- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements and Note
- List of Plates
- List of Maps
- Figure
- 1 The Origins of Christmas
- 2 The Twelve Days
- 3 The Trials of Christmas
- 4 Rites of Celebration and Reassurance
- 5 Rites of Purification and Blessing
- 6 Rites of Hospitality and Charity
- 7 Mummers' Play and Sword Dance
- 8 Hobby-Horse and Horn Dance
- 9 Misrule
- 10 The Reinvention of Christmas
- 11 Speeding the Plough
- 12 Brigid's Night<sup>*</sup>
- 13 Candlemas
- 14 Valentines
- 15 Shrovetide
- 16 Lent
- 17 The Origins of Easter
- 18 Holy Week
- 19 An Egg at Easter
- 20 The Easter Holidays
- 21 England and St George
- 22 Beltane
- 23 The May
- 24 May Games and Whitsun Ales
- 25 Morris and Marian
- 26 Rogationtide and Pentecost
- 27 Royal Oak
- 28 A Merrie May
- 29 Corpus Christi
- 30 The Midsummer Fires
- 31 Sheep, Hay, and Rushes
- 32 First Fruits
- 33 Harvest Home
- 34 Wakes, Revels, and Hoppings
- 35 Samhain
- 36 Saints and Souls
- 37 The Modern Hallowe'en
- 38 Blood Month and Virgin Queen
- 35 Gunpowder Treason
- 40 Conclusions
- Index
Shrovetide
Shrovetide
- Chapter:
- (p.151) 15 Shrovetide
- Source:
- The Stations of the Sun
- Author(s):
Ronald Hutton
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Either before or after St Valentine's Day fell a much bigger and more general festival. It began on ‘Shrove Sunday’, the seventh before Easter, continued on ‘Collop Monday’, and reached its climax on ‘Shrove Tuesday’. Its origins lay in the early Middle Ages, along with those of the long fast of Lent, which it directly preceded and which thus created it. The peculiar febrility of Shrovetide sprang from two causes. The first was that it was a last opportunity for fun before the dietary, recreational, and sexual restrictions of Lent set in. The second was that, by this season, stocks of food would have been low for many people in any case and privation considerable, so that an opportunity for the frenetic release of emotion would have been very welcome.
Keywords: St Valentine's Day, Shrove Sunday, Easter, Collop Monday, Shrove Tuesday, Lent, Shrovetide, privation
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements and Note
- List of Plates
- List of Maps
- Figure
- 1 The Origins of Christmas
- 2 The Twelve Days
- 3 The Trials of Christmas
- 4 Rites of Celebration and Reassurance
- 5 Rites of Purification and Blessing
- 6 Rites of Hospitality and Charity
- 7 Mummers' Play and Sword Dance
- 8 Hobby-Horse and Horn Dance
- 9 Misrule
- 10 The Reinvention of Christmas
- 11 Speeding the Plough
- 12 Brigid's Night<sup>*</sup>
- 13 Candlemas
- 14 Valentines
- 15 Shrovetide
- 16 Lent
- 17 The Origins of Easter
- 18 Holy Week
- 19 An Egg at Easter
- 20 The Easter Holidays
- 21 England and St George
- 22 Beltane
- 23 The May
- 24 May Games and Whitsun Ales
- 25 Morris and Marian
- 26 Rogationtide and Pentecost
- 27 Royal Oak
- 28 A Merrie May
- 29 Corpus Christi
- 30 The Midsummer Fires
- 31 Sheep, Hay, and Rushes
- 32 First Fruits
- 33 Harvest Home
- 34 Wakes, Revels, and Hoppings
- 35 Samhain
- 36 Saints and Souls
- 37 The Modern Hallowe'en
- 38 Blood Month and Virgin Queen
- 35 Gunpowder Treason
- 40 Conclusions
- Index