St. Nicholas
McKnight
B 450524
His Legend and his Rôle
in the Christmas Celebration
and other Popular Customs
George H. McKnight
BV
47
1159

}
ARTES
[1837
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
EXE
PLURIBU) UNUM
TUEROR
SI QUERIS-PENINSULAM AMŒNAM`
CIRCUMSPICE

Alinari
G. da Fabriano. St. Nicholas with Conventional Emblems along with Mary Magdalene,
St. John, and St. George.
St. Nicholas
His Legend and His Rôle in the Christmas
Celebration and Other Popular
Customs
By
George Hy
azle
McKnight
Illustrated
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1917
folk-lore
Friedman
6-25-25
12052
COPYRIGHT, 1917
BY
GEORGE H.. MCKNIGHT
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
06
A
FEW years ago, while trying to trace the
history of certain Christmas customs, I was
unavoidably brought into contact with St. Nicholas.
A closer acquaintance with that amiable person-
ality was the result, and acquaintance gradually
deepened into veneration and affection. In the
same year in which began my closer acquaintance
with St. Nicholas, I was so fortunate as to be
brought face to face with some of the quaint
pictures in which Italian painters, with so much
charm, have represented the various episodes in
the life of the saint. I was led to believe that
others would enjoy the pictures, not all of them
readily accessible, and that a wider knowledge of
St. Nicholas would greatly enlarge the circle of
his friends. The present book was the result.
My aim has been, not to offer an exhaustive
study of all the difficult questions that are con-
nected with the name of St. Nicholas, but to
bring together, from somewhat scattered sources,
the elements in his life story. The kindly acts
iii
iv
Preface
recorded of him have lived in popular memory
and have flowered into some of the most generally
cherished of popular customs. In St. Nicholas
the reader will come in contact with a personality
of unique amiability, whose influence has per-
meated popular customs for many centuries and
has contributed much of sweetness to human life.
My original contribution to the subject has
been slight. In the notes I have attempted to
indicate my indebtedness to other writers, al-
though the amount of this debt I have not been
able adequately to show. To the artists who
have represented with feeling and with charm
the scenes in the life of St. Nicholas, this book is
most indebted, and for them I wish to bespeak
a major part of the reader's attention.
G. H. McK.
COLUMBUS, O.,
July 16, 1917.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE
CHAPTER
I. ST. NICHOLAS, SANTA CLAUS, AND
KRIS KRINGLE
II.-BIOGRAPHY AND LEGEND
iii
I
28
III. THE BOY ST. NICHOLAS AND
NICHOLAS THE PATRON SAINT OF
ST.
SCHOOLBOYS
37
IV.-ST. NICHOLAS AND THE DOWERLESS
MAIDENS
53
V. THE BOY BISHOP, OR NICHOLAS BISHOP.
66
VI.-VARIED BENEFICENT ACTIVITY
79
VII.-ST. NICHOLAS PLAYS.
89
VIII. ST. NICHOLAS AS PATRON SAINT
112
IX.-PAGAN HERITAGE OF ST. NICHOLAS
125
X.-ST. NICHOLAS, DEFENDER OF
THE
FAITH
141
XI. CONCLUSION
146
NOTES
149
ILLUSTRATIONS
ST. NICHOLAS AND OTHER SAINTS
Gentile da Fabriano. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS IN EAST FRISIA .
Reproduced from
festliche Jahr.
Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
12
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das
CHRISTKINDCHEN (KRIS KRINGLE) AND HANS
TRAPP IN ALSACE
Reproduced from Reinsberg-Düringsfeld.
ST. NICHOLAS SCENES IN THE STAINED GLASS
18
OF BOURGES CATHEDRAL .
34
From P. Lacroix, Science and Art in the Middle Ages.
THREE SCENES FROM THE EARLY LIFE OF ST.
NICHOLAS
38
Beato Angelico. (Rome.)
THE YOUNG CLERK STRANGLED BY THE DEVIL.
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
42
ST. NICHOLAS RESTORING A BOY TO HIS FATHER
46
Fresco at S. Croce, Florence.
vii
viii
Illustrations
ST. NICHOLAS AND THE MURDERED SCHOOLBOYS
FACING PAGE
48
L. di Bicci. (Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE SAME SCENE
50
F. Pesellino.
(Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS AND THE THREE MAIDENS .
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
52
ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE SAME SCENE
54
Florentine School. (Louvre, Paris.)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE SAME SCENE .
56
L. di Bicci (?). (Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
MADONNA AND CHILD AND VARIOUS SAINTS
L. di Bicci. (Florence.)
60
ST. NICHOLAS AND THE MONEY LENDER
64
Fresco at S. Croce, Florence.
THE BOY NICHOLAS ELECTED BISHOP
68
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS SAVING THE CITY IN TIME OF
FAMINE.
80
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
NORMAN BAPTISMAL FONT AT WINCHESTER
84
ST. NICHOLAS SAVES THE KNIGHTS ABOUT TO BE
BEHEADED
86
F. Pesellino. (Florence.)
TRIUMPHAL CAR OF ST. LUCY AT SYRACUSE IN
SICILY
I12
Illustrations
ix
IMAGES OF BRETON SAINTS
ST. NICHOLAS SAVES THE CITY FROM FAMINE
Beato Angelico. (Rome.)
ST. NICHOLAS RESCUES SEAMEN
FACING PAGE
116
118
122
L. Monaco. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS IN THE MOSAICS OF St. Mark's
IN VENICE
142
•
•
ST. NICHOLAS
CHAPTER I
ST. NICHOLAS, SANTA CLAUS, AND KRIS KRINGLE
THE good St. Nicholas, the bishop-saint, is
strangely little known in America. He has
lent his name to a church here and there and to
a popular magazine for children, his protégés.
But how many people are familiar with the story
of his life? How many even know the date of his
own special festival? There are countries in which
his memory is not thus neglected, in which the
festival of St. Nicholas is one of the important
events of the year. An English newspaper of
the first year of the war has this to report concern-
ing the Belgian custom:
The feast of St. Nicholas, December 6th, was cele-
brated at the Belgian refugee camp at Earle's Court,
England, with presents for the children, stockings
hung up, a Christmas tree, and all the rest of the
I
2
St. Nicholas
children's festivities which we associate with Christ-
mas eve and Christmas morning. This was not a
mere anticipation of Christmas. St. Nicholas' day,
and not Christmas, is the children's festival in Hol-
land, Belgium, and parts of Germany, and we have
borrowed the hanging up of stockings from them and
turned it into a Christmas custom.¹
Letters from Belgian children, exiled in France
for more that two years, offer further evidence
of the intimate and friendly relationship existing
between St. Nicholas and his Belgian children.
Here is a touching passage from a letter written
by a little eight-year-old Belgian girl from Varen-
geville-sur-Mer, in France, to an American "god-
mother"; the adult English used in translation
fails to reproduce the naïve charm of the original.
We have just had a grand visit from St. Nicholas.
He came in person to bring us some nice things as he
used to do when we were home. We were playing
when, all at once, we heard singing at one side and
saw a bishop, ringing a bell. What joy, it is St. Nicho-
las! We kneeled down to receive his blessing, and
then sang a song and went into the house. St.
Nicholas talked to us and, best of all, he gave us some
presents. He gave us an orange, a barley sweet, a
cake, and some games. My, how happy we were!
GERMAINE Barbez.
Le 16 dec., 1916.
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 3
Another little girl, a little older, writes from the
same place of 'how the "grand Saint Nicholas"
has gone out of his way to come to see the Belgian
children on December sixth, and how he delivered
admonitions to various boys and girls but did
not fail to distribute among them dainties much
appreciated by all, big and little.'
The importance of St. Nicholas in Belgian life
is evident. His festival day too, the celebration
of which is so deeply rooted as not to lose its life
in an atmosphere of exile and painful memory,
has continued to hold an important place in the
year's life not only of Belgium but, as remains to
be seen, of Holland. At one time the celebration
of St. Nicholas' day seems to have been general
in most of western Europe. There is plentiful
record of the earlier popularity of this celebration
in all the southern and western parts of the coun-
tries occupied by the peoples speaking the Teu-
tonic languages. It can be traced from Holland
and Belgium, through eastern France, the Rhine
provinces, Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine,
through Switzerland, both French and German,
as far east as the Tyrol and Salzburg, including
on the way Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria,
in Germany. In northern Germany, Protes-
tantism, with its aversion to saint worship, was
2
4
St. Nicholas
hostile to the St. Nicholas celebration. Also the
growing concentration on Christmas day of the
different winter popular celebrations, and espe-
cially the rapid rise in importance, during the
last two centuries, of the Christmas tree, have
caused the St. Nicholas customs, in many places,
to be absorbed into the Christmas celebration,
in other places, to go quite out of use. But popular
customs seem to be to some extent affected by
political boundaries, and in two of the smaller
countries of western Europe, Belgium and Hol-
land, the St. Nicholas customs still retain much
of their earlier vigor.
In Belgium, St. Nicholas has long been among
the most venerated of saints, hardly second to
St. Martin. In the whole country there are one
hundred and six churches in his honor.3 Besides
he is the patron saint of many trades and crafts,
for example, of the boatmen in cities on the Meuse,
of sawyers, dyers, turners, and haberdashers at
Bruges, of seedmen, packers, and coopers at
Liège, of haberdashers and mercers at Malines.
But above all he is the protector and the corrector
of children.
The children's festival at Christmas time does
not exist in Belgium. The grand réveillon, the
great Christmas feast of southern France, which
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 5
leads children to call Christmas the "day when one
eats so much," the English Christmas, with its
life and gayety and open hospitality, have nothing
corresponding at Christmas time in Belgium, 4
where the celebration of Christmas is confined
almost entirely to services in the church. In
place of the Christmas gayeties of other countries,
Belgium has its St. Nicholas festival. St. Nicholas'
day throughout the whole country is a day of joy,
especially for the young. Even the German
Christmas tree, which has been gradually finding
its way into Belgium, is introduced not on Christ-
mas day, but on December 6th, the day devoted
to the honor of the popular saint.
A writer of about fifty years back thus describes
the joyous celebration of St. Nicholas' day by
Belgian children of that time. "Weeks before-
hand, children full of impatience, before going
to sleep ask: 'How many times must I go to sleep
before he comes?' They sing to him as soon
as it is dark, and they see him in their dreams,
giving them gifts or punishment, according as they
have been good or naughty. Occasionally they
are made happy by a little gift that comes down
the chimney into a pinafore hung up to receive
it, or is found accidentally in the corner of the
A joyful 'Thank you, Saint Nicholas'
room.
འདོ
}
6
St. Nicholas
greets each such gift. Each evening every corner
of the room is searched, and the children sing
with fervor their petition, one Flemish version
of which begins:
'Sint Niklaes, Gods heilge man,
Doe uwen besten tabbaerd aen,
En rydt er mee naer spanje
Om appelen van Oranje
Om peeren van den boom.
In one of the versions of this children's song
the supplication is addressed to "Sinte Niklaes
van Tolentyn," a saint quite distinct from Saint
Nicholas of Bari, the recognized patron of chil-
dren, but the heavenly postal arrangements seem
to be effectively organized, for, so far as known,
the wrong address used, in no way prevents the
desired response from their special protector and
friend.
On the eve of his festival day, St. Nicholas
makes his tour, visiting palace and cottage. Fre-
quently in the early evening he makes a prelimi-
nary visit in bishop's robes, with pastoral staff-
and miter, at each house making inquiries con-
cerning the conduct of the children, giving appro-
priate praise or warning, and promising on the
following morning to give more substantial reward.
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle
7
5
When he is gone, the children place receptacles
for the gifts which St. Nicholas is expected to let
fall down the chimney. The receptacle varies
in different places. Sometimes shoes are neatly
polished for the purpose, at other times plates
or baskets or stockings or specially made shoes of
porcelain are set on the bed, in the open chimney,
before the door of a room, or merely in the corner
of a room. St. Nicholas' steed, variously con-
ceived of as gray horse or white ass, is not for-
gotten. For him the children put water and hay
or carrot or potato peeling or piece of bread, in
the shoe or basket or stocking. In the morning,
from the tipped-over chairs and general disarray
in the room, it is evident that St. Nicholas has
been present. Replacing the oats or hay or carrot
are found sweets and playthings for children that
have been good, obedient, and studious during
the year." In the case of bad children, rods are
left, and the fodder is untouched.
A recent writer has given a highly interesting
account of the similar celebration at the pres-
ent day in Holland, where St. Nicholas' day has
the same importance as in Belgium.
St. Nicholas' eve is a time of great importance to
children because at that time they receive a visit from
8
St. Nicholas
the saint, and his arrival is looked forward to with
trembling. A large white sheet is placed on the
floor in the middle of the room, and the children
stand about anxiously watching the slow movement
of the hands of the clock. In the meantime some of
the elder members of the family dress up so as to
represent St. Nicholas and his black servant. At
five minutes before the expected time, for St. Nicholas
generally announces at what time he may be expected,
they sing songs asking him to give liberally as is his
wont, and praising his greatness and goodness in elo-
quent terms. The first intimation of his arrival is a
shower of sweets on the sheet spread on the floor.
Then, amid the ensuing scramble, St. Nicholas ap-
pears in full bishop's vestments, laden with presents,
while in the rear comes his black servant with an open
sack in one hand, for naughty boys and girls, and in
the other a rod which he shakes vigorously from time
to time. St. Nicholas usually knows the shortcom-
ings of individual children, and on his departure gives
each an appropriate lecture, promising to return
later. Sometimes he makes the children repeat a
verse to him or asks about their lessons.
The mysterious events of the ensuing night
closely parallel those recorded for Belgium. St.
Nicholas' robe, his "beste tabbaerd," enables him
to pass from place to place instantaneously. But
in his nightly journey over the roofs of houses,
he uses a horse which the children of Holland,
like those of Belgium, remember by leaving a
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 9
8
wisp of hay for his use. If, for some reason, on
account of lack of time or of money, the parents
have neglected to buy gifts, the children say,
"St. Nicholas' horse has glass legs; he has slipped
down and broken his foot."
But the joys of St. Nicholas' eve in Holland are
not confined to children. It is a time, like the
Christmas season in England, for family reunions
and the renewal of old memories, also for the
giving of presents. But the manner of the Dutch
gift-giving has its distinctive features, for:
St. Nicholas' presents must be hidden and disguised
as much as possible and be accompanied by rhymes
explaining what the gift is, and for whom St. Nicholas
intended it. Sometimes a parcel addressed to one
person will finally turn out to be for quite a different
member of the family from the one who first received
it. For the address on each wrapper in various stages
of wrapping, makes it necessary for the parcel to
change hands as many times as there are papers to
undo. Tiniest things are sent in immense packing
Sometimes the gifts are baked in a loaf of
bread or hidden in a turf. The longer it takes to
find the present, the greater the surprise.
cases.
Great delight is taken in concealing the identity
of the giver as long as possible. Even if the gift
comes from a member of the same household, before
the parcel is brought in, the doorbell is rung by a
servant in order to create the impression that the par-
IO
St. Nicholas
[
F
cel has come from an outsider. For the same purpose
a parcel for a friend's house is often entrusted to a
passer-by.
On the evening of the celebration, after St. Nicholas
has said his adieux, promising to come again, the
children are packed away to bed, and the older people
have their special amusement. They sit about a table
in the middle of the room and partake of tea and
"speculaas," a spice cake bearing a great picture of
St. Nicholas, until their own surprises begin to arrive.
When this part of the program is over, about ten
o'clock, the room is cleared; the dust sheet laid down
for the children's scramble, is removed, the papers,
boxes, baskets, and the like, used in packing the
presents, are cleared away. The table is spread with
a white tablecloth, and when all have taken seats,
a dish of boiled chestnuts, steaming hot, is brought
in and eaten with butter and salt. 10
Belgium and Holland have their special forms
of cakes and sweetmeats for the St. Nicholas
season. In Holland these are the flat hard cakes
called "Klaasjes" once made exclusively in the
form of a bishop in honor of the bishop St. Nicho-
las, but now made in forms of every conceivable
kind of beast, bird, or fish. In certain places on
the Rhine the figure of the saint himself, the "Klas-
mann," is baked in dough with currant eyes,
or an especially palatable little horse is formed of
honey cake dough and the "Klas" is inlaid on the
1
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle II
horse. Then there is the "Letterbanket" made
in the form of letters so that one may order his
name in cake, and the "Marsepein," now made in
a great variety of forms, but formerly made only
in heart-shaped sweets ornamented with little
turtle doves made of pink sugar or with a flaming
heart on a little altar. The "Marsepein
formerly used as a device in wooing. The young
man sent "Marsepein "12 with a "Vryer" of cake
to the young lady of his heart, and if she accepted,
he knew his cause was won.
was
There are also various accounts of the way the
cakes are made. In Vorarlberg if, on the morning
of St. Nicholas' day, mist is seen to rise, one tells
the children that St. Nicholas is baking his cakes,
"Zelten" or "Klösse."
or "Klösse." All the different figures
found on the "Zelten" have been made by St.
Nicholas' ass stepping on them with his shoes.
Another explanation of the origin of the cakes
has more direct relation with the life story of the
saint. The story is told that the three maidens
rescued from shame by St. Nicholas - whose
story remains to be told in a later chapter-at
their marriage, out of gratitude, baked triple
kneaded rolls and distributed them among poor
children. 13
Outside the homes, the time about St. Nicholas'
12
St. Nicholas
day in Belgium and Holland is one of unusual
life and gayety.
The old-time St. Nicholas fairs are no longer held
in the streets, at any rate, not in the large towns of
Holland, but exchange of presents is as universal as
ever, and the shops are as festive in appearance as
American shops at Christmas time. 14 New attrac-
tions for children are offered each year. Life-sized
figures of St. Nicholas are frequent in front of shop
windows, and some establishments have a man dressed
like the good saint, who goes about the streets mounted
on a white steed, while behind him follows a cart
laden with presents to be delivered. Crowds of
children, singing, shouting, and clapping their hands,
follow. 15
An older authority records concerning Belgium
that often in country districts this or that peasant
makes up as a long-bearded man or bishop and
rides through the dark streets on a gray horse,
or an ass, or a wooden horse, with a great basket
at his side and a bundle of whips in his hand. 16
In no countries besides Belgium and Holland
is the celebration of St. Nicholas' day so widely
prevalent to-day. But, as already remarked, in ·
earlier times the celebration of St. Nicholas' day
was popular in many parts of Teutonic Europe,
particularly in Austria, Switzerland, and southern
Germany. In various parts of these countries
>
翳
​
St. Nicholas in East Frisia.
Reproduced from Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr.
UNIV
3
OF
ICH
ว
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 13
the old St. Nicholas customs still maintain a
vigorous existence. In Württemberg and Baden,
children on St. Nicholas' day receive gifts from their
godparents. In Switzerland the gifts are brought
by "Samiklaus," in the Tyrol by the "Holy Man,'
in lower Austria by "Niglo," in Bohemia by
"Nikolo." At Ehingen on the Danube, it is
the custom to keep tally on a stick of the number
of prayers the children have said. The child
that can show many tallies is favored by Santi-
klos. Before going to bed children place bowls
under the bed and say the prayer:
17
"St. Nikolaus, leg mir ein,
Was dein guter Will mag sein,
Aepfel, Birnen, Nuss und Kern
Essen die kleinen Kinder gern.
(St. Nicholas put in for me
What thy good will may be,
Apple, pear, and good sweetmeat,
Little children love to eat.)"
In the morning the bowls are found filled with the
good things desired.
In various places in Germany, Switzerland, and
Austria, the saint, represented by some older
member of the family, appears, or used to appear,
in person, in bishop's guise with staff and miter,
and makes inquiry concerning the behavior of
14
St. Nicholas
the children, and hears the children say their
prayers. Before his coming the children have
placed shoes in the garden behind a bush, and
when after his departure they go out, they find
the shoes filled with apples, nuts, and the like,
if their conduct has been good. But in the case
of ill-behaved children, the shoes are likely to be
occupied by a whip.
In Italy a similar custom was formerly observed
among people of higher social station. In the
courts of princes, on St. Nicholas' day, it was a
custom to hide presents "in the shoes and slippers
of persons whom it was desired to honor, in such
manner as to surprise them when they came to
dress. The custom was called Zopata from a
Spanish word signifying a shoe." 18
The function of St. Nicholas, it will have been
observed, is a double one, to bring pleasing re-
wards to good children, but also to bring fear to
children whose conduct has been bad. A Swiss
dialect dictionary published in 1806, defines
'Samiklaus" as a "gift such as parents make to
their children through a disguised person named
Samiklaus (corrupted from St. Nicholas) in order
to give them pleasure and encourage them to duty
and obedience or to frighten them through the
strangely frightful make-up of the bogey man who
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 15
accompanies the Samiklaus. "19 As a means of ex-
citing fear in the ill-behaved children, the friendly
bishop was often accompanied on his rounds
by a children's bugaboo, a frightful figure with
horns, black face, fiery eyes, and long red tongue,
variously called Klaubauf, Krampus, Rumpanz,
and the like. 20
2
I
Further evidence of the earlier wider preval-
ence of St. Nicholas customs is afforded by the
objections of seventeenth-century Protestant
preachers, quoted in a later chapter, who opposed
the attribution to St. Nicholas of gifts which, they
asserted, came from the Christ Child alone.
In objections such as these, is to be found one
of the causes of the decay of distinctively St.
Nicholas customs. Or perhaps we may better
say, here is an explanation why customs that per-
sisted, lost their association with the name of St.
Nicholas. There is apparent Protestant objection
to saint worship. There is also in evidence the
rivalry of the celebration in honor of the birth of
Christ which had received the name Christmas.
The Christmas celebration was in its origin a
church affair. Up to the fourteenth century the
church had tried in vain to convert it into a popular
festival. It employed all kinds of methods to
attract the traditional customs and beliefs of the
16
St. Nicholas
beginning of winter to the church festival. But
only after the beliefs and practices earlier at-
tached to Martinmas, to St. Andrew's day, and
to St. Nicholas' day were brought into association
with the birth of Christ, did the Christmas festival,
after the end of the fourteenth century, become
a genuinely popular occasion.
From this time on the customs distinctive of
St. Nicholas' day became more and more absorbed
into the Christmas festival. 22 At times St. Nicho-
las retains his association with the old customs,
but the time is shifted from St. Nicholas' day to
Christmas time. In Catholic Nuremberg, for in-
stance, at the end of the seventeenth century, the
St. Nicholas gift-giving and the Christmas gift-
giving customs were united, and the St. Nicholas
customs made dependent on the Christmas
customs. Children believed that St. Nicholas
was the attendant of the Christ Child and was
made to carry the wares basket at the Christmas
market, and that St. Nicholas received sweet-
meats as extras from the dealers. As Christmas
time approached, these were put under the pillows
of the children, who believed them to be the gifts
of St. Nicholas. 23
In all north Germany, too, on Christmas eve,
there goes about a bearded man covered with a
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 17
great hide or with straw, who questions children
and rewards their good conduct. His name varies
with the locality. In many places he is called
"Knecht Ruprecht," a name probably going back.
to a pre-Christian time before St. Nicholas be-
came associated with the children's festival. In
other places the man is called "De Hele Christ,"
Holy Christ, who later becomes the central figure
of all Christmas activities. In many of his names,
however, such as "Rû Clås," "Joseph Clås,'
"Clawes, "24 "Clås Bůr," and "Bullerclås," one
will recognize the juvenile derivative from the name
Nicholas. This figure often rides on a white
horse. Not infrequently his relation to the
Christmas festival proper needs to be made clear
by the presence of the Holy Christ as a companion,
represented by a maiden in white garb who hears
the children say their prayers.
Saint Nicholas in the double rôle of children's
benefactor and children's bugaboo found his way
to America. Among the Pennsylvania Germans,
or "Pennsylvania Dutch," as they are more famil-
iarly called, at least in the country districts, he
continues to play his old part. "You'd better
look out or Pelznickel will catch you," is the threat
held out over naughty children about Christmas
time. The nickel in Pelznickel serves to show
2
18
St. Nicholas
:
the relationship of this personage to St. Nicholas.
Pelznickel is a Santa Claus with some variations.
"On Christmas eve someone in the neighborhood
impersonates Pelznickel by dressing up as an old
man with a long white beard. Arming himself
with a switch and carrying a bag of toys over his
shoulder, he goes from house to house, where the
children are expecting him.
"He asks the parents how the little ones have
behaved themselves during the year. To each of
those who have been good, he gives a present
from his bag. But woe betide the naughty ones!
These are not only supposed to get no presents,
but Pelznickel catches them by the collar and
playfully taps them with his switch. "25
Eventually, in many places, St. Nicholas be-
came quite excluded from the customs with which
he was long associated. In Schleswig-Holstein,
for instance, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, the old customs were preserved but en-
tirely separated from their earlier associations
with St. Nicholas and St. Nicholas' eve, and now
connected with the story of the Christ Child and
His festival, Christmas. The custom was for
each child to borrow a plate or bowl from the
kitchen and place this in an appointed room or in
a window. On Christmas eve, when the tinkle

