In case you didn’t notice, today is Shrove Tuesday. For me it is apt as I’m about to release Murder at the Abbey, which is set in a Tudor monastery in Lent. You may recall I spent a lot of time researching food and historical fasting and feasting while writing this book, so I thought I’d spend a few lines now explaining about Shrovetide in the age where Agnes Morrow is trying to catch her man.
But first, here’s the cover of my book. Hasn’t my cover artist done a fabulous job?

Late winter, 1540. Wenstone Abbey is closing and its abbot, Mark de Winter, must retain Henry VIII’s favour if he is to keep the infirmary open for the local community. But the woman who drove him into the cloister is hiding in his kitchens under an assumed name, and Agnes is determined to hold him to their 20-year-old vows once he is no longer a monk.
Will Agnes and Mark be together at last, or will two murders, treachery and accusations of witchcraft thwart their most ardent desires?
For centuries past, people seemed to spend most of the year fasting or feasting. That included a fast for the forty days of Lent (Sundays excluded) when dairy, eggs and meat were not allowed for most people. On Fridays, and some other days, depending on the period, there was extra-strict fasting. This period was sandwiched between Shrovetide – three days of feasting prior to Lent – and Eastertide afterwards. Shrove derives from shrive – to confess and receive penance/absolution for one’s sins.
Shrovetide began on the seventh Sunday before Easter, known as Shrove Sunday. Collop Monday followed, marked by eating collops, or fried pieces of meat, and Shrove Tuesday when you ate up all the other banned goods. This feasting was accompanied by celebrations which might include activities such as cock-fighting and apprentices ‘letting their hair down’ (the origin of this phrase) and having a good time. The shriving or pancake bell was rung on Tuesday at around 11 o’clock to signify the time for confession and then the commencement of pancake making.
Shrove Tuesday was followed by Ash Wednesday, a strict fast day of only bread and water. Palm leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday service (the last Sunday before Easter) were burnt and the ashes used to make the sign of a cross on penitents’ foreheads during a church service. Some were exempt from the strictures of fasting due to age or infirmity, like Sarah, an inpatient at Wenstone infirmary for whom Agnes made Italian meatballs (the original mortadella!) to give her strength.
I think this reminds us just how much Christian ritual dominated lives in centuries past.
Will you be making pancakes today? Going to confession?
And what do you think of my proposed blurb opposite the cover photo? Let me know in comments below.