The Middleton Accounts of 1526: #68
The next entry in the Middleton household accounts for Sir Henry Willoughby in 1526 was dated 12th November. It was described as a reward to a poor man of Aston who had made an ale. The amount was 20 pence, which was the equivalent of about £36.77 today. As described in a previous post, an ale was a feast centred around the drinking of ale to raise money through the sale of it. The Middleton Manuscripts suggest that this refers to Aston juxta Birmingham in Warwickshire.
Often ales were held to coincide with a specific feast day. This coincides with Martinmas, which was also known as the Feast of St Martin or St Martin’s Day. It was the feast day of St Martin of Tours and was celebrated on the 11th November. Martinmas was a significant holiday in the calendar of this era.
This festival marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It was the traditional time when livestock were slaughtered for winter provision. Furthermore, it was also when travelling agricultural workers would leave. In England, this abundance of food and time of farewell meant that the festival was often marked with feasts, drinking, storytelling and mumming. Mumming was the practice of men and women dressing up in fantastical clothes and costumes, then entertaining and serenading people outside their houses and then joining the party inside.
Interestingly, given the feast was for a poor man, one of the most famous legends of St Martin is that he cut his cloak in half with his sword to give half to a poor man who was dressed only in rags in the depth of winter. The following night he had a vision of Jesus Christ wearing the half-cloak. As a result, St Martin is often associated with charity to the poor.
Martinmas faded from English celebration. The first step to its loss came when it was religiously suppressed during the English Reformation. This was intensified further in the Puritan times of the Civil War era, with the additional suppression of traditional festive cultural events. Furthermore, industrialisation in the 18th and 19th centuries lessened the relevance of agrarian rooted events. Finally, the new observances of Guy Fawkes Night on the 5th November and Armistice Day on the 11th supplanted the medieval celebration with a new remembrance amongst the wider British populace.
Further Reading: W. H. Stevenson, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1911. p.386.
Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.
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