Why Read Historical Fiction Set in Sixteenth Century France? Reason #2

Yesterday, I set out to convince you why reading and writing historical fiction set in Renaissance France was a worthwhile endeavor. The first reason I offered was ESCAPE from the turbulence of our present situation. Today, I offer a second reason: RELEVANCE.

Reason #2: RELEVANCE

While reading historical novels can offer a temporary escape from the troubles of today's world, it can also serve as a means to examine issues at the forefront of our national consciousness. Despite the five hundred years that separate our two eras, today's society continues to grapple with many of the same issues that preoccupied the people of the Renaissance. In the sixteenth century, Western Europe was a world in flux, caught between a renewed appreciation of the arts and wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans and the new vistas offered by exploration and the expansion of trade. Although monarchy as a form of government would remain unquestioned for two more centuries, feudal society was beginning to crumble. Class boundaries were becoming more porous as court functionaries gained titles and merchants and tradespeople amassed wealth that allowed them to climb a few rungs up the social ladder. Christians called into question central tenets of the Catholic faith and the supreme authority of the Church. Women were demanding access to education and professions traditionally denied to them. The world was changing with a speed that often left people of the era breathless and unmoored--similar to the way many people feel today. 

Exploration and an expansion of foreign trade brought the people of Renaissance Europe into contact with societies vastly different from their own. Just as readers of today must weigh issues of immigration and globalization, people of sixteenth century had to expand their worldview to incorporate an entire New World and the unfamiliar peoples who inhabited it. Issues of race complicated the quest for resources, as explorers and settlers subjugated and exploited native inhabitants for their own gain. The broadening of the known world affected everything from religious to social to politico-economic thought and required the adjustment of long established systems.

1591 French map of Florida by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues

Portrait of an African Slave Woman
by Annibale Carracci, circa 1580s

Historical fiction that deals with exploration, such as Laila Lalami's The Moor's Account (2014) and Ronald Wright's The Gold Eaters (2016), stir a reader's imagination and conscience, providing new ways to consider the issues of racism and immigration that affect twenty-first century life. 

Religious liberty was another hot topic in the sixteenth century, just as it is today. Even before Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Cathedral of Wittenberg in 1517 and sparked the Protestant Reformation, French Catholics had been questioning abuses by the Church and agitating for reform. The Wars of Religion broke out in 1562, as Catholic and Protestant armies vied to take control of the country. Bloody battles between the two factions continued through the remaining decades of the century; the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in August 1572, resulted in the death of thousands of Protestants. The carnage did not abate until 1598, when the heir to the throne, the Protestant Henri of Navarre, converted to Catholicism. Crowned king, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted Huguenots important rights and freedoms.

Luther's Ninety-Five Theses

St. Bartholomew's Massacre by François Dubois

Religious dissension in the sixteenth century often pitted family members, friends, and lovers against each other and caused internal turmoil as individuals were forced to choose a side and publicly defend their beliefs. Issues of individual conscience find ready parallels in today's world, where the battle is not so much between creeds but between secular and religious values. Historical novels such as Robert Merle's The Brethren (English translation, 2019) and Kate Mosse's The Burning Chambers (2018) capture these conflicts and the attention of readers interested in questions of religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

A final issue relevant to modern readers is that of women's rights. During the sixteenth century, women began to clamor for increased participation in the world of men. The right to a humanist education was championed by King François I's own sister, Marguerite de Navarre, a prolific writer, poet, and religious thinker who could hold her own in debate with the male scholars that roamed her brother's halls. Similarly, Marie de Gournay, Michel de Montaigne's adopted daughter, editor, and commentator, published The Equality of Men and Women and The Ladies' Grievance, demanding that women be educated as thoroughly as men. Writers like the poet Louise Labé and artists like the enamelist Suzanne de Court struggled to carve a place and earn respect in literary and artistic circles, while women in trades like printing and brewing endeavored to run their own enterprises.

