Away in a manger: Nativities rooted in history

It's called a Creche in France, a Presipio in Italy, Krippe in Germany, Belem in Portugal, Nacimento in Spain, Szopka in Poland, Crib in England, and, in most English-speaking areas, a Nativity. The Nativity scene is one of the most beloved traditions of the Judeo-Christian world.

A Nativity scene is a three-dimensional artistic rendering of the birth of Jesus. It may be very simple with all attention focused on the central figures of the Mother Mary and the Christ child.

It may be very elaborate, as is justified by the Christian view that the whole world will be gathered around the manger. Nativity artisans often telescope time, space, and cultures to gather a host of earthly and heavenly participants -- shepherds, animals, angels, wise men, and common folk.

St. Joseph proved absent in many of the earliest nativities. He was apparently not too popular with early Christians because of his reluctance to accept his fiancŽe's pregnancy. Later, Joseph appeared in the rear of the Nativity scene, sometimes as a smaller figure than Mary.

St. Joseph's role is acknowledged as protector of the Holy Family; he sometimes carries a staff or lamp. From the 5th century onward, he has typically been imagined an old man.

Creche and manger entered English from the French language. Though now primarily used to denote a Nativity scene, the word 'creche' originally had the same limited meaning as 'manger.' Both, in strict usage, refer to the trough or open box used for livestock feeding.

Beyond descending from French, ancestries of the two words differ, reflecting something of the history of the French language as a whole.

The French language descended from the popular Latin of ancient Roman soldiers, camp followers, and settlers who dominated the area now known as France. Manger derives from the Latin verb, mandere, and means to chew or eat. In contrast, the word creche'springs from a German cousin. In the vocabularies of some Romance (meaning descendants of Roman) languages, exist a number of words, many agricultural in nature, descended from the languages of the Germanic tribes who conquered much of the Roman territory, including ancient France. Creche is such a word. Were its first letter 'K', its German lineage would be more evident.

During the Middle Ages, the words creche and manger spread from France to England. In its turn, English, a language of Anglo-Saxon or Germanic tribes, contributed its own relative, crib to the terms creche and manger.

As expected, all three words have come to describe the Nativity scene. Italian, another Romance language, uses Presipio, a descendant of the Latin Praesaepe. In the ancient word, a combination of prae, "in front," and saepire, "to enclose," meant, among other things, a manger or stall.

The charisma of St. Francis of Assisi is ascribed with the first public depiction of the birth of Jesus. The following narrative of St. Francis' creche is drawn from the writings of his first biographer, Thomas of Celano. It was mid-December of the year 1223. Christmas was coming and the monk, Francis, wanted all people to share in the wonder of the birth of Christ.

He sent a message to his friend, Giovanni Velita, a nobleman from the nearby town of Greccio: "If you want us to celebrate the present feast of our Lord at Greccio, go with haste and diligently prepare what I tell you. For I wish to do something that will recall to memory the little Child who was born in Bethlehem, and set before our bodily eyes in some way the inconveniences of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he lay upon the hay where he had been placed."

On Christmas Eve, inhabitants from all over the countryside came to Greccio to see and hear Brother Francis. They came wearing their holiday best, walking, riding donkeys, or crowding into ox-drawn carts. As darkness fell, candles and torches lit the way, and singing warmed the frosty air.

Arriving at the chosen place, the faithful saw in a natural cave or grotto, where Francis had prepared a manger filled with hay, together with an ox and an ass. Mass began with songs of praise for God. Then Francis spoke of the Nativity and of the Child of Bethlehem. At the culmination of the "solemn night of celebration," the people departed and "each one returned to his home with holy joy."

St. Francis' inspired visualization of the Nativity actually instigated not the start of a new tradition, as the preservation of an ancient one. The Roman Emperor Hadrian, who ruled early in the second century A.D., is said intentionally to have established a pagan temple upon the reputed site of Christ's birth in his attempt to suppress Christianity. An outlaw Christian critic in roman North Africa during the third century, Origen, spoke of having seen the site of Christ's birth and the actual manger in which the newborn Jesus had rested.

In the fourth century, Christianity's legalization and its establishment as the official religion of the Roman Empire drew increasing attention to the Nativity. St. Jerome and St. Augustine recorded that Christ's place of birth was drawing pilgrims from the entire Roman world.

In Rome, an early Christian church, first known as Sancta Maria ad Praesepe, consequently rebuilt as the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, became directly linked with the Presepio. Tradition holds that at one time, the site included a separate chapel erected of stones from the nativity grotto in Bethlehem.

This chapel would be known as the Praesepe, the Latin word for a manger or stall. It was believed that relics of the Bethlehem manger were ensconced in the church.

Artists of the Middle Ages, many of whom were Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, made images of the Nativity's popular subjects. To the west, the Nativity was the subject of elaborate religious homilies, including singing and recitations. Since drama was still considered pagan theater, this staging stopped just short of acting out the Nativity.

However, by the 12th century, the birth of Jesus had become part of the Mystery Plays, highly produced dramatizations of Biblical events. By that time, the elements of the Nativity scene as we know it today had been conventionalized.

By 1207, much of the cynicism evident in ancient pagan theater had re-emerged in the Mystery Plays, leading to the denunciation of Pope Innocent III.

It was within this confused political timing that St. Francis offered his seminal Nativity mass on an Advent evening in the year 1223.

Visually, he refined the staging to a single component: a manger. In so doing, Francis reclaimed an air of wonder and veneration about the Nativity scene, an enduring triumph.

In Sunday's Frontiersman, there will be a story about an upcoming event in which nativities will be on display. There will also be photographs from last year's event.