Gingerbread

It is far too close to Christmas to be thinking of anything too academic so in lieu of research I present - PROCRASTINATION!

Every year my department's Christmas party consists of some Christmas themed papers followed by some civilised nibbles and wine. This year, my cohort Ruth and I decided to take the nibbles to a higher level.

This began with the construction of a cardboard monastery from which the biscuits would be modelled on.

Once Ruth and I had finished the model, I took it home and proceeded to bake, and bake, and bake, and bake....

I ended up doing a double recipe of Merry Berry's Gingerbread House recipe and I very seriously recommend her tips about cutting the shapes out on the baking parchment and so on.


This was all allowed to cool overnight before Ruth came round the next evening and we began gluing it all together with royal icing. This is actually the most difficult part as patience is a commodity I lack and the walls really do have to be set quite firmly before you can add the roofs.

Set they did however and the whole structure was then left to dry overnight with strategic bottles used to prevent slippage.

Once it was all dry, a mildly stressful journey in my car saw it arrive safely at University where it received it's final dusting of "snow".

 

 

 

All in all the product of two evenings and a year of occasional lunchtime discussions. 

See you all next year!

Christmas Blogs

Today rather than reading what I've written, I encourage you to pop on over to the University of Reading's History Department (to whom I'm very biased) and read their Christmas blog series which begins with "A Very Royal Christmas"

In the mean time, enjoy this photo from a trip to Christmassy Bruges last year and have a Very Merry Christmas!

The Holly and the Ivy

Holly and ivy have a long association Christmas and with luck, you dear reader, have now got the famous tune stuck in your head. 

The Mystic Capture of the Unicorn

Looking more closely at this association, I shall start with the gendering of the plant in folklore. Holly was said to represent the division of the sexes as the male and female flowers rarely occur on the same tree. The berries therefore only appear when both plants of both sexes are near one another. The association of evergreens and winter is long standing and it was believed that bringing smooth, female holly into the house in New Year would result in the wife ruling the house for the year. If it was prickly, male holly that crossed the threshold first, the man would rule (Moore: 555).  

A variety of sources refer to these two types of holly, the male and female hollies, and ivy appears to come in later with its female connotations; Adding  itself to the general jumble of early pagan traditions of holly with its later Christian influences. 

Holly and Christianity is a fairly easy connection to make with its prickliness evoking Christ’s crown of thorns and its evergreen nature, the eternal life promised. 

Back to Christmas, it was considered bad luck in Derbyshire to not have holly and Mistletoe in the house by Christmas. In Oxfordshire, it was believed that holly should only be brought into the house on Christmas eve and removed on the twelfth night. If this wasn't done, it was believed the devil would come to the house. If the holly was burnt a death in the family would follow which conjures images in my mind of the traditional Christmas arguments followed by secretive evergreen torching.

Social history is always tricky as people in general don’t record what is normal and as a result, the records for decorating churches are all quite late. What they do reveal however is the tradition, both pre and post-reformation, of using holly to decorate churches. 

For example, St Mary-at-Hill in London in 1486 lists 3 pence worth of Holly and Ivy for decorating on Chirstmas eve. In 1505 at St Lawrence's in Reading for2 pence is spent on holly for Christmas decorations while in 1689, the churchwarden account lists "candles and orniment 'holly and ivy'" being used to decorate the church of St Martin's in Chester and costing 2 shillings. 

Finally the most easily recognised pagan everygreen, mistletoe has a role to play. Despite being most often associated with the New Year, in 1672 Bilston chapel in the Black Country is described as "dressed with holly and mistletoe".

Notes

Drury, S. "Customs and Beliefs Associated with Christmas Evergreens: A Preliminary Survey" in 

Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 2 (1987), pp. 194-199

Moore, A. "Mixed Tradition in the Carols of Holly and Ivy" in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 62, No. 8 (Dec., 1947), pp. 554-556

  

The Medieval Garden Enclosed

http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2008/12/18/the-holly-and-the-ivy/

Christmas Carols

I’m going to begin my festive season of posts with some carols to get the ball rolling. 

Love them or hate them, they’re a traditional part of Christmas but for how long have they been around?

Carols are very hard to trace but the earliest manuscripts date to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As with the majority of social history however, a far longer oral history is likely to have preceded and Ashley (see Notes) argues for tracing them all the way back to pre-Norman England following her analysis of themes and rhythm in earlier carols.                 

Many of these early carols contain folk song elements such as a repetitious nature possibly suggesting a work/labour song with an individual leading the song. 

For example:

"Tyrle, tyrlow, tyrle, tyrlow

So merrily the shepherds began to blos

Tidinges, tidinges that be true,

Sorowe is paste and joye dothe renue

Lully, lulley, lully, lulley,

The faucon hath borne my make away"

(Ashely: 66)
 


For your listening pleasure, the early fifteenth century "Nowel, nowel, nowel" from Deo Gracias Anglia! Medieval English Carols, The Trinity Carol Roll (Obsidian,  2012) CD

Blending folk traditions and religion has a long heritage and from the start, Christmas has entwined both pagan and Christian traditions. The very date of the 25^th of December was actually the date of the birth of the Roman deity Mithras and became associated with Christmas under Emperor Constantine and Mithras himself is often depicted with a red hat (Lancaster: 289). Having linked his birthday and Christmas already for you, I’ll leave you to make your own connections with the red hat.

[On that note, the naming of and the traditions of Easter are said to actually have their origins in Ēostre or Ostara, a Teutonic fertility deity.]

In England, the pagan traditions continued in the activity of wassailing (visiting orchards, praising the trees and drinking lots of mulled cider) and holly and ivy contests where religion was added retrospectively (I’ve more to say on holly and ivy – stay tuned!). 

So my thought for today is to remember that when getting hot under the collar about the secularisation of Christmas, think about how outraged the mithraists and pagans must have been following the Christianisation of their festivals.

Notes

Ashley, J. "Mediaeval Christmas Carols" in Music & Letters, vol. 5, no. 1 (Jan, 1924) pp. 65-71

Lancaster, C. “Metaphysical Beliefs and Architectural Principles” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Mar., 1956), pp. 287-303