Does the celebration of Christmas in its current form stem from pre-Christian pagan festivals for the mid-winter? Our journey will take us through the mists of time, from the ancient Roman Saturnalia to the Norse Yule, tracing the transformation of these midwinter festivals into the Christian Nativity.

We will examine the adoption of December 25th, a date deeply entwined with pagan solstice celebrations, as the birthdate of Christ. This exploration will highlight the historical evolution of Christmas and how ancient traditions have seamlessly merged into the tapestry of this beloved Christian holiday.

Join me as we unravel the threads of history and mythology to understand the true origins of Christmas, a festival that is a unique blend of Christian and pagan elements.

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Let’s now dive into the historical links between Christmas and pagan mid-winter festivals! (Hutton, 2001, pp.26–41)

Modern biblical scholars generally do not regard the Nativity narratives as reliable sources for understanding the historical Jesus. These stories are now widely seen as creative constructs by the authors, positioning Christ within traditional Jewish salvation history. The accounts contain contradictions, notably regarding Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, and include elements like the Roman census and the Massacre of the Innocents, which are historically dubious. However, these tales are meaningful on a mythological level, portraying the archetypal birth of a hero at the convergence of various realms, embodying both human and divine qualities, and being worshipped by societal outcasts.

The New Testament does not specify the date of Christ’s birth. Early Christian tradition did not preserve this information, and early writers speculated various dates, often in spring. The first definitive association of Christ’s birth with 25 December is found in the Philocalus calendar of 354, originating in Rome and later spreading to other regions. However, it took centuries to be acknowledged in Jerusalem and was never adopted by the Armenian Church.

A Christian writer of the late fourth century, the Scriptor Syrus, candidly stated that the choice of 25 December was influenced by the pagan celebration of the Sun’s birthday, a festival in which Christians also participated. The Church, noticing the Christians’ inclination towards this festival, decided to celebrate Christ’s Nativity on the same day.

The pagan feast that Christmas replaced, decreed by Emperor Aurelian in 274 as part of a new state cult with the sun as its chief deity, was relatively recent. This cult was an expansion of an older Syrian Sun cult and was an attempt to unify the Roman Empire through a universal worship focus. However, this state religion lasted only until 323, when Constantine shifted imperial support to Christianity.

Interestingly, the Church did not align the Nativity with the main festival of Aurelian’s state cult, celebrated in late summer or mid-October. It is unclear whether the winter solstice had a minor festival for Sol Invictus or if the Scriptor Syrus was referring to a private pagan celebration. There is even a possibility that no pre-Christian celebration existed on that date. Nonetheless, positioning the Nativity at the winter solstice endowed it with significant symbolic power but also led to ongoing concerns about the festival’s identity, as Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo the Great noted. Conversely, Maximus of Turin celebrated the Christian appropriation of a pagan sun-worship festival.

The Romans were uncertain about the exact date of the winter solstice. In the first century, Pliny believed it to be on 26 December, while Columella, writing around the same period, thought it was the 23rd. Julius Caesar’s official calendar marked it as the 25th. This uncertainty was understandable, as the sun appears to rise and set in the same place for several days around the solstice, hence the term ‘solstice’ from the Latin meaning ‘the sun stands still.’ The traditional Roman calendar had a quiet period around this time, with significant festivals like Saturnalia after 17 December and the New Year feast, Kalendae, from 1 to 3 January. Initially, the Roman year began in March, which is why the months from September to December are numerically named after their position from March. However, from 153 BCE, the Roman year officially started on 1 January.

In Rome, Saturnalia was a popular and extravagant celebration. The religious rites were on 17 December, but the festivities, including public gambling and gift-giving, continued for up to seven days. People exchanged presents, particularly candles symbolising light, and social groups would elect a ‘king’ to lead party games. The Kalendae, dedicated to Janus, involved more feasting and distinctive gift exchanges, typically figs, honey, and pastry, but later coins.

