Now! Then! Tag: Michaelmas

Entries for the tag ‘Michaelmas’

Feast principally of St. Michael on 29 September, one of the four quarter days of the financial, judicial, and academic year, in medieval England the beginning and end of the husbandman's year, hence hiring fairs at this time.

29 September 1513: Black humour in a report to Venice regarding the arrival at York of the body of James IV of Scotland after Flodden
3 May 1641: On the day of the discovery of the True Cross, Driffield folk start moving their livestock out of town to high summer pasture, endangering crops
5 February 1643: Rioting locals reïnundate Hatfield Chase in protest at flooding and a loss of fishing and fowling caused by Netherlandish colonists and Cornelius Vermuyden’s land reclamation scheme
29 September 1684: It being Michaelmas, the Jolly Pinder of Wakefield (in song) deserts his beasts and pound and joins Robin Hood in the greenwood
27 September 1696: A proverbial Michaelmas rhyme and parade at Scarborough parodies rent collectors
13 June 1709: The population of Whitby are told when they may bury their dead

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