Christmas, Christ's-mass

Summary.  Prior to Reformation the lead up to Christmas was solemn with fasting, chastity and ritual liturgy. Carol singing and dancing occurred outside of the church. After Reformation there was more festivity, but some groups shunned any kind of celebration. By the 17th century, puritanical Protestantism forbade any kind of celebration apart from a Christian Mass. It was not until the early 19th-century for the division between puritanical Protestantism and those who wanted to celebrate the mid-winter festival to diminish.

 

          The earliest reference to a festival on 25 December was in Rome in the year 336. This date was probably fixed because it was 9 months from 25 March, the date considered to be Christ’s conception.[1] It was also the date of the Spring Equinox. Christmas Day was seen as the return of the sun and linked with the creator of light. Bede in De temporum ratione, 725,[2] writes, “it is fitting the Creator of eternal light should be conceived and born along with the increase of temporal light.” An early name for the midwinter festival which became a name for Christmas Day was Geola or Yule (meaning redemption or deliverance). This name continued in some areas of the north of England and Scotland into the late medieval period. The Vikings upon conversion used the word Jól. Early medieval England used the word middlewinter and Christmas day was middlewintres mæsse dæg. This name appeared in 1066 with William the Conqueror’s coronation. The name Cristesmæsse, Christmas, was not used until the early 11th-century and even then, was often substituted with the name ‘Midwinter’. Another was the French Noël.

 

In pre-Reformation times, Advent leading to Christmas in church was a solemn occasion with three weeks of formal services.[3] The reading of Isaiah and the prophecy of Christ’s birth was a given. Fasting was recommended with fish preferred to meat. Marriages were not allowed because sexual activity was inappropriate (it also applied to Lent). A vigil and fasting occurred on Christmas Eve as a precursor to the feast on Christmas Day. Three masses were celebrated, on Christmas Eve, at dawn on Christmas Day and then later in the morning. The following three days were festivals, St Stephen (Boxing Day, so called in 1871, and no one knows why), St John the Evangelist on 27 December and finally Holy Innocents Day on 28 December with the custom of installing a boy-bishop – see the post on ‘Choristers’. There were further festivals on 1 and 6 January. The centre pieces of the Christmas liturgy were the shepherds at Christmas, the three Magi at Epiphany and Simeon at Candlemas. The three events are similar in welcoming and presenting Jesus as the Messiah. Alfred the Great ordered a celebration of 12 days at Christmas. It was a festival to brighten the darkest time of the year.

Visit of the three Magi on the reredos in the Lady Chapel.

 

Richard II spent Christmas 1397 at Lichfield staying in the palace in the Close. His stay until January 6 with a large protecting bodyguard, according to the allegations of a monk of Evesham, meant the consumption of twenty cattle, three hundred sheep, and a daily large quantity of poultry.

          The church could be decorated with holly and ivy, and more candles than usual. There is no record of a nativity scene with a crib being displayed.[4] In homes there was generally much celebration with food, games and gift-giving on New Year’s Day. Carols were sung outside of the church and usually accompanied with dancing. The twelve days of Christmas could be a holiday for the prosperous, but for many there was a need to keep working. Candlemas on 2 February was the time of ‘light’ and almost everyone attended church and brought in a candle. In some places the people processed to the church carrying torches. New candles for the coming year in the church were blessed. 

The Nativity, from a 14th-century Sherbrooke Missal. The Missal on parchment originates from East Anglia and is held in The National Library of Wales.

 

          The origins of the allegorical Father Christmas are obscure, but might have developed from folklore figures in Early Medieval times. The earliest evidence for a character called Christmas can be found in a 15th-century carol, in which a 'Sir Christëmas' shares the news of Christ's birth. One portrayal of Father Christmas was a large man who wore a scarlet robe lined with fur and had a crown of holly, ivy, or mistletoe. A link with a pagan ritual sounds plausible, but is conjecture.  A red suited Father Christmas carrying a sack of toys first appeared as an illustration to a poem in 1881.

Father Christmas crowned with a holly wreath and holding a staff, wassail bowl and Yule log. From Illustrated London News, 1848.

 

          In post-Reformation times not much changed with Christmas traditions except the saints were not venerated and this included St Nicholas the saint for children held on 6 December when a boy-bishop was picked from amongst the choristers. It has been suggested since St Nicholas was associated with gift-giving his cult gradually morphed into that of Father Christmas, but this is tenuous. Church liturgy changed with Reformation, but this did not stop festivities. Henry VIII celebrated twelve days of Christmas with prolonged feasting and the menu would include traditional boar’s head, peacock, swan, lark, partridge, quail, roast beef and prawn pasties. The hall, usually at Greenwich Palace, was decorated with greenery, dried fruit, berries, and candles. Carols were sung and danced as well as pageantry, disguising and convivial merrymaking, all led by the mischievous ‘The Lord of Misrule.’ Mummers would perform a play. The king allowed archery on Christmas Day, but no other sport.

