Hanukkah and Christmas in the Middle Ages, and the Puritan War on Christmas

'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages - A podcast by Richard Abels

Send us a textThis is a revised--and a lot longer--version of our twenty-first episode ("Some thoughts about Hanukkah by a (secular) Jewish medieval historian"). That episode was just what the title said, some thoughts about the role of Hanukkah in contemporary America and the Middle Ages. In it Ellen had a throwaway line about the Puritan war on Christmas. I thought that our listeners might be interested in why the Puritans objected to and tried to suppress Christmas, and, relate...