Holidays/Celebration for Medieval Peasants?
Question by ally: Holidays/Celebration for Medieval Peasants?
What did peasants do for celebrations during the middle ages?
Best answer:
Answer by nowaynohow
Feasts were common. Bonfires, dances (where the church did not ban them), Mass and Passion Plays.
What do you think? Answer below!
Medieval celebrations revolved around feast days that had pagan origins and were based on ancient agricultural celebrations that marked when certain crops should be planted or harvested.
Wheat and rye were sown from Michaelmas (September 29) to Christmas. Spring crops would be planted from the end of Christmas through Easter. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost (or Whitsunday) would be celebrated with a feast of the Church, and would be followed by a week of vacation. Lesser celebrations such as:
Candlemas (February 2),
Hocktide (end of the Easter week),
Mayday, the Rogation Days, Ascension (all in May),
Midsummer, or St. John’s Day (June 24),
and the Lammas, or Feast of St. Peter,
-would all be marked with feasts. Michaelmas marked the beginning of winter and the start of the fiscal year for tradesmen.
By November, feed was often too scarce to keep animals through the winter, and became known as the “blood month” when meat was smoked, salted and cured for consumption during the long winter ahead. The month began with All Hallows (later, All Saints) Day, followed by St. Martin’s Day (November 11).
Medieval society celebrated the grandest feast during the dreariest time of year. The two-week period from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Day (January 6) transformed into the longest vacation for workers. The Lord of the manor or castle often gave bonuses of food, clothing, drink and firewood to servants. Houses were decked with holly and ivy, and giant Yule logs were brought in and burned throughout the two-week celebration. New Year’s took place during this time and added to the festivities, and “First Gifts” were often exchanged on this day.
“Plow Monday” took place the day after Epiphany, and freemen of the village would participate in a plow race, to begin cultivation of the town’s common plot of land. Each man would try and furrow as many lines as possible, as he would be able to sow those lines during the coming year. Children would play the role of “Fool Plow” and go from house to house asking for pennies. Those who refuse would find the ground in front of their door plowed up.
Easter, as Christmas, was a day for exchanging gifts. The castle lord would receive eggs from the villagers and in return, provide servants with dinner. May saw celebrations of love, especially on the 1st. Villagers would venture into the woods to cut wildflowers and other greenery for their homes to usher in May and hope for a fertile season.
The medieval year revolved around the festivals of the church,of which there were many, the biggest being Christmas. In ‘Life in a Medieval Village’ Frances and Joseph Gies write:
‘The fortnight from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Day (Epiphany, January 6th) was the longest holiday of the year, when , as in a description of twelfth-century London, “every man’s house, also their parish churches, was decked with holly, ivy, bay and whatsoever the sseasson of the year afforded to be green.’ Villagers owed extra rents, in the form of bread, eggs and hens for the lord’s table, but were excused from work obligations for the fortnight and on some manors were treated to a Christmas dinner in the hall.
In some villages the first Monday after Epiphany was celebrated by the women as Rock (distaff) Monday, and by the men as Plow Monday, sometimes featuring a plow race.
Candlemas (February 2) commemorating Mary’s “churching” the ceremony of purification after childbirth, was celebrated with a procession carrying candles.It was followed by Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent, an occasion for games and sports.
At Easter, the villagers gave the lord eggs, and he gave the manorial servants and sometimes some of the tenants dinner. Like Christmas, Easter provided villeins a respite – one week – from work on the demesne. Celebrated with games, Easter week ended with Hocktide, marked in a laater day, and perhaps in the thirteenth century, by the young women of the village holding the young men prisoner until the paid a fine, and the men retaliating on the second day.
On May Day the young people “brought in the May” scouring the woods for boughs from flowering trees to decorate their houses. Sometimes they spent the night in the woods.
Summertime Rogation Days, when the peasants walked the boundaries of the village, were followed by Whitsunday (Pentecost) bringing another week’s vacation for most villeins. St John’s Day (June 24th) saw bonfires lit on the hilltops and boys flourishing brands to drive away dragons. A fiery wheel was rolled downhill, symbolizing the sun’s attaining the solstice.
Lammas (1 August) marked the end of the hay harvest and the beginning of grain harvest, with its “boons” or precaries, when all the villagers came to reap the lord’s grain and were treated to a feast. Michaelmas (september) was marked by a feast of roast goose.
On November 1, bonfires marked All Hallows,a feast of all the saints. Martinmas (St martin’s Day, November 11) was the feast of the plowman, in some places celebrated with seed cake, pasties, and a frumenty of boiled wheat grains with milk, currants,raisins and spices.
One holiday, Wakes Day, the feast of the local parish saint, varied from place to place. The villagers kept vigil all night, and in the morning heard Mass in honour of their patron saint,then spent the day in sports. Often the churchyard was turned into a sports arena.
Many of the games enjoyed by the villagers were played by children, adolescents and adults and endured into modern times: blind man’s buff,prisoner’s base, bowling. Young and old played checkers, chess, backgammon, and most popular of all, dice. Ssports included football, wrestling, swimming, fishing, archery, and a form of tennis played with hand coverings instead of racketss. The Luttrell psalter (c 1340) portrays a number of mysterious games involving sticks and balls.’