Sung live by Quorum Chamber Choir, conducted by Adrian Goss, St George's Church, Weald, 3 December 2016.
Genre: Choral
Mood: Christmas
Forces: SATB
Length: 4 Minutes
A suitably jolly setting of the carol set down by James Ryman, a monk of Canterbury, in the 1500s, the text adapted by the composer. 2015.
For more information, see Dr Eleanor Parker’s wonderful blog; she says: “This tongue-in-cheek carol for the end of Advent was written at the end of the fifteenth century, when Advent was a season of fasting almost as strict as Lent”.
Souse, by the way, is a kind of pickled pork.
Fare Wele, Aduent: Cristemas Is Cum
(C15th from the carol collection of James Ryman, a Franciscan friar who lived in Canterbury)
Farewell, Advent: Cristemas is come.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
Farewell, Advent: Cristemas is come.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
With patience thou hast us fed
And made us go hungry to bed
For lack of meat we were nigh dead.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
While thou hast been in our house,
We ate no puddings nor no souse,
But stinking fish not worth a louse.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
Farewell, Advent: Cristemas is come etc
There was no fresh fish far or near,
And salt fish and salmon was too dear,
So we have had but little cheer.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
Bread was stale, and ale was thin;
What fruit we had was bitter as sin,
The whole fit only for the bin.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
Farewell, Advent: Cristemas is come etc
Above all thou art so mean
To make our fare so hard and lean:
I wish you were at Boughton Blean.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
Come you no more here in Kent;
Or you’ll receive rough punishment:
It’s enough to fast in Lent.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
Farewell, Advent: Cristemas is come etc
This time is Christ’s time above all
And we shall be merry, great and small,
Hunger shall go out of this hall.
Farewell from us, both all and some.
Advent is gone, Cristemas is come:
Be merry now both all and some.
He is not wise, that will be dumb
In ortu regis omnium.*
Farewell, Advent, Cristemas is come!
Farewell from us both all and some!
* In ortu regis omnium = at the birth of the King of all
Farewell Advent
The text
We tend to think of the secularisation of Christmas as a modern-day phenomenon. But Farewell Advent was written down (and perhaps written) by James Ryman who lived in Canterbury. It was written, we think, in 1492. It is, therefore, firmly out of copyright.
In Ryman’s period Advent was a time of fasting, similar to Lent, and the poem demonstrates a well-developed obsession with the gustatory side of Christmas. Part of the pleasure we take in this mild transgressiveness lies in the knowledge that the author was a Franciscan monk.
The original text, in C15th English, begins like this:
Fare wele, aduent: cristemas is cum.
Fare wele Iro vs both alle and sume.
With paciens thou hast vs fedde
And made vs go hungrie to bedde:
For lak of mete we were nyghe dedde.
Fare wele fro us both alle and sume.
It survives in a manuscript now in the Cambridge University Library (MS Ee 1.12); it was published in ‘Die Gedichte des Frauziskaners Jakob Ryman’ edited by by Stephan Waetzoldt and Julius Zupitza, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen. (Braunschweig: G. Westermann, 1892), pp. 167-338. An online version is here:
http://archive.org/stream/archivfrdasstu88brauuoft#page/166/mode/2up
It can also be be found in Archaeologia Cantiana Vol. 54 1941, here:
www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Pub/ArchCant/Vol.054%20-%201941/054-01.pdf
For those interested in such things, a visit to the blog of Dr Eleanor Parker is unmissable:
http://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-visit-to-greyfriars-canterbury-and.html
The composer has considerably abbreviated the original text, rendered it into Modern English, and altered it to his own liking.
First performance: Quorum Chamber Choir, conducted by Adrian Goss, St George's Church, Weald, 3 December 2016.