Archdeacon Nares, however, apparently following Spelman and Skinner whose opinion is adopted by Junius, in opposition to Minsheu, says that this day is so named from the maunds, in which the gifts were contained, and he maintains that maund is a corruption of the Saxon mand, a basket.
The glossographer on Matthew Paris explains the word mandatum, to be alms, from the Saxon Mandye, charity. Somner has no such word in his Dictionary; and it seems more probable that Maunday Thursday has originally been Mandate Thursday; Mandati Dies being the name where the Saxon mands were totally unknown.
Ælfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, having employed the Latin name of this day, Cœna Domini, gives these directions to the Saxon priests: “On Thursday you shall wash the altars before you celebrate mass, otherwise you must not. After vespers you must uncover the altars and let them remain bare until Saturday, washing them in the interior. You shall then fast until nones. Imple mandata Domini in cœna ipsius. ‘Do on Thursday as our Lord commands you;’ wash the feet of the poor, feed and clothe them; and, with humility, wash your feet among yourselves as Christ himself did, and commanded us so to do.” On the whole there seems to be no reason to doubt that the name maundy is derived from the mandate obeyed on this day.
The bread given to the poor on Maundy Thursday was named mandate bread, mandati panes, in the monasteries; as the coin given was called mandate money.—Med. Ævi Kalend. i. 183-185.
One of the earliest instances on record of a monarch observing this custom, and which is the more curious as it shows that the practice of regulating the amount of the dole given on Maundy Thursday by the age of the king was then in existence, is preserved in the “Rotulus Misæ, or role of the wardrobe expenses of the 14th year of King John,” in which there appears an item of “fourteen shillings and one penny, for alms to thirteen poor persons, every one of whom received thirteen pence at Rochester, on Thursday, in Cœna Domini” (Holy Thursday), John having then reigned thirteen complete years.
In the wardrobe expenses of Edward I. we find money given on Easter eve to thirteen poor people whose feet the Queen had washed; which latter custom is said to have been performed by the sovereign so late as the reign of James II.—Thoms, Book of the Court, 1844, p. 311.
Henry VII. gave, when thirty-eight years old, thirty-eight coins and thirty-eight small purses to as many poor people:
“March 25. To thirty-eight poor men in almes, £6 0s. 4d. For thirty-eight small purses, 1s. 8d.
There are several entries for the Maundy in the “Privy Purse expenses” of this sovereign, as in 1496:
“April 10. For bote hire for the Maundy and the kinges robe, payed by John Flee, 4s.”