A history of Valentine's Day

Even when single, I've never really minded Valentine's Day that much (I quite enjoy it in fact - you get all sorts of two-for-one deals on love hearts, and they are the best sweet ever) and that is mostly for one main reason: the original Valentine's Feast Day was to celebrate the Valentines (there were at least three) who were early Christians murdered for their beliefs by the Romans, which is possibly the least romantic thing I've ever heard. So anyone who tries to tell you some myth about how Valentine was a spurned lover who wrote a card to the daughter of the jailer who was imprisoning him for...something (I don't know, these myths aren't always very well written...) and this signifies the old adage that 'love conquers all, even death' and this signifies...er...something, is a liar.

Or, you know, something. One has to be a little bit bitter, after all. Keeping up appearances, and everything.

Anyway, despite these rather gruesome beginnings, St. Valentine's Day did eventually become associated with romantic love in the 14th century, when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem commemorating the engagement of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia (fun fact: they got married when they were both just 15 years old). A century later, in 1415, the first Valentine's card was sent, by Charles, duc d'Orleans, to his wife whilst he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. One hopes it was a good message, because he was to be kept captive for a further 24 years, and by the time he was released, his wife had died (so, naturally, he married again, as soon as he was set free). 

Cards became more and more popular in the following centuries - in the 16th, it was popular to send your lover a handmade card decorated with cupids, hearts and bows; in the 18th, one could begin to buy into the commercialized Valentine's Day, either by sending a lover one of the first printed cards or by transcribing a verse from Valentine Writers - a book of standard rhymes and greetings (how awkward would it be if you and your paramour sent each other the same poem, whilst hoping to convince each other that you were being original?); and by the 19th century, postmen were claiming a special allowance for their extra loads on the day. Also in the 19th century came the first mechanical Valentine's cards, my favourite of which had a figure that rolled it's eyes and stuck out its tongue when opened.

Today's traditional red rose first became part of the day's celebrations in 18th century France, with people imitating the love tokens given to Marie Antoinette by King Louis XVI. Coincidentally, red was also the colour their clothes became stained when their heads were chopped off by the French people in 1791.

Love hearts were invented in 1933, produced in a factory in Star Lane, in London, though they had to move out during the Blitz. They relocated to a disused mill in Darbyshire where they remain in production to this day.

Thank God. 

Christmas Traditions

So where do all our modern Christmas traditions come from? Cards, trees, crackers - when did they become a staple of Christmas? For most of them, we can blame the Victorians. Victorian Britain was the superpower of the nineteenth century - France was still recovering from the Revolution and Napoleonic Conflicts; Russia were (mostly) content to keep themselves to themselves; the Prussian states did not start to become dominant until the latter half of the century and the Hapsburg Empire, consisting of Austria, Hungary and the other Eastern European countries, did not have the superior naval power of the British, which meant that they were unable to conquer other countries. 

It was this that gave the British their edge. The new Empire, consisting mostly of African and Asian countries, meant that a number of people became very, very rich, and a new middle class sprung up, of people who benefited indirectly from the wealth which inevitably comes to some when countries are taken over and money is redistributed (usually away from those who need it most and towards those who need it least).

Obviously, there were massive inequalities in Britain still - as well as the "underclass" made up of the natives of the various colonized countries, there were still some very poor people living in Britain itself - both in rural areas and in the back to back housing of inner cities. The middle and upper classes, therefore, wanted to distance themselves from these people, buy spending as much money as possible in the most obvious ways, and (rather sadly, I think) it is from this that we get most of our Christmas traditions today.

Christmas Trees:
Most people know the "story" of how Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree to the British when he married Queen Victoria and came over from Germany, but this isn't entirely true. Trees had been a staple part of the Christmas celebrations in the Hapsburg Empire since as early as 1605, but actually arrived in Britain before 1840, as most people believe. Queen Victoria saw Christmas trees displayed at Kensington Palace in 1832, before she in fact became Queen, and in 1800, Queen Charlotte, the German born wife of George III had a tree put up for the Christmas Day party she hosted at Windsor.  

