December 21, 2022 • 45 mins
In part two of this week's episode, Margaret continues her conversation with Garrison Davis about how the Church tried, and largely failed, to stop the wild revelry of the winter solstice.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to cool people who did cool stuff.
It's a podcast. The guests is Garrison, the producer is
Sophie Garrison. How are you doing. I'm doing very well. Excellent, Sophie.
How are you doing? I'm doing very well. Everyone's doing
so festive and cheery, and so I'm festively jovial. Let's
do this all right, very Saturnalia chaos pilled so yeah, yeah,
(00:26):
and our audio is done by Ian our music is
done by own women. In part one we learned all
about the pagan ship Christmas borrowed from today. We're talking
about my favorite Christmas, which is medieval Christmas. Medieval Christians
had not forgotten their pagan roots. They were again this
is purely from my point of view, basically just pagan
to like cross themselves and went to church sometimes because
(00:49):
otherwise people were just talking to them at Latin and
they just kept being doing whatever they wanted to do.
That is my totally historical I'm an anthropologist. Anyway, Christmas
in medieval England was a lot of fun for starters.
There's twelve days of it, like the song on Christmas Day,
their church services there was then there was drinking, feasting
and games for about two weeks. The twelfth day of
(01:11):
Christmas was called Epiphany or sometimes just twelfth Day, and
it is more important in Christmas Day. In medieval Christmas,
it represents when the three wizards we talked about last
time who totally belong. It's like it's like if you're
reading a story where there's only one wizard, and then
all of a sudden there's like a reference to three
other wizards and they're just never talked about again because
(01:32):
like in in like Christianity, no one can do magic,
but like God, right, but then there's just some fucking wizards. Yeah,
I mean there, I mean there, there is. There is
a few other other there is a few other people
who do magic in the Old Testament. But it's like, oh, yeah,
that's true. If you do it, you're basically working with
demons or Satan. It's like you can't do it, it's
just evil. Yeah. And then of course like Agnostic Christianity,
(01:57):
everyone can do magic because everyone is Jesus. All right,
what's that meme? I would like to know more about
your religion and please give me a pamphlet. There's like
a meme where people are like someone says something they
think is cool. And it's not like a meme, like
an image meme. It's like a a thing people say
on the internet maybe who says that? Where someone says
(02:20):
something and you're like, I would like to know more
about your religion, Please give me a pamphlet. Anyway, Epiphany
represents when the three Wizards showed up and we're like, damn,
this kid is important. I think his dad is gone.
In a couple hundred years from now, it's gonna be
a big fuss about whether that means it literally or not,
because spoiler, early Christianity spent a lot of time getting
(02:41):
into the very heated debates with some death involved about
whether or not Jesus was the Son of God or
God literally or whatever any of that ship means. And
and unfortunately the Catholics won that debate and the Gnostics
didn't boo boo, Although would we be sitting here like
right now years later if the Gnostics had won, the
Nats would have come into power and they would have
(03:03):
been just but they would have been just a shitty
I don't know, I I because like the Gnostics are
way less hierarchical than the Catholics. Catholic maybe like casultism
is so built on hierarchy, like they built a hierarchy
of angels. They build a hierarchy of like of of
of like hell reality, whereas the Gnostics are like, everyone
(03:24):
can be their own savior and we should we should
all fight the demiurge, like we we need to fight
God and become our own savior. Generally way more decentralized, right,
But the Protestant Revolution was also the decentralization of religious authority,
and it did not It was at best a lateral
move in terms of actual liberation for the world because
(03:46):
it made everyone cops instead of one cop far away
that you can ignore. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying
to come for the Gnostics. I'm just like, I just
think it'd be really funny and interested if, like the
Gnostics said, on that fight and then the Catholics have
been like a cool underground one that like people totally possible.
It's that that is that is that is definitely completely
(04:07):
possible that the world would have been just as shitty.
But there's no interesting because it's it's such a different theology. Yeah. Anyway, Uh,
thanks for coming down that with me. So Midnight Mass
has been part of Christmas since basically forever, starting around
four d because Christ, who's totally not the sun, was
(04:29):
born at exactly the darkest time of the darkest night
of the year, just when the sun starts returning. Totally unrelatedly,
it's just a weird coincidence of when he when his
mom got knocked up by an angel. Funny how that
worked out. Yeah. St. Nicholas got attached to Christmas when
the Protestants, who are trying to phase out all the
pagan holidays and fun in general, they especially the Puritans,
(04:50):
they crammed him into Christmas instead of his traditional day
December six, which is the day that everyone used to
give people presents. People gave each other presents a lot
during a lot of these times, but like giving kids
presence was like a St. Nicholas Day thing, and in
some place, I think it still is. And then they
were like, no, it needs to be like the presence
need to somehow be like God presence, not St. Presence.
(05:12):
So it got moved to Christmas so we could put
the Christ in Christmas, you know. And St. Nick himself
was kind of interesting his own right. His whole thing
was he like gave sh it away to people just
like all right, it seems it seemed like he was
kind to sex workers, which is nice. I guess it's
the main way to judge someone, honestly. Anyway, medieval peasants
(05:33):
they remembered some of those pagan roots and because of
that there was ritual transvestism as part of Christmas continuing
to be extremely based, and there was feasting and merriment, etcetera.
And the Church didn't like this. They just couldn't do
anything about it. They tried, They tried two different things.
It's the same two things that everyone uses to try
(05:56):
and stop the power of Christmas. First you try repress
and then when that doesn't work, you try co option
if you can't beat them joint of Yeah, basically that
is what happened, is the Catholic Church didn't steal Christmas.
Catholic Church acquiesced and joined Christmas. Is how is my
(06:17):
reading on this? Yeah. In seven the year seven forty two,
a bishop wrote to complain about the quote singing and
dancing in the streets and pagan style heathen acclamations and
sacrilegious songs, banquets by day and night, the wearing and
selling by women of flactories and ligatures, which I think
means like sex charms and love charms. Okay, okay. They
(06:39):
did better with co option, and they really worked on
the sanitization of Christmas. And that's the the real war
against Christmas is the sanitization of it. The gift giving
got replaced, as you pointed out, by gifts of the magi,
and the whole thing was treated as if it was
about Christ or whatever. But the cool ship continued to
filter through. Take Christmas carols. The medieval versions of Christmas
(07:03):
carols were based on a pre Christian style of singing
where a leader sang a verse and then a crew
of dancers sang and danced the chorus together. And this
got lewd, And I am so annoyed that I could
not find more information in history besides it got lewd. Okay, okay,
I would I would love to see. Yeah, what the
(07:25):
two things in all of the history should I read?
The two things that are written out of it? It
is fucking sex, working drugs like any hedonism and and sex.
All the people that write this stuff down are all nerds,
and the wrong kind of nerds. Yeah, none of them
(07:46):
actually do the cool stuff. They're all like they're yeah, yeah,
they're like he he he, it got lewd. I'm like,
does that mean they showed their ankles or were their
orgies in the streets? Yeah, because they're entirely possible. I
know people did weird ship. People still do weird ship
right now. In any given town. You could go to
(08:06):
a club where people are like t he he, I
can see that person's ankle, or you can go join
a weird public orgy like it still happens. So then
there's the Feast of the Innocence, which is a feast
day that gets it. It gets assigned to a bunch
of different days in different traditions and calendars and ship.
It's usually decembery and the current whatever, but I'm gonna
(08:31):
call it December. And the Feast of the Innocence is weird.
It's about when King Herod of Syria killed all the
boys under two years old, like tens of thousands of kids.
This is probably folklore. It probably didn't happen, I don't know,
Like the Bible, I guess, And these kids are seen
as the first martyrs of Christianity. And I've read two
(08:52):
versions of what happens on the Feast Day of the
Feast of Innocence in the in the medieval tradition. They
are very different takes on what happened on this day.
One is sick. It's a role reversal for kids and adults.
You go, there's like just it's just a chaos day.
Kids run around, the kids like run the Catholic mass. Uh.
They tell everyone what to do. The parents have to
(09:13):
listen to the kids. And there's another version of the
Feast of the Innocence, which is like this shitty game
of hide and seek where all the kids hide and
then the parents try to find them, and if they
find the children, they beat them. What the FUCKA whoa?
Those are so different, They're so different. What is going on?
(09:36):
I don't know. I the subtext of the beat the
kids one is a little bit like the parents might
not have tried to find the kids. It might have
been like get out of our hair, or will hit you? Okay,
we want to have like yeah, yeah, mommy adult time
or whatever. I don't know, I can't I'm so annoyed,
(09:59):
you know, like sometimes sometimes in these episodes, I wish
I had like months per episode, you know, yeah, because
that is that was I mean is it likely that
just like both happened at different places. And honestly that's yeah,
because we're talking about like medieval England. I'm talking about
like five hundred fifteen hundred in the entire continent of
(10:25):
because it's like one of those is much more similar
to like the Saturnalia role reversal thing, and the other
one is just child abuse. Yeah, totally, and there's more
role reversal. That's a hard that is a hard thing
to say. Yeah, in medieval England and again medieval Oh, actually,
(10:46):
well this one, I can give you a specific country, England,
a random peasant, would you draw lots again? And instead
of being the King of Saturnalia, you are the Lord
of Misrule? Okay, which still sounds pretty rule. It is
the single best title that one could possibly have, I believe,
is the Lord of Misrule. And they were in charge
(11:08):
and their job is to make sure the revelry was
fucking chaos, eat dinner at the altar of the church,
fucking drink. People would complain because random strangers, I think,
like random richer folks coming town. But I don't know,
maybe that's like me trying to be like, oh it
was like based but who knows it might have sucked
who fucking it was chaos, random rich strangers coming into
town might get spanked and robbed, and everyone is and
(11:34):
people are of course cross dressing all over the fucking place.
