The popular holidays of Hock-tide, mentioned by Matthew Paris and other early writers, were kept on the Monday and Tuesday following the second Sunday after Easter Day; and distinguished, according to John Rouse, the Warwickshire historian of the fifteenth century, by various sportive pastimes, in which the towns-people, divided into parties, were accustomed to draw each other with ropes. Spelman is more definite, and tells us,
“they consisted in the men and women binding each other, and especially the women the mem.”
and hence it was called Binding-Tuesday or as Plot in his work on Staffordshire notes on Monday, called Rope Monday. In Nottinghamshire it is noted:
“Hock-binding consisted to stretching a rope across highways and enclosing within its compass persons travelling on the Monday and Tuesday following the second Sunday after Easter. On the Monday, the custom was practiced by men of the village, and women had their turn on Hock Tuesday, impounding members of the other sex and relieving a contribution ostensibly devoted to the maintenance of the fabric funds of the parish church. The custom is said to commemorate a massacre of the Danes by the exasperated Anglo-Saxon in England and although it had no legal sanction and was contrary to the freedom of passage of the King’s highway, it was indulged in as part of the merriment of the day, and fines for freedom to pass were modest and usually paid. As might be expected, the sums collected by women usually exceeded those gathered by men. The amounts paid over were sometimes appreciable, the local churchwardens receiving the equivalent of several pounds in modern currency, and on busy thoroughfares much more. The custom died out generally at the Reformation, but in some parts lingered in degraded from into the 19th century.”
Cowel informs us that it was customary in several manors in Hampshire for:
“the men to hock the women on the Monday, and the women the men upon the Tuesday; that is, on that day the women in merriment stop the ways with ropes and pull the passengers to them, desiring something to be laid out in pious uses in order to obtain their freedom.”
Binding day made Hock-day a day which authorities had wanted to supress it. It is reported that hokking as it was called was forbade between 1406 and 1419. However it was successful for in 1446 hokking was again banned to improve public behaviour before a visit by Queen Margaret. Similarly in Essex, reports in Maldon’s court rolls mention a Rope Monday in 1403, 1463, and 1468Indeed the over-exuberance of the people taking part was probably the reason for its disappearance for example Ipswich curate Samuel Byrd called it cruel and abusive. Calling it noxious corruption in a letter to the almoner of Worcester cathedral, John Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester, soundly condemned the holiday. He noted that
“one set day usually, alas, when the solemn feast of Easter has ended women feign to bind men, and on another (or the next) day men feign to bind women, and to do other things-would that they were not dishonorable or worse!-in full view of passers-by, even pretending to increase church profit but earning loss (literally damnation) for the soul under false pretenses. Many scandals arise from the occasion of these activities, and adulteries and other outrageous crimes are committed as a clear offence to God, a very serious danger to the souls of those committing them, and a pernicious example to other.”
The bishop demanded that all parishioners:
“cease and desist from these bindings and unsuitable pastimes on the hitherto usual days, commonly called hock days.”
Anyone caught still participating in the holiday was to be brought before the bishop’s consistory court. These predations clearly had their effect as Hock tide bindings have long ceased and even the name Hock tide is forgot all but in Hungerford of course.
In search of traditional customs and ceremonies 