Christmas Stories To Be Shared By The Fire: What Child Is This? by William Chatterton Dix

“What Child Is This?” is a traditional Christmas carol that was written by a man named William Chatterton Dix in 1865. It describes, from the point of view of the shepherds, the scene in the stable in Bethlehem after the Baby Jesus had been born. In 1871, it was paired with the musical score for the folk song known as “Greensleeves”, giving us the full carol that we have come to know called “What Child Is This?”

I could stop there and leave you with those basic facts and the world would continue to spin and the sun would continue to shine. But, in good conscience, I cannot leave the story of “What Child Is This?” with those few scant facts when, in fact, the story behind this carol is so much more. The true story behind how this carol came to be contains snippets from some of the major events in modern history, including one of the world’s greatest inventions, along with madness, sheep, minstrels, children with special needs, nudity and on and on it goes. The scope of this story is vast and its sweep is grand! In order to do the story of this carol justice, we must travel back to 1440 to Germany and meet a goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg who changed the world forever with his invention. 

Our story begins with a brief look at the history of the printed word, for it is this very history from which the genesis of the carol “What Child Is This?” came to be. For almost as long as humans have existed on this planet, they have sought ways to record their history, offer instructive lessons and to inspire each other with songs, poems and stories. The forms that these records have taken are varied and have included everything from cave paintings, carved stone tablets and colourful hieroglyphics. Eventually, paper became to medium upon which words were recorded. Between 300AD and 1400AD, the world was introduced to the idea of collating pages of writing onto scrolls and later, into bound volumes that became known as books. Initially, books were created by hand in monasteries. Their subject matter revolved around religious texts. In time, scholarly books began to appear in universities throughout Europe but, even then, these books were created one at a time or in very small numbers by teams of scribes dedicated to their precise creation or recreation. In general, access to books containing art or history or religious guidance were limited to those in the Church or in aristocratic circles or to scholars in universities. As such, access to the written word was elitist by nature. Then in 1490, a goldsmith from Germany named Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and that changed the whole way in which the great mass of the earth’s humanity interacted with each other. It is also where the story of “What Child Is This?” begins.  

The invention of the printing press made the mass production of the printed word possible for the first time in recorded history. There were many important implications of this change but, for the sake of this story, I will limit myself to two: first of all, it now became financially feasible to mass produce books. Because of the financial possibilities that now existed, the idea that books could be published and then sold to buyers for a profit came to be. Secondly, and far more importantly, the proliferation of books meant that access to the written word was now open to anyone who could pay the price being charged. This meant that members of the general public now had access to the world’s great ideas and the thinkers who came up with them. Furthermore, it provided those same common people with access to publishing their own thoughts, feelings and ideas. Thus, the invention of the printing press gave rise to the idea of political grievances being recorded and shared, of people advertising their skills in return for employment opportunities and it also allowed for the popularization of poems, storywriting, dramatic plays and music by way of recording the words and selling the pages of these artistic endeavours to anyone who enjoyed the entertainment and wanted to relive the experience in their own homes or town squares. You may recall in posts for well known songs such as “Scarborough Fair” by Simon and Garfunkel *(that you can read here), that minstrel shows at local fairs became one of the most popular ways that common folks gathered to hear the news of the day and to enjoy the latest stories, plays and songs. Well, the invention of the printing press meant that performers at these minstrel shows could sell crudely printed copies of their poetry, plays or music to anyone who was interested. It was via minstrel shows and the act of printing off copies of songs on paper that an instrumental tune called “Greensleeves” first came to public prominence.

