Midwinter Medieval Traditions

Ever wondered how Christmas was celebrated in Medieval times? Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis explore the fascinating world of Medieval festive traditions. From the violent brawls of medieval football to the quirky custom of 'mumming,' Eleanor and Matt dive into the rich tapestry of holiday practices. They discuss the origins of the Yule log, the significance of the boy bishop, and the unique 'women's Christmas' celebration. Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega and Matt Lewis. Edited by Amy Haddow. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval 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. You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK 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.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

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• 2:29Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.

• 3:06Eleanor Janega?

  For many of us, it's Christmas time, one of those times of year when we think a lot about tradition. We love to put up Christmas trees and bring out the old ornaments our nanas made for us. We stick to fairly strict menus to put on a proper, traditional Christmas spread. And there's probably one or two family traditions that you and your loved ones keep alive that don't necessarily translate to everyone you know. My mom's celebrated eggnog, for example, seems to both attract and repel my English mates in equal measure.

• 3:41Eleanor Janega?

  But for all of this talk of tradition, what we do at Christmas doesn't necessarily have much of a pedigree back beyond the Victorian era. And when we look at medieval Christmas, the things that they find festive, from football that looks more like a brawl to boy bishops in wassailing, doesn't really reflect what we have going on today. Still, it's pretty fascinating and well worth a look. And last year, Matt and I did just that. So to keep the festive season going, we thought we would remind you of a few of our favorite medieval Christmas traditions.

• 4:23Eleanor Janega?

  Matt, thanks so much for coming on on a Tuesday, you legend.

• 4:27Matt Lewis?

  It's great to be at the beginning of a week instead of the back end.

• 4:31Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, we're very bright and bushy tailed over here. I mean, I suppose as beginning of the weeks go, this is a delightful thing to talk about because we're going in for some fun Christmas traditions today, which I love. But it's quite funny because for medieval people, we're not at Christmas yet, right? We're still very deeply mired in what they would call Advent, which is very sternly not Christmas.

• 4:56Matt Lewis?

  Very serious. No partying. Advent calendars, absolutely not.

• 4:59Eleanor Janega?

  Funny enough, I have to do a lot of work about Advent because Advent's the time of year you contemplate the end of the universe. So as all the dark is kind of encroaching and everything, Advent is when you sit around and think about the fact that the world is going to end. And then you go into Christmas where you celebrate the birth of Christ and the fact that he's going to come to save us all at the end of the world and everyone is born again, tra la la la la. So it's quite funny because they're very serious and then they get married.

• 5:29Matt Lewis?

  Well, so I think the only thing we share is that Advent is seen as the build up to the big day. We see it very much as an excuse to eat chocolate, a bit of chocolate every day. I think if you had a medieval Advent calendar, it's going to be a slice of raw turnip or something, isn't it? It's definitely not a treat that you're getting out of this Advent calendar because you have to think about fasting and how serious life is and how the universe could end. We might get Jesus's birthday, we might not make it that far.

• 5:55Eleanor Janega?

  Which is quite funny too, because imagine fasting in this level of darkness. Maybe I'm only speaking for myself, but when the dark starts drawing in, you know, I'm making a soup, I've got an excuse to eat porridge for breakfast, things like this.

• 6:07Matt Lewis?

  It's comfort food weather, isn't it? I had shepherd's pie for tea last night because it's comfort food weather and you just want to fill your belly up and sit in front of the fire.

• 6:15Eleanor Janega?

  I suppose I find it weird that they would do this, but on the other hand, it does mean that when you get to Christmas, it's a blowout, right?

• 6:21Matt Lewis?

  But it's also, we're still doing it at Easter, don't we? We still have Lent going up to Easter, which we still view as the very serious time when you fast, you think about all sorts of things. We've just kind of... Bent the one before Christmas. We don't do it the way they used to do it anymore. We still do it Easter, but we just don't do it at Christmas anymore.

• 6:36Eleanor Janega?

  Which is quite funny because for us, Christmas is so important now. You know, I think that for a lot of people, if they are not particularly religious, for them, Christmas is sort of the holiday of the year, which is not how medieval people would have thought about it. They would have really been focused on Easter. But then at the same time, for medieval people, Christmas is 12 days. And now we talk about, I get wound up, I'm a big nerd every year. And when people start talking about the 12 days of Christmas before Christmas Day, I just get right on my high horse immediately because I'm a real stickler for celebrating the 12 days of Christmas as a medieval person wanted, starting on the 25th and then going through into January and then into Epiphany.

• 7:14Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And I think it helps at this time of year as well. We've got to think about they had very short days, not much daylight, not much need for farm work going on. So they've actually got a bit of time. It's a bit of a holiday. You can take 12 days to have a party.

• 7:27Eleanor Janega?

