The ancestors of the bearers of the Southern tradition of folk-music
began in very ancient times the practice of singing religious songs to
folk-tunes. Nor must one think that this custom showed a lack of
respect for religion. On the contrary, it rather emphasized the
respect and love of the folk for their traditional music. As their
most loved and treasured possession, they brought this noble musical
heritage and laid it on the altar of their worship. There is a strong
probability that this practice has continued unbroken for at least
thirteen centuries. William of Malmsbury, writing in the twelfth
century, gives an anecdote of St. Aldhelm, the Anglo-Saxon abbot of
Malmsbury during the seventh century, which he took from the notebook
of King Alfred the Great, which was extant at that time. According to
this story, the Saint would station himself on a bridge in the guise
of a gleeman and would collect an audience by singing popular songs.
He would then gradually insert into his entertainment the words of the
holy scriptures and so lead his hearers to salvation. The chronicler
also states that one of the popular songs made by St. Aldhelm and
mentioned by King Alfred was still being sung by the folk at the time
of his writing, almost five hundred years later.
Chappell, in his _Popular Music of the Olden Time_, says: "We may date
the custom of singing hymns to secular tunes from this time [The
Norman Conquest] if, indeed, it may not be carried back to the time of
St. Aldhelm. William of Malmesbury records of Thomas, Archbishop of
York (created in 1070), that 'whenever he heard any new secular song
or ballad sung by the minstrels, he immediately composed parodies on
the words to be sung to the same tune.'
"In a contribution to _Notes and Queries_, Mr. James Graves gives a
curious list of eight songs similarly parodied in _The Red Book of
Ossory_, a manuscript of the fourteenth century, which is preserved in
the archives of that see. Six of the songs are English (there are two
parodies on one of them), and the remaining two are Anglo-Norman. The
Latin hymns seem to have been written by Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of
Ossory from 1318 to 1360. The names of the six English songs are as
follows:
1. Alas! how should I sing, yloren is my playinge.
How should I with that olde man,
Sweetest of all, singe,
Leven and let my leman.
Sweetest of all, singe.