Daily Life in Elizabethan England (18 page)

—
Plow Monday
(
Rock Monday
). This fell on the first Monday after Epiphany. On this day plows were blessed, and in parts of England the plow-men drew a plow from door to door soliciting gifts of money. The day also commemorated the work of women, under the name Rock Monday (
rock
is another word for a distaff ).

8
St.

Lucian

13
St.

Hilary

18
St.

Prisca

19
St.

Wolfstan

20
St.

Fabian

21
St. Agnes.
According to tradition, a woman who went to bed without supper on the eve of St. Agnes would dream of her future husband.

22
St.

Vincent

25
The Conversion of St. Paul.
Elizabethan country folk believed that the weather on St. Paul’s Day would reveal the future of the year: a fair day boded a fair year, a windy day presaged wars, and a cloudy day foretold plague.

February

This was considered the first month of spring. In February the snows would melt, the ground would thaw, and the husbandman could begin

preparing the fields designated for the spring or Lenten crop. He would spread manure on the fields and plow them, and then begin to sow his peas, beans, and oats.

2 Feast of the Purification of Mary
(
Candlemas
). The name Candlemas derived from the tradition of bearing candles in a church procession on this day, although the custom was generally suppressed under the Protestant church.

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Daily Life in Elizabethan England

3
St. Blaise.
On this day the countrywomen traditionally went visiting each other and burned any distaffs they found in use.

5
St.

Agatha

14
St. Valentine.
In Elizabethan times as today, this day was a celebration of romantic love. Men and women drew one another’s names by lot

to determine who would be whose valentine, pinning the lots on their bosom or sleeve and perhaps exchanging gifts.

24 St. Matthias the Apostle

—
Shrove Tuesday
(
Shrovetide
). Shrovetide was the day before Ash Wednesday, falling between February 3 and March 9. This holiday was the last day before the fasting season of Lent. On the Continent this day was celebrated with wild abandon, reflected in the modern Mardi Gras.

The English version was more subdued but still involved ritual feasting and violence. On this day it was traditional to eat fritters and pancakes.

It was also a day for playing football (a game much rougher than any of its modern namesakes), and for the sport of
cockthrashing
or
cockshys.
In cockthrashing, the participants tied a cock to a stake and threw sticks at it: they paid the owner of the cock a few pence for each try, and a person who could knock down the cock and pick it up before the cock regained its feet won the cock as a prize. In towns, apprentices often chose this day to start riots. Their violence was often aimed against sexual trans-gressors: one of the favorite activities was destroying houses of prostitution. The two days before Shrovetide were sometimes called Shrove Sunday and Shrove Monday.

—
The First Day of Lent
(
Ash Wednesday
). Lent began on the Wednesday before the sixth Sunday before Easter (between February 4 and March 10). The medieval church had forbidden the eating of meat other than fish during Lent. Although the religious basis for this restriction was no longer a factor, Queen Elizabeth kept the restriction in place as a means of boosting England’s fishing industry. The name Ash Wednesday was officially disapproved, as it smacked of Catholicism, but it was still commonly used. Lent was sometimes observed by setting up an effigy called a Jack-a-Lent and pelting it with sticks and stones: as this season was a season for fasting, the Jack-a-Lent symbolized all the hardships in the life of a commoner.

March

In March the husbandman would sow his barley, the last of the Lenten crops. This was also the time to begin work on the garden, a task that generally fell to the woman of the house. She might also do the spring cleaning in this month.

1
St. David.
David was the patron saint of Wales, and Welshmen traditionally wore leeks in their hats on this day.

2
St.

Chad

7
St.

Perpetua

Cycles of Time

83

12
St.

Gregory

18
St.

Edward

21
St.

Benedict

25 Feast of the Annunciation of Mary
(
Lady Day in Lent
). The number of the year changed on this day.

—
Mid-Lent Sunday.
This was the Sunday three weeks before Easter (March 1 to April 4). Often called Mothering Sunday, it was traditional for people to visit their mothers on this day.

April

During this month, the woman of the house would continue work on

the garden, as well as beginning work in the dairy, as the livestock had begun to produce their offspring and were therefore giving milk.

3
St.

Richard

4
St.

Ambrose

19
St.

Alphege

23
St.

George.

George was the patron saint of England.

25 St. Mark the Evangelist

—Palm Sunday.
This was one week before Easter Sunday, and it marked the beginning of the Easter Week. The ancient custom of bearing palm leaves or rushes into the church on this day had been suppressed by the Protestant church, although there may well have been conservative parishes where it was still observed.

—Wednesday before Easter

—Thursday before Easter
(
Maundy Thursday
). This was traditionally a day for acts of charity.

—Good Friday

—Easter Eve

—Easter.
Easter is a movable feast. It is based on the lunar Jewish calendar, which is why it does not always fall on the same day in the solar calendar we inherited from the Romans. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21; if the full moon is on a Sunday, Easter is the next Sunday. This places Easter between March 22 and April 25. Easter marked the end of Lent, and was an occasion for great feasting, as it was once again permissible to eat meat. Children might be given hard-boiled Easter eggs, possibly dyed like their modern counterparts, known as
paste eggs
.

