A History of Mardi Gras

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Mardi Gras like any good holiday has gone through a number of incarnations over its very long history. Some historians and anthropologists believe that the holiday's birth occurred about 3,000 B.C. in the areas of Europe populated by the Gauls and the Celts and that like most such celebrations this one was about fertility, with a generous helping of thanks thrown in. This makes sense because by about the time when Lent now begins most of these good folks would have just lived through a European winter in a hut. Winter can be very hard on hunter gatherers and tribal people engaging in subsistence agriculture.

Statue of Pan and a Youth                                                          Statue of bacchus and his Nymphs

So about sixty days past the winter Solstice everyone was in need of cutting loose and as the days were now substantially longer and occasionally warmer the people of pre-Homeric Northern Europe would appease what ever forces they could and show a little faith by having a raucous party. As history rolled by the Romans came to exercise a bit of influence over these people and sharing the same intense winters had a fertility festival that fell at just about the same time. This shindig was know as the Lupercalia and it was celebrated with the same enthusiasm and decorum as spring break in Fort Lauderdale.

The Romans were very tolerant of diverse religions and if your religion had any good holiday's most of them would sign up immediately. In Rome in fact it was not unusual for citizens, counsels and even emperors to belong to up to ten different cults and religions. So the spring holiday of Northern Europe would have been as welcome as any.

As the Romans passed through the republic and into the Empire in preparation for declining and falling, they became associated with the Christians. During the early association the Romans, annoyed by the Christian's strong adherence to their religious tenets, tried to get them to quit by feeding them to lions and other rather nasty things to them. The Christians however, could not be discouraged and a Roman Emperor named Constantine decided that they must be on to something so he converted and he rather forcefully encouraged the rest of the empire to follow suit.

The Emperor's conversion did not, despite ruthlessly enforced edicts, get rid of all of the pagans nor did it get rid of their celebrations. All the feeding of Christians to lions and other acts of martyring them led to a number of feast days celebrating the martyrs, by the fourth century their were no less than 150 such days. It was against Christian doctrine to work on feast days so folks had a good amount of time off. Christians no less than pagans endured winter and its boredom and as a result they were occasionally distracted from the Saint's days by the pagans carrying on.

The Christian leadership hoped to bring about about a number of changes, such as stopping the celebration of feasts of small g gods when you were supposed to be celebrating God and no other. A cleric, most likely a Bishop of some Eastern City like Antioch came up with the idea of replacing pagan holidays with Christian holidays and leaving the type of celebration if not the entity celebrated in place. Since people had all of the Christian Holidays off and the celebrations were left in place fourth century Europe was a very religious and fairly festive place.

The one area where the Christian's were unable and unwilling to follow this policy was during the period leading up to Easter. This was sacred and for forty days all subjects of the Church and empire were to get their spiritual acts in order. So from Ash Wednesday until Easter everybody took religion seriously.

Realizing that this would be hard on people who had just experienced the cold, hunger and enforced idleness of winter and were anticipating the enforced piety of Lent the church fathers came up with a brilliant solution. From Twelfth Night until Ash Wednesday the faithful could and in fact should make merry, be happy and try to avoid cabin fever. This was the birth of Carnival, a gift from the Church fathers to the faithful, and a strategy for keeping peace in the world.

Carnival had some very valuable functions, it would eat up as many as 60 Saints days during a time when the faithful couldn't work anyway and it would allow for a festive mood, visiting outside the hut and building community. It also allowed the repressed pagan to behave in Church sanctioned pagan manner, which meant no reason was accepted for anything less than a strict and truly contrite Lent.

Mardi Gras as a Celebration of All Things Medieval

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