How medieval Catholic traditions of thanksgiving prayers and feasting shaped the Protestant celebration of Plymouth's pilgrims

Medieval England was a Catholic country, and the public religious rituals celebrated in churches were much the same as those celebrated in Rome and the rest of Catholic Europe, with some local differences. Many of these rituals involved the theme of giving thanks.

In addition, the practice of blessing people, animals or crops was also an important part of medieval Catholic liturgy. Many of these blessing prayers included the theme of thanksgiving as well. One set of blessing prayers dealt with the blessing of ordinary bread.

Across Catholic Europe, bread might be blessed on certain feast days, but in the British Isles, a special ceremony would take place on August 1, when the first of the wheat crop was harvested. This date was called Lammas Day, from the Anglo-Saxon words for “loaf” and “Mass.” From at least the ninth century on, bread from these first grains would be baked into intricate shapes and brought to church for a special blessing.

However, this blessing of the first loaves only marked the beginning of the harvest. It was also customary in England, as well as in other parts of Europe, to hold a public festival when the harvest was done, the “gathering-in” or “harvest home.” Dancing, eating, drinking and other forms of entertainment were featured. This was originally a secular festival, although other festivals of this kind could also be held on other occasions, like weddings.

Public liturgies of thanksgiving could also be proclaimed on other occasions. For example, the English victory over the French at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 was celebrated in London by the mayor and populace with the singing of the Te Deum and the ringing of bells at the city’s churches. Later, a prayer service in Westminster Abbey was held, attended by the mayor and members of the royal family.

After King Henry VIII broke away from Rome in 1534, the English sovereign became by law the Head of the Church in England. After his death, a reformed English-language liturgy, compiled in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, was used throughout the country.

Public worship services of thanksgiving were held annually on certain specific occasions, like the anniversary of the sovereign’s accession to the throne. As in the medieval period, the sovereign could also proclaim a day of thanksgiving, complete with the singing of the Te Deum in Latin, to celebrate other important events, like the birth of a royal heir – in this case, the birth of Prince Edward, the future King Edward VI, to King Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour, in 1537. King James I was the first King of England to be crowned in an English-language ceremony.

However, not every Christian in England was happy with the Book of Common Prayer, finding it still too influenced by Catholic practice. The Pilgrims were among the English Protestant groups who rejected the Church of England’s more moderate reforms completely and wished to separate from it to form their own church communities – separatists – as opposed to the Puritans, who desired further reforms within the Church of England to “purify” it.

Because of increasing legal persecution of “non-conformists” – those who did not attend or belong to the Church of England – in the early 17th century, they at first left England for a country where they might practice their beliefs freely. In Holland, they settled in the town of Leiden, and lived there for several years. But the Pilgrims faced other problems there – they worked at low-paying jobs and they worried that their children were becoming more Dutch than English.

Eventually, they joined a group of other travelers on a ship called the Mayflower to travel to the New World. There, in 1620, they landed a little farther north than their original destination – Virginia – settling at Plymouth on the coast of what is today Massachusetts in December 1620.

The Pilgrims faced a hard struggle to survive that first winter and many died. But after a good harvest the next year, they celebrated. They may not have sung a Catholic or Anglican Te Deum or danced in the street, but they held a Thanksgiving in their own way following the customs they had grown up with in England: with prayer and feasting.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Joanne M. Pierce, College of the Holy Cross. Like this article? subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Joanne M. Pierce does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.