Hi, I'm the History Guy. I have a degree in history,
and I love history. And if you love history too, this is the channel for you.
Josephus Franciscus Mohr was born in the Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg,
December 11th of 1792, the son of an embroiderer, and a mercenary soldier, who abandoned the family
before Yosef was born. Born into poverty, a Vicar at Salzburg cathedral sought to his education,
and encouraged him in music where he became a singer, and a violinist. In 1811,
Yosef joined the seminary, and in 1815, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest. In 1816 he was
serving as assistant priest in the small town of Mariapfarr, south of Salzburg, where he penned a
short six stanza poem. There is no record of him ever explaining what inspired that poem exactly,
but it might have been the beautiful still countryside around mountainous Mariapfarr, and
the fourth stanza might have been referring to the difficult period of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1818,
two years later, that poem was set to music, and played at Midnight Mass on Christmas in the Church
of St. Nicholas, in the small town of Oberndorf, north of Salzburg. Today that song is one of the
world's most popular songs, it has been translated into hundreds of languages; it is sung by millions
of people. Just one recording of that song has sold more than 30 million copies, and is the third
highest selling musical single in history. The musical streaming service Spotify has more than
26,000 versions of that song. The story of this poem, written by a humble priest that began in
German, “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht”, “Silent Night, Holy Night”, is one shrouded in legend,
and largely unknown to the millions of people who enjoy the world's most popular Christmas Carol.
There are records of Christmas hymns, sung in Latin, in 4th century Rome. And the practice
itself may predate Christianity, being adapted from pagan traditions. But these early songs
weren't popular with the public, and in the early church, Christmas was a minor holiday. The regular
singing of Christmas hymns at Christmas Midnight Mass is often credited to St. Francis of Assisi
in the 13th century. And Francis's insistence that the songs be sung in native languages,
rather than Latin, helped to popularize the tradition. The period of the life of Father
Mohr had been one of almost constant conflict in Europe. Salzburg had been occupied by the
French during the War of the Second Coalition, the last of the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1805,
the former Prince-Archbishopric was split between the Austrian Empire, and Bavaria,
in the Treaty of Pressburg during the Napoleonic Wars. Then in 1809, Salzburg was ceded to Bavaria,
after Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Archduke Charles of Austria in the Battle of Bagram,
ending the War of the Fifth Coalition. The territory was again divided between Austria,
and Bavaria in the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Napoleonic Wars.
It is in this context that the fifth stanza of his
poem finds its meaning. “Long we hoped, that he might. As our Lord,
free us of wrath. Since times of our fathers He hath. Promised to spare all mankind!”
In 1817 Father Mohr became an assistant priest in the town of Oberndorf, 11 miles
north of Salzburg. On Christmas Eve 1818, Father Mohr visited his friend, Franz Xaver Gruber,
who was the church choirmaster and organist. In addition to being the choirmaster for the church
in Oberndorf, Franz Gruber was a teacher, and the church caretaker and organist for
the town of Arnsdorf about three miles away. Gruber was a composer, and Mohr hoped that
he could write music to accompany the poem he had written two years earlier, so that he could
sing it at Christmas Mass, just a few hours away. Gruber composed the melody in just a few hours.
Gruber and Mohr first sang the song, Stille Nacht, in the appropriately named St. Nicholas
Church in Oberndorf for Midnight Mass, Christmas of 1818. For accompaniment,
Mohr played the guitar, and the choir repeated the last two stanzas of each verse. There has
long been a legend that the church organ was broken, some say because of rust,
and others say because of damage done by a hungry mouse, but the fact is there is no actual record
that the organ was broken. And neither Mohr, nor Gruber, ever explained why the melody was
accompanied by guitar and not the organ. It might be you that Father Mohr simply enjoyed the guitar.
By the 1830s, it had become a popular folk song throughout Austria, and was popularly
sung by two families of folk singers, the Strasser family and the Rainer family,
who became the first to sing the song in the United States, in New York, in 1839.
It was published in the compendium of Tyrolean folk songs in the 1830s, and by the 1840s,
the song had been popularized by the Royal Cathedral Choir in Berlin, and was a favorite
song of King Frederick William the Fourth of Prussia. In 1859, an Episcopal priest in
New York City translated the song into English. While the lyrics were not an exact translation,
they preserved the spirit of the song; it was then carried by Christian missionaries worldwide.
In one of the more extraordinary moments in history, German soldiers began singing Stille
Nacht from the trenches on Christmas Eve of 1914. The song was very popular in Germany,
but still not well known in Britain, and it was the first time that many British soldiers,
listening from their nearby trenches, had heard the tune. The British soldiers responded
with a carol of their own, and that started the extraordinary event called, The Christmas Truce.
While the circumstances of The Christmas Truce during the First World War in 1914 have sometimes
been overstated, as many as a hundred thousand soldiers were thought to have taken part in the
brief moment of fellowship and rebellion against Authority. Laying down their arms,
shaking hands with their enemy, and exchanging gifts. Some soldiers use the opportunity to
retrieve the bodies of the fallen that had been abandoned in No Man's Land.
Bing Crosby released the song as a single in 1935. Since then that single has sold more
than 30 million copies, making it the third highest selling single of all time, behind
Elton John's Candle in the Wind, and Crosby's own, White Christmas. A devout Catholic, Crosby
thought that it would be wrong to profit from a religious song, all the royalties from the third
best-selling song in history have gone to charity. Other versions have been produced by vocalists as
diverse as Elvis Presley, Gene Autry, and Justin Bieber. In 2010, music licensing company PPL
determined that Silent Night was Britain's most recorded Christmas song of all time. A similar
analysis by Time Magazine in 2014 of all Christmas albums recorded in the United States since 1978,
determined that Silent Night was America's most popular Christmas recording, with 733 copyrighted
recordings since 1978. If you listened to a different one of the more than 26,000 versions
of the song on Spotify every night, you go more than 79 years before having to repeat a version.
The song was published for decades without providing any credit,
for many years people thought that it was a composition of either Beethoven, or Bach.
Even when Franz Gruber was finally recognized for providing the melody, the contribution of
Yosef Mohr of the lyrics was forgotten. The question was finally settled in 1994,
when an original copy, in Yosef Mohr’s hand, and including the original score for guitar,
and dated 1820 was finally authenticated. Father Mohr served in many parishes, and all his life
donated most of his salary to charity. The man who wrote one of the world's most popular songs
died a popper, leaving nothing behind but a ragged cassock, and a lifetime of good works.
Franz Gruber wrote several different variations on the melody, and donated
all of the proceeds to charity. He was recognized as a composer for composing more than 90 songs,
but Stille Nacht was by far his most popular. The Church of St. Nicholas had to be demolished as
the entire town of Oberndorf was moved upstream due to repeated flooding, but there is a small
chapel on the site of the original Church that is dedicated to the song Silent Night,
and next to it is a museum that commemorates the lives of Father Mohr and Franz Gruber,
and local history. Franz Gruber's home in the Austrian town of Hallein has been
preserved as a museum, and included in its displays is Yosef Mohr's guitar,
used to play the song for the first time in 1818. And it is still the songs humble origins, that are
perhaps the most compelling part of the story, of the world's most popular Christmas Carol.
I’m the History Guy wishing you and yours, a very Merry Christmas!