Christmas in & out, or, Our Lord & Saviour Christs birth-day . by John Taylor
This month’s featured text is John Taylor's Chistmas in & out. John Taylor, known as the "water poet" was born in Gloucester around 1577. He was apprenticed to a London waterman (someone who ferried people across the Thames River) and was impressed into the navy in the late 1590s. After his service, he went back to London and resumed his career as a waterman and also held a post as a wine collector for the Tower of London until 1622. He also had connections with the royal family and may have served as waterman to the king and head of the waterman's guild. Taylor published his first work The Sculler, Rowing from Tiber to Thames in 1612. His work was fairly popular among the reading public, but was largely scorned by literary critics. Taylor responded to his critics by satiring their prose in works such as The Eighth Wonder of the World (1613) in which he criticizes poet Thomas Coryate. Taylor also published other works of poetry like The Nipping or Snipping of Abuses (1614), pamphlets such as The Praise, Antiquity, and Commodity, of Beggery (1621), and even travel literature with his work The Certain Travailes of an uncertain Journey (1653). Taylor was a popular poet in his day and achieved a certain amount of "delight and profit" from his career. He died in December of 1653 and his burial is recorded in the parish register of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

Christmas In & Out was written in 1652, in the midst of significant controversy over the celebration of Christmas day. After the execution of Charles I and the beginning of a new commonwealth under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell (a devout Puritan), many of the traditional Christmas activities came under attack because they were seen as idolatrous. Taylor addresses this by saying "There were lately some over curious, hot zealous Bre|thren, who . . .were of opinions, that that Plumb-Pottage was meer Popery, that a Coller of Brawn was an obhomination, that Roast Beef was Antichristian, that Mince Pies were Reliques of the Whore of Babylon and a Goose, a Turkey, or a Capon, were marks of the Beast." Taylor makes the argument that such zealousness is unneeded and that celebration of Christmas, if done correctly, can be a joyous occasion and that the celebration of the day cannot outshine the importance of Christmas day itself. Christmas In & Out provides an interesting view into early modern beliefs about Christmas and about the religious struggles taking place during the Commonwealth.

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