Trotty Veck, the Chimes and Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books December 16th

Dickens character Trotty Veck waits to run a message
Trotty Veck 1889 Dickens The Chimes by Kyd (Joseph Clayton Clarke)

As Christmas looms, seasonal publications have a mixture of wonder and joy at the coming family reunions and festivities mingled with an awareness that, for some, Christmas will depend on the Food Bank or the Charity Shelter. The weather is now cold, living costs continue to rise at the very time extra spending is needed to unlock the joy of the Season, and to counter the dark, the cold and the spectre of death which, in fact, has always been central to the season of winter.

Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books epitomise this dichotomy and adding an element of the supernatural, provided a vehicle for joy and hope, but with a forceful political message that the authorities and the rich were not doing their Christian duty to alleviate poverty. Christmas Carol contrasts the wealth of a mean rich Stockbroker with the family of his poor employee Bob Cratchit, and provides a powerful tale of redemption.

But in this post I want to concentrate on his second Christmas Book, ‘The Chimes’. It tells the story of the stick-thin Trotty Veck who is an aged City messenger, nicknamed Trotty because of his habit of keeping himself warm by running on the spot. He is afraid to let his daughter, Meg, to marry as he has so little hope for the future. While he is worrying, he, Meg and her intended Richard are approached by Alderman Cute and Mr Filer.

Cute represents the financial industries in the City of London and the Law. Filer the new breed of political economists. These, working with the idea of Malthus and the new science of Statistics, had proved, that generous support for the poor would, inevitably, lead to a country full of poor people and no rich people. And thus, they justified the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1832 which Dickens observed as a Parliamentary reporter (1831-1834). This set up the cruel Workhouse system which provided the lowest possible level of support offering separation from family, meagre food, and sparse comforts to encourage them to stop being lazy and get back out there to earn their own living and allow taxes to fall. (brilliantly satirised by Dickens’ Oliver Twist, asking for ‘More’).

Meg, Richard, Mr Filer, Gentleman, Alderman Cute and Trotty Veck. Probably located by the door of St Nicholas, Colechurch, City of London.

Below, I enclose the scene from the Chimes, which satirises the attitude of the governing classes.

‘And you’re making love to her, are you?’ said Cute to the young smith.

‘Yes,’ returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by the question.
‘And we are going to be married on New Year’s Day.’

‘What do you mean!’ cried Filer sharply?Enough  ‘Married!’

‘Why, yes, we’re thinking of it, Master,’ said Richard.  ‘We’re rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put Down first.’

‘Ah!’ cried Filer, with a groan.  ‘Put that down indeed, Alderman, and you’ll do something.  Married!  Married!!  The ignorance of the first principles of political economy on the part of these people; their improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough to—Now look at that couple, will you!’

...

‘A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,’ said Mr. Filer, ‘and may
labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those; and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to persuade ’em that they have no right or business to be married, than he can hope to persuade ’em that they have no earthly right or business to be born.  And that we know they haven’t.  We reduced it to a mathematical certainty long ago!’

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends, ‘Observe me, will you!  Keep your eye on the practical man!’—and called Meg to him. 

...

‘Now, I’m going to give you a word or two of good advice, my girl,’ said the Alderman, in his nice easy way.  ‘It’s my place to give advice, you know, because I’m a Justice. ...

‘You are going to be married, you say,’ pursued the Alderman.  ‘Very
unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex!  But never mind that.
After you are married, you’ll quarrel with your husband and come to be a distressed wife.  You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down.  So, don’t be brought before me.  

You’ll have children—boys.  Those boys will grow up bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and stockings.  Mind, my young friend!  I’ll convict ’em summarily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down.  Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely) and leave you with a baby.  Then you’ll be turned out of doors, and wander up and down the streets.  Now, don’t wander near me, my dear, for I am resolved, to Put all wandering mothers Down.  All young mothers,of all sorts and kinds, it’s my determination to Put Down.  Don’t think
to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies as an excuse with me;
for all sick persons and young children (I hope you know the
church-service, but I’m afraid not) I am determined to Put Down.  

