{"id":45310,"date":"2024-02-21T20:30:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T02:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revivalclothing.com\/?page_id=45310"},"modified":"2024-12-05T11:41:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T17:41:05","slug":"research-and-how-to-articles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/revivalclothing.com\/research-and-how-to-articles\/","title":{"rendered":"Research And How To Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Research And How To Articles<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Before there was a Santa: the Medieval Veneration of Saint Nicholas<\/strong><\/p>

No other saint has become as universally known and loved as \u201cjolly old St. Nicholas\u201d. A fourth century bishop in Asia Minor, by the sixth century, the Emperor Justinian I was building churches in his honor in Constantinople, and ranking him second only to St. Paul and the Apostles. Today, he is still honored as a saint by Roman Catholicism, Greek and Russian Orthodoxy, Anglicanism and is even venerated in several Protestant denominations. As one of the great saints of the medieval church, Nicholas was patron of children, unwed women, sailors, fisherman, bakers, brewers, pawnbrokers, paupers and travelers. He is the protector of Sicily, Greece and Russia and was the particular patron of the famed Varangian Guard of Byzantium, who were charged with guarding his relics. Credited by medieval writers with the destruction of the great Temple of Artemis on Myra, ironically, as the Christian \u201cPatron of the Sea\u201d, he posthumously assumed many of the powers, responsibilities and shrines of the pagan god Poseidon. Yet for all of these different legends and associations, and although the Feast of St. Nicholas is December 6, it is his association with \u201cSanta Claus\u201d and Christmas that keeps him alive in the hearts and minds of most people.<\/p>

So who was Nicholas, and how did he come to be associated with the giving of Christmas presents?<\/p>

The Historical Nicholas<\/b><\/p>

\"\"The first question has no easy answer, since the earliest written accounts of St. Nicholas date from nearly 500 years after his life, and his \u201cofficial\u201d biography coalesced in the 13th century. The historical and mythological figures have become inextricably blurred together. As the story has been recorded, the saint was born before the year 300 in the Greek colony of Patara, Lycia \u2013 a part of the Roman province of Asia Minor. His family were Hellenistic Christians of great wealth, but died young, leaving Nicholas an orphan. The family\u2019s wealth was somehow connected to the fishing industry \u2013 accounts differ \u2013 and Nicholas is said to have been virtually raised at sea. Whatever the case, after his parent\u2019s death, young Nicholas determined to enter the priesthood, and gave away his fortune to the poor.
His early activities as a priest are said to have occurred during the persecution of Christians under the reign of the co-emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Although some popular medieval accounts of his life claimed that Nicholas was martyred under Diocletian, this was clearly not the case, although he likely was jailed and tortured with the Christian community of Lycia during this time. In either case, Nicholas survived and was released when Emperor Galerius issued a general edict of toleration for Christians from his deathbed (311). Galerius\u2019 co-ruler Licinius continued this policy of tolerance, and the Christian community of the Eastern Empire began to wield great religious, social, and political influence. It was during this period that Nicholas rose to become bishop of Myra, and it is during his time as bishop that the earliest listing of his deeds is recorded. Besides charitable acts and a fierce opposition to both paganism and heresy, Nicholas seems to have used his bishopric to intercede on behalf of debtors, the falsely accused, foreigners and prostitutes, and many of the medieval legends about him are built around these incidents.<\/div>
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Deeds and Miracles<\/strong><\/div>
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If the historical data of Nicholas is unclear, the legendary account is quite rich, although some of the most celebrated of the bishop\u2019s acts seems rather incongruous to modern eyes with the idea of \u201cjolly old St. Nick\u201d. The first of these was the destruction of the great Lycian temple of Artemis, which he had raised to the ground, its altar and statues cast into the sea, and its faithful driven out with scourges. (Many scholars believe that Nicholas\u2019 feast on December 6 was chosen to commemorate this event, as it was also the traditional Roman celebration of Diana-Artemis\u2019 birth.)<\/p>

Nicholas had little more tolerance for \u201cheretics\u201d than he did pagans. The bishop of Myra is listed as a participant in the First Council of Nicaea, where legend records that he became so angry upon hearing the views of Arius (the founder of Arianism, a Christian heresy that denied the divinity of Christ), that he leapt from his seat, and battered the heretic down to ground with his fists. While a wonderful story, this account also shows the blurring of fact and legend in the life of Nicholas \u2013 there are many accounts of the Council of Nicaea, and only those that specifically deal with Nicholas himself record his even having been present. What is clear is that he was a fierce opponent of Arianism (which denied the divinity of Christ), as one biographer records: \u201cThanks to the teaching of St. Nicholas, the metropolis of Myra alone was untouched by the filth of the Arian heresy, which it firmly rejected as a death-dealing poison.\u201d<\/p>

The other tales of Nicholas\u2019 deeds are more in keeping with what we might expect of a saint and proto-Santa Claus. The first of these concerns the giving of gifts, particularly to the abject poor and children. When he gave away his wealth, Nicholas is said to have allotted much of it to orphaned children, travelers who had fallen upon hard times, and prostitutes. In his most famous exploit a poor man had three daughters but could not afford a proper dowry for them. This meant that they would remain unmarried and probably, in absence of any other possible employment would have to become prostitutes. Nicholas heard of his plight, but knowing that the man would not accept charity, he went to his house under the cover of night and threw three purses filled with gold coins through the window opening onto the man\u2019s floor. There are different versions of this story; most having the Saint make three separate visits to bring the gold. On the third night, the window was barred against the chill, so he climbed the roof and dropped the gold down the chimney. One of the daughters had washed her stockings and hung them to dry over the embers of the fire, and\u2026.you know the rest!
It was from this help to the poor that Nicholas became the patron saint of pawnbrokers; and the three gold balls traditionally hung outside a pawnshop symbolize the three sacks of gold. People then began to suspect that he was behind a large number of other anonymous gifts to the poor, using the inheritance from his wealthy parents. After he died, people in the region continued to give to the poor anonymously, and such gifts were still often attributed to St. Nicholas.
The other famous, oft repeated legend of Nicholas tells of how a terrible famine struck Myra, killing most of the livestock, so that there was no fresh meat. An evil butcher lured three little children into his house, killed and slaughtered them, and put their remains in a barrel to cure, planning to sell them as ham. Saint Nicholas, visiting the region to care for the hungry, not only saw through the butcher\u2019s horrific crime but also managed to resurrect the three boys from the barrel.<\/p>

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The Veneration of St. Nicholas<\/b><\/p>

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Devotion to Nicholas memory was widespread and his formal veneration had begun within a century after his death. While Justinian\u2019s church cemented his place in Eastern Christendom, by the mid-seventh century, shrines to St. Nicholas also began to appear in Western Europe. By the 900s, a Greek author wrote, \u201cThe West as well as the East acclaims and glorifies him. Wherever there are people, his name is revered and churches are built in his honor. All Christians reverence his memory and call upon his protection.\u201d But it was the seizure and removal of the saint\u2019s remains from Myra to Bari that really caused his cult to grow in the west, and his veneration became particularly strong in seafaring places, such as Sicily, Normandy, the Flemish ports, England and the German river towns. Only Mary is said to have been portrayed more consistently by medieval artists. In typical medieval syncretism, just as the people of Asia Minor and Greece had blurred Nicholas with Poseidon, German legends of the saint as a wandering traveler and a dispenser of both blessings and banes owe their origin to the myth of Wotan.<\/div><\/figure>
The \u201cofficial\u201d story of Nicholas was recorded in The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), by Jacobus de Voragine (1228-1298), a large and pious compilation of the lives and miracles of Jesus, Mary, and countless saints. Although it was not officially commissioned by the papacy, the work attracted an enormous medieval readership and was translated into many European languages. Thus it came to provide the definitive version of the miracle tales so beloved of Medieval Christendom. A 1483 English version by William Caxton became one of the first books printed in English.<\/div>
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From Saint to Santa<\/b><\/div>
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As Nicholas\u2019 cult spread, a tradition of celebration, giving of gifts (to commemorate his charity), and the making of special \u201cSt. Nicholas Cookies\u201d grew up around his feast. As Nicholas was the patron of children, the feast was also considered to be a time for giving gifts to children and tending to the orphaned. Although the Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to a waning in the veneration of Saints, the reverence of St. Nicholas survived in Europe as people continued to place nuts, apples, and sweets in shoes left beside beds, on windowsills, or before the hearth.
Traditions of St. Nicholas Day were brought with 17th-century Dutch settlers to New Amsterdam, which was destined to become New York. During the Revolutionary War, the New York colonists wanted to form a counterpart to the English \u201cSaint George Societies\u201d and looked to Nicholas, or in Dutch \u201cSinter Klaas\u201d, as their inspiration. This was more a political statement than a religious one, but the St. Nicholas Society outlived the Revolution, and one member, the famed writer Washing Irving, penned his satirical Knickerbocker\u2019s History of New York and published it on St. Nicholas\u2019 Day, recounting the importance of the saint to Dutch immigrants, and freely embellishing their traditions, including the notion that Nicholas entered the homes of those he wished to aid by sliding down their chimney. This in turn inspired \u201cA Visit from Saint Nicholas\u201d, better known today as \u201cThe Night Before Christmas\u201d in 1823 and the image of a roly-poly, elf-like bringer of gifts was formed. More importantly, \u201cSinter Klaas\u201d and his gift giving were now also inextricably tied, not to a day in the Advent season, but to Christmas itself. Santa Claus was born.
So while our image today of Santa Claus or \u201cJolly Old St. Nicholas\u201d is really a product of the last two-hundred years, the belief in a charitable, gift-giving, protector of children extends back into the earliest centuries of the Christian era, and was a central figure of medieval belief. While St. Nicholas himself may not have been linked to Christmas, it was perhaps inevitable that he would become so, as the resonance of his story with that of the Nativity, its proximity to Christmas itself, and the incredible popularity of the saint made him one of the most beloved figures of the medieval faithful.<\/div>
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Bibliography<\/b><\/div>
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Jackson, Sophie,The Medieval Christmas<\/i>, Sutton Publishing, UK, 2005
Jones, Charltes,Saint Nicholas of Myra, Bari, and Manhatten: Biography of a Legend<\/i>\u00a0University of Chicago Press, 1978.<\/p>

