* Blogmanac | June 29 | Eve of St Peter -- more Midsummer madness
Tomorrow in the English Christian tradition is known as the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, but it is often referred to as St Peter’s Day, and today is commonly known as St Peter’s Eve. It’s another night of Midsummer revelry.

In olden times, bonfires were burnt on this night, composed of contributions called ‘boons’, echoing the old pre-Christian, pagan custom of putting bones on the ‘bone-fire’. People danced with almost frantic pleasure on this night, with the men and boys jumping through the fire, not to show their prowess as much as to observe the ancient custom.

People would go walking about the towns much of the night. “Every citizen either went himself, or sent a substitute; and an oath for the preservation of peace was duly administered to the company at their first meeting at sunset. They paraded the town in parties during the night, every person wearing a garland of flowers upon his head, additionally embellished in some instances with ribbons and jewels” (Robert Chambers, The Book of Days).

In the middle ages, about two thousand men would parade through London's streets tonight, garlanded with flowers and bedecked with jewels. The ‘watchmen’ as they were known, were provided with ‘cressets’, or ceremonial torches carried in barred pots on long poles, and there were bonfires in the streets. (See modern use of a large cresset here.)

A poet, looking back from 1616, wrote:

The goodly buildings that till then did hide
Their rich array, open'd their windows wide,
Where kings, great peers, and many a noble dame,
Whose bright pearl-glittering robes did mock the flame
Of the night's burning lights, did sit to see
How every senator in his degree,
Adorn'd with shining gold and purple weeds,
And stately mounted on rich-trapped steeds,
Their guard attending, through the streets did ride,
Before their foot-bands, graced with glittering pride
Of rich-gilt arms, whose glory did present
A sunshine to the eye, as if it meant,
Among the creset lights shot up on high,
To chase dark nights forever from the sky;
While in the streets the sticklers to and fro,
To keep decorum, still did come and go,
Where tables set were plentifully spread,
And at each door neighbour with neighbour fed.

In 1510, England’s King Henry VIII came to watch the St John's Eve procession (June 23); a few nights after he came with his wife Catherine to see the procession on St Peter's Eve (this custom was also carried out on St Paul's Eve, January 24, and St Peter's Eve, June 28). However, later in his reign he banned it, probably in fear of such a large assembly of armed citizens. Patrick Collinson notes:

“‘Those days’ were already distant when this was remembered, in 1567. When, in 1568, a cleric of Birchington in Thanet ‘brought a faggot out of his chamber’ on St Peter’s Eve and lit the traditional bonfire this was a punishable offence.”


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