Mothering Sunday is celebrated today in the UK and some other countries, so a very Happy Mothering Sunday to all those celebrating today, I hope you get thorooughly spoiled.
Here’s an extract from my feast days article in the March edition of Tudor Life magazine:
Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Lent and so, like Palm Sunday, Easter etc. is a moveable feast. Although I have never found any reference to it in 16th century records, Steve Roud in The English Year points out that it is mentioned in Robert Herrick’s 17th century collection of poems, Hesperides (1648):
I’ll to thee a simnell bring
Gainst thou go’st a mothering.
And in Richard Symonds’ diary from 1644:
“Every mid-Lent Sunday is a great day in Worcester, when all the children and god-children meet at the head and chief of the family and have a feast. They call it the Mothering-day.”
So it was definitely celebrated by the mid 17th century.
In the UK today many churches will celebrate by giving out flowers to the women of the congregation and it really is a lovely tradition. I realise, of course, that it’s not a happy day for everyone and my thoughts are with those who have lost mothers or children.
Anne Boleyn was, of course, a mother and you can read more about her as a mother in my article Anne Boleyn, mother of Elizabeth I.
Mothers Day was the mid Lent point, dedicated to Our Lady and meant to honour all women, wives, mothers and daughters as future wives and mothers because women sought the help of the Mother of God in childbirth and many other specific ways. The fasting laws were relaxed, the ladies and children blessed at Mass, the men and boys laid out a feast and waited on the women. It was a feast to honour motherhood and womanhood in thanksgiving. I suspect any cooking had been prepared with female input, as I cannot imagine ordinary Medieval males unless they were employed in the manor or royal kitchen or ss bakers being skilled cooks.