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| It's that time again!!! Welcome to Tudor Trivia Tuesday!!! |
The items in the Shrove Tuesday Edition are taken from Brand's Popular Antiquities and Strutt's Sports and Pastimes.
1) Among the sports of Shrove Tuesday, cock-fighting and throwing at cocks appear almost everywhere to have prevailed. [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
2) Carpentier, under the year 1355, mentions a petition of the scholars to the master of the school of Ramera to give them a cock, which they asserted the said master owed them upon Shrove Tuesday, to throw sticks at, according to the usual custom, for their sport and entertainment. [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
3) Throwing at cocks was a very popular diversion, especially among the younger parts of the community. Sir Thomas Moore, who wrote in the sixteenth century, describing the state of childhood, speaks of his skill in casting a cokstele, that is, a stick or cudgel to throw at a cock. It was universally practised upon Shrove-Tuesday. If the poor bird by chance had its legs broken, or was otherwise so lamed as not to be able to stand, the barbarous owners were wont to support it with sticks, in order to prolong the pleasure received from the reiteration of its torment. [Strutt's Sports & Pastimes.]
4) There were maskings on Shrove Monday and Shrove Tuesday, 1 521, at Greenwich, in which the king took part ; and he also played his share in several maskings both at Greenwich and York Place in the following year. [Strutt's Sports & Pastimes]
5) In Blomefield’s Norfolk we read that among the Records of the City of Norwich mention is made of one John Gladman, “who was ever, and at thys our is a man of sad disposition, and trewe and feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte as hath ben acustomed in ony Cite or Burgh thorowe alle this reame, on Tuesday in the last ende of Cristemesse [1440], viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with hys neyghbours, havyng his hors trappyd [horse draped] with tynnsoyle [tinsel] and other nyse disgisy [disguisy] things, corroned [crowned] as Kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson should end with the twelve monethes of the yere, aforn hym went yche moneth dysguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton clad in whyte and red heryngs skinns and his hors trappyd with oystershells after him, in token that sadnesse shuld folowe and an holy tyme, and so rode in divers stretis of the Cite with other people with hym disguysed, makvng myrth, disportes, and plays, &c.” [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
6) In the preface to Hearne’s edition of Thomas Otterbourne he tells us that this custom of throwing at cocks must be traced to the time of King Henry V., and our victories then gained over the French, whose name in Latin is synonymous with that of a cock, and that our brave countrymen hinted by it that they could as easily, at any time, overthrow the Gallic armies as they could knock down the cocks on Shrove Tuesday. To those who are satisfied with Hearne’s explication of the custom we must object that from the very best authorities it appears also to have been practised in France, and that, too, long before the reign of our Henry V. [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
7) Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, thus describes the Jovial Carneval:
“ Every man cries Sciolta, letting himself loose to the maddest of merriments, marching wildly up and down in all forms of disguises ; each man striving to outgo other in strange pranks of humorous debauchedness, in which even those of the holy order are wont to be allowed their share; for howsoever it was by some sullen authority forbidden to Clerks, and Votaries of any kind, to go masked and misguised in those seemingly abusive solemnities, yet more favourable construction hath offered to make them believe that it was chiefly for their sakes, for the refreshment of their sadder and more restrained spirits, that this free and lawless Festivity was taken up.” [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
8) Fitzstephen, as cited by Stow, informs us that anciently on Shrove Tuesday the schoolboys used to bring cocks of the game, now called game-cocks, to their master, and to delight themselves in cockfighting all the forenoon. “ After dinner,” he continues, “ all the youths go into the fields, to play at the Ball. [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
9) The Status Scholae Etonensis, A.D. 1560, mentions a custom of that school on Shrove Tuesday, of the boys being allowed to play from eight o’clock for the whole day, and of the cook’s coming and fastening a pancake to a crow, which the young crows are calling upon, near it, at the school-door. The crows generally have hatched their young at this season. [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
10) Shakespeare alludes to this well-known custom of having pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in the following string of comparisons put into the mouth of the clown in All’s Well that Ends Well: “ As fit— as Tib’s rush for Tim’s forefinger, as a Pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a Morris for May-day,” &c. [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
11) In some places, on this Pancake Tuesday, she that is noted for lying a-bed long, or any other miscarriage, hath the first Pancake presented to her, which most commonly falls to the dog’s share at last, for no one will own it their due. [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
“ Maids, Fritters and Pancakes, ynow see ye make,
Let Slut have one Pancake for company’s sake.” [Brand's Popular Antiquities]
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