 

Christmas Decorations:

Electric lights for Christmas trees were invented in America, rather than Britain, in 1882, by Edward H. Johnson, who was a close friend of Thomas Edison (who had invented the light bulb three years earlier). Earlier in the century, candles had been hung on the trees, in protective metal casing to prevent things celebrations getting too heated, literally. Tinsel was imported from Germany, and trees were also decorated with glass baubles, ornaments made of silver wire, strings of beads and crocheted snowflakes, stars and angels. As ever, size was deemed the most important thing in the celebration, and anyone who was anyone made sure that their tree was large enough to have both ornamental decorations and gifts hanging from it. Gifts were also stacked under the tree, of course having been delivered by...

Father Christmas:

The tradition of hanging up a stocking came from Holland, and began in the seventeenth century, on 5 December, when children would fill their shoes with food for both St. Nicholas (whose night they were celebrating) and his horses. In return, Nick would fill their shoes with gifts (or coal, if you'd been really bad) and the tradition of Sinterklaas was born. It really took off in nineteenth century America, then back in Britain, where Santa Claus was established as a kindly, bearded old man bearing a sack of presents. Interestingly, Father Christmas was originally dressed in green, but became red in the 1930s, after a strong advertising campaign from a certain soft drinks company. 

Thomas Nast's famous 1863 portrait of Santa Claus

Christmas Cards:

Christmas cards were the brainchild of Sir Henry Cole in 1843, who was said to be inspired by the Christmas Pieces children would write at school and take home for their parents. He used a design by J.C. Horsley, which depicted a family at Christmastime, and had a banner underneath which read 'A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you'. Only about a thousand cards were sold in the first year, but by 1880, the volume of cards was so great that the post office had to ask people to post early for Christmas. 
 

Other Traditions:
 

Crackers (as in the ones you have at the beginning of a 3294023 course Christmas meal, rather than at the end) were invented by Tom Smith in the mid nineteenth century. He was a confectioner who had the bright idea that he could sell his sweets for two or three times the price if they were rapped in a twist of brightly coloured paper, which also contained a printed riddle. It is said that he was inspired to add the 'bang' after sitting in front of a crackling fire. In the words of his advertisement for them, they 'combine art with amusement and fun with refinement', which doesn't explain at all who's daft idea it was to put those annoying hats in, which only end up confusing me...
 

The Queen's speech originated in 1932, and was the King's sech then - broadcast by George V to the people of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
 

Brussels sprouts are an abomination and should not be considered a Christmas tradition at all. 

The Christmas...Orgy?!

Sometimes, when I'm writing these little bloggy things, I have to check what day it is because I'm a bit disorganized, and enjoy asking Mr. Google questions. In December, however, this is not an issue at all, because I have an advent calender, which tells me the day and gives me chocolate. If this was the only thing that made Christmas a special holiday, I'd still love it... So, in honour of my feeling particularly festive as a result of having a little piece of chocolate to eat (God, I'm easy to please...), here is part one of a History of Christmas:

300 years Before Christ, or Before the Common Era if you'd prefer, if you happened to be in Persia towards the end of December you would find the people dancing around bonfires, paying homage to Mithras, God of light and guardian against evil. This festival was absorbed into the Roman Empire, becoming Dies Natali Invicti Solis, or the birthday of the unconquered Sun and later the festival of Saturnalia.

Saturnalia actually sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. As you may have guessed, it was both named after and a celebration of the Roman God Saturn, who was the God of Plenty. Festivities began around the solstice, and lasted seven days. To participate, you would have had to partake in the usual excess drinking and eating we have come to associate with Christmas, but the Romans had an interesting twist - the festival also involved inverting many social norms (such as men dressing up as women and vice versa, and masters waiting on servants) and allowing normally forbidden pastimes (including gambling and sex 'in groups' according to the Readers' Digest...so it was basically an orgy?!). Interestingly, they also decorated their homes with evergreens - the first (recorded) people to do so. 

At the same time, the Celtic tribes of northern Europe celebrated Yule, a festival similarly marked by indulgent eating and drinking, and the exchanging of gifts (for those who could afford it). They also decorated their homes with evergreens, and added holly, ivy and mistletoe, which symbolized extreme danger from Nargles renewal and everlasting life. Fires were lit, from which comes the tradition of burning a large Yule Log.

