1763 Shagreen Etui Or Necessaire, English. via Gould Antiques ~ gouldantiques.com
Definition Etui Or Necessaire: Small toiletry, writing, or sewing containers carried by ladies and gentlemen in vast castles or large manor houses so their essentials were always on hand. Also used when traveling, where space was always limited. Easily carried in a pocket, or bag or reticule, to use for personal grooming, sewing repairs e.g. ripped hem or missing button, to do embroidery or to write a letter.
Definition Shagreen: Type of rawhide, originally made from the back of a horse or a wild donkey. In the 18th century, the skin of a shark was used as well.
Want To Know More About Georgian Era Men’s Fashions? Try History Notes Book 2 By Suzi Love. Fashion Men 1700s Late. books2read.com:suziloveFashMen1700s
What was fashionable for men in the late 1700s? Extravagant colors and fabrics and outrageous styles. Take a look at their suits, hats, accessories and bedroom fashions. Strictly speaking, the Georgian Era might include all the years that a ‘King George’ ruled in England, but for the purposes of this book the ‘Georgian Era’ is primarily the late 1700s when mad King George III ruled. His son became Prince Regent in the early 1800s, therefore creating the years known as the Regency, and became George IV on the death of his father.
The Georgian years officially ended with the death of King George IV in 1830.
1715-1775 ca. Flat Drawstring Bag, French. Strung glass beads, or sablé, held together by looping stitches. Polychrome Rococo design on white ground, shepherd, shepherdess, four sheep around orange tree center, border with cornucopias and flowers. Ecru silk cord drawstrings with floral bead-covered wood tassels. Blue silk lining. via Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
1745-1750 ca. Necessaire, or small decorative box, with watch, probably German. Fitted with sewing and writing implements as well as a watch, this unmarked nécessaire shows delightful chinoiserie decoration in the Rococo style, echoing the work of the influential Munich designer François Cuvilliés (1695–1768). via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. metmuseum.org
Small toiletry, writing, or sewing containers were called Necessaire or Etui: Tiny boxes or containers were carried in large castles or sprawling manor houses so a lady or gentleman had their essentials with them all day. They were also important when traveling by coach, trains, or ships where space was always limited. A necessaire or Etui was easily carried in a bag, reticule, or pocket so essentials were on hand for personal grooming, to repair a ripped hem, replace a button, to embroider, or to write a note or letter.
Bringing In The Boar’s Head From: 1873 January Harper’s New Monthly, Christmas Throughout Christendom.
Because wild boar was the most feared animal, serving it at a meal represented the victory of good over evil. During the 17th century, wild boar became extinct in Britain so a pig’s head was used instead. The head was often presented on a decorated platter with an apple in its mouth and carried in by bearers in a dramatic manner. The tradition of serving ham for Christmas lunch or dinner probably came from the idea of serving boar’s head or roasted boar joints to guests at Christmas.
To say nothing of the roast beef and plum-pudding, Christmas pies, furmity, and snap-dragons, the Yule-log and the mistletoe have not finally abdicated, while the boar’s head, decorated with rosemary or prickly holly, maintains its place at the English Christmas dinner, and is still served up in great state at the royal Christmas table. At Oxford, U.K., the boar’s head was carried in by the strongest of the guardsmen, singing a Christmas carol, and preceded by a forester, a huntsman, and a couple of pages dressed in silk and carrying the mustard which was regarded as a great luxury and an infallible digester.
The following celebrated carol of the Boar’s Head is found in the book of ‘Christmasse Carolles’ published in 1521 by Wynkyn de Warde:
The boar’s head in bande bring I,
With garlandes gay and rosemary,
I pray you all synge merely,
Qui estis in convivio.
“The bore’s head, I understande,
Is the chefe servyce in this lande.
Loke wherever it be fande,
Servite cum cantico.
“Be gladde, lordes, both more and lasse,
For this bath ordayned our stewarde,
To chere you all this Christmasse,
The bore’s head with mustarde.”