There is a chance that at the end of his reign,
the Lord of Misrule was sacrificed, just like might have
happened on Saturnalia. And it's an interesting image, and it's
presented by like a bona fide folklorist and anthropologist who
should know what he's talking about. A lot of people
are real skeptical. I'm I'm skeptical. I'm more skeptical about
(11:58):
medieval England humans prificing the Lord of Misrule at the
end of their week, but or at the end of
the twelve days of Christmas, that'd be a funny And
on the twelfth David of Christmas, I gave you just
literally you're dead now, just sucking killing you. A lot
of the like neat stories about weird, wacky ways that
people killed themselves in each other from like the oldie
times turn out to be just stories like the thing
(12:21):
and the like Scandinavian thing, or like the Swedish thing
about like old people have to throw themselves off of
cliffs in order to die in order to like not
take up resources from the community or whatever. I can't
it's used in that movie Midsummer Spoiler. I guess that's
not real as far as anyone can tell. That's like
a that's a story. It's a story. Yeah yeah. Whereas,
(12:44):
on the other hand, most of the stories that hint
about sucking and drugs it seem to actually usually be
true and are not because poor people fucking to drugs. Yeah,
it's more sustainable than Yeah, you can you can do
drugs more than during your lifetime die one time typically
(13:04):
unless you are again Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Yeah,
or that guy the first zombie, who do you summoned
back from the dead, Oh, Lazarus, Yeah, that's it. And
then also one of the reasons I sort of doubt
this is that for all of the I really don't
(13:24):
want to be like for good things that Christianity culturally exported,
but um, the overall Christianity cut down on human sacrifice
a good solid amount whenever it was around, and then
they found their way to do killing another way. Oh yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, yeah,
that's God. Maybe that's just all made the Crusaders pent
(13:45):
up whatever anyway, So the Lord of Misrule ties into
but is distinct from the Feast of Fools, which started
probably in Central Europe. And all of these names are
so good, I know, and they're all fucking cool things.
It's start in Central Europe. It's uh January one Colens,
(14:07):
which is still part of Christmas if if you're doing
the twelve Days, and it was a day of the
Feast of Fools was wildness and folly and role reversal
and lewdness and like everything is permitted very like actually
kind of like Mardi Gras is the sort of modern
thing that people would sort of tiles into and it's
all happening like in the name of God. But the
(14:28):
priests in there being like fun, fun, fun fuck. How
do we stop this fun fun fun fuck? There was
like in the name of God, and they're like doing
everything that Christianity normally says not to do. Is there
having like a transgender orgy? Yeah? Yeah, And it took
a couple hundred years for the Church to successfully stomp
(14:49):
out the Feast of Fools. Unfortunate, unfortunate. I know, It's
like to me, it seems like maybe how like a
person who lives in England is ostensibly rule by the
English King, and a Catholic is ostensibly ruled by the
Catholic Church. But really people are just people and doing
their own thing, and these authoritarian structures are just trying
to claim authority that they only somewhat have. And that's
(15:11):
how I feel about the like folk Catholicism of this time.
Catholicism is this type of Catholicism is at odds with
the Church rather than being in like obedience to the Church.
And this seems to be the Catholicism that was actually
practiced by a lot of Catholics instead of what people
claimed they should be practicing. So was sailing. So what
(15:33):
sailing is when you demand stuff from people? And do
you know who else is demanding stuff from us? From you?
The listener, Sophie Lichtman is demanding that in order to
continue to eat food on Arran. Yeah that, um, we
(15:54):
should shift over to hearing different voices, a diversity of opinions.
I have these opinions about cool people did cool stuff,
whereas you might be about to hear an opinion that
says that you should become a cop. Hopefully those ads
are gone. Now yeah, I mean we really don't have
control over most of the ads. Yeah, so we don't
(16:16):
endorse them. Yeah. It so we can do our shows
and pay people and eat food and have homes. Yeay,
here's the ads. We are back. Was sailing traditionally done
on the twelfth night. Was sailing probably gets its name
(16:38):
from the Norse. It basically means like hail, as in
like hail and well met, or like hey, what's up? Yeah,
it means it means be in good health, and it's
what predates modern caroline. It basically means go around and
make the rich people give you nice ship by singing songs.
It gets referred to as recipient initially gated charity, which
(17:01):
is my favorite euphemism in the world. That's great because
I would like to present a spectrum of ways of
engaging in power. I have top down charity, in which
the rich give to the poor, usually in ways that
maintain the power structure and you know, not based make
them feel good about themselves. Then there's mutual aid, which
is people giving freely amongst equals, and then there's recipient
(17:25):
initiated charity aka give me your ship. Unfortunately, I mean,
there's kind of a way of seeing all of this,
like revelry, this sort of negative interpretation of all of
this stuff that I really like. I don't subscribe to
this belief, but it is the danger of all this
(17:46):
revelry is that it lets out pent up aggression. If
you get to be in charge, if you're an ancient
Rome and you're enslaved and you get to be fed
by your master for a week a year, you're less
likely to revolt. Yeah, this is the same type of
thing we see a lot of the time, and like, uh,
it's the recuperation of like anti capitalist resistance and selling
(18:11):
it back to you in a way that is palpable.
But bye. By by doing that exchange, you feel like
you're living in a world where where there actually is
actual resistance, but a lot of it is paid for.
Like it's it's it's the the One of the few
good jokes from Rick and Morny is the is the
is the simple ricks wafers and how they start selling
(18:34):
the simple ricks freedom wafer selects how you can you
can you can you can buy this wafer and it
gives you a taste of what it's like to be
actually truly free and so like it's it's and it's
and and this this wafer flavor was was designed by
like studying the brain of someone who just laid like
a revolt against a factory. Um and it's like getting
(18:56):
this getting this taste into into into the way for
and this person worked at the wafer factory. So it's
this company that is like using this revolt to make
more of their products. And you can, you can engage
with it, and it gives you a taste, but that
it's actually it's it's it's just gonna prolong the amount
(19:16):
of time that you're living under this because now you
have this little bit of the taste. And what I
would argue is that when the government or the forces
that be or whatever the funk do this kind of
stuff to us, it's dangerous for them. It's not as
completely under continued their control as they would like to claim,
you know, um Like sometimes these things, these things that
(19:40):
to them are like controlled burns, get out of control.
And I would argue that as they like let the
steam out of the pent up. I mean, how many
metaphors can I possibly use here, But you know, as
they let the steam out or whatever, right let out
the pent up energy or whatever, so that the whole
thing doesn't s blowed. It's still sometimes it's like actually
(20:05):
teaching us. Like sometimes you get that taste that wayfer
in your mouth and you're like, you know, what if
we had the whole fucking factory, what if we had
that all the time? Yeah, no, like that, that's the
same thing. I think I was talking with this with
people when um the TV show and or finished coming out,
which how did how did Disney allow them to make
(20:26):
this thing that's showcasing how to do all these various
forms of resistance, And there's a part of it that's
like they're selling you back this version of right of
uprising for us to consume. And maybe if we just consume,
that will be happy enough that we're that we're able
to consume this thing that we'll forget that you can
do this in in the real world. But I don't
(20:47):
I think that is uh with considering, but I don't.
I don't think it's it has the full picture. Yeah, yeah,
I think what happened there is that you have people
who actually it less that Disney was like ha ha,
this is our big evil plan. I mean, like like
what if there was like a single radio conglomerate that
(21:07):
controlled like half of podcasts the radio stations, and then
people got paid to talk about rebels on their network, Right,
I would argue that they would be doing these hypothetical
people would be doing it to make use of a
power structure that exists, like rather than like for the
(21:32):
sake of that power structure. And it's a dangerous and
complicated game. But the the old cliche is that the
the last capitalist will sell you the rope with which
to hang him. Yeah, and that doesn't mean he doesn't
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, which is why I like
that saying. And people will use that saying like to
mean the opposite and I'm like, no, that's the capitalist
(21:54):
is still diet. Yeah, And anyway, recipients initiated charity. Big
part of was sailing. It's like the role reversal thing.
