Henry VIII's Tudor Christmas

Tudor Christmas was a time for revelry and fun. Henry VIII and his court celebrated the full 12 days of Christmas in excess, with tables ladened with roast swan, suckling pig and venison pasties, among other delights. It's believed one Christmas, the King spent the equivalent of £13 million on the celebrations. He loved to dress up and tease his wives as well as take part in festive games. Dan travels to what was once the heart of Henry's court, Hampton Court Palace, to meet with Historic Royal Palaces chief curator Tracy Borman and Richard Fitch, of the Historic Kitchens Team, to discover how the Tudors celebrated and what of their traditions we still have today. This is episode 2 of our 'Origins of Christmas' series. Every Wednesday in December, Dan explores the history behind our Christmas traditions—from extravagant Tudor feasts and carolling to midwinter Solstice celebrations, the bawdy entertainment of the Georgians, and the family-focused customs of the Victorians. Produced and edited by Mariana Des Forges Music by Epidemic Sounds & All3Media Music Library Dan Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 2:17Dan Snow?

  Welcome everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Today, we're going to be exploring a version of Christmas that you're going to recognise, that we're still very familiar with here in the UK. A Christmas of carol singing and mince pies and celebrating the 12 days, all of which really took shape in Tudor Britain.

• 2:40Dan Snow?

  And what better place to come to discover the origins of excessive Christmas, overindulgence, mery-making than the HQ of the King of Excess himself, Henry VIII? I'm standing now in the place where he wined and dined the great and the good, Europe's royalty, over several days in the festive period. It's the Camelot, it's the Mar-a-Lago of Henry VIII's court in his Hampton Court Palace.

• 3:13Dan Snow?

  I'm here on a beautiful crisp winter's day. The skies are blue above me, there's frost on the lawn. My long-suffering producer Mariana and I are waiting to be allowed in, so we're doing some recording in the freezing cold courtyard in front of Hampton Court, one of the greatest heritage sites in the UK. It feels like at any moment Henry's staff are going to come scuttling across this courtyard. The palace a hive of activity over the Christmas period. Stable doors, windows, opening, closing, people bustling here and there. Tradesmen carrying great mounds of fruit and vegetables, meat pies, greenery, into the palace, into the kitchens, some of it to be eaten, some to deck the halls and give it a festive feel.

• 3:55Dan Snow?

  A Tudor Christmas at Hampton Court Palace would have been a sensory delight. Decorations, entertainment, and the rich aroma of England's best cooking.

• 4:09Dan Snow?

  So here to find out more about Tudor Christmas and how it still influences our celebrations today. I'm going to head inside when it opens, I'm going to defrost my little fingers and toes and I'm going to meet with the very brilliant chief curator here, Tracy Borman. Also Richard Fitch, who's worked at Hampton Court Palace's historic kitchens team for the last 32 years. They're the best possible people to take me through the delights of a Tudor Christmas at Hampton Court.

• 4:43Dan Snow?

  Tracy, good to see you.

• 4:44Speaker 05

  Nice to see you Dan and welcome to Hampton Court.

• 4:46Dan Snow?

  It's so nice, I've done the pod so many times, but I don't think I've ever done one in situ with you in your place of work.

• 4:51Speaker 05

  And you know, you can't beat it actually, because the topic we're going to be talking about, it absolutely suits this palace.

• 4:57Dan Snow?

  It does, and we're lucky because the weather does, it feels Christmasy.

• 5:00Speaker 05

  It does, there's definitely a nip in the air and we've got our decks up already, so.

• 5:05Dan Snow?

  Before we get into Christmas, let's quickly just get over to the Royal Hampton Court, not originally a royal palace.

• 5:11Speaker 05

  No, actually, it was built by Cardinal Thomas Woolsey, Henry VIII's right-hand man. And this is the best bit, really, to introduce Woolsey's palace, we're standing in base court. This would be the first thing that visitors to Woolsey would have experienced. It's kind of like a hotel, because all around us would have been courtiers' lodgings. It was the grandest palace, really, in England, which Henry VIII didn't particularly like. So he later acquired, was given, stole Hampton Court from Woolsey.

