December 13, 2022
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about a 1908 Christmas party in Boston that echoed the merriment of Old England. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
In old England Christmas lasted 12 days. Among the festivities, the Feast of Fools was run by the “Lord of Misrule,” who directed activities from Christmas until January 6 (Twelfth Night). He would essentially adopt the role of the ruler over all festive fun among the noble court. In Scotland the festive lord was known as the “Abbot of Unreason,” and in France as the “Prince des Sots.” The closest version widely assimilated later in society is the red-cloaked jolly fellow known as Santa Claus, who only reigns for 24 hours.
In Boston, Massachusetts, on 30 December 1908, residents of New England (and some Mayflower scions) gathered for a “Ye Olde English Christmasse” and a good time of merriment was had by all.
The Boston Herald covered the event.
This article reported:
Ye Olde English Christmasse, with its flickering Yule log, steaming tankard, gleesome caroling and all good cheer, was right gloriously even if a bit tardily celebrated last week in Boston town. Gay revelers met in motley array under the rafters of the guild hall and there forgot for happy hours the 20th century and the tunnel in their pleasing disport and dalliance. Robin Hood and brave St. George, the Lord of Misrule and the Spirit of Christmas, held high carnival of good fellowship on Beacon Hill.
Which is to say that the members of the Field and Forest Club met for their annual Christmas party last Tuesday night at 3 Joy Street in the tip-top “town room” of the Twentieth Century Club. And as usual they succeeded in importing over seas and centuries a genuinely artistic and enjoyable bit of “merrie England.”
Photo caption (left to right): Robert Johnson [son of James Johnson and Amelia M. Day, descendant of Thomas Prence, Richard Warren, and William Brewster]; Charles Clifton Littlefield [son of Abram Colby Littlefield and Clara Elizabeth Spencer, direct descendant of Richard Warren and Edward Doty]; I. H. Angell; Vernon Ashley Field [son of Aaron Davis Field and Eliza Ashley, descendant of Stephen Hopkins]; Edward M. Hagarty; Arthur F. Newell [son of Elmer Ellsworth Newell and Emma A. W. Frye, descendant of Richard Warren]; and George Wilson.
Early in the evening they gathered together, these field and forest lovers of greater Boston and all New England, who somehow seem specially fitted to revive the quaint, wild customs of those country livers and lovers in old England. The modern “Christmasse” merrymakers themselves had this feeling, anyway, and perhaps that was why even the electric lights on the walls and the shirtwaists and stiff collars of the guests really did not make the affair ridiculously incongruous.
My Lord of Misrule.
With “i’ faiths” and “grammercies” and knightly courtesy and very human laughter, the holiday folk disposed themselves on – not oaken settees, alas! – but, on the whole, rather more comfortable cane-seated chairs – around the sides and away from the entrance to the “guild hall.” My Lord of Misrule, a noble wight with yellow doublet and picturesque soft cap and gay little bauble-tipped wand, was master of ceremonies, and right statlie he bore him[self] among the hilarious revelers.
When all were seated a tramping and a thumping sounded on the stairs outside. Then it came, the first gay symbol of all the fun, the Yule log that has made merry the Christmas of common folk since the Druid days of first Christmasses. Two bonny pages bore it in, lifted high on their shoulders, bore it straight to the “real” fireplace that is one of the treasures of the “guild hall,” and kneeling down beside it set it all ablaze. They sang, too, those pages, and their audience sang with them:
“Bring with a noise, my merry, merry boys,
The Christmasse log to the firing!”Scarcely was their song finished and the open square of the hearth gloriously alight, when there came a knock, knock at the open door. “Enter,” quoth Misrule’s lord, and the “wise ones” sang again:
“The way-worn harper, old and poor,
Shall never be turned from our castle door.”Of course he shouldn’t be – not when he could play like he did! Scotch he was, a sort of “Wandering Willie,” and his shoulders were bent with carking care and his locks were gray. But when he played one heard the wind among English oaks and the loud laughter of the knights of the greenwood and the calls of bugle horns that men used when they hunted the red deer and once – once – far and faint and shrill, the silver whistle of Robin Hood.
To be continued…
A Huge Thanks to Marnie Goodbody, Research Librarian at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Note on the header image: traditional Christmas merry-making in the banqueting hall at Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, from “The Mansions of England in the Olden Time, Series I” by Joseph Nash (London, 1839). Courtesy of the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, Special Collections.
