An Easter Miracle

Happy Easter.

For practising Christians, the biggest miracle of all was the Resurrection of Christ. Miracles and miraculous events have become part of human culture and feature in every community, whether real or imagined. Here’s an Easter miracle you might like.

Christians have long celebrated Easter with a big feast, long before they celebrated Christmas. It was to mark the end of the period of fasting called Lent. For one medieval Irish abbot the Easter feast led to a truly life-changing miracle.

We only know about this abbot from one source, the “Book of Fermoy”, or “Leabhar Fhear Mai” in Irish Gaelic. This is a collection of poems, genealogies, histories and fables written in Ireland during the mid-15th century. The book gets its name from the home of the Roche family who feature many times throughout the book.

The story of the abbot appears about halfway through the book, sandwiched between an account of the Roman Emperors and a retelling of the Old Testament story of Enoch and Elias. It’s a short story, but will need a bit of explaining to comprehend its relevance.

The story goes like this (and I’ll keep referring to the character as abbot and not abbess, which I’ll explain later):

The protagonist of the tale is a young man who was the Abbot of Drimnagh near Dublin. One day, as preparations were being made for the Easter celebrations, he wanders out to a nearby hill to rest. He puts his sword down beside him and falls asleep. When he wakes the abbot is startled to find that she has become a beautiful woman. Even her sword has changed. It is now a distaff, a spindle for spinning, the occupation traditionally associated with unmarried women (hence an unmarried woman is often called a spinster).

Before she has fully come to terms with her change, and ugly old crone approaches her. The crone listens to the abbot’s story, and she says it is not safe for a young woman like her to be out on the hill as night approaches. Wild animals will attack her. The abbot decides she cannot return to her abbey and seeks shelter in the neighbouring monastery at Crumlin.

On entering the grounds she meets a handsome young man, the monastery’s chief administrator, who immediately falls in love with the abbot. The abbot offers no objection, and very soon the couple are married. Yes, abbots could get married in those days. In fact, this transgender abbot is already married, which will be revealed later.

This unusual couple are married for seven years and they have seven children. Then, as their eighth Easter together approaches, the young monastery administrator is invited to the celebrations in Drimnagh Abbey. The man gathers his entourage together and, with his wife, travels over the hill to Drimnagh.

On top of the hill the abbot feels very sleepy and persuades her husband and the entourage to continue, and she’ll follow them later. She then falls asleep.

A short while later the abbot awakes. Another shock awaits, as he realises he has turned back into a man. Instead of being relieved he is quite distressed. How can he explain himself to his husband and their children? How is he going to explain his seven year absence from his abbey?

Fortunately, the monks at the abbey accept his explanation and he steps back into his role as abbot without question. But what about his husband? Also, what about his own wife? When the abbot explains his long absence to her, his wife can’t understand what he means, because as far as she is concerned he’s only been away for one hour!

The abbot tries to explain to his husband what has happened. His husband seems to accept the situation. He remembers all of their seven years together, and that the abbot is the mother of their children. Again, fortunately, an amicable resolution is achieved, and they agree to let the abbot raise three of their children.

And that’s the end of the story. Firstly, the reason why I chose not to refer to the abbot as an abbess during her transition is to do with monastic governance. Some male monastic institutions could be headed by a woman, usually if there it also includes a separate community of nuns. This would be set out in the institution’s foundation charter. The fact that this character changed into a woman does not negate the terms of his abbey’s foundation charter. Only the head of the monastic order could stop her from being called an abbot, which didn’t happen in this story.

It is clear that this story was not historical but apocryphal. It’s what medieval literature termed a “fool story”. “Fool” in this context means “humble” and refers to what we would call a fable. Some historians think it may be based on real events. The abbot’s children may refer to seven pieces of land a real abbot owned, and that it deals with the division of that land into three and four parts between two monasteries. But, we’ll never know.

However, there are other elements which illustrate early medieval monastic practice. Medieval abbots didn’t have to be celibate. They could marry. There were hereditary abbots in Celtic Christianity who were usually lay members of the religious institution, quite often local aristocracy (perhaps descended from the original founder). One famous hereditary abbot is King Duncan I of the Scots (murdered by Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play) who was the hereditary Abbot of Dunkeld.

The story also contains several examples of medieval fairy lore. Hills have often been regarded as magical locations, particularly in Celtic mythology where they are often said to be the homes of fairies. The ugly old crone is the tale is also a common disguise for a fairy, as is indicated by her meeting the abbot on the fairy hill.

There have been a lot of commentaries of this story in recent years which centre on the transgender element and gender identity. Although these may have some validity in the mind of the commentator, modern transgender and identity attitudes shouldn’t be applied to ones that didn’t exist when the story was written. The medieval audience would no more understand the concept of transgender than they would about chocolate or digital technology. There are many stories of magical gender transformation in legends around the world. I’ve written about some of them on this blog. Unlike modern transgender issues, not one of them is the result of a personal choice to change gender (or species) without any supernatural means.

Another common folk motif is time distortion. Even though the abbot’s wife and the monks only think he’s been away for an hour, he and his husband remember seven years together. This time distortion is a common feature of tales involving people falling asleep on a fairy hill.

So, did you like this fable of a medieval Easter miracle? There’s still a lot in it which is difficult for historians to explain, but perhaps they shouldn’t try too hard. Like modern literature and media, the story meant something to the people who wrote it and the people who first heard it. There are clues in there which historians have yet to find, but in the end it’s simply a story. It doesn’t need to be fully explained to be enjoyed.

Advent 4: Some Basil for the New Year

Of around a hundred Christmas gift-bringers I have researched over the past four years one of the more well-known is St. Basil (c.330-379). He is the gift-bringer to the Greek nation and the millions of people of Greek heritage around the world. Basil delivers his gifts on New Year’s Night, because his feast day is January 1st. Those of Greek heritage will know more about the traditions associated with him than I do.

Recently, historians has looked at Basil’s close relationship with St. Gregory Nazianzen (c.329-390). An increasing number suggest their relationship was homosexual but platonic. I’m very wary about adding people to my files just because someone said he or she was lgbt+. But, as with St. Francis of Assisi, there might be a grain of truth in this case.

A lot of people in the lgbt+ community, and elsewhere, don’t really understand the concept of Christian love and its written expression. Its not sex. With Saints Basil and Gregory it is pure Christian love – soul-mates without all the baggage of sex. Basil and Gregory may be the perfect patron saints of same-sex couples.

Both were born into wealthy families in what is now Turkey. St. Basil is variously named as Basil of Caesarea or Basil the Great. Many members of his family also became saints – his parents and all of his siblings. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nazianzus, or Gregory the Theologian, was about the same age and, like Basil, both of his parents became saints.

Both were among the first generation of Christians to be born after the Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in 312 and his decree of religious tolerance of all faiths. This meant that they grew up without the threat of persecution and murder.

Part of their privileged education took place in Caesarea in Cappadocia, now Kayseri in Turkey. It is there that the two saints are thought to have first met just about the time they were approaching 20 years old. They then continued their education in Constantinople, named by and after the emperor. After that they then went to Athens.

In 356 they went their separate ways for a while. Basil travelled around before returning to Caesarea to practice law. Gregory remained in Athens before returning to Nazianzen, the town near his birthplace, after which future historians named him.