And if you attempt, desperately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and
fraudulently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself, I’ll have no pity for you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide Down!  If there is one thing,’ said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, ‘on which I can be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide Down.  So don’t try it on.  That’s the phrase, isn’t it?  Ha, ha! now we understand each other.’

Project Gutenberg - The Chimes by Charles Dickens

It is a savage burlesque of a satire but at its core. Filer provides the economic/statistical justification. Cute enforces it by legal harassment of the poor. Dickens was writing after a recent introduction of legislation making suicide a punishable offence.

This has a contemporary resonance. During my lifetime the first British Government to be cruel in its provision, in my opinion, for the poor was Teresa May’s Conservative Government. Her laws made getting help so difficult that people died as a result of the deliberately difficult system. ‘I, Daniel Blake’ a 2016 film by Ken Loach brilliantly captured the essence of this system. That government’s treatment of the Windrush generation was a similar example of bureaucratic cruelty. And the continuing decline of the benefit system over the 13 years of Conservative Government means that the poor have borne the brunt of austerity.

The piece above reminds us what a brilliant propagandist Dickens was. Every generation of children, since he wrote Christmas Carol, has read it or seen it in popular retellings such as The Muppet Movie. I think it could be argued that the ‘More’ scene in Oliver Twist and the Christmas Carol have made the case for compassionate care and redemption far beter than contemporary Christianity or political parties.

In the Chimes. those two men discourage Trotty from letting the young ones marry. He has a dream and sees the hopeless result of his decision: suicide, prostitution, crime. When he wakes up, he realises that what they do have is hope. Hope springs eternal and he lets them marry.

For more on this scene, have a look at the Victorian Web

Dickens was not a socialist. ‘Hard Times’ shows that Dickens was against strikes, despite leading a strike when he was a young newspaper man. He was a free trade Liberal; a reformer who believed that the rich needed to do their Christian duty and provide charitable support, pay decent wages and look after their dependents and servants. He thought society should care less about the dogma of Christianity but look to its essence, ‘love your neighbour like yourself’. This, alone, was sufficient to right the wrongs caused by the selfish.

First Published on December 16th 2022, republished and revised in December 2023.

Grecian Winter – Hesiod’s Works & Days December 15th

Abney Park cemetary in winter
Abney Park cemetery in winter photo by Harriet Salsibury

Hesiod is a contemporary of Homer, and therefore one of the first European poets, one of the first commentators on Greek life, thought, religion, mythology, farming and time keeping. ‘Works and Days’ is his Farmers Almanac and therefore long overdue an appearance on my Almanac of the Past.

Hesiod’s poems also introduce the idea of the epoch, past glorious epochs of Gold and Bronze with a further descent to his own epoch which was of the base metal age of Iron. In the 19th Century, European antiquarians, imbued with a humanist belief in Progress, developed the idea of Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, an almost direct opposite of Hesiod’s, downhill-all-the-way to the present idea.

Hesiod also brings in early references to Prometheus and Pandora, two of the great myths of the flaws of humanity. And please read

This is what he says of Winter. It is from a translation by Christopher Kelk, available to download here (I have added line breaks after full stops, just for ease of reading.)

…. you should make
A detour during winter when the cold
Keeps men from work, for then a busy man
May serve his house. Let hardship not take hold,
Nor helplessness, through cruel winter’s span,
Nor rub your swollen foot with scrawny hand.

An idle man will often, while in vain
He hopes, lacking a living from his land,
Consider crime. A needy man will gain
Nothing from hope while sitting in the street
And gossiping, no livelihood in sight.

Say to your slaves in the midsummer heat:
“There won’t always be summer, shining bright –
Build barns.” Lenaion’s evil days, which gall
The oxen, guard yourself against. Beware
Of hoar-frosts, too, which bring distress to all
When the North Wind blows, which blasts upon the air
In horse-rich Thrace and rouses the broad sea,
Making the earth and woods resound with wails.