Christkindchen (Kris Kringle) and Hans Trapp in Alsace.
Reproduced from Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr.
OF
PICH
MIND
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle
19
}
of the bell summoned the children from the dark
anteroom into the room with the festal decora-
tions, then each child found what the Christ
Child ("Kindjes") had brought him. On the
plates lay cakes, fruits, and playthings. Perhaps
a rod was laid beside the other gifts, but it counted
as the most severe punishment when the plate
remained empty.
Here and there also in the country, as late as
1865, there survived the similar custom, for the
children, before going to bed, to place the plate
before the window, for in the night the Christ
Child took out a pane of glass and laid his gifts
on the plate so that on Christmas morning it was
evident that the "Kindjes" had been present.
Here we see St. Nicholas quite deprived of his old
prerogatives and his place taken by the "Christ
Kindjes," or as he was called in some places
"Christ kindel," from whose name, by a process
of popular etymology, presumably was derived
the name Kris Kringle.
In various parts of the United States where
Dutch and German customs prevail, Kris Kringle
appears in the combined rôle of the Christ Child
and Santa Claus, and the vigil of his festival is
called "Christ Kinkle eve." In certain parts of
Germany children sing, on Christmas eve:
20
St. Nicholas
I
'Christkindchen komm;
Mach mich fromm;
Dass ich zu dir im Himmel komm.”26
In the principality of Waldeck27 down as late
as 1830 there survived a popular Christmas
mummers' play custom originating in the sixteenth
century and bringing in not only Christ and St.
Nicholas but other personages grotesque in ap-
pearance, some of them survivals from folk
celebrations antedating St. Nicholas customs.
In the play appear Christ, Mary, an Angel, Peter,
and Niklawes, all clad in white, and Hansruhbart,
Brose, who bears the sack, and the shepherd Pam-
philius with the noble steed, Zink. Hansruhbart
and Brose are clad in pea straw and wear fright-
ful masks. Pamphilius has suspended from a
strap about his neck a box full of dirt with which
he threatens to smear the children. Each person
in turn is summoned to speak. As the chief
offence in the case of children is reckoned the
preference of small beer to coffee. Peter distri-
butes the gifts, which the children receive only
after they have been forgiven. He has a basket
with apples and nuts, which he throws on a table
for the children. As the children reach out for
his gifts, he strikes them on the fingers with his
rod.
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 21
Mumming pieces like this were popular all
over Germany, the personages varying with the
locality. Sometimes the Holy Christ went about
alone, and before him the children presented
themselves. But the most striking of all the
personages in these plays was the one at Waldeck
called Hansruhbart, elsewhere Ruprecht and
Knecht Ruprecht, at his earliest recorded ap-
pearance called Acesto, probably a traditional
figure that originated in customs that antedate
Christianity.
In all this discussion of various customs asso-
ciated with the name of St. Nicholas there will
have been seen little to connect with the life story
of a saintly person. The deeds of the children's
friend, St. Nicholas, to be sure exhibit beneficence,
but the beneficence of a capricious, fairy-like
benefactor rather than of a holy saint. In fact
it is evident that the customs in question, in their
origin, had little, if anything to do with St. Nicho-
las, and as they exist to-day show only in cer-
tain external features any relation with the life
story of the kindly Eastern saint. This impres-
sion of the earlier independence of the popular
customs in question from the story of St. Nicholas,
is confirmed by the fact that many of them are
associated with other names. St. Martin, as
1
22
St. Nicholas
I
well as St. Nicholas, figures as a giver of gifts to
children, especially in the Netherlands. At Ant-
werp and certain other cities, according to a report
from a generation ago, on St. Martin's day, as in
the St. Nicholas' day celebration already described,
a man with bishop's vestments and crosier ap-
peared in the nurseries and made inquiries about
the behavior of the children. According to the
nature of this report he threw on the floor from
his basket, either rods, or apples, nuts, and cakes.
In Ypres children are reported to hang stockings
filled with hay in the open chimneypiece on the
eve of Martinmas. The next morning the stock-
ings are found filled with gifts from St. Martin
who in the night has ridden over the chimney and
has been grateful for the attention paid to his gray
(or white) steed. 28 There is also an old custom
in Flemish Belgium in which on the eve of Martin-
mas the children are placed in the corner of a
room with their backs to the door and told not
to look. The parents then throw in at the door
apples, nuts, peppercakes, and other sweetmeats
of various kinds, pretending that St. Martin has
done it. If one of the children turns around,
St. Martin goes away without leaving anything.
The bugaboo feature of St. Nicholas' day also
was not lacking in the Martinmas celebration.
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 23
ད
In several places in southern Germany, on St.
Martin's day, "Pelzmärte," with blackened face
and cowbells, went about giving beatings or
throwing apples into rooms, whichever the chil-
dren's behavior called for.
Some of the Martinmas customs had less re-
semblance to St. Nicholas customs. The con-
vivial customs of Martinmas have given St. Martin
a reputation for drunkenness entirely undeserved
by that zealous defender of Christianity, St.
Martin of Tours. But the ones singled out for
mention evidently belong jointly to St. Martin
and St. Nicholas, although in their origin probably
as little connected with the one as with the other.
The celebration of St. Andrew's day, also, has
features similar to that of St. Nicholas' day. On
St. Andrew's eve (November thirtieth), in the
neighborhood of Reichenberg, children are said
to hang up their stockings at the windows and
in the evening find them filled with apples and
nuts. 29
The explanation of the origin of these customs
is to be found in practices long antedating the
time of St. Martin or St. Nicholas or even of St.
Andrew. They seem to be practices rooted in
pre-Christian agricultural rites which have been
superseded, or better expressed, have survived
24
St. Nicholas
།
with new meanings read into them. With the
introduction of Christianity, following the usual
course of things, the older modes of celebration
were changed not so much in form as in name.
To St. Martin were devoted customs which coin-
cided in time with the celebration in honor of St.
Martin, customs originally associated with the
first drinking of the new wine or with the autumn
slaughter, a connection not entirely lost in our
own times, as indicated by the "Martlemas beef"
in Great Britain, the "St. Martin's geese" and
"St. Martin's swine" in Germany. With the
shifting of the agricultural practices to a later date,
the customs came to be associated with the cele-
bration of saints' days later in the calendar. With
St. Nicholas, on December sixth, became asso-
ciated customs and practices earlier associated
with St. Martin, on November eleventh, or with
St. Andrew on November thirtieth, but in their
true nature as little appropriate to one as to the
other.
There have been attempts to show points of
connection between the Christian worship of St.
Nicholas and the earlier worship of the Teutonic
divinities. It has been attempted to connect the
children's bugaboo variously called Hansruhbart,
Ruprecht, and Knecht Ruprecht, with Odin,
1
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle 25
largely through a connection between the name
Ruprecht and one of the variety of names given
Odin. 30 There has been pointed out also the
parallelism between the "beste tabbaerd" of St.
Nicholas sung about by children, and the magic
robe which enabled Odin to pass from place to
place; between the gray horse of St. Nicholas on
which he rode over the roofs of houses, and Odin's
horse, Sleipnir, on which he took an autumn ride
through the world; between the sheaf of grain in
pagan days left in the field for Odin's horse and
the wisp of hay left by children in their shoes for
their friend St. Nicholas. But too much stress
must not be laid on these parallelisms. The customs
associated with St. Nicholas in their origin doubt-
less antedate Christianity but also antedate the
worship of Odin. Possibly the pre-Christian
practices were influenced by their temporary
association with the Teutonic gods as they after-
wards were by the association with the Christian
saints. But in both cases this influence was only
superficial.
A rapid resumé may clear up some of the ob-
scure places in the preceding mass of details. In
the practices associated in our time with the name
of Santa Claus we have survivals of pagan sacred
custom once regarded as important in the further-
26
St. Nicholas
ance of human welfare. Perhaps influenced su-
perficially by conceptions of the Germanic gods,
eventually they came to be connected with the
honor of Christian saints. They afford a remark-
able illustration of the longevity of folk customs.
With meaning lost or changed, the older forms
persist. Influenced, as remains to be shown,
superficially, by the life story of the saint with
whose worship they became associated, also to
some extent with the Roman festivities of the
same season, above all converted to the use of
providing pleasure, as well as just reward, for
children, they have survived to our day. But
owing in part to the effort of the Church in earlier
times to convert the church ceremony in honor
of the birth of Christ into a truly popular festival,
in part to the later opposition to saint worship
on the part of Protestantism, the customs once
associated with the worship of St. Nicholas are
now associated with the birth of Christ.
Santa Claus, the name derived from St. Nicholas
through the familiar use of children in Teutonic
countries, crossed to America. The exact route
followed by him is somewhat open to question.
On the way he traded his gray horse or ass for a
reindeer and made changes in his appearance. It
is usually said, however, that he was brought to
Santa Claus and Kris Kringle
27
America by the Dutch. In America he has made
himself very much at home, and according to the
explanation most generally accepted, from America
he recrossed the Atlantic to England, whence he
has journeyed to the most distant parts of the
British Empire, to India and to Australia, where
he is as familiarly known as in America. In
England, however, while the custom of giving
gifts to children has been made a part of the
Christmas celebration, the gratitude of the
children in some places goes to Santa Claus, but in
other places goes to another creation of the popular
fancy, a personage called Father Christmas. In
parts of the German-speaking countries also, as
has been shown, the honors of Christmas day are
concentrated in the person of the Christ Child,
and the benefactor of children is the Christ Child
himself, the "Kindjes" or "Christ kindel," more
familiarly known in America as Kris Kringle.
In France the place of the Christ Child as the
purveyor of gifts had been in part filled by "le
petit Noël," in a manner like that in which in
England Father Christmas in part shares the rôle
of Santa Claus.
CHAPTER II
BIOGRAPHY AND LEGEND
IT is quite apparent that the journeys of Santa
Claus by night over the housetops, and his
various chimney escapades, are beneath the dig-
nity of the reverend Bishop of Myra, formally
canonized by the medieval church as St. Nicholas.
In appearance, too, Santa Claus is more like an
elf, or one of the other beings of Teutonic mythol-
ogy, than like the Christian bishop whom early
artists were fond of representing in full episcopal
vestments, with miter, pallium, and pastoral staff.
In his manners, too, he is more like a friendly fairy
than a patron saint. In reality, as has been seen,
in his origin there is more of the pagan than of
the Christian. At the same time Christian
legend has had its influence. The name Santa
Claus is a popular, or juvenile, derivative from
St. Nicholas, and the mysterious visit by night
which wins for Santa Claus the hearts of children,
is closely associated with a famous incident in the
life story of the Christian saint.
28
Biography and Legend
29
What then do we know about St. Nicholas?
"Of all patron saints," says Mrs. Jameson, "he
is perhaps the most universally popular and
interesting. No saint in the calendar has so
many churches, chapels, and altars dedicated to
him. In England, I suppose, there is hardly a
town without one church at least bearing his
name." Both in Eastern Church and Western
Church he is the object of extreme veneration,
to a degree unequalled in the case of any other
saint. It is established that veneration of St.
Nicholas goes back to the early centuries in the
history of the Christian faith. The Emperor
Justinian built a church in his honor at Constan-
tinople about the year 430, and he was titular
saint of four churches at Constantinople.²
Yet with all this high esteem and veneration
through so many centuries, little is known con-
cerning the facts of his life. Historical criticism
has demolished much of the story built up around
his lovable personality. One by one the cherished
tales of his beneficence have been questioned,
because lacking the required corroboration of
historical evidence. There has even been raised
doubt whether he ever existed. In any case
certain knowledge is extremely dim. The author-
ized story of his life set as the lectio or "read-
30
St. Nicholas
ing" for the second nocturn of St. Nicholas' day
(Dec. 6th) in the Roman Breviary, makes but a
slight narrative. In brief paraphrase it runs as
follows:
An only child, in infancy he manifested singular
piety. His youth was characterized by deeds of
charity, among them one that saved three maidens
from a life of shame. In youth, on a sea voyage, he
saved the ship in a fearful storm. In youth also he
was elected Bishop of Myra, a miraculous sign indi-
cating him to be the divine choice. In later life he
succored the oppressed, in particular saving three
tribunes unjustly condemned to death. At the Coun-
cil of Nice he is said to have condemned the Arian
heresy, and at his death is said to have received
miraculous sign of divine approval. His remains are
preserved with the greatest veneration at Bari in
Italy.
This sober biography, so lacking in concrete
detail, is the life of the beloved saint as sanctioned
by the Roman Church of to-day. As already
remarked, most even of its meager details have
been questioned by higher criticism. In earlier
times, however, when the test of reality was not
as rigorously applied as is the wont to-day, there
flourished a luxuriant growth of stories about St.
Nicholas as about other saints, the objects of
popular veneration and gratitude.
Biography and Legend
31
Much is to be said in favor of the earlier, more
imaginative, lives of the saints, legends as they were
technically called. It has been remarked, with
much truth, that all of us lead double lives, a
life of our fancy, in a world of things as they
should be, or as we should like them to be, and
a life in a world of things as they really are. And
this is as it should be. We can lift the level of
real existence by thinking of things as we should
like them to be. It is well not to walk with one's
eyes always fixed on the ground. The uplift
to be derived from the contemplation of things as
they should be as distinguished from things as
they are, is well exemplified in the case of the
legendary stories about St. Nicholas. The fact
that these largely imaginative stories existed in
the belief of people served to influence human
action, leading to imitation which eventually
crystallized into some of the noblest of popular
customs. In some of the beautiful popular cus-
toms connected with the name of St. Nicholas
we have the projection into reality of fanciful
stories once held worthy of implicit faith.
Much deserves to be said also in favor of the
creators of legendary story. One is sometimes
disposed to look on such story uncharitably and
to regard it as the product of willful intent to
7
32
St. Nicholas
deceive. Such is by no means the real explana-
tion of the origin of legendary tales. Such tales
are usually the product of intense emotional life,
when the imagination becomes heated by prolonged
contemplation of any subject. Thus we must ex-
plain the revelations to St. Francis and the vivid
scenes from the life of Christ attributed to St.
Bonaventura. A similar condition serves to ex-
plain the popular capacity for belief in tales of
the supernatural. We sometimes think of such
legendary story as the exclusive product of an
earlier, uncritical age. That we are mistaken in
this opinion and that the conditions for the pro-
duction of legendary story continue to exist in
our own time, is illustrated in a striking manner by
certain highly interesting stories that owe, if not
their origin, at least their circulation, to the inten-
sity of feeling aroused by the war in Europe.
There has found wide circulation a story concern-
ing certain supernatural occurrences on the battle-
field of Mons. "The story goes that at the crisis
of the fighting, when the French and English were
growing disheartened by their ineffectual efforts
to overcome the enemy, certain celestial beings,
in the midst of whom was St. George, suddenly
appeared between the armies and by their timely
aid brought victory to the Allies". The origin
³
Biography and Legend
33
of this story has been clearly explained. Its
author, Arthur Machen, in a recent volume, gives
a circumstantial account of its creation. It "was
conceived and written by me," he tells us, "in
prosaic London, on the last Sunday of August,
1914," immediately after reading of the retreat
from Mons, and this story, for which he chose the
title, "The Bowmen," was published in The
Evening News of September 29th the same year.
This story then, an admitted fiction, has never-
theless found life in popular belief. It has found
not only oral circulation but has been reproduced
in print with variants and corroborative testimony.
In its circulation it has reached the outermost
bounds of the British Empire. How a story which
under ordinary conditions would at once be recog-
nized as fiction, now finds ready credence, is re-
vealed in the following extract from a personal
letter from far-away Sydney in Cape Breton:
Rev. Mr.
preached in Falmouth Street
Church on Sunday night on the Angels at Mons. I
had seen in the papers that the Allies had seen three
figures in the sky in the retreat from Mons and that
although the Germans pursued them, they never could
catch up with them. But I just thought it some
Roman Catholic superstition. But Mr. thought
otherwise. He said reliable people on both sides had
undoubtedly seen them, and he thought the age of
3
34
St. Nicholas
!
miracles is not yet past and that if anyone had told
him two years ago that he would have been preaching
to justify this vision he would have thought him crazy.
I really never heard a more wonderful sermon. Rev.
Mr.
has enlisted and goes overseas with the 85th.
The origin of such a miraculous tale and of others
of the same kind, such as that of the "Comrade
in White," and the credence given in our own time,
by critical, skeptical Protestants, enable one to
understand the origin of earlier stories of the
supernatural and how in less critical times general
credence could be attached to stories to the un-
sympathetic now often seeming preposterous.
The Church, too, in earlier times was not rigor-
ous in the exclusion of extravagant features in the
life history of its heroes. On the contrary it
permitted the fancy to play freely about the ob-
jects of its veneration, was hospitable to the won-
derful, the supernatural, element in story. By
various means it aimed to keep ever alive the
memory of the saints, not excluding the livelier
details contributed by popular tradition. Legen-
dary stories in Latin prose formed a part of the
private reading of the clergy in their canonical
hours, and in vernacular prose or verse were read
before popular congregations in church on the
days devoted to the honor of the particular saint.