  And they sure did, which is one of the things that I really love. And I guess that this kind of brings us to the first weird Christmas tradition that I wanted to talk about, which is Epiphany. So Epiphany is kind of the end of the 12 days of Christmas, right? So a lot of people will have heard the term 12th Night, like what the Shakespeare play was named after. And that is kind of like Epiphany Eve. And what Epiphany is celebrating is when the Magi, the three wise men, show up to the manger and see Jesus. That doesn't happen on Christmas Eve. It does not happen on Christmas. Jesus is already kicking around the shop, according to everyone. And then the kings show up and the kings, of course, bring these fabulous presents,

• 8:10Eleanor Janega?

  gold, frankincense and myrrh, the most wonderful things that anyone in the ancient period could think to bring to someone.

• 8:16Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, they're not crashing the labour manger to be there for the birth.

• 8:20Eleanor Janega?

  Which is quite funny. Yeah, you know, people kind of forget about that. It's like, yeah, probably they weren't really like bumping in on the childbirth end of things. But so the Epiphany thing is interesting because you get all kinds of different traditions that are happening as a result of it. So the reason, for example, that 12th Night is called 12th Night is that it was ordered for the revel on the last night for court in England. So that's fantastic. It shows you the sort of things that people are doing. Also, this is where we get the tradition of gift giving at Christmas. So because if the three wise men give Jesus gifts, so this was the day that if you're going to give presents away, you did. And interestingly, that still does hold true in certain places.

• 9:00Eleanor Janega?

  So for example, in Spain, you still count Epiphany, or sometimes they say the Feast of the Three Kings as the number one gift giving holiday. So Christmas Day itself, they still celebrate that, but that's a little bit more for going to mass, seeing your family, having a meal, the present blow out. That's a totally different day.

• 9:19Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And I think if I'm right, the Eastern Orthodox Church, they kind of celebrate it a little bit later as well, the 19th, because they have Christmas Day on the 6th of January, but they celebrate it on the 19th and they consider it the commemoration of the baptism of Jesus. So lots of the Eastern Orthodox Church festivals relate to water, to water in the home, water for people, blessing of houses and blessings of people. So it means slightly different things in different bits of the church too as well, which is not unusual. The church is not very good at deciding what things definitely mean.

• 9:47Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And I think that there is also always a delight to have a differentiation between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, I mean, which we see in Easter, especially with the movable feasts, those can really skip around the shop. But yeah, Christmas is absolutely one of those things. But I also am really interested in some of the local traditions that crop up around this because Matt, have you heard of Women's Christmas?

• 10:07Matt Lewis?

  No. Why do women get their own Christmas? I'm going to be all manly about this. How can women get their own Christmas?

• 10:13Eleanor Janega?

  Well, because I'm worth it. That's the answer. But this is a big thing, particularly a big in Irish culture. So shout out to all of my aunties and, you know, a little more commonly in kind of Western Ireland more particularly. But the idea of Women's Christmas is latching on to the topsy-turvy things that are sometimes traditional at Christmas. And the idea is that Women's Christmas would be a day when the men would do the dishes or look after the kids or maybe make dinner.

• 10:42Matt Lewis?

  Whoa, whoa, for a whole day in the year?

• 10:44Eleanor Janega?

  A whole day. I mean, if you can imagine. Also, sometimes people would say, oh, it's called Women's Christmas because you sort of also change up the food. That you would eat. So whereas you might be expecting to see on Christmas Day, things traditionally like beef or pork products, that sort of thing. For Women's Christmas, you might have a goose, so more poultry things, things that are associated with the feminine poultry. You know, birds are all women, duh, obviously. You would see that come up. And also, you know, there's a little bit more of an emphasis on cakes or sweets and these sort of things. So Victorians would kind of explain it thusly. But now Women's Christmas, a lot of time, it means the Girls Go Down pub,

• 11:26Eleanor Janega?

  which I think we could all get together and celebrate. I think it's a really beautiful tradition.

• 11:32Matt Lewis?

  What pub are you going to be in on Women's Christmas?

• 11:34Eleanor Janega?

  Unfortunately, I don't think that I'm even going to be in the UK. So I'm stymied. I'm going to be in a conference working. Can you imagine?

• 11:40Matt Lewis?

  Oh, there's got to be a bar somewhere nearby.

• 11:43Eleanor Janega?

  Catch a girl in the hotel bar.

• 11:44Matt Lewis?

  Fair plan. I did read one, so I was looking around about Epiphany traditions. And I did read one and I couldn't quite work out how far back it goes. It seems to suggest it's medieval. But it used to be that you chalk the doors on your house. So, and it says the pattern goes, you do the first two numbers of the year. So we do 20. And then you do across a C, across an M, across a B, across, and then the last digits of the year. And the idea was that that C, M and B either, because the church isn't great at telling you exactly what things mean, either stands for the names of the three magi, so Casper, Melchior and Balthazar, or it's part of a blessing, a Latin version of may Christ bless this house kind of thing. So.

