Christmas Eras Tour - Part III

Welcome back again! We are going on a tour of the seven eras of the history of Christmas.

As a reminder -
I have been reading "Stations of the Sun" by Ronald Hutton. One thing I noticed while reading is that Christmas went through stages. I see at least 7 eras in the past 2,000 years. Each one is marked by its own characteristics which were either greatly changed or outright abandoned in the following era. I thought it might be worthwhile to take us on a tour of those eras. Since this post pulls mainly from Hutton, and Hutton focuses mainly on England where Christmas is concerned, this post will, too.

In the previous post in this series, we reviewed era 3 (Catholic). In that era, we reviewed the years 567 to 1517, the golden years of Christmas. It was a time of fun and community. Today, we will tour eras 4 (Oppression) and 5 (Restoration).

As the names imply, today's content will be less festive. We are less interested in the traditions in this era (good thing there weren't many new) and more interested in the politics. I want to tell the story of how Christmas flatlined on the table, but was resuscitated.

Enjoy! But not too much or you'll be fined 5 shillings.

REFORMATION AND OPPRESSION (1517 to 1661 AD)

The Reformation and Oppression era is the time starting in 1517 when Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Church, through the Commonwealth period in Great Britain, to the start of the Industrial Revolution. During this era, Christmas gets banned in the British Isles and America, traditions get altered, then Christmas makes a comeback. Sort of.

It isn't all of Protestantism that caused this era to be named "Oppression", just a few denominations. The three big players in today's post are the Anglicans, Presbyterians, and especially the Puritans.

How Christmas went for you in these years depended almost entirely on where you lived. During this period we see the Scottish banning it, followed by the American Pilgrims banning it, then the English under Oliver Cromwell banning it. However, at the same time, Christmas changed in Germania and Scandinavia, but not to the degree it did in England. They had no fundamentalist Puritan movement. And it changed almost not at all in Catholic areas such as France, Italy, and Spain. But these are broad strokes. No country was all Protestant or all Catholic. They were mixed.

As mentioned in the previous posts, there were two big gift-giving days: the feast of St. Nicholas, and New Year. After Martin Luther sparked the Reformation, he discouraged the veneration of saints. Henry VIII would do the same later on. This means, for Protestants anyway, Saint Nicholas could no longer bring gifts to children on December 6. Luther moved traditions from Saint Nicholas' Day to Christmas Eve (aka Heiligabend, holy evening). He also adapted an older German tradition into a new gift bringer to replace Saint Nicholas: the Christkindl (the Christ Child). This opened the way for gift giving on Christmas Eve where it had not been before, and new Christmas gift-bearing characters to emerge later.

To complicate matters further, just because a tradition was discouraged does not mean it went away. One example is ... Saint Nicholas. He was so beloved he was never really replaced. Neither were the traditions on December 6th. Traditions were never fully moved to Christmas Eve. It was more like they were copied and pasted. Saint Nicholas is in both places. And since St. Nick is in both, his companions are, too. Krampus et al get associated with Christmas Eve around this time.

Meanwhile, in the early 1500s in Germany, the Christmas Tree tradition is gaining popularity as the actors guilds keep setting them up in public. No, Martin Luther did not invent them. It is popularly claimed he invented putting candles on them, to add the light Jesus brings to the tradition. Many trees since have burned accidentally. The Germans would take the tree tradition wherever they went.
At the same time, the Paradise Plays which gave rise to the tree tradition, were dying out. Again quoting Martha from her post "Falsely Accused? Christmas Trees Were Christian Theater Props":

"Most plays died out in the 1500s, despite the fact that they were still very popular. In London, they blamed it on the rise of Shakespeare and similar theater. Elsewhere in Europe, it's more obvious that the Reformation was their death knell. Early on, scripts were revised to eliminate Catholic themes. As time went on, the Church called in scripts for editing and held until it was too late in the year to perform them (perhaps until hours of sunlight and air temperatures were prohibitive), Rhys writes (p. 24). Protestants weren't the only ones to discourage the plays – in France, the  Catholic-leaning Parlement de Paris outlawed the plays in 1548."

Oh, by the way - 'tannenbaum' is technically not how you say Christmas Tree in German. A tannenbaum is any fir tree. A Weihnachtsbaum is a Christmas Tree. The song "O Tannenbaum" is not technically a Christmas song, and never mentions Christmas, but it has since become a Christmas song. It was written in the 1800s, but is based off an older song from this era.

