FESTIVAL 



3129 



FESTUBERT 



served by the G.W. R. The main 

 industry is the large slate quarries, 

 which employ most of the male 

 inhabitants. Pop. 9,674. 



Festival (Lat. festivus, joyful). 

 Days on which some deity or 

 person was honoured or the me- 

 mory of some important event kept 

 with certain solemnities, ordinary 

 work being as a rule suspended. 

 Such festivals or feasts no doubt 

 were originally nature festivals, 

 connected with its changing pheno- 

 mena, its decay in winter and re- 

 nas ence in spring (see Adonis). 

 They were partly merrymakings 

 and thanksgivings for benefits re- 

 ceived, partly prayers for benefits to 

 come, and partly ceremonies to ap- 

 pease the anger of the gods for sins 

 committed, though even from the 

 latter the festive element was not 

 absent. 



The Greek festivals were held in 

 honour of national heroes ; of gods 

 connected with the fruits of the 

 field, such as the Dionysia, Lenaea, 

 and Eleusinia ; and of the tutelary 

 deities of Athens, such as the 

 Panathenaea. The four great 

 games Isthmian, Nemean, Olym- 

 pian, and Pythian set the seal on 

 the national unity. At Rome each 

 family kept the festival of its 

 domestic gods, the Lares and 

 Penates : the public festivals were 

 under the control of the state 

 festivals in honour of the tutelary 

 deities of Rome, Romulus, Mars, 

 and Quirinus, and of the divinities 

 who presided over the crops, the 

 fields, and boundaries, such as the 

 Cerealia, Lupercalia, Saturnalia, 

 and Terminalia. The public games 

 (ludi) were also national festivals. 

 (See Feriae ; Ludi.) 



Religious Festivals 



Religious festivals are days set 

 apart for rest, thanksgiving, and 

 special observance. Some are fixed, 

 as Christmas ; others movable, as 

 Easter. In the Christian calendar 

 the greater festivals are called red 

 letter days ; while the lesser are 

 known as black letter days. 



Among the Jews such days are 

 regarded as days appointed by 

 God for meetings with His children. 

 They include Passover, or Un- 

 leavened Bread, Nisan 15-22 ; Pen- 

 tecost, Sivan 6 ; Trumpets, or New 

 Year, Tishri 1 ; the Day of Atone- 

 ment, or Great Sabbath, observed 

 on Tishri 10, by complete rest and 

 fasting, the only fast not post- 

 poned by the occurrence of the 

 Sabbath ; the Tabernacles, or In- 

 gathering of the Harvest, Tishri 

 15-22 ; Jubilee, at the end of every 

 seven Sabbatical Years ; Purim, etc. 



In the Christian Church the 

 earliest festivals were the love 

 feasts or Agapae (q.v.). Confusion 

 has been caused by disregard of 



the fact that both authorship and 

 date of festival homilies are un- 

 certain. Until the beginning of the 

 4th century, record exists only of 

 Easter and Pentecost, though as 

 each Friday was a fast in remem- 

 brance of the Crucifixion, so each 

 Sunday was a festival in remem- 

 brance of the Resurrection. The 

 feast of the Nativity was observed 

 about 300 ; Christmas, Epiphany, 

 and Ascension Day were added 

 later. 



Saints and Martyrs 



Days in memory of the Apos- 

 tles were next observed, and 

 were followed by observance of 

 days devoted to the memory of 

 saints, of the Purification of the 

 Virgin Mary, the Annunciation, 

 the nativity of S. John the Baptist, 

 the Circumcision, the death of 

 martyrs, the transfer of their 

 relics or the consecration of 

 churches dedicated to them. Many 

 Christian festivals are of local 

 origin, some adapted from Jewish 

 and pagan practice, and they in- 

 creased in number during' the 

 Middle Ages. In the Roman 

 Catholic communion, feasts are 

 divided into doubles, semi-doubles, 

 simples, etc., according to the 

 offices appointed for them. 



Inclusive of Sundays, festivals 

 in the Anglican calendar number 

 149 ; of these the principal have 

 proper collects, epistles, Gospels, 

 and lessons, and some have a 

 proper preface at Holy Communion 

 and proper Psalms. The movable 

 festivals which depend upon Easter 

 are Septuagesima, Rogation Sun- 

 day, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, 

 and Trinity Sunday. In Great 

 Britain public observance of Church 

 festivals, apart from Easter, Whit- 

 sun, and Christmas, has fallen into 

 abeyance ; formerly all were made 

 the occasion of some difference 

 in the ordinary daily life of the 

 people. 



Bairam and Ramadan 



The chief festivals among Mahom- 

 medans, whose rest day is Friday, 

 the day on which Mahomet was 

 born, are the Feast of Bairam, 

 that of Sacrifices, and that follow- 

 ing the fast of Ramadan. The 

 Hindus have their festivals, as that 

 of Siva ; and among certain tribes 

 of North America is observed a 

 festival called the Day of the Dead. 

 The French Revolutionary cal- 

 endar included five festival days, 

 dedicated respectively to Virtue, 

 Genius, Labour, Opinion, and 

 Rewards, all in September. See 

 Calendar ; Prayer Book ; articles 

 under the name of each festival 

 or saint ; consult also Church 

 Festivals, A. J. Maclean, in the 

 Prayer Book Dictionary, ed. G. 

 Harford and M. Stevenson, 1912. 



Festubert. Village of France in 

 the dept. of Pas-de-Calais. It is 

 3 m. W. by N. of La Bassee and 

 was prominent in the Great War. 

 There was an engagement here 

 between the British and the 

 Germans, Nov. 23-24, 1914. On 

 the night of Nov. 23, 1914, the 

 Germans had carried up a sap close 

 to the Allied trenches, E. of Festu- 

 bert, which were held by troops of 

 the Indian corps. When day broke 

 next morning the German in- 

 fantry poured a storm of bombs 



Festubert. Plan of the country over 



which were fought the battles of 



Nov., 1914, and May, 1915 



and hand-grenades into the most 

 advanced British trenches. They 

 followed up this bombardment 

 with an attack, and penetrated 

 into the British trenches. 



In the afternoon Sir J. Will- 

 cocks, commanding the Indian 

 corps, ordered the original line to be 

 recovered and held at all cost. 

 All available British guns were 

 directed to shell the trenches that 

 the Germans had captured, as 

 preparation for a British counter- 

 attack, which was to open at 4.30. 

 The infantry had to advance over 

 snow-covered ground and they were 

 received with violent machine- 

 gun fire. But after hard and con- 

 tinuous hand-to-hand fighting, the 

 ground lost was recovered. 



Festubert, BATTLE OF. Fought 

 during the Great War, May, 1815. 

 In May, to assist the French opera- 

 tions in Artois and at Arras, where 

 Foch was attacking, the British 



