I’ll be honest: I absolutely love this time of year. During the last couple of weeks in September and all the way through October, I’m in my happy season. Could it have something to do with my birthday falling in that range? Sure, I suppose that could be a contributing factor, but I can’t get enough of the changing seasons. The cooler temperatures, the stunning art show put on by the trees, the return of cozy sweaters and comfort foods; what’s not to love? 

As I was running errands the other day, I noticed another sure sign of fall: a colorful banner staked at the edge of an intersection, easily in the sight range of passing drivers, proclaiming the date, time and location of the local harvest festival. I smiled, thinking of past memories made with family and friends as we picked our own apples, rode a haywagon, chose pumpkins and gourds to decorate our homes, and of course indulged in seasonal treats like cider, caramel apples, and late-summer fruit pastries. 

If you live in a region where growing grains, fruits or vegetables was (and probably still is, if distant) a key component of the local economy, I bet you can relate. Even if fall festivals aren’t your scene, you’re sure to be familiar with the sights and sounds of similar celebrations taking place as autumn is in full swing. 

Did you know, though, that festivities like this aren’t just a modern capitalist phenomenon, but rather a centuries-old tradition with a very real practical purpose? Let’s look together at the history of this communal affair. 

A practical, seasonal festivity

Celebrations at the close of the year’s summer toil have been part of the landscape of northern Europe since the start of recorded history. The specifics of those celebrations, including the name they were given, varied by region and economic activity, but similarities abound in their basic structure and purpose. For ease of discussion, I will apply the term ‘harvest home’ to refer to these annual fall festivities.

Historically, what was harvest home?

As discussed in a previous post, in medieval and early modern England, Lammas Day marked the start of the harvest of grains and generally fell around the first of August. Harvest home was the other bookend to the harvest season; it was celebrated when the last of the harvest was brought in, or arrived safely ‘home.’ 

Before the mechanization of farm work, it was impossible for a single family or landowner to accomplish the harvest of their crops without help. In early communities, area families came together and went from farm to farm, completing the harvest at each stop before moving to the next. If local help was insufficient to complete the work, outside workers were hired to assist. 

Harvesting crops was hard, backbreaking work. It was also an anxious time for the whole community: they depended on the harvest to provide enough food not only to see them through the winter, but to supplement their diet all the way until the next year’s harvest. 

If the summer weather had been kind, people were no doubt hopeful and optimistic going into the harvest season. But fields of ripe grain, ready to be brought in and full of promise, were also terribly susceptible to disaster. As anyone who has witnessed an American midwestern summer storm knows, one hailstorm or tornado can destroy entire crops in mere minutes. 

If such weather were to hit before the harvest was complete, or if a drought had afflicted the region that year, the threat of starvation was horribly real. No wonder, then, that when a successful harvest was finished, the participants gave over to the impulse to celebrate and be thankful. 

How was it observed?

In agricultural communities, early harvest home celebrations took place on an individual landowner’s property. When the harvesting work was complete, everyone came together for their reward: a generous meal featuring the bounty of the season. This was the time of the year when food was most plentiful and larders were full; even freshly brewed beer was ready to reward everyone’s hard work. 

In addition to the feast, it was a time for music, dancing and fellowship with neighbors who were normally occupied with their own farming tasks. Now that the year’s primary work was finally done, it was time to take a deep breath and relax. 

In more recent centuries, the festival became a wider community event, often organized and hosted by the local church. Neighboring villages would stagger the dates of their festivals to allow residents to attend multiple events. Today, that communal sentiment still survives in modern autumn festivals.

Harvest time as homecoming

While the term ‘harvest home’ was most often used in areas that were primarily engaged in agriculture, an autumn festival of some sort would be held in virtually every northern European region. In settlements where the primary industry took workers away from their homes during the spring and summer, their return at the season’s end was another cause for festivities.

Regions that were dependent upon sheep and other livestock would hold fall celebrations once the flocks and herds were driven down from the summer grazing pastures and were safely brought back to their stables and pens for the winter. Coastal villages waited until their ships came back to harbor and brought the sailors and traders home before the wintery waters became too rough. With these travellers finally restored to their families, surely the anxieties of separation were replaced by a communal appetite for revelries.

The precise timing of the commemorations, the terms used, and of course the types of food and drink enjoyed would vary, but as each local industry’s work wrapped up for the year, the spirit of thankfulness, reunion and merrymaking remained predominant.

Connection to solar calendar or climatological change?

For modern readers, it’s common to associate fall festivities with the turn of the weather or the date of the equinox. Most of us are no longer personally involved in the annual cycle of industrial work in our areas, so those activities have little influence on our perception of the seasons. For us, it is easy to refer to distinctions such as the autumn equinox or the declining average temperature to mark our transition from one period of the year to the next. 

In medieval and early modern times, however, most people would not have made the same associations. As previously described, harvest celebrations took place at the end of the community’s summer season of work. They marked the transition from the period of most labor-intensive work into the relative “off”-season, when daily work and rhythms slowed down and focused on sustaining life with the stores that were previously preserved. 

Ancient custom, modern interpretation

So there we have it; proof that the harvest festival that many of us recognize as a regular feature of our local autumn landscape has a rich history dating back many centuries. Perhaps our corn mazes and costume contests would be unfamiliar to our forebears, but my guess is that they would still recognize the spirit that still shows through in our festivals today.

Oh, and all those things I listed earlier that I love about fall? I fully recognize that as an average 21st-century person, I have the luxury of sitting back and enjoying them without worry, because I can be pretty confident that I’ll have sufficient food and a warm shelter throughout the winter. For the majority of human history, however, most people in the northern hemisphere faced genuine threats to their survival during the colder months, and that uncertainty enhanced the mood of gratefulness and celebration at the close of the harvest. 

So when you visit your local harvest festival this year, take a minute to reflect on the gratitude felt by those celebrating Harvest Home in past centuries, whose survival for the next year relied so heavily on the work they’d just completed. I hope you enjoy taking part in a community tradition that’s nearly as old as history itself. Happy fall!

Sources & Further Reading

https://medievalwanderings.com/2020/08/31/fire-scythes-and-superstition-the-medieval-harvest/amp/

Hutton, Ronald. Interview with Charles Rowe. The English Heritage Podcast. Podcast audio. September7, 2021. https://soundcloud.com/englishheritage/episode-129-harvests-hauntings-and-fiery-nights-exploring-our-autumn-traditions.