This section of the website shares aspects of my doctoral research on ‘premodern’ Shrovetide, meaning it covers the history of the festival prior to c.1750 in England, Wales and Scotland (and sometimes Ireland). The present webpage gives an introductory overview of the subject, and many of my blog posts discuss specific episodes or topics from Carnival history as well.

Carnival and Shrovetide

When I say Carnival I mean it in its oldest sense as a proper noun, hence the capital ‘C’. Uppercase Carnival was and remains the season of festivity preceding the great Christian fast of Lent, referring etymologically to the giving up of meat (carne) in that penitential season. It was originally celebrated in medieval and early modern Europe, but was brought (with the rest of the Christian calendar) to the Americas (and elsewhere) through exploration and colonisation. From there it was adapted by native, African and Caribbean peoples, so that it is now a festival celebrated in endless variations around the world.

Nowadays, the noun ‘carnival’ (lowercase) usually refers to public celebrations in a general sense. At a baseline, carnivals are colorful, loud and musical, but in many cases they also involve processions, satire, costuming and debauchery (to a greater or lesser extent). In this way, lowercase carnival relates to (and ultimately derives from) uppercase Carnival, but the two are technically separate. Lowercase carnival only developed as a detached concept (i.e. celebrations which are Carnival-like) over the last four centuries, and in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th century especially.

When discussing the medieval and early modern period, it’s best to leave lowercase carnival out of it, since it really is an anachronism. When Brits started using the word Carnival in the early modern period, they did so almost invariably in reference to the pre-Lenten celebration, and they held it analogous to native English terms such as Shrovetide, Fasting’s Eve, and Goodtide, used respectively (but roughly) in the south, north and middle of the island.

The latter three names encapsulate the competing natures of the festival. On the eve of Lenten fasting, Carnival attracted like a magnet all manner of things which would be forbidden in the weeks to come, including meat, dairy, sex, marriage, violence and play in general. Before the Reformation, it was also a time to prepare oneself spiritually for the coming penitential season through confession. Thus, Shrovetide refers to a time to confess (to shrive), while Goodtide literally means ‘good time’. Shrovetide eventually won out as the preferred term, but this had more to do with the linguistic hegemony of  southern England than some triumph of British austerity. Suggestive of this, by the sixteenth century ‘shroving’ was being used as verb for carousing during Shrovetide (not confessing). Although English and Scottish Reformations did away with confession, and loosened some of the Lenten restrictions, the yearly ban on meat remained in effect until the end of the seventeenth century, and the season’s spiritual purpose never fully dissipated. Shrovetide and Shrove Tuesday therefore endured as rich counterpoints to Lenten austerity in Britain, replete with a smorgasbord of playful customs.

Customs of Shrovetide

For our medieval and early modern forebears, Shrove Tuesday was about more than just pancakes. While these fried treats were an essential ingredient of the British holiday (documented as early as the 13th century), premodern Brits also marked this last festival before the fasting season of Lent with customs ranging from feasting and football, to revelry and riot. Looking closer at some of these customs and traditions allows us to explore what the festival meant to our ancestors, and how customs were used to express ideas or even bring about change in their day-to-day lives.

Feasting

With its placement on the eve of the dietary restrictions of Lent, Shrove Tuesday was first and foremost a feasting holiday. The day before Lent was the finale of a festive series of days known collectively as Shrovetide, and all levels of society, from kings and queens to lowly apprentices, partook in the savoury pleasures of Egg Saturday, Collop  Monday (collop meaning a cooked cut of meat) and Pancake Tuesday. From the first extant household dietary accounts in the thirteenth century on through the early modern period, records show that elite and royal expenditures on Shrovetide food and drink typically ranked only behind the expenses for the Twelve Days of Christmas. At these banquets, all manner of dairy, meat and poultry graced the tables, and the wine, beer and ale flowed in vast quantities. Beyond hospitality, nourishment, and fun, the feasts provided opportunities for socializing, political posturing, and fundraising.

The image above is of a manuscript account originally compiled in the early 13th century for the household of Bristol Castle. It records the daily dietary expenses of the resident nobles, and can reveal what they were eating on Pancake Day nearly 800 years ago. On 3 March, 1226 (Shrove Tuesday), the household of Eleanor of Brittany, a noblewoman being held prisoner in Bristol Castle at the time, dined on beer, bread, poultry, eggs, bacon, beef, and goat. While all of these were fairly typical provisions for an elite medieval diet, the household also purchased pastelli (pastries) and sagimen (fat) on the day, presumably to mark the occasion of Fat Tuesday.

