The Mediaeval Stage, Volume 1 (of 2)

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Title: The Mediaeval Stage, Volume 1 (of 2)
Author: Chambers, E. K. (Edmund Kerchever)
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

On page xxii, "FOURNIER" has been moved before "FOWLER", to correct the
alphabetization of the List of Authorities.

Italics are represented thus _italic_, superscripts thus y^n,
subscripts as y_{n}.

[Illustration: BEGINNING OF DUBLIN _Quem quaeritis_, FROM BODLEIAN
RAWLINSON LITURGICAL MS. D. 4 (14TH CENTURY)]

THE
MEDIAEVAL STAGE

BY
E. K. CHAMBERS

VOLUME I

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

_Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4_

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA
CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA
KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG

FIRST EDITION 1903
REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY LOWE & BRYDONE, PRINTERS, LTD., LONDON
FROM SHEETS OF THE FIRST EDITION
1925, 1948, 1954, 1963

To N. C.

PREFACE

Some years ago I was thinking of a little book, which now may or may
not ever get itself finished, about Shakespeare and the conditions,
literary and dramatic, under which Shakespeare wrote. My proper
task would have begun with the middle of the sixteenth century. But
it seemed natural to put first some short account of the origins
of play-acting in England and of its development during the Middle
Ages. Unfortunately it soon became apparent that the basis for such
a narrative was wanting. The history of the mediaeval theatre had
never, from an English point of view, been written. The initial
chapter of Collier’s _Annals of the Stage_ is even less adequate than
is usual with this slovenly and dishonest antiquary. It is with some
satisfaction that, in spite of the barrier set up by an incorrect
reference, I have resolved one dramatic representation elaborately
described by Collier into a _soteltie_ or sweetmeat. More scholarly
writers, such as Dr. A. W. Ward, while dealing excellently with the
mediaeval drama as literature, have shown themselves but little
curious about the social and economic facts upon which the mediaeval
drama rested. Yet from a study of such facts, I am sure, any literary
history, which does not confine itself solely to the analysis of
genius, must make a start.

An attempt of my own to fill the gap has grown into these two
volumes, which have, I fear, been unduly swelled by the inclusion
of new interests as, from time to time, they took hold upon me; an
interest, for example, in the light-hearted and coloured life of those
_poverelli_ of letters, the minstrel folk; a very deep interest in
the track across the ages of certain customs and symbols of rural
gaiety which bear with them the inheritance of a remote and ancestral
heathenism. I can only hope that this disproportionate treatment of
parts has not wholly destroyed the unity of purpose at which, after
all, I aimed. If I may venture to define for myself the formula of
my work, I would say that it endeavours to state and explain the
pre-existing conditions which, by the latter half of the sixteenth
century, made the great Shakespearean stage possible. The story is
one of a sudden dissolution and a slow upbuilding. I have arranged
the material in four Books. The First Book shows how the organization
of the Graeco-Roman theatre broke down before the onslaught of
Christianity and the indifference of barbarism, and how the actors
became wandering minstrels, merging with the gleemen of their Teutonic
conquerors, entertaining all classes of mediaeval society with
_spectacula_ in which the dramatic element was of the slightest, and in
the end, after long endurance, coming to a practical compromise with
the hostility of the Church. In the Second Book I pass to _spectacula_
of another type, which also had to struggle against ecclesiastical
disfavour, and which also made their ultimate peace with all but the
most austere forms of the dominant religion. These are the _ludi_
of the village feasts, bearing witness, not only to their origin in
heathen ritual, but also, by their constant tendency to break out into
primitive forms of drama, to the deep-rooted mimetic instinct of the
folk. The Third Book is a study of the process by which the Church
itself, through the introduction of dramatic elements into its liturgy,
came to make its own appeal to this same mimetic instinct; and of that
by which, from such beginnings, grew up the great popular religious
drama of the miracle-plays, with its offshoots in the moralities and
the dramatic pageants. The Fourth and final Book deals summarily
with the transformation of the mediaeval stage, on the literary side
under the influence of humanism, on the social and economic side by
the emergence from amongst the ruins of minstrelsy of a new class
of professional players, in whose hands the theatre was destined to
recover a stable organization upon lines which had been departed from
since the days of Tertullian.

I am very conscious of the manifold imperfections of these volumes.
They are the work, not of a professed student, but of one who only
plays at scholarship in the rare intervals of a busy administrative
life. They owe much to the long-suffering officials of the British
Museum and the London Library, and more recently to the aid and
encouragement of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press and their
accomplished staff. The literary side of the mediaeval drama, about
which much remains to be said, I have almost wholly neglected. I
shall not, I hope, be accused of attaching too much importance in
the first volume to the vague and uncertain results of folk-lore
research. One cannot be always giving expression to the minuter
shades of probability. But in any investigation the validity of the
inferences must be relative to the nature of the subject-matter;
and, whether I qualify it in words or not, I do not, of course, make
a statement about the intention, say, of primitive sacrifice, with
the same confidence which attaches to one about matters of historic
record. The burden of my notes and appendices sometimes appears to me
intolerable. My excuse is that I wanted to collect, once for all, as
many facts with as precise references as possible. These may, perhaps,
have a value independent of any conclusions which I have founded upon
them. And even now I do not suppose that I have been either exhaustive
or accurate. The remorseless ideal of the historian’s duties laid
down in the _Introduction aux Études Historiques_ of MM. Langlois
and Seignobos floats before me like an accusing spirit. I know how
very far I am from having reached that austere standard of scientific
completeness. To begin with, I had not the necessary training. Oxford,
my most kindly nurse, maintained in my day no _École des Chartes_,
and I had to discover the rules of method as I went along. But the
greater difficulty has been the want of leisure and the spacious life.
Shades of Duke Humphrey’s library, how often, as I jostled for my turn
at the crowded catalogue-shelves of the British Museum, have I not
envied those whose lot it is to tread your ample corridors and to bend
over your yellowing folios! Amongst such happy scholars, the canons
of Clio may claim implicit obedience. A silent company, they ‘class’
their documents and ‘try’ their sources from morn to eve, disturbed
in the pleasant ways of research only by the green flicker of leaves
in the Exeter garden, or by the statutory inconvenience of a terminal
lecture.--

‘Tanagra! think not I forget!’

E. K. C.

LONDON, _May, 1903_.

CONTENTS

VOLUME I
PAGE

PREFACE v

LIST OF AUTHORITIES xiii

BOOK I. MINSTRELSY

CHAP.

I. THE FALL OF THE THEATRES 1

II. MIMUS AND SCÔP 23

III. THE MINSTREL LIFE 42

IV. THE MINSTREL REPERTORY 70

BOOK II. FOLK DRAMA

V. THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 89

VI. VILLAGE FESTIVALS 116

VII. FESTIVAL PLAY 146

VIII. THE MAY-GAME 160

IX. THE SWORD-DANCE 182

X. THE MUMMERS’ PLAY 205

XI. THE BEGINNING OF WINTER 228

XII. NEW YEAR CUSTOMS 249

XIII. THE FEAST OF FOOLS 274

XIV. THE FEAST OF FOOLS (_continued_) 301

XV. THE BOY BISHOP 336

XVI. GUILD FOOLS AND COURT FOOLS 372

XVII. MASKS AND MISRULE 390

VOLUME II

BOOK III. RELIGIOUS DRAMA

XVIII. LITURGICAL PLAYS 1

XIX. LITURGICAL PLAYS (_continued_) 41

XX. THE SECULARIZATION OF THE PLAYS 68

XXI. GUILD PLAYS AND PARISH PLAYS 106

XXII. GUILD PLAYS AND PARISH PLAYS (_continued_) 124

XXIII. MORALITIES, PUPPET-PLAYS, AND PAGEANTS 149

BOOK IV. THE INTERLUDE

XXIV. PLAYERS OF INTERLUDES 179

XXV. HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM 199

APPENDICES

A. THE TRIBUNUS VOLUPTATUM 229

B. TOTA IOCULATORUM SCENA 230

C. COURT MINSTRELSY IN 1306 234

D. THE MINSTREL HIERARCHY 238

E. EXTRACTS FROM ACCOUNT BOOKS 240

I. Durham Priory 240

II. Maxstoke Priory 244

III. Thetford Priory 245

IV. Winchester College 246

V. Magdalen College, Oxford 248

VI. Shrewsbury Corporation 250

VII. The Howards of Stoke-by-Nayland, Essex 255

VIII. The English Court 256

F. MINSTREL GUILDS 258

G. THOMAS DE CABHAM 262

H. PRINCELY PLEASURES AT KENILWORTH 263

I. A Squire Minstrel 263

II. The Coventry Hock-Tuesday Show 264

I. THE INDIAN VILLAGE FEAST 266

J. SWORD-DANCES 270

I. Sweden (sixteenth century) 270

II. Shetland (eighteenth century) 271

K. THE LUTTERWORTH ST. GEORGE PLAY 276

L. THE PROSE OF THE ASS 279

M. THE BOY BISHOP 282

I. The Sarum Office 282

II. The York Computus 287

N. WINTER PROHIBITIONS 290

O. THE REGULARIS CONCORDIA OF ST. ETHELWOLD 306

P. THE DURHAM SEPULCHRUM 310

Q. THE SARUM SEPULCHRUM 312

R. THE DUBLIN QUEM QUAERITIS 315

S. THE AUREA MISSA OF TOURNAI 318

T. SUBJECTS OF THE CYCLICAL MIRACLES 321

U. INTERLUDIUM DE CLERICO ET PUELLA 324

V. TERENTIUS ET DELUSOR 326

W. REPRESENTATIONS OF MEDIAEVAL PLAYS 329

X. TEXTS OF MEDIAEVAL PLAYS AND INTERLUDES 407

I. Miracle-Plays 407

II. Popular Moralities 436

III. Tudor Makers of Interludes 443

IV. List of Early Tudor Interludes 453

SUBJECT INDEX 462

LIST OF AUTHORITIES

[_General Bibliographical Note._ I mention here only a few works
of wide range, which may be taken as authorities throughout these
two volumes. Others, more limited in their scope, are named in the
preliminary notes to the sections of the book on whose subject-matter
they bear.--An admirable general history of the modern drama is W.
Creizenach’s still incomplete _Geschichte des neueren Dramas_ (Band i,
_Mittelalter und Frührenaissance_, 1893; Bände ii, iii, _Renaissance
und Reformation_, 1901-3). R. Prölss, _Geschichte des neueren Dramas_
(1881-3), is slighter. The earlier work of J. L. Klein, _Geschichte des
Dramas_ (13 vols. 1865-76), is diffuse, inconvenient, and now partly
obsolete. A valuable study is expected from J. M. Manly in vol. iii of
his _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama_, of which two volumes,
containing selected texts, appeared in 1897. C. Hastings, _Le Théâtre
français et anglais_ (1900, Eng. trans. 1901), is a compilation of
little merit.--Prof. Creizenach may be supplemented for Germany by
R. Froning, _Das Drama des Mittelalters_ (1891). For France there
are the exhaustive and excellent volumes of L. Petit de Julleville’s
_Histoire du Théâtre en France au Moyen Âge_ (_Les Mystères_, 1880;
_Les Comédiens en France au Moyen Âge_, 1885; _La Comédie et les Mœurs
en France au Moyen Âge_, 1886; _Répertoire du Théâtre comique au Moyen
Âge_, 1886). G. Bapst, _Essai sur l’Histoire du Théâtre_ (1893),
adds some useful material on the history of the stage. For Italy A.
d’Ancona, _Origini del Teatro italiano_ (2nd ed., 1891), is also
excellent.--The best English book is A. W. Ward’s _History of English
Dramatic Literature to the death of Queen Anne_ (2nd ed., 1899). J.
P. Collier, _History of English Dramatic Poetry_ (new ed., 1879), is
full of matter, but, for various reasons, not wholly trustworthy. J. J.
Jusserand, _Le Théâtre en Angleterre_ (2nd ed., 1881), J. A. Symonds,
_Shakespeare’s Predecessors in the English Drama_ (1884), and G. M.
Gayley, _Representative English Comedies_ (1903), are of value. Texts
will be found in Manly’s and Gayley’s books, and in A. W. Pollard,
_English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes_ (3rd ed., 1898);
W. C. Hazlitt, _Dodsley’s Old Plays_ (15 vols. 1874-6); A. Brandl,
_Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England_ (1898). F. H. Stoddard,
_References for Students of Miracle Plays and Mysteries_ (1887),
and K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, _English Drama; a Working Basis_
(1896), are rough attempts at bibliographies.--In addition the drama
of course finds treatment in the general histories of literature. The
best are: for Germany, R. Kögel, _Geschichte der deutschen Literatur
bis zum Ausgange des Mittelalters_ (1894-7, a fragment); K. Gödeke,
_Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung aus den Quellen_ (2nd
ed., 1884-1900); W. Scherer, _Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur_ (8th
ed., 1899): for France, L. Petit de Julleville (editor), _Histoire
de la Langue et de la Littérature françaises_ (1896-1900); G. Paris,
_La Littérature française au Moyen Âge_ (2nd ed., 1890): for Italy,
A. Gaspary, _Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur_ (1884-9, Eng.
transl. 1901): for England, T. Warton, _History of English Poetry_ (ed.
W. C. Hazlitt, 1871); B. Ten Brink, _History of English Literature_
(Eng. trans. 1893-6); J. J. Jusserand, _Literary History of the English
People_ (vol. i. 1895); W. J. Courthope, _History of English Poetry_
(vols. i, ii. 1895-7); G. Saintsbury, _Short History of English
Literature_ (1898), and, especially for bibliography, G. Körting,
_Grundriss der Geschichte der englischen Litteratur_ (3rd ed., 1899).
The _Periods of European Literature_, edited by Prof. Saintsbury,
especially G. Gregory Smith, _The Transition Period_ (1900), and
the two great _Grundrisse_, H. Paul, _Grundriss der germanischen
Philologie_ (2nd ed., 1896-1903), and G. Gröber, _Grundriss der
romanischen Philologie_ (1888-1903), should also be consulted.--The
beginnings of the mediaeval drama are closely bound up with liturgy,
and the nature of the liturgical books referred to is explained by W.
Maskell, _A Dissertation upon the Ancient Service-Books of the Church
of England_ (in _Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae_, 2nd ed.,
1882, vol. iii); H. B. Swete, _Church Services and Service-Books before
the Reformation_ (1896); Procter-Frere, _New History of the Book of
Common Prayer_ (1901). The beginnings of Catholic ritual are studied by
L. Duchesne, _Origines du Culte chrétien_ (3rd ed., 1902, Eng. trans.
1903), and its mediaeval forms described by D. Rock, _The Church of our
Fathers_ (1849-53), and J. D. Chambers, _Divine Worship in England in
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries_ (1877).

The following list of books is mainly intended to elucidate the
references in the footnotes, and has no claim to bibliographical
completeness or accuracy. I have included the titles of a few German
and French dissertations of which I have not been able to make use.]

* * * * *

_Aberdeen Records._ Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of
Aberdeen. Edited by J. Stuart. 2 vols. 1844-8. [_Spalding Club_, xii,
xix.]

_Acta SS._ Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, quas collegit
I. Bollandus. Operam continuavit G. Henschenius [et alii], 1734-1894.
[In progress.]

AHN. English Mysteries and Miracle Plays. By Dr. Ahn. Trier, 1867. [Not
consulted.]

ALCUIN. See DÜMMLER.

ALLARD. Julien l’Apostat. Par P. Allard. 3 vols. 1900-3.

ALLEN. The Evolution of the Idea of God: an Enquiry into the Origins of
Religion. By Grant Allen, 1897.

ALT. Theater und Kirche in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhältniss. Von H. Alt,
1846.

_Anal. Hymn._ Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi. Ediderunt C. Blume et G. M.
Dreves. 37 parts, 1886-1901. [In progress.]

ANCONA. Origini del Teatro italiano. Per A. d’Ancona, 2nd ed. 2 vols.
1891.

ANCONA, _Sacr. Rappr._ Sacre Rappresentazioni dei secoli xiv, xv e xvi,
raccolte e illustrate per cura di A. d’Ancona, 1872.

_Anglia._ Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie. 24 vols.
1878-1903. [In progress.]

_Ann. Arch._ Annales Archéologiques, dirigées par Didron aîné. 28 vols.
1844-81.

_Antiquarian Repertory._ The Antiquarian Repertory: A Miscellaneous
assemblage of Topography, History, Biography, Customs and Manners.
Compiled by F. Grose and T. Astle. 2nd ed. 4 vols. 1807.

ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE, _Civ. Celt._ La Civilisation des Celtes et celle
de l’Épopée homérique. Par H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, 1899. [Vol. vi
of _Cours de littérature celtique_.]

ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE, _Cycl. Myth._ Le Cycle mythologique irlandais et
la Mythologie celtique. Par H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, 1884. [Vol. ii
of same.]

_Archaeologia._ Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to
Antiquity. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London. 57 vols.
1770-1901. [In progress.]

ARNOLD. The Customs of London, otherwise Arnold’s Chronicle. Edited by
F. Douce, 1811.

ASHTON. A Righte Merrie Christmasse!!! By J. Ashton, n. d.

BAHLMANN, _Ern._ Die Erneuerer des antiken Dramas und ihre ersten
dramatischen Versuche: 1314-1478. Von P. Bahlmann, 1896.

BAHLMANN, _L. D._ Die lateinischen Dramen von Wimpheling’s Stylpho bis
zur Mitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts: 1480-1550. Von P. Bahlmann,
1893.

BALE. Scriptorum illustrium maioris Britanniae, quam nunc Angliam et
Scotiam vocant, Catalogus. Autore Ioanne Baleo Sudouolgio Anglo. 2
vols. Basileae, Oporinus, 1557-9. [Enlarged from the edition in one
vol. of 1548.]

BALE, _Index_. Index Britanniae Scriptorum quos ex variis bibliothecis
non parvo labore collegit Ioannes Baleus. Edited by R. L. Poole and M.
Bateson, 1902. [_Anecdota Oxoniensia, Mediaeval and Modern Series_, ix,
from a MS. compiled 1549-1557.]

BAPST. Essai sur l’Histoire du Théâtre. Par G. Bapst, 1893.

BARBAZAN-MÉON. Fabliaux et Contes des Poètes françois des xi, xii,
xiii, xiv et xv siècles. Publiés par E. Barbazan. Nouvelle édition, par
M. Méon. 4 vols. 1808.

BARRETT. Riding Skimmington and Riding the Stang. By C. R. B. Barrett,
1895. [_Journal of British Archaeological Association_, N. S. vol. i.]

BARTHÉLEMY. Rational ou Manuel des divins Offices de Guillaume Durand,
Évêque de Mende au treizième siècle. Traduit par M. C. Barthélemy. 5
vols. 1854.

BARTSCH. Altfranzösische Romanzen und Pastourellen. Par K. Bartsch,
1870.

BATES. The English Religious Drama. By K. L. Bates, 1893.

BATES-GODFREY. English Drama: a Working Basis. By K. L. Bates and L. B.
Godfrey, 1896.

BEDE, _D. T. R._ Venerabilis Bedae Opera quae Supersunt Omnia. Edidit
J. A. Giles. 12 vols. 1843-4. [The _De Temporum Ratione_ forms part of
vol. vi.]

BEDE, _E. H._ _See_ PLUMMER.

BÉDIER. Les Fabliaux. Études de Littérature populaire et d’Histoire
littéraire du Moyen Âge. Par J. Bédier, 2nd ed. 1895.

BELETHUS. Rationale Divinorum Officiorum Auctore Joanne Beletho
Theologo Parisiensi, 1855. [In _P. L._ ccii.]

BELL. Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England.
Edited by R. Bell, 1857.

BÉRENGER-FÉRAUD. Superstitions et Survivances étudiées au point
de vue de leur Origine et de leurs Transformations. Par L. J. B.
Bérenger-Féraud. 4 vols. 1896.

BERNHARD. Recherches sur l’Histoire de la Corporation des Ménétriers ou
Joueurs d’Instruments de la Ville de Paris. Par B. Bernhard. [_Bibl. de
l’École des Chartes_, iii. 377, iv. 525, v. 254, 339.]

BERTRAND. Nos Origines: iv. La Religion des Gaulois; Les Druides et le
Druidisme. Par A. Bertrand, 1897.

_Bibl. des Chartes._ Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes. Revue
d’Érudition consacrée spécialement à l’étude du Moyen Âge. [I quote the
numbers of the annual volumes, without regard to the _Séries_.]

BINGHAM. The Works of Joseph Bingham. Edited by R. Bingham. New ed. 10
vols.

BLOMEFIELD. An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of
Norfolk. By F. Blomefield. 2nd ed. 11 vols. 1805-10.

BÖHCK. Die Anfänge des englischen Dramas. Von Dr. Böhck, 1890. [Not
consulted.]

BOLTON. The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children. By H. C. Bolton, 1888.

BORETIUS. Capitularia Regum Francorum. Ediderunt A. Boretius et V.
Krause. 2 vols. 1883-7. [_M. G. H. Leges_, Sectio ii.]

BOURQUELOT. Office de la Fête des Fous. Publié par F. Bourquelot, 1858.
[_Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Sens_, vol. vi. Not consulted
at first hand.]

BOWER. The Elevation and Procession of the Ceri at Gubbio. By H. M.
Bower, 1897. [_F. L. S._]

BRAND. Observations on Popular Antiquities, chiefly illustrating the
Origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions. By J.
Brand. Enlarged by Sir H. Ellis. 3 vols. 1841-2.

BRAND-HAZLITT. Observations on Popular Antiquities. By J. Brand. Edited
with additions by W. C. Hazlitt. 3 vols. 1870.

BRANDL. Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare. Ein
Ergänzungsband zu Dodsley’s Old English Plays. Herausgegeben von A.
Brandl, 1898. [_Quellen und Forschungen_, lxxx.]

BREWER. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of
Henry VIII. Arranged and catalogued by J. S. Brewer [and afterwards J.
Gairdner and R. H. Brodie]. 18 vols. 1862-1902. [_Calendars of State
Papers._]

BROOKE. The History of Early English Literature: being the History of
English Poetry to the Accession of King Alfred. By S. A. Brooke. 2
vols. 1892.

BROOKE, _Eng. Lit._ English Literature from the Beginning to the
Norman Conquest. By S. A. Brooke, 1898.

BROTANEK. Die englischen Maskenspiele. Von R. Brotanek, 1902. [_Wiener
Beiträge zur englischen Philologie_, xv.]

BROWN. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English
Affairs, in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in other
Libraries of North Italy. Edited by H. F. Brown and R. Brown. 10 vols.
1864-1900.

BRYLINGER. Comoediae et Tragoediae aliquot ex Novo et Vetere Testamento
desumptae. Basileae, Brylinger, 1540.

BURCHARDUS. Burchardi Wormaciencis Ecclesiae Episcopi Decretorum Libri
xx, 1853. [In _P. L._ cxl.]

BURNE-JACKSON. Shropshire Folk-lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings. Edited by C.
S. Burne, from the collections of G. F. Jackson, 1883.

BURNET. A History of the Reformation of the Church of England. By G.
Burnet. Edited by N. Pocock. 7 vols. 1865.

BURTON. Rushbearing. By A. Burton, 1891.

BURY-GIBBON. _See_ GIBBON.

CAMPBELL. Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, from
documents in the Public Record Office. By W. Campbell. 2 vols. 1873-7.
[_R. S._ lx.]

CANEL. Recherches historiques sur les Fous des Rois de France. Par A.
Canel, 1873.

_Captain Cox._ _See_ LANEHAM.

_Carmina Burana._ _See_ SCHMELLER.

CASPARI. Eine Augustin fälschlich beilegte Homilia de Sacrilegiis.
Herausgegeben von C. P. Caspari, 1886. [_Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften zu Christiania._]

CASSIODORUS. Cassiodori Senatoris Variae. Recensuit Theodorus Mommsen,
1894. [_M. G. H. Auctores Antiquissimi_, vol. xii.]

_Catholicon Anglicum._ Catholicon Anglicum: an English-Latin Wordbook
(1483). Edited by S. J. Herrtage, 1881. [_C. S._ N. S. xxx.]

CAVENDISH. The Life of Cardinal Wolsey. By J. Cavendish. Edited by S.
W. Singer. 2 vols. 1825.

CHAMBERS. Divine Worship in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,
contrasted with the Nineteenth. By J. D. Chambers, 1877.

CHAMPOLLION-FIGEAC. _See_ HILARIUS.

CHAPPELL. Old English Popular Music. By W. Chappell. A new edition by
H. E. Wooldridge. 2 vols. 1893.

_C. H. B._ Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. Editio emendatior,
consilio B. G. Niebuhrii instituta, 1828-97.

CHÉREST. Nouvelles Recherches sur la Fête des Innocents et la Fête des
Fous. Par A. Chérest, 1853. [_Bulletin de la Société des Sciences de
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_Christmas Prince._ _See_ HIGGS.

_C. I. C._ Corpus Iuris Civilis. Editio altera, 1877-95. [Vol. i
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_C. P. B._ Corpus Poeticum Boreale: the Poetry of the Old Northern
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DIDRON. See _Annales Archéologiques_.

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_Digby Plays._ _See_ FURNIVALL; SHARP.

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_D. N. B._ Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by L. Stephen and
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See also _Towneley Plays_.

PRELLER. Römische Mythologie. Von L. Preller. 3rd ed. by H. Jordan. 2
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RAMSAY, _L. Y._ Lancaster and York: 1399-1485. By Sir J. H. Ramsay. 2
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RASHDALL. The Universities of the Middle Ages. By H. Rashdall. 2 vols.
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RAYNAUD. Recueil de Motets français des douzième et treizième Siècles,
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_Regularis Concordia._ De Consuetudine Monachorum. Herausgegeben von W.
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REINERS. Die Tropen-, Prosen-und Präfations-Gesänge des feierlichen
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_Reliquiae Antiquae._ _See_ WRIGHT-HALLIWELL.

_Rev. Celt._ Revue Celtique, dirigée par H. Gaidoz [afterwards H.
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_Rev. Hist. Rel._ Annales du Musée Guimet. Revue de l’Histoire des
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_Rev. T. P._ Revue des Traditions populaires, 1886, &c. [Organ of
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RHYS, _C. F._ Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx. By J. Rhys. 2 vols. 1901.

RHYS, _C. H._ Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as
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RIBTON-TURNER. A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy. By C. J.
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RIGOLLOT. Monnaies inconnues des Evêques des Innocens, des Fous, et
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RILEY. Memorials of London and London Life: a series of Extracts from
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RITSON. Ancient English Metrical Romanceës. Selected and published by
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RITSON, _Bibl. Poet._ Bibliographia Poetica: a Catalogue of English
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RITSON, _Robin Hood_. Robin Hood: a Collection of all the Ancient
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RITSON, _Songs_. Ancient Songs and Ballads, from Henry II to the
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_Ritual Commission._ Second Report of the Commissioners Appointed to
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ROCK. The Church of our Fathers, in St. Osmund’s Rite for Salisbury,
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_Romania._ Romania: Recueil trimestriel consacré à l’Étude des Langues
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ROSCHER, _Lexicon_. Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und
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ROVENHAGEN. Alt-englische Dramen. I. Die geistlichen Schauspiele. Von
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_R. S._ = Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, or, Chronicles
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RYMER. Foedera, Conventiones, Literae, et cuiuscumque generis Acta
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SAINTSBURY, _Ren._ The Earlier Renaissance. By G. Saintsbury, 1901.
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SALVIAN. Salviani Presbyteri Massiliensis Opera Omnia. Recensuit
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SANDYS, _Carols_. Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, &c. With an
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_Sarum Breviary._ Breviarium ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Sarum. Labore
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_Sarum Manual._ See _York Manual_.

_Sarum Missal._ Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae Ecclesiae Sarum.
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_Sarum Processional._ Processionale ad usum Sarum. Edited by W. G.
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SAUPE. Der Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum: ein Verzeichnis
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SCHACK. Geschichte der dramatischen Litteratur und Kunst in Spanien.
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SCHAFF. History of the Christian Church. By P. Schaff. 2nd ed. 12 vols.
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SCHÄFFER. Geschichte des spanischen Nationaldramas. Von A. Schäffer,
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SCHRÄDER. Reallexicon der indo-germanischen Altertumskunde. Von O.
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SCHRÄDER-JEVONS. Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan People.
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SCHULTZ. Das höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesinger. Von A. Schultz. 2
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SEPET, _D. C._ Le Drame chrétien au Moyen Âge. Par Marius Sepet, 1878.

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SHARP. A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries, anciently
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SHARP. _Digby Plays._ Ancient Mysteries from the Digby Manuscripts in
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_Sh.-Jahrbuch._ Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft. 38
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_S. P. Dom._ Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns
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_Suffolk F. L._ See _County Folk-Lore_.

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_Towneley Plays._ Re-edited from the unique MS. by G. England, with
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_Trad._ La Tradition: Revue générale des Contes, Légendes, Chants,
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_Use of Sarum._ _See_ FRERE.

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_Venetian Papers._ _See_ BROWN.

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WARTON. _See_ HAZLITT-WARTON.

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1894.

WECHSSLER. Die romanischen Marienklagen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des
Dramas im Mittelalter. Von E. Wechssler, 1893.

WESTERMARCK. A History of Human Marriage. By E. Westermarck. 2nd ed.
1894.

WETZER-WELTE. Kirchenlexicon. Von H. J. Wetzer und B. Welte. 2nd ed. by
J. Hergenröther and F. Kaulen. 12 vols. 1882-1900. [In progress.]

WIECK. Der Teufel auf der mittelalterlichen Mysterienbühne. Von H.
Wieck, 1887. [Marburg dissertation: not consulted.]

WILKEN. Geschichte der geistlichen Spiele in Deutschland. Von E.
Wilken, 1872.

WILKINS. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 446-1717. Accedunt
Constitutiones et alia ad Historiam Ecclesiae Anglicanae Spectantia. 4
vols. 1737.

WILMOTTE. Les Passions allemandes du Rhin dans leur Rapport avec
l’ancien Théâtre français. Par M. Wilmotte, 1898. [_Ouvrages couronnés
et autres Mémoires publiés par l’Académie Royale de Belgique_, lv.]

_Winchester Troper._ _See_ FRERE.

WIRTH. Die Oster-und Passionsspiele bis zum xvi. Jahrhundert. Von L.
Wirth, 1889.

WISSOWA. Religion und Kultus der Römer. Von G. Wissowa, 1902.
[Vol. v, Part 4 of I. von Müller’s _Handbuch der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft_.]

WOOD, _Athenae_. Athenae Oxonienses, an Exact History of all Writers
and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford.
By Anthony à Wood. 2nd ed. by P. Bliss. 4 vols. 1813-20.

WOOD, _Hist. Univ._ History and Antiquities of the University of
Oxford. By Anthony à Wood. Now first published in English with
continuation by J. Gutch. 2 vols. 1792-6.

WOOD-MARTIN. Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland. By W. G.
Wood-Martin. 2 vols. 1902.

WORDSWORTH. Notes on Mediaeval Services in England, with an index of
Lincoln Ceremonies. By C. Wordsworth, 1898.

WORDSWORTH, _Proc._ Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathedral Church
of Salisbury. Edited by C. Wordsworth, 1901. [From _Salisbury Chapter
MS._ 148 of †1445, a book for use by the _principalis persona_ in the
choir, and supplementary to the printed Processional.]

WRIGHT. Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries. By T. Wright, 1838.

WRIGHT, _Chester Plays_. The Chester Plays. Edited by Thomas Wright. 2
vols. 1843. [_Shakespeare Society._]

WRIGHT, _Map_. The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes.
Collected and edited by T. Wright, 1841. [_C. S._ O. S. xvii.]

WRIGHT-HALLIWELL. Reliquiae Antiquae: Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts,
illustrating chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language.
By T. Wright and J. O. Halliwell. 2 vols. 1841.

WRIGHT-WÜLCKER. Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies. By T. Wright.
Edited and collated by R. P. Wülcker. 2 vols. 1884.

WÜLCKER. Grundriss zur Geschichte der angelsächsischen Litteratur:
mit einer Übersicht der angelsächsischen Sprachwissenschaft. Von R.
Wülcker, 1885.

WYLIE. A History of England under Henry IV. By J. H. Wylie. 4 vols.
1884-98.

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Edidit S. W. Lawley. 2 vols. 1880-2. [_Surtees Soc._ lxxi, lxxv.]

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Eboracensis. Edidit W. G. Henderson, 1875. [_Surtees Soc._ lxiii.
Contains also _Sarum Manual_.]

_York Missal._ Missale ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis. Edidit
W. G. Henderson. 2 vols. 1874. [_Surtees Soc._ lix, lx.]

_York Plays._ The Plays performed by the Crafts or Mysteries of York on
the Day of Corpus Christi. Edited by L. T. Smith, 1885.

_Z. f. d. A._ Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum [_afterwards added_
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[In progress.]

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consulted.]

BOOK I

MINSTRELSY

C’est une étrange entreprise que celle de faire rire les honnêtes
gens.--J.-B. POQUELIN DE MOLIÈRE.

Molière est un infâme histrion.--J.-B. BOSSUET.

CHAPTER I

THE FALL OF THE THEATRES

[_Bibliographical Note._--A convenient sketch of the history of
the Roman stage will be found in G. Körting, _Geschichte des
griechischen und römischen Theaters_ (1897). The details given
in L. Friedländer, _Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von August
bis zum Ausgang der Antonine_ (vol. ii, 7th ed. 1901), and the
same writer’s article on _Die Spiele_ in vol. vi of Marquardt and
Mommsen’s _Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer_ (2nd ed. 1885),
may be supplemented from E. Nöldechen’s article _Tertullian und
das Theater_ in _Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte_, xv (1894),
161, for the _fabulae Atellanae_ from A. Dieterich, _Pulcinella_
(1897), chs. 4-8, and for the _pantomimi_ from C. Sittl, _Die
Gebärden der Griechen und Römer_ (1890), ch. 13. The account
in C. Magnin, _Les Origines du Théâtre moderne_ (vol. i, all
published, 1838), is by no means obsolete. Teuffel and Schwabe,
_History of Latin Literature_, vol. i, §§ 3-18 (trans. G. C. W.
Warr, 1891), contains a mass of imperfectly arranged material.
The later history of the Greek stage is dealt with by P. E.
Müller, _Commentatio historica de genio, moribus et luxu aevi
Theodosiani_ (1798), vol. ii, and A. E. Haigh, _Tragic Drama of
the Greeks_ (1896), ch. 6. The ecclesiastical prohibitions are
collected by W. Prynne, _Histriomastix_ (1633), and J. de Douhet,
_Dictionnaire des Mystères_ (1854), and their general attitude
summarized by H. Alt, _Theater und Kirche in ihrem gegenseitigen
Verhältniss_ (1846). S. Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century
of the Roman Empire_ (2nd ed. 1899), should be consulted for an
admirable study of the conditions under which the pre-mediaeval
stage came to an end.]

Christianity, emerging from Syria with a prejudice against
disguisings[1], found the Roman world full of _scenici_. The mimetic
instinct, which no race of mankind is wholly without, appears to have
been unusually strong amongst the peoples of the Mediterranean stock.
A literary drama came into being in Athens during the sixth century,
and established itself in city after city. Theatres were built, and
tragedies and comedies acted on the Attic model, wherever a Greek
foot trod, from Hipola in Spain to Tigranocerta in Armenia. The great
capitals of the later Greece, Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamum, rivalled
Athens itself in their devotion to the stage. Another development of
drama, independent of Athens, in Sicily and Magna Graecia, may be
distinguished as farcical rather than comic. After receiving literary
treatment at the hands of Epicharmus and Sophron in the fifth century,
it continued its existence under the name of mime (μῖμος), upon a
more popular level. Like many forms of popular drama, it seems to
have combined the elements of farce and morality. Its exponents are
described as buffoons (γελωτοποιοί, παιγνιογράφοι) and dealers in
indecencies (ἀναισχυντογράφοι), and again as concerning themselves
with questions of character and manners (ἠθολόγοι, ἀρεταλόγοι). They
even produced what sound singularly like problem plays (ὑποθέσεις).
Both qualities may have sprung from a common root in the observation
and audacious portrayal of contemporary life. The mime was still
flourishing in and about Tarentum in the third century[2].

Probably the Romans were not of the Mediterranean stock, and their
native _ludi_ were athletic rather than mimetic. But the drama
gradually filtered in from the neighbouring peoples. Its earliest
stirrings in the rude farce of the _satura_ are attributed by Livy
to Etruscan influence[3]. From Campania came another type of farce,
the _Oscum ludicrum_ or _fabula Atellana_, with its standing masks of
Maccus and Bucco, Pappus and Dossennus, in whom it is hard not to find
a kinship to the traditional personages of the Neapolitan _commedia
dell’ arte_. About 240 B. C. the Greek Livius Andronicus introduced
tragedy and comedy. The play now became a regular element in the
_spectacula_ of the Roman festivals, only subordinate in interest to
the chariot-race and the gladiatorial show. Permanent theatres were
built in the closing years of the Republic by Pompey and others, and
the number of days annually devoted to _ludi scenici_ was constantly
on the increase. From 48 under Augustus they grew to 101 under
Constantius. Throughout the period of the Empire, indeed, the theatre
was of no small political importance. On the one hand it was the
rallying point of all disturbers of the peace and the last stronghold
of a public opinion debarred from the senate and the forum; on the
other it was a potent means for winning the affection of the populace
and diverting its attention from dynastic questions. The _scenici_
might be thorns in the side of the government, but they were quite
indispensable to it. If their perversities drove them from Italy, the
clamour of the mob soon brought them back again. Trajan revealed one
of the _arcana imperii_ when he declared that the _annona_ and the
_spectacula_ controlled Rome[4]. And what was true of Rome was true of
Byzantium, and in a lesser degree of the smaller provincial cities. So
long as the Empire itself held together, the provision firstly of corn
and secondly of novel _ludi_ remained one of the chief preoccupations
of many a highly placed official.

The vast popular audiences of the period under consideration cared but
little for the literary drama. In the theatre of Pompey, thronged with
slaves and foreigners of every tongue, the finer histrionic effects
must necessarily have been lost[5]. Something more spectacular and
sensuous, something appealing to a cruder sense of humour, almost
inevitably took their place. There is evidence indeed that, while the
theatres stood, tragedy and comedy never wholly disappeared from their
boards[6]. But it was probably only the ancient masterpieces that got a
hearing. Even in Greece performances of new plays on classical models
cannot be traced beyond about the time of Hadrian. And in Rome the
tragic poets had long before then learnt to content themselves with
recitations and to rely for victims on the good nature, frequently
inadequate, of their friends[7]. The stilted dramas of Seneca were
the delight of the Renaissance, but it is improbable that, until the
Renaissance, they were ever dignified with representation. Roughly
speaking, for comedy and tragedy the Empire substituted farce and
pantomime.

Farce, as has been noticed, was the earliest traffic of the Roman
stage. The Atellane, relegated during the brief vogue of comedy and
tragedy to the position of an interlude or an afterpiece, now once
more asserted its independence. But already during the Republic the
Atellane, with its somewhat conventional and limited methods, was
beginning to give way to a more flexible and vital type of farce.
This was none other than the old mime of Magna Graecia, which now
entered on a fresh phase of existence and overran both West and East.
That it underwent considerable modifications, and probably absorbed
much both of Atellane and of Attic comedy, may be taken for granted.
Certainly it extended its scope to mythological themes. But its leading
characteristics remained unchanged. The ethical element, one may
fear, sank somewhat into the background, although it was by no means
absent from the work of the better mime-writers, such as Laberius and
Publilius Syrus[8]. But that the note of shamelessness was preserved
there is no doubt whatever[9]. The favourite theme, which is common
indeed to farce of all ages, was that of conjugal infidelity[10].
Unchaste scenes were represented with an astonishing realism[11].
Contrary to the earlier custom of the classical stage, women took part
in the performances, and at the _Floralia_, loosest of Roman festivals,
the spectators seem to have claimed it as their right that the _mimae_
should play naked[12]. The _mimus_--for the same term designates both
piece and actor--was just the kind of entertainer whom a democratic
audience loves. Clad in a parti-coloured _centunculus_, with no mask to
conceal the play of facial gesture, and _planipes_, with no borrowed
dignity of sock or buskin, he rattled through his side-splitting
scenes of low life, and eked out his text with an inexhaustible
variety of rude dancing, buffoonery and horse-play[13]. Originally the
mimes seem to have performed in monologues, and the action of their
pieces continued to be generally dominated by a single personage, the
_archimimus_, who was provided with certain _stupidi_ and _parasiti_
to act as foils and butts for his wit. A satirical intention was
frequently present in both mimes and Atellanes, and their outspoken
allusions are more than once recorded to have wrung the withers of
persons of importance and to have brought serious retribution on
the actors themselves. Caligula, for instance, with characteristic
brutality, had a ribald playwright burnt alive in the amphitheatre[14].

The farce was the diversion of the proletariat and the _bourgeoisie_
of Rome. Petronius, with all the insolence of the literary man, makes
Trimalchio buy a _troupe_ of comedians, and insist on their playing an
Atellane[15]. The golden and cultured classes preferred the pantomimic
dance. This arose out of the ruins of the literary drama. On the Roman
stage grew up a custom, unknown in Greece, by which the lyric portions
of the text (_cantica_) were entrusted to a singer who stood with
the flute-player at the side of the stage, while the actor confined
himself to dancing in silence with appropriate dumb show. The dialogue
(_diverbia_) continued to be spoken by the actors. The next step was
to drop the _diverbia_ altogether; and thus came the _pantomimus_ who
undertook to indicate the whole development of a plot in a series
of dramatic dances, during the course of which he often represented
several distinct _rôles_. Instead of the single flute-player and
singer a full choir now supplied the musical accompaniment, and
great poets--Lucan and Statius among the number--did not disdain to
provide texts for the _fabulae salticae_. Many of the _pantomimi_
attained to an extreme refinement in their degenerate and sensuous
art. They were, as Lucian said, χειρόσοφοι, erudite of gesture[16].
Their subjects were, for the most part, mythological and erotic, not
to say lascivious, in character[17]. Pylades the Cilician, who, with
his great rival Bathyllus the Alexandrian, brought the dance to its
first perfection under Augustus, favoured satyric themes; but this
mode does not appear to have endured. Practically the dancers were the
tragedians, and the mimes were the comedians, of the Empire. The old
Etruscan name for an actor, _histrio_, came to be almost synonymous
with _pantomimus_[18]. Rome, which could lash itself into a fury over
the contests between the Whites and Reds or the Blues and Greens in the
circus, was not slow to take sides upon the respective merits of its
scenic entertainers. The _histrionalis favor_ led again and again to
brawls which set the rulers of the city wondering whether after all the
_pantomimi_ were worth while. Augustus had found it to his advantage
that the spirit of partisanship should attach itself to a Pylades or
a Bathyllus rather than to more illustrious antagonists[19]. But the
personal instincts of Tiberius were not so genial as those of Augustus.
Early in his principate he attempted to restrain the undignified court
paid by senators and knights to popular dancers, and when this measure
failed, he expelled the _histriones_ from Italy[20]. The example
was followed by more than one of his successors, but Rome clamoured
fiercely for its toys, and the period of exile was never a long one[21].

Both _mimi_ and _pantomimi_ had their vogue in private, at the
banquets and weddings of the great, as well as in public. The class
of _scenici_ further included a heterogeneous variety of lesser
performers. There were the rhapsodes who sung the tragic _cantica_,
torn from their context, upon the stage. There were musicians and
dancers of every order and from every land[22]. There were jugglers
(_praestigiatores_, _acetabuli_), rope-walkers (_funambuli_),
stilt-walkers (_grallatores_), tumblers (_cernui_, _petauristae_,
_petaminarii_), buffoons (_sanniones_, _scurrae_), beast-tamers and
strong men. The pick of them did their ‘turns’ in the theatre or the
amphitheatre; the more humble were content with modest audiences
at street corners or in the vestibule of the circus. From Rome the
entertainers of the imperial race naturally found their way into the
theatres of the provinces. Tragedy and comedy no doubt held their own
longer in Greece, but the stage of Constantinople under Justinian does
not seem to have differed notably from the stage of Rome under Nero.
Marseilles alone distinguished itself by the honourable austerity which
forbade the _mimi_ its gates[23].

It must not be supposed that the profession of the _scenici_ ever
became an honourable one in the eyes of the Roman law. They were for
the most part slaves or at best freedmen. They were deliberately
branded with _infamia_ or incapacity for civil rights. This _infamia_
was of two kinds, depending respectively upon the action of the censors
as guardians of public dignity and that of the praetors as presidents
in the law courts. The censors habitually excluded actors from the _ius
suffragii_ and the _ius honorum_, the rights of voting and of holding
senatorial or equestrian rank; the praetors refused to allow them, if
men, to appear as attorneys, if women, to appoint attorneys, in civil
suits[24]. The legislation of Julius Caesar and of Augustus added some
statutory disabilities. The _lex Iulia municipalis_ forbade actors to
hold municipal _honores_[25]: the _lex Iulia de adulteriis_ set the
example of denying them the right to bring criminal actions[26]; the
_lex Iulia et Papia Poppaea_ limited their privileges when freed, and
in particular forbade senators or the sons of senators to take to wife
women who had been, or whose parents had been, on the stage[27]. On the
other hand Augustus confined the _ius virgarum_, which the praetors
had formerly had over _scenici_, to the actual place and time of
performances[28]; and so far as the censorian _infamia_ was concerned,
the whole tendency of the late Republic and early Empire was to relax
its application to actors. It came to be possible for senators and
knights to appear on the stage without losing caste. It was a grievous
insult when Julius Caesar compelled the mimograph Laberius to appear
in one of his own pieces. But after all Caesar restored Laberius to
his rank of _eques_, a dignity which at a still earlier date Sulla had
bestowed on Roscius[29]. Later the restriction broke down altogether,
although not without an occasional reforming effort to restore it[30].
Nero himself was not ashamed to take the boards as a singer of
_cantica_[31]. And even an _infamis_, if he were the boon companion
of a prince, might be appointed to a post directly depending on the
imperial dignity. Thus Caracalla sent a _pantomimus_ to hold a military
command on the frontier, and Heliogabalus made another _praefectus
urbi_ in Rome itself[32]. Under Constantine a reaction set in, and
a new decree formally excluded _scenici_ from all _dignitates_[33].
The severe class legislation received only reluctant and piecemeal
modification, and the praetorian _infamia_ outlived the Empire itself,
and left its mark upon Carolingian jurisprudence[34].

The relaxation of the old Roman austerity implied in the popularity of
the _mimi_ and _histriones_ did not pass uncensured by even the pagan
moralists of the Empire. The stage has a share in the denunciations of
Tacitus and Juvenal, both of whom lament that princes and patricians
should condescend to practise arts once relegated to the _infames_.
Martial’s hypocrite rails at the times and the theatres. Three
centuries later the soldierly Ammianus Marcellinus finds in the
gyrations of the dancing-girls, three thousand of whom were allowed to
remain in Rome when it was starving, a blot upon the fame of the state;
and Macrobius contrasts the sober evenings of Praetextatus and his
friends with revels dependent for their mirth on the song and wanton
motions of the _psaltria_ or the jests of _sabulo_ and _planipes_[35].
Policy compelled the emperors to encourage _spectacula_, but even they
were not always blind to the ethical questions involved. Tiberius
based his expulsion of the _histriones_, at least in part, on moral
grounds. Marcus Aurelius, with a philosophic regret that the high
lessons of comedy had sunk to mere mimic dexterity, sat publicly in
his box and averted his eyes to a state-paper or a book[36]. Julian,
weaned by his tutor Mardonius from a boyish love of the stage, issued
strict injunctions to the priests of the Sun to avoid a theatre
which he despaired of reforming[37]. Christian teachers, unconcerned
with the interests of a dynasty, and claiming to represent a higher
morality than that either of Marcus Aurelius or of Julian, naturally
took even stronger ground. Moreover, they had their special reasons
for hostility to the stage. That the actors should mock at the pagan
religion, with whose _ludi_ their own performances were intimately
connected, made a good dialectical point. But the connexion itself was
unpardonable, and still more so the part taken by the mimes during
the war of creeds, in parodying and holding up to ridicule the most
sacred symbols and mysteries of the church. This feeling is reflected
in the legends of St. Genesius, St. Pelagia and other holy folk, who
are represented as turning from the scenic profession to embrace
Christianity, the conversion in some cases taking place on the very
boards of the theatre itself[38]. So far as the direct attack upon
the stage is concerned, the key-note of patristic eloquence is struck
in the characteristic and uncompromising treatise _De Spectaculis_
of Tertullian. Here theatre, circus, and amphitheatre are joined in
a threefold condemnation. Tertullian holds that the Christian has
explicitly forsworn _spectacula_, when he renounced the devil and all
his works and vanities at baptism. What are these but idolatry, and
where is idolatry, if not in the _spectacula_, which not only minister
to lust, but take place at the festivals and in the holy places of
Venus and Bacchus? The story is told of the demon who entered a woman
in the theatre and excused himself at exorcism, because he had found
her in his own demesne. A fervid exhortation follows. To worldly
pleasures Christians have no claim. If they need _spectacula_ they can
find them in the exercises of their Church. Here are nobler poetry,
sweeter voices, maxims more sage, melodies more dulcet, than any comedy
can boast, and withal, here is truth instead of fiction. Moreover, for
Christians is reserved the last great _spectaculum_ of all. ‘Then,’
says Tertullian, ‘will be the time to listen to the tragedians, whose
lamentations will be more poignant for their proper pain. Then will
the comedians turn and twist, rendered nimbler than ever by the sting
of the fire that is not quenched[39].’ With Tertullian asceticism
is always a passion, but the vivid African rhetoric is no unfair
sample of a _catena_ of outspoken comment which extends across the
third century from Tatian to Lactantius[40]. The judgement of the
Fathers finds more cautious expression in the disciplinary regulations
of the Church. An early formal condemnation of actors is included
in the so-called _Canons_ of Hippolytus[41], and the relations of
converts to the stage were discussed during the fourth century by
the councils of Elvira (306) and of Arles (314) and by the third and
fourth councils of Carthage (397-398)[42]. It was hardly possible
for practical legislators to take the extreme step of forbidding
Christian laymen to enter the theatre at all. No doubt that would be
the counsel of perfection, but in dealing with a deep-seated popular
instinct something of a compromise was necessary[43]. An absolute
prohibition was only established for the clergy: so far as the laity
were concerned, it was limited to Sundays and ecclesiastical festivals,
and on those days it was enforced by a threat of excommunication[44].
No Christian, however, might be a _scenicus_ or a _scenica_, or might
marry one; and if a member of the unhallowed profession sought to be
baptized, the preliminary of abandoning his calling was essential[45].

It is curious to notice that a certain sympathy with the stage seems
to have been characteristic of one of the great heresiarchs. This was
none other than Arius, who is said to have had designs of setting up
a Christian theatre in rivalry to those of paganism, and his strange
work, the _Thaleia_, may perhaps have been intended to further the
scheme. At any rate an orthodox controversialist takes occasion to
brand his Arian opponents and their works as ‘thymelic’ or ‘stagy’[46].
But it would probably be dangerous to lay undue stress upon what, after
all, is as likely as not to be merely a dialectical metaphor.

After the edict of Milan (313), and still more after the end of the
pagan reaction with the death of Julian (363), Christian influences
began to make themselves felt in the civil legislation of the Empire.
But if the councils themselves were chary of utterly forbidding the
theatre, a stronger line was not likely to be taken in rescripts
from Constantinople or Ravenna. The emperors were, indeed, in a
difficult position. They stood between bishops pleading for decency
and humanity and populaces now traditionally entitled to their _panem
et spectacula_. The theatrical legislation preserved in the _Code_ of
Theodosius is not without traces of this embarrassment[47]. It is
rather an interesting study. The views of the Church were met upon two
points. One series of rescripts forbade performances on Sundays or
during the more sacred periods of the Christian calendar[48]: another
relaxed in favour of Christians the strict caste laws which sternly
forbade actresses or their daughters to quit the unhappy profession in
which they were born[49]. Moreover, certain sumptuary regulations were
passed, which must have proved a severe restriction on the popularity
as well as the liberty of actors. They were forbidden to wear gold
or rich fabrics, or to ape the dress of nuns. They must avoid the
company of Christian women and boys. They must not come into the public
places or walk the streets attended by slaves with folding chairs[50].
Some of the rescripts contain phrases pointed with the bitterest
contempt and detestation of their victims[51]. Theodosius will not
have the portraits of _scenici_ polluting the neighbourhood of his own
_imagines_[52]. It is made very clear that the old court favourites
are now to be merely tolerated. But they _are_ to be tolerated. The
idea of suppressing them is never entertained. On the contrary the
provision of _spectacula_ and of performers for them remains one of
the preoccupations of the government[53]. The praetor is expected
to be lavish on this item of his budget[54], and special municipal
officers, the _tribuni voluptatum_, are appointed to superintend the
arrangements[55]. Private individuals and rival cities must not deport
actors, or withdraw them from the public service[56]. The bonds of
caste, except for the few freed by their faith, are drawn as tight as
ever[57], and when pagan worship ceases the shrines are preserved from
demolition for the sake of the theatres built therein[58].

The love of even professing Christians for _spectacula_ proved hard to
combat. There are no documents which throw more light on the society of
the Eastern Empire at the close of the fourth century than the works
of St. Chrysostom; and to St. Chrysostom, both as a priest at Antioch
before 397 and as patriarch of Constantinople after that year, the
stage is as present a danger as it was to Tertullian two centuries
earlier[59]. A sermon preached on Easter-day, 399, is good evidence of
this. St. Chrysostom had been attacking the stage for a whole year, and
his exhortations had just come to nought. Early in Holy Week there was
a great storm, and the people joined the rogatory processions. But it
was a week of _ludi_. On Good Friday the circus, and on Holy Saturday
the theatre, were thronged and the churches were empty. The Easter
sermon was an impassioned harangue, in which the preacher dwelt once
more on the inevitable corruption bound up with things theatrical,
and ended with a threat to enforce the sentence of excommunication,
prescribed only a few months before by the council of Carthage, upon
whoever should again venture to defy the Church’s law in like fashion
on Sunday or holy day[60]. Perhaps one may trace the controversy which
St. Chrysostom’s deliverance must have awakened, on the one hand in the
rescript of the autumn of 399 pointedly laying down that the _ludicrae
artes_ must be maintained, on the other in the prohibition of the
following year against performances in Holy week, and similar solemn
tides.

More than a century after the exile and death of St. Chrysostom the
theatre was still receiving state recognition at Constantinople. A
regulation of Justinian as to the _ludi_ to be given by newly elected
consuls specified a performance on the stage ominously designated
as the ‘Harlots’[61]. By this date the _status_ of the theatrical
profession had at last undergone further and noticeable modification.
The ancient Roman prohibition against the marriage of men of noble
birth with _scenicae_ or other _infames_ or the daughters of such,
had been re-enacted under Constantine. A partial repeal in 454 had
not extended to the _scenicae_[62]. During the first half of the
sixth century, however, a series of decrees removed their disability
on condition of their quitting the stage, and further made it an
offence to compel slaves or freed women to perform against their
will[63]. In these humane relaxations of the rigid laws of theatrical
caste has often been traced the hand of the empress Theodora, who,
according to the contemporary gossip of Procopius, was herself, before
her conversion, one of the most shameless of mimes. But it must be
noted that the most important of the decrees in question preceded the
accession of Justinian, although it may possibly have been intended
to facilitate his own marriage[64]. The history of the stage in the
East cannot be traced much further with any certainty. The canons of
the Quinisextine council, which met in the Trullan chamber to codify
ecclesiastical discipline in 692, appear to contemplate the possibility
of performances still being given[65]. A modern Greek scholar, M.
Sathas, has made an ingenious attempt to establish the existence of a
Byzantine theatrical tradition right through the Middle Ages; but Dr.
Krumbacher, the most learned historian of Byzantine literature, is
against him, and holds that, so far as our knowledge goes, the theatre
must be considered to have perished during the stress of the Saracen
invasions which, in the seventh and eighth centuries, devastated the
East[66].

The ending of the theatre in the West was in very similar fashion.
Chrysostom’s great Latin contemporaries, Augustine and Jerome, are at
one with him and with each other in their condemnation of the evils of
the public stage as they knew it[67]. Their divergent attitude on a
minor point may perhaps be explained by a difference of temperament.
The fifth century saw a marked revival of literary interests from
which even dignitaries of the Church did not hold themselves wholly
aloof. Ausonius urged his grandson to the study of Menander. Sidonius,
a bishop and no undevout one, read both Menander and Terence with
his son[68]. With this movement Augustine had some sympathy. In a
well-known passage of the _Confessions_ he records the powerful
influence exercised by tragedy, and particularly erotic tragedy, over
his tempestuous youth[69]. And in the _City of God_ he draws a careful
distinction between the higher and the lower forms of drama, and if he
does not approve, at least does not condemn, the use of tragedies and
comedies in a humane education[70]. Jerome, on the other hand, although
himself like Augustine a good scholar, takes a more ascetic line, and
a letter of his protesting against the reading of comedies by priests
ultimately came to be quoted as an authority in Roman canon law[71].

The references to the stage in the works of two somewhat younger
ecclesiastical writers are of exceptional interest. Orosius was a
pupil of both Jerome and Augustine; and Orosius, endeavouring a few
years after the sack of Rome by the Goths to prove that that startling
disaster was not due to Christianity, lays great and indeed exaggerated
importance on the share of the theatre in promoting the decay of
the Empire[72]. About the middle of the fifth century the same note
is struck by Salvian in his remarkable treatise _De Gubernatione
Dei_[73]. The sixth book of his work is almost entirely devoted to
the _spectacula_. Like Tertullian, Salvian insists on the definite
renunciation of _spectacula_ by Christians in their baptismal vow[74].
Like Orosius, he traces to the weakening of moral fibre by these
accursed amusements the failure of the West to resist the barbarians.
_Moritur et ridet_ is his epigram on the Roman world. The citizens
of Tréves, three times destroyed, still called upon their rulers for
races and a theatre. With the Vandals at the very gates of Cirta and of
Carthage, _ecclesia Carthaginiensis insaniebat in circis, luxuriebat
in theatris_[75]. Incidentally Salvian gives some valuable information
as to the survival of the stage in his day. Already in 400 Augustine
had been able to say that the theatres were falling on every side[76].
Salvian, fifty years later, confirms the testimony, but he adds the
reason. It was not because Christians had learnt to be faithful
to their vows and to the teachings of the Church; but because the
barbarians, who despised _spectacula_, and therein set a good example
to degenerate Romans[77], had sacked half the cities, while in the rest
the impoverished citizens could no longer pay the bills. He adds that
at Rome a circus was still open and a theatre at Ravenna, and that
these were thronged with delighted travellers from all parts of the
Empire[78]. There must, however, have been a theatre at Rome as well,
for Sidonius found it there when he visited the city, twelve years
after it had been sacked for the second time, in 467. He was appointed
prefect of the city, and in one of his letters expresses a fear lest,
if the corn-supply fail, the thunders of the theatre may burst upon
his head[79]. In a poem written a few years earlier he describes the
_spectacula theatri_ of mimes, pantomimes, and acrobats as still
flourishing at Narbonne[80].

The next and the latest records of the stage in the West date from the
earlier part of the sixth century, when the Ostrogoths held sway in
Italy. They are to be found in the _Variae_ of Cassiodorus, who held
important official posts under the new lords of Rome, and they go to
confirm the inference which the complaint of Salvian already suggests
that a greater menace to the continuance of the theatre lay in the
taste of the barbarians than even in the ethics of Christianity.

The Ostrogoths had long dwelt within the frontiers of the Empire,
and Theodoric, ruling as ‘King of the Goths and Romans in Italy,’
over a mixed multitude of Italians and Italianate Germans, found it
necessary to continue the _spectacula_, which in his heart he despised.
There are many indications of this in the state-papers preserved in
the _Variae_, which may doubtless be taken to express the policy and
temper of the masters of Cassiodorus in the rhetorical trappings of the
secretary himself. The _scenici_ are rarely mentioned without a sneer,
but their performances and those of the _aurigae_, or circus-drivers,
who have now come to be included under the all-embracing designation
of _histriones_, are carefully regulated[81]. The gladiators have,
indeed, at last disappeared, two centuries after Constantine had had
the grace to suppress them in the East[82]. There is a letter from
Theodoric to an architect, requiring him to repair the theatre of
Pompey, and digressing into an historical sketch, imperfectly erudite,
of the history of the drama, its invention by the Greeks, and its
degradation by the Romans[83]. A number of documents deal with the
choice of a _pantomimus_ to represent the _prasini_ or ‘Greens,’ and
show that the rivalry of the theatre-factions remained as fierce as
it had been in the days of Bathyllus and Pylades. Helladius is given
the preference over Thorodon, and a special proclamation exhorts the
people to keep the peace[84]. Still more interesting is the _formula_,
preserved by Cassiodorus, which was used in the appointment of the
_tribunus voluptatum_, an official whom we have already come across
in the rescripts of the emperors of the fourth century. This is so
characteristic, in its contemptuous references to the nature of the
functions which it confers, of the whole German attitude in the
matter of _spectacula_, that it seems worth while to print it in an
appendix[85]. The passages hitherto quoted from the _Variae_ all
seem to belong to the period between 507 and 511, when Cassiodorus
was _quaestor_ and secretary to Theodoric at Rome. A single letter
written about 533 in the reign of Athalaric shows that the populace was
still looking to its Gothic rulers for _spectacula_, and still being
gratified[86]. Beyond this the Roman theatre has not been traced. The
Goths passed in 553, and Italy was reabsorbed in the Empire. In 568
came the Lombards, raw Germans who had been but little under southern
influence, and were far less ready than their predecessors to adopt
Roman manners. Rome and Ravenna alone remained as outposts of the older
civilization, the latter under an exarch appointed from Constantinople,
the former under its bishop. At Ravenna the theatre may conceivably
have endured; at Rome, the Rome of Gregory the Great, it assuredly did
not. An alleged mention of a theatre at Barcelona in Spain during the
seventh century resolves itself into either a survival of pagan ritual
or a bull-fight[87]. Isidore of Seville has his learned chapters on
the stage, but they are written in the imperfect tense, as of what is
past and gone[88]. The bishops and the barbarians had triumphed.

CHAPTER II

MIMUS AND SCÔP

[_Bibliographical Note_ (for chs. ii-iv).--By far the best
account of minstrelsy is the section on _Les Propagateurs des
Chansons de Gestes_ in vol. ii of L. Gautier, _Les Épopées
françaises_ (2nd ed. 1892), bk. ii, chs. xvii-xxi. It may be
supplemented by the chapter devoted to the subject in J. Bédier,
_Les Fabliaux_ (2nd ed. 1895), and by the dissertation of E.
Freymond, _Jongleurs und Menestrals_ (Halle, 1883). I have not
seen A. Olrik, _Middelalderens vandrende Spillemænd_ (_Opuscula
Philologica_, Copenhagen, 1887). Some German facts are added
by F. Vogt, _Leben und Dichten der deutschen Spielleute im
Mittelalter_ (1876), and A. Schultz, _Das höfische Leben zur
Zeit der Minnesinger_ (2nd ed. 1889), i. 565, who gives further
references. The English books are not good, and probably the most
reliable account of English minstrelsy is that in the following
pages; but materials may be found in J. Strutt, _Sports and
Pastimes of the People of England_ (1801, ed. W. Hone, 1830);
T. Percy, _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ (ed. H. B.
Wheatley, 1876, ed. Schroer, 1889); J. Ritson, _Ancient English
Metrical Romances_ (1802), _Ancient Songs and Ballads_ (1829);
W. Chappell, _Old English Popular Music_ (ed. H. E. Wooldridge,
1893); F. J. Crowest, _The Story of British Music, from the
Earliest Times to the Tudor Period_ (1896); J. J. Jusserand,
_English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages_ (trans. L. T.
Smith, 4th ed. 1892). The early English data are discussed by
R. Merbot, _Aesthetische Studien zur angelsächsischen Poesie_
(1883), and F. M. Padelford, _Old English Musical Terms_ (1899).
F. B. Gummere, _The Beginnings of Poetry_ (1901), should be
consulted on the relations of minstrelsy to communal poetry;
and other special points are dealt with by O. Hubatsch, _Die
lateinischen Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters_ (1870); G. Maugras,
_Les Comédiens hors la Loi_ (1887), and H. Lavoix, _La Musique
au Siècle de Saint-Louis_ (in G. Raynaud, _Recueil de Motets
français_, 1883, vol. ii). To the above list of authorities
should of course be added the histories of literature and of the
drama enumerated in the _General Bibliographical Note_.]

The fall of the theatres by no means implied the complete extinction of
the _scenici_. They had outlived tragedy and comedy: they were destined
to outlive the stage itself. Private performances, especially of
_pantomimi_ and other dancers, had enjoyed great popularity under the
Empire, and had become an invariable adjunct of all banquets and other
festivities. At such revels, as at the decadence of the theatre and of
public morals generally, the graver pagans had looked askance[89]:
the Church naturally included them in its universal condemnation of
_spectacula_. Chrysostom in the East[90], Jerome in the West[91],
are hostile to them, and a canon of the fourth-century council of
Laodicea, requiring the clergy who might be present at weddings and
similar rejoicings to rise and leave the room before the actors were
introduced, was adopted by council after council and took its place as
part of the ecclesiastical law[92]. The permanence of the regulation
proves the strength of the habit, which indeed the Church might
ban, but was not able to subdue, and which seems to have commended
itself, far more than the theatre, to Teutonic manners. Such irregular
performances proved a refuge for the dispossessed _scenici_. Driven
from their theatres, they had still a vogue, not only at banquets,
but at popular merry-makings or wherever in street or country they
could gather together the remnant of their old audiences. Adversity
and change of masters modified many of their characteristics. The
_pantomimi_, in particular, fell upon evil times. Their subtle art had
had its origin in an exquisite if corrupt taste, and adapted itself
with difficulty to the ruder conditions of the new civilizations[93].
The _mimi_ had always appealed to a common and gross humanity. But even
they must now rub shoulders and contend for _denarii_ with jugglers and
with rope-dancers, with out-at-elbows gladiators and beast-tamers. More
than ever they learnt to turn their hand to anything that might amuse;
learnt to tumble, for instance; learnt to tell the long stories which
the Teutons loved. Nevertheless, in essentials they remained the same;
still jesters and buffoons, still irrepressible, still obscene. In
little companies of two or three, they padded the hoof along the roads,
travelling from gathering to gathering, making their own welcome in
castle or tavern, or, if need were, sleeping in some grange or beneath
a wayside hedge in the white moonlight. They were, in fact, absorbed
into that vast body of nomad entertainers on whom so much of the gaiety
of the Middle Ages depended. They became _ioculatores_, _jongleurs_,
minstrels[94].

The features of the minstrels as we trace them obscurely from the sixth
to the eleventh century, and then more clearly from the eleventh to
the sixteenth, are very largely the features of the Roman _mimi_ as
they go under, whelmed in the flood which bore away Latin civilization.
But to regard them as nothing else than _mimi_ would be a serious
mistake. On another side they have a very different and a far more
reputable ancestry. Like other factors in mediaeval society, they
represent a merging of Latin and the Teutonic elements. They inherit
the tradition of the _mimus_: they inherit also the tradition of the
German _scôp_[95]. The earliest Teutonic poetry, so far as can be
gathered, knew no _scôp_. As will be shown in a later chapter, it was
communal in character, closely bound up with the festal dance, or
with the rhythmic movements of labour. It was genuine folk-song, the
utterance of no select caste of singers, but of whoever in the ring of
worshippers or workers had the impulse and the gift to link the common
movements to articulate words. At the festivals such a spokesman would
be he who, for whatever reason, took the lead in the ceremonial rites,
the _vates_, germ at once of priest and bard. The subject-matter of
communal song was naturally determined by the interests ruling on the
occasions when it was made. That of daily life would turn largely on
the activities of labour itself: that of the high days on the emotions
of religion, feasting, and love which were evoked by the primitive
revels of a pastoral or agricultural folk.

Presently the movements of the populations of Europe brought the
Germanic tribes, after separating from their Scandinavian kinsmen, into
contact with Kelts, with Huns, with the Roman Empire, and, in the
inevitable recoil, with each other. Then for the first time war assumed
a prerogative place in their life. To war, the old habits and the old
poetry adapted themselves. Tiwaz, once primarily the god of beneficent
heaven, became the god of battles. The chant of prayer before the
onset, the chant of triumph and thanksgiving after the victory, made
themselves heard[96]. From these were disengaged, as a distinct
species of poetry, songs in praise of the deeds and deaths of great
captains and popular heroes. Tacitus tells us that poetry served the
Germans of his day for both chronology and history[97]. Jordanis, four
centuries later, has a similar account to give of the Ostrogoths[98].
Arminius, the vanquisher of a Roman army, became the subject of heroic
songs[99]: Athalaric has no higher word of praise for Gensimund
than _cantabilis_[100]. The glories of Alboin the Lombard[101], of
Charlemagne himself[102], found celebration in verse, and Charlemagne
was at the pains to collect and record the still earlier _cantilenae_
which were the chronicle of his race. Such historical _cantilenae_,
mingled with more primitive ones of mythological import, form the basis
of the great legendary epics[103]. But the process of epic-making is
one of self-conscious and deliberate art, and implies a considerable
advance from primitive modes of literary composition. No doubt the
earliest heroic _cantilenae_ were still communal in character. They
were _rondes_ footed and sung at festivals by bands of young men and
maidens. Nor was such folk-song quick to disappear. Still in the
eleventh century the deeds of St. William of Orange resounded amongst
the _chori iuvenum_[104]; and spinning-room and village green were
destined to hear similar strains for many centuries more[105]. But
long before this the _cantilenae_ had entered upon another and more
productive course of development: they were in the mouths, not only of
the folk, but also of a body of professional singers, the fashioners of
the epic that was to be[106]. Like heroic song itself, the professional
singers owed their origin to war, and to the prominence of the
individual, the hero, which war entailed. Around the person of a great
leader gathered his individual following or _comitatus_, bound to him
by ties of mutual loyalty, by interchange of service and reward[107].
Amongst the _comitatus_ room was found for one who was no spearman,
but who, none the less honoured for that, became the poet of the group
and took over from the less gifted _chorus_ the duty of celebrating
the praises of the chieftain. These he sung to the accompaniment, no
longer of flying feet, but of the harp, struck when the meal was over
in tent or hall. Such a harper is the characteristically Germanic type
of professional entertainer. He has his affinities with the Demodokos
of a Homeric king. Rich in dignities and guerdons, sitting at the foot
of the leader, consorting on equal terms with the warriors, he differs
wholly from the _scenicus infamis_, who was the plaything and the scorn
of Rome. Precisely when the shifting of social conditions brought him
into being it is hard to say. Tacitus does not mention him, which is
no proof, but a presumption, that amongst the tribes on the frontier
he had not yet made his appearance in the first century of the Empire.
By the fifth century he was thoroughly established, and the earliest
records point to his existence at least as early as the fourth. These
are not to be found in Latin sources, but in those early English
poems which, although probably written in their extant forms after
the invasion of these islands, seem to date back in substance to the
age when the Angles still dwelt in a continental home around the base
of the Jutish peninsula. The English remained to a comparatively late
stage of their history remote from Roman influence, and it is in their
literature that both the original development of the Teutonic _scôp_
and his subsequent contamination by the Roman _mimus_ can most easily
be studied.

The earliest of all English poems is almost certainly _Widsith_, the
‘far-traveller.’ This has been edited and interpolated in Christian
England, but the kernel of it is heathen and continental[108]. It is
an autobiographic sketch of the life of Widsith, who was himself an
actual or ideal _scôp_, or rather _gleómon_, for the precise term
_scôp_ is not used in the poem. Widsith was of the Myrgings, a small
folk who dwelt hard by the Angles. In his youth he went with Ealhhild,
the ‘weaver of peace,’ on a mission to Eormanric the Ostrogoth.
Eormanric is the Hermanric of legend, and his death in 375 A. D. gives
an approximate date to the events narrated. Then Widsith became a
wanderer upon the face of the earth, one who could ‘sing and say a
story’ in the ‘mead-hall.’ He describes the nations and rulers he has
known. Eormanric gave him a collar of beaten gold, and Guthhere the
Burgundian a ring. He has been with Caesar, lord of jocund cities, and
has seen Franks and Lombards, Finns and Huns, Picts and Scots, Hebrews,
Indians, Egyptians, Medes and Persians. At the last he has returned
to the land of the Myrgings, and with his fellow Scilling has sung
loud to the harp the praises of his lord Eadgils and of Ealhhild the
daughter of Eadwine. Eadgils has given him land, the inheritance of his
fathers. The poem concludes with an eulogy of the life of gleemen. They
wander through realm upon realm, voice their needs, and have but to
give thanks. In every land they find a lord to whom songs are dear, and
whose bounty is open to the exalters of his name. Of less undeniable
antiquity than _Widsith_ are the lines known as the _Complaint of
Deor_. These touch the seamy side of the singer’s life. Deor has
been the _scôp_ of the Heodenings many winters through. But one more
skilled, Heorrenda by name--the Horant of the Gudrun saga--has outdone
him in song, and has been granted the land-right that once was Deor’s.
He finds his consolation in the woes of the heroes of old. ‘They have
endured: may not I endure[109]?’ The outline drawn in _Widsith_ and in
_Deor_ is completed by various passages in the epic of _Beowulf_, which
may be taken as representing the social conditions of the sixth or
early seventh century. In Heorot, the hall of Hrothgar, there was sound
of harp, the gleewood. Sweetly sang the _scôp_ after the mead-bench.
The lay was sung, the gleeman’s _gyd_ told. Hrothgar’s thanes, even
Hrothgar himself, took their turns to unfold the wondrous tale. On the
other hand, when a folk is in sorrow, no harp is heard, the glee-beam
is silent in the halls[110]. In these three poems, then, is fully
limned the singer of Teutonic heathenism. He is a man of repute, the
equal of thanes. He holds land, even the land of his fathers. He
receives gifts of gold from princes for the praise he does them. As
yet no distinction appears between _scôp_ and _gleómon_. Widsith is at
one time the resident singer of a court; at another, as the mood takes
him, a wanderer to the ends of the earth. And though the _scôp_ leads
the song, the warriors and the king himself do not disdain to take
part in it. This is noteworthy, because it gives the real measure of
the difference between the Teutonic and the Roman entertainer. For a
Nero to perform amongst the _scenici_ was to descend: for a Hrothgar to
touch the harp was a customary and an honourable act.

The singing did not cease when the English came to these islands. The
long struggle with the Britons which succeeded the invasions assuredly
gave rise to many new lays, both in Northumbria and Wessex. ‘England,’
says Mr. Stopford Brooke, ‘was conquered to the music of verse, and
settled to the sound of the harp.’ But though Alfred and Dunstan knew
such songs, they are nearly all lost, or only dimly discerned as the
basis of chronicles. At the end of the sixth century, just as the
conquest was completed, came Christianity. The natural development of
English poetry was to some extent deflected. A religious literature
grew up at the hands of priests. Eadhelm, who, anticipating a notion
of St. Francis of Assisi, used to stand on a bridge as if he were a
gleeman, and waylay the folk as they hurried back from mass, himself
wrote pious songs. One of these, a _carmen triviale_, was still sung in
the twelfth century[111]. This was in Wessex. In Northumbria, always
the most literary district of early England, the lay brother Cædmon
founded a school of divine poetry. But even amongst the disciples
of Cædmon, some, such as the author of the very martial _Judith_,
seem to have designed their work for the mead-hall as well as the
monastery[112]. And the regular _scôp_ by no means vanished. The
_Wanderer_, a semi-heathen elegiac poem of the early eighth century,
seems to be the lament of a _scôp_ driven from his haunts, not by
Christianity, but by the tumults of the day[113]. The great poet of
the next generation, Cynewulf, himself took treasure of appled gold
in the mead-hall. A riddle on ‘the wandering singer’ is ascribed to
him[114], and various poems of his school on the fates or the crafts of
man bear witness to the continued existence of the class[115]. With the
eighth century, except for the songs of war quoted or paraphrased in
the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, the extant Early English poetry reaches a
somewhat inexplicable end. But history comes to the rescue, and enables
us still to trace the _scôp_. It is in the guise of a harp-player that
Alfred is reported to have fooled the Danes, and Anlaf in his turn to
have fooled the Saxons[116]: and mythical as these stories may be, they
would not have even been plausible, had not the presence of such folk
by the camp-fire been a natural and common event.