The Christian Nativity feast eventually overshadowed these Roman festivals, leading to a series of new Christian holy days. From the second century, Eastern churches celebrated Christ’s baptism on 6 January, known as Epiphany, which by the fourth century was observed in Gaul and later widely in the Western Christian world. This feast became associated with various events in Jesus’ life, particularly the adoration of the Magi, which gained prominence over others, including the baptism.

Around 400 AD, feasts were established immediately after the Nativity: 26 December for Stephen, the first Christian martyr; 27 December for John the Evangelist; and 28 December for the Holy Innocents. In 567, the Council of Tours declared the twelve days between the Nativity and Epiphany as one festal cycle, with three fast days representing the old Kalendae. By the eighth century, the Church had acknowledged 1 January as the feast of Christ’s Circumcision.

This medieval system of twelve days of celebration, with peaks on 25 December, 1 January, and 6 January, became established. In northern and central Europe, where midwinter was harsher, this cycle became more significant than Easter. These celebrations likely intersected with local pre-Christian seasonal festivities in the British Isles.

Prehistoric monuments in the British Isles, aligned with the sun’s cardinal points, suggest the ritual importance of the winter solstice in certain times and places. However, the majority of these monuments do not demonstrate a consistent or enduring solar cult. Furthermore, there is a significant gap between these monuments and the pre-Roman British Iron Age, with no temples from that era showing significant solar alignments.

Literary sources provide no definitive information about midwinter rituals in ancient Britain. The Irish stories, particularly the Ulster Cycle, which reflects a pagan past, do not mention any midwinter celebrations, focusing instead on the start of each season. These tales, including mythological ones like the Book of Invasions, show no clear evidence of sun worship or a solar deity. However, these were written at least two centuries after the decline of Irish paganism. This contrasted with St. Patrick’s writings from the fifth century when paganism was prevalent in Ireland, where he criticised sun worship. The Sanas Chormaic, a glossary from around 900, indicates that solar symbols were inscribed on certain altars.

By the eleventh century, the Christian tradition of a twelve-day midwinter festival was established in Ireland, as seen in ‘The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill’, which depicts High King Brian Boru celebrating from Christmas to Epiphany.

In contrast, early Welsh literature is less informative about pagan beliefs and practices compared to Irish sources. Ancient Greek and Roman authors, while useful in other areas, do not discuss seasonal festivals in north-west Europe. However, Roman writer Pliny has inadvertently caused confusion by linking Druids, mistletoe, and midwinter. He noted that in Gaul (modern France), mistletoe was valued as a poison antidote and fertility enhancer and was considered sacred by Druids, particularly when found on oak trees, which is rare. It was harvested on the sixth day of the moon, aligning with the start of their months and years. This, however, does not describe a seasonal ritual but a sporadic event based on a rare botanical occurrence and the lunar cycle and is specifically associated with Gaul, not Britain.

At first glance, the Anglo-Saxon records, particularly those of Bede, who wrote a calendar history around 730, appear more informative. Bede confidently claimed that the English’s most significant annual festival used to be the ‘Modranicht’ or ‘Mother Night’ on 24 December, according to the Roman calendar. This night marked the beginning of their new year, and was observed with religious practices that were not detailed.

However, this information is not as straightforward as it seems. In 1889, Alexander Tille critically examined Bede’s account, highlighting Bede’s own admission of his limited understanding of these practices. Tille proposed that the festival Bede described might have been the Christian Nativity celebration, and the ‘Mother’ referred to could have been the Virgin Mary. This scepticism is supported by the absence of the term ‘Modranicht’ in other early English or Continental sources. Instead, the Nativity feast was referred to as ‘midwinter’ (midne winter or middum wintra) in Anglo-Saxon literature until 1038, a term plain enough to seem archaic. Occasionally, it was called by its ecclesiastical name, ‘Nativited’. The first recorded use of ‘Cristes Maessan,’ or Christmas, was in 1038.

By 877, the tradition of a twelve-day celebration following ‘midwinter’ was well established, as evidenced by Alfred the Great’s law code, which granted a work-free period to all servants during this time.

