Changes

Let's now tackle the calendar question: why does "Pączki Day" in America coincide with Fat Tuesday and not Fat Thursday as in Poland? Or maybe we should turn this question around: why doesn't Carnival in Poland culminate on the very last day before Lent, which would be logical, but six days earlier? What we can say for sure is that both Fat Days have something to do with Lent. The After all, the entire goal of celebrating Carnival was to have fun in advance and also to use up the stored food that would be prosribed during Lent and wouldn't last until Easter. In the days of yore, people used take fasting more seriously, which also meant that pre-fasting revelry was more vibrant and heartfelt. So let's start by looking at how people used to fast in the past.

The exact rules as to what kinds of food were forbidden during fasting periods and how long these periods were changed quite a lot from time to time and from one place to another. Lent was different for the Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants. But even within on one denomination, say, Catholic, fasting wasn't always and everywhere the same. Convincing freshly converted Christians to fasting was always a would have been most challenging task; King Boleslav the Brave of Poland, for example, used to encourage his subjects to periodic vegetarianism by punching out the teeth of the unconvinced.<ref>{{Cyt

}}</ref> But sometimes members of some local community, who wanted wishing to atone for their sins, usually when faced by some kind of disaster, would voluntarily vow to fast even more strictly then required by Church authorities; the entire community would then follow this more rigorous fast for decades until the local bishop, or even the pope himself, released them from the vow. This meant that fasting customs could differ from country to country and even from diocese to diocese. Generally speaking, fasting was very strict in the early Middle Ages and was gradually liberalized as time went by. But in Poland liberal novelties have always taken longer to take hold, so Polish people were considered particularly strict fasters for centuries. And Masovians, who lived in a northeastern backwater part of Poland, had the reputation of the kind of folks who would rather kill a man (especially one that who broke fast himself) that than eat cheese on a Friday.<ref>''Ibid.'', p.&nbsp;173</ref>

And so, Polish people used to fast not only on every Friday (as many still do), but also on every Saturday and Wednesday, on every eve of each of several dozen major holidays, on Ember Days (three in each quarter of the year) and during the entire Advent and Lent (which also happened to be longer than they are today). On average, every other day was a lean, or fasting, day.<ref>''Ibid.'', p.&nbsp;158</ref> Nowadays, Lent covers the period of 40 days (not counting Sundays) prior to Easter. But it used to start 17 days earlier than that. This additional 17-day period of fasting was then declated declared optional and , known as Shrovetide or Pre-Lent, it was treated as a time of preparation for Lent proper. Some of you may remember me mentioning Shrovetide in my post about [[Holey Breads|holey breads]], the pretzels and ''obwarzanki'' traditionally eaten on lean days. And also about how the Duchess of Masovia paid a visit to Queen Hedwig of Poland during Pre-Lent; when they dined together, Saint Hedwig ate only herrings and ''obwarzanki'' (ring-shaped breads), whereas the Duchess, who opted not to fast during that time, had chicken instead.<ref>{{ Cyt

Pre-Lent contained three Sundays, known as ''Septuagesima, Sexagesima'' and ''Quinquagesima'', that is, "Seventieth", "Sixtieth" and "Fiftieth" in Latin. These names obviously make no sense, because Sundays tend to come every seven days, rather than every ten days, and there's no way count 70, 60 or 50 days from any of them down to Easter. Pre-Lent is also observed in the Orthdox Church, but it's more rigorous than the optional fast of its Catholic Pre-Lentequivalent. The Orthodox use this time to gradually remove certain food types from their diet. They call the second Sunday of Pre-Lent "Meatfare Sunday" as it's the day when they say farewell to meat. They can still consume dairy products during the next week, until Cheesefare Sunday. The next day is Clean Monday, when Orthodox Lent begins; there's no Ash Wednesday in this tradition.

So when is the last time for the Orthodox to fry their Carnival pancakes before Lent? It can't be the Cheesefare Sunday, because you can't do any work on Sundaythe Sabbath. Friday and Saturday are lean days even outside of Lent. So it must be Thursday, then. Same with the last occasion to cook meat; Greeks, for example, celebrate Barbeque Barbecue Thursday (''Tsiknopempti'') on the last Thursday before Meatfare Sunday. So it would seem that Catholics copied their Fat Thursday from the Orthodox. Catholics in Poland seem to have copied even more: the traditional Polish names for the three Sundays of Catholic Pre-Lent are ''Niedziela Starozapustna'' ("Oldfare Old Shrovetide Sunday", because it had been the first Sunday of fasting back when fasting was mandatory in Pre-Lent), then ''Niedziela Mięsopustna'' ("Meatfare Sunday", same as for the Orthodox) and ''Niedziela Zapustna'' ("Shrovetide Sunday"). In fact, the English word "Carnival" has the same origin as the Polish "''mięsopust''"; it comes from Latin "''carne vale''", which means "farewell to meat".

In some countries, like France, Shrove Tuesday is celebrated as Fat Thursday. In England, it's Pancake Tuesday. In Poland, it's Herring Day (''Śledzik'' or ''Śledziówka''). But herring is a fasting dish, so why would you celebrate the last day before Lent by feasting on Lenten food? You know you're gonna be sick of it by the time Lent is over. Well, the reason is quite logical, actually. When you're partying, it's easy to loose lose track of time and not realise that you've slipped into Lenten territory. And, as they used to say in Poland, "on Shrove Tuesday the devil stands outside the tavern door and marks down those leaving after midnight."<ref>{{Cyt

}}, own translation</ref>Chasing your vodka with herrings was a safety measure; this way, you may be still partying on Ash Wedensday, but there's no sinin doing so.

This may be another reason why the peak day of Polish Carnival is six days before Lent. You want to put some buffer between the fat-laced revelry and the mandatory fast. And don't it's only a Polish idea. Fat Thursday is also observed in Italy (''giovedì grasso''), Spain (''jueves lardero''), Swabia (''Schmotziger Donnerstag''), Luxembourg (''Fetten Donneschdeg'') and Picardy (''jeudi jeudyou'').In the Catholic South Slavic countries (Croatia and Slovakia) the peak of the Carnival falls on Shrovetide Sunday. In the Nordic countries the biggest parties are held on Shrove Monday, known as ''Fastelavn''. On the same day people also have fun in the Rhineland, where they celebrate ''Rosenmontag'' (usually translated as "Rose Monday" even though it actually comes from the dialectical verb "''roose''", meaning "to party"). In Cornwall the day is known as "Peasen Monday", a day for eating peasoup, while in other parts of England it's "Collop Monday", observed by eating pork collops. But in most countries, including France, the Carnival's peak day is Shrove (or Fat) Tuesday.