Page 57 - All About History - Issue 72-18
P. 57
Tudor Christmas
Christmas Day, and later Boxing Day, and then everybody so my playlist has loads of Medieval and Tudor carols on
would go back to work. it! It is interesting to hear them because you can’t convey
So, it is interesting to think that in the Medieval period them in a book and that’s why when we do events for
they were having that extended time off. this book we are actually going to have a
soundtrack playing.
What tradition would you say was
quintessentially Tudor? “They SC: Yes, my favourite one is the one on the
SC: A big difference between the Tudor back of the book which I chose and Alison
Christmas and the Christmas we know also didn’t agreed, it is an extract from a poem [by poet
today is that nothing started until Christmas Thomas Tusser] that is also in the main text
Eve – they fasted through Advent and then put their of the book.
things got going. They also didn’t put their
decorations up until Christmas Eve so that’s a decorations Is there a Tudor Christmas tradition
big difference, but I think if you had to focus that you wish had survived?
on one thing to understand anything about up until AW: Well twelve days of celebration would
the 16th century and the mindset, you have be quite nice! I would like to see Twelfth
got to put the religion back. Whereas today we Christmas Night revived and did you know, there is not
all enjoy the secular aspects of Christmas and a proper recipe that survives for a Twelfth
yes, lots of people are still religious and go Eve so Night cake? There is one or two from the ABOVE
to midnight mass, but back then everybody Tudor period but neither of them seemed to According to Weir and Clarke,
went to mass and everybody was thinking that’s a big be fully correct, which is a shame but there is Henry VIII spent the equivalent
about the religious aspect. nothing we can do. of £13.5m on his first Christmas
as king, in 1509
difference” I would like to see some of those traditions
The book is full of recipes, poems and revived and less commercialisation because
carols – do you have a favourite one? that is the one thing that strikes you about
AW: I love Angelus ad Virginem, which is a 13th century it [Christmas in the Tudor period] – it is not commercial.
BELOW
Latin carol that would have been popular in Tudor times. The preparation may have started in November, but The Tudors enjoyed twelve days
I have collected early music and carols since the 1970s and it was on the domestic side for provisioning. Around of rich food and feasts of game
