Michaelmas and Jane Austen's Novels

Michaelmas Day is September 29, and it’s one of Britain’s four quarter days. Traditionally, quarter days were when servants were hired, rents were due, leases begun, debts paid, magistrates elected, school terms begun, and court sessions resumed. Quarter days not only represent feast days on the liturgical calendar, but they’re also associated with the change of seasons:

Familiar garden flowers F. Edward Hulme 1907

Lady Day, March 25 (Feast of the Annunciation) just after the Spring Equinox

Midsummer Day, June 24 (Feast of St. John the Baptist) just after the Summer Solstice

Michaelmas Day, September 29 (Feast of St. Michael and All Angels), just after the Autumn Equinox

Christmas Day, December 25 (Feast of the Nativity) just after the Winter Solstice

St. Michael is the angelic warrior who expelled Lucifer from heaven, and his association with protection ties in with needing protection during the longer nights and colder days of winter. Michaelmas was traditionally the end of the harvest season and the beginning of autumn.

Michaelmas Day had an association with eating goose. Some say the tradition begun after Queen Elizabeth I dined on goose when she received news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The reality likely was that geese were eaten on that day because they were readily available at this time of year. One poem that survived was:

He who eats goose on Michaelmas day;

Shan’t money lack or debts pay

Austen makes a sly reference to the tradition in a letter to Cassandra in October 1813 from Godmersham Park:

I dined upon Goose yesterday—which I hope will secure a good Sale of my 2d Edition.

She’s talking about good luck for her upcoming second edition of Sense and Sensibility.

Austen also uses Michaelmas several times in her novels. Only Northanger Abbey has no mention of it. Austen rarely addresses holidays for their own sake, but they help mark the passage of time and they incite key plots plot. Michaelmas traditions brought new neighbors, new expectations, and new romantic partners. Michaelmas, and the surrounding customs, is an instigating action for Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. It’s a marker of time for Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma.

The Crofts lease of Kellynch Hall in Persuasion and Bingley’s lease at Netherfield Park occur at or around Michaelmas and these were typical transactions at this time of year. The leases are plot devices and they set the time of year at the start of the novels.

Anne Elliot reflects on having to leave Kellynch while she stays with her self-absorbed sister Mary:

So passed the first three weeks. Michaelmas came; and now Anne’s heart must be in Kellynch again. A beloved home made over to others; all the precious rooms and furniture, groves, and prospects, beginning to own other eyes and other limbs! She could not think of much else on the 29th of September; and she had this sympathetic touch in the evening from Mary, who, on having occasion to note down the day of the month, exclaimed, “Dear me, is not this the day the Crofts were to come to Kellynch? I am glad I did not think of it before. How low it makes me!”

Mrs. Jennings in Sense and Sensibility makes several mentions of Michaelmas, specifically her fleeting presumption that maybe Colonel Brandon will give up Marianne and marry Elinor by Michaelmas, and that Lucy will marry Edward and be living in Delaford parsonage by the same time.

“Take my word for it, that, if I am alive, I shall be paying a visit at Delaford Parsonage before Michaelmas; and I am sure I shan't go if Lucy an't there.”

Elinor was quite of her opinion, as to the probability of their not waiting for any thing more.

In Mansfield Park, Mrs. Norris mentions Michaelmas as a marker for time, and later Henry Crawford hopes that another house will be added to the neighborhood at Michaelmas, implying to Fanny his hopes that she'll eventually accept him and they’d have a home there.

“Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey,” he continued; “what a society will be comprised in those houses! And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth may be added: some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everything so dear.”

Fanny would literally rather talk of Edmund and Mary Crawford than this awful subject.

In Emma, Michaelmas also isn’t mentioned as an inciting event but only as a marker for time as Harriet considers how long she’s known Mr. Elton:

“That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,–me, of all people, who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! And he, the very handsomest man that ever was, and a man that every body looks up to, quite like Mr. Knightley!

Of course, maybe this brief acquaintance is just another sign for the reader that things aren’t looking good for a Harriet-Elton match, but Emma certainly won’t see it.

Michaelmas as a holiday and its traditions are never explored in Austen, but its mention focuses the reader on how much time has passed and also is a useful plot device in bringing a potential romantic partner into the neighborhood.

Mrs. Bennet eagerly telling her husband that Netherfield was let at last and that "he is to take possession before Michaelmas" was my first introduction to this day.

Did you know anything about Michaelmas before reading about it in Austen's novels?