This strange custom originated in Bavaria in the fifteenth
century. The priest inserted in his sermon funny stories which would cause his
hearers to laugh (Ostermärlein), e.g. a description of how the devil
tries to keep the doors of hell locked against the descending Christ. Then the
speaker would draw the moral from the story. This Easter laughter, giving rise
to grave abuses of the word of God, was prohibited by Clement X (1670-1676) and
in the eighteenth century by Maximilian III and the bishops of Bavaria (Wagner,
De Risu Paschali, Königsberg, 1705; Linsemeier, Predigt in Deutschland, Munich,
1886).
In
France handball playing was one of the Easter amusements, found also in Germany
(Simrock, op. cit., 575). The ball may represent the sun, which is believed to
take three leaps in rising on Easter morning. Bishops, priests, and monks, after
the strict discipline of Lent, used to play ball during Easter week (Beleth,
Expl. Div. off., 120). This was called libertas Decembrica, because
formerly in December, the masters used to play ball with their servants, maids,
and shepherds. The ball game was connected with a dance, in which even bishops
and abbots took part. At Auxerre, Besancon, etc. the dance was performed in
church to the strains of the "Victimae paschali". In England, also,
the game of ball was a favourite Easter sport in which the municipal corporation
engaged with due parade and dignity. And at Bury St. Edmunds, within recent
years, the game was kept up with great spirit by twelve old women. After the
game and the dance a banquet was given, during which a homily on the feast was
read. All these customs disappeared for obvious reasons (Kirchenlex., IV, 1414).
On Easter Monday the women had a right to strike their
husbands, on Tuesday the men struck their wives, as in December the servants
scolded their masters. Husbands and wives did this "ut ostendant sese mutuo
debere corrigere, ne illo tempore alter ab altero thori debitum exigat" (Beleth,
I, c. cxx; Durandus, I, c. vi, 86). In the northern parts of England the men
parade the streets on Easter Sunday and claim the privilege of lifting every
woman three times from the ground, receiving in payment a kiss or a silver
sixpence. The same is done by the women to the men on the next day. In the
Neumark (Germany) on Easter Day the men servants whip the maid servants with
switches; on Monday the maids whip the men. They secure their release with
Easter eggs. These customs are probably of pre-Christian origin (Reinsberg-Düringsfeld,
Das festliche Jahr, 118).
The Easter Fire is lit
on the top of mountains (Easter mountain, Osterberg) and must be kindled
from new fire, drawn from wood by friction (nodfyr); this is a custom of
pagan origin in vogue all over Europe, signifying the victory of spring over
winter. The bishops issued severe edicts against the sacrilegious Easter fires
(Conc. Germanicum, a. 742, c.v.; Council of Lestines, a. 743, n. 15), but did
not succeed in abolishing them everywhere. The Church adopted the observance
into the Easter ceremonies, referring it to the fiery column in the desert and
to the Resurrection of Christ; the new fire on Holy Saturday is drawn from
flint, symbolizing the Resurrection of the Light of the World from the tomb
closed by a stone (Missale Rom.). In some places a figure was thrown into the
Easter fire, symbolizing winter, but to the Christians on the Rhine, in Tyrol
and Bohemia, Judas the
traitor (Reinsberg-Düringfeld, Das festliche Jahr, 112 sq.).
At Puy in France, from time immemorial to the
tenth century, it was customary, when at the first psalm of Matins a canon was
absent from the choir, for some of the canons and vicars, taking with them the
processional cross and the holy water, to go to the house of the absentee, sing
the "Haec Dies", sprinkle him with water, if he was still in bed, and
lead him to the church. In punishment he had to give a breakfast to his
conductors. A similar custom is found in the fifteenth century at Nantes and
Angers, where it was prohibited by the diocesan synods in 1431 and 1448. In some
parts of Germany parents and children try to surprise each other in bed on
Easter morning to apply the health-giving switches (Freyde, Ostern in deutscher
Sage, Sitte und Dichtung, 1893).
In both the
Oriental and Latin Churches, it is customary to have those victuals which were
prohibited during Lent blessed by the priests before eating them on Easter Day,
especially meat, eggs, butter, and cheese (Ritualbucher, Paderborn, 1904;
Maximilianus, Liturg. or., 117). Those who ate before the food was blessed,
according to popular belief, were punished by God, sometimes instantaneously (Migne,
Liturgie, s.v. P&aicrc;ques).
On the eve of
Easter the homes are blessed (Rit. Rom., tit. 8, c. iv) in memory of the passing
of the angel in Egypt and the signing of the door-posts with the blood of the
paschal lamb. The parish priest visits the houses of his parish; the papal
apartments are also blessed on this day. The room, however, in which the pope is
found by the visiting cardinal is blessed by the pontiff himself (Moroni,
Dizionariq, s.v. Pasqua).
The Greeks and
Russians after their long, severe Lent make Easter a day of popular sports. At
Constantinople the cemetery of Pera is the noisy rendezvous of the Greeks; there
are music, dances, and all the pleasures of an Oriental popular resort; the same
custom prevails in the cities of Russia. In Russia anyone can enter the belfries
on Easter and ring the bells, a privilege of which many persons avail
themselves.