Gregory’s father was Bishop of Nazianzen and he ordained his son. Gregory was rather reluctant to accept. It wasn’t because he wasn’t a Christian. Legend says that on the ship sailing to Athens a few years earlier a huge storm threatened to sink the vessel. Gregory prayed that if the ship reached Athens intact he would dedicate his whole life to God. What he had in mind was life as a solitary monk, not an ordained minister in the community. But now that he had accepted ordination his father was now his boss. Years later Gregory wrote that his father’s actions were an “act of tyranny”. Anyway, Gregory did what he thought was best. He ran away.

Meanwhile, Basil gave up the law and, like Gregory, decided on an ascetic, monastic life. However, he soon discovered that solitary living wasn’t for him. He gave away his inheritance and returned to his family estates at Annesi and gathered a few like-minded followers in a monastic commune, which included several members of his family. There Basil wrote extensively on monastic life which became the blueprint for monastic rules in the Greek Orthodox Church. It was to Annesi that Gregory retreated to after he ran away.

Basil attended the Council of Constantinople in 360. This is a significant event in Christian history because it was called to settle a dispute among theologians. Some said that Christ was similar to God the Father but was not God the Son (putting it oversimply). Basil agreed, but by the end of the council he had changed his mind. From this council the current Christian doctrine which developed into the Holy Trinity was formulated. St. Patrick famously illustrated the concept of the Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit) by pointing out that a single shamrock leaf has three separate parts but is still one leaf.

The main supporters of the “losing” side at the council were called the Arians (nothing to do with Aryans and the Nazis) and they were declared heretics. The debate, however, didn’t go away. Both Basil and Gregory were to spend years opposing the Arian supporters. They even agreed to take part in a public debating contest against Arian theologians. They absolutely trashed the Aryans with their arguments and eloquence and were declared victors of the contest.

By 373 Basil had become Bishop of Caesarea and he consecrated Gregory as Bishop of Sasima. Gregory was, again, reluctant to accept and it led to some tension in their friendship. Gregory later told Basil that he was not to be used as a pawn in Basil’s own power play. Despite this, their close relationship remained intact. They had their separate lives, but they lived together on and off, collaborating on various theological treatises or living in communes.

St. Basil died in 329 or 330, on either 1st or 2nd January. No-one knows for certain. This is why both of these dates were chosen as his feast days. He also has several others throughout the year depending on the Christian denomination. In Greek culture his gift-giving day is January 1st.

St. Gregory preached at St. Basil’s funeral, in which he said: “We became everything to each other; we shared the same lodging, the same table, the same desires, the same goal. Our love for each other grew daily and deeper… We seemed to be two bodies with one spirit”.

I’ve read expressions of Christian love, but St. Gregory expressed it far deeper than many of them. Surely, there was more than just Christian love and a bromance between them.

St. Gregory died in January 390. Like Basil he has several feast days throughout the year. The first of these is on January 2nd, on which he is commemorated with St. Basil. Because of their important writings on Christian doctrine and monastic life, as well as their defence against the Aryans, Basil and Gregory were declared Doctors of the Church.

For all his importance as a Christmas-time gift-bringer I cannot find any image of anyone dressing up as St. Basil in the same way that people dress up as Santa Claus in shopping malls or waving at crowds in Christmas parades. I can’t find out why. Perhaps someone else knows and can tell us.

Above is a video which goes into Basil in more detail. I includes stories I haven’t had room to cover, like his influence on your own health – Basil invented hospitals (his hospital is one of the “7 Gay Wonders of the World”, an article I’m preparing for next year).

I’m taking a break in January and will be back on 1st February, so a Joyful Holiday, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you all.

Game of Gay Thrones 8: Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Byzantium, Murcia, Dai Viet and Anhalt

To mark last Saturday’s historic coronation of King Charles III here is another batch of lgbt+ people who were prevented from becoming sovereign, or who unlawfully declared themselves to be one.

We’ll start with a man who was born into the British royal family but was deprived of his titles by the king.

Prince Hubertus von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1909-1943) – heir apparent of the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

In 1826 the German duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was created. The title of duke eventually passed to the children of Prince Albert von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the husband of Queen Victoria of the UK. By 1917 the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was Victoria and Albert’s grandson, Prince Charles, Duke of Albany.

During World War I Charles (I suppose I should use his German name Karl) fought for Germany against Britain. This prompted the UK to pass the Titles Deprivations Act 1917. This stripped British royals who were fighting for Germany of all their British titles, and the loyal British royals dropped their German titles. This is when the UK Royals adopted the family name Windsor and the Princes of Battenburg became the Mountbattens.

After the war the German Weimar Republic abolished all royal titles, though many remained in use unofficially, as they are still today. The ex-reigning royals became the titular heads of their dynasties. Karl’s eldest son renounced his rights to succeed as head of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty in 1932. The heir became Karl’s second son, Prince Hubertus.

Like his father Prince Hubertus became a high-ranking Nazi officer, but unlike his father Hubertus was actually anti-Hitler. Surprisingly, there are reports that Hitler would have appointed Prince Hubertus governor of the UK after a successful invasion, making him third in rank in the entire Nazi party. It has become apparent through research carried out in the last decade that Prince Hubertus was a closeted gay man. He never married, had no known relationships, or an interest in getting married.

During World War II Hubertus was a Luftwaffe pilot. He was killed when his plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Force in 1943. His father outlived him and died in 1954 and Hubertus’s nephew became head of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family.

Staurakios (d.800) – attempted to become Emperor of Byzantium

Staurakios was one of the many eunuchs who held high positions at the imperial Byzantine court. However, Byzantine law forbad eunuchs from occupying the throne. This didn’t stop Staurakios from trying.

Staurakios was the chief minister and most powerful man in the empire during the reign of Empress Irene, who favoured giving top positions to eunuchs. This was mainly because she distrusted the officials who had been appointed by her predecessor, her late husband Emperor Leo IV. This also meant that those officials distrusted the eunuchs, Staurakios in particular.

Staurakios’s career rose and fell on a regular basis. Irene appointed him her foreign minister (in 781); he was captured by Sultan Harun-al Rashid (782); after his release he gained Byzantine control over Slavic Greece (784); was sacked, flogged, and exiled by Irene’s son Co-Emperor Constantine (790); and then recalled back to Byzantium and reinstated (791).

When Constantine died Staurakios found that he had a rival. He and Aetius, another eunuch appointed to a high position by Empress Irene, began a power struggle to ensure control of the empire after Irene’s death. Aetius accused Staurakios of trying to usurp the throne. Although Irene believed this, all Staurakios got was just a metaphorical slap on the wrist and told not to do it again.

But it does appear that Staurakios was indeed plotting to become emperor when Irene died. In 800 Irene decided to limit his authority over the army, which he was bribing, to prevent him from organising a military campaign against Aetius. However, Staurakios was becoming ill at around this time. His advisers and doctors assured him he would recover and become emperor. So he continued his campaign against Aetius. He should have ignored his advisers and rested. He died a few weeks later.

Muhammad ibn Ammar (1031-1086) – self-proclaimed Emir of Murcia, Spain.