• 5:40Dan Snow?

  It's very, very grand for a cardinal, what was he thinking?

• 5:43Speaker 05

  Well, and also, a cardinal made good. He was just the son of a butcher from Ipswich, and yet he rose to become the most powerful man in England. And he loved to kind of cover up his humble origins by spending big. And of course, that's why he built Hampton Court. And whilst here, he insisted on being served on, you know, golden platters and, you know, pewter wasn't good enough for him. But this great style soon courted some enemies. The sort of noblemen who came here thought, what is this butcher's son doing in a palace like this? And even Henry himself became a bit jealous, I think.

• 6:16Dan Snow?

  And then, you'll know this better than anybody, the weird thing about English and British kings and queens is they can never quite settle on a palace they actually like living in, could they? But this becomes almost like the English Versailles, does it?

• 6:26Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 6:26Dan Snow?

  A palace outside London for the royal family for generations.

• 6:29Speaker 05

  This is the countryside, and what was brilliant about Hampton Court in Henry's eyes is the hunting grounds. It's surrounded by magnificent parkland, and of course, Henry loved to hunt, particularly in his early reign. He did nothing but hunt, he would be out all day. And so, yeah, this was lovely, it was right by the Thames.

• 6:48Speaker 05

  was really like the M25, that's how you travelled. It would have been absolutely filled to bursting with barges, carrying the king, his courtiers, messengers, and of course, goods here. And that's part of the reason why the court had to keep moving because after about two or three months, they'd literally exhausted the supplies around here. They'd eaten everything. And it kind of needed fumigating as well, I have to say, after three months with a thousand people in residence.

• 7:14Dan Snow?

  That makes me so happy to think of the Thames like that. So going to Whitehall Palace, going to the tower, all of that, it would have been the Great Artery. Henry would have spent a lot of time on the water.

• 7:22Speaker 05

  It's no coincidence that the great Tudor palaces were all built next to the Thames.

• 7:26Dan Snow?

  Does Henry just move in or does he make it even grander?

• 7:29Speaker 05

  Well, believe it or not, we don't know exactly what happened with the changeover from Woolsey to Henry. It's likely, I think, that Woolsey gifted Hampton Court to Henry because he knew he was starting to lose favour. Late 1520s, Henry wants his annulment from Catherine. Woolsey isn't able to get it for him. So have Hampton Court as a kind of consolation prize. Henry takes up residence here very quickly. And of course, typical Henry, what do you do when inheriting one of the biggest palaces in England? You enlarge it. And he particularly pays attention to the kitchens. He's very interested in feasting. And also the sports facilities, installing tennis courts, bowling greens. This is his pleasure palace.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  And he also has it in mind for Anne Berlin, of course, the scandalous second queen. And he starts decorating it with her emblems even before she becomes queen.

• 8:21Dan Snow?

  They survived her, okay.

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, Henry did his best to take them down after her fall. But we're standing right by Anne Berlin's archway, so named because you can see the intertwined A and H carved into the ceiling just there before we go up into the Great Hall.

• 8:38Dan Snow?

  Well, you mentioned the feasting there, you mentioned decoration. Was Christmas special here?

• 8:42Speaker 05

  Christmas was the big event in the Tudor calendar. Everybody celebrated, rich and poor alike. Hampton Court would have been adorned with magnificent decorations and lots of greenery, as you might imagine, holly, ivy, as per the Carol and most important of all, a huge Yule log. So this was the centerpiece really of the Tudor decorations. They they bring in the the Yule log and it's lit and it stays lit for all 12 days of Christmas. But let's go up now and I can show you the Great Hall because that really was the heart of the Tudor Christmas.

• 9:17Dan Snow?

  Let's do it. We're climbing these wonderful stairs here through Anne Boleyn's archway.

• 9:22Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 9:22Dan Snow?

  And what's this suite of buildings we're going to go into now?

• 9:25Speaker 05

  So we're about to enter the Tudor State Apartments. And we're starting with the biggest and the best of the rooms. So I'll just let us in here.

