May Day Celebrations

This week sees the start of the month of May, traditionally a time of looking forward – a celebration of the summer to come. This year as the UK emerges from months of lockdown after year of restrictions, the hope is palpable as we anticipate a summer of increased freedom and optimism. 

The spring bank holiday on the first Monday in May was created in 1978, May Day itself is 1st May and is not a public holiday in England (unless it falls on a Monday). In February 2011, the UK Parliament was reported to be considering scrapping the bank holiday associated with May Day, replacing it with a bank holiday in October, possibly coinciding with Trafalgar Day (celebrated on October 21), to create a "United Kingdom Day". 

The earliest known May celebrations appeared in Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman Goddess of flower – held from 27th April to 3rd May during the Roman Republic Era. A later May festival celebrated in Germanic countries, “Walpurgis Night”, commemorates the official canonization of Saint Walpurga on 1 May 870. In Gaelic culture, the evening of April 30th was the celebration of Beltane (which translates to "lucky fire"), the start of the summer season. 

Since the 18th century, many Roman Catholics have observed May – and May Day – with various May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. 1 May is also one of two feast days of the Catholic patron saint of workers St Joseph the Worker, a carpenter, husband to Mother Mary, and surrogate father of Jesus. Replacing another feast to St. Joseph, this date was chosen by Pope Pius XII in 1955 as a counterpoint to the communist International Workers Day celebrations on May Day. 

In Oxford, it is a centuries-old tradition for May Morning revellers to gather below the Great Tower of Magdalen College at 6 am to listen to the college choir sing traditional madrigals as a conclusion to the previous night's celebrations. Since the 1980s some people then jump off Magdalen Bridge into the River Cherwell. 

The origins of the May morning celebration date from around 1505 when the Great Tower at Magdalen College was completed. The event has taken place each year in its current form since the 17th Century when "Hymnus Eucharisticus" was written by Benjamin Rogers, 17th Century Magdalen Choirmaster, musician and composer with an interesting biography! The event starts early at 6 a.m. with bells ringing, followed by the Choir singing the Hymnus Eucharisticus from the top of Magdalen Tower. The last section of the climb to the top of the tower is reportedly only a ladder, and not for the faint-hearted! For this reason choristers only wear short surplices over uniform rather than cassocks... 

The choir traditionally also sings a madrigal, "Now Is the Month of Maying" following prayers for the city led by the Dean of Divinity. Large crowds of both students and Oxford residents normally gather under the tower, along the High Street, and on Magdalen Bridge. Students and fellows of Magdalen College gather in the college cloisters and on top of the other towers within the college grounds. Morris dancing and folk singing has also featured in Radcliffe Square as the choir "sing in" the Spring in this unique Oxford tradition.