Q 01/05

Which Victor Hugo character is named for the Sunday after Easter, when the abandoned baby was found?

A) Jean Valjean

B) Quasimodo

C) Gavroche

D) Esmeralda

Answer · why

B) Quasimodo

Quasimodo is left on the foundlings' bed at Notre-Dame on Quasimodo Sunday, and the priest Claude Frollo adopts him and names him after the day.

Q 02/05

Which day before Lent is named from an old word for absolving sins and is celebrated with pancakes?

A) Collop Monday

B) Quinquagesima Sunday

C) Shrove Tuesday

D) Fat Thursday

Answer · why

C) Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday comes from shrive, to absolve after confession. The pancakes used up the eggs, milk and butter that people gave up for the fast.

Q 03/05

Which phrase for a special occasion comes from church calendars that showed feasts in coloured ink?

A) Red-letter day

B) Field day

C) Banner day

D) Golden jubilee

Answer · why

A) Red-letter day

Red-letter day recalls medieval calendars that picked out feasts in bright ink, while ordinary dates stayed in black.

Q 04/05

The word Lent comes from an Old English word that named which season of the year?

A) Winter

B) Autumn

C) Summer

D) Spring

Answer · why

D) Spring

Spring is what the Old English word meant, literally the lengthening of the daylight hours. Only English gave the word a church sense; Dutch lente nam...

Q 05/05

Which feast, forty days after Christmas, falls on the same date as America's Groundhog Day?

A) Candlemas

B) Michaelmas

C) Lammas

D) Childermas

Answer · why

A) Candlemas

Candlemas falls on 2 February and recalls the infant Jesus being presented in the Temple. Old weather lore said a clear sky that day meant a longer wi...