Rice and almonds for Shere Thursday at Barking Abbey

3 days before Easter · Barking, Essex

No longer kept

The nuns of Barking Abbey marked Shere Thursday, the day before Good Friday, with a special dish from the convent kitchen. Brand, quoting transcripts from the Cottonian manuscripts printed in Select Views of London and its Environs in 1804, gives eight pounds of rice and eighteen pounds of almonds delivered to the convent cook for the day, and figs for Palm Sunday. He also noted the Priory of St Mary at Huntingdon giving to twelve poor men on Shere Thursday.

Item, delyveryd to the seyd coke on Sher Thursday viij pounde ryse. Item, delyveryd to the said coke for Shere Thursday xviij pounde almans.

From Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 143. Read the original

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