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Updated: May 6, 2025
Palm Sunday receives its English and the greater part of its foreign names from the old practice of bearing palm-branches, in place of which the early catkins of the willow or yew have been substituted, sprigs of box being used in Brittany.
A very old writer, speaking of the Jews strewing palm-branches before Christ, says: "And thus we take palm and flowers in procession as they did ... in the worship and mind of Him that was done on the cross, worshipping and welcoming Him with song into the Church, as the people did our Lord into the city of Jerusalem.
"Omar ibn el Khatab widened the mosque with mud walls and palm-branches, and, instead of the stems of palms, he made pillars of mud. He first carried a wall round the Hedjra, or the place where the body of Mohammed had been deposited at his death, and which was at first enclosed only by palm-branches.
Paul's, it is adorned by two ranges of pilasters, one above the other; the lower consist of 120 pilasters at least, with their entablature of the Corinthian order, and the upper of as many with entablament of the Composite order, besides twenty columns at the west and four at the east end, and those of the porticoes and spaces between the arches of the windows; and the architrave of the lower order, &c., are filled with great variety of curious enrichments, consisting of cherubims, festoons, volutas, fruit, leaves, car-touches, ensigns of fame, as swords and trumpets in saltier crosses, with chaplets of laurel, also books displayed, bishops' caps, the dean's arms, and, at the east end, the cypher of W.R. within a garter, on which are the words Honi soit qui mal y pense, and this within a fine compartment of palm-branches, and placed under an imperial crown, &c., all finely carved in stone.
I found the festive hall to be a smallish oblong room, the walls of which were garnished with a number of little looking-glasses, polished brass basons, and various other small matters, including little baskets made of palm-branches. The floor was covered with matting and a few showy carpets, and one or two ottomans were arranged for seats.
She stopped a second time; the sound of water-falls mingling their murmurs, the hollow rustlings amongst the palm-branches, and the funereal screams of the birds from their rifted trunks, all conspired to fill her with terror; she imagined every moment that she trod on some venomous reptile; all the stories of malignant Dives and dismal Gouls thronged into her memory; but her curiosity was, notwithstanding, more predominant than her fears; she therefore firmly entered a winding track that led towards the spark, but, being a stranger to the path, she had not gone far till she began to repent of her rashness.
The Lancastrians then gave way, and retreated, at first in orderly fashion, but finally falling into a panic, when they were cut down by thousands. They lost twenty-eight thousand men, and the Yorkists eight thousand. This was a fine piece of work for the beginning of Passion-Week, bloody laurels gained in civil conflict being substituted for palm-branches!
"Kind good man!" thought Sirona, as she perceived a steaming pot on the fire, and the palm-branches which the Alexandrian had fastened up by the entrance to the cave, to screen her from the mounting sun.
The triumphal entry into Jerusalem is represented by a crowd of schoolchildren waving palm-branches and singing hosannahs round Jesus mounted on an ass.
He is mounted high on a chariot, and is clothed in a toga embroidered with gold and a tunic figured with golden palm-branches: in his hand he carries an ivory sceptre, and over his head is held a crown of gold-leaf. Behind the chariot is collected a retinue in festal array.
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