Christmas: Its Origin and Associations Part 3

"When every morning brought a n.o.ble chance, And every chance brought out a n.o.ble knight."[6]

Sir John Froissart tells us of the princely pageants which King Arthur held at Windsor in the sixth century, and of the sumptuous Christmas banquetings at his Round Table--the very Round Table (so we are to believe, on the authority of Dr. Milner)[7] which has been preserved in the old chapel, now termed the county hall, at Winchester. It consists of stout oak plank, perforated with many bullets, supposed to have been shot by Cromwell's soldiers. It is painted with a figure to represent King Arthur, and with the names of his twenty-four knights as they are stated in the romances of the old chroniclers. This famous Prince, who inst.i.tuted the military order of the Knights of the Round Table, is also credited with the reintroduction of Christianity at York after the Saxon invaders had destroyed the first churches built there. He was unwearying in his warfare against enemies of the religion of Christ. His first great enterprise was the siege of a Saxon army at York, and, having afterwards won brilliant victories in Somersets.h.i.+re and other parts of southern England, he again marched northward and penetrated Scotland to attack the Picts and Scots, who had long hara.s.sed the border. On returning from Scotland, Arthur rested his wearied army at York and kept Christmas with great bountifulness. Geoffrey of Monmouth says he was a prince of "unparalleled courage and generosity," and his Christmas at York was kept with the greatest joy and festivity. Then was the round table filled with jocund guests, and the minstrels, gleemen, harpers, pipe-players, jugglers, and dancers were as happy round about their log-fires as if they had shone in the blaze of a thousand gas-lights.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WILD BOAR HUNT: KILLING THE BOAR.]

King Arthur and his Knights also indulged in out-door amus.e.m.e.nts, as hunting, hawking, running, leaping, wrestling, jousts, and tourneys.

"So," says Sir Thomas Malory,[8] "pa.s.sed forth all the winter with all manner of hunting and hawking, and jousts and tourneys were many between many great lords. And ever, in all manner of places, Sir Lavaine got great wors.h.i.+p, that he was n.o.bly renowned among many of the knights of the Round Table. Thus it pa.s.sed on until Christmas, and every day there were jousts made for a diamond, that whosoever joust best should have a diamond. But Sir Launcelot would not joust, but if it were a great joust cried; but Sir Lavaine jousted there all the Christmas pa.s.sing well, and most was praised; for there were few that did so well as he; wherefore all manner of knights deemed that Sir Lavaine should be made a Knight of the Round Table, at the next high feast of Pentecost."

THE ANGLO-SAXON EXCESSES

are referred to by some of the old chroniclers, intemperance being a very prevalent vice at the Christmas festival. Ale and mead were their favourite drinks; wines were used as occasional luxuries. "When all were satisfied with dinner," says an old chronicler, "and their tables were removed, they continued drinking till the evening." And another tells how drinking and gaming went on through the greater part of the night. Chaucer's one solitary reference to Christmastide is an allegorical representation of the jovial feasting which was the characteristic feature of this great festival held in "the colde frosty season of December."

"Ja.n.u.s sits by the fire with double beard, And drinketh of his bugle horn the wine: Before him stands the brawn of tusked swine, And 'Nowel' cryeth every l.u.s.ty man."[9]

The Saxons were strongly attached to field sports, and as the "brawn of the tusked swine" was the first Christmas dish, it was provided by the pleasant preliminary pastime of hunting the wild boar; and the incidents of the chase afforded interesting table talk when the boar's head was brought in ceremoniously to the Christmas festival.

Prominent among the Anglo-Saxon amus.e.m.e.nts of Christmastide, Strutt mentions their propensity for gaming with dice, as derived from their ancestors, for Tacitus a.s.sures us that the ancient Germans would not only hazard all their wealth, but even stake their liberty, upon the turn of the dice: "and he who loses submits to servitude, though younger and stronger than his antagonist, and patiently permits himself to be bound and sold in the market; and this madness they dignify by the name of honour." Chess and backgammon were also favourite games with the Anglo-Saxons, and a large portion of the night was appropriated to the pursuit of these sedentary amus.e.m.e.nts, especially at the Christmas season of the year, when the early darkness stopped out-door games.

"When they had dined, as I can you say, Lords and ladies went to play; Some to tables, and some to chess, With other games more and less."[10]

Our Saxon forefathers were very superst.i.tious. They had many pretenders to witchcraft. They believed in the powers of philtres and spells, and invocated spirits; and they relished a blood-curdling ghost story at Christmas quite as much as their twentieth-century descendants. They confided in prognostics, and believed in the influence of particular times and seasons; and at Christmastide they derived peculiar pleasure from their belief in the immunity of the season from malign influences--a belief which descended to Elizabethan days, and is referred to by Shakespeare, in "Hamlet":--

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes, Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI OLD GLa.s.s WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL]

We cannot pa.s.s over this period without mentioning a great Christmas in the history of our Teutonic kinsmen on the Continent, for the Saxons of England and those of Germany have the same Teutonic origin.

We refer to

THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

The coronation took place at Rome, on Christmas Day, in the year 800.