“Greensleeves” is a tune that sprang to life as a broadside ballad. The crude paper copies that were printed off and sold at these fairs became known as broadsides. Broadsides were, in many ways, the precursors to modern newspapers. In any case, the tune for “Greensleeves” was a hit right from the very first time it was performed. You know it, even if you think you don’t. If you were to hum the tune that accompanies the lyrics to “What Child Is This?” then you are humming “Greensleeves”. No one is certain who exactly composed “Greensleeves”. It is one of those tunes that seems to have just always existed and, as such, it categorized as simply an old English folk song. It has been covered by thousands of performers and orchestras in the centuries that have followed its premiere. One of the reasons attributed for the instant success of “Greensleeves” was the potentially bawdy nature of its inspirational source. The song was first trademarked or registered in 1580 by a man named Richard Jones. He called this first (of six) pieces “A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves”. What made this composition seemingly salacious was the fact that in those days only certain types of women were said to wear the colour green (or had green grass stains on their clothes). Those women were generally referred to as prostitutes. Thus, it is believed by many that the lovely tune we know as “Greensleeves” was inspired by ladies of the night. To each his own, I suppose. “Greensleeves” would probably have remained a lovely little tune that was relegated to the footnotes of musical history had it not been for a man named William Chatterton Dix, a writer of hymns, who would enter our story a few hundred years later.

William Chatterton Dix was a British writer and businessman. He was raised in a family that included poets and writers and, as such, Dix was blessed with the ability to use words to paint pictures for others to enjoy. However, Dix was also raised by a father who did not see the Arts as a stable or secure way for a man to make his fortune. Thus, William was encouraged to study bookkeeping and accounting. As a young man, Dix gained employment as a manager in an insurance company in Glasgow, Scotland. As fate would have it, Dix would be struck down by a serious illness in his late 20s and would find himself bedridden, drawing ever closer to death. While in this state, Dix lapsed in depression but also had an epiphany. If he was to die then he wanted to be on the best terms possible with God. From his deathbed, Dix returned to his natural gift of writing and began to create a series of hymns. One of those hymns included a poem entitled “The Manger Throne”, the words to which would eventually become, “What Child Is This?”, which he completed in 1865. 

As you may know, the subject matter of “What Child Is This?” revolves around the birth of the Baby Jesus during that time known in Biblical circles as The Nativity. The story that Dix chose to focus on was a section of the Nativity story officially known as the Adoration of the Shepherds. This portion of the story describes what happened after the shepherds had arrived at the stable at the behest of the angel who appeared in the sky before them as they tended their sheep. The carol describes the awe with which they are marvelling at what they are witnessing within. Needless to say, Dix was inspired to create the words for his hymn based on one of the foundational elements in Christian history. By doing so, he hoped to curry favour in the eyes of the Lord if, and when, he passed on, as he assumed he would soon do. 

*As a footnote, William Chatterton Dix lived for another thirty-three years.

In the years that followed the completion of his hymn, Dix sought to have music put to it so that it could be performed in public. Six years later, his hymn was published in a book called Christmas Carols New and Old. His hymn had been edited by a man named Henry Ramsden Bramley, from the words to Dix’s poem “The Manger Throne” and “harmonized” by a man named John Stainer. In his act of harmonization, Stainer is said to have paired Dix’s hymn/poem with the music from “Greensleeves”, giving the world the carol that we know today. However, if you have been reading this piece carefully, you will probably see a problem with what Stainer had done in pairing the words Dix wrote about the Nativity with a broadside ballad about prostitution. The truth of the matter is that “Greensleeves” existed for several centuries before the words to “What Child Is This?” were ever considered, let alone written. Prior to this musical marriage, no less an authority than William Shakespeare involved himself by offering an opinion on the artistic merits of “Greensleeves” based on its tawdry origins. In his play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare wrote the following lines, as spoken by a character called Mistress Ford:

“I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men’s liking: and yet he would not swear; praised women’s modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of ‘Green Sleeves.'” 

In other words, centuries earlier it would have been sacrilege to have paired a beloved piece of Biblical scripture with a tune inspired by such a “sinful” backstory. It had always been my understanding that in the 1800s, a more puritanical form of morality may have been held by society but, just the same, it was in those very same 1800s (1871) that “What Child Is This?” was published in a respected Christian songbook and has become a standard when it comes to classic Christmas carols ever since. Go figure.

