Why This Dark, Ancient Lullaby Still Belongs in Christmas: The Story of ‘The Coventry Carol’

During that time period, there were trade guilds, which resembled unions, and these had a close relationship with the Catholic Church. The Tailors and Shearmens Guild sponsored the play “that brought the song to life,” said Van Dorn.

The play shows Mary and Joseph escaping to Egypt. Then three women sing lullabies to their children to keep them quiet and protect them from Herod. Rev. Richard Cooke, an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Coventry, described to Van Dorn a reenactment of the play.

“And [in] this particular scene which includes ‘The Coventry Carol,’ a group of women came in, the mothers of Bethlehem holding bundles of rags that were like babies,” he said. “And then suddenly a group of soldiers appeared with swords, attacked them, the bundles were thrown to the ground, and actually what we saw looked like human flesh.”

“And you know the whole audience [was] utterly shocked,” said Cooke. “I remember somebody shouting out, ‘No!’ It was a visceral and gripping thing. Then we suddenly, just plaintively, began to hear these words [of the carol].”

The biblical text the carol is based on is Matthew 2:16-18, which says:

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” 

“It is such a chilling story,” observed Van Dorn. She and Cooke discussed Matthew’s purpose in including this story in his Gospel and the fact that some scholars believe the account isn’t historically accurate.

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One reason why scholars question the legitimacy of the account is because the Gospel of Matthew is the only Gospel that records the Massacre of the Innocents. Another reason is that Matthew is deliberately “patterning the story of Jesus on the pattern of Israel,” said Cooke.

“So the Massacre of the Innocents surrounding Jesus’ birth is meant to echo the story found in Exodus where Pharaoh massacres the Jewish children in Egypt,” said Van Dorn. Moses, however, survives and ends up leading his people to freedom from slavery to the Egyptians, a foreshadowing of how Jesus saves his followers from their slavery to sin. 

Cooke sees “indirect evidence” that the account is historically accurate. One reason is that the actions Herod takes are consistent with his character. He feared people claiming his throne. 

“Bethlehem at the time would have been a pretty small place. So if the deaths happened as Matthew describes, you’re probably not talking about more than 12 or 20 children,” Cooke said. “That would mean that in the scale of most of Herod’s kind of crimes, it was pretty minor. But of course, the people who would remember are the families who lost their children. And it’s that emotion that the carol picks up, really.”