At Oxford, U.K., the boar’s head was carried in by the strongest of the guardsmen, singing a Christmas carol, and preceded by a forester, a huntsman, and a couple of pages dressed in silk and carrying the mustard which was regarded as a great luxury and an infallible digester. A similar custom appears to have prevailed in Genoa in the times of the Dorias when a boar decorated with branches of laurel and accompanied by trumpeters was annually presented to the Doria family by the Abbot of San Antonio at Pré at midday on the 24th of December.
Christmas: Wassail Bowl History #Christmas #holidays #Traditions #Customs
The term wasseling refers to the jovial revelry and carousing that went on in historic England when all classes of society would gather around a common banquet-table and the wassail bowl and indulge in the most unrestrained joviality and merriment around.
Wassail Bowl: Most great houses had a wassel-bowl, or cup, frequently of massy silver. Toasts were “Drine heil,” or “Was hail,” from which the howl derives its name but were replaced around the nineteenth century by “Come, here’s to you,” or “I’ll pledge you.” Now, we toast with the simplified version of ‘Here’s to you’. As the hour of twelve approached, carol-singers would prepare and bell-ringers would place themselves at their post to usher in the morning of the Nativity with lots of rejoicing and with bands of music parading the towns.
In some parishes in the West of England, carol-singers adjourn to the church to sing in Christmas-day, a remnant probably of popery, as in Catholic countries there were frequently church-services held at this time. In the 16th century, Tusser prescribed for Christmas: good drink, a good fire in the hall, brawn, pudding, and mustard withall, capon, or turkey, cheese, apples, nuts, and jolly carols. In rich houses, a wassail cup would be filled with rich wine, sweet and spicy, and with roasted apples bobbing on the surface. In poorer houses, the cup would hold ale with nutmeg, sugar, ginger, and roasted crab apples.
From Harper’s Bazaar:- ‘Advent is the herald of Christmas. In Protestant as well as Catholic countries, choristers and school-boys during the “holy-nights” go from house to house singing songs or Christmas carols to usher in the auspicious day. In the south of Germany, they accompany the singing by knocking at the doors with a little hammer, or throwing pease, beans, or lentils at the windows. Hence the origin of the name of “knocking nights.”
In Bohemia, Styria, Carniola, and other German provinces, people group together and perform Christmas plays during Advent, with simple plots about the story of the Savior’s birth, his persecution by Herod, and the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. The players usually consist of the Christ-child, St. Nicholas or St. Peter, St. Joseph and the Virgin, Herod, the varlet Ruprecht, several angels, together with shepherds and other less conspicuous personages.
The devil is the merriest character because he capers about through the village and furiously blows his horn, frightening or bantering with, the old and young, despite portraying the humble rôle of a messenger. A handsome youth of the strictest morals is usually selected to represent the Virgin Mary. The rehearsal is usually accompanied by a certain rhythmical movement, the players going four steps to and fro, so that a meter or foot corresponds to every step, and on the fourth, which includes the rhyme, the performer turns quickly around. The holy personages sing instead of rehearsing their parts, but accompany their singing with the same rhythmical movement.
On the first Sunday in Advent the play is inaugurated by a solemn procession, headed by the master singer bearing a gigantic star, followed by the others drawing a large fir-tree ornamented with ribbons and apples; and thus they go singing to the large hall where the play is to be performed. On arriving at the door they form a half circle, and sing the star-song; then, after saluting sun, moon, and stars, the emperor, the government, and the master singer, in the name of all the “herbs and roots that grow in the earth,” they enter the hall, and the performance begins.
The prologue and epilogue are sung by an angel. As the whole stage apparatus often consists of only a straw-bottomed chair and a wooden stool, every change of scene is indicated by a procession of the whole company singing an appropriate song; after which only those who take part in the next act remain standing, while the remainder go off singing.
These dramatic representations are often very simple, or only fragmentary, consisting, it may be, of a troop of boys and girls disguised as shepherds and shepherdesses, who go about singing shepherd songs, thus announcing the approaching advent of our Savior. At other times, they are performed from house to house and are associated with the distribution of Christmas presents.
In such cases, they are made the occasion of a solemn inquest into the conduct of the children, and constitute in Germany — which appears to be at once the paradise and purgatory of Christmas-loving juveniles — a potential auxiliary of pedagogic and parental discipline.
