The Medieval Carnival

Carnival History

Charivari from the Roman de Fauvel, 14th century France

Carnival is a festival of layers, a ritual that dances atop older rituals. Our current idea of Carnival is most closely related to a Medieval tradition, which was built over a Roman and even a pre-Roman tradition, perhaps even over a primordial need for the carnivalesque.

These are not rituals that have been practiced continuously across the centuries; various links in the chain have been broken, either lost to time or interrupted by a disapproving church or government. It is hard to form a clear historical picture of how precisely the fragments of pre-Roman and Roman practice merged with a newer Christian tradition of parading, masking, and feasting before a Lenten fast. First, there had to be a Lenten fast.

Fasting for religious purposes is found across almost all cultures and religions. At Lent, Christians remember a forty day period when Jesus fasted and prayed in the desert, before returning to Jerusalem to confront his imminent execution. A forty day fast has significance in Jewish tradition; both Moses and Elijah fasted for forty days. Noah’s flood lasted for forty days. Candlemas comes forty days after Christmas, as Jewish postpartum purification rites come forty days after the birth of a son. The English Lent comes from the Old English lecten meaning season of spring. But in most Romance languages, the word for Lent refers to the number forty: Cuaresma (Spanish), Quaresma (Portuguese), Carême (French). Forty is the number for spiritual renewal and change.

The wearing of ashes is also an ancient Jewish tradition. Throughout the Old Testament, there are examples of the pouring of ashes to express grief and sorrow.

With fasting, sackcloth, and ashes I turned my face to the Lord God to seek him in prayer and to plead for grace. I prayed to the Lord, my God, and I made confession.

Daniel 9:3-4

From the very beginning, early Christians practiced fasting and the wearing of ashes, in particular around Easter. It was during the Council of Nicea in 325 AD that the idea of Lent began to take a more standardized shape. It wasn’t until 1091 AD that Pope Urban II established the imposition of ashes on the first day of Lent across the Western Church. Note this is just a few decades after the Great Schism between the Western and Eastern churches in 1054 AD. While the Eastern Orthodox definitely practice Lenten fasting, they do not traditionally practice the imposition of ashes. Ash Wednesday is a Western Medieval tradition.

The first Carnival recognized in the historic record was in Venice in 1162 AD. But I do not believe this was truly the first celebration of Carnival. Carnival was likely happening all along, on a small scale, in various regional flavors. Once Ash Wednesday was established across the Roman Catholic Church, the contrast between Carnival and Lent probably grew sharper, the festivities more intense, until finally someone wrote down some observations.

Carnival was once celebrated almost everywhere in Western Europe, as far as the outer reaches of the Roman Catholic Church. Even countries that haven’t been Catholic for a very long time, like the Scandinavian nations, have vestiges of Carnival, even if only in special foods eaten one day a year (like the Norwegian fastelavensboller or the Swedish semlor).

Modern Carnival was forged during the Medieval period in Western Europe and was later exported along with European colonization of Africa and the Western Hemisphere. The role of Catholic cofraternities and religious processions shaped the krewes and samba schools that constitute today’s Carnival parades in Louisiana and Brazil and in other Carnival cultures. We will talk about these details in the coming weeks.

The chain is not unbroken. Venice has a world famous Carnival, whose eerie porcelain masks have become emblematic of both the idea of Carnival and of Venice itself. Some say it is the birthplace of Carnival and yet the celebration was officially banned by the church from 1797 until 1979. The same church that at times organized Carnival and had a role in exporting the tradition to the Western Hemisphere also prohibited Carnival when those in power felt it had grown beyond their control. In some places, this was enough to kill it. But in other places, like Venice, Carnival held on in secret until there could be a revival.

The Minuet by Giandomenico Tiepolo, Venice, 1756