Certainly the _scôp_ survived heathenism, and many Christian bishops
and pious laymen, such as Alfred[117], were not ashamed of their
sympathy with secular song. Nevertheless, the entertainers of the
English folk did not find favour in the eyes of the Church as a
whole. The stricter ecclesiastics especially attacked the practice
of harbouring them in religious houses. Decrees condemning this were
made by the council on English affairs which sat at Rome in 679[118],
and by the council of Clovesho in 747[119]. Bede, writing at about
the latter date on the condition of church affairs in Northumbria
complains of those who make mirth in the dwellings of bishops[120];
and the complaint is curiously illustrated by a letter of Gutbercht,
abbot of Newcastle, to an episcopal friend on the continent, in which
he asks him for a _citharista_ competent to play upon the _cithara_
or _rotta_ which he already possesses[121]. At the end of the eighth
century, Alcuin wrote a letter to Higbald, bishop of Lindisfarne,
warning him against the snares of _citharistae_ and _histriones_[122]:
and some two hundred years later, when Edgar and Dunstan[123] were
setting themselves to reform the religious communities of the land, the
favour shown to such ribald folk was one of the abuses which called
for correction[124]. This hostile attitude of the rulers of the Church
is not quite explained by anything in the poetry of the _scôpas_, so
far as it is left to us. This had very readily exchanged its pagan
for a Christian colouring: it cannot be fairly accused of immorality
or even coarseness, and the Christian sentiment of the time is not
likely to have been much offended by the prevailing theme of battle and
deeds of blood. The probable explanation is a double one. There is the
ascetic tendency to regard even harmless forms of secular amusement
as barely compatible with the religious life. And there is the fact,
which the language of the prohibitions themselves makes plain, that a
degeneration of the old Teutonic gleemen had set in. To singing and
harping were now added novel and far less desirable arts. Certainly the
prohibitions make no exception for _poetae_ and _musici_; but the full
strength of their condemnation seems to be directed against _scurrae_
and their _ioca_, and against the _mimi_ and _histriones_ who danced as
well as sang. These are new figures in English life, and they point to
the fact that the merging of the Teutonic with the Latin entertainer
had begun. To some extent, the Church itself was responsible for
this. The conversion of England opened the remote islands to Latin
civilization in general: and it is not to be wondered at, that the
_mimi_, no less than the priests, flocked into the new fields of
enterprise. If this was the case already in the eighth century, we can
hardly doubt that it was still more so during the next two hundred
years of which the literary records are so scanty. Such a view is
supported by the numerous miniatures of dancers and tumblers, jugglers
and bear-leaders, in both Latin and Early English manuscripts of this
period[125], and by the glosses which translate such terms as _mimus_,
_iocista_, _scurra_, _pantomimus_ by _gligmon_, reserving _scôp_ for
the dignified _poeta_[126]. This distinction I regard as quite a late
one, consequent upon the degeneracy introduced by _mimi_ from south
Europe into the lower ranks of the gleemen. Some writers, indeed, think
that it existed from the beginning, and that the _scôp_ was always the
resident court poet, whereas the _gleómon_ was the wandering singer,
often a borrower rather than a maker of songs, who appealed to the
smaller folk[127]. But the theory is inconsistent with the data of
_Widsith_. The poet there described is sometimes a wanderer, sometimes
stationary. He is evidently at the height of his profession, and has
sung before every crowned head in Europe, but he calls himself a
_gleómon_. Nor does the etymology of the words _scôp_ and _gleómon_
suggest any vital difference of signification[128].

The literary records of the continental Teutons are far scantier
than those of the English. But amongst them also Latin and barbaric
traditions seem to have merged in the _ioculator_. Ancestral deeds
were sung to the harp, and therefore, it may be supposed, by a _scôp_,
and not a _chorus_, before the Ostrogoths in Italy, at the beginning
of the sixth century[129]. In the year 507 Clovis the Frank sent to
Theodoric for a _citharoedus_ trained in the musical science of the
South, and Boethius was commissioned to make the selection[130]. On the
other hand, little as the barbarians loved the theatre, the _mimi_ and
_scurrae_ of the conquered lands seem to have tickled their fancy as
they sat over their wine. At the banquet with which Attila entertained
the imperial ambassadors in 448, the guests were first moved to
martial ardour and to tears by the recital of ancient deeds of prowess,
and then stirred to laughter by the antics of a Scythian and a Moorish
buffoon[131]. Attila was a Hun and no German; but the Vandals who
invaded Africa in 429 are recorded to have taken to the _spectacula_
so extravagantly popular there[132], and Sidonius tells how _mimici
sales_, chastened in view of barbaric conceptions of decency, found a
place in the festivities of another Theodoric, king from 462 to 466 of
the Visigoths in Gaul[133]. Three centuries later, under Charlemagne,
the blending of both types of entertainer under the common designation
of _ioculator_ seems to be complete. And, as in contemporary England,
the animosity of the Church to the _scenici_ is transferred wholesale
to the _ioculatores_, without much formal attempt to discriminate
between the different grades of the profession. Alcuin may perhaps be
taken as representing the position of the more rigid disciplinarians
on this point. His letter to the English bishop, Higbald, does not
stand alone. In several others he warns his pupils against the
dangers lurking in _ludi_ and _spectacula_[134], and he shows himself
particularly exercised by the favour which they found with Angilbert,
the literary and far from strict-lived abbot of St. Richer[135]. The
influence of Alcuin with Charlemagne was considerable, and so far as
ecclesiastical rule went, he had his way. A capitulary (†787) excluded
the Italian clergy from uncanonical sports[136]. In 789 bishops,
abbots, and abbesses were forbidden to keep _ioculatores_[137], and in
802 a decree applying to all in orders required abstinence from idle
and secular amusements[138]. These prohibitions were confirmed in the
last year of Charlemagne’s reign (813) by the council of Tours[139].
But as entertainers of the lay folk, the minstrels rather gained than
lost status at the hands of Charlemagne. Personally he took a distinct
interest in their performances. He treasured up the heroic _cantilenae_
of his race[140], and attempted in vain to inspire the _saevitia_ of
his sons with his own enthusiasm for these[141]. The chroniclers more
than once relate how his policy was shaped or modified by the chance
words of a _ioculator_ or _scurra_[142]. The later tradition of the
_jougleurs_ looked back to him as the great patron of their order, who
had given them all the fair land of Provence in fee[143]: and it is
clear that the songs written at his court form the basis not only of
the _chansons de gestes_, but also, as we found to be the case with the
English war-songs, of many passages in the chronicles themselves[144].
After Charlemagne’s death the minstrels fell for a time on evil days.
Louis the Pious by no means shared his father’s love for them. He
attempted to suppress the _cantilenae_ on which he had been brought up,
and when the _mimi_ jested at court would turn away his head and refuse
to smile[145]. To his reign may perhaps be ascribed a decree contained
in the somewhat dubious collection of Benedictus Levita, forbidding
idle dances, songs and tales in public places and at crossways on
Sundays[146], and another which continued for the benefit of the
minstrels the legal incapacity of the Roman _scenici_, and excluded
_histriones_ and _scurrae_ from all privilege of pleading in courts of
justice[147].

The ill-will of a Louis the Pious could hardly affect the hold which
the minstrels had established on society. For good or for bad, they
were part of the mediaeval order of things. But their popularity had
to maintain itself against an undying ecclesiastical prejudice. They
had succeeded irrevocably to the heritage of hate handed down from
the _scenici infames_. To be present at their performances was a sin
in a clerk, and merely tolerated in a layman. Largesse to them was
declared tantamount to robbery of the poor[148]. It may be fairly said
that until the eleventh century at least the history of minstrelsy
is written in the attacks of ecclesiastical legislators, and in the
exultant notices of monkish chroniclers when this or that monarch
was austere enough to follow the example of Louis the Pious, and
let the men of sin go empty away[149]. Throughout the Middle Ages
proper the same standpoint was officially maintained[150]. The canon
law, as codified by Gratian, treats as applicable to minstrels the
pronouncements of fathers and councils against the _scenici_, and adds
to them others more recent, in which clergy who attend _spectacula_, or
in any way by word or deed play the _ioculator_, are uncompromisingly
condemned[151]. This temper of the Church did not fail to find its
expression in post-Conquest England. The council of Oxford in 1222
adopted for this country the restatement of the traditional rule by the
Lateran council of 1215[152]; and the stricter disciplinary authorities
at least attempted to enforce the decision. Bishop Grosseteste
of Lincoln, for instance, pressed it upon his clergy in or about
1238[153]. The reforming provisions of Oxford in 1259 laid down that,
although minstrels might receive charitable doles in monasteries, their
_spectacula_ must not be given[154]; and a similar prohibition, couched
in very uncomplimentary terms, finds a place in the new statutes drawn
up in 1319 for the cathedral church of Sarum by Roger de Mortival[155].
A few years later the statutes of St. Albans follow suit[156], while
in 1312 a charge of breaking the canons in this respect brought
against the minor clergy of Ripon minster had formed the subject
of an inquiry by Archbishop Greenfield[157]. Such notices might be
multiplied[158]; and the tenor of them is echoed in the treatises of
the more strait-laced amongst monkish writers. John of Salisbury[159],
William Fitz Stephen[160], Robert Mannyng of Brunne[161], are at one in
their disapproval of _ioculatores_. As the fourteenth century draws to
its close, and the Wyclifite spirit gets abroad, the freer critics of
church and state, such as William Langland[162] or the imagined author
of Chaucer’s _Parson’s Tale_[163], take up the same argument. And they
in their turn hand it on to the interminable pamphleteering of the
Calvinistic Puritans[164].

CHAPTER III

THE MINSTREL LIFE

The perpetual _infamia_ of the minstrels is variously reflected in the
literature of their production. Sometimes they take their condemnation
lightly enough, dismissing it with a jest or a touch of bravado. In
_Aucassin et Nicolete_, that marvellous romance of the _viel caitif_,
when the hero is warned that if he takes a mistress he must go to hell,
he replies that, to hell will he go, for thither go all the goodly
things of the world. ‘Thither go the gold and the silver, and the vair
and the grey, and thither too go harpers and minstrels and the kings
of the world. With these will I go, so that I have Nicolete, my most
sweet friend, with me’[165]. At other times they show a wistful sense
of the pathos of their secular lot. They tell little stories in which
heaven proves more merciful than the vice-gerents of heaven upon earth,
and Virgin or saint bestows upon a minstrel the sign of grace which the
priest denies[166]. But often, again, they turn upon their persecutors
and rend them with the merciless satire of the _fabliaux_, wherein it
is the clerk, the theologian, who is eternally called upon to play the
indecent or ridiculous part[167].

Under spiritual disabilities the minstrels may have been, but so far as
substantial popularity amongst all classes went, they had no cause from
the eleventh to the fourteenth century to envy the monks. As a social
and literary force they figure largely both on the continent and in
England. The distinctively Anglo-Saxon types of _scôp_ and _gleómon_ of
course disappear at the Conquest. They do not cease to exist; but they
go under ground, singing their defiant lays of Hereward[168]; and they
pursue a more or less subterranean career until the fourteenth century
brings the English tongue to its own again. But minstrelsy was no less
popular with the invaders than with the invaded. Whether the _skald_
had yet developed amongst the Scandinavian pirates who landed with
Rollo on the coasts of France may perhaps be left undetermined[169]:
for a century and a half had sufficed to turn the Northmen into Norman
French, and with the other elements of the borrowed civilization had
certainly come the _ioculator_. In the very van of William’s army
at Senlac strutted the minstrel Taillefer, and went to his death
exercising the double arts of his hybrid profession, juggling with
his sword, and chanting an heroic lay of Roncesvalles[170]. Twenty
years later, Domesday Book records how Berdic the _ioculator regis_
held three vills and five carucates of land in Gloucestershire, and
how in Hampshire Adelinda, a _ioculatrix_, held a virgate, which
Earl Roger had given her[171]. During the reigns of the Angevin and
Plantagenet kings the minstrels were ubiquitous. They wandered at their
will from castle to castle, and in time from borough to borough, sure
of their ready welcome alike in the village tavern, the guildhall,
and the baron’s keep[172]. They sang and jested in the market-places,
stopping cunningly at a critical moment in the performance, to gather
their harvest of small coin from the bystanders[173]. In the great
castles, while lords and ladies supped or sat around the fire, it was
theirs to while away many a long bookless evening with courtly _geste_
or witty sally. At wedding or betrothal, baptism or knight-dubbing,
treaty or tournament, their presence was indispensable. The greater
festivities saw them literally in their hundreds[174], and rich was
their reward in money and in jewels, in costly garments[175], and in
broad acres. They were licensed vagabonds, with free right of entry
into the presence-chambers of the land[176]. You might know them from
afar by their coats of many colours, gaudier than any knight might
respectably wear[177], by the instruments upon their backs and those
of their servants, and by the shaven faces, close-clipped hair and
flat shoes proper to their profession[178]. This kenspeckle appearance,
together with the privilege of easy access, made the minstrel’s dress
a favourite disguise in ages when disguise was often imperative. The
device attributed by the chroniclers to Alfred and to Anlaf becomes in
the romances one of the commonest of _clichés_[179]. The readiness with
which the minstrels won the popular ear made them a power in the land.
William de Longchamp, the little-loved chancellor of Richard I, found
it worth his while to bring a number of them over from France, that
they might sing his praises abroad in the public places[180]. Nor were
they less in request for satire than for eulogy. The English speaking
minstrels, in particular, were responsible for many songs in derision
of unpopular causes and personalities[181]; and we need not doubt
that ‘the lay that Sir Dinadan made by King Mark, which was the worst
lay that ever harper sang with harp or with any other instruments,’
must have had its precise counterparts in actual life[182]. The Sarum
statutes of 1319 lay especial stress on the flattery and the evil
speaking with which the minstrels rewarded their entertainers[183].
Sometimes, indeed, they over-reached themselves, for Henry I is related
to have put out the eyes of Lucas de Barre, a Norman _jougleur_, or
perhaps rather _trouvère_, who made and sang songs against him[184].
But Lucas de Barre’s rank probably aggravated his offence, and as a
rule the minstrels went scot-free. A wiser churchman here and there
was not slow to perceive how the unexampled hold of minstrelsy on
the popular ear might be turned to the service of religion. Eadhelm,
standing in gleeman’s attire on an English bridge to mingle words of
serious wisdom with his _carmina trivialia_, is one instance[185]. And
in the same spirit St. Francis, himself half a troubadour in youth,
would call his Minorites _ioculatores Domini_, and send them singing
over the world to beg for their fee the repentance and spiritual joy
of their hearers[186]. A popular hymn-writer of the present day is
alleged to have thought it ‘hard that the devil should have all the
good tunes’; but already in the Middle Ages religious words were being
set to secular music, and graced with the secular imagery of youth and
spring[187].

But if the minstrels were on the one hand a force among the people,
on the other they had the ear of kings. The English court to judge
by the payments recorded in the exchequer books, must have been full
of them[188]. The fullest and most curious document on the subject
dates from the reign of Edward I. It is a roll of payments made on the
occasion of a Whitsuntide feast held in London in the year 1306, and a
very large number of the minstrels recorded are mentioned by name[189].
At the head of the list come five minstrels with the high-sounding
title of _le roy_[190], and these get five marks apiece. A number of
others follow, who received sums varying from one mark upwards. Most
of these have French names, and many are said to be in the company of
this or that noble or reverend guest at the feast. Finally, two hundred
marks were distributed in smaller sums amongst the inferior minstrels,
_les autres menestraus de la commune_, and some of these seem to have
been of English birth. Below the _roys_ rank two minstrels, Adam le
Boscu and another, who are dignified with the title of _maistre_, which
probably signifies that they were clerks[191]. The other names are
mainly descriptive, ‘Janin le Lutour,’ ‘Gillotin le Sautreour,’ ‘Baudec
le Taboureur,’ and the like; a few are jesting stage names, such as
the inferior performers of our music halls bear to-day[192]. Such are
‘Guillaume sanz Maniere,’ ‘Reginaldus le Menteur,’ ‘le Petit Gauteron,’
‘Parvus Willielmus,’ and those of the attractive comedians Perle in the
Eghe, and Matill’ Makejoye. The last, by the way, is the only woman
performer named. The resources of Edward I could no doubt stand the
strain of rewarding with royal magnificence the entertainers of his
guests. There is plenty of evidence, however, that even on secular
grounds the diatribes of the moralists against the minstrels were often
enough justified. To the lavish and unthrifty of purse they became
blood-suckers. Matilda, the wife of Henry I, is said to have squandered
most of her revenues upon them[193]; while the unfortunate Robert
of Normandy, if no less a chronicler than Ordericus Vitalis may be
believed, was stripped by these rapacious gentry to the very skin[194].
Yet for all the days of honour and all the rich gifts the minstrel life
must have had its darker side. Easily won, easily parted with; and the
lands and laced mantles did not last long, when the elbow itched for
the dice-box. This was the incurable ruin of the minstrel folk[195].
And even that life of the road, so alluring to the fever in the blood,
must have been a hard one in the rigours of an English climate. To
tramp long miles in wind and rain, to stand wet to the skin and hungry
and footsore, making the slow _bourgeois_ laugh while the heart was
bitter within; such must have been the daily fate of many amongst the
humbler minstrels at least[196]. And at the end to die like a dog in
a ditch, under the ban of the Church and with the prospect of eternal
damnation before the soul.

Kings and nobles were not accustomed to depend for their entertainment
merely upon the stray visits of wandering minstrels. Others more or
less domiciled formed a permanent part of the household. These indeed
are the minstrels in the stricter sense of that term--_ministri_,
_ministeriales_. In Domesday Book, as we have seen, one Berdic bears
the title of the _ioculator regis_. Shortly afterwards Henry I had his
_mimus regis_, by name Raherus, who made large sums by his _suavitas
iocularis_, and founded the great priory of St. Bartholomew at
Smithfield[197]. Laying aside his parti-coloured coat, he even became
himself the first prior of the new community. The old spirit remained
with him, however; and it is recorded that the fame of the house was
largely magnified by means of some feigned miracles which Raherus put
forth. Richard I was a noted lover of song, and the names of more than
one minstrel of his are preserved. There was Ambroise, who was present
at Richard’s coronation in 1189 and at the siege of Acre in 1191, and
who wrote a history, still extant, of the third crusade[198]. And there
was that Blondiaux or Blondel de Nesle, the story of whose discovery
of his captive master, apocryphal though it may be, is in all the
history books[199]. Henry III had his _magister Henricus versificator_
in 1251[200], and his _magister Ricardus citharista_ in 1252[201]. A
harper was also amongst the _ministri_ of Prince Edward in the Holy
War[202], and when the prince became Edward I, he still retained one in
his service. He is mentioned as Walter de Stourton, the king’s harper,
in 1290[203], and as the _citharista regis_ in 1300[204]. Edward II had
several minstrels, to one of whom, William de Morlee, known as _Roy de
North_, he made a grant of land[205]. By this time the royal minstrels
seem to have become a regular establishment of no inconsiderable
numbers. Under Edward III they received 7¹⁄₂_d._ a day[206]. A little
later in the reign, between 1344 and 1347, there were nineteen who
received 12_d._ a day in war, when they doubtless formed a military
band, and 20_s._ a year in peace. These included five trumpeters, one
citoler, five pipers, one tabouretter, two clarions, one nakerer,
and one fiddler, together with three additional minstrels, known as
waits[207]. The leader of the minstrels bore the title of _rex_, for in
1387 we find a licence given by Richard II to his _rex ministrallorum_,
John Caumz, permitting him to pass the seas[208]. Henry V had fifteen
minstrels when he invaded France in 1415, and at a later date eighteen,
who received 12_d._ a day apiece[209]. At the end of his reign his
minstrels received 100_s._ a year, and this annuity was continued under
Henry VI, who in 1455 had twelve of them, besides a wait. In the next
year this king issued a commission for the impressing of boys to fill
vacancies in the body[210]. Edward IV had thirteen minstrels and a
wait[211]. By 1469 these had been cut down to eight. At their head was
a chief, who was now called, not as in Richard II’s time _rex_, but
_marescallus_[212]. The eight king’s minstrels and their _marescallus_
can be traced through the reign of Henry VII, and so on into the
sixteenth century[213].

Nor was the royal household singular in the maintenance of a permanent
body of minstrels. The _citharista_ of Margaret, queen of Edward I,
is mentioned in 1300, and her _istrio_ in 1302[214]. Philippa, queen
of Edward III, had her minstrels in 1337[215], and those of Queen
Elizabeth were a regular establishment in the reign of Henry VII[216].
The Scottish court, too, had its recognized troupe, known by the early
years of the sixteenth century as the ‘minstrels of the chekkar[217].’
As with kings and queens so with lesser men. The list of minstrels
at court in 1306 includes the harpers and other musicians of several
lords, both English and foreign[218]. In 1308 the earl of Lancaster had
a body of _menestralli_ and an _armiger menestrallorum_[219]. During
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries entries of payments to the
minstrels of a vast number of _domini_, small and great, are common in
the account books[220]. Henry, earl of Derby, took minstrels with him
in his expeditions abroad of 1390 and 1392[221]; while the _Household
Book_ of the earl of Northumberland (†1512) shows that he was
accustomed to entertain ‘a Taberett, a Luyte, and a Rebecc,’ as well as
six ‘trompettes[222].’ Minstrels are also found, from the beginning of
the fifteenth century, in the service of the municipal corporations.
London, Coventry, Bristol, Shrewsbury, Norwich, Chester, York,
Beverley, Leicester, Lynn, Canterbury had them, to name no others.
They received fixed fees or dues, wore the town livery and badge of a
silver scutcheon, played at all local celebrations and festivities, and
were commonly known as _waits_[223]. This term we have already found
in use at court, and the ‘Black Book,’ which contains the household
regulations of Edward IV, informs us that the primary duty of a wait
was to ‘pipe the watch,’ summer and winter, at certain fixed hours of
the night[224].

It must not be supposed that established minstrels, whether royal,
noble, or municipal, were always in constant attendance on their lords.
Certain fixed services were required of them, which were not very
serious, except in the case of waits[225]; for the rest of their time
they were free. This same ‘Black Book’ of Edward IV is very explicit on
the point. The minstrels are to receive a yearly fee and a livery[226].
They must attend at court for the five great feasts of the year. At
other times, two or three out of their number, or more if the king
desire it, are to be in waiting. The last regulation on the subject
is curious. The king forbids his minstrels to be too presumptuous or
familiar in asking rewards of any lord of the land; and in support of
this he quotes a similar prohibition by the Emperor Henry II[227].
Doubtless, in the intervals of their services, the household minstrels
travelled, like their unattached brethren of the road, but with the
added advantage of a letter of recommendation from their lord, which
ensured them the hospitality of his friends[228]. Such letters were
indeed often given, both to the minstrels of a man’s own household and
as testimonials to other minstrels who may have especially pleased the
giver. Those interesting collections of mediaeval epistolary formulae,
the _summae dictaminis_, contain many models for them, and judging by
the lavish eulogy which they employ, the minstrels themselves must have
had a hand in drawing them up[229]. Many minstrels probably confined
themselves to short tours in the vicinity of their head quarters;
others, like Widsith, the Anglo-Saxon _scôp_, were far travellers. John
Caumz received a licence from Richard II to cross the seas, and in 1483
we find Richard III entertaining minstrels of the dukes of Austria
and Bavaria[230]. Possibly the object of John Caumz was to visit one
of the _scolae ministrallorum_ in France, where experiences might be
exchanged and new songs learnt. Beauvais, Lyon, Cambrai were famous for
these schools, which were held year by year in Lent, when performances
were stopped; and the wardrobe accounts of Edward III record grants of
licences and expenses to Barbor and Morlan, two bagpipers, to visit the
_scolas ministrallis in partibus trans mare_[231].

From the fourteenth century it is possible to trace the growth of the
household minstrels as a privileged class at the expense of their less
fortunate rivals. The freedom of access enjoyed by the entertainers of
earlier days was obviously open to abuse. We have seen that in 1317
it led to the offering of an insult to Edward II by an emissary clad
as a minstrel at his own table. It was only two years before that a
royal proclamation had considerably restrained the liberty of the
minstrels. In view of the number of idle persons who ‘under colour of
mynstrelsie’ claimed food, drink, and gifts in private houses, it was
ordered ‘that to the houses of prelates earls and barons none resort
to meate and drynke, unless he be a mynstrel, and of these mynstrels
that there come none except it be three or four minstrels of honour
at the most in one day, unlesse he be desired of the lorde of the
house.’ The houses of meaner men are to be altogether exempt, except
at their desire[232]. I think it is probable that by ‘minstrels of
honour’ we must here understand ‘household minstrels[233]’; and that
the severity of the ordinance must have come upon those irresponsible
vagrants who had not the shelter of a great man’s name. With the
Statutes of Labourers in the middle of the fourteenth century begins a
history of legislation against ‘vacabonds and valiant beggars,’ which
put further and serious difficulties in the way of the free movement
of the migratory classes through the country[234]. Minstrels, indeed,
are not specifically declared to be ‘vacabonds’ until this legislation
was codified by William Cecil in 1572[235]; but there is evidence that
they were none the less liable to be treated as such, unless they
had some protection in the shape of livery or licence. At Chester
from the early thirteenth century, and at Tutbury in Staffordshire
from 1380, there existed courts of minstrelsy which claimed to issue
licences to all performers within their purview. It is not probable
that this jurisdiction was very effective. But a step taken by Edward
IV in 1469 had for its avowed object to strengthen the hands of what
may be called official minstrelsy. Representation had been made to the
king that certain rude husbandmen and artificers had usurped the title
and livery of his minstrels, and had thus been enabled to gather an
illegitimate harvest of fees. He therefore created or revived a regular
guild or fraternity of minstrels, putting his own household performers
with their _marescallus_ at the head of it, and giving its officers
a disciplinary authority over the profession throughout the country,
with the exception of Chester. It is not improbable, although it is
not distinctly stated, that admission into the guild was practically
confined to ‘minstrels of honour.’ Certainly one of the later local
guilds which grew up in the sixteenth century, that of Beverley,
limited its membership to such as could claim to be ‘mynstrell to some
man of honour or worship or waite of some towne corporate or other
ancient town, or else of such honestye and conyng as shalbe thought
laudable and pleasant to the hearers[236].’ In any case the whole drift
of social development was to make things difficult for the independent
minstrels and to restrict the area of their wanderings.

The widespread popularity of the minstrels amongst the mediaeval laity,
whether courtiers, burghers, or peasants, needs no further labouring.
It is more curious to find that in spite of the formal anathemas of the
Church upon their art, they were not, as a matter of fact, rigorously
held at arm’s length by the clergy. We find them taking a prominent
part in the holyday festivities of religious guilds[237]; we find
them solacing the slow progress of the pilgrimages with their ready
wit and copious narrative or song[238]; we find them received with
favour by bishops, even upon their visitations[239], and not excluded
from a welcome in the hall of many a monastery. As early as 1180, one
Galfridus, a _citharoedus_, held a ‘corrody,’ or right to a daily
commons of food and drink in the abbey of Hyde at Winchester[240].
And payments for performances are frequent in the accounts of the
Augustinian priories at Canterbury[241], Bicester, and Maxtoke, and
the great Benedictine houses of Durham, Norwich, Thetford, and St.
Swithin’s, Winchester[242], and doubtless in those of many another
cloistered retreat. The Minorite chroniclers relate, how at the time
of the coming of the friars in 1224 two of them were mistaken for
minstrels by the porter of a Benedictine grange near Abingdon, received
by the prior and brethren with unbecoming glee, and when the error was
discovered, turned out with contumely[243]. At such semi-religious
foundations also, as the college of St. Mary at Winchester, or
Waynflete’s great house of St. Mary Magdalen in Oxford, minstrels of
all degrees found, at least by the fifteenth century, ready and liberal
entertainment[244].

How, then, is one to reconcile this discrepancy between the actual
practice of the monasteries and the strict, the uncompromising
prohibition of minstrelsy in rule and canon? An incomplete answer
readily presents itself. The monks being merely human, fell short of
the ideal prescribed for them. We do not now learn for the first time,
that the ambitions of the pious founder, the ecclesiastical law-giver,
the patristic preacher, were one thing; the effective daily life of
churchmen in many respects quite another. Here, as in matters of even
more moment, did mediaeval monasticism ‘dream from deed dissever’--

‘The reule of Seint Maure or of Seint Beneit,
By-cause that it was old and som-del streit
This ilke monk leet olde thinges pace,
And held after the newe world the space.’

True enough, but not the whole truth. It doubtless explains the
behaviour of the Benedictines of Abingdon; but we can hardly suppose
that when Robert de Grosseteste, the sworn enemy of ecclesiastical
abuses, kept his harper’s chamber next his own, he was surreptitiously
allowing himself an illegitimate gratification which he denied to his
clergy. The fact is that the condemnations of the Church, transferred,
as we have seen, wholesale from the _mimi_ and _histriones_ of the
decaying Empire, were honestly not applicable without qualification,
even from the ecclesiastical point of view, to their successors, the
_mimi_ and _histriones_ of the Middle Ages. The traditions of the Roman
stage, its manners, its topics, its ethical code, became indeed a large
part of the direct inheritance of minstrelsy. But, as we have seen,
they were far from being the whole of that inheritance. The Teutonic
as well as the Latin element in the civilization of western Europe
must be taken into account. The minstrel derives from the disreputable
_planipes_; he derives also from the _scôp_, and has not altogether
renounced the very different social and ethical position which the
_scôp_ enjoyed. After all, nine-tenths of the secular music and
literature, something even of the religious literature, of the Middle
Ages had its origin in minstrelsy. Practically, if not theoretically,
the Church had to look facts in the face, and to draw a distinction
between the different elements and tendencies that bore a single name.
The formularies, of course, continued to confound all minstrels under
the common condemnation of _ioculatores_. The Church has never been
good at altering its formularies to suit altered conditions. But it
has generally been good at practical compromises. And in the case of
minstrelsy, a practical compromise, rough enough, was easily arrived at.

The effective conscience of the thirteenth-century Church had clearly
come to recognize degrees in the ethical status of the minstrels.
No more authoritative exponent of the official morals of his day
can be desired than St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Thomas Aquinas is
very far from pronouncing an unqualified condemnation of all secular
entertainment. The profession of an _histrio_, he declares, is by no
means in itself unlawful. It was ordained for the reasonable solace
of humanity, and the _histrio_ who exercises it at a fitting time
and in a fitting manner is not on that account to be regarded as a
sinner[245]. Another contemporary document is still more explicit.
This is the _Penitential_ written at the close of the thirteenth
century by Thomas de Cabham, sub-dean of Salisbury and subsequently
archbishop of Canterbury[246]. In the course of his analysis of human
frailty, Thomas de Cabham makes a careful classification from the
ethical point of view, of minstrels. There are those who wear horrible
masks, or entertain by indecent dance and gesture. There are those
again who follow the courts of the great, and amuse by satire and by
raillery. Both these classes are altogether damnable. Those that remain
are distinguished by their use of musical instruments. Some sing wanton
songs at banquets. These too are damnable, no less than the satirists
and posture-mongers. Others, however, sing of the deeds of princes, and
the lives of the saints. To these it is that the name _ioculatores_
more strictly belongs, and they, on no less an authority than that of
Pope Alexander himself[247], may be tolerated.

Of the three main groups of minstrels distinguished by Thomas de
Cabham, two correspond roughly to the two broad types which, from the
point of view of racial tradition, we have already differentiated. His
musicians correspond to the Teutonic gleemen and their successors;
his posture-mongers and buffoons to the Roman _mimi_ and their
successors. Who then are Thomas de Cabham’s third and intermediate
group, the satirists whose lampoons beset the courts of the great?
Well, raillery and invective, as we have seen, were common features
of minstrelsy; but Gautier may very likely be right when he surmises
that Thomas de Cabham has particularly in mind the _scolares vagantes_,
who brought so much scandal upon the Church during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries[248]. Some of these were actually out at elbows
and disfrocked clerks; others were scholars drifting from university
to university, and making their living meantime by their wits; most
of them were probably at least in minor orders. But practically they
lived the life of the minstrels, tramping the road with them, sharing
the same temptations of wine, women, and dice, and bringing into the
profession a trained facility of composition, and at least a flavour
of classical learning[249]. They were indeed the main intermediaries
between the learned and the vernacular letters of their day; the spilth
of their wit and wisdom is to be found in the burlesque Latin verse of
such collections as the _Carmina Burana_, riotous lines, by no means
devoid of poetry, with their half-humorous half-pathetic burden,

‘In taberna quando sumus
Non curamus quid sit humus[250].’

And especially they were satirists, satirists mainly of the hypocrisy,
cupidity and evil living of those in the high places of the Church,
for whom they conceived a grotesque expression in Bishop Golias, a
type of materialistic prelate, in whose name they wrote and whose
_pueri_ or _discipuli_ they declared themselves to be[251]. _Goliardi_,
_goliardenses_, their reputation in the eyes of the ecclesiastical
authorities was of the worst, and their ill practices are coupled with
those of the minstrels in many a condemnatory decree[252].

It is not with the _goliardi_ then, that Thomas de Cabham’s relaxation
of the strict ecclesiastical rigours is concerned. Neither is it,
naturally enough, with the lower minstrels of the _mimus_ tradition.
Towards these Thomas de Cabham, like his predecessors, is inexorable.
And even of the higher minstrels the musicians and singers, his
toleration has its limits. He discriminates. In a sense, a social
and professional sense, all these higher minstrels fall into the
same class. But from the ethical point of view there is a very
marked distinction amongst them. Some there are who haunt taverns
and merry-makings with loose songs of love and dalliance. These it
is not to be expected that the holy mother Church should in any way
countenance. Her toleration must be reserved for those more reputable
performers who find material for their verse either in the life
and conversation of the saints and martyrs themselves, or at least
in the noble and inspiring deeds of national heroes and champions.
Legends of the saints and gests of princes: if the minstrels will
confine themselves to the celebration of these, then, secure in
the pronouncement of a pope, they may claim a hearing even from
the devout. It would be rash to assert that even the comparatively
liberal theory of Thomas de Cabham certainly justified in all cases
the practice of the monasteries. But it is at least noteworthy that
in several instances where the subjects of the minstrelsy presented
for the delectation of a cowled audience remain upon record, they do
fall precisely within the twofold definition which he lays down. At
Winchester in 1338 the minstrel Herbert sang the song of Colbrond (or
Guy of Warwick), and the gest of the miraculous deliverance of Queen
Emma; while at Bicester in 1432 it was the legend of the Seven Sleepers
of Ephesus that made the Epiphany entertainment of the assembled canons.

If now we set aside the very special class of ribald _galiardi_, and
if we set aside also the distinction drawn by Thomas de Cabham on
purely ethical grounds between the minstrels of the love-songs and the
minstrels of saintly or heroic gest, the net result is the twofold
classification of higher and lower minstrels already familiar to us.
Roughly--it must always be borne in mind how roughly--it corresponds
on the one hand to the difference between the Teutonic and the Roman
tradition, on the other to the distinction between the established
‘minstrel of honour’ and his unattached rival of the road. And there
is abundant evidence that such a distinction was generally present,
and occasionally became acute, in the consciousness of the minstrels
themselves. The aristocrats of minstrelsy, a Baudouin or a Jean de
Condé, or a Watriquet de Couvin, have very exalted ideas as to the
dignity of their profession. They will not let you, if they can help
it, put the _grans menestreus_ on the same level with every-day
_jangleur_ of poor attainments and still poorer repute[253]. In
the _Dit des Taboureurs_ again it is a whole class, the _joueurs de
vielle_, who arise to vindicate their dignity and to pour scorn upon
the humble and uninstructed drummers[254]. But the most instructive and
curious evidence comes from Provence. It was in 1273, when the amazing
growth of Provençal poetry was approaching its sudden decay, that the
last of the great troubadours, Guiraut de Riquier, addressed a verse
_Supplicatio_ to Alphonso X of Castile on the state of minstrelsy.
He points out the confusion caused by the indiscriminate grouping
of poets, singers, and entertainers of all degrees under the title
of _joglars_, and begs the king, as high patron of letters, to take
order for it. A reply from Alphonso, also in verse, and also, one
may suspect, due to the fertile pen of Guiraut Riquier, is extant.
Herein he establishes or confirms a fourfold hierarchy. At the head
come two classes, the _doctors de trobar_ and the _trobaires_, who are
composers, the former of didactic, the latter of ordinary songs and
melodies. Beneath these are the _joglars_ proper, instrumentalists
and reciters of delightful stories, and beneath these again the
_bufos_, the entertainers of common folk, who have really no claim
to be considered as _joglars_ at all[255]. One of the distinctions
here made is new to us. The difference between _doctor de trobar_ and
_trobaire_ is perhaps negligible. But that between the _trobaire_ or
composer and the _joglar_ or executant of poetry, is an important one.
It is not, however, so far as the Teutonic element in minstrelsy goes,
primitive. The _scôpas_ and the French or Anglo-Norman _ioculatores_
up to the twelfth century composed their verses as a class, and sang
them as well[256]. In Provence, however, the Teutonic element in
minstrelsy must have been of the slightest, and perhaps the Roman
tradition, illustrated by the story of Laberius, of a marked barrier
between composing and executing, had vaguely lingered. At any rate it
is in Provence, in the eleventh century, that the distinction between
_trobaire_ and _joglar_ makes its appearance. It never became a very
complete one. The _trobaire_ was generally, not always, of gentle or
burgess birth; sometimes actually a king or noble. In the latter case
he contented himself with writing his songs, and let the _joglars_
spread them abroad. But the bulk of the _trobaires_ lived by their art.
They wandered from castle to castle, alone with a _vielle_, or with
_joglars_ in their train, and although they mingled with their hosts
on fairly equal terms, they did not disdain to take their rewards of
horse or mantle or jewel, just like any common performer. Moreover,
they confined themselves to lyric poetry, leaving the writing of epic,
so far as epic was abroad in Provence, to the _joglars_[257]. From
Provence, the _trobaire_ spread to other countries, reappearing in
the north of France and England as the _trouvère_. We seem to trace
an early _trouvère_ in Lucas de Barre in the time of Henry I. But
it is Eleanor of Poitiers, daughter of the _trobaire_ count William
of Poitiers, and mother of the _trouvère_ Richard Cœur de Lion,
who appears as the chief intermediary between north and south. The
intrusion of the _trouvère_ was the first step in the degradation of
minstrelsy. Amongst the Anglo-Saxons, even apart from the _cantilenae_
of the folk, the professional singer had no monopoly of song. Hrothgar
and Alfred harped with their _scôpas_. But if there had been a similar
tendency amongst the continental Teutons who merged in the French
and Norman-French, it had been checked by the complete absorption
of all literary energies, outside the minstrel class, in neo-Latin.
It was not until the twelfth century, and as has been said, under
Provençal influence, that secular-minded clerks, and exceptionally
educated nobles, merchants, or officials, began to devote themselves
to the vernacular, and by so doing to develop the _trouvère_ type.
The _trouvère_ had the advantage of the minstrel in learning and
independence, if not in leisure; and though the latter long held his
own by the side of his rival, he was fated in the end to give way,
and to content himself with the humbler task of spreading abroad what
the _trouvère_ wrote[258]. By the second quarter of the fourteenth
century, the conquest of literature by the _bourgeoisie_ was complete.
The interest had shifted from the minstrel on the hall floor to the
burgher or clerk in the _puy_; the prize of a successful poem was no
longer a royal mantle, but a laureate crown or the golden violet of the
_jeux floraux_; and its destiny less to be recited at the banquet, than
read in the bower. In England the completion of the process perhaps
came a little later, and was coincident with the triumph of English,
the tongue of the _bourgeois_, over French, the tongue of the noble.
The full flower of minstrelsy had been the out-at-elbows vagabond,
Rutebeuf. The full flower of the _trouvère_ is the comptroller of the
customs and subsidies of the port of London, Geoffrey Chaucer.

The first distinction, then, made by Guiraut Riquier, that between
_trobaire_ and _joglar_, implies a development from within minstrelsy
itself that was destined one day to overwhelm it. But the second,
that between the _joglar_ and the _bufo_, is precisely the one
already familiar to us, between the minstrels of the _scôp_ and the
minstrels of the _mimus_ tradition. And, as has been said, it is
partly, if not entirely, identical with that which grew up in course
of time between the protected minstrels of the court and of great
men’s houses, and their vagrant brethren of the road. This general
antithesis between the higher and lower mintrelsy may now, perhaps, be
regarded as established. It was the neglect of it, surely, that led to
that curious and barren logomachy between Percy and Ritson, in which
neither of the disputants can be said to have had hold of more than a
bare half of the truth[259]. And it runs through the whole history of
minstrelsy. It became acute, no doubt, with the growth in importance
of the minstrels of honour in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
But it had probably been just as acute, if not more so, at the very
beginning of things, when the clash of Teutonic and Roman civilization
first brought the bard face to face with the serious rivalry of the
mime. Bard and mime merged without ever becoming quite identical; and
even at the moment when this process was most nearly complete, say in
the eleventh century, the _jouglerie seigneuriale_, to use Magnin’s
happy terms, was never quite the same thing as the _jouglerie foraine
et populaire_[260], least of all in a country like England where
differences of tongue went to perpetuate and emphasize the breach.

Nevertheless, the antithesis may easily be pushed too far. After
all, the minstrels were entertainers, and therefore their business
was to entertain. Did the lord yawn over a gest or a saintly legend?
the discreet minstrel would be well advised to drop high art, and
to substitute some less exacting, even if less refined fashion of
passing the time. The instincts of boor and baron were not then, of
course, so far apart as they are nowadays. And as a matter of fact
we find many of the most eminent minstrels boasting of the width
and variety of their accomplishments. Thus of Baudouin II, count of
Guisnes (1169-1206), it is recorded that he might have matched the most
celebrated professionals, not only in _chansons de gestes_ and _romans
d’aventure_ but also in the _fabliaux_ which formed the delight of the
vulgar _bourgeoisie_[261]. Less aristocratic performers descended even
lower than Baudouin de Guisnes. If we study the répertoires of such
_jougleurs_ as the diabolic one in Gautier de Coincy’s miracle[262],
or Daurel in the romance of _Daurel et Beton_[263], or the disputants
who vaunt their respective proficiencies in _Des Deus Bordeors
Ribauz_[264], we shall find that they cover not only every conceivable
form of minstrel literature proper, but also tricks with knives and
strings, sleight of hand, dancing and tumbling. Even in Provence, the
_Enseignamens_ for _joglars_ warn their readers to learn the arts of
imitating birds, throwing knives, leaping through hoops, showing off
performing asses and dogs, and dangling marionettes[265]. So that one
discerns the difference between the lower and the higher minstrels to
have been not so much that the one did not sink so low, as that the
other, for lack of capacity and education, did not rise so high.

The palmy days of minstrelsy were the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The germ of decay, however, which appeared when the
separation grew up between _trouvère_ and _jougleur_, and when men
began to read books instead of listening to recitations, was further
developed by the invention of printing. For then, while the _trouvère_
could adapt himself readily enough to the new order of things, the
_jougleur’s_ occupation was gone. Like Benedick he might still be
talking, but nobody marked him. Eyes cast down over a page of Chaucer
or of Caxton had no further glitter or tear for him to win[266]. The
fifteenth, and still more the sixteenth century, witness the complete
break-up of minstrelsy in its mediaeval form. The mimes of course
endured. They survived the overthrow of mediaevalism, as they had
survived the overthrow of the Empire[267]. The Tudor kings and nobles
had still their jugglers, their bearwards, their domestic buffoons,
jesters or fools[268]. Bearbaiting in Elizabethan London rivalled the
drama in its vogue. Acrobats and miscellaneous entertainers never
ceased to crowd to every fair, and there is applause even to-day
in circus and music-hall for the old jests and the old somersaults
that have already done duty for upwards of twenty centuries. But the
_jougleur_ as the thirteenth century knew him was by the sixteenth
century no more. Professional musicians there were in plenty; ‘Sneak’s
noise’ haunted the taverns of Eastcheap[269], and instrumentalists
and vocalists in royal palaces and noble mansions still kept the name
and style of minstrels. But they were not minstrels in the old sense,
for with the production of literature, except perhaps for a song here
and there, they had no longer anything to do. That had passed into
other hands, and even the lineaments of the _trouvère_ are barely
recognizable in the new types of poets and men of letters whom the
Renaissance produced. The old fashioned minstrel in his style and habit
as he lived, was to be presented before Elizabeth at Kenilworth as an
interesting anachronism[270]. Some of the discarded entertainers, as we
shall see, were absorbed into the growing profession of stage-players;
others sunk to be ballad singers. For to the illiterate the
story-teller still continued to appeal. The ballad indeed, at least on
one side of it, was the _detritus_, as the _lai_ had been the germ, of
romance[271], and at the very moment when Spenser was reviving romance
as a conscious archaism, it was still possible for a blind fiddler with
a ballad to offend the irritable susceptibilities of a Puritan, or to
touch the sensitive heart-strings of a Sidney[272]. But as a social and
literary force, the glory of minstrelsy had departed[273].

CHAPTER IV

THE MINSTREL REPERTORY

The floor of a mediaeval court, thronged with minstrels of every
degree, provided at least as various an entertainment as the Roman
stage itself[274]. The performances of the mimes, to the accompaniment
of their despised tabor or wry-necked fife, undoubtedly made up in
versatility for what they lacked in decorum. There were the _tombeors_,
_tombesteres_ or _tumbleres_, acrobats and contortionists, who
twisted themselves into incredible attitudes, leapt through hoops,
turned somersaults, walked on their heads, balanced themselves in
perilous positions. Female tumblers, _tornatrices_, took part in these
feats, and several districts had their own characteristic modes of
tumbling, such as _le tour français_, _le tour romain_, _le tour de
Champenois_[275]. Amongst the _tombeors_ must be reckoned the rarer
_funambuli_ or rope-walkers, such as he whom the Corvei annals record
to have met with a sorry accident in the twelfth century[276], or he
who created such a _furore_ in the thirteenth by his aerial descent
from the cathedral at Basle[277]. Nor are they very distinct from the
crowd of dancers, male and female, who are variously designated as
_saltatores_ and _saltatrices_, ‘sautours,’ ‘sailyours,’ ‘hoppesteres.’
Indeed, in many mediaeval miniatures, the daughter of Herodias, dancing
before Herod, is represented rather as tumbling or standing on her head
than in any more subtle pose[278]. A second group includes the jugglers
in the narrower sense, the _jouers des costeax_ who tossed and caught
knives and balls[279], and the practitioners of sleight of hand, who
generally claimed to proceed by _nigremance_ or sorcery[280]. The two
seem to have shared the names of _prestigiatores_ or _tregetours_[281].
Other mimes, the _bastaxi_, or _jouers des basteax_, brought round,
like the Punch and Judy men of our own day, little wooden performing
puppets or marionettes[282]. Others, to whom Thomas de Cabham more
particularly refers, came in masked as animals, and played the dog, the
ass or the bird with appropriate noises and behaviour[283]. Others,
again, led round real animals; generally bears or apes, occasionally
also horses, cocks, hares, dogs, camels and even lions[284]. Sometimes
these beasts did tricks; too often they were baited[285], and from
time to time a man, lineal descendant of the imperial gladiators,
would step forward to fight with them[286]. To the gladiatorial shows
may perhaps also be traced the fight with wooden swords which often
formed a part of the fun[287]. And, finally, whatever the staple of
the performance, there was the _parade_ or preliminary patter to call
the audience together, and throughout the ‘carping,’ a continuous
flow of rough witticism and repartee, such as one is accustomed to
hear Joey, the clown, in the pauses of a circus, pass off on Mr.
Harris, the ring-master[288]. Here came in the especial talents of the
_scurra_, _bordeor_ or _japere_, to whom the moralists took such marked
exception. ‘_L’uns fet l’ivre, l’autre le sot_’ says the _fabliau_; and
indeed we do not need the testimony of Thomas de Cabham or of John of
Salisbury to conclude that such buffoonery was likely to be of a ribald
type[289].

Even in the high places of minstrelsy there was some measure of
variety. A glance at the pay-sheet of Edward I’s Whitsuntide feast
will show that the minstrels who aspired to be musicians were
habitually distinguished by the name of the musical instrument on which
they played. They are _vidulatores_, _citharistae_, _trumpatores_,
_vilours_, _gigours_, _crouderes_, _harpours_, _citolers_, _lutours_,
_trumpours_, _taboreurs_ and the like. The harp (_cithara_), played
by twitching the strings, had been the old instrument of the Teutons,
but in the Middle Ages it came second in popularity to the _vielle_
(_vidula_), which was also a string instrument, but, like the modern
fiddle, was played with a bow. The drum (_tympanum_, _tabour_) was,
as we have seen, somewhat despised, and relegated to the mimes. The
trumpeters appear less often singly than in twos and threes, and it
is possible that their performances may have been mainly ceremonial
and of a purely instrumental order. But the use of music otherwise
than to accompany the voice does not seem to have gone, before the
end of the thirteenth century, much beyond the signals, flourishes
and fanfares required for wars, triumphs and processions. Concerted
instrumental music was a later development[290]. The ordinary function
of the harp or _vielle_ in minstrelsy was to assist the voice of
the minstrel in one of the many forms of poetry which the middle
ages knew. These were both lyric and narrative. The distinction is
roughly parallel to that made by Thomas de Cabham when he subdivides
his highest grades of minstrels into those who sing wanton songs at
taverns, and those more properly called _ioculatores_ who solace the
hearts of men with reciting the deeds of the heroes and the lives
of the saints. The themes of mediaeval lyric, as of all lyric, are
largely wantonness and wine; but it must be borne in mind that Thomas
de Cabham’s classification is primarily an ethical one, and does not
necessarily imply any marked difference of professional status between
the two classes. The haunters of taverns and the solacers of the
virtuous were after all the same minstrels, or at least minstrels of
the same order. That the _chansons_, in their innumerable varieties,
caught up from folk-song, or devised by Provençal ingenuity, were
largely in the mouths of the minstrels, may be taken for granted. It
was here, however, that the competition of _trobaire_ and _trouvère_
began earliest, and proved most triumphant, and the supreme minstrel
_genre_ was undoubtedly the narrative. This was, in a sense, their
creation, and in it they held their own, until the laity learned to
read and the _trouvères_ became able to eke out the shortness of their
memories by writing down or printing their stories. With narrative,
no doubt, the minstrels of highest repute mainly occupied themselves.
Harp or _vielle_ in hand they beguiled many a long hour for knight
and _châtelaine_ with the interminable _chansons de gestes_ in honour
of Charlemagne and his heroic band[291], or, when the vogue of these
waned, as in time it did, with the less primitive _romans d’aventure_,
of which those that clustered round the Keltic Arthur were the widest
famed. Even so their repertory was not exhausted. They had _lais_,
_dits_ and _contes_ of every kind; the devout _contes_ that Thomas de
Cabham loved, historical _contes_, romantic _contes_ of less alarming
proportions than the genuine _romans_. And for the _bourgeoisie_ they
had those improper, witty _fabliaux_, so racy of the French soil, in
which the _esprit gaulois_, as we know it, found its first and not its
least characteristic expression. In most of these types the music of
the instrument bore its part. The shorter _lais_ were often accompanied
musically throughout[292]. The longer poems were delivered in a chant
or recitative, the monotony of which was broken at intervals by a
phrase or two of intercalated melody, while during the rest of the
performance a few perfunctory notes served to sustain the voice[293].
And at times, especially in the later days of minstrelsy, the harp
or _vielle_ was laid aside altogether, and the singer became a mere
story-teller. The antithesis, no infrequent one, between minstrel,
and _fabulator_, _narrator_, _fableor_, _conteor, estour_, _disour_,
_segger_, though all these are themselves elsewhere classed as
minstrels, sufficiently suggests this[294]. It was principally, one may
surmise, the _dits_ and _fabliaux_ that lent themselves to unmusical
narration; and when prose crept in, as in time it did, even before
reading became universal, it can hardly have been sung. An interesting
example is afforded by _Aucassin et Nicolete_, which is what is known
as a _cantefable_. That is to say, it is written in alternate sections
of verse and prose. The former have, in the Paris manuscript, a musical
accompaniment, and are introduced with the words ‘_Or se cante_’; the
latter have no music, and the introduction ‘_Or content et dient et
fablent_.’

A further differentiation amongst minstrels was of linguistic origin.
This was especially apparent in England. The mime is essentially
cosmopolitan. In whatever land he finds himself the few sentences of
patter needful to introduce his _tour_ or his _nigremance_ are readily
picked up. It is not so with any entertainer whose performances claim
to rank, however humbly, as literature. And the Conquest in England
brought into existence a class of minstrels who, though they were by
no means mimes, were yet obliged to compete with mimes, making their
appeal solely to the _bourgeoisie_ and the peasants, because their
speech was not that of the Anglo-Norman lords and ladies who formed the
more profitable audiences of the castles. The native English gleemen
were eclipsed at courts by the Taillefers and Raheres of the invading
host. But they still held the road side by side with their rivals,
shorn of their dignities, and winning a precarious livelihood from
the shrunken purses of those of their own blood and tongue[295]. It
was they who sang the unavailing heroisms of Hereward, and, if we may
judge by the scanty fragments and records that have come down to us,
they remained for long the natural focus and mouthpiece of popular
discontent and anti-court sentiment. In the reign of Edward III a
gleeman of this type, Laurence Minot, comes to the front, voicing the
spirit of an England united in its nationalism by the war against
France; the rest are, for the most part, nameless[296]. Naturally the
English gleemen did not remain for ever a proscribed and isolated folk.
One may suspect that at the outset many of them became bilingual. At
any rate they learnt to mingle with their Anglo-Norman _confrères_:
they borrowed the themes of continental minstrelsy; translating
_roman_, _fabliau_ and _chanson_ into the metres and dialects of the
vernacular; and had their share in that gradual fusion of the racial
elements of the land, whose completion was the preparation for Chaucer.

Besides the Saxons, there were the Kelts. In the provinces of France
that bordered on Armorica, in the English counties that marched
with Wales, the Keltic harper is no unusual or negligible figure.
Whether such minstrels ranked very high in the bardic hierarchy of
their own peoples may be doubted; but amid alien folk they achieved
popularity[297]. Both Giraldus Cambrensis and Thomas the author
of _Tristan_ speak of a certain _famosus fabulator_ of this class,
Bledhericus or Breri by name[298]. Through Breri and his like the
Keltic traditions filtered into Romance literature, and an important
body of scholars are prepared to find in _lais_ sung to a Welsh or
Breton harp the _origines_ of Arthurian romance[299]. In England the
Welsh, like the English-speaking minstrels, had a political, as well
as a literary significance. They were the means by which the spirit
of Welsh disaffection under English rule was kept alive, and at times
fanned into a blaze. The fable of the massacre of the bards by Edward
I is now discredited, but an ordinance of his against Keltic ‘bards
and rhymers’ is upon record, and was subsequently repeated under Henry
IV[300].

An important question now presents itself. How far, in this
heterogeneous welter of mediaeval minstrelsy, is it possible to
distinguish any elements which can properly be called dramatic? The
minstrels were entertainers in many _genres_. Were they also actors?
An answer may be sought first of all in their literary remains. The
first condition of drama is dialogue, and dialogue is found both in
lyric and in narrative minstrelsy. Naturally, it is scantiest in lyric.
But there is a group of _chansons_ common to northern France and to
southern France or Provence, which at least tended to develop in this
direction. There are the _chansons à danser_, which are frequently
a semi-dialogue between a soloist and a chorus, the one singing the
verses, the other breaking into a burden or refrain. There are the
_chansons à personnages_ or _chansons de mal mariée_, complaints of
unhappy wives, which often take the form of a dialogue between the
woman and her husband, her friend or, it may be, the poet, occasionally
that of a discussion on courtly love in general. There are the _aubes_,
of which the type is the morning dialogue between woman and lover
adapted by Shakespeare with such splendid effect in the third act of
_Romeo and Juliet_. And finally there are the _pastourelles_, which are
generally dialogues between a knight and a shepherdess, in which the
knight makes love and, successful or repulsed, rides away. All these
_chansons_, like the _chansons d’histoire_ or _de toile_, which did
not develop into dialogues, are, in the form in which we have them, of
minstrel origin. But behind them are probably folk-songs of similar
character, and M. Gaston Paris is perhaps right in tracing them to the
_fêtes du mai_, those agricultural festivals of immemorial antiquity
in which women traditionally took so large a part. A further word will
have to be said of their ultimate contribution to drama in a future
chapter[301].

Other lyrical dialogues of very different type found their way into
the literature of northern France from that of Provence. These were
the elaborate disputes about abstract questions, generally of love,
so dear to the artistic and scholastic mind of the _trobaire_. There
was the _tenson_ (Fr. _tençon_) in which two speakers freely discussed
a given subject, each taking the point of view which seems good to
him. And there was the _joc-partitz_ or _partimen_ (Fr. _jeu-parti_
or _parture_), in which the challenger proposed a theme, indicated
two opposed attitudes towards it, and gave his opponent his choice
to maintain one or other[302]. Originally, no doubt the _tensons_
and the _jocs-partitz_ were, as they professed to be, improvised
verbal tournaments: afterwards they became little more than academic
exercises[303]. To the drama they have nothing to say.

The dialogue elements in lyric minstrelsy thus exhausted, we turn to
the wider field of narrative. But over the greater space of this field
we look in vain. If there is anything of dialogue in the _chansons de
gestes_ and the _romans_ it is merely reported dialogue such as every
form of narrative poetry contains, and is not to the purpose. It is not
until we come to the humbler branches of narrative, the unimportant
_contes_ and _dits_, that we find ourselves in the presence of dialogue
proper. _Dits_ and _fabliaux dialogués_ are not rare[304]. There is the
already quoted _Deus Bordeors Ribauz_ in which two _jougleurs_ meet
and vaunt in turn their rival proficiencies in the various branches of
their common art[305]. There is Rutebeuf’s _Charlot et le Barbier_,
a similar ‘flyting’ between two gentlemen of the road[306]. There is
_Courtois d’Arras_, a version of the Prodigal Son story[307]. There
is _Le Roi d’Angleterre et le Jongleur d’Ely_, a specimen of witty
minstrel repartee, of which more will be said immediately. These
dialogues naturally tend to become of the nature of disputes, and they
merge into that special kind of _dit_, the _débat_ or _disputoison_
proper. The _débat_ is a kind of poetical controversy put into the
mouths of two types or two personified abstractions, each of which
pleads the cause of its own superiority, while in the end the decision
is not infrequently referred to an umpire in the fashion familiar in
the eclogues of Theocritus[308]. The _débats_ thus bear a strong
resemblance to the lyric _tençons_ and _jeux-partis_ already mentioned.
Like the _chansons_, they probably owe something to the folk festivals
with their ‘flytings’ and seasonal songs. In any case they are common
ground to minstrelsy and to the clerkly literature of the Middle Ages.
Many of the most famous of them, such as the _Débat de l’Hiver et de
l’Été_, the _Débat du Vin et de l’Eau_, the _Débat du Corps et de
l’Âme_, exist in neo-Latin forms, the intermediaries being naturally
enough those _vagantes_ or wandering scholars, to whom so much of the
interaction of learned and of popular literature must be due[309]. And
in their turn many of the _débats_ were translated sooner or later into
English. English literature, indeed, had had from Anglo-Saxon days a
natural affinity for the dialogue form[310], and presents side by
side with the translated _débats_ others--_strifs_ or _estrifs_ is the
English term--of native origin[311]. The thirteenth-century _Harrowing
of Hell_ is an _estrif_ on a subject familiar in the miracle plays:
and for an early miracle play it has sometimes been mistaken[312]. Two
or three other _estrifs_ of English origin are remarkable, because the
interlocutors are not exactly abstractions, but species of birds and
animals[313].

Dialogue then, in one shape or another, was part of the minstrel’s
regular stock-in-trade. But dialogue by itself is not drama. The notion
of drama does not, perhaps, necessarily imply scenery on a regular
stage, but it does imply impersonation and a distribution of rôles
between at least two performers. Is there anything to be traced in
minstrelsy that satisfies these conditions? So far as impersonation is
concerned, there are several scattered notices which seem to show that
it was not altogether unknown. In the twelfth century for instance,
Ælred, abbot of Rievaulx, commenting on certain unpleasing innovations
in the church services of the day, complains that the singers use
gestures just like those of _histriones_, fit rather for a _theatrum_
than for a house of prayer[314]. The word _theatrum_ is, however, a
little suspicious, for an actual theatre in the twelfth century is
hardly thinkable, and with a learned ecclesiastic one can never be sure
that he is not drawing his illustrations rather from his knowledge of
classical literature than from the real life around him. It is more
conclusive, perhaps, when _fabliaux_ or _contes_ speak of minstrels as
‘doing’ _l’ivre_, or _le cat_, or _le sot_[315]; or when it appears
from contemporary accounts that at a performance in Savoy the manners
of England and Brittany were mimicked[316]. In Provence _contrafazedor_
seems to have been a regular name for a minstrel[317]; and the facts
that the minstrels wore masks ‘with intent to deceive’[318], and were
forbidden to wear ecclesiastical dresses[319], also point to something
in the way of rudimentary impersonation.

As for the distribution of rôles, all that can be said, so far as the
_débats_ and _dits dialogués_ go, is, that while some of them may
conceivably have been represented by more than one performer, none
of them need necessarily have been so, and some of them certainly
were not. There is generally a narrative introduction and often a
sprinkling of narrative interspersed amongst the dialogue. These parts
may have been pronounced by an _auctor_ or by one of the interlocutors
acting as _auctor_, and some such device must have been occasionally
necessitated in the religious drama. But there is really no difficulty
in supposing the whole of these pieces to have been recited by a single
minstrel with appropriate changes of gesture and intonation, and in
_The Harrowing of Hell_, which begins ‘A strif will I tellen of,’ this
was clearly the case. The evidences of impersonation given above are of
course quite consistent with such an arrangement; or, for the matter of
that, with sheer monologue. The minstrel who recited Rutebeuf’s _Dit
de l’Erberie_ may readily be supposed to have got himself up in the
character of a quack[320].

But the possibilities of secular mediaeval drama are not quite
exhausted by the _débats_ and _dits dialogués_. For after all, the
written literature which the minstrels have left us belongs almost
entirely to those higher _strata_ of their complex fraternity which
derived from the thoroughly undramatic Teutonic _scôp_. But if
mediaeval farce there were, it would not be here that we should look
for it. It would belong to the inheritance, not of the _scôp_, but of
the _mimus_. The Roman _mimus_ was essentially a player of farces;
that and little else. It is of course open to any one to suppose that
the _mimus_ went down in the seventh century playing farces, and that
his like appeared in the fifteenth century playing farces, and that
not a farce was played between. But is it not more probable on the
whole that, while occupying himself largely with other matters, he
preserved at least the rudiments of the art of acting, and that when
the appointed time came, the despised and forgotten farce, under the
stimulus of new conditions, blossomed forth once more as a vital and
effective form of literature? In the absence of data we are reduced
to conjecture. But the mere absence of data itself does not render
the conjecture untenable. For if such rudimentary, or, if you please,
degenerate farces as I have in mind, ever existed in the Middle Ages,
the chances were all against their literary survival. They were
assuredly very brief, very crude, often improvised, and rarely, if
ever, written down. They belonged to an order of minstrels far below
that which made literature[321]. And one little bit of evidence which
has not yet been brought forward seems to point to the existence of
something in the way of a secular as well as a religious mediaeval
drama. In the well-known Wyclifite sermon against miracle plays, an
imaginary opponent of the preacher’s argument is made to say that after
all it is ‘lesse yvels that thei have thyre recreaceon by pleyinge of
myraclis than bi pleyinge of other japis’; and again that ‘to pley in
rebaudye’ is worse than ‘to pley in myriclis[322].’ Now, there is of
course no necessary dramatic connotation either in the word ‘pley’ or
in the word ‘japis,’ which, like ‘bourde’ or ‘gab’ is frequently used
of any kind of rowdy merriment, or of the lower types of minstrelsy in
general[323]. But on the other hand the whole tone of the passage seems
to draw a very close parallel between the ‘japis’ and the undeniably
dramatic ‘myriclis,’ and to imply something in the former a little
beyond the mere recitation, even with the help of impersonation, of a
solitary mime.

Such rude farces or ‘japis’ as we are considering, if they formed
part of the travelling equipment of the humbler mimes, could only
get into literature by an accident; in the event, that is to say, of
some minstrel of a higher class taking it into his head to experiment
in the form or to adapt it to the purposes of his own art. And this
is precisely what appears to have happened. A very natural use of
the farce would be in the _parade_ or preliminary patter, merely
about himself and his proficiency, which at all times has served the
itinerant entertainer as a means whereby to attract his audiences.
And just as the very similar _boniment_ or patter of the mountebank
charlatan at a fair became the model for Rutebeuf’s _Dit de l’Erberie_,
so the _parade_ may be traced as the underlying motive of other _dits_
or _fabliaux_. The _Deus Bordeors Ribauz_ is itself little other than a
glorified _parade_, and another, very slightly disguised, may be found
in the discomfiture of the king by the characteristic repartees of the
wandering minstrel in _Le Roi d’Angleterre et le Jougleur d’Ely_[324].
The _parade_, also, seems to be the origin of a certain familiar type
of dramatic prologue in which the author or the presenters of a play
appear in their own persons. The earliest example of this is perhaps
that enigmatic _Terentius et Delusor_ piece which some have thought to
point to a representation of Terence somewhere in the dark ages between
the seventh and the eleventh century[325]. And there is a later one in
the _Jeu du Pèlerin_ which was written about 1288 to precede Adan de la
Hale’s _Jeu de Robin et Marion_.

The renascence of farce in the fifteenth century will call for
consideration in a later chapter. It is possible that, as is here
suggested, that renascence was but the coming to light again of an
earth-bourne of dramatic tradition that had worked its way beneath
the ground ever since the theatres of the Empire fell. In any case,
rare documents of earlier date survive to show that it was at least
no absolutely sudden and unprecedented thing. The _jeux_ of Adan de
la Hale, indeed, are somewhat irrelevant here. They were not farces,
and will fall to be dealt with in the discussion of the popular
_fêtes_ from which they derive their origin[326]. But the French
farce of _Le Garçon et l’Aveugle_, ascribed to the second half of the
thirteenth century, is over a hundred years older than any of its
extant successors[327]. And even more interesting to us, because it is
of English _provenance_ and in the English tongue, is a fragment found
in an early fourteenth-century manuscript of a dramatic version of the
popular mediaeval tale of Dame Siriz[328]. This bears the heading _Hic
incipit interludium de Clerico et Puella_. But the significance of this
fateful word _interludium_ must be left for study at a later period,
when the history of the secular drama is resumed from the point at
which it must now be dropped.

BOOK II

FOLK DRAMA

Stultorum infinitus est numerus.

ECCLESIASTES.

CHAPTER V

THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK

[_Bibliographical Note._--The conversion of heathen England is
described in the _Ecclesiastical History_ of Bede (C. Plummer,
_Baedae Opera Historica_, 1896). Stress is laid on the imperfect
character of the process by L. Knappert, _Le Christianisme et le
Paganisme dans l’Histoire ecclésiastique de Bède le Vénérable_
(in _Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, 1897, vol. xxxv). A
similar study for Gaul is E. Vacandard, _L’Idolatrie dans la
Gaule_ (in _Revue des Questions historiques_, 1899, vol. lxv).
Witness is borne to the continued presence of pre-Christian
elements in the folk-civilization of western Europe both by the
general results of folk-lore research and by the ecclesiastical
documents of the early Middle Ages. Of these the most important
in this respect are--(1) the _Decrees_ of Councils, collected
generally in P. Labbe and G. Cossart, _Sacrosancta Concilia_
(1671-2), and J. D. Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et
amplissima Collectio_ (1759-98), and for England in particular
in D. Wilkins, _Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae_ (1737)
and A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, _Councils and Ecclesiastical
Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland_ (1869-78).
An interesting series of extracts is given by G. Gröber, _Zur
Volkskunde aus Concilbeschlüssen und Capitularien_ (1894):--(2)
the _Penitentials_, or catalogues of sins and their penalties
drawn up for the guidance of confessors. The most important
English example is the _Penitential of Theodore_ (668-90), on
which the _Penitentials of Bede_ and _of Egbert_ are based.
Authentic texts are given by Haddan and Stubbs, vol. iii, and,
with others of continental origin, in F. W. H. Wasserschleben,
_Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche_ (1851), and H.
J. Schmitz, _Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche_
(1883). The most interesting for its heathen survivals is
the eleventh-century _Collectio Decretorum_ of Burchardus of
Worms (Migne, _P. L._ cxl, extracts in J. Grimm, _Teutonic
Mythology_, iv. 1740):--(3) _Homilies_ or _Sermons_, such as the
_Sermo_ ascribed to the seventh-century St. Eligius (_P. L._
lxxxvii. 524, transl. Grimm, iv. 1737), and the eighth-century
Frankish pseudo-Augustinian _Homilia de Sacrilegiis_ (ed.
C. P. Caspari, 1886):--(4) the _Vitae_ of the apostles of
the West, St. Boniface, St. Columban, St. Gall, and others.
A critical edition of these is looked for from M. Knappert.
The _Epistolae_ of Boniface are in _P. L._ lxxxix. 593:--(5)
_Miscellaneous Documents_, including the sixth-century _De
correctione Rusticorum_ of Bishop Martin of Braga in Spain (ed.
C. P. Caspari, 1883) and the so-called _Indiculus Superstitionum
et Paganiarum_ (ed. H. A. Saupe, 1891), a list of heathen
customs probably drawn up in eighth-century Saxony.--The view
of primitive religion taken in this book is largely, although
not altogether in detail, that of J. G. Frazer, _The Golden
Bough_ (1890, 2nd ed. 1900), which itself owes much to E. B.
Tylor, _Primitive Culture_ (1871); W. Robertson Smith, _Religion
of the Semites_ (2nd ed. 1894); W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus
der Germanen_ (1875); _Antike Wald-und Feldkulte_ (1875-7). A
more systematic work on similar lines is F. B. Jevons, _An
Introduction to the History of Religion_ (1896): and amongst many
others may be mentioned A. Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_
(1887, 2nd ed. 1899), the conclusions of which are somewhat
modified in the same writer’s _The Making of Religion_ (1898);
Grant Allen, _The Evolution of the Idea of God_ (1897); E. S.
Hartland, _The Legend of Perseus_ (1894-6); J. Rhys, _The Origin
and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom_
(1888). The last of these deals especially with Keltic _data_,
which may be further studied in H. D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Le
Cycle mythologique irlandais et la Mythologie celtique_ (1884),
together with the chapter on _La Religion_ in the same writer’s
_La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de l’Épopée homérique_
(1899) and A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois_ (1897).
Teutonic religion has been more completely investigated. Recent
works of authority are E. H. Meyer, _Germanische Mythologie_
(1891); W. Golther, _Handbuch der germanischen Mythologie_
(1895); and the article by E. Mogk on _Mythologie_ in H. Paul’s
_Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, vol. iii (2nd ed. 1897).
The collection of material in J. Grimm’s _Teutonic Mythology_
(transl. J. S. Stallybrass, 1880-8) is still of the greatest
value. The general facts of early German civilization are
given by F. B. Gummere, _Germanic Origins_ (1892), and for the
Aryan-speaking peoples in general by O. Schräder, _Prehistoric
Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_ (transl. F. B. Jevons, 1890),
and _Reallexicon der indo-germanischen Altertumskunde_ (1901).
In dealing with the primitive calendar I have mainly, but not
wholly, followed the valuable researches of A. Tille, _Deutsche
Weihnacht_ (1893) and _Yule and Christmas_ (1899), a scholar the
loss of whom to this country is one of the lamentable results of
the recent war.]

Minstrelsy was an institution of the folk, no less than of the court
and the _bourgeoisie_. At many a village festival, one may be sure,
the taberers and buffoons played their conspicuous part, ravishing the
souls of Dorcas and Mopsa with merry and doleful ballads, and tumbling
through their amazing programme of monkey tricks before the ring of
wide-mouthed rustics on the green. Yet the soul and centre of such
revels always lay, not in these alien professional _spectacula_, but
in other entertainments, home-grown and racy of the soil, wherein the
peasants shared, not as onlookers only, but as performers, even as
their fathers and mothers, from immemorial antiquity, had done before
them. A full consideration of the village _ludi_ is important to the
scheme of the present book for more than one reason. They shared with
the _ludi_ of the minstrels the hostility of the Church. They bear
witness, at point after point, to the deep-lying dramatic instincts
of the folk. And their substantial contribution to mediaeval and
Renaissance drama and dramatic _spectacle_ is greater than has been
fully recognized.

Historically, the _ludi_ of the folk come into prominence with
the attacks made upon them by the reforming ecclesiastics of the
thirteenth century and in particular by Robert Grosseteste, bishop
of Lincoln[329]. Between 1236 and 1244 Grosseteste issued a series
of disciplinary pronouncements, in which he condemned many customs
prevalent in his diocese. Amongst these are included miracle plays,
‘scotales’ or drinking-bouts, ‘ram-raisings’ and other contests of
athletic prowess, together with ceremonies known respectively as the
_festum stultorum_ and the _Inductio Maii sive Autumni_[330]. Very
similar are the prohibitions contained in the _Constitutions_ (1240)
of Walter de Chanteloup, bishop of Worcester[331]. These particularly
specify the _ludus de Rege et Regina_, a term which may be taken as
generally applicable to the typical English folk-festival, of which
the _Inductio Maii sive Autumni_, the ‘May-game’ and ‘mell-supper,’
mentioned by Grosseteste, are varieties[332]. Both this _ludus_, in its
various forms, and the less strictly popular _festum stultorum_, will
find ample illustration in the sequel. Walter de Chanteloup also lays
stress upon an aggravation of the _ludi inhonesti_ by the performance
of them in churchyards and other holy places, and on Sundays or the
vigils and days of saints[333].

The decrees of the two bishops already cited do not stand alone. About
1250 the University of Oxford found it necessary to forbid the routs
of masked and garlanded students in the churches and open places of
the city[334]. These appear to have been held in connexion with the
feasts of the ‘nations’ into which a mediaeval university was divided.
Articles of visitation drawn up in connexion with the provisions of
Oxford in 1253 made inquiry as to several of the obnoxious _ludi_ and
as to the measures adopted to check them throughout the country[335].
Prohibitions are upon record by the synod of Exeter in 1287[336],
and during the next century by the synod of York in 1367[337], and
by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, in 1384[338]; while
the denunciations of the rulers of the church find an unofficial
echo in that handbook of ecclesiastical morality, Robert Mannyng of
Brunne’s _Handlyng Synne_[339]. There is, however, reason to suppose
that the attitude thus taken up hardly represents that of the average
ecclesiastical authority, still less that of the average parish
priest, towards the _ludi_ in question. The condemnatory decrees
should probably be looked upon as the individual pronouncements of
men of austere or reforming temper against customs which the laxer
discipline of their fellows failed to touch; perhaps it should rather
be said, which the wiser discipline of their fellows found it better to
regulate than to ban. At any rate there is evidence to show that the
village _ludi_, as distinct from the _spectacula_ of the minstrels,
were accepted, and even to some extent directed, by the Church. They
became part of the parochial organization, and were conducted through
the parochial machinery. Doubtless this was the course of practical
wisdom. But the moralist would find it difficult to deny that Robert
Grosseteste and Walter de Chanteloup had, after all, some reason on
their side. On the one hand they could point to the ethical lapses
of which the _ludi_ were undoubtedly the cause--the drunkenness, the
quarrels, the wantonings, by which they were disgraced[340]. And on
the other they could--if they were historically minded--recall the
origin of the objectionable rites in some of those obscure survivals
of heathenism in the rustic blood, which half a dozen centuries of
Christianity had failed to purge[341]. For if the comparative study
of religions proves anything it is, that the traditional beliefs and
customs of the mediaeval or modern peasant are in nine cases out of ten
but the _detritus_ of heathen mythology and heathen worship, enduring
with but little external change in the shadow of an hostile creed.
This is notably true of the village festivals and their _ludi_. Their
full significance only appears when they are regarded as fragments of
forgotten cults, the naïve cults addressed by a primitive folk to the
beneficent deities of field and wood and river, or the shadowy populace
of its own dreams. Not that when even the mediaeval peasant set up his
May-pole at the approach of summer or drove his cattle through the
bonfire on Midsummer eve, the real character of his act was at all
explicit in his consciousness. To him, as to his descendant of to-day,
the festival was at once a practice sanctioned by tradition and the
rare amusement of a strenuous life: it was not, save perhaps in some
unplumbed recesses of his being, anything more definitely sacred. At
most it was held to be ‘for luck,’ and in some vague general way, to
the interest of a fruitful year in field and fold. The scientific
anthropologist, however, from his very different point of view, cannot
regard the conversion to Christianity as a complete solution of
continuity in the spiritual and social life of western Europe. This
conversion, indeed, was clearly a much slower and more incomplete
process than the ecclesiastical chroniclers quite plainly state. It
was so even on the shores of the Mediterranean. But there the triumph
of Christianity began from below. Long before the edict of Milan, the
new religion, in spite of persecutions, had got its firm hold upon
the masses of the great cities of the Empire. And when, less than a
century later, Theodosius made the public profession of any other faith
a crime, he was but formally acknowledging a _chose jugée_. But even in
these lands of the first ardour the old beliefs and, above all, the old
rituals died hard. Lingering unacknowledged in the country, the pagan,
districts, they passed silently into the dim realm of folk-lore. How
could this but be more so when Christianity came with the missionaries
of Rome or of Iona to the peoples of the West? For with them conversion
was hardly a spontaneous, an individual thing. As a rule, the baptism
of the king was the starting-point and motive for that of his
followers: and the bulk of the people adopted wonderingly an alien cult
in an alien tongue imposed upon them by the will of their rulers. Such
a Christianity could at best be only nominal. Ancient beliefs are not
so easily surrendered: nor are habits and instincts, deep-rooted in
the lives of a folk, thus lightly laid down for ever, at the word of a
king. The churches of the West had, therefore, to dispose somehow of a
vast body of practical heathenism surviving in all essentials beneath
a new faith which was but skin-deep. The conflict which followed is
faintly adumbrated in the pages of Bede: something more may be guessed
of its fortunes by a comparison of the customs and superstitions
recorded in early documents of church discipline with those which,
after all, the peasantry long retained, or even now retain.