Scenes from the Legend of St. Nicholas in the Stained Glass (thirteenth century)
of Bourges Cathedral.
Reproduced from Paul Lacroix, Science and Art of the Middle Ages.
UNIV
OF
WICH
Biography and Legend
35
Sometimes they found a place in the story reper-
tory of secular minstrels. Artists other than
literary contributed their share toward the per-
petuation of the legendary story. The separate
scenes in the lives of the popular saints were pre-
sented in stained glass windows, particularly in
France, in series of pictures on canvas, in
wall paintings adorning the chapels devoted to
particular saints, especially in Italy, or in sculp-
tured series, in low or in high relief, as architectural
ornament or decorating the sides of baptismal fonts
as in the case of the St. Nicholas scenes represented
in the fonts at Winchester cathedral and elsewhere
in England and on the continent.
In even more effective ways the stories were
kept alive when the principal scenes were re-
enacted in dramatic entertainments, by towns
or guilds in honor of their particular patron saints,
or by schoolboys in honor of their patron Saint
Nicholas.
In all these ways the story of St. Nicholas was
kept in memory. Of Eastern origin, St. Nicholas
became the object of general veneration in the
West, especially after the transfer of his remains
to Bari in Italy in the year 1087. The especial
honor paid to him doubtless finds its explanation
in the nature of his life story and the particular
36
St. Nicholas
needs of earlier times. In the days when the idea
that God is love had not become the central feature
of Christianity, when God was regarded rather as
a judge, just but therefore severe, suffering human-
ity felt the need of a more approachable divine
personality. This place of intermediary between
man and divine justice was taken in part by Our
Lady, the Divine Mother, and almost countless
are the Miracles de Notre Dame, the tales of aid
afforded by her to human beings in distress.
A similar part was played to some extent by
each of the popular saints, but above all by St.
Nicholas, who was the principal agent in many
stories of this kind.
-It is my purpose, then, to take up in detail the
story of St. Nicholas as found in these earlier
records, which reflect so well the devotion felt
for the most thoroughly human of all the saints.
Though many elements pass the bounds of modern
credulity, they serve to express the loving rever-
ence felt for the saint who, second only to Our
Lady herself, was looked to as the beneficent
source of aid in times of human distress, and at
the same time serve to explain some of the most
interesting of popular customs.
CHAPTER III
THE BOY ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. NICHOLAS THE
PATRON SAINT OF SCHOOLBOYS
THE legendary story of St. Nicholas has certain
features that distinguish it from the legen-
dary stories of other saints. The story of St.
Nicholas is not a narrative of a single dramatic
achievement, like that in the life of St. George,
nor of a glorious martyrdom, like that of a St.
Sebastian or a St. Cecilia. Nor is the name of
St. Nicholas associated with the diffusion of the
Christian faith like that of St. Augustine, St.
Boniface, or St. Patrick, nor with the exposition
of Christian doctrine, like that of St. Jerome or
St. Bernard. More like, it is yet different from,
that story of perfect exemplification of the Chris-
tian life, the life story of St. Francis. The story
of St. Nicholas consists almost entirely of a series
of beneficent deeds, of aid afforded humanity in
distress, accomplished either by St. Nicholas
during his lifetime or through his intervention
37
ๆๆ
38
St. Nicholas
after death. As a benefactor he ranks almost
with Divinity in his aid rendered, and even lacks
the severity of the justice that attends Divine
awards.
The conception of St. Nicholas, then, is almost
that of beneficence incarnate. The minor traits
of his personality, however, the nature of his
parentage, the time details in his life history, the
exact manner of his death, are left in comparative
obscurity. The very vagueness of the informa-
tion concerning him serves in great measure to
explain the remarkable variety of the rôles he has
assumed in the world's history. Only the nebu-
lous ideas that have prevailed concerning him
have made it possible that in Scandinavia his name
should be connected with that of a hostile water
demon, known in English as the "Old Nick,"
while in certain parts of Siberia he receives divine
honor and is worshiped as the "Russian god
Nicolo." A similar reason explains how he comes
to be regarded as patron saint of classes of people
as dissimilar as schoolboys, parish clerks, un-
wedded maids, seamen, pirates, and thieves, how
it is possible to associate him with the whimsical
children's friend Santa Claus.
The story of the boyhood of St. Nicholas, rev-
erent in tone and not a little tinged with the

Anderson
Beato Angelico. Three Scenes from the Early Life of St. Nicholas.
OF
ICH
MIND
Patron Saint of Schoolboys
39
supernatural, is of the kind that one might well
look for in the legendary account of one whose
memory is entirely associated with kindness and
generosity. St. Nicholas was born, the Golden
Legend¹ tells us, 'in the city of Patras in Asia
Minor, of rich and holy kin. His father was
Epiphanes, and his mother Johane. He was
begotten in the first flower of their age, and from
that time forthon they lived in continence and
led an heavenly life.' From the first the boy
Nicholas manifested signs of extreme piety,
observing fasting periods even in earliest infancy.
The story runs: "Then, the first day that he was
washed and bained, he addressed himself right
up in the bason, and he would not take the breast
nor the pap but once on Wednesday and once on
Friday, and in his young age he eschewed the
plays and japes of other young children. He used
and haunted gladly holy church; and all that he
might understand of holy scripture, he executed
it in deed and work after his power." Thus he
is represented in the narrative of the Golden
Legend. Thus too he is represented in the series
of scenes painted by Beato Angelico and pre-
served in the Vatican gallery. In these interest-
ing paintings there is a scene respresenting the
infant Nicholas at the time of his birth standing
40
St. Nicholas
up in the basin, and a second scene where he is
represented in a flower-covered ground in front
of a church, devoutly standing in front of a
group of worshipers listening to the words of a
bishop who preaches from above in an outside
pulpit. Chaucer's Prioress, speaking of the
saintly boy murdered by the Jews, remarks:
"But ay, when I remembre on this matere,
Seint Nicholas stant ever in my presence,
For he so yong to Christ did reverence.'
It is not hard to see why he should have been
chosen as patron saint of children, unless, indeed,
the story of his pious childhood itself originates
from the fact that he was the patron saint of
children. In the words of the English Liber
Festivalis, "his parents called him Nycolas, that
is a mannes name, but he kepeth the name of a
child, for he chose to kepe vertue, meknes, and
simplenes, and without malice.. And there-
fore, children don him worship before all other
saints."
But it is to be feared that the exemplary boy-
hood of St. Nicholas would hardly in itself have
sufficed to give him so firm a hold on the affec-
tions of children. Children of our day, or shall
we say of the day that has just passed, in the
Patron Saint of Schoolboys
41
stories provided them, not infrequently read of
boys almost equally exemplary, without being
unduly moved to love, reverence, or emulation.
A more sure road to the affections of children is
through benefits received or at least stories of
benefits rendered. Children love and honor St.
Nicholas because they conceive of the spirit of
St. Nicholas as a guardian angel, not only looking
after their safety and well-being, but bringing them
substantial rewards, and many of the stories
told of him, led children to feel toward him the
warmest gratitude and at the same time to look
to him as a semi-divine protector in time of
trouble.
St. Nicholas was particularly the patron saint
of schoolboys, and one of the best known of the
stories of protection afforded by him is thus told
in the Golden Legend:2
A man, for the love of his son, that went to school
for to learn, hallowed, every year, the feast of S.
Nicholas much solemnly. On a time it happed that
the father had to make ready the dinner, and
called many clerks [schoolboys] to this dinner. And
the devil came to the gate in the habit of a pilgrim
for to demand alms; and the father anon commanded
his son that he should give alms to the pilgrim.
He followed him as he went for to give him alms, and
when he came to the quarfox the devil caught the
42
St. Nicholas
child and strangled him. And when the father
heard this he sorrowed much strongly and wept, and
bare the body into his chamber, and began to cry for
sorrow, and say: Bright sweet son, how is it with thee?
S. Nicholas, is this the guerdon that ye have done to
me because I have so long served you? And as he
said these words, and other semblable, the child
opened his eyes, and awoke like as he had been asleep,
and arose up before all, and was raised from death to
life.
The clerks assembled at the dinner in honor of
St. Nicholas, the devil in pilgrim guise seeking
alms at the door, and later strangling the boy
who has followed him outside, and the boy on the
bed being brought to life through influence of his
protector saint, all with entire disregard to unity
of time, are represented in one of the animated
scenes of the painting by Lorenzetti in Florence,
in which in quaintly primitive fashion is antici-
pated the method of the modern motion picture.
Another story with St. Nicholas in his favorite
rôle is thus told in the Golden Legend:
There was another rich man that by the merits of
S. Nicholas had a son and called him: Deus dedit,
"God gave." And this rich man did do make a
chapel of S. Nicholas in his dwelling place; and did
do hallow every year the feast of S. Nicholas. And
this manor was set by the land of the Agarians. This

Alinari
A. Lorenzetti. The Young Clerk Strangled by the Devil at the Feast
on St. Nicholas' Eve and Brought to Life by the Saint.
THU,
OF
AIND
Patron Saint of Schoolboys
43
child was taken prisoner, and deputed to serve the
king. The year following, and the day that the father
held devoutly the feast of S. Nicholas, the child held
a precious cup tofore the king, and remembered his
prise, the sorrow of his friends, and the joy that was
made that day in the house of his father, and began to
sigh sore high. And the king demanded him what
ailed him and the cause of his sighing; and he told
him every word wholly. And when the king knew it,
he said to him; Whatsomever thy Nicholas do or do
not, thou shalt abide here with us. And suddenly
there blew a much strong wind, that made all the
house to tremble, and the child was ravished with
the cup, and was set tofore the gate where his father
held the solemnity of S. Nicholas, in such wise that
they all demeaned great joy.
A variant version of this story is included in
the Golden Legend. It runs as follows:
And some say that this child was of Normandy,
and went oversea, and was taken by the sowdan,
which made him oft to be beaten before him. And
as he was beaten on a S. Nicholas day, and was set
in prison, he prayed to S. Nicholas as well for the
beating that he suffered, as for the great joy that he
was wont to have on that day of S. Nicholas. And
when he had long prayed and sighed, he fell asleep,
and when he awoke he found himself in the chapel
of his father, whereas much joy was made for him.
Wace, the twelfth-century author of a life of
St. Nicholas in French verse, supplies the intro-
44
St. Nicholas
ductory part of this story only briefly alluded to
in the Golden Legend version. He tells of the
rich merchant of Alexandria named Getro, and
his wife, Eufrosine, who have longed in vain for
children. Getro hears of St. Nicholas and goes
to the city where St. Nicholas lives, to seek his
aid. But he finds the saint dead and on his bier.
He asks for some of the saint's clothes. These he
bears as holy relics to Alexandria and erects a
church for them. The next December, on St.
Nicholas' day, a son is born and receives the
name Deudoné. This son is carried off by robbers
and sold to the emperor, whom he serves as cup-
bearer. On St. Nicholas' day the boy weeps but
is cruelly beaten for it. At the same time his
father in Alexandria is praying to St. Nicholas,
and on rising from prayer, finds his son, safely
restored, standing before him. After that, natu-
rally, there is no neglect to worship St. Nicholas
on his festival day.
This story seems to be closely connected with
the development of St. Nicholas worship in
western Europe following the removal of his relics
to Bari, Italy. General veneration of the saint,
long popular in the East, seems to increase in the
West after that event. The particular incident
just recorded is followed in Wace by these words:
Patron Saint of Schoolboys
45
Devant ceo ne trovons pas
qui si servist saint Nicholas,
which may be translated, "Before this we do not find
worshipers of Saint Nicholas," and seem to indicate
that the composition of Wace was connected in
some way with a newly instituted church festival.
The story was one kept particularly in memory
since, as remains to be seen, it formed the subject
of a schoolboy play enacted by the boys on St.
Nicholas' eve. It also forms the subject of two
of the scenes in fresco, possibly by Giottino,
possibly by Giotto himself, as a young man, in
the church of St. Francis at Assisi. The first
scene in these frescoes represents a boy prisoner
of a Saracen king in the act of raising a cup to his
lord seated at table, when St. Nicholas, hovering
above, grasps him by the hair to bear him away.
The second scene represents St. Nicholas, bring-
ing back the boy, with the cup still in his hands,
and restoring him to the astonished father and
mother seated at table. The scene is an animated
one. The father with both arms embraces his
son, and the mother stretches out her arms. A
youth in the group, with clasped hands looks to
heaven, and a monk, astonished, lifts his arms.
Not least of all, a little dog betrays his recognition
of the restored boy. 3
46
St. Nicholas
Another story of this kind is thus told in the
Golden Legend:
Another nobleman prayed to S. Nicholas that he
would, by his merits, get of our Lord that he might
have a son, and promised that he would bring his
son to the church, and would offer him a cup of gold.
Then the son was born and came to age, and the
father commanded to make a cup, and the cup pleased
him much, and he retained it for himself, and did do
make another of the same value. And they went
sailing in a ship toward the church of S. Nicholas,
and when the child would have filled the cup, he fell
into the water with the cup and anon was lost, and
came no more up. Yet nevertheless the father per-
formed his avow, in weeping much tenderly for his
son; and when he came to the altar of S. Nicholas he
offered the second cup, and when he had offered it,
it fell down, like as one had cast it under the altar.
And he took it up and set it again upon the altar, and
then yet was it cast further than tofore, and yet he
took it up and remised it the third time upon the
altar; and it was thrown again further than tofore.
Of which thing all they that were there marvelled,
and men came for to see this thing. And anon, the
child that had fallen in the sea, came again prestly
before them all, and brought in his hands the first
cup, and recounted to the people that, anon as he was
fallen in the sea, the blessed S. Nicholas came and
kept him that he had none harm. And thus the
father was glad and offered to S. Nicholas both the
two cups.
This story is represented in one of the frescoed

Brogi
Fresco at S. Croce, Attributed to G. Starnina. St. Nicholas Restores to his Father the
Son with the Cup lost at Sea.
UNIV
M
OF
ICH
Patron Saint of Schoolboys
47
scenes in the Chapel of the Sacrament at Santa
Croce in Florence and in the Franciscan Church
at Assisi. It also forms one of the scenes carved
on the Winchester baptismal font.
Still another story in which St. Nicholas appears
as the guardian angel of schoolboys, is the one
dealing with the resuscitation of the three school-
boys murdered on their journey home. The story,
which appears in a number of variant forms,
relates how three boys, on their journey home from
school, take lodging at an inn, or as some versions
have it, farmhouse. In the night the treacherous
host and hostess murder the boys, cut up their
three bodies, and throw the pieces into casks used
for salting meat. In the morning St. Nicholas.
appears and calls the guilty ones to task. They
deny guilt, but are convicted when the saint causes
the boys, sound of body and limb, to arise from
the casks. This story, of repellent detail, is "not
known among the Greeks, who are so devoted to
St. Nicholas."4 It is also not included in the
Golden Legend nor in the Roman Breviary. It
seems to have been one of the elements added to
the legend after the development of St. Nicholas
worship in the West. Its earliest record is said
to be that in the French life of St. Nicholas
by Wace. With the incident in the story, Wace
48
St. Nicholas
connects the great honor paid to St. Nicholas by
schoolboys. "Because," says Wace, "he did such
honor to schoolboys, they celebrate this day [Dec. 6]
by reading and singing and reciting the miracles of
St. Nicholas."
Different attempts have been made to explain
the origin of this, at first, repellent story. One
critic finds the explanation of the story in the con-
ventional methods of medieval art. He explains
it as growing out of a misinterpretation of an
illustration representing one of the incidents in
the earlier story of St. Nicholas, the well-known
story of the succor lent by St. Nicholas to the three
officers condemned to death by Constantine.
The three captives, after the manner of the Middle
Ages, were supposedly represented in a tower, and
in order to make the scene more visible, only the
upper part of the tower was represented. Then,
too, in order to bring about the desired subordina-
tion of human to divine, the medieval artist would
reduce the size of tower and prisoners in relation
to the intervening saint, so that the tower would be-
come, in appearance, a cask, and the three officers,
little boys. From this pictorial representation
misunderstood, if we adopt this theory, arose the
story of the three boys brought to life from the
packing cask.4

Metropolitan Museum of Art
L. di Bicci (?). St. Nicholas and the Murdered Schoolboys.
UNIV
OF
PICH
Patron Saint of Schoolboys
49
Another explanation of the story is to be found
in the association, to be discussed later, between
St. Nicholas and the northern water demon
known as "Nix" or "Old Nick." According to
belief prevalent in northern lands, the souls of
drowned people are kept by Nix in pots. When
one remembers that souls were generally repre-
sented in the form of children, one may see the
close analogy between the pots of the water demon
and the tubs from which St. Nicholas resuscitated
the schoolboys. 5
Mrs. Jameson has still another explanation to
offer. To use her own words: "The story is some-
times treated as a religious allegory, referring
to the conversion of sinners or unbelievers. In
some pictures the host is represented as a demon
with hoofs and claws."
The explanations just offered, afford interesting
illustration of the ingenuity of the folk-lorist but
seem superfluous. The tale could hardly be im-
proved on for the use it serves, to excite the grati-
tude of young schoolboys. The details, repellent
perhaps to the modern adult, trained in the school
of modern naturalism, are, if one stops to think,
features characteristic of the world's classic folk-
tales for children. The ogre-like ferocity of the
host and hostess where the boys lodged, is quite
4
50
St. Nicholas
in keeping with the tone of little Red Riding Hood
or of Bluebeard.
In any event we may infer popularity of this
tale from its wide prevalence. The central scene
of the famous story is represented among the
sculptured scenes of the church of St. Nicholas at
Bari, and among the frescoed scenes at Santa
Croce. It is pictured on the pages of the Salis-
bury missal and forms the subject of several
canvas paintings by early artists. Up to within
recent times a picture of St. Nicholas standing by
a tub from which were emerging three boys, was
to be seen painted on the side of a prominent
house in Amsterdam, with the inscription "Sinter-
klaes." It was one of the stories dramatically
presented by medieval schoolboys on St. Nicholas'
eve. Down to our own day it has continued to
be the subject of a song used in the popular dances
of the Faroe Islands. The youths rising from the
cask became a constant symbol used in represent-
ing St. Nicholas. In the churches of Brittany,
and doubtless elsewhere in France and Belgium,
among the images of saints occupying places on
the pillars within the church, or standing as sen-
tinels on each side of the recessed portals, St.
Nicholas is frequently to be met with, always to
be recognized by his conventional pedestal formed

Alinari
F. Pesellino. St. Nicholas and the Murdered Schoolboys.
C
با ال
"F
H
Patron Saint of Schoolboys
51
by the tub from which are issuing the three saved
boys.
A charming version of the story appears in a
French folk-song, effectively rendered by Yvette
Guilbert appropriately garbed in the robes of the
kindly bishop. Anatole France, too, has brought
to bear on this story, his gift of paradox in a highly
diverting version containing a sequel in which
the innocent St. Nicholas suffers every conceivable
form of injury from the three rescued boys, who
prove to be incarnations of three varied forms of
human depravity.
St. Nicholas, the youth of exemplary piety, we
may hope inspired proper emulation on the part
of schoolboys. St. Nicholas, the generous pro-
tector, and friend, we may be sure was an object
of schoolboy gratitude and love. The memory
of his kindly deeds was kept alive not only
in recited story, but in carved stone and painted
wall. The boys themselves sang about them in
beloved songs and enacted them in spirited plays.
But the beneficence of the kindly saint was not
confined to the past. The gifts mysteriously
bestowed on the saint's festival eve have kept
alive the feelings of gratitude, and through the
centuries boys have continued to look to St.
Nicholas for aid and protection. "St. Nicholas
|
.
52
St. Nicholas
be thy speed," facetiously remarks Launce, to
Speed who is about to give an exhibition of his
ability to read. Even in his athletics the English
schoolboy has continued to invoke the assistance
of his patron saint. According to Brand, if a
boy is pursued and about to be caught, the cry of
Nic'las entitles him to a suspension of the play
for a moment. Or if he is not ready, or is obliged
to stop, to fasten his shoe or make other read-
justment, the same magic word affords him pro-
tection. One is reluctant to associate St. Nicholas
with the methods, not always above question,
sometimes used by the athlete in order to gain time
or wind, but this continued use of the name of
Nicholas in sports bears eloquent testimony to
the place their saint has occupied in the hearts of
schoolboys.