For more on Shrovetide feasting, check out these blog posts.

The Politics of Pancakes

‘Forget not the feasts that belong to the plough’: Festive Work Relations in Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry

Carnival Countdown: Shrovetide Sots in the Southwest

Sports

Shrove Tuesday was also the most-favoured day of the year to play football. Young people and workers were traditionally given a half or whole day free from school or work to celebrate and let off steam before Lent began. People took advantage of the holiday to engage in sports and games. We have records from as early as 12th century London of Shrove Tuesday football in the fields outside the city walls. But this was not just popular in the capital: cities, towns and villages throughout the British Isles organised Shrove Tuesday matches. These weren’t your ordinary kick-abouts; they involved dozens if not hundreds of participants running, kicking and fighting over the football in the streets and fields of the community. Teams for this communal game (or mob football as it was sometimes known) usually pitted opposites against each other- townspeople versus country folk, married men versus bachelors, upriver versus downriver, or village vs village. Although it was viewed as a masculine game by contemporaries, the whole community would show up to watch and in some areas the young women would play their own game of stool-ball instead. Due to the large crowds and violent nature of mob football, it was not always a favourite of authorities and magistrates. During the 19th century most Shrove Tuesday football matches were outlawed and suppressed by officials, while football itself was organised and codified into the modern sports of rugby and association football. Today, communal football matches only survive in a handful of small towns in England and Scotland, but in their survival these centuries-old traditions preserve Shrove Tuesday as a true National Day of Football.

While Shrovetide football could be a violent sport, it was nothing compared to the brutal animal blood-sports which were traditionally pursued during the festival. These included cock-fighting, bear and bull-baiting, and more outlandish games like dog tossing,  ‘hen threshing’ or ‘cock throwing’. This last involved tying a cockerel or hen to a stake in the ground and taking turns throwing sticks and cudgels at it until it was killed. The victor won the poor poultry and sometimes a monetary reward. We have records from Bristol of attempts to ban these sports in the mid 17th century. One precept issued by the Lord Mayor of Bristol on Shrove Tuesday, 6 March 1660 ordered revelers not to ‘throw at any cock or hen or tosse any doggs or play at footeball within this Citty…’ The young men of Bristol did not take kindly to this prohibition of their ‘ancient privileges and pastimes’, as the section below on Shrovetide rioting explains.

For more on Shrovetide sports, see these blog posts:

Common Wealth Games: Civic Shrove Tuesday Football in Medieval and Early Modern Britain

Kings of the School: Britain’s Carnival Monarchs and Social Inversion

Carnival Countdown: Shrove Tuesday Sports in 12th Century London

Revelry 

Shrove Tuesday was not just a festival of food and football. It was also a time for revels, such as spectacles, pageants, banquets, plays, dances, and martial displays. The wide variety of entertainment fell under the umbrella term of ‘revelry’, but all of it could be considered performance to some degree. This aspect of ‘performance’ was especially significant in elite society, where every action taken or word spoken was calculated and could gain or lose one power and position. While all levels of society enjoyed revelry during festivals like Shrovetide, nowhere was the scale larger, or the political and social stakes higher, than at the royal court. By jousting in tournaments, staging allegorical masques, or selectively inviting ambassadors to banquets, courtiers could exchange social, religious, and political ideas while remaining under the guise of holiday entertainment.

For more on Shrovetide revelry, check out these blog posts:

Coronations and the Festive Calendar in Medieval and Early Modern England

Carnival Countdown: Season of Love, Lust & Marriage

Riot

While Shrovetide was a prime time for revelry, over the course of the seventeenth century it also became associated with violent riot and insurrection. Between 1598 and 1695 there were over 50 instances of Shrovetide riot or the threat of such in various cities throughout England. In early Stuart London (1603-1642) the riots became an almost annual tradition as rioters attacked brothels, playhouses, prisons and other targets in the suburbs of the city. Shrovetide riots later developed into tools of protest, especially in Bristol during the turbulent years of the Republic and Protectorate. See the early modern map of Bristol below to explore these Bristolian bouts of festive insurrection.