'The' Christmas Hymn?

"... 'I am a labourer, and reside at Stillingfleet; I am one of the singers at the parish church, and went along with the deceased persons whose bodies are found, and George Eccles, Richard Toes, Sarah Spencer, and Sarah Eccles, to sign the Christmas hymn ...'"

[John Fisher, speaking at the Inquest, Saturday 28th December, 1833].

But precisely what was 'the Christmas Hymn'? To find out, we turned to Tony Singleton of the WGMA.

"...The "Christmas Hymn" would be difficult to identify at the date of your
story.  Earlier, it was quite likely to have been "While Shepherds Watched"
which was printed at the back of the Anglican prayer book as "The Song of
the Angels at the nativity of our Blessed Saviour" and until about 1820
canon law prevented the use of any other carol or Christmas hymn in a
service, although how closely this was followed is open to question.
Perhaps as Stillingfleet was quite close to York, they would have stuck to
the rules!  By 1820, many Christmas Hymns had been written, although these
were sung either in the chapels or by carollers outside the church.  It
seems unlikely that your singers would have only sung one Christmas Hymn but
if they did, WSW would be the most likely candidate, but each parish had its
own preferred tune! "

Tony Singleton, West Gallery Music Association

We also asked the opinion of Professor Nicholas Temperley, author of 'The Music of the English Parish Church', Vols 1 and 2:

"...There were many pieces called "Christmas Hymn" that were current in
1833, but I'm inclined to agree with the WGMA that "THE Christmas
Hymn"  was most likely to have been "While shepherds watched".  It
was included in most editions of Tate & Brady's New Version of psalms
which was the most popular Anglican book at that time.  If you can
find any evidence that the Stillingfleet singers used the New
Version, I think that would strengthen the probability that "While
shepherds watched" was their Christmas hymn.

The next question is what tune they would have used!  There are
several possibilities (see the New Oxford Book of Carols, pp. 143-5).
It certainly wouldn't have been WINCHESTER, the usual modern tune,
which was only linked to "While shepherds watched" in  Hymns Ancient
and Modern (1861).  There was no one tune that was universally sung
at that time, as you can find out by doing a text search in the
online Hymn Tune Index.  In Yorkshire I think the tune known as 'Old
Foster' is the best bet (Tune VII, p. 141, in the NOBC)."

Professor Nicholas Temperley (By email)

We intend to continue searching for any evidence of the music used in Stillingfleet church, and will post it on this site, if it surfaces. Currently, there are no clues in the parish chest, or archives, but we will continue to search! One piece of information this does give us, is that - certainly in Yorkshire - it seems that the phrase 'the Christmas Hymn', in 1833, was a commonplace term and it still referred to a very specific hymn, even if the music varied from parish to parish.