Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity.Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and his world. Translated by H. Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Original edition, Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaia kul'tura srednevekov'ia i Renessansa, 1965. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent. Traditionally, butter, milk, and other animal products were not consumed "excessively", rather, their stock was fully consumed during Shrovetide as to reduce waste. This festival is known for being a time of great indulgence before Lent (which is a time stressing the opposite), with drinking, overeating, and various other activities of indulgence being performed. For example, pancakes, donuts, and other desserts are prepared and eaten for a final time. During Lent, dairy and animal products are eaten less, if at all, and individuals make a Lenten sacrifice, thus giving up a certain object of desire (e.g. sweets), with the money that would go to purchase what was sacrificed being donated at the church as alms for the poor.
As such, during the season of Shrovetide, it is customary for Christians to ponder what Lenten sacrifices they will make for the coming Lent. The traditions of carrying Shrovetide rods and consuming Shrovetide buns after attending church are celebrated. On the final day of the season, Shrove Tuesday, many traditional Christians, such as Lutherans, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics, "make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to ask God's help in dealing with." During Shrovetide, many churches place a basket in the narthex to collect the previous year's Holy Week palm branches that were blessed and distributed during the Palm Sunday liturgies. On Shrove Tuesday (the final day of Shrovetide), churches burn these palms to make the ashes used during the services held on the very next day, Ash Wednesday.
The term "Carnival" is traditionally used in areas with a large Catholic presence, as well as in Greece. The celebration is known as Fastelavn in historically Evangelical Lutheran countries. It is called Shrovetide in areas with a high concentration of Anglicans (Church of England/US Episcopal Church), Methodists, and other Protestants. In Slavic Eastern Orthodox nations, Maslenitsa is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent. In German-speaking Europe and the Netherlands, the Carnival season traditionally opens on 11/11 (often at 11:11 a.m.). This dates back to celebrations before the Advent season or with harvest celebrations of St. Martin's Day.
Etymology
The word carnival is said to come from the Late Latin expression , which means "remove meat"; a folk etymology derives it from , "farewell to meat". In either case, this signifies the approaching fast of Lent. The word may also be translated as flesh, producing "a farewell to the flesh", a phrase embraced by certain Carnival celebrants to embolden the festival's carefree spirit.
Other scholars argue that the origin of the word is a common meat-based country feast (in Latin ) or the festival of the ("ship of Isis"), where the image of Isis was carried to the seashore to bless the start of sailing season. The festival consisted of a parade of masks following an adorned wooden boat, called in Latin , possibly the source of both the name and the parade floats.
History
Origins
The characteristics of the celebration of Carnival take their origins from ancient European festivals, such as the Greek Dionysian (the Anthesteria) or the Roman Saturnalia. During these festivities, there was a temporary release from social obligations and hierarchies to make way for the overthrow of order, joking and debauchery. From a historical and religious point of view, the Carnival therefore represented a period of celebration, but above all of symbolic renewal, during which chaos replaced the established order, which, however, once the festive period was over, re-emerged new or renewed and guaranteed for a cycle valid until the beginning of the following Carnival.Universo, De Agostini, Novara, 1966, Vol. III, p. 113
From an anthropological point of view, Carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended."Carnaval" . Meertens.knaw.nl. Retrieved on 13 May 2015.Miller, John F. "Roman Festivals," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 172. During antiquity, winter was thought of as the reign of the winter spirits; these needed to be driven out in order for summer to return. Carnival can thus be regarded as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer: a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year."Vitaberna" . Jansimons.nl. Retrieved on 13 May 2014.
Several Germanic tribes celebrated the return of the daylight. Winter would be driven out, to make sure that fertility could return in spring. A central figure of this ritual was possibly the fertility goddess Nerthus. There are some indications that the effigy of NerthusTacitus, Germania 9.6: – "The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance." Germania 40: – "Afterwards the car, the vestments, and, if you like to believe it, the divinity herself, are purified in a secret lake." Trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, The Agricola and Germany of Tacitus. London: Macmillan, 1868, or Freyr was placed on a ship with wheels and accompanied by a procession of people in animal disguise and men in women's clothes.Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1990). Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Penguin Books. .Eduardo Fabbro, M.A., "Germanic Paganism among the Early Salian Franks". University of Brasilia, The Journal of Germanic Mythology and Folklore, Volume 1, Issue 4, August 2006 Aboard the ship a marriage would be consummated as a fertility ritual.Federatie Europese Narren Nederland – Federatie Europese Narren Nederland . Fen-nederland.nl. Retrieved on 13 May 2015.
