Wayzgoose

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Wayzgoose was at one time the name for an entertainment given by a master printer to his workmen each year on or about St Bartholomew's Day (24 August). This marked the traditional end of summer and the point at which the season of working by candlelight began. Later, the word came to refer to the annual outing and dinner of the staff of a printing works or the printers on a newspaper.

Derivation

The derivation of the term is doubtful. It may be a misspelling for "wasegoose," from wase, Middle English for "sheaf," thus meaning "sheaf" or "harvest goose," the bird that was fit to eat at harvest-time, viz. the "stubble-goose" mentioned by Chaucer in The Cook's Prologue.

It is more probable that the merry-making which became particularly associated with the printers' trade was once general, and an imitation of the grand goose-feast annually held at Waes, in Brabant, at Martinmas. The relations of England and Holland were formerly very close, and it is not difficult to believe that any outing or yearly banquet might have grown to be called colloquially a "Waes-Goose." It is harder to explain why the term should have survived later in the printing trade, though the English printers owed much to their Dutch fellow-workers. Certainly the goose has long ago parted company with the printers' wayzgoose, which was usually held in July,^[1] though it had no fixed season. An unlikely suggestion is that the original wayzgoose was a feast given by an apprentice to his comrades at which the bird formed the staple food.

A keepsake was often printed to commemorate the occasion. It could be printed ahead of time, or the printing could form part of the evening's activities.

Bookbinders believe that Wayzgoose was held on St Bartholomews day (Aug 24), because he was the patron saint of leather workers. Printing had begun to make books, and it was no coincidence that on August 24th 1456 - The printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed, perhaps triggering the very first wayzgoose party at Fust–Schöffer shop in Mainz.

The holiday, a break in printing, was traditionally also the day that papermakers took a break from making paper for the printers, and used up the last of the pulp to made paper for windows. Waxed paper being the traditional material for the yeoman class before glass, and after this was done, the pulp vats would be cleaned out for the new fibre, made from rags collected in the spring, and retted (prepared by rotting) over the summer.

The paper windows were fitted on St. Martin's Day (November 11). Just as the saint had supposedly cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm - So yeoman farmers would give off cuts of the windows to the poor, to help them keep warm during the coming winter.

Parchment was the original medieval material for keeping northern homes warm, who could not afford glass for the windows. Of course the patron saint of parchment makers was the same St Bartholomew. With Paper replacing parchment, the name of the traditional Martinmas party, the Wayzgoose, was probably transferred to both papermakers and printers' parties.

Contemporary Uses

In 1928 poet Roy Campbell wrote a satirical poem entitled The Wayzgoose.

Wharfedale Wayzgoose is also the name of a Border Morris side from Otley, West Yorkshire, a town renowned for the development of the wharfedale printing press.

The University of California, Irvine's student government (ASUCI) hosts a medieval fair called Wayzgoose every April in conjunction with an open house event known as Celebrate UCI.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts, a contemporary art center preserving traditional printing and bookmaking crafts, celebrates an annual Wayzgoose in appreciation of its donors and members.

References

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Wayzgoose.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Yale University Library article on Wayzgoose