A Carol for Christmas VII - The Innocents

More years ago than I care to remember I was part of a group performing the "Nativity" from the Coventry Mysteries at St Thomas Huron Street in Toronto.  In the spirit of the original we performed the pageants on stages set up around the church and the audience followed from stage to stage.  The plays had been freely adapted by our director Don Mcgill - whose voice was known to anyone who listened to CBC radio in the 1960-70s - but keeping a good deal of the language of the original at times it was almost like performing in a foreign tongue.  To this day I remember that "mickle" is Middle English for "great".  And I had a role in the pageants involving Mickle Herod - Herod the Great, his interview with the Magi and the Slaughter of the Innocents.

This Slaughter of the Innocents is one of the
Rotterdam Bible tiles adorning the walls of the
kitchen at Wachau Castle in Saxony.

My dear friend Jim was a big man - well over six feet five and stocky - and he got the "big" role of Herod and I - smaller and, in those days, slimer - was his snivelling, groveling clerk.  Herod was of course the "bad Jew" - and was always dressed in black and gold with flaming red hair, red side-locks, a large hook nose and a bombastic bellow meant to elicit laughter from the crowd.  In those first performances he would probably have been the butt of catcalls, heckling and perhaps even the odd piece of rotten fruit. That half-comic, half-villainous Herod of the Mysteries was to greatly influence the portrayal of Jews in both Marlowe and Shakespeare.  Until Edmund Kean's sympathetic Shylock in 1814, perhaps the most famous Jewish character in English literature had been played as a repulsive and evil clown.  It has been suggested that the famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech would have been greeted with great laughter in Shakespeare's time.

The face of Herod is created by the bodies of
 the innocents he is said to have slaughter in this
grotesque painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck

In our version Don had Jim ignore Hamlet's advise to the players that they must not "out-Herod Herod".  A great bellowing figure in black with a flame red beard and side-locks wielding a gigantic scimitar he chased me - cringing, whinging and dodging - around in a knockabout routine - sort of the Frick and Frack of Middle England. 

Being St Thomas music was very much a part of the performance as it would have been during the Middle Ages.  As I noted earlier many carols were meant to accompany these pageants and were sung - and perhaps even danced - as interludes as the wagons moved from place to place.  Though the Coventry Carol did not appear in written form until the early 1500s it is quite possible it was written earlier as musical accompaniment for the Slaughter of the Innocents in the Cycle of Mysteries that had been presented by the the Shearmen and Tailors' Guild at Coventry beginning in 1392.

There are many versions available but I find this one by the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers has a particularly lovely blending of voices.

Though there is a great deal of ambiguity in the lyrics - the only know copy of the original text was burned in 1875 and it has come down to us in two very bad transcription - it is both a lullaby and a lament.  A mother - perhaps the Virgin herself - rocks her child and sees in its future a sad ending.

Historically this is some doubt about the events as described in St Mathew's Gospel - there is no historical record of such a massacre.  It is recorded that Herod had his own young sons put to death to secure his throne.  Perhaps Mathew expanded on this event as a link to the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the coming of the Messiah: A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and greet mourning, Rachel weeping for her children.   And perhaps that is what we are really hearing in this simple but beautiful carol - Rachel weeping for her own and all children lost to violence.

28 dicembre/December - Strege degli Santi Innocenti

Memories of .... Another Time

The downsizing I am currently experiencing means going through 60 years of "things" - knick-knacks, paintings, posters, books, CDs, household items, clothing and photographs. A few things have been put into the boxes for St Vincent de Paul or the consignment house without thought to where they fit in my life but more often unpacking something and simply turn it over in my hand has brought back memories of the many remarkable experiences and people that have crowded my life in the past six decades.

None more so than the photos that are neatly filed in albums or randomly piled in boxes or between book pages.   Admittedly in a few cases I'm at a loss to identify one or two people, the occasion or even the location but as I look at most of them the memories, and I will admit the tears, have come flooding back.

This photo was taken during my time at St Thomas Anglican Church on Huron Street in my Toronto days.

It was a Sunday evening choral evensong in late May and Patrick Bergin was being welcomed into our parish family.   Father Bull was officiating, the choir and acolytes guild were in full force and the church was full of family and friends of the Bergins.  It was a joyous parish event but as I think of it, just one of many joyous celebrations that I recall from my days in a place that was for a time a source of comfort, friendship and love.

16 novembre/November - Santa Gertrude di Helfta detta La Grande

Where There Is Love and Charity

Tonight is Maundy Thursday the beginning of the Easter Triduum in many Christian churches. For me it was always the most emotional of the observances of those three days that formed the climax of Holy Week.

At my old parish church, St Thomas, Huron Street, in Toronto the evening brought the celebration of the Lord's Supper and after the homily the ancient custom of the Washing of the Feet would be enacted. While this ritual, which has its roots in the traditions of hospitality, was taking place the choir would sing one of the loveliest and most loving of ancient hymns - Ubi Caritas.

Where charity and love are, God is there.
Christ's love has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him.
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And may we love each other with a sincere heart.

Where charity and love are, God is there.
As we are gathered into one body,
Beware, lest we be divided in mind.
Let evil impulses stop, let controversy cease,
And may Christ our God be in our midst.

This setting by Maurice Duruflé - perhaps the most famous version - was one of his Four Motets Based on Gregorian themes.

This was the only picture I could find of the inside of St Thomas, Huron Street, my old parish church in Toronto.  As the observance of Maundy Thursday drew to a close the glorious Arts and Crafts interior became shrouded in black and darkness - the wonderful carvings, brass work and decorations cloaked until the first Gloria of Easter.

At the end of the Mass the Sacrament was processed out of the main body of the church to a temporary chapel in the crypt.  Then as the unaccompanied choir, the organ remained silent until Easter Eve, intoned a series of antiphons the sanctuary was stripped bare. Altar coverings were removed, the huge pavement candelabra were cloaked in black and the candles removed.   The beautiful carved reredos and gleaming brass candles of the retable were covered by a full length black drape. The sanctuary lamps were extinguished and it became a dark and empty place,  not to spring to life again until two days later with the jubilant Gloria of the first Mass of Easter. 


21 aprile - Giovedi Santo