The Origins of o come all Ye Faithful Christmas Hymn
O Come All Ye Faithful is a “standard” Christmas hymn that will probably be sung several times over the Christmas season in most Christian places of worship worldwide. The final verse, which begins “Yea, Lord, we greet thee, Born this happy morning”, is normally reserved for singing on Christmas Day alone, for obvious reasons.
But who wrote the words and tune of this hymn? Starting with the tune, credit is usually given toJohn Francis Wade(1711-86) who was a Catholic and a Jacobite who lived most of his life in France to escape religious persecution. There is no absolute proof that Wade was the composer, and other candidates have been proposed, including the 17th / 18th century father and son church musicians both named John Reading. However, the latter attribution may be due to a confusion over names (see below). It is, however, known that the tune was published in Wade’s “Cantus Diversi” of 1751, and the assumption has therefore been made that Wade was the composer. The evidence in favour of Wade is certainly considerably stronger than that for any other candidate.
The words that are usually sung today are a translation from Latin, the hymn originally starting “Adeste fideles, laeti trimphantes”. The first translation was by Frederick Oakeley (1802-80), although he only translated four of the seven verses. The other three were translated by William Thomas Brooke (1848-1917). However, the editors of various hymn books have played fast and loose with the translations, and their choice of verses. For example, the Methodist Hymn Book published in 1933 only printed the four “Oakeley” verses, and added extra words to the second verse to improve its scansion, although these changes are not common to other hymn books.
The knowledge that the words were originally in Latin might suggest that this is an ancient hymn with its roots possibly in the monastic tradition. All sorts of theories have been propounded, such that it was written by the 13th century Italian scholar St Bonaventura or the 14th century English monk John of Reading (hence the confusion over the music referred to above). There was a belief at one time that its origins were in Portugal, and it was known as “The Portuguese Hymn” for that reason, although this was based on an error by a late 18th century writer.
What looked to be an original manuscript of Adeste Fideles was discovered in 1946 and this was the subject of an extensive investigation by Dom John Stephan, resulting in a 32-page pamphlet entitledAdeste Fideles: A Study on its Origin and Development. In all, five manuscripts containing both the words and the music had been discovered, and Stephan’s study of all of these led him to the conclusion that John Francis Wade was responsible not only for the music but also for the words. The telling point for Stephan was that the Latin of the earliest manuscript was not perfect, which it would have been if a medieval monk had written it.
John Francis Wade was known to be a copyist of plainsong and liturgical texts, some of which were adorned with engravings of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. The manuscript discovered in 1946 became known as the “Jacobite manuscript” because, as well as Adeste Fideles, it contains a prayer for the safety of “King James” (Charles Edward’s farther, then living in exile in France). It has been suggested that the words of Adeste Fideles also contain hidden Jacobite references. This manuscript could date from as early as 1740.
The Wade manuscript only included the four verses that were later translated by Frederick Oakeley. The extra three verses (the ones translated by Brooke) were added later by someone else.
As Wade was a well-known copyist of ancient texts, could he have copied Adeste Fideles from an earlier source that is now lost? For the reason given above regarding the errors in Latin, a copying of the words seems unlikely, but might the tune be based on something much older? It is certainly in a plainsong style, and it is well known that Wade was an enthusiastic promoter of plainsong, which he hoped to revive as part of Catholic worship. It is clear that the tune was at least inspired by an old, monastic style, but the possibility must remain open that it is something more than that, and that Wade discovered a tune that he either copied or adapted to become what is now the basis (after subsequent arrangements) of one of the most familiar hymns sung throughout the world in the Christmas season.