So peasants would go to their feudal lords or just
like rich people, and they would sing and demand good
food and booze and sometimes just straight up money. And
this looked lots of different ways. Sometimes it's like you
(22:16):
show up and you're like give us your figgie pudding
or we won't go away and they're like ha ha ha,
here's your figgie pudding. And then you're like, thank you, sir,
And everyone feels really good about themselves. And sometimes there's
all these like people writing complaining about being like the
rich people are afraid to leave their houses because gangs
of youth are outside station to rob them. So there's
like a whole spectrum. Yeah, of was sailing. Uh. Sometimes
(22:40):
people would curse the rich people, but you know, totally
not pagan, just regular curses, good Christian curses. Yes, yes,
all of those Christian curses. Yeah. Sometimes they would vandalize
the place. And this is actually the rick the root
of trick or treating, as far as I can tell,
trick or treat that's what it was reminding me of. Yeah,
it's give me some candy or egg your fucking house
(23:02):
is like the once you're like twelve or thirteen, you know,
that's the level of trick or treating or whatever. Maybe
it's just me. Uh. A clergyman from the time said quote,
men dishonor Christ more in twelve days of Christmas than
in all the twelve months. Besides, great people would drink
(23:22):
and gamble and feast and probably they fucked. But you know,
the history books won't say plus they fucked. Instead they
say they engaged in licentatious behavior. Cross dressing big part
of it and a big part of a sailing. So
every single fucking little bit of tradition has people across dressing.
(23:44):
It's part of it. There's this book that rules. It's
called Witchcraft in the Gay Counterculture, and it was basically
a love letter written to me and you Garrison, okay um.
It was by Arthur Evans, probably Robert's dad. I'm not
can neither confirm nor deny mhm um. And it talks
about how everyone kept dressing up as weird ship quote.
(24:06):
So common was the practice of animal masquerades in the
Middle Ages that detailed condemnations were issued against them. Theodore,
a seventh century archbishop of Canterbury Centerbury maybe I wrote
that wrong might be. Canterbury wrote, if anyone in the
colens of January goes about as a stag or a bowl,
that is, making himself into a wild animal, and dressing
(24:28):
in the skin of a herd and putting on the
head of beasts, those who in such wise transforms themselves
into the appearance of a wild animal penance for three
years because this is devilish. And the same book Witchcraft
in the Gay Counterculture says links between witchcraft and transvestism
appear regularly in early Christian Europe. In the sixth century,
(24:50):
the Christian writer Cesarius of Aries denounced the pagan practices
of ritual transvestism and the wearing of animal costumes. Six
and seventh century synods repeat condemned trends. Condemned transvestism during
the popular New Year's holiday, where men dressed as women
quote a masquerade probably originating in a fertility right of
some kind. In ninth century, a Christian guide book prescribed
(25:12):
penance for men who practice ritual transvestism. A thirteenth century
inquisitor in southern France denounced female worshippers of the goddess
Diana along with male transvestites. This is this is all
super fascinating because I I just I just for the
last episode of the Tenacious Unicorn ranch series I was
writing about there's been these attacks on drag shows by
(25:34):
these these Christian far right groups YUM, and particularly this
past month, there's been multiple attacks on Christmas themed drag shows.
It's just fascinating because like these, these these Christmas themed
drag shows are more like traditionally Christmas yet all of
these Christians who are attacking them. But it's also this
(25:57):
interesting look a bit on, like this exact scenario isn't new,
this has been going on for thousands of years. It's
the same thing. They're doing, the same thing. We're both
following into our traditional roles. Yes, these Christians are attacking
these other Christians or these these holiday like drag performances
(26:20):
in the same way that these Christians are attacking a
ritual transmestism. It's the same ship. Yep. And I love
that the Church has multiple times over the years needed
to say please stop cross dressing and or dressing up
like cows, and people just kept being like no, no, no, no,
(26:42):
We're gonna do it. I can't stop me. And I'm
doing it in the name of God. Um. And there's
also something in the last the last line from that
last quote about the inquisitor in France coming after female
worshippers with the gost Diana along with male trends best dates.
And there's a bunch of things there. One is that
like there were a bunch of women worshiping Diana including
(27:06):
sis women and trans women was more or less what
that's saying. But also that like the modern Turfs who
want to like separate system trans women, like the enemies,
have been demanding we burned together for a very long time. Yes, okay,
more cool about Christmas. The Welsh tradition have you heard
of mary lud? I don't think so. It's not actually
(27:29):
lude like lude, it's it's l w y d Okay, Okay.
So you take a horse skull, right, and you put
the horse skull on a stick. Uh, you make like
a hobby horse out of it, you know, like a
little kid. Yeah, and then you drape a sheet sort
of over it, like kind of on the neck so
that you can hide under the sheet. And so it's
(27:52):
just a horsehead on a stick with a person underneath it.
And that's that's your Christmas, uh, with say alien thing
that you bring around And so with sailors would take
this horrific, awesome horse skull around them with them as
they were sucking up the rich and getting drunk. And
(28:12):
historians have no idea whether this Welsh tradition, the mary
lewd is the gray mayor I believe is what it
translates to they have no idea of its pre Christian
or not. Rather, lots of people have ideas about whether
it's pretty Christians or not, but no one can prove it. Um.
The records of it go back to about eighteen hundred,
but they talk about it being a thing from before them.
(28:33):
Another thing that predates Mary Lewd is the concept of advertisement.
So true, you're so true. Yeah, we can all make
it through it together. We are back. You could also
with sail and orchard, in case you were ever wondering.
(28:56):
You're like, but I was sailing orchard? Well, the answer,
Garrison Davis, is that you could if you would choose
what type of things would be at the orchard and
the end of December. So I think this is was
sailing now taken out of Christmas time. I can't I
can't tell. It still might have been, because you're not
(29:18):
like going and getting the apples at this point, you're
blessing the orchard for better harvest in the here to come. Yeah, okay, yeah,
and so it actually still could have been midwinter. I
I really kind of like, I don't know. I spent
a while trying to figure out exactly when they were
with sailing orchards. Okay, so yeah you can with sail orchards,
(29:40):
which even up into the seventeenth century was really fucking
pagan I mean folklore or superstitious people would march from
orchard to orchard, led by the wassail king and queen
to the orchard and drink to the health of the
trees and scare away evil spirits. In order to bring
about a good harvest. They would lift the wassail queen
up into the bows to place booze soaked bread in
(30:00):
the branches. Yeah, totally Christian. Yeah, this is yes, this
this doesn't sound like filick paganism at all. No, no,
just a Christian thing. Other was sailing traditions included drinking
mould cider and various types of booze from a with
sail bowl, which is a big communal bowl that everyone
drank from, and the drink was called with sale because
(30:22):
they're really original namers and it's been a bunch of
different drinks at different times. For a while, it was
mead with crab apples. Later it was cier um, like
what people drink Christmas now. Other times it was like
ale with baked apples in it. Basically it's like some
combination of like apples of some variety and alcohol. I mean,
stuff like this has has continued on today this yeah,
(30:44):
this this this style of tradition yeah yeah, And I
really like it. It is like one of the things
that I'm not talking about that in the script. But
I still genuinely like, like the real at my heart,
the reason that I never actually like didn't like Christmas
even when I was like a baby anarchist and spent
all of my time rallying against consumerism and shipped like that.
And I still believe the same ship I believed but
(31:09):
noted noted fan of consumerism. Yeah, but like the idea
of gathering together with your family and the darkest day
of the year and like at the darkest time, like
and it's not just that the light is returning, but
it's at the coldest setting in And how hope returns
even as things get worse. And I think about this
a lot with the current rise of fascism. Right, even
(31:30):
when we turn the tide on fascism, things will continue
to get worse for a while, but we can't lose hope.
We know that as the light returns eventually delayed so
will the warmth. UM. I really care about both Soulstice
and Christmas, and I like, I really I'm very blessed.
And then I come from a wonderful family um and
(31:52):
and enjoy gathering them, and so I feel like I
need to like shout out that. Like another important part
about Christmas is something that does get held onto for
all of it, which um is fucking family togetherness in
tradition and all that ship. Um. Anyway, that's my my
little earnest moment for the week. Medieval Christmas. I'm all
(32:14):
for it. Medieval Christmas is the best of all Christmas
is a lot of people weren't for it. The real
war on Christmas is the war to sanitize it. It's
a war that's been mostly one the middle class in
the US, and the eight hundreds is a big part
of the war against Christmas. For some reason. They didn't
like drunken poor people showing up at their house demanding
ship and vantalizing their houses. Overall, the US started by
(32:37):
fucking Puritans kind of missed out on spicy Christmas. Yeah,
which is a shame. The traditional Christmas, as we've discussed,
he gave you crime cross dress be a furry worship
the old gods while pretending like you obey the Church
and the Christian God of your Roman conquerors. And now
I want to talk about the first real I mean,
I've been talking with the War on Christmas being the
(32:58):
seventeen hundred year longing. I want to talk about the
first time that Christians almost got rid of Christmas, the
War on Christmas of the sixteen forties. In the sixteen
forties England, they had this whole funk off Civil War thing.
It should have been cool, but it actually sucked. It
should have been cool because it was a commonwealth resting
power away from a monarch, but it was also they
(33:21):
were Puritans, and they deposed a slightly more religiously tolerant
king and then they turned around in genocide of the
Ship out of Ireland. I have some bias against Cromwell
that will work its way through anything I talk about history.
When the Puritans took over England in the sixteen forties,
they didn't like fun. That was kind of their whole thing,
not not fun enjoyers, and so Christmas became a culture
(33:45):
war issue. During the lead up to the Civil War,
the middle class parliamentarians opened their shops on Christmas to
say fuck you to the holiday. Christmas was clearly a
holdover from Catholicism and therefore holdover from pagan is um,
and the Puritans don't like paganism or Catholicism plus revelry
and gender bending. No fucking good? Am I right? So true? Yeah?
