The Freedom Bus

When many people think of life in the early Middle Ages they imagine a life of toil and struggle, long hours of unrelenting back breaking work that yields just enough to survive.

The truth is somewhat different. True, during harvest time rural western Europeans of the early Middle Ages did work very hard indeed – from dawn to darkness, getting in the harvest. But this seasonal work was not the norm. In fact we know from contemporary records that typically people worked from dawn til noon around 200 days a year, both on their own patch of smallholding and for their landlords and church.

This amounts to around 1,200 hours of work a year – a little more than half the amount of work put in by the modern day Brit’ and probably less than half the work of a modern day crazily-workaholic American!

So what did they do with all their free time?

Well they enjoyed themselves!

Of course for religious reasons, Sundays were holy days and a day off from work all through the year.  The pre-reformation Catholic Christian church was the origin of many of the festivals and feast days in the year. So too were more ancient pre-Christian festivals (some of which got co-opted by the church). And the annual passing of the seasons with their agricultural rhythms also added special days for the largely rural population

Let’s take a look at the typical festival and feasting filled year of an early Middle Ages Briton.

The year begins with New Years Day. This was a day of celebration, drinking, toasting and “first footing” (visiting friends).

The holiday from work and winter fun continued right through until 12^th night or the Epiphany on the 6^th of January.

Then it was back to work … up until the first Monday after 12^th night. This was another festival day called “Plough Monday”. The traditional start of the ploughing season was celebrated with processions, candlelit ceremonies, plays and feasting.

The 1^st of February saw the pre-Christian celebration day of Imbolc.  Imbolc is thought to be Celtic in origin and it is certainly true that the celebrations were greater in Celtic strongholds in Britain.  The church kind of took over the celebrations of Imbolc by combining it with St Brigid’s day – and many less-Celtic communities spent their day celebrating St Brigid unaware of the Celtic pagan origin.

Whatever you called it, 1st of February is traditionally party-time.

The next day, 2^nd February is Candlemas, a holy holiday with the associated feasting.

Then of course we have St Valentines day on the 14^th February – this, as today, was a minor festival for lovers to show each other their affection.

7 Sundays before Easter is Shrove Sunday, this is followed by Collup Monday and then Shrove Tuesday (today’s Mardi Gras or Pancake Day). This 3 day festival was a major wild and uproarious springtime party. There were ball games, drinking, feasting and much merriment.  This makes our modern day effort of a few pancakes seem very feeble! This letting off of steam, of course, was before the self-imposed restraint of Lent.

Lent itself was virtually festival free – in keeping with its sombre tone. It also coincided with a period of intensive farm work: sowing and tending the young crops.  The only exceptions during Lent would be for the feast day of “Lady Day” or The Annunciation on 25^th March and for the Irish St Patrick’s day 17^th March and the Welsh St David’s day on the 1^st March.

Much fun would be had every year on All Fools day, 1^st April with many jokes and pranks being played – just like today’s April Fools day.

Easter itself was the major religious festival of the year. In the early Middle Ages in Britain it was forbidden to work for the 2 weeks before and the 2 weeks after Easter.

A 4 week holiday from work! Marvellous!

The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday and traditionally a day for decorating the home and for processions through the streets.

The last Thursday before Easter is Last Supper day or Maundy Thursday and traditionally bosses or landlords would provide gifts for their workers. It was still Lent so the feasting would be kept to a minimum – I’m not sure if this was a stingy bosses trick.

The next day is Good Friday (or more correctly God’s Friday) – a religious day as was Easter Sunday itself. Though on the Sunday the restraint of Lent was broken and the real feasting began. At last!

The next 2 days, the Monday and Tuesday were called “Lifting Days” when parties of young men and women would flirt outrageously with each other and generally misbehave after the Lenten piousness! Woo-hoo!

The following Monday and Tuesday saw the huge climax in post Easter celebrations with the Hocktide Festival. This was a riot of boozing, dancing, sports, hunting, fairs and feasts where traditionally everyone wore their new clothes if they had them. Fancy!

In England we then have the national saint day on 23^rd April for St George – widely celebrated in pre-protestant England. Long before fat, shaven headed, tattooed buffoons started sticking St Georges flags on plastic sticks to their white vans.