St. Nicholas: Discovering the Truth About Santa Clau<\/a><\/i>s<\/a><\/p>

The story of St. Nicholas, as related in\u00a0The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints<\/i>. Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275 \u2013 webbed at the\u00a0Medieval Sourcebook<\/a><\/p>

The 13th century Greek Account of the\u00a0Translation of St. Nicholas<\/i>, also webbed at the\u00a0Medieval Sourcebook<\/a><\/p>

Images:<\/b><\/p>

St. Nicholas Saves Three Innocents from Decapitation<\/i>
Chapel of St Nicholas, Lower Church, Basilica di San Francesco, Assisi, Italy<\/p>

St. Nicholas Rescues a Ship at Sea<\/i>
Tres Riche Houres<\/i>of the Duke de Berry
Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.<\/p>

St. Nicholas with the Three Boys in a Pickling Tub<\/i>
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.<\/p>

\u00a92007 Revival Clothing<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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From Ostara to Easter, and what is with all the rabbits?<\/strong><\/p>

Easter, Pascha, Resurrection Sunday. The Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead has many names, but none as peculiar as the first, Easter. The word is never mentioned in the bible itself, nor are there any indications that the event was ever referred to anything other than \u201cthe resurrection\u201d. \u00a0The story goes that after Jesus was betrayed by Judas on what we know today as \u201cthe last supper\u201d, he was brought before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate under charges of making himself a king. Though Pilate ruled that Jesus was innocent and that there was no basis for his sentencing, he still authorized the flogging and ultimately the death by crucifixion of Jesus, to prevent a riot from breaking out. Jesus was made to carry his cross to the site of his own execution at Calvary, where he was crucified alongside two criminals. After six hours of being hung upon the cross, he died.<\/p>

There are many mythoi that surround this particularly crucial moment in the Christian bible one of the most notable being that at the time of Jesus\u2019 death, there was said to have been a massive earthquake. To quote the King James Bible:<\/p>

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\u201cJesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, truly this was the Son of God.<\/em>\u201d (Matthew 27:50-54).<\/p><\/div><\/figure>

This little detail is particularly interesting, and rather crucial, as it has led to the discovery of the actual date on which the crucifixion could have likely occurred. This means there is an actual canonical date to be associated with Easter. We know that according to the bible Jesus was crucified on the 14th<\/sup> of Nisan, right before the start of Passover, and according to a 2012 geological survey<\/a> of the Dead Sea, just 13 miles from Jerusalem, seismic evidence reveals that there had been an earthquake that occurred in that area around the time the crucifixion was to have taken place. The survey was even able to provide us with an exact date, April 3rd<\/sup> 33 CE.<\/p>

Yet despite having a precise date on to attribute to the holiday, The Catholic Church still celebrates this holiday on a random Sunday in Spring. Why is that? And where did the name easter come from if not from the bible? And most importantly, how do rabbits and eggs fit in to all of this?<\/p>

To answer all these questions and possibly more, the best place to start is in 8th<\/sup> Century Northumbria, an early Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in what today is now Northern England and South-East Scotland. It is here that we get our look into how the name Easter came about, as well as a detailed look into the precise calculations which went into deciding the date on which easter is to be celebrated each year.<\/p>

Etymology<\/strong><\/p>

\"\"

The word Easter is derived from the name of the Saxon Goddess of spring, \u0112ostre or \u0112astre, who is also known as Ostara. Not much is known about her, in fact, there is only one surviving source that makes any mention of her and her worship: \u00a0St. Bede the Venerable\u2019s 725 CE work, The Reckoning of Time<\/b><\/em> (De temporum ratione<\/em>), where he writes of a feast held in her honor by the Saxons:<\/p>

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cEosturmonath has a name which is now translated \u201cPaschal Month\u201d, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.\u201d (The Reckoning of Time, Ch. 15<\/em>, Pg. 54, c. 725 AD)<\/em><\/p>

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Let us break this down a little bit, Eosturmonath is an old English word which translates directly mean \u2018Month of Eostre\u2019, which is the equivalent to our month of April. This is further supported by Bede\u2019s mention of it now being referred to as Paschal Month. Paschal is another word for Passover, which typically falls in March or April. It is from this particular passage in which we get the origins of the two names for the celebration of Resurrection Sunday: Easter and Pascha. Easter \u2013 derived from Eostre \u2013 was created in order to make the adoption of Cristian holidays more palatable to the Anglo-Saxons during the conversion. \u00a0By incorporating the name of one of their own goddesses well as the customary feast into the celebration, it made the conversion of the people of Northumbria go much more smoothly than it would have otherwise. A similar tactic was implemented for the tradition of Christmas as well, but that is a story for another time. Pascha, on the other hand, is rather easy to explain, as stated earlier, Jesus was canonically crucified at the beginning of Passover and according to some Christian interpretations, Jesus is often referred to as the Passover Lamb, making it a rather fitting name for the holiday.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>

We would like to take a moment to explain why Bede the only source we have on Anglo-Saxon religious practices before the catholic conversion, and how we know he is credible when it comes to Anglo-Saxon deities and their worship. During the 8th<\/sup> century conversion of England, all evidence of worship of \u201cHeathen\u201d Gods in Northumbria \u2013 temples, scriptures, art, the like \u2013 were destroyed during the catholic conversion, often by the Anglo-Saxons themselves at the urging of the catholic church. This is why there is such limited information of Anglo-Saxon pantheon and religious practices. St. Bede the Venerable was a historian, English monk, and scholar, and is known for his recordings of the growth of the Church in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in his 5-volume series An Ecclesiastical History of the English People<\/b><\/em> (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum<\/em>) which accounts the history of the Church in Northumbria up to the 8th<\/sup> century in great detail. We should also no discount that even according to the World History Encyclopedia<\/a>, \u201cBede is considered one of the most important sources of Anglo-Saxon history for modern-day scholarship.\u201d It is because of Bede that we know what we do now about the Anglo-Saxons pre-conversion.<\/p>

