Hocktide Obs. exc. Hist.
Also 5 hoke-, 6 hok-, 6–7 hoc-, 7 hocks-, hucx-, hocke-, huck-.
[f. hock- in Hock-day + tide time, season.]
The time or season of the hock days: Hock Monday and Tuesday (the second Monday and Tuesday after Easter-day), on which in pre-Reformation times money was collected for church and parish purposes, with various festive and sportive customs; after the Reformation kept for some time as a festive season with various traditional customs, some of which survived into the 19th c.
The earlier custom seems to have been the seizing and binding (by women on Monday, and by men on Tuesday) of persons of the opposite sex, who released themselves by a small payment. After this was prohibited (see 1406 in hock v.2, 1450 in Hock-day), recourse was had to the plan of stretching ropes or chains across the streets and ways, to stop passers for the same purpose. (See 1777 in Hock Tuesday.)
| 1484 in Glasscock Rec. St. Michael's Bp. Stortford (1882) 26 Item pd. for bakyng of the brede at hoketyde vd. 1509 Churchw. Acc. Kingston-upon-Thames in Lysons Envir. Lond. (1810) I. i. 168 Rec{supd} for the gaderyng at Hoc-tyde 0 14 0. 1510 Churchw. Acc. St. Mary's in Peshall Hist. Oxford 67 Recepts. Recd. atte Hoctyde of the wyfes gaderynge, xvs. ijd. 1546 Churchw. Acc. St. Dunstan's, Canterb., Recevyd of the wyvys y{supt} they did gether at Hoktyd iijs. ixd. 1611 Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. viii. v. §11. 392 The day of his [Hardicnut's] death is annually celebrated with open pastimes..which time is now called Hoctide or Hucktide, signifying a time of scorning or contempt, which fell vpon the Danes by his death. 1625 Purchas Pilgrims iii. 621 margin, Hocktide I haue seene kept with publike feasting in the street, the women also binding men, or compelling them to some ransome; the Tuesday fortnight after Easter. 1656 Blount Glossogr., Hocktyde or Hockstyde,..in some parts of this Nation not yet out of memory, but observed the week after Easter. 1663 Churchw. Acc. St. Peter's in East in Peshall Hist. Oxford 83 Hocktide brought in this year {pstlg}6. 1772–3 Ibid. 83 This parish of St. Peter in the East gained by the Hocktide and Whitsuntide, anno 1664, the sum of 14l. 1777 Brand Pop. Antiq. (1849) I. 187. 1826 Hone Every-day Bk. I. 476. 1898 L'pool Echo 19 Apr. (2nd Tuesday after Easter) 4/3 ‘Kissing Day’ at Hungerford.—Hungerford is once more celebrating Hock-tide, with all its quaint customs and ancient ceremonies. |
b. attrib., as Hocktide-festival, Hocktide-money, Hocktide-pastime.
| c 1505 Churchw. Acc. St. Dunstan's, Canterb., Receyvid of Hocktyde money for iij yere xxiijs. viijd. 1613 Wither Abuses Stript (1618) 232 Because that, for the Churches good, They in defence of Hocktide custome stood. 1636 J. Trussell in Ann. Dubrensia (1877) 7 The Hocktide pastimes are Declin'd, if not diserted. 1884 Symonds Shaks. Predecess. iv. 176 They were acted..at hock-tide festivals. |