Not terribly medieval, I guess, but in view of Frans's post:
<snip>
> Good protestants also have a "Biddag voor het gewas" in Spring (Prayer
for
> a good harvest, known also as "Wasdag voor het gebit; this is an inside
> joke for Dutch subscribers :) ). Perhaps this tradition should
> be started as a complimentary to Thanksgiving in the Americas too ?
This minor "holiday" (in the sense of "holy day") is still celebrated in
some (but not all) of the congregations that have descended from the Dutch
Reformed Church and its epigones here in the US. In west Michigan where I
teach, some rural and even a few urban congregations have services to pray
for productivity of fields and (a case of mutatis mutandis, I guess)
factories, although the tradition is dying out. In many churches there is
simply a prayer at an early spring Sunday service that is otherwise nothing
special.
MW
Mark F. Williams
Department of Classics Phone: (616) 957-6293
Calvin College FAX: (616) 957-8551
Grand Rapids, MI 49546 Internet: [log in to unmask]
USA http://www.calvin.edu/academic/clas
"Professor Williams appears to be a human as well as a teacher."
-from a student evaluation
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