Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan

CHAPTER IV

CHRISTMAS IN LITURGY AND POPULAR DEVOTION 87

Advent and Christmas Offices of the Roman Church--The Three Masses of Christmas, their Origin and their Celebration in Rome--The Midnight Mass in Many Lands--Protestant Survivals of the Night Services--Christmas in the Greek Church--The Eastern Epiphany and the Blessing of the Waters--The Presepio or Crib, its Supposed Institution by St. Francis--Early Traces of the Crib--The Crib in Germany, Tyrol, &c.--Cradle-rocking in Mediaeval Germany--Christmas Minstrels in Italy and Sicily--The Presepio in Italy--Ceremonies with the Culla and the Bambino in Rome--Christmas in Italian London--The Spanish Christmas--Possible Survivals of the Crib in England.

CHAPTER V

CHRISTMAS DRAMA 119

Origins of the Mediaeval Drama--Dramatic Tendencies in the Liturgy--Latin Liturgical Plays--The Drama becomes Laicized--Characteristics of the Popular Drama--The Nativity in the English Miracle Cycles--Christmas Mysteries in France--Later French Survivals of Christmas Drama--German Christmas Plays--Mediaeval Italian Plays and Pageants--Spanish Nativity Plays--Modern Survivals in Various Countries--The Star Singers, &c.

POSTSCRIPT 155

Part Ii--Pagan Survivals

CHAPTER VI PRE-CHRISTIAN WINTER FESTIVALS 159

The Church and Superstition--Nature of Pagan Survivals--Racial Origins--Roman Festivals of the Saturnalia and Kalends--Was there a Teutonic Midwinter Festival?--The Teutonic, Celtic, and Slav New Year--Customs attracted to Christmas or January 1-- The Winter Cycle of Festivals--Rationale of Festival Ritual: (a) Sacrifice and Sacrament, (b) The Cult of the Dead, (c) Omens and Charms for the New Year--Compromise in the Later Middle Ages--The Puritans and Christmas--Decay of Old Traditions. |9|

CHAPTER VII

ALL HALLOW TIDE TO MARTINMAS 187

All Saints' and All Souls' Days, their Relation to a New Year Festival--All Souls' Eve and Tendance of the Departed--Soul Cakes in England and on the Continent--Pagan Parallels of All Souls'--Hallowe'en Charms and Omens--Hallowe'en Fires--Guy Fawkes Day--"Old Hob," the Schimmelreiter, and other Animal Masks--Martinmas and its Slaughter--Martinmas Drinking--St. Martin's Fires in Germany--Winter Visitors in the Low Countries and Germany--St. Martin as Gift-bringer--St. Martin's Rod.

CHAPTER VIII

ST. CLEMENT TO ST. THOMAS 209

St. Clement's Day Quests and Processions--St. Catherine's Day as Spinsters' Festival--St. Andrew's Eve Auguries--The Kloepfelnaechte--St. Nicholas's Day, the Saint as Gift-bringer, and his Attendants--Election of the Boy Bishop--St. Nicholas's Day at Bari--St. Lucia's Day in Sweden, Sicily, and Central Europe--St. Thomas's Day as School Festival--Its Uncanny Eve--"Going a-Thomassin'."

CHAPTER IX

CHRISTMAS EVE AND THE TWELVE DAYS 227

Christkind, Santa Klaus, and Knecht Ruprecht--Talking Animals and other Wonders of Christmas Eve--Scandinavian Beliefs about Trolls and the Return of the Dead--Traditional Christmas Songs in Eastern Europe--The Twelve Days, their Christian Origin and Pagan Superstitions--The Raging Host--Hints of Supernatural Visitors in England--The German Frauen--The Greek Kallikantzaroi.

