In a few communities in Victorian England, there was a custom of men tying women to chairs with ribbons on Easter Monday and lifting them up, all the while singing the hymn ‘Jesus Christ is risen today’. On Easter Tuesday the custom was repeated, only this time it was the women who ‘lifted’ the men. The Victorian practice of ‘lifting’ can be traced back to the 18th century, but in reality it was an echo of a much earlier and stranger practice that originally took place a week later – at ‘Hocktide’, the Monday and Tuesday following Low Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter).
Hocktide represented a dramatic reversal of the gender norms of medieval England
In contrast to the later custom of ‘lifting’, the essence of Hocktide customs was the capture and tying-up of a ‘victim’ – who was then made to pay a ransom for their release. Unlike the later custom, which was done to both men and women, Hocktide involved women (often in large, roving gangs) capturing men. The earliest reference to Hocktide is from London in 1406, and the practice’s heartland was Oxford and the Thames Valley. At Hocktide the respectable women of the parish would set out with ropes and chains and take captive as many men as they could in order to raise funds for the church. The men would not be set free until they paid up. In some parishes, such as Lambeth, Hocktide ransoms were the largest single source of parochial income.
Clearly, Hocktide represented a dramatic reversal of the gender norms of medieval England. Like the ‘Boy Bishop’ and ‘Lord of Misrule’ at Christmas time, the power that women briefly wielded over men at Hocktide underlined the significance of the season, whose mysterious power disrupted the usual social norms. However, there is no evidence that Hocktide had a religious significance.
The origin story that circulated in the 15th century was that Hocktide commemorated English women who captured Danes and ransomed them in the 11th century. There was even a Hocktide play performed annually in Coventry that dramatised this story. When Queen Elizabeth visited Coventry and saw it in the 1570s she reportedly enjoyed the spectacle of England’s women seeing off the Danes.
According to another theory, Hocktide was a popular custom derived from what had originally been a medieval courtly practice. Ladies of the court who found men sleeping late would prevent them from getting out of bed until they paid a forfeit (a game referenced in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). While this is possible – courtly games and jests did indeed filter down the social ranks in medieval England until they became folk festivities – it seems unlikely, as the ordinary people’s Hocktide had no connection with sleeping or beds.
Not everyone was happy with the custom. Already in the 15th century some bishops had inveighed against it, and in the godly reign of Edward VI it was suppressed by Lord Protector Somerset, only to revive in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. By the 1590s the burgesses of Coventry had suppressed the famous Hocktide play, and the custom was in decline in its Thames Valley heartland. Even though Hocktide had no religious content and could hardly be denounced as a relic of Catholicism, it still raised money for the church and therefore represented a form of lay piety that zealous Protestants were eager to bring under control. Many also disliked the unseemly ribaldry that attended the spectacle of women taking men captive and making them buy back their liberty.
The English Civil War brought the custom to an end, although it was revived after the Restoration in two Oxford parishes as a local curiosity, and lingered on into the 1670s. Robert Plot gives us the last record of women going out on ‘Hock Tuesday’ with ropes and chains. But clearly a memory of Hocktide survived long enough to be reinvented as the ‘lifting’ custom described by folklorists in the 19th century – this time cosmetically Christianised and given a connection to the resurrection.
Exactly where the original Hocktide came from – and where the term ‘Hocktide’ originated – remains a genuine mystery. The story about women taking Danes captive sounds like a retrospective explanation for the custom, as many ancient and inexplicable things were assigned to ‘the Danes’ as a catch-all explanation in the 15th century. In all probability, Hocktide is best understood as part of the traditions of inversion and misrule that always attended the major feasts of the calendar, and reminded the powers that be (in this case, men) of the contingency and fragility of their authority.
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