#french holidays

[mask131]

Autumn feasts of France: La Saint-Martin

From "L'inventaire des fêtes de France d'hier et aujourd'hui"

La Saint-Martin (in English Martinmas), celebrated on the 11th of November, used to mark the end of the agricultural work and the beginning of winter in Europe. On this day, there were autumn fairs in the countryside. A thanksgiving mass was organized, followed by a heavy meal centered around a goose dish. It was during this meal that the new wine was tasted (in France there was a verb based on Martin's name, meaning "to drink the new wine": "martiner"). Just like Halloween, another celebration of this time period, Saint-Martin was, in northern France and in Germany, a day during which groups of children with lanterns walked around the town, to conjure away the dangers of the days shortening. Nowadays, the 11th of November is the day of the 1918 Armistice.

Saint Martin (the person) was famous all across Europe, and gave his name to numerous villages. More than three thousand churches and chapels in France are dedicated to him. Born in 316 in Pannonia (current Hungary), saint Martin was part of the Roman army. A famous episode of his life is how he split his coat in two, to share it with a poor man who was cold, near Amiens (in the Somme region). The following night, he dreamed that the man was actually the Christ in disguise. Converted to Christianity, he was baptized in 356 and became priest under the bishop of Poitiers, saint Hilaire. Martin founded the Ligugé abbey (in Vienna) and was elected bishop of Tours in 372. He died at Candes (Indres-et-Loire region) in 397 - his grave is still a very popular place of pilgrimage.

Martinmas was a celebration surrounded by numerous autumn traditions, and evoking the fact that the granaries and cellars were full. For example, a thanksgiving meal was organized to thank God for the harvest (or, in more pagan ways, to celebrate the harvest god). This tradition was maintained in America with the Thanksgiving celebration - when American families gather on the last Thursday of November to eat a turkey. In Dunkerque, the evening of Martinmas, children organized a procession, holding lanterns while walking behind saint Martin riding his donkey. According to the legend, children were rewarded for finding back the lost donkey of the saint - said reward took the form of pastries placed during the night on the doorway of houses, and known as "donkey poop".

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #WorldLizardDay 🦎:

Maurice Pillard Verneuil (French, 1869 – 1942) “Lézard" Plate 25 in L’animal dans la décoration (Paris, 1897) NYPL collection

[vintagepromotions]

'In all skies'

Air France travel poster (1935). Artwork by Roger de Valerio.

[toyastales]

French Dip Sliders

[worldtalks]

French Polynesia

[diogeneswannabe]

This tweet is peak French culture lmao

"We're not even hyped up for the sports we just want to see how catastrophic it's gonna be, it's gonna be peak entertainment lmaoo"

[miramelindamusings]

The moment there is a bit of cool weather where I live, all I can think about is rumbelle. I've been thinking alot about Lacey too so here are a few of the sketches I've done :)

[autumnalmess]

Les mis twitter: *sees that one illustration of Cosette* put that girl in a situation immediately

[inspiredlivingspaces]

IG beckiowens

[apenitentialprayer]

Hi, perhaps a silly question, but why is it called Christmas, the mass of Christ, when every mass is "of Christ"? Like, why isn't it called Birthmas or something?

That is not a silly question, because I don't have a clear answer for this, either!

We call it Christmas ("Christ's Mass") in English following a tradition going back at least a thousand years; our oldest English name for the holiday was Cristes-messe. The roughly contemporary High Middle German name for the holiday was Diu Wīhe Naht ("the Holy Night"), while the French were calling it Noel (related to the Latin word for "birth," as in "birthday," as in "Christ's birthday"). So there seems to have been variations on what exactly to call the holiday at the beginning of the second millennium, at least.

So, in some languages there is a name for the holiday that explicitly emphasizes the birth of Christ; Latin and its descendants do this. But the Germanic languages seem to have more variability in what they call the holiday. English is Christmas, as already established, and Dutch follows this naming scheme (Kerstmis); German uses Weihnachten, which pluralizes the High Middle German to "Holy Nights," referring to the twelve days of Christmas; whereas the Scandinavian languages use some variation of Jul, which just means midwinter holiday and where English also gets the word Yule.

Why this variation exists, I cannot tell you, sorry.

[mask131]

Autumn feasts of France: Le jour des Morts

Taken from "L'Inventaire des Fêtes de France, d'hier et d'aujourd'hui"

Le Jour des Morts - the Day of the Deads - on the 2nd of November, was for the Christians the day during which all the dead were to be remembered. It is following All Saints Day (the first of November), feast of all the martyrs and all the saints. Christians, who believe in the resurrection, are convinced that physical death is not the end of their relationship with God: for those that deserve it, death is merely a needed travel towards heaven.

The cult of the defuncts (from the Latin "defunctus", "those that have fulfilled their functions"), present in all civilizations, dates back to Prehistory. The cult of the martyrs (from the Greek "martur", "witness"), celebrated in Rome as soon as the early 7th century BCE, is a form of defunct-worship. This Day of the Deads, or "Jour des Trépassés", Day of the Deceased, placed right after the Toussaint (All Saints Day) was only truly expanded into a full holiday by the monks of Cluny. Saint Odilon, the abbot of Cluny, established it in the beginning of the 11th century in his monasteries, after learning by a pilgrim of Jerusalem all the torments that the deads had to endure "in the furnace in Vesuvius" or in "a deserted, volcanic island". Saint Odilon is in fact usually invoked to grant respite and rest to the souls of purgatory (according to the Christian dogma, the purgatory is a "time of trial allowing the purification of those that are allowed to share the happiness of God").

The Day of the Dead used to be a "jour chômé" (a non-working day). At the end of the 19th century, in the Bretagne region, survived the tradition of burning in the chimney, on Toussaint's evening (the night of All Saints Day), a log, reserved only for the deads that were supposed to visit the house during this night. It was forbidden to use this "log of the dead" for things such as cooking food or heating people. This log is comparable to the Christmas log, which was also very solemnly burned in the chimney. This custom also shows the sacred dimension of the Celtic celebration of Samain (which became Halloween), a time for celebrating the new fire. In Cornwall, a "bellboy of the dead" led a group of people, the bellboy dressed with a tunic covered with bones and tear motifs, and ringing the bells to a funeral tone. Starting at nine o'clock in the evening, they wandered from door to door, singing all the way to sunrise rhymes encouraging people to stay awake and not fall asleep (or to wake up if they were asleep), so that they could pray for the dead. They also begged for money each household they visited - and the collected money was used for funeral masses.

In several regions of France, this nocturnal "Wake up" chant did exist - but it was used for the Holy Week, as people sang to wake up the Christians so that they would "go see our (the singers') master, who died for you".

Nowadays, the Toussaint/All Saints Day replaced the Day of the Dead in the customs of many Christian, since it is upon this day that families gather in cemeteries to place flowers upon the graves of their ancestors.

[arthistoryanimalia]

For a belated #WorldAlbatrossDay:

1. Pl.6, Oceanic birds of South America, V.1, New York, 1936

2. Pl.40, Wild life of the world, London, 1916

3. Pl.XXVI, Le monde de la mer, Paris, 1866

Via BHL

[vintagepromotions]

Air France travel poster for the Middle East (c. 1950). Artwork by Jean Even.

[toyastales]

Crème Brûlée

[nailsandinspo]

[nailsonblackwomen]

#kikinails_ebeauty