Shrove Tuesday

“ Let prologue and verse speak for themselves.
"It was nearly midnight—the midnight that ends Shrove Tuesday and begins Ash Wednesday, dividing Carnival from Lent. I left the tables, where all the world of Rome was feasting, and pretending that the feast was the last of the year. The brilliant light flashed upon silver and gold, dyed itself in amber and purple wine, ran riot amongst jewels, and blazed upon many a fair face and snowy neck. The clocks were all stopped, lest some tinkling bell should warn men and women that the day of laughter was over, and that the hour of tears had struck. ”

“ SHROVE TUESDAY.
It is communicated to the Every-Day Book by a correspondent, Mr. R. N. B——, that at Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, the old curfew-bell, which was anciently rung in that town for the extinction and relighting of “all fire and candle light” still exists, and has from time immemorial been regularly rang on the morning of Shrove Tuesday at four o’clock, after which hour the inhabitants are at liberty to make and eat pancakes, until the bell rings again at eight o’clock at night. He says, that this custom is observed so closely, that after that hour not a pancake remains in the town. ”

“ The little devils are the apprentices, who, on two days of the year which prove fatal to them—Shrove Tuesday and the first of May—are so riotous and outrageous that, in a body three or four score thousand strong, they go committing excesses in every direction, killing human beings and demolishing houses. ”

“ So in Ben Jonson's "Epicæne," act i. sc. 1, it is said of Morose, "he would have hanged a pewterer's 'prentice on a Shrove Tuesday's riot, for being o' that trade, when the rest were quit."
On Shrove Tuesday in the County of Sussex (and I suppose in many others) apprentices are always permitted to visit their families or friends, to eat pancakes, &c. This practice is called shroving. "Apollo Shroving" is the name of an old comedy, written by a schoolmaster in Suffolk [William Hawkins] , to be performed by his scholars on Shrove Tuesday, Feb. ”

“ Shrove Tuesday is the very last day, allowed by our Holy Mother the Church for revelry, before the long austere forty days of Lent, and if we do not make use of her full permission to enjoy ourselves, to the full extent of out capacity, we shall have nothing left to atone for to-morrow, when the good fathers place the cross of ashes on our foreheads, and bid us remember that dust we are, to dust return. ”

“ An odd practice seems to prevail in some parts of Somersetshire, and also in Devonshire and Dorsetshire on Shrove Tuesday, which is locally nick-named Sharp Tuesday. The youngsters go about after dusk, and throw stones against people’s doors, by what is considered by them an indefeasible right. ”

“ Amazed at such an exhibition of unchecked violence, the stranger inquires the meaning of the scene, and learns that it is merely the customary way of celebrating in Funchal the day known as Shrove Tuesday, the people having from time immemorial {267} enjoyed an established license to indulge on that day in such rude practical jokes as are warranted by the usages of all carnival seasons. ”

“ Sometimes, especially at {37} Martinmas and on Shrove Tuesday, which are sacred in a peculiar manner to gluttony and drunkenness, they parade about the avenues leading to the bridge, some with long strings of partridges, hares, etc.; others jingling sacks full of half-crowns to tickle the ears of the gaping multitude; the poor dupes are ensnared, and, under the delusion that they are going to sit down to a sumptuous dinner, are in reality hastening to the slaughter-house. ”

“ In the west of Ireland nine-tenths of the marriages that take place among the peasantry are celebrated the week before Lent, and particularly on Shrove Tuesday, on which day the Roman Catholic priests have hard work to get through all their duties. On the first Sunday in Lent it is usual for the girls slyly to chalk the coats of those young men who have allowed the preceding festival to pass without having made their choice of a partner ”

“ Four young fellows carry a straw-man or one of their companions, and are followed by a funeral procession. A show is made of depositing the pretended corpse in the grave, after which the bystanders make believe to mourn, crying out in melancholy tones, “Ah! my poor little Shrove Tuesday!” The boy who played the part of Shrove Tuesday bears the name for the whole year.613 At Lesneven in Lower Brittany it was formerly the custom on Ash Wednesday to burn a [pg 230] straw-man, covered with rags, after he had been promenaded about the town. ”