Calculating the Date of Easter<\/strong><\/p>

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The naming of Easter is also not the only thing Bede contributed to the easter we know today, in fact, the greatest source we have on how the date of easter was decided is also found in Bede\u2019s \u201cThe Reckoning of Time\u201d, as the main focus of this work, apart from recording the traditions of the Anglo-Saxons, was to calculate the exact date of Easter, and in doing so he described all the principal ancient calendars. Bede of course notes that its date in the calendar finds its roots in the Jewish feast of Passover as Jesus was canonically crucified on the night before Passover. Bede wrote that the date of Easter should be determined by the Lunisolar calendar, and that Easter should occur on the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon (also known as the Paschal full moon) that occurs on or soonest after March 21, which, during the creation of the calculations to settle on a date for Easter, was also date of the Spring Equinox. With these calculations in mind, Easter will always fall on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April. Bede wrote this calculation rather concisely as \u201cThe Sunday following the full Moon which falls on or after the equinox will give the lawful Easter.\u201d<\/div>
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Origin of the Easter Hare, and all its Eggs<\/strong><\/div>
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Now that we know how easter got its name and how the date was determined, it\u2019s time to figure out how rabbits and eggs fit into the whole equation. The Earliest evidence of the Easter hare was recorded in south-west Germany around 1682 by Georg Franck Von Franckenau in his Essay titled De ovis paschalibus<\/b><\/em> (About Easter eggs<\/em>) where he wrote of children searching for eggs laid by the mythical Easter bunny in the garden, much to the delight of the adults. In its earliest iterations, Oschter Haws or the \u201cEaster Hare\u201d and played a similar role to that of Santa Clause, in that the Easter Hare would leave little treats, toys and colored eggs for the good children, and leave little pellets for the disobedient children. There is some debate as to the origin of the easter bunny myth, however the most widely agreed upon story claims to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, and goes something like this: Eostre, when traveling in the winter, found a bird with frozen wings. To save its life, she transformed it into a rabbit with a thick furry coat. in gratitude to Eostre, the hare exercises its original bird function to lay eggs for the goddess on her festal day. This story however can only be traced back to the late 19th<\/sup> century, and only by word of mouth alone, Bede never made mention of any rabbits or eggs when he wrote of Eostre\u2019s feast, and though the area of origin of this myth coincides with that of the Anglo-Saxon homeland, many are skeptical about the myths origins as there is no physical source to corroborate the claims.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>

Eggs, unlike the easter bunny, are much more rooted in the catholic tradition. We know from as far back as the 1st<\/sup> century AD that eggs were associated with rebirth, fertility, and new life, the symbolism often being linked or contributed to that of the Phoenix. They became specifically associated with Easter in medieval Europe, when the church used to prohibit the consumption of eggs during \u201cHoly Week\u201d. The symbol of the egg evolved to represent Jesus\u2019 resurrection, \u201cfor Just as Jesus rose from the tomb, the egg symbolized new life emerging from the eggshell\u201d. The painting of the eggs can be attributed to Many Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Church to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red to symbolize the blood that Jesus shed as he hung on the cross. Red is also associate with new life and rebirth, rather appropriate for a holiday that marks new beginnings.<\/p>

Whatever the precise origins of these traditions may be, it does not change the fact that they are beloved additions to a holiday that would otherwise be a rather somber affair. Just like with Christmas, some of Easter\u2019s best and most recognizable features had their start in pagan celebrations, or were created to entertain children. Regardless of origin, Easter has now come to be known as the true start of spring, a time of rebirth and renewal, when we all finally emerge from our own tombs to embrace a new beginning.<\/p>

Bibliography:<\/strong><\/p>

Bede the Venerable. The Reckoning of Time (De Temporum Ratione)<\/em>, 725AD, Ch. 15 p. 54.<\/p>

Bede the Venerable. \u201cBede: Conversion of England.\u201d Medieval Sourcebook<\/em>, Fordham University, 26 Jan. 1996,
https:\/\/sourcebooks.fordham.edu\/source\/bede1.asp<\/a><\/p>

Fiorentino, Wesley. \u201cBede.\u201d World History Encyclopedia,<\/em> 10 May 2017, www.worldhistory.org\/Bede\/<\/a><\/p>

Winick, Stephen. \u201cOstara and the Hare: Not Ancient, but Not as Modern as Some Skeptics Think.\u201d Library of Congress<\/em>, 28 Apr. 2016,
https:\/\/blogs.loc.gov\/folklife\/2016\/04\/ostara-and-the-hare\/<\/a><\/p>

Vegas, Jennifer. \u201cQuake Reveals Day of Jesus\u2019 Crucifixion.\u201d Live Science, 27 May 2012, https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/20605-jesus-crucifixion.html<\/a>.<\/p>

Kaldera, Raven. \u201cWho Is Ostara.\u201d Northern Paganism<\/em>, 2014, www.northernpaganism.org\/shrines\/ostara\/about.html<\/a><\/p>

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Images:<\/strong><\/p>

The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ <\/em>(586) Syriac Rabbula Gospels<\/p>

Ostara<\/em> (1884) by Johannes Gehrts.<\/p>

Portrait of Bede writing<\/em>, from a 12th-century copy of his Life of St Cuthbert (British Library, Yates Thompson MS 26, f. 2r)<\/p>

Easter rabbit and colored eggs<\/em> (1810) by Johann Conrad Gilbert, likely made as a gift for one of his students<\/p>

\u00a92022 Revival Clothing<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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From the Pen of History \u2013 St. Valentine and St. Valentine\u2019s Day<\/strong><\/p>

Any student of the Middle Ages, regardless of their own faith, is familiar with the Calendar of Saints, and the myriad of \u201cSaint\u2019s Days\u201d that filled the lives of medieval man. This calendar evolved over the centuries, with some of the oldest saints no longer being formally venerated by the Catholic or Orthodox Churches, largely because their origins and histories cannot be verified. St. Christopher is one such saint, St. Brigid, another. But formally venerated or not, a number of these mysterious figures from the earliest centuries of the Christian era have had their feast days survive as holidays in modern, secular culture, such as those of St. Patrick or St. Valentine.<\/p>

Every school child knows the story of St. Patrick \u201cdriving the snakes out of Ireland\u201d. But the \u201cpersonage\u201d we associate with Valentine\u2019s Day is Cupid, if it is anyone at all. So who exactly\u00a0was<\/em>St. Valentine, and how did February 14th become associated with romance and lovers? As it turns out, there is no quick and ready answer to these questions.<\/p>

Will the Real St. Valentine Please Stand Up?<\/strong><\/p>

Valentinus (from\u00a0valens<\/em>,\u00a0potent\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0worthy<\/em>, so \u201cthe worthy one\u201d) was a popular name in late Antiquity, and just within the Catholic Church there are seven saints of that name. Normally, this isn\u2019t a problem; there are several Gregorys,\u00a0 Johns,\u00a0 James, etc., and each has their own feast day and history. Not so the man venerated on February 14th. Although the official Roman Martyrology (http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/cathen\/09741a.htm) names only one man associated with this feast day,\u00a0\u201cthe blessed martyr, buried in the Via Flaminia, north of Rome\u201d, it tells us nothing else about him.<\/p>

The name\u00a0\u201cValentinus\u201d\u00a0itself does not appear in the list of saints until it was added by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD. Gelasius added Valentine amongst those\u00a0\u201c\u2026 whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0The implication here is that nothing was really known about this group of saints, but they had been informally venerated within the Church for some time. However, following Gelasius\u2019 addition of Valentinus and his feast on February 14th, his name appears continuously on the roll of saints. Further, later martyrologies begin ascribing brief histories\u00a0to his name, but the only time more than one early source agrees with another is when a later source was clearly drawing from an earlier. Some of the many origins for St. Valentine include a Roman priest martyred by Claudius Gothicus in the third century, a bishop of Termi, and a non-clerical, second century martyr from the province of Africa. With no clear source for any of these origin stories, any or none of them may be accurate.\u00a0Certainly, Valentinus remained a shadowy figure in medieval sources until Jacobus de Voraigne, Archbishop of Genoa compiled his own lives of the saints, theLegenda Aurea<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cGolden Legend\u201d) around 1260. De Voraigne\u2019s source was that of a priest martyred by Claudius II Gothicus for refusing to deny Christ. DeVoraigne adds a year -280 AD -and a means of execution\u00a0\u2013 beheading\u00a0\u2013 but little else. Since the\u00a0Legenda\u00a0Aurea<\/em>\u00a0was one of the most widely copied and read books of the High and Late Middle Ages, this became the\u00a0\u201cdefault\u201d\u00a0history of the man venerated on February 14th, with later writers adding their own flourishes to the legend (and routinely changing the year of the martyrdom). By the turn of the 16th century, there is a far more complete tale: Valentinus was a priest living in Rome, who was arrested and imprisoned for marrying Christian couples and helping them to flee Rome. He was brought before the Emperor, and because of his gift with words and his skills in debate, Claudius took a liking to him, right until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor. The suddenly humorless Claudius ordered him beaten to death, and when that failed, his broken body was dragged outside the Flaminian Gate and he was beheaded and left in the street, whereupon he was quietly buried at night by Roman Christians.<\/p>

It is a Day for Lovers\u2026no, really!<\/strong><\/p>

So, whether by hagiography or fabrication, Valentinus had a complete, if brief, legend, and an association with young couples in love (although he was also the patron of bee keepers and epileptics) by the Renaissance. But what about all of the charming customs for young lovers associate with his feast day? When exactly did this begin?<\/p>

