5 January – Twelfth Night
The twelfth day of Christmas was known as Twelfth Night. It marked the night before the feast of the Epiphany, the coming of the wise men to visit the baby Jesus in Bethlehem.
Twelfth Night might have signalled the end of Christmas, but people celebrated it with great feasts, games and plays. At the Tudor court, there were masques (a kind of play) and huge banquets. In 1532, a temporary kitchen was set up in the grounds of Greenwich Palace, to help make the 200 dishes which were served up to the guests!
Included in the feasts was a Twelfth Night cake. It was a huge fruit cake, tasting a bit like a giant brioche, and was baked with a coin or dried bean hidden in the mixture on each half of the cake. Men and women took slices from opposite sides of the cake, and whoever found the bean or coin in their piece became the king or queen of the bean. It was their job to host the evening’s entertainment, of singing, dancing and games.
The next day, people celebrated the final feast of Christmas – the Epiphany. After church services, they ate roasted lamb, and Epiphany tart, a kind of giant jam tart made in the shape of a star. While people left up their decorations until Candlemas on 2 February, the twelve days of Christmas were over for another year.
Text from English Heritage