Perhaps dating back to the Middle Ages, the melody ‘Kingsfold’ was first published in English Country Songs in 1893, an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. Named for Kingsfold, Sussex, England, where he first heard the tune, Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar’s “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say”.

See a list of other hymn and chorale themes here.

Videos:
Timothy Howard – Improvisation on ‘Kingsfold’ – Pasadena Presbyterian Church