Let's remember the filth behind what makes the yuletide so gay. Back with new episodes next week!
School of Humans. Oh, the Puritans. I think the last time I talked about them was in the first episode when we had the New Haven Colony where they're all those dudes who were or were not being seduced by their hogs. And I just want to say, I want to reiterate on the record, bestiality, buggering. I don't think it's great. If I was in charge of the colony, I probably wouldn't hang someone for doing it, but I would be extremely disappointed in them, you know, maybe give them a few lashes. I don't know. I also don't really want to do violence. Wow, I'm such a good person. But the Puritans were back at them today, specific the ones who came over in sixteen twenty to form the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And something that is ironic about the Puritans is that, you know, they were pure, et cetera, but they also stank. Yeah, when they came over, several Indigenous people were recorded saying how stinky the pilgrims were and they had to hold their noses. And it's true the Puritans they didn't really bathe. They also hated water, and you know what another thing they hated was Christmas And in sixteen fifty nine, when they just couldn't bear witness to any more happiness. The Puritans were like, oh, we hate Christmas because it doesn't make sense with the Bible, So you can't celebrate it any of you. No more Christmas. And so over twenty two years, from sixteen fifty nine to sixteen eighty one, no one and the Massachusetts Bay Colony was allowed to celebrate Christmas. If they did, they'd be hit with a five shilling fine. Uh, the stakes are high. So today's episode, we're talking about stinky people who deemed Christmas a filthy holiday. Wow, look at me connecting it to the title of the show. Ha haha. Cue the theme music. This is American filth. I'm your host, Gabby Watts. Each week I tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's episode canceled Christmas. Okay, so a lot of this episode we're actually not even gonna be in America. But you guys, calm down. It eventually connects. Okay. So to really get why the Puritans banded Christmas, we got to travel back in time to a Christian historian named Sextus Julius Africanus, who lives sometime between one's sixty and two forty AD. It's like, bro, why are you being a historian? We haven't even finished the history yet. Anyway, Sextus was the first person to connect Jesus' birth with December twenty fifth. Here was his logic. He was like, hmm, March twenty fifth, that's the date of the spring equinox. And yes, that's not the day anymore apparently planets and shit, but this isn't a science podcast. I don't know. But the spring equinox, that's the longest day of the year, and that also marks the fertile spring time, and that's kind of like fertility, the date of creation. That could be the date of Jesus's conception. So basically, that's the day that Joseph and Mary did not have sex, so then the Son of God he would come out about nine months later, which would be December twenty fifth. Early Christians were influenced by the writing of Sexist because I mean, why not, I mean, his name is Sexus Africanus. Basically, what I'm trying to say is his name sounds like sex Anus. Sorry. But also, the Christians were looking for a holiday because they wanted to compete with the Roman tradition of Saturnalia that was being celebrated all around them, and that holiday one week before December twenty fifth, non Christian Romans would decorate their homes with pine branches and other natural materials, close businesses, schools, and courts, and go caroling for money, all in honor of the farming god Saturn. They traded in the togas for colorful garments and even gave their slaves time off to participate in the festivities. Wow, so nice of them. Sometimes slaves would say the head of the table while the masters served them for a change, and together they would all get wasted. Some sources say that the slaves even taught the nobles to stick their fingers down their throats and throw up so that they could what make room for more booze. This week long ritualistic celebration also involved animal sacrifice, which pleased the gods and provided meat for the coming winter season, and may have even included human sacrifice in the lean years yum yum cousin meat. Tradition also called for gift giving. Candles were a common gift signifying the returning light to the earth. Other gifts included cage birds and dolls. Some of these dolls were clay figure we called signalaria, which was a callback to the early tradition that did in fact involve human sacrifice. So even though you're not doing human sacrifice, at least celebrate that you did at some point good job had on the back. In one holiday game, families would hide coins and cakes, and whoever found the coin was deemed the prince or princess and the lord of misrule. It became their responsibility to create mischief during the season, insulting guests, wearing outrageous clothing, chasing women, and saturnalia. Cumulated in the winter solstice on the Julian calendar December twenty fifth, and the early Christians were jealous. They're like, oh my god, these guys are having so much fun. So they decided to celebrate too. But they would not honor the existence of multiple gods. Oh no, that would be scandalous. No, they would revel in the joy brought about by the birth of Jesus. The first known Nativity celebration was held at the Church of Rome in three point thirty six a d. Nine years later, Pope Julius the I named December twenty fifth as the official birth date, which coincided nicely with the longest darkest night of the year and the final day of Saturnalia. Other early members of the Church claimed, of course, Christ chose