The Englishman's Christmas

125 Pages·1978·9.706 MB·English

by  J.A. Pimlott

\
THE
ENGLISHMAN'S
CHRISTMAS
A Social History
J.
J
.A.R. PIML01T
introduction by
· Ben Pimlott
THE HARVESTER PRESS
J
TO JANE
so~
<Q
\ ,~ 0
This edition first published in Britain in 1978 by
THE HARVESTER PRESS LIMITED
Publisher: John Spiers
2 Stanford Terrace, Hassocks, Sussex
and in the USA by
HUMANITTES PRESS INC.,
Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, Om6
© Ben Pimlott, 1978
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Pimlott, John Alfred Ralph
The Englishman's Christmas.
1. Christmas - England
I. Title II. Pimlott, Ben
394.2'68282'0942 GT4987.44
ISBN 0-85527-970-2
Humanities Press Inc .
.I SBN 0-391-00900-1
Printed in England by
Redwood Bum Ltd. Trowbridge
All rights reserved
t
-
---~~---
CONTENTS
Preface XI
I. In the beginning 1
II. The Child of Bethlehem 10
ID. The Twelve Days of Christmas 17
IV. Christmas after the Reformation 30
V. Christmas under the Puritans 49
VI. Christmas Restored 59
VII. The Pre-Victorian Christmas 77
Vill. The Victorian Christmas 85
IX. Trees, Cards and Carols 97
X. The Strange History of Father Christmas 111
XI. The Business of Christmas 120
XII. Victorian Miscellany 134
- XIII. Twentieth Century Christmas 148
Epilogue 173
Appendices 185
J.A.R. Pimlott: A Biographical Note 201
Index. 215
List of illustrations
(Betrpeen pages 84 and 85)
1. Nativity scene, thirteenth century
2. Rowena offers wassail bowl to the king
3. 'All men doth Punch invite' to wassail
4. Gloucestershire wassail bowl, from The Illustrated
London News of 1846
5. Mummers
6. The Lord of Misrule
7. The Vindication of Christmas
8. Prince Albert and the Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle,
1848, drawn by J. Williams
9. Christm~s Family Party
10. Christmas at Dingley Dell
11. Mr Pickwick slides
12. 26 December 1836 - Boxing Day
13. Our Christmas Dream - drawn by Phiz
14. Selling holly in Covent Garden Market
15. Decorating the tre~
16. Rimmel's Christmas Novelties
17. Parkins and Gotto - ideas for gifts
18. Christmas in America - gathering evergreens
19. St Nicolaas Feest, by Jan Steen Day
20. A letter to Santa Claus
21. Christmas card by Walter Crane
22. The first Christmas card
23. Letting in Christmas
24. Wassailing apple trees with hot cider
25. Worcestershire Mummers
26. Kissing under the mistletoe
27. Snapdragon
28. The Office Party
29. The Morecambe and Wise show
Acknowledgements
Preface
My thanks are due to the following for permission to reproduce
or for supplying copies of illustrations: The Englishman's Christmas is the second work in a trilogy
on the history of British leisure; it was preceded by a
BBC Photographs, London (plate 29) history of holiday-making (The Englishman's Holiday, A
The Mansell Collection, London (plates 7, 13 & 17) Social History, re-published by Flare Books in 1976), and
Mary Evans Picture Library, London (plates 3, 4, 9-12, 14-16, followed by a history of recreations. In his preface of 1960
{when the book was completed but not published),
18, 20, 23-27)
Pimlott declared his aim: 'I hope that it will justify itself
Private Eye Magazine (plate 28)
as a contribution to social history but I have also written
Radio Times Hulton Picture Library (plates 2, 5, 6 & 8)
it with the general reader in mind. I cannot claim that like
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (plate 19)
the greatest of Christmas books it has as its chief purpose
The John Rylands University of Manchester (plate 1)
"to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts never
out of season in a Christian land". If it should do so I
shall be happy to have achieved a result so much in
keeping with my subject.'
