РефератыИностранный языкEsEssay History Of Popular Culture Essay Research

Essay History Of Popular Culture Essay Research

Essay History Of Popular Culture Essay, Research Paper


History of popular culture


‘Functions of festivals in Early Modern Europe…’


University level


Essay History of Popular Culture


‘What were the functions of popular festivals, etc. in Early Modern Europe?


And why did the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical seek to control or


suppress them?’


In Early Modern Europe festivals were the setting for heroes and their


stories, to be celebrated by the populace. They posed a change from their


everyday life. In those days people lived in remembrance of one festival


and in expectance of the next. Different kinds of festivals were celebrated


in different ways. There were festivals that marked an individual occasion


and weren’t part of the festival calendar, like family festivals such as


weddings and christenings. Some took place at the same time every year and


were for everyone, like community festivals like the different saints’


days. Pilgrimages took place all year round. Annuals festivals like


Christmas and Midsummer always took place on the same day every year.


In those days the average village in Western Europe celebrated at least 17


festivals annually, not counting family occasions and saints’ days. Some


festivals, such as Carnival, lasted several days or sometimes even several


weeks. In the Netherlands Carnival started every year at the 11th of


November (St. Martin) and culminated in a big festival of ‘Dranck,


pleijsier ende vrouwen’ (Drink, fun and women) at the end of the Carnival


period, preceding the period of Lent.


Festivals were meant to take the minds of the people off their everyday


life , off the hard times and their work. Everyday life in Early Modern


Europe was filled with rituals, both religious and secular. Songs and


stories played an important role in their lives, although they sometimes


adjusted the details of the legends and stories to fit the way they thought


a certain festival should take place.


Popular culture was mixed with ecclesiastical culture in many ways. The


story of St. John the Baptist is a good example of this. The ancient ritual


of bathing and lighting fires during Midsummer’s Eve was a remnant of a


ritual from the pre-Christian period. Fire and water, symbols of


purification, could be seen as the tools of St. John the Baptist, and


therefore a combination of the two elements of popular and ecclesiastical


culture was obvious. It looks as if the Medieval Church took over the


festival and made it theirs. The same thing happened to the Midwinter


Festival, which became linked with the birth of Christ, on 25 December.


There are many more examples to be found, such as the connection between


St. Martin and geese caused by the fact that the St. Martins Day (11


November) coincided with the period during which the people used to kill


their geese in the period preceding the Christian period.


Carnival plays a special role in popular culture in Early Modern Europe.


It is a great example of a festival of images and texts. It was a popular


festival, taking on different forms in different regions of Europe. Aside


from regional variations, these differences were also caused by factors


such as the climate, the political situation and the economical situation


in an area.


On a whole Carnival started in late December or early January and reached


its peak upon approaching Lent. The actual feast, taking place at the end


of the festive


period, could take days and would usually involve large quantities of food


and drinks. The festival took place in the open air in the centre of a


town or city. Within a region, the way Carnival was celebrated varied from


town to town.


The festival was a play, with the streets as a stage and the people as


actors and spectators. They often depicted everyday life scenes and made


fun of them. Informal events took place throughout the Carnival period.


There was massive eating and drinking, as a way of ’stocking up’ for Lent.


People sang and danced in the streets, using the special songs of Carnival,


and people wore masks and fancy-dress. There was verbal aggression, insults


were exchanged and satirical verses were sung.


More formally structures events were concentrated in the last days of the


Carnival period. These events took places in the central squares and were


often organised by clubs or fraternities.


The main theme during Carnival was usually ‘The World Upside Down’.


Situations got turned around. It was an enactment of the world turned


upside down. Men dressed up as women, women dressed up as men, the rich


traded places with the poor, etc. There was physical reversal: people


standing on their heads, horses going backwards and fishes flying. There


was reversal of relationships between man and beast: the horse shoeing the


master or the fish eating the fisherman. The other reversal was that of


relationships between men: servants giving orders to their masters or men


feeding children while their wives worked the fields.


Many events centred on the figure of ‘Carnival’, often depicted as a fat


man, cheerful and surrounded by food. The figure of ‘Lent’, for contrast,


often took the form of a thin, old woman, dressed in black and hung with


fish. These depictions varied in form and name in the different regions in


Europe. A recurring element was the performance of a play, usually a farce.


Mock battles were also a favourite pass-time during the Carnival period.


