Posted on 12/08/2024 10:57:15 AM PST by DallasBiff
During the Puritans’ rule of England, celebrating on 25 December was forbidden. Singing yuletide songs then was a political act, writes Clemency Burton-Hill.
When it comes to revolutionary protest songs, what springs to mind? Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit? Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind? Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come? I’m guessing the humble Christmas carol is probably low on your list of contenders, but in mid-17thCentury England, during the English Civil War, the singing of such things as The Holly and the Ivy would have landed you in serious trouble. Oliver Cromwell, the statesman responsible for leading the parliamentary army (and later Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland), was on a mission to cleanse the nation of its most decadent excesses. On the top of the list was Christmas and all its festive trappings.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Flame away.
I love how the BBC describes a decree by a Bishop of Rome, but doesn’t name him (Telesphorus). St. Telesphorus was the eighth Pope. He suffered martyrdom.
We were visiting our son in Boston and went to Lexington MA in December. There was a really nice Christmas tree display in the local museum each based on a children’s book. There were maybe two strings of lights in a one block downtown area and that was all until we headed back. We passed a lot of really nice houses and only one of them had any Christmas lights but oh my goodness did they have decorations. Lots of blow up Santas, Christmas trees and lights. But generally Massachusetts does not know how to celebrate Christmas even now.
Mmm...I’m pretty sure we don’t have any writings by Telesphorus, so I’m not sure what the primary source citation for that decree would be.
Liber Pontificarum, maybe? I don’t have it in front of me.
I don't see any comparison between Oliver Cromwell and Obama/Biden in the very least.
It's no wonder that the Restoration in 1660 set England off on a 177-year binge of debauchery until Queen Victoria put her tiny foot down and ended it.
They’re banned in Syria now.
St. Irenaeus makes a reference to it, I believe.
Well, there is in the sense that if you believe the country (or the Church) is irredeemably and hopelessly corrupt, you end up wanting to burn the thing to the ground and starting all over again.
Whereas the moderates (in religion or modern politics) tend to believe we might have gone wrong in a few areas but we can just clean things up a bit.
Ah, thanks. I’ll dig for it.
I have an interest in the development of Christmas...this would be another data point to investigate.
***He suffered martyrdom.***
Back in 1968, after the murder of Bobby Kennedy and the hysteria it caused, someone wrote into a news magazine and asked..”Has any Pope ever been murdered?”
The answer was “No. No Pope has ever been murdered.”
Come to find out several have been murdered in the ancient past.
That is real Anglican, referring to a Pope as “a Roman bishop”.
I do not know if this would be a good thing or a bad thing. What I do know is that when I hear a Christmas song then I continue to sing it all day and night until it makes me crazy! ;-)
Those brits have always been a strange people. Why anyone wants to emulate them is a mystery.
Exactly. The UK has historically NOT set the best example.
Boston along with the rest of America have forgotten how to say merry Christmas at the grocery stores, department stores etc. I remember growing up in an era everybody would wish everyone a merry Christmas. All that seems to be gone. I truly 😢 miss those days. We have lost the true meaning of Merry Christmas! Hardly anybody uses the phrase anymore ….not even cashiers, waitresses, everywhere you go nobody says it anymore. We have all been brainwashed and intimidated not to offend other religions by wishing people a Merry Christmas so we have learned to keep the saying to yourselves. Sad.
I find it curious that Americans use the archaic word “merry” in their Christmas greetings. In England, they say, “happy Christmas.”
Henry VIII outlawed he Catholic Church and created the Church of England with his Acts of Supremacy in 1534. From that point forward England was attempting to become Protestant with multiple factions including the Puritans. Throughout Charles I's reign, the English Reformation was in the forefront of political debate. There was never a point when the country (or the Church) was considered irredeemably and hopelessly corrupt, warranting burning the thing to the ground and starting all over again. It was a Civil War between the Cavaliers and Roundheads, and the Roundheads won in 1646.
Anglicans refer to the Pope as the Bishop of Rome, which sort of recognizes the Catholic Church in Catholic countries while not recognizing the authority of the Pope.
It seemed odd to refer to a 2nd century Pope and saint as “a Roman bishop” though. However, I am not sure Roman bishops were recognized as Popes at that time and they didn’t go through the later process of election.
When Henry VIII broke with Rome, most of the clergy just kept with the same services, etc. as before. There were Lollards before Luther, who read black market copies of the Bible in English and said what they were doing in church was not in the Bible.
Charles I tried to rule without Parliament and got behind the high church Arminian or Anglo-Catholic faction. Civil war broke out when he tried to force Calvinist Scotland to use the English prayer book, which they considered the mass in English. The Puritans won the Civil War, and ruled England, and eventually Ireland, for a few years although they were an extreme faction. Trying to ban Christmas, etc. did not make them popular.
Merry Christmas was probably used in the 18th century when the US split off, and the US probably kept the poetic sounding traditional languag.
This is not a Brit thing. It’s a protestant thing. The English had a fine time with Christmas until the protestants stamped it out.
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