O Come All Ye Faithful

"O Come, All Ye Faithful" began life as the Latin "Adeste Fideles," written by an exiled English Jacobite named John Francis Wade around 1743. Some scholars hear a coded loyalty to Bonnie Prince Charlie beneath its summons to Bethlehem. The familiar English words came a century later, in 1841.

Who composed the Christmas hymn O Come All Ye Faithful?

The hymn's history is closely tied to John Francis Wade, an English Catholic layman and music copyist. Wade lived in exile in France following the failed Jacobite Rising of 1745. He is widely believed to have composed the Latin melody and lyrics around 1743, as the earliest signed manuscript dates to that year. The hymn first appeared in print in his 1751 collection titled "Cantus Diversi." Some musicologists suggest that the hymn originally carried coded political messages supporting the Jacobite cause and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The English translation that is most familiar to modern singers was written by Frederick Oakeley in 1841. Oakeley, then an Anglican priest, translated the verses for use at the Margaret Street Chapel in London. He later converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845.

Why was the hymn referred to as the Portuguese Hymn?

For a time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the song was commonly referred to as "the Portuguese Hymn." This alternative name arose because the piece was regularly performed at the Portuguese embassy chapel in London. The chapel's musical services were highly popular among Londoners, and the hymn became strongly associated with that specific venue, helping to popularize it throughout England.