The "most popular holiday of the Roman Year," celebration included:
- Sacrifice to the god
- Shops, law-courts and schools were shut
- Widespread Merriment (Seneca complained)
- Visits and Exchange of Gifts, especially wax candles
- Public Gambling
- Feasting and Drinking
- a mock King was chosen in every family to serve as Master of Revels
- Slaves did not work, Wore their Masters' clothing
- Masters waited on Servants at meal-time and treated them as equals
- "A special license to speak their minds freely was accorded to everyone, irrespective of rank," (Berstein 455).
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| World Upside-Down Bookplate, London 1646 | British Library |
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| Bookplate | Artist Unknown © Mary Evans Picture Library 2007
What is the significance of these upside-down behaviors during the understood time frame of the festival?
During my week the seriousness is barred; no business allowed. Drinking, noise and games and dice, appointing kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of frenzied hands, an occasional ducking in icy water of faces covered in burnt cork. (MacKenzie, 9)."The carnivalesque ceremony can be interpreted as a specific kind of language through which the tensions present in a society can be articulated and made visible" (Bernstein 455). The satirist Lucian writes Saturn proclaiming the following:
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Saturn, God of Agriculture & Time, associated with the HARVEST
Image from http://www.paganspace.net/profiles/blogs/saturnalia-roman-celebration
"... a god of sowing or seed-corn, deriving his name from satus; his celebration would thus come at the end of the last sowing of the year"(Scullard 205-6).
The God Saturn introduced agriculture to Rome... and he castrated his father and ate his own children...he embodies a duality. Perhaps PARADOX is part of understanding RENEWAL.
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| Saturno- Matenga Tarot | Johann Ladenspelder engravings, Cologne ca. 1550 | color by Raven, http://www.corax.com/tarot/ Attempting to understand Saturnalia: Associated with the god Chronos, Romans made their sacrifices to him in the Greek fashion (with uncovered head) and came to refer to the "golden age of Saturn" (Scullard 206) which may explain why his holy day was celebrated with no work and much feasting. "Saturnalia designated a distinct religious festival held in honor of the Golden Age of Saturn," (Bernstein 455). A golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Kronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil: miserable age rested not on them . . . The fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things. . . -Hesiod Works and Days (The Immanuel Velikovsky Archive).
The Golden Age of Saturn, which was celebrated through the revels of Saturnalia, links to the land of Cockaigne, the Medieval Mythological Land of Plenty:
 
Top: Pieter Bruegel the Elder | Detail: The Land of Cockaigne | Oil on Panel, 1567.
De Agostini Picture Library / The Bridgeman Art Library
Below: The Land of Cockaigne |Niccolo Nelli | Etching, 1564.
In the land of Cockaigne, like the Big Rock-Candy Mountain of America's Great Depression, food and drink flow naturally. It's easy to imagine the temptation of such a mythologized place as an escape from the cold and starvation of Medieval winter. This may be one more clue into understanding the significance of the wintertime for the placement of the carnivalesque.
Feasting and drinking in the lean times flips the world over.
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