An excellent overview of the festive period in Tudor times, beautifully laid out and well written. Perfect for reading a day at a time during the Christmas season.

Alison Weir is one of my absolute favourite non-fiction authors so when I was trawling for good Blogmas reads, A Tudor Christmas definitely stood out. Written in partnership with Siobhan Clarke, the book is divided into twelve sections, one representing each of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Together, Clarke and Weir describe how the common people and the nobility kept the festive period in the sixteenth century, charting the origins of certain traditions that still exist today and also how other practices have shifted over time. It's a little book - an ideal stocking-filler - and one packed full of fascinating information.

A Tudor Christmas is an interesting topic for several reasons. Firstly, there is a popular belief that the Victorians invented Christmas as we know it today. The Christmas Tree, Father Christmas, Christmas cards, etc. However, this book emphasises that many of these traditions were already well-established when the Tudors sat on the throne. But what the authors also make clear is that Christmas in Tudor England was undergoing a transformation. With pagan traditions having been colonised and reappropriated by Christianity, the way it was celebrated had held firm through the medieval era and even the Wars of the Roses. However, the Reformation, incoming Scottish King and English Civil War would put all of that under threat.

Despite its short length, this is also one of those books which is packed with fascinating trivia. It's thought-provoking to trace what remains of these now-lapsed religious festivities. The semesters at my university were traditionally referred to as 'Martinmas' and 'Candlemas' without me ever troubling to find out precisely why - now I know. There's also the origin of 'toasting', a full rundown of the twelve days of Misrule and a whole host of lost carols. My personal favourite fact though was that after the Reformation, it became heresy to depict a painting of the infant Jesus having a bath. The notion was that he was born so pure that he would not have needed one.

There are other non-fiction books available on the traditions of Christmas and indeed I read and enjoyed Judith Flanders' Christmas: A Biography only a couple of years ago. However, this book is one of the most friendly and accessible books on the topic that I have found thus far - there is a reason why Alison Weir is such a successful author of popular history. A Tudor Christmas puts Christmas in context as a festival which despite being largely pagan in origin, holds an important and deeply-felt place in our calendar. Not even Oliver Cromwell and company were able to displace the tradition. But I was particularly struck by how even the squires and landowners of the medieval era paused work to mark the holiday. If even they understood that it was important to set down the plough and rest, surely that is the most important part of Christmas? It made me think about how lost we can get in following tradition for the sake of it rather than just stopping and taking time with our closest kin.

With its lovely woodcut illustrations and evocative descriptions of food and drink, A Tudor Christmas is a lovely stocking-filler for any history geek. It made the sights and smells and songs of Tudor Britain come alive anew - it made me wish I could time travel back and experience it all for myself ... but I could also see why they all needed to fast so often afterwards. An ideal addition to anyone's festive book collection.

I would like to thank netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting read, better organisation of information would have made it easier to read.

I enjoy Alison Weir's writing, both fiction and non-fiction, and this book was no exception. It was fascinating to see how early the origins of many of our Christmas traditions are and also how far we have moved from the way that it was celebrated in the Tudor period. Those who complain that we have become too fixated on the commercial aspects of our secular celebrations would be amazed to see how far their own religious practices are from those described here.

A thoroughly wonderful read that was perfect for the Christmas and history loved! The writing was wonderful and I loved the carols

Very good. This book is the perfect accompant to the festive season. I read it each day on the day stated as each chapter is a day starting on 24th December and ending on 6th Jan covering the 12 days of Christmas and I found it to be the best way to read it. Very informative.

I wasn't sure what I was going to make of this little book, I'm generally not a fan of Alison Weir so it was with some trepidation that I approached it. Tudor history is probably one of my favourite periods but it is one that many authors trot out the same worn assumptions and incorrect "facts".

It was however a really lovely little trip through how the twelve days of Christmas was celebrated during the reigns of Henry VII through to Elizabeth I (1475 to 1603). Contemporary accounts and sources were drawn on but without turning this into an academic treatise. Overall it gives a really good picture of how the preparation, feasting, games and so forth were celebrated over 400 years ago. The result is a Christmas which is familiar and foreign in equal measure.