Alinari
A. Lorenzetti. St. Nicholas Providing the Dower for the Three Maidens
•HO/
AIND
CHAPTER IV
ST. NICHOLAS AND THE DOWERLESS MAIDENS
R
EFERENCE has already been made to the
fact that after the introduction of Christian-
ity the name of St. Nicholas came to be associated
with a number of customs antedating Christianity
and that to some extent, mainly superficially, the
earlier customs were influenced by the new asso-
ciation. Thus the gift giving of apples and pears
and nuts and of rods to children, characteristic
of the pre-Christian autumn festivals, was brought,
into association with St. Nicholas, probably
largely because the pre-Christian festival coin-
cided in time with the time of the St. Nicholas
celebration, December sixth. With the transfer of
this old custom to the Christmas celebration, the
custom of giving gifts to children coalesced with
another, an adult custom of gift giving, derived
from the Roman strenæ, a feature of the Roman
celebration of the Kalends of January, and sur-
viving distinctly in Latin countries, notably in
53
54
St. Nicholas
the étrennes of the French New Year's Day. With
both of these customs coalescing in the general
gift giving of Christmas, in America at least, is
still associated the name of Santa Claus, or St.
Nicholas.
Aside from the coincidence in time between the
St. Nicholas festival and the pagan children's festi-
val, there was also a point of contact in one of the
best-known of the stories in the life of St. Nicho-
las, which, associated with the earlier custom at first
in a superficial way, in time affected its character.
The story in question is the famous one of the
young man St. Nicholas and his gifts to the
dowerless maidens. This story in the condensed,
not too lively, version in the Golden Legend, runs
as follows:
And when his father and mother were departed out
of this life, he [the young man Nicholas] began to
think how he might distribute his riches, and not to
the praising of the world but to the honor and glory
of God. And it was so that one, his neighbour, had
then three daughters, virgins, and he was a nobleman:
but for the poverty of them together, they were
constrained, and in very purpose to abandon them to
the sin of lechery, so that by the gain and winning
of their infamy they might be sustained. And when
the holy man Nicholas knew hereof he had great hor-
ror of this villainy, and threw by night secretly into
the house of the man a mass of gold wrapped in a

Florentine School (Fifteenth Century). St. Nicholas and the Three Maidens.
UNIV
"
OF
CH
The Dowerless Maidens
55
cloth. And when the man arose in the morning, he
found this mass of gold, and rendered to God therefor
great thankings, and therwith he married his oldest
daughter. And a little while after this holy hermit
of God threw in another mass of gold, which the man
found and thanked God, and purposed to wake for
to know him that had aided him in his poverty.
And after a few days Nicholas doubled the mass of the
gold, and cast it into the house of this man. He
awoke by the sound of the gold and followed Nicholas,
which fled from him, and he said to him: "Sir, flee
not away so but that I may see and know thee." Then
he ran after him more hastily and knew that it was
Nicholas; and anon he kneeled down, and would have
kissed his feet, but the holy man would not, but re-
quired him not to tell nor discover this thing as long
as he lived.
This is the story which in general has linked
the name of St. Nicholas particularly with the
virtue of generosity. For instance, in Dante's
Purgatorio the shade of Hugh Capet introduces
the name of Nicholas in this connection.
Esso parlava ancor della largezza
che fece Niccolao alle pulcelle,
per condurre ad onor lor giovenezza.
"It spoke further of the generosity of Nicholas
toward the maidens in order to conduct their youth
to honor."
Canto xx., vo. 31–33.
56
St. Nicholas
1
Among schoolboys the story was particularly
well known. It formed the subject of one of the
plays performed by them on St. Nicholas' eve.
It, also, more frequently than any other incident
in his life story, forms the subject of pictures by
Byzantine and early Italian painters. The pic-
tures representing the dejected father and the
daughters preparing for bed, one of the daughters
sometimes dutifully pulling off her father's boots,
and the youth St. Nicholas on the outside of the
house furtively casting through an open window
his gifts of gold, inevitably bring to mind the
later methods of gift bestowing employed by Santa
Claus. That the connection was felt in earlier
times is made clear from earlier references to the
custom, especially in the form of Protestant
objection. For instance, a preacher of Lauban
in 1608, referring to St. Nicholas' gifts to the
maidens, remarks: "Hence comes the custom that
some parents lay something on the bed for chil-
dren and say St. Nicholas has given it, which is an
evil custom since by it the children are directed
to St. Nicholas when we know that not St. Nicho-
las but the holy Christ Child gives us everything
good for body or for soul." Another Protestant
preacher of the same period makes similar objec-
tion, saying: "One had better tell the children

Metropolitan Museum of Art
L. di Bicci (?). St. Nicholas and the Three Maidens.
UNIV
OF
MICH
на
The Dowerless Maidens
57
that the dear Christ Child sent such gifts; if
they shall be good, better ones will follow on
Christmas day." The surreptitious manner of
conveying the gifts to the children must have
been an old practice as may be inferred from the
incident recorded of the young man of the six-
teenth century who, in attempting to imitate
St. Nicholas, fell through an opening left for grain
and nearly lost his life.²
That the association of St. Nicholas with gift
giving was known in England in the sixteenth
century, is shown by the following lines from
Barnabe Googe's Popish Kingdom, a translation
from the Regnum Antichristi by Naogeorgus:
"Saint Nicholas money used to give to maidens
secretly.
Who that be still may use his wonted liberality;
The mothers all their children on the eve do cause to
fast,
And when they every one at night in senseless sleep
are cast,
Both apples, nuts, and pears they bring, and other
things beside,
As caps, and shoes and petticoats, with other things
they hide,
And in the morning found, they say, 'Saint Nicholas
this brought.'"'3
Down to within recent times in the church of
S. Nicola in Carcere at Rome, the generosity of
58
St. Nicholas
St. Nicholas was annually commemorated, by
the giving of gifts to poor children in the sacristy
after the memorial Mass on St. Nicholas' day. This
custom at Rome seems to have been discontinued,
but the memory of it, and the attending hopes for
gifts, are not extinct, as the present writer had
opportunity to observe when attending services
in honor of St. Nicholas at this church on St.
Nicholas' day, in 1914. After the Mass a throng
of expectant parents and children followed the
officiating priest into the sacristy and were per-
mitted to kiss the ring on the hand of the offici-
ating priest, but in their hope for the customary
presents, met with keenly felt disappointment.
But although in modern times deprived some-
what of the gratitude once felt for him as a giver
of gifts, St. Nicholas for centuries has been hon-
ored on account of another phase of his kindly
art, the procuring of husbands for marriageable
girls. Reference has already been made to the
fact that in the Netherlands the special cakes of
the St. Nicholas festival are said to perpetuate a
custom originated by the three daughters in the
story, who on their marriage day are said to have
baked such cakes and distributed them among
poor children as a sign of gratitude.
Honor paid to St. Nicholas by unwedded maids
The Dowerless Maidens
59
goes back a great many centuries. Among
Normans of the twelfth century he was regarded
as the peculiar saint of spinsters, who invoked
him in order to procure speedy marriage.4
The same idea is in evidence in English popular
carols, in which St. Nicholas is praised particu-
larly as a provider of husbands. One song of
seven stanzas recites the story of how St. Nicholas
saved the maidens, and ends with the stanza:
"Seynt Nicholas, at the townys ende,
Consoylid the maydens hom to wynde,
And throw Godes grace he xulde hem synae
Husbondes thre, good and kind.”
The refrain is:
"[
'Alle maydenis for Godes Grace,
Worchepe ye seynt Nicolas."5
One of the most important of marriages in English
history is associated with this St. Nicholas custom.
In one of Bishop Fisher's sermons it is recorded
of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of
Henry VII., "that she prayed to St. Nicholas,
the patron and helper of all true maydens, when
nine years old, about the choice of a husband;
and that the saint appeared to her in a vision and
announced the Earl of Richmond."6
60
St. Nicholas
From another ancient authority we have similar
testimony," as follows:
St. Nicholas was likewise venerated as the pro-
tector of virgins; there are, or were until lately,
numerous fantastical customs observed in Italy and
various parts of France, in reference to that peculiar
tutelary personage. In several convents it was
customary, on the eve of St. Nicholas for the board-
ers (sic) to place each a silk stocking at the door of
the apartment of the abbess with a piece of paper
enclosed, recommending themselves to "great St.
Nicholas of her chamber," and the next day they
were called together to witness the saint's attention,
who never failed to fill the stockings with sweet-
meats and other trifles of that kind, with which
these credulous virgins made a general feast.
If the kindly saint, in this case, was not in position
to provide husbands, he at least provided agreeable
consolation.
The conception of St. Nicholas as the protector
of maidens and the provider of husbands and the
association of this idea with the story of his gener-
ous act toward the three maidens in distress, is by
no means extinct in our own times, as is shown by
the following account of English customs recorded
in a recent newspaper:8
In the mining districts of the North of England
1

HEE
95
2
SC X X X
Alinari
L. di Bicci. Madonna and Child and Various Saints with their Conventional Emblems.
UNIV
OF
WICH
1
The Dowerless Maidens
61
they still maintain the pleasant custom of collecting
"maidens' purses" on Christmas eve.
These purses, in most cases subscribed for by the
mining folk themselves, are intended as marriage
portions for girls undowered with worldly wealth, who
are expecting to be led to the altar. On Christmas
eve the full purse is stealthily thrown in at the girl's
window to avoid any possibility of wounding her
feelings.
In one parish four purses are provided every
Christmas eve by a woman now rich, who makes no
secret of the fact that her own wedding day was bright-
ened by the gift thrown in at the window when she
was a miner's lass.
9
Among the images of saints in France and other
northern countries of Europe, as has already been
remarked, the tub with the three saved youths is
the conventional sign of St. Nicholas. Italian
artists, on the other hand, represent St. Nicholas
in bishop's garb and with three golden balls, com-
monly on a book which he holds in his hand, but
sometimes in his cap or at his feet. This con-
ventional symbol of the three balls is sometimes
explained as alluding to the Trinity, or to the
loaves of bread used by the saint in feeding the
poor in a famine, but is more usually associated
with the three gifts to the three maidens, the
balls of gold corresponding in appearance to the
handfuls of gold tied up in a handkerchief thrown
62
St. Nicholas
in at the window by St. Nicholas, in the repre-
sentations of the scene.
ΙΟ
Remote as at first thought may appear the con-
nection between St. Nicholas and pawnbrokers,
it seems possible also to connect the three balls,
the conventional sign for St. Nicholas, with the
more modern use of the three balls as the sign
of the professional money-lender.
The pawn-
broker's three balls have been sometimes explained
as derived from the arms of the Medici. A more
generally received explanation is that the three
balls were used as a sign before their houses by the
Lombard bankers. "The three blue balls," says
Brand, 10 “prefixed to the doors and windows of
pawnbrokers' shops (by the vulgar humorously
enough said to indicate that it is two to one that
the things are ever redeemed) were in reality the
arms of a set of merchants from Lombardy, who
were the first that publicly lent money on pledges.
They dwelt together on a street from them called
Lombard Street, in London." It has been said
that "the golden balls were originally three flat
yellow effigies of byzants, or gold coins, laid
heraldically upon a sable field, but that they
were presently converted into balls the better to
attract attention."11
A plausible explanation, which, however, remains
The Dowerless Maidens
63
•
to be proved, would be found in the association of
the three balls of the pawnbroker with the three
golden balls, the symbol of St. Nicholas, whom the
Lombard bankers might well have chosen as their
patron saint. If one were disposed to be unchari-
table, one might call attention to the fact that
St. Nicholas was the patron saint not only of
schoolboys and unwedded maids, and as remains
to be shown, of mariners, but also of pirates and
thieves, between whom and the kindly saint the
connection is not, at first thought, obvious, and
one might try to show a relationship between the
pawnbroker who lends money on pledges, and the
pirate or thief who borrows money without a
pledge. The suggestion is not intended seriously,
but it is seriously believed that the association
with St. Nicholas is not more unlikely in one
case than in the other. Confirmatory evidence
is afforded by the legend of the saint, in which is
included an episode that seems to establish St.
Nicholas as the protector of the money-lender as
firmly as the stories already discussed associate
him with the protection of boys and of maidens.
In the Golden Legend the story is told as follows:
There was a man that had borrowed of a Jew a
sum of money, and sware upon the altar of St. Nicho-
las that he would render and pay it again as soon as
64
St. Nicholas
he might, and gave none other pledge. And this
man held this money so long, that the Jew demanded
and asked his money, and he said that he had paid
him. Then the Jew made him to come before the
law in judgment, and the oath was given to the debtor.
And he brought with him an hollow staff, in which
he had put the money in gold, and he leant upon the
staff. And when he should make his oath and swear,
he delivered his staff to the Jew to keep and hold
whilst he should swear, and then sware that he had
delivered more than he ought to him. And when
he had made the oath, he demanded his staff again
of the Jew, and he nothing knowing of his malice,
delivered it to him. Then this deceiver went his way,
and anon after, him list sore to sleep, and laid him
in the way, and a cart with four wheels came with
great force and slew him, and broke the staff with
gold that it spread abroad. And when the Jew heard
this, he came thither sore moved, and saw the fraud,
and many said to him that he should take to him
the gold; and he refused it, saying, But if he that
was dead were not raised again to life by the merits
of St. Nicholas, he would not receive it, and if he came
again to life, he would receive baptism and become
Christian. Then he that was dead arose, and the
Jew was christened.
This story forms the subject of three spirited
scenes in the frescoes at Santa Croce, which repre-
sent the borrowing of the money, the oath on the
book before the altar of St. Nicholas, a place
detail neglected in the Golden Legend version,

Brogi
Fresco at S. Croce, Attributed to G. Starnina. Three Scenes from the Story of St. Nicholas and the Jew
Moneylender.
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The Dowerless Maidens
65
and the street scene where the sharper is run
over.
The singular reversal of the rôle usually assigned
to the Jew in medieval story is striking. The
main purpose of the story seems to be not so much
to show the lack of appreciation on the part of
St. Nicholas of the sharp trick played, the kind
of trick that medieval story loved to record, espe-
cially when a Jew was the sufferer by the chicanery,
as to show the justice of St. Nicholas and perhaps,
if we are disposed to be skeptical about the truth
of the story, owes its origin to the desire to estab-
lish a relation of protectorship between St. Nicho-
las and the money-lending class, as other stories
established him as the protector of schoolboys,
of maidens, and of mariners.
Another of the best known stories of St. Nicholas,
which tells of the protection afforded a Jew on
another occasion, remains to be recorded in an-
other connection. 12 In any event there seems to
be good evidence in the story of St. Nicholas for
associating the three balls, his conventional sign,
with the three balls of the pawnbroker, and thus
establishing a connection, at first thought so far-
fetched, between the pawnbroker class and the
story of the dowerless maids.
5
CHAPTER V
THE BOY BISHOP, OR NICHOLAS BISHOP
IN all the representations of St. Nicholas, paint-
ing or image, except those pictures dealing
with his childhood, he appears with the robes and
insignia of a bishop. St. Nicholas is preeminently
the bishop-saint. Concerning his boyhood eleva-
tion to the episcopal rank, legend has an interest-
ing story to relate. Once more let us turn to the
Golden Legend, which relates the story as follows:
After this the bishop of Mirea died and other bishops
assembled for to purvey to this church a bishop. And
there was, among the others, a bishop of great author-
ity, and all the election was in him. And when he had
warned all for to be in fastings and in prayers, this
bishop heard that night a voice which said to him that,
at the hour of matins, he should take heed to the doors
of the church, and him that should come first to the
church, and have the name of Nicholas they should
sacre him bishop. And he showed this to the other
bishops and admonished them for to be all in prayers;
and he kept the doors. And this was a marvelous
thing, for at the hour of matins, like as he had been
66
The Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop 67
sent from God, Nicholas arose tofore all other. And
the bishop took him when he was come and demanded
of him his name. And he, which was simple as a dove,
inclined his head, and said: I have to name Nicholas.
Then the bishop said to him: Nicholas, Servant and
friend of God, for your holiness ye shall be bishop of
this place. And sith they brought him to the church,
howbeit that he refused it strongly, yet they set him
in the chair. And he followed, as he did tofore in all
things, in humility and honesty of manners. He
woke in prayer and made his body lean, he eschewed
company of women, he was humble in receiving all
things, profitable in speaking, joyous in admonishing,
and cruel in correcting.
This episode is the most celebrated in the life of
St. Nicholas. It is represented in a number of
Italian paintings. The early morning appearance
of the boy Nicholas at the church and his surprise
as he learns of his election are presented in parti-
cularly lively manner in one of the scenes from his
life by Lorenzetti preserved at Florence.¹
Interesting in itself, the story of the elevation
of the boy Nicholas to the rank of bishop also
possesses interest because associated with some of
the most interesting of early church customs, those
centering about the personage of the Boy Bishop,
or Nicholas Bishop as he was sometimes called.
The explanation of this interesting personage and
the customs associated with him, like that of
68
St. Nicholas
Santa Claus, is a complex one. In the case of the
Boy Bishop customs once more we have probably
to do with the survival of pre-Christian customs
with which the Church associated new names and
new meaning.
The spirit that dominated the Christian De-
cember celebration and many details of the exter-
nal form of celebration are to be found in the
Roman pagan customs of December and early
January. The early winter season in Roman times
was a period of general relaxation and merry mak-
ing. In the week beginning December 17th and
ending December 23d, the ancient god Saturn
resumed once more, for a limited period, the
benign rule of which he had been deprived by his
more strenuous, shall we say more efficient, son
Jove. The week of the rule of Saturn, the Satur-
nalia, was a time of revelry and riot. The serious
was barred. No business was allowed; drinking
and games and noise prevailed. All men were to
be equal, rich and poor, slave and free. There
was chosen a mock king who could impose for-
feits. The Roman New Year's feast had a similar
character. As at the Saturnalia, masters drank
and gambled with slaves. In the words of the
Greek sophist, Libanius: "From the minds of
young people it (the New Year's feast) removes