At this point, I am going to walk you through a series of political events in the British Isles that led from the golden age of happy Christmas to the total suppression of the day. I am not going to go into much detail, because this post is about Christmas. But there are things I feel are important to what I said in the first post in this series: "I am particularly interested in showing how our modern Christmas is mostly a product of the three eras before it (ie. 7 is caused by 4, 5, & 6)."

English Monarchy

King Henry VIII created the Church of England in 1534. This one event started a slow chain reaction that contributed greatly to the English Civil Wars and the outlawing of Christmas. Protestantism was now on the rise in many areas of northern Europe, and Christmas in particular would bear the brunt. Henry VIII wanting a divorce is just as much a cause of Christmas as we see it today as is anything else. Law of unintended consequences.
Henry VIII also discouraged veneration of saints. This is where the Twelve Days start to dry up and Christmas Day starts to become the singular big winter festival. We talked in the last era about how this would happen. But nothing drastic happened quite yet.

In 1553, Henry's daughter, "Bloody" Mary I, a Catholic, became queen. Mary violently wrenched England back to Catholicism. Every movement towards Protestantism done by her predecessors was undone. By force. Many Protestants fled England for the mainland where, as fate would have it, they encountered John Calvin.

Five years later, Mary was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth I, a Protestant. All that Mary did was now undone once again. By force. A pendulum does swing! This is the period of priest holes, Mass performed in attics, and songs to help people remember the Catechism while it was banned. Elizabeth escapes the name "Bloody" only because she won. As Catholics began fleeing England for Catholic nations on the mainland, the Protestants who fled earlier began to return ...with their new Calvinist ideas. Here began the Puritan movement - a name given to a group of fundamentalist Calvinist Presbyterians who wanted increasingly radical reforms in England and its Church.

Catholic symbols and traditions were removed, often violently. Here began the polemics - calling anything Catholic "Popery", all Catholics "Papists", and quite intentionally calling Christmas "Yule" in order to sully it as much as possible with a pagan association. The people who try to find the source of Christmas in Yule because some people call it Yule seem to forget that Christmas was once purposefully called Yule in order to sully it. The antagonistic comments grew over the years to a ridiculous height, as they often do. Everything was 'heathen' and belonged directly to the devil. According to Alison Weir in "A Tudor Christmas", plum pudding was called "the broth of abominable things" in reference to Isaiah 65: 4 (p. 161).

It is important that you understand the attacks against Christmas were not because they had proof of anything pagan, but because they saw Christmas as Catholic.
I suppose only a few stopped to remember how they all used to be Catholic, too.

The Protestant reforms in England moved into Scotland, mainly under the leadership of John Knox (unsurprisingly, a student of John Calvin), where they would be taken in the full Scottish spirit. In 1560, Elizabeth put Protestants into power in Scotland. They established the Church of Scotland (aka. "the Kirk") - which is not the same denomination as the Church of England and is not run by the Scottish monarch. It worked on a Presbyterian model, which means it is led by Elders chosen from the lay members, as opposed to the Anglican church's Episcopalian model, which means it is led by formal Bishops similar to the Catholic Church. This is the dream Puritans had for the Church of England. By 1566, barely more than five years later, Christmas was no longer among the feasts of the Church in Scotland. But it wasn't just Christmas. All of the major holidays were out.

Elizabeth I was succeeded in 1603, and the royal houses of England and Scotland were united, by James I (England and Ireland), also titled James VI (Scotland), famous for ordering the creation of the King James Version of the Bible. James disappointed both the Scottish and English reformers by not being as reform-minded as they wished. James I actually enjoyed Christmas!

Here, we get a huge development in tradition.

Some nobles had begun wintering in London rather than remaining at their mansions and keeping an open house for the poor, as they had been expected to. In 1616, King James tried to reverse the trend. According to Hutton, this act helped inspire one Ben Johnson to write a masque (p. 19). We talked about masques in the last era. They are a type of an elaborate play which grew out of the mumming tradition. Mr. Johson's masque was called "Christmas, His Masque". In it, Christmas was personified as a joyous, silly figure wearing a hat, and a beard. Some lines in the masque were anti-Puritan. This Christmas figure returned several more times with various appearances over the next few decades. We will keep checking in on this figure as he evolves.
There are some slight digs against the Puritans in this masque. You can find the same in Shakespeare's works.