This poet was the lover of Abbad III al Mu’tamid (1040-1095), the Emir and Caliph of Seville, who was also a poet. The two met when they were teenagers and a close bond developed quickly though their love of poetry and each other. However, al-Mu’tamid’s father, Emir Abbad II, was suspicious of ibn Ammar’s influence and banished him. Needless to say, when Abbad II died and al-Mu’tamid succeeded as Abbad III, ibn Ammar was recalled, and he was appointed Vizier.

Ibn Ammar led the conquest of the neighbouring kingdom of Murcia, deposing its emir in 1078. He told the Murcian people that they deserved a better emir, and he decided that this better emir was himself. This displeased Abbad III, who had not given him permission to declare himself emir. The two poets exchanged sarcastic poems, not meant to be malicious, but they both took them personally and their friendship deteriorated. Not only that, but ibn Ammar’s reign as self-appointed emir also deteriorated and eventually he was deposed.

Returning to Seville as a prisoner ibn Ammar misjudged Abbad’s attempts at a reconciliation and, reluctantly, Abbad ordered his execution. Nonetheless, Abbad gave ibn Ammar a sumptuous funeral.

Prince Lê Tuân (1482-1512) – heir presumptive of Dai Viet.

Dai Viet was a medieval kingdom in what is now northern Vietnam. Prince Lê Tuân was the eldest son of King Lê Hien Tong. In 1499 the king was persuaded by his high ranking courtiers to name his successor to ensure the stability of the kingdom.

The king thought Prince Lê Tuân, was unsuitable. He was too hot-heated and often dressed as a woman, so he chose his youngest son as his successor instead. An even bigger reason to overlook Prince Lê Tuân than his cross-dressing was because he had plotted to drug his own mother.

Both of Lê Tuân’s younger brothers became kings of Dai Viet in succession. The first was very popular, but the second was a murderous maniac, disposing of many other royal princes. Lê Tuân thought it best to hide away to avoid the same fate as them.

Lê Tuân’s penchant for wearing women’s clothing didn’t hinder his marriage, and he has many living descendants, all, technically, the senior bloodline heirs of the Lê dynasty of Dai Viet. When Lê Tuân died he was declared as god by the people of the Biansia commune of Dai Viet, which is now part of China.

Prince Aribert von Anhalt (1864-1933) – heir apparent to the Duchy of Anhalt

I briefly wrote about Prince Aribert’s involvement in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 (spoiler alert – next month I’ll be writing about another European gay prince who was even more heavily involved).

The duchy of Anhalt was a small sovereign German state within the German Empire, just as the above-mentioned duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Prince Aribert was the last heir apparent before the Weimar Republic abolished all royal titles.

Actually Anhalt was not abolished by the Weimar Republic with the others. In 1918, the final days of the German Empire, Anhalt saw the year of three sovereigns. Aribert’s eldest brother, the reigning Duke of Anhalt, died childless in April 1918. Aribert’s next oldest brother, Prince Eduard, succeeded but died in September 1918. Eduard’s 17-year-old son Prince Joachim-Ernst then became duke. Prince Aribert was appointed regent for his nephew until Joachim-Ernst became 21. Until a time when Joachim-Ernst married and had children, Prince Aribert was heir to the title.

The day after the Armistice of 11th November 1918 was signed, which ended World War I, Prince Aribert announced the abdication of his nephew and the self-abolition of the duchy of Anhalt. As with Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Joachim-Ernst lost his royal title but became the head of the dynasty. Prince Aribert lost his place as heir when Prince Joachim-Ernst married and had children.

William and John: 7) Pirates and the Last Crusade

This is the final part of the life stories of Sir William Neville, Constable of Nottingham Castle, and his partner Sir John Clanvowe, poet. In Part 6 we looked at how I believe the lives and connections of both Sir William and Sir John created some of the most familiar plots and characters from the legend of Robin Hood. Today we conclude with their final adventuring years.

For the last eighteen months or so of their lives, Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville spent a lot of time abroad. Some of this was on official though unspecified "royal business". This was probably some diplomatic or messenger service but no actual details survive.

In March 1390 Sir John and Sir William made plans to travel to the island of Rhodes. Rhodes was the base of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, also called the Knights Hospitaller. These knights were originally monks whose aim was to found hospitals for sick pilgrims in the Holy Land. Later assuming an additional military function as protectors of pilgrims, the Hospitallers played a major part in the defence of crusader settlements. The Hospitalllers became a major sea power and guardians of Christian sea travel in the eastern Mediterranean which at the time was being ravaged by Muslim pirates based on the North African Barbary coast.

If Sir John and Sir William were intending to go to the Holy Land they would have needed the help of the Hospitallers who knew which routes and locations were currently the safest. At this time there were attacks on Christian bases by the Ottoman Turks as well as the Barbary pirates.

After their visit to Rhodes Sir John and Sir William returned to England. Apparently they were at a jousting tournament in Calais in May 1390 when they heard of a crusade against the Barbary pirates. They may even have heard about it on the journey back from Rhodes or at a spectacular Garter Tournament at Windsor held that year at which they were also present.

For years the Barbary pirates had been attacking shipping throughout the Mediterranean. The Genoese in particular were desperate to rid the trade routes of this menace because, due to their geographical location, their shipping and trade routes were at greatest risk. The Genoese appealed to the French for help which, as there was a truce with England in the Hundred Years War at the time, they freely gave.

Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville made their way down to Genoa. On or about 3rd July 1390 they joined the assembled crusaders and set sail for the North African coast. They had an experienced and capable leader in Prince Louis II de Capet, Duke of Bourbon, so it seemed somewhat foolhardy for him to decide to harbour his fleet at an off-shore island near Tunis for as long as nine days. This gave the Muslims in Tunisia and the Barbary pirates plenty of time to gather their own forces and they were waiting for the crusader fleet when it finally arrived at the port of Mahdia.

The crusaders besieged Mahdia for sixty-one days. There was at least one skirmish in which many soldiers were killed, but for the most part there was a lot of sitting around and waiting. This may seem frustrating to us, but medieval siege warfare was often a long, drawn-out affair, more a question of patience than fighting.

Just how much Sir John Clanvowe, Sir William Neville and the other crusaders knew of secret negotiations being conducted by the Genoese at the time is unknown. Genoese agents had managed to negotiate a renewal of an earlier treaty they had with the Tunisians and a new truce was called. Prince Louis was unable to do anything to prevent this. In effect, the crusade achieved little if anything. The crusaders returned to Genoa, and by October Sir John and Sir William were back in England.

The final journey of Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville began on 10th May 1391. Officially it was on "royal business", again unspecified. Their actual destination is also unknown, but it may be that on completion of their "royal business" they went to Constantinople. There were many English knights undergoing private pilgrimages throughout the decade and there was a growing fashion for combining this with crusading. Perhaps that was why Sir John and Sir William were there.

y the beginning of October 1391 Sir John and Sir William had arrived in Constantinople, the capital city of the waning Byzantine Empire and the home of the Greek Orthodox Christian faith. The Greek Orthodox Church had (and still has) different ecclesiastical liturgies, rites and practices to those of the Latin Catholic west which is subject to the authority of the Pope in Rome. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches lived side by side in Constantinople - literally. There was an uneasy relationship between them and the Pope would hardly approve of western Latin crusaders and pilgrims living among Greek worshippers, whom the Pope officially considered to be heretics.

