The Christmas Crib... (Holiday History)

[HistoryMamaX3]

For the next 18 days, I am going to be quoting information from one of my favorite holiday books, Jennifer Mulherin's, The Little Book of Christmas. It is an awesome collection of holiday history and festive information. I just want to share it with everyone... I wish I could share the images as well- but I'll do my best!

Nativity and the Christmas Crib

In 1224, St. Francis of Assisi* asked the Pope's permission to celebrate Christmas by recreating the nativity scene, complete with live ox and ass, at Greccio†. Cribs had existed in Rome since at least 649, but it was St. Francis' depiction that captured the medieval imagination and established the cult of the crib throughout Christian Europe.

Thereafter, cribs not only became a feature in churches at Christmas time, they also became household objects. Intricately carved models, cribs with musical boxes and even clockwork cribs were produced in Austria, Bavaria and even Protestant Germany. Cribs continues to be popular in France, Spain and Italy. They were not imported to England and the United States until the middle of the 19th century. Even then, cribs were not common outside Roman Catholic churches, presumably because of their Popish origins, until well into this century.

St. Francis' "Institution of the Crib" was captured in the painting by Giotto below (A.D. 1297-1300).

*St. Francis of Assisi is most commonly known as the Patron Saint of Animals. You will often see him represented as a garden statue (1)- arms open, surrounded by animals. He was a friar that founded the Order of the Friars, more commonly known as the Franciscan Monks.

(1)

† Greccio is an old hill-town located central Italy.