I’ve never written a holiday novel or novella, but I have written books that include Christmas, and it’s fun to look and see what traditions that are familiar to us now would also have been familiar to my characters. Sometimes, the answers are surprising. I turned, as I often do, to THE ENGLISH YEAR by Steven Roud. A lot of what we associate with Christmas now is decidedly Victorian, and was built upon a mythos of a “Merrie England” that never existed. But if you dig back, there are LOTS of local traditions that fell by the wayside during the industrialization of England (as people moved away from home, they didn’t practice their traditions which would have been strange to their new neighbors, and didn’t adopt those of their new homes, as they were strange to them). But those of us who write in the 18th century and the early 19th century can still draw on those local traditions. And those writing in the Victorian era can make hay with the reinvention of that “Merrie England” to which most of our current Christmas traditions harken back. If your book is set post 1847, you can even have Christmas Crackers!
Yule Log with bands by Roger Griffith Wikimedia Commons
Many places had traditional dances, murmmers, plays, wassails, etc. A book like Roud’s is great for researching these local festivities, as is Wikipedia. And there is always the Yule log. Not writing someone in a grand house with a giant fireplace? Perhaps “the ashen faggot” is more their speed? A bundle of twigs around a larger log, all held together with fresh/green branches (willow was also used). People would sit around and sing carols and cheer when the “withes” burst. Cider would be passed and drunk as the bands broke, and in some traditions, the bands were assigned to girls, prediction who would marry first. I can see lots of fun being had with this in a village hall or a more modest home.
In places with a church with bells, someone (or a team of someones) might have been found “ringing the devil’s knell” on Christmas Eve. There must be one ring (about every two seconds) for every year since Christ’s birth, timed to end at Midnight. This is something you can do in any setting.
Decorations. Historically, they were not put up early as we do now. That was considered unlucky. And they usually consisted only of greenery and candles (anything that was evergreen could be used, but of course holly and mistletoe were popular). Mistletoe, then as now, was a kissing game, but you had to pluck a berry off the ball of mistletoe for each kiss and when the berries were gone, so were the kisses.
Trees. Yes, it is commonly asserted that Christmas trees were introduced by Prince Albert in the late 1840s, and that’s certainly when they spread to the masses, but they were introduced much earlier by other Germans who immigrated (including Queen Charlotte). Charles Greville noted one in 1829, that the Princess Lieven had three large trees in pots put upon a table, lit with small candles, and surround by gifts for the children.
Do you have a favorite Christmas tradition or a favorite Christmas romance? I think mine is the way my parents always wrapped our presents from “Santa” in white tissue paper with real cloth tartan ribbon. It was very “Merrie England” and “Ye Old Christmas, and I absolutely adored it. I think this Christmas I’ll start doing that for my niece and nephew.
As I pondered a topic for this month, a friend suggested “spring fashions” and here’s what happened: 1) I decided fellow Risky Isobel’s expertise on Regency fashions so far exceeds my own, I should leave that topic to her, and 2) I started to suffer an almost rabid craving for spring in England. Is anyone else feeling it?
Spring comes earlier to England, at least to much of it, than it does to my own location in New England, in the U.S. I recall vividly my surprise to discover snowdrops blooming in London in January the first time I ever crossed the pond. This month, March, is when I usually begin to look for them here, and not this early in March, either, despite the very mild weather we’ve recently had here.
But, oh, in England! March is a month for daffodils and other spring flowers we are only still wishing for where I live. Here the green tips are only just beginning to show in the gardens. I found some potted primroses in my local market and had to buy them, even though they are already fading. This tiny watercolor by E. Daniels (it’s only 2 inches by 2 ¼ inches) graces a shelf in my office, a beloved souvenir from a past trip to England that gives me primroses year-round.
In The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare wrote: “Daffodils/That come before the swallow dares, and take/ The winds of March with beauty”. This image has lasted through the centuries. The seasons and nature offer a wonderful bridge between us and the past. The same kind of March winds that Shakespeare mentioned are roaring outside my windows today as I write this, even if I haven’t yet any nodding daffodils. These kinds of seasonal details help us as storytellers trying to make our historical fiction feel real. We need those threads of common experience that transcend the centuries to help anchor our characters and plots!
Several of my books are set in late spring, or at least begin then. In my first one, A Perilous Journey, I took a little liberty to have my characters find late-blooming daffodils even though it was May, but at least they were in the north on their way to Scotland…. I’ve always loved the playful cover created by artist Alan Kass for the original (OP) Signet edition of that book. (It is only available now from Penguin Intermix as an ebook.)
The arrival of spring, when it finally does come here, probably won’t cure my craving for England (I am sooooo overdue for a visit!). However, it will help. In the meantime, I’ll go out and check the forsythia to see if it has started to bud. I’ll bring some branches inside to “force” into bloom and tide me over while I wait! I’m certain that’s something a Regency heroine might do, if I ever start a story in March. But not with forsythia, and not because it would already be blooming. It wasn’t introduced in England until after the Regency. A Regency heroine would have to use flowering quince, or pear, apple, or cherry branches from the orchard, or lilacs, or mock orange or….hmm, more research required. Perhaps she’ll just pick some daffodils!!
