Comment by 14113
5 days ago
My understanding is that churches were built next to yew trees, not yew trees planted next to churches.
Pre-Christian religions had many associations with yew trees (they live for a long time, give off mildly hallucinogenic gasses on hot days, discourage animals), and so built their holy sites around them. When Christianity came to Britain, churches were deliberately built on pagan holy sites to overrun the old religions, in the same way that early Christianity took over roman holy days (Saturnalia -> Christmas, Lemuria -> All Saint's Day). This led to churches being built next to sites with copious yew trees.
The Christmas/ Saturnalia link is a myth.
No, it isn’t:
https://www.academuseducation.co.uk/post/how-saturnalia-beca...
Yes, it is.
Look at your source — hardly authoritative! And the so-called evidence... Thin, entirely circumstantial, and in places actually wrong.
For example, Saturnalia went — at its longest - until the 23rd, not the 25th. Moreover, Christians likely got the 25th date based on religious calculation[1], not with reference to the one of the ancient festivals Victorian "historians" liked to speculate about.
The article attempts to link gifting verses to writing Christmas cards — a Christmas tradition not popularised until the 19th C and no older than the 17th.
Feasting and exchanging of gifts, much less the greeting "lo saturnalia" — literally the only other "evidence" presented here — need hardly be addressed, given how ubiquitous such things are with regard to festival, and how thin the apparent connection.
There is no positive evidence for this link, hence it not being taken seriously by any modern historian. It is no more than outdated speculation.
[1] https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?id=3007366&url=art...
4 replies →