Tacitus wrote in his Germania: Ceterum nec cohibere parietibus deos neque in ullam humani oris speciem adsimulare ex magnitudine caelestium arbitrator – "The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance." – "Afterwards the car, the vestments, and, if you like to believe it, the divinity herself, are purified in a secret lake."Trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, The Agricola and Germany of Tacitus. London: Macmillan, 1868,
Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, Carnival referred to a period following Epiphany season that reached its climax before midnight on Shrove Tuesday. British historian John Bossy, in writing on the origin of the practices during Carnival, states that "These were, despite some appearances, Christian in character, and they were medieval in origin: although it has been widely supposed that they continued some kind of pre-Christian cult, there is in fact no evidence that they existed much before 1200." Because Lent was a period of fasting, "Carnival therefore represented a last period of feasting and celebration before the spiritual rigors of Lent." Meat was plentiful during this part of the Christian calendar and it was consumed during Carnival as people abstained from meat consumption during the following liturgical season, Lent. This strong opposition between Lent and Carnival was reflected in medieval literary culture, notably in the 13th century French poem La bataille de Caresme et de Charnage (The Fight Between Carnival and Lent), which stages an allegorical conflict between festive excess and lenten austerity.
During Carnival, also known as Shrovetide, people confessed (shrived) their sins in preparation for Lent as well. Shakespeare's 1601 play The Merchant of Venice mentions Christians who painted their faces to celebrate the season:
Traditionally, a Carnival feast was the last opportunity for common people to eat well, as there was typically a food shortage at the end of the winter as stores ran out. Until spring produce was available, people were limited to the minimum necessary meals during this period. On what nowadays is called vastenavond (the days before fasting), all the remaining winter stores of lard, butter, and meat which were left would be eaten, for these would otherwise soon start to rot and decay. The selected livestock had already been slaughtered in November and the meat would no longer be preservable. All the food that had survived the winter had to be eaten to assure that everyone was fed enough to survive until the coming spring would provide new food sources."Wat is carnaval?" | Fen Vlaanderen . Fenvlaanderen.be. Retrieved on 13 May 2015.
Traditionally, the feast also was a time to indulge in sexual desires, which were supposed to be suppressed during the following period fasting. Before Lent began, all rich food and drink were consumed in what became a giant celebration that involved the whole community, and is thought to be the origin of Carnival.
In many Christian sermons and texts, the example of a vessel is used to explain Christian doctrine: "the nave of the church of baptism", "the ship of Mary", etc. The writings show that processions with ship-like carts were held and lavish feasts were celebrated on the eve of Lent or the greeting of spring in the early Middle Ages.
The Lenten period of the liturgical calendar, the six weeks directly before Easter, was historically marked by fasting, study, and other pious or penitential practices. During Lent, no parties or celebrations were held, and people refrained from eating rich foods, such as meat, dairy, fat, and sugar. The first three classes were often totally unavailable during this period because of late winter shortages.Gaignebet, Claude. 1984. El Carnaval: Ensayos de mitologia popular. Barcelona: Editorial Alta Fulla. Original edition: Le carnaval. Essais de mythologie populaire, Editions Payot, Paris, 1974.
While Christian festivals such as Corpus Christi were Church-sanctioned celebrations, Carnival was also a manifestation of European folk culture. In the Christian tradition, fasting is to commemorate the 40 days that Jesus fasted in the desert, according to the New Testament, and also to reflect on Christian values. It was a time for catechumens (those converting to Christianity) to prepare for baptism at Easter.
Carnival in the Middle Ages took almost the entire period between Christmas and the beginning of Lent. In those two months, Christian populations used their several holidays as an outlet for their daily frustrations.
Many synods and councils attempted to set things "right". Caesarius of Arles (470–542) protested around 500 CE in his sermons against the pagan practices. Centuries later, his statements were adapted as the building blocks of the Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum ("small index of superstitious and pagan practices"), which was drafted by the Synod of Leptines in 742. It condemned the Spurcalibus en februario.