• 12:26Matt Lewis?

  And that seems like a quite a nice, you know, marking the moment and inviting Jesus into your house on his birthday to bless you.

• 12:34Eleanor Janega?

  This is a really big, still in a lot of Catholic cultures as well. Oftentimes you will see this if you go places like, for example, it's around a lot in Vienna. If you go to Austria, you'll see this over people's doors a lot. Or here in England, if you go to Walsingham, which is a really big kind of Catholic town. In a normal way, I go to Walsingham to see the cool medieval things and take pictures of adorable little medieval little houses. And I noticed so many of those having, being up. But yeah, I think that's a great little Epiphany. Tradition, I get really excited when I see those.

• 13:06Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen one.

• 13:08Eleanor Janega?

  Really?

• 13:08Matt Lewis?

  And I obviously need to go somewhere where I can see them.

• 13:10Eleanor Janega?

  You know, you need to show up in Bavaria or something like that. You need to find like a Catholic hotbed. I think because this is still going on. I think that it's interesting because there are so many Epiphany traditions that are still kind of hanging around. But we've just sort of discarded it completely. You know, everyone's back at work and frowning.

• 13:30Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I think that's it. We have so much focus on the 25th and 26th of December now. And then, like you say, we don't have that kind of 12 days of not much work to do. So nothing better to do than go down the pub every day. Whereas medieval people were building up towards Epiphany. We're all back at work and it's Christmas is forgotten and we're all grumbling about how long it is till January payday now.

• 13:49Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, you know what? I firmly believe that we should bring back Women's Christmas at the very least because A, good excuse to go out to the pub and B, you know, our pubs need us more than ever in January. A pub is for life, not just for Christmas, Matt.

• 14:03Matt Lewis?

  Do your bit for the economy and have a Women's Christmas.

• 14:05Eleanor Janega?

  That's all right. So what are some of your favorite weird Christmas traditions, Matt?

• 14:09Matt Lewis?

  I'm just going to go in hard on the weirdest one that I found.

• 14:13Eleanor Janega?

  Okay.

• 14:13Matt Lewis?

  Mallard Night, which doesn't seem to have too much to do with Christmas, except that it's celebrated on the 14th of January and is related to all of this. So apparently this is a tradition that goes on at All Souls College in Oxford, which is one of the most prestigious colleges at Oxford. They don't have any students at All Souls. They only admit fellows. The people at All Souls College are some of the brightest minds in Britain. But every year, they celebrate the discovery of a mallard in a drain and it's a cause for a big party. And the first year of every century, so last in 2001, before that, 1901, 1801,

• 14:52Matt Lewis?

  they have a humongous feast and they put on this big display where they all chase a mallard around the quad, carrying a guy who is designated as Lord Mallard in a sedan chair.

• 15:06Matt Lewis?

  While he kind of whoops and calls for them to do more laps until they can't carry him anymore. And apparently until 1901, before that, it was a live mallard that they used to chase. In 1901, they changed it to a dead stuffed one. And in 2001, they replaced it with a wooden carving on the end of a pole that they now chase around the quad at All Souls College.

• 15:28Eleanor Janega?

  Normal.

• 15:30Matt Lewis?

  Absolutely. I mean, you know, who are we to question some of the finest minds in Britain and what they do in their spare time over Christmas? But apparently this comes from the foundation of All Souls College when Henry Chitcheley, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in 1437, wanted to found a college, didn't know where to put it. And he apparently received a vision that told him that he needed to situate this on the high street on one of the corners. And if you went down there, he would find a mallard in a drain that was trapped. And that should be the location on which he would site his college. And apparently, true to form, Henry Chitcheley went down the high street of Oxford, found on the corner of Cat Street, and he found,

• 16:13Matt Lewis?

  now I assume this word is a medieval word for like whopping incredibly large. But I think we should bring it back because the manuscript describes him finding a schwopping mallard

• 16:25Matt Lewis?

  that was stuck in the sewer. And this was supposed to be a sign that the college would thrive if Henry Chitcheley built it on this location. So every year since 1437, they celebrate this. All Souls Crest involves a mallard. Apparently if you go there, I haven't been there, apparently if you go there, there are carvings and pictures of mallards all over the college. According to one thing that I read, I don't know how true it is. They have a landline telephone in the shape of a mallard. So if you phone them, they answer the mallard.

• 16:54Eleanor Janega?

  Now I want a mallard phone. That's not fair.

• 16:57Matt Lewis?

  And they have this song that they sing while they celebrate mallard night about how wonderful mallards are and how they're the greatest birds that history has ever known.

