Festum Ovorum, the Feast Of Eggs, is how they describe tomorrow, the Saturday before Lent, year by year in the Oxford University Diary, despite the fact that for some centuries nobody in Oxford has even thought of celebrating this entertainingly named day.
The origin and purpose of Festum Ovorum is pretty certainly exactly what each one of you will have guessed from first principles: as on Mardi Gras, to have a binge before Lent. It has stayed on the University Calendar since the Middle Ages ... just as, in this University, All Soul's Day and Corpus Christi and the Assumption survived the 'Reformation' (I bet they didn't in the Fens). We know that this was not just a custom in alma academia, but flourished throughout the neighbouring country areas, where, in their endearingly unlatinate way, the rude but worthy yokels just called it Egge Satterday. (There must be some poignantly corny witticism about Yolks and Yokels.) However, purely by coincidence, it became, in this University, linked with an academic deadline: the last day on which bachelors were allowed to 'determine'; that is, to complete the exercises for the degree of M.A.. And academics had a 'Determination Feast' to celebrate this, which goes back at least to the time of Lord Richard Holland (nephew of Richard II) who had his Determination Feast on the 21st and 22nd of February, 1395 (yes, I have checked that date in Cheney). As late as 1603, "all the bachelors that were presented to determine did after their presentation go to every college where they were determining
I suppose all this was quite an exotic spread in those days. Now we could buy most of it in Waitrose. Except for the muscadines, which are sweetmeats made from a pod near the fundament of an asiatic deer (its secretion may have been a sexual attractant) and regarded as an aphrodisiac since the days when the trade routes brought both it, and its Sanskrit name, from India to Byzantium. It is now vastly expensive since the poor things have been hunted almost into bio-undiversity ... ah, the compulsions of homo insipiens, the so-called animal rationale ... fortasse potius animal dicendum venereale. But I gather that chemists now produce a synthetic version of musk.
7 comments:
Could you tell me, dear Father H, when the Assumption began to be celebrated at Oxford and, second, how that timing compares to other locals in Europe?
Presumably, as soon as there was a church near the site of the Ford for Oxen to cross the Thames. The Leofric Missal, probably copied from liturgical books brought from Rome to Canterbury by S Augustine, has it. So does the Sacramentary sent by pope Hadrian to Charlemagne. Oxford, England, Europe are probably in the same boat.
What is jolly about Oxford is that when the Reformation happened and various commemorations (Corpus Christi; All Souls; Assumption) were removed from the Calendar of the Church of England, Oxford never expunged them from the University Calendar. But S Thomas of Canterbury did disappear.
The web address at the head of this entry should read http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/muscone/musconeh.htm
I will happily send you muscadine vines, if you'd like to experiment in your garden and if the Customs authorities will permit it; two years before fruiting. I don't believe I've ever eaten the grapes or drunk the wine made from them, however, so cannot recommend them or it. Many thanks for your priestly service and for the wonderful writing here! I do remember you at the daily Office and at Mass.
I imagine fashionable Parisiennes would have to be given up, as with the eggs then?
"A History of Agriculture and Prices in England" edited by Arthur George Liddon Rogers shows two entries for muscadine wine bought by New College Ocford in 1603. 3 qts in February and 2 pottles at Easter, both at 4 shillings per gallon.
Cambridge also bought muscadine wine at several dates during that year.
St Cross College celebrated the Festum Ovorum a long time ago in the 1970's.
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