HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF CHRISTMAS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14250, 22 December 1909, Page 8 (Supplement)

HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF CHRISTMAS.

BY RALPH BUKNTMKDK.

Tjie historical associations of Christmas are many. Some of the most thrilling and important events in our national life, incidents which have affected the course of history down to our own times, were initiated at this festive period of the year. In the days of the Saxons, the " Witenagemote," otherwise the meeting of the wise men, took place at religious festivals, of which the Christmas gathering wae the chief. It was at Christinas in the year 597 that Saint Augustine, the Christian missionary, baptised 10.000 people of Kent. Then it was that King Arthur and his knights (said to be legendary) held their joyous jousts; and Alfred Ih* Grant consented to the "frolic of full twelve Inly days," it being surmised Unit :n consequence of this the heathen Dance surprised and temporarily overthrew the Saxon King. From the Druids comes the custom of Christmas decorations. Away back in the dim illimitable azure of the past, the mistletoe played its part in the sacred ceremonies and mystic rites of that early race, as the Chief Priest, or High Druid, clad in his while robes, cut down the mistletoe, with its waxen berries, from the oak with a golden knife. Then followed the slaying of two snow-white bullocks," and the priests prayed to the gods, asking them to bless the mistletoe branches. This custom, it is said, was identical with that observed by the ancient heathen Scandinavian priests. To the Druids the mistletoe was a symbol of Hie new life and opportunity which would come with the New Year, while to the common people it was a charm, a safeguard against disease and witches. Legends ,by the score have associated themselves with the mistletoe. To the vivid imagination of our ancestors the mistletoe would heal the bites of mad dogs and venomous reptiles, and give them power to fee ghosts. The Druids divided the mistletoe into small portions, and distributed them among the people, who hung up the sprays over the entrances to their dwellings as an offering to the gods. Following the chief events which congregate around Christmas, we find that Westminster Abbey was consecrated at this particular season of the year, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, 910 years ago. The King shortly died, and Harold was crowncd, but lost his life a few months later, and on the following Christmas Day William the Conqueror was crowned. It was at Christmas in 1085 that the Domesday Survey was arranged. King Stephen, Henry 11., and Edward 111. were crowned at Christmas. This reminds us that Kings and nobles kept an open house at Christmas. A jolly holly Christmas in merry old England was to our ancestors a time of intense joyousness and good cheer. The Christmas block, the huge Yule log, was put upon the fire; cakes and ale were landed round, and the merrymaking was complete as some light-hearted singer sang: God rest you, merry, gentlemen Let nothing you dismay. The appearand} of a boar's head at Christmas had its origin in Scandinavian mythology. Freyr, the Cod of Plenty, used to ride a boar, one of the species being sacrificed at Yuletide. In banquets given by the old feudal chieftains to their fellownobles, a boar's head used to form the principal dish, borne into the hall on a gold or silver platter. Wynkyn de Worde, who in 1521 printed a set of Christmas cards, included a canticle which was sung while the boar's head was being brought in, and its peculiar blending of Latin and English is interesting. It is used in a modernised form in a similar ceremony at Queen's College, Oxford, up to the present time The Boar's head in hand bring I Bedecked with bay and rosemary. Quod eti* ill oonv'ivio, Caput estis in convivio, ltcddeus laudes Domino. The Hoar's head. I understand, Is the rarest dish in all the land, Which, thus bedecked with a garland gar, Let iiß servire cantico Caput apri defero. ltcddeus laiidcs Domino. It was also the custom on Christmas Eve for wandering minstrels to carry round a bowl of spiced wine to the houses of the

gentry and others, with the Saxon words, " Waes liael," meaning "Health be to you." " Christmas l'ye," otherwise called a " Sluid," or "minched" pie, seems to have been made by every family in the 17th century. The popish "plum broth," or " plum porridge," seems to have been the origin of our plum pudding, but how it developed into its more solid form is uncertain. This plum broth used to be served in a tureen as the first course of a Christmas meal, and was made of " beef or mutton, boiled with broth, and thickened with brown bread," to which were added " raisins, currants, prunes, cloves, mace, and ginger." Chimneys smoked, ovens were filled with baked meats, and hilarity reigned. And ever when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, Hie merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed. t History tells us that it was at Christmas, lift), that the long-standing dispute between the powers temporal and spiritual, as represented in Thomas a Becket, came to a head, for he was slain before the festival was over. The demands of tho Magna Charta, signed by King John at Runnymede, were formulated by the barons at Christmas. 1214. Fifty years after this event, in 1264, Simon de Montfort summoned the first English Parliament at Christmas, although it did not meet