In revising The Englishman's Christmas - A Social
History for publication, I have changed little except in
Chapter XIII (Twentieth Century). Here I have kept John
Pimlott's structure and have generally intervened only to
up-date. Two or three pages at the end of this chapter
{where the author had ended by stressing the importance.
of the royal broadcast) have been added by me. Apart
from a few other paragraphs where the original ideas or
examples no longer seemed relevant, most of my addi
tions to the text refer to post-1960 developments, and are
therefore obvious. Because Pimlott wanted the book to be
widely read, he dispensed with foot-notes and I have
followed this example. Many of the most important
references are however included in the text.
In addition to those people mentioned in the author's
Acknowledgements (Section B, Appendix), I would like
to thank my sister Jane (to whom, then aged 9, my father
originally dedicated the book, 'and all to whom Christ-
·mas means as much as it does to her'); and my wife, Jean
Seaton, for her encouragement and advice. For infor
mation about John Pimlott I am grateful to the friends
and former colleagues whose names are mentioned in the
biographical note at the end of the book. Finally I Chapter I
wish to thank Miss Rule for typing the corrections and
additions with her usual skill, speed and efficiency. In the Beginning
BENPIMLOTI
The baby Jesus and His Mother, the stable and the
June 1978
manager, the shepherds in the fields, the message of the
angels, the Wise Men and the star of Bethlehem; the
Nativity story is now familiar to millions who are not
even Christians, and it requires an effort of the imagi
nation to appreciate that the birthday of Christ was not
separately commemorated by the Christian Church for
several centuries after that first Christmas Day.
I The early Christians were in fact so uninterested in the
).
birthday of the Saviour that the Gospels throw no light
on the actual date of His birth and no tradition was
handed down from New Testament times to guide the
Church when in due course it had to decide on what day
the Nativity should be commemorated. Disapproval of
birthday celebrations as such may have contributed to
this indifference. Origen in the third century condemned
them as pagan and made the telling point that Pharaoh
and Herod were the only Biblical personages who were
recorded as keeping birthdays. A more important reason
may have been that the early Christians were looking
forward to the triumphant return of Christ rather than
back to his incarnation. Whatever the reasons, it was
probably not until the fourth century that the Nativity
was established as a separate feast.
Yet long before the birth of Christ there had been
mid-winter festivities to which the subsequent celeb
rations of Christmas bore too close a resemblance for the
similarity to the mere coincidence. Those who wish to
pursue this complex and fascinating subject can only be
referred to Frazer, Tille, E. K. Chambers and other
scholars who have done so much to illuminate the pagan
background to Christmas. They do not always agree.
1
2 THE ENGLISHMAN'S CHRISTMAS IN THE BEGINNING 3
Frazer in particular is subject to correcti?n, an? many whole of the period from late November until the end of
points are still obscure, but the broad picture is_ clear.
January was studded with holidays of varying impor
Uncanny parallels to Christmas customs occur m the
tance and length. Those which are most relevant are the
New Year celebrations of Babylon and Egypt and else
Saturnalia, which in the later Empire began on 17th
where in the ancient world, but they are to be found
De~ember and ended on 24th December, the Kalends,
more especially in the mid-winter and n~w year holidays wh~ch began on 1st January, the Juvenilia or Feast of
of the Roman Empire and the Germamc peoples of the
Children, and the ~irthday of the Unconquered Sun on
North.· When they are examined these customs prove to
~5th De~ember, which was an important Mithraic festival
have underlying themes which are religious in character. m the third and fourth centuries.
It is natural to see in the feasting which characterised
~uring. the Saturnalia and Kalends, buildings were
these pagan holidays merely a normal human reaction to
b~ightly ht and d~corated with evergreens. Presents were
the onset of winter at a time of temporary plenty when
given ~nd greetmgs exchanged. Men dressed up in
the granaries were still full after the harvest and the
women s clotJ;tes and the skins of animals. Pastimes
annual slaughter of stock had taken p~ace. The evide~ce, including gambling with dice which were forbidden at
however shows that at least in ongm the celebrations A
other t~~~, were allowed. mock ruler presided over
had a r~ligious purpose. They were inten~ed to prop
t~e festivities and the slave was temporarily the equal of
itiate the mysterious and (as it seemed) obvim.~sly hostile his ~aste~. The Satl;lrnalia recalled the golden age when
forces which were responsible for the decline of the
the kmdly Saturn reigned and good will prevailed among
life-giving sun and for the corning of win~er_ ~ith al~ the men.
