An ancient Roman festival, Saturnalia was widely and wildly celebrated across the parts of England and Wales occupied by the empire, certainly until Christianity took hold, and in many respects long after the Italian invaders upped sticks and left the British Isles in the early 5th century.
While Saturnalia isn’t marked on the modern calendar, ultimately the timing and traditions that surrounded this often rowdy festival are believed to have played a large role in determining when and how we enjoy Christmas to this day.
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The festival was held in honour of Saturnus, the Roman god of (among other things) seeds and sowing, with strong connections to the Ancient Greek agricultural deity Cronus, who is commonly depicted with a sickle. For a primarily rural society, almost entirely reliant on the success of each year’s harvest for survival, keeping such supernatural beings happy was supremely important, and Saturnalia was by far the biggest and most exciting event in the Roman year.
What happened during the festival?
Whereas the Ancient Greeks honoured Cronus with a celebration called Kronia, held in late July/early August when the harvest was being reaped, the Romans timed Saturnalia to coincide with the sowing season, which in Italy traditionally took place between October and January.
The festival originally happened on one big day, 17 December in the Julian calendar, but across the course of several centuries the shindig grew until it was a week-long event, culminating with the celebration of Sigillaria on 23 December, a day of feasting and gift giving.
The length of the festival was curtailed to three days by Emperor Augustus (27BCE–14CE), but during the reign of Caligula (37–41CE), a man famously fond of a good party, it was extended to five days. Many folk seemingly continued celebrating for many days, regardless of official decrees.
Although referenced in a range of ways in multiple contemporary sources (poet Catullus waxed lyrical about “the best of days”, whereas Pliny the Younger, a sober- minded lawyer, described having to hide from the chaos to get some work done), there’s no single surviving account definitively describing the traditional customs of Saturnalia from start to finish.
It likely varied across the empire and over the centuries, but it certainly seems that Saturnalia involved some serious revelry and ribaldry, whether it was beingcelebrated in Rome or on Hadrian’s Wall.
For starters, a sacrifice was usually made to Saturn (traditionally the offering was a suckling pig, but there are some dark suggestions of human sacrifices during troubled times). And then the chaos kicked off. Amid much feasting and copiousamounts of drinking, social roles were often inverted, with minor members of households and even slaves being waited upon. In Rome, there is an account of at least one occasion when women were made to fight in the Colosseum in place of male gladiators.
One widespread tradition was the appointment of a ‘Lord of Misrule’, who could command people to do all sorts of ridiculous, humiliating or humorous things.
This custom continued long after the fall of the Roman Empire in parts of Europe, including England, where it was enormously popular in Tudor times, until the Puritans banned it. More family-friendly activities included the exchanging of gifts, the decoration of homes and trees, and the playing of party games.
How was it connected to Christmas?
If much of this sounds very familiar, it won’t come as a surprise to learn that many of the traditions central to Saturnalia survived the widespread conversion of most of Europe to Christianity.
With Christ’s actual birthdate unknown, it was expedient for proponents of the fast-growing religion to pin it to an existing feast day, 25 December – the winter solstice in the Julian calendar and a date when Roman society celebrated the birth of the Sun god Sol Invictus. Coming hot on the heels of Saturnalia, the traditions of the festival became part of Christmas.
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Main image: Themadchopper, Antoine-François Callet, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
