A Cause for Caroling Episodes Available now
8. The Birth of Nine Lessons with Carols
Jeremy Summerly traces the familiar, traditional carol service back to Truro in 1918.
7. Folk Carol Survival and Revival
How the gallery tradition, squeezed out of 19th-century church worship, refused to die.
6. A Second Golden Age
By the mid-19th century, the singing of carols was once again hugely popular.
5. The Ghosts of the West Gallery
Jeremy Summerly visits Dorchester where Thomas Hardy captured the caroling tradition.
4. Carol Crisis? What Crisis?
Jeremy describes the impact of the Reformation and Puritan attitudes to music.
3. From Coventry to Agincourt
Jeremy Summerly uncovers a developing professionalism in carol singing and writing.
2. Spreading the Medieval Word Made Flesh
How the Franciscans used the carol to make the birth of Jesus a focus.
1. A Carol's a Carol, to Begin With
Jeremy Summerly discovers what he believes to be the first carol written in English.