Where do you like to ferret out what would be blooming when in your stories? Or, what sources do you love to go back to for inspiration, not necessarily information? My favorites for inspiration include both the Country Diary and the Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady (Edith Holden), even though these are not from our period. For sheer visual inspiration, I’m currently enjoying a lovely book called The Writer’s Garden: How Gardens Inspired Our Best-Loved Authors, by Jackie Bennett with photography by Richard Hanson. A picture book that visits the homes and gardens of 19 authors, starting with Jane Austen at Godmersham and Chawton, it is a visual treat and a delightful way to travel by armchair! I highly recommend it, especially if you’re craving spring and it hasn’t come yet where you are!!
Champagne.
Today we associate it with special occasions and luxury. Its bright, sparkling
quality seems a natural fit with festivity. But what was its status during the
Regency? “They didn’t have champagne during the Regency.” “They had champagne
but it wasn’t bubbly.” “They couldn’t have it back then because the bottles
exploded.” I hear comments like these frequently.
Research rabbit holes –don’t we love them? I had researched
enough to be certain of the scene in my December release, Lord of Misrule, where
the characters are drinking champagne at a fancy New Year’s ball. I avoided the
full-on rabbit hole then (deadline pressure can stop that). But I’m not under
as much pressure right now. Pursuing a different (but related) topic for one of
the spin-off stories spawned by LOM has led me back to the rabbit hole of the
history of champagne. Let’s find out the truth or error behind all those
comments, shall we?
Some of the confusion seems to come from failing to
distinguish between wines made in the Champagne region of France and the
bubbly wine we call champagne, which did originate and take its name from
there. Bubbly or “sparkling” wine has been around since wine started to be
made. The Romans had sparkling wines. But bubbly wine wasn’t considered a good
thing, originally. Bubbles in the wine were a flaw, along with the leftover
sediment and cloudiness that usually accompanied the bubbles. Bubbles came from
interrupted fermentation, a process that wasn’t well understood. Dom Pérignon,
a 17th century Benedictine monk in the Champagne
area, is sometimes credited as “the inventor” of champagne. But the truth is
that no one “invented” it. It arises from a natural chemical process.
Legend has it that Dom Pérignon exclaimed, “Come, for I am drinking stars!” when he
first tasted sparkling champagne wine. That hints at an enthusiasm history
contradicts, for the monk actually dedicated much of his life to looking for
ways to prevent the tendency of Champagne
wines to fizz. In the process of his search, he did invent several techniques
and advanced the understanding of how fermentation happens. But I suspect this
“legend” may be a creation of the dedicated PR efforts of champagne makers
expanding their markets during the later 19th century.
Champagne (the area) is in northeastern France, and the coldness of their winters often stopped the fermentation process until spring, when warmer temperatures triggered the process to start again. Wines produced in more southerly parts of France did not have this problem, and the Champagne wine makers, including the Benedictines, wanted to be able to compete. Besides this “inferior” quality that bedeviled their wines, French bottles were not very sturdy and the bottled bubbly wines did often explode, sometimes setting off a chain-reaction that could wipe out large portions of their stock.
The English actually can claim more of the credit for changing attitudes about sparkling Champagne wines, for they began to appreciate the bubbly stuff before anyone else. The English began to “make” champagne by adding extra sugar into the French wines when they were bottled, ensuring that additional fermentation would occur and create the “fizz”. From the 17th century English glass-makers used coal fires instead of wood fires as the French did, resulting in sturdier glass. By the 18th century they also introduced the process of using molds, producing a uniform vessel to contain the wines shipped over from France in barrels, and the use of cork stoppers, a practice lost since the Romans. Champagne wines shipped during the cold months and bottled by merchants in England would start fermenting again inside the English bottles, but due to the superior methods, the bottles would not explode.
The Marquis de St-Evremond is credited with making Champagne wines fashionable in London in the 1660s, a healthy development for the French wine exporters. France’s interest lagged behind until early in the next century, when Philip, Duke of Orléans, popularized sparkling champagne during his regency from 1715 to 1723. Between that time and the start of the French Revolution, many still-recognized “champagne houses” were founded, specifically as makers of sparkling champagne. (Ruinart (1729), Moët & Chandon (1750), Louis Roederer (1776), Veuve Clicquot (1772), Abele (1757), and Taittinger (1734), among others). Many did not grow grapes at all, but purchased grapes or wine already pressed from the vineyards to make into champagne.
Still, in this period it is estimated that only about 10% of the wine produced in the Champagne region was turned into sparkling champagne. The rest was regular “still” wine, usually of a pale pinkish color. Sparkling champagne went from being the bane of wine-makers trade to a luxury item in high demand in courts and the highest society of Europe. The spread of its popularity was furthered by the French Revolution, which sent many of the French nobility fleeing to other parts of Europe, bringing their taste for champagne with them.
The Napoleonic wars
caused blockades in many European ports, but enterprising champagne agents
found ways to smuggle their product out of France all the same. During those
war years, champagne was harder to procure and even dearer in price than
before, but demand was high and people still obtained it. Napoleon’s march on Moscow helped to spread the popularity of champagne to Russia, for the wine merchants’ agents went to Russia along
with and sometimes ahead of the armies.
