A Jolly Folly? - Allan J. Macdonald

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Italy, Antioch, northern Africa, Constantinople, Germany, England, and various districts of what is now France. Attempts were made to root the practices out by making the first three days of the year a solemn fast with litanies (set, audible prayers, often chanted in processions). What disturbed the church most was the continued Kalends practices of cross-dressing, dressing as animals with animal skins and heads, auguries (interpreting the will of the gods by examining flight patterns of birds), the superstitions about fire, the giving of presents, and the excess of feasting, drunkenness, and general riot.

      In a letter written in 742 by St. Boniface (born in England but missionary to Germany where he remains Germany’s patron saint) to Pope Zacharias, Boniface complained that certain:

      Alamanni, Bavarians and Franks refused to give up various heathen practices because they had seen such things done in the sacred city of Rome, close to St. Peter’s and as they deemed, with the sanction of the clergy. On New Year’s Eve, it was alleged, processions went through the streets of Rome with impious songs and heathen cries, tables of fortune were set up and at that time no one would lend fire or iron or any other useful article to his neighbour.

      The Pope replied that these things were odious to him, should be so to all Christians and so in 743, all such practices at the January Kalends were formally forbidden by the Council of Rome. Most of the customs associated with either the modern New Year or the Roman one were anticipated by earlier festivals. As noted earlier, many of the Kalends practices shifted to Christmas. Most of the observances surrounding New Year rest on the principle that “a good beginning makes a good ending,” that as the first day is, so will the rest be. For example, if you would have plenty to eat during the year, dine lavishly on New Year’s Day, or if you would be rich, see that your pockets are not empty at this critical season. This is by no means exclusive to Europeans but is common among Hindus also. To this day in Scotland, visitors on New Year’s Day would be considered rude not to bring a gift with them.

      Many ancient peoples performed rituals to do away with the past and purify themselves for the New Year. For example, some people put out fires they were using and started new ones (hence the Scottish custom for “first-footers” to bring with them a piece of coal as a gift). The Celts (as we noted earlier) celebrated the New Year (Samhain) on November 1, marking the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the cold, dark winter ahead (this was a precursor to Halloween). They built “sacred” bonfires to scare off evil spirits and to honor their sun god. Throughout Britain even to recent times, pagan superstitions lay behind many odd traditions and rituals. For many centuries among Slavs, the first visitor to one’s house on Christmas Day was considered very important and may be compared with “first-footing” in Scotland on January 1. The character of the first visitor was believed to determine the welfare of the household throughout the coming year and the superstitions surrounding the event are many and varied in number from region to region. Due to the fact that Christmas was abolished in Scotland during the late sixteenth century, New Year assumed a greater significance in Scotland than in probably any other European country. It is only through the spread of Anglicanism, the resurgence of Roman Catholicism, and the demise of Protestant Church attendance throughout the twentieth century, that Christmas has come to rival New Year in popularity.

      Historical Basis of Christmas in Modern Britain44

      We have noted the development of Christmas in Britain during the Middle Ages under the guidance of the Roman Catholic Church. We now want to trace its course into the modern world, commencing with its examination upon the rediscovery of scriptural truth at the Reformation.

      The reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) provides a point of cohesion for evaluating the Reformation in England but only because of its longevity, rather than the ease of widespread generalizations. We quote at length the comments of the historian Christopher Haigh:

      With a reign that lasted over four decades, Elizabeth accomplished what neither of her predecessors could do: she enforced a politico-religious vision. Her methods were not markedly different than any tried before but she incorporated a sensitivity to opposing forces that Edward VI and Mary had not granted.

      Her success, originally political and then slowly religious, resulted as much from this approach and her devotion to uniting the realm as it did from her longevity; had she died after five or six years, like her predecessors Edward VI and Mary, indeterminacy would likely have reigned again.

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      Elizabeth clearly sought to reverse the Marian religious direction, yet competing for her attention and consequently her care in theological decisions, was a fractured domestic scene and tenuous foreign relationships. England was still at war with France and allied with Spain, both Catholic states.

      The French were supporting Mary Stuart’s rival claim to the English throne and, if needed, Elizabeth could tap Lutheran states as prospective allies to ward off potential French aggression. Her personal theological preferences; some favoring Protestant thinking, some favoring Catholic ritual, helped shape the religious settlement she fashioned in 1558–59 and the resulting, enduring Anglican Church.

      As an institution, the church’s favorable acceptance of the principles of adiaphora (things indifferent) and via media (a middle way), allowed religious liberty and toleration to manifest themselves as never before welcomed. Anglicanism was English, patriotic and not firmly Calvinist. It rejected what was, in its eyes, the bibliolatry of the hard-line Protestant in favor of a more broadly based appeal to tradition, reason, and history, as well as Scripture. It embraced adiaphora and came to tolerate various church polities. By the mid-1550s these values formed the seeds of seventeenth century English Congregationalism and Independency. These ideas emerged both in the exiled congregations, especially at Frankfurt, and in the remaining underground Protestant congregations in England. This religious atmosphere had profound historical consequences as it allowed the growth of various nonconformist groups and the development of Puritan thought, which itself would create an atmosphere conducive to political developments that likely would not have happened in a Catholic society. In the 1560s, London became the center of a movement to accomplish a truly reformed church.

      Despite its accomplishments, Elizabeth’s broadly accommodating church had not completely satisfied the urge to purify the church and nowhere was this unquenched thirst for purification felt more strongly than in London. In reaction to Elizabeth’s compromises, viewed as unacceptable and even threatening to those with strong Protestant convictions, the godly moved among parishes seeking one that was more than half-reformed. Puritan movements and separatist tendencies found vitality among the varieties of faith in the city. Believers now faced choices, not only about how to reach salvation, but where, and with whom they could consciously commune. It effected a shift from a religion of symbol and allegory, ceremony and formal gesture to one that was plain and direct: a shift from the visual to the aural, from ritual to literal exposition, from the numinous and mysterious to the everyday. It moved from the high colors of statue, window and painted walls to whitewash; from ornate vestments and altar frontal to plain tablecloth and surplice; from a religion that, with baptismal salt on lips, anointings and frankincense as well as image, word and chant, sought out all the senses, to one that concentrated on the word and innerliness.

      There was a shift from a religion that often went out of doors on pilgrimage and procession to an indoor one; from the sacral and churchly to the familial and domestic; from sacrament to word; from the objectivity of ex opere operato and Real Presence, for instance, to the subjectivity of feeling faith and experience. Consequently, the Reformation had produced a Protestant nation, but not immediately a nation of Protestants. Catholic behaviours and doctrines had been removed from worship via political statute but Catholic views of life and salvation took time to die out.45

      In Anatomy of the Abuses in England

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