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will be a point for further investigation. It is probable that the custom dates 
from a more remote antiquity. 
As respects the derivation of the term Shrove, as distinctive of the day 
before the Quadragesimal Fast of Lent, it is evident that it has its origin in the 
Anglo-Saxon word shrift, which signified ‘‘ confession.” In the Anglo-Saxon 
Ecclesiastical Laws there is much mention of it—for instance, in the laws of King 
Ethelred there is an injunction that every man should keep strictly to his Chris- 
tianity, and accustom himself frequently to shrift. And again, if a corpse was 
buried out of its proper shrift district, soul scot was to be paid to the proper 
authority to which it belonged. In the laws of Cnut it is prescribed that if a 
criminal condemned to death desired scrift spr@ce, i.e., confession, it was not to 
be denied him ; and if any one denied him, he was to make “ bot” or amends to 
the King with a hundred and twenty shillings, or otherwise clear himself by 
showing that he was justified in the refusal. 
In the Canons of Edgar there are full directions for scrift, both for the 
guidance of him who shrived and of him who was shriven, as well as the festival 
tides and fast tides, when it ought to be performed. 
In the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical institutes it is enjoined that in the week 
immediately before Lent every one should go to his confession (or shrift, as the 
Anglo-Saxon renders the word), and his confession or shrift should so shrive or 
confess him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do. 
There cannot, therefore, be any doubt that the term Shrove Tuesday has 
been thus derived ; and that it simply means Confession T'uesday, from the injunc- 
tion in the institutes of the early church of this country to attend that ministra- 
tion as a preliminary to the Quadragesimal Fast preparatory to Easter. 
In the Canterbury tales of Geoffry Chaucer the term shrive frequently 
occurs, and it would appear to be there used as the technical expression for the rite 
of confession. ¢.g., it is enjoined in the Parson’s Tale that ‘‘ thou shalt shrive thee 
of all thy sinnes to o (-=c) man, and not parcelmele to o (one) man and parcelmele 
to another.” 
Again, in the Friars Tale, the Soumpner, or Apparitor, in alluding to his 
own unjust demands upon those who came within his jurisdiction (and without 
which he represents that he could not live) alludes to shrift, and to Shrifte Faders, 
or Father Confessors, in the following lines :— 
What I may gete in counsell prively, 
No manner conscience that have I. 
N’ere min extortion, I might not liven, 
Ne of swich japes wol I not be shviven, 
Stomak ne conscience know I non, 
I shrewe these Shrtfte Faders everich on. 
A sarcastic reflection on the Soumpner, as well as the Shrifte Faders, which is 
somewhat characteristic of the writings of Chaucer in exposing the peculiar vices 
of his own time. 
Shrove Tuesday, or Shrove Tide, Fastern’s Eve and Pancake Tuesday, as it 
