Word Finder - festivals

definition

An event or community gathering, usually staged by a local community, which centers on some theme, sometimes on some unique aspect of the community.

definition

In mythology, a set of celebrations in the honour of a god.

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Fried cornbread

The Feast of Tabernacles is one of the few Jewish festivals, described in classical writers.

According to the Roman Caeremoniale the bishop wears the mitra pretiosa on high festivals, and always during the singing of the Te Deum and the Gloria at mass.

Thus we find dictators destined to hold the elections, to make out the list of the senate, to celebrate games, to establish festivals, and to drive the nail into the temple of Jupiter - an act of natural magic which was believed to avert pestilence.

For curious instances of the part played by the ass in medieval church festivals see the article Fools, Feast Of.

In keeping with this, her festivals at Naxos present a double character; the one, full of mourning and sadness, represents her death or abandonment by Theseus, the other, full of joy and revelry, celebrates her awakening from sleep and marriage with Dionysus.

In the case of these latter, however, the mitre is worn only in the church to which the privilege is attached and on certain high festivals.

The auriphrygiata is worn during Advent, and from Septuagesima to Maundy Thursday, except on the third Sunday in Advent (Gaudete), the fourth in Lent (Laetare) and on such greater festivals as fall within this time.

Two festivals are held in the town, a less important one in October, the other, on the 24th and 25th of May, unique for its gathering of gipsies who come in large numbers to do honour to the tomb of their patroness Sara, contained in the crypt below the apse.

All classes high and low are fond of the religious festivals, the principal of which, the Dasahra, occurs in October, when the first harvest of the year has been secured and the second crops sown.

The Sicilians claimed to be the first on whom Demeter had bestowed the gift of corn, and hence they honoured the two goddesses with many festivals.

Demeter and Proserpine were worshipped together by the Athenians at the greater and less Eleusinian festivals, held in autumn and spring respectively.

On occasions of festivals or pageants the balconies, the bridges, the boats, and even the facades of the houses, were hung with rich Eastern carpets or patterned textiles in gold and coloured silk.

Among the Hebrews it was the third and chief of the three annual pilgrimage festivals connected respectively with the harvesting of the barley (Passover), of wheat (Pentecost), and of the vine (Tabernacles).

In order to conciliate even the Moslems, who include the bulk of the great landholders and of the urban population, its representatives visit the mosques in state on festivals; grants are made for the Mecca pilgrimage; and even the howling Dervishes in Serajevo are maintained by the state.

White is also worn during the octaves of these festivals, on ordinary days (for which no special colour is provided) between Easter and Whitsuntide, at certain special masses connected with the saints falling under the above category, and at bridal masses.

Except at Athens, little is known of the ceremonies or festivals which attended her worship. There we have the following.

In the oldest Roman ferial we already find festivals of Carthaginian martyrs, and similarly, in the Carthaginian calendar, Roman festivals, while Wright's Syriac Martyrology contains numerous traces of this exchange of festivals.

On high festivals the altar is censed at vespers and lauds.

The modern town, close to the ancient, is unimportant, though the canons of the cathedral have the privilege of wearing the mitre and cap pa magna at great festivals.

The same was the case of the festivals of St Stephen, St James and St John, and St Peter and St Paul, as is shown by the liturgical documents, but these festivals were held in connexion with that of Christmas (26th, 27th and 28th December), and were not strictly speaking anniversaries.

Provision was also made for public festivals, and a central commission was to be entrusted with educational questions.

There is reason to think that, notwithstanding the order for the use of incense at every celebration, it was in practice burnt only on high festivals, and then only in rich churches, down to the period of the Reformation.

The meetings took place either in the Rathaus, or town hall, or, when they were held - as was usually the case - on Sunday, in the church; and three times a year, at Easter, Whitsuntide and Christmas, special festivals and singing competitions were instituted.

In the midst of the French Revolution respect for civic festivals was sternly enacted, but sacrilege was an almost daily matter of state policy.

He probably made the acquaintance of Lope de Vega at the festivals (1620-1622) held to commemorate the beatification and canonization of St Isidore, the patron saint of Madrid.

