While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks

Year: 1700

Written By: Nahum Tate

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The popular Christmas carol 'While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks' is attributed to England's Poet Laureate, Nahum Tate. The carol is describing the Annunciation to the Shepherds and is based on the Gospel of Luke 2:8-14. Although composition date of this carol is currently unknown, the carol did appear in Tate and Nicholas Brady's 1700 supplement to their New Version of the Psalms of David of 1696. Nahum Tate is well recognised as a lyricist as well as an Irish hymnist. In the original wording of the title of this song, the wording was actually 'Whilst Shepherds Watched Their Flocks', this is a change from the modern wording of the title where the first word is commonly seen as 'While' and not 'Whilst'. This particular change can be seen in modern hymn books.

This Christmas carol, 'While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks' is the only Christmas Hymn to be authorized to be sung by the Anglican Church. As well as this it spread across the country with the Book of Common Prayer. This was the only authorized carol as the majority of the other carols had roots located in folk music which were considered too secular and hence they were not sung in church services until the end of the 18th century.

Two tunes are consistently used to accompany this carol; the first is Winchester Old which features in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries, whereas in the United States they use a variation on a Handel aria which was arranged by Lowell Mason (this version is the most common version to be used within the United States). The United Kingdom and commonwealth countries tune was originally founded in Este's psalter The Whole Book of Psalms from 1952. It is most probable that this tune accompanied with this hymn was first published together by William Henry Monk, and this would have been for Hymns Ancient and Modern which was published in 1861.

As well as these two most common tunes, numerous other tunes have also been used with this carol, such as 'Lyngham', 'Shackelford' and 'Martyrdom'. G.W. Fink also gave a version in the nineteenth century; however, certain passages within the carol were changed or rewritten. The Hymnal 1982 also produced a modernized version which saw changes from the original version.