“ It is no small confirmation of this theory that the last day of the Carnival, namely Shrove Tuesday, is still, or was down to recent times, the customary season in Central Europe for promoting the growth of the crops by means of leaps and dances.787 The custom fits in very well with the view which derives the Carnival from an old festival of sowing such as the Saturnalia probably was in its origin. ”

“ At Cobern in the Eifel Mountains the lads make up a straw-man on Shrove Tuesday. The effigy is formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have been committed in the neighbourhood throughout the year. Being condemned to death, the straw-man is led through the village, shot, and burned upon a pyre. They dance round the blazing pile, and the last bride must leap over it. In Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to make long bundles of straw, which they set on fire, and then ran about the fields waving them, shrieking, and singing wild songs. ”

“ Cock-fighting, and throwing at cocks on Shrove-Tuesday, and playing at hand-ball for tansy-cakes at Easter-tide, have been already mentioned, with other trifling sports which are comprised under their appropriate heads, and need not to be repeated; but, according to Stow, the week before Easter, "great shows were made by bringing a twisted tree, or with, as they termed it, into the king's palace, and into the houses of the nobility and gentry." ”

“ In some parts of Yorkshire any holiday is called Cobblers’ Monday. Collop Monday, in the north of England, is the Monday before Shrove Tuesday, so called in allusion to the dish of fried eggs and bacon, and slices of salted, dried meat, called collops, taken on that day preparatory to the Lenten fast. Plough Monday in England is the Monday after Twelfth Day, the first Monday after Epiphany, in allusion to the fact that in medieval times the ploughmen had their fête-day and went around the villages begging plough-money. ”

“ The celebration on Shrove Tuesday and the previous Sunday constituted a Christian Bacchanalian festival in which all classes joined. The greatest freedom and activity of physical movement was encouraged; "some go about naked without shame, some crawl on all fours, some on stilts, some imitate animals." ”

“ Brand, Pop. Antiq. (Ed. Hazlitt) , 1870, vol. i. p. 48.
Staffordshire.
In this county Shrove Tuesday goes by the name of Goodish Tuesday.—N. & Q. 2nd S. vol. v. p. 209.
Suffolk.
At Bury St. Edmund’s on Shrove Tuesday, Easter Monday, and the Whitsuntide festivals, twelve old women side off for a game at trap-and-ball, which is kept up with the greatest spirit and vigour until sunset. Afterwards they retire to their homes, where
“Voice, fiddle, or flute,
No longer is mute,”
and close the day with apportioned mirth and merriment.—Every Day Book, vol. ”

“ Every year also at Shrove-Tuesday, that we may begin with children's sports, seeing we have all been children, the schoolboys do bring the cocks of the game to their master, and all the forenoon they delight themselves in cock-fighting: after dinner all the youths go into the fields to play at the ball. ”

“ It appears from a very solemn address to the publick inserted in the Newspapers for 1762, that the brutal custom of throwing at Cocks on Shrove Tuesday was not then so uncommon as it happily is at present.
When we are passing through the streets of London, it but too frequently happens that our ears are offended by hearing shocking oaths, repeated with an emphasis which indicates violent irritation ”

“ On turning to Brand, who also cites the circumstance, it appears they were carried the Tuesday before Shrove Tuesday, and most probably were the unrecognised remains of the drest mawkin of the “Popish Kingdome,” carried about with various devices to represent the “death of good living,” and which our catholic neighbours continue. The Morning Chronicle of March the 10th, 1791, represents the peasantry of France carrying it at that time into the villages, collecting money for the “funeral,” and, “after sundry absurd mummeries,” committing the body to the earth. ”

“ Shrove-tide, in the calendar of Rome, is the Tuesday before Lent, a day on which many people gave themselves up to revelry and feasting, in anticipation of the forty days' fast. Shrove-tide accordingly is mounted on a fat ox, and his sword is sheathed in a pig and piece of meat, with capons and bottles of wine about his body. His flag, as we learn from the explanatory verses, is "a cooke's foule apron fix'd to a broome," and his helmet "a brasse pot." Lent, on the contrary, flings to the breeze a fishing-net, carries an angling-rod for a weapon, and wears upon his head "a boyling kettle." ”

