Hello and welcome to American Catholic History.

If you like our podcast, be sure to rate us and give us a review wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Newell Heister Crow.

And I'm Tom Crow.

Today we've got something of an oddity, an episode about American Catholic history, but we don't actually talk about a single Catholic person or event here in the United States.

Yes, instead we're talking about a rather fascinating bit of anti-Catholicism that happened in the colonies, even though there were no Catholics around to protest against it.

Our topic is Pope Knight, the annual night of bonfires boozing and brawling that had a thick

anti-Catholic theme. It lasted in the colonies from 1632 until just before the American Revolution,

and it happened every year on November 5th.

Indeed. Remember, remember, the 5th of November.

Pope Knight was the American colonial version of Guy Fox Knight, which took place over in Britain.

Guy Fox Knight was certainly an annual anti-Catholic event, but it was also a night when those in the lower tiers of society took the liberty of acting like perfect hoodlums to let the upper echelons know what they really thought about the societal structure.

And the folks in the upper echelons tolerated it, since it was at root an anti-Catholic demonstration.

But they also put up with it because it was at root an anti-Catholic demonstration.

But they also put up with it because it was one concentrated night in which the lower classes could get out their frustrations and then go on with life.

The alternative, of course, was ongoing unrest, which might mean changes to the social

structure.

The upper crust certainly didn't want that.

Of course not.

So let's start with more details on what Guy Fawkes Knight was and where it came from.

Guy Fawkes Night, as I said, was the annual commemoration of the day in 1605.

On November 5th.

...