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The Origin of the Christmas Tree and its importance as a symbol of the home/hearth and quiet personal defiance.

The first documented Christmas Tree was in the town square of Riga Latvia in 1510. (You can go there today and see a tree put right where the first one stood!)

This was the undisputed first documented tree, however which culture deserves the credit for the presumably many undocumented Christmas trees that must have existed before that one is somewhat in dispute.

Consider this article to be one plausible explanation of what we would argue, is a complex and beautiful history of cultural synthesis sadly obscured by a lack of written language, and therefore written history at the time.

The Christmas Tree is NOT German!

You will often see the Christmas tree credited to German culture, and we argue while this is partially true it is a massive oversimplification of even what we have firm historical evidence to prove. First and for most we fully admit that without German cultural influence the Christmas tree would not have existed or at very least it would not have been tied to Christmas.

Our argument is not that Germans had nothing to do with the Christmas tree, but that Latvian culture especially at the time but to some extent today is a particular confluence of Native and German cultures in the same way Mexican culture is a particular confluence of Native and Spanish cultures. The Latvian case is more complicated because of other influences, mainly Polish and Russian, later on, but at this time none of that had happened yet, and none were as long, total, or impactful. We argue the story of the Christmas tree, as it first came to be, is the story of how Modern Latvian culture began, and that while we recognize the German influence on that culture, as Mexico recognizes Spanish, the synthesis with influence of another culture is still its own unique culture. (You wouldn’t credit tacos/day of the dead/bachata to Spain).

Origin of a tradition through synthesis of two cultures.

The native Baltic pagan tribes which existed in modern day Latvia ran an important trading crossroads known as “The Amber Road”, as amber primarily comes from Latvia, specifically a 2nd century (100 AD) native settlement called “Duna Urbs” which is today Riga (read the culture page on Amber). We do not know much about these tribes from their perspective as they did not have a written language, but we know they made contact with and were often the connection between, the Keiven Rus, Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans and we have some small accounts about them from these sources. More on, in particular the contact between native tribes and Ancient Romans later. (Remember!)

In the 1100’s, German traders who realized the value of this trade route and were regularly coming to do business in what is today Riga but even at the time was closer to a proper city than small trading settlement. They brought with them missionaries such as the monk Meinhard of Gotland who believed in and wanted the mass conversion of all Native Baltic/Finnic Pagans to Catholicism under the orders of Hartwig II Prince Archbishop of Bremen. Meinhard tried to convince the natives to convert and when they wouldn’t fully, he tried to overthrow them by force at which point he was killed in 1196. Hartwig II then sent Berthold of Hanover who arrived with a large army in 1198, but he was also defeated in battle and speared to death by Native Warriors.

The death of Berthold, and the death of two of their “missionaries” (attempted convertors by military force) angered the Catholic Church and caused Pope Innocent III to declare a holy crusade against the Livonians (one of the tribes native to the area around and just north of Riga) which would begin close to 100 years of religious war and 300 years of cultural/religious synthesis between the Catholic German “Norther Crusaders” and the Native Balitic/Finnic tribes of modern day Latvia. The next bishop, Albert the nephew of Hartwig II, would arrive with 23 ships and successfully seize Riga by 1201.

German historians, (Remember the only ones with written language and therefore written history at the time) marked this date 1201 as the “founding” of Riga, and called Albert the “Kulturtrager” which is German for the “bringer of culture”.

Albert conquered the Livonians by 1207 and the Latgalians by 1214, marking the defeat of the two most advanced and of the Baltic Tribes (with the most centralized governments) and established German Catholic Control over much of the important cities and trade routes of modern-day Latvia. But the Semigallians (farmers) and Curonians (Baltic Vikings) were not conquered or subjugated until 1290 almost 100 years later! It took 89 years of religious war to bring German Catholic control over all the Baltic Pagan tribes and the more rural areas of modern-day Latvia. And even then, many of the Semigallians moved into what is now Lithuania, so while their land was lost their independence as a culture was not.

It is worth noting that while German Catholics were in charge, they had fought for 89 years to make sure of that, they were still a very small minority of the people, many of the crusaders returned home and only left a small German nobility. So, the vast majority of people in Latvia were Balts descended from the Native Tribes.

