Season's Greetings

[NaokoSmith]

God, it's still dark here! Piglet woke up at 6.30 full of beans. At least I have awoken with the name of the day on my lips: "Jesus Christ!" Zzzzzz

Merry Christmas all.

 

[oggbashan]

Honestly, one of the best Christmas-related stories I've heard. Err, read.

Thank you, or rather thanks to the citizens of Canterbury. I added some more in the Politics Board after a question about how Cromwell's supporters would have seen the Mayflower Pilgrims:

Many of Cromwell's supporters were of the same religious leanings as those on the Mayflower, but some others would have regarded the Mayflower Pilgrims as dangerously hedonistic.

Cromwell's genius was in building a rabid rabble of religious bigots into an efficient functioning army. The only thing that really united all of the Commonwealth supporters was hatred of the Monarchy, its "Divine Right" to rule, and also its closet attachment to the "Whore of Rome" - the Roman Catholic Church.

Some were just supporters of democratic rights - that Parliament was the supreme law maker and that even Monarchs were not above the law of the land.

The heritage of Cromwell's Commonwealth was the supremacy of Parliament, ultimately the idea of a powerless Constitutional Monarchy, and the reaffirmation of the rights established in the Magna Carta. Even the American and French Revolutions can be seen as having been inspired by the Commonwealth.

The downside was religious intolerance, destruction of many historic works of art in churches and cathedrals, and a real kill-joy attitude to any expression of human happiness. Theatres were closed. Dancing and music was forbidden. Even hymn singing was too much. As for alcohol and sex? Forget it!

The Restoration swung the other way. Many Restoration plays are sex-fests. I went (in the 1960s) to some realistic performances of Restoration drama. Audience participation went to extremes with stage 'prostitutes' dragging young men from the audience on stage for simulated sex, or male actors doing the same for attractive young women. But we knew what to expect when we booked our seats.

The celebration of Christmas during Commonwealth England still went on, but in private behind closed doors. Canterbury citizens' mistake was to go for the full traditional works. Although that meant church services it also included public drinking, singing, dancing and sex in the streets - just like any rowdy Saturday night in Canterbury today when several hundred students are on a pub crawl.

The traditional English Christmas pre-Cromwell was more like a pagan festival or Roman Saturnalia than a celebration of the Nativity. Many old English carols have/had nothing to do with Jesus, Mary or Bethlehem and are about pagan rites, alcohol and food in excess.

"Waits" aka Carol Singers were in practice a tolerated form of begging for food, drink and money. Many Waits wore masks or blackface as disguises because technically what they were doing was against the pre-Cromwell laws on vagrancy. "Now bring us some figgy pudding!" and "We won't go until we get some!" are relics of the Waits aggressive antics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpDwIh9Q4V4
__________________

 

[sr71plt]

Really sad about the tornado that ripped through two states in the U.S. south the day before Christmas Eve. Terrible at any time; worse in the Christmas season. Hope no one posting here was affected. Quite glad it ended two states away from me.

 

[sexnovella]

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

 

[oggbashan]

Our friends in Lancashire, still clearing up after last Friday's floods, have spent Christmas Day replacing and heightening their sandbag barriers as much more rain is expected tonight.

 

[sr71plt]

My wife and I were just discussing how unpleased we'd be if the three inches of water in our rain gauge had represented snow instead.

 

[lovecraft68]

We didn't even have rain Christmas eve or day.

over 65 yesterday, I spent two hours playing street hockey with the kids next door and their father, all of us in t-shirts. Last night I grilled out on the deck.

Yup, Christmas in New England.

 

[ishtat]

Christmas was banned in England under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth.

.

The first anti Christmas legislation was passed in 1643 during the reign of Charles I, some 6 or 7 years before Cromwell came to power. It was strengthened (and substantially ignored) after Cromwell took power. Cromwell personally never supported the legislation but was quite happy to sort out the citizens of Canterbury. Charles II similarly wrecked Gloucester after the restoration in 1660 in revenge for that city's previous parliamentary sympathies.

The legislation was substantially a reaction to the Anglo Catholic policies of Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud; probably UK's most unpopular churchman ever. Even the citizens of Canterbury objected to his changes in church ritual.

Laud was a short, arrogant, angry man who insisted on always getting his own way, having the last word on everything and treating anyone who disagreed with vindictive malice. Not surprisingly Parliament voted to remove his head from his neck in 1645.

Basically all Englishmen were religious bigots of one stripe or another from the accession of Edward VI in the 1540's to Catholic emancipation in 1829.

Although Laud was attacked almost daily when Archbishop (1630-1645) for his views on religion there are no records that he was ever attacked because of his homosexuality (which he made no attempt to hide) - different times, different intolerances perhaps.

 

[Handley_Page]

The legislation was substantially a reaction to the Anglo Catholic policies of Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud; probably UK's most unpopular churchman ever. Even the citizens of Canterbury objected to his changes in church ritual.

Laud was a short, arrogant, angry man who insisted on always getting his own way, having the last word on everything and treating anyone who disagreed with vindictive malice. Not surprisingly Parliament voted to remove his head from his neck in 1645.

Well, he WAS the top Churchman; you'd expect him to have the last word, wouldn't you?

 

[ishtat]

Well, he WAS the top Churchman; you'd expect him to have the last word, wouldn't you?

Actually no. Firstly, almost all of Scotland was presbyterian (Calvinists) as was a large part of Puritan England. Secondly, many of his own Bishops detested him because they had accepted the compromise solution set out in the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer. (The preface summarises the reasoning and is still worth a read.) Thirdly, though the most senior churchman, he wasn't Head of the Church - that was the King. So when Parliament acting in the name of the King passed a bill of Attainder demanding Laud's head they got it.

Laud found out the hard way that in the English Constitutional settlement, Parliament was now supreme. Charles actually 'pardoned' Laud but didn't lift a finger to help him. Real power had shifted to the Parliament. Later monarchs, particularly James II and George III tried to re-assert real royal power. James lost his crown, and George one or two other bits and pieces of some small consequence.

 

[Handley_Page]

Point taken.
And I thought I remembered my English history. . . .
<hangs head in shame>
I'll get my coat. . . .