Twelve Days of Feasts and Fun
by Scholastica Joycors
AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTED Christmas has past and yet I am still writing about it. Why? Because Christmas, just like it’s counterpart Saturnila, is a twelve day celebration spanning from Christmas Day until Epiphany or Twelfth Night. The Twelve Days of Christmas is much more than just a song, it has a history. Consider this historical morsel that tells us that in England, between 1558 and 1829, the practicing of any kind of Christianity in public or private, especially if you were Catholic, was illegal. Rumor has it that the song, “A New Dial” (also known as “In Those Twelve Days,)” goes back to at least 1625, where religious meanings were hung on the twelve days so that people could practice their faith in secret, but that is a whole other story entirely.
One should actually look at the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany/Twelfth Night as twelve days of remembrance, feasting and fun. Below is a list of each day, the saint that was being remembered, and the feast or celebration, you will note that many days have more than one reason for feasting (as if they need a reason to feast).
Day 1 (25th December): Christmas Day - celebrating the Birth of Jesus
Day 2 (26th December also known as Boxing Day): The day when the carol of the fictional Good King Wencelas takes place. St Stephen’s Day or the Day of the Wren in Ireland. St. Stephen is believed to have been the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death about 33 CE. According to Irish legend, St. Stephen was betrayed by a wren while hiding from his enemies. Another legend tells that on this day in about 750 CE Irish soldiers were approaching a Viking camp to try and drive them away when a wren started pecking on crumbs left on a drum which alerted the Vikings to their presence.
It is believed that people blamed the wren for what happened and that they should be stoned to death just like St. Stephen was. So traditionally boys hunted the wren and stoned it to death, then when dead would tie it to a stick and parade it around the village. The boys dressed in disguise and collected coins, drink or food in exchange for their song.
Day 3 (27th December): St John the Apostle was known as a disciple of Jesus and the patron saint of love, loyalty, friendships and authors. This is considered a feast day.
Day 4 (28th December): The Feast of the Holy Innocents - when people remember the baby boys which King Herod killed when he was trying to find and kill the Baby Jesus. In medieval England the children were reminded of the mournfulness of the day by being whipped in bed in the morning: this custom survived until the 17th century. Today this considered a day of merrymaking for children.
Day 5 (29th December): St Thomas Becket. He was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century and was murdered in the cathedral on 29th December 1170 for challenging the King’s authority over Church. In 1173 Beckett was canonized. King Henry repented and made public penance at the tomb. Canterbury later became the third greatest site of pilgrimage in all of Europe (many of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ involve a pilgrimage to his shrine).
Day 6 (30th December): St Egwin of Worcester as a bishop was known as a protector of orphans and the widowed and a fair judge. He established the Evesham Abbey which one of the great Benedictine houses of medieval England. He died on 30 December 717.
Day 7 (31st December): New Years Eve (known as Hogmanay in Scotland). Pope Sylvester I is traditionally celebrated on this day. He was one of the earliest popes (4th Century). In many central and eastern European countries (including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and Slovenia) New Years Eve is still sometimes called ‘Silvester’. In the UK, New Years Eve was a traditional day for ‘games’ and sporting competitions. Archery was a very popular sport and during the Middle Ages it was the law that it had to be practiced by all men between ages 17-60 on Sunday after Church! This was so the King had lots of very good archers ready in case he should need to go to war!
Day 8 (1st January): 1st January – Liturgical feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary which is an Octave of Christmas or an eight day extension of the feast. The honoring of Mary as the Mother of God can be traced back to the Council of Ephesus in 431. In the 7th century this day was observed as a celebration of the maternity of the Virgin Mary. The feast is a celebration of Mary’s motherhood of Jesus. The title “Mother of God” is a western derivation from the Greek Theotokos, which means “God-bearer”. Mary is known as the “Queen of Peace”. New Year’s Day is also designated as the “World Day of Peace”, further acknowledging her role in our hearts and in our world.
The Feast of Fools was developed in the late 12th and early 13th centuries as an elaborate and orderly liturgy for the day of the Circumcision. The idea was to celebrate the biblical principle that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” (1 Cor 1:27), the feast allowed the low-ranking deacons to assume roles of leadership like bishop or pope. By the 13th century these feasts had migrated out of the church and had become a burlesque of Christian morality and worship. In spite of penalties imposed by the Council of Basel in 1431 this feast did not entirely disappear until the 16th century.