He falls on many a lofty-leafed oak-tree
And on thick pines along the mountain-vales
And fecund earth, the vast woods bellowing.
The wild beasts, tails between their legs, all shake.

Although their shaggy hair is covering
Their hides, yet still the cold will always make
Their way straight through the hairiest beast.

Straight through
An ox’s hide the North Wind blows and drills
Through long-haired goats. His strength, though, cannot do
Great harm to sheep who keep away all chills
With ample fleece. He makes old men stoop low
But soft-skinned maids he never will go through –
They stay indoors, who as yet do not know
Gold Aphrodite’s work, a comfort to
Their darling mothers, and their tender skin
They wash and smear with oil in winter’s space
And slumber in a bedroom far within
The house, when in his cold and dreadful place
The Boneless gnaws his foot (the sun won’t show
Him pastures but rotate around the land
Of black men and for all the Greeks is slow
To brighten).

That’s the time the hornèd and
The unhorned beasts of the wood flee to the brush,
Teeth all a-chatter, with one thought in mind –
To find some thick-packed shelter, p’raps a bush
Or hollow rock. Like one with head inclined
Towards the ground, spine shattered, with a stick
To hold him up, they wander as they try
To circumvent the snow.

As I ordain,
Shelter your body, too, when snow is nigh –
A fleecy coat and, reaching to the floor,
A tunic. Both the warp and woof must you
Entwine but of the woof there must be more
Than of the warp. Don this, for, if you do,
Your hair stays still, not shaking everywhere.

Be stoutly shod with ox-hide boots which you
Must line with felt. In winter have a care
To sew two young kids’ hides to the sinew
Of an ox to keep the downpour from your back,
A knit cap for your head to keep your ears
From getting wet.

It’s freezing at the crack
Of dawn, which from the starry sky appears
When Boreas drops down: then is there spread
A fruitful mist upon the land which falls
Upon the blessed fields and which is fed
By endless rivers, raised on high by squalls.

Sometimes it rains at evening, then again,
When the thickly-compressed clouds are animated
By Thracian Boreas, it blows hard. Then
It is the time, having anticipated
All this, to finish and go home lest you
Should be enwrapped by some dark cloud, heaven-sent,
Your flesh all wet, your clothing drenched right through.

This is the harshest month, both violent
And harsh to beast and man – so you have need
To be alert. Give to your men more fare
Than usual but halve your oxen’s feed.
The helpful nights are long, and so take care.

Keep at this till the year’s end when the days
And nights are equal and a diverse crop

Keep at this till the year’s end when the days
And nights are equal and a diverse crop
Springs from our mother earth and winter’s phase
Is two months old and from pure Ocean’s top
Arcturus rises, shining, at twilight.

Hesiod’s Works and Days: Translation Christopher Kelk

Acturus is not seen in winter, and in the Northern Hemisphere its rising (50 days after the winter solstice) and has always been associated with the advent of spring.

Boreas was the winged God of the North wind, which bore down from the cold Mountains of Thrace (north of Macedonia). One of his daughters, Khione, was the Goddess of Snow. Lenaion was associated with January one of the festivals of Dionysus, and a theatrical season in Athens particularly for comedy.

Roman Bust of Hesiod (Wikipedia photo by Yair Hakla) Neues Museum

First published 15th December 2022, republished December 2023.

Christmas with Jane Austen Walk, Tour & Podcast

1803 Christmas Cartoon of Napoleon and Mr and Mrs John Bull
By William Holland 1803

Saturday 23rd December. Walk at 2.30pm, Virtual Tour at 7.30pm

We look at London Austen’s London and at how Jane Austen spent Christmas and at Georgian Christmas traditions and amusements.

Here is a short podcast about the walk and Regency Christmas traditions.


“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Jane Austen devotee in possession of the good fortune of a couple of free hours must be in want of this virtual walk.”