Freeman[11] says that when Charles was King of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans, he was on very friendly terms with the mighty Offa, King of the Angles that dwelt in Mercia. Charles and Offa not only exchanged letters and gifts, but each gave the subjects of the other various rights in his dominions, and they made a league together, "for that they two were the mightiest of all the kings that dwelt in the Western lands." As conqueror of the old Saxons in Germany, Charles may be regarded as the first King of all Germany, and he was the first man of any Teutonic nation who was called Roman Emperor. He was crowned with the diadem of the Caesars, by Pope Leo, in the name of Charles Augustus, Emperor of the Romans. And it was held for a thousand years after, down to the year 1806, that the King of the Franks, or, as he was afterwards called, the King of Germany, had a right to be crowned by the Pope of Rome, and to be called Emperor of the Romans. In the year 1806, however, the Emperor Francis the Second, who was also King of Hungary and Archduke of Austria, resigned the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Germany. Since that time no Emperor of the Romans has been chosen; but a new German Emperor has been created, and the event may be regarded as one of Christmastide, for the victorious soldiers who brought it about spent their Christmas in the French capital, and during the festival arranged for the re-establishment of the German Empire. So it happens, that while referring to the crowning of the first German Emperor of the Roman Empire, on Christmas Day, 800, we are able to record that more than a thousand years afterwards the unification of the German Empire and the creation of its first Emperor also occurred at Christmastide, under the influence of the German triumphs over the French in the war of 1870. The imposing event was resolved upon by the German Princes on December 18, 1870, the preliminaries were completed during the Christmas festival, and on January 18, 1871, in the Galerie des Glaces of the chateau of Versailles, William, King of Prussia, was crowned and proclaimed first Emperor of the new German Empire.

Now, going back again over a millennium, we come to

CHRISTMAS IN THE TIME OF ALFRED THE GREAT.

During the reign of Alfred the Great a law was pa.s.sed with relation to holidays, by virtue of which the twelve days after the Nativity of our Saviour were set apart for the celebration of the Christmas festival.

Some writers are of opinion that, but for Alfred's strict observance of the "full twelve holy days," he would not have been defeated by the Danes in the year 878. It was just after Twelfth-night that the Danish host came suddenly--"bestole," as the old Chronicle says--to Chippenham. Then "they rode through the West Saxons' land, and there sat down, and mickle of the folk over sea they drove, and of others the most deal they rode over; all but the King Alfred; he with a little band hardly fared after the woods and on the moor-fastnesses."

But whether or not Alfred's preparations for the battle just referred to were hindered by his enjoyment of the festivities of Christmastide with his subjects, it is quite certain that the King won the hearts of his people by the great interest he took in their welfare. This good king--whose intimacy with his people we delight to a.s.sociate with the homely incident of the burning of a cottager's cakes--kept the Christmas festival quite as heartily as any of the early English kings, but not so boisterously as some of them. Of the many beautiful stories told about him, one might very well belong to Christmastide.

It is said that, wis.h.i.+ng to know what the Danes were about, and how strong they were, King Alfred one day set out from Athelney in the disguise of a Christmas minstrel, and went into the Danish camp, and stayed there several days, amusing the Danes with his playing, till he had seen all he wanted, and then went back without any one finding him out.

Now, pa.s.sing on to

CHRISTMAS UNDER THE DANISH KINGS OF ENGLAND,

we find that in 961 King Edgar celebrated the Christmas festival with great splendour at York; and in 1013 Ethelred kept his Christmas with the brave citizens of London who had defended the capital during a siege and stoutly resisted Swegen, the tyrant king of the Danes. Sir Walter Scott, in his beautiful poem of "Marmion," thus pictures the "savage Dane" keeping the great winter festival:--

"Even, heathen yet, the savage Dane At Iol more deep the mead did drain; High on the beach his galleys drew, And feasted all his pirate crew; Then in his low and pine-built hall, Where s.h.i.+elds and axes deck'd the wall, They gorged upon the half-dress'd steer; Caroused in seas of sable beer; While round, in brutal jest, were thrown The half-gnaw'd rib, and marrow bone: Or listen'd all, in grim delight.

While Scalds yell'd out the joys of fight.

Then forth, in frenzy, would they hie, While wildly-loose their red locks fly, And dancing round the blazing pile, They make such barbarous mirth the while, As best might to the mind recall The boisterous joys of Odin's hall."

When the citizens of London saw that Swegen had succeeded all over England except their own city, they thought it was no use holding out any longer, and they too, submitted and gave hostages. And so Swegen was the first Dane who was king, or (as Florence calls him) "Tyrant over all England;" and Ethelred, sometimes called the "Unready," King of the West Saxons, who had struggled unsuccessfully against the Danes, fled with his wife and children to his brother-in-law's court in Normandy. On the death of Swegen, the Danes of his fleet chose his son c.n.u.t to be King, but the English invited Ethelred to return from Normandy and renew the struggle with the Danes. He did so, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says: "He held his kingdom with great toil and great difficulty the while that his life lasted." After his death and that of his son Edmund, c.n.u.t was finally elected and crowned.

