Stollen goods

ARGUABLY, the single most exciting development in the world of retailing took place at the end of 1294, in Vienna. Full of Christmas cheer and bonhomie, King Albert I of Hapsburg granted permission for the city to hold the world’s first December market. The “krippenmarkt” subsequently spread to every corner of Middle Europe. Merchants throughout Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary, knowing a good wheeze when they spotted it, soon followed suit.

Although now firmly in the hands of the business community, the Christmas markets followed a religious calendar — and still largely do so. They begin on the first day of Advent (this year Sunday, December 3) and wind up on Christmas Eve.

The whole phenomenon dates back to the late Middle Ages, specifically to the German-speaking parts of Europe. It seems that the theologian Martin Luther had a hand in their ongoing popularity due to his fiddling about with seasonal customs. In a revolutionary canonical statement he suggested that children receive presents not from Santa Claus, but “the Christ child”. In Germany, accordingly, markets sprung up near churches and cathedrals so that tradesmen might cash in on this new, and welcome, doctrinal development.

Luther, as it happens, bought his presents at Nuremberg Market in the 16th century. Incidentally, the town council decreed in a 1610 edict dated December 22 that "indecent joke items" made as children's Christmas gifts by a wood-turner, should be confiscated.

So, here in deepest Bavaria, the Christmas card / cracker joke had an early start. No record of the actual joke remains, but as it’s often said the German sense of humour is no laughing matter, it could have been along the lines of:

Patient: “Doctor, doctor. I keep on thinking I’m a pair of curtains.”

Doctor: “Hmmm, I think you’ve probably got a serious personality disorder called False Household Self-Identity syndrome.”

Although, to be fair, it may have been more Christmassy than that.

But Nuremberg’s claim to Christmas celebrity goes even deeper. Because it was here, around 1610, that another momentous event in the evolution of Yuletide took place — tinsel was invented. Flaubert believed that "tinsel has all the qualities of silver, plus one more, bathos" — but whatever its properties, it’s been a huge boon to the festive season these last 400 years.

So, we have Austrian and German merchants to thank for the commercialisation of Christmas, an entirely reasonable state of affairs. In the first instance the Christians nicked Christmas from the pagans; now the capitalists have nicked it back from the Christians.