Two letters of Gregory the Great, written at the time of the mission of
St. Augustine, are a key to the methods adopted by the apostles of the
West. In June 601, writing to Ethelbert of Kent by the hands of abbot
Mellitus, Gregory bade the new convert show zeal in suppressing the
worship of idols, and throwing down their fanes[342]. Having written
thus, the pope changed his mind. Before Mellitus could reach England,
he received a letter instructing him to expound to Augustine a new
policy. ‘Do not, after all,’ wrote Gregory, ‘pull down the fanes.
Destroy the idols; purify the buildings with holy water; set relics
there; and let them become temples of the true God. So the people will
have no need to change their places of concourse, and where of old
they were wont to sacrifice cattle to demons, thither let them continue
to resort on the day of the saint to whom the church is dedicated, and
slay their beasts no longer as a sacrifice, but for a social meal in
honour of Him whom they now worship[343].’ There can be little doubt
that the conversion of England proceeded in the main on the lines thus
laid down by Gregory. Tradition has it that the church of Saint Pancras
outside the walls of Canterbury stands on the site of a fane at which
Ethelbert himself once worshipped[344]; and that in London St. Paul’s
replaced a temple and grove of Diana, by whom the equivalent Teutonic
wood-goddess, Freyja, is doubtless intended[345]. Gregory’s directions
were, perhaps, not always carried out quite so literally as this. When,
for instance, the priest Coifi, on horseback and sword in hand, led
the onslaught against the gods of Northumbria, he bade his followers
set fire to the fane and to all the hedges that girt it round[346]. On
the other hand, Reduald, king of East Anglia, must have kept his fane
standing, and indeed he carried the policy of amalgamation further
than its author intended, for he wavered faint-heartedly between the
old religion and the new, and maintained in one building an _altare_
for Christian worship and an _arula_ for sacrifice to demons[347].
Speaking generally, it would seem to have been the endeavour of
the Christian missionaries to effect the change of creed with as
little dislocation of popular sentiment as possible. If they could
extirpate the essentials, or what they considered as the essentials,
of heathenism, they were willing enough to leave the accidentals to be
worn away by the slow process of time. They did not, probably, quite
realize how long it would take. And what happened in England, happened
also, no doubt, on the continent, save perhaps in such districts as
Saxony, where Christianity was introduced _vi et armis_, and therefore
in a more wholesale, if not in the end a more effectual fashion[348].

The measure of surviving heathenism under Christianity must have
varied considerably from district to district. Much would depend on
the natural temper of the converts, on the tact of the clergy and on
the influence they were able to secure. Roughly speaking, the old
worships left their trace upon the new society in two ways. Certain
central practices, the deliberate invocation of the discarded gods, the
deliberate acknowledgement of their divinity by sacrifice, were bound
to be altogether proscribed[349]. And these, if they did not precisely
vanish, at least went underground, coming to light only as shameful
secrets of the confessional[350] or the witch-trial[351], or when the
dominant faith received a rude shock in times of especial distress,
famine or pestilence[352]. Others again were absorbed into the scheme
of Christianity itself. Many of the protective functions, for instance,
of the old pantheon were taken over bodily by the Virgin Mary, by St.
John, St. Michael, St. Martin, St. Nicholas, and other personages of
the new dispensation[353]. And in particular, as we have seen shadowed
forth in Pope Gregory’s policy, the festal customs of heathenism,
purified so far as might be, received a generous amount of toleration.
The chief thing required was that the outward and visible signs of the
connexion with the hostile religion should be abandoned. Nor was this
such a difficult matter. Cult, the sum of what man feels it obligatory
upon him to do in virtue of his relation to the unseen powers, is
notoriously a more enduring thing than belief, the speculative, or
mythology, the imaginative statement of those relations. And it was
of the customs themselves that the people were tenacious, not of the
meaning, so far as there was still a meaning, attached to them, or
of the names which their priests had been wont to invoke. Leave them
but their familiar revels, and the ritual so indissolubly bound up
with their hopes of fertility for their flocks and crops, they would
not stick upon the explicit consciousness that they drank or danced
in the might of Eostre or of Freyr. And in time, as the Christian
interpretation of life became an everyday thing, it passed out of sight
that the customs had been ritual at all. At the most a general sense
of their ‘lucky’ influence survived. But to stop doing them; that was
not likely to suggest itself to the rustic mind. And so the church and
the open space around the church continued to be, what the temple and
the temple precinct had been, the centre, both secular and religious,
of the village life. From the Christian point of view, the arrangement
had its obvious advantages. It had also this disadvantage, that so
far as obnoxious elements still clung to the festivals, so far as the
darker practices of heathenism still lingered, it was precisely the
most sacred spot that they defiled. Were incantations and spells still
muttered secretly for the good will of the deposed divinities? it was
the churchyard that was sure to be selected as the nocturnal scene of
the unhallowed ceremony. Were the clergy unable to cleanse the yearly
wake of wanton dance and song? it was the church itself, by Gregory’s
own decree, that became the focus of the riot.

The partial survival of the village ceremonies under Christianity will
appear less surprising when it is borne in mind that the heathenism
which Christianity combated was itself only the final term of a long
process of evolution. The worshippers of the Keltic or Teutonic deities
already practised a traditional ritual, probably without any very
clear conception of the _rationale_ on which some at least of the acts
which they performed were based. These acts had their origin far back
in the history of the religious consciousness; and it must not be
supposed, because modern scholarship, with its comparative methods, is
able to some extent to reconstruct the mental conditions out of which
they arose, that these conditions were still wholly operative in the
sixth, any more than in the thirteenth or the twentieth century. Side
by side with customs which had still their definite and intelligible
significance, religious conservatism had certainly preserved others
of a very primitive type, some of which survived as mere fossils,
while others had undergone that transformation of intention, that
pouring of new wine into old bottles, which is one of the most familiar
features in the history of institutions. The heathenism of western
Europe must be regarded, therefore, as a group of religious practices
originating in very different strata of civilization, and only fused
together in the continuity of tradition. Its permanence lay in the
law of association through which a piece of ritual originally devised
by the folk to secure their practical well-being remained, even after
the initial meaning grew obscure, irrevocably bound up with their
expectations of that well-being. Its interest to the student is that of
a development, rather than that of a system. Only the briefest outline
of the direction taken by this development can be here indicated. But
it must first be pointed out that, whether from a common derivation,
or through a similar intellectual structure reacting upon similar
conditions of life, it seems, at least up to the point of emergence
of the fully formed village cult, to have proceeded on uniform lines,
not only amongst the Teutonic and Keltic tribes who inhabited western
and northern Europe and these islands, but also amongst all the
Aryan-speaking peoples. In particular, although the Teutonic and the
Keltic priests and bards elaborated, probably in comparatively late
stages of their history, very different god-names and very different
mythologies, yet these are but the superstructure of religion; and it
is possible to infer, both from the results of folk-lore and from the
more scanty documentary evidence, a substantial identity throughout
the whole Kelto-Teutonic group, of the underlying institutions
of ritual and of the fundamental theological conceptions[354].
I am aware that it is no longer permissible to sum up all the
facts of European civilization in an Aryan formula. Ethnology has
satisfactorily established the existence on the continent of at least
two important racial strains besides that of the blonde invader from
Latham-land[355]. But I do not think that any of the attempts hitherto
made to distinguish Aryan from pre-Aryan elements in folk-lore have
met with any measure of success[356]. Nor is it quite clear that any
such distinction need have been implied by the difference of blood.
Archaeologists speak of a remarkable uniformity of material culture
throughout the whole of Europe during the neolithic period; and there
appears to be no special reason why this uniformity may not have
extended to the comparatively simple notions which man was led to form
of the not-man by his early contacts with his environment. In any case
the social amalgamation of Aryan and pre-Aryan was a process already
complete by the Middle Ages; and for the purpose of this investigation
it seems justifiable, and in the present state of knowledge even
necessary, to treat the village customs as roughly speaking homogeneous
throughout the whole of the Kelto-Teutonic area.

An analysis of these customs suggests a mental history somewhat as
follows. The first relations of man to the not-man are, it need hardly
be said, of a practical rather than a sentimental or a philosophic
character. They arise out of an endeavour to procure certain goods
which depend, in part at least, upon natural processes beyond man’s
own control. The chief of these goods is, of course, food; that is to
say, in a primitive state of civilization, success in hunting, whether
of berries, mussels and ‘witchetty grubs,’ or of more elusive and
difficult game; and later, when hunting ceases to be the mainstay of
existence, the continued fertility of the flocks and herds, which form
the support of a pastoral race, and of the cornfields and orchards
which in their turn come to supplement these, on the appearance of
agriculture. Food once supplied, the little tale of primitive man’s
limited conception of the desirable is soon completed. Fire and a
roof-tree are his already. But he asks for physical health, for
success in love and in the begetting of offspring, and for the power
to anticipate by divination that future about which he is always so
childishly curious. In the pursuit, then, of these simple goods man
endeavours to control nature. But his earliest essays in this direction
are, as Dr. Frazer has recently pointed out, not properly to be called
religion[357]. The magical charms by which he attempts to make the
sun burn, and the waters fall, and the wind blow as it pleases him,
certainly do not imply that recognition of a quasi-human personality
outside himself, which any religious definition may be supposed to
require as a minimum. They are rather to be regarded as applications of
primitive science, for they depend upon a vague general notion of the
relations of cause and effect. To assume that you can influence a thing
through what is similar to it, or through what has been in contact with
it, which, according to Dr. Frazer, are the postulates of magic in its
mimetic and its sympathetic form respectively, may be bad science, but
at least it is science of a sort, and not religion.

The magical charms play a large part in the village ritual, and will
be illustrated in the following chapter. Presently, however, the
scientific spirit is modified by that tendency of animism through
which man comes to look upon the external world not as mere more or
less resisting matter to be moved hither or thither, but rather as a
debateable land peopled with spirits in some sense alive. These spirits
are the active forces dimly discerned by human imagination as at work
behind the shifting and often mysterious natural phenomena--forces of
the moving winds and waters, of the skies now clear, now overcast, of
the animal races of hill and plain, of the growth waxing and waning
year by year in field and woodland. The control of nature now means the
control of these powers, and to this object the charms are directed. In
particular, I think, at this stage of his development, man conceives
a spirit of that food which still remains in the very forefront of his
aspirations, of his actual food-plant, or of the animal species which
he habitually hunts[358]. Of this spirit he initiates a cult, which
rests upon the old magical principle of the mastering efficacy of
direct contact. He binds the spirit literally to him by wearing it as a
garment, or absorbs it into himself in a solemn meal, hoping by either
process to acquire an influence or power over it. Naturally, at this
stage, the spirit becomes to the eye of his imagination phytomorphic or
theriomorphic in aspect. He may conceive it as especially incarnate in
a single sacred plant or animal. But the most critical moment in the
history of animism is that at which the elemental spirits come to be
looked upon as anthropomorphic, made in the likeness of man himself.
This is perhaps due to the identification of them with those other
quasi-human spirits, of whose existence man has by an independent
line of thought also become aware. These are the ghostly spirits of
departed kinsmen, still in some shadowy way inhabiting or revisiting
the house-place. The change does not merely mean that the visible
phytomorphic and theriomorphic embodiments of mental forces sink into
subordination; the plants and animals becoming no more than symbols and
appurtenances of the anthropomorphic spirit, or temporary forms with
which from time to time he invests himself. A transformation of the
whole character of the cult is involved, for man must now approach the
spirits, not merely by charms, although conservatism preserves these
as an element in ritual, but with modifications of the modes in which
he approaches his fellow man. He must beg their favour with submissive
speech or buy it with bribes. And here, with prayer and oblation,
religion in the stricter sense makes its appearance.

The next step of man is from the crowd of animistic spirits to
isolate the god. The notion of a god is much the old notion of an
anthropomorphic elemental spirit, widened, exalted, and further
removed from sense. Instead of a local and limited home, the god has
his dwelling in the whole expanse of heaven or in some distant region
of space. He transcends and as an object of cult supplants the more
bounded and more concrete personifications of natural forces out of
which he has been evolved. But he does not annul these: they survive
in popular credence as his servants and ministers. It is indeed on the
analogy of the position of the human chief amongst his _comitatus_
that, in all probability, the conception of the god is largely arrived
at. Comparative philology seems to show that the belief in gods is
common to the Aryan-speaking peoples, and that at the root of all the
cognate mythologies there lies a single fundamental divinity. This is
the Dyaus of the Indians, the Zeus of the Greeks, the Jupiter of the
Romans, the Tiwaz (O.H.G. Zîu, O.N. Týr, A.-S. Tîw) of the Teutons.
He is an embodiment of the great clear sunlit heavens, the dispenser
of light to the huntsman, and of warmth and moisture to the crops.
Side by side with the conception of the heaven-god comes that of his
female counterpart, who is also, though less clearly, indicated in
all the mythologies. In her earliest aspect she is the lady of the
woods and of the blossoming fruitful earth. This primary dualism is an
extremely important factor in the explanation of early religion. The
all-father, the heaven, and the mother-goddess, the earth, are distinct
personalities from the beginning. It does not appear possible to
resolve one into a mere doublet or derivative of the other. Certainly
the marriage of earth and heaven in the showers that fertilize the
crops is one of the oldest and most natural of myths. But it is
generally admitted that myth is determined by and does not determine
the forms of cult. The heaven-god and the earth-goddess must have
already had their separate existence before the priests could hymn
their marriage. An explanation of the dualism is probably to be traced
in the merging of two cults originally distinct. These will have been
sex-cults. Tillage is, of course, little esteemed by primitive man.
It was so with the Germans, even up to the point at which they first
came into contact with the Romans[359]. Yet all the Aryan languages
show some acquaintance with the use of grains[360]. The analogy with
existing savages suggests that European agriculture in its early stages
was an affair of the women. While the men hunted or afterwards tended
their droves of cattle and horses, the women grubbed for roots, and
presently learnt to scratch the surface of the ground, to scatter the
seed, and painfully to garner and grind the scanty produce[361]. As the
avocations of the sexes were distinct, so would their magic or their
religion be. Each would develop rites of its own of a type strictly
determined by its practical ambitions, and each would stand apart from
the rites of the other. The interest of the men would centre in the
boar or stag, that of the women in the fruit-tree or the wheat-sheaf.
To the former the stone altar on the open hill-top would be holy; to
the latter the dim recesses of the impenetrable grove. Presently when
the god concept appeared, the men’s divinity would be a personification
of the illimitable and mysterious heavens beneath which they hunted
and herded, from which the pools were filled with water, and at times
the pestilence was darted in the sun rays; the women’s of the wooded
and deep-bosomed earth out of which their wealth sprang. This would
as naturally take a female as that a male form. Agriculture, however,
was not for ever left solely to the women. In time pasturage and
tillage came to be carried on as two branches of a single pursuit,
and the independent sex-cults which had sprung out of them coalesced
in the common village worship of later days. Certain features of the
primitive differentiation can still be obscurely distinguished. Here
and there one or the other sex is barred from particular ceremonies,
or a male priest must perform his mystic functions in woman’s garb.
The heaven-god perhaps remains the especial protector of the cattle,
and the earth-goddess of the corn. But generally speaking they have
all the interests of the farm in a joint tutelage. The stone altar
is set up in the sacred grove; the mystic tree is planted on the
hill-top[362]. Theriomorphic and phytomorphic symbols shadow forth a
single godhead[363]. The earth-mother becomes a divinity of light. The
heaven-father takes up his abode in the spreading oak.

The historic religions of heathenism have not preserved either the
primitive dualistic monotheism, if the phrase may be permitted, or
the simplicity of divine functions here sketched. With the advance of
civilization the objects of worship must necessarily take upon them new
responsibilities. If a tribe has its home by the sea, sooner or later
it trusts frail barks to the waters, and to its gods is committed the
charge of sea-faring. When handicrafts are invented, these also become
their care. When the pressure of tribe upon tribe leads to war, they
champion the host in battle. Moral ideas emerge and attach themselves
to their service: and ultimately they become identified with the rulers
of the dead, and reign in the shadowy world beyond the tomb. Another
set of processes combine to produce what is known as polytheism.
The constant application of fixed epithets to the godhead tends in
the long run to break up its unity. Special aspects of it begin to
take on an independent existence. Thus amongst the Teutonic peoples
Tiwaz-Thunaraz, the thunderous sky, gives rise to Thunar or Thor,
and Tiwaz-Frawiaz, the bounteous sky, to Freyr. And so the ancient
heaven-god is replaced by distinct gods of rain and sunshine, who,
with the mother-goddess, form that triad of divinities so prominent
in several European cults[364]. Again as tribes come into contact
with each other, there is a borrowing of religious conceptions, and
the tribal deities are duplicated by others who are really the same
in origin, but have different names. The mythological speculations of
priests and bards cause further elaboration. The friendly national
gods are contrasted with the dark hostile deities of foreign enemies.
A belief in the culture-hero or semi-divine man, who wrests the gifts
of civilization from the older gods, makes its appearance. Certain
cults, such as that of Druidism, become the starting-point for even
more philosophic conceptions. The personal predilection of an important
worshipper or group of worshippers for this or that deity extends his
vogue. The great event in the later history of Teutonic heathenism is
the overshadowing of earlier cults by that of Odin or Wodan, who seems
to have been originally a ruler of the dead, or perhaps a culture-hero,
and not an elemental god at all[365]. The multiplicity of forms under
which essentially the same divinity presents itself in history and
in popular belief may be illustrated by the mother-goddess of the
Teutons. As Freyja she is the female counterpart of Freyr; as Nerthus
of Freyr’s northern doublet, Njordr. When Wodan largely absorbs the
elemental functions, she becomes his wife, as Frîja or Frigg. Through
her association with the heaven-gods, she is herself a heaven-as well
as an earth-goddess[366], the Eostre of Bede[367], as well as the Erce
of the Anglo-Saxon ploughing charm[368]. She is probably the Tanfana
of Tacitus and the Nehellenia of the Romano-Germanic votive stones. If
so, she must have become a goddess of mariners, for Nehellenia seems to
be the Isis of the _interpretatio Romana_. As earth-goddess she comes
naturally into relation with the dead, and like Odin is a leader of the
rout of souls. In German peasant-lore she survives under various names,
of which Perchta is the most important; in witch-lore, as Diana, and
by a curious mediaeval identification, as Herodias[369]. And her more
primitive functions are largely inherited by the Virgin, by St. Walpurg
and by countless local saints.

Most of the imaginative and mythological superstructure so briefly
sketched in the last paragraph must be considered as subsequent in
order of development to the typical village cult. Both before and
in more fragmentary shape after the death of the old Keltic and
Teutonic gods, that continued to be in great measure an amalgam of
traditional rites of forgotten magical or pre-religious import. So
far as the consciousness of the mediaeval or modern peasant directed
it to unseen powers at all, which was but little, it was rather to
some of these more local and bounded spirits who remained in the train
of the gods, than to the gods themselves. For the purposes of the
present discussion, it is sufficient to think of it quite generally
as a cult of the spirits of fertilization, without attaching a very
precise connotation to that term. Unlike the domestic cult of the
ancestral ghosts, conducted for each household by the house-father
at the hearth, it was communal in character. Whatever the tenure of
land may have been, there seems no doubt that up to a late period
‘co-aration,’ or co-operative ploughing in open fields, remained the
normal method of tillage, while the cattle of the community roamed in
charge of a public herd over unenclosed pastures and forest lands[370].
The farm, as a self-sufficing agricultural unit, is a comparatively
recent institution, the development of which has done much to render
the village festivals obsolete. Originally the critical moments of
the agricultural year were the same for the whole village, and the
observances which they entailed were shared in by all.

The observances in question, or rather broken fragments of them, have
now attached themselves to a number of different outstanding dates in
the Christian calendar, and the reconstruction of the original year,
with its seasonal feasts, is a matter of some difficulty[371]. The
earliest year that can be traced amongst the Aryan-speaking peoples
was a bipartite one, made up of only two seasons, winter and summer.
For some reason that eludes research, winter preceded summer, just as
night, in the primitive reckoning, preceded day. The divisions seem to
have been determined by the conditions of a pastoral existence passed
in the regularly recurring seasons of central Europe. Winter began when
snow blocked the pastures and the cattle had to be brought home to
the stall: summer when the grass grew green again and there was once
more fodder in the open. Approximately these dates would correspond
to mid-November and mid-March[372]. Actually, in the absence of a
calendar, they would vary a little from year to year and would perhaps
depend on some significant annual event, such as the first snowstorm
in the one case[373], in the other the appearance of the first violet,
butterfly or cockchafer, or of one of those migratory birds which still
in popular belief bring good fortune and the summer, the swallow,
cuckoo or stork[374]. Both dates would give occasion for religious
ceremonies, together with the natural accompaniment of feasting and
revel. More especially would this be the case at mid-November, when a
great slaughtering of cattle was rendered economically necessary by
the difficulty of stall-feeding the whole herd throughout the winter.
Presently, however, new conditions established themselves. Agriculture
grew in importance, and the crops rather than the cattle became the
central interest of the village life. Fresh feasts sprang up side by
side with the primitive ones, one at the beginning of ploughing about
mid-February, another at the end of harvest, about mid-September.
At the same time the increased supply of dry fodder tended to drive
the annual slaughtering farther on into the winter. More or less
contemporaneously with these processes, the old bipartite year was
changed into a tripartite one by the growth of yet another new feast
during that dangerous period when the due succession of rain and sun
for the crops becomes a matter of the greatest moment to the farmer.
Early summer, or spring, was thus set apart from late summer, or summer
proper[375]. This development also may be traced to the influence of
agriculture, whose interest runs in a curve, while that of herding
keeps comparatively a straight course. But as too much sun or too much
wet not only spoils the crops but brings a murrain on the cattle, the
herdsmen fell into line and took their share in the high summer rites.
At first, no doubt, this last feast was a sporadic affair, held for
propitiation of the unfavourable fertilization spirits when the elders
of the village thought it called for. And to the end resort may have
been had to exceptional acts of cult in times of especial distress. But
gradually the occasional ceremony became an annual one, held as soon
as the corn was thick in the green blade and the critical days were at
hand.

So far, there has been no need to assume the existence of a calendar.
How long the actual climatic conditions continued to determine the
dates of the annual feasts can hardly be said. But when a calendar
did make its appearance, the five feasts adapted themselves without
much difficulty to it. The earliest calendar that can be inferred in
central Europe was one, either of Oriental or possibly of Mediterranean
_provenance_, which divided the year into six tides of threescore days
each[376]. The beginnings of these tides almost certainly fell at
about the middle of corresponding months of the Roman calendar[377].
The first would thus be marked by the beginning of winter feast in
mid-November; two others by the beginning of summer feast and the
harvest feast in mid-March and mid-August respectively. A little
accommodation of the seasonal feasts of the farm would be required
to adapt them to the remaining three. And here begins a process of
dislocation of the original dates of customs, now becoming traditional
rather than vital, which was afterwards extended by successive stages
to a bewildering degree. By this time, with the greater permanence of
agriculture, the system of autumn ploughing had perhaps been invented.
The spring ploughing festival was therefore of less importance, and
bore to be shifted back to mid-January instead of mid-February. Four
of the six tides are now provided with initial feasts. These are
mid-November, mid-January, mid-March, and mid-September. There are,
however, still mid-May and mid-July, and only the high summer feast
to divide between them. I am inclined to believe that a division is
precisely what took place, and that the hitherto fluctuating date of
the summer feast was determined in some localities to mid-May, in
others to mid-July[378].

The European three-score-day-tide calendar is rather an ingenious
conjecture than an ascertained fact of history. When the Germano-Keltic
peoples came under the influence of Roman civilization, they adopted
amongst other things the Roman calendar, first in its primitive form
and then in the more scientific one given to it under Julius Caesar.
The latter divided the year into four quarters and twelve months,
and carried with it a knowledge of the solstices, at which the
astronomy neither of Kelts nor of Germans seems to have previously
arrived[379]. The feasts again underwent a process of dislocation
in order to harmonize them with the new arrangement. The ceremonies
of the winter feast were pulled back to November 1 or pushed forward
to January 1. The high summer feast was attracted from mid-May and
mid-July respectively to the important Roman dates of the _Floralia_
on May 1 and the summer solstice on June 24. Last of all, to complete
the confusion, came, on the top of three-score-day-tide calendar
and Roman calendar alike, the scheme of Christianity with its host
of major and minor ecclesiastical festivals, some of them fixed,
others movable. Inevitably these in their turn began to absorb the
agricultural customs. The present distribution of the five original
feasts, therefore, is somewhat as follows. The winter feast is spread
over all the winter half of the year from All Souls day to Twelfth
night. A later chapter will illustrate its destiny more in detail. The
ploughing feast is to be sought mainly in Plough Monday, in Candlemas
and in Shrovetide or Carnival[380]; the beginning of summer feast
in Palm Sunday, Easter and St. Mark’s day; the early variety of the
high summer feast probably also in Easter, and certainly in May-day,
St. George’s day, Ascensiontide with its Rogations, Whitsuntide and
Trinity Sunday; the later variety of the same feast in Midsummer day
and Lammastide; and the harvest feast in Michaelmas. These are days
of more or less general observance. Locally, in strict accordance
with the policy of Gregory the Great as expounded to Mellitus, the
floating customs have often settled upon conveniently neighbouring
dates of wakes, rushbearings, kirmesses and other forms of vigil or
dedication festivals[381]; and even, in the utter oblivion of their
primitive significance, upon the anniversaries of historical events,
such as Royal Oak day on May 29[382], or Gunpowder day. Finally it
may be noted, that of the five feasts that of high summer is the one
most fully preserved in modern survivals. This is partly because it
comes at a convenient time of year for the out-of-door holiday-making
which serves as a preservative for the traditional rites; partly also
because, while the pastoral element in the feasts of the beginnings of
winter and summer soon became comparatively unimportant through the
subordination of pasturage to tillage, and the ploughing and harvest
feasts tended more and more to become affairs of the individual farm
carried out in close connexion with those operations themselves, the
summer feast retained its communal character and continued to be
celebrated by the whole village for the benefit of everybody’s crops
and trees, and everybody’s flocks and herds[383]. It is therefore
mainly, although not wholly, upon the summer feast that the analysis of
the agricultural ritual to be given in the next chapter will be based.

CHAPTER VI

VILLAGE FESTIVALS

[_Bibliographical Note._--A systematic calendar of English
festival usages by a competent folk-lorist is much needed. J.
Brand, _Observations on Popular Antiquities_ (1777), based on
H. Bourne, _Antiquitates Vulgares_ (1725), and edited, first
by Sir Henry Ellis in 1813, 1841-2 and 1849, and then by W.
C. Hazlitt in 1870, is full of valuable material, but belongs
to the age of pre-scientific antiquarianism. R. T. Hampson,
_Medii Aevi Kalendarium_ (1841), is no less unsatisfactory. In
default of anything better, T. F. T. Dyer, _British Popular
Customs_ (1891), is a useful compilation from printed sources,
and P. H. Ditchfield, _Old English Customs_ (1896), a gossipy
account of contemporary survivals. These may be supplemented
from collections of more limited range, such as H. J. Feasey,
_Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial_ (1897), and J. E. Vaux,
_Church Folk-Lore_ (1894); by treatises on local folk-lore, of
which W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern
Counties of England and the Borders_ (2nd ed. 1879), C. S. Burne
and G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-Lore_ (1883-5), and J. Rhys,
_Celtic Folk-Lore, Welsh and Manx_ (1901), are the best; and by
the various publications of the Folk-Lore Society, especially
the series of _County Folk-Lore_ (1895-9) and the successive
periodicals, _The Folk-Lore Record_ (1878-82), _Folk-Lore
Journal_ (1883-9), and _Folk-Lore_ (1890-1903). Popular accounts
of French _fêtes_ are given by E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fêtes
religieuses_ (1867), and O. Havard, _Les Fêtes de nos Pères_
(1898). L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et Survivances_
(1896), is more pretentious, but not really scholarly. C. Leber,
_Dissertations relatives à l’Histoire de France_ (1826-38), vol.
ix, contains interesting material of an historical character,
largely drawn from papers in the eighteenth-century periodical
_Le Mercure de France_. Amongst German books, J. Grimm,
_Teutonic Mythology_ (transl. J. S. Stallybrass, 1880-8), H.
Pfannenschmidt, _Germanische Erntefeste_ (1878), and U. Jahn,
_Die deutschen Opfergebräuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht_
(1884), are all excellent. Many of the books mentioned in the
bibliographical note to the last chapter remain useful for the
present and following ones; in particular J. G. Frazer, _The
Golden Bough_ (2nd ed. 1900), is, of course, invaluable. I have
only included in the above list such works of general range as I
have actually made most use of. Many others dealing with special
points are cited in the notes. A fuller guide to folk-lore
literature will be found in M. R. Cox, _Introduction to Folklore_
(2nd ed. 1897).]

The central fact of the agricultural festivals is the presence in the
village of the fertilization spirit in the visible and tangible form
of flowers and green foliage or of the fruits of the earth. Thus,
when the peasants do their ‘observaunce to a morn of May,’ great
boughs of hawthorn are cut before daybreak in the woods, and carried,
with other seasonable leafage and blossom, into the village street.
Lads plant branches before the doors of their mistresses. The folk
deck themselves, their houses, and the church in green. Some of them
are clad almost entirely in wreaths and tutties, and become walking
bushes, ‘Jacks i’ the green.’ The revel centres in dance and song
around a young tree set up in some open space of the village, or a
more permanent May-pole adorned for the occasion with fresh garlands.
A large garland, often with an anthropomorphic representation of the
fertilization spirit in the form of a doll, parades the streets, and is
accompanied by a ‘king’ or ‘queen,’ or a ‘king’ and ‘queen’ together.
Such a garland finds its place at all the seasonal feasts; but whereas
in spring and summer it is naturally made of the new vegetation, at
harvest it as naturally takes the form of a sheaf, often the last sheaf
cut, of the corn. Then it is known as the ‘harvest-May’ or the ‘neck,’
or if it is anthropomorphic in character, as the ‘kern-baby.’ Summer
and harvest garlands alike are not destroyed when the festival is over,
but remain hung up on the May-pole or the church or the barn-door
until the season for their annual renewing comes round. And sometimes
the grain of the ‘harvest-May’ is mingled in the spring with the
seed-corn[384].

The rationale of such customs is fairly simple. They depend upon a
notion of sympathetic magic carried on into the animistic stage of
belief. Their object is to secure the beneficent influence of the
fertilization spirit by bringing the persons or places to be benefited
into direct contact with the physical embodiment of that spirit. In the
burgeoning quick set up on the village green is the divine presence.
The worshipper clad in leaves and flowers has made himself a garment of
the god, and is therefore in a very special sense under his protection.
Thus efficacy in folk-belief of physical contact may be illustrated by
another set of practices in which recourse is had to the fertilization
spirit for the cure of disease. A child suffering from croup,
convulsions, rickets, or other ailment, is passed through a hole in
a split tree, or beneath a bramble rooted at both ends, or a strip of
turf partly raised from the ground. It is the actual touch of earth or
stem that works the healing[385].

May-pole or church may represent a focus of the cult at some specially
sacred tree or grove in the heathen village. But the ceremony, though
it centres at these, is not confined to them, for its whole purpose
is to distribute the benign influence over the entire community,
every field, fold, pasture, orchard close and homestead thereof. At
ploughing, the driving of the first furrow; at harvest, the homecoming
of the last wain, is attended with ritual. Probably all the primitive
festivals, and certainly that of high summer, included a lustration,
in which the image or tree which stood for the fertilization spirit
was borne in solemn procession from dwelling to dwelling and round
all the boundaries of the village. Tacitus records the progress of
the earth-goddess Nerthus amongst the German tribes about the mouth
of the Elbe, and the dipping of the goddess and the drowning of her
slaves in a lake at the term of the ceremony[386]. So too at Upsala in
Sweden the statue of Freyr went round when winter was at an end[387];
while Sozomenes tells how, when Ulfilas was preaching Christianity
to the Visigoths, Athanaric sent the image of his god abroad in
a wagon, and burnt the houses of all who refused to bow down and
sacrifice[388]. Such lustrations continue to be a prominent feature
of the folk survivals. They are preserved in a number of processional
customs in all parts of England; in the municipal ‘ridings,’ ‘shows,’
or ‘watches’ on St. George’s[389] or Midsummer[390] days; in the
‘Godiva’ procession at Coventry[391], the ‘Bezant’ procession at
Shaftesbury[392]. Hardly a rural merry-making or wake, indeed, is
without its procession; if it is only in the simple form of the _quête_
which the children consider themselves entitled to make, with their
May-garland, or on some other traditional pretext, at various seasons
of the calendar. Obviously in becoming mere _quêtes_, collections of
eggs, cakes and so forth, or even of small coins, as well as in falling
entirely into the hands of the children, the processions have to some
extent lost their original character. But the notion that the visit is
to bring good fortune, or the ‘May’ or the ‘summer’ to the household,
is not wholly forgotten in the rhymes used[393]. An interesting
version of the ceremony is the ‘furry’ or ‘faddy’ dance formerly used
at Helston wake; for in this the oak-decked dancers claimed the right
to pass in at one door and out at another through every house in the
village[394].

Room has been found for the summer lustrations in the scheme of the
Church. In Catholic countries the statue of the local saint is commonly
carried round the village, either annually on his feast-day or in times
of exceptional trouble[395]. The inter-relations of ecclesiastical
and folk-ritual in this respect are singularly illustrated by the
celebration of St. Ubaldo’s eve (May 15) at Gubbio in Umbria. The folk
procession of the _Ceri_ is a very complete variety of the summer
festival. After vespers the clergy also hold a procession in honour of
the saint. At a certain point the two companies meet. An interchange
of courtesies takes place. The priest elevates the host; the bearers
of the _Ceri_ bow them to the ground; and each procession passes on
its way[396]. In England the summer lustrations take an ecclesiastical
form in the Rogations or ‘bannering’ of ‘Gang-week,’ a ceremony
which itself appears to be based on very similar folk-customs of
southern Europe[397]. Since the Reformation the Rogations have come
to be regarded as little more than a ‘beating of the bounds.’ But the
declared intention of them was originally to call for a blessing upon
the fruits of the earth; and it is not difficult to trace folk-elements
in the ‘gospel oaks’ and ‘gospel wells’ at which station was made and
the gospel read, in the peeled willow wands borne by the boys who
accompany the procession, in the whipping or ‘bumping’ of the said boys
at the stations, and in the choice of ‘Gang-week’ for such agricultural
rites as ‘youling’ and ‘well-dressing[398].’

Some anthropomorphic representation of the fertilization spirit is a
common, though not an invariable element in the lustration. A doll is
set on the garland, or some popular ‘giant’ or other image is carried
round[399]. Nor is it surprising that at the early spring festival
which survives in Plough Monday, the plough itself, the central
instrument of the opening labour, figures. A variant of this custom may
be traced in certain maritime districts, where the functions of the
agricultural deities have been extended to include the oversight of
seafaring. Here it is not a plough but a boat or ship that makes its
rounds, when the fishing season is about to begin. Ship processions are
to be found in various parts of Germany[400]; at Minehead, Plymouth,
and Devonport in the west of England, and probably also at Hull in the
north[401].

The magical notions which, in part at least, explain the garland
customs of the agricultural festival, are still more strongly at
work in some of its subsidiary rites. These declare themselves, when
understood, to be of an essentially practical character, charms
designed to influence the weather, and to secure the proper alternation
of moisture and warmth which is needed alike for the growth and
ripening of the crops and for the welfare of the cattle. They are
probably even older than the garland-customs, for they do not imply
the animistic conception of a fertilization spirit immanent in leaf
and blossom; and they depend not only upon the ‘sympathetic’ principle
of influence by direct contact already illustrated, but also upon that
other principle of similarity distinguished by Dr. Frazer as the basis
of what he calls ‘mimetic’ magic. To the primitive mind the obvious
way of obtaining a result in nature is to make an imitation of it
on a small scale. To achieve rain, water must be splashed about, or
some other characteristic of a storm or shower must be reproduced. To
achieve sunshine, a fire must be lit, or some other representation of
the appearance and motion of the sun must be devised. Both rain-charms
and sun-charms are very clearly recognizable in the village ritual.

As rain-charms, conscious or unconscious, must be classified the many
festival customs in which bathing or sprinkling holds an important
place. The image or bough which represents the fertilization spirit
is solemnly dipped in or drenched with water. Here is the explanation
of the ceremonial bathing of the goddess Nerthus recorded by Tacitus.
It has its parallels in the dipping of the images of saints in the
feast-day processions of many Catholic villages, and in the buckets
of water sometimes thrown over May-pole or harvest-May. Nor is the
dipping or drenching confined to the fertilization spirit. In order
that the beneficent influences of the rite may be spread widely abroad,
water is thrown on the fields and on the plough, while the worshippers
themselves, or a representative chosen from among them, are sprinkled
or immersed. To this practice many survivals bear evidence; the virtues
persistently ascribed to dew gathered on May morning, the ceremonial
bathing of women annually or in times of drought with the expressed
purpose of bringing fruitfulness on man or beast or crop, the ‘ducking’
customs which play no inconsiderable part in the traditions of many a
rural merry-making. Naturally enough, the original sense of the rite
has been generally perverted. The ‘ducking’ has become either mere
horse-play or else a rough-and-ready form of punishment for offences,
real or imaginary, against the rustic code of conduct. The churl who
will not stop working or will not wear green on the feast-day must
be ‘ducked,’ and under the form of the ‘cucking-stool,’ the ceremony
has almost worked its way into formal jurisprudence as an appropriate
treatment for feminine offenders. So, too, it has been with the
‘ducking’ of the divinity. When the modern French peasant throws the
image of his saint into the water, he believes himself to be doing it,
not as a mimetic rain-charm, but as a punishment to compel a power
obdurate to prayer to grant through fear the required boon.

The rain-charms took place, doubtless, at such wells, springs, or
brooks as the lustral procession passed in its progress round the
village. It is also possible that there may have been, sometimes or
always, a well within the sacred grove itself and hard by the sacred
tree. The sanctity derived by such wells and streams from the use of
them in the cult of the fertilization spirit is probably what is really
intended by the water-worship so often ascribed to the heathen of
western Europe, and coupled closely with tree-worship in the Christian
discipline-books. The goddess of the tree was also the goddess of the
well. At the conversion her wells were taken over by the new religion.
They became holy wells, under the protection of the Virgin or one of
the saints. And they continued to be approached with the same rites as
of old, for the purpose of obtaining the ancient boons for which the
fertilization spirit had always been invoked. It will not be forgotten
that, besides the public cult of the fertilization spirit for the
welfare of the crops and herds, there was also a private cult, which
aimed at such more personal objects of desire as health, success in
love and marriage, and divination of the future. It is this private
cult that is most markedly preserved in modern holy well customs.
These may be briefly summarized as follows[402]. The wells are sought
for procuring a husband or children, for healing diseases, especially
eye-ailments or warts, and for omens, these too most often in relation
to wedlock. The worshipper bathes wholly or in part, or drinks the
water. Silence is often enjoined, or a motion _deasil_, that is, with
the sun’s course, round the well. Occasionally cakes are eaten, or
sugar and water drunk, or the well-water is splashed on a stone. Very
commonly rags or bits of wool or hair are laid under a pebble or hung
on a bush near the well, or pins, more rarely coins or even articles of
food, are thrown into it. The objects so left are not probably to be
regarded as offerings; the intention is rather to bring the worshipper,
through the medium of his hair or clothes, or some object belonging to
him, into direct contact with the divinity. The close connexion between
tree-and well-cult is shown by the use of the neighbouring bush on
which to hang the rags. And the practice of dropping pins into the
well is almost exactly paralleled by that of driving nails ‘for luck’
into a sacred tree or its later representative, a cross or saintly
image. The theory may be hazarded that originally the sacred well was
never found without the sacred tree beside it. This is by no means the
case now; but it must be remembered that a tree is much more perishable
than a well. The tree once gone, its part in the ceremony would drop
out, or be transferred to the well. But the original rite would include
them both. The visitant, for instance, would dip in the well, and then
creep under or through the tree, a double ritual which seems to survive
in the most curious of all the dramatic games of children, ‘Draw a Pail
of Water[403].’

The private cult of the fertilization spirit is not, of course, tied
to fixed seasons. Its occasion is determined by the needs of the
worshipper. But it is noteworthy that the efficacy of some holy wells
is greatest on particular days, such as Easter or the first three
Sundays in May. And in many places the wells, whether ordinarily
held ‘holy’ or not, take an important place in the ceremonies of the
village festival. The ‘gospel wells’ of the Rogation processions, and
the well to which the ‘Bezant’ procession goes at Shaftesbury are
cases in point; while in Derbyshire the ‘well-dressings’ correspond
to the ‘wakes,’ ‘rushbearings,’ and ‘Mayings’ of other districts.
Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, as well as the Rogation days, are in a
measure Christian versions of the heathen agricultural feasts, and it
is not, therefore, surprising to find an extensive use of holy water
in ecclesiastical ritual, and a special rite of _Benedictio Fontium_
included amongst the Easter ceremonies[404]. But the Christian custom
has been moralized, and its avowed aim is purification rather than
prosperity.

The ordinary form of heat-charm was to build, in semblance of the sun,
the source of heat, a great fire[405]. Just as in the rain-charm the
worshippers must be literally sprinkled with water, so, in order that
they may receive the full benefits of the heat-charm, they must come
into direct physical contact with the fire, by standing in the smoke,
or even leaping through the flames, or by smearing their faces with the
charred ashes[406]. The cattle too must be driven through the fire, in
order that they may be fertile and free from pestilence throughout the
summer; and a whole series of observances had for their especial object
the distribution of the preserving influence over the farms. The fires
were built on high ground, that they might be visible far and wide. Or
they were built in a circle round the fields, or to windward, so that
the smoke might blow across the corn. Blazing arrows were shot in the
air, or blazing torches carried about. Ashes were sprinkled over the
fields, or mingled with the seed corn or the fodder in the stall[407].
Charred brands were buried or stuck upright in the furrows. Further, by
a simple symbolism, the shape and motion of the sun were mimicked with
circular rotating bodies. A fiery barrel or a fiery wheel was rolled
down the hill on the top of which the ceremony took place. The lighted
torches were whirled in the air, or replaced by lighted disks of wood,
flung on high. All these customs still linger in these islands or in
other parts of western Europe, and often the popular imagination finds
in their successful performance an omen for the fertility of the year.

On _a priori_ grounds one might have expected two agricultural
festivals during the summer; one in the earlier part of it, when
moisture was all-important, accompanied with rain-charms; the other
later on, when the crops were well grown and heat was required to
ripen them, accompanied with sun-charms. But the evidence is rather in
favour of a single original festival determined, in the dislocation
caused by a calendar, to different dates in different localities[408].
The Midsummer or St. John’s fires are perhaps the most widely spread
and best known of surviving heat-charms. But they can be paralleled
by others distributed all over the summer cycle of festivals, at
Easter[409] and on May-day, and in connexion with the ploughing
celebrations on Epiphany, Candlemas, Shrovetide, Quadragesima, and
St. Blaize’s day. It is indeed at Easter and Candlemas that the
_Benedictiones_, which are the ecclesiastical versions of the ceremony,
appear in the ritual-books[410]. On the other hand, although, perhaps
owing to the later notion of the solstice, the fires are greatly
prominent on St. John’s day, and are explained with considerable
ingenuity by the monkish writers[411], yet this day was never a
fire-festival and nothing else. Garland customs are common upon it, and
there is even evidence, though slight evidence, for rain-charms[412].
It is perhaps justifiable to infer that the crystallization of the
rain-and heat-charms, which doubtless were originally used only when
the actual condition of the weather made them necessary, into annual
festivals, took place after the exact rationale of them had been
lost, and they had both come to be looked upon, rather vaguely, as
weather-charms.

Apart from the festival-fires, a superstitious use of sun-charms
endured in England to an extraordinarily late date. This was in times
of drought and pestilence as a magical remedy against mortality amongst
the cattle. A fire was built, and, as on the festivals, the cattle were
made to pass through the smoke and flames[413]. On such occasions, and
often at the festival-fires themselves, it was held requisite that,
just as the water used in the rain-charms would be fresh water from
the spring, so the fire must be fresh fire. That is to say, it must
not be lit from any pre-existing fire, but must be made anew. And, so
conservative is cult, this must be done, not with the modern device
of matches, or even with flint and steel, but by the primitive method
of causing friction in dry work. Such fire is known as ‘need-fire’ or
‘forced fire,’ and is produced in various ways, by rubbing two pieces
of wood together, by turning a drill in a solid block, or by rapidly
rotating a wheel upon an axle. Often certain precautions are observed,
as that nine men must work at the job, or chaste boys; and often all
the hearth-fires in the village are first extinguished, to be rekindled
by the new flame[414].

The custom of rolling a burning wheel downhill from the festival-fire
amongst the vineyards has been noted. The wheel is, of course, by
no means an uncommon solar emblem[415]. Sometimes round bannocks or
hard-boiled eggs are similarly rolled downhill. The use of both of
these may be sacrificial in its nature. But the egg plays such a large
part in festival customs, especially at Easter, when it is reddened,
or gilt, or coloured yellow with furze or broom flowers, and popularly
regarded as a symbol of the Resurrection, that one is tempted to ask
whether it does not stand for the sun itself[416]. And are we to find
the sun in the ‘parish top[417],’ or in the ball with which, even in
cathedrals, ceremonial games were played[418]? If so, perhaps this
game of ball may be connected with the curious belief that if you get
up early enough on Easter morning you may see the sun dance[419].

In any case sun-charms, quite independent of the fires, may probably
be traced in the circular movements which so often appear invested
with a religious significance, and which sometimes form part of the
festivals[420]. It would be rash to regard such movements as the basis
of every circular dance or _ronde_ on such an occasion; a ring is too
obviously the form which a crowd of spectators round any object, sacred
or otherwise, must take. But there are many circumambulatory rites in
which stress is laid on the necessity for the motion to be _deasil_,
or with the right hand to the centre, in accordance with the course
of the sun, and not in the opposite direction, _cartuaitheail_ or
_withershins_[421]. And these, perhaps, may be legitimately considered
as of magical origin.

With the growth of animistic or spiritual religion, the mental
tendencies, out of which magical practices or charms arise, gradually
cease to be operative in the consciousness of the worshippers. The
charms themselves, however, are preserved by the conservative instinct
of cult. In part they survive as mere bits of traditional ritual, for
which no particular reason is given or demanded; in part also they
become material for that other instinct, itself no less inveterate
in the human mind, by which the relics of the past are constantly in
process of being re-explained and brought into new relations with
the present. The sprinkling with holy water, for instance, which was
originally of the nature of a rain-charm, comes to be regarded as a
rite symbolical of spiritual purification and regeneration. An even
more striking example of such transformation of intention is to be
found in the practice, hardly yet referred to in this account of the
agricultural festivals, of sacrifice. In the ordinary acceptation
of the term, sacrifice implies not merely an animistic, but an
anthropomorphic conception of the object of cult. The offering or
oblation with which man approaches his god is an extension of the
gift with which, as suppliant, he approaches his fellow men. But the
oblational aspect of sacrifice is not the only one. In his remarkable
book upon _The Religion of the Semites_, Professor Robertson Smith has
formulated another, which may be distinguished as ‘sacramental.’ In
this the sacrifice is regarded as the renewal of a special tie between
the god and his worshippers, analogous to the blood-bond which exists
amongst those worshippers themselves. The victim is not an offering
made to the god; on the contrary, the god himself is, or is present
in, the victim. It is his blood which is shed, and by means of the
sacrificial banquet and its subsidiary rites, his personality becomes,
as it were, incorporated in those of his clansmen[422]. It is not
necessary to determine here the general priority of the two types or
conceptions of sacrifice described. But, while it is probable that the
Kelts and Teutons of the time of the conversion consciously looked upon
sacrifice as an oblation, there is also reason to believe that, at an
earlier period, the notion of a sacrament had been the predominant
one. For the sacrificial ritual of these peoples, and especially that
used in the agricultural cult, so far as it can be traced, is only
explicable as an elaborate process of just that physical incorporation
of the deity in the worshippers and their belongings, which it was
the precise object of the sacramental sacrifice to bring about. It
will be clear that sacrifice, so regarded, enters precisely into that
category of ideas which has been defined as magical. It is but one more
example of that belief in the efficacy of direct contact which lies at
the root of sympathetic magic. As in the case of the garland customs,
this belief, originally pre-animistic, has endured into an animistic
stage of thought. Through the garland and the posies the worshipper
sought contact with the fertilization spirit in its phytomorphic form;
through sacrifice he approaches it in its theriomorphic form also.
The earliest sacrificial animals, then, were themselves regarded as
divine, and were naturally enough the food animals of the folk. The use
made by the Kelto-Teutonic peoples of oxen, sheep, goats, swine, deer,
geese, and fowls requires no explanation. A common victim was also
the horse, which the Germans seem, up to a late date, to have kept in
droves and used for food. The strong opposition of the Church to the
sacrificial use of horse-flesh may possibly account for the prejudice
against it as a food-stuff in modern Europe[423]. A similar prejudice,
however, in the case of the hare, an animal of great importance in folk
belief, already existed in the time of Caesar[424]. It is a little more
puzzling to find distinct traces of sacrificial customs in connexion
with animals, such as the dog, cat, wolf, fox, squirrel, owl, wren,
and so forth, which are not now food animals[425]. But they may once
have been such, or the explanation may lie in an extension of the
sacrificial practice after the first rationale of it was lost.

At every agricultural festival, then, animal sacrifice may be assumed
as an element. The analogy of the relation between the fertilization
spirit and his worshippers to the human blood bond makes it probable
that originally the rite was always a bloody one[426]. Some of
the blood was poured on the sacred tree. Some was sprinkled upon
the worshippers, or smeared over their faces, or solemnly drunk
by them[427]. Hides, horns, and entrails were also hung upon the
tree[428], or worn as festival trappings[429]. The flesh was, of
course, solemnly eaten in the sacrificial meal[430]. The crops, as
well as their cultivators, must benefit by the rites; and therefore
the fields, and doubtless also the cattle, had their sprinkling of
blood, while heads or pieces of flesh were buried in the furrows, or at
the threshold of the byre[431]. A fair notion of the whole proceeding
may be obtained from the account of the similar Indian worship of the
earth-goddess given in Appendix I. The intention of the ceremonies will
be obvious by a comparison with those already explained. The wearing
of the skins of the victims is precisely parallel to the wearing of
the green vegetation, the sprinkling with blood to the sprinkling
with lustral water, the burial in the fields of flesh and skulls to
the burial of brands from the festival-fire. In each case the belief
in the necessity of direct physical contact to convey the beneficent
influence is at the bottom of the practice. It need hardly be said
that of such physical contact the most complete example is in the
sacramental banquet itself.

It is entirely consistent with the view here taken of the primitive
nature of sacrifice, that the fertilization spirit was sacrificed at
the village festivals in its vegetable as well as in its animal form.
There were bread-offerings as well as meat-offerings[432]. Sacramental
cakes were prepared with curious rituals which attest their primitive
character. Like the _tcharnican_ or Beltane cakes, they were kneaded
and moulded by hand and not upon a board[433]; like the loaf in the
Anglo-Saxon charm, they were compounded of all sorts of grain in order
that they might be representative of every crop in the field[434].
At the harvest they would naturally be made, wholly or in part, of
the last sheaf cut. The use of them corresponded closely to that made
of the flesh of the sacrificial victim. Some were laid on a branch
of the sacred tree[435]; others flung into the sacred well or the
festival-fire; others again buried in the furrows, or crumbled up and
mingled with the seed-corn[436]. And like the flesh they were solemnly
eaten by the worshippers themselves at the sacrificial banquet. With
the sacrificial cake went the sacrificial draught, also made out of the
fruits of the earth, in the southern lands wine, but in the vineless
north ale, or cider, or that mead which Pytheas described the Britons
as brewing out of honey and wheat[437]. Of this, too, the trees and
crops received their share, while it filled the cup for those toasts
or _minnes_ to the dead and to Odin and Freyja their rulers, which
were afterwards transferred by Christian Germany to St. John and St.
Gertrude[438].

The animal and the cereal sacrifices seem plausible enough, but they do
not exhaust the problem. One has to face the fact that human sacrifice,
as Victor Hehn puts it, ‘peers uncannily forth from the dark past of
every Aryan race[439]. So far as the Kelts and Teutons go, there is
plenty of evidence to show, that up to the very moment of their contact
with Roman civilization, in some branches even up to the very moment
of their conversion to Christianity, it was not yet obsolete[440].
An explanation of it is therefore required, which shall fall in with
the general theory of agricultural sacrifice. The subject is very
difficult, but, on the whole, it seems probable that originally the
slaying of a human being at an annually recurring festival was not of
the nature of sacrifice at all. It is doubtful whether it was ever
sacrifice in the sacramental sense, and although in time it came to be
regarded as an oblation, this was not until the first meaning, both
of the sacrifice and of the human death, had been lost. The essential
facts bearing on the question have been gathered together by Dr. Frazer
in _The Golden Bough_. He brings out the point that the victim in a
human sacrifice was not originally merely a man, but a very important
man, none other than the king, the priest-king of the tribe. In many
communities, Aryan-speaking and other, it has been the principal
function of such a priest-king to die, annually or at longer intervals,
for the people. His place is taken, as a rule, by the tribesman who has
slain him[441]. Dr. Frazer’s own explanation of this custom is, that
the head of the tribe was looked upon as possessed of great magical
powers, as a big medicine man, and was in fact identified with the god
himself. And his periodical death, says Dr. Frazer, was necessary,
in order to renew the vitality of the god, who might decay and cease
to exist, were he not from time to time reincarnated by being slain
and passing into the body of his slayer and successor[442]. This is a
highly ingenious and fascinating theory, but unfortunately there are
several difficulties in the way of accepting it. In the first place
it is inconsistent with the explanation of the sacramental killing of
the god arrived at by Professor Robertson Smith. According to this
the sacrifice of the god is for the sake of his worshippers, that the
blood-bond with them may be renewed; and we have seen that this view
fits in admirably with the minor sacrificial rites, such as the eating
and burying of the flesh, as the wearing of the horns and hides. Dr.
Frazer, however, obliges us to hold that the god is also sacrificed
for his own sake, and leaves us in the position of propounding two
quite distinct and independent reasons for the same fact. Secondly,
there is no evidence, at least amongst Aryan-speaking peoples, for that
breaking down of the very real and obvious distinction between the god
and his chief worshipper or priest, which Dr. Frazer’s theory implies.
And thirdly, if the human victim were slain as being the god, surely
this slaughter should have replaced the slaughter of the animal victim
previously slain for the same reason, which it did not, and should have
been followed by a sacramental meal of a cannibal type, of which also,
in western Europe, there is but the slightest trace[443].

Probably, therefore, the alternative explanation of Dr. Frazer’s own
facts given by Dr. Jevons is preferable. According to this the death
of the human victim arises out of the circumstances of the animal
sacrifice. The slaying of the divine animal is an act approached by the
tribe with mingled feelings. It is necessary, in order to renew the
all-essential blood-bond between the god and his worshippers. And at
the same time it is an act of sacrilege; it is killing the god. There
is some hesitation amongst the assembled worshippers. Who will dare the
deed and face its consequences? ‘The clansman,’ says Dr. Jevons, ‘whose
religious conviction of the clan’s need of communion with the god was
deepest, would eventually and after long waiting be the one to strike,
and take upon himself the issue, for the sake of his fellow men.’ This
issue would be twofold. The slayer would be exalted in the eyes of
his fellows. He would naturally be the first to drink the shed blood
of the god. A double portion of the divine spirit would enter into
him. He would become, for a while, the leader, the priest-king, of the
community. At the same time he would incur blood-guiltiness. And in a
year’s time, when his sanctity was exhausted, the penalty would have to
be paid. His death would accompany the renewal of the bond by a fresh
sacrifice, implying in its turn the self-devotion of a fresh annual
king[444].

These theories belong to a region of somewhat shadowy conjecture. If
Dr. Jevons is right, it would seem to follow that, as has already been
suggested, the human death at an annual festival was not initially
sacrifice. It accompanied, but did not replace the sacramental
slaughter of a divine animal. But when the animal sacrifice had itself
changed its character, and was looked upon, no longer as an act of
communion with the god, but as an offering or bribe made to him,
then a new conception of the human death also was required. When the
animal ceased to be recognized as the god, the need of a punishment
for slaying it disappeared. But the human death could not be left
meaningless, and its meaning was assimilated to that of the animal
sacrifice itself. It also became an oblation, the greatest that could
be offered by the tribe to its protector and its judge. And no doubt
this was the conscious view taken of the matter by Kelts and Teutons at
the time when they appear in history. The human sacrifice was on the
same footing as the animal sacrifice, but it was a more binding, a more
potent, a more solemn appeal.

In whatever way human sacrifice originated, it was obviously destined,
with the advance of civilization, to undergo modification. Not only
would the growing moral sense of mankind learn to hold it a dark and
terrible thing, but also to go on killing the leading man of the tribe,
the king-priest, would have its obvious practical inconveniences. At
first, indeed, these would not be great. The king-priest would be
little more than a rain-maker, a _rex sacrorum_, and one man might
perform the ceremonial observances as well as another. But as time went
on, and the tribe settled down to a comparatively civilized life, the
serious functions of its leader would increase. He would become the
arbiter of justice, the adviser in debate; above all, when war grew
into importance, the captain in battle. And to spare and replace, year
by year, the wisest councillor and the bravest warrior would grow into
an intolerable burden. Under some such circumstances, one can hardly
doubt, a process of substitution set in. Somebody had to die for the
king. At first, perhaps, the substitute was an inferior member of the
king’s own house, or even an ordinary tribesman, chosen by lot. But
the process, once begun, was sure to continue, and presently it was
sufficient if a life of little value, that of a prisoner, a slave,
a criminal, a stranger within the gates, was sacrificed[445]. The
common belief in madness or imbecility as a sign of divine possession
may perhaps have contributed to make the village fool or natural
seem a particularly suitable victim. But to the very end of Teutonic
and Keltic heathenism, the sense that the substitute was, after all,
only a substitute can be traced. In times of great stress or danger,
indeed, the king might still be called upon to suffer in person[446].
And always a certain pretence that the victim was the king was kept
up. Even though a slave or criminal, he was for a few days preceding
the sacrifice treated royally. He was a temporary king, was richly
dressed and feasted, had a crown set on his head, and was permitted to
hold revel with his fellows. The farce was played out in the sight of
men and gods[447]. Ultimately, of course, the natural growth of the
sanctity of human life in a progressive people, or in an unprogressive
people the pressure of outside ideals[448], forbids the sacrifice of
a man at all. Perhaps the temporary king is still chosen, and even
some symbolic mimicked slaying of him takes place; but actually he does
not die. An animal takes his place upon the altar; or more strictly
speaking, an animal remains the last victim, as it had been the first,
and in myth is regarded as a substitute for the human victim which for
a time had shared its fate. Of such a myth the legends of Abraham and
Isaac and of Iphigeneia at Aulis are the classical examples.

There is another group of myths for which, although they lack this
element of a substituted victim, mythologists find an origin in
a reformation of religious sentiment leading to the abolition of
human sacrifice. The classical legend of Perseus and Andromeda, the
hagiological legend of St. George and the Dragon, the Teutonic legend
of Beowulf and Grendel, are only types of innumerable tales in which
the hero puts an end to the periodical death of a victim by slaying
the monster who has enforced and profited by it[449]. What is such a
story but the imaginative statement of the fact that such sacrifices
at one time were, and are not? It is, however, noticeable, that in the
majority of these stories, although not in all, the dragon or monster
slain has his dwelling in water, and this leads to the consideration
of yet another sophistication of the primitive notion of sacrifice.
According to this notion sacrifice was necessarily bloody; in the
shedding of blood and in the sacrament of blood partaken of by the
worshippers, lay the whole gist of the rite: a bloodless sacrifice
would have no _raison d’être_. On the other hand, the myths just
referred to seem to imply a bloodless sacrifice by drowning, and this
notion is confirmed by an occasional bit of ritual, and by the common
superstition which represents the spirits of certain lakes and rivers
as claiming a periodical victim in the shape of a drowned person[450].
Similarly there are traces of sacrifices, which must have been equally
bloodless, by fire. At the Beltane festival, for instance, one member
of the party is chosen by lot to be the ‘victim,’ is made to jump
over the flames and is spoken of in jest as ‘dead[451].’ Various
Roman writers, who apparently draw from the second-century B.C. Greek
explorer Posidonius, ascribe to the Druids of Gaul a custom of burning
human and other victims at quinquennial feasts in colossal images of
hollow wickerwork; and squirrels, cats, snakes and other creatures are
frequently burnt in modern festival-fires[452]. The constant practice,
indeed, of burning bones in such fires has given them the specific
name of bonfires, and it may be taken for granted that the bones are
only representatives of more complete victims. I would suggest that
such sacrifices by water and fire are really developments of the
water-and fire-charms described in the last chapter; and that just
as the original notion of sacrifice has been extended to give a new
significance to the death of a human being at a religious festival,
when the real reason for that death had been forgotten, so it has been
still further extended to cover the primitive water-and fire-charms
when they too had become meaningless. I mean that at a festival the
victims, like the image and the worshippers, were doubtless habitually
flung into water or passed through fire as part of the charm; and that,
at a time when sacrifice had grown into mere oblation and the shedding
of blood was therefore no longer essential, these rites were adapted
and given new life as alternative methods of effecting the sacrifice.

It is not surprising that there should be but few direct and evident
survivals of sacrifice in English village custom. For at the time
of the conversion the rite must have borne the whole brunt of the
missionary attack. The other elements of the festivals, the sacred
garlands, the water-and fire-charms, had already lost much of their
original significance. A judgement predisposed to toleration might
plausibly look upon them as custom rather than worship. It was
not so with sacrifice. This too had had its history, and in divers
ways changed its character. But it was still essentially a liturgy.
Oblation or sacrament, it could not possibly be dissociated from a
recognition of the divine nature of the power in whose honour it took
place. And therefore it must necessarily be renounced, as a condition
of acceptance in the Church at all, by the most weak-kneed convert.
What happened was precisely that to which Gregory the Great looked
forward. The sacrificial banquet, the great chines of flesh, and the
beakers of ale, cider, and mead, endured, but the central rite of
the old festival, the ceremonial slaying of the animal, vanished.
The exceptions, however, are not so rare as might at first sight be
thought, and naturally they are of singular interest. It has already
been pointed out that in times of stress and trouble, the thinly
veneered heathenism of the country folk long tended to break out, and
in particular that up to a very late date the primitive need-fire was
occasionally revived to meet the exigencies of a cattle-plague. Under
precisely similar circumstances, and sometimes in immediate connexion
with the need-fire, cattle have been known, even during the present
century, to be sacrificed[453]. Nor are such sporadic instances the
only ones that can be adduced. Here and there sacrifice, in a more or
less modified form, remains an incident in the village festival. The
alleged custom of annually sacrificing a sheep on May-day at Andreas
in the Isle of Man rests on slight evidence[454]; but there is a
fairly well authenticated example in the ‘ram feast’ formerly held on
the same day in the village of Holne in Devonshire. A ram was slain
at a granite pillar or ancient altar in the village ‘ploy-field,’
and a struggle took place for slices which were supposed to bring
luck[455]. Still more degenerate survivals are afforded by the
Whitsun feast at King’s Teignton, also in Devonshire[456], and by the
Whitsun ‘lamb feast’ at Kidlington[457], the Trinity ‘lamb ale’ at
Kirtlington[458], and the ‘Whit hunt’ in Wychwood Forest[459], all
three places lying close together in Oxfordshire. These five cases have
been carefully recorded and studied; but they do not stand alone; for
the folk-calendar affords numerous examples of days which are marked,
either universally or locally, by the ceremonial hunting or killing of
some wild or domestic animal, or by the consumption of a particular
dish which readily betrays its sacrificial origin[460]. The appearance
of animals in ecclesiastical processions in St. Paul’s cathedral[461]
and at Bury St. Edmunds[462] is especially significant; and it is
natural to find an origin for the old English sport of bull-baiting
rather in a survival of heathen ritual than in any reminiscence of the
Roman amphitheatre[463]. Even where sacrifice itself has vanished,
the minor rites which once accompanied it are still perpetuated in
the superstitions or the festival customs of the peasantry. The heads
and hides of horses or cattle, like the _exuviae_ of the sacrificial
victims, are worn or carried in dance, procession or _quête_[464].
The dead bodies of animals are suspended by shepherds or game-keepers
upon tree and barn-door, from immemorial habit or from some vague
suspicion of the luck they will bring. Although inquiry will perhaps
elicit the fallacious explanation that they are there _pour encourager
les autres_[465]. In the following chapters an attempt will be made
to show how widely sacrifice is represented in popular amusements
and _ludi_. Here it will be sufficient to call attention to two
personages who figure largely in innumerable village festivals. One
is the ‘hobby-horse,’ not yet, though Shakespeare will have it so,
‘forgot[466]’: the other the ‘fool’ or ‘squire,’ a buffoon with a
pendent cow’s tail, who is in many places _de rigueur_ in Maying or
rushbearing[467]. Both of these grotesques seem to be at bottom nothing
but worshippers careering in the skins of sacrificed animals.

The cereal or liquor sacrifice is of less importance. Sugar and
water, which may be conjectured to represent mead, is occasionally
drunk beside a sacred well, and in one instance, at least, bread and
cheese are thrown into the depths. Sometimes also a ploughman carries
bread and cheese in his pocket when he goes abroad to cut the first
furrow[468]. But the original rite is probably most nearly preserved in
the custom of ‘youling’ fruit-trees to secure a good crop. When this
is done, at Christmas or Ascension-tide, ale or cider is poured on the
roots of the trees, and a cake placed in a fork of the boughs. Here
and there a cake is also hung on the horn of an ox in the stall[469].
Doubtless the ‘feasten’ cake, of traditional shape and composition,
which pervades the country, is in its origin sacramental[470]. Commonly
enough, it represents an animal or human being, and in such cases it
may be held, while retaining its own character of a cereal sacrifice,
to be also a substitute for the animal or human sacrifice with which it
should by rights be associated[471].

An unauthenticated and somewhat incredible story has been brought from
Italy to the effect that the mountaineers of the Abruzzi are still
in the habit of offering up a human sacrifice in Holy week[472]. In
these islands a reminiscence of the observance is preserved in the
‘victim’ of the Beltane festival[473], and a transformation of it in
the whipping of lads when the bounds are beaten in the Rogations[474].
Some others, less obvious, will be suggested in the sequel. In any case
one ceremony which, as has been seen, grew out of human sacrifice, has
proved remarkably enduring. This is the election of the temporary king.
Originally chosen out of the lowest of the people for death, and fêted
as the equivalent or double of the real king-priest of the community,
he has survived the tragic event which gave him birth, and plays a
great part as the master of the ceremonies in many a village revel.
The English ‘May-king,’ or ‘summer-king,’ or ‘harvest-lord[475],’ or
‘mock-mayor[476],’ is a very familiar personage, and can be even more
abundantly paralleled from continental festivals[477]. To the May-king
in particular we shall return. But in concluding this chapter it is
worth while to point out and account for two variants of the custom
under consideration. In many cases, probably in the majority of cases
so far as the English May-day is concerned, the king is not a king,
but a queen. Often, indeed, the part is played by a lad in woman’s
clothes, but this seems only to emphasize the fact that the temporary
ruler is traditionally regarded as a female one[478]. It is probable
that we have here no modern development, but a primitive element
in the agricultural worship. Tacitus records the presence amongst
the Germans of a male priest ‘adorned as women use[479],’ while the
exchange of garments by the sexes is included amongst festival abuses
in the ecclesiastical discipline-books[480]. Occasionally, moreover,
the agricultural festivals, like those of the _Bona Dea_ at Rome, are
strictly feminine functions, from which all men are excluded[481].
Naturally I regard these facts as supporting my view of the origin of
the agricultural worship in a women’s cult, upon which the pastoral
cult of the men was afterwards engrafted. And finally, there are cases
in which not a king alone nor a queen alone is found, but a king and a
queen[482]. This also would be a reasonable outcome of the merging of
the two cults. Some districts know the May-queen as the May-bride, and
it is possible that a symbolical wedding of a priest and priestess may
have been one of the regular rites of the summer festivals. For this
there seem to be some parallels in Greek and Roman custom, while the
myth which represents the heaven as the fertilizing husband of the
fruitful earth is of hoar antiquity amongst the Aryan-speaking peoples.
The forces which make for the fertility of the fields were certainly
identified in worship with those which make for human fertility. The
waters of the sacred well or the blaze of the festival fire help the
growth of the crops; they also help women in their desire for a lover
and for motherhood. And it may be taken for granted that the summer
festivals knew from the beginning that element of sexual licence
which fourteen centuries of Christianity have not wholly been able to
banish[483].

CHAPTER VII

FESTIVAL PLAY

[_Bibliographical Note._--A systematic revision of J. Strutt,
_The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_ (1801,
ed. W. Hone, 1830), is, as in the case of Brand’s book, much
needed. On the psychology of play should be consulted K. Groos,
_Die Spiele der Thiere_ (1896, transl. 1898), and _Die Spiele
der Menschen_ (1899, transl. 1901). Various anthropological
aspects of play are discussed by A. C. Haddon, _The Study of
Man_ (1898), and the elaborate dictionary of _The Traditional
Games of England, Scotland and Ireland_ by Mrs. A. B. Gomme
(1894-8) may be supplemented from W. W. Newell, _Games and Songs
of American Children_ (1884), H. C. Bolton, _The Counting-Out
Rhymes of Children_ (1888), E. W. B. Nicholson, _Golspie_ (1897),
and R. C. Maclagan, _The Games and Diversions of Argyleshire_
(F.L.S. 1901). The _charivari_ is treated by C. R. B. Barrett,
_Riding Skimmington and Riding the Stang_ in the _Journal of the
British Archaeological Association_, N. S. i. 58, and C. Noirot,
_L’Origine des Masques_ (1609), reprinted with illustrative
matter by C. Leber, _Dissertations relatives à l’Histoire de
France_, vol. ix. The account of the Coventry Hox Tuesday Play
given in _Robert Laneham’s Letter_ (1575) will be found in
Appendix H.]

The charms, the prayer, the sacrifice, make up that side of the
agricultural festival which may properly be regarded as cult: they do
not make up the whole of it. It is natural to ask whether, side by side
with the observances of a natural religion, there were any of a more
spiritual type; whether the village gods of our Keltic and Teutonic
ancestors were approached on festival occasions solely as the givers of
the good things of earth, or whether there was also any recognition of
the higher character which in time they came to have as the guardians
of morality, such as we can trace alike in the ritual of Eleusis and
in the tribal mysteries of some existing savage peoples. It is not
improbable that this was so; but it may be doubted whether there is
much available evidence on the matter, and, in any case, it cannot be
gone into here[484]. There is, however, a third element of the village
festival which does demand consideration, and that is the element
of play. The day of sacrifice was also a day of cessation from the
ordinary toil of the fields, a holiday as well as a holy day. Sacred
and secular met in the amorous encounters smiled upon by the liberal
wood-goddess, and in the sacramental banquet with its collops of flesh
and spilth of ale and mead. But the experience of any bank holiday
will show that, for those who labour, the suspension of their ordinary
avocations does not mean quiescence. When the blood is heated with love
and liquor, the nervous energies habitually devoted to wielding the
goad and guiding the plough must find vent in new and for the nonce
unprofitable activities. But such activities, self-sufficing, and
primarily at least serving no end beyond themselves, are, from pushpin
to poetry, exactly what is meant by play[485].

The instinct of play found a foothold at the village feast in the
débris which ritual, in its gradual transformation, left behind. It has
already been noted as a constant feature in the history of institutions
that a survival does not always remain merely a survival; it may be its
destiny, when it is emptied of its first significance, to be taken up
into a different order of ideas, and to receive a new lease of vitality
under a fresh interpretation. Sacrifice ceases to be sacrament and
becomes oblation. Dipping and smoking customs, originally magical, grow
to be regarded as modes of sacrificial death. Other such waifs of the
past become the inheritance of play. As the old conception of sacrifice
passed into the new one, the subsidiary rites, through which the
sacramental influence had of old been distributed over the worshippers
and their fields, although by no means disused, lost their primitive
meaning. Similarly, when human sacrifice was abolished, that too left
traces of itself, only imperfectly intelligible, in mock or symbolical
deaths, or in the election of the temporary king. Thus, even before
Christianity antiquated the whole structure of the village festivals,
there were individual practices kept alive only by the conservatism of
tradition, and available as material for the play instinct. These find
room in the festivals side by side with other customs which the same
instinct not only preserved but initiated. Of course, the antithesis
between play and cult must not be pushed too far. The peasant mind is
tenacious of acts and forgetful of explanations; and the chapters to
come will afford examples of practices which, though they began in
play, came in time to have a serious significance of quasi-ritual, and
to share in the popular imagination the prestige as fertility charms
of the older ceremonies of worship with which they were associated.
The _ludi_ to be immediately discussed, however, present themselves
in the main as sheer play. Several of them have broken loose from the
festivals altogether, or, if they still acknowledge their origin by
making a special appearance on some fixed day, are also at the service
of ordinary amusement, whenever the leisure or the whim of youth may so
suggest.

To begin with, it is possible that athletic sports and horse-racing are
largely an outcome of sacrificial festivals. Like the Greeks around
the pyre of Patroclus, the Teutons celebrated games at the tombs of
their dead chieftains[486]. But games were a feature of seasonal,
no less than funeral feasts. It will be remembered that the council
of Clovesho took pains to forbid the keeping of the Rogation days
with horse-races. A bit of wrestling or a bout of quarter-staff is
still _de rigueur_ at many a wake or rushbearing, while in parts of
Germany the winner of a race or of a shooting-match at the popinjay
is entitled to light the festival fire, or to hold the desired office
of May-king[487]. The reforming bishops of the thirteenth century
include public wrestling-bouts and contests for prizes amongst the
_ludi_ whose performance they condemn; and they lay particular stress
upon a custom described as _arietum super ligna et rotas elevationes_.
The object of these ‘ram-raisings’ seems to be explained by the fact
that in the days of Chaucer a ram was the traditional reward proposed
for a successful wrestler[488]; and this perhaps enables us to push
the connexion with the sacrificial rite a little further. I would
suggest that the original object of the man who wrestled for a ram, or
climbed a greasy pole for a leg of mutton, or shot for a popinjay, was
to win a sacrificial victim or a capital portion thereof, which buried
in his field might bring him abundant crops. The orderly competition
doubtless evolved itself from such an indiscriminate scrimmage for the
fertilizing fragments as marks the rites of the earth-goddess in the
Indian village feast[489]. Tug-of-war would seem to be capable of a
similar explanation, though here the desired object is not a portion
of the victim, but rather a straw rope made out of the corn divinity
itself in the form of the harvest-May[490]. An even closer analogy
with the Indian rite is afforded by such games as hockey and football.
The ball is nothing else than the head of the sacrificial beast, and
it is the endeavour of each player to get it into his own possession,
or, if sides are taken, to get it over a particular boundary[491].
Originally, of course, this was the player’s own boundary; it has come
to be regarded as that of his opponents; but this inversion of the
point of view is not one on which much stress can be laid. In proof
of this theory it may be pointed out that in many places football is
still played, traditionally, on certain days of the year. The most
notable example is perhaps at Dorking, where the annual Shrove Tuesday
scrimmage in the streets of the town and the annual efforts of the
local authorities to suppress it furnish their regular paragraph to the
newspapers. There are several others, in most of which, as at Dorking,
the contest is between two wards or districts of the town[492]. This
feature is repeated in the Shrove Tuesday tug-of-war at Ludlow, and
in annual faction-fights elsewhere[493]. It is probably due to that
συνοικισμός of village communities by which towns often came into
being. Here and there, moreover, there are to be found rude forms of
football in which the primitive character of the proceeding is far more
evident than in the sophisticated game. Two of these deserve especial
mention. At Hallaton in Leicestershire a feast is held on Easter Monday
at a piece of high ground called Hare-pie Bank. A hare--the sacrificial
character of the hare has already been dwelt upon--is carried in
procession. ‘Hare-pies’ are scrambled for; and then follows a sport
known as ‘bottle-kicking.’ Hooped wooden field-bottles are thrown down
and a scrimmage ensues between the men of Hallaton and the men of the
adjoining village of Medbourne. Besides the connexion with the hare
sacrifice, it is noticeable that each party tries to drive the bottle
towards its own boundary, and not that of its opponents[494]. More
interesting still is the Epiphany struggle for the ‘Haxey hood’ at
Haxey in Lincolnshire. The ‘hood’ is a roll of sacking or leather, and
it is the object of each of the players to carry it to a public-house
in his own village. The ceremony is connected with the Plough Monday
_quête_, and the ‘plough-bullocks’ or ‘boggons’ led by their ‘lord
duke’ and their ‘fool,’ known as ‘Billy Buck,’ are the presiding
officials. On the following day a festival-fire is lit, over which
the fool is ‘smoked.’ The strongest support is given to my theory
of the origin of this type of game, by an extraordinary speech which
the fool delivers from the steps of an old cross. As usual, the cross
has taken the place of a more primitive tree or shrine. The speech
runs as follows: ‘Now, good folks, this is Haxa’ Hood. We’ve killed
two bullocks and a half, _but the other half we had to leave running
field_: we can fetch it if it’s wanted. Remember it’s

‘Hoose agin hoose, toon agin toon,
And if you meet a man, knock him doon.’

In this case then, the popular memory has actually preserved the
tradition that the ‘hood’ or ball played with is the half of a bullock,
the head that is to say, of the victim decapitated at a sacrifice[495].

Hockey and football and tug-of-war are lusty male sports, but the
sacrificial survival recurs in some of the singing games played by
girls and children. The most interesting of these is that known as
‘Oranges and Lemons.’ An arch is formed by two children with raised
hands, and under this the rest of the players pass. Meanwhile rhymes
are sung naming the bells of various parishes, and ending with some
such formula as

‘Here comes a chopper to chop off your head:
The last, last, last, last man’s head.’

