Germany during the fourteenth century. A traditional story tells about a vision that came to one Heinrich Suso, fourteenth-century mystic, in which a choir of angels sang this carol to him, and then drew him in to dance with them. The text was macaronic, that is, a mixture of Latin language and some vernacular language. John M. Neale (1818-1866; see Biographies) included his translation in Carols for Christmastide, 1853, with this tune. It was an inexpensive collection of 12 carols that he hoped to make available to church choirs. The original first line, “Good Christian men, rejoice,” has been changed to “Good Christians, now rejoice” to make the language inclusive of people of both genders. 

The tune name IN DULCE JUBILO means literally, “In sweet shouting, or jubilation, or joyful noise.” It has been found at Leipzig University Library in a manuscript dating from around 1400. The melody and certain versions of the words appeared in several sixteenth-century hymnbooks, including a Swedish translation of Piae Cantiones, 1582. 

The Hymnal 1940 Companion relates how “the macaronic character of this text was fully tested on September 14, 1745, at the Moravian mission in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the mission diary records that it was sung simultaneously in 13 languages, European and Indian.” 

The arrangement is by C. Winifred Douglas (1867-1944), prominent Episcopal hymnologist (see SDAH 72).