The archangel Gabriel, it may be, first appears upon the scene, and thus announces his advent: “May God give you a happy good-evening! I am his messenger, sent from angel-land. My name is Gabriel. In my hands I bear the scepter which the Son of God has given me. On my head I wear the crown with which the Son of God has crowned me.”
Thereupon the Christ-child, wearing a gilded paper crown, and carrying a basket full of apples and nuts, enters, singing the song commencing,
“Down from the high heaven I come,”
and greets the company with a similar salutation.
In the course of his song he informs the children that the object of his coming is to learn whether they have been good and obedient, and if they “pray and spin diligently.”
If so, they are to be rewarded with gifts from his golden chariot which stands at the door; if not, their backs are to be belabored with rods. St. Peter or St. Nicholas, as the case may be, is then called in to furnish a faithful account of the children’s deportment.
If it be St. Nicholas, he enters with a long staff or crozier in his hand, and a bishop’s miter of gilt paper upon his head. His report is not usually a flattering one. On their way from school the children loiter in the streets, they tear their books, neglect their tasks, and forget to say their prayers; and as a penance for all this evil-doing, he recommends a liberal application of the rod. The Christ-child interposes, almost supplicating,
“Ah, Nicholas, forbear.
Spare the little child.
Spare the young blood!”
The two then join with the angel in singing a song, when St. Peter is summoned, who promptly enters, jingling his keys. The saint, who rather plumes himself on his high office of heavenly janitor, carries matters with a high hand.
He examines the children’s copy-books, it may be, bids them kneel down and pray, and then, by virtue of his high prerogative, pronounces sentence upon the unfortunate delinquents, and calls upon the black Ruprecht, who stands waiting outside the door, to execute his orders.
“Ruperus, Ruperus, enter!
The children will not be obedient.”
The frightful bugbear, dressed in fur, and covered with chains, with blackened face and fiery eyes, and a long red tongue protruding out of his month, stumbles over the threshold, brandishing an enormous birch, and as he falls headlong into the room, roars out to the children, “Can you pray?” Whereupon they fall upon their knees and repeat their prayers at the top of their voices.
The five heavenly visitors, standing in a half circle, then sing another song or two descriptive of the heavenly joys, or freighted with wholesome advice to both children and parents. The latter give them in return a few farthings, while the Christ-child scatters apples and nuts here and there upon the floor for the further edification of the children, and then Christ-child, St. Nicholas, St. Peter, the archangel Gabriel, and devil exeunt.
St. Nicholas, as all the world knows, is the patron of children, with whom he is the most popular saint in the calendar. Bishop of Myra, in Lycia, in the time of Constantine the Great, if we are to credit the Roman breviary, he supplied three destitute maidens with dowries by secretly leaving a marriage-portion for each at their window. Hence the popular fiction that he is the purveyor of presents to children on Christmas-eve.
He usually makes his appearance as an old man with a venerable beard, and dressed as a bishop, either riding a white horse or an ass, and carrying a large basket on his arm, and a bundle of rods in his hand. In some parts of Bohemia he appear dressed up in a sheet instead of a surplice, with a crushed pillow on his head instead of a miter.
On his calling out, “Wilt thou pray?” all the children fall upon their knees, whereupon he lets fall some fruit upon the floor and disappears. In this manner he goes from house to house, sometimes ringing a bell to announce his arrival, visits the nurseries, inquiries into the conduct of the children, praises or admonishes them, as the case may be, distributing sweetmeats or rods accordingly.
St. Nicholas is the Santa Claus of Holland, and the Samiklaus of Switzerland, and the Sönner Klâs of Helgoland. In the Vorarlberg he is known as Zemmikias, who threatens to put naughty children into his hay-sack; in Nether Austria as Niklo, or Niglo, who is followed by a masked servant called Krampus. In the Tyrol he goes by the name of the “Holy Man,” and shares the patronage of his office with St. Lucy, who distributes gifts among the girls, as he among the boys. Sometimes he is accompanied by the Christ-child. In many parts of Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands St. Nicholas still distributes his presents on St. Nicholas’s Eve — the 5th of December — instead of on Christmas-eve.
