Maundy Thursday is the day before Good Friday and marks the end of the season of Lent. The word ‘Maundy’ comes from the Latin ‘mandatum novum’ which refers to Christ’s new commandment ‘to love one another’. This is the day of the Last Supper and the washing of the disciples' feet by Jesus.
Christian Churches and heads of state have been observing the solemnity of Maundy Thursday since the 4th century. The day was ritualised by washing the feet of a small number of poor people, as well as handing out money, clothes and food. The first English monarch to hand out alms on Maundy Thursday was King John, who wanted to express his piety after having been excommunicated by the pope. In 1210, he presented money and clothes to 13 poor men; the number symbolising Christ and the apostles. In 1363 during his 50th year, King Edward III was the first to give the exact number of alms to the poor that corresponded to his age. In the year that Elizabeth I turned 39 years old, she washed one foot of 39 women (whose feet had already been washed beforehand!) and kissed their toes. Afterwards she gave them shoes, cloth, claret, fish, bread, an apron and two bags of money. One of the bags was white with 39p and the other was red with 20s. However, we do not know how the recipients were chosen. The gifting of coins made of sterling silver began in Tudor times and during the reign of Charles II, specially minted Maundy money of a fourpenny, threepenny, two penny and one penny pieces became the custom. A Maundy set still consists of four small silver coins and is worth much more than their face value. Royal enthusiasm for washing the feet of the poor dwindled over the years and today only the charitable gesture of four silver coins still remains. However, the washing of feet still takes place in many churches around the world.
In Ireland, butchers would hold a mock funeral for a fish, specifically herring. Butchers suffered a loss of income during Lent because eating meat was forbidden and to express their frustration, they hung a herring on a nine foot wooden pole (a lath) and in a procession walked through the town beating it to shreds. The remains of the herring were thrown into a river and replaced with a piece of lamb that was decorated with ribbons and flowers. Butchers and slaughterhouse workers taking part in the procession collected donations from people for the loss of their wages. A donkey with a cloth on its back, painted with a cross, also took part in the procession. As you can imagine, people were extremely fed up from eating fish for weeks on end and consequently the herring received a good bashing.
Today was also known as Gruel Thursday, where it was customary on the west coast of Scotland and the Scottish Isles to make an offering of mead, ale or gruel to the sea. There was a strong belief that if the sea was offered ‘fruit’ from the land, then the sea would return this gesture with its ‘fruit’ of seaweed. At midnight, as Wednesday merged into Thursday, a man walked into the sea up to his waist and poured the offering into the waves while chanting,
‘O God of the Sea, put weed in the drawing wave to enrich the ground to shower on us food!’
Others stood behind him continuing the chant in the cold morning air. On the Isle of Lewis, this custom from an ancient pre-Christian rite, continued up until the 1800s. Alexander Carmichael who compiled the ‘Carmina Gadelica’ (a collection of Gaelic poems, prayers, charms and more) wrote that in 1860 he spoke to a middle aged man whose father participated in the ceremony when he was a boy.
In Marian F. NcNeill’s book ‘A Calendar Of Scottish National Festivals Volume 2’, she writes, “There was a winter,” it is recorded, “during which little seaweed came ashore, and full time for spring work had come without relief. A large dish of porridge, made with butter and other ingredients, was poured into the sea on every headland where wrack used to come. Next day the harbours were full.”
Seaweed has been used as a fertiliser for thousands of years and was even fed to livestock. It played a vital role in the survival of our ancestors who lived along the coastline.
Other names for Maundy Thursday were Shear Thursday or Sharp Thursday, when men would cut their hair and trim their beards; possibly because they had not done so for the whole of the Lenten season. Being the last day of Lent, it might have been viewed symbolically as a personal renewal. In Ireland, it was believed that cutting hair today kept away headaches throughout the coming year. Nails were also cut.
Church altars were stripped of their Lenten cloths after today’s service and washed down with water and wine. This purification ritual ended with the altar being scrubbed with birch besoms. The only greenery that was left in a church was yew, as it was seen as a symbol of mourning. Traditionally, food eaten today consisted of lamb with bread but no potatoes.
After Maundy Thursday comes Good Friday, Holy Friday or Long Friday, after the Anglo Saxon ‘langa frigadaeg’, a name that reflects the sombre mood of the day as well as the very long church service commemorating the crucifixion of Christ. Many people went to church in the morning barefooted, especially men and children, so as not to ‘disturb’ the earth. As for women and girls, they wore their hair down as a sign of mourning. At three o’clock in the afternoon, silence was observed and people gathered in prayer as church bells tolled at the hour of Christ’s death.
