December 23, 2022 - 3:00pm
In a sentiment that will be gloomily familiar to Brits facing strikes and travel chaos, GK Chesterton wrote in the 1930s that the Christmas period was becoming defined by “struggling in tramcars, standing in queues, rushing away in trains, crowding despairingly into tea-shops, and wondering whether they will ever get home.” If only we could simply stay at home and muck about, and play games: “If Christmas could become more domestic, instead of less, I believe there could be a vast increase in the real Christmas spirit; the spirit of the Child.”
The idea that Christmas isn’t what it used to be is a common refrain across modern times. And perhaps with good reason. Tracing the history of the festival across the centuries, there has been a shift away from its original spirit, which was something much less serene and proper and much closer to a carnival.
The medieval Christmas, long before the Reformation or the Puritans with their solemnising ways. was all about feasting and dancing. Christmas in those days really did last twelve days or longer, and that was twelve days when the shops closed and no one was allowed to work. Instead, you should play games and eat and generally have fun. According to the great medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Christmas at Camelot was basically a party:
For there the feast was alike full fifteen days,
with all the meat and mirth men could devise:
such clamour and glee glorious to hear
dear din in the daylight, dancing of nights;
all was happiness high in halls and chambers
with lords and ladies.
The atmosphere is closer to the festival’s pre-Christian ancestors. Celebrating a midwinter feast by lighting a fire and decorating the inside of the house with evergreens long predates St Augustine. The midwinter Roman feast of Saturnalia, in particular, was defined by legitimised disorder. Each year a Lord of Misrule was appointed and given throne, canopy, armoury, jester and a gibbet for hanging those who displeased him.
Then in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Merry Christmas came under attack. The Reformation had started to dismantle the old ways, and Christmas began to be seen as a hopelessly Pagan relic of an outmoded version of Christianity. It was regarded as Popish and idolatrous by the new breed of Puritans, as personified by the humourless, self-important Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a play all about the invasion of the fun-haters.
Scotland got in there first with a ban on Christmas in 1561, on the basis that the Papists invented Christmas. In England, we have reports from the 1630s that some cranks protested against Christmas as a Popish survival by keeping their shops open, but they were seen by most people as eccentric. Then, under Cromwell, the Puritans proclaimed that Christmas was nonsense, and finally banned it altogether. Cromwell’s mob were the original buzzkills — and their descendants are still with us.
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SubscribeThe word Christmas or Christ’s Mass dates from the 11th Century so there has probably always been a Christian connection, which may have been strengthened by linking it to the narrative of Christ’s birth in the New Testament.
Although different eras have witnessed different ways of celebrating this period of the year, it would be a great loss if the religious connection were dismissed as irrelevant in our increasingly secular age.
The word Christmas or Christ’s Mass dates from the 11th Century so there has probably always been a Christian connection, which may have been strengthened by linking it to the narrative of Christ’s birth in the New Testament.
Although different eras have witnessed different ways of celebrating this period of the year, it would be a great loss if the religious connection were dismissed as irrelevant in our increasingly secular age.
I really liked this was about Christian Christmas Traditions and philosophies instead of the usual talk as Christianity just being another string of ancient myths, ‘same as it ever is’, which is dragged out every year in the tradition set by the Victorian writer James Frazer – ‘The Golden Bough’
Somehow they managed to make a warm and Christmas feel through the talk, a positive feel, and really great hearing the British history of this amazing holiday told in this story format.
I do not get them talking of some resurgence of Puritanism now; wile to me it seems hedonism reigns, but I enjoyed it all, the guest is fun to listen to and very good, and Freddy was thoughtful, the third one, who I do not know, had some good points she added.
A Good Christmas Show from Unherd.
I agree about the warm Christmas feeling in this discussion. There’s a good vibe between the participants. Merry Christmas to all.
I agree about the warm Christmas feeling in this discussion. There’s a good vibe between the participants. Merry Christmas to all.
I really liked this was about Christian Christmas Traditions and philosophies instead of the usual talk as Christianity just being another string of ancient myths, ‘same as it ever is’, which is dragged out every year in the tradition set by the Victorian writer James Frazer – ‘The Golden Bough’
Somehow they managed to make a warm and Christmas feel through the talk, a positive feel, and really great hearing the British history of this amazing holiday told in this story format.
I do not get them talking of some resurgence of Puritanism now; wile to me it seems hedonism reigns, but I enjoyed it all, the guest is fun to listen to and very good, and Freddy was thoughtful, the third one, who I do not know, had some good points she added.
A Good Christmas Show from Unherd.
This is the article that Prof Terry Eagleton always wanted to write, but couldn’t quite manage due to his lefty prejudices.
Of course it’s a pagan festival. Those who bang on about “taking the Christ out of Christmas, and you’re left with M&S” are talking out of their backsides.
How about that as a Lord of Misrule?! And a happy Saturnalia to you all, even those whose religious beliefs will be aghast at the very thought of Christ being a latecomer to the festivities.
“Of course it’s a pagan festival.”
It isn’t even that. It’s mainly a commercial opportunity. But if the few remaining Christians in this country wish to follow the old ways, then I have no complaint with them. Of all the people I come across, modest Christians are the least objectional.
“Of course it’s a pagan festival.”
It isn’t even that. It’s mainly a commercial opportunity. But if the few remaining Christians in this country wish to follow the old ways, then I have no complaint with them. Of all the people I come across, modest Christians are the least objectional.
This is the article that Prof Terry Eagleton always wanted to write, but couldn’t quite manage due to his lefty prejudices.
Of course it’s a pagan festival. Those who bang on about “taking the Christ out of Christmas, and you’re left with M&S” are talking out of their backsides.
How about that as a Lord of Misrule?! And a happy Saturnalia to you all, even those whose religious beliefs will be aghast at the very thought of Christ being a latecomer to the festivities.
Why do British think, that there is only one way of Reformation, the Calvinist one? And why do they think, that their Calvinism was the norm?
Why do British think, that there is only one way of Reformation, the Calvinist one? And why do they think, that their Calvinism was the norm?