This is a special walk, which looks at the traditions of Christmas during the Regency period and how Jane Austen might have celebrated it. It will give some background to Jane Austen’s life and her knowledge of London. We used her novels and her letters to find out what she might have done at Christmas, but also at how Christmas was kept in this period, and the range of ‘Curiosities, Amusements, Exhibitions, Public Establishments, and Remarkable Objects in and near London available to enjoy.

This is a London Walks Guided Walk by Kevin Flude, Museum Curator and Lecturer.

Review: ‘Thanks, again, Kevin. These talks are magnificent!’

To Book:

You might like to have a look at my Almanac of the Past. I have revised and updated the following posts:


St. Lucy & Eye Care through the Ages December 14th

Medieval Cataract Surgery – calling couching.

So, yesterday, you, being someone worried about your eyes, might have sought out an altar dedicated to St Lucy, the patron saint of eye health. (see December 13th’s Post on St Lucy) Although you may be disappointed that there has been no miraculous cure, you might have been encouraged to do something about it. So that’s what this post is about.

Cataract operations have been carried out since 800 BC using a method called ‘couching’.

The practitioner would sit facing the patient and pass a long needle through the cornea to impale the lens. “He would then forcibly dislodge the lens — rupturing the zonules — and push it into the vitreous cavity, where it would hopefully float to the bottom of the eye and out of the visual axis.”

Evolution of Cataract Surgery.

This was a last resort when the cataract was opaque and the patients nearly blind. It would mean they would need very thick lenses to see well again but, crude as it seems, it worked. But the operation, without anaesthetics must have been a considerable ordeal, and the recovery (still required today for those suffering from a displaced retina) means that the patient has to lie on their back for a week with supports on either side of the head to prevent movement. Of course, there was also a serious risk of infection, so prophylactic visit to a chapel of St Lucy would be called for.

The modern system was established in the 1940s and offers a great solution in 15 minutes surgery. Currently, the NHS has been having trouble dealing with all the cases required, and, before COVID-19, there was some talk about cataracts being, in practice, not readily available on the NHS. The average waiting time is approximately 10 months, and ranges from 10 weeks to nearly 2 years depending upon your postcode.

Pink Eye

The Perpetual Calendar of Folklore by Charles Kightly has dug up some other folk cures of interest.

For the redness of eyes, or bloodshot. Take red wine, rosewater, and women’s milk, and mingle all these together: and put a piece of wheaten bread leavened, as much as will cover the eye, and lay it in the mixture. When you go to bed, lay the bread upon your eyes calmer and it will help them.

Fairfax Household book, 17th/ 18th century.

There are many household books still, in existence, which show that much of medical practice was carried out in the home, and that men and women, more often women, actively not only collected useful recipes and cures, but also tested them out and improved them.

As a matter of curiosity, there is a very important document found at the Roman Fort of Vindolanda which lists the troops of the Cohort in occupation, which notes that of the garrison of 750, 474 are absent with 276 in the fort of which 38 are sick, 10 with ‘pink eye’, probably conjunctivitis

Prevention is better than cure

Things hurtful to the eyes. Garlic, onions, radish, drunkenness, lechery, sweet wines, salt meats, coleworts, dust, smoke and reading presently after supper.

Good for the eyes. fennel, celandine, eyebright, vervain, roses, cloves and cold water.

Whites Almanack 1627

Looking through Samuel Pepys’s eye

You will note, above, that it was considered bad for the eyes to read in low light. It is a myth and not true. Samuel Pepys was continually worried about his reading and writing habits ruining his eyesight. This is an extract from the poignant last entry in his famous diary:

And thus ends all that I doubt I should ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear: and therefore resolve from this time forward to have it kept by my people in long-hand. I must be consented to sit down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if they be anything, which cannot be much now my amores are past and my eyes hindering me almost all other pleasures. I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add, here and there, a note in shorthand with my own hand.