Madame Clicquot with her great-granddaughter
A French woman was responsible not only for growing the
popularity of champagne during our period but also for vastly improving the
quality of the product. Married to businessman Franҫois Clicquot when she was
21 years old, she became a widow at age 27 when he died in 1805. Known then as “Veuve
Clicquot” (the widow Clicquot), she took over the management of his businesses
and focused on the production of champagne.
Her most famous improvement was the invention of “riddling”, a process which removed the cloudy sediment and dead yeasts which could mar the appearance and taste of champagnes up to that time. The problem of removing it without releasing all of the “fizz” had never been solved. Various dates (1812, 1815, 1816) are given for this accomplishment, as she tried to keep the process a secret after she developed it. However, evidence suggests it was in use by 1811-12 when her company produced their “Cuvée de la Comète,” the first ever “vintage champagne”, honoring that year’s famous comet. In 1812 or 14? Veuve Clicquot’s lead sales agent smuggled a quantity of the Comet Champagne into Russia, even though French wines had been banned by Tsar Alexander I after Napoleon’s invasion. The wine’s quality was so outstanding that even the Tsar became an eager customer.
Sparkling wine in riddling racks
I’ve left out a lot of information, of course. But I can see where the various comments I quoted at the beginning of this post each have some grain of truth buried in them. “They didn’t have champagne during the Regency.” (During the war years it was much harder to obtain, and it was not exactly the same wine that we drink today –sweeter, for one thing, from the added sugar.) “They had champagne but it wasn’t bubbly.” (Most of the wines produced in Champagne continued to be “still” wines. Also, the champagnes they did have might have fewer bubbles if they were decanted to try to remove the sediments.) “They couldn’t have it back then because the bottles exploded.” (Until the French caught up to the English methods of creating glass bottles and sealing them, this was definitely a problem in France (and probably some of the time everywhere!)
The science behind making champagne made great strides just after the Regency period, and with it came more improvements and refinements in taste. The system of identifying champagnes as “extra-dry” or the driest “brut” also date to the middle of the 19th century and later. But wealthy Regency people were definitely drinking champagne, we can have no doubt. Do you ever drink champagne? Do you have a favorite brand? Do you remember having champagne to celebrate a special occasion?
Note from Amanda: Thanks to my computer choosing last weekend to have a Complete and Utter Meltdown, I was not able to post Elaine Golden’s guest blog! She has graciously agreed to reschedule for today–and is offering a giveaway as well! Welcome to the Riskies, Elaine…
One of the things I love most about writing historical romance is the research. Oh, I don’t particulraly care about poking around in dusty tomes, but I do love to learn little tidbits about how things were, how people thought and lived differently than they do today. I’ve been known to get lost randomly flipping around in an encyclopedia, or the modern day equivalent by following curious links in Wikipedia. I even keep a Historical Trivia page on my blog filled with odd historical facts (as well as blurbs and excerpts!).
The old author’s adage suggests to “write what you know.” Research is an essential tool to understand the dynamics of the era, and to present a story that will immerse readers in the culture and trappings of an historical romance.
The Internet is such a vast resource for historical research. There are wonderful bloggers who share their knowledge of the era, digitized maps and images and period publications, and there are endless photographs from tourists and travelers. So very many resources available at our fingertips!
And such interesting things I have discovered as I research the Regency era for my Fortney Follies series published by Harlequin Historical Undone! –The British Regency nearly began 22 years before the Regency Act was passed on February 5, 1811. The reigning George III suffered several bouts of mental illness during his reign and in 1789 Parliament almost passed the Regency Act after a great deal of debate. Only a swift recovery from the King at that time stopped things. I blogged about it earlier this month on the Harlequin Blog.
–When researching the origin of the Regency phrase “in the pink” I discovered the phrase’s origins–and a whole lot more. Dod you know the color pink was considered a “masculine” cover until the 1940s? I blogged about all things to do with pink on my site…
–The Prince Regent loved Brighton and taking the waters there. And he had a favorite bather, a local character named Martha Gunn. I’ve also blogged about bathing in Brighton, Prinny, and Marth on my site!
Earlier this month Diane Gaston posted some great links on Regency research. In addition to those wonderful sites, some of my own favorite Internet links include: —The Online Etymology Dictionary: Not a traditional dictionary, but an explanation of the origin of words and what they meant at various points in time. Ever wonder if a word is historically accurate? What it meant to the Regency hero or heroine? You’d be amazed at how the meaning of a word can change so radically over the centuries!
–Historical Map overlays with Google Maps: Match historical avenues and parks to today’s view of the world!
Do you have a fun bit of Regency trivia to share? Favorite website for Regency research?
Comment on this blog post for a chance to win an electronic copy of my debut Regency romance, An Imprudent Lady! I’ll select two winners at random at 6 pm Pacific time on Wednesday, February 23…
And do check out other Undones! These short sexy romances are perfect when you have limited time but want a great romance to read. Michelle Styles generously shares this month with me, offering a sexy Roman-era romance with The Perfect Concubine
