Q&A: I need to know the list of holidays observed during the medieval & renaissance era in Europe?
Question by sweetlily168: I need to know the list of holidays observed during the medieval & renaissance era in Europe?
My child is doing a research on medieval & renaissance Europe. She needs to write on the role of the church, arts & architecture, Education & Holidays, Monks, Nuns & mendicants. We do not seem to be able to get much inform on education esp. on list of holidays. Pls help.
Best answer:
Answer by old lady
That depends on where in Europe you are talking about. Different countries had different holidays – just as different countries today have different holidays. Some of the Catholic countries shared holidays that were aligned to the church calendar, but Greek Orthodox Christians operated on a different calendar from the rest of the European Christian community so they celebrated the same holiday on different days. They still do.
What do you think? Answer below!
I know they observed Michaelmas, had something to do with Christmas time. There were several days of celebration around that time of year, each having it’s own “name” and purpose.
There were religious holidays in the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe. There were no civil holidays. To get the list of the religious ones is nearly impossible, there were no nationwide religious holidays except for the Holy Week, Christmas and the Epiphany. But in Catholic Europe, and at that time all countries were Catholic, there were also yearly feasts dedicated to the patron saint of the village or the city and to compile a list you’ll have to study the list of saints of the Catholic Church at that time and match it with townships that had chosen one of them as their patron. That would give you, assuming you succeed, an idea of the number of holidays existing.
Saints Days were holidays in the medieval era, and there were a lot of them. Christmas lasted for thirteen days, from Christmas Day through to Epiphany (6th January). Easter, pentecost (May) and Corpus Christi (June) were other important holidays.
In England, in the reign of Henry VIII(16th century), many of the saints days were abolished, especially those that fell during the period of the harvest (end of June to end of September), as the government thought that the peasants should be getting on with gathering the harvest and not have days off.