Shakespeare's Christmas E-Book

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 126

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Christmas in Shakespeare's day was an extravagant festival that included a long season of merrymaking, feasting and, most important of all, masques and plays. Shakespeare's Christmas is a delightful glimpse into an Elizabethan Christmas, comprising little-known stories – such as the time Elizabeth I interrupted Shakespeare's performance by walking across the stage and dropping a glove at his feet – recipes of traditional Elizabethan desserts, ballads and poems. A must-read if you are interested in the ignoble goings-on of the Lord of Misrule and a chance to immerse yourself in the celebrations of a Shakespearean Christmas.

Leseprobe

First published 1996

This revised and updated edition first published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© The Estate of the late Maria Hubert, 1996, 2003, 2009, 2024

The right of The Estate of the late Maria Hubert to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 763 6

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Andrew Hubert von Staufer

THE CHRISTMAS ENTERTAINMENTS

William Francis Dawson

TRIBUTE BY DIGRESSION

Thomas Hervey

ELIZABETHAN CHRISTMAS

Michael Harrison

‘WINTER’ FROMLOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

William Shakespeare

ROASTED CRABS & WASSAILS

– with ‘Carol for the Wassail Bowl’ From Christmas with the Poets by the Vitzelly Brothers

MY LORDE OF MISSERULE

From The Anatomie of Abuses by Philip Stubbs

‘THE HOLLY SONG’

William Shakespeare

TO MAKE A DISH OF SNOW

From A Booke of Cookerie

‘THE CHRISTMAS FEAST’

Eric Bennett

‘A TALE OF A MERRIE CHRISTMAS CAROLL’

From Pasquil’s Jests

‘NOW THRICE WELCOME CHRISTMAS!’

George Wither

SHAKESPEARE’S ‘POPISH KINGDOM’

From a translation of the German by Barnaby Googe

THE ORDER OF CHRISTMAS

– an account of Christmas at the Court of Elizabeth From Dugdale’s Origines Juridiciales

TO MAKE BUTTERED ORANGES

– a Christmas dessert recipe

‘DECEMBER’ SONNET

William Shakespeare

THE ORDER OF CHRISTMAS CONTINUED

From Dugdale’s Origines Juridiciales

‘THE BURNING BABE’

Father Robert Southwell, martyr

HOW TO MAKE BENICRYZ

– adapted from the original recipe Maria Hubert

MYSTERIES, MINSTRELS & PUPPETS

– the street plays of Shakespeare’s time with ‘A Hymn of the Nativity sung by the Shepherds’ by Richard Crashaw, c. 1630

SHAKESPEARE’S CHRISTMAS DINNER

– and Christmas Husbandly

Fare by Thomas Tusser

A RECEIPT FOR A BEAN CAKE

– a sixteenth-century recipe for a Twelfth Night cake

ON FLAPDRAGON

– a summary of accounts of the ancient game quoted by Shakespeare

SHAKESPEAREAN CHRISTMAS GIFTS

– with quotes from The Winter’s

Tale and the seventeenth-century accounts, Nichols’ Progresses and Illustrations of Manners & Expences

CEREMONIES FOR CHRISTMAS

– an account in verse of the customs for the twelve days of Christmas

Robert Herrick

TWELFTH DAY FEASTS AT HAMPTON COURT

From the diaries and papers of Sir Dudley Carleton, 1604–7

THE BOAR’S HEAD CAROL ANDTHE CHRISTMAS PRINCE

– an account of an Elizabethan custom

William Sandys

CHRISTMAS AT THE INNS OF COURT

– an extract from Customs and Carols

William Sandys

ON THE CHRISTMAS MASQUE

– a critique of Ben Jonson’s Masque of Christmas

Laurence Whistler

THE MASQUE OF CHRISTMAS

Ben Jonson

‘A CHRISTMAS CARROLL’

– the Christmas season in verse

George Wither

‘TO SHORTEN WINTER’S SADNESS’

From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Introduction

ANDREW HUBERT VON STAUFER

There has always been a great deal of debate about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works, which is well beyond the scope of this revision to Shakespeare’s Christmas – originally researched by my late wife Maria and me, and first published some three decades ago.

There is a relevance to questions about William Shakespeare that we were busy exploring at the time when the manuscript was submitted – namely about his religion. He was born at a time when religious identity could be confusing and dangerous. There have since been a number of questions raised –most notably by the former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Willams –as to whether the Shakespeare family were in fact recusant Catholics.

