The day is the eve of Lent, and its English name, Shrove Tuesday, comes from shriving, the confession that preceded the fast. The pancake attached itself to the date because the fast that began the next morning once closed the kitchen to eggs and dairy as well as meat. No founder, proclamation or establishing act was located for the American name.
CHAPTER 01
A day named for confession
The word has nothing to do with food. John Brand's 1813 collection of English customs put it flatly: Shrove-tide "signifies the time of confessing sins, as the Saxon word Shrive, or Shrift, means Confession." The bell that called a parish to be shriven ended up doing a second job.
At York it belonged by custom to the apprentices. Brand reprints a tract of 1690 saying the apprentices, journeymen and other servants "had the liberty to go into the Cathedral, and ring the Pancake-bell", with the minster left open so visitors could climb to the lantern. It was thought a more innocent amusement than the alehouse.
Then Dr. Lake arrived, was "very much scandalized at this custom", and set out to break it against the advice of all his fellow clergy. The tract says the attempt "was very near costing him his life."