As the last word is sung, the hands forming the arch are lowered,
and the child who is then passing is caught, and falls in behind one
of the leaders. When all in turn have been so caught, a tug-of-war,
only without a rope, follows. The ‘chopping’ obviously suggests a
sacrifice, in this case a human sacrifice. And the bell-rhymes show the
connexion of the game with the parish contests just described. There
exists indeed a precisely similar set of verses which has the title,
_Song of the Bells of Derby on Football Morning_. The set ordinarily
used in ‘Oranges and Lemons’ names London parishes, but here is a
Northamptonshire variant, which is particularly valuable because it
alludes to another rite of the agricultural festival, the sacramental
cake buried in a furrow:

‘Pancakes and fritters,
Says the bells of St. Peter’s:
Where must we fry ’em?
Says the bells of Cold Higham:
In yonder land thurrow (furrow)
Says the bells of Wellingborough, &c.[496]’

Other games of the same type are ‘How many Miles to Babylon,’ ‘Through
the Needle Eye,’ and ‘Tower of London.’ These add an important incident
to ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ in that a ‘king’ is said to be passing through
the arch. On the other hand, some of them omit the tug-of-war[497].
With all these singing games it is a little difficult to say whether
they proceed from children’s imitations of the more serious proceedings
pf their elders, or whether they were originally played at the
festivals by grown men and maidens, and have gradually, like the May
_quête_ itself, fallen into the children’s hands. The ‘Oranges and
Lemons’ group has its analogy to the tug-of-war; the use of the arch
formation also connects it with the festival ‘country’ dances which
will be mentioned in the next chapter.

The rude punishments by which the far from rigid code of village
ethics vindicates itself against offenders, are on the border line
between play and jurisprudence. These also appear to be in some cases
survivals, diverted from their proper context, of festival usage. It
has been pointed out that the ducking which was a form of rain-charm
came to be used as a penalty for the churlish or dispirited person, who
declined to throw up his work or to wear green on the festival day.
In other places this same person has to ‘ride the stang.’ That is to
say, he is set astride a pole and borne about with contumely, until
he compounds for his misdemeanour by a fine in coin or liquor[498].
‘Riding the stang,’ however, is a rural punishment of somewhat wide
application[499]. It is common to England and to France, where it
can be traced back, under the names of _charivari_ and _chevauchée_,
to the fifteenth century[500]. The French _sociétés joyeuses_, which
will be described in a later chapter, made liberal use of it[501]. The
offences to which it is appropriate are various. A miser, a henpecked
husband or a wife-beater, especially in May, and, on the other hand,
a shrew or an unchaste woman, are liable to visitation, as are the
parties to a second or third marriage, or to one perilously long
delayed, or one linking May to December. The precise ceremonial varies
considerably. Sometimes the victim has to ride on a pole, sometimes on
a hobby-horse[502], or on an ass with his face turned to the tail[503].
Sometimes, again, he does not appear at all, but is represented by
an effigy or guy, or, in France, by his next-door neighbour[504].
This dramatic version is, according to Mr. Barrett, properly called a
‘skimmington riding,’ while the term ‘riding the stang’ is reserved
for that in which the offender figures in person. The din of kettles,
bones, and cleavers, so frequent an element in rustic ceremonies, is
found here also, and in one locality at least the attendants are
accustomed to blacken their faces[505]. It may perhaps be taken for
granted that ‘riding the stang’ is an earlier form of the punishment
than the more delicate and symbolical ‘skimmington riding’; and it
is probable that the rider represents a primitive village criminal
haled off to become the literal victim at a sacrificial rite. The
fine or forfeit by which in some cases the offence can be purged
seems to create an analogy between the custom under consideration and
other sacrificial survivals which must now be considered. These are
perhaps best treated in connexion with Hock-tide and the curious play
proper to that festival at Coventry[506]. This play was revived for
the entertainment of Elizabeth when she visited the Earl of Leicester
at Kenilworth in July, 1575, and there exists a description of it in
a letter written by one Robert Laneham, who accompanied the court,
to a friend in London[507]. The men of Coventry, led by one Captain
Cox, who presented it called it an ‘olld storiall sheaw,’ with for
argument the massacre of the Danes by Ethelred on Saint Brice’s night
1002[508]. Laneham says that it was ‘expressed in actionz and rymez,’
and it appears from his account to have been a kind of sham fight
or ‘barriers’ between two parties representing respectively Danish
‘launsknights’ and English, ‘each with allder poll marcially in their
hand[509].’ In the end the Danes were defeated and ‘many led captiue
for triumph by our English wéemen.’ The presenters also stated that
the play was of ‘an auncient beginning’ and ‘woont too bee plaid in
oour Citee yeárely.’ Of late, however, it had been ‘laid dooun,’ owing
to the importunity of their preachers, and ‘they woold make theyr
humbl peticion vntoo her highnes, that they myght haue theyr playz vp
agayn.’ The records of Coventry itself add but little to what Laneham
gathered. The local _Annals_, not a very trustworthy chronicle, ascribe
the invention of ‘Hox Tuesday’ to 1416-7, and perhaps confirm the
_Letter_ by noting that in 1575-6 the ‘pageants on Hox Tuesday’ were
played after eight years[510]. We have seen that, according to the
statement made at Kenilworth, the event commemorated by the performance
was the Danish massacre of 1002. There was, however, another tradition,
preserved by the fifteenth-century writer John Rous, which connected it
rather with the sudden death of Hardicanute and the end of the Danish
usurpation at the accession of Edward the Confessor[511]. It is, of
course, possible that local _cantilenae_ on either or both of these
events may have existed, and may have been worked into the ‘rymez’
of the play. But I think it may be taken for granted that, as in the
Lady Godiva procession, the historical element is comparatively a late
one, which has been grafted upon already existing festival customs.
One of these is perhaps the faction-fight just discussed. But it is
to be noticed that the performance as described by Laneham ended with
the Danes being led away captive by English women; and this episode
seems to be clearly a dramatization of a characteristic Hock-tide
_ludus_ found in many places other than Coventry. On Hock-Monday, the
women ‘hocked’ the men; that is to say, they went abroad with ropes,
caught and bound any man they came across, and exacted a forfeit. On
Hock-Tuesday, the men retaliated in similar fashion upon the women.
Bishop Carpenter of Worcester forbade this practice in his diocese
in 1450[512], but like some other festival customs it came to be
recognized as a source of parochial revenue, and the ‘gaderyngs’
at Hock-tide, of which the women’s was always the most productive,
figure in many a churchwarden’s budget well into the seventeenth
century[513]. At Shrewsbury in 1549 ‘hocking’ led to a tragedy. Two men
were ‘smothered under the Castle hill,’ hiding themselves from maids,
the hill falling there on them[514].’ ‘Hockney day’ is still kept at
Hungerford, and amongst the old-fashioned officers elected on this
occasion, with the hay-ward and the ale-tasters, are the two ‘tything
men’ or ‘tutti men,’ somewhat doubtfully said to be so named from their
poles wreathed with ‘tutties’ or nose-gays, whose function it is to
visit the commoners, and to claim from every man a coin and from every
woman a kiss[515]. The derivation of the term Hock-tide has given rise
to some wild conjectures, and philologists have failed to come to a
conclusion on the subject[516]. Hock-tide is properly the Monday and
Tuesday following the Second Sunday after Easter, and ‘Hokedaie’ or
_Quindena Paschae_ is a frequent term day in leases and other legal
documents from the thirteenth century onwards[517].

‘Hocking’ can be closely paralleled from other customs of the spring
festivals. The household books of Edward I record in 1290 a payment
‘to seven ladies of the queen’s chamber who took the king in bed
on the morrow of Easter, and made him fine himself[518].’ This was
the _prisio_ which at a later date perturbed the peace of French
ecclesiastics. The council of Nantes, for instance, in 1431, complains
that clergy were hurried out of their beds on Easter Monday, dragged
into church, and sprinkled with water upon the altar[519]. In this
aggravated form the _prisio_ hardly survived the frank manners of
the Middle Ages. But it was essentially identical with the ceremonies
in which a more modern usage has permitted the levying of forfeits at
both Pasque and Pentecost. In the north of England, women were liable
to have their shoes taken on one or other of these feasts, and must
redeem them by payment. On the following day they were entitled to
retaliate on the shoes of the men[520]. A more widely spread method of
exacting the _droit_ is that of ‘heaving.’ The unwary wanderer in some
of the northern manufacturing towns on Easter Monday is still liable
to find himself swung high in the air by the stalwart hands of factory
girls, and will be lucky if he can purchase his liberty with nothing
more costly than a kiss. If he likes, he may take his revenge on Easter
Tuesday[521]. Another mediaeval custom described by Belethus in the
twelfth century, which prescribed the whipping of husbands by wives
on Easter Monday and of wives by husbands on Easter Tuesday, has also
its modern parallel[522]. On Shrove Tuesday a hockey match was played
at Leicester, and after it a number of young men took their stand with
cart whips in the precincts of the Castle. Any passer-by who did not
pay a forfeit was liable to lashes. The ‘whipping Toms,’ as they were
called, were put down by a special Act of Parliament in 1847[523].
The analogy of these customs with the requirement made of visitors to
certain markets or to the roofs of houses in the building to ‘pay their
footing’ is obvious[524].

In all these cases, even where the significant whipping or sprinkling
is absent, the meaning is the same. The binding with ropes, the loss
of the shoes, the lifting in the air, are symbols of capture. And the
capture is for the purposes of sacrifice, for which no more suitable
victim, in substitution for the priest-king, than a stranger, could be
found. This will, I think, be clear by comparison with some further
parallels from the harvest field and the threshing-floor, in more
than one of which the symbolism is such as actually to indicate the
sacrifice itself, as well as the preliminary capture. In many parts
of England a stranger, and sometimes even the farmer himself, when
visiting a harvest field, is liable to be asked for ‘largess’[525]. In
Scotland, the tribute is called ‘head-money,’ and he who refuses is
seized by the arms and feet and ‘dumped’ on the ground[526]. Similar
customs prevail on the continent, in Germany, Norway, France; and the
stranger is often, just as in the ‘hocking’ ceremony, caught with
straw ropes, or swathed in a sheaf of corn. It is mainly in Germany
that the still more elaborate rites survive. In various districts
of Mecklenburg, and of Pomerania, the reapers form a ring round the
stranger, and fiercely whet their scythes, sometimes with traditional
rhymes which contain a threat to mow him down. In Schleswig, and
again in Sweden, the stranger in a threshing-floor is ‘taught the
flail-dance’ or ‘the threshing-song.’ The arms of a flail are put round
his neck and pressed so tightly that he is nearly choked. When the
madder-roots are being dug, a stranger passing the field is caught by
the workers, and buried up to his middle in the soil[527].

The central incident of ‘hocking’ appears therefore to be nothing but
a form of that symbolical capture of a human victim of which various
other examples are afforded by the village festivals. The development
of the custom into a play or mock-fight at Coventry may very well
have taken place, as the town annals say, about the beginning of the
fifteenth century. Whether it had previously been connected by local
tradition with some event in the struggles of Danes and Saxons or not,
is a question which one must be content to leave unsolved. A final
word is due to the curious arrangement by which in the group of customs
here considered the rôles of sacrificers and sacrificed are exchanged
between men and women on the second day; for it lends support to the
theory already put forward that a certain stage in the evolution of the
village worship was marked by the merging of previously independent
sex-cults.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MAY-GAME

[_Bibliographical Note._--The festal character of primitive
dance and song is admirably brought out by R. Wallaschek,
_Primitive Music_ (1893); E. Grosse, _Die Anfänge der Kunst_
(1894, French transl. 1902); Y. Hirn, _The Origins of Art_
(1900); F. B. Gummere, _The Beginnings of Poetry_ (1901). The
popular element in French lyric is illustrated by A. Jeanroy,
_Les Origines de la Poésie lyrique en France au Moyen Âge_
(1889), and J. Tiersot, _Histoire de la Chanson populaire en
France_ (1889). Most of such English material as exists is
collected in Mrs. Gomme’s _Traditional Games_ (1896-8) and G. F.
Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_ (1892). For comparative study E.
Martinengo-Cesaresco, _Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs_ (1886),
may be consulted. The notices of the May-game are scattered
through the works mentioned in the bibliographical note to ch. vi
and others.]

The foregoing chapter has illustrated the remarkable variety of modes
in which the instinct of play comes to find expression. But of all such
the simplest and most primitive is undoubtedly the dance. Psychology
discovers in the dance the most rudimentary and physical of the arts,
and traces it to precisely that overflow of nervous energies shut off
from their normal practical ends which constitutes play[528]. And
the verdict of psychology is confirmed by philology; for in all the
Germanic languages the same word signifies both ‘dance’ and ‘play,’ and
in some of them it is even extended to the cognate ideas of ‘sacrifice’
or ‘festival[529]’. The dance must therefore be thought of as an
essential part of all the festivals with which we have to deal. And
with the dance comes song: the rhythms of motion seem to have been
invariably accompanied by the rhythms of musical instruments, or of the
voice, or of both combined[530].

The dance had been from the beginning a subject of contention between
Christianity and the Roman world[531]; but whereas the dances of
the East and South, so obnoxious to the early Fathers, were mainly
those of professional entertainers, upon the stage or at banquets,
the missionaries of the West had to face the even more difficult
problem of a folk-dance and folk-song which were amongst the most
inveterate habits of the freshly converted peoples. As the old worship
vanished, these tended to attach themselves to the new. Upon great
feasts and wake-days, choruses of women invaded with wanton _cantica_
and _ballationes_ the precincts of the churches and even the sacred
buildings themselves, a desecration against which generation after
generation of ecclesiastical authorities was fain to protest[532].
Clerkly sentiment in the matter is represented by a pious legend,
very popular in the Middle Ages, which told how some reprobate folk
of Kölbigk in Anhalt disobeyed the command of a priest to cease their
unholy revels before the church of Saint Magnus while he said mass on
Christmas day, and for their punishment must dance there the year round
without stopping[533]. The struggle was a long one, and in the end the
Church never quite succeeded even in expelling the dance from its own
doors. The chapter of Wells about 1338 forbade _choreae_ and other
_ludi_ within the cathedral and the cloisters, chiefly on account of
the damage too often done to its property[534]. A seventeenth-century
French writer records that he had seen clergy and singing-boys dancing
at Easter in the churches of Paris[535]; and even at the present day
there are some astounding survivals. At Seville, as is well known, the
six boys, called _los Seises_, dance with castanets before the Holy
Sacrament in the presence of the archbishop at Shrovetide, and during
the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and Corpus Christi[536]. At
Echternach in Luxembourg there is an annual dance through the church
of pilgrims to the shrine of St. Willibrord[537], while at Barjols
in Provence a ‘tripe-dance’ is danced at mass on St. Marcel’s day in
honour of the patron[538].

Still less, of course, did dance and song cease to be important
features of the secular side of the festivals. We have already seen
how _cantilenae_ on the great deeds of heroes had their vogue in the
mouths of the _chori_ of young men and maidens, as well as in those
of the minstrels[539]. The _Carmina Burana_ describe the dances
of girls upon the meadows as amongst the pleasures of spring[540].
William Fitzstephen tells us that such dances were to be seen in
London in the twelfth century[541], and we have found the University
of Oxford solemnly forbidding them in the thirteenth. The _romans_ and
_pastourelles_ frequently mention _chansons_ or _rondets de carole_,
which appear to have been the _chansons_ used to accompany the choric
dances, and to have generally consisted of a series of couplets sung
by the leader, and a refrain with which the rest of the band answered
him. Occasionally the refrains are quoted[542]. The minstrels borrowed
this type of folk _chanson_, and the conjoint dance and song themselves
found their way from the village green to the courtly hall. In the
twelfth century ladies _carolent_, and more rarely even men condescend
to take a part[543]. Still later _carole_, like _tripudium_, seems
to become a term for popular rejoicing in general, not necessarily
expressed in rhythmical shape[544].

The customs of the village festival gave rise by natural development
to two types of dance[545]. There was the processional dance of the
band of worshippers in progress round their boundaries and from field
to field, from house to house, from well to well of the village. It
is this that survives in the dance of the Echternach pilgrims, or in
the ‘faddy-dance’ in and out the cottage doors at Helston wake. And
it is probably this that is at the bottom of the interesting game of
‘Thread the Needle.’ This is something like ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ the
first part of which, indeed, seems to have been adapted from it. There
is, however, no sacrifice or ‘tug-of-war,’ although there is sometimes
a ‘king,’ or a ‘king’ and his ‘lady’ or ‘bride’ in the accompanying
rhymes, and in one instance a ‘pancake.’ The players stand in two long
lines. Those at the end of each line form an arch with uplifted arms,
and the rest run in pairs beneath it. Then another pair form an arch,
and the process is repeated. In this way long strings of lads and
lasses stream up and down the streets or round and about a meadow or
green. In many parts of England this game is played annually on Shrove
Tuesday or Easter Monday, and the peasants who play it at Châtre in
central France say that it is done ‘to make the hemp grow.’ Its origin
in connexion with the agricultural festivals can therefore hardly be
doubtful[546]. It is probable that in the beginning the players danced
rather than ran under the ‘arch’; and it is obvious that the ‘figure’
of the game is practically identical with one familiar in _Sir Roger de
Coverley_ and other old English ‘country’ dances of the same type.

Just as the ‘country’ dance is derived from the processional dance, so
the other type of folk-dance, the _ronde_ or ‘round,’ is derived from
the comparatively stationary dance of the group of worshippers around
the more especially sacred objects of the festival, such as the tree
or the fire[547]. The custom of dancing round the May-pole has been
more or less preserved wherever the May-pole is known. But ‘Thread
the Needle’ itself often winds up with a circular dance or _ronde_,
either around one of the players, or, on festival occasions, around
the representative of the earlier home of the fertilization divinity,
the parish church. This custom is popularly known as ‘clipping the
church[548].’

Naturally the worshippers at a festival would dance in their festival
costume; that is to say, in the garb of leaves and flowers worn for the
sake of the beneficent influence of the indwelling divinity, or in the
hides and horns of sacrificial animals which served a similar purpose.
Travellers describe elaborate and beautiful beast-dances amongst savage
peoples, and the Greeks had their own bear- and crane-dances, as well
as the dithyrambic goat-dance of the Dionysia. They had also flower
dances[549]. In England the village dancers wear posies, but I do not
know that they ever attempt a more elaborate representation of flowers.
But a good example of the beast-dance is furnished by the ‘horn-dance’
at Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, held now at a September wake,
and formerly at Christmas. In this six of the performers wear sets
of horns. These are preserved from year to year in the church, and
according to local tradition the dance used at one time to take place
in the churchyard on a Sunday. The horns are said to be those of the
reindeer, and from this it may possibly be inferred that they were
brought to Abbots Bromley by Scandinavian settlers. The remaining
performers represent a hobby-horse, a clown, a woman, and an archer,
who makes believe to shoot the horned men[550].

The _motifs_ of the dances and their _chansons_ must also at first
have been determined by the nature of the festivals at which they
took place. There were dances, no doubt, at such domestic festivals
as weddings and funerals[551]. In Flanders it is still the custom to
dance at the funeral of a young girl, and a very charming _chanson_
is used[552]. The development of epic poetry from the _cantilenae_
of the war-festival has been noted in a former chapter. At the
agricultural festivals, the primary _motif_ is, of course, the desire
for the fertility of the crops and herds. The song becomes, as in the
Anglo-Saxon charm, so often referred to, practically a prayer[553].
With this, and with the use of ‘Thread the Needle’ at Châtre ‘to make
the hemp grow,’ may be compared the games known to modern children,
as to Gargantua, in which the operations of the farmer’s year, and in
particular his prayer for his crops, are mimicked in a _ronde_[554].
Allusions to the process of the seasons, above all to the delight of
the _renouveau_ in spring, would naturally also find a place in the
festival songs. The words of the famous thirteenth-century lyric were
perhaps written to be sung to the twinkling feet of English girls in a
round. It has the necessary refrain:

‘Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wdë nu,
Sing cuccu!

‘Awë bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calvë cu.
Bulloc sterteth, buckë verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!

‘Cuccu, cuccu, wel singës thu, cuccu;
Ne swik thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!’[555]

The savour of the spring is still in the English May songs, the French
_maierolles_ or _calendes de mai_ and the Italian _calen di maggio_.
But for the rest they have either become little but mere _quête_ songs,
or else, under the influence of the priests, have taken on a Christian
colouring[556]. At Oxford the ‘merry ketches’ sung by choristers on the
top of Magdalen tower on May morning were replaced in the seventeenth
century by the hymn now used[557]. Another very popular Mayers’ song
would seem to show that the Puritans, in despair of abolishing the
festival, tried to reform it.

‘Remember us poor Mayers all,
And thus we do begin
To lead our lives in righteousness,
Or else we die in sin.

‘We have been rambling all this night,
And almost all this day:
And now returned back again,
We have brought you a branch of May.

‘A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is but a sprout, but it’s well budded out,
By the work of our Lord’s hands,’ &c.[558]

Another religious element, besides prayer, may have entered into
the pre-Christian festival songs; and that is myth. A stage in the
evolution of drama from the Dionysiac dithyramb was the introduction of
mythical narratives about the wanderings and victories of the god, to
be chanted or recited by the _choragus_. The relation of the _choragus_
to the _chorus_ bears a close analogy to that between the leader of
the mediaeval _carole_ and his companions who sang the refrain. This
leader probably represents the Keltic or Teutonic priest at the head
of his band of worshippers; and one may suspect that in the north and
west of Europe, as in Greece, the pauses of the festival dance provided
the occasion on which the earliest strata of stories about the gods,
the hieratic as distinguished from the literary myths, took shape. If
so the development of divine myth was very closely parallel to that of
heroic myth[559].

After religion, the commonest _motif_ of dance and song at the village
festivals must have been love. This is quite in keeping with the
amorous licence which was one of their characteristics. The goddess
of the fertility of earth was also the goddess of the fertility of
women. The ecclesiastical prohibitions lay particular stress upon the
_orationes amatoriae_ and the _cantica turpia et luxuriosa_ which
the women sang at the church doors, and only as love-songs can be
interpreted the _winileodi_ forbidden to the inmates of convents by a
capitulary of 789[560]. The love-interest continues to be prominent
in the folk-song, or the minstrel song still in close relation to
folk-song, of mediaeval and modern France. The beautiful wooing
_chanson_ of _Transformations_, which savants have found it difficult
to believe not to be a _supercherie_, is sung by harvesters and by
lace-makers at the pillow[561]. That of _Marion_, an ironic expression
of wifely submission, belongs to Shrove Tuesday[562]. These are modern,
but the following, from the _Chansonnier de St. Germain_, may be a
genuine mediaeval folk-song of Limousin _provenance_:

‘A l’entrada dal tems clar, eya,
Per joja recomençar, eya,
Et per jelos irritar, eya,
Vol la regina mostrar
Qu’el’ es si amoroza.
Alavi’, alavia jelos,
Laissaz nos, laissaz nos
Ballar entre nos, entre nos[563].’

The ‘queen’ here is, of course, the festival queen or lady of the May,
the _regina avrillosa_ of the Latin writers, _la reine_, _la mariée_,
_l’épousée_, _la trimousette_ of popular custom[564]. The defiance
of the _jelos_, and the desire of the queen and her maidens to dance
alone, recall the conventional freedom of women from restraint in May,
the month of their ancient sex-festival, and the month in which the
mediaeval wife-beater still ran notable danger of a _chevauchée_.

The amorous note recurs in those types of minstrel song which are
most directly founded upon folk models. Such are the _chansons à
danser_ with their refrains, the _chansons de mal mariées_, in
which the ‘_jalous_’ is often introduced, the _aubes_ and the
_pastourelles_[565]. Common in all of these is the spring setting
proper to the _chansons_ of our festivals, and of the ‘queen’ or
‘king’ there is from time to time mention. The leading theme of
the _pastourelles_ is the wooing, successful or the reverse, of a
shepherdess by a knight. But the shepherdess has generally also a lover
of her own degree, and for this pair the names of Robin and Marion seem
to have been conventionally appropriated. Robin was perhaps borrowed by
the _pastourelles_ from the widely spread refrain

‘Robins m’aime, Robins m’a:
Robins m’a demandée: si m’ara[566].’

The borrowing may, of course, have been the other way round, but the
close relation of the _chanson à danser_ with its refrain to the
dance suggests that this was the earliest type of lyric minstrelsy
to be evolved, as well as the closest to the folk-song pattern. The
_pastourelle_ forms a link between folk-song and drama, for towards
the end of the thirteenth century Adan de la Hale, known as ‘le
Bossu,’ a minstrel of Arras, wrote a _Jeu de Robin et Marion_, which
is practically a _pastourelle par personnages_. The familiar theme
is preserved. A knight woos Marion, who is faithful to her Robin.
Repulsed, he rides away, but returns and beats Robin. All, however,
ends happily with dances and _jeux_ amongst the peasants. Adan de la
Hale was one of the train of Count Robert of Artois in Italy. The play
may originally have been written about 1283 for the delectation of the
court of Robert’s kinsman, Charles, king of Naples, but the extant
version was probably produced about 1290 at Arras, when the poet was
already dead. Another hand has prefixed a dramatic prologue, the _Jeu
du Pèlerin_, glorifying Adan, and has also made some interpolations in
the text designed to localize the action near Arras. The performers
are not likely to have been villagers: they may have been the members
of some _puy_ or literary society, which had taken over the celebration
of the summer festival. In any case the _Jeu de Robin et Marion_ is the
earliest and not the least charming of pastoral comedies[567].

It is impossible exactly to parallel from the history of English
literature this interaction of folk-song and minstrelsy at the French
_fête du mai_. For unfortunately no body of English mediaeval lyric
exists. Even ‘Sumer is icumen in’ only owes its preservation to the
happy accident which led some priest to fit sacred words to the secular
tune; while the few pieces recovered from a Harleian manuscript of the
reign of Edward I, beautiful as they are, read like adaptations less of
English folk-song, than of French lyric itself[568]. Nevertheless, the
village summer festival of England seems to have closely resembled that
of France, and to have likewise taken in the long run a dramatic turn.
A short sketch of it will not be without interest.

I have quoted at the beginning of this discussion of folk-customs the
thirteenth-century condemnations of the _Inductio Maii_ by Bishop
Grosseteste of Lincoln and of the _ludi de Rege et Regina_ by Bishop
Chanteloup of Worcester. The _ludus de Rege et Regina_ is not indeed
necessarily to be identified with the _Inductio Maii_, for the harvest
feast or _Inductio Autumni_ of Bishop Grosseteste had also its
‘king’ and ‘queen,’ and so too had some of the feasts in the winter
cycle, notably Twelfth night[569]. It is, however, in the summer
feast held usually on the first of May or at Whitsuntide[570], that
these rustic dignitaries are more particularly prominent. Before the
middle of the fifteenth century I have not come across many notices
of them. That a summer king was familiar in Scotland is implied by
the jest of Robert Bruce’s wife after his coronation at Scone in
1306[571]. In 1412 a ‘somerkyng’ received a reward from the bursar of
Winchester College[572]. But from about 1450 onwards they begin to
appear frequently in local records. The whole _ludus_ is generally
known as a ‘May-play’ or ‘May-game,’ or as a ‘king-play[573],’
‘king’s revel[574],’ or ‘king-game[575].’ The leading personages
are indifferently the ‘king’ and ‘queen,’ or ‘lord’ and ‘lady.’ But
sometimes the king is more specifically the ‘somerkyng’ or _rex
aestivalis_. At other times he is the ‘lord of misrule[576],’ or takes
a local title, such as that of the ‘Abbot of Marham,’ ‘Mardall,’
‘Marrall,’ ‘Marram,’ ‘Mayvole’ or ‘Mayvoll’ at Shrewsbury[577], and the
‘Abbot of Bon-Accord’ at Aberdeen[578]. The use of an ecclesiastical
term will be explained in a later chapter[579]. The queen appears to
have been sometimes known as a ‘whitepot’ queen[580]. And finally
the king and queen receive, in many widely separated places, the
names of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and are accompanied in their
revels by Little John, Friar Tuck, and the whole joyous fellowship
of Sherwood Forest[581]. This affiliation of the _ludus de Rege et
Regina_ to the Robin Hood legend is so curious as to deserve a moment’s
examination[582].

The earliest recorded mention of Robin Hood is in Langland’s _Piers
Plowman_, written about 1377. Here he is coupled with another great
popular hero of the north as a subject of current songs:

‘But I can rymes of Robyn hood, and Randolf erle of Chestre[583].’

In the following century his fame as a great outlaw spread far and
wide, especially in the north and the midlands[584]. The Scottish
chronicler Bower tells us in 1447 that whether for comedy or tragedy
no other subject of romance and minstrelsy had such a hold upon
the common folk[585]. The first of the extant ballads of the cycle,
_A Gest of Robyn Hode_, was probably printed before 1500, and in
composition may be at least a century earlier. A recent investigator
of the legend, and a very able one, denies to Robin Hood any traceable
historic origin. He is, says Dr. Child, ‘absolutely a creation of the
ballad muse.’ However this may be, the version of the Elizabethan
playwright Anthony Munday, who made him an earl of Huntingdon and
the lover of Matilda the daughter of Lord Fitzwater, may be taken
as merely a fabrication. And whether he is historical or not, it is
difficult to see how he got, as by the sixteenth century he did get,
into the May-game. One theory is that he was there from the beginning,
and that he is in fact a mythological figure, whose name but faintly
disguises either Woden in the aspect of a vegetation deity[586], or
a minor wood-spirit Hode, who also survives in the Hodeken of German
legend[587]. Against this it may be pointed out, firstly that Hood is
not an uncommon English name, probably meaning nothing but ‘à-Wood’ or
‘of the wood[588],’ and secondly that we have seen no reason to suppose
that the mock king, which is the part assigned to Robin Hood in the
May-game, was ever regarded as an incarnation of the fertilization
spirit at all. He is the priest of that spirit, slain at its festival,
but nothing more. I venture to offer a more plausible explanation. It
is noticeable that whereas in the May-game Robin Hood and Maid Marian
are inseparable, in the early ballads Maid Marian has no part. She
is barely mentioned in one or two of the latest ones[589]. Moreover
Marian is not an English but a French name, and we have already seen
that Robin and Marion are the typical shepherd and shepherdess of the
French _pastourelles_ and of Adan de la Hale’s dramatic _jeu_ founded
upon these. I suggest then, that the names were introduced by the
minstrels into English and transferred from the French _fêtes du mai_
to the ‘lord’ and ‘lady’ of the corresponding English May-game. Robin
Hood grew up independently from heroic _cantilenae_, but owing to the
similarity of name he was identified with the other Robin, and brought
Little John, Friar Tuck and the rest with him into the May-game. On
the other hand Maid Marian, who does not properly belong to the heroic
legend, was in turn, naturally enough, adopted into the later ballads.
This is an hypothesis, but not, I think, an unlikely hypothesis.

Of what, then, did the May-game, as it took shape in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, consist? Primarily, no doubt, of a _quête_
or ‘gaderyng.’ In many places this became a parochial, or even a
municipal, affair. In 1498 the corporation of Wells possessed moneys
‘_provenientes ante hoc tempus de Robynhode_[590].’ Elsewhere the
churchwardens paid the expenses of the feast and accounted for the
receipts in the annual parish budget[591]. There are many entries
concerning the May-game in the accounts of Kingston-on-Thames during
some half a century. In 1506 it is recorded that ‘Wylm. Kempe’ was
‘kenge’ and ‘Joan Whytebrede’ was ‘quen.’ In 1513 and again in 1536
the game went to Croydon[592]. Similarly the accounts of New Romney
note that in 1422 or thereabouts the men of Lydd ‘came with their may
and ours[593],’ and those of Reading St. Lawrence that in 1505 came
‘Robyn Hod of Handley and his company’ and in 1507 ‘Robyn Hod and his
company from ffynchamsted[594].’ In contemporary Scotland James IV
gave a present at midsummer in 1503 ‘to Robin Hude of Perth[595].’ It
would hardly have been worth while, however, to carry the May-game from
one village or town to another, had it been nothing but a procession
with a garland and a ‘gaderyng’; and as a matter of fact we find that
in England as in France dramatic performances came to be associated
with the summer folk-festivals. The London ‘Maying’ included stage
plays[596]. At Shrewsbury _lusores_ under the Abbot of Marham acted
interludes ‘for the glee of the town’ at Pentecost[597]. The guild of
St. Luke at Norwich performed secular as well as miracle plays, and the
guild of Holy Cross at Abingdon held its feast on May 3 with ‘pageants,
plays and May-games,’ as early as 1445[598]. Some of these plays were
doubtless miracles, but so far as they were secular, the subjects of
them were naturally drawn, in the absence of _pastourelles_, from the
ballads of the Robin Hood cycle[599]. Amongst the Paston letters is
preserved one written in 1473, in which the writer laments the loss
of a servant, whom he has kept ‘thys iij yer to pleye Seynt Jorge and
Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham[600].’ Moreover, some specimens
of the plays themselves are still extant. One of them, unfortunately
only a fragment, must be the very play referred to in the letter just
quoted, for its subject is ‘Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham,’
and it is found on a scrap of paper formerly in the possession of Sir
John Fenn, the first editor of the _Paston Letters_[601]. A second
play on ‘Robin Hood and the Friar’ and a fragment of a third on ‘Robin
Hood and the Potter’ were printed by Copland in the edition of the
_Gest of Robyn Hode_ published by him about 1550[602]. The Robin Hood
plays are, of course, subsequent to the development of religious drama
which will be discussed in the next volume. They are of the nature of
interludes, and were doubtless written, like the plays of Adan de la
Hale, by some clerk or minstrel for the delectation of the villagers.
They are, therefore, in a less degree folk-drama, than the examples
which we shall have to consider in the next chapter. But it is worthy
of notice, that even in the hey-day of the stage under Elizabeth
and James I, the summer festival continued to supply motives to the
dramatists. Anthony Munday’s _Downfall and Death of Robert Earl of
Huntingdon_[603], Chapman’s _May-Day_, and Jonson’s delightful fragment
_The Sad Shepherd_ form an interesting group of pastoral comedies,
affinities to which may be traced in the _As You Like It_ and _Winter’s
Tale_ of Shakespeare himself.

As has been said, it is impossible to establish any direct affiliation
between the Robin Hood plays and earlier _caroles_ on the same theme,
in the way in which this can be done for the _jeu_ of Adan de la Hale,
and the Robin and Marion of the _pastourelles_. The extant Robin Hood
ballads are certainly not _caroles_; they are probably not folk-song at
all, but minstrelsy of a somewhat debased type. The only actual trace
of such _caroles_ that has been come across is the mention of ‘Robene
hude’ as the name of a dance in the _Complaynt of Scotland_ about
1548[604]. Dances, however, of one kind or another, there undoubtedly
were at the May-games. The Wells corporation accounts mention _puellae
tripudiantes_ in close relation with _Robynhode_[605]. And particularly
there was the morris-dance, which was so universally in use on May-day,
that it borrowed, almost in permanence, for its leading character the
name of Maid Marian. The morris-dance, however, is common to nearly
all the village feasts, and its origin and nature will be matter for
discussion in the next chapter.

In many places, even during the Middle Ages, and still more
afterwards, the summer feast dropped out or degenerated. It became a
mere beer-swilling, an ‘ale[606].’ And so we find in the sixteenth
century a ‘king-ale[607]’ or a ‘Robin Hood’s ale[608],’ and in modern
times a ‘Whitsun-ale[609],’ a ‘lamb-ale[610]’ or a ‘gyst-ale[611]’
beside the ‘church-ales’ and ‘scot-ales’ which the thirteenth-century
bishops had already condemned[612]. On the other hand, the village
festival found its way to court, and became a sumptuous pageant under
the splendour-loving Tudors. For this, indeed, there was Arthurian
precedent in the romance of Malory, who records how Guenever was taken
by Sir Meliagraunce, when ‘as the queen had mayed and all her knights,
all were bedashed with herbs, mosses, and flowers, in the best manner
and freshest[613].’ The chronicler Hall tells of the Mayings of Henry
VIII in 1510, 1511, and 1515. In the last of these some hundred and
thirty persons took part. Henry was entertained by Robin Hood and the
rest with shooting-matches and a collation of venison in a bower; and
returning was met by a chariot in which rode the Lady May and the
Lady Flora, while on the five horses sat the Ladies Humidity, Vert,
Vegetave, Pleasaunce and Sweet Odour[614]. Obviously the pastime
has here degenerated in another direction. It has become learned,
allegorical, and pseudo-classic. At the Reformation the May-game and
the May-pole were marks for Puritan onslaught. Latimer, in one of his
sermons before Edward VI, complains how, when he had intended to preach
in a certain country town on his way to London, he was told that he
could not be heard, for ‘it is Robyn hoodes daye. The parishe are gone
a brode to gather for Robyn hoode[615].’ Machyn’s _Diary_ mentions the
breaking of a May-pole in Fenchurch by the lord mayor of 1552[616],
and the revival of elaborate and heterogeneous May-games throughout
London during the brief span of Queen Mary[617]. The Elizabethan
Puritans renewed the attack, but though something may have been done by
reforming municipalities here and there to put down the festivals[618],
the ecclesiastical authorities could not be induced to go much beyond
forbidding them to take place in churchyards[619]. William Stafford,
indeed, declared in 1581 that ‘May-games, wakes, and revels’ were
‘now laid down[620],’ but the violent abuse directed against them
only two years later by Philip Stubbes, which may be taken as a fair
sample of the Puritan polemic as a whole, shows that this was far from
being really the case[621]. In Scotland the Parliament ordered, as
early as 1555, that no one ‘be chosen Robert Hude, nor Lytill Johne,
Abbot of vnressoun, Quenis of Maij, nor vtherwyse, nouther in Burgh
nor to landwart in ony tyme to cum[622].’ But the prohibition was not
very effective, for in 1577 and 1578 the General Assembly is found
petitioning for its renewal[623]. And in England no similar action was
taken until 1644 when the Long Parliament decreed the destruction of
such May-poles as the municipalities had spared. Naturally this policy
was reversed at the Restoration, and a new London pole was erected in
the Strand, hard by Somerset House, which endured until 1717[624].

CHAPTER IX

THE SWORD-DANCE

[_Bibliographical Note._--The books mentioned in the
bibliographical note to the last chapter should be consulted on
the general tendency to μίμησις in festival dance and song. The
symbolical dramatic ceremonies of the _renouveau_ are collected
by Dr. J. G. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_. The sword-dance has
been the subject of two elaborate studies: K. Müllenhoff, _Ueber
den Schwerttanz_, in _Festgaben für Gustav Homeyer_ (1871), iii,
with additions in _Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum_, xviii.
9, xx. 10; and F. A. Mayer, _Ein deutsches Schwerttanzspiel
aus Ungarn_ (with full bibliography), in _Zeitschrift für
Völkerpsychologie_ (1889), 204, 416. The best accounts of the
morris-dance are in F. Douce, _Illustrations of Shakespeare_
(1807, new ed. 1839), and A. Burton, _Rushbearing_ (1891), 95.]

The last two chapters have afforded more than one example of village
festival customs ultimately taking shape as drama. But neither the
English Robin Hood plays, nor the French _Jeu de Robin et Marion_, can
be regarded as folk-drama in the proper sense of the word. They were
written not by the folk themselves, but by _trouvères_ or minstrels
_for_ the folk; and at a period when the independent evolution of
the religious play had already set a model of dramatic composition.
Probably the same is true of the Hox Tuesday play in the form in which
we may conjecture it to have been presented before Elizabeth late in
the sixteenth century. Nevertheless it is possible to trace, apart
from minstrel intervention and apart from imitation of miracles, the
existence of certain embryonic dramatic tendencies in the village
ceremonies themselves. Too much must not be made of these. Jacob Grimm
was inclined to find in them the first vague beginnings of the whole of
modern drama[625]. This is demonstrably wrong. Modern drama arose, by
a fairly well defined line of evolution, from a threefold source, the
ecclesiastical liturgy, the farce of the mimes, the classical revivals
of humanism. Folk-drama contributed but the tiniest rill to the mighty
stream. Such as it was, however, a couple of further chapters may be
not unprofitably spent in its analysis.

The festival customs include a number of dramatic rites which appear
to have been originally symbolical expressions of the facts of
seasonal recurrence lying at the root of the festivals themselves. The
antithesis of winter and summer, the _renouveau_ of spring, are mimed
in three or four distinct fashions. The first and the most important,
as well as the most widespread of these, is the mock representation
of a death or burial. Dr. Frazer has collected many instances of the
ceremony known as the ‘expulsion of Death[626].’ This takes place
at various dates in spring and early summer, but most often on the
fourth Sunday in Lent, one of the many names of which is consequently
_Todten-Sonntag_. An effigy is made, generally of straw, but in some
cases of birch twigs, a beechen bough, or other such material. This
is called Death, is treated with marks of fear, hatred or contempt,
and is finally carried in procession, and thrust over the boundary of
the village. Or it is torn in pieces, buried, burnt, or thrown into
a river or pool. Sometimes the health or other welfare of the folk
during the year is held to depend on the rite being duly performed. The
fragments of Death have fertilizing efficacy for women and cattle; they
are put in the fields, the mangers, the hens’ nests. Here and there
women alone take part in the ceremony, but more often it is common to
the whole village. The expulsion of Death is found in various parts
of Teutonic Germany, but especially in districts such as Thuringia,
Bohemia, Silesia, where the population is wholly or mainly Slavonic. A
similar custom, known both in Slavonic districts and in Italy, France,
and Spain, had the name of ‘sawing the old woman.’ At Florence, for
instance, the effigy of an old woman was placed on a ladder. At Mid
Lent it was sawn through, and the nuts and dried fruits with which it
was stuffed scrambled for by the crowd. At Palermo there was a still
more realistic representation with a real old woman, to whose neck a
bladder of blood was fitted[627].

The ‘Death’ of the German and Slavonic form of the custom has clearly
come to be regarded as the personification of the forces of evil within
the village; and the ceremony of expulsion may be compared with other
periodical rites, European and non-European, in which evil spirits are
similarly expelled[628]. The effigy may even be regarded in the light
of a scapegoat, bearing away the sins of the community[629]. But it is
doubtful how far the notion of evil spirits warring against the good
spirits which protect man and his crops is a European, or at any rate
a primitive European one[630]; and it may perhaps be taken for granted
that what was originally thought to be expelled in the rite was not so
much either ‘Death’ or ‘Sin’ as winter. This view is confirmed by the
evidence of an eighth-century homily, which speaks of the expulsion
of winter in February as a relic of pagan belief[631]. Moreover, the
expulsion of Death is often found in the closest relation to the more
widespread custom of bringing summer, in the shape of green tree or
bough, into the village. The procession which carries away the dead
effigy brings back the summer tree; and the rhymes used treat the two
events as connected[632].

The homily just quoted suggests that the mock funeral or expulsion of
winter was no new thing in the eighth century. On the other hand, it
can hardly be supposed that customs which imply such abstract ideas
as death, or even as summer and winter, belong to the earliest stages
of the village festival. What has happened is what happens in other
forms of festival play. The instinct of play, in this case finding
vent in a dramatic representation of the succession of summer to
winter, has taken hold of and adapted to its own purposes elements
in the celebrations which, once significant, have gradually come to
be mere traditional survivals. Such are the ceremonial burial in the
ground, the ceremonial burning, the ceremonial plunging into water,
of the representative of the fertilization spirit. In particular,
the southern term ‘the old woman’ suggests that the effigy expelled
or destroyed is none other than the ‘corn mother’ or ‘harvest-May,’
fashioned to represent the fertilization spirit out of the last sheaf
at harvest, and preserved until its place is taken by a new and green
representative in the spring.

There are, however, other versions of the mock death in which the
central figure of the little drama is not the representative of the
fertilization spirit itself, but one of the worshippers. In Bavaria
the Whitsuntide _Pfingstl_ is dressed in leaves and water-plants with
a cap of peonies. He is soused with water, and then, in mimicry,
has his head cut off. Similar customs prevail in the Erzgebirge and
elsewhere[633]. We have seen this _Pfingstl_ before. He is the Jack in
the green, the worshipper clad in the god under whose protection he
desires to put himself[634]. But how can the killing of him symbolize
the spring, for obviously it is the coming summer, not the dying
winter, that the leaf-clad figure must represent? The fact is that the
Bavarian drama is not complete. The full ceremony is found in other
parts of Germany. Thus in Saxony and Thuringia a ‘wild man’ covered
with leaves and moss is hunted in a wood, caught, and executed. Then
comes forward a lad dressed as a doctor, who brings the victim to life
again by bleeding[635]. Even so annually the summer dies and has its
resurrection. In Swabia, again, on Shrove Tuesday, ‘Dr. Eisenbart’
bleeds a man to death, and afterwards revives him. This same Dr.
Eisenbart appears also in the Swabian Whitsuntide execution, although
here too the actual resurrection seems to have dropped out of the
ceremony[636]. It is interesting to note that the green man of the
peasantry, who dies and lives again, reappears as the Green Knight in
one of the most famous divisions of Arthurian romance[637].

The mock death or burial type of folk-drama resolves itself, then,
into two varieties. In one, it is winter whose passing is represented,
and for this the discarded harvest-May serves as a nucleus. In the
other, which is not really complete without a resurrection, it is
summer, whose death is mimed merely as a preliminary to its joyful
renewal; and this too is built up around a fragment of ancient cult
in the person of the leaf-clad worshipper, who is, indeed, none other
than the priest-king, once actually, and still in some sort and show,
slain at the festival[638]. In the instances so far dealt with, the
original significance of the rite is still fairly traceable. But there
are others into which new meanings, due to the influence of Christian
custom, have been read. In many parts of Germany customs closely
analogous to those of the expulsion of winter or Death take place
on Shrove Tuesday, and have suffered metamorphosis into ‘burial of
the Carnival[639].’ England affords the ‘Jack o’ Lent’ effigy which
is taken to represent Judas Iscariot[640], the Lincoln ‘funeral of
Alleluia[641],’ the Tenby ‘making Christ’s bed[642],’ the Monkton
‘risin’ and buryin’ Peter[643].’ The truth that the vitality of a folk
custom is far greater than that of any single interpretation of it is
admirably illustrated.

Two other symbolical representations of the phenomena of the
_renouveau_ must be very briefly treated. At Briançon in Dauphiné,
instead of a death and resurrection, is used a pretty little May-day
drama, in which the leaf-clad man falls into sleep upon the ground
and is awakened by the kiss of a maiden[644]. Russia has a similar
custom; and such a magic kiss, bringing summer with it, lies at the
heart of the story of the Sleeping Beauty. Indeed, the marriage of
heaven and earth seems to have been a myth very early invented by the
Aryan mind to explain the fertility of crops beneath the rain, and
it probably received dramatic form in religious ceremonies both in
Greece and Italy[645]. Finally, there is a fairly widespread spring
custom of holding a dramatic fight between two parties, one clad in
green to represent summer, the other in straw or fur to represent
winter. Waldron describes this in the Isle of Man[646]; Olaus Magnus
in Sweden[647]. Grimm says that it is found in various districts on
both sides of the middle Rhine[648]. Perhaps both this dramatic battle
and that of the Coventry Hox Tuesday owe their origin to the struggle
for the fertilizing head of a sacrificial animal, which also issued
in football and similar games. Dr. Frazer quotes several instances
from all parts of the world in which a mock fight, or an interchange
of abuse and raillery taking the place of an actual fight, serves as
a crop-charm[649]. The summer and winter battle gave to literature a
famous type of neo-Latin and Romance _débat_[650]. In one of the most
interesting forms of this, the eighth-or ninth-century _Conflictus
Veris et Hiemis_, the subject of dispute is the cuckoo, which spring
praises and winter chides, while the shepherds declare that he must
be drowned or stolen away, because summer cometh not. The cuckoo is
everywhere a characteristic bird of spring, and his coming was probably
a primitive signal for the high summer festival[651].

The symbolical dramas of the seasons stand alone and independent,
but it may safely be asserted that drama first arose at the village
feasts in close relation to the dance. That dancing, like all the
arts, tends to be mimetic is a fact which did not escape the attention
of Aristotle[652]. The pantomimes of the decadent Roman stage are a
case in point. Greek tragedy itself had grown out of the Dionysiac
dithyramb, and travellers describe how readily the dances of the
modern savage take shape as primitive dramas of war, hunting, love,
religion, labour, or domestic life[653]. Doubtless this was the case
also with the _caroles_ of the European festivals. The types of
_chanson_ most immediately derived from these are full of dialogue, and
already on the point of bursting into drama. That they did do this,
with the aid of the minstrels, in the _Jeu de Robin et de Marion_
we have seen[654]. A curious passage in the _Itinerarium Cambriae_
of Giraldus Cambrensis (†1188) describes a dance of peasants in and
about the church of St. Elined, near Brecknock on the Gwyl Awst, in
which the ordinary operations of the village life, such as ploughing,
sewing, spinning were mimetically represented[655]. Such dances seem
to survive in some of the _rondes_ or ‘singing-games,’ so frequently
dramatic, of children[656]. On the whole, perhaps, these connect
themselves rather with the domestic than with the strictly agricultural
element in village cult. A large proportion of them are concerned with
marriage. But the domestic and the agricultural cannot be altogether
dissociated. The game of ‘Nuts in May,’ for instance, seems to have as
its kernel a reminiscence of marriage by capture; but the ‘nuts’ or
rather ‘knots’ or ‘posies’ ‘in May’ certainly suggest a setting at a
seasonal festival. So too, with ‘Round the Mulberry Bush.’ The mimicry
here is of domestic operations, but the ‘bush’ recalls the sacred
tree, the natural centre of the seasonal dances. The closest parallels
to the dance described by Giraldus Cambrensis are to be found in the
_rondes_ of ‘Oats and Beans and Barley’ and ‘Would you know how doth
the Peasant?’, in which the chief, though not always the only, subjects
of mimicry are ploughing, sowing and the like, and which frequently
contain a prayer or aspiration for the welfare of the crops[657].

I have treated the mimetic element of budding drama in the agricultural
festivals as being primarily a manifestation of the activities of play
determined in its direction by the dominant interests of the occasion,
and finding its material in the débris of ritual custom left over from
forgotten stages of religious thought. It is possible also to hold
that the _mimesis_ is more closely interwoven with the religious and
practical side of the festivals, and is in fact yet another example of
that primitive magical notion of causation by the production of the
similar, which is at the root of the rain-and sun-charms. Certainly the
village dramas, like the other ceremonies which they accompany, are
often regarded as influencing the luck of the farmer’s year; just as
the hunting-and war-dances of savages are often regarded not merely as
amusement or as practice for actual war and hunting, but as charms to
secure success in these pursuits[658]. But it does not seem clear to me
that in this case the magical efficacy belongs to the drama from the
beginning, and I incline to look upon it as merely part of the sanctity
of the feast as a whole, which has attached itself in the course of
time even to that side of it which began as play.

The evolution of folk-drama out of folk-dance may be most
completely studied through a comparison of the various types of
European sword-dance with the so-called ‘mummers’,’ ‘guisers’,’ or
‘Pace-eggers’’ play of Saint George. The history of the sword-dance
has received a good deal of attention from German archaeologists, who,
however, perhaps from imperfect acquaintance with the English data,
have stopped short of the affiliation to it of the play[659]. The
dance itself can boast a hoar antiquity. Tacitus describes it as the
one form of _spectaculum_ to be seen at the gatherings of the Germans
with whom he was conversant. The dancers were young men who leapt with
much agility amongst menacing spear-points and sword-blades[660]. Some
centuries later the use of _sweorda-gelac_ as a metaphor for battle in
_Beowulf_ shows that the term was known to the continental ancestors
of the Anglo-Saxons[661]. Then follows a long gap in the record,
bridged only by a doubtful reference in an eighth-century Frankish
homily[662], and a possible representation in a ninth-century Latin
and Anglo-Saxon manuscript[663]. The minstrels seem to have adopted
the sword-dance into their repertory[664], but the earliest mediaeval
notice of it as a popular _ludus_ is at Nuremberg in 1350. From that
date onwards until quite recent years it crops up frequently, alike
at Shrovetide, Christmas and other folk festivals, and as an element
in the revels at weddings, royal entries, and the like[665]. It is
fairly widespread throughout Germany. It is found in Italy, where it
is called the _mattaccino_[666], and in Spain (_matachin_), and under
this name or that of the _danse des bouffons_ it was known both in
France and England at the Renaissance[667]. It is given by Paradin
in his _Le Blason des Danses_ and, with the music and cuts of the
performers, by Tabourot in his _Orchésographie_ (1588)[668]. These are
the sophisticated versions of courtly halls. But about the same date
Olaus Magnus describes it as a folk-dance, to the accompaniment of
pipes or _cantilenae_, in Sweden[669]. In England, the main area of
the acknowledged sword-dance is in the north. It is found, according
to Mr. Henderson, from the Humber to the Cheviots; and it extends as
far south as Cheshire and Nottinghamshire[670]. Outlying examples are
recorded from Winchester[671] and from Devonshire[672]. In Scotland Sir
Walter Scott found it among the farthest Hebrides, and it has also been
traced in Fifeshire[673].

The name of _danse des bouffons_ sometimes given to the sword-dance
may be explained by a very constant feature of the English examples,
in which the dancers generally include or are accompanied by one or
more comic or grotesque personages. The types of these grotesques are
not kept very distinct in the descriptions, or, probably, in fact. But
they appear to be fundamentally two. There is the ‘Tommy’ or ‘fool,’
who wears the skin and tail of a fox or some other animal, and there is
the ‘Bessy,’ who is a man dressed in a woman’s clothes. And they can be
paralleled from outside England. A _Narr_ or _Fasching_ (carnival fool)
is a figure in several German sword-dances, and in one from Bohemia he
has his female counterpart in a _Mehlweib_[674].

With the _cantilenae_ noticed by Olaus Magnus may be compared the sets
of verses with which several modern sword-dances, both in these islands
and in Germany, are provided. They are sung before or during part of
the dances, and as a rule are little more than an introduction of
the performers, to whom they give distinctive names. If they contain
any incident, it is generally of the nature of a quarrel, in which
one of the dancers or one of the grotesques is killed. To this point
it will be necessary to return. The names given to the characters
are sometimes extremely nondescript; sometimes, under a more or less
literary influence, of an heroic order. Here and there a touch of
something more primitive may be detected. Five sets of verses from
the north of England are available in print. Two of these are of
Durham _provenance_. One, from Houghton-le-Spring, has, besides the
skin-clad ‘Tommy’ and the ‘Bessy,’ five dancers. These are King George,
a Squire’s Son also called Alick or Alex, a King of Sicily, Little
Foxey, and a Pitman[675]. The other Durham version has a captain called
True Blue, a Squire’s Son, Mr. Snip a tailor, a Prodigal Son (replaced
in later years by a Sailor), a Skipper, a Jolly Dog. There is only
one clown, who calls himself a ‘fool,’ and acts as treasurer. He is
named Bessy, but wears a hairy cap with a fox’s brush pendent[676].
Two other versions come from Yorkshire. At Wharfdale there are seven
dancers, Thomas the clown, his son Tom, Captain Brown, Obadiah Trim a
tailor, a Foppish Knight, Love-ale a vintner, and Bridget the clown’s
wife[677]. At Linton in Craven there are five, the clown, Nelson, Jack
Tar, Tosspot, and Miser a woman[678]. The fifth version is of unnamed
locality. It has two clowns, Tommy in skin and tail, and Bessy, and
amongst the dancers are a Squire’s Son and a Tailor[679]. Such a
nomenclature will not repay much analysis. The ‘Squire,’ whose son
figures amongst the dancers, is identical with the ‘Tommy,’ although
why he should have a son I do not know. Similarly, the ‘Bridget’ at
Wharfdale and the ‘Miser’ at Linton correspond to the ‘Bessy’ who
appears elsewhere.

The Shetland dance, so far as the names go, is far more literary
and less of a folk affair than any of the English examples. The
grotesques are absent altogether, and the dancers belong wholly to
that heroic category which is also represented in a degenerate form
at Houghton-le-Spring. They are in fact those ‘seven champions of
Christendom’--St. George of England, St. James of Spain, St. Denys of
France, St. David of Wales, St. Patrick of Ireland, St. Anthony of
Italy, and St. Andrew of Scotland--whose legends were first brought
together under that designation by Richard Johnson in 1596[680].

Precisely the same divergence between a popular and a literary or
heroic type of nomenclature presents itself in such of the German
sword-dance rhymes as are in print. Three very similar versions
from Styria, Hungary, and Bohemia are traceable to a common
‘Austro-Bavarian’ archetype[681]. The names of these, so far as they
are intelligible at all, appear to be due to the village imagination,
working perhaps in one or two instances, such as ‘Grünwald’ or ‘Wilder
Waldmann,’ upon stock figures of the folk festivals[682]. It is the
heroic element, however, which predominates in the two other sets of
verses which are available. One is from the Clausthal in the Harz
mountains, and here the dancers represent the five kings of England,
Saxony, Poland, Denmark, and Moorland, together with a serving-man,
Hans, and one Schnortison, who acts as leader and treasurer of the
party[683]. In the other, from Lübeck, the dancers are the ‘worthies’
Kaiser Karl, Josua, Hector, David, Alexander, and Judas Maccabaeus.
They fight with one Sterkader, in whom Müllenhoff finds the Danish hero
Stercatherus mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus; and to the Hans of the
Clausthal corresponds a Klas Rugebart, who seems to be the red-bearded
St. Nicholas[684].

In view of the wide range of the sword-dance in Germany, I do not think
it is necessary to attach any importance to the theories advanced by
Sir Walter Scott and others that it is, in England and Scotland, of
Scandinavian origin. It is true that it appears to be found mainly
in those parts of these islands where the influence of Danes and
Northmen may be conjectured to have been strongest. But I believe that
this is a matter of appearance merely, and that a type of folk-dance
far more widely spread in the south of England than the sword-dance
proper, is really identical with it. This is the morris-dance, the
chief characteristic of which is that the performers wear bells which
jingle at every step. Judging by the evidence of account-books, as
well as by the allusions of contemporary writers, the morris was
remarkably popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries[685].
Frequently, but by no means always, it is mentioned in company with the
May-game[686]. In a certain painted window at Betley in Staffordshire
are represented six morris-dancers, together with a May-pole, a
musician, a fool, a crowned man on a hobby-horse, a crowned lady
with a pink in her hand, and a friar. The last three may reasonably
be regarded as Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Friar Tuck[687]. The
closeness of the relation between the morris-dance and the May-game
is, however, often exaggerated. The Betley figures only accompany
the morris-dance; they do not themselves wear the bells. And besides
the window, the only trace of evidence that any member of the Robin
Hood _cortège_, with the exception of Maid Marian, was essential to
the morris-dance, is a passage in a masque of Ben Jonson’s, which so
seems to regard the friar[688]. The fact is that the morris-dance was
a great deal older, as an element in the May-game, than Robin Hood,
and that when Robin Hood’s name was forgotten in this connexion, the
morris-dance continued to be in vogue, not at May-games only, but at
every form of rustic merry-making. On the other hand, it is true that
the actual dancers were generally accompanied by grotesque personages,
and that one of these was a woman, or a man dressed in woman’s clothes,
to whom literary writers at least continued to give the name of Maid
Marian. The others have nothing whatever to do with Robin Hood. They
were a clown or fool, and a hobby-horse, who, if the evidence of an
Elizabethan song can be trusted, was already beginning to go out of
fashion[689]. A rarer feature was a dragon, and it is possible that,
when there was a dragon, the rider of the hobby-horse was supposed to
personate St. George[690]. The morris-dance is by no means extinct,
especially in the north and midlands. Accounts of it are available
from Lancashire and Cheshire[691], Derbyshire[692], Shropshire[693],
Leicestershire[694], and Oxfordshire[695]; and there are many other
counties in which it makes, or has recently made, an appearance[696].
The hobby-horse, it would seem, is now at last, except in Derbyshire,
finally ‘forgot’; but the two other traditional grotesques are still
_de rigueur_. Few morris-dances are complete without the ‘fool’ or
clown, amongst whose various names that of ‘squire’ in Oxfordshire and
that of ‘dirty Bet’ in Lancashire are the most interesting. The woman
is less invariable. Her Tudor name of Maid Marian is preserved in
Leicestershire alone; elsewhere she appears as a shepherdess, or Eve,
or ‘the fool’s wife’; and sometimes she is merged with the ‘fool’ into
a single nondescript personage.

The morris-dance is by no means confined to England. There are
records of it from Scotland[697], Germany[698], Flanders[699],
Switzerland[700], Italy[701], Spain[702], and France[703]. In the
last-named country Tabourot described it about 1588 under the name of
_morisque_[704], and the earlier English writers call it the _morisce_,
_morisk_, or _morisco_[705]. This seems to imply a derivation of the
name at least from the Spanish _morisco_, a Moor. The dance itself
has consequently been held to be of Moorish origin, and the habit
of blackening the face has been considered as a proof of this[706].
Such a theory seems to invert the order of facts. The dance is too
closely bound up with English village custom to be lightly regarded
as a foreign importation; and I would suggest that the faces were
not blackened, because the dancers represented Moors, but rather the
dancers were thought to represent Moors, because their faces were
blackened. The blackened face is common enough in the village festival.
Hence, as we have seen, May-day became proper to the chimney-sweeps,
and we have found a conjectural reason for the disguise in the
primitive custom of smearing the face with the beneficent ashes of
the festival fire[707]. Blackened faces are known in the sword-dance
as well as in the morris-dance[708]; and there are other reasons
which make it probable that the two are only variants of the same
performance. Tabourot, it is true, distinguishes _les bouffons_, or
the sword-dance, and _le morisque_; but then Tabourot is dealing
with the sophisticated versions of the folk-dances used in society,
and Cotgrave, translating _les buffons_, can find no better English
term than _morris_ for the purpose[709]. The two dances appear at
the same festivals, and they have the same grotesques; for the Tommy
and Bessy of the English sword-dance, who occasionally merge in one,
are obviously identical with the Maid Marian and the ‘fool’ of the
morris-dance, who also nowadays similarly coalesce. There are traces,
too, of an association of the hobby-horse with the sword-dance, as well
as with the morris-dance[710]. Most conclusive of all, however, is the
fact that in Oxfordshire and in Shropshire the morris-dancers still
use swords or wooden staves which obviously represent swords, and that
the performers of the elaborate Revesby sword-dance or play, to be
hereafter described, are called in the eighteenth-century manuscript
‘morrice dancers[711].’ I do not think that the floating handkerchiefs
of the morris-dance are found in its congener, nor do I know what,
if any, significance they have. Probably, like the ribbons, they
merely represent rustic notions of ornament. Müllenhoff lays stress
on the white shirts or smocks which he finds almost universal in the
sword-dance[712]. The morris-dancers are often described as dressed in
white; but here too, if the ordinary work-a-day costume is a smock,
the festal costume is naturally a clean white smock. Finally, there
are the bells. These, though they have partially disappeared in the
north, seem to be proper to the morris-dance, and to differentiate
it from the sword-dance[713]. But this is only so when the English
examples are alone taken into consideration, for Müllenhoff quotes
one Spanish and three German descriptions of sword-dances in which
the bells are a feature[714]. Tabourot affords similar evidence for
the French version[715]; while Olaus Magnus supplements his account
of the Scandinavian sword-dance with one of a similar performance, in
which the swords were replaced by bows, and bells were added[716]. The
object of the bells was probably to increase or preserve the musical
effect of the clashing swords. The performers known to Tacitus were
_nudi_, and no bells are mentioned. One other point with regard to
the morris-dance is worth noticing before we leave the subject. It
is capable of use both as a stationary and a processional dance, and
therefore illustrates both of the two types of dancing motion naturally
evolved from the circumstances of the village festival[717].

Müllenhoff regards the sword-dance as primarily a rhythmic _Abbild_ or
mimic representation of war, subsequently modified in character by use
at the village feasts[718]. It is true that the notice of Tacitus and
the allusion in _Beowulf_ suggest that it had a military character; and
it may fairly be inferred that it formed part of that war-cult from
which, as pointed out in a previous chapter, heroic poetry sprang. This
is confirmed by the fact that some at least of the _dramatis personae_
of the modern dances belong to the heroic category. Side by side with
local types such as the Pitman or the Sailor, and with doublets of
the grotesques such as Little Foxey or the Squire’s Son[719], appear
the five kings of the Clausthal dance, the ‘worthies’ of the Lübeck
dance, and the ‘champions of Christendom’ of the Shetland dance.
These particular groups betray a Renaissance rather than a mediaeval
imagination; as with the morris-dance of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_,
the village schoolmaster, Holophernes or another, has probably been
at work upon them[720]. Some of the heterogeneous English _dramatis
personae_, Nelson for instance, testify to a still later origin. On the
other hand, the Sterkader or Stercatherus of the Lübeck dance suggests
that genuine national heroes were occasionally celebrated in this
fashion. At the same time I do not believe, with Müllenhoff, that the
sword-dance originated in the war-cult. Its essentially agricultural
character seems to be shown by the grotesques traditionally associated
with it, the man in woman’s clothes, the skin or tail-wearing clown and
the hobby-horse, all of which seem to find their natural explanation
in the facts of agricultural worship[721]. Again, the dance makes its
appearance, not like heroic poetry in general as part of the minstrel
repertory, but as a purely popular thing at the agricultural festivals.
To these festivals, therefore, we may reasonably suppose it to have
originally belonged, and to have been borrowed from them by the young
warriors who danced before the king. They, however, perhaps gave it the
heroic element which, in its turn, drifted into the popular versions.
We have already seen that popular heroic _cantilenae_ existed together
with those of minstrelsy up to a late date. Nor does Müllenhoff’s view
find much support from the classical sword-dances which he adduces. As
to the origin of the _lusus Troiae_ or Pyrrhic dance which the Romans
adopted from Doric Greece, I can say nothing[722]; but the native
Italian dance of the _Salii_ or priests of Mars in March and October is
clearly agricultural. It belongs to the cult of Mars, not as war-god,
but in his more primitive quality of a fertilization spirit[723].

Further, I believe that the use of swords in the dance was not
martial at all; their object was to suggest not a fight, but a mock
or symbolical sacrifice. Several of the dances include figures in
which the swords are brought together in a significant manner about
the person of one or more of the dancers. Thus in the Scandinavian
dance described by Olaus Magnus, a _quadrata rosa_ of swords is placed
on the head of each performer. A precisely similar figure occurs in
the Shetland and in a variety of the Yorkshire dances[724]. In the
Siebenbürgen dances there are two figures in which the performers
pretend to cut at each other’s heads or feet, and a third in which one
of them has the swords put in a ring round his neck[725]. This latter
evolution occurs also in a variety of the Yorkshire dance[726] and in
a Spanish one described by Müllenhoff after a seventeenth-century
writer. And here the figure has the significant name of _la degollada_,
‘the beheading[727].’

CHAPTER X

THE MUMMERS’ PLAY

[_Bibliographical Note._--The subject is treated by T. F. Ordish,
_English Folk-Drama_ in _Folk-Lore_, ii. 326, iv. 162. The
Folk-Lore Society has in preparation a volume on Folk-Drama to be
edited by Mr. Ordish (_F. L._ xiii. 296). The following is a list
of the twenty-nine printed versions upon which the account of the
St. George play in the present chapter is based. The Lutterworth
play is given in Appendix K.

NORTHUMBERLAND.

1. _Newcastle._ Chap-book--W. Sandys, _Christmastide_, 292, from
_Alexander and the King of Egypt. A mock Play, as it is acted by
the Mummers every Christmas_. Newcastle, 1788. (Divided into Acts
and Scenes.)

CUMBERLAND.

2. _Whitehaven._ Chap-book--Hone, _E. D. B._ ii. 1646.
(Practically identical with (1).)

LANCASHIRE.

3. _Manchester._ Chap-book--_The Peace Egg_, published by J.
Wrigley, 30, Miller Street, Manchester. (Brit. Mus. 1077, _g_/27
(37): Acts and Scenes: a coloured cut of each character.)

SHROPSHIRE.

4. _Newport._ Oral. Jackson and Burne, 484. (Called the Guisers’
(gheez-u´rz) play.)

STAFFORDSHIRE.

5. _Eccleshall._ Oral. _F. L. J._ iv. 350. (Guisers’ play:
practically identical with (4). I have not seen a version from
Stone in W. W. Bladen, _Notes on the Folk-lore of North Staffs._:
cf. _F. L._ xiii. 107.)

LEICESTERSHIRE.

6. _Lutterworth._ Oral. Kelly, 53; Manly, i. 292; _Leicester F.
L._ 130.

WORCESTERSHIRE.

7. _Leigh._ Oral. 2 _N. Q._ xi. 271.

WARWICKSHIRE.

8. _Newbold._ Oral. _F. L._ x. 186 (with variants from a similar
Rugby version).

OXFORDSHIRE.

9. _Islip._ Oral. Ditchfield, 316.

10. _Bampton._ Oral. Ditchfield, 320.

11. _Thame._ Oral. 5 _N. Q._ ii. 503; Manly, i. 289.

12. _Uncertain._ Oral. 6 _N. Q._ xii. 489; Ashton, 128.

BERKSHIRE.

13. _Uncertain._ Oral. Ditchfield, 310.

MIDDLESEX.

14. _Chiswick._ Oral. 2 _N. Q._ x. 466.

SUSSEX.

15. _Selmeston._ Oral. Parish, _Dict. of Sussex Dialect_ (2nd ed.
1875), 136.

16. _Hollington._ Oral. 5 _N. Q._ x. 489.

17. _Steyning._ Oral. _F. L. J._ ii. 1. (The ‘Tipteerers’’ play.)

HAMPSHIRE.

18. _St. Mary Bourne._ Oral. Stevens, _Hist. of St. Mary Bourne_,
340.

19. _Uncertain._ Oral. 2 _N. Q._ xii. 492.

DORSETSHIRE.

20. (A) _Uncertain._ Oral. _F. L. R._ iii. 92; Ashton, 129.

21. (B) _Uncertain._ Oral. _F. L. R._ iii. 102.

CORNWALL.

22. _Uncertain._ Oral. Sandys, _Christmastide_, 298. (Slightly
different version in Sandys, _Christmas Carols_, 174; Du Méril,
_La Com._ 428.)

WALES.

23. _Tenby._ Oral. Chambers, _Book of Days_, ii. 740, from _Tales
and Traditions of Tenby_.

IRELAND.

24. _Belfast._ Chap-book. 4 _N. Q._ x. 487. (‘The Christmas
Rhymes.’)

25. _Ballybrennan, Wexford._ Oral. Kennedy, _The Banks of the
Boro_, 226.

UNCERTAIN LOCALITY.

26. _Sharpe’s London Magazine_, i. 154. Oral.

27. _Archaeologist_, i. 176. Chap-book. H. Sleight, _A Christmas
Pageant Play or Mysterie of St. George, Alexander and the King
of Egypt_. (Said to be ‘compiled from and collated with several
curious ancient black-letter editions.’ I have never seen or
heard of a ‘black-letter’ edition, and I take it the improbable
title is Mr. Sleight’s own.)

28. Halliwell. Oral. _Popular Rhymes_, 231. (Said to be the best
of six versions.)

29. _F. L. J._ iv. 97. (Fragment, from ‘old MS.’)]

The _degollada_ figures of certain sword-dances preserve with some
clearness the memory of an actual sacrifice, abolished and replaced
by a mere symbolic dumb show. Even in these, and still more in
the other dances, the symbolism is very slight. It is completely
subordinated to the rhythmic evolutions of a choric figure. There is
an advance, however, in the direction of drama, when in the course
of the performance some one is represented as actually slain. In a
few dances of the type discussed in the last chapter, such a dramatic
episode precedes or follows the regular figures. It is recorded in
three or four of the German examples[728]. A writer in the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ describes a Yorkshire dance in which ‘the Bessy interferes
while they are making a hexagon with their swords, and is killed.’
Amongst the characters of this dance is a Doctor, and although the
writer does not say so, it may be inferred that the function of the
Doctor is to bring the Bessy to life again[729]. It will be remembered
that a precisely similar device is used in the German Shrove Tuesday
plays to symbolize the resurrection of the year in spring after its
death in winter. The Doctor reappears in one of the Durham dances, and
here there is no doubt as to the part he plays. At a certain point the
careful formations of the dance degenerate into a fight. The parish
clergyman rushes in to separate the combatants. He is accidentally
slain. There is general lamentation, but the Doctor comes forward, and
revives the victim, and the dance proceeds[730].

It is but a step from such dramatic episodes to the more elaborate
performances which remain to be considered in the present chapter, and
which are properly to be called plays rather than dances. They belong
to a stage in the evolution of drama from dance, in which the dance
has been driven into the background and has sometimes disappeared
altogether. But they have the same characters, and especially the same
grotesques, as the dances, and the general continuity of the two sets
of performances cannot be doubted. Moreover, though the plays differ
in many respects, they have a common incident, which may reasonably be
taken to be the central incident, in the death and revival, generally
by a Doctor, of one of the characters. And in virtue of this central
incident one is justified in classing them as forms of a folk-drama in
which the resurrection of the year is symbolized.

I take first, on account of the large amount of dancing which remains
in it, the play acted at the end of the eighteenth century by ‘The Plow
Boys or Morris Dancers’ of Revesby in Lincolnshire[731]. There are
seven dancers: six men, the Fool and his five sons, Pickle Herring,
Blue Breeches, Pepper Breeches, Ginger Breeches, and Mr. Allspice[732];
and one woman, Cicely. The somewhat incoherent incidents are as
follows. The Fool acts as presenter and introduces the play. He fights
successively a Hobby-horse and a ‘Wild Worm’ or dragon. The dancers
‘lock their swords to make the glass,’ which, after some jesting, is
broken up again. The sons determine to kill the Fool. He kneels down
and makes his will, with the swords round his neck[733]; is slain and
revived by Pickle Herring stamping with his foot. This is repeated with
variations. Hitherto, the dancers have ‘footed it’ round the room at
intervals. Now follow a series of sword-dances. During and after these
the Fool and his sons in turn woo Cicely, the Fool taking the name of
‘Anthony[734],’ Pickle Herring that of ‘the Lord of Pool,’ and Blue
Breeches that of ‘the Knight of Lee.’ There is nothing particularly
interesting about this part of the play, obviously written to ‘work in’
the woman grotesque. In the course of it a morris-dance is introduced,
and a final sword-dance, with an obeisance to the master of the house,
winds up the whole.

Secondly, there are the Plough Monday plays of the east Midlands[735].
These appear in Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.
Two printed versions are available. The first comes from Cropwell in
Nottinghamshire[736]. The actors are ‘the plough-bullocks.’ The male
characters are Tom the Fool, a Recruiting Sergeant, and a Ribboner or
Recruit, three farm-servants, Threshing Blade, Hopper Joe[737], and the
Ploughman, a Doctor, and Beelzebub[738]. There are two women, a young
Lady and old Dame Jane. Tom Fool is presenter. The Ribboner, rejected
by the young Lady, enlists as a recruit. The Lady is consoled by Tom
Fool. Then enter successively the three farm-servants, each describing
his function on the farm. Dame Jane tries to father a child on Tom
Fool. Beelzebub knocks her down[739], and kills her. The Doctor comes
in, and after some comic business about his travels, his qualifications
and his remedies[740], declares Dame Jane to be only in a trance, and
raises her up. A country dance and songs follow, and the performance
ends with a _quête_. The second version, from Lincolnshire, is very
similar[741]. But there are no farm-servants, and instead of Beelzebub
is a personage called ‘old Esem Esquesem,’ who carries a broom. It is
he, not an old woman, who is killed and brought to life. There are
several dancers, besides the performers; and these include ‘Bessy,’ a
man dressed as a woman, with a cow’s tail.

The distinction between a popular and a literary or heroic type of
personification which was noticeable in the sword-dances persists in
the folk-plays founded upon them. Both in the Revesby play and in the
Plough Monday plays, the drama is carried on by personages resembling
the ‘grotesques’ of the sword-and morris-dances[742]. There are no
heroic characters. The death is of the nature of an accident or an
execution. On the other hand, in the ‘mummers’ play’ of St. George, the
heroes take once more the leading part, and the death, or at least one
of the deaths, is caused by a fight amongst them. This play is far more
widely spread than its rivals. It is found in all parts of England, in
Wales, and in Ireland; in Scotland it occurs also, but here some other
hero is generally substituted as protagonist for St. George[743]. The
following account is based on the twenty-nine versions, drawn from
chap-books or from oral tradition, enumerated in the bibliographical
note. The list might, doubtless, be almost indefinitely extended. As
will soon be seen, the local variations of the play are numerous. In
order to make them intelligible, I have given in full in an appendix
a version from Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This is chosen, not as
a particularly interesting variant, for that it is not, but on the
contrary as being comparatively colourless. It shows very clearly and
briefly the normal structure of the play, and may be regarded as the
type from which the other versions diverge[744].

