Note 762 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 7)

Thirteenth century. See Gaston Paris, "Romania," vol. xxi. p. 262. Songs of a much worse character were also sung at Christmas. To deter his readers from listening to any such Gascoigne writes (first half of the fifteenth century): "Cavete et fugite in hoc sacro festo viciosa et turpia, et præcipue cantus inhonestos et turpes qui libidinem excitant et provocant ... et ymagines imprimunt in mente quas expellere difficillimum est. Novi ego, scilicet Gascoigne, doctor sacræ paginæ qui hæc scripsi, unum magnum et notabilem virum talem cantum turpem in festo Natalis audivisse." He could never forget the shameful things he had heard, and fell on that account into melancholy, by which he was driven to death. "Loci e libro veritatum ... passages selected from Gascoigne's Theological Dictionary," ed. Thorold Rogers, Oxford, 1881, 4to. On the Christmas festivities at the University and on the "Rex Natalicius" (sixteenth century and before), see C. R. L. Fletcher, "Collectanea," Oxford, 1885, 8vo, p. 39.