Pre-Lent is the period of preparation that falls three weeks prior to Lent. This stodgy time has been eclipsed by the celebration that marks its end: the three-day fun fest known as Carnival or Shrovetide.
Carnival most officially kicks off on Shrove Sunday and runs through the end of Shrove Tuesday (though Rio famously celebrates on the prior Friday and Saturday, as well). It clearly started as a period of excess and revelry prior to the fasting and reserve of Lent. But it also seems to have its origins in other European wild romps like Saturnalia, where social roles are reversed for a short period of time.
Practically speaking, this kind of excess actually made a lot of sense. Lent is a 40-day period that came with prohibitions on eating meat and animal products. Though many families’ pantries were drying up by that point in the winter, putting the kibosh on perishable products for 40 days would mean a lot of waste. Using up stockpiled eggs, butter and cheese was just a matter of practicality… initially, at least.
Since drinking and doin’ it were likewise discouraged for Lent, Shrovetide brings a sort of wild vibe to the streets that the church don’t really like. Many attempts were made to ban the practice, but eventually, officials began to realize that you just gotta let people shake their shit a little. (Shrove comes from shrive, which means giving absolution for one’s sins through penance; one must be shriven at the start of Lent. As long as folks confessed by Ash Wednesday services, eh, what’s the harm?)
While Carnival spans three days, it was only natural that the day before Lent really took on the most frenetic party guy energy. We’re all probably most familiar with Mardi Gras as celebrated in New Orleans, which was a hotbed of French Catholic tradition and weirdness.
While costumes were always a little wild, getting your tits out wasn’t really a thing until the 1880s, probably as a part of Reconstruction-era steam-letting. The papers started reporting on women with loose morals running amok, though it seems to have been mainly tourists even then. (The “Carnival King” began to throw out beads around this time, but the two weren’t connected.) Getting beads for flashing seems to have emerged in the 1970s with a nudist group trying to get passersby to get a little more free. Now, of course, everyone insists this is a timeless Mardi Gras tradition.
Quite importantly to me, specifically, Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pączki Day. The delicious yeast donuts that are wonderfully overfilled have their roots in Poland, being produced since at least the Middle Ages. In Poland, these were eaten on “Fat Thursday,” the last Thursday before Ash Wednesday. In the US, that tradition has mostly moved to Fat Tuesday. Please eat one in remembrance of me. Bless up.