The whole performance may be divided, for convenience of analysis,
into three parts, the Presentation, the Drama, the _Quête_. In
the first somebody speaks a prologue, claiming a welcome from
the spectators[745], and then the leading characters are in turn
introduced. The second consists of a fight followed by the intervention
of a doctor to revive the slain. In the third some supernumerary
characters enter, and there is a collection. It is the dramatic
nucleus that first requires consideration. The leading fighter is
generally St. George, who alone appears in all the versions. Instead
of ‘St. George,’ he is sometimes called ‘Sir George,’ and more
often ‘Prince George’ or ‘King George,’ modifications which one
may reasonably suppose to be no older than the present Hanoverian
dynasty. At Whitehaven and at Falkirk he is ‘Prince George of Ville.’
George’s chief opponent is usually one of two personages, who are not
absolutely distinct from each other[746]. One is the ‘Turkish Knight,’
of whom a variant appears to be the ‘Prince of Paradine’ (Manchester),
or ‘Paradise’ (Newport, Eccleshall), perhaps originally ‘Palestine.’
He is sometimes represented with a blackened face[747]. The other is
variously called ‘Slasher,’ ‘Captain Slasher,’ ‘Bold Slasher,’ or,
by an obvious corruption, ‘Beau Slasher.’ Rarer names for him are
‘Bold Slaughterer’ (Bampton), ‘Captain Bluster’ (Dorset [A]), and
‘Swiff, Swash, and Swagger’ (Chiswick). His names fairly express his
vaunting disposition, which, however, is largely shared by the other
characters in the play. In the place of, or as minor fighters by the
side of George, the Turkish Knight and Bold Slasher, there appear,
in one version or another, a bewildering variety of personages, of
whom only a rough classification can be attempted. Some belong to the
heroic cycles. Such are ‘Alexander’ (Newcastle, Whitehaven), ‘Hector’
(Manchester), ‘St. Guy’ (Newport), ‘St. Giles’ (Eccleshall)[748], ‘St.
Patrick’ (Dorset [A], Wexford), ‘King Alfred’ and ‘King Cole’ (Brill),
‘Giant Blunderbore’ (Brill), ‘Giant Turpin’ (Cornwall). Others again
are moderns who have caught the popular imagination: ‘Bold Bonaparte’
(Leigh)[749], and ‘King of Prussia’ (Bampton, Oxford)[750], ‘King
William’ (Brill), the ‘Duke of Cumberland’ (Oxford) and the ‘Duke of
Northumberland’ (Islip), ‘Lord Nelson’ (Stoke Gabriel, Devon)[751],
‘Wolfe’ and ‘Wellington’ (Cornwall)[752], even the ‘Prince Imperial’
(Wilts)[753], all have been pressed into the service. In some cases
characters have lost their personal names, if they ever had any,
and figure merely as ‘Knight,’ ‘Soldier,’ ‘Valiant Soldier,’ ‘Noble
Captain,’ ‘Bold Prince,’ ‘Gracious King.’ Others bear names which defy
explanation, ‘Alonso’ (Chiswick), ‘Hy Gwyer’ (Hollington), ‘Marshalee’
and ‘Cutting Star’ (Dorset [B]). The significance of ‘General
Valentine’ and ‘Colonel Spring’ (Dorset [A]) will be considered
presently; and ‘Room’ (Dorset [B]), ‘Little Jack,’ the ‘Bride’ and
the ‘Fool’ (Brill), and the ‘King of Egypt’ (Newcastle, Whitehaven)
have strayed in amongst the fighters from the presenters. The fighting
generally takes the form of a duel, or a succession of duels. In the
latter case, George may fight all comers, or he may intervene to subdue
a previously successful champion. But an important point is that he
is not always victorious. On the contrary, the versions in which he
slays and those in which he is slain are about equal in number. In two
versions (Brill, Steyning) the fighting is not a duel or a series of
duels, but a _mêlée_. The Brill play, in particular, is quite unlike
the usual type. A prominent part is taken by the Dragon, with whom
fight, all at once, St. George and a heterogeneous company made up of
King Alfred and his Bride, King Cole, King William, Giant Blunderbore,
Little Jack and a morris-dance Fool.

Whatever the nature of the fight, the result is always the same. One or
more of the champions falls, and then appears upon the scene a Doctor,
who brings the dead to life again. The Doctor is a comic character. He
enters, boasting his universal skill, and works his cure by exhibiting
a bolus, or by drawing out a tooth with a mighty pair of pliers. At
Newbold he is ‘Dr. Brown,’ at Islip ‘Dr. Good’ (also called ‘Jack
Spinney’), at Brill ‘Dr. Ball’; in Dorsetshire (A) he is an Irishman,
‘Mr. Martin’ (perhaps originally ‘Martyr’) ‘Dennis.’ More often he is
nameless. Frequently the revival scene is duplicated; either the Doctor
is called in twice, or one cure is left to him, and another is effected
by some other performer, such as St. George (Dorset [B]), ‘Father
Christmas’ (Newbold, Steyning), or the Fool (Bampton).

The central action of the play consists, then, in these two episodes
of the fight and the resurrection; and the protagonists, so to speak,
are the heroes--a ragged troop of heroes, certainly--and the Doctor.
But just as in the sword-dances, so in the plays, we find introduced,
besides the protagonists, a number of supernumerary figures. The nature
of these, and the part they take, must now be considered. Some of them
are by this time familiar. They are none other than the grotesques
that have haunted this discussion of the village festivals from the
very beginning, and that I have attempted to trace to their origin in
magical or sacrificial custom. There are the woman, or lad dressed in
woman’s clothes, the hobby-horse, the fool, and the black-faced man.
The woman and the hobby-horse are unmistakable; the other two are a
little more Protean in their modern appearance. The ‘Fool’ is so called
only at Manchester and at Brill, where he brings his morris-dance with
him. At Lutterworth he is the ‘Clown’; in Cornwall, ‘Old Squire’; at
Newbold, ‘Big Head and Little Wits.’ But I think that we may also
recognize him in the very commonly occurring figure ‘Beelzebub,’ also
known in Cornwall as ‘Hub Bub’ and at Chiswick as ‘Lord Grubb.’ The
key to this identification is the fact that in several cases Beelzebub
uses the description ‘big head and little wit’ to announce himself on
his arrival. Occasionally, however, the personality of the Fool has
been duplicated. At Lutterworth Beelzebub and the Clown, at Newbold
Beelzebub and Big Head and Little Wits appear in the same play[754].
The black-faced man has in some cases lost his black face, but he
keeps it at Bampton, where he is ‘Tom the Tinker,’ at Rugby, where he
is ‘Little Johnny Sweep,’ and in a Sussex version, where he is also a
sweep[755]. The analogy of the May-day chimney-sweeps is an obvious
one. A black face was a feature in the mediaeval representation of
devils, and the sweep of some plays is probably in origin identical
with the devil, black-faced or not, of others. This is all the more
so, as the devil, like the sweep, usually carries a besom[756]. One
would expect _his_ name, and not the Fool’s, to be Beelzebub. He is,
however, ‘Little Devil Dout’ or ‘Doubt,’ ‘Little Jack Doubt’ or ‘Jack
Devil Doubt.’ At Leigh Little Devil Doubt also calls himself ‘Jack,’

‘With my wife and family on my back’;

and perhaps we may therefore trace a further avatar of this same
personage in the ‘John’ or ‘Johnny Jack’ who at Salisbury gives a name
to the whole performance[757]. He is also ‘Little Jack’ (Brill, St.
Mary Bourne), ‘Fat Jack’ (Islip), ‘Happy Jack’ (Berkshire, Hollington),
‘Humpty Jack’ (Newbold). He generally makes the remark about his wife
and family. What he does carry upon his back is sometimes a hump,
sometimes a number of rag-dolls. I take it that the hump came first,
and that the dolls arose out of Jack’s jocular explanation of his own
deformity. But why the hump? Was it originally a bag of soot? Or the
_saccus_ with which the German _Knechte Ruperte_ wander in the Twelve
nights?[758] At Hollington and in a Hampshire version Jack has been
somewhat incongruously turned into a press-gang. In this capacity he
gets at Hollington the additional name of ‘Tommy Twing-twang.’

Having got these grotesques, traditional accompaniments of the play, to
dispose of somehow, what do the playwrights do with them? The simplest
and most primitive method is just to bring them in, to show them to the
spectators when the fighting is over. Thus Beelzebub, like the Fool at
one point in the Revesby play, often comes in with

‘Here come I; ain’t been yit,
Big head and little wit.’

‘Ain’t been yit!’ Could a more naïve explanation of the presence of a
‘stock’ character on the stage be imagined? Similarly in Cornwall the
woman is worked in by making ‘Sabra,’ a _persona muta_, come forward
to join St. George[759]. In the play printed in _Sharpe’s London
Magazine_ the ‘Hobby-horse’ is led in. Obviously personages other than
the traditional four can be introduced in the same way, at the bidding
of the rustic fancy. Thus at Bampton ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘Little John’
briefly appear, in both the Irish plays and at Tenby ‘Oliver Cromwell,’
at Belfast ‘St. Patrick,’ at Steyning the ‘Prince of Peace.’

Secondly, the supernumeraries may be utilized, either as presenters of
the main characters or for the purposes of the _quête_ at the end. Thus
at Leigh the performance is begun by Little Devil Doubt, who enters
with his broom and sweeps a ‘room’ or ‘hall’ for the actors, just as
in the sword-dances a preliminary circle is made with a sword upon the
ground[760]. In the Midlands this is the task of the woman, called at
Islip and in Berkshire ‘Molly,’ and at Bright-Walton ‘Queen Mary[761].’
Elsewhere the business with the broom is omitted; but there is nearly
always a short prologue in which an appeal is made to the spectators
for ‘room.’ This prologue may be spoken, as at Manchester by the Fool,
or as at Lutterworth by one of the fighters. The commonest presenter,
however, is a personification of the festal season at which the plays
are usually performed, ‘Old Father Christmas.’

‘Here comes I, Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not,
I hope Old Father Christmas will never be forgot.’

At St. Mary Bourne Christmas is accompanied by ‘Mince-Pie,’ and
in both the Dorset versions, instead of calling for ‘room,’ he
introduces ‘Room’ as an actual personage. Similarly, at Newport and
Eccleshall, the prologue speaker receives the curious soubriquet of
‘Open-the-Door.’ After the prologue, the fighters are introduced.
They stand in a clump outside the circle, and in turns step forward
and strut round it[762]. Each is announced, by himself or by his
predecessor or by the presenter, with a set of rhymes closely parallel
to those used in the sword-dances. With the fighters generally
comes the ‘King of Egypt’ (occasionally corrupted into the ‘King of
England’), and the description of St. George often contains an allusion
to his fight with the dragon and the rescue of Sabra, the King of
Egypt’s daughter. In one or two of the northern versions (Newcastle,
Whitehaven) the King of Egypt is a fighter; generally he stands by. In
one of the Dorset versions (A) he is called ‘Anthony.’ Sabra appears
only in Cornwall, and keeps silence. The Dragon fights with St. George
in Cornwall, and also, as we have seen, in the curious Brill _mêlée_.

The performance, naturally, ends with a _quête_. This takes various
forms. Sometimes the presenter, or the whole body of actors, comes
forward, and wishes prosperity to the household. Beelzebub, with his
frying-pan or ladle, goes round to gather in the contributions. In the
version preserved in _Sharpe’s London Magazine_, this is the function
of a special personage, ‘Boxholder.’ In a considerable number of cases,
however, the _quête_ is preceded by a singular action on the part of
Little Devil Dout. He enters with his broom, and threatens to sweep
the whole party out, or ‘into their graves,’ if money is not given. In
Shropshire and Staffordshire he sweeps up the hearth, and the custom is
probably connected with the superstition that it is unlucky to remove
fire or ashes from the house on Christmas Day. ‘Dout’ appears to be a
corruption of ‘Do out[763].’

Another way of working in the grotesques and other supernumeraries
is to give them minor parts in the drama itself. Father Christmas or
the King of Egypt is utilized as a sort of chorus, to cheer on the
fighters, lament the vanquished, and summon the Doctor. At Newbold the
woman, called ‘Moll Finney,’ plays a similar part, as mother of the
Turkish Knight. At Stoke Gabriel, Devon, the woman is the Doctor’s
wife[764]. Finally, in three cases, a complete subordinate dramatic
episode is introduced for their sake. At Islip, after the main drama
is concluded, the presenter Molly suddenly becomes King George’s wife
‘Susannah.’ She falls ill, and the Doctor’s services are requisitioned
to cure her. The Doctor rides in, not on a hobby-horse, but on one of
the disengaged characters who plays the part of a horse. In Dorsetshire
the secondary drama is quite elaborate. In the ‘A’ version ‘Old Bet’
calls herself ‘Dame Dorothy,’ and is the wife of Father Christmas,
named, for the nonce, ‘Jan.’ They quarrel about a Jack hare, which
he wants fried and she wants roasted. He kills her, and at the happy
moment the Doctor is passing by, and brings her to life again. Version
‘B’ is very similar, except that the performance closes by Old Bet
bringing in the hobby-horse for Father Christmas to mount.

I do not think that I need further labour the affiliation of the
St. George plays to the sword-dances. Placed in a series, as I have
placed them in these chapters, the two sets of performances show a
sufficiently obvious continuity. They are held together by the use
of the swords, by their common grotesques, and by the episode of the
Doctor, which connects them also with the German Shrovetide and Whitsun
folk-ceremonies. They are properly called folk-drama, because they are
derived, with the minimum of literary intervention, from the dramatic
tendencies latent in folk-festivals of a very primitive type. They are
the outcome of the instinct of play, manipulating for its own purposes
the mock sacrifice and other débris of extinct ritual. Their central
incident symbolizes the _renouveau_, the annual death of the year or
the fertilization spirit and its annual resurrection in spring[765].
To this have become attached some of those heroic _cantilenae_ which,
as the early mediaeval chroniclers tell us, existed in the mouths
of the _chori iuvenum_ side by side with the _cantilenae_ of the
minstrels. The symbolism of the _renouveau_ is preserved unmistakably
enough in the episode of the Doctor, but the _cantilenae_ have been
to some extent modified by the comparatively late literary element,
due perhaps to that universal go-between of literature and the folk,
the village school-master. The genuine national heroes, a Stercatherus
or a Galgacus, have given way to the ‘worthies’ and the ‘champions
of Christendom,’ dear to Holophernes. The literary tradition has
also perhaps contributed to the transformation of the _chorus_ or
semi-dramatic dance into drama pure and simple. In the St. George
plays dancing holds a very subordinate place, far more so than in
the ‘Plow-boys’ play of Revesby. Dances and songs are occasionally
introduced before the _quête_, but rarely during the main performance.
In the eccentric Brill version, however, a complete morris-dance
appears. And of course it must be borne in mind that the fighting
itself, with its gestures and pacings round the circle and clashing of
swords, has much more the effect of a sword-dance than of a regular
fight. So far as it is a fight, the question arises whether we ought to
see in it, besides the heroic element introduced by the _cantilenae_,
any trace of the mimic contest between winter and summer, which is
found here and there, alternating with the resurrection drama, as a
symbolical representation of the _renouveau_. The fight does not, of
course, in itself stand in any need of such an explanation; but it is
suggested by a singular passage which in several versions is put in the
mouth of one or other of the heroes. St. George, or the Slasher, or the
Turkish Knight, is made to boast something as follows:

‘My arms are made of iron, my body’s made of steel,
My head is made of beaten brass, no man can make me feel.’

It does not much matter who speaks these words in the versions of
Holophernes, but there are those who think that they originally
belonged to the representative of winter, and contained an allusion to
the hardness of the frost-bound earth[766]. Personally I do not see why
they should refer to anything but the armour which a champion might
reasonably be supposed to wear.

A curious thing about the St. George play is the width of its range.
All the versions, with the possible exception of that found at Brill,
seem to be derived from a common type. They are spread over England,
Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and only in the eastern counties do
they give way to the partly, though not wholly, independent Plough
Monday type. Unfortunately, the degeneracy of the texts is such that
any closer investigation into their inter-relations or into the
origin and transmission of the archetype would probably be futile.
Something, however, must be said as to the prominence, at any rate
outside Scotland, of the character of St. George. As far as I can
see, the play owes nothing at all to John Kirke’s stage-play of _The
Seven Champions of Christendom_, printed in 1638[767]. It is possible,
however, that it may be a development of a sword-dance in which, as
in the Shetland dance, the ‘seven champions’ had usurped the place
of more primitive heroes. If so the six champions, other than St.
George, have singularly vanished[768]. In any case, there can have
been no ‘seven champions,’ either in sword-dance or mummers’ play,
before Richard Johnson brought together the scattered legends of the
national heroes in his _History of the Seven Champions_ in 1596[769].
This fact presents no difficulty, for the archetype of our texts need
certainly not be earlier than the seventeenth century[770]. By this
time the literary dramatic tradition was fully established, even in the
provinces, and it may well have occurred to Holophernes to convert the
sword-dance into the semblance of a regular play.

On the other hand, the mediaeval period had its dramatic or
semi-dramatic performances in which St. George figured, and possibly it
is to these, and not to the ‘seven champions,’ that his introduction
into the sword-dance is due. These performances generally took the
form of a ‘riding’ or procession on St. George’s day, April 23. Such
ridings may, of course, have originally, like the Godiva processions
or the midsummer shows, have preserved the memory of the pre-Christian
perambulations of the fields in spring, but during the period for
which records are available they were rather municipal celebrations
of a semi-ecclesiastical type. St. George was the patron saint of
England, and his day was honoured as one of the greater feasts, notably
at court, where the chivalric order of the Garter was under his
protection[771]. The conduct of the ridings was generally, from the end
of the fourteenth century onwards, in the hands of a guild, founded not
as a trade guild, but as a half social, half religious fraternity, for
the worship of the saint, and the mutual aid and good fellowship of
its members. The fullest accounts preserved are from Norwich where the
guild or company of St. George was founded in 1385, received a charter
from Henry V in 1416, and by 1451 had obtained a predominant share in
the government of the city[772]. The records of this guild throw a good
deal of light on the riding. The brethren and ‘sustren’ had a chapel in
the choir of the cathedral, and after the Reformation held their feasts
in a chapel of the common hall of the city, which had formerly been
the church of a Dominican convent. The riding was already established
by 1408 when the court of the guild ordered that ‘the George shall go
in procession and make a conflict with the Dragon and keep his estate
both days.’ The George was a man in ‘coat armour beaten with silver,’
and had his club-bearer, henchmen, minstrels and banners. He was
accompanied by the Dragon, the guild-priest, and the court and brethren
of the guild in red and white capes and gowns. The procession went
to ‘the wood’ outside the city, and here doubtless the conflict with
the dragon took place. By 1537 there had been added to the _dramatis
personae_ St. Margaret, also called ‘the lady,’ who apparently aided
St. George in his enterprise[773]. Strange to say, the guild survived
the Reformation. In 1552, the court ordered, ‘there shall be neither
George nor Margaret, but for pastime the dragon to come and show
himself, as in other years.’ But the feast continued, and in spite of
an attempt to get rid of him under the Long Parliament, the Dragon
endured until 1732 when the guild was dissolved. Eighteenth-century
witnesses describe the procession as it then existed. The Dragon was
carried by a man concealed in its body. It was of basket work and
painted cloth, and could move or spread its wings, and distend or
contract its head. The ranks were kept by ‘whifflers’ who juggled with
their swords, and by ‘Dick Fools,’ in motley and decked with cats’
tails and small bells. There is one more point of interest about the
Norwich guild. In the fifteenth century it included many persons of
distinction in Norfolk. Sir John Fastolf gave it an ‘angell silver and
guylt.’ And amongst the members in 1496 was Sir John Paston. I have
already quoted the lament in the _Paston Letters_ over William Woode,
the keeper, whom the writer ‘kepyd thys iij yer to pleye Seynt Jorge
and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham,’ and who at a critical
moment went off to Bernysdale and left his master in the lurch[774]. I
have also identified his Robin Hood play, and now it becomes apparent
where he played ‘Seynt Jorge.’ It is curious how the fragments of the
wreckage of time fit into one another. The riding of the George is not
peculiar to Norwich. We find it at Leicester[775], at Coventry[776],
at Stratford[777], at Chester[778], at York, at Dublin[779]. An
elaborate programme for the Dublin procession is preserved. It included
an emperor and empress with their train, St. George on horse-back, the
dragon led by a line and the king and queen of Dele. But no princess is
mentioned. The ‘may’ or maiden figured at York, however, and there was
also a St. Christopher. At other places, such as Reading, Aston[780]
and Louth[781], an equestrian figure, called a ‘George,’ is known to
have stood on a ‘loft’ in the church, and here, too, an annual ‘riding’
may be presumed.

There is no proof that the dramatic element in these ‘ridings’ was
anything more than a _mystère mimé_, or pageant in dumb show. On the
other hand, there were places where the performance on St. George’s
day took the form of a regular miracle-play. The performance described
by Collier as taking place before Henry V and the Emperor Sigismund at
Windsor in 1416 turns out on examination of Collier’s authority to be
really a ‘soteltie,’ a cake or raised pie of elaborate form. But the
town of Lydd had its St. George play in 1456, and probably throughout
the century; while in 1490 the chaplain of the guild of St. George at
New Romney went to see this Lydd play with a view to reproducing it at
the sister town. In 1511 again a play of St. George is recorded to have
been held at Bassingbourne in Cambridgeshire, not on St. George’s, but
on St. Margaret’s day[782].

Obviously the subject-matter of all these pageants and miracles was
provided by the familiar ecclesiastical legend of St. George the
dragon-slayer, with which was occasionally interwoven the parallel
legend of St. Margaret[783]. Similar performances can be traced on the
continent. There was one at Mons called _le lumeçon_[784]. Rabelais
describes one at Metz, of which, however, the hero was not St. George,
but yet another dragon-slayer, St. Clement[785]. There is no need to
ascribe to them a folk origin, although the dragon-slaying champion
is a common personage in folk-tale[786]. They belong to the cycle of
religious drama, which is dealt with in the second volume of this book.
And although in Shropshire at least they seem to have been preserved in
a village stage-play up to quite a recent date[787], they obviously
do not directly survive in the folk-play with which we are concerned.
As far as I know, that nowhere takes place on St. George’s day. The
Dragon is very rarely a character, and though St. George’s traditional
exploit is generally mentioned, it is, as that very mention shows,
not the motive of the action. On the other hand the legend, in its
mediaeval form, has no room for the episode of the Doctor[788]. At the
same time the Dragon does sometimes occur, and the traditional exploit
is mentioned, and therefore if any one chooses to say that the fame of
St. George in the guild celebrations as well as the fame of the ‘seven
champions’ romance determined his choice as the hero of the later
sword-dance rhymes, I do not see that there is much to urge against the
view[789].

With regard to the main drift of this chapter, the criticism presents
itself; if the folk-plays are essentially a celebration of the
_renouveau_ of spring, how is it that the performances generally take
place in mid-winter at Christmas? The answer is that, as will be shown
in the next chapter, none of the Christmas folk-customs are proper to
mid-winter. They have been attracted by the ecclesiastical feast from
the seasons which in the old European calendar preceded and followed
it, from the beginning of winter and the beginning of summer or spring.
The folk-play has come with the rest. But the transference has not
invariably taken place. The Norfolk versions belong not to Christmas
but to Plough Monday, which lies immediately outside the Christmas
season proper, and is indeed, though probably dislocated from its
primitive date, the earliest of the spring feasts. The St. George
play itself is occasionally performed at Easter, and even perhaps on
May-day, whilst versions, which in their present form contain clear
allusions to Christmas, yet betray another origin by the title which
they bear of the ‘Pace-eggers’’ or ‘Pasque-eggers’’ play[790].
Christmas, however, has given to the play the characteristic figure
of Old Father Christmas. And the players are known as ‘mummers’ and
‘guisers,’ or, in Cornwall, ‘geese-dancers,’ because their performance
was regarded as a variety of the ‘mumming’ or ‘disguising’ which,
as we shall see, became a regular name for the Christmas revel or
_quête_[791].

CHAPTER XI

THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

[_Bibliographical Note._--I have largely followed the conclusions
of A. Tille, _Deutsche Weihnacht_ (1893) and _Yule and Christmas_
(1899). The Roman winter feasts are well treated by J. Marquardt
and T. Mommsen, _Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer_ (3rd
ed. 1881-8), vol. vii; W. W. Fowler, _The Roman Festivals of
the Period of the Republic_ (1899); G. Wissowa, _Religion
und Kultus der Römer_ (1902); and the Christian feasts by L.
Duchesne, _Origines du Culte chrétien_ (2nd ed. 1898). On the
history of Christmas, H. Usener, _Das Weihnachtsfest_, in
_Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen_, vol. i (1889), and F.
C. Conybeare’s introduction to _The Key of Truth_ (1898) should
also be consulted. Much information on the Kalends customs
is collected by M. Lipenius, _Strenarum Historia_, in J. G.
Graevius, _Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum_ (1699), vol. xii. I
have brought together a number of ecclesiastical references to
the Kalends, from the third to the eleventh century, in Appendix
N.]

So far this study has concerned itself, on the one hand with the
general character of the peasant festivals, on the other with the
special history of such of these as fall within the summer cycle of the
agricultural year, from ploughing to harvest. The remaining chapters
will approach the corresponding festivals, centring around Christmas,
of winter. These present a somewhat more difficult problem, partly
because their elements are not quite so plainly agricultural, partly
because of the remarkable dislocations which the development and clash
of civilizations have brought about.

It must, I think, be taken as established that the Germano-Keltic
tribes had no primitive mid-winter feast, corresponding directly to
the modern Christmas[792]. They had no solstitial feast, for they knew
nothing of the solstices. And although they had a winter feast of the
dead, belonging rather to the domestic than to the elemental side of
cult, this probably fell not at the middle, but at the beginning of the
season. It was an aspect in the great feast with which not the winter
only but the Germano-Keltic year began. This took place when the
advance of snow and frost drove the warriors back from foray and the
cattle from the pastures. The scarcity of fodder made the stall-feeding
of the whole herd an impossibility, and there was therefore an economic
reason for a great slaughtering. This in its turn led to a great
banquet on the fresh meat, and to a great sacrifice, accompanied with
the usual perambulations, water-rites and fire-rites which sacrifice
to the deities of field and flock entailed[793]. The vegetation spirit
would again be abroad, no longer, as in spring or summer, in the form
of flowers and fresh green boughs, but in that of the last sheaf or
‘kern-baby’ saved from harvest, or in that of such evergreens or rarer
blossoms as might chance to brave the snows. The particular ‘intention’
of the festival would be to secure the bounty of the divine powers for
the coming year, and a natural superstition would find omens for the
whole period in the events of the initial day. The feast, however,
would be domestic, as well as seasonal. The fire on the hearth was
made ‘new,’ and beside it the fathers, resting from the toils of war,
or herding or tillage, held jollification with their children. Nor
were the dead forgotten. _Minni_ were drunk in honour of ancestors and
ancestral deities; and a share of the banquet was laid out for such
of these as might be expected, in the whirl of the wintry storm, to
revisit the familiar house-place.

Originally, no doubt, the time of the feast was determined by the
actual closing of the war-ways and the pastures. Just as the first
violet or some migratory bird of March was hailed for the herald of
summer, so the first fall of snow gave the signal that winter was
at hand[794]. In the continental home of the Germano-Keltic tribes
amongst the forests of central Europe this would take place with
some regularity about the middle of November[795]. A fixed date for
the feast could only arise when, at some undefined time, the first
calendar, the ‘three-score-day-tide’ calendar of unknown origin, was
introduced[796]. Probably it was thenceforward held regularly upon
a day corresponding to either November the 11th or the 12th in our
reckoning. If it is accurately represented by St. Martin’s day, it was
the 11th[797], if by the Manx _Samhain_, the 12th[798]. It continued
to begin the year, and also the first of the six tides into which
that year was divided. As good fortune will have it, the name of that
tide is preserved to us in the Gothic term _Iiuleis_ for November and
December[799], in the Anglo-Saxon _Giuli_ or _Geola_ which, according
to Bede, applied both to December and to January[800], and in _Yule_,
the popular designation, both in England and Scandinavia, of Christmas
itself[801]. The meaning of this name is, however, more doubtful. The
older philology, with solstices running in its brain, supposed that
it applied primarily to a mid-winter feast, and connected it with the
Anglo-Saxon _hwéol_, a wheel[802]. Bede himself, learned in Roman
lore, seems to hint at such an explanation[803]. The current modern
explanation derives the word from a supposed Germanic _jehwela_,
equivalent to the Latin _ioculus_[804]. It would thus mean simply a
‘feast’ or ‘rejoicing,’ and some support seems to be lent to this
derivation by the occasional use of the English ‘_yule_’ and the
Keltic _gwyl_ to denote feasts other than that of winter[805]. Other
good authorities, however, prefer to trace it to a Germanic root
_jeula_-from which is derived the Old Norse _él_, ‘a snowstorm’; and
this also, so far as its application to the feast and tide of winter
is concerned, seems plausible enough[806]. It is possible that to
the winter feast originally belonged the term applied by Bede to
December 24 of _Modranicht_ or _Modraneht_[807]. It would be tempting
to interpret this as ‘the night which gives birth to the year’; but
philologists say that it can only mean ‘night of mothers,’ and we must
therefore explain it as due to some cult of the _Matres_ or triad of
mother-goddesses, which took place at the feast[808].

The subsequent history of the winter feast consists in its gradual
dislocation from the original mid-November position, and dispersion
over a large number of dates covering roughly the whole period between
Michaelmas and Twelfth night. For this process a variety of causes are
responsible. Some of these are economic. As civilization progressed,
mid-November came to be, less than of old, a signal turning-point in
the year. In certain districts to which the Germano-Keltic tribes
penetrated, in Gaul, for instance, or in Britain with its insular
climate, the winter tarried, and the regular central European closing
of the pastures was no longer a law. Then again tillage came gradually
to equal or outstrip pasturage in importance, and the year of tillage
closed, even in Germany, at the end of September rather than in
mid-November. The harvest feast began to throw the winter feast rather
into the shade as a wind-up of the year’s agricultural labours.
This same development of tillage, together with the more scientific
management of pasturage itself, did more. It provided a supply of
fodder for the cattle, and by making stall-feeding possible put off
further and further into the winter the necessity of the great annual
slaughter. The importance in Germany, side by side with St. Martin’s
day (November 11), of St. Andrew’s day (November 30), and still more
St. Nicholas’ day (December 6)[809], as folk-feasts, seems to suggest a
consequent tendency to a gradual shifting of the winter festival.

These economic causes came gradually into operation throughout a number
of centuries. In displacing the November feast, they prepared the way
for and assisted the action of one still more important. This was the
influence of Roman usage. When the Germano-Keltic tribes first came
into contact with the Roman world, the beginning of the Roman year was
still, nominally at least, upon the Kalends, or first of March. This
did not, so far as I know, leave any traces upon the practice of the
barbarians[810]. In 45 B.C. the Julian calendar replaced the Kalends of
March by those of January. During the century and a half that followed,
Gaul became largely and Britain partially Romanized, while there was
a steady infiltration of Roman customs and ideas amongst the German
tribes about and even far beyond the Rhine. With other elements of the
southern civilization came the Roman calendar which largely replaced
the older Germanic calendar of three-score-day-tides. The old winter
festival fell in the middle of a Roman month, and a tendency set in to
transfer the whole or a part of its customs either to the beginning
of this month[811] or, more usually, to the beginning of the Roman
year, a month and a half later. This process was doubtless helped by
the fact that the Roman New Year customs were not in their origin,
or even at the period of contact, essentially different from those
of their more northerly cousins. It remained, of course, a partial
and incomplete one. In Gaul, where the Roman influence was strongest,
it probably reached its maximum. But in Germany the days of St.
Martin[812] and St. Nicholas[813] have fully maintained their position
as folk-feasts by the side of New Year’s day, and even Christmas
itself; while St. Martin’s day at least has never been quite forgotten
in our islands[814]. The state of transition is represented by the
isolated Keltic district known as the Isle of Man. Here, according to
Professor Rhys, the old _Samhain_ or Hollantide day of November 12 is
still regarded by many of the inhabitants as the beginning of the year.
Others accept January 1; and there is considerable division of opinion
as to which is the day whereon the traditional New Year observances
should properly be held[815].

A final factor in the dislocation of the winter feast was the
introduction of Christianity, and in especial the establishment of
the great ecclesiastical celebration of Christmas. When Christianity
first began to claim the allegiance of the Roman world, the rulers of
the Church were confronted by a series of southern winter feasts which
together made the latter half of December and the beginning of January
into one continuous carnival. The nature and position of these feasts
claim a brief attention.

To begin with, there were the feasts of the Sun. The _Bruma_
(_brevissima_) or _Brumalia_ was held on November 24, as the day
which ushered in the period of the year during which the sun’s light
is diminished. This seems to have been a beginning of winter feast,
adopted by Rome from Thrace[816]. The term _bruma_ was also sometimes
applied to the whole period between November 24 and the solstice,
and ultimately even to the solstitial day itself, fixed somewhat
incorrectly by the Julian calendar on December 25[817]. On this day
also came a festival, which probably owed its origin to the Emperor
Aurelian (270-75), whose mother was a semi-Oriental priestess of
the Sun, in one of his Syrian forms as Baal or Belus[818], and who
instituted an official cult of this divinity at Rome with a temple on
the Quirinal, a _collegium_ of _pontifices_, and _ludi circenses_ held
every fourth year[819]. These fell on the day of the solstice, which
from the lengthening of the sun’s course was known as the ‘birthday’
of _Sol Novus_ or _Sol Invictus_[820]. This cult was practised by
Diocletian and by Constantine before his conversion, and was the
rallying-point of Julian in his reaction against Christianity[821].
Moreover, the _Sol Invictus_ was identified with the central figure
of that curious half-Oriental, half-philosophical worship of Mithra,
which at one time threatened to become a serious rival to Christianity
as the religion of the thinking portion of the Roman world[822]. That
an important Mithraic feast also fell on December 25 can hardly be
doubted, although there is no direct evidence of the fact[823].

The cult of the _Sol Invictus_ was not a part of the ancient Roman
religion, and, like the _Brumalia_, the solstitial festival in his
honour, however important to the educated and official classes of the
empire, was not a folk-festival. It lay, however, exactly between two
such festivals. The _Saturnalia_ immediately preceded it; a few days
later followed the January _Kalends_.

The _Saturnalia_, so far as the religious feast of Saturn was
concerned, took place on December 17. Augustus, however, added two
days to the _feriae iudiciariae_, during which the law-courts were
shut, and popular usage extended the festival to seven. Amongst the
customs practised was that of the _sigillariorum celebritas_, a kind of
fair, at which the _sigillaria_, little clay dolls or _oscilla_, were
bought and given as presents. Originally, perhaps, these _oscilla_ were
like some of our feasten cakes, figures of dough. Candles (_cerei_ or
_candelae_) appear also to have been given. On the second and third
days it was customary to bathe in the early morning[824]. But the
chief characteristic of the feast was the licence allowed to the lower
classes, to freedmen and to slaves. During the _libertas Decembris_
both moral and social restraints were thrown off[825]. Masters made
merry with their servants, and consented for the time to be on a
footing of strict equality with them[826]. A _rex Saturnalitius_,
chosen by lot, led the revels, and was entitled to claim obedience for
the most ludicrous commands[827].

The similarity of the _Saturnalia_ to the folk-feasts of western Europe
will be at once apparent. The name _Saturnus_ seems to point to a
ploughing and sowing festival, although how such a festival came to be
held in mid-December must be matter of conjecture[828]. The _Kalends_,
on the other hand, are clearly a New Year festival. They began on
January 1, with the solemn induction of the new consuls into office. As
in the case of the _Saturnalia_, the _feriae_ lasted for more than one
day, covering at least a _triduum_. The third day was the day of _vota_
or solemn wishes of prosperity for the New Year to the emperor. The
houses were decked with lights and greenery, and once more the masters
drank and played dice with their slaves. The resemblance in this
respect between the _Kalends_ and the _Saturnalia_ was recognized by a
myth which told how when Saturn came bringing the gifts of civilization
to Italy he was hospitably received by Janus, who then reigned in the
land[829]. Another Kalends custom, the knowledge of which we owe to the
denunciations of the Fathers, was the parading of the city by bands
of revellers dressed in women’s clothes or in the skins of animals.
And, finally, a series of superstitious observances testified to the
belief that the events of the first day of the year were ominous for
those of the year itself. A table loaded all night long with viands
was to ensure abundance of food; such necessaries of life as iron
and fire must not be given or lent out of the house, lest the future
supply of them should fail. To this order of ideas belonged, ultimately
at least, if not originally, the central feature of the whole feast,
the _strenae_ or presents so freely exchanged between all classes of
society on the Kalends. Once, so tradition had it, the _strenae_ were
nothing more than twigs plucked from the grove of the goddess Strenia,
associated with Janus in the feast[830]; but in imperial times men
gave honeyed things, that the year of the recipient might be full of
sweetness, lamps that it might be full of light, copper and silver and
gold that wealth might flow in amain[831].

Naturally, the Fathers were not slow to protest against these feasts,
and, in particular, against the participation in them of professing
Christians. Tertullian is, as usual, explicit and emphatic in his
condemnation[832]. The position was aggravated when, probably in the
fourth century, the Christian feast of the Birthday of Christ came to
be fixed upon December 25, in the very heart of the pagan rejoicings
and upon the actual day hitherto sacred to _Sol Invictus_. The origin
of Christmas is wrapped in some obscurity[833]. The earliest notices
of a celebration of the birth of Christ in the eastern Church attach
it to that of his baptism on the Epiphany. This feast is as old as
the second century. By the fourth it was widespread in the East, and
was known also in Gaul and probably in northern Italy[834]. At Rome
it cannot be traced so early; but it was generally adopted there by
the beginning of the fifth, and Augustine blames the Donatists for
rejecting it, and so cutting themselves off from fellowship with the
East[835]. Christmas, on the other hand, made its appearance first at
Rome, and the East only gradually and somewhat grudgingly accepted it.
The Paulician Christians of Armenia to this day continue to feast the
birth and the baptism together on January 6, and to regard the normal
Christian practice as heretical. An exact date for the establishment of
the Roman feast cannot be given, for the theory which ascribed it to
Pope Liberius in 353 has been shown to be baseless[836]. But it appears
from a document of 336 that the beginning of the liturgical year then
already fell between December 8 and 27[837]. Christmas may, therefore,
be assumed to have been in existence at least by 336.

It would seem, then, that the fourth century witnessed the
establishment, both at Rome and elsewhere, of Christmas and Epiphany
as two distinct feasts, whereas only one, although probably not
everywhere the same one, had been known before. This fact is hardly to
be explained by a mere attempt to accommodate varying local uses. The
tradition of the Armenian doctors, who stood out against Christmas,
asserts that their opponents removed the birthday of Christ from
January 6 out of ‘disobedience[838].’ This points to a doctrinal reason
for the separate celebration of the birth and the baptism. And such a
reason may perhaps be found in the Adoptionist controversies. The joint
feast appeared to lend credence to the view, considered a heresy, but
still adhered to by the Armenian Church, that Christ was God, not from
his mother’s womb, but only from his adoption or spiritual birth at
the baptism in Jordan. It was needful that orthodox Christians should
celebrate him as divine from the very moment of his carnal birth[839].

The choice of December 25 as the day for the Roman feast cannot be
supposed to rest upon any authentic tradition as to the historic
date of the Nativity. It is one of several early patristic guesses
on the subject. It is not at all improbable that it was determined
by an attempt to adopt some of the principal Christian festivals
to the solstices and equinoxes of the Roman calendar[840]. The
enemies of Roman orthodoxy were not slow to assert that it merely
continued under another name the pagan celebration of the birthday
of _Sol Invictus_[841]. Nor was the suggestion entirely an empty
one. The worshippers of _Sol Invictus_, and in particular the
Mithraic sect, were not quite on the level of the ordinary pagans by
tradition. Mithraism had claims to be a serious and reasonable rival
to Christianity, and if its adherents could be induced by argument
to merge their worship of the physical sun in that of the ‘Sun of
Righteousness,’ they were well worth winning[842]. On the other hand
there were obvious dangers in the Roman policy which were not wholly
averted, and we find Leo the Great condemning certain superstitious
customs amongst his flock which it is difficult to distinguish from
the sun-worship practised alike by pagans and by Saint Augustine’s
heretical opponents, the Manichaeans[843].

From Rome the Christmas feast gradually made its way over East and
West. It does not seem to have reached Jerusalem until at least the
sixth century, and, as we have seen, the outlying Church of Armenia
never adopted it. But it was established at Antioch about 375 and at
Alexandria about 430[844]. At Constantinople an edict of 400 included
it in the list of holy days upon which _ludi_ must not be held[845].
In 506 the council of Agatha recognized the Nativity as one of the
great days of the Christian year[846], while fasting on that day was
forbidden by the council of Braga in 561 as savouring of Priscillianist
heresy[847]. The feast of the Epiphany, meanwhile, was relegated to a
secondary place; but it was not forgotten, and served as a celebration,
in addition to the baptism, of a number of events in the life of
Christ, which included the marriage at Cana and the feeding of the
five thousand, and of which the visit of the _Magi_ gradually became
the leading feature. The _Dodecahemeron_, or period of twelve days,
linking together Christmas and Epiphany, was already known to Ephraim
Syrus as a festal tide at the end of the fourth century[848], and was
declared to be such by the council of Tours in 567[849].

To these islands Christmas came, if not with the Keltic Church, at
least with St. Augustine in 592. On Christmas day, 598, more than ten
thousand English converts were baptized[850], and by the time of Bede
(†734) Christmas was established, with Epiphany and Easter, as one of
the three leading festivals of the year[851]. The _Laws_ of Ethelred
(991-1016) and of Edward the Confessor ordain it a holy tide of peace
and concord[852]. Continental Germany received it from the synod of
Mainz in 813[853], while Norway owed it to King Hakon the Good in the
middle of the tenth century[854].

Side by side with the establishment of Christmas proceeded the
ecclesiastical denunciation of those pagan festivals whose place it was
to take. Little is heard in Christian times of the _Saturnalia_, which
do not seem to have shared the popularity of the Kalends outside the
limits of Rome itself. But these latter, and especially the Kalends,
are the subject of attack in every corner of the empire. Jerome of
Rome, Ambrose of Milan, Maximus of Turin, Chrysologus of Ravenna,
assail them in Italy; Augustine in Africa; Chrysostom and Asterius and
the Trullan council in the East. In Spain, Bishop Pacian of Barcelona
made a treatise upon one of the most objectionable features of the
festival which, as he says with some humour, probably tended to
increase its vogue. In Gaul, Caesarius of Arles initiated a vigorous
campaign. To cite all the ecclesiastical pronouncements on the subject
would be tedious. Homily followed homily, canon followed canon,
capitulary followed capitulary, penitential followed penitential, for
half a thousand years. But the Kalends died hard. When Boniface was
tackling them amongst the Franks in the middle of the eighth century,
he was sorely hampered by the bad example of their continued prevalence
at the very gates of the Vatican; and when Burchardus was making his
collection of heathen observances in the eleventh century, those of
the Kalends were still to be included. In England there is not much
heard of them, but a reference in the so-called _Penitential of Egbert_
about 766 proves that they were not unknown. It need hardly be said
that all formal religious celebration of the Kalends disappeared with
the official victory of Christianity. But this element had never
been of great importance in the feast; and the terms in which the
ecclesiastical references from beginning to end are couched prove that
they relate mainly to popular New Year customs common to the Germanic
and the more completely Latinized populations[855].

It appears from a decree of the council of Tours in 567 that, _ad
calcandam Gentilium consuetudinem_, the fourth-century Fathers
established on the first three days of January a _triduum ieiunii_,
with litanies, in spite of the fact that these days fell in the very
midst of the festal period of the _Dodecahemeron_[856]. At the same
time January 1 was kept as the octave of Christmas, and the early
Roman ritual-books show two masses for that day, one _in octavis
Domini_, the other _ad prohibendum ab idolis_. The Jewish custom by
which circumcision took place eight days after birth made it almost
inevitable that there should be some celebration of the circumcision
of Christ upon the octave of his Nativity. This was the case from
the sixth century, and ultimately, about the eighth, the attempt to
keep up a fast on January 1 was surrendered, and the festival of the
Circumcision took its place[857].

Some tendency was shown by the Church not merely to set up Christmas
as a rival to the pagan winter feasts, but also to substitute it
for the Kalends of January as the beginning of the year. But the
innovation never affected the civil year, and was not maintained even
by ecclesiastical writers with any consistency, for even they prefer
in many cases a year dating from the Annunciation, or more rarely
from Easter. The so-called Annunciation style found favour even for
many civil purposes in Great Britain, and was not finally abandoned
until 1753[858]. But although Christmas cannot be said to have ever
become a popular New Year’s day, yet its festal importance and its
propinquity to January 1 naturally led to a result undesired and
possibly undreamt of by its founders, namely, the further transference
to it of many of the long-suffering Germano-Keltic folk-customs, which
had already travelled under Roman influence from the middle of November
to the beginning of January[859]. Already in the sixth century it had
become necessary to forbid the abuses which had gathered around the
celebration of Christmas eve[860]; and the Christmas customs of to-day,
even where their name does not testify to their original connexion with
the Kalends[861], are in a large number of cases, so far of course as
they are not simply ecclesiastical, merely doublets of those of the New
Year.

What is true of Christmas is true also of Epiphany or Twelfth night;
and the history of the other modern festivals of the winter cycle
is closely parallel. The old Germanic New Year’s day on November 11
became the day of St. Martin, a fourth-century bishop of Tours, and
the _pervigiliae_ of St. Martin, like those of the Nativity itself,
already caused a scandal in the sixth century[862]. The observances
of the deferred days of slaughter clustered round the feasts of St.
Andrew on November 30, and more especially St. Nicholas on December
6. The _Todtenfest_, which had strayed to the beginning of November,
was continued in the feasts of All Saints or Hallowmas, the French
_Toussaint_, on November 1, and its charitable supplement of All
Souls, on November 2. That which had strayed still further to the
time of harvest became the _Gemeinwoche_ or week-wake, and ultimately
St. Michael and All Angels. Nor is this all. Very similar customs
attached themselves to the minor feasts of the _Dodecahemeron_, St.
Stephen’s, St. John the Evangelist’s, Innocents’ days, to the numerous
dedication wakes that fell on days, such as St. Luke’s[863], in autumn
or early winter, or to the miscellaneous feasts closely approaching the
Christmas season, St. Clement’s, St. Catherine’s, St. Thomas’s, with
which indeed in many localities that season is popularly supposed to
begin[864]. Nor was this process sensibly affected by the establishment
in the sixth century of the _ieiunium_ known as Advent, which stretched
for a _Quadragesima_, or period of forty days, from Martinmas onwards.
And finally, just as in May village dipping customs attached themselves
in the seventeenth century to Royal Oak day, so in the same century we
find the winter festival fires turned to new account in the celebration
of the escape of King and Parliament from the nefarious machinations of
Guy Fawkes.

CHAPTER XII

NEW YEAR CUSTOMS

[_Bibliographical Note._--The two works of Dr. Tille remain of
importance. The compilations specially devoted to the usages
of the Christmas season are chiefly of a popular character;
W. Sandys, _Christmas Tide_ (n. d.), J. Ashton, _A Righte
Merrie Christmasse!!!_ (n. d.), and, for French data, E.
Müller, _Le Jour de l’An_ (n. d.), may be mentioned; H. Usener,
_Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen_, vol. ii (1889), prints
various documents, including the _Largum Sero_ of a Bohemian
priest named Alsso, on early fifteenth-century Christmas eve
customs. Most of the books named in the bibliographical note to
chap. v also cover the subject. A _Bibliography of Christmas_
runs through _Notes and Queries_, 6th series, vi. 506, viii. 491,
x. 492, xii. 489; 7th series, ii. 502, iii. 152, iv. 502, vi.
483, x. 502, xii. 483; 8th series, ii. 505, iv. 502, vi. 483,
viii. 483, x. 512, xii. 502; 9th series, ii. 505, iv. 515, vi.
485.]

It is the outcome of the last chapter that all the folk-customs of
the winter half of the year, from Michaelmas to Plough Monday, must
be regarded as the flotsam and jetsam of a single original feast.
This was a New Year’s feast, held by the Germano-Keltic tribes at the
beginning of the central European winter when the first snows fell
about the middle of November, and subsequently dislocated and dispersed
by the successive clash of Germano-Keltic civilization with the rival
schemes of Rome and of Christianity. A brief summary of the customs
in question will show clearly their common character. For purposes of
classification they may be divided into several groups. There are such
customs belonging to the agricultural side of the old winter feast as
have not been transferred with the growing importance of tillage to
the feast of harvest. There are the customs of its domestic side, as
a feast of the family hearth and of the dead ancestors. There are the
distinctively New Year customs of omen and prognostication for the
approaching twelve months. There are the customs of play, common more
or less to all the village festivals. And, finally, there are a small
number of customs, or perhaps it would be truer to say legends, which
appear to owe their origin not merely to heathenism transformed by
Christianity, but to Christianity itself. Each of these groups may well
claim a more thoroughgoing consideration than can here be given to any
one of them.

The agricultural customs are just those of the summer feasts over
again. Once more the fertilization spirit is abroad in the land.
The embodiment of it in vegetation takes several forms. Obviously
the last foliage and burgeoning flowers of spring and summer are no
longer available. But there is, to begin with, the sheaf of corn or
‘harvest-May’ in which the spirit appeared at harvest, and which is
called upon once more to play its part in the winter rites. This,
however, is not a very marked part. A Yorkshire custom of hanging a
sheaf on the church door at Christmas is of dubious origin[865]. But
Swedish and Danish peasants use the grain of the ‘last sheaf’ to bake
the Christmas cake, and both in Scandinavia and Germany the ‘Yule
straw’ serves various superstitious purposes. It is scattered on barren
fields to make them productive. It is strewed, instead of rushes, upon
the house floor and the church floor. It is laid in the mangers of the
cattle. Fruit-trees are tied together with straw ropes, that they may
bear well and are said to be ‘married[866].’

More naturally the fertilization spirit may be discerned at the
approach of winter in such exceptional forms of vegetation as endure
the season. In November the apples and the nuts still hang upon their
boughs, and these are traditional features in the winter celebrations.
Then there are the evergreens. Libanius, Tertullian, and Chrysostom
tell how on the Kalends the doors of houses throughout the Roman
empire were crowned with bay. Martin of Braga forbade the ‘pagan
observance’ in a degree which found its way into the canon law. The
original _strena_ which men gave one another on the same day for luck
was nothing but a twig plucked from a sacred grove; and still in the
fifth century men returned from their new year auguries laden with
_ramusculi_ that they might thereafter be laden with wealth[867]. It
is not necessary to dwell upon the surviving use of evergreens in the
decoration at Christmas of houses and churches[868]. The sacredness
of these is reflected in the taboo which enjoins that they shall not
be cast out upon the dust-heap, but shall, when some appropriate day,
such as Candlemas, arrives, be solemnly committed to the flames[869].
Obviously amongst other evergreens the holly and the ivy, with their
clustering pseudo-blossoms of coral and of jet, are the more adequate
representatives of the fertilization spirit[870]; most of all the
mistletoe, perched an alien visitant, faintly green and white, amongst
the bared branches of apple or of oak. The mistletoe has its especial
place in Scandinavian myth[871]: Pliny records the ritual use of it by
the Druids[872]; it is essential to the winter revels in their amorous
aspect; and its vanished dignities still serve, here to bar it from,
there to make it imperative in, the edifices of Christian worship[873].
A more artificial embodiment of the fertilization spirit is the
‘Christmas tree’ _par excellence_, adorned with lights and apples, and
often with a doll or image upon the topmost sprig. The first recorded
Christmas tree is at Strassburg in 1604. The custom is familiar enough
in modern England, but there can be little doubt that here it is of
recent introduction, and came in, in fact, with the Hanoverians[874].

Finally, there can be little wonder that the popular imagination found
a special manifestation of the fertilization spirit in the unusual
blossoming of particular trees or species of trees in the depths of
winter. In mild seasons a crab or cherry might well adorn the old
winter feast in November. A favourable climate permits such a thing
even at mid-winter. Legend, at any rate, has no doubt of the matter,
and connects the event definitely with Christmas. A tenth-century
Arabian geographer relates how all the trees of the forest stand in
full bloom on the holy night. In the thirteenth-century _Vita_ of St.
Hadwigis the story is told of a cherry-tree. A fifteenth-century bishop
of Bamberg tells it of two apple-trees, and to apple-trees the miracle
belongs, in German folk-belief, to this day[875]. In England the
stories of Christmas-flowering hawthorns or blackthorns are specific
and probably not altogether baseless[876]. The belief found a special
location at Glastonbury, where the famous thorn is said by William of
Malmesbury and other writers to have budded from the staff of Joseph of
Arimathea, who there ended his wanderings with the Holy Grail. Where
winter-flowering trees are not found, a custom sometimes exists of
putting a branch of cherry or of hawthorn in water some weeks before
Christmas in order that it may blossom and serve as a substitute[877].

It may fairly be conjectured that at the winter, as at the summer
feast, the fertilization spirit, in the form of bush or idol, was
borne about the fields. The fifteenth-century writer, Alsso, records
the _calendisationes_ of the god Bel in Bohemia, suppressed by St.
Adalbert[878]. In modern England, a ‘holly-bough’ or ‘wesley-bob,’ with
or without an image or doll, occasionally goes its rounds[879]. But
a definite lustration of the bounds is rare[880], and, for the most
part, the winter procession either is merely riotous or else, like too
many of the summer processions themselves, has been converted, under
the successive influence of the _strenae_ and the cash nexus, into
little more than a _quête_. Thus children and the poor go ‘souling’ for
apples and ‘soul-cakes’ on All Souls’ day; on November 5 they collect
for the ‘guy’; on November 11 in Germany, if not in England, for St.
Martin; on St. Clement’s day (November 23) they go ‘clemencing’; on
St. Catherine’s (November 25) ‘catherning.’ Wheat is the coveted boon
on St. Thomas’s day (December 21) or ‘doling day,’ and the _quête_
is variously known as ‘thomasing,’ ‘mumping,’ ‘corning,’ ‘gooding,’
‘hodening,’ or ‘hooding[881].’ Christmas brings ‘wassailing’ with its
bowl of lamb’s-wool and its bobbing apple, and this is repeated on
New Year’s day or eve[882]. The New Year _quête_ is probably the most
widespread and popular of all. Ducange records it at Rome[883]. In
France it is known as _l’Aguilaneuf_[884], in Scotland and the north
of England as Hogmanay, terms in which the philologists meet problems
still unsolved[885]. Other forms of the winter _quête_ will crop up
presently, and the visits of the guisers with their play or song, the
carol singers and the waits may be expected at any time during the
Christmas season. As at the summer _quêtes_, some reminiscence of the
primitive character of the processions is to be found in the songs
sung, with their wish of prosperity to the liberal household and their
ill-will to the churl[886].

In the summer festivals both water-rites and fire-rites frequently
occur. In those of winter, water-rites are comparatively rare, as
might naturally be expected at a season when snow and ice prevail.
There is some trace, however, of a custom of drawing ‘new’ water, as
of making ‘new’ fire, for the new year[887]. Festival fires, on the
other hand, are widely distributed, and agree in general features with
those of summer. Their relation to the fertility of crop and herd is
often plainly enough marked. They are perhaps most familiar to-day
in the comparatively modern form of the Guy Fawkes celebration on
November 5[888], but they are known also on St. Crispin’s day (October
25)[889], Hallow e’en[890], St. Martin’s day[891], St. Thomas’s
day[892], Christmas eve[893], New Year[894], and Twelfth night[895].
An elaborate and typical example is the ‘burning of the clavie’ at
the little fishing village of Burghead on the Moray Firth[896]. This
takes place on New Year’s eve, or, according to another account[897],
Christmas eve (O.S.). Strangers to the village are excluded from any
share in the ritual. The ‘clavie’ is a blazing tar-barrel hoisted on a
pole. In making it, a stone must be used instead of a hammer, and must
then be thrown away. Similarly, the barrel must be lit with a blazing
peat, and not with lucifer matches. The bearers are honoured, and the
bridegroom of the year gets the ‘first lift.’ Should a bearer stumble,
it portends death to himself during the year and ill-luck to the town.
The procession passes round the boundaries of Burghead, and formerly
visited every boat in the harbour. Then it is carried to the top of
a hillock called the ‘Doorie,’ down the sides of which it is finally
rolled. Blazing brands are used to kindle the house fires, and the
embers are preserved as charms.

The central heathen rite of sacrifice has also left its abundant traces
upon winter custom. Bede records the significant name of _blôt-monath_,
given to November by the still unconverted Anglo-Saxons[898]. The
tradition of solemn slaughter hangs around both Martinmas and
Christmas. ‘Martlemas beef’ in England, St. Martin’s swine, hens,
and geese in Germany, mark the former day[899]. At Christmas the
outstanding victim seems to be the boar. _Caput apri defero: reddens
laudem Domino_, sings the taberdar at Queen’s College, Oxford, as
the manciple bears in the boar’s head to the Christmas banquet. So
it was sung in many another mediaeval and Elizabethan hall[900],
while the gentlemen of the Inner Temple broke their Christmas fast on
‘brawn, mustard, and malmsey[901],’ and in the far-off Orkneys each
householder of Sandwick must slay his sow on St. Ignace’s or ‘Sow’ day,
December 17[902]. The older mythologists, with the fear of solstices
before their eyes, are accustomed to connect the Christmas boar with
the light-god, Freyr[903]. If the cult of any one divinity is alone
concerned, the analogous use of the pig in the Eleusinian mysteries of
Demeter would make the earth-goddess a more probable guess[904]. A few
more recondite customs associated with particular winter anniversaries
may be briefly named. St. Thomas’s day is at Wokingham the day for
bull-baiting[905]. On St. Stephen’s day, both in England and Germany,
horses are let blood[906]. On or about Christmas, boys are accustomed
to set on foot a hunt of victims not ordinarily destined to such a
fate[907]; owls and squirrels, and especially wrens, the last, be it
noted, creatures which at other times of the year a taboo protects. The
wren-hunt is found on various dates in France, England, Ireland, and
the Isle of Man, and is carried out with various curious rituals. Often
the body is borne in a _quête_, and in the Isle of Man the _quêteurs_
give a feather as an amulet in return for hospitality. There are
other examples of winter _quêtes_, in which the representation of a
sacrificial victim is carried round[908]. ‘Hoodening’ in Kent and other
parts of England is accompanied by a horse’s head or hobby-horse[909].
The Welsh ‘Mari Lwyd’ is a similar feature[910], while at Kingscote,
in Gloucestershire, the wassailers drink to a bull’s head called ‘the
Broad[911].’

The hobby-horse is an example of an apparently grotesque element which
is found widespread in folk-processions, and which a previous chapter
has traced to its ritual origin. The man clad in a beast-skin is the
worshipper putting himself by personal contact under the influence
and protection of the sacrificed god. The rite is not a very salient
one in modern winter processions, although it has its examples, but
its historical importance is great. A glance at the ecclesiastical
denunciations of the Kalends collected in an appendix will disclose
numerous references to it. These are co-extensive with the western area
of the Kalends celebrations. In Italy, in Gaul, in southern Germany,
apparently also in Spain and in England, men decked themselves for
riot in the heads and skins of cattle and the beasts of the chase,
blackened their faces or bedaubed them with filth, or wore masks fit
to terrify the demons themselves. The accounts of these proceedings
are naturally allusive rather than descriptive; the fullest are given
by a certain Severian, whose locality and date are unknown, but
who may be conjectured to speak for Italy, by Maximus of Turin and
Chrysologus of Ravenna in the fifth century, and by Caesarius of Arles
in the beginning of the sixth. Amongst the _portenta_ denounced is a
certain _cervulus_, which lingers in the _Penitentials_ right up to
the tenth century, and with which are sometimes associated a _vitula_
or _iuvenca_. Caesarius adds a _hinnicula_, and St. Eadhelm, who is
my only authority for the presence of the _cervulus_ in England, an
_ermulus_. These seem to be precisely of the nature of ‘hobby-horses.’
Men are said _cervulum ambulare_, _cervulum facere_, _in cervulo
vadere_, and Christians are forbidden to allow these _portenta_ to
come before their houses. The _Penitential_ of the Pseudo-Theodore
tells us that the performers were those who wore the skins and heads
of beasts. Maximus of Turin, and several writers after him, put the
objection to the beast-mimicry of the Kalends largely on the ground
that man made in the image of God must not transform himself into the
image of a beast. But it is clear that the real reason for condemning
it was its unforgettable connexion with heathen cult. Caesarius warns
the culprit that he is making himself into a _sacrificium daemonum_,
and the disguised reveller is more than once spoken of as a living
image of the heathen god or demon itself. There is some confusion of
thought here, and it must be remembered that the initial significance
of the skin-wearing rite was probably buried in oblivion, both for
those who practised it and for those who reprobated. But it is
obvious that the worshipper wearing a sacrificial skin would bear a
close resemblance to the theriomorphic or semi-theriomorphic image
developed out of the sacrificial skin nailed on a tree-trunk; and
it is impossible not to connect the fact that in the prohibitions a
_cervulus_ or ‘hobby-buck’ rather than a ‘hobby-horse’ is prominent
with the widespread worship throughout the districts whence many of
these notices come of the mysterious stag-horned deity, the _Cernunnos_
of the Gaulish altars[912]. On the whole I incline to think that at
least amongst the Germano-Keltic peoples the agricultural gods were not
mimed in procession by human representatives. It is true that in the
mediaeval German processions which sprang out of those of the Kalends
St. Nicholas plays a part, and that the presence of St. Nicholas may
be thought to imply that of some heathen precursor. It will, however,
be seen shortly that St. Nicholas may have got into these processions
through a different train of ideas, equally connected with the Kalends,
but not with the strictly agricultural aspect of that festival. But of
the continuity of the beast-masks and other horrors of these Christmas
processions with those condemned in the prohibitions, there can be no
doubt[913]. A few other survivals of the _cervulus_ and its revel can
be traced in various parts of Europe[914].

The sacrifices of cereals and of the juice of the vine or the barley
are exemplified, the one by the traditional furmenty, plum-porridge,
mince-pie, souling-cake, Yule-dough, Twelfth night cake, _pain de
calende_, and other forms of ‘feasten’ cake[915]; the other by the
wassail-bowl with its bobbing apple[916]. The summer ‘youling’ or
‘tree-wassailing’ is repeated in the orchard[917], and a curious
Herefordshire custom represents an extension of the same principle to
the ox-byre[918]. A German hen-yard custom requires mixed corn, for
the familiar reason that every kind of crop must be included in the
sacrifice[919].

Human sacrifice has been preserved in the whipping of boys on
Innocents’ day, because it could be turned into the symbol of a
Christian myth[920]. It is preserved also, as throughout the summer,
in the custom, Roman as well as Germano-Keltic, of electing a mock
or temporary king. Of such the Epiphany king or ‘king of the bean’
is, especially in France, the best known[921]. Here again, the
association with the three kings or _Magi_ has doubtless prolonged
his sway. But he is not unparalleled. The _rex autumnalis_ of Bath is
perhaps a harvest rather than a beginning of winter king[922]. But the
shoemakers choose their King Crispin on October 25, the day of their
patron saints, Crispin and Crispinian; on St. Clement’s (November
23) the Woolwich blacksmiths have their King Clem, and the maidens
of Peterborough and elsewhere a queen on St. Catherine’s (November
25). Tenby, again, elects its Christmas mock mayor[923]. At York, the
proclaiming of Yule by ‘Yule’ and ‘Yule’s wife’ on St. Thomas’s day
was once a notable pageant[924]. At Norwich, the riding of a ‘kyng of
Crestemesse’ was the occasion of a serious riot in 1443[925]. These may
be regarded as ‘folk’ versions of the mock king. Others, in which the
folk were less concerned, will be the subject of chapters to follow.

Before passing to a fresh group of Christmas customs, I must note the
presence of one more bit of ritual closely related to sacrificial
survivals. That is, the man masquerading in woman’s clothes, in whom we
have found a last faint reminiscence of the once exclusive supremacy
of women in the conduct of agricultural worship. At Rome, musicians
dressed as women paraded the city, not on the Kalends, but on the
Ides of January[926]. The Fathers, however, know such disguising as
a Kalends custom, and a condemnation of it often accompanies that of
beast-mimicry, from the fourth to the eighth century[927].

The winter festival is thus, like the summer festivals, a moment in the
cycle of agricultural ritual, and is therefore shared in by the whole
village in common. It is also, and from the time of the institution
of harvest perhaps preeminently, a festival of the family and the
homestead. This side of it finds various manifestations. There is the
solemn renewal of the undying fire upon the hearth, the central symbol
and almost condition of the existence of the family as such. This
survives in the institution of the ‘Yule-log,’ which throughout the
Germano-Keltic area is lighted on Christmas or more rarely New Year’s
eve, and must burn, as local custom may exact, either until midnight,
or for three days, or during the whole of the Twelve-night period,
from Christmas to Epiphany[928]. Dr. Tille, intent on magnifying the
Roman element in western winter customs, denies any Germano-Keltic
origin to the Christmas blaze, and traces it to the Roman practice of
hanging lamps upon the house-doors during the _Saturnalia_ and the
Kalends[929]. It is true that the Yule-log is sometimes supplemented
or even replaced by the Christmas candle[930], but I do not think that
there can be any doubt which is the primitive form of rite. And the
Yule-log enters closely into the Germano-Keltic scheme of festival
ideas. The preservation of its brands or ashes to be placed in the
mangers or mingled with the seed-corn suggests many and familiar
analogies. Moreover, it is essentially connected with the festival fire
of the village, from which it is still sometimes, and once no doubt was
invariably, lit, affording thus an exact parallel to the Germano-Keltic
practice on the occasion of summer festival fires, or of those built to
stay an epidemic.

Another aspect of the domestic character of the winter festival is
to be found in the prominent part which children take in it. As
_quêteurs_, they have no doubt gradually replaced the elder folk,
during the process through which, even within the historical purview,
ritual has been transformed into play. But St. Nicholas, the chief
mythical figure of the festival, is their patron saint; for their
benefit especially, the _strenae_ or Christmas and New Year’s gifts are
maintained; and in one or two places it is their privilege, on some
fixed day during the season, to ‘bar out’ their parents or masters[931].

Thirdly, the winter festival included a commemoration of ancestors.
It was a feast, not only of riotous life, but of the dead. For, to
the thinking of the Germano-Keltic peoples, the dead kinsmen were not
altogether outside the range of human fellowship. They shared with the
living in banquets upon the tomb. They could even at times return to
the visible world and hover round the familiar precincts of their own
domestic hearth. The Germans, at least, heard them in the gusts of the
storm, and imagined for them a leader who became Odin. From another
point of view they were naturally regarded as under the keeping of
earth, and the earth-mother, in one aspect a goddess of fertility, was
in another the goddess of the dead. As such she was worshipped under
various names and forms, amongst others in the triad of the _Matres_
or _Matronae_. In mediaeval superstition she is represented by Frau
Perchte, Frau Holda and similar personages, by Diana, by Herodias, by
St. Gertrude, just as the functions of Odin are transferred to St.
Martin, St. Nicholas, St. John, Hellequin. It was not unnatural that
the return of the spirits, in the ‘wild hunt’ or otherwise, to earth
should be held to take place especially at the two primitive festivals
which respectively began the winter and the summer. Of the summer or
spring commemoration but scant traces are to be recovered[932]; that
of winter survives, in a dislocated form, in more than one important
anniversary. Its observances have been transferred with those of the
agricultural side of the feast to the _Gemeinwoche_ of harvest[933];
but they are also retained, at or about their original date, on All
Saints’ and All Souls’ days[934]; and, as I proceed to show, they form
a marked and interesting part of the Christmas and New Year ritual.
I do not, indeed, agree with Dr. Mogk, who thinks that the Germans
held their primitive feast of the dead in the blackest time of winter,
for it seems to me more economical to suppose that the observances in
question have been shifted like others from November to the Kalends.
But I still less share the view of Dr. Tille, who denies that any
relics of a feast of the dead can be traced in the Christmas season at
all[935].

Bede makes the statement that the heathen Anglo-Saxons gave to the eve
of the Nativity the name of _Modranicht_ or ‘night of mothers,’ and
in it practised certain ceremonies[936]. It is a difficult passage,
but the most plausible of various explanations seems to be that
which identifies these ceremonies with the cult of those _Matres_ or
_Matronae_, corresponding with the Scandinavian _disar_, whom we seem
justified in regarding as guardians and representatives of the dead.
Nor is there any particular difficulty in guessing at the nature of
the ceremonies referred to. Amongst all peoples the cult of the dead
consists in feeding them; and there is a long catena of evidence for
the persistent survival in the Germano-Keltic area of a Christmas and
New Year custom closely parallel to the _alfablót_ and _disablót_
of the northern _jul_. When the household went to bed after the New
Year revel, a portion of the banquet was left spread upon the table
in the firm belief that during the night the ancestral spirits and
their leaders would come and partake thereof. The practice, which was
also known on the Mediterranean, does not escape the animadversion
of the ecclesiastical prohibitions. The earlier writers who speak of
it, Jerome, Caesarius, Eligius, Boniface, Zacharias, the author of the
_Homilia de Sacrilegiis_, if they give any explanation at all, treat it
as a kind of charm[937]. The laden table, like the human over-eating
and over-drinking, is to prognosticate or cause a year of plentiful
fare. The preachers were more anxious to eradicate heathenism than
to study its antiquities. Burchardus, however, had a touch of the
anthropologist, and Burchardus says definitely that food, drink, and
three knives were laid on the Kalends table for the three _Parcae_,
figures of Roman mythology with whom the western _Matres_ or ‘weird
sisters’ were identified[938]. Mediaeval notices confirm the statement
of Burchardus. Martin of Amberg[939], the _Thesaurus Pauperum_[940] and
the Kloster Scheyern manuscript[941] make the recipient of the bounty
Frau Perchte. In Alsso’s _Largum Sero_ it is for the heathen gods or
demons[942]; in _Dives and Pauper_ for ‘Atholde or Gobelyn[943].’ In
modern survivals it is still often Frau Perchte or the Perchten or
Persteln for whom fragments of food are left; in other cases the custom
has taken on a Christian colouring, and the ancestors’ bit becomes the
portion of _le bon Dieu_ or the Virgin or Christ or the _Magi_, and is
actually given to _quêteurs_ or the poor[944].

It is the ancestors, perhaps, who are really had in mind when libations
are made upon the Yule-log, an observance known to Martin of Braga in
the sixth century[945], and still in use in France[946]. Nor can it be
doubted that the healths drunk to them, and to the first of them, Odin,
lived on in the St. John’s _minnes_, no less than in the St. Martin’s
_minnes_, of Germany[947]. Apart from eating and drinking, numerous
folk-beliefs testify to the presence of the spirits of the dead on
earth in the Twelve nights of Christmas. During these days, or some one
of them, Frau Holle and Frau Perchte are abroad[948]. So is the ‘wild
hunt[949].’ Dreams then dreamt come true[950], and children then born
see ghosts[951]. The werwolf, possessed by a human spirit, is to be
dreaded[952]. The devil and his company dance in the Isle of Man[953]:
in Brittany the _korrigans_ are unloosed, and the dolmens and menhirs
disclose their hidden treasures[954]. Marcellus in _Hamlet_ declares:

‘Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time[955].’

The folk-lorist can only reply, ‘So have I heard, and do not in the
least believe it.’

The wanderings of Odin in the winter nights must be at the bottom of
the nursery myth that the Christian representatives of this divinity,
Saints Martin and Nicholas (the Santa Claus of modern legend), are the
nocturnal givers of _strenae_ to children. In Italy, the fairy Befana
(Epiphania), an equivalent of Diana, has a similar function[956].
It was but a step to the actual representation of such personages
for the greater delight of the children. In Anspach the skin-clad
_Pelzmarten_, in Holland St. Martin in bishop’s robes, make their
rounds on St. Martin’s day with nuts, apples, and such-like[957].
St. Nicholas does the same on St. Nicholas’ day in Holland and
Alsace-Lorraine, at Christmas in Germany[958]. The beneficent saints
were incorporated into the Kalends processions already described, which
in the sixteenth-century Germany included two distinct groups, a dark
one of devils and beast-masks, terrible to children, and a white or
kindly one, in which sometimes appeared the _Jesus-Kind_ himself[959].
It is perhaps a relic of the same merging which gives the German
and Flemish St. Nicholas a black Moor as companion in his nightly
peregrinations[960].

Besides the customs which form part of the agricultural or the domestic
observances of the winter feasts, there are others which belong to
these in their quality as feasts of the New Year. To the primitive mind
the first night and day of the year are full of omen for the nights
and days that follow. Their events must be observed as foretelling,
nay more, they must as far as possible be regulated as determining,
those of the larger period. The eves and days of All Saints, Christmas,
and the New Year itself, as well as in some degree the minor feasts,
preserve in modern folk-lore this prophetic character. It is but an
extension and systematization of the same notion that ascribes to each
of the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany a special influence
upon one of the twelve months of the year[961]. This group of customs
I can only touch most cursorily. The most interesting are those which,
as I have just said, attempt to go beyond foretelling and to determine
the arrival of good fortune. Their method is symbolic. In order that
the house may be prosperous during the year, wealth during the critical
day must flow in and not flow out. Hence the taboos which forbid the
carrying out in particular of those two central elements of early
civilization, fire[962] and iron[963]. Hence too the belief that a job
of work begun on the feast day will succeed, which conflicts rather
curiously in practice with the universal rustic sentiment that to work
or make others work on holidays is the act of a churl[964]. Nothing,
again, is more important to the welfare of the household during the
coming year than the character of the first visitor who may enter
the house on New Year’s day. The precise requirements of a ‘first
foot’ vary in different localities; but as a rule he must be a boy
or man, and not a girl or woman, and he must be dark-haired and not
splay-footed[965]. An ingenious conjecture has connected the latter
requirements with the racial antagonism of the high-instepped dark
pre-Aryan to the flat-footed blonde or red-haired invading Kelt[966].
A Bohemian parallel enables me to explain that of masculinity by the
belief in the influence of the sex of the ‘first foot’ upon that of
the cattle to be born during the year[967]. I regret to add that there
are traces also of a requirement that the ‘first foot’ should not be
a priest, possibly because in that event the shadow of celibacy would
make any births at all improbable[968].

Some of the New Year observances are but prophetic by second intention,
having been originally elements of cult. An example is afforded by the
all-night table for the leaders of the dead, which, as has been pointed
out, was regarded by the Fathers who condemned it as merely a device,
with the festal banquet itself, to ensure carnal well-being. Another is
the habit of giving presents. This, though widespread, is apparently
of Italian and not Germano-Keltic origin[969]. It has gone through
three phases. The original _strena_ played a part in the cult of the
wood-goddess. It was a twig from a sacred tree and the channel of the
divine influence upon the personality of him who held or wore it. The
later _strena_ had clearly become an omen, as is shown by the tradition
which required it to be honeyed or light-bearing or golden[970]. To-day
even this notion may be said to have disappeared, and the Christmas-box
or _étrenne_ is merely a token of goodwill, an amusement for children,
or a blackmail levied by satellites.

The number of minor omens by which the curiosity, chiefly of
women, strives on the winter nights to get a peep into futurity is
legion[971]. Many of them arise out of the ordinary incidents of the
festivities, the baking of the Christmas cakes[972], the roasting of
the nuts in the Hallow-e’en fire[973]. Some of them preserve ideas of
extreme antiquity, as when a girl takes off her shift and sits naked
in the belief that the vision of her future husband will restore it to
her. Others are based upon the most naïve symbolism, as when the same
girl pulls a stick out of the wood-pile to see if her husband will be
straight or crooked[974]. But however diversified the methods, the
objects of the omens are few and unvarying. What will be the weather
and what his crops? How shall he fare in love and the begetting of
children? What are his chances of escaping for yet another year the
summons of the lord of shadows? Such are the simple questions to which
the rustic claims from his gods an answer.

Finally, the instinct of play proved no less enduring in the
Germano-Keltic winter feasts than in those of summer. The priestly
protests against the invasion of the churches by folk-dance and
folk-song apply just as much to Christmas as to any other festal
period. It is, indeed, to Christmas that the monitory legend of the
dancers of Kölbigk attaches itself. A similar pious narrative is that
in the thirteenth-century _Bonum Universale de Apibus_ of Thomas of
Cantimpré, which tells how a devil made a famous song of St. Martin,
and spread it abroad over France and Germany[975]. Yet a third is
solemnly retailed by a fifteenth-century English theologian, who
professes to have known a man who once heard an indecent song at
Christmas, and not long after died of a melancholy[976]. During the
seventeenth century folk still danced and cried ‘Yole’ in Yorkshire
churches after the Christmas services[977]. Hopeless of abolishing
such customs, the clergy tried to capture them. The Christmas crib
was rocked to the rhythms of a dance, and such great Latin hymns as
the _Hic iacet in cunabulis_ and the _Resonat in laudibus_ became
the parents of a long series of festival songs, half sacred, half
profane[978]. In Germany these were known as _Wiegenlieder_, in France
as _noëls_, in England as carols; and the latter name makes it clear
that they are but a specialized development of those _caroles_ or
_rondes_ which of all mediaeval _chansons_ came nearest to the type of
Germano-Keltic folk-song. A single passage in a Byzantine writer gives
a tantalizing glimpse of such a folk-revel or _laiks_ at a much earlier
stage. Constantine Porphyrogennetos describes amongst the New Year
sports and ceremonies of the court of Byzantium in the tenth century
one known as τὸ Γοτθικόν. In this the courtiers were led by two ‘Goths’
wearing skins and masks, and carrying staves and shields which they
clashed together. An intricate dance took place about the hall, which
naturally recalls the sword-dance of western Europe. A song followed,
of which the words are preserved. They are only partly intelligible,
and seem to contain allusions to the sacrificial boar and to the
Gothic names of certain deities. From the fact that they are in Latin,
the scholars who have studied them infer that the Γοτθικόν drifted
to Byzantium from the court of the great sixth-century Ostrogoth,
Theodoric[979].

