British Good Friday traditions

From the Evening Standard, 14 April 1865:

The English people do not observe many anniversaries, but they are faithful to the few. They never forget Christmas, or Eastertide, or Good Friday. This morning, of solemn memory, is one which recalls the marvellous vicissitudes of Christian history and a thousand strange traditions, all symbolising some quaintly pious thought. On the Friday before Easter English Kings used to consecrate rings, which were believed thereafter to prevent the falling-sickness; and these cramp-rings were estimated as of immense value. Apart from holy ceremonies, however, our popular manner of celebrating the day is by the eating of hot-cross buns.... The twilight now brightening brings, they say, Milton's dog-violet into flower. However that may be, it brings the baker's man, with his "round cakes, and a cross thereon".... The folk, at any rate, who buy the buns at one penny each, and eat them, often at a greater cost, though much to the profit of the "peep-of-day boys," are generally not antiquarians. They concern themselves simply with the vendors, whose wicker-work baskets, warmed by double coverlets of green baize, prevent the dainties inside from cooling; and yet they sometimes have a particular ambition which, of old, was to indulge in the day of buns nowhere except at Chelsea, where the "Royal" bakeries formerly prospered, and where the fashionable multitude actually scrambled, from dawn until nightfall, for the chance of buying one of the real Royal quality. To this hour, although the glories of Chelsea have departed, Good Friday customs of a similar kind are largely in vogue throughout the more remote and unsophisticated provinces of England. In thousands of cottages a hot cross bun is kept "for luck" all the year round; biscuits kneaded in the shape of a cross are baked to day, "to preserve the house from fire," and the relished morsel is kissed before being eaten. At Brighton, not many years ago, Good Friday was popularly called Long Ropes day, the children from the back streets carrying ropes to the beach, in order to skip, in and out of the water, boys and girls together....

No longer are the Spital sermons preached in the open air at Paul's Cross; no more do the mayor and aldermen [of the City of London] throng, in scarlet and violet, to "the Shrowds" in rainy weather; the cross itself, wherefrom a Dean of St. Paul's, in the year 1299, cursed all those who had searched in the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields for a hoard of gold, has vanished.... Nevertheless, a few of our antique customs even yet endure, demonstrating the truth of a fact - which might be proved true in many other ways - that the English people in the country districts are slow to forget and give up their old fancies, particularly when those fancies are, however vaguely, associated with some idea of religion. They still, in the neighbourhood of West Derby, continue the practice of paste-egging — that is to say, the peasant boys and girls disguise themselves absurdly, in a carnival manner, and jocularly beg from house to house for an Easter gift — an egg or an oatmeal cake — to provide for Easter Sunday, singing and fiddling all the while. But our great Good Friday custom, after all, is the eating of hot cross buns....

This, indeed, is a remarkable period of the year.... Where was it that the custom of bringing a red herring to table "astraddle of a corn salad" on Easter Monday originated? At Oxford. Where was it first ordained that a gammon of bacon should be duly eaten by every family at Eastertide? Somewhere in England. The Scotch used to wear crowns, and carry sceptres, at this time of traditional celebration; but those customs are fading away, in spite of the English tenacity to which we have referred. We have ceased from abstracting ladies' shoe-buckles on the eve of Easter, or collecting odd boots, or canvassing for bad sixpenny-pieces, or begging for apples, or painting eggs; or even, around the Peak of Derbyshire, from "sugar-cupping" and garlanding the little cottages, It may be supposed that these customs, some quaint and others graceful, will naturally die out as we travel towards a more practical state of civilisation: they signified much when they were originated; they had a meaning and a symbolism no longer remembered by the people; but Good Friday itself speaks with a voice the world, which the world so long as it endures, must listen to with awe, with reverence, and with gratitude unutterable; speaks with the grand anthem tone in which Handel burst forth with his noblest music on this, the anniversary day of his death.

From the Morning Herald, 4 April 1828:

In this week anciently the bells were not rung, because the Apostles deserted Christ; the lights were extinguished for other mystical reasons; and there was also a maundy procession with a wooden tomb of Christ, called the Paschal, as a mock imitation of the betraying [of] our Lord. On Good Friday creeping to the Cross (which was lain upon the ground) upon hands and knees to kiss the feet of it, was a great custom. In the Northumberland Household Book, "My Lady's offeringe yerely upon Good Frydav, when she crepith to the Cross, to be paid out of my Lord's coffures, if she were at my Lord's finding, and not at her own," was IIId [3 pence].

This old Popish custom is particularly described in an ancient hook of Ceremonials of the Kings of England, sold in Mr. Anstis's sale. The King, with his Nobles, came to service without sword borne before him; a cushion was laid for him to creep to the Cross upon; what were called "cramp-rings" were brought in a basin of silver, which were hallowed by the King. These rings, so hallowed, were supposed to be efficacious in curing the cramp. For the miraculous gift, it is observed, claimed by the Stuarts, of curing the evil, was not claimed by our ancient Plantagenets, who were humbly contented to cure the cramp. It is added that this custom took its rise from a ring which had been long preserved with great veneration in Westminster Abbey; and which was thought to have been bought by Edward the Confessor from some pilgrim who came from Jerusalem. Andrew Bonds, in his "Breviary of Health," seems to have had a great opinion of this remedy. "The Kynge's Majestie hath a great helpe in this matter, in hallowing crampe ringes, and so gevan without money or petition."

"To holde forth the Cross for egges on Good Fryday," occurs amongst the Roman Catholic customs censured by Bale in Bishop Bonner's Articles. And, in a curious sermon preached [in] 1570, it is said that on Good Friday the Roman Catholics "offered unto CHRIST egges and bacon, to be in hys favor till Easter Day was past." From which we may at least gather with certainty, that eggs and bacon composed a usual dish on that day.

In Whimsies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1681, we have the trait of a zealous Crothin, or Puritan. "He is an antepos to all Church Government; when she feasts, he fasts; when she fasts, he feasts. Good Friday is his Shrove Tuesday; he commends this notable carnal caveat to his family - 'Eat flesh upon days prohibited; it is good against Popery.'"

Amongst the ancient regulations on this day, in the "order for apparel throughout the year, of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, &c." it is said that "the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen should, on Good Friday, meet at Paul's Cross, at one of the clock in the afternoon, to hear the sermon, in their black gowns, and without their chains and tippets," an exterior mark of humiliation, which our civic ancestors, before the Reformation, were particularly careful to observe.

Not only was Good Friday, but every Friday, from respect, says Boccacio [sic], of our Saviour's passion, rigidly observed in Catholic times. The common people during Lent, says Erasmus, have a regular supper every alternate day. But if you were to attempt it out of Lent, upon a Friday, no one would endure it. The Puritans, in the Grand Rebellion, extinguished not only the Friday, but Good Friday's fast; and, through the custom of giving entertainments and suppers upon Friday, in particular, Charles II. issued a proclamation for revival of the fast; and prohibited victuallers from dressing suppers, and butchers from killing and selling meat on this day.

Hutchinson (History of Northumberland) derives the Good Friday bun, from the sacred cakes which were offered at the Arkite Temples, styled bonn, and presented every seventh day. The same sort of origin is also assigned it by Bryant, in his Ancient Mythology.