Farmer Giles of Ham - obviously Catholic?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

A question posted by The Elf-warrior on the 'Minor works' trivia thread got me to thinking about the Catholic influence in that story. Since it is set in the Middle Ages, that is inevitable, I suppose - there was no other Christian church in England at that time. However, the fact that so much makes its way into what is supposed to be a children's story (although it is actually a parody for adults) is rather surprising. In the light of the recent revival of the "consciously Catholic in the revision" discussion, it may be interesting to consider this topic more closely.

For a start, the fact that the names of people and places are given in Latin as well as in the vernacular could be a remnant of Roman settlement on the island, but I think that the use of that language in the Church was the reason.


Saints' days and other holy days are mentioned quite matter-of-factly, as a way of keeping track of time. We have:

The feast of St Michael - the King sends Farmer Giles a magnificent letter after he scared the giant away

Christmas - the customary dish served for the King's feast was Dragon's Tail. The knight who hunted the dragon set out upon:

St Nicholas' Day (December 6)

On Christmas Eve - the Mock Dragon's Tail was carried into the hall, then served on Christmas Day

(a week before Christmas - Chrysophylax came to the Kingdom)

St John's Day - the knights compete in a tournament (This mention puzzles me; any references I have been able to find place St. John's Day in midsummer.)

New Year's Day - the dragon comes too close for ignoring

Twelfthnight - Giles' "armour" is made. That would be January 5.

Epiphany - he sets out to encounter the dragon. That's January 6. According to Wikipedia, it's "a Christian feast intended to celebrate the 'shining forth' or revelation of God to mankind in human form"

"a nice end to Christmas", Farmer Giles says apprehensively as he begins his adventure

St Hilarius and St Felix feast - supposedly eight days later, which is January 14*, though I cannot find a reference to actual Catholic days or saints of that name. Perhaps someone has more information. It seems to be a facetious parody to me. Perhaps a reference to JRRT's brother Hilary? 'Felix' means 'happy', which may be a just-for-fun play on the word.

Candlemas day - Giles meets the dragon the second time and captures him. This is February 2, "a Christian feast commemorating the purification of the Virgin Mary and the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple", according to Wikipedia.

St Matthias' Day - Farmer Giles meet the King on the bridge, to the latter's disadvantage. For a time, he paid nominal tribute to the king on that day, which is February 24.



The dragon gives up after being chased - just outside the church.

Chrysophylax specifically mentions killing (and eating) the parson of Oakley.


Another interesting fact: It is the parson (of Ham) who brings enlightenment on the origin and significance of the sword that the King gave to Farmer Giles, as well as suggesting the use of rope, an important help in capturing the dragon. He also translates the king's letter and reads it from the pulpit. Giles later rewards him generously and makes him a bishop.


Now, it seems that those dates are just casually mentioned as an alternative way of keeping track of the calendar. But we can speculate, of course, on whether there is some significance to Tolkien's choice, some symbolism that goes with the events of the story. After all, we do know that he consciously chose Christian dates for some of the events of LotR. What do you think?



*Interestingly, though not actually Catholic, January 14 is New Year's Day in Eastern Orthodoxy and on the Julian calendar.

[ninja91]

Now, I dont mean to sound rash, but I dont understand why, even if it is obvious, that Tolkien's works seem to be "Catholic". I mean, he is a Catholic himself, and some of the decisions one will make in writing are sub-conscious. Do you really expect him to be "politically correct" while writing these books 50-60 years ago?

[Child of the 7th Age]

Esty -

I hadn't really thought before in a systemized way about the influence of Tolkien's Catholicism on this particular work. However, your long list of time references, the fact that Latin is sometimes used, and the other examples you give does suggest that this is more than simple coincidence.

Ninja91--There are many times when sub-conscious elements do slip in. But the explicit Catholic elements in this work seem to be too consistent to be an example of that. Surely we have some conscious planning here for whatever reason.
I'm going to have to think about this some before I can add anything more than that.

[Lalwendë]

Esty, I think you've answered the question yourself! It's written as a medieval tale and as such reflects medieval life. The calendar of the time was filled with colourful Saints' Days, times of feasting and liminality/license, and based on much older rituals and festivals.