CHAPTER XIII

THE FEAST OF FOOLS

[_Bibliographical Note._--The best recent accounts of the Feast
of Fools as a whole are those of G. M. Dreves in _Stimmen aus
Maria-Laach_ (1894), xlvii. 571, and Heuser in Wetzer and
Welte, _Kirchenlexicon_ (ed. 2), iv. 1402, s. v. _Feste_ (2),
and an article in _Zeitschrift für Philosophie und katholische
Theologie_ (Bonn, 1850), N. F. xi. 2. 161. There is also a
summary by F. Loliée in _Revue des Revues_, xxv (1898), 400.
The articles by L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud in _Superstitions et
Survivances_ (1896), vol. iv, and in _La Tradition_, viii.
153; ix. 1 are unscholarly compilations. A pamphlet by J. X.
Carré de Busserolle, published in 1859, I have not been able
to see; another, or a reprint of the same, was promised in his
series of _Usages singuliers de Touraine_, but as far as I know
never appeared. Of the older learning the interest is mainly
polemical in J. Deslyons, _Traitez singuliers et nouveaux contre
le Paganisme du Roy-boit_ (1670); J. B. Thiers, _De Festorum
Dierum Imminutione_ (1668), c. 48; _Traité des Jeux et des
Divertissemens_ (1686), c. 33; and historical in Du Tilliot,
_Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de la Fête des Foux_ (1741 and
1751); F. Douce, in _Archaeologia_, xv. 225; M. J. R[igollot] et
C. L[eber], _Monnaies inconnues des Évêques des Innocens, des
Fous, &c._ (1837). Vols. ix and x of C. Leber, _Collection des
meilleurs Dissertations, &c., relatifs à l’Histoire de France_
(1826 and 1838), contain various treatises on the subject, some
of them, by the Abbé Lebeuf and others, from the _Mercure de
France_. A. de Martonne, _La Piété du Moyen Âge_ (1855), 202,
gives a useful bibliographical list. The collection of material
in Ducange’s _Glossary_, s.vv. _Deposuit_, _Festum Asini_,
_Kalendae_, &c., is invaluable. Authorities of less general range
are quoted in the footnotes to this chapter: the most important
is A. Chérest’s account of the Sens feast in _Bulletin de la
Soc. des Sciences de l’Yonne_ (1853), vol. vii. Chérest used a
collection of notes by E. Baluze (1630-1718) which are in _MS.
Bibl. Nat._ 1351 (cf. _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, xxxv.
267). Dom. Grenier (1725-89) wrote an account of the Picardy
feasts, in his _Introduction à l’Histoire de Picardie_ (_Soc. des
Antiquaires de Picardie, Documens inédits_ (1856), iii. 352). But
many of his _probata_ remain in his _MSS. Picardie_ in the _Bibl.
Nat._ (cf. _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, xxxii. 275). Some of
this material was used by Rigollot for the book named above.]

The New Year customs, all too briefly summed up in the last chapter,
are essentially folk customs. They belong to the ritual of that village
community whose primitive organization still, though obscurely,
underlies the complex society of western Europe. The remaining
chapters of the present volume will deal with certain modifications
and developments introduced into those customs by new social classes
which gradually differentiated themselves during the Middle Ages
from the village folk. The churchman, the _bourgeois_, the courtier,
celebrated the New Year, even as the peasant did. But they put their
own temper into the observances; and it is worth while to accord a
separate treatment to the shapes which these took in such hands, and to
the resulting influence upon the dramatic conditions of the sixteenth
century.

The discussion must begin with the somewhat startling New Year revels
held by the inferior clergy in mediaeval cathedrals and collegiate
churches, which may be known generically as the ‘Feast of Fools.’
Actually, the feast has different names in different localities. Most
commonly it is the _festum stultorum_, _fatuorum_ or _follorum_; but
it is also called the _festum subdiaconorum_ from the highest of the
_minores ordines_ who, originally at least, conducted it, and the
_festum baculi_ from one of its most characteristic and symbolical
ceremonies; while it shares with certain other rites the suggestive
title of the ‘Feast of Asses,’ _asinaria festa_.

The main area of the feast is in France, and it is in France that it
must first of all be considered. I do not find a clear notice of it
until the end of the twelfth century[980]. It is mentioned, however,
in the _Rationale Divinorum Officium_ (†1182-90) of Joannes Belethus,
rector of Theology at Paris, and afterwards a cathedral dignitary
at Amiens. ‘There are four _tripudia_’ Belethus tells us, ‘after
Christmas. They are those of the deacons, priests, and choir-children,
and finally that of the sub-deacons, _quod vocamus stultorum_, which is
held according to varying uses, on the Circumcision, or on Epiphany,
or on the octave of Epiphany[981].’ Almost simultaneously the feast
can be traced in the cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris, through an
epigram written by one Leonius, a canon of the cathedral, to a friend
who was about to pay him a visit for the _festum baculi_ at the New
Year[982]. The _baculus_ was the staff used by the precentor of a
cathedral, or whoever might be conducting the choir in his place[983].
Its function in the Feast of Fools may be illustrated from an order for
the reformation of the Notre-Dame ceremony issued in 1199. This order
was made by Eudes de Sully, bishop of Paris, together with the dean
and other chapter officers[984]. It recites a mandate sent to them by
cardinal Peter of Capua, then legate in France. The legate had been
informed of the improprieties and disorders, even to shedding of blood,
which had given to the feast of the Circumcision in the cathedral
the appropriate name of the _festum fatuorum_. It was not a time for
mirth, for the fourth crusade had failed, and Pope Innocent III was
preaching the fifth. Nor could such _spurcitia_ be allowed in the
sanctuary of God. The bishop and his fellows must at once take order
for the pruning of the feast. In obedience to the legate they decree as
follows. The bells for first Vespers on the eve of the Circumcision are
to be rung in the usual way. There are to be no _chansons_, no masks,
and no hearse lights, except on the iron wheels or on the _penna_ at
the will of the functionary who is to surrender the cope[985]. The lord
of the feast is not to be led in procession or with singing to the
cathedral or back to his house. He is to put on his cope in the choir,
and with the precentor’s _baculus_ in his hand to start the singing of
the prose _Laetemur gaudiis_[986]. Vespers, Compline, Matins and Mass
are to be sung in the usual festal manner. Certain small functions
are reserved for the sub-deacons, and the Epistle at Mass is to be
‘farced[987].’ At second Vespers _Laetemur gaudiis_ is to be again
sung, and also _Laetabundus_[988]. Then comes an interesting direction.
_Deposuit_ is to be sung where it occurs five times at most, and ‘if
the _baculus_ has been taken,’ Vespers are to be closed by the ordinary
officiant after a _Te Deum_. Throughout the feast canons and clerks
are to remain properly in their stalls[989]. The abuses which it was
intended to eliminate from the feast are implied rather than stated;
but the general character of the ceremony is clear. It consisted in the
predominance throughout the services, for this one day in the year, of
the despised sub-deacons. Probably they had been accustomed to take the
canons’ stalls. This Eudes de Sully forbids, but even, in the feast
as he left it the importance of the _dominus festi_, the sub-deacons’
representative, is marked by the transfer to him of the _baculus_,
and with it the precentor’s control. _Deposuit potentes de sede:
et exaltavit humiles_ occurs in the _Magnificat_, which is sung at
Vespers; and the symbolical phrase, during which probably the _baculus_
was handed over from the _dominus_ of one year to the _dominus_ of the
next, became the keynote of the feast, and was hailed with inordinate
repetition by the delighted throng of inferior clergy[990].

Shortly after the Paris reformation a greater than Eudes de Sully and a
greater than Peter de Capua was stirred into action by the scandal of
the Feast of Fools and the cognate _tripudia_. In 1207, Pope Innocent
III issued a decretal to the archbishop and bishops of the province of
Gnesen in Poland, in which he called attention to the introduction,
especially during the Christmas feasts held by deacons, priests and
sub-deacons, of _larvae_ or masks and _theatrales ludi_ into churches,
and directed the discontinuance of the practice[991]. This decretal
was included as part of the permanent canon law in the _Decretales_ of
Gregory IX in 1234[992]. But some years before this it found support,
so far as France was concerned, in a national council held at Paris by
the legate Robert de Courcon in 1212, at which both regular and secular
clergy were directed to abstain from the _festa follorum, ubi baculus
accipitur_[993].

It was now time for other cathedral chapters besides that of Paris
to set their houses in order, and good fortune has preserved to us
a singular monument of the attempts which they made to do so. The
so-called _Missel des Fous_ of Sens may be seen in the municipal
library of that city[994]. It is enshrined in a Byzantine ivory diptych
of much older date than itself[995]. It is not a missal at all. It is
headed _Officium Circumcisionis in usum urbis Senonensis_, and is a
choir-book containing the words and music of the _Propria_ or special
chants used in the Hours and Mass at the feast[996]. Local tradition
at Sens, as far back as the early sixteenth century, ascribed the
compilation of this office to that very Petrus de Corbolio who was
associated with Eudes de Sully in the Paris reformation[997]. Pierre
de Corbeil, whom scholastics called _doctor opinatissimus_ and his
epitaph _flos et honor cleri_, had a varied ecclesiastical career.
As canon of Notre-Dame and reader in the Paris School of Theology he
counted amongst his pupils one no less distinguished than the future
Pope Innocent III himself. He became archdeacon of Evreux, coadjutor
of Lincoln (a fact of some interest in connexion with the scanty
traces of the Feast of Fools in England), bishop of Cambrai, and
finally archbishop of Sens, where he died in 1222. There is really no
reason to doubt his connexion with the _Officium_. The handwriting of
the manuscript and the character of the music are consistent with a
date early in the thirteenth century[998]. Elaborate and interpolated
offices were then still in vogue, and the good bishop enjoyed some
reputation for literature as well as for learning. He composed an
office for the Assumption, and is even suspected of contributions in
his youth to goliardic song[999]. It is unlikely that he actually wrote
much of the text of the _Officium Circumcisionis_, very little of which
is peculiar to Sens. But he may well have compiled or revised it for
his own cathedral, with the intention of pruning the abuses of the
feast; and, in so doing, he evidently admitted proses and _farsurae_
with a far more liberal hand than did Eudes de Sully. The whole office,
which is quite serious and not in the least burlesque, well repays
study. I can only dwell on those parts of it which throw light on the
general character of the celebration for which it was intended.

The first Vespers on the eve of the Circumcision are preceded by four
lines sung _in ianuis ecclesiae_:

‘Lux hodie, lux laetitiae, me iudice tristis
quisquis erit, removendus erit solemnibus istis,
sint hodie procul invidiae, procul omnia maesta,
laeta volunt, quicunque colunt asinaria festa.’

These lines are interesting, because they show that the
thirteenth-century name for the feast at Sens was the _asinaria festa_,
the ‘Feast of the Ass.’ They are followed by what is popularly known
as the ‘Prose of the Ass,’ but is headed in the manuscript _Conductas
ad tabulam_. A _conductus_ is a chant sung while the officiant is
conducted from one station to another in the church[1000], and the
_tabula_ is the _rota_ of names and duties _pro cantu et lectura_, with
the reading of which the Vespers began[1001]. The text of the Prose of
the Ass, as used at Sens and elsewhere, is given in an appendix[1002].
Next come a trope and a farsed Alleluia, a long interpolation dividing
‘Alle-’ and ‘-luia,’ and then another passage which has given a wrong
impression of the nature of the office:

‘_Quatuor vel quinque in falso retro altare_:
Haec est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,
haec est festa dies, festarum festa dierum,
nobile nobilium rutilans diadema dierum.

_Duo vel tres in voce retro altare_:
Salve festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,
qua Deus est ortus virginis ex utero[1003].’

The phrase _in falso_ does not really mean ‘out of tune.’ It means,
‘with the harmonized accompaniment known as _en faux bourdon_’, and is
opposed to _in voce_, ‘in unison[1004].’ The Vespers, with many further
interpolations, then continue, and after them follow Compline, Matins,
Lauds[1005], Prime, Tierce, the Mass, Sext, and second Vespers. These
end with three further pieces of particular interest from our point of
view. The first is a _Conductus ad Bacularium_, the name _Bacularius_
being doubtless that given at Sens to the _dominus festi_[1006]. This
opens in a marked festal strain:

‘Novus annus hodie
monet nos laetitiae
laudes inchoare,
felix est principium,
finem cuius gaudium
solet terminare.
celebremus igitur
festum annuale,
quo peccati solvitur
vinculum mortale
et infirmis proponitur
poculum vitale;
adhuc sanat aegrotantes
hoc medicinale,
unde psallimus laetantes
ad memoriale.
ha, ha, ha,
qui vult vere psallere,
trino psallat munere,
corde, ore, opere
debet laborare,
ut sic Deum colere
possit et placare.’

The _Bacularius_ is then, one may assume, led out of the church, with
the _Conductus ad Poculum_, which begins,

‘Kalendas Ianuarias
solemnes, Christe, facias,
et nos ad tuas nuptias
vocatus rex suscipias.’

The manuscript ends, so far as the Feast of the Circumcision is
concerned, with some _Versus ad Prandium_, to be sung in the refectory,
taken from a hymn of Prudentius[1007].

The Sens _Missel des Fous_ has been described again and again. Less
well known, however, is the very similar _Officium_ of Beauvais,
and for the simple reason that although recent writers on the Feast
of Fools have been aware of its existence, they have not been aware
of its _habitat_. I have been fortunate enough to find it in the
British Museum, and only regret that I am not sufficiently acquainted
with textual and musical palaeography to print it _in extenso_ as
an appendix to this chapter[1008]. The date of the manuscript is
probably 1227-34[1009]. Like that of Sens it contains the _Propria_
for the Feast of the Circumcision from Vespers to Vespers. Unluckily,
there is a lacuna of several pages in the middle[1010]. The office
resembles that of Sens in general character, but is much longer.
There are two lines of opening rubric, of which all that remains
legible is ... _medio stantes incipit cantor_. Then comes the quatrain
_Lux hodie_ similarly used at Sens, but with the notable variant of
_praesentia festa_ for _asinaria festa_. Then, under the rubric, also
barely legible, _Conductus, quando asinus adducitur_[1011], comes
the ‘Prose of the Ass.’ At the end of Lauds is the following rubric:
_Postea omnes eant ante ianuas ecclesiae clausas. Et quatuor stent
foris tenentes singli urnas vino plenas cum cyfis vitreis. Quorum unus
canonicus incipiat_ Kalendas Ianuarias. _Tunc aperiantur ianuae._ Here
comes the lacuna in the manuscript, which begins again in the Mass.
Shortly before the prayer for the pope is a rubric _Quod dicitur, ubi
apponatur baculus_, which appears to be a direction for a ceremony
not fully described in the _Officium_. The ‘Prose of the Ass’ occurs
a second time as the _Conductus Subdiaconi ad Epistolam_, and on this
occasion the musical accompaniment is harmonized in three parts[1012].
I can find nothing about a _Bacularius_ at second Vespers, but the
office ends with a series of _conductus_ and hymns, some of which are
also harmonized in parts. The _Officium_ is followed in the manuscript
by a Latin cloister play of _Daniel_[1013].

An earlier manuscript than that just described was formerly preserved
in the Beauvais cathedral library. It dated from 1160-80[1014]. It
was known to Pierre Louvet, the seventeenth-century historian of
Beauvais[1015], and apparently to Dom Grenier, who died in 1789[1016].
According to Grenier’s account it must have closely resembled that in
the British Museum.

‘Aux premières vêpres, le chantre commençait par entonner au milieu
de la nef: _Lux hodie, lux laetitiae_, etc.... À laudes rien de
particulier que le _Benedictus_ et son répons farcis. Les laudes
finies on sortait de l’église pour aller trouver l’âne qui attendait
à la grande porte. Elle était fermée. Là, chacun des chanoines s’y
trouvant la bouteille et le verre à la main, le chantre entonnait
la prose: _Kalendas ianuarias solemne Christe facias_. Voici ce que
porte l’ancien cérémonial: _dominus cantor et canonici ante ianuas
ecclesiae clausas stent foris tenentes singuli urnas vini plenas cum
cyfis vitreis, quorum unus cantor incipiat: Kalendas ianuarias_, etc.
Les battants de la porte ouverts, on introduisait l’âne dans l’église,
en chantant la prose: _Orientis partibus_. Ici est une lacune dans le
manuscrit jusque vers le milieu du _Gloria in excelsis_.... On chantait
la litanie: _Christus vincit_, _Christus regnat_, dans laquelle on
priait pour le pape Alexandre III, pour Henri de France, évêque de
Beauvais, pour le roi Louis VII et pour Alixe ou Adèle de Champagne
qui était devenue reine en 1160; par quoi on peut juger de l’antiquité
de ce cérémonial. L’Évangile était précédé d’une prose et suivi d’une
autre. Il est marqué dans le cérémonial de cinq cents ans que les
encensements du jour de cette fête se feront avec le boudin et la
saucisse: _hac die incensabitur cum boudino et saucita_.’

Dom Grenier gives as the authority for his last sentence, not the
_Officium_, but the _Glossary_ of Ducange, or rather the additions
thereto made by certain Benedictine editors in 1733-6. They quote the
pudding and sausage rubric together with that as to the drinking-bout,
which occurs in both the _Officia_, as from a Beauvais manuscript. This
they describe as a _codex ann. circiter_ 500[1017]. It seems probable
that this was not an _Officium_ at all, but something of the nature of
a Processional, and that it was identical with the _codex 500 annorum_
from which the same Benedictines derived their amazing account of a
Beauvais ceremony which took place not on January 1 but on January
14[1018]. A pretty girl, with a child in her arms, was set upon an ass,
to represent the Flight into Egypt. There was a procession from the
cathedral to the church of St. Stephen. The ass and its riders were
stationed on the gospel side of the altar. A solemn mass was sung, in
which _Introit_, _Kyrie_, _Gloria_ and _Credo_ ended with a bray. To
crown all, the rubrics direct that the celebrant, instead of saying
_Ite_, _missa est_, shall bray three times (_ter hinhannabit_) and
that the people shall respond in similar fashion. At this ceremony
also the ‘Prose of the Ass’ was used, and the version preserved in the
_Glossary_ is longer and more ludicrous than that of either the Sens or
the Beauvais _Officium_.

On a review of all the facts it would seem that the Beauvais documents
represent a stage of the feast unaffected by any such reform as that
carried out by Pierre de Corbeil at Sens. And the nature of that
reform is fairly clear. Pierre de Corbeil provided a text of the
_Officium_ based either on that of Beauvais or on an earlier version
already existing at Sens. He probably added very little of his own,
for the Sens manuscript only contains a few short passages not to
be found in that of Beauvais. And as the twelfth-century Beauvais
manuscript seems to have closely resembled the thirteenth-century one
still extant, Beauvais cannot well have borrowed from him. At the same
time he doubtless suppressed whatever burlesque ceremonies, similar
to the Beauvais drinking-bout in the porch and censing with pudding
and sausage, may have been in use at Sens. One of these was possibly
the actual introduction of an ass into the church. But it must be
remembered that the most extravagant of such ceremonies would not be
likely at either place to get into the formal service-books[1019].
As the Sens _Officium_ only includes the actual service of January 1
itself, it is impossible to compare the way in which the semi-dramatic
extension of the feast was treated in the two neighbouring cathedrals.
But Sens probably had this extension, for as late as 1634 there was an
annual procession, in which the leading figures were the Virgin Mary
mounted on an ass and a _cortège_ of the twelve Apostles. This did not,
however, at that time take part in the Mass[1020].

The full records of the Feast of Fools at Sens do not begin until the
best part of a century after the probable date of its _Officium_. But
one isolated notice breaks the interval, and shows that the efforts of
Pierre de Corbeil were not for long successful in purging the revel of
its abuses. This is a letter written to the chapter in 1245 by Odo,
cardinal of Tusculum, who was then papal legate in France. He calls
attention to the _antiqua ludibria_ of the feasts of Christmas week and
of the Circumcision, and requires these to be celebrated, not _iuxta
pristinum modum_, but with the proper ecclesiastical ceremonies. He
specifically reprobates the use of unclerical dress and the wearing of
wreaths of flowers[1021].

A little later in date than either the Sens or the Beauvais _Officium_
is a _Ritual_ of St. Omer, which throws some light on the Feast of
Fools as it was celebrated in the northern town on the day of the
Circumcision about 1264. It was the feast of the vicars and the choir.
A ‘bishop’ and a ‘dean’ of Fools took part in the services. The latter
was censed in burlesque fashion, and the whole office was recited at
the pitch of the voice, and even with howls. There cannot have been
much of a reformation here[1022].

A few other scattered notices of thirteenth-century Feasts of Fools may
be gathered together. The _Roman de Renard_ is witness to the existence
of such a feast, with _jeux_ and tippling, at Bayeux, about 1200[1023].
At Autun, the chapter forbade the _baculus anni novi_ in 1230[1024].
Feasts of Fools on Innocents’ and New Year’s days are forbidden by the
statutes of Nevers cathedral in 1246[1025]. At Romans, in Dauphiné, an
agreement was come to in 1274 between the chapter, the archbishop of
Vienne and the municipal authorities, that the choice of an abbot by
the cathedral clerks known as _esclaffardi_ should cease, on account
of the disturbances and scandals to which it had given rise[1026]. The
earliest mention of the feast at Laon is about 1280[1027]; while it is
provided for as the sub-deacons’ feast by an Amiens _Ordinarium_ of
1291[1028]. Nor are the ecclesiastical writers oblivious of it. William
of Auxerre opens an era of learned speculation in his _De Officiis
Ecclesiasticis_, by explaining it as a Christian substitute for the
_Parentalia_ of the pagans[1029]. Towards the end of the century,
Durandus, bishop of Mende, who drew upon both William of Auxerre and
Belethus for his _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_, gave an account of
it which agrees closely with that of Belethus[1030]. Neither William of
Auxerre nor Durandus shows himself hostile to the Feast of Fools. Its
abuses are, however, condemned in more than one contemporary collection
of sermons[1031].

With the fourteenth century the records of the Feast of Fools
become more frequent. In particular, the account-books of the
chapter of Sens throw some light on the organization of the feast
in that cathedral[1032]. The _Compotus Camerarii_ has, from 1345
onwards, a yearly entry _pro vino praesentato vicariis ecclesiae die
Circumcisionis Domini_. Sometimes the formula is varied to _die festi
fatuorum_. In course of time the whole expenses of the feast come
to be a charge on the chapter, and in particular, it would appear,
upon the sub-deacon canons[1033]. In 1376 is mentioned, for the first
time, the _dominus festi_, to whom under the title of _precentor et
provisor festi stultorum_ a payment is made. The _Compotus Nemorum_
shows that by 1374 a prebend in the chapter woods had been appropriated
to the vicars _pro festo fatuorum_. Similar entries occur to the
end of the fourteenth century and during the first quarter of the
fifteenth[1034]. Then came the war to disturb everything, and from
1420 the account-books rarely show any traces of the feast. Nor were
civil commotions alone against it. As in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, so in the fourteenth and fifteenth the abuses which clung
about the Feasts of Fools rendered them everywhere a mark for the
eloquence of ecclesiastical reformers. About 1400 the famous theologian
and rector of Paris University, Jean-Charlier de Gerson, put himself at
the head of a crusade against the _ritus ille impiissimus et insanus
qui regnat per totam Franciam_, and denounced it roundly in sermons and
_conclusiones_. The indecencies of the feast, he declares, would shame
a kitchen or a tavern. The chapters will do nothing to stop them, and
if the bishops protest, they are flouted and defied. The scandal can
only be ended by the interposition of royal authority[1035]. According
to Gerson, Charles the Sixth did on one occasion issue letters against
the feast; and the view of the reformers found support in the diocesan
council of Langres in 1404[1036], and the provincial council of Tours,
held at Nantes in 1431[1037]. It was a more serious matter when, some
years after Gerson’s death, the great council of Basle included a
prohibition of the feast in its reformatory decrees of 1435[1038].
By the Pragmatic Sanction issued by Charles VII at the national
council of Bourges in 1438, these decrees became ecclesiastical law in
France[1039], and it was competent for the _Parlements_ to put them
into execution[1040]. But the chapters were obstinate; the feasts
were popular, not only with the inferior clergy themselves, but with
the _spectacle_-loving _bourgeois_ of the cathedral towns; and it
was only gradually that they died out during the course of the next
century and a half. The failure of the Pragmatic Sanction to secure
immediate obedience in this matter roused the University of Paris,
still possessed with the spirit of Gerson, to fresh action. On March
12, 1445, the Faculty of Theology, acting through its dean, Eustace
de Mesnil, addressed to the bishops and chapters of France a letter
which, from the minuteness of its indictment, is perhaps the most
curious of the many curious documents concerning the feast[1041]. It
consists of a preamble and no less than fourteen _conclusiones_, some
of which are further complicated by _qualificationes_. The preamble
sets forth the facts concerning the _festum fatuorum_. It has its clear
origin, say the theologians, in the rites of paganism, amongst which
this Janus-worship of the Kalends has alone been allowed to survive.
They then describe the customs of the feast in a passage which I must
translate:

‘Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at
the hours of office. They dance in the choir dressed as women, panders
or minstrels. They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings at the
horn of the altar while the celebrant is saying mass. They play at dice
there. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They
run and leap through the church, without a blush at their own shame.
Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby traps and
carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in
infamous performances, with indecent gestures and verses scurrilous and
unchaste[1042].’

There follows a refutation of the argument that such _ludi_ are but
the relaxation of the bent bow in a fashion sanctioned by antiquity.
On the contrary, they are due to original sin, and the snares of
devils. The bishops are besought to follow the example of St. Paul and
St. Augustine, of bishops Martin, Hilarius, Chrysostom, Nicholas and
Germanus of Auxerre, all of whom made war on sacrilegious practices,
not to speak of the canons of popes and general councils, and to stamp
out the _ludibria_. It rests with them, for the clergy will not be so
besotted as to face the Inquisition and the secular arm[1043].

The _conclusiones_ thus introduced yield a few further data as to the
ceremonies of the feast. It seems to be indifferently called _festum
stultorum_ and _festum fatuorum_. It takes place in cathedrals and
collegiate churches, on Innocents’ day, on St. Stephen’s, on the
Circumcision, or on other dates. ‘Bishops’ or ‘archbishops’ of Fools
are chosen, who wear mitres and pastoral staffs, and have crosses borne
before them, as if they were on visitation. They take the Office, and
give Benedictions to the readers of the lessons at Matins, and to
the congregations. In exempt churches, subject only to the Holy See,
a ‘pope’ of Fools is naturally chosen instead of a ‘bishop’ or an
‘archbishop.’ The clergy wear the garments of the laity or of fools,
and the laity put on priestly or monastic robes. _Ludi theatrales_ and
_personagiorum ludi_ are performed.

The manifesto of the Theological Faculty helped in at least one town
to bring matters to a crisis. At Troyes the Feast of Fools appears to
have been celebrated on the Circumcision in the three great collegiate
churches of St. Peter, St. Stephen, and St. Urban, and on Epiphany in
the abbey of St. Loup. The earliest records are from St. Peter’s. In
1372 the chapter forbade the vicars to celebrate the feast without
leave. In 1380 and 1381 there are significant entries of payments for
damage done: in the former year Marie-la-Folle broke a _candelabrum_;
in the latter a cross had to be repaired and gilded. In 1436, the year
after the council of Basle, leave was given to hold the feast without
irreverence. In 1439, the year after the Pragmatic Sanction, it was
forbidden. In 1443, it was again permitted. But it must be outside
the church. The ‘archbishop’ might wear a rochet, but the supper must
take place in the house of one of the canons, and not at a tavern. The
experiment was not altogether a success, for a canon had to be fined
twenty sous _pour les grandes sottises et les gestes extravagants
qu’il s’était permis à la fête des fols_[1044]. Towards the end of
1444, when it was proposed to renew the feast, the bishop of Troyes,
Jean Leguisé, intervened. The clergy of St. Peter’s were apparently
willing to submit, but those of St. Stephen’s stood out. They told the
bishop that they were exempt from his jurisdiction, and subject only to
his metropolitan, the archbishop of Sens; and they held an elaborate
revel with even more than the usual insolence and riot. On the Sunday
before Christmas they publicly consecrated their ‘archbishop’ in the
most public place of the town with a _jeu de personnages_ called _le
jeu du sacre de leur arcevesque_, which was a burlesque of the _saint
mistère de consécration pontificale_. The feast itself took place in
St. Stephen’s Church. The vicar who was chosen ‘archbishop’ performed
the service on the eve and day of the Circumcision _in pontificalibus_,
gave the Benediction to the people, and went in procession through the
town. Finally, on Sunday, January 3, the clergy of all three churches
joined in another _jeu de personnages_, in which, under the names
of _Hypocrisie_, _Faintise_ and _Faux-semblant_, the bishop and two
canons who had been most active in opposing the feast, were held up
to ridicule. Jean Leguisé was not a man to be defied with impunity.
On January 23 he wrote a letter to the archbishop of Sens, Louis de
Melun, calling his attention to the fact that the rebellious clerks had
claimed his authority for their action. He also lodged a complaint with
the king himself, and probably incited the Faculty of Theology at Paris
to back him up with the protest already described. The upshot of it all
was a sharp letter from Charles VII to the _bailly_ and _prévost_ of
Troyes, setting forth what had taken place, and requiring them to see
that no repetition of the scandalous _jeux_ was allowed[1045]. Shortly
afterwards the chapter of St. Peter’s sent for their _Ordinarium_, and
solemnly erased all that was derogatory to religion and the good name
of the clergy in the directions for the feast. What the chapter of St.
Stephen’s did, we do not know. The canons mainly to blame had already
apologized to the bishop. Probably it was thought best to say nothing,
and let it blow over. At any rate, it is interesting to note that in
1595, a century and a half later, St. Stephen’s was still electing its
_archevesque des saulx_, and that _droits_ were paid on account of the
vicars’ feast until all _droits_ tumbled in 1789[1046].

The proceedings at Troyes seem to have reacted upon the feast at Sens.
In December, 1444, the chapter had issued an elaborate order for the
regulation of the ceremony, in which they somewhat pointedly avoided
any reference to the council of Basle or the Pragmatic Sanction, and
cited only the legatine statute of Odo of Tusculum in 1245. The order
requires that divine service shall be devoutly and decently performed,
_prout iacet in libro ipsius servitii_. By this is doubtless meant the
_Officium_ already described. There must be no mockery or impropriety,
no unclerical costume, no dissonant singing. Then comes what,
considering that this is a reform, appears a sufficiently remarkable
direction. Not more than three buckets of water at most must be poured
over the _precentor stultorum_ at Vespers. The custom of ducking
on St. John’s eve, apparently the occasion when the precentor was
elected, is also pruned, and a final clause provides that if nobody’s
rights are infringed the _stulti_ may do what they like outside the
church[1047]. Under these straitened conditions the feast was probably
held in 1445. There was, however, the archbishop as well as the chapter
to be reckoned with. It was difficult for Louis de Melun, after the
direct appeal made to him by his suffragan at Troyes, to avoid taking
some action, and in certain statutes promulgated in November, 1445,
he required the suppression of the whole _consuetudo_ and ordered the
directions for it to be erased from the chant-books[1048]. There is
now no mention of the feast until 1486, from which date an occasional
payment for _la feste du premier jour de l’an_ begins to appear again
in the chapter account-books[1049]. In 1511, the _servitium divinum_
after the old custom is back in the church. But the chapter draws
a distinction between the _servitium_ and the _festum stultorum_,
which is forbidden. The performance of _jeux de personnages_ and the
public shaving of the precentor’s beard on a stage are especially
reprobated[1050]. The _servitium_ was again allowed in 1514, 1516,
1517, and in 1520 with a provision that the _lucerna precentoris
fatuorum_ must not be brought into the church[1051]. In 1522, both
_servitium_ and _festum_ were forbidden on account of the war with
Spain; the shaving of the precentor and the ceremony of his election
on the feast of St. John the Evangelist again coming in for express
prohibition[1052]. In 1523 the _servitium_ was allowed upon a protest
by the vicars, but only with the strict exclusion of the popular
elements[1053]. In 1524 even the _servitium_ was withheld, and though
sanctioned again in 1535, 1539 and 1543, it was finally suppressed in
1547[1054]. Some feast, however, would still seem to have been held,
probably outside the church, until 1614[1055], and even as late as 1634
there was a trace of it in the annual procession of the Virgin Mary and
the Apostles, already referred to.

This later history of the feast at Sens is fairly typical, as the
following chapter will show, of what took place all over France.
The chapters by no means showed themselves universally willing to
submit to the decree promulgated in the Pragmatic Sanction. In many of
them the struggle between the conservative and the reforming parties
was spread over a number of years. Councils, national, provincial
and diocesan, continued to find it necessary to condemn the feast,
mentioning it either by name or in a common category with other _ludi_,
_spectacula_, _choreae_, _tripudia_ and _larvationes_[1056]. In one
or two instances the authority of the _Parlements_ was invoked. But
in the majority of cases the feast either gradually disappeared, or
else passed, first from the churches into the streets, and then from
the clerks to the _bourgeois_, often to receive a new life under quite
altered circumstances at the hands of some witty and popular _compagnie
des fous_[1057].

CHAPTER XIV

THE FEAST OF FOOLS (_continued_)

The history of the Feast of Fools has been so imperfectly written,
that it is perhaps worth while to bring together the records of its
occurrence, elsewhere than in Troyes and Sens, from the fourteenth
century onwards. They could probably be somewhat increased by an
exhaustive research amongst French local histories, archives, and the
transactions of learned societies. Of the feast in Notre-Dame at Paris
nothing is heard after the reformation carried out in 1198 by Eudes de
Sully[1058]. The _bourgeois_ of Tournai were, indeed, able to quote a
Paris precedent for the feast of their own city in 1499; but this may
have been merely the feast of some minor collegiate body, such as that
founded in 1303 by cardinal Le Moine[1059]; or of the scholars of the
University, or of the _compagnie joyeuse_ of the _Enfants-sans-Souci_.
At Beauvais, too, there are only the faintest traces of the feast
outside the actual twelfth-and thirteenth-century service-books[1060].
But there are several other towns in the provinces immediately north
and east of the capital, Île de France, Picardy, Champagne, where it
is recorded. The provision made for it in the Amiens _Ordinarium_ of
1291 has been already quoted. Shortly after this, bishop William de
Macon, who died in 1303, left his own _pontificalia_ for the use of
the ‘bishop of Fools[1061].’ When, however, the feast reappears in the
fifteenth century the _dominus festi_ is no longer a ‘bishop,’ but a
‘pope.’ In 1438 there was an endowment consisting of a share in the
profits of some lead left by one John le Caron, who had himself been
‘pope[1062].’ In 1520 the feast was held, but no bells were to be
jangled[1063]. It was repeated in 1538. Later in the year the customary
election of the ‘pope’ on the anniversary of Easter was forbidden, but
the canons afterwards repented of their severity[1064]. In 1540 the
chapter paid a subsidy towards the amusements of the ‘pope’ and his
‘cardinals’ on the Sunday called _brioris_[1065]. In 1548 the feast
was suppressed[1066]. At Noyon the vicars chose a ‘king of Fools’ on
Epiphany eve. The custom is mentioned in 1366 as ‘_le gieu des roys_.’
By 1419 it was forbidden, and canon John de Gribauval was punished
for an attempt to renew it by taking the sceptre off the high altar
at Compline on Epiphany. In 1497, 1499, and 1505 it was permitted
again, with certain restrictions. The cavalcade must be over before
Nones; there must be no licentious or scurrilous _chansons_, no dance
before the great doors; the ‘king’ must wear ecclesiastical dress in
the choir. In 1520, however, he was allowed to wear his crown _more
antiquo_. The feast finally perished in 1721, owing to _la cherté des
vivres_[1067]. At Soissons, the feast was held on January 1, with
masquing[1068]. At Senlis, the _dominus festi_ was a ‘pope.’ In 1403
there was much division of opinion amongst the chapter as to the
continuance of the feast, and it was finally decided that it must take
place outside the church. In 1523 it came to an end. The vicars of the
chapter of Saint-Rieul had in 1501 their separate feast on January 1,
with a ‘prelate of Fools’ and _jeux_ in the churchyard[1069]. From
Laon fuller records are available[1070]. A ‘patriarch of Fools’ was
chosen with his ‘consorts’ on Epiphany eve after Prime, by the vicars,
chaplains and choir-clerks. There was a cavalcade through the city
and a procession called the _Rabardiaux_, of which the nature is not
stated[1071]. The chapter bore the expenses of the banquet and the
masks. The first notice is about 1280. In 1307 one Pierre Caput was
‘patriarch.’ In 1454 the bishop upheld the feast against the dean, but
it was decided that it should take place outside the church. A similar
regulation was made in 1455, 1456, 1459. In 1462 the _servitium_ was
allowed, and the _jeu_ was to be submitted to censorship. In 1464 and
1465 mysteries were acted before the _Rabardiaux_. In 1486 the _jeu_
was given before the church of St.-Martin-au-Parvis. In 1490 the
_jeux_ and cavalcade were forbidden, and the banquet only allowed.
In 1500 a chaplain, Jean Hubreland, was fined for not taking part in
the ceremony. In 1518 the worse fate of imprisonment befell Albert
Gosselin, another chaplain, who flung fire from above the porch upon
the ‘patriarch’ and his ‘consorts.’ By 1521 the _servitium_ seems to
have been conducted by the _curés_ of the Laon churches, and the vicars
and chaplains merely assisted. The expense now fell on the _curés_,
and the chapter subsidy was cut down. In 1522 and 1525 the perquisites
of the ‘patriarch’ were still further reduced by the refusal of a
donation from the chapter as well as of the fines formerly imposed on
absentees. In 1527 a protest of Laurent Brayart, ‘patriarch,’ demanding
either leave to celebrate the feast _more antiquo_ or a dispensation
from assisting at the election of his successor, was referred to
the ex-‘patriarch.’ In this same year canons, vicars, chaplains and
_habitués_ of the cathedral were forbidden to appear at the farces of
the _fête des ânes_[1072]. In 1531 the ‘patriarch’ Théobald Bucquet,
recovered the right to play comedies and _jeux_ and to take the
absentee fines; but in 1541 Absalon Bourgeois was refused leave _pour
faire semblant de dire la messe à liesse_. The feast was cut down to
the bare election of the ‘patriarch’ in 1560, and seems to have passed
into the hands of a _confrérie_; all that was retained in the cathedral
being the _Primes folles_ on Epiphany eve, in which the laity occupied
the high stalls, and all present wore crowns of green leaves.

At Rheims, a Feast of Fools in 1490 was the occasion for a satirical
attack by the vicars and choir-boys on the fashion of the hoods
worn by the _bourgeoises_. This led to reprisals in the form of
some anti-ecclesiastical farces played on the following _dimanche
des Brandons_ by the law clerks of the Rheims _Basoche_[1073]. At
Châlons-sur-Marne a detailed and curious account is preserved of
the way in which the Feast of Fools was celebrated in 1570[1074].
It took place on St. Stephen’s day. The chapter provided a banquet
on a theatre in front of the great porch. To this the ‘bishop of
Fools’ was conducted in procession from the _maîtrise des fous_,
with bells and music upon a gaily trapped ass. He was then vested
in cope, mitre, pectoral cross, gloves and crozier, and enjoyed a
banquet with the canons who formed his ‘household.’ Meanwhile some of
the inferior clergy entered the cathedral, sang gibberish, grimaced
and made contortions. After the banquet, Vespers were precipitately
sung, followed by a _motet_[1075]. Then came a musical cavalcade round
the cathedral and through the streets. A game of _la paume_ took
place in the market; then dancing and further cavalcades. Finally
a band gathered before the cathedral, howled and clanged kettles
and saucepans, while the bells were rung and the clergy appeared in
grotesque costumes.

Flanders also had its Feasts of Fools. That of St. Omer, which existed
in the twelfth century, lasted to the sixteenth[1076]. An attempt was
made to stop it in 1407, when the chapter forbade any one to take the
name of ‘bishop’ or ‘abbot’ of Fools. But Seraphin Cotinet was ‘bishop’
of Fools in 1431, and led the _gaude_ on St. Nicholas’ eve[1077].
The ‘bishop’ is again mentioned in 1490, but in 1515 the feast was
suppressed by Francis de Melun, bishop of Arras and provost of St.
Omer[1078]. Some payments made by the chapter of Béthune in 1445 and
1474 leave it doubtful how far the feast was really established in
that cathedral[1079]. At Lille the feast was forbidden by the chapter
statutes of 1323 and 1328[1080]. But at the end of the fourteenth
century it was in full swing, lasting under its ‘bishop’ or ‘prelate’
from the vigil to the octave of Epiphany. Amongst the payments made
by the chapter on account of it is one to replace a tin can (_kanne
stannee_) lost at the banquet. The ‘bishop’ was chosen, as elsewhere,
by the inferior clergy of the cathedral; but he also stood in some
relation to the municipality of Lille, and superintended the miracle
plays performed at the procession of the Holy Sacrament and upon other
occasions. In 1393 he received a payment from the duke of Burgundy for
the _fête_ of the _Trois Rois_. Municipal subsidies were paid to him
in the fifteenth century; he collected additional funds from private
sources and offered prizes, by proclamation _soubz nostre seel de
fatuité_, for pageants and _histoires de la Sainte Escripture_; was, in
fact, a sort of Master of the Revels for Lille. He was active in 1468,
but in 1469 the town itself gave the prizes, in place _de l’evesque des
folz, qui à présent est rué jus_. The chapter accounts show that he was
reappointed in 1485 _hoc anno, de gratia speciali_. In 1492 and 1493
the chapter payments were not to him but _sociis domus clericorum_,
and from this year onwards he appears neither in the chapter accounts
nor in those of the municipality[1081]. Nevertheless, he did not
yet cease to exist, for a statute was passed by the chapter for his
extinction, together with that of the _ludus, quem Deposuit vocant_, in
1531[1082]. Five years before this the canons and vicars were still
wearing masks and playing comedies in public[1083]. The history of the
feast at Tournai is only known to me through certain legal proceedings
which took place before the _Parlement_ of Paris in 1499. It appears
that the young _bourgeois_ of Tournai were accustomed to require the
vicars of Notre-Dame to choose an _évesque des sotz_ from amongst
themselves on Innocents’ day. In 1489 they took one Matthieu de Porta
and insulted him in the church itself. The chapter brought an action
in the local court against the _prévost et jurez_ of the town; and in
the meantime obtained provisional letters inhibitory from Charles VIII,
forbidding the vicars to hold the feast or the _bourgeois_ to enforce
it. All went well for some years, but in 1497 the _bourgeois_ grumbled
greatly, and in 1498, with the connivance of the municipal authorities
themselves, they broke out. On the eve of the Holy Innocents, between
nine and ten o’clock, Jacques de l’Arcq, mayor of the _Edwardeurs_,
and others got into the house of Messire Pasquier le Pâme, a chaplain,
and dragged him half naked, through snow and frost, to a _cabaret_.
Seven or eight other vicars, one of whom was found saying his Hours
in a churchyard, were similarly treated, and as none of them would
be made _évesque des sotz_ they were all kept prisoners. The chapter
protested to the _prévost et jurez_, but in vain. On the following day
the _bourgeois_ chose one of the vicars _évesque_, baptized him by
torchlight with three buckets of water at a fountain, led him about
for three days in a surplice, and played scurrilous farces. They
then dismissed the vicar, and elected as _évesque_ a clerk from the
diocese of Cambrai, who defied the chapter. They drove Jean Parisiz,
the _curé_ of La Madeleine, who had displeased them, from his church
in the midst of Vespers, and on Epiphany day made him too a prisoner.
In the following March the chapter and Messire Jean Parisiz brought a
joint action before the High Court at Paris against the delinquents and
the municipal authorities, who had backed them up. The case came on for
hearing in November, when it was pleaded that the custom of electing
an _évesque des sotz_ upon Innocents’ day was an ancient one. The
ceremony took place upon a scaffold near the church door; there were
_jeux_ in the streets for seven or eight days, and a final _convici_
in which the canons and others of the town were satirized. The chapter
and some of the citizens sent bread and wine. The same thing was done
in many dioceses of Picardy, and even in Paris. It was all _ad solacium
populi_, and divine service was not disturbed, for nobody entered the
church. The vicar who had been chosen _évesque_ thought it a great
and unexpected honour. There would have been no trouble had not the
_évesque_ when distributing hoods with ears at the end of the _jeux_
unfortunately included certain persons who would rather have been
left out, and who consequently stirred up the chapter to take action.
The court adjourned the case, and ultimately it appears to have been
settled, for one of the documents preserved is endorsed with a note of
a _concordat_ between the chapter and the town, by which the feast was
abolished in 1500[1084].

Of the Feast of Fools in central France I can say but little. At
Chartres, the _Papi-Fol_ and his cardinals committed many insolences
during the first four days of the year, and exacted _droits_ from
passers-by. They were suppressed in 1479 and again in 1504[1085].
At Tours a _Ritual_ of the fourteenth century contains elaborate
directions for the _festum novi anni, quod non debet remanere, nisi
corpora sint humi_. This is clearly a reformed feast, of which the
chief features are the dramatic procession of the _Prophetae_,
including doubtless Balaam on his ass, in church, and a _miraculum_ in
the cloister[1086]. The ‘Boy Bishop’ gives the benediction at Tierce,
and before Vespers there are _chori_ (carols, I suppose) also in the
cloisters. At Vespers _Deposuit_ is sung three times, and the _baculus_
may be taken. If so, the _thesaurarius_ is beaten with _baculi_ by
the clergy at Compline, and the new _cantor_ is led home with beating
of _baculi_ on the walls[1087]. At Bourges, the use of the ‘Prose of
the Ass’ in Notre-Dame de Sales seems to imply the existence of the
feast, but I know no details[1088]. At Avallon the _dominus festi_
seems to have been, as at Laon, a ‘patriarch,’ and to have officiated
on Innocents’ day. A chapter statute regulated the proceedings in 1453,
and another abolished them in 1510[1089]. At Auxerre, full accounts of
a long chapter wrangle are preserved in the register[1090]. It began in
1395 with an order requiring the decent performance of the _servitium_,
and imposing a fee upon newly admitted canons towards the feast. In
1396 the feast was not held, owing to the recent defeat of Sigismund
of Hungary and the count of Nevers by Bajazet and his Ottomans at
Nicopolis[1091]. In 1398 the dean entered a protest against a grant of
wine made by the chapter to the thirsty revellers. In 1400 a further
order was passed to check various abuses, the excessive ringing of
bells, the licence of the _sermones fatui_, the impounding of copes
in pledge for contributions, the beating of men and women through
the streets, and all _derisiones_ likely to bring discredit on the
church[1092]. In the following January, the bishop of Auxerre, Michel
de Crency, intervened, forbidding the _fatui_ to form a ‘chapter,’
or to appoint ‘proctors,’ or _clamare la fête aux fous_ after the
singing of the Hours in the church. This led to a storm. The bishop
brought an action in the secular court, and the chapter appealed to
the ecclesiastical court of the Sens province. In June, however, it
was agreed as part of a general _concordat_ between the parties, that
all these proceedings should be _non avenu_[1093]. It seems, however,
to have been understood that the chapter would reform the feast. On
December 2, the abbot of Pontigny preached a sermon before the chapter
in favour of the abolition of the feast, and on the following day the
dean came down and warned the canons that it was the intention of the
University of Paris to take action, even if necessary, by calling in
the secular arm[1094]. It was better to reform themselves than to
be reformed. It was then agreed to suppress the abuses of the feast,
the sermons and the wearing of unecclesiastical garb, and to hold
nothing but a _festum subdiaconorum_ on the day of the Circumcision.
Outside the church, however, the clergy might dance and promenade
(_chorizare ... et ... spatiare_) on the _place_ of St. Stephen’s.
These regulations were disregarded, on the plea that they were intended
to apply only to the year in which they were made. In 1407 the chapter
declared that they were to be permanent, but strong opposition was
offered to this decision by three canons, Jean Piqueron, himself a
sub-deacon, Jean Bonat, and Jean Berthome, who maintained that the
_concordat_ with the bishop was for reform, not for abolition. The
matter was before the chapter for the last time, so far as the extant
documents go, in 1411. On January 2, the dean reported that in spite
of the prohibition certain _canonici tortrarii_[1095], chaplains and
choir-clerks had held the feast. A committee of investigation was
appointed, and in December the prohibition was renewed. Jean Piqueron
was once more a protestant, and on this occasion obtained the support
of five colleagues[1096]. It may be added that in the sixteenth century
an _abbas stultorum_ was still annually elected on July 18, beneath a
great elm at the porch of Auxerre cathedral. He was charged with the
maintenance of certain small points of choir discipline[1097].

In Franche Comté and Burgundy, the Feast of Fools is also found. At
Besançon it was celebrated by all the four great churches. In the
cathedrals of St. John and St. Stephen, ‘cardinals’ were chosen on St.
Stephen’s day by the deacons and sub-deacons, on St. John’s day by the
priests, on the Holy Innocents’ day by the choir-clerks and choir-boys.
In the collegiate churches of St. Paul and St. Mary Magdalen, ‘bishops’
or ‘abbots’ were similarly chosen. All these _domini festorum_ seem to
have had the generic title of _rois des fous_, and on the choir-feast
four cavalcades went about the streets and exchanged railleries (_se
chantaient pouille_) when they met. In 1387 the _Statutes_ of cardinal
Thomas of Naples ordered that the feasts should be held jointly in each
church in turn; and in 1518 the cavalcades were suppressed, owing to a
conflict upon the bridge which had a fatal ending. Up to 1710, however,
_reges_ were still elected in St. Mary Magdalen’s; not, indeed, those
for the three feasts of Christmas week, but a _rex capellanorum_ and
a _rex canonicorum_, who officiated respectively on the Circumcision
and on Epiphany[1098]. At Autun the feast of the _baculus_ in the
thirteenth century has already been recorded. In the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries some interesting notices are available in the
chapter registers[1099]. In 1411 the feast required reforming. The
canons were ordered to attend in decent clothes as on the Nativity; and
the custom of leading an ass in procession and singing a _cantilena_
thereon was suppressed[1100]. In 1412 the abolition of the feast was
decreed[1101]. But in 1484 it was sanctioned again, and licence was
given to punish those who failed to put in an appearance at the Hours
by burning at the well[1102]. This custom, however, was forbidden in
1498[1103]. Nothing more is heard of the _asinus_, but it is possible
that he figured in the play of _Herod_ which was undoubtedly performed
at the feast, and which gave a name to the _dominus festi_[1104]. Under
the general name of _festa fatuorum_ was included at Autun, besides
the feast of the Circumcision, also that of the ‘bishop’ and ‘dean’
of Innocents, and a _missa fatuorum_ was sung _ex ore infantium_ from
the Innocents’ day to Epiphany[1105]. In 1499 Jean Rolin, abbot of
St. Martin’s and dean of Autun, led a renewed attack upon the feast.
He had armed himself with a letter from Louis XI, and induced the
chapter, in virtue of the Basle decree, to suppress both Herod and the
‘bishop’ of Innocents[1106]. In 1514 and 1515 the play of _Herod_ was
performed; but in 1518, when application was made to the chapter to
sanction the election of both a ‘Herod’ and the ‘bishop’ and ‘dean’ of
Innocents, they applied to the king’s official for leave, and failed
to get it. Finally in 1535 the chapter recurred to the Basle decree,
and again forbade the feast, particularly specifying under the name
of _Gaigizons_ the obnoxious ceremony of ‘ducking.[1107]’ The feast
held in the ducal, afterwards royal chapel of Dijon yields documents
which are unique, because they are in French verse. The first is a
_mandement_ of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, in 1454, confirming,
on the request of the _haut-Bâtonnier_, the privilege of the fête,
against those who would abolish it. He declares

‘Que cette Fête célébrée
Soit à jamais un jour l’année,
Le premier du mois de Janvier;
Et que joyeux Fous sans dangier,
De l’habit de notre Chapelle,
Fassent la Fête bonne et belle,
Sans outrage ni derision.’

In 1477 Louis XI seized Burgundy, and in 1482 his representatives, Jean
d’Amboise, bishop and duke of Langres, lieutenant of the duchy, and
Baudricourt the governor, accorded to Guy Baroset

‘Protonotaire et Procureur des Foux,’

a fresh confirmation for the privilege of the feast held by

‘Le Bâtonnier et tous ses vrais suppôts[1108].’

There was a second feast in Dijon at the church of St. Stephen. In 1494
it was the custom here, as at Sens, to shave the ‘precentor’ of Fools
upon a stage before the church. In 1621 the vicars still paraded the
streets with music and lanterns in honour of their ‘precentor[1109].’
In 1552, however, the Feasts of Fools throughout Burgundy had been
prohibited by an _arrêt_ of the _Parlement_ of Dijon. This was
immediately provoked by the desire of the chapter of St. Vincent’s
at Châlons-sur-Saône to end the scandal of the feast under their
jurisdiction. It was, however, general in its terms, and probably put
an end to the _Chapelle_ feast at Dijon, since to about this period may
be traced the origin of the famous _compagnie_ of the _Mère-Folle_ in
that city[1110].

In Dauphiné there was a _rex et festum fatuorum_ at St. Apollinaire’s
in Valence, but I cannot give the date[1111]. At Vienne the _Statutes_
of St. Maurice, passed in 1385, forbid the _abbas stultorum seu
sociorum_, but apparently allow _rois_ on the Circumcision and
Epiphany, as well as in the three post-Nativity feasts. They also
forbid certain _ludibria_. No _pasquinades_ are to be recited, and
no one is to be carried _in Rost_ or to have his property put in
pawn[1112]. More can be said of the feast at Viviers. A _Ceremonial_
of 1365 contains minute directions for its conduct[1113]. On December
17 the _sclafardi et clericuli_ chose an _abbas stultus_ to be
responsible, as at Auxerre, for the decorum of the choir throughout
the year. He was shouldered and borne to a place of honour at a
drinking-bout. Here even the bishop, if present, must do him honour.
After the drinking, the company divided into two parts, one composed of
inferior clergy, the other of dignitaries, and sang a doggerel song,
each endeavouring to sing its rival down. They shouted, hissed, howled,
cackled, jeered and gesticulated; and the victors mocked and flouted
the vanquished. Then the door-keeper made a proclamation on behalf of
the ‘abbot,’ calling on all to follow him, on pain of having their
breeches slit, and the whole crew rushed violently out of the church.
A progress through the town followed, which was repeated daily until
Christmas eve[1114]. On the three post-Nativity feasts, a distinct
_dominus festi_, the _episcopus stultus_, apparently elected the
previous year, took the place of the _abbas_. On each of these days he
presided at Matins, Mass, and Vespers, sat in full pontificals on the
bishop’s throne, attended by his ‘chaplain,’ and gave the Benedictions.
Both on St. Stephen’s and St. John’s days these were followed by the
recitation of a burlesque formula of indulgence[1115]. The whole
festivity seems to have concluded on Innocents’ day with the election
of a new _episcopus_, who, after the shouldering and the drinking-bout,
took his stand at a window of the great hall of the bishop’s palace,
and blessed the people of the city[1116]. The _episcopus_ was bound to
give a supper to his fellows. In 1406 one William Raynoard attempted to
evade this obligation. An action was brought against him in the court
of the bishop’s official, by the then _abbas_ and his predecessor.
It was referred to the arbitration of three canons, who decided that
Raynoard must give the supper on St. Bartholomew’s next, August 24, at
the accustomed place (a tavern, one fears) in the little village of
Gras, near Viviers[1117].

Finally, there are examples of the Feast of Fools in Provence. At
Arles it was held in the church of St. Trophime, and is said to have
been presented, out of its due season, it may be supposed, for the
amusement of the Emperor Charles IV at his coronation in 1365, to have
scandalized him and so to have met its end[1118]. Nevertheless in the
fifteenth century an ‘archbishop of Innocents,’ _alias stultus_, still
sang the ‘_O_’ on St. Thomas’s day, officiated on the days of St. John
and the Innocents, and on St. Trophime’s day (Dec. 29) paid a visit to
the _abadesse fole_ of the convent of Saint-Césaire. The real abbess
of this convent was bound to provide chicken, bread and wine for his
regaling[1119]. At Fréjus in 1558 an attempt to put down the feast led
to a riot. The bishop, Léon des Ursins, was threatened with murder,
and had to hide while his palace was stormed[1120]. At Aix the chapter
of St. Saviour’s chose on St. Thomas’s day, an _episcopus fatuus vel
Innocentium_ from the choir-boys. He officiated on Innocents’ day, and
boys and canons exchanged stalls. The custom lasted until at least
1585[1121]. Antibes, as late as 1645, affords a rare example of the
feast held by a religious house. It was on Innocents’ day in the church
of the Franciscans. The choir and office were left to the lay-brothers,
the _quêteurs_, cooks and gardeners. These put on the vestments inside
out, held the books upside down, and wore spectacles with rounds of
orange peel instead of glasses. They blew the ashes from the censers
upon each other’s faces and heads, and instead of the proper liturgy
chanted confused and inarticulate gibberish. All this is recorded by
the contemporary free-thinker Mathurin de Neuré in a letter to his
leader and inspirer, Gassendi[1122].

It will be noticed that the range of the Feast of Fools in France, so
far as I have come across it, seems markedly to exclude the west and
south-west of the country. I have not been able to verify an alleged
exception at Bordeaux[1123]. Possibly there is some ethnographical
reason for this. But on the whole, I am inclined to think that it is
an accident, and that a more complete investigation would disclose a
sufficiency of examples in this area. Outside France, the Feast of
Fools is of much less importance. The Spanish disciplinary councils
appear to make no specific mention of it, although they know the
cognate feast of the Boy Bishop, and more than once prohibit _ludi_,
_choreae_, and so forth, in general terms[1124]. In Germany, again, I
do not know of a case in which the term ‘Fools’ is used. But the feast
itself occurs sporadically. As early as the twelfth century, Herrad
von Landsberg, abbess of Hohenburg, complained that miracle-plays,
such as that of the _Magi_, instituted on Epiphany and its octave by
the Fathers of the Church, had given place to licence, buffoonery and
quarrelling. The priests came into the churches dressed as knights, to
drink and play in the company of courtesans[1125]. A Mosburg _Gradual_
of 1360 contains a series of _cantiones_ compiled and partly written by
the dean John von Perchausen for use when the _scholarium episcopus_
was chosen at the Nativity[1126]. Some of these, however, are shown by
their headings or by internal evidence to belong rather to a New Year’s
day feast, than to one on Innocents’ day[1127]. A _festum baculi_ is
mentioned and an _episcopus_ or _praesul_ who is chosen and enthroned.
One carol has the following refrain[1128]:

‘gaudeamus et psallamus novo praesuli
ad honorem et decorem sumpti baculi.’

Another is so interesting, for its classical turn, and for the names
which it gives to the ‘bishop’ and his crew that I quote it in
full[1129].

1. Gregis pastor Tityrus,
asinorum dominus,
noster est episcopus.

R^o. eia, eia, eia,
vocant nos ad gaudia
Tityri cibaria.

2. ad honorem Tityri,
festum colant baculi
satrapae et asini.

R^o. eia, eia, eia,
vocant nos ad gaudia;
Tityri cibaria.

3. applaudamus Tityro
cum melodis organo,
cum chordis et tympano.

4. veneremur Tityrum,
qui nos propter baculum
invitat ad epulum.

The reforms of the council of Basle were adopted for Germany by the
Emperor Albrecht II in the _Instrumentum Acceptationis_ of Mainz in
1439. In 1536 the council of Cologne, quoting the decretal of Innocent
III, condemned _theatrales ludi_ in churches. A Cologne _Ritual_
preserves an account of the sub-deacons’ feast upon the octave of
Epiphany[1130]. The sub-deacons were _hederaceo serto coronati_. Tapers
were lit, and a _rex_ chosen, who acted as _hebdomarius_ from first to
second Vespers. Carols were sung, as at Mosburg[1131].

John Huss, early in the fifteenth century, describes the Feast of Fools
as it existed in far-off Bohemia[1132]. The revellers, of whom, to
his remorse, Huss had himself been one as a lad, wore masks. A clerk,
grotesquely vested, was dubbed ‘bishop,’ set on an ass with his face to
the tail, and led to mass in the church. He was regaled on a platter
of broth and a bowl of beer, and Huss recalls the unseemly revel which
took place[1133]. Torches were borne instead of candles, and the clergy
turned their garments inside out, and danced. These _ludi_ had been
forbidden by one archbishop John of holy memory.

It would be surprising, in view of the close political and
ecclesiastical relations between mediaeval France and England, if the
Feast of Fools had not found its way across the channel. It did; but
apparently it never became so inveterate as successfully to resist
the disciplinary zeal of reforming bishops, and the few notices of it
are all previous to the end of the fourteenth century. It seems to
have lasted longest at Lincoln, and at Beverley. Of Lincoln, it will
be remembered, Pierre de Corbeil, the probable compiler of the Sens
_Officium_, was at one time coadjutor bishop. Robert Grosseteste, whose
attack upon the _Inductio Maii_ and other village festivals served as a
starting-point for this discussion, was no less intolerant of the Feast
of Fools. In 1236 he forbade it to be held either in the cathedral or
elsewhere in the diocese[1134]; and two years later he included the
prohibition in his formal _Constitutions_[1135]. But after another
century and a half, when William Courtney, archbishop of Canterbury,
made a visitation of Lincoln in 1390, he found that the vicars were
still in the habit of disturbing divine service on January 1, in the
name of the feast[1136]. Probably his strict mandate put a stop to the
custom[1137]. At almost precisely the same date the Feast of Fools was
forbidden by the statutes of Beverley minster, although the sub-deacons
and other inferior clergy were still to receive a special commons
on the day of the Circumcision[1138]. Outside Lincoln and Beverley,
the feast is only known in England by the mention of paraphernalia
for it in thirteenth-century inventories of St. Paul’s[1139], and
Salisbury[1140], and by a doubtful allusion in a sophisticated version
of the St. George play[1141].

A brief summary of the data concerning the Feast of Fools presented
in this and the preceding chapter is inevitable. It may be combined
with some indication of the relation in which the feast stands with
regard to the other feasts dealt with in the present volume. If we
look back to Belethus in the twelfth century we find him speaking
of the Feast of Fools as held on the Circumcision, on Epiphany
or on the octave of Epiphany, and as being specifically a feast
of sub-deacons. Later records bear out on the whole the first of
these statements. As a rule the feast focussed on the Circumcision,
although the rejoicings were often prolonged, and the election of the
_dominus festi_ in some instances gave rise to a minor celebration
on an earlier day. Occasionally (Noyon, Laon) the Epiphany, once at
least (Cologne) the octave of the Epiphany, takes the place of the
Circumcision. But we also find the term Feast of Fools extended to
cover one or more of three feasts, distinguished from it by Belethus,
which immediately follow Christmas. Sometimes it includes them all
three (Besançon, Viviers, Vienne), sometimes the feast of the Innocents
alone (Autun, Avallon, Aix, Antibes, Arles), once the feast of St.
Stephen (Châlons-sur-Marne)[1142]. On the other hand, the definition
of the feast as a sub-deacons’ feast is not fully applicable to its
later developments. Traces of a connexion with the sub-deacons appear
more than once (Amiens, Sens, Auxerre, Beverley); but as a rule the
feast is held by the inferior clergy known as vicars, chaplains, and
choir-clerks, all of whom are grouped at Viviers and Romans under the
general term of _esclaffardi_. At Laon a part is taken in it by the
_curés_ of the various parishes in the city. The explanation is, I
think, fairly obvious. Originally, perhaps, the sub-deacons held the
feast, just as the deacons, priests, and boys held theirs in Christmas
week. But it had its vogue mainly in the great cathedrals served by
secular canons[1143], and in these the distinction between the canons
in different orders--for a sub-deacon might be a full canon[1144]--was
of less importance than the difference between the canons as a whole
and the minor clergy who made up the rest of the cathedral body,
the hired choir-clerks, the vicars choral who, originally at least,
supplied the place in the choir of absent canons, and the chaplains
who served the chantries or small foundations attached to the
cathedral[1145]. The status of spiritual dignity gave way to the status
of material preferment. And so, as the vicars gradually coalesced
into a corporation of their own, the Feast of Fools passed into their
hands, and became a celebration of the annual election of the head of
their body[1146]. The vicars and their associates were probably an
ill-educated and an ill-paid class. Certainly they were difficult to
discipline[1147]; and it is not surprising that their rare holiday,
of which the expenses were met partly by the chapter, partly by dues
levied upon themselves or upon the bystanders[1148], was an occasion
for popular rather than refined merry-making[1149]. That it should
perpetuate or absorb folk-customs was also, considering the peasant or
small _bourgeois_ extraction of such men, quite natural.

The simple psychology of the last two sentences really gives the
key to the nature of the feast. It was largely an ebullition of the
natural lout beneath the cassock. The vicars hooted and sang improper
ditties, and played dice upon the altar, in a reaction from the wonted
restraints of choir discipline. Familiarity breeds contempt, and
it was almost an obvious sport to burlesque the sacred and tedious
ceremonies with which they were only too painfully familiar. Indeed,
the reverend founders and reformers of the feast had given a lead to
this apishness by the introduction of the symbolical transference of
the _baculus_ at the _Deposuit_ in the _Magnificat_. The ruling idea of
the feast is the inversion of status, and the performance, inevitably
burlesque, by the inferior clergy of functions properly belonging to
their betters. The fools jangle the bells (Paris, Amiens, Auxerre),
they take the higher stalls (Paris), sing dissonantly (Sens), repeat
meaningless words (Châlons, Antibes), say the _messe liesse_ (Laon) or
the _missa fatuorum_ (Autun), preach the _sermones fatui_ (Auxerre),
cense _praepostere_ (St. Omer) with pudding and sausage (Beauvais) or
with old shoes (Paris theologians). They have their chapter and their
proctors (Auxerre, Dijon). They install their _dominus festi_ with a
ceremony of _sacre_ (Troyes), or shaving (Sens, Dijon). He is vested
in full pontificals, goes in procession, as at the _Rabardiaux_ of
Laon, gives the benedictions, issues indulgences (Viviers), has his
seal (Lille), perhaps his right of coining (Laon). Much in all these
proceedings was doubtless the merest horseplay; such ingenuity and
humour as they required may have been provided by the wicked wit of the
_goliardi_[1150].

Now I would point out that this inversion of status so characteristic
of the Feast of Fools is equally characteristic of folk-festivals.
What is Dr. Frazer’s mock king but one of the meanest of the people
chosen out to represent the real king as the priest victim of a divine
sacrifice, and surrounded, for the period of the feast, in a naïve
attempt to outwit heaven, with all the paraphernalia and luxury of
kingship? Precisely such a mock king is the _dominus festi_ with whom
we have to do. His actual titles, indeed, are generally ecclesiastical.
Most often he is a ‘bishop,’ or ‘prelate’ (Senlis); in metropolitan
churches an ‘archbishop,’ in churches exempt from other authority
than that of the Holy See, a ‘pope’ (Amiens, Senlis, Chartres). More
rarely he is a ‘patriarch’ (Laon, Avallon), a ‘cardinal’ (Paris,
Besançon), an ‘abbot’ (Vienne, Viviers, Romans, Auxerre)[1151], or is
even content with the humbler dignity of ‘precentor,’ ‘_bacularius_’
or ‘_bâtonnier_’ (Sens, Dijon). At Autun he is, quite exceptionally,
‘Herod.’ Nevertheless the term ‘king’ is not unknown. It is found at
Noyon, at Vienne, at Besançon, at Beverley, and the council of Basle
testifies to its use, as well as that of ‘duke.’ Nor is it, after all,
of much importance what the _dominus festi_ is called. The point is
that his existence and functions in the ecclesiastical festivals afford
precise parallels to his existence and functions in folk-festivals all
Europe over.

Besides the ‘king’ many other features of the folk-festivals may
readily be traced at the Feast of Fools. Some here, some there, they
jot up in the records. There are dance and _chanson_, _tripudium_ and
_cantilena_ (Noyon, Châlons-sur-Marne, Paris theologians, council of
Basle). There is eating and drinking, not merely in the refectory,
but within or at the doors of the church itself (Paris theologians,
Beauvais, Prague). There is ball-playing (Châlons-sur-Marne).
There is the procession or cavalcade through the streets (Laon,
Châlons-sur-Marne, &c.). There are torches and lanterns (Sens,
Tournai). Men are led _nudi_ (Sens); they are whipped (Tours); they
are ceremonially ducked or roasted (Sens, Tournai, Vienne, _les
Gaigizons_ at Autun)[1152]. A comparison with earlier chapters of the
present volume will establish the significance which these points,
taken in bulk, possess. Equally characteristic of folk-festivals
is the costume considered proper to the feasts. The riotous clergy
wear their vestments inside out (Antibes), or exchange dress with
the laity (Lincoln, Paris theologians). But they also wear leaves or
flowers (Sens, Laon, Cologne) and women’s dress (Paris theologians);
and above all they wear hideous and monstrous masks, _larvae_ or
_personae_ (decretal of 1207, Paris theologians, council of Basle,
Paris, Soissons, Laon, Lille). These masks, indeed, are perhaps the
one feature of the feast which called down the most unqualified
condemnation from the ecclesiastical authorities. We shall not be far
wrong if we assume them to have been beast-masks, and to have taken the
place of the actual skins and heads of sacrificial animals, here, as so
often, worn at the feast by the worshippers.

An attempt has been made to find an oriental origin for the Feast
of Fools[1153]. Gibbon relates the insults offered to the church
at Constantinople by the Emperor Michael III, the ‘Drunkard’
(842-67)[1154]. A noisy crew of courtiers dressed themselves in the
sacred vestments. One Theophilus or Grylus, captain of the guard, a
mime and buffoon, was chosen as a mock ‘patriarch.’ The rest were his
twelve ‘metropolitans,’ Michael himself being entitled ‘metropolitan
of Cologne.’ The ‘divine mysteries’ were burlesqued with vinegar and
mustard in a golden cup set with gems. Theophilus rode about the
streets of the city on a white ass, and when he met the real patriarch
Ignatius, exposed him to the mockery of the revellers. After the
death of Michael, this profanity was solemnly anathematized by the
council of Constantinople held under his successor Basil in 869[1155].
Theophilus, though he borrowed the vestments for his mummery, seems to
have carried it on in the streets and the palace, not in the church.
In the tenth century, however, the patriarch Theophylactus won an
unenviable reputation by admitting dances and profane songs into the
ecclesiastical festivals[1156]; while in the twelfth, the patriarch
Balsamon describes his own unavailing struggle against proceedings at
Christmas and Candlemas, which come uncommonly near the Feast of Fools.
The clergy of St. Sophia’s, he says, claim as of ancient custom to wear
masks, and to enter the church in the guise of soldiers, or of monks,
or of four-footed animals. The superintendents snap their fingers like
charioteers, or paint their faces and mimic women. The rustics are
moved to laughter by the pouring of wine into pitchers, and are allowed
to chant _Kyrie eleison_ in ludicrous iteration at every verse[1157].
Balsamon, who died in 1193, was almost precisely a contemporary of
Belethus, and the earlier Byzantine notices considerably ante-date any
records that we possess of the Feast of Fools in the West. A slight
corroboration of this theory of an eastern origin may be derived from
the use of the term ‘patriarch’ for the _dominus festi_ at Laon and
Avallon. It would, I think, be far-fetched to find another in the fact
that Theophilus, like the western ‘bishops’ of Fools, rode upon an ass,
and that the _Prose de l’Âne_ begins:

‘Orientis partibus,
adventavit asinus.’

In any case, the oriental example can hardly be responsible for more
than the admission of the feast within the doors of the church. One
cannot doubt that it was essentially an adaptation of a folk-custom
long perfectly well known in the West itself. The question of origin
had already presented itself to the learned writers of the thirteenth
century. William of Auxerre, by a misunderstanding which I shall hope
to explain, traced the Feast of Fools to the Roman _Parentalia_:
Durandus, and the Paris theologians after him, to the January
Kalends. Certainly Durandus was right. The Kalends, unlike the more
specifically Italian feasts, were co-extensive with the Roman empire,
and were naturally widespread in Gaul. The date corresponds precisely
with that by far the most common for the Feast of Fools. A singular
history indeed, that of the ecclesiastical celebration of the First
of January. Up to the eighth century a fast, with its mass _pro
prohibendo ab idolis_, it gradually took on a festal character, and
became ultimately the one feast in the year in which paganism made its
most startling and persistent recoil upon Christianity. The attacks
upon the Kalends in the disciplinary documents form a catena which
extends very nearly to the point at which the notices of the Feast
of Fools begin. In each alike the masking, in mimicry of beasts and
probably of beast-gods or ‘demons,’ appears to have been a prominent
and highly reprobated feature. It is true that we hear nothing of a
_dominus festi_ at the Kalends; but much stress must not be laid upon
the omission of the disciplinary writers to record any one point in a
custom which after all they were not describing as anthropologists,
and it would certainly be an exceptional Germano-Keltic folk-feast
which had not a _dominus_. As a matter of fact, there is no mention of
a _rex_ in the accounts of the pre-Christian Kalends in Italy itself.
There was a _rex_ at the _Saturnalia_, and this, together with an
allusion of Belethus in a quite different connexion to the _libertas
Decembrica_[1158], has led some writers to find in the _Saturnalia_,
rather than the Kalends, the origin of the Feast of Fools[1159]. This
is, I venture to think, wrong. The _Saturnalia_ were over well before
December 25: there is no evidence that they had a vogue outside Italy:
the Kalends, like the _Saturnalia_, were an occasion at which slaves
met their masters upon equal terms, and I believe that the existence of
a Kalends _rex_, both in Italy and in Gaul, may be taken for granted.

But the parallel between Kalends and the Feast of Fools cannot be held
to be quite perfect, unless we can trace in the latter feast that most
characteristic of all Kalends customs, the _Cervulus_. Is it possible
that a representative of the _Cervulus_ is to be found in the Ass,
who, whether introduced from Constantinople or not, gave to the Feast
of Fools one of its popular names? The Feast of Asses has been the
sport of controversialists who had not, and were at no great pains to
have, the full facts before them. I do not propose to awake once more
these ancient angers[1160]. The facts themselves are briefly these.
The ‘Prose of the Ass’ was used at Bourges, at Sens, and at Beauvais.
As to the Bourges feast I have no details. At Sens, the use of the
Prose by Pierre de Corbeil is indeed no proof that he allowed an ass to
appear in the ceremony. But the Prose would not have much point unless
it was at least a survival from a time when an ass did appear; the
feast was known as the _asinaria festa_; and even now, three centuries
after it was abolished, the Sens choir-boys still play at being _âne_
archbishop on Innocents’ day[1161]. At Beauvais the heading _Conductus
quando asinus adducitur_ in the thirteenth-century _Officium_ seems
to show that there at least the ass appeared, and even entered the
church. The document, also of the thirteenth century, quoted by the
editors of Ducange, certainly brings him, in the ceremony of January
14, into the church and near the altar. An imitation of his braying is
introduced into the service itself. At Autun the leading of an ass _ad
processionem_, and the _cantilena super dictum asinum_ were suppressed
in 1411. At Châlons-sur-Marne in 1570 an ass bore the ‘bishop’ to the
theatre at the church door only. At Prague, on the other hand, towards
the end of the fourteenth century, an ass was led, as at Beauvais,
right into the church. These, with doubtful references to _fêtes des
ânes_ at St. Quentin about 1081, at Béthune in 1474, and at Laon
in 1527, and the Mosburg description of the ‘bishop’ as _asinorum
dominus_, are all the cases I have found in which an ass has anything
to do with the feast. But they are enough to prove that an ass was an
early and widespread, though not an invariable feature. I may quote
here a curious survival in a _ronde_ from the west of France, said to
have been sung at church doors on January 1[1162]. It is called _La
Mort de l’Âne_, and begins:

‘Quand le bonhomme s’en va,
Quand le bonhomme s’en va,
Trouvit la tête à son âne,
Que le loup mangit au bois.

_Parlé._ O tête, pauvre tête,
Tâ qui chantas si bé
_L’Magnificat_ à Vêpres.

Daux matin à quat’ leçons,
La sambredondon, bredondaine,
Daux matin à quat’ léçons,
La sambredondon.’

This, like the Sens choir-boys’ custom of calling their ‘archbishop’
_âne_, would seem to suggest that the _dominus festi_ was himself the
ass, with a mask on; and this may have been sometimes the case. But in
most of the mediaeval instances the ass was probably used to ride. At
Prague, so far as one can judge from Huss’s description, he was a real
ass. There is no proof in any of the French examples that he was, or
was not, merely a ‘hobby-ass.’ If he was, he came all the nearer to the
_Cervulus_.

It has been pointed out, and will, in the next volume, be pointed
out again, that the ecclesiastical authorities attempted to sanctify
the spirit of play at the Feast of Fools and similar festivities by
diverting the energies of the revellers to _ludi_ of the miracle-play
order. In such _ludi_ they found a place for the ass. He appears for
instance as Balaam’s ass in the later versions from Laon and Rouen of
the _Prophetae_, and at Rouen he gave to the whole of this performance
the name of the _festum_ or _processio asinorum_[1163]. At Hamburg, by
a curious combination, he is at once Balaam’s ass and the finder of the
star in a _ludus Trium Regum_[1164]. His use as the mount of the Virgin
on January 14 at Beauvais, and on some uncertain day at Sens, seems to
suggest another favourite episode in such _ludi_, that of the Flight
into Egypt. At Varennes, in Picardy, and at Bayonne, exist carved
wooden groups representing this event. That of Varennes is carried in
procession; that of Bayonne is the object of pilgrimage on the _fêtes_
of the Virgin[1165].

Not at the Feast of Fools alone, or at the miracle-plays connected with
this feast, did the ass make its appearance in Christian worship. It
stood with the ox, on the morning of the Nativity, beside the Christmas
crib. On Palm Sunday it again formed part of a procession, in the
semblance of the beast on which Christ made his triumphal entry into
Jerusalem[1166]. A Cambrai _Ordinarium_ quoted by Ducange directs that
the _asina picta_ shall remain behind the altar for four days[1167].
Kirchmeyer describes the custom as it existed during the sixteenth
century in Germany[1168]; and the stray tourist who drops into the
wonderful collection of domestic and ecclesiastical antiquities in
the Barfüsserkirche at Basle will find there three specimens of the
_Palmesel_, including a thirteenth-century one from Bayern and a
seventeenth-century one from Elsass. The third is not labelled with its
_provenance_, but it is on wheels and has a hole for the rope by which
it was dragged round the church. All three are of painted wood, and
upon each is a figure representing Christ[1169].

