TIL that Christmas for children in Medieval England meant getting extra beatings so as to 'remind them of Herod's cruelty' instead of getting presents
timetravel-britain.com/articles/christmas/med...Posted Feb 16, 2016, 1:43 AM UTC
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timetravel-britain.com
Well some people want to abuse you, and some of them want to be abused
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Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?
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I travel the world and the seven seas everybody's looking for something.
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I am watching you through a camera
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[deleted]
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TIL every one of my Christmases was actaully a traditional Medieval English Christmas.
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So, Seasons Beatings?
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Jesus, Medieval England had no chill.
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SShhhhh, or you'll be burned at the stake.
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England is one of the few places where cats were ever considered evil.
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Especially misbehaved kids get christmas in july.
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You better watch out, you better not cry!
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Yeaaaah, with no actually historical evidence cited in the article I am calling massive bullshit.
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This is the most Medieval thing ever.
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Yes, but only if they used an old fashioned flail to deliver the beating, unlike these useless overindulgent Renaissance parents.
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SO nothing much has changed them.
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Funny, Christmas for children of modern England means to worship at Herrods' alter
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*Harrod's
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[deleted]
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Yeah, well, the Christmas where I only got board games was worse.
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Well, beatings are cheaper than gifts.
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So Christmas has always been hardest on the parents?
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So everyday was Christmas when I was a child.
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Why am I assuming the catholic church was somehow involved in this?
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Maybe because you're stupid enough to believe an article with no hard objective evidence in it and only agree to what fits your preconceived anti-clerical progressive worldview?
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OP gave some sources for the information.
Looked this up as a source: "Gregory observes that it hath been a custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip the children upon Innocents Day morning, that the memory of Herod’s murder of the Innocents might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the crueltie again in kinde." Gregorii Posthuma, 1649. See Cotgarve’s "Dict." and the "Dictionn. de Furetiere." The source is given as W. Carew Hazlitt, Faith and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular Customs, Past and Current, With Their Classical and Foreign Analogues, Described and Illustrated. Forming A New Edition of "The Popular Antiquities of Great Britain" By Brand and Ellis, Largely Extended, Corrected, Brought Down To The Present Time, and Now First Alphabetically Arranged. In Two Volumes London: Reeves and Turner, 1905."
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A custom how widespread? Just in England? What parts? Was the custom simply a homogeneous area of practice that immediately stopped at Hadrian's Wall? Did all classes do it? When did it start? When did it end?
Why is Gregory the Posthumous notable and reliable as a source? Are pre-modern chroniclers often reliable when they note unicorns and dragons in the same book? Think critically, man.
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Think critically, man.
Why are you telling me this? I gave OP's source, go make your own opinion rather than lecture me about mine.
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This is the scholar behind the book, Gregorii Posthuma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gregory_(scholar)
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It would be nice if that article had citations to historical text. Because it looks like so much bullshit
Looked this up as a source: "Gregory observes that it hath been a custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip the children upon Innocents Day morning, that the memory of Herod’s murder of the Innocents might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the crueltie again in kinde." Gregorii Posthuma, 1649. See Cotgarve’s "Dict." and the "Dictionn. de Furetiere." The source is given as
W. Carew Hazlitt, Faith and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular Customs, Past and Current, With Their Classical and Foreign Analogues, Described and Illustrated.
Forming A New Edition of "The Popular Antiquities of Great Britain" By Brand and Ellis, Largely Extended, Corrected, Brought Down To The Present Time, and Now First Alphabetically Arranged. In Two Volumes London: Reeves and Turner, 1905."
Do I have this right? A 1905 book quoting a 17th century orientalist on a custom that said orientalist says 'used to be' practiced 'here' (I assume England, but difficult to tell without context) and continues 'elsewhere'?
And additionally, the supposed custom is for Innocent's Day (December 28th) not Christmas?
I'd be wanting to see some much better evidence before I believed this one. A story told by an early modern orientalist about Things Others Did is a pretty thin basis for anything about medieval England.