Any such leanings would certainly have coloured William’s attitude to Christmas, but the reasons are both historically and politically confusing to our twenty-first-century lay perspective.

Mary Tudor, who was a half sister to Elizabeth I, had tried to reaffirm the practice and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic faith, following the rather lax and fractured break with Rome, mostly for financial and political reasons, occasioned by her father Henry VIII in the 1530s. Mary’s reign ended in 1558 and as the first surviving child of Henry was, in many respects, popular.

By the time that William Shakespeare was born in 1564, many of those with land and royal favours granted by Mary had been very cautious about not upsetting the new regime under Elizabeth, who was in most respects a Protestant. Basically, most people tried to avoid controversy by effectively obeying the last order while keeping their options open. Lifespans were short then and nobody could be sure that the official religion of England would not change, should an unmarried Elizabeth die young.

This in many ways affected the celebration of Christmas throughout the following five decades of William Shakespeare’s life.

The sixteenth century was a time of great artistic movement in Europe with the emergence of much symbolism, which would be developed into what we would recognise today.

The nativity scene had become a major expression of art both in painting and what we now know as the Christmas Crib, particularly, but not exclusively, in Italy and Provence. There had been a brief flowering of sculptured nativity art with the Nottingham School of Alablasters [sic], but that had not really caught on, as some of the more puritanically minded contemporary churchmen, who had favoured translation of the bible into English, wanted litany in the vernacular and a greater emphasis on scriptural authenticity away from the sacramental – what they called graven images and anything that smacked of relict popery and paganism. The last two were often bundled together in the haranguing sermons of Latimer & Cranmer in England and, later, John Knox in Scotland.

Throughout southern Europe – many parts of Germany and Poland in particular – the Counter Reformation was going firmly in the other direction with a formalisation of liturgy; the emergence of midnight Mass as we would recognise it; the popularisation of the nativity scene; and an encouragement of Marian devotion, with many stories about the Virgin Mary, the birth in the stable and Star of Bethlehem, the Magi and, surprisingly, the Christmas Tree in the German-speaking lands as a symbol of light, hope and legends about its shape being a reminder of the Holy Trinity.

This rather left England behind, as the surviving celebration was an adaptation of what went before with far less imagery, a greater use of greenery (bay, yew and rosemary being popular additions to the still well known holly and ivy.)

Food and drink were the great survivors, less likely to cause controversy or any hint of allegiance to Rome, especially since Regnans in Excelsis (Reigning on High), a papal bull excommunicating Elizabeth, was promulgated by Pope Pius V on 25 February 1570, six years after William’s birth.

Unfortunately, having formalised an English Protestant religion, Elizabeth had effectively let the cat out of the bag as a number of radical Christians were drifting towards a disapproval of all celebration that could be interpreted as either Papist or Pagan, to such an extent that within thirty years of William’s death, Christmas was effectively banned by Parliament!

So, it is against this confused background of secular and religious celebration, where even not appearing in an Anglican church could result in a fine, you may read on about Christmas in the time of William Shakespeare.

Andrew Hubert von StauferFebruary 2024

The Christmas Entertainments

WILLIAM FRANCIS DAWSON

Shakespeare was certainly born at a fortuitous time to succeed as a playwright. Queen Elizabeth I adored the play, and under her roof it grew to the height of importance. She kept singing boys, actors and musicians, and formed several companies of players and theatrical performers. Shakespeare was commanded to write new plays for her court regularly, and she probably enjoyed the presence of this dashing and flamboyant character. The following description of the Queen’s household players, and her contribution to theatrical entertainment, includes a charming anecdote about Shakespeare himself, and is from Dawson’s Christmas and its Associations (1903).

The Christmas entertainments of Queen Elizabeth were enlivened by the beautiful singing of the children of her Majesty’s Chapel. Queen Elizabeth I retained on her Royal establishment four sets of singing boys; which belonged to the Cathedral of St. Paul’s; the Abbey of Westminster;St. George’s Chapel Windsor and the Household Chapel. For the support and reinforcement of her musical bands, Elizabeth, like the other English Sovereigns, issued warrants for taking ‘up suche apt and meete children, as are fitt to be instructed and framed in the Art and Science of Musicke and Singing.’