The affiliation of the ecclesiastical New Year revelries to the pagan
Kalends does not explain why those who took part in them were called
‘Fools.’ The obvious thing to say is that they were called ‘Fools’
because they played the fool; and indeed their mediaeval critics were
not slow to draw this inference. But it is noteworthy that pagan
Rome already had its Feast of Fools, which, indeed, had nothing to do
with the Kalends. The _stultorum feriae_ on February 17 was the last
day on which the _Fornacalia_ or ritual sacrifice of the _curiae_ was
held. Upon it all the _curiae_ sacrificed in common, and it therefore
afforded an opportunity for any citizen who did not know which his
_curia_ was to partake in the ceremony[1170]. I am not prepared to
say that the _stultorum feriae_ gave its name to the Feast of Fools;
but the identity of the two names certainly seems to explain some of
the statements which mediaeval scholars make about that feast. It
explains William of Auxerre’s derivation of it from the _Parentalia_,
for the _stultorum feriae_ fell in the midst of the _Parentalia_[1171].
And I think it explains the remark of Belethus, and, following him,
of Durandus, about the _ordo subdiaconorum_ being _incertus_. The
sub-deacons were a regular _ordo_, the highest of the _ordines minores_
from the third century[1172]. But Belethus seems to be struggling
with the notion that the sub-deacons’ feast, closing the series of
post-Nativity feasts held by deacons, priests and choir-boys, was
in some way parallel to the _feriae_ of the Roman _stulti_ who were
_incerti_ as to their _curia_.

CHAPTER XV

THE BOY BISHOP

[_Bibliographical Note._--Most of the authorities for chh.
xiii, xiv, are still available, since many writers have not
been careful to distinguish between the various feasts of the
Twelve nights. The best modern account of the Boy Bishop is
Mr. A. F. Leach’s paper on _The Schoolboys’ Feast_ in _The
Fortnightly Review_, N. S. lix (1896), 128. The contributions
of F. A. Dürr, _Commentatio Historica de Episcopo Puerorum,
vulgo vom Schul-Bischoff_ (1755); F. A. Specht, _Geschichte
des Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland_, 222 sqq. (1885); A.
Gasté, _Les Drames liturgiques de la Cathédrale de Rouen_, 35
sqq. (1893); E. F. Rimbault, _The Festival of the Boy Bishop
in England_ in _The Camden Miscellany_, vol. vii (Camden Soc.
1875), are also valuable. Dr. Rimbault speaks of ‘considerable
collections for a history of the festival of the Boy Bishop
throughout Europe,’ made by Mr. J. G. Nichols, but I do not know
where these are to be found. Brand (ed. Ellis), i. 227 sqq.,
has some miscellaneous data, and a notice interesting by reason
of its antiquity is that on the _Episcopus Puerorum, in Die
Innocentium_, in the _Posthuma_, 95 sqq., of John Gregory (1649).]

Joannes Belethus, the learned theologian of Paris and Amiens, towards
the end of the twelfth century, describes, as well as the Feast of
Fools, no less than three other _tripudia_ falling in Christmas
week[1173]. Upon the days of St. Stephen, St. John the Evangelist, and
the Holy Innocents, the deacons, the priests, the choir-boys, held
their respective revels, each body in turn claiming that pre-eminence
in the divine services which in the Feast of Fools was assigned to the
sub-deacons. The distinction drawn by Belethus is not wholly observed
in the ecclesiastical prohibitions either of the thirteenth or of the
fifteenth century. In many of these the term ‘Feast of Fools’ has a
wide meaning. The council of Nevers in 1246 includes under it the
feasts of the Innocents and the New Year; that of Langres in 1404
the ‘festivals of the Nativity’; that of Nantes in 1431 the Nativity
itself, St. Stephen’s, St. John’s, and the Innocents’. For the council
of Basle it is apparently synonymous with the ‘Feast of Innocents or
Boys’; the Paris theologians speak of its rites as practised on St.
Stephen’s, the Innocents’, the Circumcision, and other dates. The same
tendency to group all these _tripudia_ together recurs in passages
in which the ‘Feast of Fools’ is not in so many words mentioned. The
famous decretal of Pope Innocent III is directed against the _ludibria_
practised in turns by deacons, priests, and sub-deacons during the
feasts immediately following upon Christmas. The _irrisio servitii_
inveighed against in the _Rememoratio_ of Gerson took place on
Innocents’ day, on the Circumcision, on the Epiphany, or at Shrovetide.

Local usage, however, only partly bears out this loose language of the
prohibitions. At Châlons-sur-Marne, in 1570, the ‘bishop’ of Fools
sported on St. Stephen’s day. At Besançon, in 1387, a distinct _dominus
festi_ was chosen on each of the three days after Christmas, and all
alike were called _rois des fous_. At Autun, during the fifteenth
century, the _regna_ of the ‘bishop’ and ‘dean’ of Innocents and of
‘Herod’ at the New Year were known together as the _festa folorum_.
Further south, the identification is perhaps more common. At Avallon,
Aix, Antibes, the Feast of Fools was on Innocents’ day; at Arles the
_episcopus stultorum_ officiated both on the Innocents’ and on St.
John’s, at Viviers on all three of the post-Nativity feasts. But these
are exceptions, and, at least outside Provence, the rule seems to
have been to apply the name of ‘Feast of Fools’ to the _tripudium_,
originally that of the sub-deacons, on New Year’s day or the Epiphany,
and to distinguish from this, as does Belethus, the _tripudia_ of the
deacons, priests, and choir-boys in Christmas week.

We may go further and say, without much hesitation, that the three
latter feasts are of older ecclesiastical standing than their riotous
rival. Belethus is the first writer to mention the Feast of Fools,
but he is by no means the first writer to mention the Christmas
_tripudia_. They were known to Honorius of Autun[1174], early in the
twelfth century, and to John of Avranches[1175], late in the eleventh.
They can be traced at least from the beginning of the tenth, more
than two hundred and fifty years before the Feast of Fools is heard
of. The earliest notice I have come across is at the monastery of
St. Gall, hard by Constance, in 911. In that year King Conrad I was
spending Christmas with Bishop Solomon of Constance. He heard so much
of the Vespers processions during the _triduum_ at St. Gall that he
insisted on visiting the monastery, and arrived there in the midst of
the revels. It was all very amusing, and especially the procession of
children, so grave and sedate that even when Conrad bade his train roll
apples along the aisle they did not budge[1176]. That the other Vespers
processions of the _triduum_ were of deacons and priests may be taken
for granted. I do not know whether the _triduum_ originated at St.
Gall, but the famous song-school of that monastery was all-important
in the movement towards the greater elaboration of church ceremonial,
and even more of chant, which marked the tenth century. This gave rise
to the tropes, of which much will be said in the next volume; and it is
in a tropary, an English tropary from Winchester, dating from before
980, that the feasts of the _triduum_ next occur. The ceremonies of
those feasts, as described by Belethus, belong mainly to the Office,
and the tropes are mainly chanted elaborations of the text of the
Mass: but the Winchester tropes for the days of St. Stephen, St.
John, and the Holy Innocents clearly imply the respective connexion
of the services, to which they belong, with deacons, priests, and
choir-boys[1177]. Of the sub-deacons, on Circumcision or Epiphany,
there is as yet nothing. John of Avranches, Honorius of Autun, and
Belethus bridge a gap, and from the thirteenth century the _triduum_
is normal in service-books, both continental and English, throughout
the Middle Ages[1178]. It is provided for in the Nantes _Ordinarium_
of 1263[1179], in the Amiens _Ordinarium_ of 1291[1180], and in the
Tours _Rituale_ of the fourteenth century[1181]. It required reforming
at Vienne in 1385, but continued to exist there up to 1670[1182].
In the last three cases it is clearly marked side by side with, but
other than, the Feast of Fools. In Germany, it is contemplated in the
_Ritual_ of Mainz[1183]. In England I trace it at Salisbury[1184], at
York[1185], at Lincoln[1186], at St. Albans[1187]. These instances
could doubtless be multiplied, although there were certainly places
where the special devotion of the three feasts to the three bodies
dropped out at an early date. The Rheims _Ordinarium_ of the fourteenth
century, for instance, knows nothing of it[1188]. The extent of the
ceremonies, again, would naturally be subject to local variation.
The germ of them lay in the procession at first Vespers described by
Ekkehard at St. Gall. But they often grew to a good deal more than
this. The deacons, priests, or choir-boys, as the case might be,
took the higher stalls, and the whole conduct of the services; the
_Deposuit_ was sung; _epistolae farcitae_ were read[1189]; there was a
_dominus festi_.

The main outlines of the feasts of the _triduum_ are thus almost
exactly parallel, so far as the divine _servitium_ is concerned, to
those of the Feast of Fools, for which indeed they probably served as
a model. And like the Feast of Fools, they had their secular side,
which often became riotousness. Occasionally they were absorbed in,
or overshadowed by, the more popular and wilder merry-making of
the inferior clergy. But elsewhere they have their own history of
reformations or suppression, or are grouped with the Feast of Fools,
as by the decretal of Innocent III, in a common condemnation. The
diversity of local practice is well illustrated by the records of such
acts of discipline. Sometimes, as at Paris[1190], or Soissons[1191],
it is the deacons’ feast alone that has become an abuse; sometimes,
as at Worms, that of the priests’[1192]; sometimes two of them[1193],
sometimes all three[1194], require correction. I need only refer
more particularly to two interesting English examples. One is at
Wells, where a chapter statute of about 1331 condemns the tumult and
_ludibrium_ with which divine service was celebrated from the Nativity
to the octave of the Innocents, and in particular the _ludi theatrales_
and _monstra larvarum_ introduced into the cathedral by the deacons,
priests, sub-deacons, and even vicars during this period[1195]. Nor was
the abuse easy to check, for about 1338 a second statute was required
to reinforce and strengthen the prohibition[1196]. So, too, in the
neighbouring diocese of Exeter. The register of Bishop Grandisson
records the mandates against _ludi inhonesti_ addressed by him in 1360
to the chapters of Exeter cathedral, and of the collegiate churches
of Ottery, Crediton, and Glasney. These _ludi_ were performed by
men and boys at Vespers, Matins, and Mass on Christmas and the three
following days. They amounted to a mockery of the divine worship, did
much damage to the church vestments and ornaments, and brought the
clergy into disrepute[1197]. These southern prohibitions are shortly
before the final suppression of the Feast of Fools in the north at
Beverley and Lincoln. The Wells customs, indeed, probably included
a regular Feast of Fools, for the part taken by the sub-deacons and
vicars is specifically mentioned, and the proceedings lasted over the
New Year. But it is clear that even where the term ‘Feast of Fools’ is
not known to have been in use, the temper of that revel found a ready
vent in other of the winter rejoicings. Nor was it the _triduum_ alone
which afforded its opportunities. More rarely the performances of the
_Pastores_ on Christmas day itself[1198], or the suppers given by the
great officers of cathedrals and monasteries, when they sang their
‘_Oes_,’ on the nights between December 16 and Christmas[1199], were
the occasions for excesses which called for reprehension.

Already, when Conrad visited St. Gall in 911, the third feast of the
_triduum_ was the most interesting. In after years this reached an
importance denied to the other two. The Vespers procession was the
germ of an annual rejoicing, secular as well as ritual, which became
for the _pueri_ attached as choir-boys and servers to the cathedrals
and great churches very much what the Feast of Fools became for the
adult inferior clergy of the same bodies. Where the two feasts were not
merged in one, this distinction of _personnel_ was retained. A good
example is afforded by Sens. Here, from the middle of the fourteenth
century, the chapter accounts show an _archiepiscopus puerorum_ side by
side with the _dominus_ of the Feast of Fools. Each feast got its own
grant of wine from the chapter, and had its own prebend in the chapter
woods. In the fifteenth century the two fell and rose together. In the
sixteenth, the Feast of Boys was the more flourishing, and claimed
certain dues from a market in Sens, which were commuted for a small
money payment by the chapter. Finally, both feasts are suppressed
together in 1547[1200]. It is to be observed that the original
celebration of the Holy Innocents’ day in the western Church was not of
an unmixed festal character. It commemorated a martyrdom which typified
and might actually have been that of Christ himself, and it was
therefore held _cum tristitia_. As in Lent or on Good Friday itself,
the ‘joyful chants,’ such as the _Te Deum_ or the _Alleluia_, were
silenced. This characteristic of the day was known to Belethus, but
even before his time it had begun to give way to the festal tendencies.
Local practice differed widely, as the notices collected by Martene
show, but even when John of Avranches wrote, at the end of the eleventh
century, the ‘modern’ custom was to sing the chants[1201].

Many interesting details of the Feast of Boys, as it was celebrated
in France, are contained in various ceremonial books. The _Officium
Infantum_ of Rouen may be taken as typical[1202]. After second Vespers
on St. John’s day the boys marched out of the vestry, two by two, with
their ‘bishop,’ singing _Centum quadraginta_. There was a procession to
the altar of the Holy Innocents, and _Hi empti sunt_ was sung[1203].
Then the ‘bishop’ gave the Benediction. The feast of the following
day was ‘double,’ but the boys might make it ‘triple,’ if they would.
There was a procession, with the _Centum quadraginta_, at Matins. At
Mass, the boys led the choir. At Vespers the _baculus_ was handed over,
while the _Deposuit potentes_ was being sung[1204]. At Bayeux the feast
followed the same general lines, but the procession at first Vespers
was to the altar, not of the Holy Innocents, but of St. Nicholas[1205].
Precise directions are given as to the functions of the ‘bishop.’ He is
to wear a silk tunic and cope, and to have a mitre and pastoral staff,
but not a ring. The boys are to do him the same reverence that is done
to the real bishop. There are also to be a boy _cantor_ and a boy
‘chaplain.’ The ‘bishop’ is to perform the duties of a priest, so long
as the feast lasts, except in the Mass. He is to give the benediction
after _Benedicamus_ at first Vespers. Then the boys are to take the
higher stalls, and to keep them throughout the following day, the
‘bishop’ sitting in the dean’s chair. The boys are to say Compline as
they will. The ‘bishop’ is to be solemnly conducted home with the prose
_Sedentem_, and on the following day he is to be similarly conducted
both to and from service. At Mass he is to cense and be censed like the
‘great bishop’ on solemn occasions. He is also to give the benediction
at Mass. There is a minute description of the ceremony of _Deposuit_,
from which it is clear that, at Bayeux at least, the handing over of
the _baculus_ was from an incoming to an outgoing ‘bishop,’ to whom
the former was in turn to act as ‘chaplain[1206].’ The rubrics of the
Coutances feast are even more minute[1207]. The proceedings began after
Matins on St. John’s day, when the boys drew up a _tabula_ appointing
their superiors to the minor offices of the coming feast. This,
however, they were to do without impertinence[1208]. The vesting of the
‘bishop’ and the Vespers procession are exactly described. As at Bayeux
the boys take the high stalls for Compline. The canon who holds a
particular prebend is bound to carry the candle and the _collectarium_
for the ‘bishop.’ After Compline the ‘bishop’ is led home with
_Laetabundus_, but not in pontificals. Throughout the services of the
following day the ‘bishop’ plays his part, and when Vespers comes gives
way to a ‘bishop’-elect at the _Deposuit_[1209]. The ‘bishop’ of St.
Martin of Tours was installed in the neighbouring convent of Beaumont,
whither all the _clericuli_ rode for the purpose after Prime on St.
John’s day. He was vested in the church there, blessed the nuns, then
returned to Tours, was installed in his own cathedral, and blessed the
populace[1210]. The secular side of the feast comes out in the Toul
_Statutes_ of 1497[1211]. Here it may be said to have absorbed in its
turn the Feast of Fools, for the ‘bishop’ was a choir-boy chosen by the
choir-boys themselves and also by the sub-deacons, who shared with them
the name of _Innocentes_[1212]. The election took place after Compline
on the first Sunday in Advent, and the ‘bishop’ was enthroned with a
_Te Deum_. He officiated in the usual way throughout the Innocents’
day services. In the morning he rode at the head of a _cortège_ to the
monasteries of St. Mansuetus and St. Aper, sang an anthem and said a
prayer at the door of each church, and claimed a customary fee[1213].
After Vespers he again rode in state with mimes and trumpeters through
the city[1214]. On the following day, all the ‘Innocents’ went masked
into the city, where, if it was fine enough, farces and apparently
also moralities and miracles were played[1215]. On the octave the
‘bishop’ and his _cortège_ went to the church of St. Geneviève. After
an anthem and collect they adjourned to the ‘church-house,’ where they
were entertained by the hospital at a dessert of cake, apples and
nuts, during which they chose disciplinary officers for the coming
year[1216]. The expenses of the feast, with the exception of the dinner
on the day after Innocents’ day which came out of the disciplinary
fines, are assigned by the statutes to the canons in the order of their
appointment. The responsible canon must give a supper on Innocents’
day, and a dessert out of what is over on the following day. He must
also provide the ‘bishop’ with a horse, gloves, and a _biretta_ when he
rides abroad. At the supper a curious ceremony took place. The canon
returned thanks to the ‘bishop,’ apologized for any short-comings in
the preparations, and finally handed the ‘bishop’ a cap of rosemary or
other flowers, which was then conferred upon the canon to whose lot it
would fall to provide the feast for the next anniversary[1217]. Should
the canon disregard his duties the boys and sub-deacons were entitled
to hang up a black cope on a candlestick in the middle of the choir _in
illius vituperium_ for as long as they might choose[1218].

I cannot pretend to give a complete account of all the French
examples of the Boy Bishop with which I have met, and it is the less
necessary, as the feast seems to have been far more popular and
enduring in England than the Feast of Fools. I content myself with
giving references for its history at Amiens[1219], St. Quentin[1220],
Senlis[1221], Soissons[1222], Roye[1223], Peronne[1224], Rheims[1225],
Brussels[1226], Lille[1227], Liège[1228], Laon[1229], Troyes[1230],
Mans[1231], Bourges[1232], Châlons-sur-Saône[1233], Grenoble[1234]. Not
unnaturally it proved less of a scandal to ecclesiastical reformers
than the Feast of Fools; for the choir-boys must have been more
amenable to discipline, even in moments of festivity, than the adult
clerks. But it shared in the general condemnation of all such customs,
and was specifically arraigned by more than one council, rather perhaps
for puerility than for any graver offence[1235]. Gradually therefore,
it vanished, leaving only a few survivals to recent centuries[1236].
As was the case with the Feast of Fools, the question of its
suppression sometimes set a chapter by the ears. Notably was this so
at Noyon, where the act of his reforming colleagues in 1622 was highly
disapproved of by the dean, Jacques Le Vasseur. In a letter written on
the occasion he declares that the Boy Bishop had flourished in Noyon
cathedral for four hundred years, and brands the reformers as brute
beasts masquerading in the robes and beards of philosophy[1237].

I have no special records of the Boy Bishop in Spain except the council
decrees already quoted. In Germany he appears to have been more widely
popular than his rival of Fools. My first notice, however, is two
centuries after the visit of Conrad to the _triduum_ at St. Gall. The
chronicle of the monastery of St. Petersburg, hard by Halle, mentions
an accident _in ludo qui vocatur puerorum_, by which a lad was trodden
to death. This was in 1137[1238]. The thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries yield more examples. In 1249 Pope Innocent IV complained to
the bishop of Ratisbon that the clerks and scholars of that cathedral,
when choosing their anniversary ‘bishop,’ did violence to the abbey
of Pruviningen[1239]. In 1357 the Ratisbon feast was stained with
homicide, and was consequently suppressed[1240]. In 1282 the feast was
forbidden at Eichstädt[1241]. In 1304 it led to a dispute between the
municipality and the chapter of Hamburg, which ended in a promise by
the _scholares_ to refrain from defamatory songs either in Latin or
German[1242]. Similarly at Worms in 1307 the _pueri_ were forbidden
to sing in the streets after Compline, as had been the custom on
the feasts of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy, on Christmas and the three
following days, and on the octave of the Holy Innocents’[1243]. At
Lübeck the feast was abolished in 1336[1244]. I have already quoted the
long reference to the _scholarium episcopus_ in the Mosburg Gradual
of 1360[1245]. He may be traced also at Regensburg[1246] and at
Prague[1247]. But the fullest account of him is from Mainz[1248]. Here
he was called the _Schul-Bischoff_, and in derision _Apffeln-Bischoff_.
He was chosen before St. Nicholas’ day by the _ludi magister_ of the
_schola trivialis_. He had his _equites_, his _capellani_, and his
_pedelli_. On St. Nicholas’ day, and on that of the Holy Innocents’, he
had a seat near the high altar, and took part in the first and second
Vespers. In the interval he paid a visit with his company to the palace
of the elector, sang a hymn[1249], and claimed a banquet or a donation.
The custom was not altogether extinct in Mainz by 1779[1250]. In other
German towns, also, it well outlived the Middle Ages. At Cologne, for
instance, it was only suppressed by the statutes of Bishop Max Heinrich
in 1662[1251].

In England, the Boy Bishop weathered the storms of discipline which
swept away the Feast of Fools in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. He was widely popular in the later Middle Ages, and finally
fell before an austerity of the Reformation. The prerogative instance
of the custom is in the church of Salisbury. Here the existence of the
Boy Bishop is already implied by the notice of a ring for use at the
‘Feast of Boys’ in an inventory of 1222[1252]. A century later, the
statutes of Roger de Mortival in 1319 include elaborate regulations
for the ceremony. The ‘bishop’ may perform the _officium_ as is the
use, but he must hold no banquet, and no visitation either within or
without the cathedral. He may be invited to the table of a canon, but
otherwise he must remain in the common house, and must return to his
duties in church and school immediately after the feast of Innocents.
The statute also regulates the behaviour of the crowds which were wont
to press upon and impede the boys in their annual procession to the
altar of the Holy Trinity, and the rest of their ministry[1253]. Two
of the great service-books of the Sarum use, the Breviary and the
Processional, give ample details as to the ‘ministry’ of the Boy Bishop
and his fellows. The office, as preserved in these, will be found
in an appendix[1254]. The proceedings differ in some respects from
the continental models already described. There is no mention of the
_Deposuit_; and the central rite is still the great procession between
Vespers and Compline on the eve of the Holy Innocents. This procession
went from the choir either to the altar of the Holy Innocents or to
that of the Holy Trinity and All Saints in the Lady chapel, and at its
return the boys took the higher stalls and kept them until the second
Vespers of the feast. For this procession the boys were entitled to
assign the functions of carrying the book, the censer, the candles, and
so forth to the canons. Some miscellaneous notices of the Salisbury
feast are contained in the chapter register between 1387 and 1473.
From 1387 the oblations on the feast appear to have been given to the
‘bishop.’ In 1413 he was allowed a banquet. In 1448 the precentor,
Nicholas Upton, proposed that the boys, instead of freely electing a
‘bishop,’ should be confined to a choice amongst three candidates named
by the chapter. But this innovation was successfully resisted[1255].
Cathedral documents also give the names of twenty-one boys who held
the office[1256]. There is in Salisbury cathedral a dwarf effigy of a
bishop, dating from the latter part of the thirteenth century. Local
tradition, from at least the beginning of the seventeenth century,
has regarded this as the monument of a Boy Bishop who died during his
term of office. But modern archaeologists repudiate the theory. Such
miniature effigies are not uncommon, and possibly indicate that the
heart alone of the person commemorated is buried in the spot which they
mark[1257].

The gradual adoption of the use of Sarum by other dioceses would
naturally tend to carry with it that of the Boy Bishop. But he is
to be found at Exeter and at St. Paul’s before the change of use,
as well as at Lincoln and York which retained their own uses up to
the Reformation. At Exeter Bishop Grandisson’s _Ordinale_ of 1337
provides an _Officium puerorum_ for the eve and day of the Innocents
which, with different detail, is on the same general lines as that of
Salisbury[1258]. At St. Paul’s there was a Boy Bishop about 1225, when
a gift was made to him of a mitre by John de Belemains, prebendary
of Chiswick. This appears, with other vestments for the feast, in an
inventory drawn up some twenty years later[1259]. By 1263 abuses had
grown up, and the chapter passed a statute to reform them[1260]. They
required the election of the _praesul_ and his chapter and the drawing
up of the _tabula_ to take place in the chapter-house instead of in
the cathedral, on account of the irreverence of the crowds pressing to
see. The great dignitaries must not be put down on the _tabula_ for the
servers’ functions, but only the clergy of the second or third ‘form.’
The procession and all the proceedings in the cathedral must be orderly
and creditable to the boys[1261]. Minute directions follow as to the
right of the ‘bishop’ to claim a supper on the eve from one of the
canons, and as to the train he may take with him, as well as for the
dinner and supper of the feast-day itself. After dinner a cavalcade
is to start from the cathedral for the blessing of the people. The
dean must find a horse for the ‘bishop,’ and each canon residentiary
one for the lad who personates him[1262]. Other statutes of earlier
date make it incumbent on a new residentiary to entertain his own
boy-representative _cum daunsa et chorea et torchiis_ on Innocents’
day, and to sit up at night for the ‘bishop’ and all his _cortège_
on the octave. If he is kept up very late, he may ‘cut’ Matins next
morning[1263]. The Boy Bishop of St. Paul’s was accustomed to preach
a sermon which, not unnaturally, he did not write himself. William de
Tolleshunte, almoner of St. Paul’s in 1329, bequeathed to the almonry
copies of all the sermons preached by the Boy Bishops in his time.
Probably he was himself responsible for them[1264]. One such sermon was
printed by Wynkyn de Worde before 1500[1265]. Another was written by
Erasmus, and exists both in Latin and English[1266]. When Dean Colet
drew up the statutes of St. Paul’s School in 1512 he was careful to
enact that the scholars should attend the cathedral on Childermass day,
hear the sermon, and mass, and give a penny to the ‘bishop[1267].’

The earliest notice of the Boy Bishop at York, or for the matter of
that, in England, is in a statute (before 1221), which lays on him the
duty of finding rushes for the Nativity and Epiphany feasts[1268].
After this, there is nothing further until the second half of the
fourteenth century, when some interesting documents become available.
The chapter register for 1367 requires that in future the ‘bishop’
shall be the boy who has served longest and proved most useful in
the cathedral. A saving clause is added: _dum tamen competenter sit
corpore formosus_[1269]. This shows a sense of humour in the chapter,
for at York, as at Salisbury, _Corpore enim formosus es, O fili_ was a
respond for the day. In 1390, was added a further qualification that
the ‘bishop’ must be a lad in good voice[1270]. Doubtless the office
was much coveted, for it was a very remunerative one. The visitation
forbidden at Salisbury by Roger de Mortival was permitted at York,
and the profits were considerable. Robert de Holme, who was ‘bishop’
in 1369, received from the choirmaster, John Gisson, who acted as his
treasurer, no less a sum than £3 15_s._ 1¹⁄₂_d._[1271] In 1396 the
amount was only £2 0_s._ 6¹⁄₂_d._ But this was only a small portion
of the total receipts. The complete _Computus_ for this year happens
to be preserved, and shows that the Boy Bishop made a _quête_ at
intervals during the weeks between Christmas and Candlemas, travelling
with a ‘seneschal,’ four singers and a servant to such distant places
as Bridlington, Leeds, Beverley, Fountains abbey and Allerton. Their
principal journey lasted a fortnight. The oblations on Christmas and
Innocents’ days and the collection from the dignitaries in the cloister
realized £2 15_s._ 5_d._ In the city they got 10_s._ and abroad £5
10_s._ Out of this there were heavy expenses. The supper given by
the ‘bishop’ cost 15_s._ 6¹⁄₂_d._ Purchased meals had to supplement
hospitality at home and abroad. Horse hire and stable expenses had
to be met. There were the ‘bishop’s’ outfit, candles to be borne in
procession, fees to the minor cathedral officials, gloves for presents
to the vicars and schoolmasters. There was the ‘bishop’s’ own company
to be rewarded for its services. The £2 0_s._ 6¹⁄₂_d._ represents
the balance available for his private use[1272]. The most generous
contributor to the _quête_ was the countess of Northumberland, who
gave 20s. and a gold ring. This is precisely the amount of the reward
prescribed about 1522 for the ‘barne bishop’ of York, as well as for
his brother of Beverley in the _Household Book_ of the fifth earl of
Northumberland[1273].

The printed service-books of the use of York do not deal as fully
with the Feast of Boys as do those of Sarum; but a manuscript missal
of the fifteenth century used in the cathedral itself contains some
additional rubrics with regard to the functions of the ‘bishop’ and
his ‘precentor’ at Mass[1274]. The names of some of the York ‘bishops’
are preserved, and show that the ceremony prevailed up to the
Reformation[1275]. And this is confirmed by a list of ornaments for the
‘bishop’ in a sixteenth-century inventory[1276].

I am unable to give such full data for Lincoln as for the cathedrals
already named; but regulations of 1300 and 1527 provide for the
supply of candles to the ‘bishop’ and the rest of the choir at
Vespers on the eve and matins on the day of the Innocents[1277], and
an inventory of 1536 mentions a cope for the ‘barne busshop’ with a
moral ‘scriptur’ embroidered on it[1278]. Nor can I hope to supply any
exhaustive list of localities where the Boy Bishop flourished. These
include minor cathedrals such as Hereford[1279], Lichfield[1280],
Gloucester[1281], and Norwich[1282], great collegiate churches such
as Beverley minster[1283], St. Peter’s, Canterbury[1284], and Ottery
St. Mary’s[1285], college chapels such as Magdalen[1286] and All
Souls[1287], at Oxford, the private chapels of the king[1288] and
the earl of Northumberland[1289], and many parish churches both in
London[1290], and throughout the length and breadth of England[1291]
and Scotland[1292].

Nor is this all. Unlike the Feast of Fools, the Feast of Boys enjoyed
a considerable vogue in religious houses. When John Peckham,
archbishop of Canterbury, was drawing up his constitutions for such
communities in 1279, he found it necessary to limit the duration of
this feast to the eve and day of the Holy Innocents[1293]. Traces of
the Boy Bishop are to be found in the archives of more than one great
monastery. A Westminster inventory of 1388 gives minute descriptions
of vestments and ornaments for his use, many of which appear to have
been quite recently provided by the ‘westerer’ or _vestiarius_, Richard
Tonworthe[1294]. There was a mitre with silvered and gilt plates and
gems, and the inscription _Sancte Nicholae ora pro nobis_ set in
pearls. There was a _baculus_ with images of St. Peter and St. Edward
the Confessor upon thrones. There were two pair of cheveril gloves, to
match the mitre. There were an amice, a rochet and a surplice. There
were two albs and a cope of blood colour worked with gryphons and other
beasts and cisterns spouting water. There was another ‘principal’
cope of ruby and blood-coloured velvet embroidered in gold, and with
the ‘new arms of England’ woven into it. An older mitre and pair of
gloves and a ring had been laid aside as old-fashioned or worn out.
Evidently the feast was celebrated with some splendour. Several of
the vestments are again inventoried in 1540[1295]. A payment for the
feast is recorded in a _Computus_ of 1413-14[1296]. The accounts
of the obedientiaries of Durham priory show from 1369 onwards many
payments by nearly all these officers to a Boy Bishop of the almonry.
He also received a gift up to 1528 from the dependent house or ‘cell’
of Finchale priory. This payment was made at the office of the
_feretrarius_ or keeper of Saint Cuthbert’s shrine. The ‘bishop’ is
called _episcopus puerilis_, _episcopus eleemosynariae_, or the like.
In 1405 he was not elected, _propter guerras eo tempore_. In 1423 and
1434 there was also an _episcopus de Elvett_ or Elvetham, a manor of
the priory[1297]. The abbey of Bury St. Edmunds had its _episcopus
sancti Nicolai_ in 1418 and for at least a century longer[1298].
At Winchester each of the great monasteries held a Feast of Boys;
the abbey of Hyde on St. Nicholas’ day[1299]; the priory of St.
Swithin’s on that of the Holy Innocents. Here, too, the accounts of
the obedientiaries contain evidence of the feast in payments between
1312 and 1536 for beer or wine sent to the _episcopus iuvenum_.
Nearly all the officers whose rolls are preserved, the chamberlain,
the curtarian, the cellarian, the almoner, the sacristan, the _custos
operum_, the hordarian, seem to have contributed[1300]. A _Computus_
of 1441 contains a payment to the _pueri eleemosynariae_ who, with
the _pueri_ of St. Elizabeth’s chapel, visited St. Mary’s convent,
dressed as girls, and danced, sang and sported before the abbess and
the nuns[1301]. We have had some French instances in which the Boy
Bishop visited a neighbouring convent. But the nuns were not always
dependent on outside visitors for their revel. In some places they held
their own feast, with an ‘abbess’ instead of a ‘bishop.’ Archbishop
John Peckham, in addition to his general constitution already quoted,
issued a special mandate to Godstow nunnery, forbidding the office
and prayers to be said _per parvulas_ on Innocents’ day[1302]. Three
centuries later, in 1526, a visitation of Carrow nunnery by Richard
Nicke, bishop of Norwich, disclosed a custom of electing a Christmas
‘abbess’ there, which the bishop condemned[1303]. Continental parallels
to these examples are available. An eighth-century case, indeed,
which is quoted by some writers, has probably been the subject of
a misinterpretation[1304]. But the visitation-books of Odo Rigaud,
archbishop of Rouen (1248-69) record that he forbade the _ludibria_
of the younger nuns at the Christmas feasts and the feast of St. Mary
Magdalen in more than one convent of his diocese. One of these was the
convent of the Holy Trinity at Caen, in which an ‘abbess’ was still
chosen by the novices in 1423[1305]. All the monastic examples here
quoted come from houses of the older foundations. The _Statutes_,
however, of the Observant Franciscans made at Barcelona in 1401,
expressly forbid the use of secular garments or the loan of habits of
the order for _ludi_ on St. Nicholas’ or Innocents’ days[1306]; whence
it may be inferred that the irregularities provided against were not
unknown.

Mediaeval education began with the song-school: and although the
universities and other great seats of learning came to be much more
than glorified choirs, they still retained certain traces of their
humble origin. Amongst these was the Boy Bishop. The students of Paris
regularly chose their Boy Bishops on St. Nicholas’ day. In 1275,
indeed, the Faculty of Arts forbade the torchlight processions which
took place on that day and on St. Catherine’s, the two great common
holidays of the clerks[1307]. But in 1367 such processions were held
as of ancient custom, and it would appear that every little group of
students gathered together under the protection and in the house of a
master of arts considered itself entitled to choose a ‘bishop,’ and to
lead him in a rout through the streets. In that year the custom led
to a tragic brawl which came under the cognizance of the _Parlement_
of Paris[1308]. The scholars of one Peter de Zippa, dwelling _in vico
Bucherie ultra Parvum Pontem_, had chosen as ‘bishop’ Bartholomew
Divitis of Ypres. On St. Nicholas’ eve, they were promenading, with
a torch but unarmed, to the houses of the rector of the Faculty and
others _causa solacii et iocosa_, when they met with the watch. Peter
de Zippa was with them, and the watch had a grudge against Peter. On
the previous St. Catherine’s day they had arrested him, but he had been
released by the _préfet_. They now attacked the procession with drawn
swords, and wounded Jacobus de Buissono in the leg. As the scholars
were remonstrating, up came Philippus de Villaribus, _miles gueti_, and
Bernardus Blondelli, his deputy, and cried ‘_Ad mortem_’. The scholars
fled home, but the watch made an attack on the house. Peter de Zippa
attempted to appease them from a window, and was wounded four fingers
from a mortal spot. As the watch were on the point of breaking in, the
scholars surrendered. The house was looted, and the inmates beaten.
One lad was pitched out on his head and driven into the Seine, out of
which he was helped by a woman. Peter de Zippa and twenty-four others
were rolled in the mud and then carried off to the _Châtelet_, where
they were shut up in a dark and malodorous cell. Worst of all, the
‘bishop’ had disappeared altogether. It was believed that the watch had
slain him, and flung the body into the Seine. A complaint was brought
before the _Parlement_, and a commission of inquiry appointed. The
watch declared that Peter de Zippa was insubordinate to authority and,
although warned, as a foreigner, both in French and Latin[1309], that
they were the king’s men, persisted in hurling logs and stones out of
his window, with the result of knocking four teeth out of Peter Patou’s
mouth, and wounding the horse of Philip de Villaribus. This defence was
apparently thought unsatisfactory, and a further inquiry was held, with
the aid of torture. Finally the court condemned the offending watch
to terms of imprisonment and the payment of damages. They had also to
offer a humble apology, with bare head and bent knee, to the bishop
of Paris, the rector of the Faculty, Peter de Zippa, and the injured
scholars, in the cloister or the chapter-house of St. Mathurin’s. The
case of the alleged murder of the ‘bishop,’ Bartholomew Divitis, was
not to be prejudiced by this judgement, and Peter de Zippa was warned
to be more submissive to authority in future. The whole episode is an
interesting parallel to the famous ‘town and gown’ at Oxford on St.
Scholastica’s day, 1353[1310].

Provision is made for a Boy Bishop in the statutes of more than one
great English educational foundation. William of Wykeham ordained
in 1400 that one should be chosen at Winchester College, and at New
College, Oxford, and should recite the office at the Feast of the
Innocents[1311]. Some notices in the Winchester College accounts
during the fifteenth century show that he also presided at secular
revels. In 1462 he is called _Episcopus Nicholatensis_, and on St.
Nicholas’ day he paid a visit of ceremony to the warden, who presented
him, out of the college funds, with fourpence[1312]. The example of
William of Wykeham was followed, forty years later, in the statutes of
the royal foundations of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge.
But there was one modification. These colleges were dedicated to
the Virgin and to St. Nicholas, and it was carefully laid down that
the performance of the _officium_ by the ‘bishop’ was to be on St.
Nicholas’ day, ‘and by no means on that of the Innocents[1313].’
The Eton ‘bishop’ is said by the Elizabethan schoolmaster Malim,
who wrote a _Consuetudinarium_ of the college in 1561, to have been
called _episcopus Nihilensis_, and to have been chosen on St. Hugh’s
day (November 17). Probably _Nihilensis_ is a scribal mistake for
_Nicholatensis_[1314]. The custom had been abolished before Malim
wrote, but was extant in 1507, for in that year the ‘bishop’s’ rochet
was mended[1315]. Some Eton historians have thought that the Boy Bishop
ceremony was the origin of the famous ‘Montem’; but as the ‘Montem’
was held on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), and
as Malim mentions both customs independently, this is improbable[1316].

Smaller schools than Winchester or Eton had none the less their Boy
Bishops. Archbishop Rotherham, who founded in 1481 a college at his
native place of Rotherham in Yorkshire, left by will in 1500 a mitre
for the ‘barnebishop[1317].’ The grammar school at Canterbury had, or
should have had, its Boy Bishop in 1464[1318]. Aberdeen was a city of
which St. Nicholas was the patron, and at Aberdeen the master of the
grammar school was paid by a collection taken when he went the rounds
with the ‘bishop’ on St. Nicholas’ day[1319]. Dean Colet, on the other
hand, when founding St. Paul’s school did not provide for a ‘bishop’
in the school itself, but, as we have seen, directed the scholars to
attend the mass and sermon of the ‘bishop’ in the cathedral.

Naturally the Reformation made war on the Boy Bishop. A royal
proclamation of July 22, 1541, forbade the ‘gatherings’ by children
‘decked and apparalid to counterfaite priestes, bysshopps, and women’
on ‘sainte Nicolas, sainte Catheryne, sainte Clement, the holye
Innocentes, and such like,’ and also the singing of mass and preaching
by boys on these days[1320]. Naturally also, during the Marian reaction
the Boy Bishop reappeared. On November 13, 1554, Bishop Bonner issued
an order permitting all clerks in the diocese of London to have St.
Nicholas and to go abroad; and although this order was annulled on
the very eve of the festival, apparently because Cardinal Pole had
appointed St. Nicholas’ day for a great ceremony of reconciliation
at Lambeth, yet the custom was actually revived in several London
parishes, including St. Andrew’s, Holborn, and St. Nicholas Olave,
Bread Street[1321]. In 1556 it was still more widely observed[1322].
But upon the accession of Elizabeth it naturally fell again into
disuse, and it has left few, if any, traces in modern folk-custom[1323].

I need not, after the last two chapters, attempt an elaborate analysis
of the customs connected with the Boy Bishop. In the main they are
parallel to those of the Feast of Fools. They include the burlesque
of divine service, the _quête_, the banquet, the _dominus festi_.
Like the Feast of Fools, they probably contain a folk as well as an
ecclesiastical element. But the former is chastened and subdued, the
strength of ecclesiastical discipline having proved sufficient, in
the case of the boys, to bar for the most part such excesses as the
adult clerks inherited from the pagan Kalends. On one point, however,
a little more must be said. The _dominus festi_, who at the Feast of
Fools bears various names, is almost invariably at the Feast of Boys
a ‘bishop[1324].’ This term must have been familiar by the end of
the eleventh century for it lends a point of sarcasm to the protest
made by Yves, bishop of Chartres, in a letter to Pope Urban II against
the disgraceful nomination by Philip I of France of a wanton lad to
be bishop of Orleans in 1099[1325]. In later documents it appears in
various forms, _episcopus puerorum_, _episcopellus_[1326], _episcopus
puerilis_ or _parvulus_, ‘boy bishop,’ ‘child bishop,’ ‘barne
bishop.’ In some English monasteries it is _episcopus eleemosynariae_
(‘of the almonry’); in Germany, _Schul-Bischof_, or, derisively,
_Apfeln-Bischof_. More significant than any of these is the common
variant _episcopus Nicholatensis_, ‘Nicholas bishop.’ For St. Nicholas’
day (December 6) was hardly less important in the career of the Boy
Bishop than that of the Holy Innocents itself. At this feast he was
generally chosen and began his _quête_ through the streets. In more
than one locality, Mainz for instance in Germany, Eton in England,
it was on this day as well as, or in substitution for, that of the
Innocents that he made his appearance in divine service[1327]. St.
Nicholas was, of course, the patron saint of schoolboys and of
children generally[1328]. His prominence in the winter processions
of Germany and the presents which in modern folk-belief he brings to
children have been touched upon in an earlier chapter. It now appears
that originally he took rather than gave presents, and that where he
appeared in person he was represented by the Boy Bishop. And this
suggests the possibility that it was this connexion with St. Nicholas,
and not the profane mummings of Michael the Drunkard at Constantinople,
which led to the use of the term ‘bishop’ for the _dominus festi_,
first at the Feast of Boys, and ultimately at the other Christmas
feasts as well. For St. Nicholas was not only the boys’ saint _par
excellence_; he was also, owing to the legend of his divinely ordered
consecration when only a layman as bishop of Myra, the bishop saint
_par excellence_[1329]. However this may be, I think it is a fair guess
that St. Nicholas’ day was an older date for a Feast of Boys than that
of the Holy Innocents, and that the double date records an instance of
the process, generally imperfect, by which, under Roman and Christian
influence, the beginning of winter customs of the Germano-Keltic
peoples were gradually transformed into mid-winter customs[1330].
The beginning of winter feast was largely a domestic feast, and the
children probably had a special part in it. It is possible also to
trace a survival of the corresponding beginning of summer feast in the
day of St. Gregory on March 12, which was also sometimes marked by the
election of a _Schul-Bischof_[1331].

CHAPTER XVI

GUILD FOOLS AND COURT FOOLS

[_Bibliographical Note._--The best account of the _Sociétés
joyeuses_ is that of L. Petit de Julleville, _Les Comédiens en
France au Moyen Âge_ (1889). Much material is collected in the
same writer’s _Répertoire du Théâtre comique en France au Moyen
Âge_ (1886), and in several of the books given as authorities on
the Feast of Fools (ch. xiii), especially those of Du Tilliot,
Rigollot, Leber, and Grenier. Mme. Clément (née Hémery),
_Histoire des Fêtes civiles et religieuses du Département du
Nord_ (1832), may also be consulted. M. Petit de Julleville’s
account of the _Sottie_ is supplemented by E. Picot, _La Sottie
en France_, in _Romania_, vol. vii, and there is a good study of
the fool-literature of the Renascence in C. H. Herford, _Literary
Relations between England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century_
(1886). Amongst writers on the court fool are J. F. Dreux du
Radier, _Histoire des Fous en Titre d’Office_, in _Récréations
historiques_ (1768); C. F. Flögel, _Geschichte der Hofnarren_
(1789); F. Douce, _Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare_ in _Variorum
Shakespeare_ (1821), xxi. 420, and _Illustrations of Shakespeare_
(1839); C. Leber in Rigollot, xl; J. Doran, _History of Court
Fools_ (1858); A. F. Nick, _Hof-und Volksnarren_ (1861); P.
Lacroix (le bibliophile Jacob), _Dissertation sur les Fous des
Rois de France_; A. Canel, _Recherches historiques sur les Fous
des Rois de France_ (1873); A. Gazeau, _Les Bouffons_ (1882); P.
Moreau, _Fous et Bouffons_ (1885). Much of this literature fails
to distinguish between the _stultus_ and the _ioculator regis_
(ch. iii). There is an admirable essay by L. Johnson on _The
Fools of Shakespeare_ in _Noctes Shakesperianae_ (1887).]

The conclusion of this volume must call attention to certain traces
left by the ecclesiastical _ludi_ of the New Year, themselves extinct,
upon festival custom, and, through this, upon dramatic tradition. The
Feast of Fools did not altogether vanish with its suppression in the
cathedrals. It had had its origin in the popular celebration of the
Kalends. Throughout it did not altogether lack a popular element. The
_bourgeois_ crowded into the cathedral to see and share in the revel.
The Fool Bishop in his turn left the precincts and made his progress
through the city streets, while his satellites played their pranks
abroad for the entertainment of the mob. The feast was a dash of colour
in the civic as well as the ecclesiastical year. The Tournai riots of
1499 show that the _jeunesse_ of that city had come to look upon it
as a _spectacle_ which they were entitled to claim from the cathedral.
What happened in Tournai doubtless happened elsewhere. And the upshot
of it was that when in chapter after chapter the reforming party got
the upper hand and the official celebration was dropped, the city and
its _jeunesse_ themselves stepped into the breach and took measures
to perpetuate the threatened delightful dynasty. It was an easy way
to avert the loss of a holiday. And so we find a second tradition
of Feasts of Fools, in which the _fous_ are no longer vicars but
_bourgeois_, and the _dominus festi_ is a popular ‘king’ or ‘prince’
rather than a clerical ‘bishop.’ A mid-fifteenth-century writer, Martin
Franc, attests the vogue of the _prince des folz_ in the towns of
northern France:

‘Va t’en aux festes à Tournay,
A celles d’Arras et de Lille,
D’Amiens, de Douay, de Cambray,
De Valenciennes, d’Abbeville.
Là verras tu des gens dix mille,
Plus qu’en la forest de Torfolz,
Qui servent par sales, par viles,
A ton dieu, le prince des folz[1332].’

The term _Roi_ or _Prince des Sots_ is perhaps the most common one
for the new _dominus festi_, and, like _sots_ or _folz_ themselves,
is generic. But there are many local variants, as the _Prévôt des
Étourdis_ at Bouchain[1333], the _Roi des Braies_ at Laon, the _Roi
de l’Epinette_ at Lille, and the _Prince de la Jeunesse_ at St.
Quentin[1334]. The _dominus festi_ was as a rule chosen by one or more
local guilds or _confréries_ into which the _jeunesse_ were organized
for the purpose of maintaining the feast. The fifteenth century was an
age of guilds in every department of social life, and the _compagnies
des fous_ or _sociétés joyeuses_ are but the frivolous counterparts
of religious _confréries_ or literary _puys_. The most famous of all
such _sociétés_, that of _l’Infanterie Dijonnaise_ at Dijon, seems
directly traceable to the fall of an ecclesiastical Feast of Fools.
Such a feast was held, as we have seen, in the ducal, afterwards royal,
chapel, and was abolished by the _Parlement_ of Dijon in 1552. Before
this date nothing is heard of _l’Infanterie_. A quarter of a century
later it is in full swing, and the character of its dignitaries and
its badges point clearly to a derivation from the chapel feast[1335].
The Dijon example is but a late one of a development which had long
taken place in many parts of northern France and Flanders. It would be
difficult to assert that a _société joyeuse_ never made its appearance
in any town before the ecclesiastical Feast of Fools had died out
therein. Occasionally the two institutions overlap[1336]. But, roughly
speaking, the one is the inheritor of the other; ‘_La confrérie des
sots, c’est la Fête des Fous sécularisée_[1337].’ Amongst the chief of
these _sociétés_ are the _Enfants-sans-Souci_ of Paris, the _Cornards_
or _Connards_ of Rouen and Evreux[1338], the _Suppôts du Seigneur de
la Coquille_ of Lyons[1339]. The history of these has been written
excellently well by M. Petit de Julleville, and I do not propose to
repeat it. A few general points, however, deserve attention.

The ecclesiastical Feast of Fools flourished rather in cathedrals
than in monasteries. The _sociétés_ however, like some more serious
_confréries_[1340], seem to have preferred a conventual to a capitular
model for their organization[1341]. The _Cornards_, both at Rouen
and Evreux, were under an _Abbé_. Cambrai had its _Abbaye joyeuse de
Lescache-Profit_, Chalons-sur-Saône its _Abbé de la Grande Abbaye_,
Arras its _Abbé de Liesse_, Poitiers its _Abbé de Mau Gouverne_[1342].
The literary adaptation of this idea by Rabelais in the _Abbaye de
Thélème_ is familiar. This term _abbaye_ is common to the _sociétés_,
with some at least of the _Basoches_ or associations of law-clerks
to the _Parlements_ of Paris and the greater provincial towns. The
_Basoches_ existed for mutual protection, but for mutual amusement
also, and on one side at least of their activity they were much of the
nature of _sociétés joyeuses_[1343]. At Rheims in 1490 a _Basoche_
entered into rivalry of dramatic invective with the celebrants of the
ecclesiastical Feast of Fools[1344]. The _Basoche_ of Paris was in the
closest relations to, if not actually identical with, the _société_ of
the _Enfants-sans-Souci_[1345]. Just as the law-clerks of Paris were
banded together in their _Basoche_, so were the students of Paris in
their ‘university,’ ‘faculties,’ ‘nations,’ and other groups; and in
1470, long after the regular Feast of Fools had disappeared from the
city, the students were still wont to put on the fool habit and elect
their _rex fatuorum_ on Twelfth night[1346]. Yet other guilds of a more
serious character, generally speaking, than the _sociétés joyeuses_,
none the less occasionally gave themselves over to _joyeuseté_. The
_Deposuit_ brought rebuke upon religious _confréries_ up to a quite
late date[1347]; and traces of the _fous_ are to be found amongst the
recreations of no less a body than the famous and highly literary _puy_
of Arras. The _sociétés joyeuses_, like the _puys_, were primarily
associations of amateur, rather than professional merry-makers, a fact
which distinguishes them from the corporations of minstrels described
in a previous chapter[1348]. But minstrels and _trouvères_ were by
no means excluded. The poet Gringoire was _Mère-Sotte_ of the Paris
_Enfants-sans-Souci_. Clément Marot was a member of the same body. In
the _puy_ of Arras the minstrels traditionally held an important place;
and as the literary and dramatic side of the _sociétés_ grew, it is
evident that the men who were professionally ready with their pens
must everywhere have been in demand.

The primary function of the _sociétés joyeuses_ and their congeners
was the celebration of the traditional Feast of Fools at or about
the New Year. In Paris, Twelfth night was a day of festival for the
_Basoche_ as well as for the minor association of exchequer clerks
known as the _Empire de Galilée_. In mid-January came the _fête des
Braies_ at Laon, and the _fête_ of the _Abbaye de Lescache-Profit_ at
Cambrai. That of the _Prince des Sots_ at Amiens was on the first of
January itself[1349]. On the same day three _sociétés joyeuses_ united
in a _fête de l’âne_ at Douai[1350]. But January was no clement month
for the elaborated revels of increasingly luxurious burghers; and it
is not surprising to find that many of the _sociétés_ transferred
their attention to other popular feasts which happened to fall at more
genial seasons of the year. To the celebration of these, the spring
feast of the carnival or Shrovetide, the summer feasts of May-day or
Midsummer, they brought all the wantonness of the Feast of Fools.
The _Infanterie Dijonnaise_, the _Cornards_ of Rouen and Evreux, the
third Parisian law association, that of the _Châtelet_, especially
cultivated the carnival. The three obligatory feasts of the _Basoche_
included, besides that of Twelfth night, one on May-day and one at the
beginning of July[1351]. On May-day, too, a guild in the parish of
St. Germain at Amiens held its _fête des fous_[1352]. It may be noted
that these summer extensions of the reign of folly are not without
parallels of a strictly ecclesiastical type. At Châlons-sur-Marne, as
late as 1648, a chapter procession went to the woods on St. John’s eve
to cut boughs for the decking of the church[1353]. At Evreux a similar
custom grew into a very famous revel[1354]. This was the _procession
noire_, otherwise known as the _cérémonie de la Saint-Vital_, because
the proceedings began on the day of St. Vitalis (April 28) and lasted
to the second Vespers on May 1. Originally the canons, afterwards the
choir-clerks, chaplains, and vicars, went at day-break on May morning
to gather branches in the bishop’s woods. Their return was the signal
for riotous proceedings. The bells were violently rung. Masks were
worn. Bran was thrown in the eyes of passers-by, and they were made to
leap over broomsticks. The choir-clerks took the high stalls, and the
choir-boys recited the office. In the intervals the canons played at
skittles over the vaults; there were dancing and singing and the rest,
‘as at the time of the Nativity[1355].’ The abuses of this festival
must have begun at an early date, for two canons of the cathedral, one
of whom died in 1206, are recorded to have been hung out of the belfry
windows in a vain attempt to stop the bell-ringing. Its extension
to St. Vitalis’ day is ascribed to another canon, singularly named
Bouteille, who is said to have founded about 1270 a very odd _obit_. He
desired that a pall should lie on the pavement of the choir, and that
on each corner and in the middle of this should stand a bottle of wine,
to be drunk by the singing-men. The canon Bouteille may be legendary,
but the wine-bottle figured largely in the festival ceremonies. While
the branches were distributed in the bishop’s wood, which came to be
known as the _bois de la Bouteille_, the company drank and ate cakes.
Two bottle-shaped holes were dug in the earth and filled with sand.
On the day of the _obit_ an enormous leather bottle, painted with
marmosets, serpents, and other grotesques, was placed in the choir.
These rites were still extant at Evreux in 1462, when a fresh attempt
to suppress the bell-jangling led to a fresh riot. No explanation is
given of the term _procession noire_ as used at Evreux, but a Vienne
parallel suggests that, as in some other seasonal festivals, those who
took part in the procession had their faces blacked. At Vienne, early
on May 1, four men, naked and black, started from the archbishop’s
palace and paraded the city. They were chosen respectively by the
archbishop, the cathedral chapter, and the abbots of St. Peter’s and
St. John’s. Subsequently they formed a _cortège_ for a _rex_, also
chosen by the archbishop, and a _regina_ from the convent of St.
Andrew’s. A St. Paul, from the hospital dedicated to that saint, also
joined in the procession, and carried a cup of ashes which he sprinkled
in the faces of those he met. This custom lasted to the seventeenth
century[1356].

But the seasonal feasts did not exhaust the activities of the
_sociétés_. Occasional events, a national triumph, a royal entry, not
to speak of local _faits divers_, found them ready with appropriate
celebrations[1357]. The _Infanterie Dijonnaise_ made a solemn
function of the admission of new members[1358]. And more than one
_société_ picked up from folk-custom the tradition of the _charivari_,
constituting itself thus the somewhat arbitrary guardian of burgess
morality[1359]. M. Petit de Julleville analyses a curious _jeu_ filled
with chaff against an unfortunate M. Du Tillet who underwent the
penalty at Dijon in 1579 for the crime of beating his wife in the month
of May[1360]. At Lyon, too, _chevauchées_ of a similar type seem to
have been much in vogue[1361].

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the entertainment of
the _sociétés joyeuses_ was largely dramatic. We find them, as
indeed we find the participants in the strictly clerical feasts of
Fools[1362] and of Boys[1363], during the same period, occupied
with the performance both of miracles and of the various forms of
contemporary comedy known as farces, moralities, _sotties_ and _sermons
joyeux_[1364]. Of their share in the miracles the next volume may
speak[1365]: their relations to the development of comedy require a
word or two here. That normal fifteenth-century comedy, that of the
farce and the morality, in any way had its origin in the Feast of
Fools, whether clerical or lay, can hardly be admitted. It almost
certainly arose out of the minstrel tradition, and when already a
full-blown art was adapted by the _fous_, as by other groups of amateur
performers, from minstrelsy. With the special forms of the _sottie_ and
the _sermon joyeux_ it is otherwise. These may reasonably be regarded
as the definite contribution of the Feast of Fools to the types of
comedy. The very name of the _sermon joyeux_, indeed, sufficiently
declares its derivation. It is parody of a class, the humour of which
would particularly appeal to revelling clerks: it finds its place in
the general burlesque of divine worship, which is the special note
of the feast[1366]. The character of the _sotties_, again, does not
leave their origin doubtful; they are, on the face of them, farces in
which the actors are _sots_ or _fous_. Historically, we know that some
at least of the extant _sotties_ were played by _sociétés joyeuses_
at Paris, Geneva and elsewhere; and the analysis of their contents
lays bare the ruling idea as precisely that expressed in the motto
of the _Infanterie Dijonnaise_--‘_Stultorum numerus est infinitus_.’
It is their humour and their mode of satire to represent the whole
world, from king to clown, as wearing the cap and bells, and obeying
the lordship of folly. French writers have aptly compared them to
the modern dramatic type known as the _revue_[1367]. The germ of the
_sottie_ is to be found as early as the thirteenth century in the work
of that Adan de la Hale, whose anticipation of at least one other form
of fifteenth-century drama has called for comment[1368]. Adan’s _Jeu
de la Feuillée_ seems to have been played before the _puy_ of Arras,
perhaps, as the name suggests, in the _tonnelle_ of a garden, on the
eve of the first of May, 1262. It is composed of various elements: the
later scenes are a _féerie_ in which the author draws upon Hellequin
and his _mesnie_ and the three _fées_, Morgue, Maglore and Arsile, of
peasant tradition. But there is an episode which is sheer _sottie_.
The relics of St. Acaire, warranted to cure folly, are tried upon the
good burgesses of Arras one by one; and there is a genuine fool or
_dervés_, who, like his lineal descendant Touchstone, ‘uses his folly
as a stalking-horse to shoot his wit’ in showers of arrowy satire upon
mankind[1369]. Of the later and regular _sotties_, the most famous
are those written by Pierre Gringoire for the _Enfants-sans-Souci_ of
Paris. In these, notably the _Jeu du Prince des Sotz_, and in others
by less famous writers, the conception of the all-embracing reign of
folly finds constant and various expression[1370]. Outside France some
reflection of the _sottie_ is to be found in the _Fastnachtspiele_
or Shrovetide plays of Nuremberg and other German towns. These were
performed mainly, but not invariably, at Shrovetide, by students or
artisans, not necessarily organized into regular guilds. They are
dramatically of the crudest, being little more than processions of
figures, each of whom in turn sings his couplets. But in several
examples these figures are a string of _Narren_, and the matter of
the verses is in the satirical vein of the _sotties_[1371]. The
_Fastnachtspiele_ are probably to be traced, not so much to the Feast
of Fools proper, as to the spring sword-dances in which, as we have
seen, a _Narr_ or ‘fool’ is _de rigueur_. They share, however, with the
_sotties_ their fundamental idea of the universal domination of folly.

The extension of this idea may indeed be traced somewhat widely in the
satirical and didactic literature of the later Middle Ages and the
Renascence. I cannot go at length into this question here, but must
content myself with referring to Professor Herford’s valuable account
of the cycle, which includes the _Speculum Stultorum_ of Wireker,
Lydgate’s _Order of Fools_, Sebastian Brandt’s _Narrenschiff_ and its
innumerable imitations, the _Encomium Moriae_ of Erasmus, and Robert
Armin the player’s _Nest of Ninnies_[1372].

Wireker was an Englishman, and the ‘Order’ founded in the _Speculum_ by
Brunellus, the Ass, was clearly suggested by the _sociétés joyeuses_.
Traces of such _sociétés_ in England are, however, rare. Some of the
titles of local lords of misrule, such as the Abbot of Marrall at
Shrewsbury or the Abbot of Bon-Accord at Aberdeen, so closely resemble
the French nomenclature as to suggest their existence; but the only
certain example I have come across is in a very curious record from
Exeter. The register of Bishop Grandisson contains under the date July
11, 1348, a mandate to the archdeacon and dean of Exeter and the rector
of St. Paul’s, requiring them to prohibit the proceedings of a certain
‘sect of malign men’ who call themselves the ‘Order of Brothelyngham.’
These men, says the bishop, wear a monkish habit, choose a lunatic
fellow as abbot, set him up in the theatre, blow horns, and for day
after day beset in a great company the streets and places of the city,
capturing laity and clergy, and exacting ransom from them ‘in lieu of
a sacrifice.’ This they call a _ludus_, but it is sheer rapine[1373].
Grandisson’s learned editor thinks that this _secta_ was a sect of
mediaeval dissenters, but the description clearly points to a _société
joyeuse_. And the recognition of the _droits_ exacted as being _loco
sacrificii_ is to a folk-lorist most interesting.

More than one of the records which I have had occasion to quote make
mention of an _habit des fous_ as of a recognized and familiar type
of dress. These records are not of the earliest. The celebrants of
the ecclesiastical Feast of Fools wore _larvae_ or masks. Laity
and clergy exchanged costumes: and the wearing of women’s garments
by men probably represents one of the most primitive elements in
the custom. But there can be little doubt as to the nature of the
traditional ‘habit des fous’ from the fourteenth century onwards. Its
most characteristic feature was that hood garnished with ears, the
distribution of which to persons of importance gave such offence at
Tournai in 1499. A similar hood, fitting closely over the head and
cut in scollops upon the shoulders, reappears in the _bâton_, dated
1482, of the fools in the ducal chapel of Dijon. Besides two large
asses’ ears, it also bears a central peak or crest[1374]. The eared
hood became the regular badge of the _sociétés joyeuses_. It is found
on most of the seals and other devices of the _Infanterie Dijonnaise_,
variously modified, and often with bells hung upon the ears and the
points of the scollops[1375]. It was used at Amiens[1376], and at
Rouen and Evreux probably gave a name to the _Cornards_[1377]. Marot
describes it as appropriate to a _sot de la Basoche_ at Paris[1378].
It belongs also to the _Narren_ of Nuremberg[1379], and is to be
seen in innumerable figured representations of fools in miniatures,
woodcuts, carvings, the Amiens _monetae_, and so forth, during the
later Middle Ages and the Renascence[1380]. Such a close-fitting hood
was of course common wear in the fourteenth century. It is said to
be of Gaulish origin, and to be retained in the religious cowl. The
_differentiae_ of the hood of a ‘fool’ from another must be sought in
the grotesque appendages of ears, crest and bells[1381]. Already an
eared hood, exactly like that of the ‘fools,’ distinguishes a mask,
perhaps Gaulish, of the Roman period[1382]. It may therefore have been
adopted in the _Kalendae_ at an early date. But it is not, I think,
unfair to assume that it was originally a sophistication of a more
primitive headdress, namely the actual head of a sacrificial animal
worn by the worshipper at the New Year festival. That the ears are
asses’ ears explains itself in view of the prominence of that animal
at the Feast of Fools. It must be added that the central crest is
developed in some of the examples figured by Douce into the head and
neck, in others into the comb only, of a cock[1383]. With the hood, in
most of the examples quoted above, goes the _marotte_. This is a kind
of doll carried by the ‘fool,’ and presents a replica of his own head
and shoulders with their hood upon the end of a short staff. In some of
Douce’s figures the _marotte_ is replaced or supplemented by some other
form of bauble, such as a bladder on a stick, stuffed into various
shapes, or hollow and containing peas[1384]. Naturally the colours of
the ‘fools’ were gay and strikingly contrasted. Those of the Paris
_Enfants-sans-Souci_ were yellow and green[1385]. But it may be doubted
whether these colours were invariable, or whether there is much in the
symbolical significance attributed to them by certain writers[1386].
The _Infanterie Dijonnaise_ in fact added red to their yellow and
green[1387]. The colours of the Clèves Order of Fools were red and
yellow[1388].

It will not have escaped notice that the costume just described, the
parti-coloured garments, the hood with its ears, bells and coxcomb,
and the _marotte_, is precisely that assigned by the custom of the
stage to the fools who appear as _dramatis personae_ in several of
Shakespeare’s plays[1389]. Yet these fools have nothing to do with
_sociétés joyeuses_ or the Feast of Fools; they represent the ‘set,’
‘allowed,’ or ‘all-licensed’ fool[1390], the domestic jester of royal
courts and noble houses. The great have always found pleasure in that
near neighbourhood of folly which meaner men vainly attempt to shun.
Rome shared the _stultus_ with her eastern subjects and her barbarian
invaders alike; and the ‘natural,’ genuine or assumed, was, like his
fellow the dwarf, an institution in every mediaeval and Renascence
palace[1391]. The question arises how far the _habit_ of the _sociétés
joyeuses_ was also that of the domestic fool. In France there is
some evidence that from the end of the fourteenth century it was
occasionally at least taken as such. The tomb in Saint Maurice’s at
Senlis of Thévenin de St. Leger, fool to Charles V, who died in 1374,
represents him in a crested hood with a _marotte_[1392]. Rabelais
describes the fool Seigni Joan, apparently intended for a court
fool, as having a _marotte_ and ears to his hood. On the other hand,
he makes Panurge present Triboulet, the fool of Louis XII, with a
sword of gilt wood and a bladder[1393]. A little later Jean Passerat
speaks of the hood, green and yellow, with bells, of another royal
fool[1394]. In the seventeenth century the green and yellow and an
eared hood formed part of the fool’s dress which the duke of Nevers
imposed upon a peccant treasurer[1395]. But in France the influence of
the _sociétés joyeuses_ was directly present. I do not find that the
data quoted by Douce quite bear out his transference of the regular
French _habit de fou_ to England. Hoods were certainly required as part
of the costume for ‘fools,’ ‘disards,’ or ‘vices’ in the court revels
of 1551-2, together with ‘longe’ coats of various gay colours[1396];
but these were for masks, and on ordinary occasions the fools of the
king and the nobles seem to have worn the usual dress of a courtier
or servant[1397]. Like Triboulet, they often bore, as part of this, a
gilded wooden sword[1398]. A coxcomb, however, seems to have been a
recognized fool ensign[1399], and once, in a tale, the complete _habit_
is described[1400]. Other fool costumes include a long petticoat[1401],
the more primitive calf-skin[1402], and a fox tail hanging from the
back[1403]. The two latter seem to bring us back to the sacrificial
_exuviae_, and form a link between the court fool and the grotesque
‘fool,’ or ‘Captain Cauf Tail’ of the morris dances and other village
revels.

Whatever may have been the case with the domestic fool of history, it
is not improbable that the tradition of the stage rightly interprets
the intention of Shakespeare. The actual texts are not very decisive.
The point that is most clear is that the fool wears a ‘motley’ or
‘patched’ coat[1404]. The fool in _Lear_ has a ‘coxcomb[1405]’;
Monsieur Lavache in _All’s Well_ a ‘bauble,’ not of course necessarily
a _marotte_[1406]; Touchstone, in _As You Like It_, is a courtier and
has a sword[1407]. The sword may perhaps be inherited from the ‘vice’
of the later moralities[1408]; and, in other respects, it is possible
that Shakespeare took his conception of the fool less from contemporary
custom, for indeed we hear of no fool at Elizabeth’s court, than from
the abundant fool-literature, continental and English, above described.
The earliest of his fools, Feste in _Twelfth Night_, quotes Rabelais,
in whose work, as we have just seen, the fool Triboulet figures[1409].
It is noticeable that the appearance of fools as important _dramatis
personae_ in the plays apparently coincides with the substitution
for William Kempe as ‘comic lead’ in the Lord Chamberlain’s company
of Robert Armin[1410], whose own _Nest of Ninnies_ abounds in
reminiscences of the fool-literature[1411]. But whatever outward
appearance Shakespeare intended his fools to bear, there can be no
doubt that in their dramatic use as vehicles of general social satire
they very closely recall the manner of the _sotties_. Touchstone is
the type: ‘He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the
presentation of that he shoots his wit[1412].’

CHAPTER XVII

MASKS AND MISRULE

[_Bibliographical Note._--On the history of the English Masque
A. Soergel, _Die englischen Maskenspiele_ (1882); H. A. Evans,
_English Masques_ (1897); J. A. Symonds, _Shakespeare’s
Predecessors_, ch. ix; A. W. Ward, _English Dramatic Literature_,
passim; W. W. Greg, _A List of Masques, Pageants, &c._ (1902),
may be consulted. Much of the material used by these writers is
in Collier, _H. E. D. P._ vol. i, and P. Cunningham, _Extracts
from the Accounts of the Revels at Court_ (Shakespeare Soc.
1842). For the early Tudor period E. Hall’s _History of the Union
of Lancaster and York_ (1548) and the Revels Accounts in J. S.
Brewer and J. Gairdner, _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry
VIII_, vols. ii, iii, are detailed and valuable. R. Brotanek’s
very full _Die englischen Maskenspiele_ (1902) only reached me
when this chapter was in type.]

Already in Saxon England Christmas was becoming a season of secular
merry-making as well as of religious devotion[1413]. Under the
post-Conquest kings this tendency was stimulated by the fixed habit
of the court. William the Bastard, like Charlemagne before him, chose
the solemn day for his coronation; and from his reign Christmas
takes rank, with Easter, Whitsuntide, and, at a much later date, St.
George’s day, as one of the great courtly festivals of the year. The
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is at the pains to record the place of its
celebration, twelvemonth after twelvemonth[1414]. Among the many
forgotten Christmassings of mediaeval kings, history lays a finger on
a few of special note: that at which Richard II, with characteristic
extravagance and the consumption of ‘200 tunns of wine and 2,000 oxen
with their appurtenances,’ entertained the papal legate in 1398;
and that, more truly royal, at which Henry V, besieging Rouen in
1418, ‘refreshed all the poore people with vittels to their great
comfort and his high praise[1415].’ The Tudors were not behindhand
with any opportunity for pageantry and display, nor does the vogue of
Christmas throughout the length and breadth of ‘merrie England’ need
demonstration[1416]. The Puritans girded at it, as they did at May
games, and the rest of the delightful circumstance of life, until in
1644 an ordinance of the Long Parliament required the festival to give
place to a monthly fast with the day fixed for which it happened to
coincide[1417].

The entertainment of a mediaeval Christmas was diverse. There was
the banquet. The Boy Bishop came to court. Carols were sung. New
Year gifts were exchanged. _Hastiludia_--jousts or tournaments--were
popular and splendid. Minstrels and jugglers made music and mirth.
A succession of gaieties filled the Twelve nights from the Nativity
to the Epiphany, or even the wider space from St. Thomas’s day to
Candlemas. It is, however, in the custom of masquing that I find the
most direct legacy to Christmas of the Kalends celebrations in their
_bourgeois_ forms. _Larvae_ or masks are prominent in the records
and prohibitions of the Feast of Fools from the decretal of Innocent
III in 1207 to the letter of the Paris theologians in 1445[1418].
I take them as being, like the characteristic hood of the ‘fool,’
sophistications of the _capita pecudum_, the sacrificial _exuviae_
worn by the rout of worshippers at the _Kalendae_. Precisely such
_larvae_, under another name, confront us in the detailed records of
two fourteenth-century Christmasses. Amongst the documents of the Royal
Wardrobe for the reign of Edward III are lists of stuffs issued for
the _ludi domini regis_ in 1347-8 and 1348-9[1419]. For the Christmas
of 1347, held at Guildford, were required a number of ‘viseres’ in
the likeness of men, women, and angels, curiously designed ‘crestes,’
and other costumes representing dragons, peacocks, and swans[1420].
The Christmas of 1348 held at Ottford and the following Epiphany at
Merton yield similar entries[1421]. What were these ‘viseres’ used for?
The term _ludi_ must not be pressed. It appears to be distinct from
_hastiludia_, which comes frequently in the same documents, although
in the _hastiludia_ also ‘viseres’ were used[1422]. But it does not
necessarily imply anything dramatic, and the analogies suggest that
it is a wide generic term, roughly equivalent to ‘disports,’ or to
the ‘revels’ of the Tudor vocabulary[1423]. It recurs in 1388 when
the Wardrobe provided linen coifs for twenty-one counterfeit men of
the law in the _ludus regis_[1424]. The sets of costumes supplied for
all these _ludi_ would most naturally be used by groups of performers
in something of the nature of a dance; and they point to some
primitive form of masque, such as Froissart describes in contemporary
France[1425], the precursor of the long line of development which,
traceable from the end of the following century, culminates in the
glories of Ben Jonson. The vernacular name for such a _ludus_ in
the fourteenth century was ‘mumming’ or ‘disguising[1426].’ Orders
of the city of London in 1334, 1393, and 1405 forbid a practice of
going about the streets at Christmas _ove visere ne faux visage_, and
entering the houses of citizens to play at dice therein[1427]. In 1417
‘mummyng’ is specifically included in a similar prohibition[1428];
and in a proclamation of the following year, ‘mommyng’ is classed
with ‘playes’ and ‘enterludes’ as a variety of ‘disgisyng[1429].’
But the disport which they denied to less dignified folk the rulers
of the city retained for themselves as the traditional way of paying
a visit of compliment to a great personage. A fragmentary chronicle
amongst Stowe’s manuscripts describes such a visit paid to Richard II
at the Candlemas preceding his accession in 1377. The ‘mummers’ were
disguised with ‘vizards’ to represent an emperor and a pope with their
_cortèges_. They rode to Kennington, entered the hall on foot, invited
the prince and the lords to dice and discreetly lost, drank and danced
with the company, and so departed[1430]. This is the first of several
such mummings upon record. Some chroniclers relate that it was at a
mumming that the partisans of Richard II attempted to seize Henry IV on
Twelfth night in 1400[1431]. In the following year, when the Emperor
Manuel of Constantinople spent Christmas with Henry at Eltham, the ‘men
of London maden a gret mommyng to hym of xij aldermen and there sons,
for whiche they hadde gret thanke[1432].’ In 1414 Sir John Oldcastle
and his Lollards were in their turn accused of using a mumming as a
cloak of sedition[1433]. Thus the London distrust of false visages had
its justification, and it is noteworthy that so late as 1511 an Act of
Parliament forbade the visits of mummers disguised with visors to great
houses on account of the disorders so caused. Even the sale of visors
was made illegal[1434].

So far there is nothing to point to the use of any dialogue or speeches
at mummings. The only detailed account is that of 1377, and the
passage which describes how the mummers ‘saluted’ the lords, ‘shewing
a pair of dice upon a table to play with the prince,’ reads rather
as if the whole performance were in dumb show. This is confirmed
by the explanation of the term ‘mummynge’ given in a contemporary
glossary[1435]. The development of the mumming in a literary direction
may very likely have been due to the multifarious activity of John
Lydgate. Amongst his miscellaneous poems are preserved several which
are stated by their collector Shirley to have been written for mummings
or disguisings either before the king or before the lord mayor of
London[1436]. They all seem to belong to the reign of Henry VI and
probably to the years 1427-30. And they show pretty clearly the way
in which verses got into the disguisings. Two of them are ‘lettres’
introducing mummings presented by the guilds of the mercers and the
goldsmiths to lord mayor Eastfield[1437]. They were doubtless read
aloud in the hall. A _balade_ sent to Henry and the queen mother at
Eltham is of the same type[1438]. Two ‘devyses’ for mummings at London
and Windsor were probably recited by a ‘presenter.’ The Windsor one
is of the nature of a prologue, describing a ‘myracle’ which the king
is ‘to see[1439].’ The London one was meant to accompany the course
of the performance, and describes the various personages as they
enter[1440]. Still more elaborate is a set of verses used at Hertford.
The first part of these is certainly spoken by a presenter who points
out the ‘vpplandishe’ complainants to whom he refers. But the reply is
in the first person, and apparently put in the mouths of the ‘wyues’
themselves, while the conclusion is a judgement delivered, again
probably by the presenter, in the name of the king[1441].

Whether Lydgate was the author of an innovation or not, the
introduction of speeches, songs, and dialogues was common enough in
the fully-developed mummings. For these we must look to the sumptuous
courts of the early Tudors. Lydgate died about 1451, and the Wars of
the Roses did not encourage revelry. The _Paston Letters_ tell how
the Lady Morley forbade ‘dysguysyngs’ in her house at Christmas after
her husband’s death in 1476[1442]. There were _ludi_ in Scotland
under James III[1443]. But those of his successor, James IV, although
numerous and varied[1444], probably paled before the elaborate ‘plays’
and ‘disguisings’ which the contemporary account-books of Henry VII
reveal[1445]. Of only one ‘disguising,’ however, of this period is a
full account preserved. It took place in Westminster Hall after the
wedding of Prince Arthur with Katharine of Spain on November 18, 1501,
and was ‘convayed and showed in pageants proper and subtile.’ There was
a castle, bearing singing children and eight disguised ladies, amongst
whom was one ‘apparelled like unto the Princesse of Spaine,’ a Ship in
which came Hope and Desire as Ambassadors, and a Mount of Love, from
which issued eight knights, and assaulted the castle. This allegorical
compliment, which was set forth by ‘countenance, speeches, and
demeanor,’ ended, the knights and ladies danced together and presently
‘avoided.’ Thereupon the royal party themselves fell to dancing[1446].
‘Pageants’ are mentioned in connexion with other disguisings of the
reign, and on one occasion the disguising was ‘for a moryce[1447].’
Further light is thrown upon the nature of a disguising by the
regulations contained in a contemporary book of ‘Orders concerning an
Earl’s House.’ A disguising is to be introduced by torch-bearers and
accompanied by minstrels. If there are women disguised, they are to
dance first, and then the men. Then is to come the morris, ‘if any be
ordeynid.’ Finally men and women are to dance together and depart in
the ‘towre, or thing devised for theim.’ The whole performance is to be
under the control of a ‘maister of the disguisinges’ or ‘revills[1448].’

