Trinity Carol Roll

[2] Parchment scrolls were a common method of documentation in the Middle Ages, being both cheaper and easier to transport and store than bound books.

[7] The thirteen carols included in the roll are as follows:[8] Christmas forms the subject of the majority of the carol's texts; six are on the subject of the Nativity of Jesus, two are about Saint Stephen and Saint John the Evangelist respectively, whose feast-days are on 26 and 27 December and three are Marian texts praising the Virgin Mary.

[2] For example, in the Agincourt Carol every stanza ends with the phrase Deo gratias ('Thanks be to God') – as all church services were conducted in Latin, even non-speakers would have been familiar with their meaning.

Dr Helen Deeming notes that the carols are: complex and intricate, and could only have been composed, sung and notated by highly trained musicians.

The Agincourt Carol, which also survives in a contemporaneous version in the Bodleian Library is also well-known, for example appearing in an arrangement by William Walton for Laurence Olivier's 1944 film Henry V.[10] The composer Ernest Farrar used the Agincourt Carol as the basis for his 1918 Heroic Elegy: For Soldiers.

[11] The Alamire consort recorded the complete carol roll in the Wren Library at Trinity College in September 2011, available on CD on the Obsidion label (CD709).