In 1620, some Puritans, fed up the reformation of England wasn't moving quickly or far enough for their liking, leave England to start a Calvinist utopia in the New World. Their aversion for Christmas is legendary. Things were going their way, but not perfectly, so they left for a wilderness thousands of miles away. This should give you an idea about their general attitude.

King James could not directly order the Kirk to do anything. So, in 1621, he arranged for them to enact "The Five Articles of Perth". The fifth article bound the Kirk to observe Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. After 60 years, Christmas was restored in Scotland and looked to be safe once again!

...But the Kirk didn't appreciate this and worked to undo it. They are still a little salty about it to this day. The Five Rules were repealed 17 years later. This new ban would last until 1712. But merely lifting the ban did not return Christmas to that land. That would take longer still.

Yule Log

In the 1620-30s, a man named Robert Herrick first used the term "Christmas Log." You may know it better as the Yule Log. Remember, the names Christmas and Yule were interchangeable at this time, and did not actually refer to Yule. This is the earliest definite mention of the Yule Log tradition. Here. In this decade. Far later than most people would have us believe.
My question is - if this tradition is genuinely from 1184, which we talked about in the last era, why the 500-year gap without any other mention?
In this period, the Yule Log was gigantic! It took a team of young men and often a horse to draw out of the woods.

King James was succeeded in 1625 by Charles I. Charles, although he was a Protestant, was no friend of the Puritans. They were no fan of his, either. Charles married a Catholic woman, and appreciated older traditions. This bothered the Puritans. The Puritans wanted the King out of church leadership, and the Bishops, too. This bothered Charles. He saw a threat to the Divine Right of Kinds, so he worked against them. Thousands of Puritans left for the New World. After years of tensions, most of which centered around particulars of religion and who has authority in the church, wars broke out. From 1639 to 1653, multiple wars engulfed England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

The Commonwealth

In November 1644, The Church of England ruled that no other day but Sunday was biblical. The official liturgy in 1645 had no mention of Christmas, making its removal legal. Just like Scotland and the Puritan colony in America, Christmas was now out in England.
This doesn't mean Christmas was illegal, just that it wasn't being celebrated in churches. People kept it in their homes, and there was a secular, public observance in general.

As with most everything else in this era, there were unintended consequences. Christmas traditions were secularized. Anyone who studies Christmas soon runs into claims about midwinter festivals throughout history. The middle of winter, stripped of sacred Christmas symbolism, became just like any other excuse to drink and cause trouble. Where once we had holly and ivy symbolizing Jesus, we now have any plant that was green at the time - ivy, holly, box, yew, rosemary, laurel, broom, etc - and mistletoe - symbolizing nothing in particular. Hogneling and souling door-to-door to raise money for the church were replaced by groups of people collecting money for various efforts, sometimes by force. Christmas was alive, but the spirit of Christmas was not. I don't meant to minimize our modern complaints, but perhaps a little thankfulness our Christmas is not like that of the early-1600s is warranted.

Charles I was executed on orders of Parliament in January 1649. His son, Charles II, was crowned in Scotland, but that ended badly for him, so he fled to France. The Monarchy was ended, replaced by the fundamentalist Puritan government known as the Commonwealth of England. And with the monarchy technically went the Nobility. Here, the nobility exit center stage in the culture.

Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan, ruled England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland as Lord Protector from 1653 to 1658. The Puritans could not abide the continued existence of that Papist Christmas. Cromwell did not personally ban Christmas, but he oversaw the government that did. In 1647, an act of Parliament banned Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Out were their traditions - to the slightest act - and even festive attitudes were punishable offenses. In ten years, Christmas went from religious to secular and now to illegal. The 1650s under Cromwell was the decade without a Christmas. Sort of.

There was resistance to this heavy-handedness. Not everyone appreciated their traditions being banned. There were riots and protests large and small. Some hung mistletoe as an act of defiance. Parliament complained their authority was simply being ignored. They, of course, reacted with even more heavy-handedness.

