398.3040. 7448 Cop.2.

701728

LONDON

REPRINTED FROM STEREOTYPE PLATES BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.

IN presenting the following pages to the Public I do not lay claim to any originality, my object simply having been to collect together, into a readable and condensed form, from various sources within my reach, accounts of Customs which, if not already obsolete, are quickly becoming so.

With regard to the general plan of the book, it speaks for itself. It should, however, be stated that the movable feasts are placed under the earliest days on which they can fall.

In conclusion, I would only add that I am much indebted to Mr. James Britten, of the British Museum, for the valuable help and suggestions which he has given me whilst passing the proof-sheets through the Press.

September 15th, 1875.

T. F. THISELTON DYER.

POPULAR CUSTOMS.

JAN. 1.]

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

NEW Year's Day has always been a time of general rejoicing and festivity, its observance being characterised by many a curious custom and superstitious practice. History tells us how on this day the Druids were accustomed, with much pomp and ceremony, to distribute branches of the sacred mistletoe amongst the people; those precious gifts having the night before been cut from the oak-tree in a forest dedicated to the gods. Among the Saxons of the northern nations the new year was ushered in by friendly gifts, and celebrated with such extraordinary festivity that people actually used to reckon their age by the numbers of annual merry-makings in which they had participated. Fosbroke, in his Encyclopædia of Antiquities, notices the continuation of the Roman practice of interchanging gifts during the middle and later ages; a custom which prevailed especially amongst our kings, queens, and the nobility. According to Matthew Paris, Henry III., following the discreditable example of some of the Roman emperors, even extorted them from his subjects.

In Rymer's Foedera (vol. x. p. 387) a list is given of the gifts received by Henry VI. between Christmas Day and February 4th, 1428, consisting of sums of 40s., 208., 138. 4d., 108., 6s. 8d., and 3s. 4d.

In the reign of Henry VII. the reception of the New Year's gifts presented by the king and queen to each other

and by their household and courtiers, was reduced to a solemn formula.

Agnes Strickland, in her Lives of the Queens of England (1864, vol. ii. p. 83), quotes the following extract from a MS. of Henry VII.'s Norroy herald, in possession of Peter Le Neve, Esq.: "On the day of the New Year, when the king came to his foot-sheet, his usher of his chamberdoor said to him, ‘Sire, here is a New Year's gift coming from the queen;' then the king replied, Let it come in.' Then the king's usher let the queen's messenger come within the yate" (meaning the gate of the railing which surrounded the royal bed, instances of which are familiar to the public in the state bedrooms at Hampton Court to this day, and it is probable that the scene was very similar), "Henry VII. sitting at the foot of the bed in his dressing-gown, the officers of his bed-chamber having turned the top sheet smoothly down to the foot of the bed when the royal personage rose. The queen, * in like manner,

sat at her foot-sheet, and received the king's New Year's gift within the gate of her bed-railing. When this formal exchange of presents had taken place between the king and his consort, they received, seated in the same manner, the New Year's gifts of their nobles. And,' adds the herald, assuming the first person, I shall report to the queen's grace and them that be about her, what rewards are to be given to them that bring her grace New Year's gifts, for I trow they are not so good as those of the king.'

There is in the possession of the Marquis of Bath, Longleat, a manuscript, which contains a list of moneys given to King Henry VIII. in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, as New Year's gifts. They are from archbishops, bishops, noblemen, doctors, gentlemen, &c. The amount which the king's grace complacently pocketed on this occasion was 792l. 10s. 10d.-N. &. Q. 4th S. vol. xi. p. 8.

Honest old Latimer, however, says Hone (Every Day Book, 1836, vol. i. p. 7), instead of presenting Henry VIII. with a purse of gold, put into the king's hand a New Testament, with a leaf conspicuously doubled down at Hebrews xiii. 4, which, on reference, will be found to have Elizabeth of York.