The only reason that I am not giving this 5 stars is because there was a few areas where some old, and largly disproven, ideas about the continuation of pagan traditions was once again trotted out. It's unfortunate as although Christmas is certainly celebrated in December due to the need of the early church to replace Saturnalia, it's unlikely that many of the traditions associated with a pre-christian midwinter festival survived for over 1,000 years. I would recommend that Ms Weir reads Ronald Hutton (Stations of the Sun, Triumph of the Moon, Rise and Fall of Merry England) or David Cressy (Bonfires and Bells) for explanations of how folk traditions have evolved, changes and eventually be superseded.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'd have loved this book as a Christmas present when I was growing up. (Even if there is more about Henry VIII's court and less about Elizabeth than I'd really have liked.) The combination of Tudors *and* lots of British Christmas-related historical customs and factoids would have seemed perfect. It's stuff I've gleaned over the years from many separate books, TV documentaries and articles, all in one place. At its best it's the sort of popular history that would work as text in an Usborne (or these days Dorling Kindersley) book.

It is mostly very cosy (if you are the sort of person who finds history cosy in the first place): plenty on Yule-log fires, evergreen decorations, communal revelry and the evolution of the Christmas pudding.

However, in some chapters, the info on royal customs and court etiquette may be excessively detailed for those without a particular interest. Unsurpisingly, given Alison Weir's specialism in pop-history of Henry VIII and his wives, there is a lot in the book about royalty, and rather less for those interested in the middlin' sort and the poor. For other readers, the quantities of meat and hunting in the food chapters may be somewhat unpleasant, and may find that their sentiments chime with one unnamed contemporary's phrase that <i>"the beasts, fowl, and fish come to a general execution"</i>. (But, as I reminded myself it's probably still fewer creatures than go on the collective national table now, with twenty times as many people eating, even if 21st century Christmases do leave the likes of larks and wrens alone and usually base the main meal around one turkey per gathering.)

There is also considerably more than you might expect about the Jacobean. James I was enthusiastic about celebrating Christmas, an attitude which was welcome in England, unlike in Scotland, where celebrations were increasingly prohibited from the 1560s onwards and remained unpopular with the Kirk no matter what the King said. (See, for example, Hutton's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1602904.The_Stations_of_the_Sun">Stations of the Sun</a> for further details, because <i>A Tudor Christmas</i> does not have much on Scotland.) As Weir and Clarke say of one Jacobean broadside, <i>"It may post-date the Tudor era, but little had changed between 1603 and 1625, and it certainly captures the essence of a Tudor Christmas."</i>


The quantity of poems included in the book was a delightful surprise, and although my copy is only a Netgalley e-ARC, and this is a book which suits hardcopy / coffee-table browsing, I suspected when I read it in mid-December that I'd be looking back at the poems over the Christmas period. Most are by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) - I had no idea he wrote so many Christmas poems. There are a number of Shakespeare excerpts, although not the one which has long been my favourite Christmas verse of this era - even if the double entendre does sometimes get a little wearing - <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/360/5/118.html">When icicles hang by the wall</a>. (There are quite a few online recordings of it sung to Vaughn Williams' tune, but they are all frustratingly and absurdly operatic in style, very much at odds with its folky communal subject.) My dream book on Tudor Christmas would be a big fat social-history elaboration of what Christmas was like for the kind of workers described in that verse, probably by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2976506.Ruth_Goodman">Ruth Goodman</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/128353.Ronald_Hutton">Ronald Hutton</a> - however I'm not entirely sure there's a whole book's worth of hard evidence to base it on.

I can't help thinking of this as a book suited to bright kids and teens, or to casual browsing for adults, as the scholarship could be a bit better (research can be top-notch regardless of writing style) and I see it as the sort of history which you start out with, and then gradually learn later that not everything was exactly as it says. I would say for bright pre-teens with advanced reading ages, as well as teenagers, but there are one or two passing references that conservative parents might mind - though not my own friends who have kids, or our parents 30-odd years ago who let us free range among the bookcases at home. It's the kind of book I'd have enjoyed looking through from about age 8 onwards - it has too few pictures to have been really interesting before that - and understanding more of it year on year as I re-opened it each Christmas.