L'Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre

Louise Labé by Pierre Woeiriot

Suzanne de Court's signature on an enameled platter

Twenty-first century readers enmeshed in the ongoing struggle for women's rights would find historical fiction such as Jenny Diski's novel about Marie de Gournay, Apology for the Woman Writing (2008),  and Joy McCullough's novel about the painter Artemisia Gentileschi, Blood Water Paint (2018), especially pertinent.

The sixteenth century in France offers authors an abundance of situations ripe for the development of complex characters and riveting conflict. Readers of their works will be pleasantly surprised to discover how closely these engrossing stories parallel the struggles of their own lives and of society as a whole, so many centuries later.  

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Historical fiction set during the Renaissance is both entertaining and culturally relevant. Need another reason to read it? Reason #3 is just around the corner!

Guest Post: How Many Sticks Do You Need For A Sacred Fire? by Susan Spann, Author of TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA

How Many Sticks Do You Need For a Sacred Fire?

by Susan Spann

Writing historical mystery means balancing a fast-paced, often intricate plot with compelling, historically accurate details. To keep the plot moving, I often have to eliminate the bulk of my research--including many details I find intriguing. Occasionally, however, the decision what to keep and what ends up on the proverbial "cutting room floor" becomes more difficult.

Case in point: the Shingon Buddhist ceremonies in TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA.

While researching the novel, I spent time on Koyasan, staying in thousand year-old Shingon temples and attending both worship services and the goma (fire ritual) that the priests still perform each morning just after dawn. As with most religious rituals, the goma involves detailed preparations, numerous books, bowls, and implements, and follows a carefully prescribed liturgical pattern. I discussed the ceremony with the priests, observed it closely, and took copious notes (and photographs, and video recordings) to ensure I understood it in detail.

As a result, the first draft of the goma scene in TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA ran several pages--far too long--and I found myself debating exactly how many sticks I needed to build this particular sacred fire. On one hand, the goma is an integral part of Shingon worship. I needed the ritual in the book, both to create a realistic portrait of Shingon temple life in the 16th century and to advance some character-related elements of the plot. On the other hand, too much detail bogs down the pace and bores the reader. (Never a good idea.)

Deciding which details to keep, and which to cut, seemed difficult until I re-watched the video clips and reviewed my favorite photographs of the goma ceremonies I attended. The photos, in particular, captured the ritual's essence--flickering tongues of fire in a darkened room, the shadow of a Shingon priest on the drum that accompanied his chant, and the clouds of incense I could almost still feel coating the inside of my nose.

These sensory memories set a course for my editing. By focusing on my senses--especially what I heard and smelled--I stripped away the extraneous details, leaving what I hoped would convey the sights and sounds of a dramatic Shingon ritual, wherein wooden prayers are consumed by sacred fire and carried to heaven on incense-laden smoke. While remaining true, and accurate, in the details that remained, my scene no longer contained esoteric dogma, the Sanskrit words most readers would not understand, or heavily descriptive passages that did not advance the plot.

To my surprise, the scene did a better job of conveying the ritual after editing, even though I removed almost three-quarters of the original goma scene. Less really was more--more readable, more evocative, and more successful at conveying the drama and suspense of the fire ritual.

Apparently, you don't need all that many sticks to build a sacred fire after all.

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Susan Spann is the 2015 Rocky Mountain FIction Writers' Writer of the Year and the author of six novels in the Shinobi Mystery series. She has a degree in Asian Studies and a lifelong love of Japanese history and culture. She is currently spending a year in Japan, researching her next two novels and climbing Japan's most famous mountains for her first nonfiction book, 100 SUMMITS, scheduled for publication in 2020. She posts photos and stories about her travels in Japan at www.susanspann.com.

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Read my review of Susan's novel here. Enter to win a copy of TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA here!

