- 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.
- New Year’s Gifts through the Ages.
- On The Twelfth Day of Christmas…
Some assign Twelfth Day to January 5th, it being the mathematically precise twelfth day of Christmas. Others assign it to the 6th, it being the day those before them celebrated as Twelfth Day. Careful review of documentary evidence shows that the evening of the 5th was referred to as “Twelfth Eve,” in Medieval and Tudor times, in Great Britain, as the rule, and the 6th as “Twelfth Day”. The night of the 6th was called “Twelfth Night”.
It is said that Twelfth Day may have been celebrated as
Feast of the Kings/Magi, Epiphany, Lesser Christmas or Lesser Epiphany, throughout
Europe since the fifth century. Records show
that there were twelve days of Christmas as early as the reign of
Alfred. The nature of celebrating the
twelfth day, or its date, however, does not appear.
At least as early as 1190, Epiphany and Twelfth Day are
stated off-hand as being the same day.
On the day occurred a
foule northerne brawle, which turned well neere to a fray,
betweene the archbishop new elected, of the church of Yorke, and his company on
the one side, and Henry, dean of the said church, with his catholike partakers
on the other side[1]
The occasion of this great cathedral brawl was the selection
of music for Evensong.
Gaufridus or Geoffry, sonne to king Henry the second, and
brother to king Richard, whom the king had elected a little before to the
archbishopricke of Yorke, upon the even of Epiphany, which we call Twelfe Day,
was disposed to hear even-song with all solemnity in the cathedral church,
having with him Hamon the chanter, with divers canons of the church, who
tarrying something long, belike in adorning and attiring himselfe, in the meane
while Henry the deane, and Bucardus the treasurer, disdaining to tarry his
comming, with a bold courage lustily began their holy evensong with singing
their psalmes, ruffling of descant, and merry piping of organs;…
Cacophony and riot
ensued. “The next day, which was the day
of Epiphany, when all the people of the citie were assembled in the cathedral
church,” the Dean and his singers were unrepentant, “exclaiming and uttering
contemptuous words against the archbishop and his partakers,” for which “the
archbishop then accursed” them.
Twelfth Day celebration might actually begin on Twelfth Eve. At the end of a banquet, the Twelfth Cakes were sliced and
handed around, one to all men and the other to all the women at the table. Hidden in the men’s cake was a bean, in the
women’s a pea. Whoever received the
portion with the bean was the Twelfth Day King, with the pea was the Queen. In some times and places the Twelfth Cake was
eaten on the day itself.
“On Twelfth-Day, 1563,” that is to say on the day itself, “Mary, Queen of
Scots celebrated the French pastime of the King of the Bean at Holyrood, but
with a queen instead of a king, as more appropriate, in consideration of
herself being a female sovereign. The lot fell to the real queen's attendant, Mary
Fleming, and the mistress good-naturedly arrayed the servant in her own robes
and jewels, that she might duly sustain the mimic dignity in the festivities of
the night.”[2]
The actual monarch him or herself “must go,” in the morning,
to offer gold, frankincense and myrrh, “crowned
in his royal robes, kirtle, surcoat, his furred hood about his neck, his mantle
with a long train, and his cutlas before him; his armills upon his arms, of
gold set full of rich stones: and no temporal man to touch it, but the King
himself; and the squire for the body must bring it to the King in a fair
kerchief, and the King must put them on himself; and he must have his sceptre
in his right hand, and the ball with the cross in his left hand, and the crown
upon his head. And he must offer that day, gold, myrrh, and cense; then must
the dean of the chapel send unto the Archbishop of Canterbury by clerk or
priest, the King's offering that day; and then must the Archbishop give the
next benefice that falleth in his gift to the same messenger."[3]
This tradition was continued at least from the reign of
Henry VII until George III was too ill to perform it himself. At that point,
Two gentlemen from the Lord Chamberlain's office [appeared]
instead, attended by a box ornamented at top with a spangled star from which
they [took] the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and [placed] them on an
alms-dish held forth by the officiating priest.[4]
Prince Albert began the modern practice of presenting 25 new
gold sovereigns together with small amounts of frankincense and myrrh in a crimson
silk bag in the royal chapel.[5] Presumably, the original was an established
ritual from well before Henry.
No later than Tudor times, church music and miracle plays were
replaced, at Court, by secular plays generally acted by cathedral choir boys or
the Children of the Chapel Royal. In
particular, during the reign of Elizabeth I, Twelfth Day was a day of mass,
wassailing, banqueting and plays, before the holidays came to an end. Witty young men spoke of drinking “Lambs Wool,”[6]
which generally meant something between wassail and cider. The common folk who could not afford wassail shared
in drinking cider which was festive and within the means of all.
As the reign progressed, Twelfth Eve was generally graced
with interludes and masques at court.
Occasionally, the Twelfth Day play might be shown on Twelfth Night. The night plays were acted by adult players.
In 1560, the Court Revels Books show
The 6th, being Twelfth-day, in the afternoon, the Lord Mayor
and Aldermen, and all the crafts of London, and the Bachelors of the Mayor's
Company, went in procession to St. Paul's, after the old custom, and there did
hear a Sermon. The same day was a scaffold set up in the Hall for a play; and
after the play was over was a fine mask; and after, a great banquet that lasted
till midnight.[7]
This is not likely to have actually been a Court-related
affair. Perhaps the mayor borrowed some
equipment. Likely, the mayor and the merchant
Company from which he was chosen celebrated the day more-or-less in this
fashion most years.
In some areas of England, during the 18th
century, towns and villages drank their cider and danced around a bonfire within
a circle of twelve lesser fires. The histories
of the Middle Ages sometimes inform us that the 12 days of Christmas were
actually 13, if one did the math precisely, because the Christmas was a
remembrance of Christ and the other twelve days remembrances one each of the
twelve apostles. The concurrence of
these facts suggest that the custom may have gone back many centuries.
[1] Hawkins,
John. A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, I.173. Citing Fox, John. Acts and Monuments, I.
505. Citing Gervase of Canterbury.
[2] Chambers, Robert. The Book of Days: A
Miscellany Popular Antiquities. I.63.
[3] Warren, Nathan B. The Holidays Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide;... (1876). 122-3.
[4]
Ibid., 124.
[5] Sheppard,
Edgar. Memorials of St. James's
Palace (1894). II.276.
[6] Presumed
to be a demotic pronunciation of “Lamas Ubhal,” the ancient Irish celebration
of the god of the apple and other fruits.
[7] Nichols,
John. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (1823). I.82.
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.
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