Carnival

This article is about the Christian festival before Lent. Not to be confused with Traveling carnival or Carnival Cruise Line.
For other uses, see Carnival (disambiguation).

Carnival in Rome, c. 1650
Rio's Carnival is the largest in the world according to Guinness World Records.[1]

Carnival or Shrovetide is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period,[2] consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.[3]

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.[4] Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol,[5] 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 or activity of desire.

As such, during the season of Shrovetide, it is customary for Christians to ponder what Lenten sacrifices they will make for the coming Lent.[6] The traditions of carrying Shrovetide rods and consuming Shrovetide buns after attending church are celebrated.[7][8] On the final day of the season, Shrove Tuesday, many traditional Christians, such as Lutherans, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics,[9] "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."[10] 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.[11]

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.[12][13] It is called Shrovetide in areas with a high concentration of Anglicans (Church of England/US Episcopal Church), Methodists, and other Protestants.[14] 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.

  1. ^ "Largest carnival". Guinness World Records. 1 January 2004. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  2. ^ "carnival (n.)". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/8045197810. The season immediately preceding Lent, devoted in Italy and other Roman Catholic countries to revelry and riotous amusement, Shrovetide; the festivity of this season. High Carnival: the revelry of the Carnival at its height. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  3. ^ "Shrovetide (n.)". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/2819425396. The period comprising Quinquagesima Sunday and the two following days, 'Shrove' Monday and Tuesday. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ Barrows, Susanna; Room, Robin (1991). Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History. University of California Press. pp. 404–. ISBN 9780520070851. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
  6. ^ Kelvey, Jon (13 February 2018). "Strawbridge United Methodist keeps Shrove Tuesday pancake tradition". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 16 March 2023. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
  7. ^ "Shrovetide". Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  8. ^ Beadle, Richard (17 March 1994). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre. Cambridge University Press. p. 69. ISBN 9780521459167. One of these was the pre-Lent Carnival extravaganza of Shrovetide, though this seems to have been celebrated to a much lesser extent in Britain than it was (and still is) on the continent: however, we know of English Shrovetide plays, and Mankind bears signs of being one of them (335).
  9. ^ Walker, Katie (7 March 2011). "Shrove Tuesday inspires unique church traditions". Daily American. Archived from the original on 14 February 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2016. Many local churches will celebrate Shrove Tuesday tomorrow, a day of feasting commonly known as "pancake day." Shrove Tuesday is typically observed by Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and Catholic denominations, but each church celebrates the day in its own, unique way. The Rev. Lenny Anderson of the St. Francis-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Somerset said the primary focus of Shrove Tuesday is to prepare for Lent, the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter.
  10. ^ Kiefer, James. Shrove Tuesday. Rowan University.
  11. ^ "Shrove Tuesday". The Times-Reporter. 18 February 2020. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  12. ^ Ruprecht, Tony (14 December 2010). Toronto's Many Faces. Dundurn. p. 115. ISBN 9781459718043. Fastelavn, held the week before Lent, is the Danish Mardi Gras. This event takes place at the Danish Lutheran Church and at Sunset Villa.
  13. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions". The Danish Lutheran Church & Cultural Center. 2014. Archived from the original on 18 February 2015. Retrieved 17 February 2015. We celebrate Danish traditions during our church year such as Fastelavn at lent (a Carnival for the kids at the beginning of the Lenten season), a Harvest Service in Fall and preparing for Advent and Christmas with a Klippe-Klistre (Cut & Paste Decorations) in late November. Our Danish history and heritage is continuously incorporated into our services and events through the year and its seasons.
  14. ^ Melitta Weiss Adamson, Francine Segan (2008). Entertaining from Ancient Rome to the Super Bowl. ABC-CLIO. In Anglican countries, Mardis Gras is known as Shrove Tuesday – from shrive meaning 'confess' – or Pancake Day – after the breakfast food that symbolizes one final hearty meal of eggs, butter, and sugar before the fast. On Ash Wednesday, the morning after Mardi Gras, repentant Christians return to church to receive upon the forehead the sign of the cross in ashes.