Samuel Pepys Diary, May 31st

The sad thing is that Pepys had another 38 years before he went blind, and what glorious diary entries have we missed because of his false fears of the effect of eye strain.

St Lucy

There are only two churches in the UK dedicated to St Lucy or St Lucia. One run by the National Trust in Upton Magna, Shropshire, but there must have been a few chapels in Cathedrals and Abbeys dedicated to her.

Yesterday, I mentioned that the Swedish Church in London (6 Harcourt Street. W1H 4AG) has services at St Pauls to celebrate St Lucia’s day but, in 2022, it was at the Westminster Cathedral. This is the Catholic Cathedral, working with a Lutheran Church. It was back in St Pauls for 2023.

St Lucy’s Festival of Light December 13th

Saint Lucy, by Francesco del Cossa (c. 1430 – c. 1477) (Wikipedia User:Postdlf)

The name Lucy is from the same Latin origin (Lucidus) as lucent, lux, and lucid. It means to be bright, or to shine. It is similar to the Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white, blank, light, bright, clear”. Luke has the same origins (bright one, bringer of light and light of the sacred flame) and is very appropriate for the most literate of the evangelists. At this time of the year, we are in need of a festival with bright lights to cheer us up!

And St Lucy’s Day is the beginning of the winter festival that culminates with the Solstice, where the old sun dies, and the new one is born. December the 13th was the Solstice until Pope Gregory reformed the Calendar in the 16th Century, as nine days were lopped off the year of transition.

The festival of Sankta Lucia is particularly popular in Sweden, where Dec 13th is thought to be the darkest night. Every year, the Swedish community in the UK has a service to Lucia in St Pauls. I have several times tried to get tickets, but so far, have failed miserably. But if you look lower down, you will see a link to the beautiful procession and service at St Pauls.

I found out about Sankta Lucia from a Swedish choir who hired me to do a tour of the City of London some years ago. I took them into Christopher Wren’s marvellous St Stephen’s Church and, under the magnificent Dome, they fancied the acoustics and spontaneously sang. I recorded a snatch of it.

Swedish Choir singing in St Stephen’s London

Sankta Lucia at St Paul’s Cathedral (2011)

Recent medical research has shown the importance of light, not only to our mental health but to our sleep health, and recommends that work places need to have a decent light level with ‘blue light’ as a component of the lighting. It is also an excellent idea to help your circadian rhymes by going for a morning walk, or morning sun bathing, even on cloudy days.

St Lucy is from Syracuse in Sicily, said to be a victim of the Diocletian Persecution of Christians in the early 4th Century. She is an authentic early martyr, although details of her story cannot be relied upon as true. She was said to be a virgin, who was denounced as a Christian by her rejected suitor, miraculously saved from serving in a brothel, then, destruction by fire, but did not escape having her eyes gouged out. Finally, her throat was cut with a sword. Her connection to light (and the eye gouging) makes her the protectress against eye disease, and she is often shown holding two eyes in a dish.

St. Aldhelm (English, died in 709) puts St Lucy in the list of the main venerated saints of the early English Church, confirmed by the Venerable Bede (English, died in 735). Her festival was an important one in England ‘as a holy day of the second rank in which no work but tillage or the like was allowed’.[1]

Roman Hoodie ~Part two – the Sequani

Roman tombstone to Philus from Cirencester.

Yesterday I made a long digression which began with a discussion of Roman Winter clothing. Our picture of the hoodie from a tombstone in Cirencester, said it was of

Philus, son of Cassavus, a Sequanian, aged 45, lies buried here.

