medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
That explanation sounds like urban legend, but of course when I
googled, I found a site that said that antireligious debunkers
claim it's urban legend, and quote the
underground-Catholics-in-England story to debunk the debunkers.
(That's what happens in our googleworld these days, and just
wait until that new Google Print project dumps 8 million books
from Stanford and 7 million from Michigan online. Welcome to
the world as it existed before 1923!)
One site, however, seemed fairminded enough to narrate the
development of "12 Days of Christmas" to tie into/parallel the
various feast days, then quoted the, ur, ur-urban legend (sorry,
something caught in my throat):
"There is little 'hard' evidence available either way. Some
church historians affirm this account as basically accurate,
while others point out apparent historical discrepancies.
However, the 'evidence' on both sides is mostly in logical
deduction and probabilities. One internet site devoted to
debunking hoaxes and legends says that, 'there is no substantive
evidence to demonstrate that the song "The Twelve Days of
Christmas" was created or used as a secret means of preserving
tenets of the Catholic faith, or that this claim is anything but
a fanciful modern day speculation ...' What is omitted is that
there is no 'substantive evidence' that will disprove it either.
"It is certainly possible that this view of the song is
legendary or anecdotal. Without corroboration and in the absence
of 'substantive evidence,' we probably should not take rigid
positions on either side and turn the song into a crusade for
personal opinions. That would do more to violate the spirit of
Christmas than the song is worth. So, for the sake of
historical accuracy, we need to acknowledge this uncertainty."
This is from the Christian Resource Institute's Voice website:
http://www.cresourcei.org/cy12days.html
Listmembers are probably aware that in the wake of Bush's
reelection, some of his religious supporters noe see a new and
alarming advance of secular humanism when Macy's hangs out a
sign "Happy Holidays." See, for example, LATimes column:
http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/cl-et-rutten18dec18,0,7260980.column?coll=la-home-utilities
or Salon:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/12/16/oreilly_secular/
Happy holidays or something,
Al Magary
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