• 9:37Speaker 05

  Here we are, the absolute show off.

• 9:40Dan Snow?

  Incredible.

• 9:42Speaker 05

  Isn't it? Even today, it just takes your breath away. And that was Henry's intention. So he built this Great Hall onto Woolsley's Palace. And he wanted it to be bigger and better than any other Great Hall, not just in the kingdom, but in the world. And it's still, you know, the one of the best examples, if not the best, of a Tudor Great Hall.

• 10:03Dan Snow?

  This must have been mind blowing for people 500 years ago.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, and just the craftsmanship, the engineering that went into this is quite remarkable. It's still got the original hammer beam ceiling there decorated with Anne Boleyn's emblems. Because the Great Hall was all about Anne Boleyn. He had her Falcon emblem everywhere. Now, when she fell from grace, those that could be reached were quickly removed. But they couldn't quite get to the ones in the ceiling. And you might see Dan just looking down on us, those little faces in the eaves there. There are little faces peering down at us.

• 10:39Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 05

  And they were there deliberately to remind everybody who was being entertained below that the king was listening to everything. So they are called eavesdroppers and that's where the name comes from.

• 10:52Dan Snow?

  Hey, love it.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  So, so astonishing. And you'll see lining the walls, these magnificent tapestries, which Henry VIII himself commissioned. And of course, they faded over the years. But when you look at the reverse, then the original kind of golds and reds and blues, they really pop. And they tell the story of Abraham. This is a PR stunt on Henry's part because Abraham in the Bible sort of needs a son. And so, you know, this this helps to justify Henry's annulment from Catherine of Aragon.

• 11:23Dan Snow?

  It's fucking, when every single interior design decision is political.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 11:27Dan Snow?

  Fascinating, isn't it?

• 11:28Speaker 05

  Nothing is accidental in the Tudor court. So here in the great hall, it is spectacular, but it was also kind of a staff canteen, really. You tend to think of these great feasts with Henry there and his wife on the top table. But actually, he didn't eat in here all that often, really special occasions like Christmas or Easter. Otherwise, it's where the kind of courtiers came. Twice a day, so typically they ate twice a day. And so, yes, you have to imagine it as a staff canteen, but also as a bedroom. So it was crowded at Hampton Court when the king was in residence.

• 12:04Dan Snow?

  Are these just people who are very posh, who just come and live with the king? Are they invited? Have they got jobs? Or they just go, I'm the Earl of someone, I'm just going to come and hang out?

• 12:12Speaker 05

  They're friends of the king, they have titles. And positions at court become almost hereditary. So the Duke of Norfolk's position will be inherited by his son or his nephew. And so it's a very tight-knit circle, the Tudor court. They might have positions, but really, you know, they have a title. They don't really have to work very hard if they are high ranking. Of course, the lower ranking servants, they really do have to put in the hours in order to serve at the Tudor court. But yes.

• 12:44Dan Snow?

  But if you get sort of, get yourself invited to court, then that's just a gravy. You just cruise around with Henry and it's like Christmas. What are you doing? Oh, we're just having our big Christmas party. You're just at court enjoying Christmas here.

• 12:54Speaker 05

  You're there because, of course, it's where all the riches, the luxury and the power are. And it's where you can get promotions, where you can get lands and titles. But there are risks. Personally, I wouldn't have come anywhere near the court because, of course, if you fly too close to the flame that is Henry VIII, then quite a few people discovered that it would be their downfall.

• 13:18Dan Snow?

  So you mentioned special occasions. Henry would have been sitting right up there on that platform, enjoying Christmas in this room.

• 13:24Speaker 05

  Yes, he would.

• 13:25Dan Snow?

  What form would it take? Would it be recognisable to us?

• 13:27Speaker 05

  There's lots that's recognisable in a Tudor Christmas. We tend to think that most of our Christmas derives from the Victorians. But actually, the Tudor links are very strong. For example, singing carols, the mistletoe and some of the food like turkey, mince pies, even Brussels sprouts, all go back to the Tudor period. And Father Christmas was there too, except the Tudors called him Captain Christmas. There was revelries as well and of course, a religious heart to the Christmas. So, we would definitely recognise it, but I think what we wouldn't recognise is just the scale of it and the stamina. Because for us, it's all about Christmas Day really, and maybe a few leftovers on Boxing Day.

