![]() ![]() King Henry VIII composed one which begins: “Green groweth the holly, So doth the ivy, Though winter blasts blow never so high, Green groweth the holly.” (I have modernised the spelling, but it was never very catchy.) Holly, ivy and mistletoe have been used for thousands of years as decorative greenery during festivities. Mistletoe had long been revered by druids, while holly and ivy were celebrated in English songs at least from the 15th century. The leaves that are available – holly, ivy and mistletoe – became obvious choices for decorations. In countries like the UK, midwinter greenery is limited. So the construction of green boughs and natural adornments was instead focused on churches – using plants that have retained their festive significance to this day. Gregory recommended that these celebrations should be reinvented rather than banned. ![]() The Venerable Bede, an English monk, records that English pagans had celebrated the start of their year at the winter solstice and called it “the night of the mothers”. The 6th-century Pope Gregory the Great took a different line. Some 900 years later, a Christian bishop in Turkey wrote disapprovingly about members of his congregation who were drinking, feasting, dancing and “crowning their doors” with decorations in a pagan fashion at this time of year. Decorations are mentioned in ancient descriptions of the Roman feast of Saturnalia, which is thought to have originated in the 5th century BC. ![]() The idea of hanging up decorations in the middle of winter is older than Christmas itself. Seven Books of the Saturnalia: Codex from the Plutei Collection of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence (in Latin). Macrobius, Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius (1400s).New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Percival Vaughan Davies (trans.), Macrobius: The Saturnalia.Cambridge, MA/ London: Harvard University Press, 2011. The form of the Saturnalia is copied from Plato's Symposium and Gellius's Noctes atticae the chief authorities (whose names, however, are not quoted) are Gellius, Seneca the philosopher, Plutarch ( Quaestiones conviviales), Athenaeus and the commentaries of Servius and others on Virgil. The primary value of the work lies in the facts and opinions quoted from earlier writers. The seventh book consists largely of the discussion of various physiological questions. The latter part of the third book is taken up with a dissertation upon luxury and the sumptuary laws intended to check it, which is probably a dislocated portion of the second book. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth books are devoted to Virgil, dwelling respectively on his learning in religious matters, his rhetorical skill, his debt to Homer (with a comparison of the art of the two) and to other Greek writers, and the nature and extent of his borrowings from the earlier Latin poets. The second book begins with a collection of bons mots, to which all present make their contributions, many of them being ascribed to Cicero and Augustus a discussion of various pleasures, especially of the senses, then seems to have taken place, but almost the whole of this is lost. The first book is devoted to an inquiry as to the origin of the Saturnalia and the festivals of Janus, which leads to a history and discussion of the Roman calendar, and to an attempt to derive all forms of worship from that of the Sun. "The work takes the form of a series of dialogues among learned men at a fictional banquet." There is little attempt to give any dramatic character to the dialogue in each book some one of the personages takes the leading part, and the remarks of the others serve only as occasions for calling forth fresh displays of erudition. It contains a great variety of curious historical, mythological, critical, antiquarian and grammatical discussions. The Saturnalia consists of an account of the discussions held at the house of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus during the holiday of the Saturnalia. 431 CE by the Roman provincial Macrobius Theodosius (b. Saturnalia ( Latin: Saturnaliorum Libri Septem, "Seven Books of the Saturnalia") is a work written after c. A 1560 printed edition of Macrobius's Saturnalia, included alongside Cicero's Somnium Scipionis. ![]()
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