Ok to be a boring pedant where not really wanted, I guess the technical term is hypothesis rather than theory.

A theory is a perhaps an underlying collection of knowledge, understanding, concepts or whatever that helps to explain something. Their is a theory based in maths that helps to explain notes, octaves, 3rds and 5ths and so on.

George Ridgewell, along with lots of others, had a hypothesis ( I think this because of that)"all the surviving traditional carols were originally pagan and that the church (overtly or covertly) forced people to Christianize them which he attempted to test". If lots of evidence had been revealed it may have become a theory. The evidence has not really been found.

As Suffolk Miracle says "some might say an obsession" not uncommon amongst EFDSS /Morris Ring members of a certain age on a whole range of topics including the role of women in all sorts of things and the origins of Morris dancing.

Wassail

L in C