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History See other History Articles Title: Elizabethan Christmas Customs Keeping Christmas Caution: Christmas customs are hard to pin down and harder still to identify as genuinely Elizabethan. Here are the things we're sure of. So now is come our joyful'st feast, George Wither (1588-1667) The Christmas season or Christmastide runs the twelve days from 24 December to 6 January; that is, Christmas Eve to Epiphany or Twelfth Day. The evening of that day is called Twelfth Night, and is the last party of the season. It is essentially a festival season with little reference to religion of any kind. Feasting, generosity, disguisings, pageants, role-reversal, and silliness are the principal elements. Also gambling, especially card playing. (Puritans do not approve.) Hospitality is the rule. All who can do so furnish their tables with all the meats, marchpanes, pies, custards, and so on that they can afford, and more. Entertainments are meant for the whole manor or household, including tenants; the whole village; or the whole Court. The Queen keeps Christmas most often at Greenwich Palace, which is relatively small. Alternate locations in certain years are Hampton Court (in 1568 and 1579) and Nonesuch Palace. Court festivities, as elsewhere, include dancing, gambling, and plays. Gifts are given at New Year's, not on Christmas day. Midwinter feasting and gift-giving is older in Christian Britain than the celebration of the Nativity. [Hutton] Although the official year starts in March, the midwinter custom is too entrenched to change. Christmas has not yet been personified, or associated with St Nicholas. No one expects to receive gifts from a supernatural agent such as Father Christmas or Santa Claus. From the Queen, however, a courtier can generally expect to receive a silver cover cup of a particular weight, delivered by messenger, or picked up on a voucher. Courtier's gifts given to the Queen include: * Gold coins in an embroidered pouch Gifts to the Queen from the royal household are often related to the office: a marzipan chessboard and chessmen from the Master Cook, a pot of green ginger from the doctor, a fancy meat knife from the Cutler, a gilded quince pie from the Sergeant of the Pastry, and so on. [Read detailed lists of gifts given to Queen Elizabeth as presents at New Year's celebrations, from The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth.] The decorations about any house include holly, ivy, box, yew, bay, laurel, holm oak, and in fact, anything still green. Both church records and household accounts show money spent for holly and ivy to be brought in when none was available locally. In the church itself, along with the greenery, a wooden figure of the Christ Child sometimes rests on the altar. Mistletoe isn't mentioned before 1622. This only means it isn't in common use, of course. That could be because it is harder to collect than other greenery, as it tends to grow only on oak and apple trees, and will be hidden under snow. Kissing under the mistletoe has not yet become popular. Yule or Christmas log. The young men of the household go out on Christmas Eve and dress a log or block of wood from the central trunk of a tree specially chosen for the purpose. They drag it into the fireplace in the hall, where it is lit with a bit saved from last year's log, and is expected to burn all night. Sensible people save pieces from the Christmas log through the next year to protect the house from fire. Entertainments in the season include mummer's plays of various kinds, often incorporating music and morris dancing (also performed at May Day). The story of St George and the Dragon is especially popular. Morris dancers are regularly invited to perform at Court. Food. The most popular Christmas dinner is brawn (roast pork) with mustard or roast beef. Also popular are mince pies, frumenty, plum porridge, and a Christmas pie of neat's tongue, eggs, sugar, lemon & orange peel, spices. Good husband and huswife, now chiefly be glad, Thomas Tusser, 500 Points of Husbandry, 1573 Communal Activities. In many homes, they play Flapdragon or Snapdragon. You take turns picking raisins out of a dish of flaming brandy and popping them into your mouth. Try not to get burnt! Wager on each person's chances of success. On Christmas Eve, girls play fortune-telling games, especially hoping to divine who they will marry. Christmas carols are mainly associated with Christmas Eve and morning, often performed by the town waits (musicians hired by the town). Musicians and choristers visit the principal houses in the parish, in ascending order of importance. Householders are expected to reward them with a penny, cider, cakes, and so on. Wassailing involves blessing the land, especially apple groves, and livestock with cider. In Kent, groups of young men make a round of the orchards, performing the rite for a reward. In the towns, groups of girls and boys go around the neighborhood with a be-ribboned but empty drinking cup/bowl begging for the master of each house to fill it with spiced ale to drink his health, or with cakes, cheese, or a silver penny. It's bad luck for the host to decline. Lord of Misrule. All "persons of worship" including Lieutenants and Sheriffs of counties, and even bishops, appoint a Lord of Misrule to manage the merriment of the Twelve Days. In the Inns of Court and at the universities, the Lord is usually elected on St Thomas's Day, so there is plenty of time to plan. He then chooses officers for his Court of Misrule such as Marshal, Master of the Game, Constable, and Chief Butler. His rule runs through the twelve days of Christmas, consisting mainly of presiding over the feasting, games, and dancing. In Christmas 1561, the Lord of Misrule at the Inner Temple was Lord Robert Dudley. At supper, the courtiers of Misrule are cried in to the hall with silly names like Sir Francis Flatterer, Sir Randall Rakabite of Rascall Hall in the County of Rakehell, Sir Morgan Mumchance, or Sir Bartholomew Balbreech of Buttocksbury. King of the Bean. For Twelfth Day and Night among less exalted folk, a bean is baked into a cake and pieces distributed among the children and servants. Whoever finds the bean is pronounced King of the Bean, and reigns for the rest of the day and night. If a pea is used as well, whoever finds it becomes (or chooses) the Queen of the Pea. Resources: Hutton, Ronald, Stations of the Sun, A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford, 1995. Excellent, current scholarship. Hubert, Maria, Christmas in Shakespeare's England, Sutton Publishing Ltd, Trowbridge, Wilts (U.K.) 1998. Use with caution, but she does include some interesting details. Strong, Roy, The English Year, 1982. An extraction and abridgement, with decorations, of Chambers' Book of Days, originally published in 1862.
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