• 14:12Speaker 05

  The Tudors celebrated all 12 days of Christmas with equal revelry. Like, there was no stinting, there was no sense of, okay, we've done Christmas Day now, we can relax a bit. It was the same level on each of the 12 days.

• 14:27Dan Snow?

  And would they fast or prepare themselves for it? Was there a sort of lean period leading up to it?

• 14:31Speaker 05

  There certainly was. So Advent was a time for fasting, so of course everybody was really ready for a party and a good feast by the time that Christmas came round.

• 14:39Dan Snow?

  Isn't that strange that we completely inverted that today? Advent, December, with Christmas parties and work parties all crazy, and then we all go on no booze diets the minute Boxing Day's finished.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  I know. There was no such thing as Dry January for the Tudors, because they carried on celebrating all the way up to Epiphany on the 6th of January and it kind of went out with a bang. You know, that was one of the biggest feasts. So yeah, they would have had much more stamina, much bigger stomachs, I think, than us today.

• 15:05Dan Snow?

  Given what came in the next century and the criticisms of Christmas as a sort of pagan, you know, influenced festival, when you're talking about Yule Logs and Greenery, does it feel like a very religious moment? Or does this feel like when there's a bit of a deeper past that's been connected with here as well?

• 15:20Speaker 05

  Absolutely. For centuries, there had been a sort of mid-winter festival, if you like. And even back to Roman times, they celebrated the 25th of December in particular. And so, Christmas was sort of later adopted, obviously, by the Christian Church and they absorbed all of those traditions and they made it a celebration of Christ's birth. So, it was both really. It was still quite a pagan festival, but it was deeply, deeply religious for the Tudors.

• 15:50Dan Snow?

  And Henry was a religious man.

• 15:51Speaker 05

  He certainly was.

• 15:52Dan Snow?

  Okay, paint me a picture, Chrissie, of what was going on in this room on Christmas, one of those nights of Christmas.

• 15:57Speaker 05

  Okay, so non-stop entertainment, really. So plays would be performed, masks. And what I love is this particular person who was very instrumental at Christmas called the Master of Revels. And really, the idea was that everything was inverted at Christmas. So the whole social order would be turned on its head. So you get boy bishops, you know, young boys who then go about wearing bishops' hats and tell the actual bishops what to do. And the Lord of Misrule, the Master of Revels, he would actually be able to command the king himself. And one particular lord, early in Henry's reign, cheekily asked the king if he could have five pounds towards his expenses.

• 16:39Speaker 05

  And luckily, Henry VIII saw the joke and he was happy to give him the money and to be commanded by him. So they liked playing with the social order when it came to Christmas. And there would be disguisings Henry VIII particularly loved, to don a disguise, famously Robin Hood on one occasion, when he was forever bursting into the chamber of his wives and saying, you know, "Guess who I am today." Catherine of Aragon certainly loved it and she played along, as of course did his courtiers, pretending not to know that this is the king. And the revelries would continue long into the night. And of course, it was also here, in the Great Hall, that what is for us, one of the highlights, gift-giving.

• 17:22Speaker 05

  Now, this happened on New Year's Day, not on Christmas Day. And like everything else in the Tudor court, it's all about rank. Now, Elizabeth I, my favorite of the Tudor monarchs, she didn't want a chance getting any rubbish gifts. So she actually set down on paper, parchment, what people had to give, the value of their gift according to their rank.

• 17:44Dan Snow?

  Really?

• 17:44Speaker 05

  So you couldn't turn up with something substandard. You had to give, you know, X amount of gold or whatever it might be. And the presents ranged from gifts of animals, Henry VIII was often given animals, to bejeweled

• 18:00Speaker 05

  Toothpicks, you get a lot of sugar coming in in Elizabeth's reign, so people had tooth problems, tooth decay, and even a rather risque fountain given by Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII in 1533, which had three naked ladies around the outside.

