What is Hock money?

serpa

HOKE DAY OR TIDE. Antiquaries are exceedingly puzzled respecting the derivation of this annual festival, which commenced the fifteenth day after Easter, and was therefore a movable feast dependent upon Easter.*[1] Though Matthew Paris, who is the oldest authority for the word Hoke-day, says it is "quindena paschæ," yet Mr. Douce assigns convincing reasons for taking it as the second Tuesday after Easter. At Hock-tide, which seems to have included Monday and Tuesday, collections of Hock-money were made in various parishes by the churchwardens, until the Reformation.† [2] Tuesday was the principal day. Hock Monday was for the men, and Hock Tuesday for the women. On both days the men and women alternately, with great merriment, intercepted the public roads with ropes, and pulled passengers to them, from whom they exacted money to be laid out for pious uses; Monday probably having been originally kept as only the vigil or introduction to the festival of Hock-day. Mr. Brand unaccountably, because inconsistently with his previous representations respecting the antiquity of the custom of heaving at Easter, derives that custom from the men and women Hocking each other, and collecting money at Hock-tide. http://www.uab.edu/english/hone/etexts/edb/day-pages/107-april17.html Dec 27 09, 6:33 PM