• 17:06Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, everything about this is delightfully bonkers and harmless, I would argue. So that's great. But can we talk about the specificity of this vision? I mean, just getting beamed that there's a mallard in the drain somewhere is.

• 17:21Matt Lewis?

  I mean, it's the oddest thing to wake up and claim you've had as a vision. You know, Christ came to me in the night, an angel visited me in my sleep and told me I'd find a duck.

• 17:29Eleanor Janega?

  And then not only Christ is like, hold the phone, we gotta get the duck message out there, A. And B, once he finds the duck, that's how you know this college is about to be good. Like, what is the link between finding a duck and really good institution of learning?

• 17:48Matt Lewis?

  I have no idea. I literally, I found this and I assumed it was a joke. But the more I've read, it's very clearly the entire basis for the existence of All Souls College.

• 17:59Eleanor Janega?

  You know, good for them, frankly. A little bit more silliness out of Oxford is never a bad thing, I think. A little less frown and a little more chasing a duck on a stick around. That's what I say.

• 18:11Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, the song is bonkers that they sing. And it's got one, two, three, four, five, six verses of the song that they sing while they parade the duck around. If anyone at All Souls is listening, I'm sorry, we're not really laughing at you.

• 18:23Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, if anyone at All Souls is listening, we're asking for an invite. That's what's happening. So, you know, keep that under your hat, as it were. But I think that these things are always quite nice. You know, I like any weird tradition like that that is still happening in whatever guise. But I have to be honest with you, Matt, I don't quite get it. But maybe that makes it better. Maybe that's better, right?

• 18:48Matt Lewis?

  Does it have to have a meaning?

• 18:50Eleanor Janega?

  Do you know, meaning is something that humans simply ascribe after the fact. That's okay. Okay, that's a harmless tradition. I guess I've come up with another slightly more harmful one, which is the football, Matt, the football.

• 19:03Matt Lewis?

  I mean, today, Christmas and football is fairly synonymous. You know, I'm a Wolves fan for my. Many sins and we are playing on Christmas Eve this year. We've been lumbered with a Christmas Eve fixture for the first time in decades, which everybody is deeply unhappy about. But we're well versed in the kind of Boxing Day football fixtures. So we're used to associating Christmas and football, I think. But maybe not the same kind of football as the medieval world did.

• 19:27Eleanor Janega?

  Yes, you're bang on there in that medieval football. Well, it seems to be a bit more of a wrestling match in which a ball is present.

• 19:38Matt Lewis?

  I got a strong feeling that medieval football is basically a middle age equivalent of the purge. One day of completely allowable violence. You can do whatever you want. Claim that it's part of a football match. And, you know, just get it out of your system in a day.

• 19:54Eleanor Janega?

  Well, interestingly, we have a kind of Oxbridge connection here, you know, so Mallard Night is gentle. But one of the big things that used to happen is for football games at both Oxford and Cambridge. They would turn the teams into sort of the town and the gown. So it was an opportunity for everyone in the town who was annoyed by the students who were always unruly to essentially beat them up if they felt like it. Of course, vice versa also is true. But I suppose I should step back and kind of explain slightly a bit about what we understand the football rules to have been. Which is that somewhere in a town, and it usually takes place in a town quite often on a high street. You kind of establish where two goals are.

• 20:37Eleanor Janega?

  And it might just be the windows of varying buildings. Or it might be that you need to get things on to a church stoop or things of this nature. And essentially the rules are that you can get the ball there by any means, provided that it does not result in murder or manslaughter.

• 20:56Matt Lewis?

  And I mean, you know, rules are forbidden.

• 20:59Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, rather, a lot of manslaughter happens. A lot of what we know about medieval football comes from the fact that people just end up dead all the time, and then it gets related to the town constables and that sort of things. And, you know, we have references to football being played, at least from Bede. So the venerable Bede in the eighth century wrote about the fact that people were playing ball in one of his books, which is De Temporum Racione. So we know that certainly this is kind of around the shop. We also know that in Wales in the ninth century, from the Historia Britnorum, we have references to groups of boys playing ball. So we know that this is kind of out and about in the shops.

• 21:41Eleanor Janega?

  And now it still continues to happen here in the UK, especially up in Scotland, where it is, of course, just called the Fitma. And it does continue also in a lot of different places, oftentimes for Shrovetide or Pentecost. It'll happen around Easter quite often, but we keep these religious days or these religious festivals as the hallmark of this particular medieval football. You know, people played football on the continent as well. I'm not saying that they don't, but these particular rituals around it do seem to be quite British in a number of ways.

• 22:16Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, and I think when you understand exactly what medieval football was, it maybe makes more sense that some monarchs were quite keen to ban it. We often hear about, you know, football was banned as the most outrageous thing, and essentially they're trying to stop you having fun. But medieval football wasn't necessarily all that much fun, especially if you were on the receiving end.

• 22:46Matt Lewis?