To avoid major contact with the Greeks crusaders like Sir John and Sir William would stay in a suburb of Constantinople just across the Golden Horn where there was a Genoese trading colony called Pera. Whatever their reasons for visiting Constantinople, neither knight proceeded further. Sir John Clanvowe died in his lodgings in Pera on 6th October 1391. The cause of his death is unrecorded. Plague has been suggested, but no plague in Pera is mentioned in contemporary records for 1391. However, there was plague raging in Morea, Greece (modern-day Peloponnese) that summer. Any number of travellers could have brought the plague to Constantinople, and perhaps Sir John and Sir William had stopped off in Morea or travelled overland from Greece to Constantinople. It is known that a serious outbreak of plague did descend on Pera the following year.

Sir William Neville's death occurred four days later on 10th October. The Westminster Chronicle, written from witness reports, says William was devastated by his partner's death and refused to eat or drink, dying of malnutrition. This is a romantic, and probably true, story, though Sir William's death also from the plague cannot be discounted.

The loyal knights were buried together in Pera in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul. Sir William may have begun arrangements for his partner's burial before his own death. Their travelling companions completed the task by interring Sir William with Sir John. They also arranged for an inscribed marble slab to be placed over their graves. It is this grave slab which provides visual evidence of their relationship.

Some of the retinue and companions of Sir John and Sir William returned to England, where the partners' deaths were reported by January 1392. With them they brought what possessions the partners took with them, and they also took back with them the story of the last days of Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville and how, right at the end, they were "faithful unto death".

Game of Gay Thrones 7: Byzantium, Korea, England and Baden

Here we are again with another group of lgbt royal wannabes. Included are a couple of spouses who, for one reason or another, were prevented from sitting beside their spouses. I never stop being surprised by the number of queer claimants and disinherited heirs to thrones past and present there have been, not to mention their spouses. There are even more to come next year.

Imperial symbol adopted by the Byzantine emperors

1) Basiliskianos (pre-846- after 866); named as a possible Emperor of Byzantium, 866.

The throne of Byzantium has seen more than its fair share of dethronements, assassinations and claimants. Basiliskianos became a pawn in the power struggle between Emperor Mikhael III (840-866) and his lover and co-Emperor Basileios (c.830-886). I explain the emperors’ relationship in more detail here. Briefly, Mikhael spotted Basileios at a sporting event and became besotted with him. He later made him co-emperor.

In 866 Mikhael began to show more than a casual interest in a young courtier called Basiliskianos. After Mikhael won a chariot race Basiliskianos gave him a lot of enthusiastic praise. The emperor was wearing the imperial red boots, and he told Basiliskianos to remove them and wear them himself. This angered co-emperor Basileios and a bit of an argument ensured. Mikhael said to him “I made you emperor, and do I not have the power to create another?” He later added, “I am ready to make Basiliskianos emperor”. He never did, but the possibility was always there and it upset Basileios enough to assassinate Mikhael. There’s no record of what happened to Basiliskianos after Mikhael died.

Imperial emblem on the Joseon kingdom

2) Crown Princess Sun-Bin Bong (1414-after 1436); consort of the future king of Josean.

Sun-Bin was a member of the aristocratic Haeum Bong clan. In 1429 she married Crown Prince Hi Hyang of the Joseon kingdom in Korea. The marriage, however, was not a very congenial one, and it is reported that the king himself told the Crown Prince to take more interest in his new bride. It didn’t help the marriage, and it deteriorated even more when Princess Bong got angry after one of the Crown Prince’s concubines became pregnant.

Another stumbling block in the marriage was Princess Bong’s habit of giving clothes from the royal wardrobe to her own family. But what really put an end to the marriage, and any chance of her sitting on the Korean throne with her husband in the future, was her blatant over-friendliness towards her female servants, in particular a maid with whom she confesses to having been intimate with on more than one occasion.

This was too much for the king and he banished Sun-Bin Bong from court, annulled the marriage, and reduced her to the rank of commoner. As with Basiliskianos above, there’s no real record of what happened to her after that.

Coat of arms the Mervyn, Earl of Castlehaven

3) Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven (1594-1631); consort of the legal heir to King Henry VIII of England.

Before the 1701 Act of Settlement defined the order of succession to the British throne it was sometimes decided by the last will of the previous monarch. King Henry VIII’s will of 1546 decreed that after the extinction of his own descendants the throne should pass to descendants of his younger sister, not his elder sister as would have been the case under primogeniture rules.

After the last of Henry VIII’s children, Queen Elizabeth I, died in 1603 the heir to the throne under his will was Lady Anne Stanley (1580-1647), who should have become Queen Anne. However, parliament decided to ignore the will and gave the throne to the primogeniture heir, the gay King James VI of Scotland. Some people considered Anne to be the rightful monarch though she never pressed her claim.

It is Anne’s second husband, the Earl of Castlehaven, who is our lgbt royal wannabe. Their marriage was disastrous. I wrote about it several years ago and it is best to read about it here because it’s a bit complicated. Thankfully, the whole sordid affair ended in 1631 when the earl was executed and he never got the chance to be the prince consort to the lawful (under King Henry’s will) queen of England.

Coat of arms of the Pinces Sanguszko-Lubartowicz

4) Prince Janusz Sanguszko-Lubartowicz (1712-1775); bloodline heir of King Harold II of England.

The most famous date in English history is 1066 – the year of 4 kings and 2 invasions. King Edward the Confessor died and was succeeded by King Harold II. Harold faced an invasion led by William of Normandy. Harold was killed in battle, but before William could take the throne as the victor one of King Edward’s nephews was declared king. He quickly abdicated in William’s favour.

Several sites online track Harold’s bloodline to determine who is his direct heir. None match my own research, which I believe is accurate. Harold’s bloodline passed through his daughter to the Kievan royal family, then to the Princes of Warsaw, and finally to the Counts Potocki, the present heirs. On the way several senior bloodlines became extinct and switched to surviving junior branches. One such senior line ended with Prince Janusz Sanguszko-Lubart.

Janusz became Harold’s heir at the age of 17 on the death of his mother, the previous bloodline heir. Janusz was a bit of a party animal and squandered his inheritance on parties and his many gay lovers. In contrast, he was also a great benefactor to local religious institutions. In 1730 he entered a dynastic marriage, but he showed little interest in performing his dynastic duty by fathering an heir. His wife soon left him, and Prince Janusz spent the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to have his marriage annulled.

In 1748 his openly gay lifestyle was forced temporarily into the closet when his father imprisoned his lover for fraud. Two years later, his father died and Janusz had another vast inheritance to squander away. Although not interested in politics the king of Poland-Lithuania appointed him a Court Marshal, among other offices.

When Janusz died in 1775 he was in debt and there were no close living relatives on his mother’s side, King Harold’s bloodline, to succeed him. It had to go back to descendants of his great-grandfather’s younger brother, from which it has passed to today.

Coat of arms of the Grand Dukes of Baden

5) Prince Maximilian von Baden (1876-1929); heir presumptive to the Grand Duchy of Baden.

The Grand Duchy of Baden was one of the sovereign states within the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire until it was abolished in 1918. The last Grand Duke was Prince Friedrich II (1857-1928). He was childless and his cousin Prince Maximilian was his nearest living male relative and heir presumptive.

