NOVEL THINKING

It is certainly plausible. The law stated: "observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting or any other way any such days as Christmas day, shall pay for every such offense five shillings." I enjoyed the piece. The majority example has been set. In the same areas the ordinance of 1652 was ostentatiously disobeyed. It is probably true, too, that many people were easily reconciled to the abolition of Christmas. One speaker in the debate said that he could not rest all night "for the preparation of this foolish day's solemnity," and another that in many places the day was kept more strictly than the Sabbath and that it was possible to go from the Tower to Westminster without a shop being open or a creature stirring. " That this was not entirely fanciful is shown by the case of the minister in Scotland who in 1659 searched houses that they might not have a Christmas goose. Yes, you read that right. So how did one of the largest Christian holidays come to be  persecuted in the earliest days of New England? It was observed that the House was thin, "much, I believe, occasioned by observation of this day," and a Bill was read "for the abolishing and taking away of festival days, commonly called holy days." In 1659 the Puritan government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony actually banned Christmas. 1556332. ", John Evelyn's experience supports this view. Clearly, however, public services could not be held without serious risk, and it may be assumed that for all practical purposes Christmas, like other church holidays, ceased to be observed as a religious festival except in the privacy of the home. Today, it no longer the “meek”, becoming, the ” plurality”…. Nice, short and interesting piece on an important and often ignored topic. It was one of the largest religious observances, full of traditions, feast days, revelry … Each year from 1652 to 1655, he noted the absence of Christmas Day services in London, though in 1652 he found an "honest" divine who preached at Lewis ham on Boxing Day. In 1656, however, he went especially to London to receive the sacrament at "Dr. Wild's lodgings, where I rejoiced to find so full an assembly of devout and sober Christians." The assembly was obviously provocative. What happened behind the closed shutters? In 1659 Duppa drew a distinction between Richmond, where he was living, and London, where the worship of God had been prohibited with such severity on "those days" that some had begun to doubt whether "they shall be suffered to be Christians any longer or no. "Old Christmas now is come to town," said the broadsheet Mercurius Democritus in 1652, "though few him do regard." When Massachusetts Banned Christmas Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch had nothing on the 17th-century Puritans, who actually banned the public celebration of … According to the Weekly Intelligencer, almost all the shops in the City of London were shut, "and so were the churchdoors." There was no telling who would yield to this most insidious temptation of the Devil. They also felt that due to the holiday’s loose pagan origins, celebrating it would constitute idolatry. The citizens made the belly their God, it said. The extreme point of view was expressed in the "terrible Remonstrance against Christmas day, grounded upon divine Scriptures," which was presented to Parliament in 1652. The sacrament was actually being administered in Exeter Chapel when soldiers placed the congregation under arrest. It led Parliament to enact that December 25th should not be solenmized in churches or observed in any other way, and that town criers should each year remind the people that Christmas Day and other superstitious festivals must not be kept and that the markets and shops should remain open on December 25th. Many Puritans fled to the American Colonies under the early reign of Elizabeth I, and Boston was a stronghold on Puritan belief. The theme of a pamphlet called The Vindication of Christmas in 1653 was the rejection of old Father Christmas and his failure to find anyone to welcome him until he reached a remote farm in Devonshire. It was indeed ironical if, as Bishop Duppa said in 1655, "though the religious part of this holy time is laid aside, yet the eating part is observed by the holiest of the brethren." This setting should only be used on your home or work computer. (unmeaningfully), naintainging it’s Inperitive…. For its sake they disobeyed Parliament 'and the Ten Commandments. As early as 1646 Ralph Josselin noted that many London families were "weaned " from the old "sports and pastimes". Long before the Civil War began, many zealous Protestants, or ‘Puritans’, had been troubled both by the boisterous nature of the festivities which took place at Christmas and by the perceived association of those festivities with the old Catholic faith. It might be supposed from some Royalist writings that Christmas was also virtually dead as a popular holiday. In 1656 it was suggested that there were even defaulters in Parliament itself. Christmas in  17th century England actually wasn’t so different from the holiday we celebrate today. © Copyright 2020 History Today Ltd. Company no. "Yea, the Theefe will steale and rob his own father against Christmas, and the poore will pawn all to the Cloaths of their back to provide Christmas pies for their bellies, and the broath of Abominable things in their Vessels." In 1659 the Puritan government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony actually banned Christmas. New Year's Day, and the Protector sent handsome gifts to the ambassadors and ministers. When the Church of England promoted the Feast of the Nativityas a major religious holiday, the Puritans attacked it as "res… Here Christmas was being kept in the old style and in pursuits that could give offence to nobody. Today, is it, no longer, the “meek”, but, becoming, the “plurality”…??? and particularly pray for Charles Stuart.". During the early 1600s, most English Puritans had been prepared to tolerate Christmas.

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