If we refer the original of this festival to the eleventh century, two occasions present themselves as claimants for the honour. The first is the massacre of the Danes under Ethelred, 1002. The old Coventry play of Hock-Tuesday points to this date. This play, which was performed before Queen Elizabeth in 1575, represented a series of skirmishes between the English and Danes, in which the latter, after two victories, were overcome, and many led captive in triumph by the women. This play the men of Coventry explained to be grounded on story, and to be an old-established pageant. The custom may, at any rate, be traced back to the thirteenth century. Two objections are lodged against the reference of the festival to this occurrence. In the first place it does seem a valid objection that a holiday could never have been instituted to commemorate an event which afforded matter rather for humiliation than for mirth and festivity. The measure was unwise as it was inhuman, for Sweyn terribly retaliated the next year, and inflicted upon the country unparalleled misery and oppression. The second objection is that of Henry of Huntingdon, who thinks the dates cannot be made to fit, the massacre of the Danes being on St. Brice’s Day (Nov. 13), and the death of Hardicanute June 8. But this difficulty would be removed if we accepted the statement of Milner (_Hist. Winchester_), that by an order of Ethelred, the sports were transferred from November to the Monday in the third week after Easter. And here the question opens as to the _day of the week_ upon which the feast was celebrated. Dr. Plot (_Hist. Oxon._) makes Monday the principal day; on the other hand Tuesday is of general acceptance: hence the special designations, Hock-Tuesday, Binding-Tuesday. The fact is, that the Monday was the vigil of the festival, and soon came to be kept in common with the festival. In Ellis’s edition of Brand’s _Popular Antiquities_ will be found a number of financial extracts of ancient records referring to this feast--_e.g._ in the parish registers of St. Lawrence, Reading, in the year 1499, we find recorded:-- ‘Item, received of Hock money gaderyd of women, xx_s_. ‘Item, received of Hok money gaderyd of men, iiij_s_.’ In the St. Giles’s parish register, under date 1535: ‘Hoc money gatheryd by the wyves, xiij_s_. ix_d_.’ In the register of St. Mary’s parish, 1559: ‘Hoctyde money, the men’s gathering, iij_s_. The women’s, xij_s_.’ These hoc-tydes came to be scenes of revelry and excess, causing their inhibition, in 1450, by the Bishop of Worcester. This would simply apply to his own diocese. They were still apparently in vogue in the seventeenth century; thus Wyther[45]:--