Festivals,+Feasts+&+Holidays

​ Festivals, Feasts, and Holidays By: Chris Gonzalez  

 Everybody celebrates some type of holiday or festival, but no one celebrates like the people in Tudor Times. In the Elizabethan Era, people celebrated and feasted for any type of festival or holiday. They had unusual holidays and festivals that are way different from what people celebrate today. They loved to feast, it didn’t matter if they were wealthy or not. Even though there was a big difference between wealthy and poor people, they still loved to feast and participate in any holiday or festival.

The Elizabethan’s Era most important holiday was Christmas. This Holiday adapted from midwinter celebrations of ancient pageant religions, even though the marking of Christ’s birth was the official purpose. This Christmas celebration lasted about 2 weeks, unlike todays Christmas holiday that lasts a day or two. This Christmas celebration went from Christmas Eve to January 5, also referred as the twelfth night (Andrews 124). Christmas season was the time of constant feasting (Andrews 125).  They had other holidays too. Some of those holidays are still celebrated by people today, and some of those holidays are just unusual. They celebrated Easter, which was the time of celebrating spring and the forty days before Easter that was called lent. During this festival, Christians weren’t aloud to eat meat or any other type foods. Shrove Tuesday was the last day of partying and feasting before the lent began so people would eat as much fat as they could (Andrews 125). Another thing they celebrated was Whitsunday, which was the beginning of the Pentecost. During Whitsunday, churches sold ale (beer) to raise money for the church. The first Monday after The Twelfth Night was Plough Monday. It celebrated the returning to work after The New Year and Christmas celebrations. Lastly, Candlemas. The first day of spring was known as Candlemas. On this day, all Christmas decorations we burned using candlelights and torches (Andrews 126) Feasting was one thing everybody loved to do. Both commonist and high-class people feasted even though there was a difference in the people and the food they ate. Royal feast were made up of variety of dishes, but the dishes were served as two courses, the meals were very buffet like with both sweet and savory flavors. Some dishes were served as a dish for two or four people, which could also be referred to as a Messe. There was so many people at the feasts that sometimes the food was served in two sittings (Balkwill 20).   Wealthy people ate very good food, with luxurious dishes. Loads of wine and ale were drunk at feasts. Wealthy people ate Venison Roasted in beef, pig head, bacon, brawn, ham, game pies with cinnamon, salmon, eels, turbon, oysters, sweetmeats, candied roses and violets, grapes, oranges, almonds, hazelnuts, cakes, sugar soaked confections, and much more (Balkwill 20). High class feasts were very different from commonist's feasts.

The kind of food that people ate during the Elizabethan Era depended of the type of family the person was raised by. People in the countryside ate whatever they could raise or grow that belonged to them. Their most valuable food was pottage, or a thick soup. This was made with vegetables like beans and cabbage, barley and oatmeal were used to thicken the meal (Balkwill 8).

Works Cited Andrews, John F, ed. //Shakespeare’s World and Work//. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001. Print. Balkwill, Richard. //Food & Feasts in Tudor Times//. Parsippany: New DIscovery, 1995. Print. “Elizabethan Era.” //Absolute Astronomy//. N.p., 2010. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. // A Wedding Feast //. 1569. //Google.com//. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.