Speaker 1: School of Humans. Oh, the Puritans. I think the last
Speaker 1: time I talked about them was in the first episode
Speaker 1: when we had the New Haven Colony where they're all
Speaker 1: those dudes who were or were not being seduced by
Speaker 1: their hogs. And I just want to say, I want
Speaker 1: to reiterate on the record, bestiality, buggering. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's great. If I was in charge of the colony,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't hang someone for doing it, but I
Speaker 1: would be extremely disappointed in them, you know, maybe give
Speaker 1: them a few lashes. I don't know. I also don't
Speaker 1: really want to do violence. Wow, I'm such a good person.
Speaker 1: But the Puritans were back at them today, specific the
Speaker 1: ones who came over in sixteen twenty to form the
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Bay Colony. And something that is ironic about the
Speaker 1: Puritans is that, you know, they were pure, et cetera,
Speaker 1: but they also stank. Yeah, when they came over, several
Speaker 1: Indigenous people were recorded saying how stinky the pilgrims were
Speaker 1: and they had to hold their noses. And it's true
Speaker 1: the Puritans they didn't really bathe. They also hated water,
Speaker 1: and you know what another thing they hated was Christmas
Speaker 1: And in sixteen fifty nine, when they just couldn't bear
Speaker 1: witness to any more happiness. The Puritans were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we hate Christmas because it doesn't make sense with the Bible,
Speaker 1: So you can't celebrate it any of you. No more Christmas.
Speaker 1: And so over twenty two years, from sixteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: to sixteen eighty one, no one and the Massachusetts Bay
Speaker 1: Colony was allowed to celebrate Christmas. If they did, they'd
Speaker 1: be hit with a five shilling fine. Uh, the stakes
Speaker 1: are high. So today's episode, we're talking about stinky people
Speaker 1: who deemed Christmas a filthy holiday. Wow, look at me
Speaker 1: connecting it to the title of the show. Ha haha.
Speaker 1: Cue the theme music. This is American filth. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Gabby Watts. Each week I tell you a filthy story
Speaker 1: from American history. This week's episode canceled Christmas. Okay, so
Speaker 1: a lot of this episode we're actually not even gonna
Speaker 1: be in America. But you guys, calm down. It eventually connects. Okay.
Speaker 1: So to really get why the Puritans banded Christmas, we
Speaker 1: got to travel back in time to a Christian historian
Speaker 1: named Sextus Julius Africanus, who lives sometime between one's sixty
Speaker 1: and two forty AD. It's like, bro, why are you
Speaker 1: being a historian? We haven't even finished the history yet. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Sextus was the first person to connect Jesus' birth with
Speaker 1: December twenty fifth. Here was his logic. He was like, hmm,
Speaker 1: March twenty fifth, that's the date of the spring equinox.
Speaker 1: And yes, that's not the day anymore apparently planets and shit,
Speaker 1: but this isn't a science podcast. I don't know. But
Speaker 1: the spring equinox, that's the longest day of the year,
Speaker 1: and that also marks the fertile spring time, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of like fertility, the date of creation. That could
Speaker 1: be the date of Jesus's conception. So basically, that's the
Speaker 1: day that Joseph and Mary did not have sex, so
Speaker 1: then the Son of God he would come out about
Speaker 1: nine months later, which would be December twenty fifth. Early
Speaker 1: Christians were influenced by the writing of Sexist because I mean,
Speaker 1: why not, I mean, his name is Sexus Africanus. Basically,
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say is his name sounds like
Speaker 1: sex Anus. Sorry. But also, the Christians were looking for
Speaker 1: a holiday because they wanted to compete with the Roman
Speaker 1: tradition of Saturnalia that was being celebrated all around them,
Speaker 1: and that holiday one week before December twenty fifth, non
Speaker 1: Christian Romans would decorate their homes with pine branches and
Speaker 1: other natural materials, close businesses, schools, and courts, and go
Speaker 1: caroling for money, all in honor of the farming god Saturn.
Speaker 1: They traded in the togas for colorful garments and even
Speaker 1: gave their slaves time off to participate in the festivities. Wow,
Speaker 1: so nice of them. Sometimes slaves would say the head
Speaker 1: of the table while the masters served them for a change,
Speaker 1: and together they would all get wasted. Some sources say
Speaker 1: that the slaves even taught the nobles to stick their
Speaker 1: fingers down their throats and throw up so that they
Speaker 1: could what make room for more booze. This week long
Speaker 1: ritualistic celebration also involved animal sacrifice, which pleased the gods
Speaker 1: and provided meat for the coming winter season, and may
Speaker 1: have even included human sacrifice in the lean years yum
Speaker 1: yum cousin meat. Tradition also called for gift giving. Candles
Speaker 1: were a common gift signifying the returning light to the earth.