On the night of 30^th April there would be bonfires lit for the May Day celebrations. These date back to pagan times when this festival was called Beltane. May Day itself carried on many Beltane traditions: fires, parties and associated fertility symbols made with new green vegetation. The dancing traditionally centred (literally) on or around the Maypole which despite is priapic image has no known links to fertility (or has it? We can only speculate!).

One thing is for certain, that Beltane/May day did herald a 2 week period of bunking off from work, sexual freedom and al fresco love making – where many young men and women would contrive to go out into the newly green and sunny woods to, ahem, “collect greenery”.  Pwoarrrr!

The 6^th Thursday after Easter was another holiday – Ascension Day. This was preceded on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday by the celebration Rogation days where it was traditional to promenade around the parish or village boundary and then have a celebratory blessing and meal.

The 7^th Sunday after Easter is Pentecost or Whitsun another excuse for a religious festival.

It was around Whitsun that it was traditional to have “Ales”. “Ales” were really just boozy local knees-ups. The local community would, for no good reason, decide to organize a “Whitsun Ale” and enjoy themselves. This type of thing still goes on in rural France where we live – and jolly good fun they are too!

The second Thursday after Pentecost is the festival of Corpus Christi. This festival would usually be a mixture of plays, performances, craft fairs and a meal put on by local tradespeople and guilds.

In early June or late May the sheep would be shorn – another excuse for a post-shearing feasting!

Mid Summer would be celebrated with another pagan originated festival involving the burning of large bonfires on mid-summers day, June 23^rd. This became enmeshed with the churches’ celebrations of St John the Baptist on 24^th June. Turning it into a 2 day mid summer festival.

Summer was also the time for another round of local festivities called “wakes”. Like the Whitsun Ales these were just excuses to have a good time. Parish wakes became noted for their debauchery, with much fist-fighting, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, gambling, boozing and sex. Many regarded the violence as therapeutic and many wakes lasted for 3 days or up to a week. Local names for wakes included: revels, hoppings and very appropriately: thumps!

The wakes took place during quieter agricultural periods while waiting for the crops to grow and after the sheep sheering.

The end of July would see the harvest of flooring rushes and a “rush bearing” procession and feast would be had.

The 1^st August saw another ancient festival of Lammas or “First Fruits”. This was another bonfire lead party with dancing (it was also a time for paying your landlord his rent, so anything to take your mind off bill paying was welcome!).

At the end of August all the harvesting would be over – this was the time of hardest work in the rural year and was followed by a big party when the work was done called “Harvest Home” – the precursor to our harvest festivals…(once again the church muscles in on the people’s feast!)

Throughout the summer and into autumn many parishes would also down tools, if the workload permitted it ( and for our freedom and party loving ancestors it usually did!), to celebrate key saint’s days. Namely: St Simon June 29^th, St James July 25^th, St Bartholomew August 24^th, St Matthew September 21^st, St Luke October 18^th and St Jude October 28^th.  If the local church’s saint was one of these it would signify a major knees-up.

The major Saint day celebrated in this period was St Michael (not from Marks & Spencer!) on Michaelmas Day September 29^th. This was always a large festival.

Another major celtic festival was Samhain. This falls on 1^st November. It too marked the end of the harvest and the coming of winter. Traditionally it was celebrated on the 3 days before, the day itself and the three days after.  Once again the church incorporated this festival into its festival of All Saints Day (1^st November) and All Souls Day (2^nd November).

On 11^th November is St Martin’s feast day – this was traditionally the time to kill the family pig and preserve its meat for winter. With all that fresh pork, inevitably it turned into a major meal!

Four Sundays before Christmas began the build-up to Yule time. The houses would begin to be decorated and many would start saving up provisions for the Christmas feast.

Christmas Eve would often be a day of fasting.

Christmas day itself, like today, would be a major feast as would St Stephen’s day on the 26^th.

The partying would continue through until 12^th night the following year.

I think it’s a shame that Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth banned many of these festivities. And what was left was almost destroyed by the enslavement and urbanization of the population during the industrial revolution.

We on the Freedom Bus can begin to reclaim our traditional feast days – I’ve just checked my diary: tomorrow is St James’ day and we are off to a party – how great is that!?

Wassail!

By Ian Chamberlain