CHAPTER X

THE YULE LOG 249

The Log as Centre of the Domestic Christmas--Customs of the Southern Slavs--The Polaznik--Origin of the Yule Log--Probable Connection with Vegetation-cults or Ancestor-worship--The Souche de Noel in France--Italian and German Christmas Logs--English Customs--The Yule Candle in England and Scandinavia. |10|

CHAPTER XI

THE CHRISTMAS-TREE, DECORATIONS, AND GIFTS 261

The Christmas-tree a German Creation--Charm of the German Christmas--Early Christmas-trees--The Christmas Pyramid--Spread of the Tree in Modern Germany and other Countries--Origin of the Christmas-tree--Beliefs about Flowering Trees at Christmas--Evergreens at the Kalends--Non-German Parallels to the Christmas-tree--Christmas Decorations connected with Ancient Kalends Customs--Sacredness of Holly and Mistletoe--Floors strewn with Straw--Christmas and New Year Gifts, their Connection with the Roman Strenae and St. Nicholas--Present-giving in Various Countries--Christmas Cards.

CHAPTER XII

CHRISTMAS FEASTING AND SACRIFICIAL SURVIVALS 281

Prominence of Eating in the English Christmas--The Boar's Head, the Goose, and other Christmas Fare--Frumenty, Sowens, Yule Cakes, and the Wassail Bowl--Continental Christmas Dishes, their Possible Origins--French and German Cakes--The Animals' Christmas Feast--Cakes in Eastern Europe--Relics of Animal Sacrifice--Hunting the Wren--Various Games of Sacrificial Origin.

CHAPTER XIII

MASKING, THE MUMMERS' PLAY, THE FEAST OF FOOLS, AND THE BOY BISHOP 295

English Court Masking--"The Lord of Misrule"--The Mummers' Play, the Sword-Dance, and the Morris Dance--Origin of St. George and other Characters--Mumming in Eastern Europe--The Feast of Fools, its History and Suppression--The Boy Bishop, his Functions and Sermons--Modern Survivals of the Boy Bishop.

CHAPTER XIV

ST. STEPHEN'S, ST. JOHN'S, AND HOLY INNOCENTS' DAYS 309

Horse Customs of St. Stephen's Day--The Swedish St. Stephen--St. John's Wine--Childermas and its Beatings. |11|

CHAPTER XV

NEW YEAR'S DAY 319

Principle of New Year Customs--The New Year in France, Germany, the United States, and Eastern Europe--"First-footing" in Great Britain--Scottish New Year Practices--Highland Fumigation and "Breast-strip" Customs--Hogmanay and Aguillanneuf--New Year Processions in Macedonia, Roumania, Greece, and Rome--Methods of Augury--Sundry New Year Charms.

CHAPTER XVI

EPIPHANY TO CANDLEMAS 335

The Twelfth Cake and the "King of the Bean"--French Twelfth Night Customs--St. Basil's Cake in Macedonia--Epiphany and the Expulsion of Evils--The Befana in Italy--The Magi as Present-bringers--Greek Epiphany Customs--Wassailing Fruit-trees--Herefordshire and Irish Twelfth Night Practices--The "Haxey Hood" and Christmas Football--St. Knut's Day in Sweden--Rock Day--Plough Monday--Candlemas, its Ecclesiastical and Folk Ceremonies--Farewells to Christmas.

CONCLUSION 357

NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 361

INDEX 389

|12|

|13|

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (DETAIL) Frontispiece Gentile da Fabriano. (Florence: Accademia)

MADONNA AND CHILD 13 Albert Duerer

MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS AND ANGELS 31 Pesellino. (Empoli Gallery)

JACOPONE IN ECSTASY BEFORE THE VIRGIN 40 From "Laude di Frate Jacopone da Todi" (Florence, 1490)

THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS 55 By Fouquet. (Musee Conde, Chantilly)

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT: THE REST BY THE WAY 70 Master of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. (Also attributed to Joachim Patinir.) (Vienna: Imperial Gallery)

SINGING "VOM HIMMEL HOCH" FROM A CHURCH TOWER AT CHRISTMAS 71 By Ludwig Richter

THE NATIVITY 89 From Add. MS. 32454 in the British Museum. (French, 15th Century)