There's a bit of repetition and sometimes the themed chapters means the book goes back and forth in history in ways that feel a tad disjointed - but I can't think of a better structure either, and you wouldn't notice if you didn't read the book quickly cover-to-cover. There are a handful of questionable assumptions about the origins of customs. There are, of course, no footnotes. And the bibliography could be better: some decent stuff, but also some a bit old, and a few too many other popular histories which themselves don't use footnotes (some fairly recent such as Ian Mortimer's), meaning that speculation may end up replicated as if it were fact.

There are times when a little elaboration would have added interest rather than complication:
<i>"According to legend, when enemies met under mistletoe they had to lay down their arms and observe a truce until the next day"</i> (Which legend, found where?)
<i>"The Church was well aware of the pagan connection with evergreens, and in some countries such decorations were banned, but not in England"</i> (Which countries?)
The apparent contradictions between midwinter as a spiritually dangerous time when ghosts walked, and a specially time specially protected by Jesus' birth could have been broken down better. (Although there is undeniable appeal to phrasings like this: <i>"the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest at the time of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, and that spirits could walk the earth"</i> showing part of the allure of the early modern period in being different enough from our own time to be fascinatingly different and alien, yet also with recognisable similarities in some customs and behaviour.)

In a book which has so much to say about minutiae of court etiquette, a few words could have been spared to explain that some surviving (later) Norse ideas include interpolations from Christianity, as this unsourced one presumably does: <i>"Norse tradition had it that at Yule, the god Woden, the lord of magic and healing, came down to earth on his eight-legged horse called Sleipnir."</i> Or, closer to the Tudor period, that the enforcement, and effectiveness of enforcement, of prohibitions on various public sports and games was often limited.
And the Green Man is nebulous, with many interpretations based on a sort of mystical free-association; I'm not sure if this sort of thing has a place in a history book with no further info:
<i>"the ancient legendary fertility figure of the Green Man, or ‘Ing’, who represents rebirth. The symbol of Ing is the boar, and in ancient times, a boar’s head was traditionally served on a bed of greenery on Midwinter Day."</i>

However, there are also occasions when the authors debunk popular misconceptions, for example, Elizabeth I's order that everyone should eat goose at Christmas to celebrate the victory over the Spanish Armada. This was repeated, for example, by a Harrods manager speaking in an otherwise pretty good BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008lykb">documentary about Charles Dickens and Christmas</a> that was repeated this year. <i>"as the Armada was won in August, it is unlikely that Elizabeth ever gave such an order; she would have known that her poorer subjects could not have obeyed it, as goose was an expensive luxury."</i>


There is plenty of fun material here as well, among the less well-known stuff, and it can easily be made multimedia, for want of a better word. Anyone who read <i>A Tudor Christmas</i> this year and also watched the BBC televised church service from Oldham on Christmas Day will have seen a revival of the child bishop tradition, albeit conducted in a more sensible for the 21st century, and more egalitarian, as it was a girl not a boy. There is a video of the est.1344 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYHGdCuyRTo&feature=youtu.be&t=109">procession by the Worshipful Company of Butchers</a> - not using a real boar's head in 2014, a stylised model one. If desired you can listen to music, such as William Byrd's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW5WfHjLwHc">Out of the Orient Crystal Skies</a>, described by the authors as "one of the finest musical pieces of the English Renaissance". The writers anticipated endeavours to use the book interactively - they advise companionably at the beginning that recipes <i>"may not appeal to a modern palate, some ingredients are not easy to come by, and quantities may be gargantuan!"</i>. Before considering trying them, it might help to look at bloggers' attempts at these historical and literary dishes, for example Perdita's warden [pear] pie from <i>A Winter's Tale</i>: <a href="https://literaryeater.wordpress.com/tag/warden-pie">one</a>; <a href="https://roxalanasredactions.com/category/elizabethan/a-winters-tale-pear-pie/">two</a>. (Neither is quite GBBO presentation standard but very interesting nonetheless.) Others try out old games, such as <a href=" https://leatherworkingreverendsmusings.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/games-shove-groat/">shove groat</a>. And in the 21st century, the popularity of hoodies must make hoodman-blind easier than it had been at any time since the medieval: "people turned their hoods back to front, or pulled them forward over their eyes, then chased the other players until they caught one. That person became the next hoodman."