 

          In parts of Europe, Reformation became a catalyst to curtail Christmas. John Calvin in Switzerland, 1550, thought people gave more importance to the festivities and ignored the Christian significance. Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland sought to abolish all feast and saint’s holy days, including Christmas. John Knox, who founded the Presbyterian movement in Scotland, followed the same thinking. Martin Luther, in contrast, liked Christmas; there is an untrue story that he first attached candles to a tree. In Britain, the 1559 Elizabethan Settlement steered a middle line between removing choral music, candles and dance and the desire to have a celebration. In contrast in Scotland,1583, the Presbyterians secured a ban on Christmas celebrations, though others ignored the ban. William Prynne, 1632, a puritan writer, stated all pious Christians should eternally abominate observance of the holiday. For puritans the word Christmas was synonymous with the Popish mass. This division of opinion simmered until the Civil War.

On 19 December 1643, an ordinance was passed by the Parliamentarians encouraging subjects to treat the mid-winter period with solemn humiliation. This was in contrast with the gaiety advocated by the Royalists. A year later another ordinance confirmed the abolition of the feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun, but at this time it only applied to the Parliamentarians. It continued, however, until 1659. From 1656, Cromwell’s parliament legislated that every Sunday was to be stringently observed as a holy day. If Christmas was not on a Sunday, then shops and markets could stay open, but special food for a Christmas event was prohibited. Christmas was not to be celebrated with frivolous and immoral behaviour, but instead spent in respectful contemplation. There was a fear poor behaviour would spill over into church services and it was also too closely associated with Catholicism. Cromwell did not order the banning of Christmas, but instead legislated to severely curtail such celebrations. The Puritans' prohibition of Christmas proved very unpopular and pro-Christmas riots broke out across the country with many disregarding the ordinance. Royalist propaganda indicated the ban was severe, the reality was it was much ignored.[5]

Early 20th-century architectural drawing of Oliver Cromwell’s statue outside Parliament. There are differences with the statue.

 

          It took until the early 19th-century for the division between puritanical Protestantism and those who wanted to celebrate the mid-winter festival to subside. Popular evangelists, like George Whitfield, John Wesley and others, promoted Christmas as a genuine Christian celebration with carols such as ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain.’ The version of ‘O come all ye faithful’ was written by the priest Frederick Oakeley and he is associated with Lichfield in his early years. The Victorians added traditions to the festival, c. 1840s, and increased its commercialisation. Its observance has changed in many ways.[6]

                   The flaw in all this history is that it is clear how the church saw Christmas and changed its liturgy with time and much is known how leaders of the country tried to impose their idea of the festival, but very little is known how ordinary people approached the winter solstice and New Year. Indeed, the gaiety of Christmas, carols, dancing, gifts and feasting, originated in the homes.

The Christ-child was born in a manger, [7] in an ordinary dwelling, Luke 2, 7. From this, artists have painted and sculpted stables, barns, shacks and other out-buildings. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem has a cave. This is very different from how the celebration has become.

Fresco in the Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, late second century. Three magi each in a different colour with outstretched hands approach Mary and child.

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[1] E. Parker, Winters in the World. A journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year. ((London: 2022), 68.

[2] Wallis, F, Bede: The Reckoning of Time. (Liverpool: 1999).

[3] Orne. N. Going to church in Medieval England. (New Haven and London: 2022), 257–260.

[4] Francis of Assisi is credited with staging the first nativity scene in 1223, but it then took many years before it was copied in European countries. The earliest cribs appeared in a few churches in Europe in the mid-16th century. Strangely, it did not get taken up in England. Paintings of the nativity were known in England, but never a diorama. In contrast, the tomb and stone at Easter was modelled in an Easter sepulchre.

[5] J.A.R. Pimlott, ‘Christmas under the Puritans.’ History Today, (1960), 10, issue 12.

[6] There is a theory that agricultural workers moving into the towns expanding with new industries in the early Victorian era brought their rural customs and added them to the Christmas celebration. It was a response to upheaval and many strange practices relieving the poverty and dark gloom occurred.

[7] Trough, crib or rack.

