Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Christmas Edition.

1) In 1517, Henry VIII passed a private Christmas, away from his court, at Eltham Palace, due to the Sleeping Sickness sweeping his kingdom.

2) Henry also spent the plague year of 1525 at Eltham. On this occasion, Cardinal Wolsey did not follow suit as he had done in 1517. On this occasion he retired to “the Manor of Richemond, and there kept open housholde, to lordes, ladies, and all other that would come, with plaies and disguisyng in most royall maner; whiche sore greved the people, and in especiall the kynges servauntes, to se hym kepe an open Court, and the kyng a secret Court.” [source: Hall’s Chronicles]

3) King Henry VII retired to the palace at Greenwich for the Christmas  holidays in 1487. He sat to the feast, on Christmas Day, in the great Chamber next to the long Gallery. The ladies took their meal in the Queen’s Chamber. [Source: Leland’s Collecteana, V4]

4) According to the Henry VIII’s 1509 Book of Payments, the king paid the Children of the chapel 40s., for singing Gloria in Excelsis, at the palace at Richmond on Christmas Day.

5) The common folk passed a humbler season. But it was not without its merriment as we learn from The House And Farm Accounts of the Shuttleworths:  ‘At Christmas-tide, wandering minstrels and musicians have welcome reception for their music; "even the bearward and the man with an ape have their reward; while the players of Lord Derby or Lord Essex, or some itinerant troop, as "Distle and his company," are ever welcome. The waitts, not merely of the vicinage, but of far distant towns, even from Halifax, York and Carlisle, come regularly at Christmas to delight all hearers with their carols and roundelays.’

6) According to the notes to the Shuttleworths, the “Waitts” were “minstrels or musical watchmen, who attended on great men and sounded the watch at night. They have now degenerated into itinerant musicians, who give notice of the approach of Christmas. B. Dic. derives the name either of waiting, because they attend on magistrates, officers, &c., or of guet a watch, guetter to watch, French, because they keep a sort of watch a-nights; and the signification is given as a sort of music or musicians. B. Gloss, says that waits are musicians who parade and play by night in the streets about the time of Christmas and the new year; originally, watchmen or sentinels. They used to be the privileged minstrels at weddings and feasts. The term would seem to be derived from the Moeso-Gothic Wahls, vigilia, excubiae; these waits being anciently viewed as a sort of watchmen.”

7) Fatted calves were purchased for the great festivals of Easter, Whitsuntide and Christmas. The hooves were extensively used for jelly as early as the times of Elizabeth. In 1582 a fat calf and a quire of paper cost 7s. 8d.; February 1583, a calf 4s. 2d.; September 1584, a fat calf 6s. 2d.; December 1592, ditto 6s. 8d.; 1588 ditto 5s. 10d.; April 1594, half a calf and a head, bought against Whitsuntide, at Bolton, 3s. Id.; December 1598, a fat calf bought at Bolton against Christmas 12s. 8d. [source: Shuttleworths]

8) Young doe were raised in many manor parks to serve as a traditional Christmas delicacy. They were give as gifts to young noblewomen to cared-for as pets in the days or weeks leading up to the Christmas feasts. In the 1503 accounts of Queen Elizabeth of York[9] we find the Christmas doe. “Itm. the xxiij" day of Decembre to a servaunt of Sir John Seymours in rewarde for bringing of fyve does to the Quene at Richemount . . . vj s. viij d.” [“Ordering the Medieval and Tudor Household for Christmas.”] 

9) Manorial workers who were paid quarterly received a quarter’s pay at Christmas. In the Directions And Orders for Kepynge of My Lordes Hous compiled by the Earl of Northumberland who died in 1527 we find “Item a Bill of Cheke of the Payment of Quartir Waiges to the Gentilmen of my Lordes Chapell for the Quarter bitwix Michaelmes and Cristynmes.”

10) Other Christmas payments in the Northumberland book were for seasonal services. “ITEM My Lord useth and accustomyth to gyfe yerely if his Lordship kepe a Chapell and be at home them of his Lordschipes Chapell if they doo play the Play of the Nativite uppon Cristynmes-Day in the mornnynge in my Lords Chapell befor his Lordship… xx s.”

 

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

Gossip as History: The Murder of Amy Robsart. February 17, 2020. "The first sudden death Leicester was rumored to have caused was that of his wife, Amy Robsart, in 1560. In that year, it was still not clear whether the Queen would marry. But certainly not her beloved Leicester if he were married."

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.”

Queen Elizabeth I’s Heart and the French Ambassador.  April 3, 2019.  “…the Queen of England, with the permission of her physicians, has been able to come out of her private chamber, she has permitted me… to see her…”

Account of a Performance of Macbeth: April 20, 1611. September 30, 2018. “One detail of this account, in particular, promises to go a long way toward understanding the date of composition and a key detail as to the state of the text in 1611.”

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 English Renaissance Letter Index for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.