Speaker 1: Other gifts included cage birds and dolls. Some of these
Speaker 1: dolls were clay figure we called signalaria, which was a
Speaker 1: callback to the early tradition that did in fact involve
Speaker 1: human sacrifice. So even though you're not doing human sacrifice,
Speaker 1: at least celebrate that you did at some point good
Speaker 1: job had on the back. In one holiday game, families
Speaker 1: would hide coins and cakes, and whoever found the coin
Speaker 1: was deemed the prince or princess and the lord of misrule.
Speaker 1: It became their responsibility to create mischief during the season,
Speaker 1: insulting guests, wearing outrageous clothing, chasing women, and saturnalia. Cumulated
Speaker 1: in the winter solstice on the Julian calendar December twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: and the early Christians were jealous. They're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: these guys are having so much fun. So they decided
Speaker 1: to celebrate too. But they would not honor the existence
Speaker 1: of multiple gods. Oh no, that would be scandalous. No,
Speaker 1: they would revel in the joy brought about by the
Speaker 1: birth of Jesus. The first known Nativity celebration was held
Speaker 1: at the Church of Rome in three point thirty six
Speaker 1: a d. Nine years later, Pope Julius the I named
Speaker 1: December twenty fifth as the official birth date, which coincided
Speaker 1: nicely with the longest darkest night of the year and
Speaker 1: the final day of Saturnalia. Other early members of the
Speaker 1: Church claimed, of course, Christ chose to be born that
Speaker 1: day because of the symbolism of light increasing after that
Speaker 1: you're in the darkest day and he brings the light debt.
Speaker 1: As Christianity developed, they decided they would allow the solstice
Speaker 1: rituals to continue so long as they too were in
Speaker 1: celebration of the birth of good Old Jesus Christ. So
Speaker 1: for over a thousand years after that, Christmas was celebrated
Speaker 1: with the Nativity and just happened to include some leftover
Speaker 1: pagan rituals. During this thousand years, the Catholic Church increased
Speaker 1: their zesa for imposing their will upon everyone in Western Europe,
Speaker 1: with religious law and courts and local priests participating in
Speaker 1: what was essentially a bureaucracy of religious officials enforcing Catholic domination,
Speaker 1: the ideals of which reinforce social inequality. Basically, they'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the monarchs, the noblemen, they're closer to God than everyone else, duh.
Speaker 1: And if they're close to God, that means they know
Speaker 1: how everything works, and there's no room for thinking outside
Speaker 1: of the box. They're basically like, yeah, the earth is
Speaker 1: flat and everything happens because God willed it, and anyone
Speaker 1: who doesn't agree can shut up and go to help,
Speaker 1: and you know, blah blah blah. Crusades murdered death, la
Speaker 1: la la la la. But eventually people were like, I
Speaker 1: kind of don't like you guys telling us what we
Speaker 1: have to do. And by the sixteenth century, European Christianity
Speaker 1: had split in two, and then eventually there was like
Speaker 1: a gazillion competing subgroups of Christianity. That's what Martin Luther
Speaker 1: showed up. He was basically among the first people to
Speaker 1: outwardly be like, hold up, this doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: You clergymen are mean and violent, and you expect us
Speaker 1: to believe that God talks to you. I can read,
Speaker 1: and you're not telling the truth about what the Bible says.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. A lot of people didn't read, so
Speaker 1: they would just simply follow the church's orders blindly. But
Speaker 1: Luther was like, you guys are just like people, sinners,
Speaker 1: just like the rest of us. This questioning of the
Speaker 1: system grew into a full on rejection of the papal system,
Speaker 1: and that's the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther
Speaker 1: was like, yo, if we learned to read, we can
Speaker 1: interpret the Bible for ourselves, then we won't have to
Speaker 1: listen to these assholes anymore. And yes, this is a
Speaker 1: great oversimplification of what happened, but you know what, we
Speaker 1: got to get back to America at some point. We're
Speaker 1: not there yet, but we're in there. Eventually, the Protestants
Speaker 1: in the UK formed the Church of England, a church
Speaker 1: with Protestant ideals, but one that was also deeply corrupt,
Speaker 1: and even that was still a bit too Catholic. Ye
Speaker 1: for some Protestant folks who eventually became the Puritans. And
Speaker 1: the Puritans, to simplify their belief system is they were
Speaker 1: obsessed with being pure, and they were opposed to anything
Speaker 1: that was fun. They didn't want to do anything that
Speaker 1: wasn't literally prescribed by the Bible. They believed that everything
Speaker 1: happened because of divine providence, and the more they suffered,
Speaker 1: the more rewarded they would be in the afterlife, which
Speaker 1: is why a lot of them pieced out to the
Speaker 1: New World to do their own thing. Because even the
Speaker 1: Church of England was like, y'all need to chill out,
Speaker 1: you need to relax, drink a little, which is really
Speaker 1: saying a lot. And the king at the time was
Speaker 1: Charles the First, who was trying to dissolve Parliament and
Speaker 1: have ultimate power. He was like, I believe in the
Speaker 1: divine right of kings. I will not listen to Parliament,
Speaker 1: so they should go away. But a high ranking military
Speaker 1: official and politician named Oliver Cromwell showed up and challenged him,
Speaker 1: causing a war. Cromwell was a Protestant and a rebel.
