Historical Autumn Traditions
The stories behind harvests, hauntings and fiery nights
Long before the leaves turn, society braces for the autumn. As early as the prehistoric years, the beginning of autumn has been a cornerstone of the northern European calendar heralding an important season for food, feasting and festivities. But food and produce aren’t the only reasons that communities come together each autumn.
In this article, adopted from an English Heritage podcast, Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at the University of Bristol, explains the origins of four autumnal traditions, from fire to feasting.
Lammas
Lammas is a festival that symbolically opens the autumn season. Also known as Loaf Mass, it's marked on or around the 1st August and heralds the start of the cereal harvest, which is some of the most risky, back-breaking and important agricultural work of the year.
Around this time, the first ears of the cereal crop would be ceremonially reaped, baked into the first bread to be made from the new crop of the autumn and offered up in a temple and, later on, a church.
Lammas loaf owl with salt eyes.
Lammas loaf owl with salt eyes.
For those who herd livestock instead of growing corn, Lammas falls halfway through the time of the summer pastures. This meant it was a great time for a meeting up of clans, tribes and families. It also became an opportunity for religious services, feasting, match-making young singles, games and lawsuits.
The health of a harvest was vital for the wellbeing of the community. Until the 17th century, every time the local harvest failed, and the harvest would fail often for a few years in succession in bad decades, people would die of hunger. The number of burials in the local churchyard would more than double.
Harvest itself was laborious and anxiety-inducing. It was very nerve-wracking to be a cereal grower around about July and August because crops, when they've grown tall and high and ripe, are incredibly vulnerable. It just takes one serious storm and the harvest could be destroyed. It can also catch disease from spores blown on the wind or be burned by raiding enemies. And even if none of those things happen, if the harvest is bountiful and the conditions perfect, just the effort of getting it in is back-breaking daily labour. How long depended on the size of the farm but it usually took days to bring it in and with outside assistance.
It depends on the size of the land but the average-sized traditional farm would need help to bring it in. In other words, the family alone wouldn't have been enough to reap it. Later on, farms would usually hire in extra hands for money or for a slap-up meal at the end in order to thank them, or both.
Lammas, of some kind, is celebrated throughout Northern Europe. While known as 'lammas' in English, it's known by other names throughout the continent. For example the Irish call it 'Lughnasadh' and the Welsh 'Gwyl Awst'. The concept of celebrating a beginning of autumn festival is pre-Christian, but Lammas is the Christianised version most commonly recognised today.
Images: A Harvest Festival service in an English country church © Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo and An old engraving of a Garrett ‘English’ threshing machine powered by a steam engine in the 1800s © M&N / Alamy Stock Photo.
Harvest Home
If Lammas is about opening the harvest, Harvest Home is about celebrating the end. It’s the conclusion to the year’s efforts and sees communities coming together to thank, and or pay, those involved. This festival would usually include music, dancing and other entertainment as well as a substantial meal, which was a particular highlight for the poor who would be able to feast to capacity.
The festivities for Home Harvest take place at varying times around the end of the season, depending on the local trade. For example, those communities dependent on cereal crops might celebrate in August, while those who work predominantly with fruit or vegetable growing experience later harvests so their celebrations often took place in September. Likewise fishing communities, who harvest at sea, would welcome home fleets at the end of September as the weather worsens so their events would take place then. And finally, those involved in herding livestock would have gathered in October.
It stands to reason that the term ‘Home Harvest’ may have also been referred to by alternative terms, but essentially a gathering, or reunion, of communities to celebrate the end of harvest was historically experienced by all sorts of harvesting communities.
While Home Harvest doesn’t traditionally align with the autumn equinox, in the 20th century it’s become a widely observed festival for those interested in nature-related or nature-based spirituality or religion, such as modern Paganism. This is because people have largely broken away from personal involvement in the farming or fishing cycle. Home Harvests are less common too, mostly because of the mechanisation of agriculture means farmers generally need less input from others. Instead it’s been replaced by harvest festivals held in churches and Harvest Home celebrations for entire communities like villages, rather than working groups. For this reason the celebrations are observed on different weekends during August and early September so different villages can attend each others celebrations.
Image: Harvest Home during the 18th century in Britain © Colin Waters / Alamy Stock Photo.
Halloween
Perhaps the most well-known of the autumn festivals is Halloween. But its traditional origins do not reflect the spooky costuming or sweet exchanges we see today. Essentially Halloween, celebrated today on 31st October, is the ancient Northern European festival to mark the opening of winter and the end of autumn. At the same time communities traditionally prepare for the bleakness of winter so the festivities tended to have a darker approach to celebrating.
Typically this is the time of year where people in an ancient medieval community who have been away for the summer herding, fighting, trading or on pilgrimage would be returning to settle for the winter. The harvest would be in, the beer brewed and the animals that couldn’t be fed through the winter had been slaughtered so fresh meat is readily available. On the other hand, everyone was facing the most terrifying season of all, winter.
Not dismissilar to today, even the best winters will provide dirt, isolation, claustrophobia, cold, dark, a lack of greenery and an immense potential for boredom and depression. In a bad year, and of particular concern to our ancestors, winter will also bring famine, epidemic disease and hypothermia.
Mocking the spirits of dark and cold and fear has always been a part of these earliest Halloween festitivies. One such tradition is the carving of faces in vegetables and the creation of glowing lanterns. We see this continue today but the widespread popularity of pumpkin carving is actually an American practice. Here in England we carved turnips or mangel-wurzels, which are larger versions of turnips. Still, this practice wasn’t associated with Halloween until the 19th and 20th centuries so it’s relatively new compared to the historic roots of Halloween.
Traditionally carved turnips.
Traditionally carved turnips.
Another aspect of Halloween that many know and love is the concept of trick-or-treating. Again put down to American tradition, the origins are actually a lot closer to home. It comes from the practice of the poorer members of the community going around the richer members or providing entertainment to obtain food and drink for their own feasting. This custom was taken from Ireland by mass Irish immigration to America in the 19th century and that's how the Americans turned it into trick-or-treat.
Overall we can look to America for the commercialisation of Halloween, but essentially it’s applying a traditional festival with a seasonal need to the modern market.
Bonfire Night
Not strictly an autumn tradition, but closely regarded, is Bonfire Night on 5th November. These festivities are traced back to the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and recognise the night Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up parliament and assassinate James I during the Opening of Parliament. The plot was a terrorist conspiracy, or a conspiracy by freedom fighters depending on polarising perspectives.
Guy Fawkes.
Guy Fawkes.
Had Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators been successful, the amount of gunpowder stacked up by the plotters would've been like a small nuclear device blowing away not just the Palace of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament, but also Westminster Abbey and the entire surrounding area of Westminster.
Traditionally effigys of Guy Fawkes are burned on bonfires, but historically it was the Pope, as head of the Catholic Church, who was featured. By the 19th century, society became more of a multi-faith community and the last restrictions on Roman Catholics were lifted. At this point Guy Fawkes started to replace the Pope as a kind of ‘stage villain’, and by the 19th century he became the ubiquitous effigy we think of today. While the religious connotations may not be front of mind in modern society, the celebration continues to inspire with a tradition of fireworks and a classic bonfire festival. To many minds it represents the beginning of winter, cheered up with a night of fire and frivolity.
Images: © GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.
Learn more about Autumn traditions on the English Heritage podcast. Then, celebrate Autumn your way this season with tours, events and crafts for the whole family. Visit our Autumn Days Out page for more information and ideas.
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