After morning mass at St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, London, twenty one poor widows over the age of sixty, received sixpence under the terms of a bequest that was made in the 1600s. The money was placed on a tombstone in the churchyard together with twenty one Hot Cross Buns. Each widow had to kneel by the designated gravestone (most likely the grave of the person who had made the charitable bequest) and pick up her sixpence. She was then given the Hot Cross Bun and some more money.
On Good Friday morning, some children would carry a straw figure dressed in men’s clothes and wearing a comical mask. The figure represented Judas Iscariot and looked very similar to a Guy Fawkes’ effigy. Tied to a long pole, the children held it up to the first floor of people’s homes and knocked on the window with it, while shouting that Judas was short of a penny for his breakfast. The householders would have to open the window and throw out some coins otherwise the children would not leave them alone. After they had collected all the money they could, they piled pieces of wood, collected over the past few weeks, in the middle of the street for burning the effigy. While the fire burned the children danced and shouted around it. A policeman would quickly turn up to put the flames out and take Judas back to the police station with the disappointed children running behind him. It was customary to light these fires at 11am and to have them extinguished by midday. This tradition died out in the 1970s. In her book ‘English Traditional Customs’, Christina Hole believes that this tradition is a relic of the old custom of driving out winter which was a widespread European tradition that comprised of burning a ‘scapegoat’ effigy that represented winter.
Today in Abbotsbury, Dorset, people made furmitty. This dish was made by soaking wheat in water for a couple of days after which the exterior of the wheat rises to the top, separating from the middle part. The corn is then put in the oven to ferment for two to three hours. After this, it is mixed with milk, sugar, currants, raisins, sultanas and nutmeg and boiled into a pudding.
Hot Cross Buns were freshly baked today and eaten for breakfast. It was thought that Hot Cross Buns baked on Good Friday morning never went mouldy and also possessed healing powers. In some villages, people dried the buns in the oven and hung them up from the kitchen ceiling until they needed them. When someone became ill, the buns were finely grated and added to water or milk to be taken like a medicine. Sick cattle could receive the same treatment as well. Hot Cross Buns are made with spices and currants and decorated with a cross. Bread that was baked today was also dried out and kept as a cure-all. When needed it was added to milk or cider and the cross stopped it going mouldy too. Hanging the Good Friday bread in the kitchen kept evil away and blessed the household with happiness and good health. However, for this to happen it needed to be made from the same dough as today’s sacramental bread.
‘Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, Hot cross buns! If you have no daughters, Give them to your sons. One a penny, two a penny, Hot cross buns!’ This children's nursery rhyme was once a street seller's cry.
The Greeks, Romans and Egyptians all had buns with a cross etched on the top which was traditionally cut or pricked out with a pin. Nowadays, they have thick pastry bands instead. Hot Cross Buns were thought to bring prosperity and were especially lucky for sailors.
There was a woman living in Yorkshire, who kept her Good Friday bread in a tin as she believed that it brought good luck to her family for the whole year. The following year on Easter Day, she would moisten and re-bake the bread once she had replaced it with a fresh loaf. The person who was given the piece of bread that had the cross on it was especially blessed and the end slice was thrown into the river Ouse as a charm to protect her neighbourhood from flooding. In Northamptonshire, it was seen as unlucky to bake on Good Friday.
In Lancashire, Easter cakes were traditionally enjoyed on Good Friday. The cake was eaten with the evening meal and was made from dried fruit, bread, ale and nutmeg. The cake mix was boiled into a thick soup and eaten hot. Some people believed it was lucky to eat Mince Pies that had been saved since Christmas!
For most people, Holy Friday was a day of mourning and it was seen as wrong to work today. No wood was chopped or burned, no nail was hammered and no animal was slaughtered. All London shops were closed and no one worked. Women refused to do the washing because soapy water was believed to turn to blood and fishermen refused to go to sea, foraging for seaweed and shellfish instead. Due to there always being a full moon during Holy Week, there is inevitably plenty to forage on the shoreline (Easter Sunday always comes after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox). Farm workers had the day off today as long as they went to church in the morning. Blacksmiths did not work as it was a blacksmith that made the nails that pinned Jesus to the cross and no one touched anything made of iron.
The Irish ate nothing until midday and when they did it was only a little water and bread. There was no large scale agricultural work done today apart from a small amount of potato or grain planting because it was believed that these crops would be blessed. Also Satan was unable to tamper with the soil on Good Friday.
