Helena's Paper on Holidays in the Middle Ages

Holidays in the Middle Ages

By : Helena

Holidays in the Middle Ages were celebrated in a variety of ways, but all public holidays were correlated with the Christian church. Singing and dancing were often involved in holiday festivities. Plays and puppet shows were also usually associated with holidays and sometimes poems were written for a holiday.

The Middle Ages were a period of european history. Some historians say that the Middle Ages were from AD 500 to AD 1485, but others say that they were from AD 400 to AD 1400, and AD 500 to AD 1500. The Middle Ages were a time of contrast with powerful lords and peasants who had virtually no power or control. You wouldn’t usually move out of the rank that you were born into in the Middle Ages, and 80% of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants. Peasants in the Middle Ages had to grow crops for themselves and the lords, but the lords in the Middle Ages would not usually pity the people of lower ranks. Most of the Middle Ages circled around christianity and the church. There were lots of nuns and monks that were literate. But, kings that might have been educated in the Middle Ages might still not be literate. There were many of fantastic castles and buildings built in the Middle Ages.

There were many holidays in the Middle Ages, some were bigger and some were smaller holidays called saint days. On most holidays in the Middle Ages, you had to attend mass, which was the service at church. After mass, would be when the celebrating would usually begin.
Christmas started on December 24th and went until January 6th. People would take one week off of work for celebration. Christmas celebrate. On Christmas, people would decorate their homes with green leaves like holly and ivy, and you would also place a yule log in the fire. On Christmas, the priests would play “the fool” in church. And on the last day of Christmas, January 6th, there would be a feast called the feast of the Epiphany.

May day took place on the first day of May. At May day celebrations you would dance around the maypole which is a pole with lots of ribbons and leaves.
Easter took a whole week to celebrate, just like Christmas. Easter celebrated the crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. There was also a 40 day period of fasting called Lent that lead up to Easter. On Lent, you were not aloud to eat sweets or any fatty foods. No marriages were allowed to take place either.

Some smaller holidays in the Middle Ages celebrated the beginning of something. New year’s day is celebrated on March 1st. Some people also celebrated it on January 1st or January 6th.
Midsummer's eve celebrated the first day of summer. People would start celebrating right after Mass at church, and it would go until late evening.
Lammas day was a small holiday. It celebrated bread, and was celebrated in August. On Lammas day, there would be a feast containing mostly bread.
St. days would usually celebrate a certain saint. St. Valentine's day celebrated St.Valentine, St. Catherine’s day celebrated St. Catherine, etc. Michaelmas celebrated St. Michel and his adventures in the bible, but it also determined if it would rain in the next 40 days or not. St. Valentine’s day not only celebrate St. Valentine, it also celebrated love. People would usually celebrate saint days by singing and dancing, but some had other special traditions.

No matter what your role in the manner was, you would still be able to go to celebrations, but you would have different duties. All the poor people were allowed to go to celebrations and take a day off work in the fields and the lord would have to hold a feast for all the poor.
The lords would have special things that they had to take care of at celebrations. For example, lords would have to throw a feast for all of the peasants that worked for him and the lord would have to hold the actual celebration along with the church. The lords would also go to church before celebrations along with the poor.
All knights were allowed to go to all celebrations. If the knights were fighting a battle, all battles would be paused so that people could still attend celebrations. Also, if the knight was currently working for a king or a lord, they would definitely be able to go to festivals because the lord’s job was also to help hold the festivals.

There would be different types of entertainment for children, and adults. Children would often bob for apples or play other small games. Young boys would usually go hunting for food with the adults, and people would use that food for the celebration. Kids would also like to play sports like soccer and golf.
Adults would have a variety of things to do at celebrations as well . There would always be lots of singing and dancing at celebrations and some men would go hunting. In a few holidays people would have a parade, were you march and sing through the town. There would be different types of shows at celebrations in the Middle Ages. There would be lots of plays and people would also put on puppet shows. On St.Valentine's day, you would write special plays about love and perform them at the festival.

There were many different holidays in the Middle Ages, and some of which we still celebrate today. But, the Holidays that we still celebrate are likely not celebrated in the same ways, some traditions will be like the traditions in Middle Ages while some are gone, and others are new.