(34:11):
For the most part, commoners wanted nothing to do with
either side of this war. They were like the king
of the rich people. I'm good. Oh, I forget the
name of it. In my Civil English Civil War episode,
I think I talked about them. There was this whole
group that was basically the Band of Brothers from Game
of Thrones. There's a whole group of people who are like,
we're just going to defend our fucking towns from both
(34:31):
armies because both armies are fox. Yeah. The commoners, they
didn't want anything to do with the pissing match between
the Royalists and the parliamentarians, and they didn't want to
lose Christmas. So in sixteen forty three, a bunch of
apprentices rioted and smashed up the shops that were open
on Christmas because they're trying to deny society. It's weeks
of feasting and merrymaking up based you have to fight
(34:55):
for your right to party, which is the only Beastie
Boys reference. I will ever make the entire a run
of this podcast. Yeah, I do love a riot to
ensure the continuation of Christmas. Yeah. So the Puritans came
out ahead in the Civil War. Then they had King
(35:16):
Charles the first in jail in SI. They banned Christmas
in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. No mince pies. Like literally,
they banned not just Christmas, but they banned mince pies,
plum putting, no hanging holly, no excessive drinking or parties.
And you're required to keep your shops open. No fucking
free commerce here. You have to keep your shops open
(35:37):
on Christmas. This didn't go well. No, this doesn't sound
like people would respond to this very nicely. No. There
were demonstrations and riots all over England and probably Scotland,
Wales and Ireland. While Wales Ireland was busy some other ship.
Around this point, in London, arms soldiers had to break
up an unruly crowd to stop the crowd from hang
(36:00):
in holly. In Norwich, forty people were killed when the
city's ammunition stockpile caught fire in the rioting. Oh my god,
in Ipswitch, which is totally the name of the town
and not whatever. Supposedly a protester named Christmas was killed,
which then got turned into propaganda, which the history book
I read was like, and then this happened. I don't
(36:21):
I don't believe it. I straight up don't believe it.
I know that propaganda was made about it, but I
don't know there are actually some protester named Christmas was murdered.
I am at the very least skeptical. Yeah, people in Canterbury,
which is actually a city in England, and not just
the name of a book I was supposed to read
in high school. Uh, they rioted. These are called the
(36:43):
plum Pudding riots. The mayor went through the market and
forced everyone to open their stalls for fear, or like
he would throw you in the stocks if you wouldn't
open your stalls at the market. So an angry mob
followed behind, trashing every shop that opened. So these shopkeepers,
they're just fucked. If they opened their shop, it'll get trashed.
If they don't, they get thrown the stocks. The crowd
(37:06):
caught up with the mare and threw him down into
the mud, but he got up and he managed to
order the crowd to back off, and then, in a
move that sounds like someone making fun of England, the
crowd produced some footballs and started this massive game of
football across the whole city with no rules that dragged
everyone into the game or to hide in their houses,
which was basically a Christmas tradition, was Calvin ball. Puritans
(37:32):
who tried to stop them were pelted with mud, and
the pro Christmas rioters took their city back from authorities
for the day. Later, some instigators were rounded up, but
the grand jury refused to indict them, so the Christmas
Rioters got off scot free again, all for traditional Christmas
sees your city party for twelve days, cross dress, drink
(37:52):
other people's wine, play sports that don't have rules. The
main fallout for the canceling of Christmas was pretty much
the end of the religious component of Christmas. People were like,
all right, we just won't go to church on Christmas.
We'll do all of the other stuff, but we won't
go to church. They also canceled Easter, not the protesters,
but the Puritans. I don't really care m as much
(38:14):
about Easter. Cancel culture strikes again. I know. Eventually you've
got the Reformation and people got a king again, which
was once again a lateral move. Should have been a
make things worse, but fucking lateral move. And they also
got Christmas back. Um, it wasn't as cool as anymore though.
The Lord of misrule was gone and forgotten. Lord of
(38:34):
misrule was a died in the Puritan War on Christmas.
How that what a what a loss? I know, it's
funny to me because it's the exact same sort of
people in the seventeenth century England banning Christmas that are
so adamantly defending it today, right, but there, but the
thing that they're not defending Christmas, they're just Christo fascists
trying to yeah, like defend Christian hegemony. Yeah, they're they're
(38:57):
trying to set up a Christian Domini state. Like that's
that's what they're actually doing. Yeah, totally. Anyway, later in
sixteen fifty nine, the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay they banned
Christmas too. Quote, whoever shall be found observing any such
day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting,
or any other way, had to pay a five shilling fine,
(39:20):
which was about three days wages for the average skilled laborer,
so it's like, oh, like three hundred bucks today. I
don't know what skilled fred dollars. Christmas was functionally banned
in Massachusetts until the eighteen hundreds. When I when I
was a kid learning US history, I always heard about
the Puritans as this like poor oppressed minority that fled
England presumably fearing for their lives or some ship. Uh.
(39:43):
They never taught us how Puritans in England soon took
control of England, or the fact that one of their
sticking points had been the reason they felt oppressed is
that they didn't tolerate other religions, and literally one of
their problems with the king, as he was fairly religiously tolerant.
He was even married to a Catholic. The religious freedom
that the Puritans were fighting for was the religious freedom
to not allow religious freedom, which I don't know it
(40:05):
might sound familiar to the modern Yeah, listen, alright, one
more group that tried to get rid of Christmas. Stalin
Really I didn't know this. In the USSR banned Christmas.
They banned it in the same way that the Catholics
(40:26):
banded senturnalien Yule and tried to ban Christmas, which is
that they tried to ban it and that didn't work
because people just kept celebrating Christmas. So then they co
opted it. The band last from when they realized what
everyone has always realized. People need a fucking holiday in
the middle of the goddamn darkest time of the fucking year,
(40:47):
especially in Russia. I know, those those four Russians. So
the Christmas trees got rebranded New Year's for trees, gift
giving was moved to New Year's too, and then that
totally materialist, absolutely rational figure grandfather Frost, was the one
(41:08):
to bring them. Okay, people feasted, people dressed up in costumes,
totally secular fun times for all the non religious people
in the non religious country. It was probably a little
bit bland, a little bit sanitized, like the U S
version of the holiday. And I I totally get why
revolutionaries came for institutions of power, which include the church. Yeah,
(41:32):
and I get why people wanted to destroy the vestiges
of religion, but people want midwinter celebrations and frankly it's
gonna feel religious whatever fucking religion. People don't care. It
could be soul invictus. It could be the Horned God.
It could be Odin, it could be yahweh, it could
be Marks who fucking ever give us our figgy putting
or break your fucking windows, and that, Garrison Davis, is
(41:54):
the true meaning of Christmas. Give us our figgy pudding
or we'll break your fucking windows. I've never had figgy pudding,
but I'll take your word for it. I don't know
what figgy pudding is. I assume it's putting made out
of figs. That actually sounds good, now that you mentioned it,
that probably that that doesn't make sense. I looked up
a thousand things for this episode because I didn't grow
(42:15):
up in a very religious household, and um, I didn't
look up figgy pudding. I looked up what was in
with sale, but I didn't look up figgy pudding. Figgy
pudding does indeed have figs? All right, well, that makes sense.
Is it a pudding because there's also blood. It's it's
a putting in the sense of like a British pudding,
(42:37):
so like it's like a dessert. It's like a it's
like a more congealed, bready type thing. All right, Yeah,
you know I would say it probably tastes good, but
I've had some British food. Yeah, I'm gonna it doesn't
look great. Okay, everyone Google it looks like meat loaf.
(42:58):
That is nicer than what I what it looked like.
It's kind of like it was. It's kind of fruitcake yea, exactly.
Essentially it is a fruit cake but with like there's
figs and like there's times people are saying they put
like brandy in it, and sometimes there's other dried fruits
(43:23):
and stuff. But you know, biggy pudding that's cool. And
on that note, that is the Christmas cool people who
did cool stuff in which we talked about Christmas, which
is the cool The cool people are the people who
party no matter what whatever they get told to do
(43:44):
or not do. Yeah, the people who are going to
be throwing hardened figgy puddings through windows if they if
they don't get allowed to take their tree up three
flights of stairs and shove it in their apartment because
if it's cold, they're cold, bring the tree spirits inside,
which is like it's like a very like a Miyazaki type.
(44:09):
And if you want to save money on candles, you
can also just sacrifice people. Uh, and leave the bodies
in the window. I'm not sure if that's going to
catch on anymore. I don't know. We're past that. That's
just sailed. We're having we're having to fight for for
(44:32):
like drag Queen Christmas. I'm not sure if we're ready
to fight for the dead bodies in the window. Okay,
we're ready to fight for a thousand year old Christmas,
but not ready. We're going to defend our traditional values,
all right, all right, go out there, everyone and defend
your traditional values of people's. This part is not sarcastic.
People should be allowed to fucking drag shows. Jesus fucking Christ.
What the fund is wrong with people? Yeah, that's what
(44:55):
I got. End of your plugs, anyone, or suck at all,
buck at all, Lord of misrule, declare yourself the lord
of misrule, but survived of the week. That is your duty,
each and every one of you. Hi, everyone, See you
next year. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a
(45:20):
production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool
Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Hello, and welcome to cool people who did cool stuff.
