The Year Christmas was Cancelled...how 17th century Puritans took the Merry out of Christmas

Twelfth Night, 1668, Jan Steen

London, December 25, 1640: The first of the Twelve Days of Christmas finds all shops closed, churches open for special services, holly and rosemary adorning homes and places of worship, carols being sung, wassailers rewarded with specially brewed Christmas ale and punch, people dancing in the streets, card games and other sports played, actors performing on stage, mincemeat pies baking, plum puddings bubbling, and Father Christmas overseeing it all. Christmas is in the house!

The Examination and Tryal of Father Christmas,1686, Josiah King

London, December 25, 1645: All shops open for business as usual, churches closed, not a holly berry or rosemary sprig in sight, no carols sung, no special food or beverages (mincemeat pies confiscated and bakers of such, duly fined,) no games, no dancing, no plays, no playing and Father Christmas has been exiled. Christmas has left the building!  

Oliver Cromwell, 1656, Samuel Cooper

The difference? The reign of a Puritan-based Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell. Anything smacking of revelry was denounced and soldiers were even ordered to roam the streets sniffing out any illegal substances, ie: mincemeat pies and Christmas puddings. As with many acts of extremism there was some basis for this reaction against all things Christmasy. Seems some segments of the populace had turned the Twelve Days of Christmas into one gigantic, raucous, (often bawdy) party with little left of the religious other than the church services. Thus the Puritans threw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, and left England bereft of even the sweetest and most pious celebrations. In addition to ridding the country of traditions handed down since pagan days and wrapped up in festive Christmas ribbons (mistletoe, decking the halls with boughs of holly, Yule logs, etc) the anti-Catholic Puritans were intent on taking the "mass" out of Christmas, as well. Thus Christ's Mass (Christmas) became known as Christ-tide and was set aside only as a time of fasting and private prayer--if observed at all.

Christmas Pudding, London,
James Petts per Wikimedia Commons 

Christmas was not so easily legislated or threatened out of the hearts of the people, however, and many carried on quiet, clandestine celebrations during the long, dark days of mid-winter. When Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, both Charles II and Father Christmas were welcomed back with open arms. By December of 1660, Christmas celebrations were back in full swing although some of the earlier more rowdy aspects were toned down and a more family-friendly holiday warmed the hearths and hearts of England.


Have a good couple weeks, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...Y'all come back now!

Kate

That's Entertainment...18th century American style

    

The movie award season was capped Sunday night by the 86^th Annual Academy Awards ceremony and it made me ponder just what our 18^th century American ancestors did for entertainment. Well, the answer is quite a lot, actually. For those wishing to sit back and be entertained there was the precursor to film, live theater, and for the more adventurous, there were circuses. Much of 18th century entertainment was, of course, the do-it-yourself variety and included board and card games, sing-alongs, dancing, and books of jokes and instructions in fortune-telling. We'll get to those later but, this week, let's take a look at the spectator-based entertainments, theater and circus. 

The Laughing Audience, mid 1700s, by William Hogarth

Live theater was determined unsuitable for the mores of the American colonies until the mid-1700s. The Library Company of Philadelphia tells us that in the first half of the century, "religious reformers believed that plays encouraged licentiousness, promoted effeminacy and homosexuality among men, encouraged treachery and hypocrisy (as acting was a form of lying), competed with religious worship, and often challenged religious doctrine."  It wasn't until 1752 that theater was considered somewhat respectable, with the first advertised play being a performance of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice by a theater troupe from Great Britain called the American Company. This production was held in that hotbed of questionable morals, Virginia. It wasn't until 1792 when the anti-theater act of 1767 was finally repealed that New Englanders were free to see such spectacle. Even then, religious purists of that region preached the dangers of the theater and prospective drama devotees had to travel to large cities such as New York to get a taste of such entertainments. 

Laurent Franconi, 1800,  by Carle Vernet 

Now, for the circus. As might be expected, some religious leaders of the time were dead set against such exotic entertainment, primarily because it drew together crowds of people of all socio-economic levels, age and gender and heaven knows what that could lead to! It was also considered a dubious distraction from religious duties. Puritanical objections aside, the first circuses were based on feats of equestrian prowess. Riders performed tricks on horseback that were best accomplished and seen when enclosed in a circle. Thus the term circus, as it relates to the modern circus, came into being. By the end of the century, circuses were extremely popular, drawing those crowds of disparate folks together. Over time, the trick-riding acts were interspersed with other entertainers in the way of clowns and acrobats. The first circuses were housed in buildings set aside for the purpose and in 1793 a British equestrian, John Bill Ricketts, opened the first American circus in the city of Philadelphia followed shortly by the circus of another British horseman, Philip Lailson. By then, the ultra-conservative element of the religious faithful were convinced America was surely going to hell in a brightly festooned hand basket.

Have a good week, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...Y'all come back now!

Thanks to the following for today's resource material:

http://www.librarycompany.org/zinman/entertainment.htm

http://www.circopedia.org/SHORT_HISTORY_OF_THE_CIRCUS