Father Christmas

One particularly noteworthy result of this resistance is ... Father Christmas. A personification of Christmas, like "Christmas, His Masque" thirty-six years earlier, Father Christmas appears in several propaganda pieces in the 1650s. I will give you the two most well known.
The first is "The Vindication of Christmas", in 1653, by John Thomas. Thomas was known for writing Christmas-related works. In Vindication, Christmas is a symbol of good cheer. How can you be against good cheer? Even though this character is clearly a personification of Christmas, the name "Father Christmas" is not used.
The second is "The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas", in 1658. Here, the name Father Christmas appears for the first time. In the illustration, Father Christmas is quite saintly, and not at all fun or silly. Note the fur-lined robe and hat. Some people say Santa comes from Odin because of this. As you can clearly see for yourself, this is not the case. (People claiming everything comes from Odin gets tiresome.) This is the general look Father Christmas will keep in England until the 1900s. (Note: The book "There Really Is A Santa Claus" by William Federer, says Father Christmas was created by Henry VIII. Upon deeper inspection, I find no evidence for this.)

It is important to understand Father Christmas is technically not Santa Claus. There are some major differences:

• He is the personification of Christmas itself; representing the day, its characteristics, and traditions.
• He is the direct descendant of masques.
• He is a pro-Christmas propaganda piece created in England.
• He is not based on Saint Nicholas legends.
• He is not a gift-bringer.

English Monarchy ...Again

This whole time, Charles II was hiding in France. Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, succeeded by his son, who resigned nine months later. In 1660, after a brief period of in-fighting, Charles II was invited back to England to reign as King of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Parliament declared he had been King since his father's death. (Remember when I mentioned he was coronated in Scotland before he fled?) Thus ended the Commonwealth. A pendulum does swing!

In England, all laws were invalidated going back to 1642. In Scotland, all legislation since 1637 was revoked. This reactivated the Five Articles of Perth. The era of the Commonwealth was simply erased as if it had never been. And Christmas was back, baby!

Sort of.

I focused almost exclusively on England so far. It was necessary, since what happened in England affected everyone else but mostly America. I will not go into detail on what was happening outside of England, but in the Catholic nations, such as Italy, France, and Spain, things moved on about the same as they always had. In Germany and Scandinavian areas, the Reformation created new traditions but the extremes of John Calvin's students were contained, which allowed these areas to retain much more of their original Catholic flavor. This comes into play when migrants from these areas eventually make their way to America. I refer primarily to the Dutch and New Amsterdam.

There is one tradition outside of England that we can't ignore: leaving shoes out on the eve of Saint Nicholas' Day. This tradition is important because it will later evolve into hanging stockings by the fireplace.
It is possible this tradition started in this era. I am saying possible because the actual history of this tradition is very difficult to locate. Even though many people write about it almost no one gives historical sources, not even Hutton. So, it could be form the previous era. All I can say for certain about the age is it must long predate the poem "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823. It does seem to be Scandinavian; Dutch in particular. Certainly, the claims about children leaving shoes out for Odin's horse were invented recently, just like the story of Frigg and mistletoe and Santa and Odin. There is no medieval historical evidence for this claim whatsoever, nor does the tradition make any sense within the mythology of Odin.

I am putting the end of this era in 1660, due to the restoration of the Monarchy in England and the undoing of the years of Commonwealth. Christmas was legally back after its long, dark night of the soul. A pendulum does swing!

It must be understood that many of the things modern people take for granted about modern Christmas and feel were always part of Christmas were actually a result of the changes that began in this period. Christmas before this period was not like Christmas afterward. Sure, it was on the same day and remembers the same event, and even has many of the same traditions, but Christmas had been gutted and would be reinvented. This will not be the end of it. Christmas has hurdles to face in the next eras.

The next step in history is the restoration of Christmas when the Protestants who once oppressed it suddenly found a nostalgic streak within themselves and became comfortable with the day.

RESTORATION (1661 to 1760 AD)

The Restoration era is the time when Protestants stopped banning Christmas and finally became comfortable it. Sort of. During this period, Christmas became more family-centered, old traditions began to be replaced by new regional traditions, and everything was mashed together as it migrated into the "great American melting pot".

