NEVER MIND THE PANCAKES...

...Shrove Tuesday medieval style is about poultry fights and football

It’s Shrove Tuesday today - the last day before Lent begins. And sure, I’ll make a pancake later, if I have to. But if we were doing things properly today - by which I mean in a traditional, medieval fashion - we’d be up to far more than just flipping hot batter in the pan and scraping the last skid-trails of Nutella from the jar at the back of the pantry.

From fighting cockerels to beating up your school-teacher, here are the most authentic ways to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, medieval style.

1. CONFESS!

As far as we can tell, Shrove Tuesday has been a thing for at least a thousand years. The name comes from the practice of being shriven - confessed and absolved - by a priest on the day before the Lenten fast comes in: there are ecclesiastical records from around the turn of the first millennium which tell us as much.

‘In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear… what [penance] he is to do,’ was the advice of one ecclesiastical handbook.

Lent, of course, was the perfect time to do one’s penance during a communal 40 days of self-denial.

2. TORTURE POULTRY

Before you let anyone tell you that kids these days are out of control, hear this from 12th-century cleric William FitzStephen, an associate of Thomas Becket who is today best known for his vivid description of London in the early Plantagenet years.

According to FitzStephen, Shrove Tuesday was a day for schoolboys to ‘bring fighting cocks to their master, and the whole morning is given up to boyish sport; for they have a holiday in the schools that they may watch their cocks do battle.’ Another fun medieval game to play with cockerels was to bury them in the ground so only their heads stuck out, and then throw sticks at them.

Sad emoji, hen emoji, sad emoji, all the way down.

3. PLAY FOOTBALL

Fighting with roosters was only the half of things. The afternoon of a medieval Shrove Tuesday was given over to another bloodsport: football.

Here’s FitzStephen again: ‘After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ball game. The students of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens come on horseback to watch their juniors competing, and to relive their own youth vicariously: you can see their inner passions aroused as they watch the action and get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents.’

Medieval football was notoriously violent, as was supporting it. Today this proud tradition continues among British football fans, under the guise of organised hooliganism, and it can be done on any day of the year, in any country you like - until the police take your passport away, at any rate.

4. STAGE A REBELLION

…actually, that’s not quite true. The time for full-blown medieval rebellion tended to be the summer - but on Shrove Tuesday there was a minor tradition of schoolchildren kicking their teachers out of the classroom. Think Malcolm McDowell in If…, stick them all in cloaks and tunics, and you’re halfway there.

In ‘The Culture of Children in Medieval England’ by Nicholas Orme (Past & Present, 148, 1995), the author quotes a Latin poem idealising such a schoolroom insurrection. Here’s Orme’s translation:

Before the end of term we carry a stick. We are going to beat the usher's [deputy master's] head! If the master asks us where we are going, we reply to him briefly, "That's not for you to know".

Orme points out that this may have not actually happened very much, but the idea is kind of fun.

5. SURE, MAKE A PANCAKE, IF YOU MUST

Not striiiictly medieval, as it dates from around the sixteenth century. But making pancakes is indeed an old tradition, and supposedly was to begin when the church bells began striking at midday.

As I write to you now it is just after 5.30pm, so I’m going to go and splatter some batter all over the kitchen, as the lady above appears to be doing. There’s quite a lot going on in this picture. I’ll leave you to parse it yourselves.