earln7
Posted : 12/30/2010 7:31:19 AM
In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing and called them carols. Later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of John Audelay, a Shropshire 
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riest and poet, who lists twenty five "caroles of Cristemas", probably sung by groups of wassailers, who went from house to house.
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Earl