Roman Inscriptions of Britain.org

One of our readers from France alerted me to the Wikipedia page on the Sequani which explains that the name comes from the Goddess Sequana who is a water goddess. The centre of the territory is Besançon which is on the Doubs River part of the Haute Saône Doubs and near to the springs that are the source of the Seine (west of Dijon). Here, the Fontes Sequanae (“The Springs of Sequana”) gave her name to the River Seine, and a healing spring was established in the 2nd/1st BC. Enlarged by the Romans, it became a significant health centre. as Wikipedia explains in the clip below:

Image of Sequana in a duck boat by Wikipedia FULBERT • CC BY-SA 4.0

‘Many dedications were made to Sequana at her temple, including a large pot inscribed with her name and filled with bronze and silver models of parts of human bodies to be cured by her. Wooden and stone images of limbs, internal organs, heads, and complete bodies were offered to her in the hope of a cure, as well as numerous coins and items of jewellery. Respiratory illnesses and eye diseases were common. Pilgrims were frequently depicted as carrying offerings to the goddess, including money, fruit, or a favourite pet dog or bird.’

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequana

First Posted on December 13th, 2022, updated on December 13th 2023

Ashmolean Advent Calendar, William Burges & the Singing Pierides December 12th

The Great Bookcase by William Burges Ashmolean Museum (Photo K. Flude)

The Ashmolean posts, every year, an online Advent Calendar with gorgeous items behind each ‘flap’. The choice seems to be, mostly, a random selection. But their collection is so wonderful, they are all interesting. This year it is a netsuke.

On December 12th 2022 the Advent calendar, which you can access here, highlighted the Singing Pierides painted by Henry Stacy Marks which features on the bottom of the bookcase, photographed above. The Pierides, a sort of classical Greek Von Trapp singers, were 9 daughters who foolishly challenged the Muses to a singing competition. Of course the Goddesses of the Arts – the Muses won and had the Pierides turned into songbirds as a warning to all those who overrate their own talents! Watch out all you Karaoke Singers.

‘Whenever the daughters of Pierus began to sing, all creation went dark and no one would give an ear to their choral performance. But when the Muses sang, heaven, the stars, the sea and rivers stood still, while Mount Helicon, beguiled by the pleasure of it all, swelled skywards tilI, by the will of Poseidon, Pegasus checked it by striking the summit with his hoof.

Since these mortals had taken upon themselves to strive with goddesses, the Muses changed them into nine birds. To this day people refer to them as the grebe, the wryneck, the ortolan, the jay, the greenfinch, the goldfinch, the duck, the woodpecker and the dracontis pigeon.’

Antoninus LiberalisMetamorphoses (wikipedia)

The bookcase by William Burges was originally displayed as the centre point of the ‘Medieval Court’ of the 1862 International Exhibition. The Exhibition was almost as successful as the more famous Great Exhibition of 1851. Both got about 6m visitors. The 1862 Exhibition was just south of the site of the 1851 (on the south side of Hyde Park) and in the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens (now the Science and Natural History Museum).

Burges is one of the great Gothic Revival architects and a designer in the Arts & Crafts Movement with an affinity for Pre-Raphaelite painters, 14 of whom he asked to paint panels on his bookcase. The decorative scheme was to represent the Pagan and Christian Arts (Museum label).

Originall written for December 12 2022, revised and republished Decmeber 2023

The Winter Festival of Brumalia, Roman Hoodies and Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices December 11th

According to my Goddess Book of Days, December 11th is dedicated to Bruma the Roman Goddess of Winter. However, I’m not having much luck tracking her down. Elsewhere, I find reference to a Greek or Roman festival of Winter called Brumalia which, according to some, starts in late November and is normally said to end on the 25th December, the Roman Solstice. There is no direct evidence for it in Roman times. But, only the Goddess Book of Days has it on December 11th.

cOVER OF THE GODDESS BOOK OF DAYS by Diane Stein
Cover of the Goddess Book of days

However, there is evidence for such a festival in the Byzantine World.

So, let’s imagine a Winter Goddess beginning Goddess her reign on November 24th. Then, Saturnalia took place from 17th – 24th December and the climax of the reign of the Winter Goddess was Brumalia on the 25th December.

By the way, December 25th was fixed by Aurelian in 274 AD as the day to celebrate Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, the pre-Christian Roman attempt to have a monotheistic element to their religion. Mithras and other Gods were also celebrated on December 25th.