perils and privations it involved for a pnmihve agricul
The ?aturnalia come vividly to life in the account of
tural society. They were intended to placate and encour
them given by the Graeco-Latin poet, Lucian, in the third
age the more benevolent forces. which might restore the
century. ~hey were marked by 'drinking and being
favourable conditions under which plants and beasts and
drunk, no~se and games and dance, appointing of kings,
men could flourish and multiply.
and f~astmg of slaves, . singing naked, clapping of
Against this background the specific observanc~s can ~emblmg ~ands, an o~casional ducking of corked faces in
be seen to have a deeper significance. The promotion of
icy waters · Through ~maginary laws put into the mouth
fertility was the chief underlying I?otive .. The food~ and of .~ro.nosol~m, the priest of Saturn, Lucian expressed the
drinks which were especially associated with the holidays
~pmt m_ which th~ Satu~nalia were supposed to be kept.
might be enjoyed for their own sake, b~! !heY_ were _also All busmess, be it pubhc or private, is forbidden during
sacrifices or inherited from former sacrificial ntes. Ritual
the_ feast days, save such as tends to sport and solace and
1
fires and the use of lights were attempts to assist in t~e
delight. Le~ ~one follow their avocations except cooks
revival of the waning sun by a form of sympathetic
and bakers. All me~ shall be equal, slave and free, rich
magic. Evergreens were used for ~eremonial p~rposes and poor, one with another'. 'Anger, resentment,
because they embodied and symbolised the contmuance
t~reats, are contrary to. law.' 'No discourage shall be
of life when most trees and plants were apparently dead.
either comp?sed or delivered, except it be witty and
Little is known in detail about the mid-winter festival lusty, acc?rdmg to mirth and jollity'.
or 'Yule' (as it may conveniently be called) of the
Teutomc Yule and Roman Saturnalia such was the
Germanic peoples and the affinity between Christmas
backgr?u~d. against which the great mid-winter festival
and the pagan celebrations is best illustrated. by the
of Chnstiamty developed, and there is little doubt that
mid-winter holidays of the later Roman Empire. The
the traditional winter holiday season was deliberately
4 THE ENGLISHMAN'S CHRISTMAS IN THE BEGINNING 5
chosen as the most suitable time for the celebration of the parts when God created the world and argued that the
Nativity feast. Not that the early history of the Nativity first day of the Creation was, therefore, 25th March-the
feast is at all clear. It was first celebrated in the East as Roman spring equinox. It was on the third day that God
an aspect of the Epiphany. The Epiphany, which com made the sun, and it followed that as the son of
memorated the baptism of Christ and the manifestation righteousness Jesus must have been born on 27th March.
of His divine nature to the world, is first recorded among Other students reach other conclusions, but it is unlikely
the Basilidians in the second century. They were fol that scholarship played any part in the actual choice.
lowers of the heresiarch Basilides who flourished in December 25th was almost certainly chosen because it
Alexandria and who believed that Jesus did not become was the Roman winter solstice and the birthday of the
God until He had been baptised. From this point of view unconquered sun. There were advantages in choosing a
the date of His birth had no special significance. When, season which was associated with festivity; it was the
however, the Epiphany is next recorded in the fourth policy of the Church to build upon existing institutions
century it had become an important festival of the where it could, and within the Roman holiday season
Eastern Church which commemorated the Nativity as there were good reasons for preferring 25th December.
well as the baptism and the manifestation. The rites Mithraism was the main rival to Christianity, and the two
began on the night of 5th January and continued through religions had much in common. The Emperor Con
6th January. The night of 5th January was devoted to the stantine would indeed have liked to combine them, and
Nativity and the day of 6th January to the Baptism. as an aspect of this policy made the Christian 'Sunday'
The double purpose of the Epiphany tended to blur the the official weekly day of rest in 321 A.O. As the name
distinction between orthodox and heretical opinions on Sunday shows, Christians were accustomed to the
the question whether Christ was divine from birth, and symbolism of the sun. The idea of Christ as the light of
this may have been one of the reasons for the establ the world was embodied in the Epiphany celebrations,
ishment of the Nativity as a separate feast which and it was common to liken Christ to the sun. In the
happened in the West roughly contemporaneously with words of a much quoted text from Malachi he was the
the condemnation of the heretical view by the Council of Sun of Righteousness. It was also a sign of confidence
Nicaea in 325. All that is certain is that it was being that the Christians could challenge the sun worshippers
celebrated in Rome before 336. Subsequently the custom on their own ground by setting the Nativity of the Sun of
spread from the West through the whole Christian world Righteousness alongside the Birthday of the Uncon
in the fourth and fifth centuries until in the sixth the quered Sun of the Mithraists. 'Well do Christian people',
Armenian church was-as it still is-unique in adhering said Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, (339-397) 'call this
to the older custom of a combined celebration at the holy day, on which Our Lord was born, the day of the
Epiphany. new Sun'.