It was interesting from a personal perspective to find myself with more understanding and sympathy for Puritans than I used to have - especially compared with pre-university days when I read only popular histories like this, and Puritans were baddies in boring clothes. I've still regularly used 'puritan' as a perjorative in matters of prudery and language, but in material terms, for environmental and social equality reasons I am totally on board with disapproval of overindulgence, inessentials, the replacement of items that still work or are fixable, and so forth. On a felt level, I realised I found Puritans very relatable - their motivations are just different and their zeal for criticism and change encompassed some things which I consider good.

Such as, for example, the Twelve Days of Christmas, around which the book's chapters are rather delightfully structured. This gives space for discussion of customs which are passed over in other popular histories, including those for Holy Innocents on the 28th and the feast of Thomas a Becket on the 29th. Since childhood it has bothered me that the twelve days are no longer observed: I could never understand why a Catholic school which recognised Epiphany nevertheless started its winter/spring term before 7th January. (Whilst I had to concede that recognising the solstice would never be their thing.) And these days, modern green or left wing forms of material 'puritanism' take as evils overconsumption, overproduction and overwork, so a bit *more* holiday, not less, is good (provided it's not used for long-haul holidays and shopping till you drop) - in contrast to the early modern religious puritan who felt that people needed to work more. Unfortunately it's a luxury available largely to those who can arrange their annual leave thus and who also have the stamina to manage with less rest at other times of year, or to the better-off self employed in occupations that give scope for it. (It was nice to notice a couple of days after reading this book that George Monbiot had said on his Twitter page that he was staying offline until 7th January.) Although the length of observance in some parts of the country indicates that extended Christmas celebration co-existed alongside work. Not only did a few areas of England keep decorations up until Candlemas, <i>"Some kept open house from Martinmas (11 November) to Candlemas (2 February), welcoming friends and visitors and mitigating the privations of the winter months for the poor who came to receive their charity."</i>

This is an appealing book to browse and to have around at home, and is to be taken in very much the same way as many TV documentaries - not 100% correct, but often enough to be worthwhile, and an interesting and friendly presence. (Some Amazon reviews mention that the physical book is smaller than they expected, however.) If you want a more detailed and referenced take on the same subjects, have a look at Hutton's <i>Stations of the Sun</i> or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3190835-the-rise-and-fall-of-merry-england">The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400-1700</a>.


<b>I received a free Advance Review copy from the publisher, Jonathan Cape / Vintage, via Netgalley.</b>

A beautifully illustrated and nicely informative little book. I very much enjoyed learning about Tudor traditions - this is a great seasonal read!

A fascinating history of Christmas and how it was celebrated in the Tudor period. Rich in detail, it was amazing to discover how many of our current customs and traditions for the festive season are still in use today. A lovely book to read this time of year and to get you in the Christmas spirit!

If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet, this lovely little book by historian and novelist Alison Weir and her co-author Siobhan Clarke, a guide for Historic Royal Palaces, could be the perfect gift for any history lovers in your life (or for yourself, at any time of year, of course).

Divided into twelve sections to represent each of the twelve days of Christmas, the book takes us through the origins of many of our favourite Christmas traditions, as well as some that were popular in Tudor times but have disappeared over the years. The text is interspersed with recipes, poems, carols and illustrations, so if you don’t want to read it straight through from beginning to end, you could just pick it up and read a page or two whenever you have a few spare moments over the festive period. This is much shorter than the other non-fiction books I’ve read by Alison Weir and obviously doesn’t have the same level of depth, but even so she and Clarke manage to cover a large amount of material, touching on almost every aspect of Christmas you could think of.

I enjoyed reading about the various ways in which St Stephen’s Day/Boxing Day was celebrated in different parts of Europe, ranging from hunting the wren and taking beribboned horses to be blessed by the priest, to distributing alms to the poor. There’s a discussion of when the turkey was first introduced to England, a fascinating chapter about the typical games that would be played at home or at court, and some eye-opening accounts of how much money Henry VIII would spend on celebrating Christmas. There are also descriptions of earlier traditions such as the burning of the yule log and the origins of holly, ivy and mistletoe being used as decorations and, although I would have preferred a tighter focus on the Tudor period itself (which is what I’d expected from the title), I did find the whole book an interesting and worthwhile read.

