This implies that the carol already existed in continental Europe by or even before the eleventh century. Greene points out that "there is no reason to doubt that secular dance-song with a burden was known in England immediately after the Norman Conquest [in l066]."' The earliest English literature containing the word carol is Cursor Mundi, dated about 1300. In this work, the carol is defined as a round dance identical to the French carole.8This suggests that by the late thirteenth century the English carol was already well established. The contents of the early secular English carol and the French carole sometimes concern ribaldry, lust, drunkenness. witchcraft, and the Devil. A great number of early secular carols had obscene texts and were danced with obscene gestures.' Almost all of such carols did not survive. However, there i; evidence that reflects the Church's disapproval of the secula carol. The following is a brief sermon about the carol of Dominican monk John Bromyard: