Eastertide words

LENT, Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Easter: where do these seasonal names come from, and how do other languages see them?

Lent

The name Lent means only ‘‘spring’’, OE lencten, or West Germanic langitinaz, ‘‘lengthening of days’’. Like Christmas, the season links strongly with northern hemisphere seasons. Its more official Latin name is Quadragesima, ‘‘fortieth (day)’’ before Easter Day.

Shrove Tuesday

The day before Lent began, medieval priests heard people at confession, whereupon they shrove (forgave, absolved) them. To shrive is a strong verb, past tense shrove, participle shriven. This Tuesday of serious selfassessment was also the day before Lenten fasting; no meat then, hence ‘‘farewell to meat’’, carni vale, the final bingeing of the carnival or Mardi Gras (‘‘Fat Tuesday’’).

Ash Wednesday

Next day, the fasting began, with penitence marked outwardly by the mark of the Cross in ash on one’s forehead. A landmark for T.S. Eliot on his pilgrimage is seen in his Ash Wednesday 1930.

Palm Sunday

The name of the day on which Jesus entered Jerusalem and was greeted by the laying of palm branches before him to honour him (as told in all four gospels) is for once recognisable in adjacent languages: Palmsonntag (German), dimanche des rameaux (‘‘branches’’: French), domenica delle Palme (Italian). Palms were sacred in the ancient world, and signified victory.

Holy and Maundy Thursday

The Thursday before Easter is the day of the Last Supper; ‘‘holy’’ because it established the Eucharist as a lovefeast, ‘‘Maundy’’ because then royalty by command (mandatum) gives alms (alimonium, Maundy money).

Good Friday and Passover

Good Friday is in French simply vendredi saint (like jeudi saint for the day before) but German has Karfreitag (lamentationFriday. Greek has Great Friday (megale paraskeve). Paraskeve looks further back, being the ‘‘preparation’’ day for the Jewish Sabbath.

Passover

The links of the Passover, which preserved Israel in Egypt in the time of Moses to the salvation through Jesus, were made at once: Christ became ‘‘our Passover’’ (I Cor 1:57). Passover is the day before Easter, just as the Sabbath is Saturday not Sunday (Italian sabbato preceding domenica). On the 15th day of Nisan, date varying with the spring moon, the Lord passed over (‘‘passed without touching’’, delivered, Exodus 13) the firstborn of Israel in Egypt. Its Hebrew name, Pesach, survives in French Paˆques and Italian Pasqua.

Easter Day itself

English Easter, however, keeps to the pagan archetype, like German Ostern. Bede wrote that the month in which English Christians were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus had been called Eosturmonath in Old English, referring to a [springtime] goddess named Eostre.

All in all

So the name Easter resembles Lent (or Yule), in reaching far back to preliterate rites. The whole story of cultic names makes a winding tale, of Jewish and Greek and pagan originals, interwining. The series of holy days (fasting or feasting) continues till Whitsun, since Whitsun (‘‘white Sunday’’) is Pentecost: Greek for ‘‘fiftieth day’’. Fortynine + one from the Passover.

After Whitsun

Then the church’s year settles down. After Trinity, the churches move quietly through the ‘‘Sundays after Trinity’’, to Advent, except that All Saints and All Souls have pagan originals again.

Over to you

Readers, feel free to correct and extend this whistlestop account, of thousands of years of ritual! Write to me c/o Editor, ODT, or wordwaysdunedin@hotmail.com