Speaker 1: He studied at a peerdance school in Cambridge. It was
Speaker 1: dedicated to his version of a purified life. He led
Speaker 1: his fellow Protestants in a fight for a more balanced
Speaker 1: government in one and as his first order of business,
Speaker 1: he beheaded King Charles for treason. But then two separate
Speaker 1: versions of Parliament arose in succession, and Cromwell tried to
Speaker 1: lead them, but it didn't really work. Plus there was
Speaker 1: a ton of conflict over Ireland and Scotland, so he
Speaker 1: was like, I will create a protectorate and I am
Speaker 1: now the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. Basically
Speaker 1: a King. But whatever Cromwell, I suppose he was sowing
Speaker 1: some seeds to early democracy, at least trying to challenge
Speaker 1: the abuse of pas. And that's where the Puritans come
Speaker 1: back in the ones in Massachusetts Bay. I told you
Speaker 1: we were going to get back to the point of
Speaker 1: the whole podcast. The Puritans in Massachusetts Bay were taking
Speaker 1: their cues from Cromwell, since he, like them, was a
Speaker 1: Puritan and he had fought for them against the monarchy
Speaker 1: as Lord Protector. Cromwell had imposed his own ban on
Speaker 1: Christmas starting in sixteen forty four, and the Puritans in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Bay wanted to follow suit, but they were busy
Speaker 1: trying to stay alive in the New World. As they
Speaker 1: established themselves, though, they wanted to do things their own way,
Speaker 1: and in the words of the governor of the Massachusetts
Speaker 1: Bay Colony, John Whitthrop, they wanted to be a city
Speaker 1: on a hill, a model of proper society and lifestyle
Speaker 1: for all other nations and people. And they could only
Speaker 1: do that by putting the needs of the community first
Speaker 1: over the needs of the individual. And all those principles
Speaker 1: came from the Good Book. And I'm being honest, it's
Speaker 1: not really that good of a book like I definitely
Speaker 1: it could use some edits. It's too long, it drags anyway.
Speaker 1: So basically the only people who could vote or hold
Speaker 1: office in Massachusetts Bay were church members, and so the
Speaker 1: power stayed in the hands of the Puritan church elite.
Speaker 1: These clergymen claim that there wasn't even evidence of an
Speaker 1: actual day to mark the birth of Jesus. It was
Speaker 1: not in the Bible, and therefore on December twenty fifth
Speaker 1: there was no reason to celebrate. They argued instead that
Speaker 1: December twenty fifth, and the words of Oliver Cromwell, should
Speaker 1: be a day of fasting and humiliation, where men should
Speaker 1: turn inward, reflect on and feel the shame of their sins.
Speaker 1: Just be like, ooh father, I'm so bad, I'm saw wee.
Speaker 1: And the Pagan or early Roman roots of the widely
Speaker 1: practiced Christmas rituals did not help its case. It was
Speaker 1: associated with sin after all, you know, it's not family friendly.
Speaker 1: It encouraged drinking all day long, also overeating. Gluttony ugh
Speaker 1: so bad. Usually on Christmas, raucus parties would leave people blackout,
Speaker 1: drunk and stumbling home in the dark. It was a
Speaker 1: time for vagabonds, just these groups of men that would
Speaker 1: wander the streets and knock on doors demanding handouts of
Speaker 1: money and food like figgy pudding. Do you guys know
Speaker 1: that song about figgy pudding? I always thought it was
Speaker 1: really weird because it basically goes, so bring us some
Speaker 1: figgy pudding. Yes, bring some right here. We won't go
Speaker 1: until we get some. We won't go until we get some.
Speaker 1: We won't go until we get some, So bring some
Speaker 1: right here. But that was like that song. That's not exaggeration.
