So, you thought the Victorians invented the Christmas traditions we enjoy today? Well, you are going to have to think again! From present-giving to mince pies and mulled wine, it seems it was the Tudors who revelled in Christmas festivities almost as much as we do today.
As part of its yearlong talk’s series, Renaissance: Journeys of Discovery, Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution in Queen Square is hosting ’A Tudor Christmas’ this Thursday ,4th December with historians Alison Weir and Siobhan Clarke, authors of the book by the same name.
Together they explore the Christmas traditions of Tudor England, many of which have remained remarkably unchanged over the last 400 years. A fact which might come as something of a surprise!
Carol-singing, present-giving, mulled wine and mince pies were all popular in Tudor times, and even Father Christmas and roast turkey dinners find their origins in the period. Many of us have sung about the twelve days of Christmas, but how many of us fully understand what they were and associate them with the Tudors?
During the twelve days of Christmas, all work in the Tudor period, except for the tending of animals, ceased to allow workers time to rest. It was not until Plough Monday, the Monday following Twelfth Night, that labour once more began. Sounding all quite familiar?
And speaking of the Twelve Days of Christmas and of Twelfth Night, the Tudor royal court saw a twelve-day festival of entertainments, pageants, theatre productions and ‘disguisings’ often culminating in the king and queen dressed up to fool their courtiers.
Henry VIII and other gentlemen disguised themselves as “gallant ‘Portuguese’ knights” in a 1514 Christmas pageant at Greenwich, where the King’s own mistress Elizabeth (‘Bessie’) Blount was among other masked ladies dressed up as ladies of Savoy.
Perhaps it is Feste the fool in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night most personifies the subversive nature of the Tudor Christmas, where kings dress up to be fools and fools dress up to be kings, and a sense of freedom reigns.
If Thursday evening’s speakers sound familiar, Alison Weir is one of the best-selling historians in the United Kingdom, specialising in the medieval period and the Tudors.
Her best-selling history books include The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Elizabeth of York and The Lost Tudor Princess.
Siobhan Clarke a former employee of Historic Royal Palaces has delivered many lectures on Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London and the Banqueting House of the former Palace of Whitehall. Specialising in the Tudors and the Stuarts, she regularly delivers lectures for the National Trust and other arts and historical societies, as well as appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour.
And what can be more Wolf Hall than the fact that these two speakers met for the first time at Hampton Court Palace? They’ve been an unstoppable duo ever since.
If you’d rather be a witty fool than a foolish wit this Thursday evening, we recommend joining both authors live at Queen Square or online, and all talks at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution end with a Q&A, making this a fantastic opportunity to put your questions to some of the country’s leading historians.
Not only that, audience members who also purchase a copy of A Tudor Christmas on the night will get the chance to get it signed by the two authors.
Grab yourself a mulled wine on the way in!
Tickets available at https://www.brlsi.org/
