Celebrating the Days of Christmas Before the New Year.

Feast of St. Stephen, December 26th.

In this series:

• The Wild Boar from Valhalla to Christmas Kitchen.
• Catering the Medieval and Tudor Christmas Feasts.
• Ordering the Medieval and Tudor Household for Christmas.
• Feasting in the Great Hall on Christmas Day!
• Celebrating the Days of Christmas Before the New Year.

The twelve Days of Christmas are racing by.  Or at least St. Stephen’s Day, December 26^th, is.  Barnaby Googe’s translation of Naogeorgus’ Regnum Papisticum (1553) preserves the fact that, at least in the German Empire,

Then followeth Saint Stephens days whereon doth every man

His horses jaunt and course abrode, as swiftly as he can,

Until they doe extreemely sweate, and than they let them blood,

For this being done upon this day, they say doth do them good,

And keepes them from all maladies and sicknesse through the yeare,

As if that Steven any time took charge of horses heare.[1]

The common sources of horse veterinarian information in England, as well as Germany, at the time, referring to the ancient Greeks and Persians for much of their information, it is likely that they shared the ancients’ dedication to periodically “sweating” war horses.[2]

Closer to home, as it were, we are informed by Thomas Trusser that the humble husbandman was in the habit of bleeding his horses on or about the same day.

Yer Christmas be passed, let Horsse be lett blood,

For many a purpose it doth him much good:

The day of St. Steven, old fathers did use,

If that do mislike thee, some other day chuse.[3]

It seems a bit too much to be a coincidence, however much the farmer does not seem to have done so after sweating.

The farmer’s reason for specifically choosing Stephen’s Day[4] to bleed his horses is clear.

Plough Monday, next after that Twelftide is past,

bids out with the plough, the woorst husband is last.[5]

The fields must be plowed in order to plant winter oats and wheat following Twelvetide.  The plow horse must be made as strong as possible for the task.

Why the nobleman’s horse was sweated and bled on St. Stephen’s Day, in particular, is not clear.  King Stephen being a horseman of ancient Persia famous for rearing war horses may have brought the day to mind.  Preparation for the  breeding season may have begun earlier in the Middle Ages than now.

At the Inns of Court, the Feast of St. Stephen was celebrated with costumed suppliants, arriving between the first and second courses, to offer themselves as servants to the Lord of Misrule.  The second character was a Master of the Game.  His speech ends in a fashion that reminds us just how profoundly different the Medieval and Tudor mind was from modern.

This ceremony also performed, a huntsman cometh into the hall with a fox and a purse-net, with a cat, both bound at the end of a staff, and with them nine or ten couple of hounds, with the blowing of hunting-hornes, and the fox and cat are by the hounds set upon and killed beneath the fire. This sport finished, the marshall placeth them in their several appointed places.[6]

Bracing entertainment, indeed.  Now invigorated, the guests are served the second course.

St. John’s Day, the 27^th, passed much as did St. Stephen’s minus the bleeding and the baying of hunting hounds.  The attendants of the Lord of Misrule apparently began to lose their enthusiasm for the general fun.  The Lord is said to go now to their rooms, in the morning, and roust them out to do their duties. Those who refuse to attend are replaced.  After the second course is a mock charge-and-answer of miscreants.  “If any offendor escape, from the lieutenant into the buttery, and bring into the hall a manchet upon the point of a knife, he is pardoned:…”.[7]

Childermas, December 28^th, was understood to be a solemn day.  The farther back in English Medieval history, the more likely that parents whipped their children in the morning “that the memorie of this murther might stick the closer; and, in a moderate proportion, to act over the crueltie again in kind."[8]

Any undertaking begun on the day was considered unpropitious. Weddings are never held on the day.  It was considered unlucky to put on new clothes or pare one’s nails.[9] At the Inns of Court meals were served with a minimum of servants and no attendants.  There was no entertainment.  Even the coronation of Edward IV is said to have been postponed a day rather than be held on Childermas.

In 1517, King Henry VIII forbade the gloom of the day commanding

that the king of cockneys, on Childermas-day, should sit and have due service; and that he and all his officers should use honest manner and good order, without any waste or destruction making in wine, brawn, chely, or other vitails: and also that he, and his marshal, butler, and constable marshal, should have their lawful and honest commandments by delivery of the officers of Christmas, and that the said king of cockneys [later Lord of Misdrule], ne none of his officers medyl neither in the buttery, nor in the Stuard of Christmass his office, upon pain of 40s. for every such medling: and ‘lastly, that Jack Straw, and all his adherents, should be thenceforth utterly banisht and no more to be used in this house, upon pain to forfeit, for every time, five pounds, to be levied on every fellow hapning to offend against this rule.[10]

Why there seems only to be this one record of such a Royal command to the Inns is not clear.

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[1] Naogeorgus, Thomas.  The Popish Kingdom or reigne of Antichrist,… englyshed by Barnaby Googe (1570, 1880). 45.

[2] Aldrovandi, Ulyssis.  De Quadrupedibus Solidipedibus (1616).  Also Gessner, Conradi. Нistоriае Animalium

Liber Primus. De Quadrupedibus viviparis. (1603).  Et alii. These rely heavily on the Sicilian classic by Rufius, Giordanus (Giordano Ruffo). De medicina equorum (14^th century) translated into Latin by Bartolomeo Spadafora di Messina.  All rely upon Pliny, Propertius and various ancient Greek and Persian sources.

[3] Tusser, Thomas. Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1557, 1878), Payne and Herrtage, ed. 63.

[4] Or another day in “Twelvetide”.

[5] Ibid. 180.

[6] Dugdale, William.  The History and Antiquities of the four inns of court (Dublin, 1780). 22.

[7] Ibid. 23.

[8] Dyer, T. F. Thiselton. British Popular Customs Present and Past (1900). 498. citing Gregory, John.  Episcopus puerorum in die Innocentium; or a Discoverie of an ancient Custom in the church of Sarum (1683). 113.

[9] Dyer, T. F. Thiselton. British Popular Customs Present and Past (1900). 498.

[10] Ibid.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Zombie Apocalypse & Trick-or-Treating: Halloween through History. October 30, 2019. “Looking closely, however, we see that this Shakespeare quote has moved the “puling” (which it was actually called) back one day to Hallowmas, All Hallows Day, rather than All Souls.  Far more important, he has actually referred to puling as a special kind of speech spoken by beggars on Hallowmas Day.”
• A Thousand Years of English Terms.  June 2, 2019.  ‘One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”.    There was no clock to be o’.  But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.’
• Feast of St. Michael, September 29: Beginning of the English Year. September 29, 2019. "Those who have read my “Thousand Years of English  Terms” may recall that the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (a.k.a. “Michaelmas”), on September 29, marked the beginning to the English legal and business year."
• A Most Curious Account of the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I: April 28, 1603.  April 28, 2019.  “Once it was clear that James I would face no serious challenges, Cecil and the others could begin to give attention to the matter of the Queen’s funeral.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
• Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.