to be born that day because of the symbolism of light increasing after that you're in the darkest day and he brings the light debt. As Christianity developed, they decided they would allow the solstice rituals to continue so long as they too were in celebration of the birth of good Old Jesus Christ. So for over a thousand years after that, Christmas was celebrated with the Nativity and just happened to include some leftover pagan rituals. During this thousand years, the Catholic Church increased their zesa for imposing their will upon everyone in Western Europe, with religious law and courts and local priests participating in what was essentially a bureaucracy of religious officials enforcing Catholic domination, the ideals of which reinforce social inequality. Basically, they'd be like, yeah, the monarchs, the noblemen, they're closer to God than everyone else, duh. And if they're close to God, that means they know how everything works, and there's no room for thinking outside of the box. They're basically like, yeah, the earth is flat and everything happens because God willed it, and anyone who doesn't agree can shut up and go to help, and you know, blah blah blah. Crusades murdered death, la la la la la. But eventually people were like, I kind of don't like you guys telling us what we have to do. And by the sixteenth century, European Christianity had split in two, and then eventually there was like a gazillion competing subgroups of Christianity. That's what Martin Luther showed up. He was basically among the first people to outwardly be like, hold up, this doesn't make any sense. You clergymen are mean and violent, and you expect us to believe that God talks to you. I can read, and you're not telling the truth about what the Bible says. That's the thing. A lot of people didn't read, so they would just simply follow the church's orders blindly. But Luther was like, you guys are just like people, sinners, just like the rest of us. This questioning of the system grew into a full on rejection of the papal system, and that's the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was like, yo, if we learned to read, we can interpret the Bible for ourselves, then we won't have to listen to these assholes anymore. And yes, this is a great oversimplification of what happened, but you know what, we got to get back to America at some point. We're not there yet, but we're in there. Eventually, the Protestants in the UK formed the Church of England, a church with Protestant ideals, but one that was also deeply corrupt, and even that was still a bit too Catholic. Ye for some Protestant folks who eventually became the Puritans. And the Puritans, to simplify their belief system is they were obsessed with being pure, and they were opposed to anything that was fun. They didn't want to do anything that wasn't literally prescribed by the Bible. They believed that everything happened because of divine providence, and the more they suffered, the more rewarded they would be in the afterlife, which is why a lot of them pieced out to the New World to do their own thing. Because even the Church of England was like, y'all need to chill out, you need to relax, drink a little, which is really saying a lot. And the king at the time was Charles the First, who was trying to dissolve Parliament and have ultimate power. He was like, I believe in the divine right of kings. I will not listen to Parliament, so they should go away. But a high ranking military official and politician named Oliver Cromwell showed up and challenged him, causing a war. Cromwell was a Protestant and a rebel. He studied at a peerdance school in Cambridge. It was dedicated to his version of a purified life. He led his fellow Protestants in a fight for a more balanced government in one and as his first order of business, he beheaded King Charles for treason. But then two separate versions of Parliament arose in succession, and Cromwell tried to lead them, but it didn't really work. Plus there was a ton of conflict over Ireland and Scotland, so he was like, I will create a protectorate and I am now the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. Basically a King. But whatever Cromwell, I suppose he was sowing some seeds to early democracy, at least trying to challenge the abuse of pas. And that's where the Puritans come back in the ones in Massachusetts Bay. I told you we were going to get back to the point of the whole podcast. The Puritans in Massachusetts Bay were taking their cues from Cromwell, since he, like them, was a Puritan and he had fought for them against the monarchy as Lord Protector. Cromwell had imposed his own ban on Christmas starting in sixteen forty four, and the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay wanted to follow suit, but they were busy trying to stay alive in the New World. As they established themselves, though, they wanted to do things their own way, and in the words of the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Whitthrop, they wanted to be a city on a hill, a model of proper society and lifestyle for all other nations and people. And they could only do that by putting the needs of the community first over the needs of the individual. And all those principles came from the Good Book. And I'm being honest, it's not really that good of a book like I definitely it could use some edits. It's too long, it drags anyway. So basically the only people who could vote or hold office in Massachusetts Bay were church members, and so the power stayed in the hands of the Puritan church elite. These clergymen claim that there wasn't even evidence of an actual day to mark the birth of Jesus. It was not in the Bible, and therefore on December twenty fifth there was no reason to celebrate. They argued instead that