The Maypole
In the 16th century, maypoles were communal symbols, being erected as group activities by a parish (or by several parishes in concert if they did not have the means to do so individually). They were often the focus of rivalries between villages, who would steal one another's poles. (In Hertfordshire in 1602 and in Warwickshire in 1639, such thefts led to violence.) Also, the timber was often taken from a forest without asking its owner. In 1603, the Earl of Huntingdon was furious to discover that his estates had been the source of the maypoles used in Leicester.[1] Evangelical Protestants grew hostile towards maypoles, first significantly during the Reformation of Edward VI, when a preacher denounced the Cornhill maypole as an idol, causing it to be taken out of storage, sawn up, and burned. Under Mary and Elizabeth I, this opposition to traditional festivities lacked government support, and Elizabeth is recorded as being fond of them. But Protestant pressure to remove maypoles, as a symbol of the mixed-gender dancing, drunkenness, and merry-making on Sundays (see Sabbatarianism), grew nonetheless. From 1570 to 1630, maypoles were banned from Banbury, Bristol, Canterbury, Coventry, Doncaster, Leicester, Lincoln, and Shrewsbury; and there is no historical evidence for their use inside the city limits of London. Of the four Berkshire villages whose accounts still exist, three sold their maypoles between 1588 and 1610. But the trend was not uniformly towards the banning of maypoles. There are many records of their continued use in the 1630s, and Charles I and James I explicitly allowed maypole dancing on Sundays.[1] That royal support contributed to the outlawing of maypole displays and dancing during the English Interregnum. The Long Parliament's ordinance of 1644 described maypoles as "a Heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness."
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Keywords: children, color, colour, country, dance, dancing, day, maypole, midsummer, ribbons, village, weaving
