The Works of John Francis Wade

Abstract John Francis Wade (1711/12–86) is perhaps best known as the composer and author of the Christmas carol ‘Adeste fidcles’ (‘O Come All Ye Faithful’). He was almost certainly a convert to Roman Catholicism and attended the Dominican college at Bornhem (Belgium) where, presumably, he learnt to copy plainchant. His extant works date from 1737 to 1774 and divide into three types: plainchant manuscripts, printed books with hand-notated plain-chant, and printed liturgical books without plainchant. The manuscripts, which substantially outnumber his other works, serve a wide range of functions and include Antiphonals, Graduals, Vesperals, Offices for the Dead, and books of diverse chants. Not only were they used extensively in their own time, but numerous later influential Catholic volumes were based on his work. The graphic quality of his manuscripts, often in a wide range of colours and metallic pigments, attests consistently to a scribe in complete command of his calligraphic and miniature decorative art. Wade’s printed books with plainchant comprise a gradual, psalter, and confraternity handbook. His liturgical books without plainchant include two vesperals—one for general use and another for Holy Week. Evidence internal to the manuscripts proves that they were used in practically all London’s foreign embassy chapels, and by extension it can be assumed that Wade’s manuscripts circulated amongst many Catholic aristocratic families.