St Clement’s pot

23 November · Staffordshire

No longer kept

Plot’s Staffordshire recorded an old custom of going about on the night of St Clement’s Day to beg drink to make merry with. For that reason the old clog almanacs, the notched wooden calendars, marked 23 November with a pot. Hone also found a state proclamation of 1540 showing that children used to be dressed up and go in procession on St Clement’s Day.

From an ancient custom of going about on the night of this festival to beg drink to make merry with, a pot was formerly marked against the 23d of November upon the old clog-almanacs.

From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 1, col. 1498. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Old Clem at Woolwich No longer kept Kent, LondonOn the evening of St Clement's Day the blacksmiths' apprentices of Woolwich dockyard chose one of their seniors to be Old Clem, in a greatcoat, a mask, an oakum wig and a long white beard.
Clementing in Worcestershire No longer kept WorcestershireA correspondent born in Worcestershire remembered boys going in a band from house to house on the afternoon of St Clement's Day.
St Clement and the hatters Lore and belief IrelandHatters had a tradition that St Clement, fleeing his persecutors, put wool between his sandals and his blistered feet, and found at the end of his journey that it had pressed into a firm cloth.
The smiths’ ode for St Clement No longer kept LondonThe secretary of the Benevolent Institution of Smiths, writing from Southwark in 1825, asked Hone not to forget St Clement, the smiths' saint.
Queen Mary’s St Clement’s Day procession No longer kept LondonOn St Clement's Day in Queen Mary's reign a great procession went through the streets of London.

St Clement’s pot

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