In medieval England, it was an occasion on which the bond between parishioners and their church was re-established and confirmed: each parishioner bringing a candle in procession as an offering and returning home with blessed candles for protection against various ills. The festival and its accompanying performative celebration were banned in England in 1548 by the Duke of Somerset at the beginning of Edward VI's reign. Although the festival remained in some places during the reign of Elizabeth I, its more general celebration in England had to wait until the Anglo-Catholic revival of the nineteenth century.
Like other traditional customs suppressed during the Reformation, the exchange and lighting of candles may have passed into private domestic folk customs, separated from their origins as public ritual. It is difficult to argue this to any great effect, as the references to candle lighting at Candlemas from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are too distant from the pre-Reformation customs to present a convincing continuity.
The beginning of February needs something to cheer it up though, as Ronald Hutton points out in 'Seasons of the Sun':
Their [Candlemas & St Blaise's day on the 3rd, important to the wool trade] disappearance left Britain bereft of any national festivals formally to mark the traditional end of winter and the opening of spring. [...] February became for most people a friendless month, too far after Christmas and too long before Easter (Seasons of the Sun, p. 145)
- and Spring was certainly in the air in our garden this morning judging from the amorous chaffinches dashing through the sky and competing with other birds at the feeders. We even saw a wren, which was very exciting as neither of us had seen one before. Lighting a candle or two at the beginning of February and maybe starting to plan jobs to get on with in the garden are two simple ways to mark the approach of Spring, however cold and inclement the weather outside might be.
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