Family History Journey in England

Timepiece presents occasional articles on aspects of English history, tradition and life...

Lady Day is a traditional quarter day. It falls on 25 March, but no doubt its origins, and some traditions, lie in the solar calendar and its proximity to the Spring Equinox on 21 March. In places where the growing seasons are governed by the movements of the sun, especially in the northern part of the northern hemisphere, such as Europe, the solar calendar and the celebration of the Spring Equinox regulated the agricultural year. Associated festivities, both before and after the Roman occupation of England, were a reminder that certain agricultural tasks needed to be performed. Eggs were a common symbol of the Spring Equinox.

With the arrival of Christianity however, such pagan associations were no doubt unacceptable. The date became Lady Day - the festival of the annunciation of (announcement to) the virgin Mary by the archangel Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus (Luke 1:26-28). Complications arise because of its closeness to the most important Christian festival, Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Christ. Easter is governed by lunar calendar traditions: it falls on the first full moon (following traditions for determining the Jewish Passover) after the Spring Equinox. It is therefore moveable. To avoid Lady Day events falling on a Sunday, and the crucial Easter days, it too is moved occasionally.

Confusingly, the word Easter has its roots in Anglo-Saxon paganism: Eostre or Eastre or Ostara was probably the goddess of the Spring Equinox and the month of April was known as "Ostermonat".

While the religious significance and traditions of Lady Day having undergone fusion and change, Lady Day itself remained fixed in rural English life. Originally it would have been the day on which feudal services to the Lord of the Manor (in return for their farm- or home-stead) were calculated. When services were commuted to rents, which happened in most manors after the Black Death in the 14th century, it was the all-important day on which tenancies began and ended and, therefore, the day on which rents and debts became due. It was on this day that new tenants gained entry to a new home, building or field. When searching manorial documents for the purposes of genealogy, it is a useful date to look out for - it is the date on which the names of individual tenants or servants might be recorded, together with the name of the stead they occupied and the amount of rent they paid. Complications arose because tenants who were moving on still had the right to the produce of any field they had ploughed and planted.

Towards the end of the mediaeval era and the beginning of the modern industrial period, tenancies were increasingly ended and not renewed - manorial overlords, for greater profit, were creating bigger, higher-rent farms, or enlarging their own, personal farming land (demesne), and taking advantage of new intensive farming methods. In the north of England, the land might also be used for large-scale industrial enterprises: deep-shaft mining or textile manufacturies. Dispossessed families were forced into the towns that emerged: to live in hastily built tenaments and to work in these large-scale industries. Thomas Hardy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles provided a good description of the "Lady Day Migrations" and the effects of modern agricultural methods in the south:

"At length it was the eve of Old Lady-Day, and the agricultural world was in a fever of mobility such as only occurs at that particular date of the year. It is a day of fulfilment; agreements for outdoor service during the ensuing year, entered into at Candlemas, are to be now carried out. The labourers--or "work-folk", as they used to call themselves immemorially till the other word was introduced from without--who wish to remain no longer in old places are removing to the new farms.

"These annual migrations from farm to farm were on the increase here. When Tess's mother was a child the majority of the field-folk about Marlott had remained all their lives on one farm, which had been the home also of their fathers and grandfathers; but latterly the desire for yearly removal had risen to a high pitch. With the younger families it was a pleasant excitement which might possibly be an advantage. The Egypt of one family was the Land of Promise to the family who saw it from a distance, till by residence there it became it turn their Egypt also; and so they changed and changed.

"However, all the mutations so increasingly discernible in village life did not originate entirely in the agricultural unrest. A depopulation was also going on. The village had formerly contained, side by side with the agricultural labourers, an interesting and better-informed class, ranking distinctly above the former--the class to which Tess's father and mother had belonged--and including the carpenter, the smith, the shoemaker, the huckster, together with nondescript workers other than farm-labourers; a set of people who owed a certain stability of aim and conduct to the fact of their being lifeholders like Tess's father, or copyholders, or occasionally, small freeholders. But as the long holdings fell in they were seldom again let to similar tenants, and were mostly pulled down, if not absolutely required by the farmer for his hands. Cottagers who were not directly employed on the land were looked upon with disfavour, and the banishment of some starved the trade of others, who were thus obliged to follow. These families, who had formed the backbone of the village life in the past who were the depositaries of the village traditions, had to seek refuge in the large centres; the process, humorously designated by statisticians as "the tendency of the rural population towards the large towns", being really the tendency of water to flow uphill when forced by machinery.