Speaker 1: These vagabonds, these dudes, they would wait at doors demanding
Speaker 1: food and burst in rating rich people's houses if they
Speaker 1: were turned away. Figgie pudding? Is that good? Another tradition
Speaker 1: of the Christmas season that the Puritans found especially scandalous
Speaker 1: was called mummy. Men would dress like women and vice versa,
Speaker 1: and visit neighbors houses. Honestly, back in this time before
Speaker 1: the band, Christmas sounded even more fun. A Bishop Hugh
Speaker 1: Lattimore wrote about Christmas, men dishonor Christ's more in the
Speaker 1: twelve days of Christmas than in all twelve months. Besides,
Speaker 1: so in the Massachusetts Bay Colony they banned the holiday
Speaker 1: altogether in sixteen fifty nine. We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: these doothing advertisements. So the Massachusetts Bay Colony has banned Christmas.
Speaker 1: But the thing is around the same time. Just the
Speaker 1: year before Cromwell died, his son took over as Lord
Speaker 1: Protector and was like this is hard and resigned. And
Speaker 1: guess who became the new leader, Charles the Second the
Speaker 1: air to Charles the First, who had just been executed.
Speaker 1: Parliament resumed. We're back to kings and queens. Also, Christmas
Speaker 1: is back, so that's right. The Christmas band in England
Speaker 1: was overturned just as the Massachusetts Puritans were imposing theirs.
Speaker 1: They kind of got on the train too late, but
Speaker 1: they dug their heels in. They're like, this is how
Speaker 1: devoted we are to taking the Bible seriously. See God,
Speaker 1: we're suffering for you. Ooh, hurt me. Dandy signs were
Speaker 1: posted all over the colony that read all caps, public notice,
Speaker 1: the observation of Christmas having been deemed a sacrilege. The
Speaker 1: exchange of gifts and greetings, dressing and fine clothing, feasting,
Speaker 1: and similar satanical practices are hereby forbidden. That's right, guys.
Speaker 1: When you wear fine clothing, you're supporting Satan. And the
Speaker 1: thing is, despite the ban being lifted by Mother England,
Speaker 1: the Puritans kept it in place for twenty two years.
Speaker 1: And I guess the nice ironic thing is that a
Speaker 1: lot of the Peertons came to America to escape religious persecution,
Speaker 1: but then when they got to America, they just did
Speaker 1: it to everyone else. Can you believe it? A bit hypocritical?
Speaker 1: Some would say that is the foundation of the United
Speaker 1: States of America. Some would say not me. I have
Speaker 1: no opinions about anything, as you can tell in this episode.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, even though they had that band
Speaker 1: for twenty two years, there wasn't a ton that, you know,
Speaker 1: the Purton leaders could do to prevent people from dressing
Speaker 1: up and dining together. So a lot of people just
Speaker 1: celebrated anyway, but behind closed doors. And sometimes people would
Speaker 1: still get a little bit too drunk on December twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: and they would have to pay that whopping fine of
Speaker 1: five shillings. But then eventually, because again this was still
Speaker 1: an English call, the Puritans who were in charge of
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Bay, got a lot of pressure from the British
Speaker 1: government to lift the ban, so they did in sixteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, and then once we get into the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: before the Revolutionary War, it seemed that most of colonial
Speaker 1: society accepted Christmas as a sacred holiday. And then once
Speaker 1: the US won independence, there's a lot of bantering about
Speaker 1: how to deal with all the Christmas stuff. But don't forget,
Speaker 1: there was this thing called capitalism, and shop owners saw
Speaker 1: the opportunities that the holiday brought, so they're like, we
Speaker 1: should celebrate this holiday and sell some shit. And now
Speaker 1: here we are today when you got to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money on gifts for people and then they
Speaker 1: don't even really like the gift that much, but they pretend.
Speaker 1: But you still have to spend a lot of money
Speaker 1: to give them stuff they don't even want because we
Speaker 1: don't even need all that stuff. Maybe that's just me.
Speaker 1: Is this relatable? I'm trying to be relatable. So for
Speaker 1: all of y'all who are going to be celebrating Christmas
Speaker 1: this year, just remember what the Puritans thought, that celebrating
Speaker 1: Christmas means you're doing the will of say ten And
Speaker 1: I think, obviously we learn a lot from every American
Speaker 1: filth episode, and I think what we really learn is
Speaker 1: that religion is for sure one real and not a
Speaker 1: tool used by people in power to control you. So
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc. Etc. We aren't going to
Speaker 1: have an episode next week because I'm going to take
Speaker 1: a break, but we'll be back in the new year. Xoxo, Gabby. Bye.
Speaker 1: American filth is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast. I'm your host, Gabby Watts. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Julia Chriscau. It was sound designed by Jesse Niswanger.
Speaker 1: He also helped me make the theme song Wow. Our
Speaker 1: senior producers Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 1: Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr. Please like, subscribe, review to
Speaker 1: the show wherever you listen. Also follow along on Instagram
Speaker 1: at American filk Pod Bye School of Humans.