Underlying this confusion of dates is the difficulty of aligning the solar year to the calendar year, and in the Roman period it was all over the place until Caesar fixed the Calendar.

Roman Hoodie

The picture of the tombstone comes from Cirencester, and the inscription says:

Philus, son of Cassavus, a Sequanian, aged 45, lies buried here.

Roman Inscriptions of Britain.org

The Sequani were from the upper Saône Valley, near Besançon. His cloak is very interesting, and this type of hoodie has been found in other contexts of Roman Britain, for example, on a mosaic at Chedworth. The garment was called the birrus Britannicus and was famous throughout the Empire. It was a hunting cloak and made of wool. The Cotswold wool was also famous in medieval Europe, and the large number of rich Roman villas in the area suggest that the wool made the local economy strong, and. I imagine the birrus to be a sort of ‘thorn proof’ woollen garment that was warm, rugged, and waterproof. Britain was also renowned for the export of hunting dogs.

The Roman Hoodie, Inflation and Reorganisation of the Roman World

In AD 301, the emperor Diocletian issued his Edict of Maximum Prices. In it, the Emperor rages against inflation:

Greed raves and burns and sets no limit on itself. Without regard for the human
race, it rushes to increase and augment itself, not by years or months or else days,
but almost by hours and very moments.

Diocletian Maximum Prices Edict (translation, Pdf)

And then lists maximum wages and prices. The birrus listing says that the Tailor,

‘for cutting and finishing a hooded cloak (birrus) of the finest quality shall have a maximum wage of 60 denarii. ‘

The sanctions against breaking the Edict were terrifying, suggesting the difficulty of enforcement was compensated for by extreme punishment. He also insisted that labour shortages were addressed by making children follow the same profession as fathers. Interesting how familiar this rampaging inflation and severe staff shortages seems to a post-Covid-post-Brexit-Ukrainian-War-governed-by-an-out-of-touch-elite Britain.

Diocletian was obviously a very logical man, looking for structural fixes to society’s problems. His analysis of the Roman Empire and its frequent Civil Wars/Coup D’Etats/Usurpers was that there was a deficiency in the career ladder for megalomaniacs and so to stop them usurping the Emperorship, he set up a rational career progression and divided up the Empire as follows:

1 Augustus for the Eastern (Greek speaking) Empire
1 Augustus for the Western (Latin speaking) Empire
2 Caesars for each Augustus
Prefects reporting to the Caesars
Vicari reporting to the Prefects
Governors reporting to the Vicarius.

So you could begin your career in charge of a Province, then progress to the Diocese, then to the Prefecture, then to a quarter of the Empire, then to the Western Empire and finally to be the top dog in the richest Greek-speaking part of the Empire – the supreme Augustus.

Did it work? Well, while Diocletian was alive maybe, but then when his Augustus of the West Constantius Chlorus died, his troops, in York, declared his son Constantine to be Augustus, bypassing the peaceful progression from Governor to Augustus back to the usual tactic of wiping out your fellow Prefects, Caesars and Augustii. After the Battle of Milvian Bridge, Constantine was universally recognised as the supreme Augustus. He moved the Eastern Capital from Nicosia to Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople.

Diocletian, another Augustus and 2 Caesars, Venice

First, published on December 11th,2022. Revised and republished on December 11th 2023

Childermas, Santa Nicklaus & Boy Bishops December 6th

St Nicholas saving citizens from poisoned olive oil. Detail of painting by Margarito of Arezzo. National Gallery

Santa Klaus was, originally a 4th Century Bishop from Asia Minor who saved three girls from prostitution by throwing golden balls through their window enabling them to marry with a good dowry. He, also, saved three boys from beheading. So he became the patron saint of children. He died on the 6th of December in Myra, present day Turkey. From the moment of his internment his tomb flowed with the myrrh. In 1087, the Normans from Apulia raided Myra, then under the control of the Seljuk Turks, with a gang of 67 men and stole his remains, to bring them to Bari, in Southern Italy. Before his arrival there were 6 churches dedicated to St Nicolas in Bari. In 1969, Pop Paul VI revoked his Feast Day as he decided ther was no evidence St Nicholas was a real person.

