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"Good King Wenceslas" is a popular Christmas carol that tells a story of a king going on a journey in braving harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the day after Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia or ''Svatý Václav'' in Czech (907–935). In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale wrote the "Wenceslas" lyrics, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in ''Carols for Christmas-Tide'', 1853. Neale's lyrics were set to the melody of a 13th-century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("The time is near for flowering") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection ''Piae Cantiones''. ==Source legend== Wenceslas was considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death in the 10th century, when a cult of Wenceslas grew up in Bohemia and in England.〔Describing the (Codex Gigas ), a thirteenth-century manuscript from Bohemia in the Swedish National Library in Stockholm, it is stated: "All this bears witness to the outstanding importance of the cult of Václav in Bohemia at the time of the Devil's Bible's compilation. Moreover, all three festivals are inscribed in red ink, denoting their superlative degree. "〕 Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death, four biographies of him were in circulation.〔The ''First Slavonic Life'' (in Old Church Slavonic), the anonymous ''Crescente fide'', the ''Passio'' by Gumpold, bishop of Mantua (d. 985), and ''The Life and Passion of Saint Václav and his Grandmother Saint Ludmilla (in Czech language she named Ludmila)'' by Kristian.〕〔Lisa Wolverton’s ''Hastening Toward Prague: Power and Society in the Medieval Czech Lands'', p. 150. Available online at ().〕 These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the ''rex justus'', or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.〔(See Defries, David. "St. Oswald's Martyrdom: Drogo of Saint-Winnoc's ''Sermo secundus de s. Oswaldo''", §12, in ''The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Mediaeval Northwestern Europe'', Issue 9 (Oct 2006). )〕 Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, a preacher from 12th century says: Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.〔() 〕 Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on () the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, ''Wenceslaus'', is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version.〔''Wencesla-us'' is the Mediaeval Latin form of the name, declined in the Second Declension.〕 Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Good King Wenceslas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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