Family graves, holy wells and shrines were visited and water collected from a holy well today was extra potent.
For other folk, Holy Friday was a day of merriment. People living in Hove, East Sussex, spent the day at an ancient burial mound just outside the town to play games. Sadly, the tumulus has long been razed to the ground. In the north of England, people rolled oranges (much like the tradition of Pace Egging) down hills to symbolise the rolling away of Jesus’ tomb stone. The only other place further south to practice this custom was Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire.
Good Friday skipping was a traditional springtime sport with women skipping and men holding the long ropes, which were usually clothes lines, so that more than one person could skip at the same time. It was a morning activity which ended at midday and was known as Long Rope Day in Sussex and Cambridgeshire. Skipping died out at the turn of the Second World War. Good Friday was the last day of the marble playing season.
In Tenby, Pembrokeshire, young people weaved a human shaped figure out of reeds which they hid along with a wooden cross in a field or garden. This unique custom called ‘Christ's Bed’ was only found in Tenby.
There are many superstitions associated with Good Friday. Here are a few more of them.
No one moved home or started new projects today.
Cold wet weather was always expected today and seen as nature mourning.
It was unlucky to cut fingernails today as you would end up with a toothache.
Eggs that were laid today were lucky especially if you carried one with you while playing card games.
Eggs that hatched today would grow into healthy productive birds.
A child born today had the second sight, would never drown, be hung or frightened.
A child born today and baptised on Easter Sunday was destined to have an important position in the Church.
A person who died today and buried on Easter Sunday went straight to heaven.
Today was the only day to move bee hives.
Rowan branches in the home were a ward against evil today.
It was a lucky day to plant potatoes, beans and peas.
In the west of England it was considered lucky to break at least one piece of pottery on Good Friday, because the jagged edges were supposed to pierce the body of Judas.
“Rain on Good Friday or Easter Day, a good crop of grass but a bad one of hay.”
Holy Saturday, also known as Easter Vigil, commemorates the last day of Jesus’ death and descent into hell.
People made Easter baskets today out of a withy or osier willow bread basket to be filled up with Easter eggs.
Historically, the lighting of the ‘new fire’ took place during the Easter Vigil, between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Sunday. The newly kindled flame was lit from a kindling stone or flint and steel after which a blessing was said over it. The new flame was used to light the Paschal Candle to symbolise Christ’s passing from death to life. The ancient Celtic peoples had a very similar ritual where all fires were extinguished before a new flame was kindled at their festival of Bealtaine. A cinder from the Paschal Fire brought abundance and many blessings, and even prevented fire damage. Some people brought their own turf cinders to church to be blessed for this very reason.
Water from the local holy well was also blessed and was believed to be effective against illness and bad luck. Each family returned home afterwards with a small container of the water and everyone took three sips of it. The Easter water was then sprinkled with the aid of a yew branch onto each person as well as on the house, outbuildings, livestock and crops. Whatever water remained was put carefully away ready for future episodes of sickness and danger. It was believed that the holy water stayed fresh forever.
Happy Easter to those who celebrate and for those of you that don’t, wishing you all a relaxing long weekend, unless of course you are painting, gardening….. ;)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
English Traditional Customs by Christina Hole (1975)
Folklore And Customs Of Rural England by Margaret Baker (1975)
A Year Of Festivals by Geoffrey Palmer & Noel Lloyd (1972)
A Calendar Of Country Customs by Ralph Whitlock (1978)
Curious Country Customs by Jeremy Hobson (2007)
A Calendar Of Scottish National Festivals Volume 2 by F. Marian McNeill (1959)
The Year In Ireland by Kevin Danaher (1972) free on archive.org
Maypoles, Martyrs & Mayhem by Quentin Cooper and Paul Sullivan (1994)
The Stations Of The Sun by Ronald Hutton (1996)
The Celtic Calendar by Brian Day (2003)
A Dictionary Of British Folk Customs by Christina Hole (1976)
Winters In The World by Eleanor Parker (2022)
A Chronicle Of Folk Customs by Brian Day (1998)
Absolutely fascinating! Thank you so much. I learned such a lot from reading this and I appreciate the huge amount of work you have clearly put into it. A very happy Easter and/or long weekend to you x
I love all the little rituals, especially having to do with holy water from wells. I used to love skipping rope, it’s too bad that tradition died out. Thank you for such an interesting essay! Happy Easter!