Since the 18th century, historians and antiquarians have argued Valentine\u2019s Day was yet another Christianization of an existing, pagan holiday. In this case, they argued that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine\u2019s feast in the middle of February in an effort to Christianize the pagan celebrations of Lupercalia, a fertility ritual that took place on February 13\u00a0\u2013 15. Further\u00a0\u201cevidence\u201d\u00a0of this was that Lupercalia was abolished by Pope Gelasius I, the same pontiff who formally added Valentinus to the list of saints, and who set his feast day as February 14. The evidence seems compelling\u00a0\u2013 a saintly feast day honoring lovers, set in the middle of a pagan fertility holiday by the pope who sought to do away with that holiday in the first place.<\/p>

The problem, of course, is that as we\u2019ve seen, this\u00a0\u201cevidence\u201d\u00a0is not actually all contemporaneous. Gelasius did not assign an area of patronage to Valentinus, and indeed, suggested that he himself had no idea what his origins were, merely that he had been venerated for some time. The association with betrothed couples cannot be documented until the 13th<\/sup>century, and even if we assume that it had been the\u00a0\u201ccommonly accepted\u201d\u00a0biography of St. Valentine for generations, we cannot credibly stretch this back to the 5th<\/sup>century.\u00a0So while Gelasius certainly did away with Lupercallia and added feast days to replace it, it is most likely that he was thinking not of Valentine, but of feast days devoted to the Virgin Mary to replace those of Juno Februa , or\u00a0\u201cPure Juno\u201d\u00a0(pure in the sense of\u00a0\u201cchaste\u201d).<\/p>

According to Alban Butler the author of the famous\u00a0Butler\u2019s\u00a0Lives of the Saints<\/em>, this ancient association between Lupercalia and St. Valentine\u2019s Day as a celebration of romantic love was further established by no less a person that Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote in his\u00a0Parlement of Foules\u00a0<\/em>(1382), also called the\u00a0Parlement of Birds<\/em>:<\/p>

For this was on seynt Volantynys day<\/em>
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make<\/em>.<\/p>

Chaucer goes on to describe many ancient romantic customs, as his narrator takes a journey into the celestial realm of Venus herself. Again, Butler\u2019s evidence seems compelling; added to the story of Pope Gelasius and Lupercalia, we have one of the great medieval writers associating St. Valentine\/Valentinus with the Roman goddess Venus and a number of ancient customs performed in her honor. Indeed, Butler\u2019s conclusions seemed so sound that they went unquestioned for generations.<\/p>

Sadly, there are several problems with this. The first is that the\u00a0Parlement of Foules<\/em>\u00a0was written to honor the anniversary of the betrothal between Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. The date of the betrothal is not February 14, but May 2, the Feast of St. Valentine of Genoa, a fourth century bishop, not our mysterious martyr buried in the Via Flaminia. The only element that the two Valentines share in common is an association with birds, which oddly enough may be a clue to our answer, as we will see below.<\/p>

The second major problem is that, even had Chaucer been speaking of\u00a0our<\/em>\u00a0Valentine, his ancient ceremonies and customs were nothing of the sort\u00a0\u2013 they were created whole cloth for the\u00a0Parlement<\/em>, so they are no more a reflection of either Lupercalia or a Christianized survival of that festival than the Wife of Bath was a fictionalized Eleanor of Aquitaine.<\/p>

Nevertheless, somewhere around this time the familiar association between Valentine and lovers has been established. Our earliest surviving\u00a0\u201cvalentine\u201d\u00a0letter is from only a few decades later, and written by no less a personage than Charles, Duke or Orleans, himself, penned to his wife as he sat captive in the Tower of London following the Battle of Agincourt:<\/p>

Je suis desja d\u2019amour tann\u00e9,<\/p>

Ma tres doulce Valentin\u00e9e,<\/p>

(I am already sick of love,<\/p>

My very gentle Valentine)<\/p>

Car pour moi fustes trop tart n\u00e9e,
Et moy pour vous fus trop tost n\u00e9.
Dieu lui pardoint qui estren\u00e9
M\u2019a de vous, pour toute l\u2019ann\u00e9e.<\/p>

(Since for me you were born too soon,
And I for you was born too late.
God forgives he who has estranged
Me from you for the whole year.)<\/p>

Je suis desja d\u2019amour tann\u00e9,<\/p>

Ma tres doulce Valentin\u00e9e,<\/p>

(I am already sick of love,<\/p>

My very gentle Valentine)<\/p>

Bien m\u2019estoye suspeconn\u00e9,
Qu\u2019auroye telle destin\u00e9e,
Ains que passast ceste journ\u00e9e,
Combien qu\u2019Amours l\u2019eust ordonn\u00e9..<\/p>

(Well might I have suspected,
That such a destiny,
Thus would have happened this day,
How much that Love would have commanded.)<\/p>

Je suis desja d\u2019amour tann\u00e9,<\/p>

Ma tres doulce Valentin\u00e9e,<\/p>

(I am already sick of love,<\/p>

My very gentle Valentine)<\/p>

We shall never be certain how a virtually unknown saint became associated with lovers, but our best guess is that it must be laid back at the feet ofJacobus de Voraigne and his\u00a0Legenda Aurea.<\/em>What seems likely is that, although the Church did not specifically use Valentinus\u2019 feast as a Christianized fertility celebration, Lupercalian traditions survived in a vestigial form throughout the early Middle Ages. By the 13th<\/sup>century, there was still enough of an association to have either influenced de Voraigne,\u00a0or his sources<\/em>, so that Valentinus\u2019 biography had slowly grown to center around his patronage of young lovers. Further, as Archbishop of Genoa, de Voraigne would have been familiar with the hagiography of that other St. Valentine, his 4th<\/sup>century predecessor, and either intentionally borrowed from his cult or conflated him with the martyr of the Via Flaminia. Whichever the case, the popularity of the\u00a0Legenda\u00a0Aurea<\/em>, copied and recopied in scriptoriums and universities throughout the 14th<\/sup>century, meant that de Voraigne\u2019s account and association, and its later additions, complete with lovers, birds and bees, became the\u00a0\u201cofficial\u201d\u00a0account in the Latin West. Whether Chaucer believed the saints venerated on February 14th<\/sup>and May 2nd<\/sup>to be one and the same person or not, his\u00a0Parlement of Birds\u00a0<\/em>is simply the first surviving record of a transformation that seems to have been well established by 1400\u00a0\u2013 that of\u00a0\u201cbeing one\u2019s valentine\u201d.\u00a0 Certainly, this only took deeper root in the centuries that followed, so that there can be no doubt that the feast day had its modern meaning by 1600, when Shakespeare wrote:<\/p>

To-morrow is Saint Valentine\u2019s day,<\/em>
All in the morning betime,<\/em>
And I a maid at your window,<\/em>
To be your Valentine.<\/em><\/p>

(Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V)<\/p>

Whatever Valentine\u2019s Day\u2019s precise origin or evolution, if our mysterious martyr\u2019s true history and acts remain\u00a0\u201cknown only to God\u201d,\u00a0 perhaps there are worse ways to be\u00a0\u201creverenced amongst men\u201d,\u00a0 than in an ancient feast day, harkening back to even older celebrations of love that have long been entrenched in Western culture.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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Wassail and Good Yule!<\/strong><\/p>

This old, Christmas-tide greeting rings with the sound of ancient days and half-forgotten mythologies of old, Germanic solstice celebrations. Today, few truly know what wassailing means, or where traditions such as the Yule log arise; they are quaint terms in old carols, Dickensian Christmas stories, and adaptations in neopagan solstice ceremonies.<\/p>

But are these truly ancient customs from the days of the yore, or do they merely seem like \u201cye olde traditions\u201d to our modern sensibilities? The answer is decidedly yes.<\/p>

Wassail<\/strong><\/p>

Wassail is a salute, a blessing and a beverage \u2013 all interestingly interconnected.<\/p>

As a salute, the term is a Middle English contraction of the Old English waes hael, or \u201cbe in good health\u201d, the equivalent to our modern toast \u201cto your health\u201d.<\/p>

The other two wassail traditions \u2013 as both a fall and Christmas beverage and a ceremony to ensure a good crop of cider apples \u2013 are closely interwoven to one another, and both are also certainly medieval in origin. Wassail the beverage is a hot, mulled punch, traditionally made of cider mulled with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and topped with slices of toast. Some counties use a base of mulled cider and ale. In many local traditions, the toast is itself made from an apple bread.<\/p>

