2019 Events

As explained on my 'modern-day' blog, various health issues have prevented teaching, and severely limited fieldwork and other research, though I hope to gradually resume work over the next few months, and catch-up with blogging about what I've managed to do on 'good days'.

If I'm still unable to undertake external events (for museums or other organisations) this year, I'll hopefully be able to hold a Halloween and a Christmas event at the 'Academy' for (a) club(s) or group(s).

I'm in the process of outlining the range of sessions that should be available this (2019) autumn & winter and after; and those under development for delivery 2020 - 2021 on my teaching website. But I'll also post details here, and via other social media, as soon as completed.

As well as 'Austen Age' late Georgian & Regency sessions, next year I'm hoping to present sessions that consider Elizabethan & Jacobean; Commonwealth era; and early - mid Georgian; topics.

Drawing Lots for Love! St. Valentine's Day Traditions.

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Love is certainly in the air at Lymehurst Cottage (home of the Academy)!

In preparation for several salons and soirées on love and marriage that I aim to present (and perhaps host at the Academy), I have for some time been delving deep into romance during the ‘long eighteenth century’ (with regard to my work, usually covering the late 17^th - early 19^th centuries). I will perhaps provide one or two of these events in summer this year (those that concentrate upon the Regency period); and others (those on the Georgian Era more generally) at around this time next year.

These events will investigate a variety of topics relating to love and marriage in these eras – with particular regard to Derby and the surrounding area – examining a range of sources (including archaeological evidence and artefact collections; art and illustrations; print culture and newspapers; novels and poems; advice manuals; memoirs and diaries). In exploring attitudes towards love and marriage, they will consider the social, cultural, economic, and political settings of changing opinions and behaviour; and what material remains tell us something about how people expressed and felt romantic affection in the past. Events held on and / or around Saint Valentine’s Day will look at associated traditions of the day.

As today is Valentine’s Day, I shall provide a very brief a preview of work-in-progress. I am inevitably drawn to antiquarian interest, so present a topical excerpt from an eighteenth century theological (hagiographic) work. I follow this with something a little more down to earth: late eighteenth-century newspaper correspondence regarding the tradition of prospective suitors drawing lots for their Valentine!

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In his Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints (published in the late 1750s), English Catholic priest Alban Butler (1710-1773) refers to early 17th century Swiss Valentine customs while writing of Saint Francis of Sales, Bishop of Geneva:[i]

He [Francis of Sales] severely forbade the custom of Valentines or giving boys, in writing, the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and, to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain saints for them to honor and imitate in a particular manner.

In the Derby Mercury newspaper, we read of traditions that seem to indicate continuing secular development of such 'Valentines' after the 17th century, in the form of drawing lots; clearly, not everyone agreed with perpetuating this 'ancient custom'!:

 

Derby Mercury, 7 March 1782 (above); 20 March 1782 (below)

As with other ostensibly ‘ancient’ customs (e.g., see the Halloween post), I cannot but ponder the extent to which antiquarian pursuits influenced the ‘revival’ of this practice – a topic that I continue to investigate. However, in this case the latter newspaper correspondent does not appear to be familiar with the move from secular (romantic) to ecclesiastical (saintly veneration) ‘billets’ in the early modern period referred to within Rev. Butler’s work.

I will again here return to the theme of love & marriage; but for now, I must return to the archives.

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 Notes

[i] Alban Butler & Bernard Kelly (Ed.) n.d. The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints, Vol. I. London: Virtue & Company Ltd., p.125.

Christmas and the Antiquarians: Customs, Continuity, and Change

 

Nostalgia for Christmas in ‘Merrie England’ (from Robert Seymour’s 1836 Book of Christmas)[i]

As I partly let slip when twittering in the market place the other day, I am planning several Christmastide educational and creative endeavours for next year's celebrations. To this aim, around preparations for the Academy opening I persevere with antiquarian investigations – and what better employment at this time of year! I shall primarily incorporate my discoveries within talks, walks, and workshops; in academic publications and presentations; and I hope in more publically accessible texts, such as the pamphlet Old Christmas on which I now work (as mentioned previously). But for now, perhaps my reader might be interested in occasional tid-bits from my findings, and work-in-progress.

