Michaelmas: the feast of Saint Michael

Michaelmas is the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, kept every year on 29 September. In England it fell at the turn from summer to autumn, and for centuries it marked the end of the farming year as much as a day on the church calendar.

A feast and a quarter day

Michaelmas was one of the four English quarter days, the dates on which rent was due, servants were hired and accounts were settled. Its name lives on in the academic calendar: the Michaelmas term is the autumn term at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and other universities, and the autumn sitting of the law courts.

Goose and blackberries

Folklore gathered around the date. A goose was the traditional Michaelmas dinner, with the old rhyme promising that whoever ate one would never want for money in the year ahead. Another tradition says not to pick blackberries after Michaelmas, because it was on this day that the devil, cast out of heaven by Michael, fell into a bramble bush and spat on the fruit in his rage.

Why the day still matters

The feast gives an ordinary autumn date a clear subject: the angel who answers pride with a question. If you want to read about the saint himself, start with Who is Saint Michael the Archangel?, and see how his image appears on The Archangel Hoodie.