It's a podcast. The guests is Garrison, the producer is
Sophie Garrison. How are you doing. I'm doing very well. Excellent, Sophie.
How are you doing? I'm doing very well. Everyone's doing
so festive and cheery, and so I'm festively jovial. Let's
do this all right, very Saturnalia chaos pilled so yeah, yeah,
(00:26):
and our audio is done by Ian our music is
done by own women. In part one we learned all
about the pagan ship Christmas borrowed from today. We're talking
about my favorite Christmas, which is medieval Christmas. Medieval Christians
had not forgotten their pagan roots. They were again this
is purely from my point of view, basically just pagan
to like cross themselves and went to church sometimes because
(00:49):
otherwise people were just talking to them at Latin and
they just kept being doing whatever they wanted to do.
That is my totally historical I'm an anthropologist. Anyway, Christmas
in medieval England was a lot of fun for starters.
There's twelve days of it, like the song on Christmas Day,
their church services there was then there was drinking, feasting
and games for about two weeks. The twelfth day of
(01:11):
Christmas was called Epiphany or sometimes just twelfth Day, and
it is more important in Christmas Day. In medieval Christmas,
it represents when the three wizards we talked about last
time who totally belong. It's like it's like if you're
reading a story where there's only one wizard, and then
all of a sudden there's like a reference to three
other wizards and they're just never talked about again because
(01:32):
like in in like Christianity, no one can do magic,
but like God, right, but then there's just some fucking wizards. Yeah,
I mean there, I mean there, there is. There is
a few other other there is a few other people
who do magic in the Old Testament. But it's like, oh, yeah,
that's true. If you do it, you're basically working with
demons or Satan. It's like you can't do it, it's
just evil. Yeah. And then of course like Agnostic Christianity,
(01:57):
everyone can do magic because everyone is Jesus. All right,
what's that meme? I would like to know more about
your religion and please give me a pamphlet. There's like
a meme where people are like someone says something they
think is cool. And it's not like a meme, like
an image meme. It's like a a thing people say
on the internet maybe who says that? Where someone says
(02:20):
something and you're like, I would like to know more
about your religion, Please give me a pamphlet. Anyway, Epiphany
represents when the three Wizards showed up and we're like, damn,
this kid is important. I think his dad is gone.
In a couple hundred years from now, it's gonna be
a big fuss about whether that means it literally or not,
because spoiler, early Christianity spent a lot of time getting
(02:41):
into the very heated debates with some death involved about
whether or not Jesus was the Son of God or
God literally or whatever any of that ship means. And
and unfortunately the Catholics won that debate and the Gnostics
didn't boo boo, Although would we be sitting here like
right now years later if the Gnostics had won, the
Nats would have come into power and they would have
(03:03):
been just but they would have been just a shitty
I don't know, I I because like the Gnostics are
way less hierarchical than the Catholics. Catholic maybe like casultism
is so built on hierarchy, like they built a hierarchy
of angels. They build a hierarchy of like of of
of like hell reality, whereas the Gnostics are like, everyone
(03:24):
can be their own savior and we should we should
all fight the demiurge, like we we need to fight
God and become our own savior. Generally way more decentralized, right,
But the Protestant Revolution was also the decentralization of religious authority,
and it did not It was at best a lateral
move in terms of actual liberation for the world because
(03:46):
it made everyone cops instead of one cop far away
that you can ignore. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying
to come for the Gnostics. I'm just like, I just
think it'd be really funny and interested if, like the
Gnostics said, on that fight and then the Catholics have
been like a cool underground one that like people totally possible.
It's that that is that is that is definitely completely
(04:07):
possible that the world would have been just as shitty.
But there's no interesting because it's it's such a different theology. Yeah. Anyway, Uh,
thanks for coming down that with me. So Midnight Mass
has been part of Christmas since basically forever, starting around
four d because Christ, who's totally not the sun, was
(04:29):
born at exactly the darkest time of the darkest night
of the year, just when the sun starts returning. Totally unrelatedly,
it's just a weird coincidence of when he when his
mom got knocked up by an angel. Funny how that
worked out. Yeah. St. Nicholas got attached to Christmas when
the Protestants, who are trying to phase out all the
pagan holidays and fun in general, they especially the Puritans,
(04:50):
they crammed him into Christmas instead of his traditional day
December six, which is the day that everyone used to
give people presents. People gave each other presents a lot
during a lot of these times, but like giving kids
presence was like a St. Nicholas Day thing, and in
some place, I think it still is. And then they
were like, no, it needs to be like the presence
need to somehow be like God presence, not St. Presence.
(05:12):
So it got moved to Christmas so we could put
the Christ in Christmas, you know. And St. Nick himself
was kind of interesting his own right. His whole thing
was he like gave sh it away to people just
like all right, it seems it seemed like he was
kind to sex workers, which is nice. I guess it's
the main way to judge someone, honestly. Anyway, medieval peasants
(05:33):
they remembered some of those pagan roots and because of
that there was ritual transvestism as part of Christmas continuing
to be extremely based, and there was feasting and merriment, etcetera.
And the Church didn't like this. They just couldn't do
anything about it. They tried, They tried two different things.
It's the same two things that everyone uses to try
(05:56):
and stop the power of Christmas. First you try repress
and then when that doesn't work, you try co option
if you can't beat them joint of Yeah, basically that
is what happened, is the Catholic Church didn't steal Christmas.
Catholic Church acquiesced and joined Christmas. Is how is my
(06:17):
reading on this? Yeah. In seven the year seven forty two,
a bishop wrote to complain about the quote singing and
dancing in the streets and pagan style heathen acclamations and
sacrilegious songs, banquets by day and night, the wearing and
selling by women of flactories and ligatures, which I think
means like sex charms and love charms. Okay, okay. They
(06:39):
did better with co option, and they really worked on
the sanitization of Christmas. And that's the the real war
against Christmas is the sanitization of it. The gift giving
got replaced, as you pointed out, by gifts of the magi,
and the whole thing was treated as if it was
about Christ or whatever. But the cool ship continued to
filter through. Take Christmas carols. The medieval versions of Christmas
(07:03):
carols were based on a pre Christian style of singing
where a leader sang a verse and then a crew
of dancers sang and danced the chorus together. And this
got lewd, And I am so annoyed that I could
not find more information in history besides it got lewd. Okay, okay,
I would I would love to see. Yeah, what the
(07:25):
two things in all of the history should I read?
The two things that are written out of it? It
is fucking sex, working drugs like any hedonism and and sex.
All the people that write this stuff down are all nerds,
and the wrong kind of nerds. Yeah, none of them
(07:46):
actually do the cool stuff. They're all like they're yeah, yeah,
they're like he he he, it got lewd. I'm like,
does that mean they showed their ankles or were their
orgies in the streets? Yeah, because they're entirely possible. I
know people did weird ship. People still do weird ship
right now. In any given town. You could go to
(08:06):
a club where people are like t he he, I
can see that person's ankle, or you can go join
a weird public orgy like it still happens. So then
there's the Feast of the Innocence, which is a feast
day that gets it. It gets assigned to a bunch
of different days in different traditions and calendars and ship.
It's usually decembery and the current whatever, but I'm gonna
(08:31):
call it December. And the Feast of the Innocence is weird.
It's about when King Herod of Syria killed all the
boys under two years old, like tens of thousands of kids.
This is probably folklore. It probably didn't happen, I don't know,
Like the Bible, I guess, And these kids are seen
as the first martyrs of Christianity. And I've read two
(08:52):
versions of what happens on the Feast Day of the
Feast of Innocence in the in the medieval tradition. They
are very different takes on what happened on this day.
One is sick. It's a role reversal for kids and adults.
You go, there's like just it's just a chaos day.
Kids run around, the kids like run the Catholic mass. Uh.
They tell everyone what to do. The parents have to
(09:13):
listen to the kids. And there's another version of the
Feast of the Innocence, which is like this shitty game
of hide and seek where all the kids hide and
then the parents try to find them, and if they
find the children, they beat them. What the FUCKA whoa?
Those are so different, They're so different. What is going on?
(09:36):
I don't know. I the subtext of the beat the
kids one is a little bit like the parents might
not have tried to find the kids. It might have
been like get out of our hair, or will hit you? Okay,
we want to have like yeah, yeah, mommy adult time
or whatever. I don't know, I can't I'm so annoyed,
(09:59):
you know, like sometimes sometimes in these episodes, I wish
I had like months per episode, you know, yeah, because
that is that was I mean is it likely that
just like both happened at different places. And honestly that's yeah,
because we're talking about like medieval England. I'm talking about
like five hundred fifteen hundred in the entire continent of
(10:25):
because it's like one of those is much more similar
to like the Saturnalia role reversal thing, and the other
one is just child abuse. Yeah, totally, and there's more
role reversal. That's a hard that is a hard thing
to say. Yeah, in medieval England and again medieval Oh, actually,
(10:46):
well this one, I can give you a specific country, England,
a random peasant, would you draw lots again? And instead
of being the King of Saturnalia, you are the Lord
of Misrule? Okay, which still sounds pretty rule. It is
the single best title that one could possibly have, I believe,
is the Lord of Misrule. And they were in charge
(11:08):
and their job is to make sure the revelry was
fucking chaos, eat dinner at the altar of the church,
fucking drink. People would complain because random strangers, I think,
like random richer folks coming town. But I don't know,
maybe that's like me trying to be like, oh it
was like based but who knows it might have sucked
who fucking it was chaos, random rich strangers coming into
town might get spanked and robbed, and everyone is and
(11:34):
people are of course cross dressing all over the fucking place.
