The festive season has been a reminder of the 300th anniversary of Charles Wesley, writes CHRIS KOENIG

What with Hark! the Herald Angels Sing still singing away on the brain, it comes as a shock to realise that those stirring words were composed by someone banned from preaching by the Church of England.

Charles Wesley, born 300 years ago last month, went up to Christ Church, Oxford, when he was 19. The following year he formed what became known as the Oxford Methodist Group, the foundation of the Methodist movement.

His elder brother, John, who had also studied at Christ Church, joined the group a couple of years later in 1729, when he returned to Oxford as a tutor at Lincoln College.

The sons of a Lincolnshire rector, who both became Anglican priests themselves, the brothers became known as Methodists by fellow undergraduates when they founded something called the Holy Club, whose members met at regular times to inject 'method' into their religious studies. The very word (from the Greek methodos, meaning rule) was coined in Oxford in the 18th century to describe the group's regular habits.

The past year has seen Methodists everywhere celebrating the tercentenary of Charles Wesley's birth. But they did so in May rather than December as that was the month, in 1738, when the brothers experienced a spiritual awakening, or revelation, which resulted in the formal founding of Methodism.

After that year they were repudiated as non-conformists by the Church of England and forced to preach in the open air.

Oxfordshire is rich in non-conformist chapels, the Baptist one at Cote dating from the early 18th century probably being the most picturesque, though the baroque Wesleyian converted mansion on Burford High Street is the most splendid, even if the urns on its roof and next to its entrance stairs have long since been removed to Cornbury Park, Charlbury.

Charles Wesley composed some 6,000 hymns, including Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and Christ the Lord is Risen Today.

He composed the lyrics of Hark! the Herald in 1739. Originally the first couplet ran: Hark! how all the welkin rings/Glory to the King of Kings, but this was later altered by fellow Methodist George Whitfield.

Hark! the Herald was originally sung to a tune also used for Amazing Grace, the hymn composed by a former slave ship captain.

The familiar tune that many of us bellowed out this Christmas was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840 as part of his Festegesang, performed in Leipzig to commemorate the printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. It was adapted from the song Vaterland, in deinem Gauen (Fatherland, in your Districts) in 1855 by William Hayman Cummings.

Anyone surprised that the lovely carol's lyrics were written by someone banned from preaching in Anglican churches might be equally surprised to learn that Mendelssohn stipulated that the tune should never be used for sacred music.

In any case, the Christmas which Wesley celebrated fell on what is now Epiphany, since he lived before the changeover to the Gregorian calendar in September 1752.

Epiphany seems to be the one great festival that has faded completely away. Formerly it was celebrated with almost as much merrymaking as the first day of Christmas. Perhaps New Year's celebrations have taken over.

Incidentally, many Oxfordshire people believed, right up until the turn of the 19th century, that on Old Epiphany day, January 17, the cattle would kneel in their stalls.