fun with words

From Jonathan Clegg's The Medieval Church in Manuscripts

-- All Hallow's Day: commemoration of any saint (or the dead that have gone on before). On "All hallow's e'n" the dead supposedly walked among the earth again

---Shrove Tuesday: Old English term relating to the confession of sins undertaken before lent

-- hocus pocus: possibly hoc est corpus or "here is the body" [of Christ] often said before Eucharist

-- bedlam: corruption of "Bethlehem" and St Mary's of Bethlehem cared for the insane as early as the 15th century; often sick looked after by church hence why so many hospitals have saint's names

-- tithe: Old English teotha or tenth and by the 13th century was a mandatory tax

--bede: Middle English word for prayer: "I bid you goodbye"; also associated with the rounded necklace used for counting prayers--- hence "bead"