The framework for this month-and-a-half of merry-making was the calendar of the Church. From the first day of Advent, which was the first Sunday before the feast of Christmas itself (and which might fall at the end of November), there were at least eighteen feast-days to be marked with special acts of worship; some regional calendars raised this number to as many as twenty-five.
The long festive season
Naturally, the focal point for this very long festive season was the churches themselves; churches of all kinds, cathedrals, abbeys, and priories of monks and nuns, friaries and parishes in every neighbourhood. Yet, for some of these feast days, both the ceremony and the atmosphere of celebration broke out from this clerical setting into the surrounding community.
The coming of Advent – understood to be the beginning of the Christian year when the mind of the believer should return to the true significance of Christ's life and death – prompted the performance of mystery plays on the theme of Judgment. Wealthy households sometimes took in a