—Monday in Easter Week

—Tuesday in Easter Week

—Hocktide
(
Hock Monday
and
Hock Tuesday
). The second Monday and Tuesday after Easter. On Hock Monday the young women of the parish would go about the streets with ropes and capture passing men, who had to pay a small ransom to be released; the men would do

the same on Hock Tuesday. The money raised would go to the parish

funds.

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Daily Life in Elizabethan England

May

May was the first month of summer. Now the hard work of spring eased somewhat: this was a prime season for festivals, before heavy work began again with haymaking at the end of June. In this month it was time to weed the winter crops and to plow the fallow fields in preparation for the next season. The woman of the house would sow flax and hemp.

1 Sts. Philip and Jacob the Apostles
(
May Day
). This day was often celebrated as the first day of summer. Both villagers and townsfolk might travel to the forests and fields to bring back flowers and branches as decorations—and this was notoriously an opportunity for young men

and women to engage in illicit sexual activity in the woods. There might even be a full-scale summer festival, such as was often celebrated on Whitsunday (see below).

3
Feast of the Invention of the Cross (Crouchmass)

6
St. John the Evangelist

10
St.

Gordian

19
St.

Dunstan

26
St. Augustine of Canterbury

—
Rogation Sunday.
This fell five weeks after Easter (April 26 to May 30).

This holiday was the time for
beating the bounds
: the parishioners would gather with the local minister to walk around the boundary of the parish, reciting prayers and psalms, and asking God for forgiveness of sins and a blessing on the crops, which had by now all been sown. Religious processions had been banned in England’s Protestant church, but this one was exempted since it helped preserve the knowledge of the traditional borders of the parish.

—Ascension Day.
This was the Thursday after Rogation Sunday (April 30 to June 3). This was another popular occasion for summer festivals (see Whitsunday below).

—Whitsunday
(
Pentecost
). Ten days after Ascension (May 10 to June 13).

This was the favorite day for summer festivals, sometimes called
ales,
or
mayings
(even when they did not fall in May). Each locality had its own customs, but certain themes were common. There were often folk plays and dramatic rituals, especially ones involving Robin Hood or St.

George. Another typical activity was morris dancing, a ritual dance in which the dancers—often just men—wore bells, ribbons, and outlandish attire. The dance sometimes involved other ritual figures: a hobby horse (a man dressed up with a mock horse to make him look like a rider), a Maid Marian (typically a man dressed as a woman), and a fool (a jester figure). The occasion might also be marked by displays of banners and by military demonstrations. The celebrants often elected a man and woman to preside over the festival under such names as Summer King and Queen, May King and Queen, or Whitsun Lord and Lady. Many

towns and villages erected a maypole, brightly painted and adorned with garlands or flags, around which there might be a maypole dance.

Cycles of Time

85

Often a temporary hall or tent was erected where the parish would sell ale, the proceeds going to the parish church. Such traditional celebrations were strongly opposed by religious reformers, who saw them as occasions for drunkenness, superstition, and illicit sexual activity.

—Whitmonday

—Whitsun Tuesday.
The two days after Whitsunday, as official holidays, often continued the Whitsun festival, and all three days together might be called Whitsuntide.

—Trinity Sunday.
One week after Whitsunday (May 17 to June 20). This was another popular day for summer festivals, like those described for Whitsun.

June

June was the time to weed the Lenten crops and to wash and shear the sheep—sheepshearing time was often an occasion for rural festivities. At about Midsummer began the mowing season: the men would go out to

the meadows, where the grass had been allowed to grow long, and cut it down with scythes in preparation for haymaking.

3
St.

Nichomede

5
St.

Boniface

11
St. Barnabas the Apostle

17
St.

Botolph

20
The Translation of St. Edward

A PURITAN VIEW OF MAY CELEBRATIONS

Against
May,
Whitsonday,
or other time, all the young men and maids, older men and wives, run gadding overnight to the woods, groves, hills, & mountains, where they spend all the night in pleasant pastimes; & in the morning they return, bringing with them birch & branches of trees, to deck their assemblies withal. . . . But the chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their Maypole. . . . they strew the ground round about, bind green boughs about it, set up summer halls, bowers, and arbors hard by it; And then fall they to dance about it, like as the heathen people did at the dedication of the Idols, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or rather the thing itself. I have heard it credibly reported . . . by men of great gravity and reputation, that of forty, threescore, or a hundred maids going to the wood overnight, there have scarcely the third part of them returned again undefiled.

Phillip Stubbes,
The Anatomie of Abuses
(London: Richard Jones, 1583), 94–95.

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Daily Life in Elizabethan England

24 St. John the Baptist
(
Midsummer
). This festival was an important civic occasion, marked by a variety of festivities and displays of communal identity. There was often a huge bonfire on St. John’s Eve, and it was common to stay up late that night. Midsummer was an occasion for

parades featuring giants, dragons, fireworks, drumming, military displays, and a march by the local watch and community officials.

29 St. Peter the Apostle.
This holiday was sometimes observed with traditions similar to those on the feast of St. John.

30
Commemoration of St. Paul

July

During this month the mown grass was made into hay: it had to be laid out in the sun to dry, stacked, and then carted away for storage. It was crucial that the hay dry properly, as it would otherwise rot, and farmers earnestly hoped for sunny weather in July. Hay was vital to the rural economy, since it was fed to horses and cattle, especially during the winter when they could not graze. July was also a time for a second plowing of the fallow fields and for gathering hemp, flax, and beans from the garden.