Medieval Easter Celebrations
An Important Feast on the Church Calendar in the Middle Ages
Mar 11, 2008
Many Christians nowadays would point to Christmas as the principal festival in the church year. In medieval times, Easter was seen as equally important and was one of the most exciting and memorable days of the year.
Lent – the Preparation for Easter
For medieval Christians, Easter was particularly enjoyable because it came after six weeks of hard fasting and abstinence. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, when churchgoers were marked with ashes, Lent was a time when everyone, rich and poor, was expected to forgo many everyday pleasures.
The emphasis was on sacrifice and even commonplace foods such as eggs and meat had to be saved until the Easter celebrations. Eggs laid during the Lenten period were hardboiled to preserve them, a tradition which continues today in the painting of hardboiled eggs.
The Lenten observances came to a climax during Holy Week, the week before Easter. There were daily church services, but thoughts of Easter applied also to everyday life, with an old tradition forbidding anyone to use nails or iron tools on Good Friday, to commemorate Jesus on the cross.
Good Friday was the day for the ceremony of ‘creeping to the cross’, when churchgoers would approach the crucifix on bended knee, or barefoot.
Medieval Easter Day Rituals and Traditions
The dawning of Easter Day was special and memorable for medieval people, with many gathering before dawn to watch the sun rise. Members of each parish would stand near the parish church and sing hymns as the sun slowly rose and church bells rang out. After greeting the first rays, they would be led to church by the parish priest, singing hymns of joy as they went.
As well as the church’s celebrations, Easter Day was a day for pleasure and fun after six weeks of fasting. Anyone who could afford it, would wear a new set of clothes on Easter Sunday. For many, this could be the only time of year they got a new item of clothing.
Children were involved in the fun, with parents hiding hard boiled eggs as a symbol of the apostles finding the risen Christ in the tomb, and there would be egg rolling and parades.
For many, the main thing to look forward to was that Easter Sunday was one of the few days in the year when no one had to work. It was traditional for servants to present their lord with a small gift, perhaps a dish of food or a new-born animal, and in return, the lord would provide a feast for his servants and their families.
For the wealthier sections of society, the Medieval Easter Court was a time to re-establish friendships, cement business relationships and join their peers at a sumptuous feast, a feast which contained all the foods which had been banned during Lent.
After Easter Day
The fun didn’t stop after Easter Sunday. Hock Monday and Hock Tuesday were a chance for the younger people of a town or village to release their high spirits after weeks of fasting. Hock Monday was the day when girls could capture the boys of the area, releasing them only on payment of a donation to church funds. Tuesday was the turn of the boys to capture any girls they saw passing by.
These rituals and celebrations were followed year after year in Christian countries, with each district or country putting its own personal flavor on proceedings, ensuring that the festivities were a real high point in the medieval calendar.
Source
Lacey, Robert & Danziger, Danny. The Year 1000 [Little Brown and Company, 1999]
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