The bailey beareth the bell away

[wolfinthewood]

This rather beautiful medieval fragment has intrigued and puzzled me for many years. The refrain suggests that it's a carole, a song for dancing to. It has some of the qualities of a dramatic monologue; at any rate, it evokes a voice, a situation and the rudiments of a story. It could be the start of a ballad narrative, I suppose, though it proceeds more indirectly and allusively than most ballads.

This would seem to be the story that it tells, or adumbrates. The girl is from a noble family. She has led a sheltered life in the care of her mother and she has been perfectly happy like this. She is dreamily aware of the 'bailey', the bailiff or estate steward, whose status is undoubtedly much lower than hers, though he is almost certainly a gentleman: probably one with no inheritance, or only a very modest one.

'To bear the bell away' meant to be the winner; the expression was proverbial. It derives from the fact that bells of gold or silver were sometimes given as prizes in races and other sorts of competition. Perhaps there was a real contest which the bailey won; or perhaps the bell is purely figurative.

The maidens came to her mother's bower – why? To make her ready for her wedding would be my guess. And definitely not with the winning bailey, but with some wealthy, well-born man of her parents' choosing. The poem evokes her sense of helplessness in the way that it delicately suggests her dissociation from what is happening, as her thoughts focus on apparently random (but telling) sensual details: the gold and silver (jewellery? wedding presents? vessels at a feast?), the folded robes (that have been lying in a chest waiting for her wedding day?), the sun shining through the glass window.

What is going to happen next?


The maidens came
When I was in my mother's bower;
I had all that I would.
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.
The silver is white, red is the gold;
The robes they lay in fold.
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.
And through the glass window shines the sun.
How should I love, and I so young?
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.

Anonymous (fifteenth century)


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Comments

The bailey beareth the bell away

[(Anonymous)]

A small point about this song, which intrigues me too.
'Through the glass window shines the sun,
How should I love and I so young?'

The image of sunshine through glass is used in C14/15 poems about the Virgin Mary. 'As the sonne shone though glas,
So Jesu in her body was.'
Sunlight passes through the glass without altering it in any way, hence its use as an image for Mary's sinless conception of Jesus. Sunlight through a glass window appears in many paintings of the Annunciation.

I have no idea whether this is connected to the song, which I heard sung last night for the first time last night as part of a Christmas Eve concert.
I had no idea that the tune was so strange - doubtless mediaeval.

Anthea Fleming
Melbourne

Re: The bailey beareth the bell away

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. I don't know whether there is a link here to the poems about the Virgin Mary, but it is certainly an interesting angle to think about.

I don't know of a medieval tune to this lyric, and suspect that what you heard may have been a modern setting.

Re: The bailey beareth the bell away

[(Anonymous)]

There is a modern setting by Bob Chilcott.

By the way, the lily is a symbol of purity.

Re: The bailey beareth the bell away

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

Bob Chilcott's note on his version reads thusly (I found this thread looking for web commentary on the meaning of the poem; how nice I found it in home-town LJ.) (I was about to post, I don't know much about medieval poetry but this seems a bit of a stretch, given the first lines; but commenters here have already said similar things.)

The meaning of this enchanting medieval poem remains elusive. The oldest known source is a sixteenth-century British Library manuscript (Harley 7578), and the text was first printed in a modern edition in 1907. It also appears in The New Oxford Book of English Verse, edited by Helen Gardner, with the title ‘The Bridal Morn’.

‘The Lily and the Rose’ can be read as a symbol of the Virgin Mary, and perhaps the most convincing interpretation of the poem is that of Mary mourning the death of her son. References to ‘bearing the bell away’ and to the ‘bailey’ could be seen to support this: in the Middle Ages, bells were rung over a body to confirm death, and the bailey is a synonym for ‘keep’, the place where a body might be buried. The bell can also mean the ‘beautiful one’, who is taken away by the bailiff—in other words, God. ‘The silver is white, red is the gold’ could be interpreted as the purity of the Virgin Mary being inferior to the red of the blood that was shed by her dying son.

Another modern interpretation is that the text is concerned with the fear and excitement of a young girl on her wedding day, hence the title in The New Oxford Book of English Verse. Certainly, references to mother, windows, and sunshine can be read as images of protection and freedom.

Re: The bailey beareth the bell away

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Hullo, fellow Robert Graves lover! I like your journal title.