Modern recipes often replace cider with a base of wine, fruit juice, or mulled ale, sometimes with brandy or sherry added. As we are about to see, however, without cider, the actual purpose of drinking wassail is essentially lost.<\/p>

The tradition of wassailing originates in the cider-producing region of south-western England (primarily Devon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Somerset) and involves singing and drinking to the health of the apple trees, with the purpose to \u201cawaken\u201d the slumbering spirits of the cider apple trees, to drive off malevolent spirits and to ensure a good apple harvest the following year. Although he exact origin of wassailing is unclear \u2013 there are no clear references before the High Middle Ages \u2013 it is one more of many folk traditions that long predate both the Conquest, and likely Christianity.<\/p>

As a folk festival, the exact particulars differ from county to county, even village to village, but \u201cgoing a wassailing\u201d has the same basic elements. A King and Queen are chosen from the village to lead a procession from orchard to orchard. The procession plays music, sings songs and dances. When they read an orchard, the \u201cWassail Queen\u201d is lifted into the boughs of the tree where she places a piece of toasted apple bread, soaked in wassail as a gift to the tree spirits.\u00a0 As she does this, the gathering sings an incantation to the spirits, often reminiscent of a children\u2019s rhyme. Then the band is off, singing and dancing to the next orchard.<\/p>

Both elements of fertility worship and the evolution and blending of wassailing into that of caroling are quite obvious, as seen in the traditional, medieval carol the Gloucestershire Wassail:<\/p>

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl, we\u2019ll drink to thee.<\/p>

Yule<\/strong><\/p>

Yuletide originated as a three day, Germanic pagan mid-winter festival, first documented in a Gothic document from the 4th century AD. It is referenced by the Norse Prose Edda, which clearly establishes a religious link, using the kenning of \u201cYule-beings\u201d for the gods and goddesses.<\/p>

Precisely how and when Yule \u201cmigrated\u201d to coincide with the 12 days of Christmas is a bit unclear. The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January on a date determined by the lunar Germanic calendar. The festival was placed on December 25 when the Christian calendar (Julian calendar) was adopted. About AD 730, the English historian Bede wrote that the Anglo-Saxon calendar included the months geola or giuli corresponding with either modern December or December and January. He gave December 25 as the first day of the heathen year and wrote that the Anglo-Saxons celebrated all night long to honor the Germanic divine \u201cmothers\u201d:<\/p>

\u201cThey began the year with December 25, the day some now celebrate as Christmas; and the very night to which we attach special sanctity they designated by the heathen term M\u014ddraniht, that is, the mothers\u2019 night \u2014 a name bestowed, I suspect, on account of the ceremonies they performed while watching this night through.\u201d<\/p>

The Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Norse Kings, credits King Haakon the Good with both Christianizing Norway and moving Yule to coincide with Christmas. Whatever the case, \u201cYule\u201d is still used as a term in the Nordic and English-speaking countries for the Christian Christmas, but also for other religious holidays of the season. In modern times, Yule has gradually come to be used as a secular name for the same traditions as Christmas. Yule is also used to a lesser extent in English-speaking countries to refer to Christmas, as well as a winter-solstice ceremony celebrated by neopagans.<\/p>

So the holiday of Yule is indeed a part of antiquity, but what is surprising is that some of the customs most associated with it, such as the Yule log, may not be.<\/p>

A Yule log is a large wooden log which is burned in the hearth as a part of traditional Yule or Christmas celebrations in several European cultures, usually associated with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or Twelfth Night. It features prominently in many old, English traditions, and because of its relationship to Yule and wassailing traditions, has long been assumed to come from the Anglo-Saxons. One of the first people to do so was the English historian Henry Bourne, who, writing in the 1720s, described the practice occurring in the Tyne valley. Bourne theorized that the practice derives from customs in 6th to 7th century Anglo-Saxon paganism.<\/p>

Bourne\u2019s theory was supported by Robert Chambers, in his 1832 work, Book of Days, who notes that \u201ctwo popular observances belonging to Christmas are more especially derived from the worship of our pagan ancestors\u2014the hanging up of the mistletoe and the burning of the Yule log.\u201d The theory was cemented into popular culture and \u201caccepted wisdom\u201d when embraced by James George Frazer in his monumental work The Golden Bough. Frazer asserted that \u201cthe ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice appears to survive\u201d in the Yule log custom. Frazer records traditions from England, France, among the South Slavs, in Central Germany (Meiningen) and western Switzerland.<\/p>

While Frazer was certainly correct that a ceremonial cutting of a particularly large tree around mid-winter reoccurred throughout Europe, particularly north of the Alps, he seems to have ignored that the details of these customs often have little in common, and far less of a \u201cfolk religion\u201d component than, for example, wassailing. Most importantly, from a Anglo-Saxon or Norse point of view, there is not a single account of the Yule log in Great Britain prior to the late 17th century, nor any reliable evidence of any formal tradition of a \u201cYule log\u201d throughout Scandinavia or northern Germany until the late Renaissance, in stark contrast to Yule, wassail, Christmas trees or winter candle-lighting ceremonies, all of which can be easily traced back through the Middle Ages, and often well beyond.<\/p>

Instead, the strongest traditions of a \u201cYule log\u201d come from Slavic lands, particularly Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria. Although the specifics differ in each country, the general tradition is that a log is cut at dawn on Christmas Eve, usually while the Lord\u2019s Prayer is recited. Sometimes a cross is cut into one end of the log, sometimes it is blessed with holy water. The log is then placed in the hearth at sundown on Christmas Eve and the family prays for good fortune in the next year.\u00a0 The log has to burn all night and it is believed that its warmth and light symbolize the coming of Christ. Sometimes the fire is put off using wine in the morning. Remains of the log are cherished and sometimes ashes are spread over a field or vineyard for good luck.<\/p>

While these Slavic customs may themselves be part of pre-Christian tradition, they have nothing to do with the Nordic Yuletide. Whatever the true source, however, wassail, Yule, the Yule log, caroling and all of these other traditions, ancient, medieval and modern, show the enduring and adaptable power of Christmas to weave old and new, pagan and Christian, Nordic and Mediterranean into a single, enduring celebration of the coming of the Light in the heart of winter\u2019s darkness.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Recipes for a Medieval Christmas Dinner<\/strong><\/p>

Holidays (\u201choly days\u201d) were times of great celebration and freedom from work in the Middle Ages. Although our forefathers often celebrated in ways very different from our modern traditions, the Feast of the Nativity, or Christmas, was second only to Easter in importance in the Church calendar.<\/p>

As a thank you to all of the support and enthusiasm our patrons have shown us this year, we at Revival wanted to put together something fun and a little different for the holidays. And although an essay on medieval Christmas traditions would * no doubt * have been fascinating, it didn\u2019t really seem terribly festive. Since, our business is about relating to history through re-living it we decided that we could best relate the seasonal merriment of medieval people to ourselves through a medium that has always been mankind\u2019s way of celebrating good time \u2013 through his stomach!<\/p>

With a little help from our resident medieval cookery maven, Jorg Bellinghausen, we are pleased to offer the following recipes for a medieval-style Christmas dinner. If your tired of turkey, ham or that same old roast, why not try a meal that would have brought a smile to the face of your Christmas guest six hundred years ago. Actually, if you and your guests are fans of good food and just a titch adventurous, we\u2019re pretty sure it will bring a smile to your faces today!<\/p>

A very Merry Christmas to all and\u00a0bon apetit!<\/i><\/p>

Appetizer<\/strong><\/p>

Warm hypocras (medieval spiced wine)<\/p>

1 bottle of really good quality red wine (Burgundy preferred; or use dry white wine, such as sauvignon blanc)
3\/4\u00a0cup sugar (brown cane sugar preferred)
1\u00a01\/2 teaspoons fresh or dried ground cinnamon
1\u00a01\/2 teaspoons fresh or dried ground ginger
1\u00a01\/2 teaspoons round fresh or dried ground galangal (or, if you can\u2019t get galangal, an additional equal amount of ginger)
2 tablespoons of rose water (made from 1 drop purified essence of Roses on a cup of water)<\/p>

Mix wine with sugar in a glass or stainless steel bowl, and add the spices. Let stand for at least two hours (over night is even better). Strain the wine through a double layer of cheesecloth; repeat several times until clear (However, if the hypocras remains opaque, this will not affect the taste) and rebottle the wine. Keep the hypocras in the refrigerator, and wait a couple of days before pouring.<\/p>

Before serving, warm gently (be careful, do not allow it to boil)<\/p>

I. Eggs in yellow sauce<\/strong><\/p>

Ingredients:
8 large eggs, hard-boiled
8 tablespoons marmalade (get an English style bitter orange marmalade)
6 tablespoons hot Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons red wine
1 small shallot, peeled and finely chopped<\/p>