 

Anchorites at Lichfield

Summary. Three chambers on the south side of the Lady Chapel are enigmatic. They were built by Bishop Walter de Langton who, with the following two bishops, had an interest in anchoritism. Their layout with an external door fits this hypothesis. Location within the Close fortified walls suggest the occupancy of an anchorite priest and managed communion. It is most likely an anchorite was connected to the cathedral in the 13th and early 14th century.

An anchorite or anchoress was someone who withdrew from the community to lead a solitary, prayerful and ascetic (anachoretic) life. Earliest anchoritism was a form of monasticism and included men like John-the-Baptist and Anthony living in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd century. In Benedict of Nursia’s Rule of Saint Benedict, 516, anchoritic life stood for the highest form of monasticism. There are features of the life of Chad which suggest he practiced solitude and gave spiritual advice to those who visited him. In England, the first recorded religious recluses were in the 10th century.[1] Between the 13th to 16th centuries anchorites and various kinds of solitaries, hermits and recluses were very common in England and throughout medieval Europe. Reformation ended this vision of how life has to be lived.

Century	Female	Male	Gender unknown	Total	Total known sites
12th	48	30	18	96	77
13th	123	37	38	198	175
14th	96	41	77	214	171
15th	110	66	28	204	139
16th	37	27	4	68	49

Number of documented anchorites, A. K. Warren, 1985,.[2] There have been 780 recorded English recluses from 601 sites between 1100 and the end of the Middle Ages. They were 414 female solitaries, 201 males and 165 of unknown gender. It appears there were more anchoresses than anchorites (4:1 in the 13th-century). A dearth of records however, suggests there could have been substantially more.[3]

An anchorite usually lived permanently[4] enclosed in a cell known as an anchorhold; that is, they were anchored to one cell. Some anchorites moved freely between several cells and some were in houses. An anchorhold was usually attached to a church or cathedral and often located on the north side. Some were connected to houses and castles or castle walls and some were near monasteries. The anchorite house at Chester-le-Street had four cells and was exceptional. Generally, the cell was small (an average of 4 metres square), contained a bed, a chamber pot and a small altar, but rarely had a window. Commonly, those against a church had a squint or opening to view the altar thus enabling the anchorite to view the raising of the host in the Eucharist. Often the cell was adjoined to another room in which a servant could assist the anchorite especially in providing a frugal meal. Sometimes local people would converse with the anchorite through a small opening in the wall. The anchorite was seen as a wise person able to offer spiritual guidance. Indeed, many who chose to be immured were of high status and were respected. Many had financial security; it was common for wills to contain donations for the local anchorite. The anchorite was independent of the church, but answerable to the bishop. Early anchorholds were predominantly in rural areas and in makeshift timber buildings, but by the 14th century they were in stone houses. By the 16th century anchorholds had become ‘an integral element of the ecclesiastical topography of medieval towns.’[5]

 

View of anchorite's cell at Holy Trinity Church, Skipton, Yorkshire, Wikipedia Public Domain.  

      

The enclosure of an anchoress by a bishop. 15th-century illumination from a Pontifical manuscript, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 79. Fol. 72r. 

The anchorite often held their isolation to be a way to avoid hell and by intense prayer to join Christ.[6] It was like being perpetually in Lent, that is, avoiding temptation and preparing for death. Unlike hermits, anchorites received a rite of consecration that resembled a funeral before entering their anchorhold. They would be held as gone from the world, a living saint. During the late medieval period it was often a pious, lay woman. Some had terminal diseases and this was a positive way to see their end-life and enact a form of martyrdom. There is some evidence of when they died, they were buried within the apse of the church near to the altar. 13 English guides giving instruction are known which explain how anchorites were to be made, supported and behave. There were four key ideals: enclosure, comparative solitude, chastity and orthodoxy[7] Therefore their common portrayal as a solitary, unstable, unkept and heretical individual is wrong. Some anchorites suffered, but this most likely applied only to a minority. Some anchorite-priests pursued scholarly or copyist work in their cells. Ælfheah, c.953‑1012, was an anchorite at Bath who became an abbot, then a bishop and finally Archbishop of Canterbury. He became a saint in 1078.