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A. Lorenzetti. The Boy Nicholas Indicated as the Divine Choice for Bishop.
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The Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop 69
two kinds of dread: the dread of the schoolmaster
and the dread of the stern pedagogue.
The attitude of the Christian church toward
pagan custom is well known. Since it could not
hope to extirpate old practice, it endeavored to
adapt it to Christian use, giving to it Christian
meaning and, as far as possible, Christian char-
acter. It aimed to make the birth of Christ, and
the associated events, the dominating idea in its
celebration at the beginning of winter. In spite
of this intention, in the popular customs of the
Christmas season, even in the ceremonies of the
Church, there is apparent a survival of many fea-
tures of pagan practice. Especially in the practice
of the week following Christmas, there is to be
observed the leveling or inversion of rank, the
election of a mock ruler, and the general relaxa-
tion of discipline that were features of the pagan
celebrations of the same season at Rome.
in the three days immediately following Christmas,
church discipline was sufficiently relaxed to permit
of revels in turn, by the lower orders of clergy
and by the choir boys. December 26th, St.
Stephen's day, was the day for the deacons, since
St. Stephen was a deacon. For this day the
deacons supplanted the higher dignitaries and took
the preeminence in the divine services. On
Thus
70
St. Nicholas
Christmas night, the eve of St. Stephen's day,
after vespers, the deacons formed a pompous pro-
cession dressed in silk copes like priests. On St.
Stephen's day the deacons performed the parts
of the divine service. There was also a great
deal of mock ceremonial, and drinking and pro-
cessions in the streets, with visiting of houses and
levying of contributions. 3 On the following day,
the day of St. John the Evangelist, the priests had
their innings. Features of their celebration were
mock blessings and the proclamation of a ribald
form of indulgence. On the eve of Innocents'
day (Dec. 28th), the priests gave way to the choir
boys, "the children," for the celebration of Childer-
mas. On Circumcision Day (Jan. Ist), the sub-
deacons, the "rookies" among the priestly orders,
took their turn at occupying the places of the
higher clergy.
The day of the sub-deacons, possibly because
of its coincidence with the Roman Kalends, was
celebrated in a particularly mad fashion. In the
words "Deposuit potentes de sede: et exaltavit hu-
miles" sung in the Magnificat at Vespers, was found
the suggestion for a general inversion in rank. For
the time, the places of rank and honor were taken
by the lowly sub-deacons. The sacred services
were burlesqued in most shocking fashion varying
The Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop 71
in different places. In Paris in the fifteenth
century, "priests danced in the choir dressed as
women, panders, or minstrels. Wanton songs
were sung. Black puddings were eaten at the
horn of the altar while mass was being celebrated,
and the altar was censed with ashes or by the
smoke from the soles of old shoes." Performers
without the church were even more irreverent
and riotous in character.
The choir boy customs of Holy Innocents' day
were somewhat like those described, although
more restrained in character, since, as Mr. Cham-
bers has remarked, boys were more amenable
to discipline than the older clergy. There was a
similar inversion of rank and, within limit, a
similar burlesque of custom, on this day the choir
boys taking precedence in rank, presided over by
one of their number, usually elected on St. Nicho-
las' day, with the title of Boy Bishop, or Nicholas
Bishop.
A central feature of the celebration was a pom-
pous church procession following vespers on
Childermas eve. In this procession the inversion
of rank was a feature. The book, the censer, and
the candles, usually borne by boys, on this occa-
sion were borne by reverend canons, and when
at the end of the ceremony the procession re-
72
St. Nicholas
turned to the choir, the boys took the places of
dignity in the higher stalls, with the Boy Bishop
in the stall of the bishop or dean. Then followed
a feature doubtless in the estimation of the boys
not less important than the procession, namely a
supper provided by one of the church dignitaries.
On Innocents' day all the services, including the
Mass, were performed by the boys with their
"Bishop," also in many places the "Bishop
preached a sermon. Nor were the honor and
dignity of the Boy Bishop confined to the cere-
monies within the church. In mounted proces-
sion, with attendant boy prebends, he visited other
religious houses and houses of neighboring people
of prominence, singing songs and imparting bless-
ings in the expectation of festal entertainment and
of money gifts as well. In the year 1555 the "chylde
byshope" of St. Paul's with his company visited
Queen Mary at St. James's and sang a song be-
fore her both on St. Nicholas' day (Dec. 6th) and
on Innocents' day (Dec. 28th). The amounts
collected on these occasions were considerable.
Robert de Holme, who was "Bishop" at York,
received from the choirmaster, who served as
treasurer, in 1369, the sum of £3 15s. 12 d. But
this was only a part of the receipts, for at in-
tervals during the fortnight following Christmas,
The Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop 73
the "Bishop" with his troupe made trips in the
neighborhood which netted handsome profit, the
countess of Northumberland alone contributing
twenty shillings and a gold ring. In Aberdeen
the master of the grammar school was paid by a
collection taken when he went the rounds with the
"Bishop." That this source of revenue was not a
matter of trivial importance may be inferred from
the interesting statement in the municipal registers
that "he hes na uder fee to leif on.”
Some interesting details regarding French ob-
servance of the Boy Bishop custom have been
garnered by Mr. Chambers from the records for
Toul. At that place
the expenses of the feast, with the exception of the
dinner on the day after Innocents' day, which came
out of the disciplinary fines, are assigned by the
statutes to the canons in the order of their appoint-
ment. The responsible canon must give a supper on
Innocents' day, and on the following day a dessert
out of what is over. He must also provide the
"Bishop" with a horse, gloves, and a biretta when he
rides abroad. At the supper a curious ceremony took
place. The canon returned thanks to the "Bishop,"
apologized for any shortcomings in the preparations,
and finally handed the "Bishop" a cap of rosemary
or other flowers, which was then conferred upon the
canon to whose lot it would fall to provide the feast
for the next anniversary. Should the canon disregard
........
74
St. Nicholas
his duties the boys and sub-deacons were entitled to
hang up a black cope on a candlestick in the middle
of the choir in illius vituperium for as long as they
might choose.
The elaborateness, too, of the manner of cele-
bration, as well as the constant association with
St. Nicholas, may be inferred from the following
Northumberland inventory of robes and ornaments
belonging to one of these Boy Bishops:7
Imprimis, i. myter, well garnished with perle and
precious stones, with nowches of silver and gilt before
and behind. Item, iiii. rynges of silver and gilt,
with four ridde precious stones in them. Item, i.
pontifical with silver and gilt, with a blue stone in
hytt. Item, i. owche, broken, silver and gilt, with
iiii. precious stones, and a perle in the mydds. Item,
a croose, with a staff of coper and gilt, with the ymage
of St. Nicolas in the mydds. Item, i. vestment,
redde, with lyons, with silver, with brydds of gold in
the orferes of the same. Item, i. albe to the same, with
starres in the paro. Item, i. white cope, stayned
with tristells and orferes, redde sylke, with does of
gold, and whytt napkins about the necks. Item,
iiii. copes, blew sylk with red orferes, trayled, with
whitt braunchis and flowers. Item, i. steyned cloth
of the ymage of St. Nicholas. Item, i. taberd of
skarlet, and a hodde thereto lyned with whitt sylk.
Item, a hode of skarlett, lyned with blue sylk.
The earliest known reference to the Boy Bishop
The Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop 75
custom is from St. Gall in the year 911. King
Conrad I. was visiting Bishop Solomon of Con-
stance and heard so much of the Vespers proces-
sion at St. Gall that he determined to visit the
monastery at the time of the revels. He found it
"all very amusing and especially the procession
of children, so grave and sedate that even when
Conrad bade his train roll apples along the aisle,
they did not budge.' In later years the custom
lost much of its early sobriety, although doubtless
a great deal of dignity, real or assumed, persisted
in the church procession. The custom pervaded
most of the countries of Europe in the following
centuries.
998
In France it was not abolished until 1721. At
Mainz, in Germany, it was not wholly extinct in
1779.9
In Belgium in the nineteenth century
there survived a number of popular customs show-
ing for the celebration of Innocents' day of the
present the same kind of inversion of authority
that characterized the Boy Bishop customs of
earlier times. Innocents' day is in Belgium more
than in other countries a popular festival, making
up somewhat for the fact that in Belgium, Christ-
mas is less of a children's celebration than in other
Teutonic countries, or perhaps owing to the greater
importance of St. Nicholas customs in the Nether-
اره
76
St. Nicholas
I
lands than in other countries. In any event, in
Belgium, Innocents' day is a real children's festi-
val: children are masters in the house, and par-
!
ents must obey them. At Antwerp, in Brabant.
and in some parts of the county of Limbourg,
little boys and girls dress up for the day as papas
and mammas. Usually the youngest of the family
receives the key to the pantry and orders in the
kitchen the meals for the day. 1°
ΙΟ
In England the Boy Bishop custom, which
came to an end in the sixteenth century under
Reformation influence, once prevailed throughout
the length and breadth of the land-at first in
cathedrals, collegiate churches, and schools, later
"in every parish church where there was a suffi-
cient band, of choristers to furnish forth the
Boy Bishop ceremonial, or sufficiently well-to-
do parishioners to be worth laying under con-
tribution."'11
•
The relation of the Boy Bishop to St. Nicholas
customs offers a number of difficulties to explain.
Mr. Chambers leans to the view that the custom
was originally associated with St. Nicholas' day,
an opinion supported by the fact that the "Bishop'
was elected on the eve of St. Nicholas. But he
believes that, like other St. Nicholas customs,
the Santa Claus custom for instance, it was later
The Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop 77
transferred to the Christmas season. Something,
however, may be said for a contrary explanation.
It is an established fact that medieval schools
and universities had their origin in the song schools
of the Church; consequently in schools and uni-
versities there survived customs originally appro-
priate only to choir boys. In this way might be
transferred a custom observed by choir boys on
the festival at Holy Innocents' day (Dec. 28th),
to St. Nicholas' day (Dec. 6th), the festival day of
schoolboys, and the Boy Bishop of Innocents' day
get the name of Episcopus Nicholatensis, "Nicho-
las Bishop," or by an admirable Latin pun at Eton,
"Episcopus Nihilensis," "Bishop of Nothing."
There is evident relationship between the custom
of the Boy Bishop and the story of St. Nicholas
elected bishop when a boy. Did the custom grow
out of the story, or as is so often the case, did the
story originate as an explanation of an established
custom?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, on the occasion of a
visit paid, late in life, to Westminster Abbey,
singles out from "amidst all the imposing recol-
lections of the ancient edifice," one that impressed
him "in the inverse ratio of its importance,
the little holes in the stones, in one place, where
the boys of the choir used to play marbles." In a
78
St. Nicholas
similar way it may be remarked that among all
the magnificent ceremonies in the history of the
Church, few are more impressive than those asso-
ciated with the Boy Bishop, or Nicholas Bishop.
The choir boy, exercising his rule over his fellow
boys, riding with them in parade about the city
or surrounding country, or for the nonce lording
it over his pompous superiors and indulging in
playful parody of the ceremonies in which through-
out the year he has taken a not always too patient
part,-all this affords us a glimpse at natural
boy nature centuries ago.
F
:
CHAPTER VI
Τ
VARIED BENEFICENT ACTIVITY
IT will have been noted that St. Nicholas is not
only the patron saint of youths, but is himself
a youthful saint. His most distinctive deeds, at
least the deeds about the memory of which have
most been interwoven popular customs, are deeds
performed by him as a young man. The distinc-
tive feature about his election as bishop was that
he was elected when a mere youth. But before
his election as bishop he had already distinguished
himself by his act of generosity in saving the three
daughters of the impoverished nobleman. Also,
according to the account of his life in the Roman
Breviary, the act upon which is based his reputa-
tion as protector of seamen was accomplished by
him as a young man when on a pious pilgrimage,
on the return from which he was miraculously
directed to Myra, there to be chosen bishop. In
a way, then, the election as bishop forms a kind of
climax to a series of youthful accomplishments.
•
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St. Nicholas
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But the life story of St. Nicholas differs from
the typical saint's legend in that it is not the record
of one single achievement that absorbed all the
energies of the story's hero and whose accomplish-
ment formed a dramatic close. On the contrary,
as already remarked, his legend is made up of a
series of beneficent acts, in part accomplished by
the living saint, in part accomplished by him
after death serving as a protecting spirit. Be-
sides the youthful deeds already discussed, there
remain to be recorded a number of others, some
of them hardly less well known than the ones
already considered, others not so widely known but
of interest, not only in themselves, but as revealing
the varied aspects of the kindness of St. Nicholas
and showing the enduring character of his fame.
First there remain in the Golden Legend two
well known stories that deserve to be included
here. One of these, in which St. Nicholas ac-
complished an ultra-modern function, that of
"Food Comptroller," will make clear why he was
popular as the patron saint of cities. The story
goes:
It was so on a time that all the province of S. Nico-
las suffered great famine, in such wise that victual
failed. And then this holy man heard say that
certain ships laden with wheat were arrived in the

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A. Lorenzetti. St. Nicholas Saving a City in Time of Famine.
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haven. And anon he went thither and prayed the
mariners that they would succor the perished at
least with an hundred muyes of wheat of every ship.
And they said: Father, we dare not, for it is meted and
measured, and we must give reckoning thereof in
the garners of the emperor in Alexandria. And the
holy man said to them: Do this that I have said to
you, and I promise, in the truth of God, that it shall
not be lessened or minished when ye shall come to
the garners. And when they had delivered so much
out of every ship, they came into Alexandria and
delivered the measure that they had received. And
then they recounted the miracle to the ministers of
the emperor, and worshiped and praised strongly
God and his servant Nicholas. Then the holy man
distributed the wheat to every man after that he had
need, in such wise that it sufficed for two years, not
only for to sell, but also to sow.
The art of the early Italian painters in handling
narrative subjects is once more admirably illus-
trated in the animated presentation of this story
in the paintings by Lorenzetti and by Fra Angelico.
In another of the stories included in the Golden
Legend, St. Nicholas twice appears in his favorite
rôle as the protector of human life. The story,
with double catastrophe, goes as follows:
And in this time certain men rebelled against the
emperor; and the emperor sent against them three
princes, Nepotian, Ursyn, and Apollyn. And they
came into the port Adriatic for the wind, which was
6
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St. Nicholas
contrary to them; and the blessed Nicholas commanded
them to dine with him, for he would keep his people
from the ravin that they made. And whilst they
were at dinner, the consul, corrupt by money, had
commanded three innocent knights to be beheaded.
And when the blessed Nicholas knew this, he prayed
these three princes that they would much hastily go
with him. And when they were come where they
should be beheaded, he found them on their knees,
and blindfold, and the righter brandished his sword
over their heads. Then S. Nicholas, embraced with the
love of God, set him hardily against the righter, and
took the sword out of his hand, and threw it from him,
and unbound the innocents, and led them with him
all safe. And anon he went to the judgment to the
consul, and found the gates closed, which anon he
opened by force. And the consul came anon and
saluted him: and this holy man having this saluta-
tion in despite, said to him: Thou enemy of God,
corrupter of the law, wherefore hast thou consented
to so great evil and felony, how darest thou look on
us? And when he had sore chidden and reproved
him, he repented, and at the prayer of the three princes
he received him to penance. After, when the mes-
sengers of the emperor had received his benediction,
they made their gear ready and departed, and sub-
dued their enemies to the empire without shedding
blood, and sith returned to the emperor, and were
worshipfully received. And after this it happed
that some other in the emperor's house had envy on
the weal of these three princes, and accused them to
the emperor of high treason, and did so much by
prayer and by gifts that they caused the emperor
to be so full of ire that he commanded them to prison,
Varied Beneficent Activity
83
and without other demand, he commanded that they
should be slain that same night. And when they
knew it by their keeper, they rent their clothes and
wept bitterly; and then Nepotian remembered him
how S. Nicholas had delivered the three innocents,
and admonested the others that they should require
his aid and help. And thus as they prayed S. Nicholas
appeared to them and after appeared to Constantine,
the emperor, and said to him: Wherefore hast thou
taken these three princes with so great wrong, and
hast judged them to death without trespass? Arise
up hastily, and command that they be not executed,
or I shall pray to God that he move battle against
thee, in which thou shalt be overthrown, and shalt
be made meat to beasts. And the emperor demanded:
What art thou that art entered by night into my
palace and durst say to me such words? And he
said to him: I am Nicholas, bishop of Mirea. And
in like wise he appeared to the provost, and feared
him, saying with a fearful voice: Thou that hast lost
mind and wit, wherefore hast thou consented to the
death of innocents? Go forth anon and do thy part
to deliver them, or else thy body shall rot, and be
eaten with worms, and thy meiny shall be destroyed.
And he asked him: Who art thou that so menacest
me? And he answered: Know thou that I am Nicho-
las, the bishop of the city of Mirea. Then that one
awoke that other, and each told to other their
dreams, and anon sent for them that were in prison, to
whom the emperor said: What art magic or sorcery
can ye, that ye have this night by illusion caused us
to have such dreams? And they said that they were
none enchanters ne knew no witchcraft, and also that
they had not deserved the sentence of death. Then
84
St. Nicholas
the emperor said to them: Know ye well a man named
Nicholas? And when they heard speak of the name
of the holy saint, they held up their hands toward
heaven, and prayed our Lord that by the merits of
S. Nicholas they might be delivered of this present
peril. And when the emperor had heard of them
the life and miracles of S. Nicholas, he said to them:
Go ye forth, and yield ye thankings to God, which
hath delivered you by the prayer of this holy man,
and worship ye him; and bear ye to him of your jewels,
and pray ye him that he threaten me no more, but
that he pray for me and for my realm unto our Lord.
And a while after, the said princes went unto the holy
man, and fell down on their knees humbly at his
feet, saying: Verily thou art the sergeant of God,
and the very worshipper and lover of Jesu Christ. And
when they had all told this said thing by order, he
lift up his hands to heaven and gave thankings and
praisings to God, and sent again the princes, well
informed, into their countries.
This story, although, so far as known, it does
not form the subject of any of the St. Nicholas
plays presented by medieval schoolboys, certainly
possesses dramatic quality. The first interven-
tion by the protecting saint provides suspense like
that before the arrival of a reprieve on the stroke
of twelve in a modern melodrama. The scene
is strikingly presented in one of the Santa Croce
frescoes. One of the young men is represented
kneeling blindfolded awaiting the death stroke.

Norman Baptismal Font at Winchester Cathedral, with Sculptured Scenes from the Life of St. Nicholas.
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Varied Beneficent Activity
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The executioner holds his sword lifted, while St.
Nicholas from behind grasps it by the point.
Also both this scene and the second scene in the
story are represented in the celebrated Giottesque
frescoes at Assisi. In the second scene there is
represented a hall with straight ceiling supported
by slender columns. In this hall the Emperor
Constantine is lying asleep. Nicholas with
uplifted hands approaches and commands him
to free the three imprisoned princes. The latter,
one sees below, behind a barred window, before
which stands a great wooden cage.¹
The twelfth-century life of St. Nicholas by
Wace, written, as the reader is told in the opening
lines, for the sake of the unlettered, to explain to
them the purpose of the St. Nicholas festival newly
instituted in the West, contains a number of
episodes not included in the more or less official
account in the Golden Legend. There is one
story which seems like a variant version of that
of the three murdered schoolboys, which itself is
also included by Wace. A merchant is on his
way to visit the saint. On the journey he takes
lodgings at an inn and in the night is murdered
by the treacherous landlord. His body is cut to
pieces and packed in a cask and salted like edible
flesh. In the night St. Nicholas restores the
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St. Nicholas
merchant to life with his body entirely sound.
In the morning the merchant appears, naturally
to the astonishment of the landlord, who confesses
and worships St. Nicholas.
Wace also includes a short story of how St.
Nicholas freed a child possessed by the devil,³
and still another incident, one more than usually
filled with human interest, recorded in connec-
tion with the election of St. Nicholas as bishop.
The story goes that the hostess at an inn where
the youthful bishop-elect had stayed, was so
overjoyed at the election, that she left her baby in
a bath pan by the fire. In her absence the water
boiled. The mother returned in fright but found
her child safe and happy.
St. Nicholas in origin was an Oriental saint.
In the Eastern Church at the present day his
worship is more active than in western Europe.
In countries like Greece of to-day there sur-
vive the conditions amid which St. Nicholas
worship had its origin and amid which legen-
dary stories of him were propagated. His
ability to work miracles is still believed in by
many a Greek peasant. The following re-
markably circumstantial account of an incident
supposed to have taken place on May 25, 1909,
will illustrate the faith in the goodness and