In the 1890s the British Queen Victoria attempted to marry Maximilian to her grand-daughter, Princess Alexandra von Hessen. Alexandra wasn’t interested because she was already in love with the future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. I wonder how history would have been different if Alexandra had married Maximilian. After all, it was Alexandra’s relationship with Rasputin that was one of the causes of the Russian Revolution.

In 1900 Prince Maximilian did marry into the British royal family. His wife was Princess Marie Louise, one of Queen Victoria’s cousins and a member of the “old Royal Family” (i.e. junior descendants of King George III), the Cumberlands. This branch of the family still exists, but most of them sided with Germany in World War I and were deprived of their British royal titles, Princess Marie Louise included.

Before his marriage Prince Maximilian was listed in Berlin police records as a homosexual. This fact was only revealed in a biography of him in 2013. Maximilian and Marie Louise had two children, both of whom have interesting connections. Their son married the late Duke of Edinburgh’s sister (he was named after Prince Philipp von Hessen, heir presumptive of Finland). Maximilian’s daughter married Philipp von Hessen’s twin brother.

In September 1918, when it seemed Germany would lose the war, the Kaiser appointed Prince Maximilian as Chancellor of Germany. The following day the Kaiser offered an armistice to the Allies and Maximilian advised him to abdicate. Once armistice was accepted a political “rebellion” against the Kaiser’s appointments forced Maximilian to resign. A republic was declared, royal titles were abolished, and Maximilian spent the rest of his life in retirement. On his cousin’s death in 1928 he became the head of the abolished Baden royal family, and claimed by monarchists as the rightful Grand Duke of Baden. He died the following year.

William and John: Part 6) Outlaws and Villains

We return to the story of Sir William Neville and his partner Sir John Clanvowe. Last time we concentrated on Sir John’s writings, specifically my theory that he wrote the original version of the Robin Hood ballad later printed as “The Geste of Robyn Hode”, the basis of every film and television version that are familiar today.

Today we look at characters in “The Geste” and discover how some of them can be connected to Sir John and Sir William.

First of all, forget about the characters who don’t appear in “The Geste” – Prince John, King Richard, Maid Marian, and Friar Tuck. They were added to the legends later. So, which of the remaining characters are connected to Sir John and Sir William? Below is a family tree to help explain those connections.

THE HIGH SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The man who appears in "The Geste" is the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, not the Sheriff of Nottingham. (See here for my own connection to the real Sheriff of Nottingham.) He is never mentioned by name, though historians suggest he may have been modelled on Sir Henry Fauconberg. When King Edward II visited Nottingham in 1324 to pardon outlaws, an event which features in “The Geste”, Sir Henry Fauconberg was the High Sheriff.

The Fauconberg family were related to the Nevilles. Sir William Neville’s aunt was married to Sir Walter Fauconberg, whose father leased a manor in Holderness, East Yorkshire, to his second-cousin (i.e. they shared one set of great-grandparents), who the father of High Sheriff Sir Henry Fauconberg.

As a supporter of King Edward in a rebellion of 1322 Sir Henry was rewarded by being appointed Commissioner of Array for Yorkshire, responsible for raising troops for battle. However, he got this appointment at the expense of his predecessor, Lord Waleys, the grandfather of Sir William Neville’s wife, Elizabeth. Lord Waleys’ manors were seized by the Crown and he had to pay a large fine. Even though he was pardoned by King Edward at Nottingham (as Robin Hood was in “The Geste”) in 1324 and had his manors returned, his appointments weren’t and he would have had no good feelings towards Sir Henry Fauconberg.

Other High Sheriffs have also been suggested as the model for Robin Hood’s archenemy.

LITTLE JOHN

In "The Geste" Little John says he is the disinherited heir of a manor in Holderness. Sir Henry Fauconberg had an older brother called Sir John who, for reasons that are not clear, was deprived of manors in both Holderness and Sherwood. However, there is an absence of any recognition between Little John and the High Sheriff when they meet in “The Geste”, though Little John was in disguise at the time and probably didn’t want to be recognised.

GUY OF GISBORNE

This character who doesn’t appear in “The Geste” yet is now an integral part of the legend and can be linked to the Fauconbergs. He first appears in a separate manuscript ballad dated to around 1475.

Historians suggest that Gisborne refers to a town in Lancashire just over the Yorkshire border. However, others have pointed out that in Sir John Clanvowe’s lifetime, Gisborne was also a name applied to the town of Guisborough in Northumberland. Guisborough was a familiar to Sir John Clanvowe and the Neville family as they would have passed through it on their way to the Neville estates in the north, and the lords of Guisborough at the time were the Fauconbergs. So, I believe Guy of Gisborne should today be called Guy of Guisborough.

Bearing in mind that Guy of Gisborne was a bounty hunter it would be the High Sheriff to whom he would have handed Robin Hood. With his Fauconberg connection Guy would be another suitably villainous addition to the ballads. Which makes me wonder, is the earliest surviving manuscript of “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne” copied from one that Sir John Clanvowe wrote a century earlier?

SIR ROGER OF DONCASTER AND THE PRIORESS OF KIRKLEES

Sir Roger of Doncaster and his mistress the Prioress of Kirklees murder Robin Hood in “The Geste”.

Doncaster is a Yorkshire town (and my birthplace) between Barnsdale and Sherwood. A family called de Doncastre lived in the area during the 1300s and some of them held judicial and manorial offices. For instance, Sir John de Doncastre was steward to the Abbot of St. Mary’s in York, an abbott from whom Robin Hood stole in “The Geste”.  Being in the abbot’s service, this would place Sir John, named as Sir Roger of Doncaster in “The Geste”, on the villains list. Sir John was also Steward of Wakefield in 1324, where manorial rolls include the name of a Robert Hode (Robert and Robin were interchangeable names).

Moving on to the Prioress of Kirklees, a noted historian called Joseph Hunter (1783-1861) formulated a theory about her in the 1830s. He said that Robin Hood was based on Robert Hode of Wakefield. "The Geste" says that the Prioress was “nye was of his kin", i.e. near kin to Robert Hode. Hunter suggested that the Prioress of Kirklees was called Elizabeth de Stainton, and that she was step-sister to Robert Hode's wife, Matilda.

The Staintons were landowners in Tickhill, a town 7 miles from Doncaster. It is interesting to note that one Sir John de Doncastre was Constable of Tickhill Castle from 1304, very likely the same man who was Steward of Wakefield, so he would have known the Staintons as well as Robert Hode of Wakefield.

There’s no contemporary record naming Elizabeth de Stainton as a Prioress of Kirklees. It has been assumed that she was appointed during a gap in the records between 1328 and 1350. But there’s a problem. The only records which mention an Elizabeth de Stainton say she was under 12 years old in 1347, making it impossible for her to be the Prioress of Kirklees between the above dates. Perhaps Joseph Hunter was wrong, or that the prioress is a general composite character.