During the Dark Ages, the Christian Church started to have a much stronger grip on western Europe, especially in Britain. Whilst allowing the pagan faith to continue in any form was generally frowned upon, an exception was made for Christmas (though the tale of small children wandering around in dressing gowns and tea towels the birth of the Son of Christ was obviously pushed to the forefront of the celebrations, instead of old rituals involving fires and sacred plants). In 567, the Church declared the 12 days between the Nativity and Epiphany a sacred season, and by the time of the Norman Conquest, this period had become Britain's main holiday.

The Christmas celebrations remained largely unchanged for the next 500 odd years, with the exception of the banning of Christmas in 1647 (yes, this isn't just a myth). It was not, as is commonly claimed, Oliver Cromwell alone who banned the festival, but the New Model Army (of which he was one of the chief officers, admittedly), which was made up of extremely zealous Puritans who believed that Jesus would absolutely not be coming again until the country was sorted out and the people stopped behaving like such wanton harlots. The Major Generals (the top officers of the Army) decreed that only the Sabbath should be a day of rest, and the only national holiday should be 5 November, to celebrate its freedom from papist despotism.

What they didn't factor in was the public's reaction to this. People decorated the streets with holly and mistletoe, shopkeepers openly defied the demands to open their stores on Christmas Day. In Kent, an armed rebellion took place, most of which was quickly put down, but over 3,000 rebels held out behind the old Roman walls in Colchester for several months afterward. Though the Puritan reforms continued throughout the country, the banning of Christmas was quietly dropped for the following years.

What we today would recognise as 'Christmas' descended from the Victorian, C19th era where it was seen as an opportunity to embellish commercial interests. Most of our "traditions" either stem from this point or were revived by the middle and upper classes, eager to show off their great wealth and benefit themselves only, which is capitalism at it's absolute worst...but does give us beautifully festive scenes such as the one above, and The Nutcracker, so I think I might find it in my heart to forgive them a little bit...

[Part Two to follow.]   

Remember, Remember...

Hello. Today, I am a NERVOUS WRECK. And it is all the fault of one Guido Fawkes. I am not even kidding.

Y'see, though it embarrasses me to admit it, sudden loud noises terrify me. A firework just went off somewhere in the vicinity of my house and I inhaled so sharply MY BREATH ACTUALLY MADE A NOISE. And I can still hear my heartbeat reverberating through my body. I am a wreck. And a wuss. I have a dog who is a complete nutcase. He gets scared of being left on his own so much that he turns into a shaking slobbering mess (he's a rescue dog, which is where his issues stem from - not from me being cruel or anything...) and he whimpers and runs away from cats. And yet, even this furry ball of patheticness is blandly carrying on like THINGS AREN'T EXPLODING BASICALLY ABOVE OUR HEADS.

I do not like Bonfire Night. 

I guess it does have the advantage of being one of the most well known historical events in the country - and correctly known, too! Most people know that a band of disenfranchised Catholics planned to blow up Protestant King James I and his Parliament (and then stick his daughter, the Princess Elizabeth on the throne, on the grounds that she was very close to her mother, Queen Anne, who was a Catholic, and therefore likely to have been sympathetic to their views. Even though they'd, y'know, just killed her dad...); Guy Fawkes was not the main plotter, he was just the foot soldier (literally, from the Spanish Army) hired to do the dirty work of blowing up the Houses of Parliament but they were all eventually caught out when one of the plotters sent an anonymous note to Lord Monteagle who warned the King's security and lead to the plot being foiled. They would have been monitoring the activity of the buildings surrounding the Houses of Parliament...and there really isn't a subtle way to ship in 36 barrels of gunpowder. The plot almost definitely wouldn't have gone through, regardless of the anonymous tip-off.

Most modern Historians believe that it is highly likely that James's private secretaries knew about the plot, but didn't wish to "point the finger" too early, in case they didn't manage to catch all the plotters. In the end, they killed everyone they knew was involved, either in conflict in the standoffs which happened around the country where the plotters were hiding out, or when they were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason. Lovely.

