and now... the rest of the story
Submitted by Splash! on December 20 2000 13:04:23
In reply to 12 Days of Christmas submitted by OliverB on December 19 2000 22:13:27
|
I find it ironic that the Roman Catholic church would think they had to create a coded Christmas carol to spread the Gospel during a time of Reformation when Christians were struggling against the "Mother" church to spread this very same gospel message -- including the many efforts of the reformers to get the "two turtle doves" distributed in English so that the common people could either read the Gospel for themselves (or have it read to them). Many Christians died for this cause at the hands of the Roman Catholic church. I just couldn't let this post stand alone without presenting the other side of the story. I've included the following "urban legend" explanation behind "The Twelve Days of Christmas." ~Splash* ===================================== Origins: For reasons that in the lack of a comprehensive study we can only guess at, a trend has developed in which secular items (especially items associated with Christmas) are now claimed to have originated as vessels for carrying "secret" messages -- usually articles of a Christian faith that could not be openly expressed in societies hostile to Christianity. Perhaps as a reaction to the increasing commercialization and secularization of Christmas, several stories are now floating about which erroneously state that items such as candy canes, pretzels, and the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" began as ways of surreptitiously preserving and passing along religious beliefs, and these stories are now faithfully passed along as the truth in countless e-mail messages and on numerous web sites. One of the difficulties in analyzing these types of claims is that they present very long, complex periods of political and religious history as one uniform lump of time during which some generalization held absolutely true (e.g., "In England during the period 1558 to 1829, Catholics were prohibited by law from ANY practice of their faith, private OR public, and having anything in writing indicating adherence to the Catholic faith could get you imprisoned"), and explicating this facet of a claim can easily overwhelm the reader who merely wants to know whether the claim is true or not. We'll do our best here to present only the moderate amount of background detail necessary to provide an adequate explanation as to why this claim about the origins of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is false. This claim has (in true folkloric fashion) some alternate versions in which Catholicism and England are not specifically mentioned; in those versions the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is said to have been developed by "Christians" who could not open practice their faith because they lived in societies where Christians were persecuted. This version can easily be dismissed as nonsensical: What would be the utility of a Christmas song as a secret method of preserving tenets of Christianity in a society where the practice of Christianity itself was forbidden? Surely Christmas songs (and all other symbols of Christmas celebration) would be banned in such a society as well, leaving the perscuted faithful back at square one. As well, one searches in vain to find a place in the western world where the practice of Christianity was forbidden during the last several centuries. So, our efforts here will be dedicated to an analysis of the version claiming that "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was the creation of Catholics living in England after the establishment of the Anglican Church. As we alluded earlier, the history of the development of the Anglican Church and the relationship between Anglicans and Catholics in England over the next few centuries is a complex subject that could not be done justice in anything less than a lengthy discourse, and we recommend anyone interested in an excellent overview of this topic to read The Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Catholicism in England since the Reformation. A very brief way of summarizing this era would be to say that Henry VIII (1509-1547) broke with the Catholic Church in Rome and established the Anglican Church, and during the period from 1558 (the year Henry VIII's Catholic daughter Mary I died and her non-Catholic half-sister Elizabeth I took the throne) to 1829 (the year the Emancipation Act was passed by Parliament), the open practice of Catholicism was forbidden by law. (A more precise beginning year for this period would be 1559, the year the statute which abolished "the old worship" throughout England took effect.) However, it is not accurate to say that, without exception, anyone caught practicing Catholicism (or possessing material indicating adherence to Catholicism) at any time during this period was immediately imprisoned or executed. The condemnation of Catholicism waxed and waned with the political exigencies of the times, and during some periods Catholics were treated more leniently than others. (During the Puritan Commonwealth of 1649-1660, legislation banning the celebration of Christmas in England by anyone -- Anglican or not -- was enacted, although these laws were overturned with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.) An intimate knowledge of history is not necessary to discover flaws in the explanation that