Preparation:
Combine all ingredients except the eggs in a sauce pan, mix well and let simmer gently over low heat for about 10 minutes. If it gets too thick, add a tablespoon of water.
Peel and halve the eggs, put them on small plates and douse them with the sauce and serve.<\/p>

II. Fish soup<\/strong><\/p>

Ingredients:
1 whole pike or walleye (ca. 2.2 lbs), gutted, scaled and filleted (reserve head and bones)
1 quart of water
1 onion, peeled, halved and sliced
2 bay leaves
1 bunch of greens, coarsely chopped
2-3 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup of tart white wine
1\/2\u00a0cup cream
1 egg yolk
Sea salt and whole black peppercorns
Parsley for garnishing<\/p>

Preparation:
In a pot, combine water, the fish\u2019s head and bones, onion, bay leaves, the chopped greens, salt and peppercorns. Bring to a boil and let it boil down for about 30 minutes until reduced to ca. 50% of its original volume. Strain broth through a fine sieve into a bowl, discard the rest.<\/p>

In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; add flour and cook for a 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the roux is just starting to take up some light color. Add the fish broth; stir well to dissolve any clots. Bring to a boil, turn heat down immediately and let simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes. Cut the fillets into bite-sized chunks and add them to the soup together with the wine. Simmer for another 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Whisk the egg yolk and the cream thoroughly and stir into the soup.<\/p>

Adjust seasoning and serve immediately garnished with some freshly chopped parsley.<\/p>

III. Venison pie with spicy morello cherry sauce<\/strong><\/p>

Ingredients:<\/p>

For the dough:
2 cups flour
2-3 eggs, depending on size
2 oz lard
2 tablespoons water<\/p>

For the filling:
1 lbs venison
1\/2\u00a0lbs veal
1\/2\u00a0lbs bacon
1\/4\u00a0lbs calf\u2019s liver
1 oz butter
3-4 tablespoons Armagnac or Cognac
4-5 tablespoons red wine
2 onions, chopped
2 oz unsalted pistachios, chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Marjoram
Butter for greasing
1 egg yolk<\/p>

Preparation:
For the dough, combine all ingredients in a bowl and knead until you have a rather dry dough (It\u2019s important that the lard is *very* soft, almost liquid.) Cover the bowl and place the dough in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.<\/p>

Meanwhile, put half of the venison, the veal and the bacon through a meat-grinder set on medium-fine. Set aside. Cut the remaining venison into rather fine stripes.<\/p>

Preheat oven to 390 F to 430 F.<\/p>

In a pan, saut\u00e9 the liver in the butter until slightly browned. Deglaze the pan with Armagnac and remove the liver (reserving the jus in the pan)and set aside. In the same pan, saut\u00e9 the venison stripes, deglaze with red wine, remove the venison (reserving the jus in the pan) and set aside. In the same pan, saut\u00e9 the onions until they are colored. Remove from the pan, reserving the jus.<\/p>

Cut venison stripes and liver into small cubes and season with salt and pepper.<\/p>

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients for the filling and the jus, mix well and generously season with salt, pepper and marjoram.<\/p>

On a surface dusted with flour, roll out the dough and place into a buttered pastry pan, reserving some dough for the lid. Add filling and spread evenly. Moisten the rim of the dough with water, put on the lid and press the rims together well.<\/p>

Pierce the lid several times with a fork and brush it with the whisked egg yolk.<\/p>

Bake on the middle rail of the oven for about 90 minutes. Check whether it\u2019s done by sticking a wooden toothpick through the lid; if it comes out dry the pastry is done. Remove from the oven and let cool over night. Remove the pastry from the pan, cut into slices and serve with the sauce listed below.<\/p>

Morello cherry sauce<\/strong><\/p>

Ingredients:<\/p>

1 glass of sour cherries (about 7 oz), drained (reserving the juice) and pitted
1 oz butter
1 tablespoon mild mustard
1 cup cherry juice
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Ground cinnamon<\/p>

Preparation:
In a saucepan heat the butter, add the cherries and stew for five minutes. Strain through a sieve into another saucepan, add cherry juice and mustard and let it boil up briefly while stirring constantly. Thicken with the cornstarch mixed with a bit of water, season with salt, a generous amount of pepper and a whiff of cinnamon. Serve hot or cold.<\/p>

Dessert \u2013 Baked apples in wine:<\/strong><\/p>

Ingredients:<\/p>

4 large, sour cooking apples (if you can get Boskoop,
that\u2019s the way to go, Granny Smith is a no-no)
4 tablespoons red currant jelly
20 sultanas
10 whole almonds, skinned and cut into slivers
4 teaspoons unsalted butter
1 cup white wine
4 teaspoons sugar thoroughly mixed with
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon<\/p>

Preparation:
Wash apples thoroughly, don\u2019t peel them. Remove the core so that the bottom of the apples remains intact. Mix the jelly, sultanas and the almonds and stuff the apples with the mixture. Place a tablespoon of butter on each apple. Pour the wine into a casserole just large enough for all four apples, place the apples into the casserole and bake in the oven (pre-heated to 390 F\/ 200 C) for about 20 minutes until the peel burst.<\/p>

Remove from the oven, place each apple on a plate, sprinkle with the sugar-cinnamon mix and serve while still steaming hot.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The 15th century provides us with many of our stock, childhood images of the \u201cMiddle Ages\u201d: the knight in shining armour, the joust, even elegant ladies in tall, pointed hats! Yet it is a paradox, for by this time, many of the hallmarks of medieval society had already faded and were being replaced by a culture associated with the Renaissance. Feudalism, that uniquely \u201cmedieval\u201d political system, had effectively been dead for centuries. Medieval monarchs increasingly looked to develop effective, professional armies that could be more adaptive, better trained and able to stay longer in the field. At the same time that his employers were reexamining his role on the battlefield, the knight\u2019s newly completed harness was increasingly challenged by a combination of arms, in the form of pike, bow and gun, and they would soon unseat him from his place at the center of military society. Even the joust had become an increasingly artificial, international sport, rather than serious military training. Meanwhile, intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe, seeking new wealth in Asia and Africa, and launching what has been called the \u201cAge of Discovery\u201d.
In the year 1400, England and France were still locked in the Hundred Years War, and France was ruled by a mad king, with its worst defeats still yet to come. Emboldened by the weakening of the French monarchy, the powerful Dukes of Burgundy continued to grow more autonomous, building in all but name an independent kingdom, and a court that became the cultural center of northern Europe. In Iberia, the ancient Muslim culture of Al Andalus had been driven back by the Spanish kingdoms, until only the small kingdom of Granada remained, giving the Iberian Christians more time to war against themselves. Meanwhile, far to the east, the battle of Cross and Crescent was taking a very different course: the ancient Byzantine Empire was making its last stand against the inexorable advance of the Ottoman Turks. And through it all, the bankers and trading houses of Italy and the Hanseatic League grew ever wealthier.<\/div><\/div>
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The 15th century was a period of drama and elegance, as well as an idealized romanticizing of chivalric ideals. An illustration from Rene d\u2019Anjou\u2019s \u201cBook of Love\u201d. (1465)<\/i><\/p>

By 1500, the \u201cMiddle Ages\u201d as we think of them had been all but swept away. France had emerged victorious from the Hundred Years War and brought her rebellious duchies to heel, including Burgundy, making the monarchy stronger than it ever had before. England, on the other hand, and proceeded from the disastrous loss of her French territories into a bloody, thirty year long civil war, the War of the Roses, that saw the Plantagenets lose the crown of England after nearly three and a half centuries of unbroken rule. In 1453, Constantinople at last fell to the Turks, bringing to an end the last true survivor of the ancient Roman Empire. Meanwhile, the Spanish kingdoms of Castille and Aragon had driven out the last of the Muslim rulers, and had united into a single Spanish kingdom, creating what was soon to become a European superpower.<\/p>

But during the intervening years of this century, European society would undergo far more change than just political upheaval. A new intellectual culture was brewing that would bring sweeping changes in art, science, fashion and a drive for exploration. The Renaissance was being born.<\/p>

Humanism<\/i><\/strong><\/p>

It is often argued that the sweeping changes of the 1400s were driven first and foremost by a change in intellectual culture that returned to a reading of classical authors, put a new emphasis on secular topics and legitimized the striving for personal accomplishment. This new ideology was Humanism.<\/p>