Day 9 (2nd January): St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen, two important 4th century Christians who were great friends from Cappadocia or Turkey. Gregory helped with the completion of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed which help defines the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Both were considered some of the greatest and most influential teacher of all time.
Day 10 (3rd January): Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. This remembers when Jesus was officially ‘named’ in the Jewish Temple. Different churches celebrate it on a wide number of different dates!
Day 11 (4th January): The feast of Saint Simon Stylites was a Syriac ascetic saint who achieved fame for living 47 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo (in modern Syria) in an attempt to withdraw from the world. Higher pillars were constructed so that he may continue to be unblemished by the world but that only drew more spectators and pilgrims. His public ministry as a holy man drew patrons to help with impartial disputes. When he died in 459 Antioch build a vast edifice known in Arabic as the Qalaat Semaan (the Fortress of Simon) which can still be seen with four basilicas built out from an octagonal court with a pillar/column in the center.
Day 12 (5th January) also known as Epiphany Eve as well as Twelfth Night.
Twelfth Night was a big time of celebration with people holding large parties. During these parties, often the roles in society were reversed with the servants being served by the rich people. This dated back to medieval and Tudor times when Twelfth Night marked the end of ‘winter’, which had started on 31st October with All Hallows Eve (Halloween).
At the start of Twelfth Night the Twelfth Night cake was eaten. This was a rich cake made with eggs and butter, fruit, nuts and spices. The modern Italian Panettone is the cake we currently have that’s most like the old Twelfth Night cake.
A dried pea or bean was cooked in the cake. Whoever found it was the Lord (or Lady) of Misrule for night. The Lord of Misrule led the celebrations and was dressed like a King (or Queen). This tradition goes back to the Roman celebrations of Saturnalia. In later times, from about the Georgian period onwards, to make the Twelfth Night ‘gentile’, two tokens were put in the cake (one for a man and one for a women) and whoever found them became the ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ of the Twelfth Night party.
In English Cathedrals during the middle ages there was the custom of the ‘Boy Bishop’ where a boy from the Cathedral or monastery school was elected as a Bishop on 6th December (St Nicholas Day) and had the authority of a Bishop (except to perform Mass) until 28th December. King Henry VIII banned the practice in 1542 although it came back briefly under Mary I in 1552 but Elizabeth I finally stopped it during her reign.
During Twelfth Night it was traditional for different types of pipes to be played, especially bagpipes. Lots of games were played including ones with eggs. These included tossing an egg between two people moving further apart during each throw - drop it and you lose and passing an egg around on spoons. Another popular game was ‘snapdragon’ where you picked raisins or other dried fruit out of a tray of flaming brandy!
The first Monday after Christmas feast has finished was known as ‘Plough Monday’ as this was when farming work would all begin again!
In many parts of Britain, people also went Wassailing on Twelfth Night, that is to say that they took a large bowl full of spiced ale and went from farm to farm singing and wishing the apple farmers good luck with next years harvest. It was also a great reason to drink a lot with friends.
Twelfth Night is also known as Epiphany Eve. In many countries it’s traditional to put the figures of the Wise Men/Three Kings into the Nativity Scene on Epiphany Eve ready to celebrate Epiphany on the 6th January.
It’s also traditional to take your Christmas decorations down following Twelfth Night.
One final note Twelfth Night is also the name of a famous play written by William Shakespeare. It is thought it was written in 1601/1602 and was first performed at Candlemas in 1602, although it wasn’t published until 1623. Here is a tidbit to wet your appetite to read from Act I, Scene iii where both Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are in the mood to hear a song. Sir Toby gives Feste sixpence to sing a love song. Feste obliges. His beautiful song – “O Mistress Mine” – is an ode to free-spirited, impulsive, and delicious love. Life is short; you’ve got to grab joy when it’s within reach...or so they say.
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear! your true-love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers meeting—
Every wise man’s son doth know.
What is love? ’Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
As you can see there is a lot to find about the twelve days of Christmas and what things the people thought were important to remember or celebrate during those twelve days. Some of these customs have continued on into the future and others have quietly faded away. Regardless of the era you are celebrating there is something for everyone to celebrate from Christmas through the beginning of the New Year until you take down the tree and decorations on twelfth night.
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©2017 By MyLinda Butterworth — Originally appeared in The Yeoman : January 2017
Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited and receives a copy.
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