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148 GOOD FRIDAY. [MaRCII 20. |
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Northumberland.
The Thursday before Easter is called Bloody Thursday by some of the inhabitants of this and the neighbouring county of Yorkshire.—N. & Q. 1st S. vol. x. p. 87 ; 4th S. vol. v.
p. 595. |
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March 20.] GOOD FEIDAY.
The term Good Friday is erroneously said to be peculiar vO the English Church ; but it is certainly an adoption of the old German Gute Freytag, which may have been a corruption of Gottes Freytag, God's Friday, so called on the same principle that Easter Day in England was at one period denominated God's Day.
In a manuscript homily, entitled Exortacio in die Pasche, written about the reign of Edward IV., we are told that the Paschal Day " in some place is callede Esterne Day, and in sum place Goddes Day."—Harl. MSS. Cod. id. fol. 94.
Another MS. quoted by Strutt (Horda Angel-Cynna, vol. iii. p. 175) says it is called Good Friday, because on this day good men were reconciled to God, The length of the services in ancient times on this day, occasioned it to be called Long Friday, the
 of the Anglo-Saxons,which they probably received from the Danes, by whom at the present time the day is denominated Lang Freday.— Med. Mm Kalend. 1841, vol. i. p. 186.
The old ceremony of Creeping to the Cross on Good Friday is giv n from an ancient book of the ceremonial of the Kings of England, in the Notes to the Northumberland Household Booh. The usher was to lay a carpet for the king to "creepe to the Crosse upon." The Queen and her ladies were also to creepe to the Crosse.
In an original Proclamation, black letter, dated 26th February, 30th Henry VIII., in the first volume of a Collection |
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