John Mason Neale was an English Anglican priest, scholar, and hymnwriter. He worked on and wrote on a wide range of holy Christian texts, including obscure medieval hymns, both Western and Eastern. Among his most famous hymns is the 1853 Good King Wenceslas, set on Boxing Day. An Anglo-Catholic, Neale's works have found positive reception in high-church Anglicanism and Western Rite Orthodoxy.
John Mason Neale
Portrait of John Mason Neale standing, from John Mason Neale letters 1910
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen. 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 Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935), who was not a king in his lifetime but had that status conferred on him after his death.
Good King Wenceslas, illustrated in Christmas Carols, New and Old
Sheet music of "Good King Wenceslas" in a biscuit container from 1913, preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
"Tempus adest floridum" in the 1582 Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones. The melody formed the basis for the carol.