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Review and Giveaway: TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA: A Hiro Hattori Novel by Susan Spann

Guided by the conviction that men kill for three reasons--power, money, or love--Hiro Hattori, protagonist of Susan Spann's TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA (Seventh Street Books), races to unravel a disturbing series of murders at a remote Buddhist temple. Sent to deliver a secret message to an Iga ninja residing there, Hiro and Father Matteo become trapped at the monastery by a violent storm. As thunder booms and snow swirls in impenetrable clouds, a murderer begins to pick off the monks one by one, leaving the victims posed as one of the thirteen jusanbutsu, or deities that judge the souls of the dead. Realizing that the number of jusanbutsu matches the number of individuals at temple--including themselves--Hiro and Matteo must unmask murderer and motive before all succumb. Judging love and money as unlikely factors behind murders at an impoverished monastery, Hiro focuses on the power struggles that complicate the monks' attempts to name a new abbot. Only when Matteo becomes the murderer's next target does Hiro recognize the error in his thinking. But how to outwit someone intent on creating a grisly council of the dead?

TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA succeeds as both compelling mystery and rich historical fiction. The closed situation--a given number of individuals isolated in an inescapable location with an unknown killer among them--keeps tension high and forces the characters into a persistent state of mistrust. The realization that each victim personifies one of the thirteen jusanbutsu only adds to the strain, as survivors attempt to predict who will be next to die and how. The abbot falls victim early on, leaving the monks without a designated leader and exposed to the danger of factions. The presence of a prickly pilgrim allows for the possibility of outside political involvement, and Hiro and Matteo are never above suspicion in the eyes of the monks. The oppressive weather not only heightens the danger by muffling sounds and obscuring sight, but adds the stress of a ticking clock--the murderer obviously intends to complete the monastery's annihilation by storm's end. Spann manipulates these elements of suspense with great finesse, creating a true page-turner of a plot that culminates in an emotionally satisfying and logically convincing conclusion.

Even more notable in this sixth installment of the Shinobi Mysteries is the seamless fusion of psychological insight with cultural history. The murderer's modus operandi vividly exposes readers to Buddist teachings on death and final judgment. Each victim's gruesome pose permits discussion of a particular Buddist avatar, while the entire chain of murders opens discussion of how Buddhism treats the passage of souls from this life to the next. These teachings are integral to understanding the murderer's twisted motivation. None of the earlier Shinobi mysteries delves so far into religious questions, but in TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA Buddhist and Christian teachings confront each other in a direct and sustained manner. Father Matteo finds himself forced to counter Buddhist teaching with his own Christian convictions and comes directly under suspicion for murdering in the service of a rival religion. Spann treats this clash of philosophies with admirable insight, adding depth to Matteo's character and aspirations even as she humanizes a murderer whose horrific acts have a noble, if ultimately warped, purpose.

Politics simmers below the surface in this latest Shinobi Mystery, allowing questions of a more philosophical bent to bubble to the surface. Yet the underlying threat posed by Japan's feuding overlords remains ever present and ever dangerous to the Portuguese priest and his mission. Hiro cannot afford to let guilt and the heartbreak of lost love cloud his vision as Father Matteo falls into the hands of a murderer struggling to redeem his own disappointed devotion. Ingenious, ambitious, and resoundingly successful, TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA is Susan Spann's best novel yet.

AMAZON | BARNES AND NOBLE | INDIEBOUND

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Susan Spann is the award-winning author of the Shinobi Mystery novels featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Matteo. 

After earing an undergraduate degree in Asian Studies from Tufts University in Boston, Susan earned a law degree.    She currently specializes in intellectual property and business and publishing contracts. Her interest in Japanese history, martial arts, and mystery inspired her to write the Hiro Hattori novels set in sixteenth-century Japan. 

Susan is the 2015 Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Writer of the Year, a former president of the Northern California Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, and a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Historical Novel Society, and the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She is represented by literary agent Sandra Bond of Bond Literary Agency. 

When not writing or representing clients, Susan enjoys traditional archery, martial arts, photography, hiking, and traveling in Japan. 

For more information, please visit Susan's website. You can also find Susan on Facebook and Twitter (@SusanSpann), where she founded the #PubLaw hashtag to provide legal and business information for writers. 

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Giveaway

During the Blog Tour, we will be giving away 5 copies of TRIAL ON MOUNT KOYA! To enter, please use the Gleam form linked below.

Rules

--Giveaway endes at 11:59 pm EST on August 8, 2018. You must be 18 or older to enter.