Alinari
sang B
F. Pesellino. St. Nicholas Saves the Knights about to be Beheaded.
UNIV
?
OF
ICH
Varied Beneficent Activity
87
power of St. Nicholas still alive in certain parts
of Greece. 4
In a romantic situation, one quarter of an hour
from the village of Sparta in Elis, stands a fine monas-
tery dedicated to St. Nicholas. Every year on the
10th of May—the anniversary of the finding of the
saint's ikon-there come to the monastery thousands
of worshipers from all parts of the Peloponnese, who
bring various offerings to the saint and remain several
days in the romantic monastery, worshiping the
wonder-working ikon and celebrating the annual
festival.
Amongst this year's worshipers was a peasant,
John Doulos, from the village of. Bezaïté, who invoked
the help of the saint on behalf of Kyriakula, his young
daughter, who was blind. He brought her to wor-
ship at the shrine. The unfortunate girl had lost
her sight on Easter day, when she thought she saw a
great fire before her eyes and fell to the ground. From
that moment she could see nothing. All medical
skill was of no avail, and the despairing Doulos de-
termined to take his daughter to the saint. They
arrived at the monastery on the Wednesday before
the festival. Thursday and Friday, days and nights,
they spent inside the church kneeling before the ikon
in prayer and supplication. Suddenly about dawn
on the Saturday, when the worshipers in the church
were numerous, Kyriakula arose, and crossing herself,
cried:
"Father, father, I see! There are the saint's
candles! There is the ikon!"
A thrill of emotion ran through those present, and
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St. Nicholas
г
all joined with the girl, whose sight had been restored,
in worshiping the ikon of the wonder-working saint.
After remaining many hours to bless the name of the
saint, the healed girl left the church with her father
and joined in the festival. Then she returned to her
village, and her restored eyesight told better than
words the saint's miracle.
CHAPTER VII
IN
ST. NICHOLAS PLAYS
N our time the celebration of St. Nicholas' day
has lost much of the ceremony that was once
associated with it. Even in countries like Bel-
gium and Holland, where the day is a great folk
festival, there is little to connect the day with the
story of the beloved bishop-saint. "Sinterklaes"
is better known than St. Nicholas. In early days
the case was different. Particularly in the cen-
turies immediately following the transfer of the
St. Nicholas relics to Italy, the time when the
vogue of the eastern saint reached its height in
the countries of western Europe, in many ways
his story was kept fresh in the popular memory.
Not only did the Boy Bishop custom commemorate,
in somewhat extravagant fashion to be sure, the
elevation of the boy Nicholas to the rank of bishop,
but stories of the life of the saint formed an impor-
tant part of the lectiones, or "readings," for the
day in the church; and more important still, some
89
90
St. Nicholas
of the principal episodes in his life formed the
subject, in church schools, for hymns which later
developed into little plays. In the election of
the Boy Bishop was reenacted with a great deal
of adventitious detail one of these episodes. In
more strictly dramatic fashion were reënacted
the four episodes: (1) of the maidens saved from
a life of shame; (2) the three murdered schoolboys
restored to life; (3) the kidnapped boy restored to
his parents; and (4) the Jew that put his treasures
in charge of the image of St. Nicholas.
These little St. Nicholas plays have genuine
significance in the early history of the modern
drama. At a time when the classical drama was
dead, when the works of Plautus and Terence
were valued as repositories of sententious expres-
sions and their dramatic character apparently
not suspected, when the names tragedy and com-
edy were almost entirely dissociated from drama-
tic meaning, by one of the strange ironies of life,
under the auspices of the Church, which had been
hostile in its attitude toward earlier drama, there
was created, seemingly without being realized, the
germ from which developed the modern drama.
The St. Nicholas plays go back to an early stage
in the new dramatic development. Little drama-
tic scenes from scriptural story began to find a
St. Nicholas Plays
91
place in the liturgy of the Church as early as the
tenth century. St. Nicholas plays are not much
later, and are the earliest ones handling scenes
drawn from outside the biblical story. They
begin not later than the first of the twelfth cen-
tury. St. Nicholas may almost be regarded as
the patron saint of the modern drama, since he
seems to have watched over its birth.
The St. Nicholas plays were represented ap-
parently by the choir boys in connection with the
celebration of the festival of their patron saint.
The language used was Latin, of a schoolboy
variety, but vernacular elements soon began to
appear. Forming, as they did, a part of the
school service, and presented, as they were, by
choir boys, as might be expected, they were for
the most part sung or chanted. Their purpose
to provide entertainment and their dissociation
from the older drama are indicated by the names
applied to these primitive dramas. Miracula
was the name given them when the subject-matter
was in mind; when their character and purpose
were in mind the name applied to them in Latin
was ludus, in French, jeu. The actors at a com-
paratively early time in English were called players
before the word 'play' had yet acquired its later
definitely dramatic meaning.
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St. Nicholas
The subjects from the St. Nicholas story used
in these little plays have been mentioned. One
should notice what a range of interest is com-
prised in these four stories. They afford oppor-
tunity for the use of many of the cant phrases of
the modern dramatic critic. There was a melo-
drama of crime, a primitive detective play, with
St. Nicholas playing the part of detective in dis-
covering the crime of the innkeeper and his wife.
There was a play dealing with the rough road to
matrimony, ending in a triple marriage, hardly
surpassed in modern love comedy. There was a
sentimental comedy, with gripping heart interest,
in the story of the boy abducted and restored.
There was a screaming farce in the story of the
Jew that was robbed. It should be noted, too,
that the modern "tired business man" would find
the endings in all four as happy as could be wished.
One of the early St. Nicholas plays also is of
interest because it is one of three plays com-
posed by the earliest determinable personality in
connection with the authorship of modern drama.
The name of the author, Hilarius, seems to have
been no misnomer. He was probably an English-
man,² or an Anglo-Norman, who went to France
to study under Abélard. He is the author of a
number of innocent love poems, playful in tone,
St. Nicholas Plays
93
addressed to an English Rose and to his nun
friends, Bona and Superba. From his writings
we learn that he was not only lively, but fat.
Along with a number of other students, on account
of some misbehavior, he seems to have suffered a
kind of rustication and been obliged to leave the
monastery where he was studying and to take
up residence in a neighboring village. In a mock
elegy he feigns despair at being deprived of the
privilege of hearing lectures. Altogether the char-
acter of this medieval student is easy to asso-
ciate with the farcical little Latin play which he
wrote, back in the twelfth century, presenting
the story of the Jew who committed his valuables
to the care of the image of St. Nicholas.
This play,³ or operetta, for it was intended for
song and chant by the choir boys, is composed
in rimed Latin stanzas, practically impossible to
reproduce in form and in spirit with any degree
of literalness in English, although Professor
Gayley has accomplished the miraculous with one
or two of them.
The dramatis persona in the play are: Barbarus
(a Heathen), owner of the treasure, corresponding
to the Jew in the Golden Legend version of the
story, four or six robbers, and St. Nicholas. At
first the Heathen, having assembled his treasures,
94
St. Nicholas
approaches an image of St. Nicholas (represented
by a man standing in a shrine) and puts them
in care of the image, saying (probably in song):
“Nicolæ, quidquid possideo,
hoc in meo misi teloneo;
te custodem rebus adhibeo;
serva quæ sunt ibi:
meis, precor, attende precibus;
vide, nullus sit locus furibus!
Pretiosis aurum cum vestibus
ego trado tibi.”
The thought of which may be rendered freely:
Nicholas, all that I possess, I have put in this chest.
I leave it to you in charge; keep what is here. I pray
you, listen to my request. See to it that no thief
gets in. I am putting in your charge gold and pre-
cious raiment.
In a second like stanza Barbarus expresses the
security that he feels now that his valuables are
in the charge of the image of St. Nicholas and at
the same time warns the image that there will be
trouble if anything happens to his property.
When Barbarus has gone, tramps, noticing the
house open and without guardian, carry off every-
thing. When Barbarus returns, he finds his
treasure gone and expresses his feelings in song.
His song consists of three Latin stanzas, each with
St. Nicholas Plays
95
a French refrain probably joined in by the other
members of the boy choir. It begins:
Gravis sors et dura!
Hic reliqui plura,
sed sub mala cura;
Des! quel domage!
qui pert la sue chose, purque n'enrage?
The rime scheme of which may be reproduced
something like this:
Hard luck and sad!
I left all I had,
But the care was bad.
Gad, what a shame!
If I am mad, I'm not to blame.
Two stanzas with the same refrain follow. Then
Barbarus turns to the image and lays on it the
blame in two additional stanzas with the threaten-
ing French refrain:
"Ha! Nicholax,
se ne me rent ma chose, tu ol comparras.
(If you don't give me back my things, I'll make
you pay for it.)
Barbarus then takes up a whip and vents his
feelings in two additional stanzas of the same sort,
the form and spirit of which Professor Gayley
has admirably caught in English4:
96
St. Nicholas
By God, I swear to you
Unless you "cough up" true,
You thief, I'll beat you blue,
I will, no fear!
So hand me back my stuff that I put here!
The amount of whipping and other stage "busi-
ness" to accompany this recitative might safely
be trusted to choir boy impromptu. The Latin
text of the play at this point gives the following
simple directions: "Then St. Nicholas shall go
to the thieves and say to them:"
In four Latin stanzas he tells the thieves that
he has been whipped because he cannot restore
the things left in his charge, and threatens:
"Quod si non feceritis
suspensi cras eritis
crucis in patibulo;
vestra namque turpia,
vestra latrocinia,
nuntiabo populo."
(If you don't do this, you will be hanged to-morrow
on a gibbet, for your misdeeds and thievery, I will
proclaim abroad.)
The threats have the desired effect on the thieves,
who in fear return the goods, with no accompany-
ing words provided by the playwright.
When Barbarus finds his treasures again, in a
St. Nicholas Plays
97
series of three macaronic stanzas, Latin and
French, he expresses his joy and surprise, ending
with praise for the guardian:
Quam bona custodia
jo en ai;
qua redduntur omnia!
De si grant mervegle en ai.'
(What a good watch I have had! it returns every-
thing. I am quite surprised.)
The alternating lines in French form a refrain
in which, as in the other songs, the other choir
boys have a chance to join.
Then Barbarus approaches the image and in
three like stanzas, Latin and French, expresses
his gratitude.
At this point St. Nicholas in person makes his
appearance. He disclaims any credit to himself,
and bids Barbarus praise God alone, through
Whom his things have been restored.
Barbarus in reply renounces heathen faith and
praises God, the maker of heaven and earth and
sea, Who has forgiven his sin.
The printed text of the little play is simple
enough, but the easy swing of the series of Latin
songs and the French refrains offering oppor-
tunity for choral participation, the beating of the
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St. Nicholas
image, and the impromptu comedy "business"
which choir boys might be counted on to supply,
would provide as much entertainment at a
church festival to-day as they doubtless did in
the St. Nicholas' eve celebration of the twelfth
century.
In a single manuscript there are preserved four
St. Nicholas plays of a century later. The stories
presented in these plays are the four mentioned
above. The play of the abducted son of Getro
may here represent the series.
This Latin play, 5 almost entirely in rimed coup-
lets, is more serious in tone and in general a more
elaborate production than the little play by Hila-
rius. It was staged in characteristic medieval
fashion, with simultaneous set; that is to say,
there were a number of prepared stations, side
by side, all visible, and the action shifted from
one station to another. A rubric in the manuscript
indicates the stage arrangement.
In order to represent how St. Nicholas freed the
son of Getro from the hands of Marmorinus, King of
the Agarenes, King Marmorinus shall appear, sur-
rounded by armed servitors and seated on a high
seat as if in his own kingdom. In another place,
shall be represented Excoranda, the city of Getro, and
in it Getro, with his consolers, his wife Euphrosina
and their son Adeodatus. East of the city of Excor-
/
St. Nicholas Plavs
99
anda shall be the church of St. Nicholas in which
the boy is taken captive.
The action shifts from one of these stations to the
other, all the stations and all the characters, how-
ever, being constantly visible.
In the opening scene the servitors approach
King Marmorinus, and, "either all together, or the
first one speaking for all," say:
Hail prince, hail greatest king. Do not delay to
declare thy will to thy servants; we are ready to do
what thou dost wish.
These words apparently are sung, since they are
in rimed verse and since song alone would be ap-
propriate for speech in unison. The king replies:
Go then, do not delay, and subject to my rule
whatever people you can; kill any that resist.
With this the action shifts to another station.
"In the meantime Getro and Euphrosina with
a band of schoolboys," the stage directions tell
us, "shall go to the church of St. Nicholas, to
celebrate his festival, and shall bring with them
their son; and when they shall see the armed ser-
vitors of the king coming there, they shall flee
to their own city, in their fright forgetting the
boy. But the servitors of the king shall seize
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St. Nicholas
!
the boy and bring him into the presence of the
king, and either the second of them or all in unison
shall say," apparently in song:
We have done, O king, what thou didst order; we
have subjected many people to thee and of the things
acquired, we are bringing to thee this boy.
Then the third one, or all in unison, shall say:
The boy is fair of face, of active mind, and noble
race; it is fitting, in our opinion, that he enter thy
service.
The king:
Praise be to Apollo who rules all, and thanks to
you who have made so many countries subject and
tributary.
And then, addressing the boy:
Good boy, tell us, what is thy land, what thy race;
what is the faith of the people of thy country; are
they gentile or Christian?
The boy:
My father, Getro by name, is prince of the people
of Excoranda; he worships God, who rules the seas,
who made us and thee and all things.
The king:
St. Nicholas Plays
ΙΟΙ
My god, Apollo, is the god that made me.
He is
true and good. He rules the land, he reigns in the
air; him alone we ought to believe in.
The boy:
Thy god is false and evil; he is stupid, blind, deaf,
and mute. Thou shouldst not worship such a god,
who cannot rule even himself.
The king:
Say not such things; do not offend my god; for
if thou dost make him angry, thou canst not in any
way escape.
In the meantime, the directions tell us, Euphro-
sina shall discover that her son has been forgotten
and shall return to the church. And when she
shall not find the boy, she shall sing the following
Miserere:
"Heu! heu! heu mihi miseræ!
Quid nunc agam? Quid quæm dicere?
Quo peccato merui perdere
natum meum, et ultra vivere?
Cur me pater infelix genuit?
Cur me mater infelix abluit?
Cur me nutrix lactare debuit?
Mortem mihi quare non præbuit?"
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St. Nicholas
The consolers shall come to her and say:
In what way does this grieving aid? Cease to
weep, and pray for thy son to the highest Father,
and he will give him aid.
Euphrosina, not heeding the words of consola-
tion, shall continue:
Dear son, most beloved child; child, the great
part of my soul; now thou art to us the cause of
sadness who wert the cause of joy.
Comforters:
Do not despair of the grace of God. He whose
great mercy gave thee this boy, will return to thee
either him or another.
Euphrosina:
My soul is disturbed within me. Why should
death delay? When I am not able to see thee, my
son, I prefer to die rather than to live.
Comforters:
Struggle, grief, and despair injure thee and do not
profit thy son; instead, from thy wealth give to
schoolboys and to the poor. Ask the kindness of
Nicholas that he may pray for the mercy of the Father
on high for thy son, that thy prayer may not fail.
St. Nicholas Plays
103.
Euphrosina (praying to St. Nicholas):
Nicholas, most holy father, Nicholas most dear to
God, if thou wishest that I should worship thee longer,
cause my son to return. Thou that didst save many
in the sea, and three men from the bonds of death,
listen to the prayer of me, a suppliant, and assure me
that it will be granted. I will not eat of flesh longer,
nor partake of wine, nor enjoy anything more until
my son shall return.
Getro:
Dear sister, cease to mourn: thy tears avail thee
nothing. But seek the propitiation of the Father
on high for our son. To-morrow is the festival of
St. Nicholas whom all Christianity ought to worship,
to venerate, to bless. Hear, then, my counsel. Let
us go to his festival. Let us praise his greatness and
seek his support. Perhaps it is an inspiration of
God that admonishes me on account of our son.
the grace of God we must pray for the great kindness
of Nicholas.
With
Then they shall get up and go to the church
of St. Nicholas. And when they have entered,
Euphrosina shall stretch her hands out toward
heaven and say:
Highest Father, king of all kings, sole king, and sole
hope of mortals, make to be returned to us our son,
the solace of our life. Hear the prayers of us suppli-
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St. Nicholas
ant. Thou that didst send thy Son into the world
to make us citizens of Heaven, to save us from the
bars of hell. Father God, thou whose power dost
supply everything good, do not cast off me a sinner,
but let me see again my son. Nicholas, whom we
call a saint, if all is true that we believe concerning
thee, let thy prayers go forth to God for us and our
son.
"After these words," the directions tell us, "she
shall leave the church and go home and there
prepare a table with bread and wine for the en-
tertainment of schoolboys and the poor. When
these have been invited and have begun to eat,
Marmorinus (at the other end of the stage) shall
say to his servitors":
My beloved, I want to tell you that I have never
in my life felt such hunger as I have to-day. I can't
stand it. Make ready what I ought to eat and save
my life. Why delay? Go quickly, prepare at once
something for me to eat.
The servitors then shall go and bear food to
the king and shall say:
We have prepared the food as thou didst command
and here it is. Now if thou dost wish, thou mayst
grow fat in extinguishing thy hunger.
Then water is brought, and the king washes his
hands and begins to eat and says:
St. Nicholas Plays
105
I was hungry, now I am thirsty. Bring me wine,
and no delay about it, my servant, son of Getro.
The boy, hearing this, shall sigh deeply, saying
to himself:
Alas! Alas, poor me! I should like to die, for
as long as I live, I shall never be free.
The king, addressing the boy:
Why dost thou sigh so?
dost thou want?
What ails thee? What
The boy:
I was thinking of my misery, of my father and my
native land. I began to sigh, and said to myself,
"It is a year to-day since I entered this country, and
was made a miserable slave, subject to royal power.'
The king:
Poor wretch, why dost thou think about it? What
good does thy grieving do? None can take thee
from me as long as I do not care to lose thee.
"In the meantime," the directions tell us, "some
one in the likeness of Nicholas shall take up the boy
holding in his hand the cup with fresh wine, and
shall place him before his father's city and, as if
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St. Nicholas
not seen, shall depart. Then one of the citizens
shall say to the boy":
Boy, who art thou, and where goest thou? Who
gave thee the cup with the fresh wine?
The boy:
I am here and am not going farther. I am the
only son of Getro. Glory and praise to Nicholas
whose grace brought me back here.
Then that citizen shall run to Getro and say:
Be glad, Getro. Weep no more. Outside stands
thy son. Praise be to Nicholas whose grace restored
him.
"When Euphrosina hears this message, she shall
run, and after kissing and embracing her son many
times, shall say":
To our God be glory and praise. Whose great
mercy, turning our grief to joy, has released our son.
To our father Nicholas be enduring praise and thanks,
whose prayer to God aided us in this affair.
The play ends with the choral singing of the
Latin hymn to St. Nicholas, beginning with the
words "Copiosa Caritatis."
As already remarked, these Latin plays of St.
St. Nicholas Plays
107
Nicholas are the earliest plays handling subjects
outside the scriptural narrative, also one of
the St. Nicholas stories is the subject of one of the
group of plays by the earliest medieval dramatist
known by name. In another way the name of
St. Nicholas is associated with the beginnings of
the modern drama, in that one of the St. Nicholas
stories provides the theme for one of the earliest
of plays in a vernacular tongue and produced
under secular control. The play in question is
the famous one by Jean Bodel produced at Arras
in the very first years of the thirteenth century.
The time of production was probably the eve of
St. Nicholas' day, and the producing actors were
the members of a secular fraternity of which St.
Nicholas was the patron saint, possibly, Gaston
Paris' suggests, the famous minstrel brother-
hood at Arras that had for its palladium the
famous candle, said to have set itself on the viol
of one of the brotherhood while he played before
the altar.
The story told in this play is one already well
known as a subject for dramatic rendering in
Latin, one of three handled by Hilarius, the story
of the image of St. Nicholas and the robbers.
But in this vernacular play St. Nicholas himself
is overshadowed by the new elements that have
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St. Nicholas
been joined to the story. The Jew, or pagan, of
earlier versions of the story, here appears as a
Saracen king at war with the Christians. The
thieves are tavern revelers who steal in order to
pay their tavern score.
7
In condensed summary, following largely the
summary by Creizenach, the story runs as
follows:
After a prolog in which the content of the story
is related, the messenger Auberon appears and
announces to the king that the Christians have
invaded his land. The king is enraged at his
idol Tervagant that this has been possible in spite
of the fact that the image has recently been richly
gilded. Auberon is sent forth to summon the
emirs with their armies. There follows a scene
between the Christians and Saracens, which is
imbued with all the ardor and spirit of the crusad-
ing times. The Christians show divinely inspired
bravery and are visited by an angel which en-
courages them in the fight. They are defeated in
battle, but the angel announces that they have
won a place in Paradise. The Saracens find on
the battlefield only one Christian alive, and he
is kneeling before an image of St. Nicholas. The
man with his image is brought before the Saracen
king, who in ridicule asks what the ugly old chap
St. Nicholas Plays
109
is good for. The Christian announces that the
image is excellent as a protector of treasure. The
king determines to test the image and causes his
herald Connart to proclaim that the treasure will
be left open, guarded only by the image of St.
Nicholas. The Christian prisoner is given over
to the hangman Durand to die if his patron saint
does not live up to his reputation.
The scene shifts to a tavern. The innkeeper
has his man servant announce that he has a fine
wine for the epicure, a wine which he describes in
most eloquent fashion. The rogues assemble,
and in a drawn-out scene manifest their apprecia-
tion of the good wine, but at the end are unable to
pay their score. They determine to steal the
unguarded royal treasure, and the innkeeper
agrees to receive the stolen goods. They enter
the treasure chamber, and with great labor, which
affords much comedy, get away with the heavy
chest.
The theft is discovered, and the Christian pris-
oner is ordered to be hanged, but gets a suspended
sentence of one day, and cheered by an angel,
awaits the intervention of the saint.
The thieves, in the meantime, have brought
the treasure to the tavern and continue their
revelry until they fall asleep. Hardly has sleep
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St. Nicholas
overtaken them, when the saint appears and in
gruff language demands the return of the treasure,
with the gallows as the alternative. The thieves,
panic-stricken, carry the treasure back. One of
them proposes that each take a handful of gold
pieces, but they are too much terrified, and in the
end the ringleader must leave his mantle with the
innkeeper in settlement.
The king, delighted at the protection afforded,
takes the Christian into high favor, naturally to
the disappointment of the hangman. He also
decides to abjure his old faith, and his emirs feel
it their feudal duty to follow his example, with the
exception of one, who, however, is compelled to
kneel before the saint's image. In the midst of
all this the image of Tervagant utters a frightful
shriek, but is, by command of the king, cast out
of the "Synagogue" in shame and disgrace while
the Christian starts a Te Deum, in which the actors,
and, perhaps, the spectators, join.
In this play it will be observed that the old
story is made to serve a new purpose. St. Nicholas
is made an exponent of the virtue of Christianity
as opposed to the Saracen faith. The story is
developed with much supporting detail. The
struggle between Christian and Saracen is repre-
sented with true crusading zeal, in the spirit
St. Nicholas Plays
III
which pervaded the contemporary romances of
Charlemagne and his paladins. On the other
hand, balancing with these scenes, noble in tone,
were the low comedy scenes provided by the tavern
revelers, drinking, casting dice, quarreling, and
speaking a slang often unintelligible to the modern
reader, in general affording remarkable genre
pictures of French life in the early thirteenth
century.
In his two-sided development of the dramatic
values in this story, the author established a
method which one might have expected to be fol-
lowed by his contemporaries, a method actually
followed, a little later, in the development of the
native English drama. In reality, however, the
play occupies a solitary position in its own day and
age. To the author must be given the credit of
original creation, of being ahead of his time. But
this credit the author must share with the story of
his play, for has not the name of St. Nicholas
through all the centuries, down to our own time,
been constantly associated, not only with the
idea of noble beneficence, but with a peculiar
quality of good nature and fin?
CHAPTER VIII
ST. NICHOLAS AS PATRON SAINT
A
NYONE brought up in a Protestant country,
in the Protestant faith, will not find it easy
to form an adequate conception of the nature of
saint worship. Such a person, however, if he
should visit certain of the less progressive pro-
vinces of Catholic Christendom, would find sur-
viving in much of its pristine vigor, with much of
its original naïveté, the saint worship once universal
in the Christian world. In Sicily, for instance,
he would find each city with its patron saint re-
vered and honored very much as in the earlier
days. If he should happen to be in Catania on
one of the two days in the year devoted to the
honor of Catania's patron saint Agatha, he would
see the image of St. Agatha surrounded by native
offerings of extravagant value, in a resplendent
car drawn by white-robed men, and he would
hear enthusiastic shouts of "Viva Sant' Agatha!"
whenever a new candle for the car was offered by
112

