Have you heard of Hocktide? I certainly hadn’t until our attention was drawn to a paragraph in the book, “The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400-1700” by Ronald Hutton, a leading historian whom you may well have seen on television. There was also a tantalising reference to Badsey:
Just as Christmastide culminated in the merry-making of Twelfth Night, so the celebrations which began on Easter Day could find a climax in Hocktide, the second Monday and Tuesday following. The derivation of the name is obscure, but the custom associated is well documented. Upon one of the days, the men of a settlement could capture and tie up any woman upon the streets and release her for a fee which was pad into the parish funds. Upon the other, the women did the binding. For them, the action was a symbolic reversal of their usual position of social subservience, and they seem accordingly not only to have carried it out with gusto but to have found more willing victims. At any rate, they invariably raised considerably more money. Indeed, by contemporary standards, their sums were handsome, occasionally furnishing more than any other parish collection of the year. In most places it was specifically the married women who were responsible, but at Badsey in Worcestershire the maidens went out with the ropes.
Hocktide explained
So what exactly was Hocktide? Hocktide was a medieval festival that took place on the Monday and Tuesday in the second week after Easter. Together with Whitsuntide and the 12 days of Christmastide, the week following Easter marked the only vacations of the husbandman’s year. It was also a time for the collection and payment of rents and dues.
In some places it used to be known as Binding Monday and Tuesday because of the mock kidnapping and ransom that traditionally took place. On the Monday the men would be caught and tied up with ropes by women who would then demand money from them for their release. On the Tuesday the roles were reversed. It was a chance to raise money for the local church. The sums raised would then be listed in the Churchwardens’ Accounts.
An examination of the Badsey Churchwardens’ Accounts
Ronald Hutton got his information from a transcript of the Badsey Churchwardens’ Accounts, 1525-1571, edited by E A B Barnard, which he had seen at Worcestershire Record Office. The accounts had been painstakingly transcribed by the Reverend William Henry Price, Vicar of Badsey (1897-1903). Following Reverend Price’s untimely death, the Evesham historian, E A B Barnard, edited the manuscript, and added an introduction and notes. Mrs Drysdale Bowden (Reverend Price’s sister) paid for it to be published in 1913 as a memorial to her brother.
We are fortunate to have a copy of it in our archive and on the website. In a closer examination of the accounts, now with the benefit of knowing about Hocktide, we can glean a little information about this ancient festival.
There is no mention anywhere in the accounts to the term “Hocktide”, but various references to the gathering of the young men and the young maidens. The accounts begin in 1525, but it appears that some pages were missing. Listed below are all the references to “the gathering” which appeared for about a decade. To understand the amount of money collected, the following should be noted:
- The money amount was written with lower-case Latin numerals, followed by “l” (pound), “s” (shilling) or “d” (pence).
- A final figure “I” was sometimes written as “j”, eg vj (6), viij(8), xij (12).
- iv and xiv were sometimes written as iiii or iiij and viiij.
- There were 20 shillings in a pound, 12 pennies in a shilling, 240 pennies in a pound.
- Ob. was short for Obolus (halfpenny).
- This system remained in place until replaced by decimalisation in 1971 (the shilling and halfpenny were abolished and there were now 100 pence in a pound). The amount in brackets shows how it would have been written in 20th century UK up to 1971.
The first reference appears for the year 1528-1529:
It. reseuyd of ye gedryng of ye young mē ijs. ijd. [2s 2d]
It. reseuyd of ye yonge mayds xjd. ob. [11½d]
It. reseuyd of ye madnys gedryng iiijs. viijd. [4s 8d]
In 1530-1531, the following was received:
It. reseuyd of ye young mē iijs. viijd. [3s 8d]
It. reseuyd of ye maydys iiijs. viijd. [4s 8d]
It. reseuyd of ye yonge maydys ye gedrynge viijd. [8d]
In that year, the churchwardens also received bequests of 1d, 3d, 12d, 5s 8d, 38d. Thus 9 shillings received from the gathering and 10s 2d received from other sources. This confirms that “the gathering” could be a good money-raiser for the church.
1531-1532
It. reseuyd of ye yonge mēysgedryng xxijd. 22d [1s 10d]
1532-1533
In primys reseuyd of ye yonge mēysgedryg ijs. vd. [2s 5d]
It. reseuyd of ye maydys iiijs. [4s]
It. reseuyd of ye young maydys xd. [10d]
The churchwardens also received bequests of 4d, 5s 4d, 12d, 4d so, as in 1530-1531, receipts from “the gathering” were a significant part of the income.
1533-1534
It. reseuyd of ye maydys gedryng iiijs. xd. ob. [4s 10½d]
It. reseuyd of ye madnys gedryng ye last yere xijd. [12d]
It. reseuyd of ye gedryng of ye yonge maydys thys yere ixd. [9d]
1534-1535
It. reseuyd of ye mayds gedryng iiijs. jd. [4s 1d]
It. reseuyd of ye lytyll maydys viijd.ob.; xvjs. iiijd. ob. [8½d, 16s 4½d]
1535-1536
It. reseuyd of ye yonge mēysgedryng ijs. [2s]
It. reseuyd of ye mayds gedryng iiijs. jd. [4s 1d]
1536-1537
It. reseuyd of ye lytyl maydys viijd [8d]
1537-1538
It. reseuyd of ye grete mayds iijs. iijd. [3s 3d]
1538-1539
It. reseuyd of gedrying money xxiijd. ob. [1s 11½d]
There are no more references to the gathering after this date. The demolition of the abbey at Evesham was in full progress at this time, so perhaps this was a factor. As we do not have any Churchwardens’ Accounts prior to 1525, we do not know for how many years prior to this that the festival may have been observed.
Maureen Spinks, June 2026
Sources of Information
- The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400-1700” by Ronald Hutton (Oxford University Press, 1994)
- Transcript of the Badsey Churchwardens’ Accounts, 1525-1571, transcribed by Rev W H Price, edited by E A B Barnard (Priory Press, 1913)