"King John and the Bishop" is an English folk-song dating back at least to the 16th century. It is catalogued in Child Ballads as number 45 and Roud Folk Song Index 302.
It tells how King John, covetous of the bishop of Canterbury's wealth, compels him on pain of death to answer three impossible questions. The bishop's shepherd appears in disguise to substitute in his place, and answers the questions cleverly in riddle fashion, after which the appeased king rewards the shepherd and spares the bishop. Like the ballad, historical King John had a reputation of confiscating property from the clergy., in commentary to the ballad: "..when [King John] had taken a Mind to any Man's Estate, (especially a Churchman's, for those he frequently chased)" it would have been out of character for him to as allow as much as three days to his victim, or so the anthologist has heard from skeptics who felt the ballad must have originally featured some other monarch.
The ballad is classified as Aarne-Thompson folktale type "AT 922" of the shepherd substituting for the priest to answer the king's questions (For analogues, see Parallels below). Analogues are widespread, some of them being literary works dating to medieval times.
Synopsis King John in the opening lines is described as a man who did much wrong and did little to uphold what was right. Enraged that the bishop (variant B, the abbot) of Canterbury maintained a household with many servants and riches paid by comfortable income, the king summons him to court, accuses him of treason, threatening him with beheading and the confiscation of income afterwards, unless the cleric can correctly answer three questions:
How long does it take to travel the whole world? How much money am I worth? What am I thinking?
The king sends the bishop off, allowing a thinking period of twenty days (B, three days).In A he then rides to Oxford and Cambridge seeking learned men to give him the right answer, only to be derided. In B he rides straight to his country home. The distressed bishop returns to his shepherd (who in A is his own half-brother), and confides his dilemma. The shepherd says, "Lend me your clothes, I will deliver the correct answers for you". The disguised shepherd then meets King John. His answers are:
A twenty-four-hour day. If you rise in the morning and follow the sun's movement the whole day long, until you wait for the sun to come up in the same place the following morning. Then you'll have traveled the world around. Judas sold Christ for thirty pieces of silver. You are worth almost as much as Christ. You are worth 29 pieces of silver. You are thinking I am the bishop of Canterbury. In fact I am a shepherd in disguise.
Impressed by the clever response, the king offers the appointment of the shepherd as bishop. This the shepherd diffidently declines, at which the king awards him a monetary pension, and pardons the bishop as well.In B, the pension is four pounds per week, which calculates to a larger sum. In A, the king offers 300 pounds a year, the brother offers 50 more, and the shepherd declares he no longer will tolerate keeping sheep for his brother.
Commentary On the one hand the song is an oblique reference to the poor relationship between King John and the archbishop of Canterbury. On the other hand, it can be enjoyed as a clever riddle-song.
The Derry down refrain The "Derry down" chorus belongs very much to the sixteenth century, and occurs in many ballads."Derry down" occurs in The Huntsman's Delight; or The Forester's Pleasure, Roxburghe ballads Vol. VII, p.557- with the lines "Derry derry down/Among the leaves so green O" is referred to by the title "The Keeper" by some sources. William Chappell ventured to guess that the ballad entitled "A defence for Mylkemaydes against the terme of Mawken" (before 1563-4), with the refrain "Down, a-downe, &c." might have been set to the same tune.
Historical background King John's father, Henry II, indirectly made a martyr of Thomas a Beckett. Like his father, John had a conflict with the Catholic Church, and refused to ratify the Pope's choice for the post of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. The Pope responded with bureaucratic constraints, and in retaliation John removed from office several bishops.
The idea that a shepherd, or the lesser brother of a bishop, could out-wit a king, is quite subversive. Most of the Robin Hood ballads have the same characteristics, except that the sheriff is in place of the king. King John is closely associated with Robin Hood, so perhaps this is not a coincidence.
There is also the suggestion that the educated bishop (or abbot) is not as wise as the uneducated brother (or shepherd) - implying there is a "native wit" that is more valuable than school-book wisdom.
The song has been found in England, Scotland, and the United States. The historical aspects of the song are for most people a mere backdrop to the real appeal of the song, as a riddle.
Textual variants Child's variant A is the poem "Kinge John and Bishopp" taken from the Percy Folio manuscript. Variant B is from a broadside copy, printed for P. Brooksby between 1672-85 in which at the end of each verse, the burden (chorus) "Derry down" is sung. On the broadside that Child used, an inscription appears below the title indicates the ballad is to be sung to the tune of "The King and the Lord Abbot": this Child thinks was an older ballad which has not survived.On the dating range: Child gives 1672-1695 as date, but the licensing issued to Roger l'Estrange gives 1685 terminus ante quem, and used so in . EBBA also assigns "1672-1685 ?" for the Roxburghe copy.
