[Back] [Blueprint] [Next]

From Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel with supplementary extracts from the others, a Revised Text, edited with introduction, notes, appendices, and glossary by Charles Plummer, MA on the bases of an edition by John Earle, M. A.; Clarendon Press; Oxford; 1899; pp. clvi.

NOTES ON THE WORDS FOR CHRISTMAS IN THE CHRONICLES

UP to the Conquest the ordinary word for Christmas is the old Teutonic and pre-Christian phrase ‘Midwinter’; and it occurs not very rarely even after the Conquest; 1066 D, i. 200; 1068 D, i. 204; 1076 D = 1075 E ad fin. 1085a; 1086 ad fin.; 1099; 1103; 1114 H; 1135. But with the Conquest the modern phrase Christmas begins to come it, and gradually prevails. I have only found one instance of its use before 1066, namely at 1043 E; and as this is not one of the Peterborough insertions it affords a presumption that it is older than the Peterborough redaction of 1121. Of course the Peterborough scribe may have altered ‘midwinter’ into ‘Christes mæsse’; I can only say that he has not done so in other cases, e. g. 827, 878, 885, 1006, 1009. After 1066 we find ‘Christes mæsse’ at 1075 E, 1091, 1094-1098, 1100, 1101, 1104-1106, 1109, 1110, 1111, 1121, 1122, 1124, 1125, 1127, 1131; and for the season ‘Christes tid,’ 1123. With the twelfth century a third term makes its appearance, ‘natiuiteþ,’ evidently a representation of the French ‘nativité.’ This occurs 1102, 1105, 1106, 1108, 1113-1116.








[Back] [Blueprint] [Next]
Valid CSS!