LENT, in the Christian Church, the period of fasting prepara tory to the festival of Easter. As this fast falls in the early part of the year, it became confused with the season, and gradually the word Lent, which originally meant spring, was confined to this use.
The length of this fast and the rigour with which it has been observed have varied greatly at different times and in different countries (see FASTING). In the time of Irenaeus the fast before Easter was very short, but very severe; thus some ate nothing for forty hours between the afternoon of Good Friday and the morning of Easter. This was the only authoritatively prescribed fast known to Tertullian (De jejunio, 2, 13, 14; De oratione, 18). In Alexandria about the middle of the 3rd century it was already customary to fast during Holy Week; and earlier still the Montanists boasted that they observed a two weeks' fast instead of one. Of the Lenten fast or Quadragesima, the first mention is ir. the fifth canon of the council of Nicaea (325), and from this time it is frequently referred to, but chiefly as a season of prepara tion for baptism, of absolution of penitents or of retreat and recollection. In this season fasting played a part, but it was not universally nor rigorously enforced. At Rome, for instance, the whole period of fasting was but three weeks, according to the historian Socrates (Hist. eccl. v. 22), these three weeks, in Mgr. Duchesne's opinion, being not continuous but, following the primitive Roman custom, broken by intervals. Gradually, how ever, the fast as observed in East and West became more rig orously defined. In the East, where after the example of the Church of Antioch the Quadragesima fast had been kept distinct from that of Holy Week, the whole fast came to last for seven weeks, both Saturdays and Sundays (except Holy Saturday) being, however, excluded. Early in the 7th century the fast was made to last 4o days and the cycle of paschal solemnities was extended to the ninth week before Easter by the institution of stational masses for Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima Sun days. The Greek Lent begins on the Monday of Sexagesima, with a week of preparatory fasting, known as Typocgt-yta, or the "butter week"; the actual fast, however, starts on the Monday of Quin quagesima (Esto mihi), this week being known as "the first week of the fast" (i0Sottas 7-(.7o vn0-TELc7.0. The period of Lent is still
described as "the six weeks of the fast" (l 435°126.5Es ri2/ vncrrecc7.0 , Holy Week (7) Cryta Kat 1..teyari ii3(5oA6,$) not being reckoned in. The Lenten fast was retained at the Reformation in some of the reformed Churches, and is still observed in the Anglican and Lutheran communions. In England a Lenten fast was first ordered to be observed by Earconberht, king of Kent (64o-664). In the middle ages, meat, eggs and milk were f or bidden in Lent not only by ecclesiastical but by statute law; and this rule was enforced until the reign of William III.
During the religious confusion of the Reformation, the practice of fasting was generally relaxed and it was found necessary to reassert the obligation of keeping Lent and the other periods and days of abstinence by a series of proclamations and statutes. After the Revolution the Lenten laws fell obsolete, though they remained on the statute-book till repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863. But during the 18th century, though the strict observance of the Lenten fast was generally abandoned, it was still observed and inculcated by the more earnest of the clergy, such as William Law and John Wesley ; and the custom of women wearing mourning in Lent, which had been followed by Queen Elizabeth and her court, survived until well into the 19th century. With the growth of the Oxford Movement in the English Church, the practice of observing Lent was revived ; and, though no rules for fasting are authoritatively laid down, the duty of abstinence is now very generally inculcated by bishops and clergy, either as a discipline or as an exercise in self-denial. For the more "advanced" Churches, Lenten practice tends to conform to that of the pre-Reformation Church.
Mid-Lent, or the fourth Sunday in Lent, was long known as Mothering Sunday, in allusion to the custom for girls in service to be allowed a holiday on that clay to visit their parents. They usually took as a present for their mother a small cake known as a simnel. In shape it resembled a pork-pie but in materials it was a rich plum-pudding. The word is derived through M. Lat. simenellus, simella, from Lat. simile, wheat flour. In Gloucestershire simnel cakes are still common ; and at Usk, Monmouth, the custom of mothering is still scrupulously observed. See article "Lent" in Catholic Encyclopaedia.