Carnival usually ended with the defeat of ‘Carnival’ by ‘Lent’. This could


happen in the form of the mock trial and execution of ‘Carnival’, (Bologna,


Italy, 16th century), the beheading of a pig (Venice, Italy), or the burial


of a sardine (Madrid, Spain).


So what was the meaning of Carnival in Early Modern Europe? Was it merely


an excuse for the populace to go crazy or did Carnival have a deeper


meaning hidden behind the facade of food, violence and sex?


Carnival was a holiday, a game. It was a time of ecstasy and liberation.


The form was determined by three major themes: food, sex and violence. It


was the time of indulgence, of abundance. It was also a time of intense


sexual activity – tables of the seasonal movement of conceptions in 18th


century France show a peak around February. Carnival was also a festival of


aggression, destruction and desecration. It was the ideal time to insult or


pester people who had wronged someone, often in the form of a mock battle


of a football match. A time for paying off old grudges. Serious violence


was not avoided and in most areas the rates of serious crimes and killings


went up during Carnival. It was also a time of opposition, in more than one


way. It opposed the ecclesiastical ritual of Lent. Lent was a period of


fasting and abstinence of all things enjoyed by the people, not just food


and drink but also sex and recreation. The elements that were taken out of


life during Lent were emphasised during Carnival. All that was portrayed by


the figures of ‘Carnival’ and ‘Lent’ (fat versus thin).


Carnival was polysemous, meaning different things to different people in


different areas. In different regions, different heroes were celebrated.


Sometimes elements were taken over from other regions. Carnival did not


have the same importance all over Europe. In the north of Europe (Britain,


Scandinavia) it was less important than in the rest of Europe. This was


probably partly due to the climate which discouraged an elaborate street


festival at that time of the year.


In these regions, people preferred to elaborate the festivities during the


Midsummer festival (St. John’s Eve). Two reasons for this are the pagan


survivals that were stronger in these regions, partly because they were


isolated from the rest of Europe due to geographical obstacles, causing a


lesser ecclesiastical influence, and the climatic situation as mentioned


above.


Carnival was a festival in extremis, but elements of Carnival can be found


in every festival that was celebrated in Early Modern Europe. During the


harvest season, all over Europe festivals and rituals were held. The


harvest was celebrated, again , with elaborate drinking and eating,


although in a more moderate way than the Carnival celebrations.


All these festival had one thing in common: they offered the people an


escape from their everyday life and a way to express themselves.

It offered


the people a way to vent their resentments and some form of entertainment.


Festivals were an escape from their struggle to earn a living. They were


something to look forward to and were a celebration of the community and a


display of its ability to put on a good show. It is said that the mocking


of outsiders (the neighbouring village or Jews) and animals might be seen


as a dramatic expression of community solidarity.


Some rituals might be seen as a form of social control, in a sense that it


was a means for a community to express their discontent with certain


members of the community (charivari). The ritual of public punishment can


be seen in this light, as it was used to deter people from committing


crimes.


Professor Max Gluckman used the African popular culture to explain the


social function of the ritual of reversal of roles as it happened during


rituals as Carnival. Similar rituals still occur in certain regions in


Africa. Gluckman explains this ritual as an emphasis of certain rules and


taboos through lifting them for a certain period of time. The apparent


protests against the social order were intended to preserve and even to


strengthen the established order. As a counter example Gluckman states


that: “?in regions where the social order is seriously questioned, ‘rites


of protest’ do not occur.”


Riots and rebellions frequently took place during major festivals. Rebels


and rioters employed rituals and symbols to legitimise their actions.


Inhibitions against expressing hostility towards the authorities or


individuals were weakened by the excitement of the festival and the


consumption of large quantities of alcohol. If those factors were combined


with discontent over a bad harvest, tax increases or other calamities, this


situation could get out of control. It could prove a good opportunity for


people excluded from power to try and enforce certain changes.


It is hardly surprising that members of the upper classes often suggested


that particular festivals ought to be abolished. They felt threatened by


the populace who during festivals tried to revolt against the ruling


classes and change the economical situation they were in.


The reform of popular festivals was instigated by the will of some of the


‘educated’ to change the attitudes and values of the rest of the population


(” to improve them”). This reformation took on different forms in different


regions and it took place at different moments in time. There were also


differences in the practices that were being reformed. Catholics and


Protestants opposed to different elements of popular festivals and they did


so for different reasons. Even within the Protestant movement, the views


towards reformation of festivals and popular rituals varied.


Missionaries on both sides worked in Europe to install their religious


values in the local people. Reformers on both sides objected in particular


to certain elements in popular religion. Festivals were part of popular


religion or were at least disguised as an element of popular religion. The


festival of Martinmas (11 November) was a good example of this.


