As Christmas approaches, this is a good time for me to talk about a medieval Christmas and how differently it would have been celebrated in the 14th century. A description of the holiday is celebrated near the end of my second book, Plague of a Green Man. Some ancient aspects of the celebration of Christmas in 1380 have come down to us today, but we have added much more to the celebration that was not part of Christmas in Lady Apollonia’s day.
The name of the holiday “Christmas” comes from the Middle English usage “Christ’s Mass” when on the 24th and 25th of December, there were three masses celebrated: the Angel’s Mass at midnight, Shepherd’s Mass at dawn, and the Mass of the Divine Word during the day. In my story, Plague of a Green Man, Lady Apollonia and her husband are able, with her chaplain and household, to observe each of the masses in their family chapel newly built in Exeter House.
A holiday banquet was also an important part of the celebration of Christmas in medieval times. We often have turkey for our Christmas dinner, but turkeys came from the New World more than a century after the time of my story. Instead, a medieval family that could afford it would prepare a yule boar for the feast. More humble tables might substitute a meat pie shaped like a boar. Churches, chapels, and homes were colourfully decorated with ivy, mistletoe, holly, and anything green in the midst of winter.
In my story, the Lady Apollonia’s Exeter House also included a crèche created outdoors in the garden by Friar Francis, the Lady’s chaplain. The first actual Christmas crèche was a Franciscan holiday tradition begun in the early 13th century by Saint Francis of Assisi that became very popular throughout Europe. The picture above shows a modern Christmas crèche that we found in Lichfield Cathedral in England. The medieval version put the emphasis on the Christ child and the animals while the more contemporary crèche has added Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and wise men.
Christmas was not a single day in the year. All of Advent was a part of its celebration and involved fasting before the major feast on Christmas day. It continued until Epiphany, 12 days later. Some folk even prolonged their festivities for forty days after Christmas until February 2. That part of the holiday began as an ancient pagan festival but became Candlemas in the Christian calendar or alternatively celebrated the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.
There were special religious days immediately after Christmas as well. First an important saint’s day honoured Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, rather than the Boxing Day holiday on modern English calendars for December 26. The day after that was dedicated to Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, while December 28 was Holy Innocents’ Day commemorating the male children killed by King Herod. We also should remind ourselves that gifts were not exchanged on Christmas Day but on New Year’s Day.
To learn more about medieval Christmas, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas or on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Days_of_Christmas .
Tags: Chaucer's England, historical fiction, medieval mysteries