“ Their sense of right will not move them: we must frighten them.” Then he would smile in his sweet, sad way and say something in the French which he explained to mean that folk cannot have pancakes without breaking eggs, and after that I never lifted a hammer to smash a frame but my mind went to Shrove Tuesday and I had a vision of Mary with sleeves rolled up and face flushed by the heat of the fire, her dress tucked between her knees, tossing pancakes up the big chimney, and catching them sissing as they fell with the browned side up into the spurting fat. ”

“ Here is the undoubted performance of what must have been an old custom, performed at one time by all the people of the town, being continued as an amusement of children. It was played at Evesham only on Easter Monday, and in three other places only on Shrove Tuesday, and another correspondent says played only on a special day. In other places where it is played the game is not connected with a special day or season. The circle dance does not always occur, and in some cases the children merely run under each other’s clasped hands while singing the words. ”

“ That females of rank and education should now frequent such savage scenes, seems so little within the scope of possibility that we can hardly credit their ever having done so, even in times that were comparatively barbarous."
Truly, as Charles Mathews says, "we are losing all our amusements." Then follow about thirty pages of Holiday Notices; a sort of running commentary on the Calendar. The spaces of the days, however, are sadly disproportioned. Shrove Tuesday occupies upwards of two pages; Good Friday and Easter are pruned into the same space ”

“ Shrove-Tuesday was considered by the apprentices as their particular holiday; and in the days of Shakespeare they considered it as their especial right to punish women of ill-fame, and to riot among the bawdy houses. Dekker, in The Seven Deadly Sins of London, says: "They presently (like prentices upon Shrove-Tuesday) take the law into their own hands and do what they list." And Sir Thomas Overbury, speaking of a bawd, remarks: " Nothing daunts her so much as the approach of Shrove-Tuesday." Says Ralph in The Knight of the Burning Pestle:—
"Farewell, all you good boys in merry London! ”

“ In 1316 the prior of Tywardreath, as lord of the manor, obtained the right to hold a Monday market and two fairs on the feasts of St Finbar and St Lucy, but by the charter of 1690 provision was made for a Saturday market and three fairs, on the 1st of May, 10th of September and Shrove Tuesday, and only these three continue to be held. ”

“ Of the pancake-bell which used to be rung on Shrove-Tuesday, Taylor, the Water Poet, has given us the following most singular account:—"Shrove-Tuesday, at whose entrance in the morning all the whole kingdom is unquiet, but by that time the clocke strikes eleven, which (by the help of a knavish sexton) is commonly before nine, then there is a bell rung, cal'd pancake-bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manners or humanitie." See his Works, folio, 1630. p. 115.
[143:B] —my wife's as all;] i. e. as all women are. Farmer. ”

“ Brotherhoods of the kind existed all over France. In Paris there were the Enfans sans Souci, the Basochiens, the Confrérie de la Passion and the Souverain Empire de Galilée; at Dijon there were the Mère Folle and her family; in Flanders the Société des Arbalétriers played comedies; at Rouen the Cornards or Conards yielded to none in vigour and fearlessness of satire. On Shrove Tuesday 1512 Gringoire, who was the accredited defender of the policy of Louis XII., and had already written many political poems, represented the Jeu du Prince des Sots et Mère Sotte. ”

“ Yet a word may be said to advantage concerning the omitted portion of the calendar. It is well for Americans to bear in mind that in this country to-day the days of the calendar are not nearly so familiar to the people at large as they are to Englishmen. New Year's Day, St. Valentine's Day, Easter, the Fourth of July, and a score of others would be known to every school child; yet many a person of education might pause over the location of Epiphany, or even Shrove-Tuesday, and how often would a book of names be called to the assistance when it is a question of St. ”

“ Then Tuesday led them in a lively dance, as light and graceful as an elfin sprite; and Wednesday twined beautiful wreaths of oak leaves for their hats, and daisy chains for their necks.
Thursday alone was cross and sullen, sulking by himself, because Monday gave so many berries to little Sunday, and he persisted in knocking off the heads of the flowers, and robbing the radiant butterflies of their wings, until tender-hearted Friday was almost in tears, and offered him a bright dime she had in her pocket if he would stop doing so ”