Why 25th December? A mid-winter date, much less a Christmas as a social as well as an ecclesiastical
precise ascription, has no support in the Gospels. On the institution resulted from the superimposition of the
contrary, even in the Holy Land the shepherds would Nativity Feast upon the pagan mid-winter holidays. In
not have been in the fields at the end of December and a Western Europe the pagan contribution derived from two
census would not have been held. Learned men had main sources- the Roman holidays and the Northern
made ingenious attempts to deduce the date of the 'Yule'. The Roman influence has been strongest in the
Nativity from other evidence. One third century writer Latin countries and that of Yule in the Northern ones.
pointed out that light and darkness formed two equal Some of the heathen survivals were so gross and
6 THE ENGLISHMAN'S CHRISTMAS IN THE BEGINNING 7
persistent that they continued for centuries to cause celebrations or any secular observances connected with
anxiety to the ecclesiastical authorities. In general, how them and the earliest recorded event in the history of the
ever, the aim of the Church was to assimilate and Engli~h Christmas is the baptism by Augustine of more
Christianise the traditional customs rather than to stamp than ten thousand Anglo-Saxon converts on Christmas
them out unless they were clearly incompatible with its Day 598. If this record is reliable Augustine'~ choice of
teachings. Attempts to impose standards which were Christmas Day for a spectacular demonstration of the
excessively austere broke on the obstinate reluctance of success he was achieving was in itself a challenge to
the people-often only partially converted-to give up Anglo-Saxon heathenism. December 25th was the ~egin:
customs which were enjoyable, appeared to them harm ning of the Anglo-Saxon year and also of t~e Yule
less, and were sanctified by tradition. It was necessary to festivities which the Anglo-Saxons shared with other
compromise, to acquiesce in the lesser evil for the sake of Germanic peoples. According to the Venerable B~de,
the greater good. This was the policy which was writing a century later, it was preceded by Modramcht,
embodied in the instructions Augustine received from or the Night of the Mothers, when the Anglo-Saxons
Gregory the Great through the Abbot Mellitus four years kept watch and performed religious ceremonies, pre-
after he had begun his mission to England in 597. sumably in honour of a Mother goddess. ' .
Except by inference, little is known about the way m
'Because they [the Anglo-Saxons) are accustomed to slay many which the Anglo-Saxons kept their Christmas bet~ee!l
oxen in sacrifices to demons, some solemnity should be put in the Conversion and the Norman Conquest, but it is
the place of this, so that on the day of the dedication of the
probable that the influence of the traditional Yule
churches, or the nativities of the holy martyres whose relics are
continued to be strong and that most of the people never
placed there, they may make for themselves bowers of branches
of trees around those churches which have been changed from had any clear understanding of the Christian fe~tival. The
heathen temples, and may celebrate the solemnity with religious cohversion was superficial and intermittent. Particularly
feasting. Nor let them now sacrifice animals to the Devil, but to at first the shortage of clergy was acute, the popul~tion
the praise of God kill animals for their own eating, and render
was almost wholly illiterate, and many of the priests
thanks to the Giver of all things for their abundance; so that
while some outward joys are retained for them, they may the were scarcely more lettered than their. fl?ck.s. ~ucceeding
more easily respond to inward joys. For from obdurate minds it waves of invaders set back the Chnshamsabon of the
is undoubtedly impossible to cut off everything at once, because country and refreshed the pagan tradition almost until
he who strives to ascend to the highest places rises by degrees the Norman Conquest, and the persistence of heath
or steps and not by leaps.'
enism among the nominally Christian has been proved
by linguistic and other evidence. . .