What were the objections of the authorities against these elements of


popular culture in general and popular religion in particular? There were


two essential religious objections. Firstly, the majority of festivals were


seen as remnants of ancient paganism. Secondly, the festivals offered the


people an occasion to over-indulge in immoral or offensive behaviour, at


many occasions attacking the establishment (both ecclesiastical and civil).


The first objection meant that reformers disliked many of the popular


customs because they contained traces of ancient customs dating from


pre-Christian times. Protestant reformers went very far in their


objections, even denouncing a number of Catholic rituals as being


pre-Christian survivals, considering the saints as successors of pagan gods


and heroes, taking over their curative and protective functions. Magic was


also considered a pagan remnant: the Protestants accused the Catholics of


practising a pagan ritual by claiming that certain holy places held magical


powers and could cure people.


The reformers denounced the rituals they didn’t find fitting as being


irreverent and blasphemous. Carnival and the charivaris were considered


“the work of the devil”, because it made a mockery of certain godly


elements the Church held sacred. The reformers thought people who didn’t


honour God in their way to be heathen, doomed to spend their afterlife in


eternal damnation. Flamboyance was to be chased out of all religious


aspects of culture, and, where possible, out of all other aspects of life,


according to the Protestant doctrine. In some areas, gesturing during


church services was banned, as was laughter. All these things were seen as


irreverent, making a mockery of religion.


All these changes were introduced in order to create a sharper separation


between the ’sacred’ and the ‘profane’. The ecclesiastical authorities were


out to destroy the traditional familiarity with the sacred because


“familiarity breeds irreverence.”


The objection against popular recreations stemmed from the idea that they


were ‘vanities’, displeasing God because they were a waste of time and


money and distracted people from going to church. This objection was shared


by both the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. The latter mainly


objected because it distracted the populace from their work, which in turn


affected the revenues of the leading upper classes, or from other


activities that were benefiting the rich, reasons that would vary per


region.


Catholic and Protestant reformers were not equally hostile to popular


culture, nor were they hostile for quite the same reasons. Protestant


reformers were more radical, denouncing festivals as relics of popery and


looking to abolish feast-days as well as the feast that came with it,


because they considered the saints that were celebrated during these


festivals as remnants of a pre-Christian era. Many of these Protestant


reformers were equally radical in their attacks on holy images, which they


considered ‘idols’. During the end of the 16th and the first half of the


17th century Dutch churches were pillaged by Protestants trying to destroy


all religious relics and images (de Beeldenstorm). Catholic reformers were


more modified in their actions; they tried to reach a certain modification


of popular religious culture, even trying to adapt certain elements to the


Catholic way of worshipping and incorporating popular elements into their


religion. They insisted that some times were holier than others, and they


did object to the extend to which the holy days were celebrated with food


and drink. Some argued that it was impossible to obey the rites of Lent


with proper reverence and devotion if they had indulged in Carnival just


before. Catholic reformers also installed rules in order to regulate


certain popular festivals and rituals, such as a prohibition on dressing up


as a member of the clergy during Carnival or a prohibition on dancing or


performing plays in churches or churchyards. Contrary to the Protestant


reformers however, the Catholic reformers did not set out to abolish


festivals and rituals completely.


Civil authorities had their own reasons to object to popular festivals in


Early Modern Europe. Apart from taking the people away from work or other


obligations, the authorities feared that during the time of a festival, the


abundance of alcohol could stir up the feelings of discontent the people


had been hiding all throughout the year. Misery and alcohol could create a


dangerous mix that would give people the courage they needed to rebel


against authorities. This was a good reason for the authorities to try and


stop, or at least control, popular festivals. Bibliography


Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe; P. Burke


The Reasons of Misrule: Youth Groups and Charivaris in 16th century France;


N.Z.Davis, Past and Present 1971


Order and rebellion in Tribal Africa; M. Gluckman


The waning of the Middle Ages; J. Huizinga


Levend Verleden; Prof. Dr. H.P.H. Jansen


Blood, tears and Xavier-water: Jesuit missionaries and popular religion in


the 18th century in the Upper Palatinate; T. Johnson Popular religion in


Germany and Central Europe 1400-1800

Сохранить в соц. сетях:
Обсуждение:
comments powered by Disqus

Название реферата: Essay History Of Popular Culture Essay Research

Слов:2943
Символов:19993
Размер:39.05 Кб.