by Geoff & Fran Doel
Geoff Doel gave Deal Branch a very entertaining talk involving readings, poetry and singing.
Midwinter was a time of crisis with one growing season gone and the new one yet to come. It was a pre-Christian custom to bring greenery into the house but the Catholic Church was good at assimilation and hymns such as ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ cleverly married the Christmas story with pagan greenery. Advent was a period of fasting before Christmas, where fish was eaten but no meat. Christmas then brought in feasting, which could be on a massive scale. Edward IV in 1482 had an enormous feast at Leeds Castle involving 1,000 sheep, 300 calves, 2,000 swans, 400 peacocks, 1,000 curlews and 15,000 hot venison pastries amongst many other tasty treats. The poor received food at Christmas from the church as a charitable donation.
Thomasing, a festival on 21st December St Thomas’ day, was when widows were allowed to beg around the parish for food or money for food. In the 10 Bells Inn at Leeds in 1845, 30 hoodeners begged for money and ended up with about 8d each. The Six Poor Travellers’ House in Rochester allowed 6 travellers to stop there overnight to sleep and be fed; this charity was set up in 1579 on the death of Richard Watts, a local dignitary.
The Puritans tried to suppress Christmas in the period of 1644-1659. In 1647 the authorities tried to enforce legislation under which all festivals and holidays “heretofore superstitiously used” were no longer to be kept. This meant that legally, for the first time, Christmas Day could not be kept as a secular holiday or a religious festival. Ten thousand men of Kent and Canterbury passed a menacing resolution ‘If they could not have their Christmas Day, they would have their King back on his throne’. This came after disorderly scenes in Canterbury, where football was played in the streets and shops were forced to close. There must have been public sympathy for them as none of the rioters were imprisoned. It wasn’t until Charles II was on the throne, that Christmas was properly celebrated in Kent.
Mummers plays were popular especially in West Kent; they involved several characters such as St. George, the dragon, Johnny Jack and Beelzebub. The theme was usually death and resurrection, with a quack doctor. These are dying out again now. These mummers plays were revived in the 1960s bringing one of the characters back to life, but In East Kent, hoodening was more popular. Characters included a fabric horse or Hooden horse with a jockey, a waggoner leading the horse, a Molly (cross-dressed man who was a fertility symbol) and a sweeper, who swept up the horse droppings and brought good luck. The Walmer Hooden horse is now stabled at Deal Maritime Museum.
Another custom which was popular in the past was wassailing, usually carried out on twelfth night. The house-visiting wassail involved travelling round your community offering a drink from the wassail bowl in exchange for presents – this was largely replaced by carolling. The orchard-visiting wassail involved visiting orchards in cider-producing areas to read incantations to the apple trees or pour cider on them as a form of sympathetic magic. This was to frighten away evil spirits and ensure a good harvest. Wassail means ‘good luck’ and the practice may date back to the Anglo-Saxon period.
By the Victorian period, Christmas had become more of a family event and this is reported by Charles Dickens. Dickens, as well as Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, promoted Christmas as a children’s festival, more as we see it today. Geoff gave much local flavour to his stories and certainly put us in the mood for a merry Kentish Christmas.