Triumphal Car of St. Lucy used in the Annual Procession in Honor
of the Saint at Syracuse in Sicily.
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St. Nicholas as Patron Saint
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one of the votaries of the saint. In Palermo he
would find like honor paid on her festival day to
St. Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo; in Syra-
cuse he would find St. Lucy; in Taormina, St.
Pancras, similarly honored. These Sicilian cele-
brations of saints' days, featured as they are by
the presence of such modern, ultra-secular inven-
tions as fireworks, nevertheless retain not only
much of the form but to some extent the spirit
of earlier celebrations.
Nor is the Sicilian worship of saints entirely
one-sided. On the one hand honors are paid, but
on the other hand benefits are supposed to be re-
ceived. An idea of the nature of the protection
afforded by the saints and of the intimate relation
existing between saint and votary may be gained
by a visit to the church of San Nicola at Girgenti.
There one will find the picture of the saint sur-
rounded by representations, in silver, or more
often in wax or carved and painted wood, of swollen
limb, cancerous breast, goitered throat, injured
eye, carbuncle, and the like, healed through the
intervention of the saint. Even more specific,
more living, record of protection received is af-
forded by the votive offerings on one wall of the
church in the form of naïve little paintings illus-
trating the aid afforded by St. Nicholas, one
8
114
St. Nicholas
"showing a spirited donkey running away with
a painted cart, the terrified occupant frantically
making signals of distress to S. Nicola in heaven
who is preparing promptly to check the raging
ass, others showing S. Nicola drawing a petitioner
from the sea, or turning a mafia dagger aside, or
finding a lost child in the mountains.”
In Catholic Brittany, too, one will find similar
forms of saint worship. One will find the so-called
"Pardons," or pilgrimages on different days of
the year to different ones of the famous shrines
of Brittany, occasions celebrated with festal pro-
cessions accompanying the image or the relics of
the saint honored. In the Breton churches also
one will find the same form of testimony, as in
Sicily, to the protection offered by the various
saints. In the church of St. Sauveur at Dinan,
in the chapel of St. Roch, one will find a represen-
tation of the saint over the altar and on the wall
a framed væu, to the effect that St. Roch confers
many benefits, especially in case of pestilence,
that he saved the city from pestilence in 16—,
and that the vœu is for the sake of preserving the
memory of his goodness to the city. On the wall
also are framed litanies to St. Roch and individual
votive offerings with dates, many in the form of
hearts, others framed inscriptions with "Merci Bon
St. Nicholas as Patron Saint 115
St. Roch," accompanied by the date of the benefit
received. Over the door of a house in Brittany
also one often finds the image of the patron saint
of the occupant.
In Brittany down to our own time honor con-
tinues to be paid to a great number of saints not
known elsewhere, never canonized by the Roman
church and probably in their origin having little
of Christian character, more than likely Christian
representatives of earlier, local, pagan divinities.
The functions of these local Breton saints are
specialized to an extent hardly found elsewhere
at the present time. Ailments are subject to the
cure of particular saints. The specialization is
hardly equalled even by that in the modern practice
of medicine. Saint Mamert is invoked in case of
pains of the stomach, Saint Méen for insanity,
Saint Hubert for dog bites, Saint Livertin for
headache, Saint Houarniaule for fear, Saint
Radegonde for toothache.
There is a certain beauty in the intimate rela-
tions existing between simple people and their
divine representative, but the naïve character of
the practice, in a striking manner, brings to one's
realization the superstitious mode of thought pre-
valent in medieval times. The Reformation, in
the sixteenth century, did much to dispel these
V
116
St. Nicholas
older, superstitious forms of religious thought.
As already remarked, among Protestants the old
reverence of the saints is hardly understood. In
the modern Catholic church, too, the extravagant
features of saintly legend and of saint worship
have been largely eliminated, only vestiges surviv-
ing in those provinces little affected by modern
progress.
Evidence of similar specialization in earlier
forms of saint worship, and of Protestant ridicule
of it, is to be found in Barnabe Googe's sixteenth-
century translations from Naogeorgus²:
To every saint they also doe his office here assine,
And fourtene doe they count of whom thou mayst
have ayde divine;
Saint Barbara lookes that none without the body of
Christ doe dye,
Saint Cathern favours learned men, and gives them
wisdome hye;
Saint Appolin the rotten teeth doth helpe, when sore
they ake;
Otilla from the bleared eyes the cause and griefe doth
take;
Saint Gertrude riddes the house of mise, and killeth
all the rattes;
The like doth bishop Huldrich with his earth, two
passing cattes;

HOUARNIA
S LUBIN
ST MAMERT
ST MEEN
ST HUBERT
ST LIVERTIN
Images of Breton Saints, Preserved at Moncontour-de-Bretagne.
но,
OF
MIND
St. Nicholas as Patron Saint 117
Saint Gregerie lookes to little boys, to teach their
a, b, c,
And makes them for to love their bookes and schollers
good to be;
Saint Nicolas keepes the mariners from daunger
and diseas
That beaten are with boystrous waves and tost in
dreadfull seas.
Not only were the saints invoked for protection
against particular ills, but the guilds, or craft
fraternities, had each its patron saint. Cities
and nations also had each its particular saintly
guardian, and individuals, by assuming the names
of particular saints, aimed to establish a protective
relationship. Variations in these relationships
existed, but some ones widely recognized were
that between St. Agatha and nurses, St. Catherine
and St. Gregory and studious persons, St. Cecilia
and musicians, Saints Cosmas and Damian and
physicians, St. Luke and painters, St. Sebastian
and archers, St. Valentine and lovers, St. Ives and
lawyers, Saints Andrew and Joseph and carpen-
ters, St. George and clothiers, and so on. Of
countries Scotland comes under the care of St.
Andrew, England under that of St. George, Ire-
land under that of St. Patrick, Wales under that
of St. David. St. Anthony belongs especially to
Italy, St. Denis to France, St. Thomas to Spain,
118
St. Nicholas
St. Mary to Holland, St. Sebastian to Portugal.
Of cities Venice is under the protection of St.
Mark, Florence of St. John, Paris of St. Genevieve,
Vienna of St. Stephen, Cologne of the Holy
Magi. 3
4
As compared with some of the other saints in
affording protection St. Nicholas is less the special-
ist and more the general practitioner. He cer-
tainly has his share of duties assigned him. With
St. Mary and St. Andrew he shares the guardian-
ship of Russia, with Olaf that of Norway, with
St. Julian of Rimini, that of the whole eastern
coast of Italy. Of cities he is the patron saint:
in the North, of Moscow and Aberdeen, in the
South, of Bari and Corfu, in intermediate countries,
of Amiens, Civray (Poitou), Ancona, Fribourg
(Switzerland), and several places in Lorraine. 5
The guardianship of St. Nicholas over school-
boys and unwedded maids has already been dis-
cussed. Mention has also been made of St.
Nicholas as patron saint of various crafts in the
towns of the Netherlands. To the list of occupa-
tions protected, may be added those of butchers,
fishermen, pilgrims, brewers, chandlers, and coop-
ers, with all of which St. Nicholas is more or
less closely associated as patron saint. It remains
to consider in more detail the part played by St.
6

Anderson
Beato Angelico. St. Nicholas Saves the City in Time of Famine.
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St. Nicholas as Patron Saint 119
Nicholas as the protector of mariners and the less
prominent, but not the less interesting, relationship
between St. Nicholas and thieves.
Throughout the Christian world, everywhere,
the devotion of sailors to St. Nicholas is much in
evidence. In Greece, where St. Nicholas is one
of the most popularly honored saints, at the present
day, according to a recent authority," "everyone
connected with seafaring appeals to him for pro-
tection and relief. All ships and boats carry his
ikon with an ever-burning lamp, and in his chapels,
models of boats, coils of cables, anchors, and such
things, are given as votive offerings. Pirates
even used to give him half their booty in gratitude
for favors received. On account of this worship,
St. Nicholas has been said to have supplanted
Poseidon, for the cults lie along the same lines.
During a recent strike at the Piræus the seamen
swore by St. Nicholas not to yield, and they
would not break their vow although they wished
to compromise. The Archbishop had to come
specially to release them from their oath."
In Russia, as in Greece, an ikon of St. Nicholas
is carried in every merchantman.8 In other
countries there is plentiful record of similar asso-
ciation of St. Nicholas with the protection of the
sea. In the Island of Minorca, in the eighteenth
I 20
St. Nicholas
century, near the entrance to the harbor, stood a
chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, to which, accord-
ing to an old account, "the sailors resort that have
suffered shipwreck, to return thanks for their
preservation, and to hang up votive pictures
(representing the dangers they have escaped),
in gratitude to the saint for the protection he
vouchsafed them, and in accomplishment of the
vows they made in the height of the storm."9
ΙΟ
In Teutonic countries St. Nicholas played a
similar part. In Germany it was formerly cus-
tomary for sailors escaped from shipwreck to dedi-
cate a piece of old sail to St. Nicholas. 10 In every
Hanseatic city there was a church to St. Nicholas,
and in Hanseatic cities favorite personal names
were Nicolaus, Claas, Nickelo, and other popular
derivatives from St. Nicholas. There were also
churches dedicated to St. Nicholas in places
threatened by injury from water, for instance at
Quedlingburg. In Switzerland, too, St. Nicholas
is the patron of travelers by water. Sailors on the
Lake of Lucerne are said to make vows and votive
offerings to him, and by Swiss waters formerly
there were everywhere to be found St. Nicholas
chapels.
I I
The association of St. Nicholas with the sea is
found in one of the best known of the incidents in
St. Nicholas as Patron Saint I2I
his legend, although, in this case, even more than
the case of the other incidents of his life story,
there is room for question whether he is to be
regarded as the protector of seamen because of the
incident in his story, or the incident in the story
originated as an explanation of the veneration
paid St. Nicholas by seamen.
The incident in question is thus recorded in
the Golden Legend:
It is read in a chronicle that the blessed Nicholas
was at the Council of Nice; and on a day as a ship
with mariners were in perishing on the sea, they
prayed and required devoutly Nicholas, servant of
God, saying: If those things that we have heard of
thee be true, prove them now. And anon a man
appeared in his likeness and said: Lo! see ye me not?
ye called me, and then he began to help them in their
exploit of the sea, and anon the tempest ceased. And
when they were come to his church, they knew him
without any man to show him to them, and yet they
had never seen him. And then they thanked God
and him of their deliverance. And he bade them to
attribute it to the mercy of God, and to their belief,
and nothing to his merits.
It is worthy of note that the mariners of this
story, when in distress, already know of the repu-
tation of St. Nicholas for efficacy in such situations,
which seems to indicate that in this case story
grew from belief rather than belief from story.
122
St. Nicholas
The story of the rescue at sea accomplished by
the intervention of the saint forms a favorite
subject for Italian painters, particularly those of
the earlier period. The picture by L. Monaco
represents the scene in a manner delightfully
primitive.
saints, festively as-
When the cup, out
The aid afforded by St. Nicholas to mariners in
distress also forms the subject of a story sung in a
popular Servian carol, 12 in which there is much
in evidence the peculiar charm of the folk-tale.
The story goes that all the
sembled, were drinking wine.
of which each drank in turn, was passed to St.
Nicholas, he was too sleepy to hold it, and let it
drop. St. Elias shook him by the arm and aroused
him. "Oh! I beg the pardon of the company,'
said the sleepy saint, "but I have been very busy
and I was absent from your festival. The sea
was rough, and I had to give my help to three
hundred ships that were in danger."
""
It is not easy to associate St. Nicholas with the
thought of severity. One can hardly conceive of
him as a stern judge. Was he open to the charge
of being what is popularly called "easy"? Certain
it is that his beneficence had a wide scope. The
universality of his guardianship can hardly be
better illustrated than by the fact that he not only

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STORIA DES MICCOLE DA BAR
L. Monaco. St. Nicholas Rescues the Seamen.
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St. Nicholas as Patron Saint 123
afforded protection from robbers and shielded the
unjustly condemned, but at the same time shared
with St. Dismas the questionable honor of being
the protector of pirates and thieves.
This protective relationship, in Elizabethan
times, formed the subject of a stock jest. Robbers
and thieves were facetiously called "St. Nicholas'
clerks."
Sirrah," says Gadshill, "if they meet not with
St. Nicholas' clerks, I'll give thee this neck.
"No," rejoins the Chamberlain, "I'll none of
it; I pr'ythee keep that for the hangman; for I
know thou worshipp'st Saint Nicholas as truly
as a man of falsehood may."13
How did St. Nicholas get into.such evil associa-
tions? It will be remembered that the seamen
protected by him included pirates, and that Greek
pirates are said to have shared their booty with
him. Have these evil associations corrupted his
good manners, and has he thus been brought into
association with thieves and robbers? Perhaps
SO. But other explanations have been offered.
His name has become associated with that of
the "Old Nick" in a way that remains to be ex-
plained. Perhaps in this way he has come to
acquire the function of the "Old Nick," as the
protector of evil. A more plausible explanation
124
St. Nicholas
accounts for his association with thieves by the
popularly known story, which formed the subject
of one of the St. Nicholas plays, that of the thieves
who had stolen goods left under the guardianship
of St. Nicholas' image and who were compelled
by the saint to restore the goods and thus brought
"to the way of trouth."
Whatever the cause, the association was one
well established. St. Nicholas' clerks were well
known in Elizabethan times, 14 and are fre-
quently referred to in literature. There were also
lively popular stories on the subject, one of which
forms the subject of a stanza in a merry St. Nicho-
las carol. 15
"Another he dede sekyrly,
He saved a thief that was ful sly,
That stal a swyn out of his sty,
His lyf than savyd he.”
CHAPTER IX
PAGAN HERITAGE OF ST. NICHOLAS
IT is well known that when paganism was super-
seded by Christianity, the older religion was
by no means obliterated. In Greece the pagan
temples often were converted into Christian
churches. At Athens, the Parthenon, a temple of
the Virgin Pallas, became a church of the Virgin
Mary; the temple of Theseus became a church
devoted to a Christian hero, also a dragon-slayer,
St. George of Cappadocia. In the structure of
new churches, material from the older temples
was freely used. In many of the churches of
Rome may be seen beautiful classical columns
taken from the earlier pagan structures. A fine in-
stance of the mingling of elements, old and new, in
Christian architecture, is to be seen at Syracuse in
Sicily, where the older classical temple of Minerva
has been transformed into a renaissance cathedral.
The columns of the Doric temple are built into
the wall of the church but are too thick to be
125
126
St. Nicholas
concealed. On the outside they may be seen,
at
times a protruding Doric capital, at times a whole
Doric column; within the church, they form a line
of magnificent weathered columns bordering the
outer side of each aisle. In this church, to the
Christian and pagan combination, is superadded
a third element, in the form of rounded Saracenic
battlements.
The hybrid nature of this Christian architecture
in the countries pervaded by classical civilization
finds a striking parallel in the Christian practices
and Christian beliefs of these countries. In
these, too, there is evident a mingling of elements
new and old, Christian and pagan, with here and
there a tinge taken on from later forms of non-
Christian religion, corresponding to the Saracenic
element in the architecture of the cathedral at
Syracuse. Just as the graceful classic columns
survive as beautiful features in the Christian
churches, so, many fair products of the poetic
imagination belonging to the earlier faith have
found a place in the Christian religion. This is
particularly true in the case of the saints, who
continue to exert over the forces of nature the
same control in the interests of man that the minor
gods and demi-gods had done before.
In modern Greece there is to be found ample
Pagan Heritage of St. Nicholas 127
illustration of Christian appropriation of the old.
When gods have not been directly transformed into
saints, at least many of their attributes have been
taken over. In the island of Naxos, St. Dionysios
is widely worshiped, and like the god of similar
name, is connected in popular story with the origin
of the wine. There is a story of the journey of
the saint from Mt. Olympos to Naxos, in which
there is assuredly more of the pagan than of the
saintly quality. "He [St. Dionysios] noticed
an herb by the way and planted it in the bone of
a bird, then in the bone of a lion, and lastly in the
bone of an ass.
At Naxos he made the first wine
with its fruit. The intoxication which followed
the drinking of this wine had three stages: first,
he sang like a bird; then, felt strong as a lion;
and lastly, became foolish as an ass." *
In a
similar way, St. Demetrios, as the popular patron
of Greek husbandmen and shepherds, and the
protector of agriculture in general, assumes the
functions of the Earth-Mother, Demeter, 2 and
St. Artemidos, as patron of weakly children, has
taken over some of the attributes of Artemis, to
whom belonged protecting powers over children,
animals, and vegetation.³ Still better known is
the case of St. Elias, who has acquired many of
the attributes of the sun-god, Helios. "It would
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St. Nicholas
be difficult to find any spot in Greece from which
one could not descry on a prominent hilltop a
little white chapel dedicated to him, where at
least once a year, on the 20th of July, a service
is held. This hilltop saint is believed by the
peasants to be lord of sunshine, rain, and thun-
der.” 4
Venus, too, finds her place in Christian worship
under the name of St. Venere. In West Albania,
where the practice has been imported from the
south of Italy, "she is invoked by girls as patron-
ess of marriage."'s In the territory of St. Sophia,
in Calabria, her festival is celebrated on the 27th
of July, and the girls sing a song, in substance "a
prayer to St. Venere not to leave them husband-
less now that all their companions are married
and gone. 996 St. Merkurios, also, has many of
the attributes of the pagan god Mercury. There
is an ancient story in which the saint plays the
rôle of messenger formerly assigned to the god.
Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea, in a vision, saw the
heavens open, revealing Christ enthroned. "Then
Christ called, 'Merkurios, go and slay Julian the
King, the persecutor of the Christians.' And
St. Merkurios stood before Him wearing a gleam-
ing iron breastplate, and on hearing the command,
he disappeared. Then he reappeared and stood
Pagan Heritage of St. Nicholas 129
before the Lord and cried, 'Julian the King has
been slain as Thou didst command, O Lord.""7
In many other cases, where the direct pagan
inheritance is not so easily traced, saints in modern
Greece accomplish functions precisely similar to
those accomplished in ancient times by minor
deities. St. George is regarded as the protector
of the crops, probably on account of the etymology
of his name (Ge="earth," ergein="work"). For
a similar reason, apparently, St. Maura is invoked
in case of ulcers or smallpox. Other saints with
similar functions are St. Madertos invoked in
case of pestilence among beasts, St. Blasios in
case of sore throat, and St. John in cases of fever.
People accustomed to seek divine aid in this
way, in case of trouble, are not easily to be deprived
of their recourse. If they are forbidden to wor-
ship their pagan divinities, then substitutes must
be found. Thus seamen deprived of Poseidon
as source of aid, had recourse to St. Phokas and
later turned to St. Nicholas, possibly, as has been
pointed out, due to the story, in the legend of
St. Nicholas, of aid rendered by him to the ship
in distress. The connection once established,
St. Nicholas came more and more to occupy the
place formerly held by Poseidon. Hence probably
the position held by St. Nicholas in popular be-
9
130
St. Nicholas
lief, especially in eastern Christendom, as the
guardian of sailors.
There is one modern Greek story of St. Nicholas
as patron saint of seamen which deserves to be
told because it shows the occasional survival, in the
popular worship of saints, of pagan elements which
the Christian Church could not countenance.
The story, as told by an old Greek man, is to this
effect: "At the time of the Revolution a number
of Greek ships assembled off Kamári. There
was great excitement and trepidation. So they
thought things over and decided to send a man to
St. Nicholas to ask him that their ships might
prosper in the war. They accordingly seized a
man and took him to the large hall at Kamári.
There they cut off his head and his hands, and
carried him down the steps into the hall." This
was a pagan rite obviously not to be tolerated by
the Christian God, for the story goes, "thereupon
God appeared with a bright torch in his hand, and
the bearers of the body dropped it, and all pres-
ent fled in terror.”8
It is evident that St. Nicholas inherited some
of the attributes of Poseidon, or Neptune. But
that does not sum up the extent of his pagan
heritage. Probably earlier than the association of
St. Nicholas with Poseidon is that with Demeter,
Pagan Heritage of St. Nicholas 131
or Diana, whose cult was particularly in vogue in
Lycia, the scene of the principal events in the
story of St. Nicholas.
In the Eastern Church there were two celebra-
tions in honor of St. Nicholas, not only the one on
the 6th of December, but one on the 9th of May.
The May celebration, which is still kept up by
Italians, even in America, is usually said to be in
honor of the removal of the relics of St. Nicholas
to Bari, but not unlikely is the continuation of the
Rosalia, a local pagan spring festival at Myra, the
Lycian home of St. Nicholas. Not only in Lycia,
but elsewhere, the St. Nicholas cult supplanted the
earlier worship of Artemis. In Ætolia "at the
village of Kephalovryso, there is a little ruined
temple of St. Nicholas which, according to an
inscription built into the church, stands on the
site of a temple of Artemis. Another instance of
the same transference occurs at Aulis, where a
little Byzantine church of St. Nicholas has replaced
the Artemisium."9
·
Following the substitution of the Christian
worship of St. Nicholas for the pagan worship of
Artemis, there were two natural consequences. In
the first place the pagan deity, formerly revered,
came to be regarded as an evil spirit. In the
second place this evil spirit was supposed to be
132
St. Nicholas
particularly hostile to the Christian saint that
had replaced her in popular worship. This hos-
tility is reflected in the well-known story of the
devil's plot against the church of St. Nicholas.
The Golden Legend version of the story is as
follows:
And in this country the people served idols and
worshiped the false image of the cursed Diana. And
to the time of this holy man, many of them had
some customs of the paynims, for to sacrifice to Diana
under a sacred tree; but this good man made them
of all the country to cease then these customs, and
commanded to cut off the tree. Then the devil was
angry and wroth against him and made an oil that
burned, against nature, in water, and burned stones
also. And then he transformed him in the guise of a
religious woman, and put him in a little boat, and
encountered pilgrims that sailed in the sea towards
this holy saint, and areasoned them thus, and said:
I would fain go to this holy man, but I may not,
wherefore I pray you to bear this oil into his church,
and for the remembrance of me, that ye anoint the
walls of the hall; and anon he vanished away. Then
they saw anon after another ship with honest persons,
among whom there was one like to S. Nicholas, which
spake to them softly: What hath this woman said
to you, and what hath she brought? And they told
to him all by order. And he said to them: This is
the evil and foul Diana; and to the end that ye know
that I say truth, cast that oil into the sea. And
when they had cast it, a great fire caught it in the sea,
Pagan Heritage of St. Nicholas 133
r
and they saw it long burn against nature. Then
they came to this holy man and said to him: Verily
thou art he that appeared to us in the sea and de-
liveredst us from the sea and awaits of the devil.
But the victory over the pagan deity was not a
complete one. Constant association of St. Nicho-
las custom with earlier worship of Artemis was
not without its influence on the popular concep-
tion of the Christian saint. One is tempted to
assume the malevolent and insidious work of the
pagan deity aiming to corrupt the character of
the benevolent bishop. In any event from Arte-
mis as well as from Poseidon St. Nicholas inherited
attributes which serve to explain some of the
elements in his complex personality. It is to be
remembered that Artemis of Ephesus was not
only a spring deity but also in part a sea and
a river goddess. Hence her epithet, "Potamia."
Both associations, that with spring, and espe-
cially that with the sea, Artemis shares with St.
Nicholas. 10 Artemis-Cybele is often represented
as a sea monster with the tail of a fish. There
are traces of a similar grotesque popular concep-
tion of St. Nicholas in the Sicilian popular legend
with the hero named Nicolo-Pesce. This con-
ception of St. Nicholas is much in evidence in
western Europe and serves to explain the con-
ΙΟ
134
St. Nicholas
nection of St. Nicholas with a conception widely
prevalent there, of a water spirit or god. Among
Teutonic peoples, particularly, this water spirit
is widely known with various names, such as Nix,
Nickel, Nickelman, Nick, Nökke. Millers are
said to be particularly afraid of this spirit and to
throw different things into the water on the sixth
day of December, St. Nicholas' day, to propitiate
it.II In the character of Nikur, a Protean water
sprite (Edda, Doemesaga, 3), he inhabits the lakes
and rivers of Scandinavia, where he raises sudden
storms and tempests and leads mankind into de-
struction. 12 Danish peasantry, in earlier times,
conceived of the Nökke (Nikke) as a monster
with human head, dwelling both in fresh and in
salt water. Where anyone was drowned, they
said, Nökken tag ham bort, "the Nökke took him
away." The Icelandic Neck, a kelpie or water
spirit, appears in the form of a fine horse on the
seashore. If anyone is foolish enough to mount
him, he gallops off and plunges into the water
with his burden. 13
In France there is known a similar water mon-
ster, and there, paradoxical as it may seem, it
has taken the name of the benevolent St. Nicholas.
It is a terrible monster that seizes fishermen who
walk without permission by the water side at night-
Pagan Heritage of St. Nicholas 135
fall. It has claws and tears the faces of the
children that remain too late on the beach. 14
The water monster under discussion. was known
in England. Back in the eighth century, in the
story of Beowulf, there are introduced water
monsters, apparently conceived of as like wal-
ruses or sea-lions, but malevolent in character.
These are called niceras. The "Old Nick," a
name familiar since the early seventeenth century,
seems to have originated in the conception of this
water monster once prevalent in the North of
England. The conversion of the name of the
water demon into a name for the Devil is not an
unusual phenomenon. The process is illustrated
in the history of the Greek word "demon" itself,
which, at first meaning "spirit," in no evil sense,
with the hostile attitude assumed toward earlier
religious conceptions following the introduction
of Christianity, came to be used as a name for an
evil spirit or devil. The same conversion of an
old name to a new use is to be seen in the case
of the "Old Nick," in the beginning the name of
a water spirit, later a name for the Devil. In this
case the malevolent character of the water spirit
made the conversion one easy to comprehend.
What, then, is the relation of this well known,
usually malevolent, water spirit to St. Nicholas?
136
St. Nicholas
An attempt has recently been made to show that
the Eastern conception of St. Nicholas as a water
spirit, originating in the older mythical beliefs
concerning Artemis, was carried by seamen to the
West of Europe and that in this way the name
St. Nicholas is the base of the different forms
for the name of the water spirit.15 This theory
can hardly be sustained, since there is no proof of
the popularity of St. Nicholas in the West so early
as the earliest reference to the water spirit, that
is to say, in the case of the niceras of the English
Beowulf, and because in popular contraction of
the name Nicholas, it is the second part of the
name, the -clas, that usually survives. A more
likely explanation is that the confusion between
the water spirit, variously known as Nick, Neck,
Nicor, Nökke, Nickel, Nickelmann, and St. Nicho-
las, is explained by a well-known process of popular
etymology. St. Nicholas with his attributes as
controller of the waters, inherited from the mythi-
cal Poseidon and Artemis, when in the eleventh
century he became known in the West, became
confused with the more and more vaguely con-
ceived pagan water spirit of similar name, and in
the end, in certain places, became identified with
him, thereby inheriting some of his qualities, and
influencing the form of his name.
Pagan Heritage of St. Nicholas 137
Over in Russia also St. Nicholas has fallen heir
to similar attributes. In this way he has come to
figure in an interesting episode in recent musical
history, an episode which illustrates in a most
interesting way how the influence of St. Nicholas
has penetrated to affairs of our own time. Rimsky-
Korsakoff, in his opera, Sadko, composed in 1896,
made use of an old Novgorod folk-tale of the
Volga. This story centers about a river deity
said to be something like the Old Man of the Sea
in the Arabian Nights Tales. Under Christian in-
fluence this tale has been converted into a story
of St. Nicholas, one of many told of him in Russia,
where he is one of the most popular of the saints.
Both versions of the popular story persist, the
earlier, pagan form and the one where St. Nicholas
has inherited the prominent part. Rimsky-Kor-
sakoff, after some hesitation which of the two
versions to use, finally made choice of the later,
St. Nicholas, version. But here he came into
conflict with Russian orthodox bureaucracy, which
would not permit such irreverent use to be made
of the Russian patron saint Nicholas. The com-
poser, therefore, made a change, substituting the
names of the older version. But in his opera he
had made free use of musical themes derived from
the liturgy of the St. Nicholas festival, and this
138
St. Nicholas
music he retained, making a humorous incongruity
between the sacred music and the pagan story.
A quarrel with officialdom resulted, which is said
to have been one of the reasons why Rimsky-
Korsakoff lost his position as Director of the
Conservatoire at Petrograd.
Attempt has been made to connect St. Nicholas,
through his relationship to the Teutonic water
spirit, with Odin, who in one of the Edda poems
is given the name Hnikar. This particular link
between St. Nicholas and Odin has not been suc-
cessfully established. It is certain, however, that
a relationship exists. The time of the St. Nicholas
festival, December 6th, and of Christmas, where
St. Nicholas has come to play an important part,
coincides in part with the season of the year when
Odin, as god of the air, made his nightly rides, or,
as god of the dead led through the air the troops
of spirits of departed ones. The coincidence in
time, under Christian influence, led to the transfer
to St. Nicholas of some of the functions of Odin.
The heritage of St. Nicholas from Odin has been
discussed in an earlier chapter. From Odin St.
Nicholas inherited his gray horse, which in some
Germanic countries he uses in his nightly rides,
but which he traded for a reindeer before coming
to America. For this horse of St. Nicholas
Pagan Heritage of St. Nicholas 139
children in parts of Europe leave the hay and
oats once left for the horse of Odin. From Odin,
too, Santa Claus inherited certain details of his
appearance, most notably his long white beard
as distinguished from the kind of beard familiar
in pictures of the bishop-saint.
From others of the Teutonic gods St. Nicholas
received legacies. In him various scholars¹6
have recognized attributes of Fro and of Niordhr,
the father of Fro. The task of purveying gifts
for children, for which St. Nicholas uses the horse
of Odin, is a function sometimes attributed to the
spirits of the dead, who, with or without Odin as a
leader, in the time of the shortest days of the year
are supposed to revisit their earthly homes. 17
From this discussion one will see that the
Christian saint Nicholas has the same perplexing
variety of aspects that make it so difficult to form
any single unified conception in the case of one
of the pagan gods. At Bari, in Italy, where his
relics are preserved, on his festival day, he receives
the honors of a water god not necessarily mal-
evolent in character. His image is borne by
sailors in procession out to sea and at nightfall
is escorted back to the cathedral with torches,
fireworks, and chanting. 18 In parts of France
he has inherited different qualities; his name is
140
St. Nicholas
given to a water spirit, a veritable ogre in its
malevolence. In many other countries, including
our own, he has inherited the pleasant rôle of
children's benefactor. If one wishes to gain a
realization of how popular heroic conceptions
are formed, one should compare the many-sided
St. Nicholas known in our own day in the various
countries of Christendom with the simple figure,
as clearly as one may distinguish it, of the kindly
youth that was born at Patras in Asia Minor in
the early days of Christianity.
CHAPTER X
ST. NICHOLAS, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
'HROUGHOUT the present discussion of St.
THR
Nicholas the fact has been kept constantly
prominent that St. Nicholas is more famed for
deeds than for doctrine. His rôle was not in
general that of the apostle extending the bound-
aries of Christendom nor that of the expounder
of creed. His fame rests on his kindly acts.
But it was inevitable that the authority of so
beloved and so influential a personage should be
invoked in support of orthodoxy. In the Golden
Legend mere mention is made of the presence of
St. Nicholas at that meeting of critical importance,
the Council of Nice. But in the Roman Breviary
it is recorded that just before his death he was
present at the Council of Nice and there, "with
those three hundred and eighteen church fathers,
condemned the Arian heresy."
Controversy, particularly religious controversy,
has its pitfalls even for those of most gentle nature,
and connected with this momentous occasion and
141
142
St. Nicholas
the part in it played by St. Nicholas, there is a leg-
endary story' which exhibits a side to his char-
acter, if less saintly, at least, more human. The
story goes that St. Nicholas at Nice struck an Arian
bishop who spoke against the faith and that, for
this too violent zeal, he was deprived of the right
of wearing bishop's robes. But, the story adds,
in celebrating the mass, he saw angels bearing
him the miter and the pallium, as a sign that
Heaven had not blamed his wrath.
The orthodoxy of St. Nicholas is thus put be-
yond question. If he was a foe to heresy, he was
still more a foe to paganism. In the story from
the Golden Legend already quoted is recorded
his activity in uprooting the worship of Diana in
Lycia and the particular hatred of the goddess,
or devil as she was conceived of, that he incurred
thereby. Concerning his zeal in this work,
Wace has the following additional details to
offer. "Before the time of St. Nicholas," he tells
us, "devils had power. People worshiped gods
and goddesses: Phoebus, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury,
Diana, Juno, Venus, Minerva. They had painted
images with names written on the foreheads.
Diana in particular was a she-devil. St. Nicholas
broke her image and delivered the people from
idolatry."