The tradition of celebrating Bonfire Night did actually start in 1605, the year of the attempted murder, as the plot itself was foiled on the night of the 4th/5th November. The following day, there was great rejoicing in the streets of London, and bonfires were lit in celebration. Soon, this annual celebration became more violent, with people burning effigies of the Pope on the bonfire, a practise which has mostly died out, with the exception of the town of Lewes in Sussex, which burns and effigy of Guy Fawkes and the Pope every year, and celebrates the martyring of 17 local Protestants who were killed during Mary I's reign. 

But with the exception of this town, Bonfire Night is an excuse for most people these days to go out into the cold and eat toffee apples (yay!) and watch fireworks. And write their names with sparklers, which is something even I like to do.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Hulloa boys, Hulloa boys, let the bells ring.
Hulloa boys, hulloa boys, God save the King!

PS: Happy Diwali! 

American Dreams

So, today is Columbus Day in America, because apparently, on October 12, fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and made landfall in the Bahamas, therefore discovering America. There are two main problems with this - firstly, that he believed that he had in fact discovered South Asia (I should like to make a joke here, but I couldn't follow a map of my own house, so this would be somewhat hypocritical) and secondly, of course, that there were already people living there - all over North and South America, actually - who didn't really think the country needed to be discovered.

(As an interesting aside, it is pretty much accepted now by most historians that the Vikings found their way over to the Americas sometime during the Dark Ages, though they possibly didn't leave Canada, or the very far north states - possibly because of their generally cooler climates, mimicking the geography of the areas they had come from.)

Columbus Day was first celebrated in 1792, in New York and is now a national holiday in the United States. It is also, according to wikipedia, related to Canadian Thanksgiving, which makes slightly more sense in a way than the reasons behind American Thanksgiving. I always wondered about how exactly they celebrated Thanksgiving during the mid-nineteenth century in America. From then, until the start of the twentieth century, the idea of Manifest Destiny (that it was God's wish for the white settlers to go out and take over the whole continent) really took hold, and the pioneers went out across the country. They didn't really like the Native Americans being "in their way" though, and generally treated them pretty badly. How on earth did they seriously manage to give thanks to the first American people for showing their ancestors how to survive in the first harsh winter, at the same time as 'clearing' the Indians' ancestors off what was rightfully their land? It makes no sense.

You can understand the pioneers' longing to just go out and conquer the unconquerable new territory though. Reading old accounts of the Oregon trails, I sometimes want to pack up all my worldly goods into a wagon and trail across the continent to the west coast, with its sunshine and greenery and succulence. Except also not really, because there was no internet or hand sanitizer and an awful lot of dysentery, which frankly I don't think is much of a substitute. And I could've ended up in a situation like the Donner Party did in 1846/7 who ended up having to eat each other to avoid starving to death and that would've probably put quite a downer on things.

I could have been a Forty Niner instead and gone out to strike it rich in the American Gold Rush in California. Or I could have lived in a log cabin on the prairies like the Ingalls-Wilders, or in a clapboard house with a porch like the Marches in Massachusetts, with a beautiful boy as a next-door neighbour. Maybe I'd have been a servant in New York at the turn of the century, come over to escape the unrest in Europe. I could've landed at Ellis Island, after seeing the statue of liberty as I arrived, and walked out of the immigration centre into the city, walking a few blocks until I found a newspaper vendor, where I might have scoured the adverts for a family of upper class socialists who needed a lady's maid to dress them up before a big night out at the Metropolitan Opera.

I could have been a fifties teenager, driving around a small town in my boyfriend's car as we listened to the new-fangled rock'n'roll music on the radio. Or a girl growing up in the pre-Civil War South, where the men are all gentlemen who'd call you a peach and walk by the roadside with you so your skirt didn't get splashed by the passing carriages, never dreaming that sweet little you were a member of the Underground Railroad, helping escaped slaves.

I'm probably almost definitely romanticizing all of this, which I will fully admit to. I do have a slight  inexplicable obsession with History and America though, so when the two combine, it's always something can get super excited about. Keep your fingers crossed that I get onto the American History course I've applied for at uni, yeah? :) 

Here's Bruce. He can say it much better than me.