SIR RICHARD AT THE LEE

Sir Richard at the Lee is a major character in later parts of "The Geste". He gives refuge to Robin Hood and his Merry Men after a battle with the High Sheriff. From this point until the end of the ballad Sir Richard is a companion of Robin Hood. A similar scenario had already appeared in the poem "Fulk le Fitz Waryn" dating from 1260. As mentioned in Part 5, Sir John Clanvowe was familiar with the legend of Fulk le Fitz Waryn and clearly used it as the basis for the story of Sir Richard at the Lee.

GILBERT OF THE WHITE HANDS

This character only appears briefly twice in "The Geste" as one of the Merry Men taking part in two archery contests; the famous contest at Nottingham Castle and one later in the forest against the king. "The Geste" implies Gilbert is the second best marksman in England after Robin Hood. It is surprising, therefore, that Gilbert doesn’t appear have his own set of folk tales and ballads. So, who was he?

I think the answer lies in "the White Hands". Among the many different feudal services in England was the presentation of white leather gloves (white hands?) at the coronation of the monarch by the Furnival family as lords of Farnham Royal in Buckinghamshire. After 1379 this hereditary service was vested in Joan Furnival who married Sir Thomas Neville, Sir William's nephew. During the visits of King Richard II to Nottingham Castle during the 1380s, when Sir William was its Constable, the Furnivals would have been expected to be present, as they were also the lords of Worksop in north Nottinghamshire.

Alternatively, could "white hands" actually be "white hounds"? In the 14th century "hand" and "hound" were often spelt and pronounced the same. Could the first printers of "The Geste" (c.1492-1534) have misinterpreted the word from the original manuscript and the actual name should read “Gilbert of the White Hounds”? This also fits the Furnivals. They had to give two white hunting hounds to the king as part of their feudal service as lords of Worksop. What better time and place to present them than during a royal visit to Nottingham Castle. But the Furnivals don't provide us with a Gilbert. However...

A white hound was the livery badge of the Talbot family, and this type of hound became so associated with them that it was named after them – talbot. The word talbot is still used in heraldry for a hunting dog and still appears as the Talbot’s crest. The feudal presentation to the king of white hounds, and also that of white gloves, passed from Joan Neville to her son-in-law, Sir John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury (whose father was Sir John Clanvowe’s cousin). There were three Gilberts in the Talbot family tree - the 1st, 3rd and 5th Barons.

Perhaps one of these Gilberts, even both the 3rd Baron Talbot and the young, future 5th Baron, was present with their famous white hounds when Sir John Clanvowe, as I believe, presented his ballad for the first time in front of the king and court at Nottingham Castle in the mid 1380s.

Perhaps we’ll never know if my theory is correct, but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest to me that I’m right.

That’s enough speculation. We return to established fact in the next and final part of the lives of Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe, in which we encounter pirates of the Mediterranean.

Advent 4: Christmas Travesti

Over the past three Sundays I’ve presented some results of research into Christmas gift-bringers and characters. I’ve shown how some of them have changed gender over the centuries, and that some of them have often been played in traditional customs and pageants by someone of the opposite gender.

The terms “cross-dressing” and “drag” have become too associated with expressions of gender and sexual identity. Today I’ll be using an additional term. In the performing arts the term “travesti” is used to describe the portrayal of a character by a person of the opposite biological gender, regardless of whether that person is lgbt or not (to confuse matters even further, I’ll not be using the term “travesti” as used in South America for transgender people).

As with a lot of things, travesti roles began in ancient times. Here we have to make another distinction. Historians and academics often give the impression that ancient communities never did anything that didn’t involve religion and worship. The buzz word “pagan” appears like a virus, spreading through research and literature to explain everything we don’t have evidence for. What very few historians mention is that some traditional customs could have originated because people just wanted to have fun and let their hair down. Children role-played for fun just as they do today. Fun and faith went alongside each other, just like our modern Christmas. The Roman festival of Saturnalia, often erroneously quoted as being the origin of Christmas, is an example. So little is known about Saturnalia that no-one knows what they did except have wild parties. Evidence does suggest, however, that role reversal took place, but none to suggest it involved cross-dressing.

Some activities in religious festivals seeped into secular life, and vice versa. Today it is often impossible to say which effected the other the most. As far as cross-dressing in concerned, many pre-Christian religions had male priests who wore female masks in some ceremonies. Female masks have been found in Greek temples dating to 5,000 years ago. They were also used in Greek theatre in both comedies and tragedies.

The early Christian Church frowned upon cross-dressing, teaching that it was immoral and antisocial. It even became illegal to cross-dress in public in many nations. However, if the person (a man) was doing so as part of a theatrical performance, it was okay. This explains why the Church accepted travesti roles in religious ceremony. During the Middle Ages processions and portrayals of Biblical stories were popular. They were a way for the Church to inform the ordinary people who couldn’t read about Bible stories. This gave rise to the Passion plays of Easter and the Mystery plays of Christmas. In both of these plays female roles were played by men, even the role of the Virgin Mary.

During the Middle Ages communities began to organise their own little celebrations. The Mystery plays evolved into community “mumming” plays in which comedy, parody and travesty were common. Celebrations were also often adapted from local folk customs. In central Europe many of these customs took place in winter around Christmas or the winter solstice. Christian elements were added to these customs, and celebrations of the arrival of St. Nicholas to distribute gifts on December 6th was among them. St. Nicholas didn’t become associated with Christmas or gift-bringing until the 12th century, so we can be sure that these new customs don’t date before that. There’s no written evidence for most of them until the 19th century. Last week I gave a few examples of these customs in which St. Nicholas’s wife is played by a man – like the Wiefke of the Klaasohm and the Nikolowiebl of the Buttnmandllauf customs. These were acceptable to Church, State and society because they were regarded as performance, not a life-style choice.

In several countries from the 17th century there are records of groups of men who gathered and cross-dressed in private clubs – the Molly houses of the UK, for example, and various bars in the USA. Some of these men performed (sing, dance, recite, play an instrument) for the amusement of the others. This is where modern drag originated.

An event in 19th century London about a couple of men renowned for cross-dressing on stage hit the headlines. Their names were Ernest Boulton (1847-1904) and Frederick Park (1847-1881). They have a kind of Christmas connection - Park was baptised on 5th January (Twelfth Night) 1847, probably being born around New Year’s Day, and Boulton was born on 18th December 1847 (his birthday was yesterday).

They performed under the stage names of Stella Graham and Fanny Park and became quite famous. They even had publicity photographs taken of them in their drag costumes. Sadly, because cross-dressing in public in England was illegal at the time the pair were arrested outside the Strand Theatre in London in 1870. This was, however, not the first time that they had appeared in public dressed as women. Both had appeared in court on previous occasions relating to their cross-dressing. They were put on trial for outraging public decency and sodomy. The public followed its progress closely and the courtroom was often overcrowded.

Their first trial dealt with the charge of sodomy. The prosecution insisted that the fact that Boulton and Park were homosexual (a new word at the time) “proved” they were guilty. Many witnesses gave damning evidence against them, though the judge criticised the means by which some of that evidence was gathered. The jury took less than an hour to find Boulton and Park not guilty. This caused great rejoicing in the courtroom and Boulton fainted. A few days later they pleaded guilty to the charge of outraging public decency, thus negating a trial for that offence, and they were bound over to “keep the peace” (a sort of probation) for two years against a fine of 500 guineas. Both returned to the stage and toured in England and the USA, though not together, and not very often in drag.

