Masters in This Hall

"Masters in This Hall" (alternative title: "Nowell, Sing We Clear") is a Christmas carol with words written around 1860 by the English poet and artist William Morris to an old French dance tune.

[3] The words were written around 1860 while William Morris, then 26, was working as an apprentice in the office of the architect, Edmund Street, presumably under the persuasion of his fellow students who at that time had a taste for part-song.

[4] The architect and musician Edmund Sedding had at one point also been in the office of G. E. Street and he had discovered the tune at a meeting with the organist at Chartres Cathedral.

[7] "Masters in This Hall" is said to have a sixteenth-century feel, harking back to a simpler society, in line with Morris's own romanticism.

[5] It also has elements of Morris's socialist beliefs, with the poor bringing news of Christ's birth to the "Masters in this Hall" and a warning to the proud.

[8] The image of raising up the poor and casting down the proud is also contained in the song of the Virgin Mary, often referred to as the Magnificat, sung upon the occasion of her visit to Saint Elizabeth, a relative of hers and the mother of John the Baptist, that is referenced in Luke 1:51.