Lammas
Lammas Loaf Mass Day | |
---|---|
1 August | |
Related to | Plough Sunday, Rogation days, Lughnasadh |
Lammas (from Old English hlāfmæsse, "loaf-mass"), also known as Loaf Mass Day, is a Christian holiday celebrated in some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere on 1 August. The name originates from the word "loaf" in reference to bread and "Mass" in reference to the Eucharist.[3] It is a festival in the liturgical calendar to mark the blessing of the First Fruits of harvest, with a loaf of bread being brought to the church for this purpose.[2] Lammastide falls at the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox.[4][5] Christians also have church processions to bakeries, where those working therein are blessed by Christian clergy.[6]
While Lammas is traditionally a Christian holy day, some neopagans have adopted the name and date for one of their harvest festivals in their Wheel of the Year. It is also the same date as the Gaelic harvest festival Lughnasadh.[7]
Name
The name 'Lammas' comes from Old English hlafmæsse meaning "loaf mass".[8]
Several antiquarians suggested that the name 'Lammas' came from 'lamb mass'. John Brady[9] supposed that tenants of the Cathedral of York, dedicated to St Peter in Chains, of which this is the feast, were required to bring a live lamb to the church.[10]
Another name for the feast in the Middle Ages was the 'Gule of August'.[11] It has been suggested, following the 18th-century Welsh clerical antiquary John Pettingall,[12] that this is an anglicisation of Gŵyl Awst, Welsh for "feast of August".[8]
History
In Christianity, the offering of
In
For many villeins, the wheat must have run low in the days before Lammas, and the new harvest began a season of plenty, of hard work and company in the fields, reaping in teams.[15] In the medieval agricultural year, Lammas also marked the end of the hay harvest that had begun after Midsummer. At the end of hay-making a sheep would be loosed in the meadow among the mowers, for him to keep who could catch it.[15]
Historian Ronald Hutton writes "the time that the first of the harvest could be gathered would have been a natural point for celebration in an agrarian society".[8] He says it is likely "that a pre-Christian festival had existed among the Anglo-Saxons on that date".[8] Folklorist Máire MacNeill linked Lammas with the Insular Celtic harvest festival Lughnasadh, held on the same date, and suggested the Anglo-Saxons adopted it from the Celtic Britons.[8] She highlighted the apparent lack of a Continental Germanic festival on 1 August, and the apparent borrowing of the Welsh name Gŵyl Awst, 'Gule of August'.[8] However, Hutton says that "MacNeill's thesis of a pan-Celtic seasonal ritual, like her reconstruction of pagan rites, is so far un-proven" and to prove it "would involve a detailed knowledge of the religious calendar of the Anglo-Saxons before they arrived in England, which is impossible".[8]
Lammas Day was one of the traditional
Ann Lewin explains the Christian feast of Lammas (Loaf Mass Day) and its importance in the liturgical year:[1]
August begins with Lammas Day, Loaf Mass Day, the day in the Book of Common Prayer calendar when a loaf baked with flour from newly harvested corn would be brought into church and blessed. It's one of the oldest points of contact between the agricultural world and the Church. The others were Plough Sunday in early January, the Sunday after Epiphany and the day before work would begin again in the fields after Christmas festivities, when ploughs would be brought to church to be blessed; and Rogation days in May, the days before Ascension Day, when God's blessing would be sought on the growing crops.[1]
Today, in the
The Lammas loaf should ideally be baked by members of the congregation, using local produce wherever possible. Other small loaves or buns, in the tradition of 'blessed bread,' may be distributed to the congregation. Part of the Lammas loaf may be used as the eucharistic bread on this occasion. Two patterns of readings are suggested, the first concerning the offering of the first-fruits and the second concerning the bread of life.[17]
Christians also have church processions to bakeries, where those working therein are blessed by Christian clergy.[6]
In
Other uses
Neopaganism
Some
Horticulture
Lammas leaves or
Exeter in Devon is one of the few towns in England that still celebrates its Lammas Fair and has a processional custom which stretches back over 900 years, led by the Lord Mayor. During the fair a white glove on a pole decorated with garlands is raised above the Guildhall. The fair now takes place on the first Thursday in July.[25]
A low-impact development project at Tir y Gafel, Glandwr, Pembrokeshire,[26] Lammas Ecovillage, is a collective initiative for nine self-built homes.[27] It was the first such project to obtain planning permission based on a predecessor of what is now the sixth national planning guidance[28] for sustainable rural communities originally proposed by the One Planet Council.[29]
In popular culture
In the Inspector Morse episode "Day of the Devil", Lammas Day is presented as a Satanic (un)holy day, "the Devil's day".[30]
See also
- Leyton Marshes
- Ould Lammas Fair
- Shavuot
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84825-090-1.
