Into Darkness: A Medieval Midwinter

Introduction

Midwinter (or the winter solstice) in the northern hemisphere is the shortest day in the calendar year, typically around the 20th or 21st December. In 2022 the shortest day will be Wednesday 21st December and will see just 7 hours and 49 minutes of sunlight.

Unlike midsummer (read more about medieval midsummer here), midwinter has been overshadowed in the modern world by the celebration of Christmas. In the early medieval world, midwinter and advent - the season leading up to Christmas - has some fantastic writings which show us how the peoples of the time tried to understand the change in season to the darkest time of year.

Midwinter

“Midwinter” as a term is difficult to define beyond the actual date of the winter solstice. This is because at present, there isn’t that much written evidence of practices around this time of year before the introduction of Christianity (Hutton 1996). A seventh century monk writing in Northumbria, The Venerable Bede, records a festival named Modranicht or “Mother’s night” occurring around the 21st December but does not describe what is celebrated or the ritual this contained (Parker 2022).

The term ‘midwinter’ itself is an Old English invention. It is first recorded in early medieval literature as “midne winter” or “middum wintra”, and is seen as the starting point of the traditional twelve days of celebrations for Christmas (Hutton 1996).

With the introduction of Christianity to Britain the season of midwinter took on a new meaning as a period of preparation. 

Advent

“This season until Midwinter is called Adventus Domini, that is, “the coming of the Lord”.
(Aelfric and Clemoes 1997)

Advent is looking ahead to the first coming of Jesus. Present day Christians acknowledge this in the modern world through for example, nativity plays. However, in the early medieval period, this was different. The focus was not on the Nativity, which represented Jesus’ first coming but instead they were awaiting the second, which was believed to be imminent. Advent was a waiting period, waiting for the second coming, waiting for the end of the world (Parker 2022).

This is understandable when we look at the world around us during this time of year: the days are shorter and it gets colder. In addition to these modern struggles, early medieval populations would be slowly running out of food grown from the warmer months. The closer to midwinter we get, the darker and colder it gets; this could be interpreted as feeling like the end of the world.
This is why the return of the sun and the light is so important. Both in reality of the sun making the days longer, and spiritually as seen through this Christian belief as the spiritual return of Jesus, who is described as the light of the world.

The Light of the World

In the season of Advent, the liturgical chants in the Christian church change, reflecting the preparation for the return of Jesus. These chants are known as ‘O Antiphons’ and are best known today in the Christmas Carol “O come O come Emmanuel”. One version of "O come O come Emmanuel" can be found here.

These Antiphons are the subject of a group of Old English poems found in the 10th century collection known as the Exeter Book (read more about the Exeter Book here). These are known as ‘Christ I’ (or Christ A) or ‘The Advent Lyrics’ and make up poetic responses to the Latin liturgical sentences. Probably composed in the 8th century these poems reflect the significance and symbolism of Advent as a time of preparation for the peoples of the time.

There are seven O Antiphon chants and are written for the seven days leading up to Christmas Eve. Each starts with “O come” and then an attribute of Jesus from scripture. In The Advent Lyrics, these short chants are expanded upon to show us how the early medieval world situated them in the cold, dark midwinter world. A good example of how midwinter and the return of the sun (on the winter solstice), was viewed is through the fifth O Antiphon and the poem that reflects this from Christ I (Campbell 2015).

Written and tradionally sung on the 21st December (or Midwinter), The O Antiphon reads like this:

“O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae, veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis” (In Latin)

Which translates to…

“O Morning Star, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

In Latin it would have been sung. Here is a modern version of the lyrics to the fifth O Antiphon.. 

The first part of the poem ‘Christ I’ interprets these lyrics like this:

Ēala ēarendel,     engla beorhtast,
ofer middangeard     monnum sended,
ond sōðfæsta     sunnan lēoma,
torht ofer tunglas,     þū tīda gehwane
of sylfum þē     symle inlihtes!

Hail Earendel, brightest of angels,
Sent to men over middle-earth,
And true radiance of the sun,
Fine beyond stars, you always illuminate,
From your self, every season! (Campbell 2015)

From the first four lines, words such as “earendel” (dayspring or morning star ), “beorhtast” (brightest), and “sunnan leoma” (sun radiance) stand out, painting a bright sunny picture out of the darkness which midwinter emerges from. Christ being perceived as both the morning star and the sun is significant here. Christ is described as “the morning star” which coincides with the prophecy in Isaiah 14:12 which reads “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn!”

Christ is also described as the sun, as both the return of light, as in the light of the world as well as the son of God, as he is described later in the poem “sunu sōþan fæde”. This is a clever play on the two words “sun” and “son” and can be read as both “sun of the father” and “son of the father”.

The poem goes on to describe the sun emerging from the darkness. The word "oriens" (morning star) can translate to rising sun and this reflects the importance of midwinter in advent to show that the light does return.

Conclusion

I’ve titled this piece “Into darkness” because December can feel very dark and oppressive. But looking at the medieval responses to the darkness in their countdown to Christmas, I have been surprised. As the medieval writer of ‘Christ I’ combined their lived experience of the cold and darkness with how after midwinter the days became longer, they linked Jesus with the sun. They linked their belief system and it’s metaphorical light of the world (Christ), to the actual light in the world (the sun) in beautiful poetic prose.

References

Aelfric & Clemoes, P., 1997. Aelfric’s Catholic homilies.
Campbell, J., 2015. The advent lyrics of the Exeter book.
Hutton, R., 1996. The Stations of the Sun. A history of the Ritual Year in Britain.
Parker, E., 2022. Winters in the World. A Journey through the Anglo- Saxon Year.

Cover image background of Lorna in Christmas hat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent#/media/File:Portschach_Adventkranz_privat_26222013_816.jpg, made available through the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons license.