Kmflett's Blog

Their Twelfth Night and ours. 5th January, 6th January or 17th February?

British socialist historians have paid some attention to the importance of folk customs (see EP Thompson Customs in Common)primarily as a way of understanding the roots of non-marketised ways of grasping value and importance in society and seeing if the traditions have continued to have any impact in more recent times.

Britain was the world’s first industrialised country and already by 1850 more than half the population were industrial workers rather than being reliant on the land for a living, either as peasants or agricultural labourers. Something that may explain the popularity of the Archers one suspects as a sort of reminder of a lost arcadia.

However the focus on custom and tradition has been patchy and that is certainly true of twelfth night.

I can’t am afraid offer any definitive thought on whether you should take down the Xmas decorations on 5th January or 6th January. The Church of England thinks it should be the eve of Epiphany (hence the 5th) but then leaves the decorations up to celebrate Epiphany. That is the thing about customs. They might be in common but they are often disputed.

Twelfth Night is part of a season of festival, carnival and revolt that starts on All Hallows Eve (Oct 31) and can end as late as Shrove Tuesday.

The appointment of a Lord of Misrule is connected with Twelfth Night but can occur earlier.

The title Lord of Misrule sounds radical but there is no mention of it in Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down’ about the period of Parliamentary rule after 1649. Some commentary suggests that it was really more to do with poking fun at the established order the better to keep it in place, and in some cases- for example in New Orleans- it became firmly established with a celebration of the old- reactionary- order of things.

Whether it’s the fifth or the sixth it seems clear that in folk custom the tradition of misrule that begins on October 31st does not end with Twelfth Night but continues at least until Shrove Tuesday which in 2026 is on February 17th