"The cottage accommodation at Marlott having been in this manner considerably curtailed by demolitions, every house which remained standing was required by the agriculturist for his work-people. Ever since the occurrence of the event which had cast such a shadow over Tess's life, the Durbeyfield family (whose descent was not credited) had been tacitly looked on as one which would have to go when their lease ended, if only in the interests of morality. It was, indeed, quite true that the household had not been shining examples either of temperance, soberness, or chastity. The father, and even the mother, had got drunk at times, the younger children seldom had gone to church, and the eldest daughter had made queer unions. By some means the village had to be kept pure. So on this, the first Lady-Day on which the Durbeyfields were expellable, the house, being roomy, was required for a carter with a large family; and Widow Joan, her daughters Tess and 'Liza-Lu, the boy Abraham and the younger children, had to go elsewhere."

In civic life, Lady Day was the end of the year, and was considered a day of reckoning on the principle that "However complex the case, however difficult to settle the debt, a reckoning has to be made and publicly recorded… justice delayed is injustice," Clines, David J. A. (1998). On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998. The courts were required to clear up any unresolved cases by the quarter days, including Lady Day. In tradition, Lady Day was the day on which accounts had to be reconciled and taxes were due. In 1752 however, faults in the operation of the Julian calendar were corrected and the Gregorian calendar was adopted in England (other European countries had adopted it in 1572 under an edict from Pope Gregory XIII.) 1st January was now the beginning of the year, but 6th April (for some reason called 'Old Lady Day') became the beginning of the financial and tax year - and it still is. Acts of Parliament might also come into force on Lady Day. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, for example, came into force on 25 March 1807.

One Lady Day custom, The Tichborne Dole, takes place in Hampshire. The story may begin in the 12th century: on her deathbed, Lady Mabella Tichborne asked her husband to provide land, the produce of which was to be distributed amongst the poor. Her husband agreed to provide as much land as she could cover with a burning torch. She crawled around 23 acres before the torch went out. Although the custom of giving produce to the poor in Tichborne ended in 1795, due to the number of beggars arriving every Lady Day, today's villagers take sacks and pillow cases to the local mill where flour is doled out to them.

Candlemas is a cross-quarter day. It falls on 2nd February which is half way between the winter solstice - Christmas, and the Spring Equinox - Lady Day. Quarter days and cross quarter days, as determined by the solar calendar, mark important transitions in the agricultural cycle in England, as in other parts of Europe, and were remembered with celebratory festivities to the point of acquiring religious significance both pagan and Christian. Tenancies and hiring contracts between lords of the manor, farmers and farm servants would also begin or end on one these days depending on the custom or traditions of a particular manor, parish or area.

A time to get ready for spring

Falling as it does during a period of the year when very little grows, and when people must rely on whatever produce they put by after the last harvest, it was a commonplace in many parts of England that “a farmer should, on Candlemas Day, have half his corn and half his hay”. Candlemas also signalled that it was time to prepare the land for sowing. The soil had to be broken up and ploughed. Livestock would also be moved from their winter pasture. In some manors, probably depending on custom as well as their particular geographical conditions, it was the time when the open fields were divided into smaller, separate plots for cultivation by individuals. These plots were then awarded by annual ballot. (In other manors, this might happen a little later in the year).