The children of the Chapel were also employed in the theatrical exhibitions represented at Court, for which their musical education had peculiarly qualified them. Richard Edwards, an eminent poet and musician of the 16th century, had written two comedies; ‘Damon & Pythias’ and ‘Palemon & Arcite’, which according to Wood, were often acted before the Queen, both at Court and at Oxford. With the latter of these the Queen was so delighted she promised Edwards a reward, which she subsequently gave him by making him first Gentleman of her Chapel, and in 1561 Master of the Children upon the death of Richard Bowyer.

As the Queen was particularly attached to dramatic entertainments, about 1569, she formed the children of the Royal Chapel into a company of theatrical performers, and placed them under the superintendence of Edwards. Not long after she formed a second society of players under the title, ‘Children of the Revells’ and by these two companies all Lyly’s plays, and many of Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s were first performed. Ben Jonson has celebrated one of the chapel children, named Salathiel Pavy, who was famous for his performance of old men, but who died about 1601 aged thirteen.

The Shakespearean period had its grand Christmases, for The Christmas Players at the Court of Queen Elizabeth included England’s greatest dramatist, William Shakespeare; and the Queen not only took delight in witnessing Shakespeare’s plays, but also admired the poet as a player. The histrionic ability of Shakespeare was by no means contemptible, though probably not such as to have transmitted his name to posterity had he confined himself exclusively to acting. Rowe informs us that, ‘the tip-top of his performances was the ghost in his own Hamlet’, Aubrey states that, ‘He doth act exceedingly well’ and Cheetle, a contemporary of the poet, who had seem him perform, assures us that, ‘he was excellent in the quality that he professed’.

An anecdote is preserved in connection with Shakespeare’s playing before Queen Elizabeth I. While he was taking the part of a king, Elizabeth rose, and, in crossing the stage, dropped her glove as she passed the poet. No notice was taken by him of the incident; and the queen, desirous of finding out whether this was the result of inadvertence, or a determination to preserve the consistency of his part, moved again towards him, and again dropped her glove. Shakespeare then stooped down to pick it up, saying, in the character of the monarch whom he was playing ‘And though now bent on this high embassy/Yet stoop we to take up our cousin’s glove’.

He then retired and presented the glove to the Queen, who was highly pleased with his courtly performance.

Tribute by Digression

THOMAS HERVEY

Shakespeare knew how to appeal to the tastes of the great Queen Elizabeth I, a skill noted, but possibly misinterpreted, by the historian of popular antiquities, Thomas Hervey, writing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Hervey specialized in Christmas, and was one of the great scholars who researched and recorded the ancient customs before they died away in the later Georgian reigns. His history of Christmas was, and possibly still is, second to none, but in the course of discussing the festivities of an Elizabethan Christmas, he is desperately sidetracked in his total adulation of the great Bard! The points he makes are most valid, the manner in which he writes is cringingly comical at times. (The following text is adapted and abridged from the original which is too flowery and opinionated for our purposes, but readers may find it in Hervey’s Booke of Christmasse [1833].)

Our readers, we think, need scarcely be told that the successor to this stern and miserable queen (Queen Mary) was sure to seize upon the old pageantries. . . . From all the old altars which the court had reared to old Father Christmas of yore, a cloud of incense was poured into the royal closet enough to choke anything but the Tudor queen. The festival was saved, and even embellished; but the saint, as far as the court was concerned, was changed. However, the example of the festivity to the people was the same; and the land was a merry land, and the Christmas time a merry time, throughout its length and breadth in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

Under these impulses, the old dramatic entertainments took a higher character and assumed a more consistent form. The first regular English tragedy, called ‘Ferrex and Porrex’ and the entertainment of ‘Gammer Gurton’s Needle’ were both productions of the early period of the Queen’s reign:– and amid the crowd of her worshippers rose up – with the star upon his forehead which will burn there for all time, – the very first of all created beings, William Shakespeare. These are among the strange anomalies which the world, as it is constituted, so often presents; and must present at times, constitute it how we will. – Shakespeare doing homage to Queen Elizabeth I! – The loftiest genius and the noblest heart that have yet walked this earth, in a character merely human, bowing down before this woman, with the soul of a milliner, and no heart at all! – The swayer of hearts, the ruler of men’s minds, in virtue of his own transcendent nature, recognising the supremacy of this overgrown child, because she presided over the temporalities of a half emancipated nation.