• 18:16Dan Snow?

  I must say, if I was the Lord of Misrule, you'd have morning after, night before anxieties that wake up on your pillow and think, did I push it a bit far with Henry VIII last night? Because today, he's back in charge.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly, you'd worry, wouldn't you?

• 18:27Dan Snow?

  That would not be a job that I would want anything to do with.

• 18:29Speaker 05

  No, it probably won't surprise you that Henry VIII did not stint on expenditure for Christmas. In his first Christmas, 1509, he spent the equivalent of over 13 million pounds on Christmas. So he wanted to make a statement. His father had died being sort of notorious as a miser, justifiably or not, and so Henry VIII was going to be different to his father. Everyone was going to have the biggest party that England could remember.

• 18:58Dan Snow?

  So obviously, we associate music with Henry VIII's court, and particularly with Christmas. Were there well-known Christmas songs?

• 19:06Speaker 05

  Well, yes, they would have had carols, some of which are still sung today. There would have been lots of different instruments played. We're now walking through, by the way, the Great Watching Chamber. So just in that far corner there, those double doors, that's where the King would have emerged from his privy chamber. And then we're going to follow in his footsteps along the processional route, because everybody would have been here to kind of wish him well, wish him the joy of the season, and music would have been played as he made his way along the processional route, which, as you can see, we've kind of hung with Tudor-style tapestries just on our right here. There is the man himself.

• 19:45Dan Snow?

  There's the famous painting.

• 19:46Speaker 05

  There is the famous portrait of Henry VIII.

• 19:49Dan Snow?

  Standing in his power pose.

• 19:50Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 19:51Dan Snow?

  And this route, sorry, so this going from his private chambers, where are we off to?

• 19:56Speaker 05

  So where we're off to is really the key part of any Tudor Christmas, which is chapel. So there's a lot of talk today about the real meaning of Christmas being lost. The Tudors certainly didn't lose it. Religion was pivotal. So the monarch would go to church, absolutely not just Christmas morning, but perhaps two, even three times a day. Elizabeth I spent most of Christmas in prayer. So it was absolutely integral. And of course, the courtiers would all have to follow suit. And just here on our left, this was the entrance to the royal pew. So you get a bird's eye view of the Tudor chapel from up there.

• 20:36Dan Snow?

  So these are periods of calm amidst all the banqueting and celebrations.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  Absolutely. This is where Henry would come to worship and also enjoy a bit of peace from his courtiers, although he loved a good party, certainly in his earlier reign. But later on, he much preferred privacy and quiet. So he became even more dedicated to observing the religious elements of Christmas.

• 21:04Dan Snow?

  Which is a bit strange because he's famous for upending our religious arrangements. But he, in his own mind, he had some consistency there. He still believed he was being true to the faith.

• 21:12Speaker 05

  Absolutely. He remained a good Catholic throughout and always a very pious king. And particularly, as I said, in the later years of his reign, when he'd grown tired of all the revelry and he wasn't...

• 21:26Dan Snow?

  Quite relatable, that, Tracy, I'm afraid.

• 21:28Speaker 05

  Exactly, it is relatable. And he didn't want to stay up late. And also, he was in a lot of pain by then. He was incapacitated.

• 21:37Dan Snow?

  Can we change the subject, please?

• 21:40Dan Snow?

  Okay, so actually, so the nature of courts really depends on the appetites, the enthusiasm, the energy levels of the sovereign.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. You see the nature of a Tudor Christmas change during the period. For example, when Henry's son Edward is on the throne. This is now the height of the Reformation and things like boy bishops definitely do not make the cut. And there's much more about religious observance. It's slightly less fun than it had been in his father's reign.

• 22:11Dan Snow?

  This is Dan Snow's History Hit, more after this.

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• 24:55Speaker 05

  So Dan, I'm going to take you down to the kitchens now because of course, food is and was a pivotal part of Christmas.

• 25:02Dan Snow?

