Adeste Fideles

511 Words2 Pages

Although it is one of the most popular Christmas hymns "O come all Ye Faithful" origi-nally known in Latin as "Adeste Fideles" has a few mysteries behind it. Currently the song is at-tributed to John Francis Wade, born in 1711 he was the son of a cloth merchant and fled reli-gious persecution. However this is disputed because of the religious background people thought it had to be older. The song was originally written in Latin, and only five of the original manu-scripts are known to exist all written as early as 1740. It is believed that the song was written to the song "Rage Inutile" from the play "Acajou". This hymn is sometimes called the Portugese hymn this is because when the singer Samuel Webbe performed the song to the Duke of Leeds in the chapel of the Portugese embassy in London.

There is little known about the biography of John Francis Wade . What's is known is that he was born in in 1711. His father was a cloth merchant. He was a Catholic layman who fled re-ligious persecution in England. Then in 1731 he attended Dominical college, in the end he settled in Douai, France home to a major catholic university. His job was copying and selling of chants and …show more content…

The song was produced by at least 1743 but could have been produced as early as 1740. There are five original existing manuscripts titled "Jacobite" the earliest copy known, "Cantus Diversi pro Dominicis et Festis." a hymn book where the song is called "In Nativitate Domini", the third is at the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester England, and the final two are in Ware England called "Gradule" and "Vesporal". There was a sixth copy which was considered the oldest copy before it was stolen in the 1940s. The "Jacobite" manuscript is a little different than the others it is written in 3/4 time rather than 4/4 time like the others and in the chorus "Ve-nite Adorade" is changed to "Vente

Open Document