--Giveaway is open to US residents only.

--Only one entry per household.

--All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the system; suspected fraud will be decided upon by the blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.

--Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or a new winner is chosen.

 https://gleam.io/competitions/KPAPn-trial-on-mount-koya

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Blog Tour Schedule

Tuesday, July 3
Kick Off at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, July 4
Interview at Donna’s Book Blog

Thursday, July 5
Interview at T’s Stuff
Feature at The Bookworm

Friday, July 6
Guest Post at Jathan & Heather

Sunday, July 8
Review at Carole Rae’s Random Ramblings

Tuesday, July 10
Feature at Historical Fiction with Spirit

Wednesday, July 11
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Thursday, July 12
Guest Post at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Friday, July 13
Review at Jorie Loves a Story

Monday, July 16
Review at Writing the Renaissance

Tuesday, July 17
Guest Post at Writing the Renaissance

Wednesday, July 18
Review at Beth’s Book Nook Blog

Friday, July 20
Feature at Maiden of the Pages

Saturday, July 21
Review at Cup of Sensibility

Tuesday, July 24
Feature at Svetlana’s Reads and Views

Thursday, July 26
Feature at Encouraging Words from the Tea Queen

Friday, July 27
Interview at Dianne Ascroft’s Blog

Monday, July 30
Review at Pursuing Stacie

Wednesday, August 1
Feature at CelticLady’s Reviews

Thursday, August 2
Review at A Book Geek

Friday, August 3
Interview at Jorie Loves a Story

Sunday, August 5
Feature at What Is That Book About

Monday, August 6
Review at Broken Teepee

Wednesday, August 8
Review at Reading the Past

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Review: THE NINJA'S DAUGHTER: A Hiro Hattori Novel by Susan Spann

Exciting as it is to discover a new author's works, it can be even more satisfying to watch a favorite author's novels grow richer and ever more compelling. Susan Spann takes her Shinobi Mysteries to a new level with this fourth installment, THE NINJA'S DAUGHTER, newly released from Seventh Street Books. Spann sets ninja detective Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo on a quest to identify the killer of an actor's daughter found strangled on a riverbank in sixteenth century Kyoto, Japan. As the men question suspects and seek motives, Spann probes the pair's pasts and scrutinizes their deepening friendship. Tantalizing glimpses of Hiro's and Mateo's inner lives enhance the novel's well-constructed plot and endow the story with an emotional richness the series' earlier books lacked.

From the back cover: When an actor's daughter is murdered on the banks of Kyoto's Kamo River, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo are the victim's only hope for justice. As political tensions rise in the wake of the shogun's recent death and rival samurai threaten war, the Kyoto police forbid an investigation of the killing, to keep the peace. Undeterred, Hiro and Father Mateo undertake a secret investigation into the exclusive world of Kyoto's theater guilds, where nothing, and no one, is as it seems. Their investigation soon reveals a mysterious golden coin, a forbidden love affair, a missing mask, and a dangerous link to corruption that leaves both Hiro and Father Mateo running for their lives.

Of particular interest and importance to this book is its theatrical setting. Although their vocation required them to interact with members of the upper classes, Japanese society of the time viewed actors as social outcasts, individually dispensable and subject to strict rules of etiquette. Within a troupe itself, an actor's position and duties were determined by age, skill, and sex. Choosing an actor's daughter--the lowest of the low--as the murder victim allows Spann to not only expose her readers to a fascinating milieu, but to examine questions of personal dignity and self-determination--questions upon which Father Mateo's Christian worldview sets him in direct oppostion to Hiro's cultural mores. Plunged into a world where masks are continually donned then shed, Hiro and Mateo find their own masks--the habitual personas they've adopted to survive--beginning to slip. The murdered girl's similarity to someone in Father Mateo's past affects him deeply and causes him to reveal to Hiro memories long suppressed; Hiro, though displaying an assassin's ruthlessness when circumstances require it (and they do), finds himself questioning long-held assumptions and betraying a compassion his sardonic veneer cannot completely hide. No longer deniable, the influence of each man on the other lends a certain piquancy to their interactions and an added dimension to their investigation, which seeks to reclaim the dignity of a woman robbed of the destiny she struggled to forge.

