Quarter Days: Christmas
December 28, 2017 by Alina K. Field in category Columns tagged as Charles Dickens, Christmas, Oliver Cromwell, Quarter Days, Regency Christmas, The Man Who Invented ChristmasGreetings to my fellow history nerds. It’s time for another installment of my quarterly blog on historical topics.
In past posts, I talked about the English Quarter Days of Midsummer’s Day and Michaelmas.
Father Christmas with the Yule Log, 1848
To refresh your memory, Quarter Days were the four days during the year when rents were paid, servants hired, and contracts commenced. The last Quarter Day of the calendar year was the grand holiday of Christmas. Though the Quarter Day was December 25th, Christmas celebrations went on for twelve days.
Kissing under the Mistletoe
Christmas Romance
We romance authors flood the lists every year with Christmas novellas, and not just the contemporary lists. Christmas Regency romances abound and sell well. But how to get the details right for our hero and heroine? How did the Christmas celebrations aid or interfere with a Regency hero’s wooing? How did they celebrate Christmas?
Before the Regency
As I pointed out in an earlier post, Christmas falls around the time of the winter solstice. The pagan festivities of the season were Bacchanalian revels of feasting and drinking and other wicked practices. To encourage some order, the early Christian church designated December 25th as a religious holiday.
So, people went to church…and then they feasted, drank, and engaged in other wicked practices.
Under the Puritan rule that resulted from the 17th century English Civil War, the observance of Christmas was banned. The Lord High Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, and his Puritan cohorts decided that English people needed to be protected from carnal delights of holiday celebrations. Christmas became a regular workday. Anyone celebrating could be subject to penalty.
The Puritans carried this attitude across the Pond. Christmas was illegal in their American colonies also.
With the restoration to the throne of Charles II (a man greatly given to Bacchanalian revels), Christmas was also restored in the English calendar of holidays.
The Man Who Invented Christmas
Christmas as we know it was documented by Charles Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’ve dipped into the book by Les Standiford. In the story of Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Dickens brought to life the quintessential picture of a Victorian Christmas.
But if you’re writing a Regency-set Christmas romance, don’t pull out your copy of Dickens and copy his story world. To quote a post I wrote a couple of years ago:
Decorating with evergreen boughs and mistletoe (and kissing under the mistletoe!), wassailing, acting out pantomimes, and singing carols, were very likely part of the Regency holiday celebration…Christmas trees and Santa Claus did not become popular until Victorian times.
Click on the link to read the rest of that post.
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Or, as we know it, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, was written by an American, Clement Clarke Moore, in 1823. Dutch and German holiday traditions influenced the celebration of Christmas earlier in America than in England. Prince Albert, Victoria’s German prince, is credited with popularizing the Christmas tree in England.
Pictures worth a thousand words
Dickens brought us A Christmas Carol in 1843, but check out this series of illustrations by cartoonist George Cruikshanks. Even before Scrooge made his appearance, the early Victorians were holding over-the-top celebrations of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
No matter what holiday you celebrate, I wish you all the best in this season of holidays! I’ll be back in March to talk about Lady Day.
All Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
8 0 Read moreQuarter Days: Michaelmas Goose
September 28, 2017 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field, Writing tagged as Harvest Festivals, historical, John Milton, Michaelmas, Paradise Lost, Quarter Days, St. Michael
A Michaelmas Goose Market
Michaelmas
Greetings to everyone, especially my fellow history nerds. It’s September 28th, time for another installment of my Quarter Days blog.
Southwark Fair, September 1733, Hogarth
I’m a huge fan of feasting holidays, and much to my surprise, Michaelmas, September 29th, is one of those.
Harvest Time
It makes sense though. In every culture where there’s an autumn harvest, there’s an autumn harvest festival, like a Polish Dozynki or a German Oktoberfest. Some sources say that Michaelmas is still celebrated in England with roast goose and other goodies, like this fun Michaelmas dragon bread.