Freeman,[12] in recording the event, says that: "At the Christmas of 1016-1017, c.n.u.t was a third time chosen king over all England, and one of the first things that he did was to send to Normandy for the widowed Lady Emma, though she was many years older than he was. She came over; she married the new king; and was again Lady of the English. She bore c.n.u.t two children, Harthac.n.u.t and Gunhild. Her three children by Ethelred were left in Normandy. She seems not to have cared at all for them or for the memory of Ethelred; her whole love pa.s.sed to her new husband and her new children. Thus it came about that the children of Ethelred were brought up in Normandy, and had the feelings of Normans rather than Englishmen, a thing which again greatly helped the Norman Conquest."

c.n.u.t's first acts of government in England were a series of murders; but he afterwards became a wise and temperate king. He even identified himself with the patriotism which had withstood the stranger. He joined heartily in the festivities of Christmastide, and atoned for his father's ravages by costly gifts to the religious houses. And his love for monks broke out in the song which he composed as he listened to their chant at Ely: "Merrily sang the monks in Ely when c.n.u.t King rowed by" across the vast fen-waters that surrounded their Abbey.

"Row, boatmen, near the land, and hear we these monks sing."[13]

"'All hail!' the monks at Christmas sang; The merry monks who kept with cheer The gladdest day of all the year."[14]

It is said that c.n.u.t, who is also called Canute, "marked one of his royal Christmases by a piece of sudden retributive justice: bored beyond all endurance by the Saxon Edric's iteration of the traitorous services he had rendered him, the King exclaimed to Edric, Earl of Northumberland: 'Then let him receive his deserts, that he may not betray us as he betrayed Ethelred and Edmund!' upon which the ready Norwegian disposed of all fear on that score by cutting down the boaster with his axe, and throwing his body into the Thames."[15]

In the year 1035, King c.n.u.t died at Shaftesbury, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral. His sons, Harold and Harthac.n.u.t, did not possess the capacity for good government, otherwise the reign of the Danes might have continued. As it was, their reigns, though short, were troublesome. Harold died at Oxford in 1040, and was buried at Westminster (being the first king who was buried there); Harthac.n.u.t died at Lambeth at a wedding-feast in 1042, and was buried beside his father in Winchester Cathedral. And thus ended the reigns of the Danish kings of England.

Now we come to

THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR,

who, we are told, was heartily chosen by all the people, for the two very good reasons, that he was an Englishman by birth, and the only man of either the English or the Danish royal families who was at hand. He was the son of Ethelred and Emma, and at the Christmas festival of his coronation there was great rejoicing. As his early training had been at the court of his uncle, Richard the Good, in Normandy, he had learnt to prefer Norman-French customs and life to those of the English. During his reign, therefore, he brought over many strangers and appointed them to high ecclesiastical and other offices, and Norman influence and refinement of manners gradually increased at the English court, and this, of course, led to the more stately celebration of the Christmas festival. The King himself, being of a pious and meditative disposition, naturally took more interest in the religious than the temporal rejoicings, and the administration of state affairs was left almost entirely to members of the house of G.o.dwin during the princ.i.p.al part of his reign. Many disturbances occurred during Edward's reign in different parts of the country, especially on the Welsh border. At the Christmas meeting of the King and his Wise Men, at Gloucester, in 1053, it was ordered that Rhys, the brother of Gruffydd, the South Welsh king, be put to death for his great plunder and mischief. The same year, the great Earl G.o.dwine, while dining with the king at Winchester at the Easter feast, suddenly fell in a fit, died four days after, and was buried in the old cathedral. A few years later (1065), the Northumbrians complained that Earl Tostig, Harold's brother, had caused Gospatric, one of the chief Thanes, to be treacherously murdered when he came to the King's court the Christmas before. King Edward kept his last Christmas (1065), and had the meeting of his Wise Men in London instead of Gloucester as usual. His great object was to finish his new church at Westminster, and to have it hallowed before he died. He lived just long enough to have this done. On Innocent's Day the new Minster was consecrated, but the King was too ill to be there, so the Lady Edith stood in his stead. And on January 5, 1066, King Edward, the son of Ethelred, died.

On the morning of the day following his death, the body of the Confessor was laid in the tomb, in his new church; and on the same day--

HAROLD WAS CROWNED KING

in his stead. Thus three very important events--the consecration of Westminster Abbey, the death of Edward the Confessor, and the crowning of Harold--all occurred during the same Christmas festival.

In the terrible year 1066 England had three kings. The reign of Harold, the son of G.o.dwine, who succeeded Edward the Confessor, terminated at the battle of Senlac, or Hastings, and on the following

CHRISTMAS DAY WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR WAS CROWNED KING

by Archbishop Ealdred. He had not at that time conquered all the land, and it was a long while before he really possessed the whole of it.

Still, he was the king, chosen, crowned, and anointed, and no one ever was able to drive him out of the land, and the crown of England has ever since been held by his descendants.

[5] Green's "History of the English People."

[6] Tennyson.

[7] "History of Winchester."

[8] "History of King Arthur and His n.o.ble Knights."

[9] "The Franklin's Tale."