Book of the Week: The Stations of the Sun

Prof Ronald Hutton on the medieval tradition of giving gifts on New Year’s Day

In Medieval England, there were certain days among the Twelve Days of Christmas that were especially important.

The first such, after Christmas itself, was 1 January, known as New Year’s Day throughout the medieval and early modern period despite the formal change of date for beginning the year to March. The Roman custom of giving presents then was retained across much of Europe all through the Middle Ages.

In England the thirteenth-century monarch Henry III was criticised for extorting them from his subjects. Two centuries later, those sent by young Henry VI to members of his family included tablets of gold studded with jewels, a ruby set in a gold ring, and a gold crucifix decorated with sapphires and pearls.

The court ordinances of Henry VII directed that he would receive his gifts in the morning after he had put on his shoes. Trumpets then sounded, and the presents arrived carried by servants, first from the queen and then from his leading subjects.

In her own chamber, the queen received hers. The royal couple had arranged for gifts from each of them, usually in cash, to be sent out to the officers of the household and to the chief lay and clerical dignitaries of the realm. If the latter were at their own seat, the presents were carried thither by Yeomen of the Guard.

Upon the same morning, the fifth earl of Northumberland was awoken by minstrels playing before his door, followed by his own fanfare of trumpets. He then received his gifts, making them in turn to his sovereigns and his household. Similar scenes were probably enacted at the residences of other Tudor magnates, while gentry exchanged presents with their servants and often despatched them to local aristocrats.

Some great nobles, like the earl of Rutland, sent gifts to servants of the king and other peers, from whom they expected or had received favours. Religious houses gave to their own staff and to each other.

Schoolboys at Eton played games in order to win gifts, and made presents of verses to their masters and to each other. New Year’s gifts appear in every full set of household accounts surviving from the period 1400-1550, underpinning the social and political order.

What is not clear is whether they were exchanged between commoners. Polydor Vergil, at the opening of the sixteenth century, stated that they were sent by those who served lords; but Tusser, in the middle of the same century, commented that Christmas was a time when people in general “gave many gifts”.

In 1419 the corporation of London ordered the servants of City officers to stop the custom of asking for Christmas offerings from victualling trades, sometimes with menaces when refused. It is clear therefore that a wider tradition of exchanging gifts at this time existed, but the extent of it seems impossible to quantify.

The date was marked by festivity as well as reciprocal generosity. The Scottish king James IV was greeted with a “New Year ballad” sung by the clerks of his chapel. His English contemporary Henry VII held a banquet at noon, processing to it with the sword of state carried before him.

The nobles and gentry keeping the season at their seats almost certainly all held feasts then as well (or so the household accounts suggest); the fifth earl of Northumberland, in the 1510s, had his honours proclaimed by his herald as the meal commenced.

The evening was a notable one for entertainments, from royal to parish level.

This extract is from Professor Ronald Hutton’s book The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain.

Professor Hutton is joining us on “A Drink with the Idler” at 6pm on Thursday 1 December. Book your tickets here. Free for subscribers.

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