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.
[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.