Hey friends, welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast.

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So let's get right into it. As we know, the seasons ruled

everything for our tutors. In an age when the cyclical nature of the seasons dictated every

aspect of life, celebrating the summer solstice was an important part of the year. It was a time when

the seeds had been sown, the harvest was growing. From now on,

we look forward to the shorter days to the harvest, and eventually to Yule, the winter solstice,

when the whole thing begins again. But how did the tutors celebrate this period? Celebrating mids

summer was an important part of pagan worship. One of the smartest things the Christians did

early on, whether you agree with it or not, you can't argue that it wasn't clever, was to take pagan

holidays and appropriate them for themselves. They often even kept the original name, such as in the case of

Easter, which comes from the Germanic goddess Astara, who was the fertility goddess celebrated at the

spring equinox.

But let's move on to summer. The early Christians had named June the 24th as the feast day for

St. John the Baptist. So by the time of the tutors, there was this mix of pagan and Christian

...