A
MEDIEVAL YEAR IN ENGLAND:
DECEMBER A warm Christmas -- a cold Easter.
A green Christmas -- a white Easter.For
those living on the land, this is a time of settling in with the
winter. If the frost is not yet deep into the soil, more plowing in
preparation for spring may be doe. If the cold is not yet too great,
the geese, sheep, and cattle that have survived last month’s
slaughtering are let out to graze the stubble fields. If they cannot
be loosed to graze, especial care must be kept of them in their barns.
Beekeepers should be sure their hives have food enough and supply them
with honey and water if need be. Women
can be threshing what grain is needed for now, not more than can be
used, since grain keeps best in the head. All the stored food supplies
should be checked regularly from now through winter to be sure they are
keeping well. Now is a goodly time for sharpening and mending tools. For hunters, the roedeer and hare are still in season and bird-netting is allowed. But beyond all else this is not only Winter Month but Heligh monath
– Holy month. The holy season of Advent begins somewhere near its
beginning and there are special holy days all through it. Dec.
6 is St. Nicholas day, when in schools – especially choir schools
attached to cathedrals – boy bishops are elected to rule from now to
Childermas (Dec. 28), allowed to robe themselves as bishops, do mass
with boys for priests, and go through town asking for food gifts for
the school boys or the poor. Dec. 13 is St. Lucy’s day and followed by Ember Days of fasting and abstinence on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after it. Dec.
20 is another fast day, and Dec. 21 – St. Thomas the Apostle’s day – is
for almsgiving and dole to the poor and servants who give holly and
mistletoe in return. Dec. 24 as
Christmas Eve is another fast day, but full of preparations for
Christmas on the morrow. Mistletoe is forbidden in churches but all
other evergreens are welcome everywhere in church and home. The Yule
log, cut last winter and left to season these twelve months, is brought
in tonight and lighted, preferably with a bit of last year’s log, saved
until now. Once lighted, the log should burn for 24 hours at least,
for good fortune, but the last of it should of course be kept for next
year.
Dec. 25 is Christmas, the celebration of the Nativity of
Christ and the beginning of twelve days of festival. Among other
sports, the lord of the manor will organize a great feast in the manor
hall for all his manor folk, with himself and all his people
contributing to it. Caroling, partying, games, and mummers make
Christmas and its twelve days merry. A Lord of Misrule is chosen to
direct the revels through the holidays, with his own officials and
foolish dress and license for mischief.
Dec. 26 is St. Stephen’s
day, called Boxing Day because of boxes in the churches to receive alms
for the poor today especially. It is said to be a good day for
blood-letting of horses to keep them healthy for the year.
Dec.
28 is Holy Innocents day, called Childermas. By tradition, children
are supposed to be whipped today to remind them of the massacre of the
babies of Bethlehem. IT is supposed to be the most unlucky day of the
year, a very ill time for any enterprise.
Dec. 31 is the eve of
the New Year. Though the official year of church reckoning and
government documents and records does not start until Lady Day in March
(so that the year runs officially from March 25 to March 24), today is
the popular end-of-year and late revels are a long-held custom. 
Winter 1436 - Margaret |
