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Gode Cookery Presents
Tales of the Middle Ages
True stories, fables and anecdotes from the Middle Ages
Christmas
Our word Christmas is derived from the Middle English usage "Christ's
Mass," and central to the celebration of the Nativity was the liturgical activity which had been established by the year 600, and did not change
in the Middle Ages. In Medieval England there were, in fact, three
Masses celebrated on Christmas Day. The first and most characteristic
was at midnight (the Angel's Mass), catching up the notion that the
light of salvation appeared at the darkest moment of the darkest date in
the very depth of winter. The second Christmas Mass came at dawn (the Shepherd's Mass), and the third during the day (the Mass of the Divine
Word). The season of Advent, the forty days of leading up to Christmas,
was being observed in the Western Church by the year 500. St. Nicholas
was a very popular Medieval saint, and his feast day came in Advent (6 December), but he did not play his part in Christmas as Santa Claus
until after the Reformation.
Also important in the celebration of Christmas was the banquet, which necessarily varied in sumptuosness with the resources of the celebrants.
The menu varied with soups and stews, birds and fish, breads and
puddings, but a common element was the Yule boar, an animal for those
who could afford it or a pie shaped like a boar for more humble tables. Churches and houses were decorated with ivy, mistletoe, holly, or
anything green, which remained up until the eve of Candlemass. The
gift-giving of the season was represented by the New Year Gift, which
continued a tradition of Roman origin. The later Christmas present was
not part of a Medieval Christmas. The sorts of things that people might
have done to entertain themselves at Christmas apart from eating is
succintly summarized in a letter written by Margaret Paston on Christmas
Eve 1459 after she had inquired how her Norfolk neighbour, Lady Morley,
had conducted her household in mourning the previous Christmas, just
after Lady Morley had been widowed:
"...there were no disguisings [acting], nor harping, luting or singing,
nor any lewd sports, but just playing at the tables [backgammon] and
chess and cards. Such sports she gave her folk leave to play and no other."
Virgin suckling the Christ Child.
John of Berry's Petites Heures France, Paris 14th Century.
Mention of disguising calls to mind the Christmas cycle of the mystery
plays, which were part of late Medieval urban entertainment in different
parts of England. The Shepherd's Play from Wakefield would be a specific example. Mention by Lady Morley of "lewd sport" is possibly a reference
to the carol-dance. The leader of the dance sang a verse of the carol,
and a ring of dancers responded with the chorus. Carol-dances were often suggestive of their pagan ancestors where, for instance, holly and ivy
had fertility associations with male and female. Further music for the celebration of the season was provided by the Latin hymns of the Church.
The Annunciation to the Shepherds.
John of Berry's Petites Heures France, Paris 14th Century.
A medieval Christmas celebration was not over in a day, but continued
until 6 January (the Egyptian winter solstice), the Feast of the
Epiphany on the 12th day after Christmas Day. Epiphany celebrated the
visit of the wise men, the Magi, around whom many layers of legend
accumulated as they came to be conceptualized as three oriental kings
who visited the infant Christ at Bethlehem in Judaea. Epiphany also
symbolized the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The Monday after Epiphany was called Plough Monday, and it was then that ploughing began.
The day after Christmas recalled St. Stephen, the martyr mentioned in
the New Testament book of Acts. The following day was that of John the
Apostle and Evangelist (not to be confused with John the Baptist), and
28 December was Holy Innocents' Day or Childermas Day, commemorating the
male children killed by Herod, who was king of the Jews when Jesus was
born. It was superstition that the day of the week upon which Holy
Innocents' Day fell would be unlucky for the coming year.
There was no absolute standard about ending the Christmas season with
Epiphany, and many carried it through to forty days after Christmas, the
date of an ancient pagan festival on 2 February. This is now celebrated
as Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, or
alternatively as the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple. In
one of the most elaborate processions of the year, all parishioners came
to Mass with a penny and a candle blessed before the procession, both of
which were offered to the priest as part of the parochial duties of the faithful. Other candles were blessed and taken away by the faithful to
be used for such things as giving comfort during thunder storms or while
sick or even dying. Such candles were thus important for giving people a
light of solace in the face of hostile forces and stressful events. And
thus Candlemas was a closure for the long season commencing with Advent
that drew Medieval Christians to concentrate on the miraculous gift to
humanity of Christ, and the promise of salvation, while leaving at the
same time space for fun, feasting, and socializing.
