On the fifth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
5 Golden Rings; 4 Calling Birds; 3 French Hens; 2 Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
St Thomas Becket
The fifth day of Christmas is dedicated to Thomas Becket, our most famous Archbishop of Canterbury. He was martyred at Canterbury on this day in 1170. But, he was made a Saint in 1173 in double-quick time, in order that the Pope could rub Henry II’s nose in his complicity with the murder.
Becket was a Londoner from a well-known London family, who became a friend of Henry II. Henry was troubled by the freedoms and fees owed to the Catholic Church. So he thought it would be a good idea to make his friend Archbishop. But as soon as Becket became Archbishop he went ‘native’, became a very stubborn and adamant defender of the Pope’s privileges in Britain. After various confrontations, Henry said, in anger, ‘Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?’ And three knights took him at his word, so Becket was murdered in the Cathedral in Canterbury.
Lousy Becket
Last year,. I wrote: ‘Next year I will add the story of Becket’s lousy habit.’ In November 2023 Katherine Harvey wrote an article, in History Today’ called ‘Lousy Saints’. It began with the discovery that Becket wore a hair shirt:
‘This goat hair underwear was swarming, inside and out, with minute fleas and lice, masses of them all over in large parches, so voraciously attacking his flesh that it was nothing short of a miracle that he was able to tolerate such punishment.’
Becket was a former-sophisticated courtier, and so the assumption was that Becket sought this discomfort deliberately. He also concealed it under magnificent clothes. The monks duly cited the lice as evidence of the piety of the man who was willing to suffer for his religion. They even suggested that the daily agony of the lice was worse than the swift death at the hands of the Knights. Many other pious clerics were similarly lousy by choice. Society as a whole found uncleanliness of this magnitude disgusting and had the technology to avoid it. Becket himself had a manservant to look after his clothes and access to a bath, but limited his baths to once every 40 days by choice. The fact that it was a choice is why people admired such discipline on the part of people like Becket.
Bridge and Pilgrimage
Soon, a new, magnificent bridge was built to replace the wooden London Bridge. In the centre of that Bridge was a grand Chapel dedicated to St Thomas Becket. It was refurbished by the renowned architect Henry Yevele (c. 1320 – 1400). It was here that pilgrims began their pilgrimage to Canterbury. That is, they travelled from where he was born, to where he was martyred.
The Legend of the Epic Walk of Mathilda Becket
In London, there was a legend that his mother, Mathilda, was a Muslim who fell in love with Thomas’s dad, Gilbert, during the Crusades. She helped him escape captivity and then found her own way from Acre to London. She made the journey knowing only the name ‘London’ in English and walked most of the way.
On St Thomas Day, people walked around St Paul’s multiple times to commemorate her walk of love. The story was told as true from the 13th Century until the 19th Century. Then researchers found that Mathilda had more prosaic Norman origins. The speculation is that the foundation of the Hospital St Thomas of Acre on the site of Becket’s birthplace led to the story of his connection with Acre. The story is told here:
Henry VIII’s hatred of Becket
When Henry VIII began the reform of the Church of England he was particularly keen to end the cult of Becket, this rebel against one of the great Kings of England.
‘Thomas Becket, sometime archbishop of Canterbury, shall no longer be named a saint, as he was really a rebel who fled the realm to France and to the bishop of Rome to procure the abrogation of wholesome laws, and was slain upon a rescue made with resistance to those who counselled him to leave his stubbornness. His pictures throughout the realm are to be plucked down and his festival shall no longer be kept, and the services in his name shall be razed out of all books.‘
Westminster, 16 Nov. 30 Hen. VIII’
A blog post by the British Museum highlights some fascinating research. Henry’s government ordered the deleting of unacceptable content in church service books. The last phrase of the quotation above show this. Research into the deletion of content found that it was very varied in extent, except where it concerned Becket. The vast majority of references to him were either completely defaced or mostly defaced, suggesting that Henry had a particular hatred of Becket.
Henry made a lot of money from the gold and jewels that were stripped from Becket’s magnificent shrine at Canterbury Cathedral.
Another post on Becket is here.
Wassailing
The Twelve Days of Christmas are full of wassailing.
Was hail Drinc hail
The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon version of ‘Cheers’ or good health. Its ceremonial use is described by Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing in 1135.
‘From that day to this, the tradition has endured in Britain that the one who drinks first at a banquet says “was hail” and he who drinks next says “drinc hail.”‘
Geoffrey is explaining how Vortigern betrayed Britain for the love of Rowena. She was the Saxon King Hengist’s daughter, and, incidently, speculating on the origins of the tradition of wassail.
Wassail
This has at least two different facets. Firstly, it is a formal drinking tradition at the centre of Christmas hospitality. Secondly, it is part of the tradition of the Waits, the Mummers, and Carol Singers. These groups who go around the village singing or performing in exchange for a drink or some food, or money.
Wassailing is either a gently social activity, or it is an anti-social custom in which the drunkards get to stand outside your house caterwauling and in effect demanding drink with menaces. Imagine a Trick or Treat with the drunkards from the pub!
A Wassail bowl would be full of some form of mulled alcohol or hot punch. A couple of pints of ale or cider, a pint of wine/brandy/mead, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. You should have an apple or crab-apple floating in the bowl. To find out more, look at ‘British Food, a History’ here.
‘Into the bowl is first placed half a pound of sugar in which is one pint of warm beer; a little nutmeg and ginger are then grated over the mixture, and 4 glasses of sherry and 5 pints of beer added to it. It is then stirred, sweetened to taste and allowed to stand covered for 2 to 3 hours. Roasted apples are then floated on the creaming mixture and the wassail bowl is ready.‘
The Curiosities of Ale and Beer, by John Bickerdike, published about 1860 from a Jesus College, Oxford recipe of 1732. (From Recipes of Old England by Bernard N. Bessunger
Wassail in the Orchard
It seems particularly associated with apple trees. On New Year’s Eve, wassallers went to the oldest tree in the apple orchard. There they poured a liberal dose of wassail over the roots of the tree. Then they pulled down the branches to dip the end of the branches in the punch. They decorated the tree, and then drank the wassail themselves.
Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us that the word means ‘Good Health’ or as we would say ‘Cheers!’
First Published on 29th December 2022, republished in December 2023, 2024
