Unlike the other oratorios, it has no story, apart from a brief sequence about the shepherds at Jesus's birth.
Matthew Paris, a monk and chronicler who lived in England in the 13th century, was scathing about the shepherds' leader:This impostor, who could speak French, German and Latin, wandered about everywhere preaching without papal authority or the licence of any prelate, falsely claiming that he had received an order from Blessed Mary, the mother of the Lord, to summon shepherds and herdsmen.
Thus, during the cultural festival of Munzur, which takes place in July in Tunceli, one comes across a stand selling DVDs and photos about the shepherding Sawar.
Below are artist Rich Doty's logos about the shepherding dimensions of Christmas.
In a gallery with spirited works by Vigée Le Brun, Boucher, Goya and others, for instance, is an elaborate merry grouping of Meissen porcelain figures, "The Judgment of Paris" (about 1762), showing the shepherd Paris, attended by the god Mercury, passing judgment on the fairest of three goddesses, Juno, Minerva and Venus.
Both of the basic stories we tell about Christmas, the shepherds in their fields by night and the peregrinations of Santa Claus, fill the darkness with life and possibility.
He added: "All of the church documents speak about the relationship between the shepherd and the flock.
"This passage" -- about the killing of the shepherd Abel by Cain, who tilled the ground -- "is a metaphorical reference to the move from a herding to an agricultural economy," he said, somewhat impatiently.
According to the Viennese Illuminated Chronicle, a contemporary account, Robert said about Basarab: "He is the shepherd of my sheep, and I will take him out of his mountains, dragging him by his beard".