Spann's handles the large cast of characters and intricate plot with deft assurance, taking care to insert the immediate mystery into the overarching political conflict without overwhelming it. Likewise, she provides enough context from the previous books to orient new readers without boring dedicated fans (or spoiling the earlier tales' reveals). Hiro's wry perspective and dry humor provide a delicious counterbalance to Father Mateo's honest earnestness and selfless dedication to saving souls. If you've yet to read a Hiro Hattori mystery, you're in for a treat; if you've enjoyed the earlier installments, you'll find THE NINJA'S DAUGHTER particularly satisfying--even as it leaves you hungry for Hiro's next adventure.

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Susan Spann has published three previous novels in the Shinobi Mystery series: CLAWS OF THE CAT, BLADE OF THE SAMURAI, and FLASK OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER. She has a lifelong love of Japanese history and culture. When not writing, Susan works as a transactional attorney and raises seahorses in her marine aquarium. You can learn more about Susan and her books at her website.

16th Century Christmas Trees

In 1521, the town clerk of Sélestat, a city in the Alsace region of France, made the following entry in the account register:

photo credit: Sélestat.fr

...de même 4 schillings aux gardes forestiers pour surveiller les mais à partir de la Saint Thomas

...likewise 4 shillings to the forest wardens for guarding the fir trees from St. Thomas's Day on

Historians now consider these words to be the first written mention of the Christmas tree. In the old liturgical cycle, St. Thomas's Day was celebrated on December 21, the night of the winter solstice. The fact that the town paid wardens to watch over the forest's trees from this night through Christmas indicates the trees were in danger of being cut down for decoration. Evidence of payment to the wardens for this period has also been found in the registers for 1546, 1555, and 1557, as well a schedule of fines set for those caught stealing a tree.

photo credit

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the faithful erected fir trees outside churches for use in Christmas mystery plays. The story of Adam and Eve required Eve to pluck fruit from a tree, and as fruit trees were bare at this time of year, fir trees stood substitute. Red apples adorned the green branches along with white unconsecrated hosts, representing the cycle of temptation and redemption. Given that the town needed to provide special protection to the forest trees during the Christmas season, it is not unreasonable to conclude that individuals might wish to decorate their own trees at home.

photo credit: www.best-of-upper-rhine.com

By 1600, city fathers erected a Christmas tree at the Hôtel de Ville. In a chronicle preserved with the account registers at Sélestat's Bibliothèque humaniste, the master of ceremonies of the time describes the ceremony surrounding the transport and presentation of the tree by the forest wardens, the process of its decoration, and the custom whereby the children of municipal employees would shake the tree's branches in order to dislodge sweet treats.

Each Christmas season, Sélestat organizes an exhibition in the nave of the Église Saint-Georges entitled "Christmas Tree Decorations Since 1521." Ten fir trees hang suspended from the ceiling, each displaying a different step in the evolution of the Christmas tree from the sixteenth century to the present day. The town celebrates the season with elaborate festivities: a Christmas village, special concerts, and, not surprisingly, a Christmas tree decorating contest.

I just finished decorating my own tree:

At least now I understand the significance of those red plastic apples I hung upon it!

Merry Christmas!

(This post originally appeared in December 2014.)

Review: MÉDICIS DAUGHTER by Sophie Perinot

It’s about time! Time to give the Tudors some competition. Time to show that the history of sixteenth century France is just as, if not more, gripping than that of Henry’s and Elizabeth’s England. Time to bring to vivid life the historical players who stalked the halls of the Louvre and Fontainebleau pursuing goals as grandiose, hatching plots as intricate, and delighting in loves as passionate as those of any of Henry’s wives or Elizabeth’s courtiers.