  I can imagine while Henry's sort of praying up here or partying up here, I could imagine the kitchens were at full tilt the whole time.

• 25:08Speaker 05

  Yes, they would have been, and they were described as being a veritable hell for those working in them because of course they had a thousand people to feed, at least twice a day, more if you're the king. But people, rich and poor, would have enjoyed a bit of indulgence at Christmas. Everybody got the day off, which was actually quite rare. And even the poorest members of society would have enjoyed a few little luxuries, a bit more meat perhaps on Christmas Day.

• 25:40Dan Snow?

  Is elite Christmas reflected outside, normal people outside the walls here? Are they doing similar things?

• 25:45Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 25:45Dan Snow?

  With a different budget?

• 25:47Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly, a very different budget, but it does filter down. Religion also very important and going to church crucial for all members of society. But there would have been games and a richer diet than usual, even some sporting activity and of course, music as well. But Henry clamped down on some of the more boisterous games as his reign progressed because he wanted the young men of his realm to focus on military training, even on Christmas Day.

• 26:17Dan Snow?

  Like everything with Henry, what is just fun and what is political? What's strategic about the way Christmas is set up here?

• 26:25Speaker 05

  Pretty much everything is political with Henry, including Christmas. On the one hand, he wants to send out a signal to the rest of Europe that he is the most magnificent king in Christendom. But also, when you look at what happens on a particular Christmas, for example, gift giving, people are watching who's giving what to who. And one particularly awkward Christmas Was when Catherine of Aragon gave Henry a very lavish gift. And I'm afraid he hadn't got anything for her. Well, here we are. We're on the outside of the Tudor kitchens and you're in for a treat because Richard Fitch knows everything there is to know about eating in the Tudor court.

• 27:05Dan Snow?

  Thanks for having me, Tracy.

• 27:07Speaker 05

  It's been a pleasure.

• 27:10Dan Snow?

  Hi, Richard.

• 27:10Speaker 06

  Hello, Dan.

• 27:11Dan Snow?

  This feels like a sort of palatial space as well. It's about two or three storeys high, enormous, wonderful wooden roof, the biggest fireplace I've ever seen in my life.

• 27:19Speaker 06

  It's one of six. It's 11 metres to the top of the roof.

• 27:22Dan Snow?

  And this is probably not the most important point, but I like the way there's a camber on the floor here. There's these big flagstones and they're all on a very slight angle. Is that because all of the kitchen wastes would get scooped down and pushed into a drain in the middle?

• 27:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. It's the waste disposal.

• 27:37Dan Snow?

  It's clever, that. We have this image, don't we, of Henry as this great sort of glutton, sitting there at the table with a big chicken leg he's gnawing on. Is that, is that fair?

• 27:45Speaker 06

  Certainly at the end of his life, he's a big, large lad, likes some food, and so that would be fair. But it's certainly not fair to think of him for his entire life like that. He's a young, virile, the most handsome prince in the whole of Europe. He just happens to have a bad rep for liking a meal.

• 28:02Dan Snow?

  So talk me through one of these famous Henryian feasts. How many courses? What kind of food was served?

• 28:08Speaker 06

  We're talking three courses, but those courses all contain what we would consider to be a mix of sweet and savoury.

• 28:14Dan Snow?

  So your first course would have a sweet element to it as well?

• 28:17Speaker 06

  Has a sweet element to it, probably the sort of thing we consider to be a condiment now, but made into a dish. So rather than apple sauce, it will be a stewed apple dish, sat there for you to consume. And you can have that with whatever you choose. There's no real rules as to how you mix and match it.

• 28:33Dan Snow?

  You'd have been served a plate of food or is it sharies across the table?

• 28:37Speaker 06

  It's shared across the table.

• 28:39Dan Snow?

  And was there etiquette around that? You'd have to reach for things before you're seen?

• 28:42Speaker 06

  You're supposed to reach for the things that are closest to you, that are facing you. So if we were sat opposite each other at the table, you'd eat from your side of the serving bowl and I'd eat from my side. You're supposed to loosen your belt before you sit down. So that you're not sitting there groaning and embarrassing yourself and trying to ease some comfort in by loosening your waistline halfway through the meal.

