266 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



and we accordingly find scarcely a people civilised or 

 savage with which it has not become more or less 

 familiar. The custom of placing evergreen in places of 

 religious worship prevailed long before the introduc- 

 tion of Christianity. The Jews employed them in their 

 Feast of Tabernacles in the month of September, and 

 we find several texts of Scripture, particularly in 

 chapters xl. xli. li. and Iv. of Isaiah and in chapter 

 viii. of Nehemiah, having reference to this custom, 

 but the evergreens originally made use of were 

 branches of pine, fir, cedar, and sprigs of box. When 

 the late Dean Stanley preached in the catacombs of 

 Rome, he mentioned that the decorations of churches 

 with holly was a religious observance which came 

 from the time of the heathen, who suspended green 

 boughs and holly about their houses, that the fairies 

 and spirits of the woods might find shelter under 

 them during the inclement weather. 



The ancient Greeks and Romans were accustomed 

 to decorate their temples with garlands of flowers 

 and fruits. It was also customary among the Romans 

 during the feast of Saturn, which took place about 

 the 1 8th of December, to send boughs of holly as 

 emblematical of good wishes with the gifts they 

 presented to their friends at that season, and thus 

 the holly came to be considered an emblem of 

 peace and good will. Tradition says that the early 

 Christian disciples in Britain used boughs for the 

 construction of their churches, as the heathen of these 

 islands made their temples in the same manner, 

 probably to imitate the temples of Saturn, which 

 were always under the oak. The great feast of 

 Saturn, as I have before observed, was held in 

 December, and as the oaks of this country are then 

 leafless the priests obliged the people to bring in 

 boughs and sprays of evergreens, and the Christians 

 on the 25th of the same month did the like ; and from 

 this circumstance arose the custom of placing holly 

 and evergreens in our churches and houses, to show 

 that the feast of Christmas has arrived. In the early 

 age of Christianity its ministers frequently experienced 

 the utmost difficulty in inducing their converts to 

 refrain from indulging in the popular amusements 

 which were so largely participated in by their Pagan 

 countrymen. Among others the revelry and license 

 which took place on the Saturnalia or feast of Saturn 

 called for special condemnation, but at last convinced 

 and partly influenced by the idea that the spread of 

 Christianity might thereby be advanced, the church 

 endeavoured to amalgamate as it were the old and 

 new religions, and sought, by transferring the heathen 

 ceremonies to the solemnities of the Christmas festival, 

 to make them conducive to the cause of religion and 

 piety. Ingrafted thus on the Roman Saturnalia, the 

 Christmas festivities received in Britain further 

 changes and modification by the arrival of the 

 Saxons, who introduced the various ceremonies 

 practised by the ancient Germans and Scandinavians. 

 The result has been the strange medley of Christian 



and Pagan rites which contribute to make up the 

 festivities of our modern Christmas. 



One of our oldest carols, written in the fifteenth 

 century, contains an account of the victory of the 

 Holly over the Ivy, which may be considered as a 

 worldly emblem. " Stowe informs us in his ' Survey 

 of London,' 1598, that against the feast of Christmas, 

 every man's house, as also their parish churches, 

 were decked with holme, ivy, bays, and whatso- 

 ever the season of the year afforded to be green. 

 The conduits and the standards in the streets were 

 likewise so garnished." He goes on to state that, 

 "in the year 1444, by a tempest of thunders and 

 lightenings, towards the morning of Candlemas Day, 

 at the Leadenhall, in Cornhill, a standard tree, being 

 set up in the midst of the pavement, fast in the 

 ground, nailed full of holm and ivy, for the disport of 

 Christmas to the people, was torn up and cast down 

 by the devil, as was thought, and the stones of the 

 pavement all about were cast in the streets and into 

 divers houses, so that the people were much afrighted 

 at the great tempest." Among the ancient disburse- 

 ments of the Church of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the City 

 of London, there is the following entry : Holme and 

 Ivy at Xmas (4^'.) In the churchwarden's accounts 

 of St. Martin's, Outwich, 1524: Item for Holly 

 and Ivy at Xmas {2d.) In the accounts of the parish 

 St. Margaret's, Westminster, 1647, we read : Item 

 paid for rosemarie, holly, and bays, that was stuck 

 about the church at Christmas, \s. bd. Thus we see 

 holly, ivy, bays, and rosemary were the favourite 

 plants for Christmas decoration even iu olden time. 

 Ivy is rather objectionable in churches from its asso- 

 ciations, having anciently been sacred to Bacchus, 

 and employed largely in the celebrations in honour of 

 the god of wine. Cypress, we are informed, has been 

 sometimes used, but its funeral relations render it 

 rather out of place at a festive season like Christmas. 

 One plant is specially excluded, the mystic mistle- 

 toe, which, for its antecedents, would be regarded as 

 almost as inappropriate to the interior of a church, 

 as the celebration of the old Pagan rites within the 

 walls of the sacred building. A solitary exception to 

 this universal exclusion is mentioned by Dr. Stukely, 

 who says that it was at one time customary to carry 

 a bunch of mistletoe in procession to the high altar 

 of York Cathedral, and thereafter proclaim a general 

 indulgence and pardon of sins at the gate of the city. 

 No doubt this was one of the burlesques on the 

 services of the church which, under the leadership of 

 the Boy-Bishop or the Lord of Misrule, formed so 

 favourite a pastime at Christmas in those bygone 

 days. See Hone's " Every-day Book," in which 

 work it is also mentioned that some mistletoe was 

 put up in the church at Teddington, but the clergy- 

 man immediately ordered it to be taken away. The 

 decorations remain in the churches from Christmas 

 till the end of January ; but, according with the Ec- 

 clesiastical Canon, they must all be cleared away before 