Once conquered the native Balts had to perform Christian religious rites, pay tithes to the Catholic Church and follow the laws of the German Government, but that outside of this there was no real enforcement/imposition on their daily lives (again as far as we can tell told by German historians) as they were a large majority and anything more intrusive would have been difficult to enforce.

For the most part the cultures began to integrate, especially the earlier captured Livonians (around Riga) and Latgalians who had been a part of this shared German/Baltic society for 83 and 76 years by the time the Semigallians and Curonians were conquered. The “German” Nobility had also spent 89 years since 1201 in Latvia rather than Germany at this point. Especially once the “Christianizing” mission was over, they began to see themselves as rulers of this new land not conquerors for Germany.

Some previous kings of the native peoples were allowed to become an aristocracy and for the most part people began to see themselves as one thing. From both the German and (again from German sources) from the Native side, they all shared the same city, nominally the same religion, and the Baltic “Germans” had not been back to (live in) Germany in 89 years. They began to see themselves more as the leaders of what at the time was called “Livonia” then as an extension of Germany that was civilizing and converting pagans. And the lingua franca of this new shared culture was Latvian, descended from the languages of the Pagan Tribes rather than German.

Although many nobles and/or merchants would speak both (German and Latvian) because major cities were added to a trading bloc known as the Hansa or Hanseatic League, which was connected back to Germany and Western Europe. And because German was the only one of the two which had a standardized written form. This meant a lot of cultural exchange and influence between the urban areas of Latvia and Western Europe.

As such over time the urban areas of Latvia began to resemble the urban areas of the rest of Western Europe at the time. There were commoners’ merchants and nobility. The nobility was the Baltic Germans, the commoners and merchants were the Balts (descended from natives).

Over time the Baltic Germans and Native Balts in the cities in some ways came together through this as a single culture distinct from the others in the Western European trading block, and particularly Baltic Germans became culturally distinguished form Germans. The Baltic Germans remained an upper caste but also learned the Baltic language(s) and intermarried with the native nobility. The difference between Baltic Germans and Native Balts began to resemble something closer to the difference between the upper and lower class in England or, because there remained an ethnic component maybe the Castes of colonial Latin America. But again, there was such a strong numerical majority of Balts that it really was no different to commoners and nobility in any other medieval city, just that the nobility was mostly Baltic German, and the commoners and merchants were majority Baltic descended from native Baltic tribes.

The countryside was much different, there you had complete serfdom comparable to Russia. The Lords of vast swaths of rural land were Baltic Germans who forced the Balts to work that land as near slaves. Including banning serfs from leaving the land they were born on and trying to catch, arrest, and return them if they did. It was known however well know that as a serf, if you could escape to the city and make it over a year (the law was 1 year and 1 day) without being caught then your lord would lose any claim over you, and you’d be free.

This is the context in which the Christmas tree came to be, not in 1300 with only 100 years of Baltic German nobility becoming culturally distinguished from German Germans, or 100 years of most people in society influencing the culture being Baltic. But in 1510, with 300 years of cultural intermixture and differentiation from Germany!

At this point, in 1510 Latvia including Riga was at the time a part of a shared country with Estonia called the “Livonian Confederation”. Which is a Catholic feudal government whose nobility claim to be “Baltic German” meaning “descended from Germans who came here 300 years ago”. Which, even if it was the “Baltic German” Nobility who invented the tree, we would argue it would make a lot more sense at that point to focus on the “Baltic” part than the “German” part. At least when considering cultural attribution.

In other words, at least by 1510, we claim “Baltic German” culture as part of Latvian culture. Perhaps not at 1201, but after 300 years of separation from Germany synthesis together with the native culture, it is a new thing that is distinct from German culture which developed as part of Latvia.

Next, even if you will not grant that, there is no good reason to assume it was the Nobility who created the tree. The vast majority of the people in Riga at the time were commoners. Especially considering no one individual person has credit for the tree. We imagine that if a Nobel could in anyway reasonably claim singular credit they likely would.

We propose that somehow the tree came to be out of the collective culture of Riga at the time, form multiple people, likely something that some commoners and/or some nobility alike had done in at least a couple of times in private before placing a tree in the town square.

