“Ye” means ‘you’, but even when translated to “God rest you mighty gentlemen,” the song still makes very little sense. So when the English carolers of the Victorian era sang, “merry gentlemen,” they meant ‘great or mighty men’. In the Middle Ages, a strong army was a merry army, a great singer was a merry singer, and a mighty ruler was a merry ruler. Robin Hood’s “Merry Men” might have been happy, but the merry that described them meant ‘great’ and ‘mighty’. When “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” was written, merry had a very different meaning. When modern people say “Merry” Christmas, the word merry means ‘happy’. This is a result of the evolution of the English language. The only problem is that few of today’s singers fully understand the beginning of each of the carol’s many verses. Crossing the ocean to both Europe and America, the carol became a favorite throughout the Christian world and it is still sung in much the same way as it was 500 years ago. Soon, even the protestant English clergy of the Victorian era were enthusiastically teaching “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” to their parishioners. By that time-thanks in part to Queen Victoria’s love of carols-the song found favor in the Anglican Church. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was sung for hundreds of years before it was finally published in the nineteenth century. Though it might have been rejected by the church leaders, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” better presented the message of the first Christmas and the life of Jesus than did many of the songs used in formal worship of the day. The writer also fully understood the power of Christ and what His arrival meant to all who embraced it. He included the high points of the gospel throughout the carol’s verses. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’s” lyrics reveal that the song’s unknown writer knew the story of Jesus’ birth well. Not only did they sing to this carol, they danced to it. Written with an upbeat melody and speaking of the birth of Jesus in joyful terms, the song may have shocked early church leaders, but it charmed their flocks. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was the most famous and most loved of all the early carols. Their Christmas folk songs became the foundation of what are now knows as Christmas carols. In this way, the peasant class led a quiet rebellion against the tone of religious music by writing religious folks songs that were light, lively and penned in common language. So, while they continued to go to worship, they created their own church music outside the walls of the cathedrals and chapels. In fact, though few admitted it in public, most church members secretly disliked the accepted religious songs of the day. During this period, the songs of organized religion were usually written in Latin and their melodies were somber and dark, offering singers and listeners little inspiration or joy. Like so many early Christmas songs, this carol was written as a direct reaction to the music of the 15th Century Church. What Americans hear when they listen to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is not anything like what the English peasants meant when they first sang this song more than 500 years ago. It was first published in 1827, but even then it was introduced as “an ancient carol, sung in the streets of London.” In fact, old London had municipal watchmen who were licensed to perform certain tasks, including the singing of Christmas carols. The earliest known printed edition of the carol is in a broadsheet dated to c. This Christmas carol is one of the oldest extant carols, dated to the 16 th century or earlier.
On The First Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me.GOD REST YE MERRY GENTLEMEN written in 1760 Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm, All is Bright God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Let Nothing Ye Dismay (For example, OCAYF = O Come All Ye Faithful) Got the Christmas Spirit? Think you know a lot of Christmas songs? How many of the following songs can you identify by the initials of the first words of the first line of the song.
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