Note 933 — Chapter XII · NEW YEAR CUSTOMS

Pfannenschmidt, 123, 165, 435; Saupe, 9; Golther, 586; C. P. B. i. 43; Jahn, 251. The chronicler Widukind, Res gestae Sax. (Pertz, Mon. SS. iii. 423), describes a Saxon three-days’ feast in honour of a victory over the Thuringi in 534. He adds ‘acta sunt autem haec omnia, ut maiorum memoria prodit, die Kal. Octobris, qui dies erroris, religiosorum sanctione virorum mutati sunt in ieiunia et orationes, oblationes quoque omnium nos praecedentium christianorum.’ This is probably a myth to account for the harvest Todtenfest, which may more naturally be thought of as transferred with the agricultural rites from November. For the mediaeval Gemeinwoche, beginning on the Sunday after Michaelmas, was common to Germany, and not confined to Saxony. Michaelmas, the feast of angels, known at Rome in the sixth century, and in Germany by the ninth, also adapts itself to the notion of a Todtenfest.