 A well-known anchorite was Cuthbert isolated on Farne island and described by Bede. Another was Billfrith at Lindisfarne who adorned the Lindisfarne Gospels with gold and gems. In the late 7th century, Guthlac left the monastery in Repton and for 15 to 20 years lived on an island in the Lincolnshire Fens. A folklore story has Chad living as a hermit and living on the milk of a doe. This myth has been modified to locate the hermitage at Stowe. Wigbald might have been an anchorite who attested a charter, 786/96, at Medeshamstead. Wulfric of Haselbury, c.1080‑1154. Wulfric was an anchorite priest in Wiltshire and Somerset and frequently advised King Stephen. He lived in a cell adjacent to the church at Haselbury Plucknett, Somerset for 29 years reading the Bible and healing those who visited him. Despite these often-quoted narratives, recent research has emphasised not much is known how the anchorite lived and practised their vocation. Instead, the evidence points to anchoritism as being highly esteemed by the surrounding community, a community which, after all, enabled the vocation to exist and persist in both economic and practical terms.[8]

 

Anchorholds have been identified in churches in Staffordshire and Shropshire. There is a mention of Simon, a longstanding hermit, being translated in 1222 from Lichfield to Dunstable, but he could have been isolating in a cave, house or cell and not attached to a church.[9] Two hermits were allowed by Matilda to settle a mile to the south of Beaudesert (at Radmoor?) and were given land for pasture on Cannock Chase early in the 12th century. In the register of Bishop Walter Langton, in 1311, Emma Sprenghose was found suitable to be an anchoress in a house close to St George’s chapel, Shrewsbury. In 1315, Iseult de Hungerford was admitted into the same house. The house was said to have other anchorites.[10] The register of Bishop Roger de Northburgh, 1322–1358, included appointments of anchorite-priests being made 1357–1374,[11] though it is not clear where the anchorite-priests were sent. In 1360, the prior of Maxstoke was commissioned by Bishop Stretton to enclose Brother Roger de Henorebarwe as an anchorite in the chapel of Maryhall. In 1363, Bishop Stretton inducted a friar at St. John's, Chester, into an anchorite's cell in the churchyard.[12] In 1423, John Grace an anchorite friar from Coventry, preached on three days to the canons in the Cathedral Close.[13] John Woodcoat, a chaplain, in 1457, was asked to hear the confessions of an anchorite at Polesworth.[14] The River Anker runs through Polesworth and its name is said to derive from two anchorholds close-by. In 1509, the bishop suffragan shut up Joan Hythe, a nun from Derby, in a cell at the church in Macclesfield.[15]

View of Savage Chapel attached to St Michael and All Angels’ Church, Macclesfied. Joan Hythe was enclosed in the upstairs room and communicated via the small window to the outside. Internally she could look down though slits in a wall to the ground floor Savage Chapel. She was known as ‘the holy woman’.        

                                                                Squint in the Savage Chapel, now blocked, to see the main altar. . 

An anchorhold with an aumbry in the wall, seems to have existed on the northern side of St. Chad's chancel at Stafford.[16] The inference is medieval Lichfield bishops were supportive of anchoritism.

          Almost certainly in the 13th or 14th-century there must have been anchorites in cells adjoining the cathedral or in the Close, but there is no documentary evidence. The involvement of bishops of Lichfield in the 14th and 15th centuries in anchoritism, especially Bishop Walter Langton, supports this. It raises the question, where were the cells? One good possibility are the three small chambers on the south side of the Lady Chapel built by Bishop Langton. The cells are small and in line sight with the altar in the Lady Chapel. All three chambers are 1.7 m (5 feet 9 inches) wide internally. The eastern and western chambers are shorter (2. 6 m or 8 feet 8 inches long) and the middle chamber is longer (3.9 m or 13 feet long). The roofs are groined with stone ribs and bosses. The middle chamber has a small door to the eastern chamber; it passes –through a buttress and is 1 m (3 feet 3 inches) thick. This chamber was once accessible to the outside by a door.

John Snape’s map 1781 has an engraving of the cathedral and appears to show a path leading from the eastern chamber door. The path appears to extend to outside the south door where a ferry could take visitors across Minster Pool. This avoids entrance through the southeast door, which would have been guarded and used by the bishop.

Lady Chapel From south showing unrestored window tracery, tomb recesses and exterior door. Note the  door and pathway. 1850-1880

 

Lady Chapel watercolour by J. C. Buckler c.1845 clearly showing an external door.

It has been thought the chambers were built for the tomb of Walter de Langton the originator and funder of the chapel, but he was buried on the south side near the high altar. Madisson conjectured whether the chambers were originally sacristies or had a tomb intention, but then admitted their purpose was open to question.[17] He also pointed out the usual practice of a Lady Chapel being seen as a separate building sometimes entered through a low arch and cited 7 other cathedrals. Cox[18] suggested various priests who might have been buried within the chambers. He also surmised whether they were chantry chapels but comes to no conclusion. After Reformation the ‘little cells in the wall of the Lady Chapel may have been occupied by the ecclesiastics who watched the shrine.’[19] The chambers have clearly teased historians; the chambers being tombs has to account for the undercroft and its use and why Langton was not buried in one.

