France: Honoring the donkey

From “Orientis Partibus” to “The Friendly Beasts,” Christmas songs with donkeys are part of a time-honored tradition.

By Fiona Potts

Introduction

Are you familiar with the Christmas song “Dominick the Donkey”? Recorded by Italian-American Lou Monte in 1960, it is a cult classic. The song tells the tale of Dominick, the Christmas donkey from the “hills of Italy,” who helps Santa deliver toys, complete with hee-haw refrains.

Despite the quirky nature of this ear-worm, it is part of a long-standing tradition of Christmas songs honoring the donkey, the humble beast of burden who not only bore Mary to Bethlehem, but also Jesus to Jerusalem.

A more well-known Christmas song featuring a donkey is “The Friendly Beasts,” first published in the 1920 Christmas play “The Coming of the Prince of Peace,” by William Sloane Coffin and Helen A. and Clarence Dickinson. The words are attributed to Robert Davis, while the tune is ascribed “XII Century, Arranged by Clarence Dickinson.”

The melody dates back to at least the 1100s. It is associated with a Latin chant known as “Orientis Partibus” or the “Prose de l’Ane” (“Prose of the Donkey”). It was part of what became known as the “Feast of Fools” or the “Feast of the Ass,” a phrase applied to a variety of Christmas season festivals in medieval France.

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Orientis Partibus: The Words

The Latin lyrics come from the Sens manuscript (details below). The English lyrics are adapted from “The Literary Panorama,” Volume 2, 1807, p. 586-587.

Note on Translation: Hez! Hay! Hay avant!

A persistent myth in the study of the “Feast of Fools” is that the services included priests braying like donkeys. The French onomatopoeia for donkeys is “hi han,” with a nasal “han,” but this phrase does not appear in any of the extant primary sources.

The myth may have originated in the misinterpretation of the refrain that does appear: variations of “hez sire asne,” and particularly the “hez va hez va hez va” in the Egerton/Beauvais manuscript.

In his 1905 article “Hez! Hay! Hay avant! And other old and middle French locutions used for driving beasts of burden,” Richard Holbrook makes the compelling argument that phrases like “hez” and “hez va,” were equivalent to our “giddy up!” or “go along!”.

In “The Literary Panorama,” “hez” was translated to “huzzah”; I use the more accurate “On!” Feel free to stick with the French “hez,” pronounced “hey”.

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In his 2011 book “Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools,” Max Harris details both the history and pseudo-history surrounding the festivities and explains how 18th and 19th century historians distorted the facts. He concludes that the practices were “sanctified rather than sacrilegious.” 

Earlier researchers, like Felix Clement in his 1856 article “Liturgical Drama: The Donkey in the Middle Ages,” had raised objections as well, but it seems the story of drunken priests braying like donkeys at mass was too good to let go, and the myths persisted. As the early manuscripts show, however, the songs and practices were no more sacrilegious than modern Christmas pageants.

Earliest Record

The earliest known record of the song “Orientis Partibus” is MSS 289 “Troparium,” circa 1100-1199, held by the National Library of Spain in Madrid. (See featured image above.) This manuscript uses an early system of musical notation using marks called neumes. There is no staff, but the varying heights of the neumes show the relative pitches and melodic contour. See the unmetered transcription below. For the sake of easy comparison I have transcribed it into the key of G. 

More Early Sources

Other manuscript sources of “Orientis Partibus” include:

1. Sens 046 – (Municipal Library of Sens)

This complete liturgical office for the “Feast of Fools” is attributed to Pierre Corbeil, archbishop of Sens who died in 1222. This notation uses four red lines and a moveable C clef. This version is in the hypomixolydian mode – “mixolydian” because it starts on the fourth note below do, and “hypo” because it features notes below the starting and final note.

2. Egerton 2615 – (British Museum)

Another complete office, circa 1230, originally from Beauvais, also using 4 line notation with a moveable C clef. It features two versions of “Orientis Partibus” (the second one in three part harmony), both also in the hypomixolydian mode.

3. Bourges manuscript

The original has been lost, possibly destroyed, but two transcriptions were published:

a) Antoine d’Artigny, “Nouveax Memoires d’Histoire, de Critique et de Litterature” (1756) – 4 line staff with neumes, key of F; and,
b) Aubin Millin, “Monumens antiques, inédits ou nouvellement expliqués” (1806) – in 6/8 time and the key of G on the modern staff and seems to be a misinterpretation of d’Artigny’s notation.

An earlier example of an arrangement in 6/8 time on the modern staff appears in 1780. In an essay on ancient music, Jean Benjamin de la Borde published his arrangement, transcribed from a copy of the Sens manuscript. He claims that the meter was the “ordinary measure” of French Proses. Like Millin, he also transposed the melody into G major to make it “more accessible” to most readers. The result might appeal to modern ears but is not an accurate depiction of how it was originally sung.

Modern Arrangements

The “Orientis Partibus” arrangement most widely used in hymnals is Redhead No. 45, named because it was the 45th hymn in Richard Redhead’s 1856 book “Church Hymn Tunes Ancient and Modern.” This version is in G major and is in cut time.

Now we’ve come full circle – while both Redhead No. 45 and “The Friendly Beasts” (melody below) most closely resemble the Sens melody, they are in the Ionian mode, like the original Madrid manuscript.

This issue’s fully chorded arrangement of “The Friendly Beasts” by Erin Mae (print edition only) is in the key of D major, with DAD tab for the mountain dulcimer.

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The Friendly Beasts: The Words

1. Jesus our brother, strong and good,
Was humbly born in a stable rude,
And the friendly beasts around Him stood,
Jesus our brother, strong and good.

2. I, said the donkey shaggy and brown,
I carried His mother up hill and down
I carried her safely to Bethlehem town;
I, said the donkey shaggy and brown.

3. I, said the cow all white and red,
I gave Him my manger for His bed,
I gave Him my hay to pillow His head;
I, said the cow all white and red.

4. I, said the sheep with curly horn,
I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm,
He wore my coat on Christmas morn;
I said the sheep with curly horn.

5. I, said the dove, from the rafters high,
Cooed Him to sleep that He should not cry,
We cooed Him to sleep, my mate and I;
I, said the dove, from the rafters high.

6. And every beast, by some good spell,
In the stable dark was glad to tell
Of the gift he gave Immanuel;
The gift he gave Immanuel.