There is a chance that at the end of his reign,
the Lord of Misrule was sacrificed, just like might have
happened on Saturnalia. And it's an interesting image, and it's
presented by like a bona fide folklorist and anthropologist who
should know what he's talking about. A lot of people
are real skeptical. I'm I'm skeptical. I'm more skeptical about
(11:58):
medieval England humans prificing the Lord of Misrule at the
end of their week, but or at the end of
the twelve days of Christmas, that'd be a funny And
on the twelfth David of Christmas, I gave you just
literally you're dead now, just sucking killing you. A lot
of the like neat stories about weird, wacky ways that
people killed themselves in each other from like the oldie
times turn out to be just stories like the thing
(12:21):
and the like Scandinavian thing, or like the Swedish thing
about like old people have to throw themselves off of
cliffs in order to die in order to like not
take up resources from the community or whatever. I can't
it's used in that movie Midsummer Spoiler. I guess that's
not real as far as anyone can tell. That's like
a that's a story. It's a story. Yeah yeah. Whereas,
(12:44):
on the other hand, most of the stories that hint
about sucking and drugs it seem to actually usually be
true and are not because poor people fucking to drugs. Yeah,
it's more sustainable than Yeah, you can you can do
drugs more than during your lifetime die one time typically
(13:04):
unless you are again Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Yeah,
or that guy the first zombie, who do you summoned
back from the dead, Oh, Lazarus, Yeah, that's it. And
then also one of the reasons I sort of doubt
this is that for all of the I really don't
(13:24):
want to be like for good things that Christianity culturally exported,
but um, the overall Christianity cut down on human sacrifice
a good solid amount whenever it was around, and then
they found their way to do killing another way. Oh yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, yeah,
that's God. Maybe that's just all made the Crusaders pent
(13:45):
up whatever anyway, So the Lord of Misrule ties into
but is distinct from the Feast of Fools, which started
probably in Central Europe. And all of these names are
so good, I know, and they're all fucking cool things.
It's start in Central Europe. It's uh January one Colens,
(14:07):
which is still part of Christmas if if you're doing
the twelve Days, and it was a day of the
Feast of Fools was wildness and folly and role reversal
and lewdness and like everything is permitted very like actually
kind of like Mardi Gras is the sort of modern
thing that people would sort of tiles into and it's
all happening like in the name of God. But the
(14:28):
priests in there being like fun, fun, fun fuck. How
do we stop this fun fun fun fuck? There was
like in the name of God, and they're like doing
everything that Christianity normally says not to do. Is there
having like a transgender orgy? Yeah? Yeah, And it took
a couple hundred years for the Church to successfully stomp
(14:49):
out the Feast of Fools. Unfortunate, unfortunate. I know, It's
like to me, it seems like maybe how like a
person who lives in England is ostensibly rule by the
English King, and a Catholic is ostensibly ruled by the
Catholic Church. But really people are just people and doing
their own thing, and these authoritarian structures are just trying
to claim authority that they only somewhat have. And that's
(15:11):
how I feel about the like folk Catholicism of this time.
Catholicism is this type of Catholicism is at odds with
the Church rather than being in like obedience to the Church.
And this seems to be the Catholicism that was actually
practiced by a lot of Catholics instead of what people
claimed they should be practicing. So was sailing. So what
(15:33):
sailing is when you demand stuff from people? And do
you know who else is demanding stuff from us? From you?
The listener, Sophie Lichtman is demanding that in order to
continue to eat food on Arran. Yeah that, um, we
(15:54):
should shift over to hearing different voices, a diversity of opinions.
I have these opinions about cool people did cool stuff,
whereas you might be about to hear an opinion that
says that you should become a cop. Hopefully those ads
are gone. Now yeah, I mean we really don't have
control over most of the ads. Yeah, so we don't
(16:16):
endorse them. Yeah. It so we can do our shows
and pay people and eat food and have homes. Yeay,
here's the ads. We are back. Was sailing traditionally done
on the twelfth night. Was sailing probably gets its name
(16:38):
from the Norse. It basically means like hail, as in
like hail and well met, or like hey, what's up? Yeah,
it means it means be in good health, and it's
what predates modern caroline. It basically means go around and
make the rich people give you nice ship by singing songs.
It gets referred to as recipient initially gated charity, which
(17:01):
is my favorite euphemism in the world. That's great because
I would like to present a spectrum of ways of
engaging in power. I have top down charity, in which
the rich give to the poor, usually in ways that
maintain the power structure and you know, not based make
them feel good about themselves. Then there's mutual aid, which
is people giving freely amongst equals, and then there's recipient
(17:25):
initiated charity aka give me your ship. Unfortunately, I mean,
there's kind of a way of seeing all of this,
like revelry, this sort of negative interpretation of all of
this stuff that I really like. I don't subscribe to
this belief, but it is the danger of all this
(17:46):
revelry is that it lets out pent up aggression. If
you get to be in charge, if you're an ancient
Rome and you're enslaved and you get to be fed
by your master for a week a year, you're less
likely to revolt. Yeah, this is the same type of
thing we see a lot of the time, and like, uh,
it's the recuperation of like anti capitalist resistance and selling
(18:11):
it back to you in a way that is palpable.
But bye. By by doing that exchange, you feel like
you're living in a world where where there actually is
actual resistance, but a lot of it is paid for.
Like it's it's it's the the One of the few
good jokes from Rick and Morny is the is the
is the simple ricks wafers and how they start selling
(18:34):
the simple ricks freedom wafer selects how you can you
can you can you can buy this wafer and it
gives you a taste of what it's like to be
actually truly free and so like it's it's and it's
and and this this wafer flavor was was designed by
like studying the brain of someone who just laid like
a revolt against a factory. Um and it's like getting
(18:56):
this getting this taste into into into the way for
and this person worked at the wafer factory. So it's
this company that is like using this revolt to make
more of their products. And you can, you can engage
with it, and it gives you a taste, but that
it's actually it's it's it's just gonna prolong the amount
(19:16):
of time that you're living under this because now you
have this little bit of the taste. And what I
would argue is that when the government or the forces
that be or whatever the funk do this kind of
stuff to us, it's dangerous for them. It's not as
completely under continued their control as they would like to claim,
you know, um Like sometimes these things, these things that
(19:40):
to them are like controlled burns, get out of control.
And I would argue that as they like let the
steam out of the pent up. I mean, how many
metaphors can I possibly use here, But you know, as
they let the steam out or whatever, right let out
the pent up energy or whatever, so that the whole
thing doesn't s blowed. It's still sometimes it's like actually
(20:05):
teaching us. Like sometimes you get that taste that wayfer
in your mouth and you're like, you know, what if
we had the whole fucking factory, what if we had
that all the time? Yeah, no, like that, that's the
same thing. I think I was talking with this with
people when um the TV show and or finished coming out,
which how did how did Disney allow them to make
(20:26):
this thing that's showcasing how to do all these various
forms of resistance, And there's a part of it that's
like they're selling you back this version of right of
uprising for us to consume. And maybe if we just consume,
that will be happy enough that we're that we're able
to consume this thing that we'll forget that you can
do this in in the real world. But I don't
(20:47):
I think that is uh with considering, but I don't.
I don't think it's it has the full picture. Yeah, yeah,
I think what happened there is that you have people
who actually it less that Disney was like ha ha,
this is our big evil plan. I mean, like like
what if there was like a single radio conglomerate that
(21:07):
controlled like half of podcasts the radio stations, and then
people got paid to talk about rebels on their network, Right,
I would argue that they would be doing these hypothetical
people would be doing it to make use of a
power structure that exists, like rather than like for the
(21:32):
sake of that power structure. And it's a dangerous and
complicated game. But the the old cliche is that the
the last capitalist will sell you the rope with which
to hang him. Yeah, and that doesn't mean he doesn't
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, which is why I like
that saying. And people will use that saying like to
mean the opposite and I'm like, no, that's the capitalist
(21:54):
is still diet. Yeah, And anyway, recipients initiated charity. Big
part of was sailing. It's like the role reversal thing.