You're correct about the use of Latin being a church influence, as the language was just not used outside the church and legal system after the Romans left. In fact, there is considerable evidence that the Saxons were in many ways deeply frightened and disturbed by the Roman buildings that had been left and in many cases were stil inhabited by the Romano-British; they certainly felt that their own language was quite good enough for everyday use! Though some of the old British languages remained in use, including Cymric, or North Welsh, used in Lancashire and up into Cumbria. However, the church almost exclusively used Latin - held by academics nowadays to be a means of controlling power by restricting the hoi polloi from reading the Bible and interpreting it for themselves. I remember a lovely Sunday School tale about the earliest Welsh Bibles in the late Victorian period and how a girl saved up all her money in order to buy one and had to walk fifty miles to Cardiff to get one...

Anyway, in keping with the medieval essence which Tolkien hoped to recapture in the story, he will have picked up on significant dates as common people at the time (who made up many of the original tales) would 'shape' their year in such a way. Instead of saying "A week on Monday" for example, they might say "10 days til Candlemass"; the Church also controlled the communal calendar!

So, yes, I think you've found the answer already, that it's a Medieval tale and as such reflects Medieval colour (bright reds and golds no doubt...) and festivals. And now you've posted this and put that list up, methinks this text could prove to be a rich mine of English folklore and folktale! Straight away I can spot a link there between Mummers' plays and this tale, as St George was a huge favourite play for Mummers - if anyone wants to see this elsewhere look in Return Of The Native by Thomas Hardy! And there's another - the dragon eating the parson? That's the tale of Black Shuck!

[Beleg Cuthalion]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

*Interestingly, though not actually Catholic, January 14 is New Year's Day in Eastern Orthodoxy and on the Julian calendar.

I think that's the day it was observed by the Catholic church untill the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thanks for the answers so far!

Ninja, I'm not actually attempting to interpret this particular work of Tolkien's as being religious - it's just that the saints' name days, used here to mark time instead of months and dates, are Catholic in origin. Since I now live in a region that is traditionally Catholic, I have grown familiar with this concept. Some saints' days are called by the saint's name in normal secular usage here in Germany, and everyone knows which date is meant.

Child, as always, I look forward to reading your thoughts on this topic!

Lal, you're right, of course, as to the reason for the use of the saints' days as the calendarium of the Middle Ages - a logical result of the medieval time frame chosen for this story. I find your insights on the folk tale backgrounds of elements in the story fascinating!

Thanks, Beleg, for that additional bit of information on January 14 as New Year's Day.

My thoughts were not so much on the reason for using Catholic elements in the story, since I'm enough aware of church history to know how important the only Christian church's influence was at that time. I'm more interested in finding connections between the dates/name days and the events Tolkien has placed there - why, for example, are both of Giles' encounters with the dragon set on days associated with light?

And I would like to hear if anyone has more information on "St. Hilarius" and "St. Felix" - Formendacil, are you reading this? Do you know anything that can enlighten us, or are these parodic saints' names?

[Anguirel]

More later on this fascinating topic, but for now, I shall content myself with revealing Pope, later Saint, Hilarius

Perhaps the most amusing of all Popes...were I elected I would struggle to resist becoming Hilarius II...

Perhaps more interestingly, there was a Latin poet of the same name, active in 1125 I beleive, who was thought to have been an Englishman due to one poem entitled "An English Boy", or something of the sort.

More generally, Hilarius and Felix both indicate levity and set the tale's light tone.

[Lalwendë]

Hilarius? AKA Hilary? Yes, Esty, Tolkien could indeed be making a parody of his own brother! Maybe to make the children laugh?

I had a look in the C&G (listen, I'll wear you all down eventually and you will all be asking for this truly eye-poppingly superb and superior tome for Christmas, it is, quite literally, 'definitive') about Farmer Giles, and it was originally conceived as a story for his children (just like The Hobbit!). Tolkien fancied publishing it after The Hobbit, and young Rayner Unwin even reviewed it positively. but for several reasons it took some time to be put into print, by which time Tolkien had done numerous rewrites. It does seem he wanted it to be light-hearted and humorous, so no 'message', but he did want it to be seen as a tale that might have come from the 3rd to the 5th centuries.