For a piece of music borne of moral stigma, it seems only fitting that the piece I am choosing to accompany this post is the version sung by Vanessa Williams from the landmark series of charity albums from the 1980s and 90s known as A Very Special Christmas. This series consisted of three separate albums, each released five years apart, that featured many modern day singers covering famous carols and other Christmas songs. A great many of the modern Christmas songs we hear on the radio today can be traced back to their appearance on one of these three CDs. Initially, the idea for these charity albums was to benefit athletes with special needs who were training to be in the Special Olympics. Part of the rationale behind doing this was to help change the social narrative involving those who were intellectually and/or physically challenged. There were many A-list calibre singers and bands who stepped up and volunteered to contribute to these three albums. One of those who did was a singer/actress named Vanessa Williams. 

Vanessa Williams has enjoyed a very successful career in the entertainment world as a Grammy-nominated singer, a Tony-nominated actress on Broadway and an Emmy-nominated actress on television. She first came into the public spotlight in her early twenties when she became the first black woman ever to win the Miss America pageant. Unfortunately, as was the case with the subject matter of the tune “Greensleeves”, Vanessa Williams was judged for how she chose to use her body. She would end up being disqualified from the Miss America Pageant when it came to light that she had done some nude modeling a few years prior to entering the contest. Those photos were published in a “men’s magazine”, igniting a moralistic uproar that caused pageant organizers to strip Williams of her crown. *(Again, just like how things changed over time with regard to the public’s opinion of “What Child Is This?” being paired with “Greensleeves”, after Y2K, the times changed again when it came to how society viewed women and how they sought to use their bodies in public. 32 years later after having first won the crown in 1984, the organizers of the Miss America Beauty Pageant formally apologized to Vanessa Williams.) In many ways, her inclusion on the A Very Special Christmas 2 album a mere five years after first losing her crown was a public endorsement by the producers of the charity records of her and the undeniable talent which Williams possessed. In the end, it was determined that her skill as a singer was more important than being all judgey about what she did with her body as a young woman. Consequently, I don’t think there could have been a more appropriate or perfect choice of singer to perform “What Child Is This?” in the end than Vanessa Williams. *Note: for what it is worth, Williams’ smooth, jazzy version of “What Child Is This?” has always been my favourite cover.

For a carol that speaks of the awe held by humble shepherds who witnessed the Baby Jesus swaddled in a manger shortly after His birth, the story of “What Child Is This?” sure is chalk-full of twists and turns. I doubt that as William Chatterton Dix lay on his deathbed composing words of praise in order to gain favour with his Maker, he thought that his hymn would be inextricably linked with such big picture concepts as access to information for all, feminism, freedom from religious persecution and the systemic stratification of the classes in society but it was. For the most part, when I hear this song, the images that come to mind are the warmth of that stable and the wonder that those in attendance all were holding. I feel as though the smell of the hay is real. However, now that I am more aware of the many historical connections that this carol possesses that extend beyond the story of the Nativity, the more I view this song differently. It may be a song about a Baby but it is also a song about women. There is a long and documented tendency to downplay and/or denigrate the role of women in the annals of history. The story of “What Child Is This?” demonstrates this very well. This includes everything from how society looked down upon the women depicted in “Greensleeves”, to how society so harshly judged Vanessa Williams centuries later for how she chose to display her body as a model, to the Meer fact that a “common” woman named Mary was denied access to to shelter and was forced to give birth in a barn, surrounded by livestock. I never used to view “What Child Is This?” as a feminist tune but I am more inclined to do so now that I know what I know. Whether this carol makes you think of Christmas, the Nativity scene or of how women are treated in society is up to you, obviously. In the end, it is still a lovely song and, as far as I am concerned, the Vanessa Williams version is particularly pleasing. Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for reading my words and coming along on this musical and historical journey.

The link to the video for the song “What Child Is This?” by Vanessa Williams can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.

The link to the official website for Vanessa Williams can be found here. 

The link to the official website for William Chatterton Dix can be found here.

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