So peasants would go to their feudal lords or just
like rich people, and they would sing and demand good
food and booze and sometimes just straight up money. And
this looked lots of different ways. Sometimes it's like you
(22:16):
show up and you're like give us your figgie pudding
or we won't go away and they're like ha ha ha,
here's your figgie pudding. And then you're like, thank you, sir,
And everyone feels really good about themselves. And sometimes there's
all these like people writing complaining about being like the
rich people are afraid to leave their houses because gangs
of youth are outside station to rob them. So there's
like a whole spectrum. Yeah, of was sailing. Uh. Sometimes
(22:40):
people would curse the rich people, but you know, totally
not pagan, just regular curses, good Christian curses. Yes, yes,
all of those Christian curses. Yeah. Sometimes they would vandalize
the place. And this is actually the rick the root
of trick or treating, as far as I can tell,
trick or treat that's what it was reminding me of. Yeah,
it's give me some candy or egg your fucking house
(23:02):
is like the once you're like twelve or thirteen, you know,
that's the level of trick or treating or whatever. Maybe
it's just me. Uh. A clergyman from the time said quote,
men dishonor Christ more in twelve days of Christmas than
in all the twelve months. Besides, great people would drink
(23:22):
and gamble and feast and probably they fucked. But you know,
the history books won't say plus they fucked. Instead they
say they engaged in licentatious behavior. Cross dressing big part
of it and a big part of a sailing. So
every single fucking little bit of tradition has people across dressing.
(23:44):
It's part of it. There's this book that rules. It's
called Witchcraft in the Gay Counterculture, and it was basically
a love letter written to me and you Garrison, okay um.
It was by Arthur Evans, probably Robert's dad. I'm not
can neither confirm nor deny mhm um. And it talks
about how everyone kept dressing up as weird ship quote.
(24:06):
So common was the practice of animal masquerades in the
Middle Ages that detailed condemnations were issued against them. Theodore,
a seventh century archbishop of Canterbury Centerbury maybe I wrote
that wrong might be. Canterbury wrote, if anyone in the
colens of January goes about as a stag or a bowl,
that is, making himself into a wild animal, and dressing
(24:28):
in the skin of a herd and putting on the
head of beasts, those who in such wise transforms themselves
into the appearance of a wild animal penance for three
years because this is devilish. And the same book Witchcraft
in the Gay Counterculture says links between witchcraft and transvestism
appear regularly in early Christian Europe. In the sixth century,
(24:50):
the Christian writer Cesarius of Aries denounced the pagan practices
of ritual transvestism and the wearing of animal costumes. Six
and seventh century synods repeat condemned trends. Condemned transvestism during
the popular New Year's holiday, where men dressed as women
quote a masquerade probably originating in a fertility right of
some kind. In ninth century, a Christian guide book prescribed
(25:12):
penance for men who practice ritual transvestism. A thirteenth century
inquisitor in southern France denounced female worshippers of the goddess
Diana along with male transvestites. This is this is all
super fascinating because I I just I just for the
last episode of the Tenacious Unicorn ranch series I was
writing about there's been these attacks on drag shows by
(25:34):
these these Christian far right groups YUM, and particularly this
past month, there's been multiple attacks on Christmas themed drag shows.
It's just fascinating because like these, these these Christmas themed
drag shows are more like traditionally Christmas yet all of
these Christians who are attacking them. But it's also this
(25:57):
interesting look a bit on, like this exact scenario isn't new,
this has been going on for thousands of years. It's
the same thing. They're doing, the same thing. We're both
following into our traditional roles. Yes, these Christians are attacking
these other Christians or these these holiday like drag performances
(26:20):
in the same way that these Christians are attacking a
ritual transmestism. It's the same ship. Yep. And I love
that the Church has multiple times over the years needed
to say please stop cross dressing and or dressing up
like cows, and people just kept being like no, no, no, no,
(26:42):
We're gonna do it. I can't stop me. And I'm
doing it in the name of God. Um. And there's
also something in the last the last line from that
last quote about the inquisitor in France coming after female
worshippers with the gost Diana along with male trends best dates.
And there's a bunch of things there. One is that
like there were a bunch of women worshiping Diana including
(27:06):
sis women and trans women was more or less what
that's saying. But also that like the modern Turfs who
want to like separate system trans women, like the enemies,
have been demanding we burned together for a very long time. Yes, okay,
more cool about Christmas. The Welsh tradition have you heard
of mary lud? I don't think so. It's not actually
(27:29):
lude like lude, it's it's l w y d Okay, Okay.
So you take a horse skull, right, and you put
the horse skull on a stick. Uh, you make like
a hobby horse out of it, you know, like a
little kid. Yeah, and then you drape a sheet sort
of over it, like kind of on the neck so
that you can hide under the sheet. And so it's
(27:52):
just a horsehead on a stick with a person underneath it.
And that's that's your Christmas, uh, with say alien thing
that you bring around And so with sailors would take
this horrific, awesome horse skull around them with them as
they were sucking up the rich and getting drunk. And
(28:12):
historians have no idea whether this Welsh tradition, the mary
lewd is the gray mayor I believe is what it
translates to they have no idea of its pre Christian
or not. Rather, lots of people have ideas about whether
it's pretty Christians or not, but no one can prove it. Um.
The records of it go back to about eighteen hundred,
but they talk about it being a thing from before them.
(28:33):
Another thing that predates Mary Lewd is the concept of advertisement.
So true, you're so true. Yeah, we can all make
it through it together. We are back. You could also
with sail and orchard, in case you were ever wondering.
(28:56):
You're like, but I was sailing orchard? Well, the answer,
Garrison Davis, is that you could if you would choose
what type of things would be at the orchard and
the end of December. So I think this is was
sailing now taken out of Christmas time. I can't I
can't tell. It still might have been, because you're not
(29:18):
like going and getting the apples at this point, you're
blessing the orchard for better harvest in the here to come. Yeah, okay, yeah,
and so it actually still could have been midwinter. I
I really kind of like, I don't know. I spent
a while trying to figure out exactly when they were
with sailing orchards. Okay, so yeah you can with sail orchards,
(29:40):
which even up into the seventeenth century was really fucking
pagan I mean folklore or superstitious people would march from
orchard to orchard, led by the wassail king and queen
to the orchard and drink to the health of the
trees and scare away evil spirits. In order to bring
about a good harvest. They would lift the wassail queen
up into the bows to place booze soaked bread in
(30:00):
the branches. Yeah, totally Christian. Yeah, this is yes, this
this doesn't sound like filick paganism at all. No, no,
just a Christian thing. Other was sailing traditions included drinking
mould cider and various types of booze from a with
sail bowl, which is a big communal bowl that everyone
drank from, and the drink was called with sale because
(30:22):
they're really original namers and it's been a bunch of
different drinks at different times. For a while, it was
mead with crab apples. Later it was cier um, like
what people drink Christmas now. Other times it was like
ale with baked apples in it. Basically it's like some
combination of like apples of some variety and alcohol. I mean,
stuff like this has has continued on today this yeah,
(30:44):
this this this style of tradition yeah yeah, And I
really like it. It is like one of the things
that I'm not talking about that in the script. But
I still genuinely like, like the real at my heart,
the reason that I never actually like didn't like Christmas
even when I was like a baby anarchist and spent
all of my time rallying against consumerism and shipped like that.
And I still believe the same ship I believed but
(31:09):
noted noted fan of consumerism. Yeah, but like the idea
of gathering together with your family and the darkest day
of the year and like at the darkest time, like
and it's not just that the light is returning, but
it's at the coldest setting in And how hope returns
even as things get worse. And I think about this
a lot with the current rise of fascism. Right, even
(31:30):
when we turn the tide on fascism, things will continue
to get worse for a while, but we can't lose hope.
We know that as the light returns eventually delayed so
will the warmth. UM. I really care about both Soulstice
and Christmas, and I like, I really I'm very blessed.
And then I come from a wonderful family um and
(31:52):
and enjoy gathering them, and so I feel like I
need to like shout out that. Like another important part
about Christmas is something that does get held onto for
all of it, which um is fucking family togetherness in
tradition and all that ship. Um. Anyway, that's my my
little earnest moment for the week. Medieval Christmas. I'm all
(32:14):
for it. Medieval Christmas is the best of all Christmas
is a lot of people weren't for it. The real
war on Christmas is the war to sanitize it. It's
a war that's been mostly one the middle class in
the US, and the eight hundreds is a big part
of the war against Christmas. For some reason. They didn't
like drunken poor people showing up at their house demanding
ship and vantalizing their houses. Overall, the US started by
(32:37):
fucking Puritans kind of missed out on spicy Christmas. Yeah,
which is a shame. The traditional Christmas, as we've discussed,
he gave you crime cross dress be a furry worship
the old gods while pretending like you obey the Church
and the Christian God of your Roman conquerors. And now
I want to talk about the first real I mean,
I've been talking with the War on Christmas being the
(32:58):
seventeen hundred year longing. I want to talk about the
first time that Christians almost got rid of Christmas, the
War on Christmas of the sixteen forties. In the sixteen
forties England, they had this whole funk off Civil War thing.
It should have been cool, but it actually sucked. It
should have been cool because it was a commonwealth resting
power away from a monarch, but it was also they
(33:21):
were Puritans, and they deposed a slightly more religiously tolerant
king and then they turned around in genocide of the
Ship out of Ireland. I have some bias against Cromwell
that will work its way through anything I talk about history.
When the Puritans took over England in the sixteen forties,
they didn't like fun. That was kind of their whole thing,
not not fun enjoyers, and so Christmas became a culture
(33:45):
war issue. During the lead up to the Civil War,
the middle class parliamentarians opened their shops on Christmas to
say fuck you to the holiday. Christmas was clearly a
holdover from Catholicism and therefore holdover from pagan is um,
and the Puritans don't like paganism or Catholicism plus revelry
and gender bending. No fucking good? Am I right? So true? Yeah?