[Encaitare]

Originally Posted by Lal

It does seem he wanted it to be light-hearted and humorous, so no 'message', but he did want it to be seen as a tale that might have come from the 3rd to the 5th centuries.

That was the impression I got, not that it was a Catholic work in that it was trying to put out a message, but that the religious elements were just a part of the culture of the characters. I find that a much more agreeable way of looking at it than the other way around, too.

[Ghazi]

Originally Posted by Encaitare

...the religious elements were just a part of the culture of the characters. I find that a much more agreeable way of looking at it than the other way around, too.

I do too.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I dug out my copy of Farmer Giles with the notes by Scull and Hammond to prepare for something else, and found a note on the feast of St. Hilarius and St. Felix:

14 January, formerly the feast day of both St Hilarius of Poitiers and St Felix of Nola.

Perhaps not important, but a footnote that answers the question I raised earlier about those to me unknown saints.

[Formendacil]

Wow! I can't believe I missed this thread the first time around...

Nothing much to add at the moment, but I can clear up "St. John's Day" (I THINK I didn't see that cleared up previously).

St. John the Evangelist, one of the Apostles, has his feast day fall on December 27th, two days after Christmas. The St. John's Day that Esty is finding in midsummer is a feast of a different St. John, namely St. John the Baptist (who actually has two feast days, one for his death and one for his birth. I'm not sure which, if not both, is in high summer).

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thanks for that clarification, Formendacil! The duplicate saints' names can be confusing!

One more thought occurred to me; the legend of St. George, who kills the dragon, is a very English tale. I'm sure it originates in Catholicism, but Wikipedia closely connects it with the Orthodox Church(es) as well. I wonder, is the fact that Giles does not kill the dragon in his tale a conscious break with tradition? As Tolkien was admittedly conservative in his faith, I would rather attribute this change to his sense of humour and whimsy.

The death of George's dragon is a punishment for his evil deeds and for the human sacrifices he has consumed. Chrysophylax also kills numerous knights, but he is not punished for this! Another example of Tolkien's idea of mercy triumphing over the law?

[Kuruharan]

Chrysophylax was also really cool.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I think Tolkien the crossword-puzzler was having a lot of fun with "Hilarius and Felix" Part of it was entirely private- I'm sure that as a schoolboy he had realized that by applying th 11-day Julian/Gregorian shift to his birthday, Jan 3, he got his brother's name-day, Jan 14.

More to the point, tho', it was just a setup for a donnish joke. "Ominous names" says Sunny Sam. "Don't like the sound of them." Whereas (as his audience of course knew) Hilarius and Felix literally mean Happy and Lucky.


**********

I don't know if T was being overtly Catholic so much as just conveying the flavor of the mock-Middle Ages, which were permeated by the Church and by Latin. The feast days were the common folks' effective calendar- they didn't know from January 6, but immediately knew how long 'till Epiphany. The church bells ringing the canonical hours were their daily clock. And of course the use of Latin by the Church was not some 'hegemonic power conspiracy' (ghastly 20th-century concept) so much as the fact that, centuries after the last Caesar, Latin was still 'real' language. The vernacular or vulgar was for those who couldn't handle the Official Language, just as was the case when the legions were around. The Parson is a necessary figure because he's the only character who could read- moreover, in the Middle Ages literacy meant Latin literacy. Traces of this still abounded at Tolkien's Oxford- diplomas and formal orations were still in Latin, and *everybody* there knew it. Until well into the 20th century, you just couldn't claim to be an Educated Person without it.

[Mithalwen]

Further to previous replies, I would mention that Oxford still identifies its terms by reference to the Church calendar - Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity.

Also many of the things Esty refers to are not exclusively Catholic.

While protestants have a different perspective on sainthood, saints are not ignored. Here are some of the Saints days marked by the established church
and most Anglican Parish churches will have a patronal festival to mark the day of the saint to which they are dedicated. I have celebrated Candlemas a few times but admittedly in churches that belong liturgically in the "I can't belive it's not Catholicism" wing of the CofE.

Parson in modern England would not be used to refer to a Catholic priest. In this historical pre-reformation context it means that he was the incumbent of a church independent of the the control of a monastery or similar (unlike a vicar).