the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was created as a coded means of preserving tenets of the Catholic faith, however: The differences between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church were extrinsic to scripture, so items such as the Old and New Testaments, the Pentateuch, the Ten Commandments, the Creation, and the four gospels were common to both. No one risked punishment for possessing a Bible or discussing the "theological virtues," so there would have been no need to encode these concepts as hidden meanings in a song. If "The Twelve Days of Christmas" were really a song Catholics used "as memory aids to preserve the tenets of their faith" because "to be caught with anything in writing indicating adherence to the Catholic faith could get you imprisoned," how was the essence of Catholicism passed from one generation to the next? The mere memorization of a song with a coded reference to "the Old and New Testaments" by children in no way preserves the contents of those testaments. How was this preservation of content accomplished if possessing the testaments in written form (i.e., owning a copy of the Bible) was forbidden? Did adult Catholics memorize the entire contents of the Bible without any memory aids whatsoever? The whole idea makes no sense: Catholics and Anglicans both used the Old and New Testaments; possessing their contents in written form did not expose one as a Catholic, and thus there was no need to cloak Biblical concepts or contents with mnemonic devices. The utility of a Christmas song as a means of memorizing a catechism would be limited, since its use would obviously be restricted to the Christmas season. How was the forbidden catechism taught to children throughout the rest of the year? Available evidence indicates that the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" originated in France, not England. Three French versions of the song are known, and items mentioned in the song itself (the partridge, for example, which was not introduced to England from France until the late 1770s) are indicative of a French origin. France has always been Catholic. The twelve days of Christmas in the song are the twelve days between the birth of Christ (Christmas, December 25) and the coming of the Magi (Epiphany, January 6). Although the specific origins of the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" are not known, it possibly began as a Twelfth Night "memory-and-forfeits" game in which the leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake, with the player who erred having to pay a penalty, such as a offering up a kiss or a sweet. This is how the song was presented in its earliest known printed version, as it appeared in the 1780 children's book Mirth Without Mischief. (The song is apparently much older than this printed version, but we do not currently know how much older.) It is possible that this claim is not a fabricated one but that "The Twelve Days of Christmas" has been confused with -- or is a transformation of -- a song called "A New Dial" (also known as "In Those Twelve Days"), which dates to at least 1625 and assigns religious meanings to each of the twelve days of Christmas (but not for the purposes of teaching a catechism). In a manner somewhat similar to the memory-and-forfeits performance of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," the song "A New Dial" was recited in a question-and-answer format: What are they that are but one? We have one God alone In heaven above sits on His throne. What are they which are by two? Two testaments, the old and new, We do acknowledge to be true. What are they which are but three? Three persons in the Trinity Which make one God in unity. What are they which are but four Four sweet Evangelists there are, Christ's birth, life, death which do declare. What are they which are but five? Five senses, like five kings, maintain In every man a several reign. What are they which are but six? Six days to labor is not wrong, For God himself did work so long. What are they which are but seven? Seven liberal arts hath God sent down With divine skill man's soul to crown. What are they which are but eight? Eight Beatitudes are there given Use them right and go to heaven. What are they which are but nine? Nine Muses, like the heaven's nine spheres, With sacred tunes entice our ears. What are they which are but ten? Ten statutes God to Moses gave Which, kept or broke, do spill or save. What are they which are but eleven? Eleven thousand virgins did partake And suffered death for Jesus' sake. What are they which are but twelve? Twelve are attending on God's son; Twelve make our creed. The Dial's done. No evidence links "A New Dial" to "The Twelve Days of Christmas," however, so for now we can only assume the latter is what it purports to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with imagery of gifts and dancing and music. Some misinterpretations have crept into the English version over the years, though. For example, the fourth day's gift is four "colly birds," not four "calling birds." (The word "colly" literally means "black as coal," and thus "colly birds" would be blackbirds.) The "five golden rings" refers not to five pieces of jewelry, but to five ring-necked pheasants. When these errors are corrected, the pattern of the first seven gifts' all being types of birds is re-established. Last updated: 12 December 1999 I found this info at: |
Follow ups: