Somewhere about 700 years ago, a monk in famous Reading Abbey composed a song in praise of Spring. Its words and music were written down at the time and you may see them to-day at the British Museum.
That song—they call it our oldest song—was “Sumer is icumen in,” and its author, antiquaries believe to have been, one John of Fornsete. They say this famous ancient “Round” was written some time between 1226 and 1240 when King Henry III was on the throne, and when the signing of Magna Carta was but a few years old in the memory of living men.
This is a wonderful old song, very simple, yet somehow bringing up a picture of the unchanging Spring as it came those centuries ago to the river meadows of the silver Thames, that stretched away from Reading’s mighty Abbey, then a comparatively modern building, little more than a hundred years old. And some young brother, at work in the fields perhaps, overjoyed to see the sun and the green leaves again, finding expression of his joy in song and music.
To-day you may still find many remains of that stately Abbey at Reading, which became one of the richest in the land. Its inner gateway still stands and its guest house, as well as many ivy clad ruins of its other buildings.
And Reading, for all its busy modern life retains much of its old-world atmosphere in its fine churches and queerly named streets. And here, too, you will find, in the Museum, relics of Roman Britain unequalled in England, for to Reading have been brought the treasures excavated at Roman Silchester a few miles away, the buried city sometimes called the British Pompeii.
The neighbourhood of Reading teems with objects of natural beauty and historic interest, which more than repay the examination of the visitor to this, at first sight, rather modest modern red brick country town. Reading has seen in its time a very full share of England’s history and romance.
Original manuscript (six voices).
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See Transcriber's Note for this version in modern notation.
NOTE.—The original composition of “Sumer is icumen in” took six persons to sing it. The modernised version given on the next page is for a solo voice with pianoforte accompaniment. In it the old wording has been slightly modernised, the only archaic word occurring being “sterteth” which means “frisketh,” and “verteth” now an obsolete term indicating to go to the vert or the greenwood. “Sumer is icumen in” means literally: Summer has come in.
The old version with the ancient notation, English and Latin words, and instructions as to singing, shows very much the form of the original 13th century manuscript.
Newer version of song (one voice). Page 1 of 2.
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Newer version of song (one voice). Page 2 of 2.
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