Why do we believe it stemmed from the culture of Riga specifically? Well, if the first documented tree was there should we not, without some other specific evidence that says otherwise, assume that the idea to place a tree in public likely stemmed from the place where the private ritual was already the most common? If it did come from Strassburg or Hesse or Friedburg or any of the other claimed German places first, would we not assume they would have put a tree in their town square before Riga? Why would those places have trees in private but not trees in public? Or, if it was in public, why would the people who had a written language (Germans) fail to write it down while the people without a written Language (Latvians) did, did in German no less?

There is no way to prove this either way, because there were incredibly close trading ties at the time between Latvia (the Livonian confederation) and Germany and whichever culture began the tradition the other would quickly learn of it and adopt it.

However, both as a further explanation of why Riga was more likely, and as an explanation of what we think that synthesis might have looked like; please hear out our (admittedly speculative as again, no written language/history) explanation of where we think the Christmas tree really came from.

It is fully accepted that there is a pagan influence on the way we celebrate Christmas today. That credit usually goes to the Ancient Romans for their celebration “Saturnalia”. As the name implies, it is believed Saturnalia was to honor the Roman pagan god Saturn, and it fell on the winter solstice December 25, and some say it even had trees. So, mystery solved? The Romans get credit for Christmas trees?

Not exactly, they do certainly get credit for something though, and that’s the date. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, but according to Paul of the Bible, Jesus was actually born around September. Others say spring, like March rather than fall, but almost everyone is certain that he was not born in December. At some point in the history of Christianity, the date Christmas is celebrated was changed.

This must have been very early history of Christianity, because imagine how difficult it would be to change it now. There are 2.3 billion Christians in the world today, imagine trying to get all of them to change. Even if we somehow uncovered the exact historical date of the birth of Jesus of Nasrath, and it was sometime in September or March like predicted, it would be very hard to convince 2.3 billon people to all move their celebrations. So presumably it changed when there were fewer Christians to convince, when the religion was just beginning. Perhaps, when the Roman Empire made the switch from Pagan to Christian. And maybe in this switch Christmas was moved to replace Saturnalia or somewhat more naturally as the holidays just merged.

It is actually in dispute whether or not Saturnalia actually had trees, many say it is likely not true. If that is the case, if the Romans didn’t have trees, then our point is even stronger, so we will assume for the sake of argument that it’s true that they had them.

We know in any case that they didn’t keep the trees. Simply because, if they had, there would have been documentation of a Christmas tree long before 1510. The Roman empire spread Christianity to most parts of the world that have it today. Of course, the Catholic Church originated in Ancient Rome, but even areas that would later have large protestant populations like, for example both Germany and Latvia shortly after the time we are talking about. (Martin Luther will nail the 95 theses to the door in Germany 7 short years after the first Christmas tree in Riga Latvia, Lutheranism will reach and become a very prominent religion within Latvia roughly 25 years after that.) were usually catholic before they became Protestant. Countries who were not made Christian by the Roman Empire were often made Christian through a later empire, Spanish, English, etc. that was made Christian by the Roman Empire.

So, if Roman Christmas already had trees, we would have had Christmas trees continuously since the Roman empire, but we didn’t, there was a massive gap. No one is sure why the trees were stopped; it could be that it was seen as pagan and therefore sinful, it could just have been that no one thought to keep that aspect of Saturnalia. But what we do know for sure is that the trees were stopped. That between 381 AD and 1510, for over a millennium, no one in the Christian world celebrated with a tree on December 25th.

And that’s strange, isn’t it? How did December 25 begin associated with trees (Saturnalia) and then stop being associated with them for over 1000 years, and then go back to being associated with them in Riga (1510)?

We propose that maybe it didn’t stop, after all, the Baltic Pagans celebrated the winter solstice as well. What if just outside of the long arm of the Roman Empire, where people were not yet Christian, the tree had continued to be used to celebrate December 25 the whole time?

Again, the Baltic pagans native to modern day Latvia had no written language, even up through the time we are talking about in this story (early 1500’s). The written form of the Latvian Language would actually first be introduced about 25 years after the protestant reformation when Lutheranism saw mass adoption in Latvia specifically so the Balts, the commoners, could learn to read the Bible for themselves rather than only hear the stories at mass. (As is an important tenant of most Protestant faiths). So, again, there is a limit to how much we can know and how sure we can be about it.