December twenty fifth, and the words of Oliver Cromwell, should be a day of fasting and humiliation, where men should turn inward, reflect on and feel the shame of their sins. Just be like, ooh father, I'm so bad, I'm saw wee. And the Pagan or early Roman roots of the widely practiced Christmas rituals did not help its case. It was associated with sin after all, you know, it's not family friendly. It encouraged drinking all day long, also overeating. Gluttony ugh so bad. Usually on Christmas, raucus parties would leave people blackout, drunk and stumbling home in the dark. It was a time for vagabonds, just these groups of men that would wander the streets and knock on doors demanding handouts of money and food like figgy pudding. Do you guys know that song about figgy pudding? I always thought it was really weird because it basically goes, so bring us some figgy pudding. Yes, bring some right here. We won't go until we get some. We won't go until we get some. We won't go until we get some, So bring some right here. But that was like that song. That's not exaggeration. These vagabonds, these dudes, they would wait at doors demanding food and burst in rating rich people's houses if they were turned away. Figgie pudding? Is that good? Another tradition of the Christmas season that the Puritans found especially scandalous was called mummy. Men would dress like women and vice versa, and visit neighbors houses. Honestly, back in this time before the band, Christmas sounded even more fun. A Bishop Hugh Lattimore wrote about Christmas, men dishonor Christ's more in the twelve days of Christmas than in all twelve months. Besides, so in the Massachusetts Bay Colony they banned the holiday altogether in sixteen fifty nine. We'll be right back after these doothing advertisements. So the Massachusetts Bay Colony has banned Christmas. But the thing is around the same time. Just the year before Cromwell died, his son took over as Lord Protector and was like this is hard and resigned. And guess who became the new leader, Charles the Second the air to Charles the First, who had just been executed. Parliament resumed. We're back to kings and queens. Also, Christmas is back, so that's right. The Christmas band in England was overturned just as the Massachusetts Puritans were imposing theirs. They kind of got on the train too late, but they dug their heels in. They're like, this is how devoted we are to taking the Bible seriously. See God, we're suffering for you. Ooh, hurt me. Dandy signs were posted all over the colony that read all caps, public notice, the observation of Christmas having been deemed a sacrilege. The exchange of gifts and greetings, dressing and fine clothing, feasting, and similar satanical practices are hereby forbidden. That's right, guys. When you wear fine clothing, you're supporting Satan. And the thing is, despite the ban being lifted by Mother England, the Puritans kept it in place for twenty two years. And I guess the nice ironic thing is that a lot of the Peertons came to America to escape religious persecution, but then when they got to America, they just did it to everyone else. Can you believe it? A bit hypocritical? Some would say that is the foundation of the United States of America. Some would say not me. I have no opinions about anything, as you can tell in this episode. But the thing is, even though they had that band for twenty two years, there wasn't a ton that, you know, the Purton leaders could do to prevent people from dressing up and dining together. So a lot of people just celebrated anyway, but behind closed doors. And sometimes people would still get a little bit too drunk on December twenty fifth, and they would have to pay that whopping fine of five shillings. But then eventually, because again this was still an English call, the Puritans who were in charge of Massachusetts Bay, got a lot of pressure from the British government to lift the ban, so they did in sixteen eighty one, and then once we get into the seventeen hundreds, before the Revolutionary War, it seemed that most of colonial society accepted Christmas as a sacred holiday. And then once the US won independence, there's a lot of bantering about how to deal with all the Christmas stuff. But don't forget, there was this thing called capitalism, and shop owners saw the opportunities that the holiday brought, so they're like, we should celebrate this holiday and sell some shit. And now here we are today when you got to spend a lot of money on gifts for people and then they don't even really like the gift that much, but they pretend. But you still have to spend a lot of money to give them stuff they don't even want because we don't even need all that stuff. Maybe that's just me. Is this relatable? I'm trying to be relatable. So for all of y'all who are going to be celebrating Christmas this year, just remember what the Puritans thought, that celebrating Christmas means you're doing the will of say ten And I think, obviously we learn a lot from every American filth episode, and I think what we really learn is that religion is for sure one real and not a tool used by people in power to control you. So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc. Etc. We aren't going to have an episode next week because I'm going to take a break, but we'll be back in the new year. Xoxo, Gabby. Bye. American filth is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast. I'm your host, Gabby Watts. This episode was written by Julia Chriscau. It was sound designed by Jesse Niswanger. He also helped me make the theme song Wow. Our senior producers Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr. Please like, subscribe, review to the show wherever you listen. Also follow along on Instagram at American filk Pod Bye School of Humans.