Carnival

What it is

Carnival is the stretch of days that comes just before Lent begins in the Christian calendar. It opens on Quinquagesima, also called Shrove Sunday, continues through Shrove Monday and ends on Shrove Tuesday, the day many people call Mardi Gras. Today it is usually a short season of a few days, though in the Middle Ages it could run from Christmas until Lent started. It is kept with public celebration: processions in the streets, parties, music and dressing up. The mood is deliberately different from the weeks that follow, when Lent brings fasting, study and penitence.

Names and meanings

People have argued about where the word carnival comes from. One common account traces it to Late Latin carne levare, to remove meat, and a folk reading turns it into carne vale, a farewell to meat. Either way the name points at the fast that follows. Since carne can also mean flesh, some celebrants have understood it as a goodbye to the flesh and used that to explain the season's freedom. Other scholars propose carnualia, a country feast built around meat, or the Navigium Isidis, when the image of Isis was carried to the shore to bless the sailing season and masked marchers followed an adorned wooden boat called the carrus navalis. That boat may lie behind both the name and the idea of parade floats.

Older festival roots

Long before the medieval church gave the season its shape, European peoples held festivals of release. The Greek Anthesteria and the Roman Saturnalia are often named as its ancestors: occasions when rank and ordinary rules were set aside and joking, misrule and excess took over. Anthropologists call Carnival a reversal ritual, a time when social roles turn about and normal standards of behaviour are lifted. In antiquity winter was imagined as a season belonging to winter spirits that had to be driven off before summer could return. Read that way, the festival is a crossing from dark into light and from winter into spring, a fertility rite and the first spring celebration of the year.

The church and the fast

Carnival settled into the calendar between Epiphany and the eve of Lent, reaching its height before midnight on Shrove Tuesday. The historian John Bossy held that its practices were Christian in character and medieval in origin, with no evidence of them much before 1200. The six weeks before Easter were given to fasting, study and penitence, so the days before them became a last spell of feasting while meat was still plentiful. A thirteenth century French poem, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, set the two as allegorical opponents. On Shrove Tuesday many Lutherans, Anglicans and Roman Catholics examine themselves and consider what they will give up for Lent.

Customs of the season

Customs differ from place to place. Parades and street parties are common, often with masks and costumes, and some borrow a little from the circus. On the last day many people eat pancakes, doughnuts and other sweets, and households use up the meat, butter, milk and lard left over from winter so that nothing spoils. Some families carry Shrovetide rods and eat Shrovetide buns after church. Others keep a basket in the church entrance for the palm branches blessed on the previous Palm Sunday; these are burnt on Shrove Tuesday and the ashes are used the next day, Ash Wednesday.

How Carnival is kept

The season is public. Towns and neighbourhoods put on parades, street parties and other entertainments, and participants wear costumes and masks, which change how a person appears for a few days. Eating and drinking are part of it: rich food is finished off before the fast, and pancakes, doughnuts and other sweets are eaten on the final day. In church, some Christians confess and reflect on what to give up for Lent; some carry Shrovetide rods or eat Shrovetide buns after the service; palms from the year before are burnt to make Ash Wednesday ashes.

When and where

Carnival belongs to the days just before Lent. It opens on Shrove Sunday, also called Quinquagesima, continues through Shrove Monday and closes on Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, the night before Ash Wednesday. Because Easter moves each year, the dates change. In German-speaking Europe and the Netherlands the season is opened earlier, on 11 November, often at 11:11 in the morning.

Carnival is kept wherever Christian communities follow the calendar that leads into Lent, and it is strongest in places with a large Catholic population. The name Carnival is usual in those areas and in Greece. Lutheran countries call the season Fastelavn, Anglican, Methodist and other Protestant regions call it Shrovetide, and Orthodox Slavs keep Maslenitsa in the week before Great Lent.

What Carnival means

For those who keep it, Carnival is a hinge between two moods. The weeks of feasting and misrule are followed by the discipline of Lent, and each is understood through the other. Masks and costumes allow a break from the ordinary self, and the whole crowd shares one mood for a few days. Older readings treat the festival as a turning from winter to spring, a leaving behind of darkness, and a renewal of order once the revelry ends.

Days Carnival is marked

Questions people ask about Carnival

See also

HalloweenAn annual observance on 31 October marking the eve of All Saints' Day, rooted in Christian tradition and Celtic heritageChristmas EveThe evening before Christmas, marked by church services, family meals, and gift preparations across Christian cultures.Rio CarnivalFive days of samba parades, costumes and street parties in Rio, ending at LentApril Fools' DayAn annual day of lighthearted pranks, hoaxes and teasing kept on the first of April

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle
• Reviving Carnival in IstanbulThe New York Times, Article
• Reviving Carnival in IstanbulThe New York Times, Article

• Carnival on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.