August begins with Lammas Day, Loaf Mass Day, the day in the Book of Common Prayer calendar when a loaf baked with flour from newly harvested corn would be brought into church and blessed. It's one of the oldest points of contact between the agricultural world and the Church. The others were Plough Sunday in early January, the Sunday after Epiphany and the day before work would begin again in the fields after Christmas festivities, when ploughs would be brought to church to be blessed; and Rogation days in May, the days before Ascension Day, when God's blessing would be sought on the growing crops.
- ^ a b Irvine, Theodora Ursula (1919). How to Pronounce the Names in Shakespeare: The Pronunciation of the Names in the Dramatis Personae of Each of Shakespeare's Plays, Also the Pronunciation and Explanation of Place Names and the Names of All Persons, Mythological Characters, Etc., Found in the Text, with Forewords by E.H. Sothern and Thomas W. Churchill and with a List of the Dramas Arranged Alphabetically Indicating the Pronunciation of the Names of the Characters in the Plays. Hinds, Hayden & Eldredge. p. 177.
Lammas or Lammas Day (August 1st) means the loaf-mass day. The day of first fruit offerings, when a loaf was given to the priests in lieu of the first-fruits.
- ^ Gandolphy, Peter (1815). An Exposition of Liturgy. p. 51.
Thus Christ-Mass implies that season when the incarnation and birth of Christ, are commemorated in the Mass. In the same manner are formed Candle-Mass, Michaelmas, Lammas, &c. Lammas-day for instance, which falls on the 1st of August, is derived from the Saxon word Laf, a Loaf and Mæse, or Mass: It having been customary on that day to make an offering to the Church, of a loaf made of new corn.
- ^ a b Daniel, Evan (1909). The Prayer-book: Its History, Language, and Contents. Wells Gardner, Darton. p. 85.
Lammas Day. In the Romish Church this day is known as the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula (St. Peter in the fetters), being the day on which the Apostle's imprisonment is commemorated... Lammas is a corruption of hlaf-masse,*the loaf-mass. In the Early English Church it was customary on this day to offer an oblation of loaves made of new wheat, as the first-fruits of the harvest. In the Sarum Manual it is called Benedictio novorum fructuum.
- ^ "The Agricultural Year". The Church of England. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
- ^ a b "Lammas-tide – 'the bread of life'". Sherborne Abbey. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
Lammas means "Loaf Mass" which used to celebrate the first bread baked from the new crop of grain which began to be harvested at Lammas-tide. Processions to bakeries would take place and those working there would be blessed. Our ancestors, with their celebration of the new bread, recognised the significance of Jesus being the bread of life.
- ^ "You say Lammas, I say Lughnasadh: Christians, Pagans embrace harvest". David Crumm Media. 1 August 2018. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
For Christians, Lammas has been a time for blessing loaves made of fresh wheat. In time, Christians also created a version of the Scottish Highland Quarter Cake for Lammas, which bore Christian symbols on the top. (Catholic Culture has a recipe.) In the Neopagan and Wiccan faiths, Lughnasadh is one of eight sabbaths and is the first of three harvest festivals.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hutton, Ronald (1996). Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press. pp. 330–331.
- ^ Brady, Clavis Calendaris, 1812, etc. s.v. "Lammas-Day".
- ^ Reported without comment in John Brand, Henry Ellis, J.O. Halliwell-Phillips, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, new ed. 1899: vol. I, s.v. "Lammas".
- ^ J. P. Bacon Phillips, inquiring the significance of "gule", "Lammas-Day and the Gule of August", Notes and Queries, 2 August 1930:83.
- ^ Pettingall, in Archaeologia or, Miscellaneous tracts, relating to antiquity... (Society of Antiquaries of London), 2:67.
- ISBN 978-0-8054-2691-5.
- ISBN 978-0-8010-2075-9.
- ^ a b c Homans, George (1961). English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century, 2nd ed. 1991. p.371.
- The Church of England. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7151-2238-9.
- ^ Child, Francis James (1889). The Battle of Otterburn. Houghton Mifflin. p. 293.
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ignored (help) - ISBN 9789004163737.
- ISBN 9780522847826.
- ISBN 9781868726530.
- ISBN 9780909223038.
- JSTOR 2257253.
- ^ Guinness, Bunny (16 Aug 2006). "Late summer growth". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 November 2012. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
- ^ Parkman, Chloe (2 July 2020). "Bizarre Devon glove event cancelled for only third time in 900 years". DevonLive. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
- ^ "Project homepage".
- ^ "Self build central images".
- ^ "Annual Monitoring Report (PDF)" (PDF).
- ^ "Image Archive | One Planet Council". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ^ 'Inspector Morse' The Day of the Devil (1993) Reviews & Ratings, retrieved 18 September 2017