suggestion led to a riot in which his assailants “threw stones, bones, and other things” at him and his house, keeping up their assault for an hour and a half, during which they “beat down much of the daubing in several places,” stole several bushels of apples from a storage bin, and broke down a considerable length of fence. A “wassail gone bad,” Nissenbaum terms the incident.
If the case was a rare one to reach the courts, the anti-Christmas laws soon came to be honored more in the breach than in the observance, and over time, both in the colonies and in England, it became obvious that an outright ban was a tool of limited reach. In 1684 the Puritan-dominated charter of Massachusetts was revoked by the mother country and a government headed by Edmund Andros, an Anglican, was put in its place. One of Andros’s first actions was to permit the celebration of a number of seasonal festivals, including Christmas, by anyone or any group wishing to do so.
But in England as well as the colonies, the new watchword for such celebration was “moderation.” Even Mather and his followers might have been more inclined to suffer the celebration of Christmas—despite the fact that it had not been divinely ordained—if it were not for the “Abominable Things” that were done in its name. By the mid-eighteenth century, almanac makers such as Nathanael Ames and Benjamin Franklin were speaking out in favor of seasonal celebrations like Christmas, so long as they were enjoyed without excess. At this same time, the traditional Bay Psalm Book, a rendition of the Old Testament psalms used by most New England congregations and containing no reference to the birth of Christ, was being replaced by two new versions containing Christmas hymns.
In England, despite the return of Charles II to the throne, the ferocious opposition of Cromwell and his Roundheads to the holiday had sapped something of its vitality. Also, the advances of Enlightenment thinking had weakened adherence to all subjective belief systems, traditional religions and pagan practices included. Doubt had begun to enter the modern mind, and if the hold of the Puritans had begun to slip, the power of Zeus and his Titans and Father Christmas had been reduced to just about nothing at all.
“Enlightened” men were reasonable men, not sentimental ones, and they were not to excuse themselves to a month or so of drinking and licentiousness for the sake of a pagan custom. As the diaries of Samuel Pepys attest, while Christmas had made something of a comeback in the years following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the season was no longer the excuse for a monthlong binge. Pepys writes of working late on Christmas Eve, and even on Christmas Day as well, though he did attend church services in the morning and evening. He also partook of the custom of a hearty Christmas meal, including such dishes as roasted pullet, “a mess of brave plum pudding,” a shoulder of mutton, and mince pie.
Though the best-known entries in Pepys’s diaries record his observations on the Great Plague of 1665 and the London Fire of 1666, his recollections of everyday life of the times are one of history’s most valuable guides to the period. Quite an earthy character, who was willing to speak candidly of his carnal escapades with serving girls, Pepys nevertheless does not attribute such behavior to any license of the Christmas season. He does, however, speak of his participation in a pale vestige of the Christmas ritual of misrule that had persisted into the Restoration period—a parlor game (Bean & Pea) during which guests would draw lots and “become” one or another member of the royal court and play their chosen role for the evening.
Related to such amateur theatricals were mummers’ plays, vestiges of the practice of mumming, often staged impromptu in public houses, on the streets, and in private homes. Presentations by “guisers,” or groups of performers in costume, went on
If the case was a rare one to reach the courts, the anti-Christmas laws soon came to be honored more in the breach than in the observance, and over time, both in the colonies and in England, it became obvious that an outright ban was a tool of limited reach. In 1684 the Puritan-dominated charter of Massachusetts was revoked by the mother country and a government headed by Edmund Andros, an Anglican, was put in its place. One of Andros’s first actions was to permit the celebration of a number of seasonal festivals, including Christmas, by anyone or any group wishing to do so.
But in England as well as the colonies, the new watchword for such celebration was “moderation.” Even Mather and his followers might have been more inclined to suffer the celebration of Christmas—despite the fact that it had not been divinely ordained—if it were not for the “Abominable Things” that were done in its name. By the mid-eighteenth century, almanac makers such as Nathanael Ames and Benjamin Franklin were speaking out in favor of seasonal celebrations like Christmas, so long as they were enjoyed without excess. At this same time, the traditional Bay Psalm Book, a rendition of the Old Testament psalms used by most New England congregations and containing no reference to the birth of Christ, was being replaced by two new versions containing Christmas hymns.
In England, despite the return of Charles II to the throne, the ferocious opposition of Cromwell and his Roundheads to the holiday had sapped something of its vitality. Also, the advances of Enlightenment thinking had weakened adherence to all subjective belief systems, traditional religions and pagan practices included. Doubt had begun to enter the modern mind, and if the hold of the Puritans had begun to slip, the power of Zeus and his Titans and Father Christmas had been reduced to just about nothing at all.
“Enlightened” men were reasonable men, not sentimental ones, and they were not to excuse themselves to a month or so of drinking and licentiousness for the sake of a pagan custom. As the diaries of Samuel Pepys attest, while Christmas had made something of a comeback in the years following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the season was no longer the excuse for a monthlong binge. Pepys writes of working late on Christmas Eve, and even on Christmas Day as well, though he did attend church services in the morning and evening. He also partook of the custom of a hearty Christmas meal, including such dishes as roasted pullet, “a mess of brave plum pudding,” a shoulder of mutton, and mince pie.
Though the best-known entries in Pepys’s diaries record his observations on the Great Plague of 1665 and the London Fire of 1666, his recollections of everyday life of the times are one of history’s most valuable guides to the period. Quite an earthy character, who was willing to speak candidly of his carnal escapades with serving girls, Pepys nevertheless does not attribute such behavior to any license of the Christmas season. He does, however, speak of his participation in a pale vestige of the Christmas ritual of misrule that had persisted into the Restoration period—a parlor game (Bean & Pea) during which guests would draw lots and “become” one or another member of the royal court and play their chosen role for the evening.
Related to such amateur theatricals were mummers’ plays, vestiges of the practice of mumming, often staged impromptu in public houses, on the streets, and in private homes. Presentations by “guisers,” or groups of performers in costume, went on
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