When Boulton and Park were performing British theatre was experiencing its heyday. It was the period when the modern tradition of British Christmas pantomime (nothing to do with miming) acquired its present form. Some of that tradition came down through the medieval mummers plays. It also evolved out of the Italian “commedia dell’arte” tradition which featured characters like Harlequin, Columbine and Pierrot. Add a big influence from Victorian Music Hall (burlesque) and you get the pantomime that the UK loves to this day.

What people love about pantomime is the comedy, the songs, the spectacle, the slapstick, and above all, the stories and characters. A good traditional pantomime usually has two leading travesti roles, one played by men, the other by a woman. The pantomime dame is the most important. This is always a man in drag, usually a well-known comedian, appearing in ever-increasingly outrageous or elaborate costumes. The travesti dame role first appears way back in 1731 in “Dick Whittington”, my favourite pantomime. Dame roles became more frequent and popular in the final days of Music Hall. Another feature is that the dame has pockets full of sweets and she regularly throws them into the audience, though this has no connection to the Christmas gift-giving of the characters in traditional customs.

Perhaps because of its outrageousness and opportunity to slip in many sexual innuendos the dame character has been played by many gay actors – Sir Ian McKellen, Douglas Byng, John Inman, Wayne Sleep, Danny la Rue, Stanley Baxter, Christopher Biggins, Jack Tripp, Paul O’Grady, the list is endless. Sometimes the dame is the villain, like the two Ugly Sisters in Cinderella.

The other travesti role in pantomime is that of the Principal Boy, always played by a woman. This character is often the hero of the pantomime – Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Prince Charming, etc. In recent years, certainly since the 1960s, these roles have often been played by young men, usually the most famous pop star of the day.

So, there you have it. The pantomime dame is a descendant of the medieval Christmas processions and Mystery Plays in which the Virgin Mary was played by a man. The Mystery Plays evolved into mumming plays in which comedy and over-the-top characters helped to inspire the first British pantomimes and the dame.

Examples of travesti (left to right): Weifke (centre) in the Klaasohm custom; a publicity photo of Boulton (left) and Park (right); a typical British pantomime dame.

If we look at the history and development of Christmas and its many gift-bringers we find that there is no single influence or ancestor. What began as a Christian festival has lent its name to many celebrations, traditions and customs held during the Christmas season that have evolved over time. Just like our own family trees, many influences and many people and places have produced what we have today.

This is my final article of 2021. Thank you so much for being with me through this year, and I hope you’ll stay with me in 2022 when we’ll kick off with a list of January birthdays, and in mid-January look forward to the Beijing Winter Olympic and the newest list of lgbt Winter Olympians.

Have a very Merry Christmas and whatever festival and celebration you observe, and a Happy New Year.

Advent 2: How Jesus Became a Bride

Last Sunday we learnt that the Reformation turned the Christ Child (Christkind) into a Christmas gift-bringer and merged with representations of angels to change gender into female. Germans took the female Christkind to America where she merged with another German gift-bringer, the Weihnachtsmann, to become Kris Kringle. By adopting the name of the Dutch colonial Sinterklaas he became our modern Santa Claus (in a children’s book published as Christmas 1821, meaning SANTA CLAUS IS 200 YEARS OLD THIS MONTH! Why aren’t people celebrating?).

The female Christkind merged with other Christmas characters who have been portrayed by both women and men. Let’s begin In Sweden with St. Lucy.

Lucy was a Christian saint martyred during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian at the beginning of the 3rd century. She is said to have secretly visited the Roman catacombs where Christian families were hiding from persecution to bring them food and drink. She lit her way with a candle, which later legends evolved into the crown of candles that St. Lucy is usually depicted wearing.

German missionaries in the 10th century introduced the Nordic lands to Christianity and its saints. St. Lucy’s Day is December 13th, which was around the same time as a traditional Swedish winter solstice celebration called Lussinatta, allegedly named after a pagan goddess called Lussi (of whom there is no evidence). What Lucy and Lussi have in common is the origin of their names from an ancient Indo-European word meaning “light”. Lussinatta is a celebration of light, and St. Lucy is venerated as a bringer of light. The connection between the two is obvious and the reason they became linked.

How St. Lucy became a Christmas gift-bringer took a long time. The Swedes adopted St. Nicholas as a Christmas gift-bringer when Christianity was introduced. As the Reformation spread Sweden adopted Lutheranism and dropped St. Nicholas and adopted the German female Christkind.

The earliest recorded processions on St. Lucy Day, called Luciatåg, took place in schools and universities (male-only at the time) in which a boy was chosen to head the procession as the Christkind or an angel wearing a crown of candles and a white robe. By the 17th century this character had become identified as St. Lucy yet was often still played by a boy. Female roles in church processions in medieval Europe are very rare, and female characters were usually played by men or boys (including the Virgin Mary).

Recent Luciatåg have also occasionally had boys playing St. Lucy, often leading to traditionalists objecting to the change of gender, unaware that it is part of the original tradition. In 2017 the “official” St. Lucy in the celebration in the Nordic Museum was portrayed by an openly gay operatic singer called Rickard Söderberg, a regular soloist in St. Lucy Day concerts. Below is a video of part of that concert.

The first record of St. Lucy as a Christmas gift-bringer appears in a journal written by a Lutheran minister in 1764. While he was working as a tutor in a castle in Västergötland the minister was startled to be awoken on St. Lucy’s morning by a girl dressed as a Christkind bringing him breakfast. This was a tradition in some rural areas, and the idea slowly spread across Sweden. The merging of the Christkind with St. Lucy is dated from this event.

The gift-bringing St. Lucy didn’t become a truly national tradition until the 20th century even though the Luciatåg and Lucy Day celebrations had become popular and widespread much earlier.

If you look at the video above again you’ll see the procession of teenagers carrying candles. The boys represent "star boys", a tradition dating back to early medieval church pageants. The girls represent bridesmaids, and give us a clue to the next gender-switching element of the Christkind.

The costumes of both St. Lucy and her bridesmaids are influenced by the lussebrud. This name came to be rendered as Lucy-bride though it is more accurately translated as Light-bride. She was a character in winter solstice celebrations like the Lussinatta. Going back into folk tradition in Europe we find other “brides” – May brides, Spring brides, Summer brides. Their presence provided playful gender reversal roles. Men played the brides, disguised and masked, who danced though the pageants dragging men and women out of the crowds to dance with them.

These traditional male brides link into the Christkind through modern Christmas gift-bringers in eastern and central Europe.

In the ethnic communities of the Sorbs (also called Wends and Lusatians) where Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic meet, there is a bridal Christmas gift-bringer. In German she is called the Bescherkind, meaning “gift child”. In Sorbian she is called Dzěćetko, which means “child”. In Polish she is called Barborka. They are all basically the same character.

One of these characters has a double gender identity. In the Czech Republic, the Sorbian Dzěćetko is called Dzieciątko (also called Ježíšek, Baby Jesus). The Czech Dzieciątko is depicted as the traditional boy Christ Child, while the Sorbian Dzěćetko is depicted as a female bride.