Representation of the balls can still be seen on pawnbroker’s shop, and the gifts Nicholas gave led to the exchange of gifts to honour him. They were originally given on December 6th, his feast day. The tradition of Santa Klaus was taken by the Dutch to the United States and mixed with other traditions, including the English Father Christmas, to create our modern spirit of Christmas.

Boy Bishops

By Unknown author – fullhomelydivinity.org, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6709993

The idea of Boy Bishops may come from a tradition established by Saturnalia. This was the festival, in the Roman world, when servants exchanged duties with masters and mistresses. The medieval Christmas was ruled over not only by the Lord of Misrule but also by Boy Bishops. It was a tradition that was attacked in some quarters but defended by others on the basis of the humanity of the custom, the empathy it engendred and the fun it could instigate.

They were elected on December 6th (Childermass) It was stopped by Henry VIII, although later revived and practised to this day in the Cathedrals of Hereford and Salisbury. The Boy Bishops wears full ceremonial gear and takes part in ceremonies and services for three weeks.

There are also medieval records that speak of the custom:

“two children’s copes, also a myter of cloth of gold set with stones.”
1549 “For 12 oz. silver, being clasps of books and the bishop’s mitre,

St. Mary-at-Hill, London Church Accounts


“The vj myter of Seynt Nycholas bysshoppe, the grounde therof of whyte sylk,
garnysshed complete with ffloures, gret and small, of sylver and gylte, and stones

Westminster Abbey, St Pauls & St Nicholas Cole Abbey London inventories

Also records at St Pauls record: una mitra alba cum flosculis breudatis ad opus episcopi parvulorum baculus ad usum episcopi parvulorum;’

St Nicholas Cole Abbey in the City of London,

This Church to St Nicholas is first mentioned in the 12th Century and was never an Abbey. The Cole part of the name is thought to refer to a ‘Coldharbour’ which was a traveller’s or poor persons shelter from the cold.

There is an inventory dating to the Reformation that records vestments for children at St Nicholas. The Church was rebuilt by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire, and is, possibly, the location where Trotty Veck stands awaiting employment as a messenger or runner, in Dickens’s second greatest Christmas Book after the Christmas Carol. The story is more a New Year story than a Christmas story.

For more on boy bishops look at this, and look at this 1935 film about Boy ~Bishops in Compton, Guildford.

First published December 6th, 2022. Revised and republished 6th December 2023

A History of the Roman Empire in 21 women

Below, I give links to the Late November and early December Posts I have revised and republished. But, first, I would like to tell you about a great lecture I heard at the British Museum, this evening. It was given by Dr Emma Southon on her book about women in the Roman Empire. Her viewpoint was that a study of women in the Roman Empire gives a radically different insight into the Roman world than the traditional. One full of humanity rather than normal evidence which is, generally, about wars, and Empires and bravery and horrific cruelty and ambition and honour. She started with the story of Turia, whose extraordinary epitaph on her tombstone miraculous survived and gave her husband’s view of his extraordinary wife, and his utter sorrow at his loss on her death. Below, is a review of the book and a link to a podcast with the Author.

So, here are the December posts. December 1st and 2nd give an overview of December and the meaning of Winter. December 3rd is about Advent and the fact that you were not allowed to marry during Advent. December 4 gives a Shakespearean view of a cold winter’s day, and a composition by Vaughan Williams.

And late November posts, November 28th tells some interesting tales, both ancient and modern, about Eels, Pies, Rock ‘n’ Roll and my horror of Jellied Eels. November 29th, tells you how to make a ‘dish of snow’ and introduces Ice Houses. November 30th is about Scotland and St Andrews. Like them if you like them! And share them if you want to share them.