A NEAPOLITAN PRESEPIO 108

CALABRIAN SHEPHERDS PLAYING IN ROME AT CHRISTMAS 112 After an Etching by D. Allan. From Hone's "Every-day Book" (London, 1826)

ST. FRANCIS INSTITUTES THE PRESEPIO AT GRECCIO 114 By Giotto. (Upper Church of St. Francis, Assisi)

|14|

THE BAMBINO OF ARA COELI 115

THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS 121 From Broadside No. 305 in the Collection of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House

THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM 140 From "Le grant Kalendrier & compost des Bergiers" (N. le Rouge, Troyes, 1529)

THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 154 Masaccio. (Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum)

NEW YEAR MUMMERS IN MANCHURIA 161 An Asiatic example of animal masks

CHRISTMAS EVE IN DEVONSHIRE--THE MUMMERS COMING IN 229

THE GERMAN CHRISTMAS-TREE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 263 From an engraving by Joseph Kellner

CHRISTMAS MORNING IN LOWER AUSTRIA 281 By Ferdinand Waldmueller (b. 1793)

YORKSHIRE SWORD-ACTORS: ST. GEORGE IN COMBAT WITH ST. PETER 297 From an article by Mr. T. M. Fallow in The Antiquary, May, 1895

THE EPIPHANY IN FLORENCE 337

|15| |16| |17|

CHAPTER I. Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The Origin and Purpose of Festivals--Ideas suggested by Christmas--Pagan and Christian Elements--The Names of the Festival--Foundation of the Feast of the Nativity--Its Relation to the Epiphany--December 25 and the Natalis Invicti--The Kalends of January--Yule and Teutonic Festivals--The Church and Pagan Survivals--Two Conflicting Types of Festival--Their Interaction--Plan of the Book.

It has been an instinct in nearly all peoples, savage or civilized, to set aside certain days for special ceremonial observances, attended by outward rejoicing. This tendency to concentrate on special times answers to man's need to lift himself above the commonplace and the everyday, to escape from the leaden weight of monotony that oppresses him. "We tend to tire of the most eternal splendours, and a mark on our calendar, or a crash of bells at midnight maybe, reminds us that we have only recently been created."{1} That they wake people up is the great justification of festivals, and both man's religious sense and his joy in life have generally tended to rise "into peaks and towers and turrets, into superhuman exceptions which really prove the rule."{2} It is difficult to be religious, impossible to be merry, at every moment of life, and festivals are as sunlit peaks, testifying, above dark valleys, to the eternal radiance. This is one view of the purpose and value of festivals, and their function of cheering people and giving them larger perspectives has no doubt been an important reason for their maintenance in the past. If we could trace the custom of festival-keeping back to its origins in primitive society |18| we should find the same principle of specialization involved, though it is probable that the practice came into being not for the sake of its moral or emotional effect, but from man's desire to lay up, so to speak, a stock of sanctity, magical not ethical, for ordinary days.

The first holy-day-makers were probably more concerned with such material goods as food than with spiritual ideals, when they marked with sacred days the rhythm of the seasons.{3} As man's consciousness developed, the subjective aspect of the matter would come increasingly into prominence, until in the festivals of the Christian Church the main object is to quicken the devotion of the believer by contemplation of the mysteries of the faith. Yet attached, as we shall see, to many Christian festivals, are old notions of magical sanctity, probably quite as potent in the minds of the common people as the more spiritual ideas suggested by the Church's feasts.

In modern England we have almost lost the festival habit, but if there is one feast that survives among us as a universal tradition it is Christmas. We have indeed our Bank Holidays, but they are mere days of rest and amusement, and for the mass of the people Easter and Whitsuntide have small religious significance--Christmas alone has the character of sanctity which marks the true festival. The celebration of Christmas has often little or nothing to do with orthodox dogma, yet somehow the sense of obligation to keep the feast is very strong, and there are few English people, however unconventional, who escape altogether the spell of tradition in this matter.

Continue reading Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan free in the Wunder reader →