Christmas food party nonballad MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Dearmer/VaughnWilliams/Shaw-OxfordBookOfCarols 172, "Make We Merry" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sidgwick/Chambers-EarlyEnglishLyrics CXXXVI, p. 234, "(no title)" (1 text)
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #11, p. 9, "(Lett no man cum into this hall)" (1 text)
Hirsh-MedievalLyric-MiddleEnglishLyricsBalladsCarols #11, (Make we mery, bothe more and lasse)" (1 text)
Stevick-OneHundredMiddleEnglishLyrics 98, "(Make We Myrie Bothe More and Lasse)" (1 text)
Rickert-AncientEnglishChristmasCarols, pp. 220-221, "Make we merry, both more and less" (1 text)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #1866
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #3059
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), #27, p. 15, "(Make we mery, bothe more & lasse)" (1 text)
Richard Greene, editor, _A Selection of English Carols_, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1962, #5, pp. 58-59, "(Make we mery, bothe more and lasse)" (1 text)
Rossell Hope Robbins, _Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Century_, Oxford University Press, 1952, p. 3, "Invitation to Festivity, I" (1 text)
Karin Boklund-Lagopolou, _I have a yong suster: Popular song and Middle English lyric_, Four Courts Press, 2002, p. 208, "(Make we mery)" (1 text)
Thomas G. Duncan, editor, _Late Medieval English Lyrics and Carols 1400-1530_, Penguin Books, 2000, #126, p. 155, "Lett no man cum into this hall" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSRichardHill}, The Richard Hill Manuscript, Oxford, Balliol College MS. 354, folio 223
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Now let us sing, both more & lesse" (lyric on the nativity, from Richard Hill's manuscript; see Roman Dyboski, _Songs, Carols, and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol Ms. 354, Richard Hill's Commonplace Book_, #6, p. 3-4)
NOTES [244 words]: Very possibly not traditional, but widely quoted -- and many of the pieces in the Richard Hill manuscript (Oxford, Balliol College MS. 354) *are* traditional, so I included it.
According to the notes on p. 189 of Greene, "This carol is written as if to be led by a master of festivities or 'Lord of Misrule' who has the power to 'punish'."
The Hill version ends with a Latin tag, "In die dominica prima post festum sancti Michaelis archangeli anno regis henrici septimi post conquestum anglie sextodecimo illa res erat scripta primo." Henry VII invaded and conquered England in 1485, and reigned until 1509; his sixteenth year would presumably be 1501 or 1502.
A facsimile of the Hill manuscript is now available at the Balliol Library manuscripts resource at the Bodleian web site; go to http://image.ox.ac.uk/list?collection=balliol and scroll down to MS. 354.
The "more and less" phrase seems to have been common fifteenth/sixteenth century idiom; there is another piece in the Hill MS., "Beware of swerying by the Masse," which opens "Y concell yow, both more and lasse, Be ware of swerying by the masse" ("I council you, both more and less, Beware of swearing by the mass"). This occurs also in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. O.9.38; see A. G. Rigg, A Glastonbury Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century: A Descriptive Index of Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. O.9.38, Oxford University Press, 1968, p. 91. For the Hill MS. version, see Dyboski, pp. 42-43, - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: OBC172

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