Dec 17, 2021 · Long before Santa Claus, caroling and light-strewn Christmas trees, people in medieval Europe celebrated the Christmas season with 12 full days of feasting and revelry culminating with...

Dec 1, 2018 · Christmas was one of the highlights of the medieval calendar, not only for the rich but also for the peasantry. For the longest holiday of the year, typically the full twelve days of Christmas, people stopped work, homes were decorated and a Yule log burned in the hearth.

Did you know the Christmas traditions we cherish today—from carols to decorated trees—have their roots in the Middle Ages? This feature explores how the festive season evolved through centuries of Christian and pagan influence.

But by the High Middle Ages (1000-1300) Christmas had become the most prominent religious celebration in Europe, signalling the beginning of Christmastide, or the Twelve Days of Christmas as they are more commonly known today.

Dec 19, 2022 · Our medieval forebears celebrated the Christmas period with a full twelve days of festivities. Some of the festivities would be very familiar to us today but other traditions have long since died out.

Christmas was an important time throughout medieval Europe, and many traditions developed during this period, some of which are still popular. Here are seven things you might see during Christmas in the Middle Ages, which range from cribs in Italy to trolls in Iceland.

Dec 5, 2018 · Many of our modern Christmas traditions like gift-giving originated in the Middle Ages. Some interesting medieval Christmas and Yuletide traditions: Mumming- People would dress up and pantomime. Some liked to scare others at night and others put on elaborate plays.

Dec 10, 2019 · In Reading and across medieval England, Christmas was celebrated with a full twelve days of holiday. This extended festival was marked by plenty of eating, drinking and playing as well as churchgoing. However, gift-giving played a much smaller role than it does in our Christmas today.

Jun 16, 2019 · In late antiquity, Christmas was a quiet and solemn occasion, marked by a special mass and calling for prayer and reflection. Until the fourth century, no fixed date had been formally set by the Church—in some places it was observed in April …

Contrary to widespread belief, Christmas trees were around much earlier than the Victorian era, their roots being firmly in the Middle Ages. Indeed, the fir tree has medieval connections with Christianity in a legend involving a Northumbrian monk …