by Mark Johnson

Created on: March 31, 2009

For many, Twelfth Day needs no introduction, but for many it does. Simply put, Twelfth Day, or Epiphany, is the twelfth day after Christmas, intricately a part of the same season. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of the Christ child, who was visited by wise men from the East (Matthew 2:1-12). Epiphany is a celebration of the arrival of those wise men twelve days later.

Early Christians apparently celebrated the Feast of the Nativity for twelve days, with the first and last days being the most important. Pope Julius I is credited with distinguishing the Feast of the Nativity and the Feast of Epiphany as being more distinct than part of the same feast in the middle of the fourth century, although the Epiphany appears to have been first celebrated as a separate feast in 813.

The New Testament refers to three gifts brought to the Christ child by wise men from the East: gold, frankincense and myrrh. This grew into three kings (Kings of Cologne) bringing three gifts, namely Melchior bringing gold, Jasper bringing frankincense, and Balthazar bringing myrrh.

Twelfth Day was celebrated by a play acted out in the services during the Middle Ages. As with some other religious festivals, there was a tendency during the Middle Ages to develop the pomp and ceremony involved with this festival to the ridiculous extreme. For example, the "Preaching Friars" of Milan, in 1336, celebrated the Festival of the Three Kings through some portion of the city. A golden star was carried through Milan in front of three men dressed as kings, riding richly-dressed horses, surrounded by untold numbers of pages, bodyguards and followers. They proceeded to a point at which they met King Herod's representation, along with his scribes and wise men. The kings asked Herod where to find the Christ child, and, after consulting with his wise men, Herod told them to go to Bethlehem. They then proceeded to the church of St. Eustorgius, "with all their attendants, preceded by trumpets, horns, asses, baboons, and a great variety of animals." The church had a manger on one side of the high altar, complete with an ox and a donkey. Fortunately, this stands out as an unusual celebration of the feast.

A custom that will sound familiar to most of us was the Election of Kings by Beans. The origins of this were unknown to the editors of The Book of Days, the source of this material, but they suggest that the custom may have derived from the Romans, whose children drew lots with beans at the end of Saturnalia to see who would be king. The custom developed of baking a cake, called Twelfth-Cake, which contained a bean. Whoever got the piece of cake containing the bean was declared king for a day, and called King of the Bean. Think this may be the origin of the Mardi Gras King Cake?

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