Mesnice

Eating meat: A middle age name for winter big fat eating cycle

Stanoje, Bojanin

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU

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http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08610901107B

2009-2020/03/08/16:19:22

This paper discusses the usage and meaning of the expression mesnice, based on the source from the 15th century. This term is related to the period in between Christmas and big fat eating cycle, when it is allowed to consume animal products, especially meat. The research shows an existence of a concept different than those of the Church one, expressed in terms mesopust (meat) and siropust (cheese) which imply restraint in consuming meat and cheese in a diet. The testimony about the existence of the unique term mesnice, which included the whole period of meat consuming, points out to a significance of the winter big fat eating cycle preceding Great fasting, and which has a special place in the cyclical change of season errands in an agrarian based society. In turn, this allows us to assume the existence of certain behavior and activities such as carnival forms of celebration similar to those in the Catholic environments in the late middle age Europe or much later, in the documented folk inheritance of the 19th and 20th century, which, in turn, could point out to new fields of research in poorly documented folklore of the middle age Serbia. The term mesnice (and meat weeks), much more than the term mesopust, points out to a social significance of the period preceding the Great fasting and its interpretation within a laic culture, folk rituals, celebrations and fun.

carnival, laic and clerical culture, meat, mesnice/eating meat, written and spoken language