The importance of 2nd February in the agricultural year undoubtedly had importance in pre-Christian England and was celebrated in some sort of pagan ritual. In the Roman world it may have honoured the god, Pan, or the goddess, Februa, when revellers paraded through the streets with torches and candles. In the Gaelic world the day was celebrated as Imbolc. The particular associations it held in the different regions of England, both in pre-Roman and then in pre-Anglo-Saxon/Viking times, can only be inferred at the moment. In the 5th century, nevertheless, it was Christianized and associated with Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (rather than Februa?). That it fell 40 days after the birth of Jesus was surely not coincidence, and after the break with Rome and the Reformation, it was associated with the Presentation of Christ in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Light, and the lighting of candles, has often been associated with warding off famine and plague and is probably at the root of the association of 2nd February with candles. It was also the day when Yuletide greenery, such as holly and mistletoe, had to be taken down. The snowdrop was also known as the Candlemas Bell, and in the south west it was considered bad luck to bring them indoors before Candlemas. Although now associated with Shrove Tuesday in preparation for the 40 days of fasting prior to Easter, the using up of eggs and milk by making pancakes is a part of Candlemas in other parts of northern Europe and may well have existed in pre-Christian England. Feasting at Candlemas was however important in English manorial life. In one Bedfordshire manor, the tenants' dinner, held at the Hasells on the first Friday after Old Candlemas, comprised: "Boil'd leg of veal and bacon, Plumb and bread plain pudding, Ribs of beef, Greens and salary (sic), Loin of veal, Goose, Mince pie and an apple pie". (A2A Archives)

Candlemas Bell, or Snowdrop

In Frampton, Gloucestershire, the Candlemas Fair was held. Lady Day and Michaelmas (in March and September respectively) were the most popular days for manorial business: tenancies and contracts for farm servants to begin and end. It was not unusual to find tenancies stating: "Rent £10 per annum at Michaelmas and Lady-day; two capons, or 2s. in money, at Candlemas and one load of coals". And in 1910 one London newspaper reported on this annual tradition from Cornwall: "This being Candlemas Day, the old Cornish manor house of Godolphin, now a farm-house, was visited by the reeve of the manor of Lamburne, who came to collect, with time-honoured ceremony, a rent-charge upon the estate. In the presence of a crowd of curious neighbours and sight-seers, the reeve knocked thrice upon the oaken door. 'I come,' he cried, 'to demand my lord's just dues--eight groats and a penny, a loaf, a cheese, a collar of brawn, and a jack of the best beer in the house. God save the King and the lord of the manor.' When the doors were opened, the reeve and some forty guests sat down to breakfast together."

In many areas Candlemas was a useful date. In the rural township of Wrightington, Lancashire, "the custom of the town had been for the executors of a deceased tenant to keep possession of his land till the following Candlemas" (A History of the County of Lancaster: Vol. 6; www.british-history.ac.uk) and in many manors, it was common to find that serfs would work, for example, two days a week but from Candlemas to Easter and at harvest they would work three days a week. Similarly, the date was useful in market towns and cities, amongst artisans and craftsmen. In 13th century London, for instance, it was stipulated that mastercraftsmen would receive fourpence (4d) a day between Michaelmas and Martinmas (November), threepence (3d) between Martinmas and Candlemas, and fivepence (5d) between Candlemas and Easter.

For some reason, Candlemas was often stipulated in wills as the day on which charitable sums should be distributed. In 1630, Richard Randes, a husbandman of Holbech, Lincolnshire, for example, left 5 shillings to be distributed amongst the poor of the parish on Candlemas day, and Thomas Garrett of Middlesex, in 1791, wanted the proceeds of a £100 investment to be distributed to poor house keepers, not in receipt of parish relief, on Candlemas-day.

Once such a fundamental date in England's annual calendar, a day on which your ancestors and mine would maybe have gone to church and/or feasted, Candlemas is little remembered today. It seems no longer necessary in a land where the ravages of a cold and barren winter no longer threaten us with hunger and wide-spread famine. We have long since stopped relying on our own agricultural produce. We no longer need Candlemas to mark time - if we need a February date then Valentine's day, on the 14th, is probably better recalled. If, however, you wish to remember and celebrate England's agricultural past and our rural ancestors, then light a candle.

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