I just think he is using a historical context rather than making a religious point. After all church going was only at the beginning of it's decline when Farmer Giles was first published.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thanks to all of you who have revived this thread with your comments! I agree with the general consensus that the "Catholic" references are more cultural than religious; still, it is an interesting look at a time long gone by, isn't it? And I'm still pondering the difference between the "religious" saint's tale, in which the dragon gets killed, and Tolkien's parody, in which the dragon stays alive and becomes a helpful ally of the hero!

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Thanks to all of you who have revived this thread with your comments! I agree with the general consensus that the "Catholic" references are more cultural than religious; still, it is an interesting look at a time long gone by, isn't it? And I'm still pondering the difference between the "religious" saint's tale, in which the dragon gets killed, and Tolkien's parody, in which the dragon stays alive and becomes a helpful ally of the hero!

I think that has a lot to do with different conceptions of a "dragon". The dragon St. George reputedly killed is associated with the devil (ie. the serpent). The tale is expressly a story of the triumph of sanctity over evil. End of story.

[EDIT]It just occurred to me that one could also associate the image of the "religious dragon" with various scriptural writings. I believe the Book of Daniel and Revelation have "dragons" of sorts in them--though I'm not sure that the term is actually used in both cases. These "dragons" however, are very different in conception and description from the classic western European conception exemplified in Smaug and others, other than being the biggest and most fearsome of beasts.[/edit]

However, as we see with Smaug and Glaurung, Tolkien was fascinated by DRAGONS. And with those examples, certainly, we are seeing dragons in the normal pattern of dragons. But with Chyrsophylax especially, and with Smaug nextmost, I think we're seeing Tolkien's childlike fascination with "green, great dragons". And, personally, I think a lot of us find dragons fascinating for much the same reasons; these big, scaly, independent, fire-breathing, enigmatic, vainglorious flying dinosaurs are simply cool.

And since I would say that Farmer Giles is an explicitly more lighthearted adventure, told for the fun and not for any epic purpose, it seems right that Tolkien allows the coolest character in the book to survive.

[Lalwendë]

There are several St George 'histories', and only one of them involves dragon slaying (the others are the usual business about martyrs and whatnot). 'Ours' comes from Turkey and the Middle-east in general, brought back by romantic minded crusaders and was probably an allegory about ending alleged pagan human sacrifices.

It must have been a cracking story as England already had a patron saint, Saint Edmund. Either that or the crusading Norman aristos were keen on finding a belting story that could trample the old Saxon saint's story into the ground - and it does for my taste as Edmund was venerated for losing a battle against Ivar the Boneless, and being of a Viking frame of mind, what's so great about that? Plus the Angles were no Angels. Bah.

Interestingly at the end of the 1800s Pope Leo XIII 'decided' that the English were not to have St George as their patron saint any longer and would have Peter instead. Pht. Pope John Paul II 'allowed' us to have St George back though.

St George is a cool saint to have - he may well slay the dragon, but at least there's one in his story. If Tolkien was playing around with that maybe he felt the same way a lot of us do and wanted the cool dragon to live instead.

[Rumil]

Hi All,

I've generally sort of assumed that Farmer Giles of Ham was set sometime in the dark ages in between the Romans and the 'heptarchy' of the Anglo Saxons. The story mentions the large number of petty kings, which would fit in nicely around this time. This also fits in well with the dates for St. Hilary, can we be any more specific with the dates of the other saints?

Perhaps the story fits into the 'Arthurian' age when Britain was ruled by the Britons not the English. If so the religion could perhaps be the Pelagian version of the Catholic sect or even the Celtic church (different haircuts on monks and date of easter).

[Estelyn Telcontar]

In their Introduction to the edited edition of Farmer Giles, Hammond and Scull specify the "historical" time as given by Tolkien in his Forward:

...between the end of the third century (the time of King Coel) and the early sixth century (the rise of the Seven Kingdoms of the English)...

So it is definitely pre-Arthurian. However, that is not important; they go on to say:

Its 'medieval' setting is merely an appropriate background for a tale of dragons and knights, against which Tolkien places anachronisms for humorous effect...