I loved this book. Full of Tudor-related Christmas information, but it still felt light and easy to read. Would recommend.

Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year so I thought this would be the perfect read for me for #NonfictionNovember but unfortunately I found this to be quite disappointing.

The first half was engaging and had me interested. There were some familiar traditions as well as things I’d never heard of before, however the second half had less of that Christmas feeling about it. I think the main issue is the writing style. It felt like the authors had read a lot of research but just regurgitated it to make the book instead of adding anything or creating a book that feels new.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend this sadly but I did learn a few things so I’m glad I gave it a go.

This is a gem of a book written in twelve parts, each describing how each of the twelve days of Christmas where celebrated.
From the origin of the word Yule, to how the Puritans attempted to ban Christmas due to it drinking and roaring, A Tudor Christmas goes to show even though some of the traditions have disappeared the indulgence of the holiday has always been there.
It provides us with the antics of the Royal courts to how Christmas was used as a celebration anticipated by the less well off in the 15 and 16 centuries where life was hard and toiling.

It is definitely recommended to either read straight through or dip into it each day during the Christmas period.

This was a warm, Christmasy book that really got me into the spirit of the holidays. I love reading about Tudor times and I think the Christmas season during this time was amazing! I found the era was really brought to life – I could almost smell the spices and hear the lute! I especially loved any bits that had to do with Henry VIII. I find him fascinating and his Christmas celebrations were quite lavish. Alison is a fantastic historical fiction writer and though this book is brief, it really breathes life into Christmas.

If you've ever wondered how the Tudors celebrated the twelve days of Christmas, then look no further. This is a short, factual book that draws on original sources to reveal the food, games, songs that were a key part of Tudor Christmases. Whilst many of our modern traditions stem from the Victorians, I fund it surprising just how many also owe their origins to Tudor times or even earlier. ideal if you are fascinated by the period or just enjoy delving into Christmases past.

This is a great little book. It's full of lovely illustrations, old songs and poems and tales of what a Tudor Christmas is like. It was really interesting learning about where some traditions and beliefs started but especially about those that had died out. At less than two hundred pages it keeps things nicely succinct. Received from Netgalley for an honest review.

Feeling Christmassy? This is a great book to get you into the spirit of the season, while taking you on a journey through the Tudor period and all the festivities involved. It’s well structured, divided into chapters based on the 12 days of Christmas, and the various activities the rich and poor participated in. There’s plenty of little facts scattered throughout which highlight many aspects of Tudor and Christmas life I never knew about, and also brings to life this concept that through the ages, will always knew how to throw a party.

In the chapters there are various carols, pictures, recipes and poems to bring to life the stories told of Christmas time. I thought this was a nice touch, as it lent itself an air of authenticity and really added to the Christmas feeling. I felt more immersed in the stories, and at times I could almost imagine myself in a great hall alongside Henry VIII eating my roasted goose. I did find a few of the poems a little long, which distracted from the text itself, however this was few and far between.

This was a lovely little read about one of my favourite times of year, and I love that I can now see the history behind a lot of the traditions which I originally thought were Victorian. In particular I enjoyed the chapter on Boxing (or St. Stephen’s) day and it’s links to the rich giving alms to the poor, as well an annual hunt for a Wren. It was these little touches that are only going to enhance my enjoyment of the season.

Recommend to the Tudor history buffs and lovers of Christmas. I just wish it had been longer!

A fantastic book for those people, like me, who love Christmas and want to learn more about the traditions of that festival. I can't wait to get the paper version, as I think it's a book I will read parts of every year.

Fabulous book from Alison Weir and Siobhan Clarke. Clear, well-researched and well-written.

The book is divided into twelve chapters for the twelve days of Christmas, and each chapter focusses on a different aspect of the Christmas celebrations, uncovering the origins of some of our favourite Christmas traditions, and revealing that some are far older than we might have imagined! I'll not quibble about the book covering more than just the Tudor period - the subsequent Puritan banning of Christmas and the description of various people's attempts to clandestinely celebrate and keep the traditions alive are a fascinating adjunct to the main focus of 16th century customs across the nation in both rich and poor households.

I'm a re-enactor, so some of the traditions described were quite familiar, but there's plenty of fascinating material here, and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone specialising in the Tudor period.