A Brief History of Candlemas. January 28, 2024. “What generally is true of religious practice in the West is that it fades until it becomes charming custom.”
Household Book Entries for the Christmas Season. December 16, 2023. “To Meg and Mary, to play at maw in Chrystmas time, xs.”
The Famous Grand Feast at the Inner Temple, December 1561/2. December 9, 2023. “Before him stood the carver, sewer, and cup-bearer, with great number of gentlemen-wayters attending his person...”
Just what were “waites”? November 25, 2023. "By Tudor times, city night watchmen were ringing in the hours with less disruptive bells."
- The Celebration of Plough Monday After Twelfth Day. January 22, 2023. "In some places if the Ploughman (after that day’s work) come with his Whip to the Kitchen Hatch..."
The Common Tudor Farmer's Christmas (and Doctor Seuss). December 31, 2022. "...olde customes, that good be, let no man dispise."
Christmas-Tide Plays, Abbot Gaufridus, Maister Roo and Cardinal Wolsey. December 25, 2022. "This Christmasse was a goodlie disguising plaied at Graies In, which was compiled for the most part by maister John Roo...".
Philip Stubbes on the Christmas Lord of Misrule (1583). December 17, 2022. "First, all the wild heads of the parishe, conventing together, choose them a grand Capitaine (of mischief) whom they ennoble with the title of my Lord of Misrule,..."
- Thomas Tusser’s Description of Christmas on the Farm, 1573. December 17, 2021. “Thomas Tusser’s famous poem was not meant to be high literature. Only entertaining, informative and respectful of rural England in the mid-16th century.”
- Christmas comes to Tudor London. December 12, 2021. “Perhaps the most fascinating fact is that Londoners already were in the habit of leaving their Christmas decorations up well past the season…”
- The Christmas Tradition of the Boy-Bishop. December 2, 2021. “The “m[i]ter for a byshop at Seint Nicholas t[i]de” refers to a charming Christmas tradition at many churches and cathedrals.”
- On The Twelfth Day of Christmas… January 6, 2020. “On Twelfth-Day, 1563, Mary, Queen of Scots celebrated the French pastime of the King of the Bean at Holyrood, but with a queen instead of a king, as more appropriate, in consideration of herself being a female sovereign.”
- Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Christmas Edition. December 8, 2022.
- Celebrating the Days of Christmas Before the New Year. December 31, 2019. “At the Inns of Court, the Feast of St. Stephen was celebrated with costumed suppliants, arriving between the first and second courses, to offer themselves as servants to the Lord of Misrule.”
- Feasting in the Great Hall on Christmas Day! December 23, 2019. “The Inns of Court and several university colleges leave us a highly detailed picture of what the tradition had become.”
- Ordering the Medieval and Tudor Household for Christmas. December 18, 2019. “These were special holidays. The good host was intent to impress, or, at least, not to seem cheap.”
- Catering the Medieval and Tudor Christmas Feasts. December 12, 2019. “The fees of the Clerks of the Kitchen were calves’ and lambs’ heads and skins…. The Yeoman of the cellar had the wine lees and the empty casks;…”
- The Wild Boar from Valhalla to Christmas Kitchen. December 1, 2019. “By Tudor times, when we begin to find documents that describe the already historical importance of the boar for upper class Christmas dinners, and the traditions that went with them, its population was small.”
II. New Year's
- New Year’s Gifts through the Ages. January 1, 2020. “Henry’s daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, gave as well as received gifts on New Year’s day.”
III. Lent and Easter
Why the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans and Everybody had Easter Eggs. March 30, 2024. “For all he and others knew about the pagan rites upon which the Catholic were based,...”
The Humble Service of the Great on Maundy Thursday. March 27, 2024. “The kynges and que[e]nes of England on that day washe the feete of...”
Did you celebrate Braggot Sunday? March 20, 2024. “Take three or four galons of good ale, or more as you please,...”
Mothering Sunday. March 16, 2024. “Simnel is probably derived from the Latin Simila, fine flour,...”
- Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Shrove Tuesday Edition. February 21, 2022.
- Simnel Cake: Lenten Treat of the Ages. March 7, 2021. “Samuel Pegge sees confirmation that saffron was used in the crusts of simnel cakes in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale…”
- Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Lent Edition. March 2, 2021.
- Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Shrove Tuesday Edition. February 25, 2020.
IV. May Day and Whitsunday.
- All the young men and maids, old men and wives, run gadding overnight. April 30, 2022. “In the seventh year of the reign of King Henry VIII, crack archers were featured as he and Queen Katherine celebrated May Day."
V. Michaelmas and Harvest Festivals
- The Feast of St. Michael: English harvest festival and so much more. September 26, 2021. “The Feast of Michaelmas, celebrated on September 29, was like our Thanksgiving in that it celebrated a successful harvest.”
- Get Thee to the Mop. September 30, 2019. ‘The most curious name by far, and the most persistent, it having become the popular name for such fairs, was the “mop fair,” or “the mop” for short.’
- Feast of St. Michael, September 29: Beginning of the English Year. September 29, 2019. "In the 19th century it was commonly claimed that Queen Elizabeth I heard about the defeat of the Spanish Armada while she was eating her Michaelmas feast which just happened to feature goose. She declared that she would eat goose each year for the annual feast in commemoration of her greatest victory."
- Harvest Home and Hock Cart: English Harvest Festivals. October 3, 2021. “In England, during the Middle Ages and Early Modern times, it was celebrated whenever the final day of the harvest might fall on a given estate.”
VI. All's Hallow E'en
- Why the Wait for Halloween Seems to Last 7000 Years. October 21, 2019. “The accounts written in the monasteries beginning in the late 7th century are a fascinating resource telling us as much about the scribes as the purported events they wrote about.”
- Zombie Apocalypse & Trick-or-Treating: Halloween through History. October 30, 2019. “Looking closely, however, we see that this Shakespeare quote has moved the “puling” (which it was actually called) back one day to Hallowmas, All Hallows Day, rather than All Souls. Far more important, he has actually referred to puling as a special kind of speech spoken by beggars on Hallowmas Day.”
- Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Witches, Flytings, Urchins and Queen Mab. Halloween Edition 2021. October 26, 2021.
- Tudor Trivia Tuesday: Fairies and Ghosties and Witches! Halloween Edition! October 29, 2019.
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