Wassail: The Traditional Christmas Tipple
In the past, wassail was the traditional drink of Christmas, especially on Twelfth night. Wassail was a warm beer, cider, or wine, combined with honey and spices and served in a large bowl that people would sip from. The tradition of sharing wassail comes from an ancient Anglo-Saxon tradition where local landowners would hold a gathering to toast those from the local community. This toast was called waes hael, which meant be well.
As wassail played a part in the Twelfth Night celebrations, it was seen as a sinful drink. This was because Twelfth Night was a big party, very similar to modern Christmas Day, where extravagance, over indulgence and drunkenness were seen as acceptable. With all this drunkenness, wassail was blamed for creating an environment that bred revelry and disorder. It was a way of undermining the traditional social and cultural order of the day by allowing any member of the gathering, no matter their background, to be the king and queen for the Twelfth Night celebration.
However, it was not until the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that wassail openly became associated with sinful acts over the Christmas period. During this time there were increasing fears of alcohol being the ‘evil drink’ and that drunkenness was responsible for urban disorder and violence within English society. Fears of irreligiosity and immorality seemed to be accentuated at a time when reflection and contemplation of the gift of Christ was to be the norm. It was bad enough that drunkenness at any other time of year would turn the ‘little’ sinner into the ‘big’ sinner, but alcohol, on top of general social disorder and revelry, was too much for critics to handle at Christmas time.
Alcohol and other intoxicants were seen as a way for those of the middle and upper classes to prove their social status. This added an extra element of the removal of social norms, of which wassail played a part. By consuming wassail with the aim to get drunk, the poor created an environment where it was widely acceptable for them to participate in and demand for privileges that were unreachable for them at other times of the year.
Whilst drunkenness was of course not a new thing by the eighteenth century, fear of it became more apparent due to its greater definition in law, as well as acceptance of the mental distress it caused drunkards. It was in this context that wassail became known as the sin drink during the Christmas festivities. It was seen as the root of merry behaviour and disorder during this time of year. The poor were seen as the main victim of this sin as they were unable to work the fields during December and early January due to the cold weather. Combined with a season of over indulgence, drunkenness and idleness, wassail was seen as the temptress to all righteous social order.
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