Broadsides
Before Child, broadside copies of the ballad were printed in D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth or Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–1720) with music, and in Collection of Old Ballads (1723), with commentary.
There are various broadside copies extant, with different titles. Some are illustrated with woodcuts:In various literature, the ballad may also be referred by such names as: ()
"A New Ballad of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury" Golden Ball in Pye-Corner: printed for Philip Brooksby, ca. 1672-95. (=Child Ballad #45B) "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury"There is also a sans loc: sans name issue, catalogued ESTC: T204013. A copy is in the Bodleian Library, John Johnson collection #2613 London: printed by Aldermary Church Yard, [1760?].ESTC T29459, with woodcuts x 2. Copies held by Bodleian Library Harding B 3(8), Lewis Walpole Library, Yale copy Northampton : printed by William Dicey, [1735?]ESTC 1958. Digitized by Eighteenth century collections online. "An excellent ballad of King John and the abbot of Canterbury" Newcastle upon Tyne: printed by John White, between 1711 and 1769ESTC T33696, with woodcuts x 2. Copies held by Bodleian Library Douce Ballads 3(50b)Another copy is Roxburghe Collection III, 494.
Ballads with different kings Child mentions that "there are at least two other broadsides extant upon the same subject," noted earlier by Bishop Percy. These feature different monarchs, and popularly they were sung to different tunes. Child did not print these texts, but the texts were printed in consecutive fashion by the Ballad Society in 1889.
King Henry and bishop King and the Bishop This ballad begins "In Popish time, when Bishops proud..", and was performed to the melody of The Ballad of Chevy Chase. The king here is either an unknown or as "some say 'twas Henry" according to the ballad. The three riddles are substantially the same. There are minute discrepancies in detail, such as the king allowing three week grace period, demanding that his worth be guessed to within a half crown (rather than a penny).. Copies held by: Pepys I, 472, No 243, Roxburghe Collection III, 170, and Douce, fol. 110Text and commentary printed in: Facsimile, transcript, recording at:
Old abbot and king Offa or Alfred The Old Abbot and King Olfrey This is a piece that begins ""In old times past there was a King,"" and was set to the tune of "The Shaking of the Sheets".. Copies held by: Douce Collection II, fol. 169; Pepys, II, 127, No 111.Text and commentary printed in: Facsimile, transcript, recording at: "King Olfrey" has been theorized to be either the Anglo-Saxon king Offa, or "a corruption of Alfred".
Parallels As Child has pointed out, King John and the Bishop (Child ballad #45) might easily be seen as a part of an "extensive" group of ballads, if the common factor used as the criterion is that of containing a riddle-match frame story, with a major stake if the riddles could not be solved.
Folklore motif type AT 922 The Ballad of King John and the Bishop exhibits the folklore motif Type "AT 922: The Shepherd Substituting for the Priest Answers the King's Questions (The King and the Abbot)" under the Aarne-Thompson classification system, and is the primary example through which this motif class is "known.. to the English speaking world," according to Stith Thompson.
To encompass some of the oriental examples it seems, the précis of this motif index is more loosely stated; thus according to Marzolph AT 922 constitutes "Schwierige Fragen klug beantwortet (Difficult question answered wisely)."
A large group of works that can be classed as being of AT 922 type has been examined by German folklorist Walter Anderson, in his monograph Kaiser und Abt ("Emperor and the Abbot", 1923), whose title is named after the German counterpart of the ballad story.As to the title cf. the 15th-century German play "Ein Spil von einem Kaiser und eim Apt", probably by Hans Folz, and Bürger's 1784 ballad. Anderson also compiled Der Schwank von Kaiser und Abt bei den Minsker Juden from the Jews in Minsk. In it, he compiled some 474 variants across to the Asian continent and spanning from German, Scandinavian to Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages; of these, 410 were oral, all dating to the 19th and 20th century.Anderson's tally of "variants equal 571. Of these, 410 are oral and 161 are literary", but only counted 64 of the literary examples as stemming in oral transmission. Among the group Anderson analyzed, 85% featured a surrogate who gives the correct answers to the puzzles. And in 81.4% the interrogator was a monarch: John Lackland, Charles Quint or even Pharaoh Sheshonk in some variants.
Tales with same three riddles The actual riddles posed in the large motif group do show discrepancies. In Anderson's analysis, the selection came off a list of sixteen questions. In some tales however, the sets of questions and answers used are extremely close to the three exchanged in the English ballad.
center of the earth Child noted three identical riddles (preceded by an extra one: "Where is the center of the earth?") were asked in local lore around James V; in it, the king aka "Gudeman of Ballengeigh" ask these questions to a priest of Markinch., citing
Presten og klokkeren