Excerpts from: Pleasures and Pastimes of Medieval England by Compton
Reeves. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
The beautiful pictures used on this page, and many others, may be found at:
http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/themes/t_2/st_2_01/a201_005.htm
CHRISTMAS continues with CHRISTMAS PAGE TWO
Christmas
The fortnight from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Day (Epiphany, January 6)
was the longest holiday of the year, when, as in a description of twelfth-century London, "every man's house, as also their parish
churches, was decked with holly, ivy, bay, and whatsoever the season of
the year afforded to be green." Villagers owed extra rents, in the form
of bread, eggs, and hens for the lord's table, but were excused from
work obligations for the fortnight and on some manors were treated to a Christmas dinner in the hall.
This Christmas bonus often reflected status. A manor of Wells Cathedral
had the tradition of of extending invitations to two peasants, one a
large landholder, the other a small one. The first was treated to dinner
for himself and two friends and served "as much beer as they will drink
in the day," beef and bacon with mustard, a chicken stew, and a cheese,
and provided with two candles to burn one after the other "while they
sit and drink." The poorer peasant had to bring his own cloth, cup, and trencher, but could take away "all that is left on his own cloth, and he
shall have for himself and his neighbors one wastel [loaf] cut in three
for the ancient Christmas game to be played with the said wastel." The
game was evidently a version of "king of the bean," in which a bean was
hidden in a cake or loaf, and the person who found it became king of the
feast. On some Glastonbury Abbey manors, tenants brought firewood and
their own dishes, mugs, and napkins; received bread, soup, beer and two
kinds of meat; and could sit drinking in the manor house after dinner.
In the village of Elton the manorial servants had special rations, which
in 1311 amounted to four geese and three hens.
The Virgin & Child
In some villages, the first Monday after Epiphany was celebrated by the
women as Rock (distaff) Monday and by the men as Plow Monday, sometimes featuring a plow race. In 1291 in the Nottingham village of Carlton, a
jury testified that it was an ancient custom for the lord and the rector
and every free man of the village to report with his plow to a certain
field that was common to "the whole community of the said village" after sunrise on "the morrow after Epiphany" and "as many ridges as he can cut
with one furrow in each ridge, so many may he sow in the year, if he
please, without asking for license."
Excerpts from: Life in a Medieval Village by Frances & Joseph Gies. New
York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.
The Nativity, from Horae, London (Pynson), about 1497
Besides conviviality, carol singing, and entertainments, the Christmas
holidays brought a suspension of everyday standards of behavior and
status. On the eve of St. Nicholas' Day (December 6), the cathedrals
chose "boy bishops" who presided over services on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (December 28), assisted by schoolboys and choirboys. On
January 1, in the Feast of Fools, priests and clerks wore masks at mass,
sang "wanton songs," censed with smoke from the soles of old shoes, and
ate sausages before the altar. During the boisterous Christmas season
the lord often appointed a special force of watchmen for the twelve
nights in anticipation of rioting. Tenants on a manor belonging to St.
Paul's cathedral, London, were bound to watch at the manor house from
Christmas to Twelfth Day, their pay "a good fire in the hall, one white
loaf, one cooked dish, and a gallon of ale [per day]."
On Christmas Eve the Yule log was brought in - a giant section of tree
trunk which filled the hearth, and was kept burning throughout the
twelve nights.
At the upper end of the scale, baron and king entertained their knights
and household with a feast and with gifts of "robes" (outfits comprising
tunic, surcoat, and mantle) and jewels.
All over Europe the twelve days of Christmas brought the appearance of
the mummers, bands of masked pantomimists who paraded the streets and
visited houses to dance and dice. In England, plays accompanied the mumming.
New Year's, like Christmas, was an occasion for gift giving, and Mathew
Paris noted that in 1249 Henry III exacted from London citizens "one by
one, the first gifts, which the people are accustomed superstitiously to
call New Year's gifts." "First gifts" were omens of success for the
coing year. So was the first person who entered the house after
midnight, the "first-foot," who determined the fortunes of the family
for the year. In some places this portentous visitor had to be a dark-complexioned man or boy, in others light-haired, while elsewhere it
was considered desirable for him to be flat-footed.
Excerpts from: Life in a Medieval Castle by Joseph and Francis Gies. New
York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1974.
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