By the time of Austin's mission, the Nativity was fully In these circumstances there is no reason to disagree
established as one of the three major festivals of the with the traditional view of the Anglo-Saxon Christmas
Roman Church, and in 567 the Council of Tours had as an orgy of eating and drinking, dice and song. Or,
declared the whole of the Twelve Days between the rather, this was the ideal. For most of the people, much
Nativity and the Epiphany to be a sacred and festive of the time, the standard of living was so primitive even
season. No doubt the Nativity had been celebrated in in periods of good harvests and relati.ve peace, that the
Britain according to Roman rites by both Roman and ideal cannot always have ·been attained. One of the
British Christians before the arrival of Augustine, and it earliest references to the Anglo-Saxon celebrations pro
was also observed by the flourishing Celtic Church. But vides oblique confirmation of this impression. Theodore of
nothing certain is known about the form taken by these Tarsus, who as Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690
8 THE ENGLISHMAN'S CHRISTMAS IN THE BEGINNING 9
was mainly responsible for consolidating the achieve principles into practice so literally that he lost the battle
ment of Augustine, said in his Penitentials that a of Chippenham to the Danes in 878 because he refused to
confessor could accept the excuse that a man ate too fight during the Twelve Days of Christmas. Modern
research does not, however, confirm the traditional belief
freely during Christmas provided that he had not
overstepped the limits allowed by the Church. that Christmas was a State occasion when the King took
counsel with national gatherings of the Witenagemot.
. ~he .detail cannot be filled in with any confidence, but
it is hk~ly that the Christmas customs of the Anglo While the Witenagemot met more often at Christmas
than at any other time, the reason seems to have been
Saxons •~eluded the .Yule log, mum~ing, the hunting of
smal~ ammals and buds, the wassailmg of fruit trees by that the Kings moved their Courts from place to place
pourmg ale on them while incantations were sung or and they took the opportunity of consulting their cour
shouted, and the use of evergreens or decorations. Their tiers and the magnates of the neighbourhood in which
pastimes are known to have included leap frog and blind the Court was established for the holiday season.
man's buff, both of which like the folk customs are So the English Christmas took shape. Gradually and
believed to have originated in primitive fertility rites. It fitfully. Yule and the Feast of the Nativity were synth
esised-to form a new institution in which the Christian
does not follow that any of these practices retained their
and the pagan constituents . were intermixed. By the
primitive signific~nce---except, like modern superstitions,
m the sense of bemg lucky, or necessary in order to avoid Norman Conquest the Christianisation of the country
bad luck-or even that their pagan origin was remem was complete, and the Twelve Days were solidly estab
bered. The same was doubtless true of the traditional lished. as the main annual holiday and the season of
songs which were shouted round the blazing log fires religion, rest from labour, and traditional merriment
and the traditional tales which were told as the liquor which they were to remain until the age of Puritanism.
flowed. At a season when all, including passing stran And it cannot have been long before the conquest that
gers, not forgetting the ghosts of dead ancestors, had a the English language was enriched with a new
special claim upon hospitality, there would have been a word-'C hristmas'- to describe this much loved festival.
warm welcome for the professional minstrels of whom It is of at least symbolical significance that in 1043 the
the poet Widsith wrote in the seventh or eighth century scribes who were responsible for the Anglo-Saxon
that they 'go wandering over many a land as fate ' Chronicle referred for the first time to 25th December as
dec.rees'. But the pr?~e~sionals will mostly have found 'Christmas' instead of as hitherto· 'Nativity',
their way to the festivities of kings and other magnates. 'Midwinter-Mass', or just 'Mid-Winter'.
For amusement, as for food and drink, lesser folk had to
depend upon their own resources.
Chris~mas season had added importance in Anglo
_Saxon life because 25th December was the beginning of
the year, and Alfred and other kings appear to have done
their best to enforce the observance of the Twelve Days
in accordance with the law of the Church. Laws made by
Alfred and re-enacted by some of his successors provided
that during the Twelve Days no work should be done
legal proceedings should be suspended, and all should
live in concord. According to legend Alfred carried his