The season of Lent, which stretches over the forty days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, was a time of penance and fasting in the Christian medieval world. Fasting saw a prohibition on the eating of many foods, with meat, fat, milk and eggs being particularly forbidden. This may seem harsh to us now but, in fact, the Church had cleverly imposed the restrictions on a time of the year when the food reserves were most scarce anyway. That is, in Spring, the food stocks from the previous autumn’s harvests were at their lowest level after the long, cold winter. Thus, a social disadvantage was refashioned into a spiritual benefit.
The scarcity, however did not stop people from thinking about their favourite foods and, as the chickens did not stop laying completely, there sprang up the practice of preserving the eggs – by boiling – over the Lenten period, and often painting and decorating them in preparation for the celebration of Easter Sunday morning. Resourceful medieval folk also found ways to make mock, or substitute, eggs (at least as far as the outward appearance of the egg went) by blowing out egg shells and then filling them with an almond paste mixture, or even fish roe.
The prohibition on eggs also worked towards making them seem special, both as a food and a symbol and, unsurprisingly, various superstitions arose in relation to eggs at Easter. One such superstition was that an egg laid on Good Friday and kept for one hundred years, would turn into a diamond. Another was that eggs cooked on Good Friday and eaten on Easter Sunday would increase fertility (and the fertility belief also attached itself to the symbol of the rabbit/bunny – for obvious reasons!). And, if you were fortunate enough to bite into a double-yolked egg, future wealth was assured.
Of course, the religious significance of the egg at Easter was not overlooked, with adults hiding brightly coloured eggs for children to find in a symbolic reflection of the women finding Jesus’ tomb empty after his resurrection.
Happy Easter – eggs and all!
Carmel Bendon 