until January. It was at Christmas, 1533, that Thomas' Cromwell arranged with Henry VIII. the severance of the Church of England from the Church of Rome. Pursuing our investigations, we find that one of tlie most ancient forms of Christmas observances was the festival of the , " Saturnalia." King, courtier, cavalier, and | common people did honour to ' Saturnus, j father of husbandry. The streets were fill- I ed with frolicsome men and women, mock dignitaries, masqueraders, mummers, who turned the town in which they lived topsyturvy with their dancing and revelry. We read, " The disguising and mummying that is used in Chrystemas tyme in the northe partes came out of the feasts of Pallas, that were done with vizars and painted visages, named Quinquatria of the Romavnes." In Fabyan's Chronicle we are told how the Dukes of Aumalc, of Surrey and Exeter, Earls of Salisbury, and Gloucester, designed a mumming for the entertainment, of Henry IV., but the Duke of Aumale secretly informed the King that this was a plot to slay him, and so the conspiracy was discovered. Never since the time of (lie Feast of Fools, and the gaudy processions of the carnival in Rome, had there been such a riotous jubilee. It was the custom for the master and mistress of the mansion to allow servants the honour of silting at their table during lie festive sea-son. Presents were given to them, and they wore allowed also to assume the grotesque character of mummers, and, dressed in the most absurd fashion, they tunned out over the crisp, sparkling snow at night to create merriment in the light of the wax tapers which blazed in their hands. Decked with flowing ribbons, faces blacked, some in pasteboard armour, each carrying a sword, they danced to the words:

And a-niuinming we will go—will go. The poet Gay describes the scene: When rosemary and bay*, the poets' crown, Are bawled in 'frequent cries through all the land, Then Judge the festival of Christmas near— Christmas, the joyous period of (lie year. Now with bright holly all your temples strow, With laurel green, and sacred mistletoe. These masked mummers acted in dramatic fashion some of the old Roman legends in the most ridiculous way, creating immense fun. In the year 1440 Captain John Gladman, as a. mummer, traversed the town in which he lived on a horse as gaily caparisoned as himself, preceded by the twelve months, each dressed in character. After him crept the pale, attenuated figure of Lent, clothed in herring skins, and mounted on a sorry horse, whose harness wax covered with oyster shells. At Christmas many casual events have occurred which history has thought worth preserving. On Christinas Eve, Robin Hood, the great forest ranger, died. The Order of the Garter, that most coveted of decorations, was instituted at Christmas, as was also the first English play on record acted. On Christmas Day the greatest of English philosophers was bornlsaac Newton. In the reign of Henry VIII. we read of a private gentleman keeping open house at Christmas, providing " twelve fat bullocks, 50 bushels of wheat, 36 eheep, with hogs, lambs, fowls, and all sorts of drinks made of wheat and oat malt proportionable," for his guests. Those were the days when, as the old rhyme says A man might then behold, At Christmas in the hall, Good Area to curb the cold, And meat for great and email. Burton, in his " Anatomy of Melancholy," gives a list of Christmas recreations in 1621: Cards and dice, ehovelboards, chess play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, Yule games, catches, purposes, questions, merry tales of knights-errant, kings, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves fairies goblins, friars, witches, and others." In the reign of Henry VIIJ. Christmas revels took on a new form by the appointment of what was termed "a Christmas Prince," otherwise named " A Lord of Misrule." The reign of the Lord of Misrule began on All Hallows Eve, and terminated at Candlemas Day. His office was to superintend the revels at the houses of the wealthy and Inns of Court. These revels were riotous in the extreme, specially at the Inns of Court. For generations the guying of the clergy for the amusement of the military was a form of sport, but Cardinal Wolsey put a check to that by sending to prison a mummer he suspected of scoring off himself. These Lords of Misrule, with their frolicsome courtiers, appear to have been very distasteful to the Puritans. Stubbs, a Puritan, writes of the Lord of Misrule as being a "grand captain of Mischief." The office was greatly restricted, if not entirely abolished, by Act of Parliament, during 'the Commonwealth.

The Puritans did their best to put down Christmas. Going to church on Christmas Day was forbidden, and soldiers sent to arrest those who disobeyed. John Evelyn, the diarist, was imprisoned for this offence. »\ e find in Neal s history of the Puritans an account of the trial, in 1633, of William Prynne, Esq., barrister-at-law. He had written a book against plays, masques, and dancing. In it he objected to Christmaskeeping, dressing houses with ivy and holly. The judge sentenced him to stand in the pillory at Westminster and Cheapsido, to lose both ears, one in each place, to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, to have his book burnt by the common hangman, to be put from the Bar, and suffer perpetual imprisonment. Disgusted by the indecorum of the Lords of Misrule, Prynne and others were led to protest against such buffoonery, and were anxious to abolish the festival of Christmas, or in some way to check its riotous character, by Act of Parliament. In 1647, in order to put down Christmas festivities, it was resolved that Christmas Day must be a market day. Some rhymester wrote: Good worts are counted Popish, and Small charity is in the land. Thus, by Imperial statute, shops were kept open on Christmas Day, but the public viewed this act with great disfavour, and would not buy. In some places there was

rioting, especially ,at CanterbuW;!.ffi!||| the Mayor of that town had market to .bo kept open. fflMj broken, - .window* • ismashed, and thrown out into the streets becausett had bepn exposed for sale oa With the return of the Stuart* w e fin*?/ that, hajmilv once again Cl.rirtmi h, ' came a red letter day in the calSsli the year Old Father Time broueht '" ' that, cordial, happy festival of whicK ß^ 11 ii ; Walter Scott finely sings in lug «u r f mi °": " : V^JSS® Oil Chi'iMmas Eve the bells were- n.*.. ' On Cli rift mas Eve the Mast m .„ , un^. n «* Hint only night in all the year " K; ;4¥l® Saw the Moled pried the chalice rear ' " *'' K The 111 he donned her kirtln sheen- »\ 'fJ ,1 forth to the wood did merry men on • ■ '?,! To gather in the mistletoe. g0