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• 23:30Matt Lewis?

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• 24:12Matt Lewis?

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• 25:51Eleanor Janega?

  Quite funny because it seems to be one of these tests, to a certain extent, of what are the limitations of varying social stripes? So, for example, in London, when they played football, we have a description that comes from the 12th century, from the "descriptio nobilissimi civitatis lundione." There you go. And they say that after lunch, all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ballgame. The students of each school have their own ball. The workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls, so that will be people from the varying guilds. Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors competing and to relive their own youth vicariously.

• 26:35Matt Lewis?

  So even then, you had the dads on the sideline, you know, giving their temp and it's worth, yeah.

• 26:40Eleanor Janega?

  You can see that their inner passions are aroused as they watch the action and get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents. Now, having said that, the carefree adolescents are absolutely beating each other up. It's a free-for-all. They've all got their ball, and they're trying to get it over to a varying guild house or a varying school in order to score these points. So it's... Part wrestling, part ball game. And there is some evidence which says that they are supposed to be kind of like kicking the ball as opposed to carrying it. But some versions, we do know, involve kind of carrying it. But there are certain things where, for example, chaucer refers to balls being kicked under feet and things like that. So we do think that perhaps it is

• 27:23Eleanor Janega?

  a little bit like our football today. I mean, if our football today was massively violent and involved the entire town.

• 27:30Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I'd imagine there was less kind of dramatic faking of injuries in medieval football, because it really, really would have hurt if somebody just wanted to catch you on across the face.

• 27:40Eleanor Janega?

  Can you imagine how that would go down? Like, yeah, you got hurt. That's the point, you know? And it's much more about showing that one is a hard man, I suppose. So it's funny, because we do think that there is some kicking involved. But for the most part, it is a bit more like, I don't know, I suppose rugby if there were no rules.

• 27:56Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, there's several times it gets banned. Edward III banned it. Richard II banned it. James III of Scotland banned it. And the first record that I could find of what sounds like a modern game of football comes from the 15th century. So Henry VI kind of reign, and this is in Nottinghamshire. Amongst the manuscripts, it was a set of manuscripts that were compiled later in the century around the miracles of Henry VI to prove how great he was. Weird that they include the rules of football in trying to make Henry VI the saint. But this account kind of says, this was, describes it as exclusively a kicking game. So as you mentioned, other things talk about potentially carrying the ball, throwing it, sometimes hitting it with a stick. So a little bit like hockey, maybe. But this

• 28:38Matt Lewis?

  is the first time that calls it an exclusively kicking game. It has the first description of dribbling. So it says, the game at which they had met for for common recreation is called by some the football game. It is one in which young men in country sport propel a huge ball, not by throwing it into the air, but by striking it and rolling it along the ground. And that not with their hands, but with their feet, kicking in opposite directions. So it kind of gives us the rough layout of a football pitch. It says the boundaries have been marked and the game was started. So we have the kind of the beginnings there of a football pitch and football games being played to what we might equate to more modern football rules as early as kind of 500 years ago.

• 29:20Eleanor Janega?

  And I think that that's quite interesting because it's so omnipresent, I think, in all of our lives now, football, that I think there is this sort of association with it. Everyone assumes, oh, yeah, it's an old game. We've been playing it for all this time. But, you know, when we look at these quite old references to it, it does just seem like this is the purge. It's just an excuse to punch a student, which, you know, God bless them. I'm glad they're having a nice time. But it is interesting that over the course of a couple hundred years, you do see something that starts to resemble what we think of as football.

• 29:53Matt Lewis?

  And it's strange how it morphs so that by the time we get to the Victorian era, it's this idea of almost a gentleman's game with very strict rules, and it's almost become a non-contact sport. It's so far removed from what it used to be. And I think sometimes we have this vision of football only starting in the mid 19th century because we don't associate it with this long birth from this violent sport that starts off as absolute chaos, but does become slowly refined through the medieval period. So by the time we get to the 15th century, it has rules that we would recognize as football today.

• 30:26Eleanor Janega?

  And I think that this is an important lesson because people tend to think that inventions or social practices kind of leap into the world fully formed. It's football and everyone knows the rules and we have established that there are goals here and there and you can't touch it with your hands. You know, no, this is something that gets refined and that people put forward over a period of time until you get down to just a game. And, you know, I suppose this also reflects social attitudes changing more generally because maybe people dying eventually was considered a bit much. Perhaps it was considered less acceptable to just beat up the members of a guild if you didn't like them, you know? And there's this sort of winnowing down process of saying, all right, well, let's

• 31:09Eleanor Janega?

  turn this into just a game as opposed to a brawl that we are legitimizing through saying the word game.

• 31:18Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. Although I think to some extent it plays into that idea that medieval people were aware that especially young men could have a lot of pent up energy and aggression that it's best to let them get out. You know, if they're not going fighting in France somewhere, let's just let them play football and beat each other up for the day.