Thanks for this. I remain dubious about the allegorical interpretations that relate it to the Virgin Mary, but it is interesting to read different people's ideas about this piece.

Re: The bailey beareth the bell away

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

I'm dubious too. Happy to have found your wonderings on't.

>The bailey beareth the bell away

It's a great riff, isn't it.

Re: The bailey beareth the bell away

[(Anonymous)]

We are singing a song with this poem as lyrics, and i found them quite interesting. Since this poem has also been published under the name of "the bridal morning", I think it should be interpreted from that view.

The poem starts with
The maidens came when I was in my mothers bower
I think the maidens are here either her servants that prepare her for her wedding, or her bridesmaids. "When I was in my mother bower" means, I think, that she was still very young and under protection of her mother.
I had all that I would
Apparently, she was very rich. That is something that doesn't surprise me in combination with the last said. Rich daughters were often raised very secluded and protected from the world.
Than comes the chorus of the song:
The bailey beareth the bell away, the lily, the rose, the rose I lay
This part was the hardest part for me. "To bear the bell away" is to win the prize, in this case the love of the girl.
My singing teacher told me something about a bailey being a "love nest" or a place to beloved could come together and later, where one lover would come to lay flowers when the other was gone. I have read in several interpretations of the poem, that a bailey is a low-ranked farmer, or officer. I favor the last one.
As (should be) commonly known, the lily is symbol for purity and virginity and the rose for love and passion. If the bailey is indeed a place where she lays flowers, I think "the rose I lay" means she'd rather have marriage for love than a proper marriage and she shows that to her lover.
Sadly, because of her social status, her marriage will not have been with her beloved bailey, but with someone suitable for her, someone symbolised by the lily.
So in short, I think she regrets her marriage with "the lily"
the silver is white, red is the gold
Well, this connects with what I said before. White, the lily, is silver, but the red rose is gold. The rose is better than the lily; love is better than purity.
the robes they lay in fold
"robes" is a symbolised word for bed sheets. So apparently, the bed has not been slept on, after her marriage. Strange, to my thinking, but quite fitting the "pure virgin" theme.
and through the glass windows shines the sun
Glass windows were very special and only for the very rich, she still has glass windows, indicating she still is rich, and has not married the poor farmer. The glass windows separate her from the world, but she is able to see it all. I think this symbolises the noble life very nicely. Now for the deeper part, she sees the sun through the windows, but she cannot walk in it, she cannot go outside, as I think anyone would want.
She sees her mistake but now isn't able to go back.
how should I love and I so young?
How can she ever love this man; she is already in love with her bailey. As I said in the beginning, she apparently is still very young. This fits the situation, since girls tended to marry very young and to much older men in that time.

This is how I think the poem could be interpreted. It seems like a quite logical story to me, but I would love to know what others think about the poem and my interpretation.

The Bailey Beareth the Bell Away

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks so much for posting this poem and discussing its possible meanings. I don't know if there was ever a medieval tune for the words, but the English composer Peter Warlock composed a beautiful setting in the 1920s.

I'd agree with Anonymous who says there might be a connection with the Virgin Mary because Warlock also set a number of Christmas poems by Bruce Blunt (Bethlehem Down and The Frostbound Wood) that focus on Mary. The song under the title "The Bayley Berith the Bell Away" can be found on this Decca CD:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Warlock-Orchestral-Works-Peter/dp/B00005QDYO

A song

[(Anonymous)]

Here's the original poem being sung by Mediaeval Babes. The piece is titled:
Glass Window.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtL9IZ-Bvgw

[chiara-piano17.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm an italian student.
I study singing in the choir of my music school. My theacher gives me the score of "The Lily and the Rose" written by Bob Chilcott ( here you find the link if you want to listen it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZpcdCRX0TQ )
I think this song is beautiful and I really like it, so I started searching for some informations about it. I tryed to translate it but I found it realy difficult because in my vocabulary there aren't some words (like "beareth") and I can't understand some typical proverbial phrases. After I found your article which is really interesting but I can't understand some things you said, because my English isn't really good...
For example, the poem talk about ancient costumes, right? But I didn't understand if the location is England or not... and the poet was british?
After that, what means exactly "bower"?
And what represent the lily and the rose? Have they a particular meaning?

I will so happy if you answer my questions. :)
I'm sorry if I disturb you... but I'm really curious!

Thank you to read my comment.
See you!


P.s. sorry for my bad english!