In MÉDICIS DAUGHTER (St. Martin’s Press), Sophie Perinot rises to the challenge, offering a glimpse into the spectacular, turbulent years of the waning Valois dynasty. The novel’s namesake, unmarried princess Marguerite of Valois, comes of age as the Catholic monarchy’s uneasy toleration of the reformed religion dissolves and war breaks out between Protestants and Catholics. Raised in the full knowledge that her marriage must ultimately serve the politics of France, Marguerite expects her marriage to bolster one of France’s traditional alliances against the growing religious threat. But plans to wed her to a Catholic monarch fail, and Marguerite's mother Catherine de Médicis, the true power behind the unstable king, decides upon another course: Marguerite will marry Henri, King of Navarre, leader of the Protestant faction. Marguerite has little respect and even less inclination for her unsophisticated, heretical cousin, especially since she has given her heart to the dashing Henri, duc de Guise, scion of the powerful Catholic House of Lorraine. But she has little say in the matter, and when the occasion of her marriage results in one of the bloodiest religious massacres of French history, Marguerite must choose between betraying a man of principle in order to win her own happiness or freeing herself of her mother's pernicious dominion once and for all.


Told in the first person from Marguerite's perspective, the story covers about a decade of her life, from the age of ten through the early weeks of her marriage at nineteen. It is, in many respects, a standard coming-of-age story. Marguerite seeks to define herself within the parameters of her family and her station as she matures from obedient daughter to independent woman. Focus falls intently on her relationship with her despotic mother, the widowed Catherine de Médicis, who favors her sons and schemes to retain power over them and the kingdom. Marguerite's singular relationship with her brother the duc d'Anjou takes center stage for a good while and flirts closely enough with the salacious to justify the characters' actions and motivations later in the book. As in any good coming-of-age story, friendship features prominently, as Marguerite learns both to trust and to serve her closest confidantes. These friends in turn facilitate her ardent, dangerous affair with Henri de Guise, who schools her in the arts of love and deception.

These coming-of-age elements are well-handled and engaging, but the story picks up steam and increases in emotional complexity once Marguerite finds herself engaged to Henri of Navarre. Forced into marriage with a man whose manners and appearance she scorned and whose commitment to the reform offends her faith, Marguerite must draw on all she has learned to determine her course. As her relationship with the king evolves in unforeseen ways, she takes full and total ownership of the person she becomes. The incredible horror and ongoing violence of the times demand she take a stand against injustice and display the courage, wisdom, and integrity her previous experiences have helped to refine.

Though the era's religious history is a central and inextricable element of the novel's plot, details and doctrine never hamper the dramatic action of MÉDICIS DAUGHTER. Perinot escorts the reader with confidence and aplomb through the unfamiliar landscape of the Wars of Religion and the late Valois court, ably teasing from its rich soil nuggets of story with universal significance and appeal. Readers will be swept up in the challenges and choices Marguerite faces as she defines the roles of daughter, sister, wife, woman, and queen on her own terms. A compelling and thoroughly satisfying read sure to ignite interest in the era, MÉDICIS DAUGHTER depicts the pageantry and ugliness of sixteenth century court life in all its gritty glory.

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Return tomorrow to read my interview with Sophie about the novel and the history it depicts.

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Sophie Perinot is the author of THE SISTER QUEENS and one of six contributing authors of A DAY OF FIRE: A NOVEL OF POMPEII. A former attorney, Perinot is now a full-time writer. She lives in Great Falls, Virginia with her three children, three cats, one dog and one husband.

An active member of the Historical Novel Society, Sophie has attended all of the group's North American Conferences and served as a panelist multiple times. Find her among the literary twitterati as @Lit_gal or on Facebook.

Sixteenth Century Christmas Trees

In 1521, the town clerk of Sélestat, a city in the Alsace region of France, made the following entry in the account register:

photo credit: Sélestat.fr

...de même 4 schillings aux gardes forestiers pour surveiller les mais à partir de la Saint Thomas

...likewise 4 shillings to the forest wardens for guarding the fir trees from St. Thomas's Day on

Historians now consider these words to be the first written mention of the Christmas tree. In the old liturgical cycle, St. Thomas's Day was celebrated on December 21, the night of the winter solstice. The fact that the town paid wardens to watch over the forest's trees from this night through Christmas indicates the trees were in danger of being cut down for decoration. Evidence of payment to the wardens for this period has also been found in the registers for 1546, 1555, and 1557, as well a schedule of fines set for those caught stealing a tree.