• 31:34Eleanor Janega?

  It's a great way to get the young men out of your hair and perhaps on top of each other. But you know, it is interesting how many young men die as a result of it. There are people who, in the 13th century, we have records of a young man dying in Northumberland because he quote unquote ran into an opposing player's dagger, which is an interesting way of putting it. You know, it sounds like fighting with your younger siblings and saying, I'm just gonna kick the air.

• 31:57Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, it's like Bart Simpson standing in the doorway, isn't it? And flailing his arms, like, I'm just standing here doing this. If you run into my fist, it's your fault. I'm just running around the football pitch with a knife out. You know, if you get stabbed, whose fault is it?

• 32:08Eleanor Janega?

  And hilariously, the reason why the fact that this story with this young man dying because he ran into a knife is considered noteworthy is because it talks about kicking the ball in it somewhere as well. And everyone goes, oh, there you go. It's a reference from 1280 and we know that they were kicking the ball. You know, the death isn't the notable thing here. The death is the reference to some people kicking the balls far over the fields. And that's why everyone went, oh, wow.

• 32:33Matt Lewis?

  I sometimes wonder if historians have slightly odd priorities.

• 32:37Eleanor Janega?

  Not me, no, surely.

• 32:39Matt Lewis?

  No, no, not us. No, obviously not.

• 32:40Eleanor Janega?

  No, never.

• 32:42Matt Lewis?

  Shall we move on to another one that I wanted to mention?

• 32:44Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yes. Do. Hit me, Matt.

• 32:46Matt Lewis?

  I mean, I could. I could hit you literally with a Yule log. I was gonna talk about Yule logs next.

• 32:50Eleanor Janega?

  Ayy.

• 32:51Matt Lewis?

  Because there's something else we still associate with Christmas today. There's a reason that lots of our Christmas cakes look like logs. There's a reason we talk about the Yule log. I mean, it's probably a pagan tradition as much as it's a medieval Christmas tradition. But it's another fascinating one to chart how it becomes absorbed into what we think about a Christian Christmas. And essentially, it's more of a Northern European thing, so much more Norse, I guess. It's almost a Viking tradition and plays into the More of a preoccupation in the north of Europe with Christmas than Easter. So I think Easter is the main festival in the south of Europe, mainly in Italy and all that kind of thing. As you get further north, there's more of an emphasis on Christmas, perhaps because winter is harder and worse and more difficult to endure.

• 33:36Matt Lewis?

  And the Yule log is an interesting one. The bit I love about it the most is that obviously the idea is you start your Christmas fire with last year's Yule log. It's a lovely idea there of continuity and all of that kind of thing. But then you get your next Yule log, which could be a whole tree. And you drag it into the house and you prompt the end of it in the fire and then you slowly feed it in as it burns. So you've got the rest of this tree across your living room while one end of it is on fire. I mean, if health and safety ever saw this, we think the Victorians were nuts for putting live candles on Christmas trees and the fire hazard that that was. Medieval folk go one better. They just literally set fire to the tree in their house. It seems like madness.

• 34:14Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, it's warm.

• 34:16Matt Lewis?

  Do you want it that warm?

• 34:18Eleanor Janega?

  Seems a little warm. Seems a little overzealous.

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• 35:52Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, I know also that by the time we get to kind of the 17th century, there's also an attendant tradition, especially in England, of having Christmas candles as well. And you get two really big candles, maybe coloured, if your budget can stretch to that. And the youngest person in the family or the household takes the candles and lights them on the yule log. Then you pop those on the table and they're not allowed to be blown out until they burnt out. So there's rather a lot of introducing fire that shouldn't be extinguished to varying parts of the house, which, you know, it's interesting as a choice, I would say.

• 36:33Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And it's almost like a dangerous, extreme version of the advent candle that we might have today, where, you know, the idea is you keep it burning throughout the period, but you have to also judge it so that you keep enough of your yule log to store for next year, because next year you've got to light your next yule fire with that yule log. But it's interesting that it plays into this whole idea of bringing kind of greenery into the house, of perhaps new life coming from old, things being reborn. That's what you're hoping for by the time you get to December in the middle of winter. You're hoping to look forward to spring and new birth and things coming again. There's an idea there of continuity. So last year's fire is starting this year's fire to keep your family warm. There's that kind of bringing nature into the home.

• 37:16Matt Lewis?

  You know, we talk a lot today about having, you know, bringing the garden into the house. They're going one step further. They're just dragging a tree and then setting fire to it in the house. And I guess also you've got, you know, just the importance of fire. This is the thing that is going to see you through the winter. It's going to keep you warm. It's going to cook your food. If you don't have fire, you're in real trouble. So I think there's lots going on with the yule log that when we're eating our cake, we're maybe not associating it with the millennia of history that are behind the tradition.