In the eleventh century, Danish governance in England led to the adopting of the Scandinavian colloquial term for Christmas, ‘Yule, ‘ as an alternative name among the English. This term gained popularity in the following century and was first recorded in Scotland in the thirteenth century, where it became the standard term by the end of the Middle Ages.

In Old Norse, it is ‘jol’; in Swedish, ‘jul,’ and in Danish, ‘juul.’ The origin of the name has perplexed linguists; it might be connected to the Gothic ‘heul’ or Anglo-Saxon ‘hweal,’ both meaning a wheel, or it could be related to the root word of the English ‘jolly.’ However, its exact derivation remains uncertain.

There is also ambiguity about whether ‘Yule’ was initially linked to a pre-Christian midwinter festival. Early Scandinavian literature mentions an October pagan feast, the ‘Winter Nights’, marking the start of the season, but not Yule. Some medieval authors, like Snorri Sturluson in the thirteenth century, believed Yule was equally ancient. Snorri claimed that the custom was to offer sacrifices for an easy winter during ‘Winter Nights’, for a good harvest at Yule, and for success in warfare on ‘Summer’s Day’ in April.

He also mentioned that Yule lasted three nights, starting with midwinter night and the New Year, and that Hakon the Good, a Christian king of Norway, aligned it with the Nativity feast.

Another Icelandic writer from the same era depicted a warrior in pagan times delaying a duel until three days after Yule to respect the festival’s sacred peace. However, this account might reflect Christian perspectives retroactively applied to a vaguely understood past. The reliability of Snorri’s sources and the accuracy of his interpretations are also uncertain.

The consensus between Bede and Snorri, indicating that the winter solstice was a significant feast for ancient Scandinavian and Norse peoples, marking the start of their year, is notable. This aligns with numerous complaints from churchmen and councils about New Year revelries from the fourth to the eleventh centuries, with Sir Edmund Chambers listing forty such instances in 1903.

The Roman Saturnalia faded away relatively easily, perhaps due to its limited geographical spread. In contrast, European midwinter and New Year festivals, likened to the Roman Kalendae by churchmen, proved much more enduring. Early medieval Church Fathers like Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and John Chrysostom, along with others like Maximus of Turin and Caesarius of Aries, vehemently opposed these festivals. By the eleventh century, such denunciations had ceased in southern regions but continued in newly Christianised areas like Germany.

In England, these festivals were still being denounced. Between 1005 and 1008, Archbishop Wulfstan of York condemned New Year’s Day sorcery amidst a resurgence of paganism due to Viking settlements. In the late twelfth century, Bartholomew Iscanus, Bishop of Exeter, prescribed penance for those observing the New Year with pagan rites. Despite these condemnations, divinatory customs persisted, as evidenced by the fourteenth-century Mirk’s Festival and the early fifteenth-century tract ‘Dives and Pauper.’

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century folklorists recorded divinatory New Year’s Eve and Day customs. Early medieval Welsh literature also indicates that a significant annual midwinter festival, distinct from the Nativity and known as the ‘New Year feast,’ was celebrated in Wales. This is evident in (a couple of works I am putting on screen) like ‘Y Gododdin‘ and ‘Culhwch ac Olwen‘, suggesting a long-established tradition by the tenth century.

The complexity and difficulty in tracing the pagan origins of the British Christmas are evident. However, there is substantial evidence of a major pre-Christian festival marking the new year at the winter solstice. This tradition is reflected in medieval British heritage’s Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Welsh elements. The English Crown’s decision in 1155 to start the official year in March, aligning with the early Roman system, and the subsequent calendar reform in 1752, which moved the start of the year back to 1 January, highlights the enduring significance of New Year’s Eve and Day. The continued observance of rituals and superstitions on these dates suggests a deep-rooted historical festival, with the charged atmosphere of British New Year’s Eve likely mirroring one of the oldest celebrations in Europe.

So happy Mid-Winter festival to everyone celebrating, however, you celebrate it.

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📚REFERENCE📚

Hutton, R. 2001. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain [ebook] [Online]. Oxford University Press. [Accessed 11 August 2020]. Available from: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205708.001.0001/acprof-9780198205708.