Hymn Story: Angels We Have Heard on High

Luke 2

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ¹⁴ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

The French carol "Les anges dans nos campagnes," now known as "Angels We Have Heard on High," is completely anonymous. It has always been printed with no known lyricist or composer.

The beautiful carol tells the story of Christ's birth, when the angel choir told the good news to nearby shepherds. The chorus, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo," reflects the chorus of the angel choir that long-ago Christmas night.

Many years ago shepherds in the hills of southern France had a Christmas Eve custom of calling to one another, singing "Gloria in Excelsis Deo," each from his own hillside. The traditional tune that the shepherds used may have been from a late Medieval Latin chorale. It became the magnificent chorus of "Angels We Have Heard on High."

The carol seems to be of eighteenth-century origin, since it was known in England by 1816. At that time James Montgomery wrote his carol "Angels From the Realms of Glory", originally basing it on the tune of "Les anges dans nos campagnes." "Angels From the Realms of Glory" was sung to the French tune until Henry Tomas Smart wrote a new tune for it in 1967.

"Angels We Have Heard on High" was first published in France in 1855. The English translation came seven years later, in Henri Frederick's Crown of Jesus Music. This 1862 translation differed from the form we use now. The version we use today was first printed in a 1916 American carol collection entitled Carols Old and Carols New.

Listen to it here: Angels We Have Heard on High