Last June I blogged about Midsummer’s Day, one of the Quarter Day holidays, and pretty self-explanatory. The same is true for this holiday—tomorrow is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, he who battled Satan. 
In Fiction
I first encountered a mention of Michaelmas in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and most recently saw a reference in fellow Regency author Caroline Warfield‘s latest release, The Reluctant Wife, where a character must get back to England for the Michaelmas Term at his university. For a historical author, a mention of Michaelmas is a wonderful device for setting the time of the story without citing a specific date.
Paradise Lost
One blogger claims that St. Michael was popular in Regency England because of the influence of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a late seventeenth-century epic work. Researching this post inspired me to pull out my copy of the Complete Poems and Major Prose of Milton which, to be honest, I haven’t opened since my university days.
Paradise Lost is something of an early paranormal story of nearly invincible beings and shapeshifters:
…the sword of Michael from the Armory of God was giv’n him temper’d so, that neither keen nor solid might resist that edge: it met the sword of Satan with steep force…deep ent’ring sher’d all his right side; then Satan first knew pain…but th’ Ethereal substance clos’d not long divisible…Yet soon he heal’d; for Spirits that live throughout vital in every part not as frail man….cannot but by annihilating die…All Heart they live, all Head, all Eye, all Ear, All Intellect, all Sense, and as they please, they Limb themselves, and color, shape or size assume as likes them best…
A Servant Hiring Hall, Rowlandson
Contracts, Rents, and Work
And of course, as I mentioned in my June post, Michaelmas was a day to pay rents (possibly in kind, with a fatted goose) to hire and pay servants, and sign contracts.
Do you celebrate Michaelmas? If so, please share in the comments!
Have a magical Michaelmas, and I shall return in three months to talk about the next Quarter Day, Christmas!
2 0 Read more
Quarter Days: A Midsummer Beginning
June 28, 2017 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field tagged as Midsummer Day, Quarter Days, Regency History
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wikipedia
Though I’ve blogged before about chapter events on an as-needed basis, I’m excited to join the talented writers of A Slice of Orange on a more regular schedule! I’ll be posting on June 28th, September 28th, December 28th, and March 28th. Which roughly corresponds with
Quarter Days
I write Regency romance, and I had a book already out before the term “Quarter Days” came across my radar. Of course, I knew about Midsummer, from Shakespeare.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
And I vaguely knew that Michaelmas had something to do with St. Michael, and Lady Day probably related to the Virgin Mary. And everyone knows Christmas. But I didn’t realize these four holidays formally divide up the quarters of the year.
Marking Time
In Persuasion, Jane Austen marks the passage of time with a mention of Michaelmas. Years ago when I read Persuasion, that reference didn’t click with me at all. But look more closely, and there’s a lot a novelist can do to build character–a lot Jane did–with that allusion.
Here’s a list of the English Quarter Days:
- March 25th, Lady Day (Feast of the Annunciation)
- June 24th, Midsummer Day (St. John’s Day)
- September 29th, Michaelmas (Feast of St. Michael)
- December 25th, Christmas (The Nativity of Jesus)
Notice that these dates also roughly correspond to the summer and winter solstices and the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Those astronomical events were important to the old religions and their spiritual beings like the fairies, as Shakespeare shows us in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone:
Our queen and all our elves come here anon.
Clearing the Premises without Consulting your Landlord, Rowlandson www.famsf.org.
Marking Contracts
But there’s more! Quarter Days typically marked the beginning and end of contractual periods.
I love this print by the irreverent Thomas Rowlandson, “Clearing the Premises without Consulting your Landlord”. Rents were paid on Quarter Days, and it appears that are still some leases set up that way in England.
The historical housewife might hire a new servant on a Quarter Day. She’d also pay her servants on the Quarter Day–imagine, waiting three months for your salary?
Midsummer Day
Midsummer Night has passed, but I hope it was magical for you, and I wish you a wonderful summer. I’ll be back for Michaelmas!
0 2 Read more
