Men on Monday, women on Tuesday in Hampshire

Hock Tuesday (second Tuesday after Easter) · Hampshire

No longer kept

In several Hampshire manors the men hocked the women on Hock Monday, and on the Tuesday the women took their turn with the men. The women stretched ropes across the roads and pulled in passers-by, who paid something towards pious uses to be let go. Strutt quoted Cowel’s account and thought the binding recalled the English delivered from Danish rule.

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

From Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, 2nd ed., p. 308. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Hocktide for the church repairs at St Peter in the East No longer kept OxfordshireIn seventeenth-century Oxford a parish that needed money for church repairs would keep a Hocktide, and the takings could be large.
Lambeth wives out-gather the men at Hock-tide No longer kept LondonThe churchwardens' accounts of Lambeth for 1515 and 1516 recorded hock money gathered by both the men and the women for the church.
First Cuckoo Day in Sussex Lore and belief SussexA naturalist who sent Hone the average arrival days of the spring birds from a twenty years' journal noted that 14 April was called First Cuckoo Day in Sussex.
Black Monday No longer kept EnglandEaster Monday was long known in England as Black Monday.
Hock money at Reading No longer kept BerkshireThe churchwardens' accounts of Reading show hocking there for generations: in 1499 the women of St Laurence's gathered twenty shillings and the men only four.
Hock Tuesday at Coventry No longer kept WarwickshireOn Hock Monday and Tuesday, a fortnight after Easter, the men and then the women went out with ropes and tied up anyone of the other sex they met until they paid a small sum, which went to the church.

Men on Monday, women on Tuesday in Hampshire

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