Shrovetide, confession-time, especially the days immediately before Lent, when, in Catholic times, the people confessed their sins to the parish priest and afterwards gave themselves up to sports, and dined on pancakes, Shrove Tuesday being Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, or the first day of Lent.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Shropshire * Shumla