Lent is a period of fasting for six weeks prior to Easter which was instituted at the Council of Nicea in 325. There is no earlier record of such a practice, and no formal practice of fasting is instituted for any occasion, or even required on a voluntary individual basis, for Christians in the New Testament.
The exact period counts backward 40 days (excluding Sundays) from Easter Thursday, and thus commences six weeks earlier on the first of the 40 days ‘Ash Wednesday’. Shrove Tuesday (also known as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day) is the final day of Shrovetide, which marks the end of the pre-Lenten season.
None of this has any precedent in the Bible.
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