• 29:06Dan Snow?

  Certainly at Christmas, these meals would have been epic in proportion.

• 29:09Speaker 06

  They're large, they're probably not as large as we imagine. A lot of our views of historic feasting comes from film and TV. But it's about the having choice. Whereas most people in the country don't have choice of what they consume. Here at court, the choice is that luxury.

• 29:26Dan Snow?

  So it's less the volume of food, but more the number of dishes, the exoticism of those dishes.

• 29:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 29:33Dan Snow?

  So as well as a stewed apple, take me through what else might they have eaten here at Christmas?

• 29:37Speaker 06

  So one of the commonest things on the table would be roast beef. But that will also be supplemented with just plain boiled beef. There might be a swan on the top table, suckling pig, venison pasties, sugar models, soups and stews and that sort of thing. So a huge selection compared to what normal people would be eating.

• 29:56Dan Snow?

  And speaking of normal people outside these walls, what would have been common to those tables? What was a seasonal dish for them?

• 30:01Speaker 06

  So they're going to be trying to eat as much beef as they can because it's the dish that you aspire to. It's why it's the common dish here at court, because you're showing that you can just feed your staff what normal, quote unquote, people are aspiring to get. But anything that you can save up, so a lot of dried foods that are then possibly rehydrated and a lot of things that you try to keep from the harvest that have just passed earlier on in the year.

• 30:25Dan Snow?

  The urban myth about a pigeon inside a other bird inside another bird inside another bird, is that a true thing?

• 30:31Speaker 06

  It's a sort of true recipe, but it dates from 1747. So it's a Yorkshire Christmas pie. And it's first recorded by Hannah Glass in her recipe book at the time, so it doesn't go back much further than that. What your Tudors are after for really high status is birds, because they're not farmed. So farmed animals, anyone can really have if you've got the money, but hunted animals, so wildfowl, that's a sign of status.

• 30:54Dan Snow?

  What about logistics? If you're feeding the whole court who are feasting for days on end. Do you have any sense of what had to be laid in to support that?

• 31:03Speaker 06

  It's really complicated. We're only just starting to scratch the surface of comprehending their procurement system, but essentially people, part of the department for buying in things, get sent out all over the country with lists each and being told to bring back X amount of wheat, grain, pigs, cattle and so on. They're then delivered at a set time, checked for quality, paid for just like everyone else does, but probably just below market value. And then they get sent back out to buy more and more and more. So the court moves from house to house because they eat everything in the local area.

• 31:36Dan Snow?

  There's not much long-distance shipping?

• 31:38Speaker 06

  There's quite a lot, but it's very small quantities. So at court, it's things like the spices, it's imported wines, it's sugars and sweet treats and things like that.

• 31:48Dan Snow?

  And everyone's favourite tipple, we're talking wine or we're talking beer or spirits?

• 31:51Speaker 06

  At court, we're talking wine and beer and ale, but outside of the court, we're talking ale. Beer is really quite new in the 16th century, having hops put into it. It's the fashionable drink of its time.

• 32:04Dan Snow?

  And the wines are all coming from South West France?

• 32:06Speaker 06

  The wine's coming from France, it's coming from Cyprus, it's coming from Germany, it's coming from Italy, but probably not as nice as we would consider today because it's not bottled, it comes in large casks. So it's obviously jiggled and bumped about in transit and rolled along to storage. And then, once you've opened it, you've got 56 gallons that's starting to turn to vinegar. So you have to consume it pretty quickly or you change the quality of it by adding syrups and sugars and water to make it how you want it or how your diners want to consume it.

• 32:37Dan Snow?

  How many officers of the court are there?

• 32:39Speaker 06

  It fluctuates through Henry's reign, but there's an average of about 450 people within court, of which around 200 work within the kitchens, or what we would consider to be the kitchen. So the room that we're stood in now, where the food was produced, all the way through to storage and accountancy as well.

• 32:55Dan Snow?

  So 200 people doing all that?