photo credit

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the faithful erected fir trees outside churches for use in Christmas mystery plays. The story of Adam and Eve required Eve to pluck fruit from a tree, and as fruit trees were bare at this time of year, fir trees stood substitute. Red apples adorned the green branches along with white unconsecrated hosts, representing the cycle of temptation and redemption. Given that the town needed to provide special protection to the forest trees during the Christmas season, it is not unreasonable to conclude that individuals might wish to decorate their own trees at home.

photo credit: www.best-of-upper-rhine.com

By 1600, city fathers erected a Christmas tree at the Hôtel de Ville. In a chronicle preserved with the account registers at Sélestat's Bibliothèque humaniste, the master of ceremonies of the time describes the ceremony surrounding the transport and presentation of the tree by the forest wardens, the process of its decoration, and the custom whereby the children of municipal employees would shake the tree's branches in order to dislodge sweet treats.

Each Christmas season, Sélestat organizes an exhibition in the nave of the Église Saint-Georges entitled "Christmas Tree Decorations Since 1521." Ten fir trees hang suspended from the ceiling, each displaying a different step in the evolution of the Christmas tree from the sixteenth century to the present day. The town celebrates the season with elaborate festivities: a Christmas village, special concerts, and, not surprisingly, a Christmas tree decorating contest.

I just finished decorating my own tree:

At least now I understand the significance of those red plastic apples I hung upon it!

Merry Christmas!

Hans Holbein and The Dance of Death

For centuries, the short, gray days of November, heralds of winter, have prompted Christians to remember and honor their beloved dead and to reflect upon their own inevitable end. The Middle Ages embodied this heightened awareness in visual depictions of The Dance of Death (Danse macabre). In this vivid allegory, a personified Death summons individuals from all walks of life to join a chain of frolicking skeletons. Adorning churches and private chapels, such paintings reminded viewers that death spares no one and all, status notwithstanding, share the same ultimate fate.

St. Nicolas's Church, Tallin

The visual tradition of the Dance of Death continued well into the seventeenth century. In the early sixteenth, the German painter Hans Holbein modified the tradition in a way thought to reflect burgeoning Reformation theology. Instead of depicting Death's victims united in an unbroken chain after their passing, he fashioned a stunning series of sketches wherein Death snatches victims away in the midst of their normal daily activities. Pope, king, nobleman, merchant, old woman, priest, peddler, child: a grisly skeleton comes for each at the moment he or she least expects it. Death is as likely to arrive during the performance of sinful actions as charitable ones; good works provide no protection from its ravages.

Hans Lützelburger of Basel cut Holbein's sketches into wood blocks sometime between 1523 and 1526. The woodcuts soon appeared in proofs with German titles. It wasn't until 1538, however, when 

the drawings were published in book form by the Treschsel brothers in Lyon, France, that Holbein's vision reached a wider audience.

Les Simulachres & historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées (Images and Illustrated Facets of Death, as elegantly depicted as they are artfully conceived) features forty-one of Holbein's woodcuts. An illustrative Bible verse crowns each engraving; below the picture follows a short quatrain in French by the poet Gilles Corrozet. The book was intended to help Christians of both persuasions prepare for death by meditating on the vanity of status and possessions, which offered no protection from Death's violence.

Here are a few of Holbein's more striking engravings:

The King (Note the fleur-de-lys and the marked resemblance to François I)

The Young Child

The Physician

The Abbess

The Ploughman

The Drunkard

The Soldier

You can view the entirety of the Simulachres with their Bible verses and accompanying poems here. The work was published at least six times in French by 1562. Innumerable copies in various languages followed through the nineteenth century. The popularity of the work attests to Holbein's genius. By rendering the horror of sudden death visible and viscerally palpable, he reminds viewers to take not a single moment of life for granted. A valuable lesson, even today.

Memento mori. Death comes for all--don't let it catch you by surprise.