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Nicholas Masquerades in The Netherlands. Thedisappearance of a folk custom during Saint Nicholas’ season between 1875 and 1940
Nowadays the Dutch feast of Saint Nicholas is celebrated in a domestic setting, where family members gather together for an evening to gift each other presents, but this wasn’t always the case. Since centuries there have been descriptions of figures dressed up as terrifying individuals named Saint Nicholas, though they were nothing like the Catholic saint, visiting houses to scare children. Furthermore groups of people roaming the streets were commonly seen, disguised in peculiar clothes with their faces painted black. Between approximately 1875 and 1950 these olden ways of celebrating Saint Nicholas’ feast started to disappear, caused by a complex interplay of factors arising from the process of modernization, This article offers an in depth view on the aspects that played a role in the disappearance of the masquerades.