Royal Maundy Royal Maundy Royal Maundy is a religious service in the Church of England held on Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday. At the service, the British monarch or a royal official ceremonially distributes small silver coins known as "Maundy money" (legally, "the Queen's Maundy money") as symbolic alms to elderly recipients. The coins are legal tender but do not circulate because of their silver content and numismatic value. A small sum of ordinary money is also given in lieu of gifts of clothing and food that the sovereign once bestowed on Maundy recipients. The name "Maundy" and the ceremony
Royal Maundy by Mint officials as gifts. Small quantities of Maundy twopences and fourpences (principally the latter) were obtained by colleges at the University of Cambridge for use in making token annual payments. These requests were fulfilled until the middle of the 20th century, after which the Royal Mint refused them; the colleges thereafter used obsolete circulation groats (fourpences), or dispensed with the custom. According to Robinson, the practice of recipients being asked to sell their gifts "is of long standing". Robinson recounts a description of the scenes after a Maundy service at the turn of the 19th century: [A]s soon as