South side of Lady Chapel in Dugdale Monasticum Anglicanum Vol 6 part 3, pages 1238–9. Note the access door for the eastern most chamber. Note changes of access within chambers; the 1989 version appears to be different regarding internal doorways whereas the 1891 is more accurate. Under the three chambers is an undercroft roofed by a pointed tunnel vault.

Exterior of third chamber showing the new stone where there was a door. Note the slit window to the undercroft. Was there a stoup on the ledge inside the archway?

 

A plausible purpose for the exceptional chambers would be for an anchorite, especially an anchorite-priest. Such a solitary could have occupied the middle chamber with welfare provided from the western chamber. Visitors wanting spiritual guidance could not enter the cathedral by the main doors, but would access an anchorite-priest by the small door into the eastern chamber. Perhaps, the anchorite-priest was one of a team of acolytes on a rota. The undercroft could have been for sleeping and sanitation. This means any citizen could access a priest through a wall opening without entering the main body of the cathedral.

Doorway from middle chamber to eastern chamber (now a storeroom).

      

Doorway looking from the undercroft. It is narrow and on the northwest corner of the westernmost chamber.

View of the undercroft. The walls are on the bedrock, and the roof shape is conical. The small room is partly divided by a buttress.

        

A pipe-like opening in the wall of the undercroft. Might this once have been a flue? Thanks to Neil Platts for images of the undercroft.

            There was an anchorage adjoining Chichester Cathedral in which William Bolle, rector of Aldrington, obtained permission to construct a cell and retire thither.  It was agreed that after his death it should pass into the bishop’s hands.  The chamber, 29 x 24 feet, communicated with the Lady chapel. Worcester cathedral had a cell on the north side, between the porch and the west end. At Sherborne Abbey the anchorite was in the chapel of St Mary le Bow on the south side of the Lady chapel. At Durham the chamber was within the cathedral. It was a loft, evidently a wooden structure, close to the high altar and behind St Cuthbert’s shrine. The Westminster anchorage was on the south side of the chancel of St Margaret’s.[20]

 

          It would be unlikely for the name of any anchorite-priest to appear in any Dean and Chapter document since the appointment was entirely the work of the bishop. Furthermore, the anchorite would be considered separate from any cathedral or diocesan arrangement. This helps to explain the obscurity of these individuals and why more is known from the architecture of their cell. The existence of three chambers, an undercroft and external door built by Bishop Langton, the lack of information as to their purpose and their location near the town gate or southern ferry points to their possible use for anchoritism. Also, the known enthusiasm for anchoritism by the following two bishops, Northburgh and Stretton, points to this explanation. The cathedral having an anchorite priest would compete with the Friary and its monks tending to the residents of Lichfield. An anchorite-priest would be able to say Mass, and pray for the souls of brethren and benefactors. They would be akin to a chaplain.

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[1] T. Licence, Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950–1200, (Oxford: 2011). Also, T Licence, ‘Evidence of recluses in eleventh-century England’, in M Godden and S Keynes (eds), Anglo-Saxon England, (2007),36.

[2] A. K. Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England. (Oakland: 1985).

[3] E. A. Jones, Hermits and anchorites in England, 1200–1550. (Manchester: 2019), 7.

[4] There are known examples where the anchorite left or was removed.

[5] R Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism, (Leicester: 1995), 183.

[6] Ibid, A cell of enclosure was equated with prison into which the anchorite propelled himself for fear of hell and for love of Christ.

[7] M. Hughes-Edwards, Reading Medieval Anchoritism, (Cardiff:2012).

[8] Ibid.

[9] R. M. Clay, The Hermits and Anchorites of England. (London: 1914). 142.

[10] J. B. Huges, The episcopate of Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1296-1321, with a calendar of his register. Ph.D. Thesis for the University of Nottingham, 1992, 684, 697.

[11] Ibid, 24. Also E. Hobhouse ed. Registers of Roger de Norbury, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, from 1322 to 1358, William Salt Archaeological Society, (1880), 286.

[12] Ibid, 156.

[13] W. Beresford, Diocesan histories. Lichfield. (London: 1883), 154. Also T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806), 285.

[14] Ibid W. Beresford (1883),168

[15] Ibid 162

[16] Ibid 162

[17] J. Maddison, ‘Building at Lichfield Cathedral during the episcopate of Walter Langton, 1296–1321.’ In Medieval archaeology and architecture at Lichfield, XIII, The British Archaeological Association, (1993), 71.

[18] J. C. Cox, ‘The mortuary chapels of Lichfield Cathedral,’ Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, (1879), 1, 116–126.

[19] Ibid 190

[20] R.M. Clay (1914), 80‑1. See note 9.