Charles II did not end England's issues. He merely improved them. Efforts to ban Christmas would continue for some time, especially in Scotland. Certain Protestants were unhappy with the erasure of decades of what they saw as advances. Christmas would be removed as an official holiday again in Scotland by the end of the 1690s, not to fully return for almost 250 years. Wondering why you see so many German, English, and even Irish Christmas traditions but not many Scottish? That's why. In Scotland, the New Year would be their main focus at this time of year. "Ald Lang Sein" is Scottish. How ironic they were trying to remove what they saw as Catholic paganism, which was a false accusation, only to retain a legitimately ancient Roman custom.

I will return again to Ronald Hutton's brilliant observation, to continue his thoughts from the Catholic era:

"The church produced its own institutional rituals during this whole span of time, often overlapping or blending with the others. These were greatly diminished after the Reformation, and from the seventeenth century the festive role of the parish and great household was also much reduced. Instead the principal unit of celebration became the local community, much less formally defined and growing ever more complex with time."
-Ronald Hutton, "Stations of the Sun", p.426

What Hutton is saying is, during this period, the center of Christmas migrated away from communal worship at the church building and out into the towns and especially individual homes. The community and the home are the center of society, and thus the focus of traditions. More and more, children became the heart of the day, especially for the upper and middle classes who could afford it.

The decentralized and more individualist nature of Protestantism affected their general manner. Catholics tended to have the church at the center of everything, but Protestants much less so. Even Christmas Carols moved into the home. Hutton mentions several Christmas Carols were written specifically to be sung in homes at time time (p. 21).
This is precisely what Martha noticed in her study on the development of Christmas Trees in Germany. Protestants in Germany were taking their new love for the tree tradition home with them. (for more, read "Falsely Accused? Christmas Trees Were Christian Theater Props").

Again, we see Christmas reflecting the culture of the time.

Before the suppression, Christmastide was spread out across the Twelve Days onto various Saint's feast days. Now, with the abandonment of the veneration of saints, all of those traditions are contracting into one grand Christmas Day. I mentioned in the last post this would happen. It will happen much more in the next era.

Christmas Day in general started with a church service, then comes the celebrating. People would give to charity, enjoy a party, eat, visit family, take in a show, do some caroling ...the usual things many people do today. Those were all things done in eras 3 and 4, but in a changed way.

There were exceptions. The tradition of giving servants the day after Christmas off and providing them with some gifts remained. The feast of St. Stephen became reimagined into Boxing Day in the 1740s. The tradition of gift-giving remained at New Year.

A strong opposition to Christmas and anything Catholic emigrated to America. You no doubt heard how the Pilgrims in the New World banned Christmas. You could be fined for having a too festive a spirit on Christmas. But there were plenty of other immigrants in the New World besides the Pilgrims. Christmas in America was a very patchy, local thing. What you got depended on what community you were from. You must abandon the modern idea of one country - there were 13 quite distinct colonies at this time. Most importantly to Christmas were the Dutch in New York. The Dutch, although Protestant, were from that section of Europe near Germany that never rejected Christmas. They loved it! And they loved Saint Nicholas. How do you turn around the bleak days of the Oppression era? The Dutch, that's how. It was the Dutch who brought a wondrous old Christmas to the New World.

An important development in this era is mistletoe. Due to the suppression of Christmas during the previous era, the popular choices in greenery expanded. When the suppression ceased, we see the English mistletoe traditions expand through Europe. It was particularly attractive around Christmas time since that is when it berries out. This is the time period when we start seeing mistletoe used specifically as a Christmas decoration rather than only a medicinal herb. Blend that with a general repression of sexuality, and you will get the next development in the mistletoe tradition.

Another novelty from this era, and my personal favorite of all, is the nutcracker. Nutcrackers had been around for centuries, but by the mid-1700s they finally take the form we know today. The soldiers are meant to look like those of the Napoleonic era.

Now come the days of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. Some grand old songs were written in this period - "Joy To The World" (written in 1719 but later put to music from 1848), "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" (1739-54), and "Adeste Fidelis" (1751, my personal favorite).

I am putting the end of this era in 1760, due to the Industrial Revolution. I would have put this date even later, allowing for the spread of industrialization, but I decided at the start this post would be primarily based on Hutton, so 1760 it is.

The next step in history is the Industrial Revolution. A fantastic time for business owners who had little interest in traditions, but a time of identity crisis for Christmas. This next era is incredibly important to our modern Christmas. Perhaps the most important. The day survived a religious suppression and resuscitation only to face a secular suppression and reinvention. A pendulum does swing!

See you next time!

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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