But what we do know is that, as mentioned above (did you remember?!) the Baltic Tribes and Roman Empire had made contact. We know from Roman writings and discovery of Amber and other Baltic goods in Roman sites.

And we also know that the Baltic Pagans had some winter solstice celebration on December 25.

And because of the unique linguistic history/heritage of Latvian, we can actually use what things are called to help us understand things about them, in this case we can use the word for Christmas to see that the celebrations merged! “Ziemas” means winter, “saule” means the sun and “griezt” means to turn. Put all those together and you get “Ziemasaulgreizi” which is the Latvian word for Christmas. But if you translate it directly it means “The winter turning of the sun” aka “the winter solstice”. That is almost certainly the same name of the Baltic pagans had for their celebration (remember the language didn’t change much) and that can be considered evidence that the two celebrations merged.

“Wait!” you might be saying, “I looked it up, the Latvian word for Christmas isn’t Ziemasaulgreizi its Ziemassvētki!” and you’re right! And… also kind of wrong? The short answer is in modern Latvian, Ziemasaulgreizi means specifically Christmas day and Ziemassvētki means all of Christmas week. “Svetki” is just the word “celebrations” note, plural.

“Christmas Week?!?!?” I hear you wondering, and yes. That is what I mean when I say that Latvian/Lithuanian/Latgalian (yes! the tribe conquered in 1214, their language is still spoken today!) languages are unique especially in what they can signify/reveal historically. In Latvian Christmas Tradition, after Christianization, written language and therefore actually documented, celebration begins on December 20th and lasts between 5 days and a week. Christmas week of course also contains the 9 to 12 course feast where each dish has a slightly different meaning about achieving luck and/or prosperity in the coming year. You then of course also drag a log around your house/property/area to collect all of the hardships/sorrows/bad vibes from the previous year and then light the log on fire so that you can start fresh in the coming one. Isn’t that just like Christmas where you grew up?

Unless you’re reading this from Latvia (in which case sveiki, lūdzu, atsūtiet man e-pastu, ja es kaut ko saņēmu nepareizi) the answer is probably no. And the reason for that is the Baltic pagan influence. There are Christmas markets and other German Christian influences on modern Latvia’s celebration, so it makes sense that there would be many pagan influences as well.

So, hypothetically what if through (likely indirect) trade and other contact, the Baltic tribes heard of the trees at Saturnalia and took them for their own celebration?

What if, more likely, the tree was an important part of the Baltic tribe’s solstice celebration, and the Romans heard of and took it for Saturnalia?

Either way, whether Romans influenced Balts or Balts influenced Romans I think it’s very possible that the Baltic tribes kept it going long after the collapse of the Roman empire. And so, the direct link, from pagan celebration to Christmas in the 1500’s came through the Baltic Tribes

Notes:

Saturnalia had trees, but roman Christians didn’t adopt them for Christmas. Ancient romans had contact with Baltic Tribes, we know from Roman Writing and that they had Amber. Is it not possible that either: Saturnalia took influence from a Baltic Pagan celebration of the winter solstice with trees and wreaths, or that Baltic Pagans whose traders might have been to Rome stole the idea of the tree from witnessing Saturnalia, and kept the tradition alive through their celebration of the winter solstice even after Romans decided all Pagan stuff was cringe and stopped celebrating Saturnalia.

How else would you explain the long gap between the trees in Saturnalia and the trees being used for Christmas?

Interestingly however, because of certain linguistic abnormalities, linguists can tell the Baltic Languages i.e.) Latvian/Lithuanian are some of, if not the, oldest continuously spoken languages in Europe. Do you remember the Latgalians? The Baltic tribe that was conquered in 1214? They have a language/dialect of Latvian which is still spoken by about 8.8% of Latvia’s population today! It is thought to be the closest living language to the Indo-European language “Balto-Slavic” which is the theorized ancient link and parent language to the entire Baltic (Latvian/Lithuanian/Latgalian) and Slavic (Russian/Ukrainian/Polish/…etc.) language families.

So interestingly, the names of things in Latvian and oral traditions passed down about pre-Christian Latvia is a more reliable source then most would think. It is likely that the languages of today are far closer than one would think to the languages of pre-Christian Latvia!