NIKOL
+
Naya
St. Nicholas Represented (Byzantine style) in the Mosaics
of St. Mark's in Venice.
UNIV
OF
ICH:
Defender of the Faith
143
But it is particularly in the conflict between
Christianity and Mohammedanism that St. Nicho-
las is prominent as defender of the faith. The
time when St. Nicholas worship was introduced in
the West was a time when this conflict was at its
height, the time of the Crusades. It will be re-
membered how Jean Bodel in his play, written
about the year 1200, made new use of the story
of the image of St. Nicholas set as the guardian
of treasure. It will be remembered that the set-
ting for the story provided by Bodel was in the
wars of Christian against Saracen, and that
the central feature of the story in the play is the
way in which the Christian image of St. Nicholas
proved his power to be greater than that of the
Mohammedan idol of Tervagant, and thus led
the Mohammedan king with his seneschal and all
his emirs to adopt the Christian faith.
In Eastern countries the conflict between Chris-
tianity and Mohammedanism, so much alive in
Western Europe in the time of the Crusades,
continues in active form in our own time. It
must be remembered, too, that in Eastern coun-
tries St. Nicholas occupies a place even higher
than that occupied by him in the West in our time.
It is not unnatural, then, that there he should
be looked to as the defender of the Christian faith.
144
St. Nicholas
How well he is thought to be able to represent the
Christian cause is well brought out in a naïvely
humorous Albanian folk-tale. The story goes
as follows: Mohammed was the guest of St.
Nicholas. When the time to eat came around,
Mohammed asked where were the servants. St.
Nicholas replied that no servants were needed,
that at a word from his mouth or a stroke on the
table, the edibles would be ready. He then pro-
ceeded to demonstrate that what he said was
entirely true, causing to appear on the table
everything that one could desire to eat and drink.
Mohammed, not to be outdone, on his return
home caused his servant to construct a table
which would turn and could thus be closed into
the wall leaving no visible sign. He commanded
his servant to make ready food of every kind, and
when he heard a rap, to push the laden table
through the wall. He then invited St. Nicholas
to his house, intending to exhibit powers as great
as those shown by St. Nicholas.
But St. Nicholas made all his plans go awry.
He made the servant deaf, so that there was no
response to the rap of Mohammed, and St. Nicho-
las himself had to get up and bring in through the
wall the table laden with food, naturally to the
discomfiture of his host.
Defender of the Faith
145
The next day Mohammed invited St. Nicholas
again, promising to work a miracle before him.
He caused a great number of jugs and cans and
dishes of various kinds to be taken to the top of
a hill. At a sign from Mohammed, these were
to be rolled down the hill and a cannon fired.
When St. Nicholas arrived, he bade Mohammed
work his miracle. Mohammed raised his hand,
and the expected noise followed. St. Nicholas,
however, gave no sign of fear. Mohammed then
bade him work a miracle. St. Nicholas clapped
his hands, and immediately the thunder rolled
and the lightning flashed, overwhelming Moham-
med with terror.
ΤΟ
A
CHAPTER XI
CONCLUSION
ND when it pleased our Lord to have him depart
out of this world, he prayed our Lord that he
would send him his angels, and inclining his head, he
saw the angels come to him, whereby he knew well
that he should depart, and began this holy psalm:
In te domine speravi, unto in manus tuas, and so
saying: "Lord into thine hands I commend my
spirit,” he rendered up his soul and died, the year of
our Lord three hundred and forty-three, with great
melody sung of the celestial company.
This is the Golden Legend account of the end
of the earthly life of the kindly bishop-saint. His
body was placed in a tomb of marble, and in the
year 1087 was discovered by Italian merchants
and borne by them to the city of Bari in Italy.
There his tomb is a famous center for pilgrimages.
On his festival day, many thousands bearing
staves bound with olive and pine honor his
memory.¹ It is said that when his tomb at Myra
was opened, the body was found swimming in
146
Conclusion
147
oil, and that to this day there continues to issue
from his body a holy oil "which is much available
to the health and sicknesses of many men.
St. Nicholas, the guardian of so many things,
also keeps guard over his own remains. Wace
relates the story of a man carrying off a supposed
tooth of the holy saint. In the night St. Nicholas
appeared and admonished the thief, and in the
morning the tooth was gone.
St. Nicholas was mortal. But his deeds are
immortal. His beneficent acts have flowered in
legendary story and have found fruition in univer-
sal popular customs animated by the same spirit
of kindness that pervaded the whole life of the
saint. Probably the life history of no other per-
son, save that of the Founder of Christianity
himself, has been so intimately woven about
human custom and human life as that of St.
Nicholas. In certain parts of Siberia he is wor-
shiped as a god. Even in our own country,
although we are supposed to have outgrown idol-
atry, representations of Santa Claus about Christ-
mas time, in shop windows and on street corners,
are objects of worship little short of idolatry. To
Santa Claus also at Christmas time are addressed
the most sincere, even if not the most unselfish,
supplications.
148
St. Nicholas
We may well conclude our present considera-
tion of St. Nicholas and his works with an invoca-
tion to him, using the words composed by the
recluse Godric, back in the twelfth century, which
form one of the very earliest of English lyrics:
Sainte Nicholaes, godes druth,
Tymbre us faire scone hus-
At thi burth, at thi bare-
Sainte Nicholaes, bring us wel thare.
NOTES
CHAPTER I
I Manchester Guardian.
2 A. Tille, Die Geschichte der Deutschen Weihnacht, Leipzig, 1893,
p. 30.
³ O. von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Traditions et Légendes de la
Belgique, p. 302.
4 Do., p. 323.
5 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr der germanischen
Völker, Leipzig, 1863, pp. 360 ff.
6 Do., pp. 362, 363.
7 P. M. Hough, Dutch Life in Town and Country, London and
New York, 1901, pp. 116 ff. The present account of St. Nicholas
customs in Holland is based on notes from the book by Hough,
but is not quoted exactly in order of details nor in wording.
8 Do., p. 121.
⁹ I. von Zingerle, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, ii., 329 ff.
10 Hough, op. cit., p. 117.
11 Do., p. 125.
12 Do., p. 125.
13 I. von Zingerle, op. cit., p. 343.
14 Hough, op. cit., p. 125.
15 Do., p. 126.
16 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 362.
17 Tille, op. cit., p. 35.
18 Brand, Popular Antiquities, i., p. 420.
19 Tille, op. cit., p. 299.
20 Do., p. 36.
21 Do., p. 33.
22 Do., p. 36.
23 Do., p. 202.
41
149
150
St. Nicholas
24 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 382; C. A.
Miles, Christmas, London, 1912, p. 231.
25 St. Nicholas, Our Holidays, New York, 1916, p. 64.
26 W. A. Wheeler, Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction, Boston,
1883.
27 Tille, op. cit., p. 119.
28 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, op. cit., p. 342.
29 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, quoted by Miles, op. cit., p. 277,
footnote.
3º Hough, op. cit., p. 120.
CHAPTER II
I * G. de Saint Laurent, Guide de l'Art Chrétien, 1874, V., P. 349.
2 A. Butler, Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and other Principal
Saints, London, 1838.
3 New York Times, Oct. 24, 1915.
4 Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, vol. ii.
CHAPTER III
* The Golden Legend, Caxton translation, Temple Classics
series, vol. ii., pp. 109–122.
2 Do., pp. 119, 120.
3 Mrs. Jameson, op. cit.; also H. Thode, Franz von Assisi,
Berlin, 1904.
4 C. Cahier, Caractéristiques des saints dans l'art populaire,
Paris, 1867, vol. i.
5 E. Anichkof, "St. Nicholas and Artemis," Folk-Lore, v.,
pp. 108 ff.
• Hough, op. cit., p. 122.
7 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 417.
CHAPTER IV
• Tille, op. cit., p. 32.
2 Do., p. 300.
3 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 420.
4 R. T. Hampson, Medii Aevi Kalendarium, London, 1841,
ii., p. 76.
s T. Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton Club, 1856, p. 4.
6 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 421.
Notes
151
7 Brady, Clavis Calendaria, quoted by W. Hone, The Every-
Day Book, London, 1838.
8 New York Times, April 18, 1915.
9 Mrs. Jameson, op. cit.
10 Brand, op. cit., ii., p. 356.
II
11 Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Pawnbrokers."
12 Cf. the story of the Jew who left his property under the
protection of the image of St. Nicholas.
CHAPTER V
• Galleria antica e moderna.
2 C. A. Miles, op. cit., p. 168.
3 A. F. Leach, "The Schoolboy's Feast," Fortnightly Review,
vol. lix., pp. 128–141.
4 E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage, London, 1903, i., p. 294.
The total amount of the debt to Chambers's work it has not
been possible to indicate in these notes.
5 Do., p. 357.
6
Do., p. 348.
7 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 423.
8 Chambers, op. cit., p. 338.
9 Tille, op. cit., p. 31, quoted by Chambers.
ΤΟ
10 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Traditions et Légendes de la Belgique,
P. 348.
II
I
Leach, op. cit.
CHAPTER VI
H. Thode, Franz von Assisi, Berlin, 1909.
2 Verses 1080-1143.
3 Verses 208–216.
4 M. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 47, 48.
CHAPTER VII
I G. R. Coffman, A New Theory concerning the Origin of the
Miracle Play, Univ. of Chicago diss., 1914.
2 Henry Morley, English Writers, 1889, vol. iii., pp. 105–114.
3 E. Du Meril, Les Origines Latines du Théâtre Moderne, new
edition, Paris, 1897, pp. 272–276.
4 C. M. Gayley, Plays of our Forefathers, New York, 1907, p. 64.
5 Du Meril, op. cit., pp. 276–284.
152
St. Nicholas
❝ Gaston Paris, La littérature française au Moyen-Age, Paris,
1890, $167.
? W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren dramas, Halle, 1893,
i., pp. 139–141.
CHAPTER VIII
I
¹ E. Bisland and A. Hoyt, Seekers in Sicily.
* Brand, op. cit., pp. 363, 364.
3 Do., pp. 363, 364.
4 H. F. Feilberg, Jul, Copenhagen, 1909, i., p. 105.
5 C. Cahier, op. cit.
"This additional list is derived from somewhat scattered
references in works cited above by Brand and by Cahier.
7 M. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 29, 30.
8 E. Anichkof, op. cit., pp. 108 ff.
9 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 419.
1º Anichkof, op. cit.
* Zingerle, op. cit., p. 334.
12
Anichkof, op. cit., p. 109.
13 First part of Henry IV., Act II., scene i.
14 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 418. Cf. also the Oxford Dictionary
under Nicholas.
15 T. Wright, op. cit., p. 99.
CHAPTER IX
¹ M. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 16.
a Do., p. 13.
3 Do., p. 18.
4 Do., p. 20.
s Do., p. 33.
6 Do., p. 34.
7 Do., p. 31.
8 J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folk-Lore and Ancient Greek
Religion, Cambridge, 1910, p. 135.
9 M. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 30.
10 E. Anichkof, op. cit., p. 114.
11 Do., pp. 115, 116.
12 Hampson, op. cit., p. 68.
13 Keightley, Fairy Mythology, i., pp. 234, 235, quoted by
Hampson, op. cit., p. 75.
Notes
153
14 Revue des traditions populaires, i., p. 7, quoted by Anichkof.
15 This is the main thesis of the article by Anichkof.
16 J. W. Wolf, Hocker, and Al Kaufmann, quoted by Zingerle,
op. cit., p. 331.
17 A. Tille, Yule and Christmas, London, 1899, p. 115; H.
Feilberg, Jul, Copenhagen, 1904, ii., p. 179.
18 C. A. Miles, op. cit., p. 221.
I
* C. Cahier, op. cit.
CHAPTER X
a Wace, op. cit., vv. 342 ff.
3 J. V. Jarnik, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, ii., pp. 348, 349.
• Miles, op. cit., p. 221.
CHAPTER XI

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