• 37:41Eleanor Janega?

  And it's quite interesting because in the year, the yule log often also has a role in that you take that bit of the yule log that you're going to light next year, and you often put it under the bed of the head of the household. And the idea there is that it's supposed to ward off fire. And also lightning strikes.

• 38:00Matt Lewis?

  It's not the thing in medieval magic, isn't it? The idea that burnt wood fends off fire, that it can't be burnt again. But you're going to use this log to relight the fire next year. It's strange.

• 38:09Eleanor Janega?

  You know, it's like putting gargoyles on buildings. So you put the monster on the building and then it scares off other monsters. I think is the same idea. It's this kind of apoportray, easy for me to say, property in which you take the thing that's frightening and you somehow master it. And, you know, you can understand why they might be a bit wary of fire, being as they're just burning whole logs in the house sometime, I guess. Guys, I've got some news for you about what I think might be causing some of those fires. I don't know.

• 38:38Matt Lewis?

  Particularly when you're in a wooden house, having a permanently burning tree strewn through the front door seems like a risk.

• 38:46Eleanor Janega?

  You know, I'm a little too risk averse for the Yule log that far. But, you know, if you want to present me with one of those Boush de Noel cakes, I'm very excited about that.

• 38:55Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, anytime you can turn a tradition into a cake, I'm all for it.

• 38:58Eleanor Janega?

  I've got a final tradition for you, Matt. A little less fire, but a bit of, I would say, rabble rousing, which is mummers and mumming, just a fun thing to say in the first place. Do you know from whence this comes?

• 39:11Matt Lewis?

  I do not know. Tell me more.

• 39:13Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so mumming is quite fun because we know that we have references to mumming from at least the 13th century. So 1296 is the first time we have something written about it. And it comes from Edward the First's daughter's wedding, which happened at Christmas. And we know that they had mummers of the court and fiddlers and minstrels in order to celebrate this. So these were just kind of a part of the revels, both for the wedding and for Christmas more generally. Mumming in this context, we think, sort of refers to as a mask or a masquerade. But mumming also seems just very, very specifically within this have meant playing dice.

• 39:56Eleanor Janega?

  And what you would do is you would dress up in a costume to kind of obscure your identity. And then you would play dice with the host for a number of jewels that he's sort of set aside specifically for this. And so you'd say, this is kind of like the purse that the house is putting out. And Christmas is traditionally one of those times when lords and kings and people were supposed to open their homes. So you know, you would kind of have the serfs round for dinner, that kind of thing. Say, hey, thanks for making all this possible. Let me feed you your own food, you know, back to you, that sort of thing. But this is kind of going one step further. And now ordinarily for mumming at this level, you're going to be talking about members of the court more commonly.

• 40:41Eleanor Janega?

  You know, they're not going to let a peasant come in and play dice for some jewels. But we know, for example, that in 1377, there were 130 men who showed up mumming on horseback for a ceremony that Richard II held. So pretty intense mumming. But this then eventually shifts a little bit. And mumming often sometimes involves plays more specifically. And so we also have this term now called a mummers play. And a mummers play then also specifically involves a plot line in which somebody dies, and then they are brought back to life. So again, you have people who dress up in these ridiculous costumes. And so maybe one of

• 41:25Eleanor Janega?

  the things they do is they come into a house, they put on like a silly little play, someone comes back to life, hooray, and then they're kind of rewarded with the ability to gamble for their services, which is great.

• 41:37Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I think the play is what I associate mumming with, I guess. I wasn't aware of all of that origin story behind it, which seems very much like managed generosity. Now, you can come into my house and you can gamble and have some fun and you can win some stuff. The house is putting up a stake here, but it's very limited, you know. When the jewels are gone, the fun is over.

• 41:56Eleanor Janega?

  Exactly, and these mummers plays then eventually spill out into the normal world. And so you'll kind of have festival plays and this sort of thing that just happen out in the marketplace. There's a very famous Czech one from the 14th and 15th century, which is called Mastička or the Ointment Seller. And somebody dies and basically it's like there's a quack ointment seller who brings them back to life using varying ointments and things like that. And, you know, it's very slapstick. It involves a lot of farting and it's like, this is really excellent, highfalutin medieval humour. But at the same time, you know, it reminds me a lot of what we do now with like the panto, right?

• 42:39Eleanor Janega?

  You put on a big over the top play and everyone shouts, it's behind you. And there's a lot of audience interaction. So we definitely know that plays of this type are happening specifically at Christmas. It's just that you might also be allowed to gamble afterwards.

• 42:54Matt Lewis?

