The religious observance of Christmas in the Middle Ages was accompanied by different events: tropes, liturgical dramas or mysteries and Christmas carols, which eventually developed into modern crèches.
Like the apocryphal Gospels, Jacques de Voragine's Légende dorée (Golden Legend), written in the XIIIth century, helped to spread legends and anecdotal accounts of the birth and childhood of Christ. Other popular celebrations like the Festival of the Madmen recall pre-Christian cults.