Happy Twelfth Night!

One of the main celebrations and the climax of the Tudor Christmas period was Twelfth Night, which also coincided with the feast of Epiphany.

But when exactly is Twelfth night? Well, there is some debate about the exact date. Some believe it is the 5^th of January with the 6^th being Twelfth Day and others believe that Twelfth night is on the night of Epiphany itself, the 6^th January.

It seems that the confusion arose because of the medieval custom of starting each new day at sunset. Therefore Twelfth Night would begin on the 5^th January and end on the 6^th of January.

For the Tudors, Twelfth Night marked the end of a winter festival that started on All Hallow’s Eve (now commonly known as Halloween).

In ‘Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England’, Alison Sim describes how the 6^th of January started with a church service and would end with ‘some form of feasting and entertainment’ (Pg. 87). The King would dress in his royal robes and crown, and a masque or other similar form of entertainment would take place.

On Twelfth Night the Tudors also ate Twelfth cake. This was a fruitcake in which an object like a coin or dried bean was hidden. If you were lucky enough to find the item in your cake you became the King or Queen for the evening and host or hostess for the night’s entertainments. A similar tradition continues in France today where a gold ring or gold figure is baked into an almond tart (Sim, 1997, Pg. 114). At midnight your rule ended and all returned back to normal again.

The Tudor Christmas celebrations involved many role reversals and all these came to an end at midnight on Twelfth Night. Find out more about the Lord of Misrule and the Boy Bishop here.

This theme of turning the world upside down, that was so prominent during many of the Tudor Christmas celebrations, is clearly evident in Shakespeare’s play, ‘Twelfth Night’ or ‘What you will’. The play was written in 1601 to be performed as Twelfth Night entertainment and features a woman, Viola, dressing as a man.

Another popular Tudor Christmas tradition associated with Twelfth Night is wassailing. One form of wassailing involved wishing good health to your neighbours and guests and the second form involved drinking to the health of the orchard. Although the details of the tradition varied depending where you lived and who you were it always involved a communal drink.  On Historical Foods you will find an authentic lambswool wassail recipe from the 1600’s. Imagine serving that to your guests on Twelfth Night!

Happy Twelfth Night from On the Tudor Trail!