Christmas in the time of The Puritans ~ #Christmas #history #CivilWar @CryssaBazos

Christmas in the time of The Puritans.
By Cryssa Bazos. 

The Puritans who Abolished Christmas

Christmas has had a long tradition of being under siege. There’s Ebenezer Scrooge with his humbug attitude toward Christmas cheer, and the Grinch who tried to steal it. Yet these literary examples pale in comparison to the English Parliament’s attempt to abolish Christmas during the English Civil War. The blame often falls to Oliver Cromwell, who is cast as both Scrooge and the Grinch for cancelling Christmas, but the campaign to eradicate Christmas started years before he rose to power.

Historical Background

From 1642 to 1651, England was gripped by three episodes of civil war. Parliament opposed the absolute rule of King Charles I, and, for the most part, sought Parliamentary reform. While the moderates who opposed the king were focused on curtailing the king’s power, more extreme dissidents stepped into the ring to demand religious reforms. These Independents (or Puritans) were seeking to reform the Church of England. Their view was that the Reformation did not go far enough to break from the idolatry of the Roman Catholic Church. During this time, they stripped the churches of their altar rails, stained glass, and icons, all in an effort to create a more godly society, cast in a strict Puritan mode.

But why pick on Christmas?

Since Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ and the Puritans were focused on church reform, you’d think that they would want to celebrate Christmas, not abolish it. The reason lay in its observation. Christmas was a time of revelry overlaid on pagan traditions. Today many complain about the commerciality of Christmas, but then the complaint from some quarters focused on the decadence and frivolity of the season. The twelve days of Christmas lasted from Christmas Eve through to Twelfth Night, the evening before Epiphany. Twelfth Night was particularly a raucous affair, presided by the Lord of Misrule.

If you stepped into the 17^th century for Christmas, you would have seen many of the churches and halls decorated with greenery that consisted of rosemary, bay, holly, ivy, and mistletoe. The great Yule log was laid to burn in the fireplace, while mince pies, plum pudding, cakes, and roasted meats would be laid out for feasting. Women would go wassailing door to door on New Years Eve singing songs of the season in exchange for coin, food or drink. The common folk would gather for revels preformed by mummers, while the court favoured extravagant masques with singing, dancing and plays. Professional actors and courtiers would don elaborate costumes with elaborate stage sets to perform before the King and Queen.

Mischief and mayhem was certainly the order of the day and things often got out of hand.

"Christmas - The Wassail Bowl"  ~ Hollis, Thomas (1818–1843)

The Christmas bans

The cancellation of Christmas did not happen overnight. In September 1643, a year into the civil war, Parliament signed a treaty with Scotland to provide military support for their fight against King Charles I. One of the conditions imposed by Scotland was that Parliament reform the Church of England. Seriously, a case of preaching to the choir. They needed very little encouragement to tackle that.

The Saint’s days were abolished and in their place, national fast days (not feast, quite the opposite) were instituted. A line was drawn in December 1644 when a national fast day landed on Christmas Day. Parliament posted a public notice confirming the fast day was on and Christmas off. In the future, Christmas was to be a normal working day. Not only that, they rubbed a little salt in the wound:

“And that this day in particular is to be kept with the more solemne humiliation, because it may call to remembrance of our sinnes, and the sinnes of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory of Christ into an extreame forgetfulnesse of him, by giving liberty to carnall and sensuall delights.” Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642 -1660; British History Online.

The people were not amused. Over the next few years, there were scattered riots against shop owners who were open for business on Christmas, and angry mobs showing up to churches demanding a service. Apprentices led a revolt, having had their holiday eliminated and their traditional alms on St. Stephen’s Day (the day after Christmas) cut off. In defiance, greenery was draped over a public water conduit at Cornhill, and the Lord Mayor of London was forced to bring reinforcements to put the riot down.

An example of this happened just after Twelfth Night in 1647. Mathew Clarke, the Minister of Strettam from the Isle of Ely, petitioned Parliament for justice over his rough treatment at the hand of his parishioners. By this time, Parliament had imposed a penalty on ministers and churchwardens who did not comply with Parliament’s ban against Christmas services. Mister Clarke complained that his people brought in a soldier to preach to the congregation (because he wouldn’t risk being fined) in the morning and afternoon. The minister pleaded with them to cease, but they threatened to pull him down from his reading-seat and get the soldier to preach again that evening if he didn’t do it himself.

In every sense, the battle over Christmas divided the country as the war had.

It was really only when King Charles was executed in 1649 that the Christmas controversy had the wind knocked out of it. Parliament now controlled the entire country, and they were determined to usher in the rule of Saints.

What about Ollie?

With the execution of the king, Oliver Cromwell became a leading voice for Parliament. He was appointed Commander in Chief and sent to punish the Scots for supporting the king’s heir, Charles II. After the last battle of the civil war in 1651, everyone looked to Cromwell for leadership. In 1653, he became the Lord Protector and a de facto king. Cromwell had always supported abolishing Christmas and made a point of working on Christmas Day as many other MPs did. Though he was not single-handedly responsible for cancelling Christmas, he did enforce the law when he became Lord Protector, thereafter earning a place in history as a bona fide Grinch.

Oliver Cromwell

Final good tidings

Fortunately, the ban on Christmas only lasted until the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. When King Charles II ascended the throne, he ushered in a new era of merriment and restored the holiday. Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day.   

Media:

Image of people celebrating Xmas:

By T. Hollis (likely Hollis, Thomas (1818–1843))R.W. Buss (1804 – 1875). "For Mr. Hogarth, of the Haymarket, he painted four small subjects illustrative of Christmas, entitled, Tlu Waits ; Bringing in the Boar's Head ; The Yule Log, and The Wassail Bowl ; all afterwards engraved." [1] [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)

], via Wikimedia Commons

Picture of Oliver Cromwell:

By Peter Lely - Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum Wales, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2984325

Holly image- public domain from Visual Hunt. No attribution required.

Cryssa Bazos

I am a historical fiction writer and 17th Century enthusiast, with a particular interest in the English Civil War (ECW) and romantic fiction. I blog about English history and storytelling at my site, the 17th Century Enthusiast, and I'm involved with the English Historical Fiction Authors blog site and a member of the Romantic Novelist Association (RNA) and the Historical Novel Society (HNS). 

Cryssa loves to hear from readers, you can find her…

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