The Middle Ages had been dominated by the intellectual culture of Scholasticism, which focused on resolving contradictions between famous Classical authors. Over time, the commentaries by these later scholars would develop an authority almost equivalent to that of the original author, so that a trained scholar might say that he had studied Aristotle without ever having read an actual word written by Aristotle himself! In the late 14th century, however, a new intellectual movement began to take shape in northern Italy. Because of their mercantile dominance, the Italian cities had long since had a need for highly educated, literate men with secular backgrounds. Initially, such a clerk, notary or lawyer was known as a humanist if he was a student or teacher of Latin and Latin literature but was not a Churchman. These &quote;humanist&quote; scholars began to rediscover many Latin and Greek texts, particularly poetic, historical and rhetorical works that had been neglected or even oppressed by clerics. By the mid-fifteenth century, the philosophy of Humanism had come to describe the studia humanitatis \u2013 a complete curriculum of grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history as learned from a direct study of Classical authors. Above all, these Humanists asserted that, as Man was created in the image of God, his unique ability to reason, appreciate beauty and to create and fashion objects was an inherently divine quality. As such, art and science were twin pillars that not only ennobled, but essentially sanctified man.<\/p>

In the century that followed, Humanist political writers such as such as Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas More would use the idea of Classical authors to criticize their governments, while new exposure to Plato would lead theologians such as Giordano Bruno and Martin Luther to challenge Church leaders not only politically and morally, but at the very philosophical underpinnings of their Aristotelian world view.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

Art and Science<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

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The Humanist worldview naturally intermingled Art and Science. Noted artists such as Leonardo da Vinci made observational drawings of anatomy and nature, while disciplines such as music and fencing were considered to be both a science and an art, as they were governed by certain undeniable physical laws of proportion and time, but were applied in a creative, ever-changing fashion. The most noted artistic change of the 15th century was the development towards a \u201crealistic\u201d sense of perspective. Masters such as Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) had begun this process in the 14th century, but it did not achieve its full-flowering as a formal \u201ctechnique\u201d to be studied and used as a measurement of the artist\u2019s skill, until it became popularized by the architect-sculptors Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472). Once a quest for realism had begun in one artistic element, artists quickly began to apply it to others, such as light and shadow. Inspired by the Humanist fascination with beauty and nature, they sought to more carefully render natural elements, most specifically, the human form, and this was expressed in the peerless works of da Vinci and Raphael that appeared in the last decades of the century.<\/p>

But the Italians had not cornered the market on artistic innovation, and under the patronage of the wealthy Burgundian Dukes, a new \u201cnatural\u201d school developed in the Netherlands, building around the work of Jan van Eyck (1385 -1441), who is also credited with the introduction of oil paint and canvas.<\/p><\/div><\/figure><\/div>

Jan van Eyk\u2019s famous \u201cThe Arnolfini Portrait\u201d (1434)<\/i><\/p>

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The fusion of art and science was perhaps most felt in the world of architecture, which became influences by a rediscovery of the writings of the 1st century mathematician Vitruvius. The architectural revolution of the 15th century began when Filippo Brunelleschi built the dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (1419-1436). Based upon the famed Pantheon in Rome, it would be the first free-standing dome of any significant size built in Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire.
Throughout the century a vast array of other innovations and inventions, such as the printing press (1455), the woodcut (1400 \u2013 1450), the harpsichord (c.1460), canal locks (1481), the distillation of malt into whiskey (c.1460). Yet the most significant development of the era was probably not any one discovery, but rather a process for discovery, based on empirical evidence. This method was the \u201cscientific method\u201d that has driven western science ever since.<\/div>
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Brunelleschi\u2019s dome atop the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (1419 \u2013 36)<\/i><\/div>
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Fashion<\/strong><\/em><\/div>
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The fashion trends of the 1400s followed the same trend towards exuberant extremes reflected in the rest of society during this period. As the worst of the Black Death (1348 \u2013 1350) lay long in the past, the changes in European society it had created included a tend towards greatly empowered, urban \u201cmiddle classes\u201d. These tradesmen, guildsmen and merchant-princes were nowhere as powerful or influential as the Italian city-states, or the Flemish cities under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy.<\/div>
With England and France mired in the Hundred Years War and its aftermath and then the English Wars of the Roses through most of the century, the glittering, the fashion-conscious, and sharp-witted Duke Philip the Good (ruled 1419-1469) had turned Burgundy into an autonomous kingdom in all but name, and had used his control of the trading cities Holland and Flanders to the acquire the finest English wool, eastern silks and Italian fashions.<\/div>
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Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy and his court, in a miniature by Rogier van der Weyden (1477).<\/i><\/p>

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Meanwhile, in Italy the old nobility had long fallen to mercantile republics or military despots. In many cases, the latter simply assumed the old hereditary titles of marchese, count or duke, whether they came from old noble families or were upstarts raising themselves up as the new nobility. Desiring to establish their legitimacy, these despots sought to make their courts the envy of Europe. Those who embraced the new ideals of Humanism became great patrons of art, science and learning. The lord acquired renown as a man of culture, learning and wealth, gaining additional civil or military service from the courtier, while the courtier gained far more: stable financial support, prestige, and a chance to develop his work without having to fight against the pressure of daily life.<\/div>
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The elegant houppelande, first appearing in the late 14th century, would dominate the fashions of the nobility throughout the first half of the 15th century.<\/i><\/p>

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The end result was that, there was a class of wealthy commoners in the midst of these extravagant courts who had the wealth and connections to successfully mimic, and sometimes exceed, the fashions of the nobility, regardless of any sumptuary laws. This thereby prompted the nobility towards ever more elaborate and extravagant fashions themselves. It also led to the first real trend towards clear \u201cnational\u201d variances in European fashions.
At end of the previous century, the voluminous houppelande had become a popular fashion for both men and women. The houppelande continued to be popular in Burgundian, French and English circles until well into the 1470s. Although it could be worn anywhere from floor to knee length, in all cases it became progressively more pleated, fitted with a high collar and tall, stuffed shoulders. At the same time, a counter-fashion was evolving in Italy and the south, as the old men\u2019s cotehardie became shorter and tighter, until it evolved into the revealing doublets and hose associated with the Italian Renaissance. Both houppelande and doublet would become popular throughout Europe, but with unique regional styles, such as the Italian fashion of wearing the doublet with a short, pleated tabard called the giornea, or the Burgundian fashion of the mid-century for the wealthiest of men to dress in solid black.<\/div>
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Women\u2019s headwear was nothing if not dramatic!<\/i><\/p><\/div>

Feminine fashion went through its own evolution as well. The old cotehardie and sideless surcoat persisted through the early decades of the century, with the cutouts of the surcoat becoming progressively wider. However, it was again the late 14th century houppelande, fitted with a high collar and wide sleeves that was to influence feminine fashion throughout most of the century. By 1450, the northern Europe fashion had developed a low V-neck that revealed glimpses of the undergown below. The full, long sleeves continued to be worn, although they were increasingly more fitted with wide, turned-back cuffs. Meanwhile, in Italy, the low V-neck and scoop-neck of the early decades gave way to a neckline that was worn high in front with a lower V-neck at the back, often worn with a sleeveless tabard, or giornea. This evolution would lead towards a series of new fashions in the final decades of the century, including the first appearance of puffed and slashed sleeves that would last for two centuries.<\/p>

Meanwhile, accessories assumed a new level of importance, particularly headwear. The old 14th century rolled chaperone evolved from a rolled-up hood into a unique, padded hat, hoods and turbans assumed new forms, and men\u2019s hats took on a variety of shapes, including some oddly familiar to modern eyes (one example looking much like the offspring of a derby and a ten-gallon hat!). But for the lady of means, the height of distinction was in multitude of headdresses that came in and out of fashion during the 1400s, many of which can only be best described as a Gothic arch on your head!<\/p>

Throughout the High Middle Ages, Europeans had been looking for more effective trade routes into Asia. Ironically, the same Mongol invasions that had destabilized much of Eastern Europe in the 13th century also united great swathes of Asia under a single rule, allowing Europeans merchants, mostly Italians, to more easily travel into the Far East. The most famous voyager was of course Marco Polo, who traveled throughout the Asia from 1271 to 1295, and became a guest at the court of Kublai Khan. His journey recorded a Travels was read throughout Europe. Yet Polo\u2019s voyage had little immediate effect, for the collapse of the Mongol Empire, the devastation of the Black Death and the rise of the aggressive Ottoman Empire effectively destroyed any chance at Europeans increasing overland exploration or trade.<\/p>