In the Netherlands and adjoining provinces he is especially popular, and is perhaps the only saint who has maintained his full credit, even among the Protestants. For days previous to his expected advent busy housewives have been secretly conspiring with the bakers in gilding nuts, cakes, and gingerbread, and torturing pastry, prepared with flour, sugar, honey, spices, and sweetmeats, into the most fantastical forms, from which the good saint may from time to time replenish his supplies.
As to the children, St. Nicholas or Sünder Klaas is the burden of their prayers, the staple of their dreams, and the inspiration of their songs. As they importune him to let fall from the chimney-top some pretty gift into their little aprons, they go on singing with childish fervor,
“Sünder Klaas da gode Bloot!
Breng’ mi Nööt un Zuckerbrod,
Nicht to veel un nich to minn
Smiet in mine Schörten in!”
In Belgium, on the eve of the good bishop’s aerial voyage in his pastoral visitation of his bishopric of chimney-tops, the children polish their shoes, and after filling them with hay, oats, or carrots for the saint’s white horse, they put them on a table, or set them in the fireplace. The room is then carefully closed and the door locked. Next morning it is opened in the presence of the assembled household, when, mirabile dictu! the furniture is found to be turned topsy-turvy, while the little shoes, instead of horse’s forage, are filled with sweetmeats and toys for the good children, and with rods for the bad ones. In some places wooden or China shoes, stockings, baskets, cups and saucers, and even bundles of hay, are placed in the chimney, or by the side of the bed, or in a corner of the room, as the favorite receptacles of St. Nicholas’s presents.
In the Western world, where Christmas is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts are attributed to a character called Santa Claus. He is also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, St. Nikolaus, Sinterklaas, Kris Kringle, Joulupukki, Weihnachtsmann, Saint Basil and Father Frost.
Father Christmas, who predates Santa Claus, was first recorded in the 15th century and then associated with holiday merrymaking and drunkenness. Today’s version of Santa Claus was created by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who drew a new image of the character annually, beginning in 1863.
By the 1880s, Nast’s Santa had become the one now know and in the 1920s, this image was used in most advertising. In Victorian Britain, his image was remade to match that of Santa and France’s Père Noël (Papa Noël) evolved the same way and eventually began using the same Santa image.
Angels – Heralds for the news of the birth of a baby in a manger.
Bells – Bells have rung out for all important events for centuries, plus lost sheep are found by the sound of the bell.
Candy Cane – Symbolizes the crook of the shepherds who visited Christ. Red represents the blood that was spilled and white is for purity. The peppermint oil that flavors is known for its strong healing properties.
Cards – Produced in Britain in 1843 to be sent with love to family and friends around the world by the new Postal services.
Carols – Poems and stories of worship made into songs.
Carolers – Groups of people who strolled the streets singing Christmas songs
Feasting – To celebrate the joy of the baby’s arrival on the 25th December.
Gift Giving – The Wise Men bowed before the baby and gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Gold – Decorating using the color of one of the gifts of the wise men.
Green – Decorating using the color of evergreens which show everlasting love.
Holly – Represents Eternal Life and the crown of thorns worn by Jesus.
Mistletoe: In the 18th Century, men kissed a woman who stood under mistletoe to show love, friendship and goodwill. If a woman was un-kissed, she would (supposedly) never marry.
Nativity: The birth of Jesus Christ
Poinsettia – Red flowers used in countries such as Mexico to symbolize Christmas time.
Stockings – Hung by children to receive gifts
Twelve Days of Christmas: Twelve days between the birth of Christ on December 25 and the coming of the Magi on January 6, the Epiphany.
Tree – Evergreen tree symbolizes eternal life and love
Wreath – Made of evergreens to symbolize never ending love
The word ‘carol’ comes from the old French ‘carole’ for a song written and played as a courtly dancing song. Carols then took on a more popular form, telling stories and celebrating religious themes for all seasons until the late 19th century when they became associated with Christmas.
Carols took the place of Psalms in all churches on Christmas Day and, as the whole congregation could join in, were greeted with huge approval. Carols were passed on orally from place to place, often with different words or tunes. The published carols included songs still popular today, including The First Noël, I Saw Three Ships, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. This collection was followed by compilations of carols from other scholars such as William Sandy’s works in 1833 and 1852.
