The Tudor Society
  • Sausages, sponges and silver: Modern New Year vs Roman Saturnalia

    Following on from yesterday’s article Io! Io! Io! Modern Christmas vs Roman Saturnalia, we have another article from Kevin Butcher, Professor of Roman History at Warwick University. If you’ve been watching our Tudor Society Advent Calendar videos, you’ll know that I mentioned Saturnalia in the talk I did on the Lord of Misrule tradition, and this article is interesting because the Tudor monarchs and nobility followed the Roman tradition of gift-giving at New Year.

    Ancient Romans celebrated the start of the New Year as part of a winter festival called Saturnalia – with sausages, sponges and silver given as gifts, alongside human sacrifice.
    Kevin Butcher, Professor of Roman history at the University of Warwick says that it was a time of the year known for inclusivity and role-reversal as well as riotous partying and the exchange of weird and wonderful gifts as New Year presents.
    Romans would make prayers and sacrifices to the gods, sometimes even human, in the hope of gaining the gods’ favour
    Before being moved to 1st January in 153 BC, the Roman New Year began on 1st March.

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  • Io! Io! Io! Modern Christmas vs Roman Saturnalia

    Thank you to the University of Warwick for sending me this interesting article by Kevin Butcher, Professor of Roman History. If you’ve been watching our Tudor Society Advent Calendar videos, you’ll know that I mentioned Saturnalia in the talk I did on the Lord of Misrule tradition.

    Whilst we celebrate Christmas, over 2000 years ago the ancient Romans were busy with their own winter festival; Saturnalia. Over-eating, drinking, singing, gift-giving, pranks, singing stark naked and theatrics were all associated with the festival, which was the most popular holiday of the year. Kevin Butcher, Professor of Roman history at the University of Warwick, says that the 25th December was also celebrated by Romans.

    Partying, pantomime, feasting and gift-giving are all established traditions of the Christmas season. At the same time of the year over 2000 years ago, Romans had the very same customs in celebration of a different festival – Saturnalia.

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