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Ash Wednesday is the first day of lent, the seventh Wednesday before Easter. Ash Wednesday is so named from the ancient custom in the Roman Catholic church of sprinkling ashes upon the heads of those condemned to do penance on this day.
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Bank Holidays are British public holidays when the banks are closed. They are New Year's Day, Easter Monday, May Day (the first Monday in May), Spring Bank Holiday (the last Monday in May), August Bank Holiday (last Monday in August), and Boxing Day. In Scotland, Easter Monday is replaced by the 2nd of January and the August Bank Holiday is on the first Monday in August. In Northern Ireland Saint Patrick's Day (the 17th of March) is added. In the Channel Islands Liberation Day (the 9th of May) is included.
Bank Holidays have a similar status to Sundays in that bills of exchange falling due on a Bank Holiday are postponed until the following day and also they do not count in working out days of grace. Good Friday and Christmas Day are also public holidays, but payments falling due (including bills of exchange) on these days are payable on the preceding day. When Bank Holidays fall on a Sunday, the following day becomes the Bank Holiday.
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There have been many dates dubbed 'Black Monday', but the first was Easter Monday, 14th April 1360, 'so full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter cold that many men died on their horsebacks with the cold.' The day on which a number of English were slaughtered at a village near Dublin in 1209. The day of panic in 1745 when the Scottish rebels were reported to have arrived at Derby, and the Bank of England paid in sixpences.
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Easter is an ancient religious festival occurring at or around the vernal equinox. It originally marked the end of the old year and the dawn of a new year and was celebrated by the Anglo-Saxons in honour of their goddess of the east who was called Easter. In Rome the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was rekindled on the first of March each year marking the start of the Roman year.
The practice of giving easter eggs at spring time is widely spread through ancient traditions from the Persians, Jews, Egyptians and Hindus and universally symbolises creation or the hatching of a new year. The Christian faith adopted the tradition as a symbol of resurrection, which of course spring is after the 'death' that is winter, and originally coloured their easter eggs red in allusion to the blood of their saviour.
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In chronology, epact is the excess of the solar month above the lunar synodical month, and of the solar year above the lunar year of twelve synodical months. The epacts then are annual and menstrual or monthly. Suppose the new moon to be on the 1st of January: the month of January containing 31 days, and the lunar month only 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 3 seconds; the difference, 1 day, 11 hours, 15 minutes, 57 seconds, is the menstrual epact. The annual epact is nearly 11 days; the solar year being 365 days, and the lunar year 354. The epacts were once of some importance in ecclesiastical chronology, being used for finding when Easter would fall.
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Good Friday is a Christian festival held on the last Friday before Easter, and remembering the crucifixion. The word 'good' in the name means holy. In British legend, people born on Good Friday (and also Christmas Day) have the power of seeing and of commanding spirits.
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Hocktide is an old term for the Monday and Tuesday in the week following the second Sunday after Easter. It is a common legal term in mediaeval documents and local festivities were held at hocktide up to the start of the 20th century.
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Lent was the Anglo-Saxon name for the month of March. The Saxon spring festival of the goddess Easter, which generally fell in March, was adopted by the Christian church and a period of thirty-six days of fasting entitled lent was adopted in the 4th century, and in 487 Felix III added four days to the fast to represent the biblical account of Jesus fasting for forty days in the wilderness.
Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter, which commences Holy week in the Christian calendar. It is so named from the palm branches which were strewed before Christ on his public entry into Jerusalem.
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Quasimodo Sunday or Low Sunday is the first Sunday following Easter. It is called Quasimodo Sunday because the introit of the day begins with the words 'Quasi modo geniti infantes'. It's alternative name of low Sunday is so called because it is an ordinary day after the grand celebrations of Easter.
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The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia
Southampton, United Kingdom
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