(34:11):
For the most part, commoners wanted nothing to do with
either side of this war. They were like the king
of the rich people. I'm good. Oh, I forget the
name of it. In my Civil English Civil War episode,
I think I talked about them. There was this whole
group that was basically the Band of Brothers from Game
of Thrones. There's a whole group of people who are like,
we're just going to defend our fucking towns from both
(34:31):
armies because both armies are fox. Yeah. The commoners, they
didn't want anything to do with the pissing match between
the Royalists and the parliamentarians, and they didn't want to
lose Christmas. So in sixteen forty three, a bunch of
apprentices rioted and smashed up the shops that were open
on Christmas because they're trying to deny society. It's weeks
of feasting and merrymaking up based you have to fight
(34:55):
for your right to party, which is the only Beastie
Boys reference. I will ever make the entire a run
of this podcast. Yeah, I do love a riot to
ensure the continuation of Christmas. Yeah. So the Puritans came
out ahead in the Civil War. Then they had King
(35:16):
Charles the first in jail in SI. They banned Christmas
in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. No mince pies. Like literally,
they banned not just Christmas, but they banned mince pies,
plum putting, no hanging holly, no excessive drinking or parties.
And you're required to keep your shops open. No fucking
free commerce here. You have to keep your shops open
(35:37):
on Christmas. This didn't go well. No, this doesn't sound
like people would respond to this very nicely. No. There
were demonstrations and riots all over England and probably Scotland,
Wales and Ireland. While Wales Ireland was busy some other ship.
Around this point, in London, arms soldiers had to break
up an unruly crowd to stop the crowd from hang
(36:00):
in holly. In Norwich, forty people were killed when the
city's ammunition stockpile caught fire in the rioting. Oh my god,
in Ipswitch, which is totally the name of the town
and not whatever. Supposedly a protester named Christmas was killed,
which then got turned into propaganda, which the history book
I read was like, and then this happened. I don't
(36:21):
I don't believe it. I straight up don't believe it.
I know that propaganda was made about it, but I
don't know there are actually some protester named Christmas was murdered.
I am at the very least skeptical. Yeah, people in Canterbury,
which is actually a city in England, and not just
the name of a book I was supposed to read
in high school. Uh, they rioted. These are called the
(36:43):
plum Pudding riots. The mayor went through the market and
forced everyone to open their stalls for fear, or like
he would throw you in the stocks if you wouldn't
open your stalls at the market. So an angry mob
followed behind, trashing every shop that opened. So these shopkeepers,
they're just fucked. If they opened their shop, it'll get trashed.
If they don't, they get thrown the stocks. The crowd
(37:06):
caught up with the mare and threw him down into
the mud, but he got up and he managed to
order the crowd to back off, and then, in a
move that sounds like someone making fun of England, the
crowd produced some footballs and started this massive game of
football across the whole city with no rules that dragged
everyone into the game or to hide in their houses,
which was basically a Christmas tradition, was Calvin ball. Puritans
(37:32):
who tried to stop them were pelted with mud, and
the pro Christmas rioters took their city back from authorities
for the day. Later, some instigators were rounded up, but
the grand jury refused to indict them, so the Christmas
Rioters got off scot free again, all for traditional Christmas
sees your city party for twelve days, cross dress, drink
(37:52):
other people's wine, play sports that don't have rules. The
main fallout for the canceling of Christmas was pretty much
the end of the religious component of Christmas. People were like,
all right, we just won't go to church on Christmas.
We'll do all of the other stuff, but we won't
go to church. They also canceled Easter, not the protesters,
but the Puritans. I don't really care m as much
(38:14):
about Easter. Cancel culture strikes again. I know. Eventually you've
got the Reformation and people got a king again, which
was once again a lateral move. Should have been a
make things worse, but fucking lateral move. And they also
got Christmas back. Um, it wasn't as cool as anymore though.
The Lord of misrule was gone and forgotten. Lord of
(38:34):
misrule was a died in the Puritan War on Christmas.
How that what a what a loss? I know, it's
funny to me because it's the exact same sort of
people in the seventeenth century England banning Christmas that are
so adamantly defending it today, right, but there, but the
thing that they're not defending Christmas, they're just Christo fascists
trying to yeah, like defend Christian hegemony. Yeah, they're they're
(38:57):
trying to set up a Christian Domini state. Like that's
that's what they're actually doing. Yeah, totally. Anyway, later in
sixteen fifty nine, the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay they banned
Christmas too. Quote, whoever shall be found observing any such
day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting,
or any other way, had to pay a five shilling fine,
(39:20):
which was about three days wages for the average skilled laborer,
so it's like, oh, like three hundred bucks today. I
don't know what skilled fred dollars. Christmas was functionally banned
in Massachusetts until the eighteen hundreds. When I when I
was a kid learning US history, I always heard about
the Puritans as this like poor oppressed minority that fled
England presumably fearing for their lives or some ship. Uh.
(39:43):
They never taught us how Puritans in England soon took
control of England, or the fact that one of their
sticking points had been the reason they felt oppressed is
that they didn't tolerate other religions, and literally one of
their problems with the king, as he was fairly religiously tolerant.
He was even married to a Catholic. The religious freedom
that the Puritans were fighting for was the religious freedom
to not allow religious freedom, which I don't know it
(40:05):
might sound familiar to the modern Yeah, listen, alright, one
more group that tried to get rid of Christmas. Stalin
Really I didn't know this. In the USSR banned Christmas.
They banned it in the same way that the Catholics
(40:26):
banded senturnalien Yule and tried to ban Christmas, which is
that they tried to ban it and that didn't work
because people just kept celebrating Christmas. So then they co
opted it. The band last from when they realized what
everyone has always realized. People need a fucking holiday in
the middle of the goddamn darkest time of the fucking year,
(40:47):
especially in Russia. I know, those those four Russians. So
the Christmas trees got rebranded New Year's for trees, gift
giving was moved to New Year's too, and then that
totally materialist, absolutely rational figure grandfather Frost, was the one
(41:08):
to bring them. Okay, people feasted, people dressed up in costumes,
totally secular fun times for all the non religious people
in the non religious country. It was probably a little
bit bland, a little bit sanitized, like the U S
version of the holiday. And I I totally get why
revolutionaries came for institutions of power, which include the church. Yeah,
(41:32):
and I get why people wanted to destroy the vestiges
of religion, but people want midwinter celebrations and frankly it's
gonna feel religious whatever fucking religion. People don't care. It
could be soul invictus. It could be the Horned God.
It could be Odin, it could be yahweh, it could
be Marks who fucking ever give us our figgy putting
or break your fucking windows, and that, Garrison Davis, is
(41:54):
the true meaning of Christmas. Give us our figgy pudding
or we'll break your fucking windows. I've never had figgy pudding,
but I'll take your word for it. I don't know
what figgy pudding is. I assume it's putting made out
of figs. That actually sounds good, now that you mentioned it,
that probably that that doesn't make sense. I looked up
a thousand things for this episode because I didn't grow
(42:15):
up in a very religious household, and um, I didn't
look up figgy pudding. I looked up what was in
with sale, but I didn't look up figgy pudding. Figgy
pudding does indeed have figs? All right, well, that makes sense.
Is it a pudding because there's also blood. It's it's
a putting in the sense of like a British pudding,
(42:37):
so like it's like a dessert. It's like a it's
like a more congealed, bready type thing. All right, Yeah,
you know I would say it probably tastes good, but
I've had some British food. Yeah, I'm gonna it doesn't
look great. Okay, everyone Google it looks like meat loaf.
(42:58):
That is nicer than what I what it looked like.
It's kind of like it was. It's kind of fruitcake yea, exactly.
Essentially it is a fruit cake but with like there's
figs and like there's times people are saying they put
like brandy in it, and sometimes there's other dried fruits
(43:23):
and stuff. But you know, biggy pudding that's cool. And
on that note, that is the Christmas cool people who
did cool stuff in which we talked about Christmas, which
is the cool The cool people are the people who
party no matter what whatever they get told to do
(43:44):
or not do. Yeah, the people who are going to
be throwing hardened figgy puddings through windows if they if
they don't get allowed to take their tree up three
flights of stairs and shove it in their apartment because
if it's cold, they're cold, bring the tree spirits inside,
which is like it's like a very like a Miyazaki type.
(44:09):
And if you want to save money on candles, you
can also just sacrifice people. Uh, and leave the bodies
in the window. I'm not sure if that's going to
catch on anymore. I don't know. We're past that. That's
just sailed. We're having we're having to fight for for
(44:32):
like drag Queen Christmas. I'm not sure if we're ready
to fight for the dead bodies in the window. Okay,
we're ready to fight for a thousand year old Christmas,
but not ready. We're going to defend our traditional values,
all right, all right, go out there, everyone and defend
your traditional values of people's. This part is not sarcastic.
People should be allowed to fucking drag shows. Jesus fucking Christ.
What the fund is wrong with people? Yeah, that's what
(44:55):
I got. End of your plugs, anyone, or suck at all,
buck at all, Lord of misrule, declare yourself the lord
of misrule, but survived of the week. That is your duty,
each and every one of you. Hi, everyone, See you
next year. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a
(45:20):
production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool
Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com