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Although the Christmas tree did not reach England from Germany until the mid-nineteenth century, the English have been hanging up evergreens for Christmas since the Middle Ages. One of the Puritans' first actions after banning Christmas was to have the evergreens pulled down in London, which had been hung in the public squares.
Holly and ivy were very popular evergreens for Christmas. Holly was usually thought of as masculine, while the clinging ivy was feminine, and several old carols depicted the "battle" between the two for mastery of the house during Christmas. Holly, with its sharp thorns and blood-red berries, also carried religious symbolism of Christ's passion. The herbs rosemary and "bays", or bay leaves, were also highly favored for Christmas decorating. They were both used in great boughs and to trim the boar's head as it was carried in procession to the table for the traditional Christmas Day meal (those well versed in Shakespeare will recall that rosemary, "for remembrance", was also traditional at funerals and weddings). The small-leafed boxwood, a shrub well-suited to the formal gardens and mazes that the Elizabethans loved so much, also lent itself well to displays in churches and town squares, along with holly, ivy, rosemary and bays. The English use of evergreens at Christmas is traceable back to pagan Celtic and Norse customs at winter festivals. One plant that never shook free of its Druidic past was mistletoe, and as such was not considered fit for display inside churches. The Elizabethans made mistletoe into "kissing boughs", much like we do today. The scholar Erasmus on visiting England, wrote: "Wherever you go, everyone welcomes you with a kiss, and the same on bidding farewell...in short, turn where you will, there are kisses, kisses everywhere."Even though the early English did not erect Christmas trees, they did light a Yule log in the fireplace every year. Customarily the log, which was cut during the previous Candlemas (February 2nd) and left to dry, would be hauled in with great ceremony and lit with a piece of the previous Christmas's Yule log. To do this successfully and keep the log burning throughout the Christmas season (remember, there are twelve days of Christmas) meant good luck for the entire household in the coming new year. The custom of decorating evergreen trees for Christmas began with the apple-trimmed "Paradise tree" set up in churches for medieval mystery plays on December 24th, which was known as "Adam and Eve Day." Eventually people began setting up such trees in their homes, at least in Germany. The earliest printed reference to Christmas trees dates from 1561 in Alsace. Evidently the custom had become very popular, because this reference was a proclamation limiting the burghers to cutting only certain sizes of trees, as the forests were being denuded! The first printed reference to a fully decorated Christmas tree is from Strasbourg in 1605, when a traveler wrote: "At Christmas fir trees are set up in the rooms... and hung with roses cut from paper of many colors, apples, wafers, spangle-gold, sugar, etc."Although a tree decorated in this manner would be recognizable even today as a real Christmas tree, the custom had not yet fully developed into its present form, and many seventeenth century Christmas trees were hung upside-down from the ceiling! Like most other Christmas customs of suspected pagan origin, the Christmas tree had its detractors, even in Germany. In the 1640's, Doctor Johann Dannhauer of Strasbourg Cathedral complained: "Among other trifles which are set up during Christmas time, instead of God's word is the Christmas tree or fir tree which is put up at home and decorated with dolls and sweets. Whence comes the custom, I know not: it is child's play...Far better were it to point the children to the spiritual cedar-tree, Jesus Christ." |
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