The town still forms a great centre of Hindu devotion, and large numbers of pilgrims flock annually to the festivals.

The Incas had an elaborate system of state-worship, with a ritual, and frequently recurring festivals.

Some of the festivals of the Roman Church are celebrated with considerable pomp; and the people also cling to various national fetes, such as the Metzgersprung, the Schafflertanz, and the great October festival.

The annual festivals are the passover, the harvest feast, the Baala Mazalat or feast of tabernacles (during which, however, no booths are built), the day of covenant or assembly and Abraham's day.

In the year after the war (240), when the armies had returned and the people were at leisure to enjoy the fruits of victory, Livius Andronicus substituted at one of the public festivals a regular drama, translated or adapted from the Greek, for the musical medleys (saturae) hitherto in use.

Dorian states usually had in common the " Doric " dialect, a peculiar calendar and cycle of festivals of which the Hyacinthia and Carneia were the chief, and certain political and social institutions, such as the threefold " Dorian tribes."

The common calendar and cycle of festivals, observed by all Dorians (of which the Carneia was chief), and the distribution in Greece of the worships of Apollo and Heracles, which attained pre-eminence mainly in or near districts historically " Dorian," suggest that these cults, or an important element in them, were introduced comparatively late, and represent the beliefs of a fresh ethnic superstratum.

No doubt the later indigitamenta (" bidding-prayers") which give us detailed lists of the spirits which preside over the various actions of the infant, or the stages in the marriage ceremony, or the agricultural operations of the farmer, are due in a large measure to deliberate pontifical elaboration, but they are a true indication of the Roman attitude of mind, which reveals itself continually in the analysis of the cults of the household or the festivals of the agricultural year.

It is more profitable to turn from the life of the household to the outdoor occupations of the fields, where the early Roman settler met with his neighbours to celebrate the various stages of the agricultural year in religious ceremonies which afterwards became the festivals of the state calendar.

Roughly we may distinguish three main divisions of the calendar year, the festivals of Spring, of the Harvest and of Winter, preserving on the whole their peculiar characteristics.

Jupiter in the rusticcult was a sky-god concerned mainly with the wine festivals and associated with the sacred oak on the Capitol.

See further, Greek Religion; Mithras; Etruria, Religion; and articles on the deities, festivals and colleges.

The Maltese are strict adherents to the Roman Catholic religion, and enthusiastic observers of festivals, fasts and ceremonials.

After their dispersion the Jews were constrained to have recourse to the astronomical rules and cycles of the more enlightened heathen, in order that their religious festivals might be observed on the same days in all the countries through which they were scattered.

In their civil affairs the Armenians follow the ancient vague year of the Egyptians; but their ecclesiastical year, which begins on the 1 1th of August, is regulated in the same manner as the Julian year, every fourth year consisting of 366 days, so that Easter and the other festivals are retained at the same place in the seasons as well as in the civil year.

The picturesque costume of the women is now worn only at festivals.

The Mozarabic liturgy provides for its eucharistic use on Sundays and festivals.

Though thus attributed here to Alcuin, who is known to have revised the Lectionary or Comes Hieronymi, the compilation 176 homilies arranged in order for all the Sundays and festivals of the ecclesiastical year; and probably was completed before the year 780.

He also arranged the programme of the principal republican festivals.

Shortly afterwards the images were removed from the churches, and many ceremonies and festivals were abolished.

In point of doctrine they acknowledged the seven sacraments, but gave them a symbolical meaning; they prayed to the Virgin and saints, and admitted auricular confession, but they denied purgatory and the sacrifice of the mass, and did not observe fasts or festivals.

There were two festivals for the pilgrimage, on the 29th of December, the day of the martyrdom, and on the 7th of July, the day of the translation.

Festivals for the dead were appointed to be held under those that included but one star.

His worship was not so widely spread over Greece as that of other gods, although he was honoured here and there with festivals and sacrifices.

The ecclesiastical year with its fasts and festivals was retained in large measure.