Royal Maundy pence to each of fifty poor men. It is not known, however, whether it was as yet the practice each year to have the number of pence and the number of recipients track the monarch's age: Henry IV was the first monarch to decree that the number of pence given be determined by the monarch's age. The ceremony was not always performed on Maundy Thursday; it could be postponed a day to Good Friday by royal command, as it was in 1510. Nobles could hold their own Maundy distributions, as did Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland in the early
Maundy Thursday name of the Christian rite of footwashing, which traditionally occurs during Maundy Thursday church services. Most scholars agree that the English word "maundy" in that name for the day is derived through Middle English and Old French "mandé", from the Latin "mandatum" (also the origin of the English word "mandate"), the first word of the phrase ""Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos"" ("A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another.") This statement by Jesus in the Gospel of by which Jesus