Medieval Christmastide
Advent
People often complain that Christmas is becoming a stressful time of year, creeping ever further back into November. But spare a thought for medieval English folks, who had to put up with a whole 40 days of Advent in the run up to Christmas! Advent technically began on the 11th of November, the feast day of St Martin of Tours, and was also known as the “Forty Day Fast of St Martin” – and fasting and penance was very much the order of the days. On Wednesday, Friday and Saturday people fasted, with only one meal per day which was not allowed to feature meat, dairy, wine, fat, ale or beer. In addition, gambling, sex, getting married or travelling unnecessarily were also banned. Not exactly ‘the most wonderful time of the year!’
However, this austere regime of fasting gave way on Christmas day to a time of feasting, frivolity and wild abandon. Many medieval Christmas traditions are believed to be holdovers from Pagan midwinter feasts like the Roman Saturnalia or the Germanic Yule, and certainly early Church figures were often deeply suspicious of many of the Christmas customs of the common people, preferring to emphasise the religious meaning of Christmas – but they didn’t get far. For most people in the Middle Ages Christmas was twelve days of solid partying from Christmas day itself all the way to Epiphany on January 6th. This period was known as “Christmastide” and featured many of the things we are still familiar with.
Decorations and Gifts
Houses were decorated with evergreen foliage, including boughs of holly. The green leaves remaining through the winter symbolised eternal life, while the red berries of the holly were thought to symbolise Christ’s blood. Despite this tradition, the idea of dragging a whole tree into the house does not seem to be particularly ancient, with the Victorians popularising the Christmas tree in England.
The giving of gifts too was associated with this time, although when you got your pressies varied considerably depending on where you lived – in much of Europe St Nicholas’ Day on the 6th of December was the day for the giving of gifts, while New Years Day was considered normal in other parts. Around Christmas, Lords were also expected to invite their peasants into the manor for a feast, with plenty of free ale, and a lot of manorial records show specific foods to be given at Christmas including loaves of bread, beef and bacon with mustard, chickens, cheese, as much beer as they could drink and a loaf of bread for their dog. Perhaps this is the origin of the work Christmas do? Of course, Lords could give but they would also take on Christmas Day – this was one of the four “quarter days” in the year that rents were due, so many peasants would have to trudge up to the Lord’s manor with their rent and console themselves afterwards with a slap-up meal and a few pints.
The Christmas Feast
Following on from that, feasting was obviously the focus of the Christmas period much as it is today. Only a lot of the Christmas delicacies we are used to would have been unavailable to medieval English folks – turkeys and chocolate were only introduced to Europe in the 16th century. Nevertheless, there would probably be plenty of food available – the late summer harvest would mean grain would still be plentiful, and it was at this time of year that animals that were not being kept over the winter would be slaughtered, meaning there was a lot of meat around as well. Pork seems to have been favoured for Christmas feasts, with a boar’s head being a particularly prized centrepiece for a feast, but a set “Christmas Dinner” had not yet been developed. Instead, it was a case of as much excess as you could afford!
In 1213, King John ordered 24 barrels of wine, 200 pigs, 1000 chickens, 500lbs of wax, 50 lbs of pepper, 2lbs of saffron, 100lbs of almonds, along with napkins, table linens, spices and 10,000 salted eels for his Christmas dinner! While these were festive occasions, Royal Christmas feasts would also be political events of great importance, where nobles from around the Kingdom would travel to wherever the King was to show their loyalty, broker alliances and curry favour. In 1292, we know King Edward I was spending Christmas in Newcastle and had his barons swear allegiance to him here at Newcastle Castle. One of his guests was the newly crowned King of Scotland John Balliol, who joined in with the other lords and swore allegiance to Edward. He later claimed that he was only swearing loyalty for his lands in England, not as King of Scotland, but Edward disagreed and used Balliol’s oath of loyalty to press him claim to be overlord of Scotland. This Christmas misunderstanding would lead to 300 years of warfare between England and Scotland – consider that next time there’s a bit of a family bust up at Christmas time!
Folk Traditions
Other medieval Christmas traditions include carolling (which was more like trick or treating, with carollers usually demanding treats or even money from people they visited). Officially the church disapproved of carolling which included far too much in the way of dancing and frivolity, so carollers were usually banned from churches, hence their going door to door. Mumming, or short folk plays, were also common, often dealing with the turning of the seasons, while in parts of Europe young men disguised as devils in elaborate costumes made mischief during the long nights. An element of anarchy was in fact frequently part of Christmas in the Middle Ages. Around the 1st of January many places had a “Feast of Fools”, where the normal social order was overturned, and a Lord of Misrule was elected – usually the most foolish person in the town! Their commands, however bizarre, would be obeyed during the feast, and the Lord and his retinue of fools would parade through the town wearing masks getting more and more drunk as the day went on. Other places elected a “Boy Bishop” on the 28th of December – a young lad would be elected Bishop for the day and would travel round the district collecting donations and performing “weddings” – these weddings were considered perfectly valid, but only for one day, which we can imagine brought a lot of relief to people after the forced abstinence of advent!
Gambling, rough games of football, wassailing apple trees and many other entertainments and folk customs also persisted throughout the medieval period. Gambling was one of those activities usually heavily frowned upon by both the church and state in medieval times, but they seem to have made an exception at Christmas time. In Castile, the royal monopoly on gambling houses was relaxed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, while references exist to Kings of France engaging in games of dice over Christmas. After the Middle Ages, Henry VIII allowed his servants to gamble on the twelve days of Christmas but at no other time. The most popular medieval gambling game, referred to by Geoffrey Chaucer and many other authors, was called Hazard, and was a sort of early form of Craps.
Football was popularly played both at Shrovetide and at Christmas time, a tradition that survives right through to the modern day and the matches on Boxing Day. There is even a surviving medieval “Ba’ Game” played on Orkney at Christmas time. Not that medieval football was much like the modern game. It was usually played between two villages, with no standard team size, no referee, no rules against tackling or manhandling other players or grabbing the ball. It was something like a cross between rugby and a riot, and frequently resulted in injuries. Indeed, in Ulgham, Northumberland, in 1280 Henry son of William of Ellington was killed by “running against” his friend David le Keu’s dagger…
Wassailing was a much less energetic, but not less raucous tradition. The strange name derives from the Old English equivalent of “Cheers!” – on proposing a toast, someone would raise their cup and say “Waes Hael!” and their companions would reply “Drink Hael!” This common drinking formula seems to have become part of a Christmas custom of drinking to people’s health at that time of year. A wassail bowl was usually filled with mulled ale (or cider in the south) and shared around the revellers, who would often go door to door ‘politely’ asking for free food and booze from the householders – woe betide the stingy! In cider producing areas, the tradition seems to have been to take the Wassailing to the orchards and make an offering to the apple trees in the hope that they would produce a plentiful harvest in the coming year.
Back to work
So let it be said of us, as of the good folks of medieval England, that we know how to keep Christmas well – 12 days of debauchery should be more than enough for anyone. After all that, Plough Sunday, the first Sunday after Twelfth Night, saw the ploughs blessed for the coming year of work, and plough Monday saw the resumption of the usual round of seasonal labour after the joys of Christmas time. Back to the daily grind!