The Polish Barborka is not named after the Christ Child but St. Barbara. She is said to have lived at about the same time as St. Lucy and was also martyred. Skipping ahead to modern times, St. Barbara is a minor Christmas gift-bringer in Limburg in the Netherlands where she was once considered to be the wife of St Nicholas. As with St. Lucy, the Limburg St. Barbara was often played by a man in pre-modern times.

Barbara’s bridal connection comes in an old folk custom based on a legend that she had a cherry tree branch with her in her prison. On the morning that it blossomed Barbara was led away and beheaded. This legend merged with the old winter bride customs in which unmarried girls would break off small cherry branches on St. Barbara’s Day, December 4th, and hope that they will blossom by Christmas. If they did, it was a sign that the girl will marry in the coming year. Similar customs are associated with other saints on other days of the year. Over time this custom became a tradition in which a local girls were selected to portray St. Barbara as a bride with her bridesmaids, travelling around their villages handing out nuts, sweets and biscuits. Thus the main bride became the Christmas gift-bringer Barborka.

This custom was modified in Sorbia where the Christkind was already established as a gift-bringer, and the Barborka merged with the Christkind to become the Bescherkind and Dzěćetko. The cherry branch custom and the Christmas gift-bringing traditions eventually separated, so that today where both customs exist the winter brides are still portrayed by girls while the Christmas gift-bringing brides are often portrayed by men with veiled faces. In the 20th century the Christmas brides have increasingly been portrayed by girls and women, and very often without the veils that were traditionally worn to hide their identity.

Over 400 miles away in the Swiss town of Hallwil there is another isolated case of a female gift-bringing bride named after the male Christ Child – Wienachts-Chindli.

And there we have it – the male Christ Child of Eastern Europe merged with traditional winter solstice brides to become the modern female Christmas gift-bringers St. Lucy, Barborka, Bescherkind and Dzěćetko, characters played by both men and women.

Next Sunday, if I can get the design right, I’ll present a pictorial family tree of all the characters mentioned in this and the previous Advent article. Otherwise, I’ll be writing about more gender switching characters that are encountered during Christmas.

Advent 1: How Jesus Became Santa

For most of this year I’ve been doing research for a board game based on the world’s many Christmas gift-bringers. There are almost 100 characters, past and present, who bring gifts throughout the Christmas season, starting with St. Martin (on November 10th) through to Sagaan Ubgen, a Russian-Mongolian “New Year Wizard” (whose gift day is based on a lunisolar calendar and can be on any date between January 24th and March 3rd).

Santa Claus has been slowly been killing off traditional regional gift-bringers. In a world that encourages diversity I think we should rediscover these disappearing characters. Thankfully, many ethnic and regional Santa alternatives have been emerging since the 1990s.

An area that has been growing, or should I say returning, to the lgbt community is gender diversity. I’ve written many articles on gender variance in history. This is reflected in seasonal gift-bringers such the Three Kings whom historians suggest may have been third-gender. Other gift-bringers have changed gender in the past, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. This Advent I’m looking at the gender-switching representations of Christmas gift-bringers, and I begin with the person after whom the Christian Church and Christmas get their names, Jesus Christ.

The evolution of many gift-bringers makes a labyrinth look like a straight road. The evolution of the baby Jesus into Santa Claus is an example. The baby Jesus is also called the Christ Child – Christkind or Christkindl in German-speaking nations. He didn’t become a Christmas gift-bringer until the 16th century when Martin Luther (1483-1546), founder of the Protestant Reformation, called for the abandonment of Catholicism and anything that hinted at it, including saints. St. Nicholas was the major Christmas gift-bringer across Europe at that time, delivering presents on his feast day of December 6th, as he still does in some countries. Luther encouraged the adoption of the Christkind as a Protestant gift-bringer. At the same time he suggested moving the gift day from December 6th to December 25th.

At first the German Protestant Christkind wasn’t represented in physical form as Santa Claus is today in countless shopping malls. How this changed, switching gender in the process, involved angels and the Nazis.

By the 18th century angels were regularly portrayed in art and churches as young girls or women. Around the same time the Christkind began to be portrayed not as a baby but a toddler or young androgynous infant and had acquired wings so that there was very little difference between the Christkind and a female angel. One of the earliest representations of the Christkind that I can find is the one illustrated below. It appeared in a children’s story and picture book first published in 1848 and is clearly female, though contemporary greetings cards still often depicted Christkind as a young boy.

In 1933 the Nazis decided to promote the city of Nuremberg as “the Treasure Chest of the Reich”. Nuremberg was famous for several things at the time – metal work, and its annual Christmas market. Since the 16th century Nuremberg had been producing angels made out of metal foil as Christmas decorations. They were very popular and were called Rauschgoldenengel – Golden Angels. For Christmas 1933 the Nazis chose a young actress to play a Golden Angel at the Nuremberg Christmas market. They called her the Christkind. This began a tradition of choosing a teenaged girl to portray the Nuremberg Christkind every two years that continues to this day. After World War II Nuremberg influenced other German cities and towns to appoint their own female Christkind.

Outside Germany, even in Catholic nations, the original male baby Christ Child also became the Christmas gift-bringer. He is known under various names, such as Gesù Bambino in Italy, El Niño Diós in South America, and Dzieciatko in Poland.

German migrants in the 18th century took their Christmas customs and female Christkind across the Atlantic.

The generally accepted theory is that Christkind (in its variant form of Christkindl) is the origin of the name Krishkinkle. This later changed to Kris Kringle, a name you probably associate with Santa Claus. How Kris Kringle became another name for Santa Claus is also because of German migrants.

In the mid 19th century a new Christmas gift-bringer emerged in Germany. Originally a character called Herr Winter appearing in a satirical magazine in 1842, he was a bearded old man in a hooded coat carrying a Christmas tree. The princely families of Germany adopted him as a non-religious alternative to the Christkind. They called him the Weihnachtsmann (Holy Night Man). German migrants took him to America, while the German-born British royal family introduced him into the UK where he merged with Father Christmas. If you ever see a 19th century Christmas card with a Father Christmas-like figure carrying a Christmas tree, that’s actually Weihnachtsmann, even if he labelled differently.

In America the secular Weihnachtsmann adopted the Christkind’s new American name, Kris Kringle, thus changing the gift-bringer’s gender back to male. In 1821 an anonymous illustrated poem about “Santeclaus” gave the Dutch colonial Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) a look similar to Weihnachtsmann-Kris Kringle. It was the famous illustrations of German immigrant Thomas Nast which modified the costume into a more recognisable one we associate with Santa Claus today. In this way Kris Kringle and Santa Claus merged into one. The current image of Santa was finally consolidated by another German immigrant, J. C. Leyendecker. He can be credited with ensuring that Santa Claus is depicted as the jolly fat man with a big white beard and red coat that later artists such as Norman Rockwell and the Coca Cola company copied, effectively finishing the popular practice of depicting Santa coats of other colours.

And there we have it. The Protestant Reformation turned the Christ Child into a Christmas gift-bringer. By merging with representations of angels the Christkind became female and travelled across the Atlantic to meet a fellow immigrant, Weihnachtsmann, to change gender back into Kris Kringle, and finally into Santa Claus. In effect, the Christkind, having been responsible for replacing St. Nicholas (whose name became Santa Claus), eventually merged back into him.

Next Sunday we’ll see how the female Christkind moved north, merged with a Mediterranean saint, and became a male bride.