But Marco Polo was not forgotten, and entered a new period of fame in the 15th century Niccolo da Conti published an account of his travels to India and Southeast Asia in 1439. There was again an interest in new trade routes East, and this interest came none too soon, for with the fall of Constantinope in 1453, the old routes were now firmly under Ottoman control, and barred to Europeans. Fortunately, at the same time that a way around the Muslim lands of Asia Minor and North Africa were becoming viewed as crucial to European businessmen, the people of the Iberian peninsula had already begun developing the key to unlock the road East. This was the invention of new ships, the carrack and the caravel, \u201cround ships\u201d developed and influenced by North African models and better suited to open ocean voyage. At the same time, Humanist authors continued to rediscover classical accounts of geography and exploration, and became convinced that there was a way around Africa.<\/p>

The 15th century saw the first swell of expeditions that would launch the \u201cAge of Exploration\u201d, and it was the Portuguese who led the way. The first of these voyages was launched by the Prince Henry the Navigator (1394 \u2013 1460). Sailing out into the open Atlantic, Henry discovered first the Madeira Islands in 1419 and the Azores in 1427, and quickly established colonies on both. From here he turned to West Africa, seeking a way to bypass the trans-Saharan trade routes in the hope of finding gold, slaves and the fabled Christian kingdom of Prester John. By the 1440s the Portuguese had pushed south of the desert and into the interior, and although they did not find Prester John, they found a vigorous trade in gold and slaves. But the crucial breakthrough came in 1487, when Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope and proved that access to the Indian Ocean was possible. Eleven years later, Vasco da Gama (1460 \u2013 1524) successfully reached India.<\/p>

The Spanish kingdoms had been slower to respond and now anxiously needed their own check on Portuguese domination of the African entire. With the union of Castille and Aragon, the newly united Spain suddenly had the resources to launch an expedition of its own, with the hope that a Genoese sailor was right that the African route to India could be by-passed entirely by sailing straight west across the Pacific Ocean. When Christopher Columbus (1451 \u2013 1506) returned with claims of having reached \u201cthe Indies\u201d it was unclear precisely where he had been and what he had found, but it was clear that he had been somewhere.<\/p>

At the dawn of the 16th century, while the old maritime powers of Genoa and Venice continued to war with the Ottomans for control of the eastern Mediterranean, the Italian city-states braced themselves for foreign invasion, and the glory of the Burgundian court became the memory of the previous generation, a New World loomed and the balance of European power began to shift to the children of Iberia.<\/p>

\u00a92007 Revival Clothing<\/strong><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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Gaston Phebus and the Book of Hunting<\/strong><\/p>

We are proud to inaugurate this periodic column with a short biography of Gaston Phebus, Count of Foix, knight, adventurer, huntsman, and author.<\/p>

After calling on the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and all the saints, Gaston Phebus admits that his life was dominated by three passions: weapons, love and hunting. This he wrote in the year of grace 1387, aged over 50 and owning that the time for fighting and courting ladies is passed, so that it is now the time for him to recover his well-being amongst his huntsmen and to gallop off on long rides after the game described in his work \u201cThe Book of Hunting\u201d; a masterpiece that was intensely lived before it was written.<\/p>

The 14th century saw a renewed interest in instructional books devoted entirely to secular topics. Hunting was one the most popular topics for these handbooks, and none was more famous than the Livre de Chasse de Gaston Phebus.<\/p>

Gaston III, Count of Foix and viscount of B\u00e9arn, was one of the great lords of 14th century France. Born in 1331, he became known as \u201cPhebus\u201d, after the Greek sun god, Phoebus Apollo, because of his fair hair and handsome features. Gaston succeeded his father in 1343, and although still a boy, even by medieval standards, immediately leapt into the turbulent, dangerous world of France in the midst of the first phase of the Hundred Years War, winning his spurs in battle against the English two years later at the tender age of 14.<\/p>

At this time, Foix and B\u00e9arn were not in direct vassalage to the French crown. Despite his early support of the French crown, the relationship quickly became strained because of King Jean\u2019s support of the Count of Armagnac, Gaston\u2019s sworn enemy. Beginning in 1350, the young count set out upon a course of adventures worthy of the knights-errant of Arthurian romance, leading bands of equally ambitious men on forays into the Pyrenees, the Low Countries, Denmark, even into Prussia to fight in the ranks of the Teutonic Knights. On his return from Prussia, Gaston again threw his gauntlet into the ring of the perpetual struggle for the French throne, easily slipping his alliances from one side to the other as fortune, and the chance at further advancement and profit, led him.<\/p>

During this phase of Gaston\u2019s career, he launched a private war against his old enemy, the Count of Armagnac, capturing him and extorting an enormous ransom. Between this ransom and the wealth acquired along his military adventures, Gaston set to turning his estates at Orthez into a sumptuous court. It was at Orthez that Phebus entertained the famous historian Jean Froissart, whose quill immortalized both the splendor and sophistication of the Count\u2019s court, and the chivalric virtue of its lord. Surrounded by his old companions, his mistresses, his huntsmen and his beloved alan hounds, it was also at Orthez that Gaston was inspired to write the Livre de Chasse, the lavish hunting book that would survive the centuries and become synonymous with his name.<\/p>

In many ways, the Book of the Hunt was destined to be the final glorious flowering of a very dramatic life. The last decade of Gaston\u2019s life saw a slow, but notable decline in his fortunes, beginning with the murder of his sole legitimate son, by his own hand, in 1382. His own estates insufficient to support his lavish lifestyle, and no longer capable of leading young men on wild adventures to make their fortunes, Gaston slowly mortgaged away all that he had acquired, at last signing away all of his property in a secret treaty with Charles VI, making the French king his heir. Now in reality a tenant on his own lands, Gaston III, Count of Foix and viscount of B\u00e9arn, died soon after, in 1391; yet his magnificent hunting book, one part bestiary, one part hunting and huntsman manual not only survived, but thrived. Laboriously copied and recopied during the 15th century, thirty-seven manuscripts of his magnificent work still survive, preserving Gaston, his companions, his hard-working huntsman and beloved hounds, at least as he wished them to be seen, for all time.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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Andreas Capellanus (&quote;Andre the Chaplain&quote;<\/i>) is a 12th century author, presumed to have been a cleric of the Countess Marie of Champagne, daughter of King Louis VII of France and the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the patroness of Chretien de Troyes. He is known solely through his treatiseDe amore<\/i>(&quote;On Love&quote;), or in English asThe Art of Courtly Love<\/i>.<\/p>

De Amore<\/i>was supposedly written at Marie\u2019s request sometime between 1184 \u2013 1186, and was a subject of poetic debate among late 12th and early 13th century troubadours. Long considered a serious description of the &quote;rules&quote; of courtly love, many scholars now see it as a satiremocking the conventions of courtly love and court literature<\/i>, and the name &quote;Andreas Capellanus&quote; may itself be anome de plume<\/i>for a clerical or university-based author. The idea of Capellanus\u2019 treatise as an ironic satire would be particularly fitting, since the troubadours drew a great deal of inspiration from Ovid, and his three satirical works on love,Ars amatoria<\/i>(Art of Love),Remedia amoris<\/i>(The Cure for Love), andAmores<\/i>(Amours). Yet whether viewed as an instructional treatise, satire of the same or merely a piece of High Medieval court literature, it provides a window into the romantic beliefs, if not the actual practices, that were the foundation of the romantic tradition in Western literature.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>

DE ARTE HONESTE AMANDI<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>
[The Art of Courtly Love], Book Two: On the Rules of Love<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

  1. Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
    ii. He who is not jealous cannot love.
    iii. No one can be bound by a double love.
    iv. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.
    v. That which a lover takes against his will of his beloved has no relish.
    vi. Boys do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.
    vii. When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.
    viii. No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.
    ix. No one can love unless he is impelled by the persuasion of love.
    x. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
    xi. It is not proper to love any woman whom one should be ashamed to seek to marry.
    xii. A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.
    xiii. When made public love rarely endures.
    xiv. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized.
    xv. Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
    xvi. When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates.
    xvii. A new love puts to flight an old one.
    xviii. Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.
    xix. If love diminishes, it quickly fails and rarely revives.
    xx. A man in love is always apprehensive.
    xxi. Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.
    xxii. Jealousy, and therefore love, are increased when one suspects his beloved.
    xxiii. He whom the thought of love vexes, eats and sleeps very little.
    xxiv. Every act of a lover ends with in the thought of his beloved.
    xxv. A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved.
    xxvi. Love can deny nothing to love.
    xxvii. A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.
    xxviii. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.
    xxix. A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.
    xxx. A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved.
    xxxi. Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.<\/li><\/ol>

    Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>