In my current writing I consider the widely held beliefs and assertions surrounding continuity from the Roman and Medieval eras, and explore the influence of early modern and industrial period antiquarians upon our understanding of ‘Old Christmas’ in Britain.[ii] One article pays particular attention to the almost universal assertion within popular works that the origin of the ‘modern’ Christmas lies in the pagan Roman festival of Saturnalia. This primarily agricultural feast (typically involving over indulgence), merriment (usually including pranks and role-reversal), and present giving, was initially observed on December 17^th and 18^th, and later celebrated over five days. The festival is of interest to antiquarians of my time – including the redoubtable Edward Gibbon Esq.[iii] Some consider another Roman cult (with somewhat similar celebrations) as a more likely candidate – that of sol invicta (the ‘unconquered sun’), whose ‘birth’ was marked by the winter solstice, Brumalia, on the 25th December. It is usually claimed that with ‘Christianisation’ of the empire in the 4^th century, the church chose to adopt this date for celebrating the birth of Jesus,[iv] providing direct continuity of British Christmas festivities from this time, to this day.

However, while my 18^th century antiquarian self might allow such a conclusion (though may start to see alternative viewpoints emerge in the following decades), from the perspective of my 21^st century archaeologist self, I cannot escape the contention that many claims of continuity are largely based upon assumptions. [v] I will elaborate within future publications, but for now shall very briefly highlight several important issues with regard to notions of continuity. This forms part of  the well-attested argument that, by considering the work of antiquarians over several centuries, it is clear that interest in (and thus expansion of knowledge about) the past was (and is) largely intertwined with the various social and political circumstances and concerns of the day.[vi] Over time customs are selectively appropriated, modified, and discarded when no longer relevant, giving rise to new traditions that are most ‘meaningful’ at particular times, in particular places.

The first point is that such arguments rely upon homogenous ‘Roman’ culture – which any study conducted at various scales of analysis (the household, community, region, and – where appropriate, state or nation) reveals was clearly not the case.[vii] It also assumes that the rites described within written sources relating particular parts of the empire, at particular times, may readily apply to the British isles – which again is not necessarily (or often) the case.

Secondly (but following the same line of reasoning), until relatively recently, while the church provided an (inter-)national calendar of festivals – of course including Christmas, the actual form of associated rituals often varied significantly in different places, at different times, with much revelry taking place outside the sphere of the church. Such diversity might be expected without the mass media of recent centuries to aid the sense of shared culture across a wide area:[viii] for many centuries after the ‘fall’ of Roman, learning and the written word was concentrated within religious establishments, and primarily confined to ecclesiastical concerns.[ix]

Thirdly (though still connected with the previous issues), these assumptions seem to largely ignore that extensive changes that took place during and after the Middle Ages. Clerics had long been interested in the past (notably the work of Gildas in the 6^th century, Bede in the 8^th, and Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12^th);[x] but with the Renaissance, interest in classical culture and origins grew. Antiquarianism flourished during the early modern period, with greater attention paid to the medieval era. In breaking from the Church of Rome, the Tudor monarchy looked to the Germanic settlers for political and religious foundations,[xi] while defense against invaders from the Continent, and colonial expansion, were significant in forming England (and later, Britain) as a nation.[xii] By bringing together, and committing to paper, various local customs, ‘national’ traditions were born. (I have considered similar issues here, with regard to ‘Halloween’ traditions).

With increasing urbanisation and industrialisation in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, conflict after conflict, social change (with the development of a ‘middle class’), and economic strife, many Christmas traditions are out of place, and fall into disuse. The sense that declining ‘ancient’ traditions will soon be lost – the dying embers of which are seen as sustained by ‘simple’ people, in rural regions, and preserved for posterity within antiquarian collections – provokes nostalgia for the supposedly static and ‘uncorrupted’ traditions of a semi-fictional past: ‘Merrie England’ (spanning the 15^th to 17^th centuries). Antiquarians continue attempts to ‘save’ ‘ancient’ rituals at risk of extinction, but those devoid of meaning to the society of the day go ‘out of practice’.[xiii] During the Victorian era, some traditions are adapted; others forgotten; and others still (famously including the Christmas tree, card, and cracker) are added to the corpus of popular customs.

