Ascension Day: May 29th– The one religious festival Cromwell did not ban
In the Christian Calendar Ascension Day takes place 40 days after Easter, in 2025 May 29th.
Christ is believed to have ascended to heaven and positive things happen as a result. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s twitter timeline has more on this.
From the 1640s to the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 religious festivals generally were banned, particularly Christmas. Puritans believed that marking religious matters should be done every day and not the subject of ungodly celebration.
Yet according to Ronald Hutton (Stations of the Sun) Ascension Day largely survived the period of Parliamentary rule and associated drinking and feasting also took place. There was of course a pragmatic reason. What was being marked was most definitely not Christ’s ascension to heaven. Rather it was the annual marking of the boundaries of local parishes. This was an important matter in asserting property rights and as E P Thompson noted where villagers could graze animals on common land.
The levellers and diggers were for property being held in common. Cromwell, himself from a farming background was not.
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