• 32:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, 200 people. So it's about half of the court. So as well as cooking for the rest of the court, they're cooking their own meals as well. There's about 110 linear metres of kitchen space. It takes up about... A quarter of the ground floor, it's a sizeable section to administer.

• 33:13Dan Snow?

  We, for some reason, we do just associate the Tudor court with feasting, don't we? Do you think we're right to do that? Do you think feasting was as important for a Tudor Christmas as perhaps we make out?

• 33:23Speaker 06

  I think it's the visible part that we can associate with. But for the Tudors, it is, it's sort of the religious part, that's the important thing. So Christmas Day is not a major feasting time. That's reserved for epiphany. Christmas Day is all about going to church, chapel, listening to services. And it's about charity. It's about sharing with those less fortunate. At court, it's about providing excess so that it can go to the poor at the gates or by bringing in people from the surrounding areas to dine at the very bottom end of the hall. So very much a performative charity in that sense, but charity nonetheless.

• 33:59Dan Snow?

  What's so interesting, Henry would have been probably quite surprised to learn that today visitors find the kitchens down here as exciting, if not more so, than the elite apartments up above.

• 34:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. I think he'd be blown away that people cared, that there was a kitchen. But for our visitors here at Hampton Court Palace, it's the relatable thing. We all eat, most of us cook, and so there's no hurdle to understanding what you're seeing in this space. Whereas up in the Great Hall, it's completely divorced from our normal reality.

• 34:28Dan Snow?

  And people can come and get stuck in this Christmas?

• 34:30Speaker 06

  They can, they can come and visit us over Christmas and have a go at turning the spit and experience life at the bottom rung of the ladder.

• 34:42Dan Snow?

  Clearly, the 12 days of Christmas in Tudor England were joyous, very extensive. And while wealthy households enjoyed great feasts, elaborate entertainment, it sounds like even poor households were given opportunities to join in a little bit. And they were definitely given a little bit of a break, a well-needed rest over the festive season. It was a time of religious observance, it was certainly a time of communal family fun.

• 35:07Dan Snow?

  And you get a sense that by the end of 16th century, Christmas was, what? It was a tango of pagan and Christian. And like every period, every generation, there was a little bit new added in, some Tudor customs thrown into the mix. But that certainly wouldn't last. In the following century, Christmas came to an abrupt end. During the mid 17th century, during the civil wars, the Puritans, who became hugely influential, banned Christmas in 1647. They viewed the holiday as a distraction, as heretical, as a threat to proper religious observance, discipline. So Cromwell and the Puritans, Christmas was just a festival of drunkenness, of promiscuity, gambling. It was pagan. It was not a proper religious festival, according to the good books.

• 35:52Dan Snow?

  In the mid 17th century, they passed laws. They mandated that shops and markets remain open on the 25th of December. They locked people out of churches to prevent Christmas services. This ban on Christmas was part of a Puritan drive to eliminate what they considered frivolous celebrations. And as you can imagine, that was all pretty unpopular. People loved Christmas. They loved partying. There was unrest, there were even riots, and it drove Christmas underground. People continued celebrating, away from the watchful eyes of the puritanical government. When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, it wasn't just a restoration of the monarchy, but a restoration of Christmas as well. The public celebrated, and I think that's one of the reasons he has this reputation as the Merry Monarch. Fun was allowed again.

• 36:37Dan Snow?

  So we've heard about the ostentatious festivities of the upper echelons of the Tudor court. Now, join me next Wednesday, where we're going to discover what Christmas was like on the streets of Georgian London. It was raucous, it was gaudy, it was rowdy. Make sure you're following your podcast plan, and you'll get this episode dropped in there next Wednesday. This is my Origins of Christmas series. Thank you so much to my guests Tracy Borman and Richard Fitch at Hampton Court Palace. If you want to explore more Tudor Christmas, Hampton Court has celebrations all the way through, from the 21st of December to the 5th of January. You can enjoy historical Tudor cookery and festive music. I really recommend it, folks. There's an ice drink too. See you all next time.

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• 38:48Dan Snow?

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