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Quarter Days: Michaelmas Goose

September 28, 2017 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field, Writing tagged as Harvest Festivals, historical, John Milton, Michaelmas, Paradise Lost, Quarter Days, St. Michael

A Michaelmas Goose Market

Michaelmas

Greetings to everyone, especially my fellow history nerds. It’s September 28^th, time for another installment of my Quarter Days blog.

Southwark Fair, September 1733, Hogarth

I’m a huge fan of feasting holidays, and much to my surprise, Michaelmas, September 29^th, is one of those.

Harvest Time

It makes sense though. In every culture where there’s an autumn harvest, there’s an autumn harvest festival, like a Polish Dozynki or a German Oktoberfest. Some sources say that Michaelmas is still celebrated in England with roast goose and other goodies, like this fun Michaelmas dragon bread.

Last June I blogged about Midsummer’s Day, one of the Quarter Day holidays, and pretty self-explanatory. The same is true for this holiday—tomorrow is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, he who battled Satan.

In Fiction

I first encountered a mention of Michaelmas in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and most recently saw a reference in fellow Regency author Caroline Warfield‘s latest release, The Reluctant Wife, where a character must get back to England for the Michaelmas Term at his university. For a historical author, a mention of Michaelmas is a wonderful device for setting the time of the story without citing a specific date.

Paradise Lost

One blogger claims that St. Michael was popular in Regency England because of the influence of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a late seventeenth-century epic work. Researching this post inspired me to pull out my copy of the Complete Poems and Major Prose of Milton which, to be honest, I haven’t opened since my university days.

Paradise Lost is something of an early paranormal story of nearly invincible beings and shapeshifters:

…the sword of Michael from the Armory of God was giv’n him temper’d so, that neither keen nor solid might resist that edge: it met the sword of Satan with steep force…deep ent’ring sher’d all his right side; then Satan first knew pain…but th’ Ethereal substance clos’d not long divisible…Yet soon he heal’d; for Spirits that live throughout vital in every part not as frail man….cannot but by annihilating die…All Heart they live, all Head, all Eye, all Ear, All Intellect, all Sense, and as they please, they Limb themselves, and color, shape or size assume as likes them best…

A Servant Hiring Hall, Rowlandson

Contracts, Rents, and Work

And of course, as I mentioned in my June post, Michaelmas was a day to pay rents (possibly in kind, with a fatted goose) to hire and pay servants, and sign contracts.

Do you celebrate Michaelmas? If so, please share in the comments!

Have a magical Michaelmas, and I shall return in three months to talk about the next Quarter Day, Christmas!

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Quarter Days: A Midsummer Beginning

June 28, 2017 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field tagged as Midsummer Day, Quarter Days, Regency History

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wikipedia

Though I’ve blogged before about chapter events on an as-needed basis, I’m excited to join the talented writers of A Slice of Orange on a more regular schedule! I’ll be posting on June 28th, September 28th, December 28th, and March 28th. Which roughly corresponds with

Quarter Days

I write Regency romance, and I had a book already out before the term “Quarter Days” came across my radar. Of course, I knew about Midsummer, from Shakespeare.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

And I vaguely knew that Michaelmas had something to do with St. Michael, and Lady Day probably related to the Virgin Mary. And everyone knows Christmas. But I didn’t realize these four holidays formally divide up the quarters of the year.

Marking Time

In Persuasion, Jane Austen marks the passage of time with a mention of Michaelmas. Years ago when I read Persuasion, that reference didn’t click with me at all. But look more closely, and there’s a lot a novelist can do to build character–a lot Jane did–with that allusion.

Here’s a list of the English Quarter Days:

March 25th, Lady Day (Feast of the Annunciation)
June 24th, Midsummer Day (St. John’s Day)
September 29th, Michaelmas (Feast of St. Michael)
December 25th, Christmas (The Nativity of Jesus)

Notice that these dates also roughly correspond to the summer and winter solstices and the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Those astronomical events were important to the old religions and their spiritual beings like the fairies, as Shakespeare shows us in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone:
Our queen and all our elves come here anon.

Clearing the Premises without Consulting your Landlord, Rowlandson www.famsf.org.

Marking Contracts

But there’s more! Quarter Days typically marked the beginning and end of contractual periods.

I love this print by the irreverent Thomas Rowlandson, “Clearing the Premises without Consulting your Landlord”. Rents were paid on Quarter Days, and it appears that are still some leases set up that way in England.

The historical housewife might hire a new servant on a Quarter Day. She’d also pay her servants on the Quarter Day–imagine, waiting three months for your salary?