‘Yule’ – a festival associated with the early medieval Germanic and Nordic ‘peoples’, who are credited with bringing winter traditions to this land that remain a part of modern Christmas celebrations – provides an interesting case when considering the putative ‘ancient’ origins of ‘British’ Christmas traditions. We see both the selective appropriation of certain customs (perhaps more extensively at the end of the early modern period); and their adaptation and rejection with urbanisation and industrialisation during and after the 19^th century. But we can also more general similarities between these customs, and those of many societies and cultures (Christian and pagan) in Northern and Western Europe over the centuries – including those of the late Roman empire (again both pagan and Christian).[xiv]

The celebration of a mid-winter festival is widespread – past and present, which, though diverse (and not directly related), incorporate a range of broadly comparable rituals. This frequently includes rites surrounding warmth, light, and food; communal festivities, frequently boisterous and indulgent; and although often taking place within a religious calendar, not necessarily involving sustained religious devotion.[xv] The extent and endurance of festivals at this time of year suggests their significant social (and perhaps psychological) value.

The aim of this post has not been to dismiss any notion of continuity with regard to Christmas customs; instead, it has been to show that rather than monolithic and unchanging, ‘traditions’ are living performances that shape, and are shaped by, our understanding of both past and present, and expectations for the future. By joining in, we invest a part of our selves, for succeeding generations.

A Happy Christmas, one and all!

Notes

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[i] Image: Google

[ii] There are some notable exceptions, which I shall elucidate in subsequent work.

[iii] Perhaps some of my readers will be familiar with Gibbon, though his twelve-volume work of the 1770s – 80s, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In this work (Vol. I, Chapter XV, Part III) he speaks of the festival in discussing the progress of the Christian religion.  

[iv] Returning to Gibbon’s History, in Vol. II he suggests that without knowledge of the true date of Christ’s birth, the Church adopted the date of the pagan festival that celebrated the birth of the sun.

[v] In the final decade of the 20^th century, and first decade of the 21^st century, I specialised in the late Roman and early medieval periods, in particular examining the prospect of cultural continuity and change, especially with regard to tradition and ritual, and local, regional, national, and imperial identities. My doctoral research examined (among other topics) the significance of Christianity and Roman culture in the formation of ‘British’ identity and maintenance of power; the bibliography has references to research on the spread of Christianity in Roman and early medieval Britain. My work on the late pre-Roman period to 5^th century is available here, and reference to my work on the 6^th – 7^th centuries, here.

For the last six years, I have concentrated on post-Medieval culture and society, including consideration of the significance of the past (and the role of antiquarians – hence the ‘Academy’ endeavour!), and the importance of history in the formation of local communities, regions, and nations. This includes research projects that examine domestic life through standing buildings and surface artefact deposits (through Living in the Past Community Archaeology Project); family life and gender (though the Past Sense Project); folk magic (through Malefic Midlands Project); and various independent research as part of my teaching work, as highlighted on this site, and my other freelance website, and blog. References to my academic work are available here.

[vi] For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see e.g. Ronald Hutton (2001) Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (OUP).

[vii] Much work has been done in this field: see the bibliographies of the works cited above.

[viii] See Benedict Anderson (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso.

[ix] It may be difficult for modern readers to imagine the investments needed in order to write prior to the development of paper and the printing press, with the production of velum from animal skins being most time-consuming and costly.

[x] Gildas: The Ruin and Conquest of Britain; Bede Ecclesiastical History of the English People; Geoffrey of Monmouth: Histories of the Kings of Britain; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

[xi] An interesting summary on this topic is Sue Content and Howard Williams (2010) ‘Creating the Pagan English, From the Tudors to the Present Day’, in Martin Carver, Alex Sanmark and Sarah Semple (eds.) Signals of Belief in Early England. Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited. Oxbow, pp. 181-200.

[xii] While I have argued elsewhere (see the references provided in note v) that a small body of elites may have held some notion of ‘British-ness’ (as defined in relationship to the Roman empire, and in the formation of post-Roman states in opposition to other ethnic groups), the concept of widespread British identity essentially develops during and after political change in the early modern era. See Linda Colley (2009) Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837. Yale University Press.

[xiii] There works of the early 19^th century – both for popular consumption (within magazines and newspapers), and academic interest (in the journals of the numerous antiquarian societies) ­– that seek to record declining traditions are too numerous to mention here. I shall outline various material in future publications.

[xiv] See e.g. Margaret Baker (2007) Discovering Christmas Customs and Folklore: A Guide to Seasonal Rites Throughout the World. Shire.

[xv] See note vi.