  Why not, you know, gamble responsibly. Do you reckon we can connect that in any way with the idea of like the boy bishop at Christmas? This idea that people dressed up and moved outside their normal social spheres and wore masks and behaved like other people. Cause the boy bishop is another interesting odd tradition. It's all about turning things upside down and playing on the topsy turvy nature of Christmas.

• 43:15Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I think absolutely, you know, we see this with mumming, you know, the same thing with women's Christmas. And it's a really longstanding tradition for Western winter festivals to do this. So for example, you know, the Romans, they have Saturnalia. And with that, you know, the slaves get to be master of the house for the day. So, you know, this seems to be, I think, in a really rigid world, in a world that has these very, very clear delineations between the varying classes and the varying orders of society. For them, the ridiculousness of inversion is just high comedy. And it does remind me a bit of, you know, when you see, for example, in the Victorian era, the sort of

• 43:56Eleanor Janega?

  Fantasy that you see in things like, I don't know, Alice of Wonderland, where you have a really rigid society. So they say, oh, you know, it would be funny if things were just like a giant hallucination the whole time. And there were no rules. It just tells us a lot about where the boundaries are. Because when they really cut loose, they're like, oh, what if things were the other way? What if the ladies didn't cook? You know, like, what if you could go into the house and win things from the Lord? Not the Lord taking things from you, you know, it's hilarious.

• 44:27Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I think the boy bishop one always, I find strange in that it plays in the idea that the importance of children in the kingdom of heaven. But also the idea that, you know, those roles, those societal structures, however rigid can be reversed. The meek shall inherit the earth, but they'll only inherit it for one day. Don't get carried away. Remember your place tomorrow. Have some fun today, but you know, it's over then.

• 44:49Eleanor Janega?

  And this is absolutely true, you know, it reinforces these ideas. A temporary inversion allows you to just say, but those rules are in place for a reason and we let you off. So yeah, the boy was bishop, come on, it's okay. Now, listen to the church again, everybody, there you go, that was your day off.

• 45:04Matt Lewis?

  It's like the one day of football, isn't it? You know, there's your chance to get all your physical stuff out of your system. Here's your chance to get all of your republicanism or your kind of communism out of your system. And then tomorrow we go back to the way things really should be. You all behave yourselves and you know your place.

• 45:20Eleanor Janega?

  We understand members of the town that students are really annoying. Well, once a year you can punch them in the face.

• 45:25Matt Lewis?

  So we've got a purge for physical crimes and we've also got a purge for societal crimes with the boy bishop and mumming and things like that. Interesting that that's what they're concerned about. You're allowed this little window, but it is almost like those at the top recognize the frustration that must exist. And they do recognize the unfairness in the system because they're willing for one day to overturn it and be like, you know, what if?

• 45:48Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and I think that also there is with that, what if? What is quite interesting is that they say, and look, it's chaos. If you let, you know, the slave is the master and the mummers are in the house gambling. And, you know, the women didn't cook dinner. It's like, oh, and it's just so chaotic that this could never be. Anything other than a one-off laugh. And so it puts it back into the realm of safety. You know, it's supposed to also explain why this can be for one night only.

• 46:18Matt Lewis?

  How would you feel about being at a medieval Christmas with all of this stuff going on? Is that something, somewhere you'd like to be?

• 46:23Eleanor Janega?

  I think that I would, actually, because I think that this is one of the times of year that you can sort of find out the most about who medieval people really are at their core. If they are sitting around trying to subvert things, then it tells you what's kind of going on in their heads. This is some real deep level psyche stuff. So for me, you know, that's absolute gold dust, right? You know, I want to see them drag a tree into the house and then go punch their neighbor and then go, hmm, very interesting.

• 46:51Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, that's all very deep. I was just thinking it'd be nice to have 12 days off work and a big party, but.

• 46:54Eleanor Janega?

  Bring that back. You know, this is one of my most old fashioned opinions is that we need to bring back 12 days of Christmas. Absolutely. And speaking of, everyone here should go have a drink, not punch your neighbor, probably, but relax into the festive season. So all that remains is for me to thank you so much for being here, Matt.

• 47:14Matt Lewis?

  Thank you very, very much for having me on a Tuesday at the beginning of the week. Absolutely fantastic to be here.

• 47:18Eleanor Janega?

  We hope you enjoyed this dive into the wonderful world of medieval Christmas. Thanks to Matt for stopping by to see me and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit.

• 47:29Eleanor Janega?

  Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. If you want to spend a bit more time with me this festive season and are looking for something celebratory, why not check out my series on medieval pleasures? Remember, you can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family about us. If you have a moment, please also, could you drop us a review or rate us wherever you get your podcasts? It really does help new listeners to find us. Matt is back on Friday welcoming in a new year with a brand new episode.

• 48:14Eleanor Janega?

  But for now, Matt and I and all the Gone Medieval team hope that you are having a restorative festive break. And we wish you all a sparkling happy new year.

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