The Social Life and Customs of the Average Farmer During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... Holidays and Festivals. According to Holinshed important holidays and festivals had been reduced to 27 a year by this time, but besides these the farmer alsosome special festivals. Some of the most important holidays and festivals, and which had strange customs connected with them were: New Year, Twelfth tide, Plow Monday, Candlemas, Shrove tide, May day, Whitsun-tide, Sheep-shearing, Wakes and Fairs, Harvest-home, Hallowmas, Martleraas, Seed cake and Christmas. New Year seems to have been a time for merriment, and especially a time for giving presents tather than Christmas. In Nicholas' Progress of Queen Elizabeth, we often find a long list of the New Year's presents of the Queen. According to Thynne this custom came from (2) Rome. Mumming, a sort of masquerade where boys and See also: Merry Wives, III, 5. (2; F. Thynne, 1604, p. 1. E.E.T. Soc. girls exchange clothes, was carried on at Christmas, and they went about from house to house with a bowl of ale, and got some presents in return. Burton approves of this practice but Northbrook1' condemns it. Twelfth tide was originally a festival in honor of the Eastern Magi, and was supposed to end the Christmas festivities, but was now also celebrated in honor of the coming crops. Twelfth cake and wassail bowl and the choosing of King and Queen as amusements belonged to this feast. In Father Hubbard's Tales2' a character complains that they could not choose King and Cueen at Twelfth tide. Herrick who comes a little later explains the feast: "Now the mirth comes with cake full of plums, Choose King and Queen, next crown bowl full with gentle lambs wool (ale) and add sugar, nutmeg and ginger."/ "Plow Monday next after Twelfth tide is past. If plowman get hatchet or whip to the skreen, Maids loseth their...