With Christmas, post-Christmas sales and Valentine's Day all behind us, it's time for the next season in the annual consumption calendar, so I wasn't surprised to see Easter Eggs on sale when I went grocery-shopping today. I do however, have a couple of questions for historically-minded readers.
First, while I know that it's traditional to have a day of excess at Mardi Gras, followed by forty days of feasting in Lent, and then another blowout at Easter, and that this festival of consumption follows an earlier Christian tradition, I have the feeling that there has been a subtle change somewhere along the line - can anyone tell me what it is?
Second, where does the name Lent come from? Is this considered a particularly auspicious time for adding to your consumer debt, or is that just a piece of folk etymology?
‘Lent’ is an old Anglo-Saxon word that means the season of Spring. As in Lent term at some old universities.
Incidentally, Lent is also home to another very old word, shrove, as in Shrove Tuesday (aka Mardi Gras). Shrove means a good time or a party. For years I thought it was a form of shrive which means to do penance or confess your sins (it survives in the phrase short shrift), and this seemed appropriate for the beginning of Lent, when you recall your mortality on Ash Wednesday. But in fact it means almost the opposite.
Forty days of fasting, not feasting.
As for the “subtle change” — to make a very long story short, Lent began as a period of training for catechumens and those who were to be reconciled to the Church, and later became a general period of fasting and penitence. The blowout on Shrove Tuesday is effectively an accident — it’s not a Church festival so much as it was the last day for getting rid of foodstuffs which wouldn’t be allowed during Lent (except on Sundays. which are not fast days even in Lent).
The name is peculiar to English as applied to the period in the Church year (the Latin is “Quadragesima”, for “forty”, the French is “carême”, etc.). “Lent” is derived from “Lenten”, which refers to the Spring (and has only this vernal meaning in cognate languages) and may originally be related to lengthening days.
Lent is probably the most common festival amongst ancient tribes. I know the Celts celebrated the beginning of spring, the germanics did it, but also the pre Islamic tribes in the middle east and north africa.
it’s not a Church festival so much as it was the last day for getting rid of foodstuffs which wouldn’t be allowed during Lent
If I understand correctly, the name “fat Tuesday” comes from the fact that you used up all your spare fat.
As for the “subtle change”, I’m not sure what Brian’s referring to.
Grimm’s dictionary traces the related German word “Lenz” (a poetic word for spring) back to Anglo-Saxon “lencten” and Old High German “lengizin”. The entry suspects that it is derived from “lang” (long) and refers to the lengthening of days in spring.
Quiggin is presumably being sardonic. I thought that eggs and chocolate were traditionally off the menu during Lent, though chocolate must have been a late addition to the list of restrictions.
Following on from that, it seems the origin of Easter has both a Christian and a pagan origin.
The scholar Bede postulated that it was derived from the name of the Saxon goddess Eostre. Others say it derived from a german word for sunrise - ostern.
Others (http://jment1.com/holidays/easter/origin.html) say it “comes from the Hebrew Word ‘pesah”, or Passover “
The celebration of death and resurrection in late spring after the equinox pre-dates Christ. Western countries with a Christian heritage take the date from the first full moon after the equinox of course. This was different again from the Jewish link to Passover (first Sunday after).
Greek Orthodox follow the julian calendar so their date is different again.
Is there a solid body of evidence that gives historical weight to when (if?) Christ’s crucifixion actually occurred? I know there isn’t for 25 December as the birth.
Bad Jim is spot on - the substitution of “feasting” for “fasting” was intended as ironic comment, but was either too subtle or too crassly obvious.
Either way, I’m not unhappy too have been taken at face value. I’ve certainly learned a lot of interesting things.
Just one thing to add: what you call the mardi gras comes (at least in its European form) from the tradition of the Carnival such as that of Venice, which evolved in the Middle Ages and Renaissance from Latin festivals such as the Saturnalia. It was both to get rid of the foodstuff before Lent, and a sort of temporary anarchy when people were allowed to completely disregard the control of the Church and authorities on public life - see more here:
http://www.twistedimage.com/productions/carnivale/
http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~amitchel/4830_carnival.htm
Lente is the dutch word for spring.
Is there a solid body of evidence that gives historical weight to when (if?) Christ’s crucifixion actually occurred?
Depends whether you’re willing to accept biblical narrative as historical. The Bible is actually quite clear about the timeline, situating the crucifixion relative to passover.
I always heard from many a Catholic that you could take Sundays off, and booze and bloat yourself up on that day. Since you had to go to church or something, Sundays didn’t count. I passed that off as wishful thinking by a bunch of cheaters, but check it out: Lent is always considered to be 40 days (relevant to the 40 days that The J-dawg spent in the desert), but Lent lasts 47 days (or 40 days plus the Sundays). So maybe those cheaters were right after all.
Anyone got the scoop on this?
It’s true about Sundays. I know because here in
Milan they use the Ambrosian rite which starts Lent
seven days later and includes the weekends in Lent.
As far as I know it’s the only place in the world
where Lent starts on a different day. Is this true?
Lent begins later in the Ambrosian Rite, but is longer in the Eastern Rite (where both Saturdays and Sundays are “off”); its beginning is sometimes earlier and sometimes later than in the West, because the way of calculating Easter is different (in the West, the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, approximating the first Sunday after 14 Nisan (Passover); in the East, Easter has to fall after 14 Nisan, and due to the way in which intercalation adjusts the Jewish calendar in some years this may delay Easter by a lunar month).
The reason Sundays are excepted is that they are always considered to be festivals, regardless of the season. For similar reasons, All Souls’ Day (November 2), which is a privileged feria, cannot fall on a Sunday, and will be transferred to November 3 if the 2nd falls on a Sunday.
The name Easter, peculiar to the Germanic languages, is derived from the name Eostre, but this was simply a transfer of a name to an already several-senturies established Christian festival. Most other languages use a derivative of “Pascha”.
Assuming that any weight is to be given to the Christian scriptures at all, the original date of Easter is well-attested with relation to the Jewish calendar (there is some division over the exact day of the crucifixion, 14 Nisan or 15 Nisan, depending on the Johannine or synoptic narratives). The relation to the solar calendar is a little more complex because of the somewhat irregular manner in which the intercalation adjusting that calendar to the solar year was determined in the period.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review