It is possible to distinguish a simpler and a more elaborate type
of masked entertainment, side by side, throughout the splendid
festivities of the court of Henry VIII. For the more or less impromptu
‘mumming,’ the light-hearted and riotous king had a great liking. In
the first year of his reign we find him invading the queen’s chamber
at Westminster ‘for a gladness to the queen’s grace’ in the guise of
Robin Hood, with his men ‘in green coats and hose of Kentish Kendal’
and a Maid Marian[1449]. The queen subsequently got left out, but there
were many similar disports throughout the reign. One of these, in which
the king and a party disguised as shepherds broke in upon a banquet of
Wolsey’s, has been immortalized by Shakespeare[1450]. Such mummings
were comparatively simple, and the Wardrobe was as a rule only called
upon to provide costumes and masks, although on one occasion a lady
in a ‘tryke’ or ‘spell’ wagon was drawn in[1451]. But the more formal
‘disguisings’ of the previous reign were also continued and set forth
with great splendour. In 1527 a ‘House of Revel’ called the ‘Long
House’ was built for their performance and decorated by Holbein[1452],
and there was constant expenditure on the provision of pageants. ‘The
Golldyn Arber in the Arche-yerd of Plesyer,’ ‘the Dangerus Fortrees,’
‘the Ryche Mount,’ ‘the Pavyllon un the Plas Parlos,’ ‘the Gardyn
de Esperans,’ ‘the Schatew Vert’[1453] are some of the names given
to them, and these well suggest the kind of allegorical spectacular
entertainment, diversified with dance and song, which the chroniclers
describe.

The ‘mumming’ or ‘disguising,’ then, as it took shape at the beginning
of the sixteenth century, was a form of court revel, in which, behind
the accretions of literature and pageantry, can be clearly discerned a
nucleus of folk-custom in the entry of the band of worshippers, with
their sacrificial _exuviae_, to bring the house good luck. The mummers
are masked and disguised folk who come into the hall uninvited and call
upon the company gathered there to dice and dance. It is not necessary
to lay stress upon the distinction between the two terms, which are
used with some indifference. When they first make their appearance
together in the London proclamation of 1418 the masked visit is a
‘mumming,’ and is included with the ‘enterlude’ under the generic term
of ‘disguising.’ In the Henry VII documents ‘mumming’ does not occur,
and in those of Henry VIII ‘mumming’ and ‘disguising’ are practically
identical, ‘disguising,’ if anything, being used of the more elaborate
shows, while both are properly distinct from ‘interlude.’ But I do
not think that ‘disguising’ ever quite lost its earlier and widest
sense[1454]. It must now be added that early in Henry VIII’s reign a
new term was introduced which ultimately supplanted both the others.
The chronicler Hall relates how in 1513 ‘On the daie of the Epiphanie
at night, the kyng with a xi other were disguised, after the maner of
Italie, called a maske, a thyng not seen afore in Englande, thei were
appareled in garmentes long and brode, wrought all with gold, with
visers and cappes of gold & after the banket doen, these Maskers came
in, with sixe gentlemen disguised in silke bearyng staffe torches, and
desired the ladies to daunce, some were content, and some that knewe
the fashion of it refused, because it was not a thyng commonly seen.
And after thei daunced and commoned together, as the fashion of the
Maske is, thei tooke their leaue and departed, and so did the Quene,
and all the ladies[1455].’

The good Hall is not particularly lucid in his descriptions, and
historians of the mask have doubted what, beyond the name, was the
exact modification introduced ‘after the maner of Italie’ in 1512.
A recent writer on the subject, Dr. H. A. Evans, thinks that it lay
in the fact that the maskers danced with the spectators, as well
as amongst themselves[1456]. But the mummers of 1377 already did
this, although of course the custom may have grown obsolete before
1513. I am rather inclined to regard it as a matter of costume. The
original Revels Account for this year--and Hall’s reports of court
revels are so full that he must surely have had access to some such
source--mentions provision for ‘12 nobyll personages, inparylled with
blew damaske and yelow damaske long gowns and hoods with hats after
the maner of maskelyng in Etaly[1457].’ Does not this description
suggest that the ‘thing not sene afore in England’ was of the nature
of a domino? In any case from 1513 onwards ‘masks,’ ‘maskelers’ or
‘maskelings’ recur frequently in the notices of the revels[1458]. The
early masks resembled the simpler type of ‘mumming’ rather than the
more elaborate and spectacular ‘disguising,’ but by the end of the
reign both of the older terms had become obsolete, and all Elizabethan
court performances in which the visor and the dance played the leading
parts were indifferently known as masks[1459]. Outside the court,
indeed, the nomenclature was more conservative, and to this day the
village performers who claim the right to enter your house at Christmas
call themselves ‘mummers,’ ‘guisers’ or ‘geese-dancers.’ Sometimes
they merely dance, sing and feast with you, but in most places, as a
former chapter has shown, they have adopted from another season of the
year its characteristic rite, which in course of time has grown from
folk-dance into folk-drama[1460].

I now pass from the mask to another point of contact between the Feast
of Fools and the Tudor revels. This was the _dominus festi_. A special
officer, told off to superintend the revels, pastimes and disports of
the Christmas season, is found both in the English and the Scottish
court at the end of the fifteenth century. In Scotland he bore the
title of Abbot of Unreason[1461]; in England he was occasionally the
Abbot, but more usually the Lord of Misrule. Away from court, other
local designations present themselves: but Lord of Misrule or Christmas
Lord are the generic titles known to contemporary literature[1462].
The household accounts of Henry VII make mention of a Lord or Abbot of
Misrule for nearly every Christmas in the reign[1463]. Under Henry VIII
a Lord was annually appointed, with one exception, until 1520[1464].
From that date, the records are not available, but an isolated notice
in 1534 gives proof of the continuance of the custom[1465]. In 1521 a
Lord of Misrule held sway in the separate household of the Princess
Mary[1466], and there is extant a letter from the Princess’s council
to Wolsey asking whether it were the royal pleasure that a similar
appointment should be made in 1525[1467]. Little information can be
gleaned as to the functions of the Lord of Misrule during the first two
Tudor reigns. It is clear that he was quite distinct from the officer
known as the ‘Master of the Revels,’ in whose hands lay the preparation
and oversight of disguisings or masks and similar entertainments. The
Master of the Revels also makes his first appearance under Henry VII.
Originally he seems to have been appointed only _pro hac vice_, from
among the officials, such as the comptroller of the household, already
in attendance at court[1468]. This practice lasted well into the reign
of Henry VIII, who was served in this capacity by such distinguished
courtiers, amongst others, as Sir Henry Guildford and Sir Anthony
Browne[1469]. Under them the preparation of the revels and the custody
of the properties were in the hands of a permanent minor official. At
first such work was done in the royal Wardrobe, but under Henry VIII it
fell to a distinct ‘serjeant’ who was sometimes, but not always, also
‘serjeant’ to the king’s tents. In 1545, however, a permanent Master of
the Revels was appointed in the person of Sir Thomas Cawarden, one of
the gentlemen of the privy chamber[1470]. Cawarden formed the Revels
into a regular office with a clerk comptroller, yeoman, and clerk,
and a head quarters, at first in Warwick Inn, and afterwards in the
precinct of the dissolved Blackfriars, of which he obtained a grant
from the king. This organization of the Revels endured in substance
until after the Restoration[1471]. Not unnaturally there were some
jealousies and conflicts of authority between the permanent Master of
the Revels and the annual Lord of Misrule, and this comes out amusingly
enough from some of Cawarden’s correspondence for 1551-3, preserved
in the muniment room at Loseley. For the two Christmases during this
period the Lordship of Misrule was held by George Ferrers, one of the
authors of the _Mirrour for Magistrates_[1472]; and Cawarden seems to
have put every possible difficulty in the way of the discharge of his
duties. Ferrers appealed to the lords of the council, and it took half
a dozen official letters, signed by the great master of the household,
Mr. Secretary Cecil, and a number of other dignitaries, to induce the
Master of the Revels to provide the hobby horses and fool’s coat and
what not, that were required[1473]. Incidentally this correspondence
and the account books kept by Cawarden give some notion of the sort of
amusement which the Lord of Misrule was expected to organize. In 1551
he made his entry into court ‘out of the mone.’ He had his fool ‘John
Smith’ in a ‘vice’s coote’ and a ‘dissard’s hoode,’ a part apparently
played by the famous court fool, Will Somers. He had a ‘brigandyne’; he
had his ‘holds, prisons, and places of execuc’on, his cannypie, throne,
seate, pillory, gibbet, hedding block, stocks, little ease, and other
necessary incydents to his person’; he had his ‘armury’ and his stables
with ‘13 hobby horses, whereof one with 3 heads for his person, bought
of the carver for his justs and challenge at Greenwich.’ The masks this
year were of apes and bagpipes, of cats, of Greek worthies, and of
‘medyoxes’ (‘double visaged, th’ one syde lyke a man, th’ other lyke
death’)[1474]. The chief difficulty with Cawarden arose out of a visit
to be paid by the Lord to London on January 4. The apparel provided
for his ‘viij counsellors’ on that occasion was so ‘insufficient’ that
he returned it, and told Cawarden that he had ‘mistaken y^e persons
that sholde weere them, as S^r Rob^t Stafford and Thom^s Wyndesor,
w^h other gentlemen that stande also upon their reputac̃on, and wold
not be seen in London, so torche-berer lyke disgysed, for as moche
as they are worthe or hope to be worthe[1475].’ After all it took a
letter from the council to get the fresh apparel ready in time. It was
ready, for Machyn’s _Diary_ records the advent of the Lord and his
‘consell’ to Tower Wharf, with a ‘mores danse,’ and the ‘proclamasyon’
made of him at the Cross in Cheap, and his visit to the mayor and the
lord treasurer, ‘and so to Bysshopgate, and so to Towre warff, and
toke barge to Grenwyche[1476].’ Before the following Christmas of 1552
Ferrers was careful to send note of his schemes to Cawarden in good
time[1477]. This year he would come in in ‘blewe’ out of ‘_vastum
vacuum_, the great waste.’ The ‘serpente with sevin heddes called
hidra’ was to be his arms, his crest a ‘wholme bush’ and his ‘worde’
_semper ferians_. Mr. Windham was to be his admiral, Sir George Howard
his master of the horse, and he required six councillors, ‘a divine,
a philosopher, an astronomer, a poet, a phisician, a potecarie, a m^r
of requests, a sivilian, a disard, John Smyth, two gentleman ushers,
besides jugglers, tomblers, fooles, friers, and suche other.’ Again
there was a challenge with hobby horses, and again the Lord of Misrule
visited London on January 6, and was met by Sergeant Vauce, Lord of
Misrule to ‘master Maynard the Shreyff’ whom he knighted. He then
proceeded to dinner with the Lord Mayor[1478]. As he rode his cofferer
cast gold and silver abroad, and Cawarden’s accounts show that ‘coynes’
were made for him by a ‘wyer-drawer,’ after the familiar fashion of the
Boy Bishops in France[1479]. These accounts also give elaborate details
of his dress and that of his retinue, and of a ‘Triumph of Venus and
Mars[1480].’ In the following year Edward was dead, and neither Mary
nor Elizabeth seems to have revived the appointment of a Lord of
Misrule at court[1481].

But the reign of the Lord of Misrule extended far beyond the verge
of the royal palace. He was especially in vogue at those homes of
learning, the Universities and the Inns of Court, where Christmas,
though a season of feasting and _ludi_, had not yet become an occasion
for general ‘going down.’ Anthony à Wood records him in several Oxford
colleges, especially in Merton and St. John’s, and ascribes his
downfall, justly, no doubt, in part, to the Puritans[1482]. At Merton
he bore the title of _Rex fabarum_ or _Rex regni fabarum_[1483]. He
was a fellow of the college, was elected on November 19, and held
office until Candlemas, when the winter festivities closed with the
_Ignis Regentium_ in the hall. The names of various _Reges fabarum_
between 1487 and 1557 are preserved in the college registers, and
the last holder of the office elected in the latter year was Joseph
Heywood, the uncle of John Donne, in his day a famous recusant[1484].
At St. John’s College a ‘Christmas Lord, or Prince of the Revells,’
was chosen up to 1577. Thirty years later, in 1607, the practice was
for one year revived, and a detailed account of this experiment was
committed to manuscript by one Griffin Higgs[1485]. The Prince, who
was chosen on All Saints’ day, was Thomas Tucker. He was installed on
November 5, and immediately made a levy upon past and present members
of the college to meet the necessary expenses. Amongst the subscribers
was ‘Mr. Laude.’ On St. Andrew’s day, the Prince was publicly installed
with a dramatic ‘deuise’ or ‘showe’ called _Ara Fortunae_. The hall
was a great deal too full, a canopy fell down, and the ‘fool’ broke
his staff. On St. Thomas’s day, proclamation was made of the style and
title of the Prince and of the officers who formed his household[1486].
He also ratified the ‘Decrees and Statutes’ promulgated in 1577 by his
predecessor and added some rather pretty satire on the behaviour of
spectators at college and other revels. On Christmas day the Prince
was attended to prayers, and took the vice-president’s chair in hall,
where a boar’s head was brought in, and a carol sung. After supper
was an interlude, called _Saturnalia_. On St. John’s day ‘some of the
Prince’s honest neighbours of St. Giles’s presented him with a maske
or morris’; and the ‘twelve daies’ were brought in with appropriate
speeches. On December 29 was a Latin tragedy of _Philomela_, and
the Prince, who played Tereus, accidentally fell. On New Year’s day
were the Prince’s triumphs, introduced by a ‘shew’ called _Time’s
Complaint_; and the honest chronicler records that this performance
‘in the sight of the whole University’ was ‘a messe of absurdityes,’
and that ‘two or three cold plaudites’ much discouraged the revellers.
However, they went on with their undertaking. On January 10 were two
shews, one called _Somnium Fundatoris_, and the other _The Seven
Days of the Weeke_. The dearth in the city caused by a six weeks’
frost made the President inclined to stop the revels, as in a time of
‘generall wo and calamity’; but happily a thaw came, and on January
15 the college retrieved its reputation by a most successful public
performance of a comedy _Philomathes_. _The Seven Days of the Weeke_,
too, though acted in private, had been so good that the vice-chancellor
was invited to see a repetition of it, and thus Sunday, January 17,
was ‘spent in great mirth.’ On the Thursday following there was a
little _contretemps_. The canons of Christ Church invited the Prince
to a comedy called _Yuletide_, and in this ‘many things were either
ill ment by them, or ill taken by vs.’ The play in fact was full of
satire of ‘Christmas Lords,’ and it is not surprising that an apology
from the dean, who was vice-chancellor that year, was required to
soothe the Prince’s offended feelings. Term had now begun, but the
revels were renewed about Candlemas. On that day was a _Vigilate_ or
all-night sitting, with cards, dice, dancing, and a mask. At supper
a quarrel arose. A man stabbed his fellow, and the Prince’s stocks
were requisitioned in deadly earnest. After supper the Prince was
entertained in the president’s lodging with ‘a wassall called the five
bells of Magdalen church.’ On February 6, ‘beeing egge Satterday,’ some
gentlemen scholars of the town brought a mask of _Penelope’s Wooers_
to the Prince, which, however, fell through; and finally, on Shrove
Tuesday, after a shew called _Ira seu Tumulus Fortunae_, the Prince
was conducted to his private chamber in a mourning procession, and
his reign ended. Even yet the store of entertainment provided was not
exhausted. On the following Saturday, though it was Lent, an English
tragedy of _Periander_ was given, the press of spectators being so
great that ‘4 or 500’ who could not get in caused a tumult. And still
there remained ‘many other thinges entended,’ but unperformed. There
was the mask of _Penelope’s Wooers_, with the _State of Telemachus_
and a _Controversy of Irus and his Ragged Company_. There were an
_Embassage from Lubberland_, a _Creation of White Knights of the Order
of Aristotle’s Well_, a _Triumph of all the Founders of Colleges in
Oxford_, not to speak of a lottery ‘for matters of mirth and witt’ and
a court leet and baron to be held by the Prince. So much energy and
invention in one small college is astonishing, and it was hard that Mr.
Griffin Higgs should have to complain of the treatment meted out to
its entertainers by the University at large. ‘Wee found ourselves,’ he
says, ‘(wee will say justly) taxed for any the least errour (though
ingenious spirits would have pardoned many things, where all things
were entended for their owne pleasure) but most vnjustly censured, and
envied for that which was done (wee daresay) indifferently well.’

Amongst other colleges in which the Lord of Misrule was regularly
or occasionally chosen, Anthony à Wood names, with somewhat vague
references, New College and Magdalen[1487]. To these may certainly
be added Trinity, where the _Princeps Natalicius_ is mentioned
in an audit-book of 1559[1488]. But the most singular of all the
Oxford documents bearing on the subject cannot be identified with
any particular college. It consists of a series of three Latin
letters[1489]. The first is addressed by _Gloria in excelsis_ to all
mortals _sub Natalicia ditione degentibus_. They are bidden keep
peace during the festal season and wished pleasant headaches in the
mornings. The vicegerent of _Gloria in excelsis_ upon earth is an
annually constituted _praelatia_, that so a longer term of office
may not beget tyranny. The letter goes on to confirm the election
to the kingly dignity of Robertus Grosteste[1490], and enjoins
obedience to him _secundum Natalicias leges_. It is _datum in aere
luminoso supra Bethlemeticam regionem ubi nostra magnificentia fuit
pastoribus promulgata_. The second letter is addressed to _R[obert]
Regi Natalicio_ and his _proceres_ by _Discretio virtutum omnium parens
pariter ac regina_. It is a long discourse on the value of moderation,
and concludes with a declaration that a moderate _laetitia_ shall
rule until Candlemas, and then give way to a moderate _clerimonia_.
The third is more topical and less didactic in its tone. It parodies
a papal letter to a royal sovereign. _Transaetherius, pater patrum
ac totius ecclesiasticae monarchiae pontifex et minister_ complains,
_R. Regi Natalicio_, of certain abuses of his rule. His _stolidus
senescallus_, _madidus marescallus_ and _parliamenti grandiloquus
sed nugatorius prolocutor_ have _ut plura possent inferre stipendia_
assaulted and imprisoned on the very night of the Nativity, _Iohannem
Curtibiensem episcopum_. In defence of these proceedings the Rex has
pleaded _quasdam antiquas regni tui, non dico consuetudines, sed potius
corruptelas_. Transaetherius gives the peccant officials three hours in
which to make submission. If they fail, they shall be excommunicated,
and Iohannes de Norwico, the warden of Jericho, will have orders
to debar them from that place and confine them to their rooms. The
letter is _datum in vertice Montis Cancari, pontificatus nostri anni
non fluxibili sed aeterno_. I think it is clear that these letters
are not a mere political skit, but refer to some actual Christmas
revels. The waylaying of _Iohannes Curtibiensis episcopus_ to make him
‘pay his footing’ is exactly the sort of thing that happened at the
Feast of Fools, and the _non consuetudines, sed potius corruptelas_
is the very language of the decretal of 1207[1491]. But surely they
are not twelfth-or early thirteenth-century revels, as they must be
if ‘Robertus Grosteste’ is taken literally as the famous bishop of
Lincoln[1492]. There was no _parliamenti prolocutor_, for instance, in
his day. They are fourteenth-, fifteenth-, or even sixteenth-century
fooling, in connexion with some _Rex Natalicius_ who adopted, to season
his jest, the name of the great mediaeval legislator against all such
_ludi_.

At Cambridge an order of the Visitors of Edward VI in 1549 forbade
the appointment of a _dominus ludorum_ in any college[1493]. But the
prohibition did not endure, and more than one unsuccessful Puritan
endeavour to put down Lords of Misrule is recorded by Fuller[1494].
Little, however, is known of the Cambridge Lords; their bare existence
at St. John’s[1495] and Christ’s Colleges[1496]; and at Trinity the
fact that they were called _imperatores_, a name on the invention of
which one of the original fellows of the college, the astronomer John
Dee, plumes himself[1497]. At schools such as Winchester and Eton, the
functions of Lord of Misrule were naturally supplied by the Boy Bishop.
At Westminster there was a _paedonomus_, and Bryan Duppa held the
office early in the seventeenth century[1498].

The revels of the Inns of Court come into notice in 1422, when the
_Black Book_ of Lincoln’s Inn opens with the announcement _Ceux
sont les nouns de ceux qe fuerunt assignes de continuer yci le
nowel_[1499]. They are mentioned in the _Paston Letters_ in 1451[1500],
and in Sir Fortescue’s _De laudibus Legum Angliae_ about 1463[1501].
Space compels me to be very brief in summarizing the further records
for each Inn.

Lincoln’s Inn had in 1430 its four revels on All Hallows’ day, St.
Erkenwold’s (April 30), Candlemas and Midsummer day, under a ‘Master of
the Revels.’ In 1455 appears a ‘marshal,’ who was a Bencher charged to
keep order and prevent waste from the last week of Michaelmas to the
first of Hilary term. Under him were the Master of the Revels, a butler
and steward for Christmas, a constable-marshal, server, and cup-bearer.
In the sixteenth century the ‘grand Christmassings’ were additional
to the four revels, and those of Candlemas were called the ‘post
revels.’ Christmas had its ‘king.’ In 1519 it was ordered that the
‘king’ should sit on Christmas day, that on Innocents’ day the ‘King of
Cokneys’[1502] should ‘sytt and haue due seruice,’ and that the marshal
should himself sit as king on New Year’s day. In 1517 some doors had
been broken by reason of ‘Jake Stray,’ apparently a popular anti-king
or pretender, and the order concludes, ‘Item, that Jack Strawe and all
his adherentes be from hensforth uttrely banyshed and no more to be
used in Lincolles Inne.’ In 1520 the Bench determine ‘that the order of
Christmas shall be broken up’; and from that date a ‘solemn Christmas’
was only occasionally kept, by agreement with the Temples. Both
Lincoln’s Inn and the Middle Temple had a ‘Prince,’ for instance, in
1599. In 1616 the choice of a ‘Lieutenant’ at Christmas was forbidden
by the Bench as ‘not accordinge to the auncyant Orders and usages of
the House.’ In 1624 the Christmas vacation ceased to be kept. There
were still ‘revels’ under ‘Masters of the Revels’ in Michaelmas and
Hilary terms, and there are notices of disorder at Christmas in 1660
and 1662. But the last ‘Prince’ of Lincoln’s Inn, was probably the
Prince de la Grange of 1661, who had the honour of entertaining Charles
II[1503].

The Inner Temple held ‘grand Christmasses’ as well as ‘revels’ on All
Saints’, Candlemas, and Ascension days. The details of the Christmas
ceremonies have been put together from old account books by Dugdale.
They began on St. Thomas’s day and ended on Twelfth night. On Christmas
day came in the boar’s head. On St. Stephen’s day a cat and a fox
were hunted with nine or ten couple of hounds round the hall[1504].
In the first few days of January a banquet with a play and mask was
given to the other Inns of Court and Chancery. The Christmas officers
included a steward, marshal, butler, constable-marshal, master of the
game, lieutenant of the tower, and one or more masters of the revels.
The constable-marshal was the Lord of Misrule. He held a fantastic
court on St. Stephen’s day[1505], and came into hall ‘on his mule’
to devise sport on the banquetting night. In 1523 the Bench agreed
not to keep Christmas, but to allow minstrels to those who chose to
stay. Soon after 1554 the Masters of Revels cease to be elected[1506].
Nevertheless there was a notable revel in 1561 at which Lord Robert
Dudley, afterwards earl of Leicester, was constable-marshal. He took
the title of ‘Palaphilos, prince of Sophie,’ and instituted an order of
knights of Pegasus in the name of his mistress Pallas[1507]. In 1594
the Inner Temple had an emperor, who sent an ambassador to the revels
of Gray’s Inn[1508]. In 1627 the appointment of a Lord of Misrule led
to a disturbance between the ‘Temple Sparks’ and the city authorities.
The ‘lieutenant’ claimed to levy a ‘droit’ upon dwellers in Ram Alley
and Fleet Street. The lord mayor intervened, an action which led to
blows and the committal of the lieutenant to the counter, whence he
escaped only by obtaining the mediation of the attorney-general, and
making submission[1509]. A set of orders for Christmas issued by the
Bench in 1632 forbade ‘any going abroad out of the Circuit of this
House, or without any of the Gates, by any Lord or other Gentleman, to
break open any House, or Chamber; or to take anything in the name of
Rent, or a distress[1510].’

The Middle Temple held its ‘solemn revels’ and ‘post revels’ on All
Saints and Candlemas days, and on the Saturdays between these dates;
likewise its ‘solemn Christmasses[1511].’ An account of the Christmas
of 1599 was written by Sir Benjamin Rudyerd under the title of
_Noctes Templariae: or, A Briefe Chronicle of the Dark Reigne of the
Bright Prince of Burning Love_. ‘Sur Martino’ was the Prince, and one
‘Milorsius Stradilax’ served as butt and buffoon to the company. A
masque and barriers at court, other masques and comedies, a progress, a
mock trial, a ‘Sacrifice of Love,’ visits to the Lord Mayor and to and
from Lincoln’s Inn, made up the entertainment[1512]. In 1631 orders for
Christmas government were made by the Bench[1513]. In 1635 a Cornish
gentleman, Francis Vivian, sat as Prince d’Amour. It cost him £2,000,
but after his deposition he was knighted at Whitehall. His great day
was February 24, when he entertained the Princes Palatine, Charles,
and Rupert, with Davenant’s masque of the _Triumphs of the Prince
d’Amour_[1514].

There is no very early mention of revels at Gray’s Inn, but they were
held on Saturdays between All Saints and Candlemas about 1529, and by
1550 the solemn observation of Christmas was occasionally used. In 1585
the Bench forbade that any one should ‘in time of Christmas, or any
other time, take upon him, or use the name, place, or commandment of
_Lord_, or any such other like[1515].’ Nevertheless in 1594 one of the
most famous of all the legal ‘solemn Christmasses’ was held at this
Inn. Mr. Henry Helmes, of Norfolk, was ‘Prince of Purpoole[1516],’
and he had the honour of presenting a mask before Elizabeth. This was
written by Francis Davison, and Francis Bacon also contributed to the
speeches at the revels. But the great glory of this Christmas came to
it by accident. On Innocents’ day there had been much confusion, and
the invited Templarians had retired in dudgeon. To retrieve the evening
‘a company of base and common fellows’ was brought in and performed ‘a
Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Menaechmus[1517].’ In 1617 there
was again a Prince of Purpoole, on this occasion for the entertainment
of Bacon himself as Lord Chancellor[1518]. Orders of 1609 and 1628
mention respectively the ‘twelve’ and the ‘twenty’ days of Christmas
as days of license, when caps may be doffed and cards or dice played in
the hall[1519]: and the duration of the Gray’s Inn revels is marked by
notices of Masters of the Revels as late as 1682 and even 1734[1520].

Nobles and even private gentlemen would set up a Lord of Misrule
in their houses. The household regulations of the fifth earl of
Northumberland include in a list of rewards usually paid about 1522,
one of twenty shillings if he had an ‘Abbot of Miserewll’ at Christmas,
and this officer, like his fellow at court, was distinct from the
‘Master of the Revells’ for whom provision is also made[1521]. In
1556 the marquis of Winchester, then lord treasurer, had a ‘lord of
mysrulle’ in London, who came to bid my lord mayor to dinner with ‘a
grett mene of musysyonars and dyssegyssyd’ amongst whom ‘a dullvyll
shuting of fyre’ and one ‘lyke Deth with a dart in hand[1522].’ In 1634
Richard Evelyn of Wotton, high sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, issued
‘Articles’ appointing Owen Flood his trumpeter ‘Lord of Misrule of all
good Orders during the twelve dayes[1523].’ The custom was imitated by
more than one municipal ape of gentility. The lord mayor and sheriffs
of London had their Lords of Misrule until the court of common council
put down the expense in 1554[1524]. Henry Rogers, mayor of Coventry,
in 1517, and Richard Dutton, mayor of Chester, in 1567, entertained
similar officers[1525].

I have regarded the Lord of Misrule, amongst the courtly and wealthy
classes of English society, as a direct offshoot from the vanished
Feast of Fools. The ecclesiastical suggestion in the alternative
title, more than once found, of ‘Abbot of Misrule,’ seems to justify
this way of looking at the matter. But I do not wish to press it too
closely. For after all the Lord of Misrule, like the Bishop of Fools
himself, is only a variant of the winter ‘king’ known to the folk. In
some instances it is difficult to say whether it is the folk custom
or the courtly custom with which you have to do. Such is the ‘kyng of
Crestemesse’ of Norwich in 1443[1526]. Such are the Lords of Misrule
whom Machyn records as riding to the city from Westminster in 1557 and
Whitechapel in 1561[1527]. And there is evidence that the term was
freely extended to folk ‘kings’ set up, not at Christmas only, but at
other times in the year[1528]. It was a folk and a Christmas Lord whose
attempted suppression by Sir Thomas Corthrop, the reforming curate
of Harwich, got him into trouble with the government of Henry VIII
in 1535[1529]. And it was folk rather than courtly Lords which, when
the reformers got their own way, were hardest hit by the inhibitions
contained in the visitation articles of archbishop Grindal and
others[1530]. So this discussion, _per ambages atque aequora vectus_,
comes round to the point at which it began. It is a far cry from
Tertullian to Bishop Grosseteste and a far cry from Bishop Grosseteste
to Archbishop Grindal, but each alike voices for his own day the
relentless hostility of the austerer clergy during all ages to the
ineradicable _ludi_ of the pagan inheritance.

END OF VOL. I

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Deuteronomy_, xxii. 5, a commonplace of anti-stage controversy
from Tertullian (_de Spectaculis_, c. 23) to _Histrio-Mastix_.
Tertullian (_loc. cit._) asserts, ‘non amat falsum auctor veritatis;
adulterium est apud ilium omne quod fingitur.’

[2] J. Denis, _La Comédie grecque_ (1886), i. 50, 106; ii. 535. The
so-called mimes of Herodas (third cent. B. C.) are literary pieces,
based probably on the popular mime but not intended for representation
(Croiset, _Hist. de la Litt. grecque_, v. 174).

[3] Livy, vii. 2; Valerius Maximus, ii. 4. 4 (364 B. C.).

[4] Juvenal, x. 81; Dion Chrysostom, _Or._ xxxii. 370, 18 M.; Fronto,
_Princip. hist._ v. 13. A fourth-century inscription (_Bull. d. Commis.
arch. comun. di Roma_, 1891, 342) contains a list of small Roman
_tabernarii_ entitled to _locum spectaculis et panem_.

[5] The holding capacity of the theatre of Pompey is variously given at
from 17,580 to 40,000, that of the theatre of Balbus at from 11,510 to
30,085, that of the theatre of Marcellus as 20,000.

[6] Friedländer, ii. 100; Haigh, 457; Krumbacher, 646; Welcker, _Die
griechischen Tragödien_ (1841), iii. 1472.

[7] Juvenal, i. 1; Pliny, _Epist._ vi. 15; vii. 17; Tacitus, _de
Oratoribus_, 9, 11.

[8] The _Sententiae_ of Publilius Syrus were collected from his mimes
in the first century A.D., and enlarged from other sources during the
Middle Ages (Teuffel-Schwabe, § 212). Cf. the edition by W. Meyer,
1880. The other fragments of the mimographs are included in O. Ribbeck,
_Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta_ (3rd ed. 1898). Philistion of Bithynia,
about the time of Tiberius, gave the mime a literary form once more in
his κωμῳδίαι βιολογικαί (J. Denis, _La Com. grecque_, ii. 544; Croiset,
_Hist. de la Litt. grecque_, v. 449).

[9] _Incerti_ (fourth century) _ad Terentium_ (ed. Giles, i. xix)
‘mimos ab diuturna imitatione vilium rerum et levium personarum.’
Diomedes (fifth century), _Ars Grammatica_, iii. 488 ‘mimus est
sermonis cuiuslibet imitatio et motus sine reverentia, vel factorum et
dictorum turpium cum lascivia imitatio.’

[10] Ovid, _Tristia_, ii. 497:

‘quid, si scripsissem mimos obscoena iocantes,
qui semper vetiti crimen amoris habent.’

[11] _Hist. Augusta, Vita Heliogabali_, 25 ‘in mimicis adulteriis ea
quae solent simulato fieri effici ad verum iussit’; cf. the _pyrrichae_
described by Suetonius, _Nero_, 12. The Roman taste for bloodshed
was sometimes gratified by mimes given in the amphitheatre, and
designed to introduce the actual execution of a criminal. Martial, _de
Spectaculis_, 7, mentions the worrying and crucifixion of a brigand in
the mime _Laureolus_, by order of Domitian:

‘nuda Caledonio sic pectora praebuit urso
non falsa pendens in cruce Laureolus.’

[12] Martial, i. 1; Ausonius, _Ecl._ xviii. 25; Lactantius (†300), _de
Inst. div._ i. 20. 10. Probably the influence of a piece of folk-ritual
is to be traced here.

[13] The ‘mimus’ type is exactly reproduced by more than one popular
performer on the modern ‘variety’ or ‘burlesque’ stage.

[14] Macrobius, _Sat._ ii. 7; Cicero, _ad Atticum_, xiv. 3; Suetonius,
_Augustus_, 45, 68; _Tiberius_, 45; _Caligula_, 27; _Nero_, 39;
_Galba_, 13; _Vespasian_, 19; _Domitian_, 10; _Hist. Augusta, Vita
Marc. Aurel._ 8. 29; _Vita Commodi_, 3; _Vita Maximini_, 9.

[15] Petronius, _Satyricon_, liii; cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, i. 1. 258
‘’Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady; would ’twere done!’

[16] Lucian, _de Saltatione_, 69.

[17] Juvenal, _Sat._ vi. 63; Zosimus (450-501 A. D.), i. 6 (_Corp.
Script. Hist. Byz._ xx. 12) ἥ τε γὰρ παντόμιμος ὄρχησις ἐν ἐκείνοις
εἰσήχθη τοίς χρόνοις ... πολλῶν αἴτια γεγονότα μέχρι τούδε κακῶν.

[18] This is not wholly so, at any rate in Tacitus, who seems to
include the players both of mimes and of Atellanes amongst _histriones_
(_Ann._ i. 73; iv. 14). For the origin of the name, cf. Livy, vii. 2
‘ister Tusco verbo ludius vocabatur.’ Besides _ludius_, _actor_ is good
Latin. But it is generally used in some such phrase as _actor primarum
personarum_, protagonist, and by itself often means _dominus gregis_,
manager of the _grex_ or company. _Mimus_ signifies both performer
and performance, _pantomimus_ the performer only. He is said _saltare
fabulas_.

[19] Dion Cassius, liv. 17.

[20] Tacitus, _Annales_, i. 77; iv. 14; Dion Cassius, lvii. 21;
Suetonius, _Tiberius_, 37.

[21] Tacitus, _Annales_, xiii. 25; xiv. 21; Dion Cassius, lix. 2; lxi.
8; lxviii. 10; Suetonius, _Nero_, 16, 26; _Titus_, 7; _Domitian_, 7;
Pliny, _Paneg._ 46; _Hist. Augusta, Vita Hadriani_, 19; _Vita Alex.
Severi_, 34.

[22] The _pyrricha_, a Greek concerted dance, probably of folk origin
(cf. ch. ix), was often given a mythological _argumentum_. It was
danced in the amphitheatre.

[23] Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 7 ‘eadem civitas severitatis custos
acerrima est: nullum aditum in scenam mimis dando, quorum argumenta
maiore in parte stuprorum continent actus; ne talia spectandi
consuetudo etiam imitandi licentiam sumat.’

[24] A. H. J. Greenidge, _Infamia_ (_passim_); Bouché-Leclercq,
_Manuel des Institutions romaines_, 352, 449; _Edictum praetoris in
C. I. C. Digest_, iii. 2. 1 ‘infamia notatur qui ... artis ludicrae
pronuntiandive causa in scaenam prodierit.’ The jurists limited the
application of the rule to professional actors. _Thymelici_, or
orchestral musicians, were exempt. Diocletian made a further exemption
for persons appearing in their minority (_C. I. C. Cod. Iust._ ii.
11. 21). The censors, on the other hand, spared the _Atellani_, whose
performances had a traditional connexion with religious rites.

[25] _C. I. L._ i. 122.

[26] _C. I. C. Digest_, xlviii. 5. 25. A husband may kill an actor with
whom his wife is guilty.

[27] _Ibid._ xxiii. 2. 42, 44; xxxviii. 1. 37; Ulpian, _Fragm._ xiii.

[28] Tacitus, _Annales_, i. 77. An attempt to restore the old usage
under Tiberius was unsuccessful.

[29] Caesar was tolerably magnanimous, for Laberius had already taken
his revenge in a scurrilous prologue. It had its touch of pathos, too:

‘eques Romanus lare egressus meo
domum revertar mimus.’

[30] Cicero, _ad Fam._ x. 32; Dion Cassius, xlviii. 33; liii. 31; liv.
2; lvi. 47; lvii. 14; lix. 10; lxi. 9; lxv. 6; Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 20;
_Hist._ ii. 62; Suetonius, _Augustus_, 45; _Domitian_, 8.

[31] Suetonius, _Nero_, 21; Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 14; Juvenal, viii.
198; Pseudo-Lucian, _Nero_, 9.

[32] Dion Cassius, lxxvii. 21; _Hist. Augusta, Vita Heliogabali_, 12.
Yet in the time of Severus a soldier going on the stage was liable to
death (_C. I. C. Digest_, xlviii. 19. 14).

[33] _C. I. C. Cod. Iust._ xii. 1. 2.

[34] Cf. p. 38.

[35] Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 20; Juvenal, vi. 60; viii. 183; Martial, ix.
28. 9; Ammianus Marcellinus, xiv. 6. 18; xxviii. 4. 32; Macrobius, ii.
1. 5, 9.

[36] M. Aurelius, _Comm._ xi. 6; _Hist. Augusta, Vita M. Aurel._ 15.
This refers directly to the _circus_.

[37] Gibbon, ii. 447; Schaff, v. 49; Dill, 34, 100; P. Allard, _Julien
l’Apostat_, i. 272; Alice Gardner, _Julian the Apostate_, 201; G.
H. Rendall, _The Emperor Julian_ (1879), 106. The most interesting
passage is a fragmentary ‘pastoral letter’ to a priest (ed. Hertlein,
_Fragm. Ep._ p. 304 B; cf. _Ep._ 49, p. 430 B); Julian requires the
priests to abstain even from reading the Old Comedy (_Fragm. Ep._ p.
300 D). He also thinks that the moral layman should avoid the theatre
(_Misopogon_, p. 343 c).

[38] On the critical problem offered by such _vitae_ cf. Prof. Bury in
Gibbon, i. l. B. von der Lage, _Studien zur Genesius-legende_ (1898),
attempts to show that the legends of St. Genesius (_Acta SS. Aug._ v.
122), St. Gelasius (_Acta SS. Feb._ iii. 680), St. Ardalio (_Acta SS.
Apr._ ii. 213), St. Porphyrius (_Acta SS. Sept._ v. 37), and another
St. Porphyrius (_Acta SS. Nov._ ii. 230) are all variants of a Greek
story originally told of an anonymous _mimus_. The _Passio_ of St.
Genesius represents him as a _magister mimithemelae artis_, converted
while he was mimicking a baptism before Diocletian and martyred. It
professes to give part of the dialogue of the mime. The legends of
St. Philemon (_Menologium Basilii_, ii. 59; cf. _Acta SS. Mar._ i.
751) and St. Pelagia or Margarita (_Acta SS. Oct._ iv. 248) appear to
be distinct. Palladius, _Vita Chrysostomi_, 8, records how the stage
of Antioch in the fifth century rang with the scandals caused by the
patriarch Severus and other Monophysite heretics.

[39] Tertullian, _De Spect._, especially cc. 4, 26, 30. Schaff, iv.
833, dates the treatise †200. An earlier Greek writing by Tertullian on
the same subject is lost; cf. also his _Apologeticus_, 15 (_P. L._ i.
357). The information as to the contemporary stage scattered through
Tertullian’s works is collected by E. Nöldechen, _Tertullian und das
Theater_ (_Z. f. Kirchengeschichte_ (1894), xv. 161). An anonymous _De
Spectaculis_, formerly ascribed to St. Cyprian, follows on Tertullian’s
lines (_P. L._ iv. 779, transl. in _Ante-Nicene Christian Libr._ xiii.
221).

[40] Tatian, _ad Graecos_, 22 (_P. G._ vi. 856); Minucius Felix,
_Octavius_, 27 (_P. L._ iii. 352); Cyprian, _Epist._ i. 8 (_P. L._
iv. 207); Lactantius, _de Inst. div._ vi. 20 (_P. L._ vi. 710), ‘quid
de mimis loquar, corruptelarum praeferentibus disciplinam, qui docent
adulteria, dum fingunt, et simulatis erudiunt ad vera?’; cf. Du
Méril, _Or. Lat._ 6; Schaff, iii. 339. A remarkable collection of all
conceivable authorities against the stage is given by Prynne, 566, 685,
&c.

[41] _Canones Hippolyti_, 67 (Duchesne, 509) ‘Quicumque fit θεατρικός
vel gladiator et qui currit vel docet voluptates vel [_illegible_]
vel [_illegible_] vel κυνηγός vel ἱπποδρόμος [?], vel qui cum bestiis
pugnat vel idolorum sacerdos, hi omnes non admittuntur ad sermones
sacros nisi prius ab illis immundis operibus purgentur.’ This is from
an Arabic translation of a lost Greek original. M. Duchesne says ‘ce
recueil de prescriptions liturgiques et disciplinaires est sûrement
antérieur au iv^e siècle, et rien ne s’oppose à ce qu’il remonte à la
date indiquée par le nom d’Hippolyte’ [†198-236].

[42] _Conc. Illib._ cc. 62, 67 (Mansi, ii. 16); _Conc. Arelat._ c. 5
(Mansi, ii. 471); 3 _Conc. Carth._ cc. 11, 35 (Mansi, iii. 882, 885); 4
_Conc. Carth._ cc. 86, 88 (Mansi, iii. 958).

[43] The strongest pronouncement is that of Augustine and others in 3
_Conc. Carth._ c. 11 ‘ut filii episcoporum vel clericorum spectacula
saecularia non exhibeant, sed non spectent, quandoquidem ab spectaculo
et omnes laici prohibeantur. Semper enim Christianis omnibus hoc
interdictum est, ut ubi blasphemi sunt, non accedant.’

[44] 4 _Conc. Carth._ c. 88 ‘Qui die solenni, praetermisso solenni
ecclesiae conventu, ad spectacula vadit, excommunicetur.’

[45] _D. C. A._ s. vv. _Actor_, _Theatre_; Bingham, vi. 212, 373,
439; Alt, 310; Prynne, 556. Some, however, of the pronouncements of
the fathers came to have equal force with the decrees of councils in
canon law. The _Code_ of Gratian (†1139), besides 3 _Conc. Carth._ c.
35 ‘scenicis atque ystrionibus, ceterisque huiusmodi personis, vel
apostaticis conversis, vel reversis ad Deum, gratia vel reconciliatio
non negetur’ (_C. I. Can._ iii. 2. 96) and 7 _Conc. Carth._ (419)
c. 2 (Mansi, iv. 437) ‘omnes etiam infamiae maculis aspersi, id est
histriones ... ab accusatione prohibentur’ (_C. I. Can._ ii. 4. 1. 1),
includes two patristic citations. One is Cyprian, _Ep._ lxi. (_P. L._
iv. 362), which is ‘de ystrione et mago illo, qui apud vos constitutus
adhuc in suae artis dedecore perseverat,’ and forbids ‘sacra communio
cum ceteris Christianis dari’ (_C. I. Can._ iii. 2. 95); the other
Augustine, _Tract. C. ad c. 16 Iohannis_ (_P. L._ xxxv. 1891) ‘donare
res suas histrionibus vitium est immane, non virtus’ (_C. I. Can._ i.
86. 7). Gratian adds Isidorus Hispalensis, _de Eccl. Off._ ii. 2 (_P.
L._ lxxxiii. 778) ‘his igitur lege Patrum cavetur, ut a vulgari vita
seclusi a mundi voluptatibus sese abstineant; non spectaculis, non
pompis intersint’ (_C. I. Can._ i. 23. 3).

[46] Sathas, 7; Krumbacher, 644. Anastasius Sinaita (bp. of Antioch,
564) in his tract, _Adversus Monophysitas ac Monothelitas_ (Mai,
_Coll. Nov. Script. Vet._ vii. 202), speaks of the συγγράμματα of the
Arians as θυμελικὰς βίβλους, and calls the Arian Eunomius πρωτοστάτης
τῆς Ἀρείου θυμελικῆς ὀρχήστρας. I doubt if these phrases should be
taken too literally; possibly they are not more than a criticism of
the buffoonery and levity which the fragments of the Θάλεια display.
Krumbacher mentions an orthodox Ἀντιθάλεια of which no more seems to be
known.

[47] Alt, 310; Bingham, vi. 273; Schaff, v. 106, 125; Haigh, 460; Dill,
56; P. Allard, _Julien l’Apostat_. i. 230. The _Codex Theodosianus_,
drawn up and accepted for both empires †435, contains imperial edicts
from the time of Constantine onwards.

[48] _Spectacula_ are forbidden on Sunday, unless it is the emperor’s
birthday, by _C. Th._ xv. 5. 2 (386), which also forbids judges to rise
for them, except on special occasions, and _C. Th._ ii. 8. 23 (399).
The exception is removed by _C. Th._ ii. 8. 25 (409) and _C. Iust._
iii. 12. 9 (469). The Christian feasts and fasts, Christmas, Epiphany,
the first week in Lent, Passion and Easter weeks are added by _C.
Th._ ii. 8. 23 (400) and _C. Th._ xv. 5. 5 (425). According to some
MSS. this was done by _C. Th._ ii. 8. 19 (389), but the events of 399
recorded below seem to show that 400 is the right date.

[49] _C. Th._ xv. 7. 1, 2 (371); xv. 7. 4 (380); xv. 7. 9 (381).
Historians have seen in some of these rescripts which are dated from
Milan the influence of St. Ambrose. _C. Th._ xv. 7. 13 (414) seems to
withdraw the concessions, in the interest of the public _voluptates_,
but this may have been only a temporary or local measure.

[50] _C. Th._ xv. 7. 11 (393); xv. 7. 12 (394); xv. 13. 1 (396).

[51] _C. Th._ iv. 6. 3 (336) ‘scenicae ... quarum venenis inficiuntur
animi perditorum’; xv. 7. 8 (381), of the relapsing _scenica_,
‘permaneat donec anus ridicula, senectute deformis, nec tunc quidem
absolutione potiatur, cum aliud quam casta esse non possit.’

[52] _C. Th._ xv. 7. 12 (394).

[53] _C. Th._ xv. 6. 2 (399) is explicit, ‘ludicras artes concedimus
agitari, ne ex nimia harum restrictione tristitia generetur.’

[54] _C. Th._ vi. 4. 2 (327); vi. 4. 4 (339); vi. 4. 29 (396); vi.
4. 32 (397). It appears from the decree of 396 that the ‘theatralis
dispensio’ of the praetors had been diverted to the building of an
aqueduct; they are now to give ‘scenicas voluptates’ again. Symmachus,
_Ep._ vi. 42, describes his difficulties in getting _scenici_ for his
son’s praetorship, which cost him £80,000. They were lost at sea; cf.
Dill, 151.

[55] See Appendix A.

[56] _C. Th._ xv. 7. 5 (380); xv. 7. 10 (385); _C. Iust._ xi. 41. 5
(409).

[57] _C. Th._ xv. 7. 8 (381); xiv. 7. 3 (412).

[58] _C. Th._ xvi. 10. 3 (346). But _C. Th._ xvi. 10. 17 (399) forbids
‘voluptates’ to be connected with sacrifice or superstition.

[59] A. Puech, _St. Jean Chrysostome et les Mœurs de son Temps_ (1891),
266, has an interesting chapter on the _spectacula_. He refers to
_Hom. in Matt._ 6, 7, 37, 48; _Hom. in Ioann._ 18; _Hom. in Ep._ 1 _ad
Thess._ 5; _Hom. de Dav. et Saul_, 3; _Hom. in Prisc. et Aquil._ 1, &c.
Most of these works belong to the Antioch period; cf. also Allard, i.
229. In _de Sacerdotio_ 1, Chrysostom, like Augustine, records his own
delight in the stage as a young man.

[60] _P. G._ lvi. 263.

[61] _C. I. C. Nov. Iust._ cv. 1 (536) ‘faciet processum qui ad
theatrum ducit, quem pornas vocant, ubi in scena ridiculorum est locus
tragoedis et thymelicis choris’; cf. Choricius, _Apology for Mimes_,
ed. Ch. Graux, in _R. d. Philologie_, i. 209; Krumbacher, 646.

[62] _C. Th._ iv. 6. 3 (336); _C. Iust._ v. 5. 7 (454).

[63] _C. Iust._ v. 4. 23 (520-3) allows the marriage on condition of
an imperial rescript and a _dotale instrumentum_. _C. Iust._ i. 4. 33
(534) waives the rescript. It also imposes penalties on _fideiussores_
or sureties of actresses who hinder them from conversion and quitting
the stage. For similar legislation cf. _Nov._ li; lxxxix. 15; cxvii.
4. By _Nov._ cxvii. 8. 6 a man is permitted to turn his wife out of
doors and afterwards repudiate her, if she goes to theatre, circus, or
amphitheatre without his knowledge or against his will.

[64] Gibbon, iv. 212, 516 (with Prof. Bury’s additions); C. E. Mallet
in _E. H. Review_, ii. 1; A. Debidour, _L’Impératrice Théodora_,
59. Neither Prof. Bury nor the editor of the _C. I. C._ accepts M.
Debidour’s dating of _C. Iust._ v. 4. 23 under Justinian in 534.

[65] Mansi, xi. 943. Canon 3 excludes one who has married a σκηνική
from orders. C. 24 forbids priests and monks θυμελικῶν παιγνίων
ἀνέχεσθαι, and confirms a decree of the council of Laodicea (cf. p.
24, n. 4) obliging them, if present at a wedding, to leave the room
before τὰ παίγνια are introduced. C. 51 condemns, both for clergy
and laity, τοὺς λεγομένους μίμους καὶ τὰ τούτων θέατρα and τὰς ἐπὶ
σκηνῶν ὀρχήσεις. For clergy the penalty is degradation, for laity
excommunication. C. 61 provides a six-years’ excommunication for
bear-leaders and such. C. 62 deals with pagan religious festivals of a
semi-theatrical character; cf. ch. xiv. C. 66 forbids the circus or any
δημώδης θέα in Easter week.

[66] Sathas, _passim_; Krumbacher, 644.

[67] Jerome, _in Ezechiel_ (410-15) ‘a. spectaculis removeamus
oculos arenae circi theatri’ (_P. L._ xxv. 189); Augustine, _de Fide
et Symbolo_ (393) ‘in theatris labes morum, discere turpia, audire
inhonesta, videre perniciosa’ (_P. L._ xl. 639); cf. the sermon quoted
in Appendix N, N^o. x.

[68] Ausonius, _Idyl._ iv. 46; Sidonius, _Ep._ iv. 12 ‘legebamus,
pariter laudabamus, iocabamurque.’

[69] Augustine, _Conf._ iii. 2, 3 (_P. L._ xxxii. 683). The whim took
him once ‘theatrici carminis certamen inire.’

[70] Aug. _de Civ. Dei_, ii. 8 (_P. L._ xli. 53) ‘et haec sunt
scenicorum tolerabiliora ludorum, comoediae scilicet et tragoediae; hoc
est, tabulae poetarum agendae in spectaculis, multa rerum turpitudine
sed nulla saltem sicut alia multa verborum obscoenitate compositae;
quas etiam inter studia quae honesta ac liberalia vocantur pueri legere
et discere coguntur a senibus.’

[71] Jerome, _Ep._ 21 (_alii_ 146) _ad Damasum_, written 383 (_P.
L._ xxii. 386) ‘at nunc etiam sacerdotes Dei, omissis evangeliis et
prophetis, videmus comoedias legere, amatoria bucolicorum versuum verba
canere, tenere Vergilium, et id quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen
in se facere voluptatis’ (_C. I. Can._ i. 37. 2).

[72] Orosius, _Hist. adv. Paganos_ (417), iv. 21. 5 ‘theatra incusanda,
non tempora.’ On the character of the treatise of Orosius cf. Dill,
312; Gibbon, iii. 490. Mr. Dill shows in the third book of his
admirable work that bad government and bad finance had much more to do
with the breakdown of the Empire than the bad morals of the stage.

[73] Dill, 58, 137; Hodgkin, i. 930. Salvian was a priest of
Marseilles, and wrote between 439 and 451.

[74] Salvian, vi. 31 ‘quae est enim in baptismo salutari Christianorum
prima confessio? quae scilicet nisi ut renuntiare se diabolo ac
pompis eius et spectaculis atque operibus protestentur?’ The natural
interpretation of this is that the word ‘spectaculis’ actually
occurred in the _formula abrenuntiationis_. Was this so? It was not
when Tertullian wrote (†200). He gives the _formula_ as ‘renunciare
diabolo et pompae et angelis eius,’ and goes on to argue that visiting
‘spectacula’ amounts to ‘idolatria,’ or worship of the ‘diabolus’
(_de Spectaculis_, c. 4). Nor is the word used in any of the numerous
versions of the _formula_ given by Schaff, iii. 248; Duchesne, 293;
Martene, i. 44; Martin von Bracara, _de Caeremoniis_ (ed. Caspari), c.
15.

[75] Salvian, vi. 69, 87.

[76] Augustine, _de Cons. Evang._ i. 33 (_P. L._ xxxiv. 1068) ‘per
omnes pene civitates cadunt theatra ... cadunt et fora vel moenia, in
quibus demonia colebantur. Unde enim cadunt, nisi inopia rerum, quarum
lascivo et sacrilego usu constructa sunt.’

[77] This point was made also by Chrysostom in the Easter-day sermon,
already cited on p. 15.

[78] Salvian, vi. 39, 42, 49.

[79] Sidonius, _Ep._ i. 10. 2 ‘vereor autem ne famem Populi Romani
theatralis caveae fragor insonet et infortunio meo publica deputetur
esuries’; cf. _Ep._ i. 5. 10.

[80] Sidonius, _Carm._ xxiii. 263 (†460); cf. _Ep._ ix. 13. 5.

[81] Cassiodorus, _Variae_, iii. 51 ‘quantum histrionibus rara
constantia honestumque votum, tanto pretiosior est, cum in eis
probabilis monstratur affectus’; this is illustrated by the conduct of
one ‘Thomas Auriga’; _Var._ ii. 8 ‘Sabinus auriga ... quamvis histrio
honesta nos supplicatione permovit’; _Var._ vi. 4 ‘tanta enim est vis
gloriosae veritatis, ut etiam in rebus scenicis aequitas desideretur.’

[82] Schaff, v. 122; Dill, 55. The rescript of Constantine is _C. Th._
xv. 12. 1 ‘cruenta spectacula in otio civili et domestica quiete non
placent; quapropter omnino gladiatores esse prohibemus (325).’

[83] Cassiodorus, _Var._ iv. 51. Of the mime is said ‘mimus etiam, qui
nunc modo derisui habetur, tanta Philistionis cautela repertus est ut
eius actus poneretur in litteris’ (cf. p. 4, n. 1); of the pantomime,
‘orchestrarum loquacissimae manus, linguosi digiti, silentium clamosum,
expositio tacita.’

[84] Cassiodorus, _Var._ i. 20, 31-3.

[85] Cf. Appendix A.

[86] Cassiodorus, _Var._ ix. 21 ‘opes nostras scaenicis pro populi
oblectatione largimur.’

[87] Du Méril, _Or. Lat._ 13, quotes from Mariana, _Hist. of Spain_,
vi. 3, the statement that Sisebut, king of the Visigoths, deposed
Eusebius, bishop of Barcelona, in 618, ‘quod in theatro quaedam
agi concessisset quae ex vana deorum superstitione traducta aures
Christianae abhorrere videantur.’ Sisebuthus, _Ep._ vi (_P. L._ lxxx.
370), conveys his decision to the bishop. He says, ‘obiectum hoc, quod
de ludis theatriis taurorum, scilicet, ministerio sis adeptus nulli
videtur incertum; quis non videat quod etiam videre poeniteat.’ But I
cannot find in Sisebut or in Mariana, who writes Spanish, the words
quoted by Du Méril. For ‘taurorum’ one MS. has ‘phanorum.’ I suspect
the former is right. A bull-fight sounds so Spanish, and such festivals
of heathen origin as the _Kalends_ (cf. ch. xi) were not held in
theatres. A. Gassier, _Le Théâtre espagnol_ (1898), 14, thinks such a
festival is intended; if so, ‘theatriis’ probably means not literally,
‘in a theatre,’ but merely ‘theatrical’; cf. the ‘ludi theatrales’ of
the Feast of Fools (ch. xiii). In any case there is no question of
‘scenici.’

[88] Isidorus Hispalensis, _Etymologiarum_ (600-636), xviii. 42 (_P.
L._ lxxxii. 658).

[89] Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, ii. 1. 5, 9.

[90] Chrysostom, _Hom. in Ep. ad Col. cap._ 1, _Hom._ i. cc. 5, 6 (_P.
G._ lxii. 306).

[91] Jerome, _Ep._ 117 (_P. L._ xxii. 957) ‘difficile inter epulas
servatur pudicitia’; cf. Dill, 110.

[92] _Conc. of Laodicea_ (†343-81) can. 54 (Mansi, ii. 574) ὅτι οὐ δεῖ
ἱερατικοὺς ἢ κληρικούς τινας θεωρίας θεωρεῖν ἐν γάμοις ἢ δείπνοις,
ἀλλὰ πρὸ τοῦ εἰσέρχεσθαι τοὺς θυμελικοὺς ἐγείρεσθαι αὐτοὺς καὶ
ἀναχωρεῖν. _Conc. of Braga_ (†572) c. 60 (Mansi, v. 912), _Conc. of
Aix-la-Chapelle_ (816) c. 83 (Mansi, vii. 1361); and finally, _C. I.
Can._ iii. 5. 37 ‘non oportet ministros altaris vel quoslibet clericos
spectaculis aliquibus, quae aut in nuptiis aut scenis exhibentur,
interesse, sed ante, quam thymelici ingrediantur, surgere eos de
convivio et abire.’ It is noteworthy that ‘scenis’ here translates
δείπνοις.

[93] Muratori _Antiq. Ital. Med. Aev._ ii. 847, traces the _pantomimi_
in the Italian _mattaccini_.

[94] Cf. Appendix B.

[95] Ten Brink, i. 11; P. Meyer in _Romania_ (1876), 260; G. Paris, 36;
Gautier, ii. 6; Kögel, i. 2. 191.

[96] Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 65; iv. 47; _Hist._ ii. 22; iv. 18; v. 15;
_Germ._ 3; Ammianus Marcellinus, xvi. 12. 43; xxxi. 7. 11; Vegetius,
_de re militari_, iii. 18; cf. Kögel, i. 1. 12, 58, 111; Müllenhoff,
_Germania_, ch. 3. The _barditus_ or _barritus_ of the Germans,
whatever the name exactly means, seems to have been articulate, and not
a mere noise.

[97] Tacitus, _Germ._ 2 ‘quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium
genus est.’

[98] Jordanis, _de orig. Getarum_ (in _M. G. H._), c. 4 ‘in priscis
eorum carminibus pene storico ritu in commune recolitur.’

[99] Tacitus, _Ann._ ii. 88 ‘canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes.’

[100] Cassiodorus, _Var._ viii. 9.

[101] Kögel, i. 1. 122, quoting Paulus Diaconus, i. 27.

[102] Kögel, i. 1. 122; i. 2. 220; Gautier, i. 72; G. Paris, _Hist.
Poét. de Charlemagne_, 50; cf. _Poeta Saxo_ (†890) in _M. G. H.
Scriptores_, i. 268 ‘est quoque iam notum; vulgaria carmina magnis
laudibus eius avos et proavos celebrant. Pippinos, Karolos, Hludiwicos
et Theodricos, et Carlomannos Hlothariosque canunt.’

[103] Gautier, i. 37; Gröber, ii. 1. 447. The shades of opinion on the
exact relation of the _cantilenae_ to the _chansons de gestes_ are
numerous.

[104] _Vita S. Willelmi_ (_Acta SS. Maii_, vi. 801) ‘qui chori iuvenum,
qui conventus populorum, praecipue militum ac nobilium virorum, quae
vigiliae sanctorum dulce non resonant, et modulatis vocibus decantant
qualis et quantus fuerit’; cf. Gautier, i. 66. The merest fragments
of such folk-song heroic _cantilenae_ are left. A German one, the
Ludwigslied, on the battle of Saucourt (881) is in Müllenhoff und
Scherer, _Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa_ (1892), N^o. xi; cf.
Kögel, i. 2. 86; Gautier, i. 62. And a few lines of a (probably)
French one on an event in the reign of Clotaire (†620) are translated
into Latin in Helgarius (†853-76), _Vita S. Faronis_ (_Historiens de
France_, iii. 505; Mabillon, _Acta SS. Benedictinorum_, ii. 610).
Helgarius calls the song a ‘carmen rusticum’ and says ‘ex qua victoria
carmen publicum iuxta rusticitatem per omnium pene volitabat ora ita
canentium, feminaeque choros inde plaudendo componebant.’ The _Vita S.
Faronis_ in _Acta SS._ lx. 612, which is possibly an abridgement of
Helgarius, says ‘carmine rustico ... suavi cantilena decantabatur’; cf.
Gautier, i. 47; Gröber, ii. 1. 446.

[105] Ten Brink, i. 148, quotes from _Hist. Ely_, ii. 27 (†1166), a
fragment of a song on Canute, ‘quae usque hodie in choris publice
cantantur,’ and mentions another instance from Wm. of Malmesbury. Cf.
_de Gestis Herewardi Saxonis_ (Michel, _Chron. Anglo-Norm._ ii. 6)
‘mulieres et puellae de eo in choris canebant,’ and for Scotland the
song on Bannockburn (1314) which, says Fabyan, _Chronicle_ (ed. Ellis),
420, ‘was after many days sungyn in dances, in carolles of ye maydens
and mynstrellys of Scotlande’; cf. also Gummere, _B. P._ 265.

[106] It is important to recognize that the _cantilenae_ of the
folk and those of the professional singers existed side by side.
Both are, I think, implied in the account of the St. William songs
quoted above: the folk sung them in choruses and on wake-days, the
professional singers in the assemblies of warriors. At any rate, in the
next (twelfth) cent. Ordericus Vitalis, vi. 3 (ed. _Soc. de l’Hist.
de France_, iii. 5), says of the same Willelmus, ‘Vulgo canitur a
ioculatoribus de illo cantilena.’ M. Gautier (ii. 6) will not admit
the filiation of the _ioculatores_ to the _scôpas_, and therefore he
is led to suppose (i. 78) that the _cantilenae_ and _vulgaria carmina_
were all folk-song up to the end of the tenth cent. and that then the
_ioculatores_ got hold of them and lengthened them into _chansons de
gestes_. But, as we shall see (p. 34), the Franks certainly had their
professional singers as early as Clovis, and these cannot well have
sung anything but heroic lays. Therefore the _cantilenae_ and _vulgaria
carmina_ of the Merovingian and Carolingian periods may have been
either folk-song, or _scôp_-song, or, more probably, both (Gröber, ii.
1. 449). _Cantilena_ really means no more than ‘chant’ of any kind;
it includes ecclesiastical chant. So Alcuin uses it (e.g. _Ep._ civ.
in Dümmler, ii. 169); and what Gautier, ii. 65, prints as a folk-song
_cantilena_ of S. Eulalia is treated by Gröber, ii. 1. 442, as a
sequence.

[107] Gummere, _G. O._ 260.

[108] Grein, i. 1.

[109] Grein, i. 278.

[110] _Beowulf_, 89, 499, 869, 1064, 1162, 2106, 2259, 2449.

[111] William of Malmesbury, _de gestis Pontif. Angl._ (R. S.), 336
‘quasi artem cantitandi professum, ... sensim inter ludicra verbis
scripturarum insertis.’

[112] Grein, ii. 294.

[113] Grein, i. 284. A similar poem is _The Sea-farer_ (Grein, i. 290).

[114] Cynewulf, _Elene_, 1259 (Grein, ii. 135); _Riddle_ lxxxix (Grein,
iii. 1. 183). But A. S. Cook, _The Christ_ (1900), lv, lxxxiii, thinks
that Cynewulf was a thane, and denies him the _Riddle_.

[115] Cynewulf, _Christ_ (ed. Gollancz), 668; _Gifts of Men_ (Grein,
iii. 1. 140); _Fates of Men_ (Grein, iii. 1. 148).

[116] William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Reg. Angl._ (R. S.), i. 126, 143.

[117] Asserius, _de rebus gestis Alfredi_ (Petrie-Sharp, _Mon. Hist.
Brit._ i. 473). Alfred was slow to learn as a boy, but loved ‘Saxonica
poemata,’ and remembered them. His first book was a ‘Saxonicum
poematicae artis librum,’ and ‘Saxonicos libros recitare et maxime
carmina Saxonica memoriter discere non desinebat.’

[118] Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 133 ‘Statuimus atque decernimus ut episcopi
vel quicunque ecclesiastici ordinis religiosam vitam professi
sunt ... nec citharoedas habeant, vel quaecunque symphoniaca, nec
quoscunque iocos vel ludos ante se permittant, quia omnia haec
disciplina sanctae ecclesiae sacerdotes fideles suos habere non sinit.’

[119] _Ibid._ iii. 369 (can. 20) ‘ut monasteria ... non sint ludicrarum
artium receptacula, hoc est, poetarum, citharistarum, musicorum,
scurrorum.’ Can. 12 shows a fear of the influence of the _scôp_
on ritual: ‘ut presbyteri saecularium poetarum modo in ecclesia
non garriant, ne tragico sono sacrorum verborum compositionem et
distinctionem corrumpant vel confundant.’ Cf. the twelfth-century
account of church singers who used ‘histrionicis quibusdam gestis,’
quoted by Jusserand, _E. L._ 455, from the _Speculum Caritatis_ of
Abbot Ælred of Rievaulx.

[120] Bede to Egbert in 734 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 315) ‘de quibusdam
episcopis fama vulgatum est ... quod ipsi ... secum habeant ... illos
qui risui, iocis, fabulis ... subigantur.’

[121] Gutberchtus to Lullus in 764 (Dümmler, _Epist. Mer. et Car._ in
_M. G. H._ i. 406).

[122] Alcuin, _Ep._ 124 (797) ‘melius est pauperes edere de mensa
tua quam istriones vel luxuriosos quoslibet ... verba Dei legantur
in sacerdotali convivio. ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam;
sermones patrum, non carmina gentium. quid Hinieldus cum Christo?
angusta est domus; utrosque tenere non poterit ... voces legentium
audire in domibus tuis, non ridentium turbam in plateis.’ The allusion
to a lost epic cycle of Hinieldus (Ingeld) is highly interesting; on it
cf. Haupt in _Z. f. d. A._ xv. 314.

[123] The _Vitae of Dunstan_ (Stubbs, _Memorials of Dunstan_, R. S. 11,
20, 80, 257) record that he himself learnt the ‘ars citharizandi.’ One
day he hung ‘citharam suam quam lingua paterna hearpam vocamus’ on the
wall, and it discoursed an anthem by itself. Anthems, doubtless, were
his mature recreation, but as a young clerk he was accused ‘non saluti
animae profutura sed avitae gentilitatis vanissima didicisse carmina,
et historiarum frivovolas colere incantationum naenias.’

[124] _Anglo-Saxon Canons of Edgar_ (906), can. 58 (Wilkins, i. 228),
_sic Latine_, ‘docemus artem, ut nullus sacerdos sit cerevisarius,
nec aliquo modo scurram agat secum ipso, vel aliis’; _Oratio Edgari
Regis_ (969) _pro monachatu propaganda_ (Wilkins, i. 246) ‘ut iam domus
clericorum putentur ... conciliabulum histrionum ... mimi cantant et
saltant.’

[125] Strutt, 172 and _passim_.

[126] Wright-Wülker, 150, 311, 539. A synonym for _scôp_ is
_leodwyrhta_. On 188 _lyricus_ is glossed _scôp_. But the distinctive
use of _scôp_ is not in all cases maintained, e.g. _tragicus vel
comicus unwurð scôp_ (188), _comicus scôp_ (283), _comicus id est
qui comedia scribit, cantator vel artifex canticorum seculorum, idem
satyricus, i. scôp, ioculator, poeta_ (206). Other western peoples in
contact with Latin civilization came to make the same classification of
poet and buffoon. Wackernagel, i. 51, says that the German _liuderi_
or poet is opposed to the _skirnun_ or _tûmarâ_, _scurra_ or _mimus_.
The buffoon is looked askance at by the dignified Scandinavian men of
letters (Saxo Grammaticus, _Hist. Danica_, transl. Elton, vi. 186);
and Keltic bardism stands equally aloof from the _clerwr_ (cf. p. 76).
Of course Kelts and Teutons might conceivably have developed their
buffoons for themselves, independently of Roman influence, but so far
as the Germans go, Tacitus, _Germ._ 24, knows no _spectaculum_ but the
_sweorda-gelác_ or sword-dance (ch. ix).

[127] Brooke, i. 12; Merbot, 11. The _gleómon_, according to Merbot,
became mixed with the _plegman_ or _mimus_. In the glosses _pleȝa_ =
_ludus_ in the widest sense, including athletics; and _pleȝ-stowe_
= _amphitheatrum_ (Wright-Wülker, 342). A synonym of _pleȝa_ is the
etymological equivalent of _ludus_, _lâc_ (cf. ch. viii). _Spil_ is not
A. S., _spilian_, a loan-word (Kögel, i. 1. 11).

[128] _Scôp_, the O. H. G. _scopf_ or _scof_ is the ‘shaper,’ ‘maker,’
from _skapan_, ‘to make’; it is only a West-German word, and is
distinct from _scopf_, a ‘scoff,’ ‘mock,’ and also from O. N. _skald_.
This is not West-German, but both ‘sing’ and ‘say’ are from the same
root _seg_ (Kögel, i. 1. 140). _Gleómon_ is from _gleo_, _gleow_,
_gliw_, _glig_ = ‘glee,’ ‘mirth.’ The harp, in _Beowulf_ and elsewhere,
is the ‘glee-beam,’ ‘glee-wood.’

[129] Jordanis, _de hist. Get._ (in _M. G. H._), c. 5 ‘ante quos etiam
cantu maiorum facta modulationibus citharisque cantabant.’

[130] Cassiodorus, _Variae_, ii. 40, 41. Kögel, i. 1. 130, thinks that
the professional singer, as distinct from the _chorus_, first became
known to the Franks on this occasion. But one may rather infer from
Theodoric’s letter to Boethius that the _citharoedus_ was to replace
barbaric by civilized music.

[131] Priscus, _Hist. Goth._ (ed. Bonn) 205 ἐπιγενομένης δὲ ἑσπέρας
δ̂ᾷδες ἀνήφθησαν, δύο δὲ ἀντικρὺ τοῦ Ἀττήλα παρελθόντες βάρβαροι
ᾄσματα πεποιημένα ἔλεγον, νίκας αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰς κατὰ πόλεμον ᾄδοντες
ἀρετάς ἐς οὓς οἱ τῆς εὐωχίας ἀπέβλεπον, καὶ οἱ μὲν ἤδοντο τοῖς
ποιήμασιν, οἱ δὲ τῶν πολέμων ἀναμιμνησκόμενοι διηγείροντο τοῖς
φρονήμασιν, ἄλλοι δέ ἐχώρουν ἐς δάκρυα, ὧν ὑπὸ τοῦ χρόνου ἠσθένει τὸ
σῶμα καὶ ἡσυχάζειν ὁ θυμὸς ἠναγκάζετο. μετὰ δὲ τὰ ἄσματα Σκύθης τις
παρελθὼν φρενοβλαβής, ... ἐς γέλωτα πάντας παρεσκεύασε παρελθεῖν. μεθ’
ὃν ... Ζέρκων ὁ Μαυρουσιος ... πάντας ... ἐς ἄσβεστον ὁρμῆσαι γέλωτα
παρεσκεύασε, πλὴν Ἀττήλα. Cf. Gibbon, iii. 440; Hodgkin, ii. 86; Kögel,
i. 1. 114.

[132] Procopius, _de bell. Vandal._ ii. 6; Victor Vitensis, _de persec.
Vandal._ i. 15. 47.

[133] Sidonius, _Ep._ i. 2. 9 ‘sane intromittuntur, quamquam raro,
inter coenandum mimici sales, ita ut nullus conviva mordacis linguae
felle feriatur.’ There are no musicians, ‘rege solum illis fidibus
delenito, quibus non minus mulcet virtus animum quam cantus auditum.’
In _Carm._ xii Sidonius mentions Gothic songs, without specifying
whether they are professional or choric.

[134] Alcuin, _Ep._ cclxxxi (793-804), to a disciple in Italy, ‘melius
est Deo placere quam histrionibus, pauperum habere curam quam mimorum’;
_Ep._ ccl (†801), to the monks of Fulda, ‘non sint [adulescentuli]
luxuriosi, non ebrietati servientes, non contemptuosi, non inanes
sequentes ludos’; _Ep._ ccxliv (†801), to Fredegis, master of the
palace school, ‘non veniant coronatae columbae ad fenestras tuas, quae
volant per cameras palatii, nec equi indomiti inrumpant ostia camerae;
nec tibi sit ursorum saltantium cura, sed clericorum psallentium.’
The ‘coronatae columbae’ were Charlemagne’s wanton daughters. Dümmler
(_Ep. Mer. et Car._ ii. 541) prints a _responsio_ of Leidradus, Abp.
of Lyons, to Charles. This is interesting, because it contrasts the
‘mobilitas histrionum’ which tempts the eye, with the ‘carmina poetarum
et comediarum mimorumque urbanitates et strophae,’ which tempt the ear.
This looks as if _histriones_, in the sense of _pantomimi_, were still
known, but the piece also mentions ‘teatrorum moles’ and ‘circenses,’
and is, I suspect, quite antiquarian.

[135] _Ep._ clxxv (799), to Adalhart, Bp. of Old Corbey, ‘Vereor, ne
Homerus [Angilbert] irascatur contra cartam prohibentem spectacula et
diabolica figmenta. quae omnes sanctae scripturae prohibent, in tantum
ut legebam sanctum dicere Augustinum, “nescit homo, qui histriones
et mimos et saltatores introducit in domum suam, quam magna eos
immundorum sequitur turba spirituum.” sed absit ut in domo christiana
diabolus habeat potestatem’ (the quotation from Augustine cannot be
identified): _Ep._ ccxxxvii (801), also to Adalhart, ‘quod de emendatis
moribus Homeri mei scripsisti, satis placuit oculis meis ... unum fuit
de histrionibus, quorum vanitatibus sciebam non parvum animae sui
periculum imminere, quod mihi non placuit, ... mirumque mihi visum est,
quomodo tam sapiens animus non intellexisset reprehensibilia dignitati
suae facere et non laudabilia.’ Angilbert also seems to have had
relations unbecoming an abbot with one of the ‘coronatae columbae.’

[136] _Capit. of Mantua_ (Boretius, i. 195), can. 6 ‘neque ulla iocorum
genera ante se fieri permittant quae contra canonum auctoritatem
eveniunt.’

[137] _Capit. Generale_ (Boretius, i. 64; _P. L._ xcvii. 188), c. 31
‘ut episcopi et abbates et abbatissae cupplas canum non habeant, nec
falcones, nec accipitres, nec ioculatores.’ If this is the _carta_ of
Alcuin’s _Ep._ clxxv, and I know of no other which it can be, Dümmler’s
date for the letter of 799 seems too late. Mabillon’s 791 is nearer the
mark.

[138] _Capit. Gen._ (Boretius, i. 96), can. 23 ‘cleri ... non inanis
lusibus vel conviviis secularibus vel canticis vel luxuriosis usum
habeant.’

[139] _Conc. of Tours_ (Mansi, xiv. 84), c. 7 ‘histrionum quoque
turpium et obscoenorum insolentiis iocorum et ipsi [sacerdotes] animo
effugere caeterisque sacerdotibus effugienda praedicare debent.’

[140] Einhard, _Vita Caroli Magni_, c. 29 ‘barbara et antiquissima
carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, scripsit
memoriaeque mandavit.’

[141] Alcuin, _Ep._ cxlix (798), to Charlemagne, ‘ut puerorum saevitia
vestrorum cuiuslibet carminis dulcedine mitigaretur, voluistis’;
Alcuin, who doubtless had to _ménager_ Charlemagne a little, is
apparently to write the poem himself.

[142] Kögel, i. 2. 222. The _Chronicon Novaliciense_, iii. 10,
describes how after crossing Mt. Cenis in 773, Charlemagne was guided
by a Lombard _ioculator_ who sung a ‘cantiunculam a se compositam de
eadem re rotando in conspectu suorum.’ As a reward the _ioculator_
had all the land over which his _tuba_ sounded on a hill could be
heard. The _Monachus S. Galli_ (Jaffé, _Bibl. rer. Germ._ iv), i. 13,
tells how (†783) a _scurra_ brought about a reconciliation between
Charlemagne and his brother-in-law Uodalrich. The same writer (i. 33)
mentions an ‘incomparabilis clericus’ of the ‘gloriosissimus Karolus,’
who ‘scientia ... cantilenae ecclesiasticae vel iocularis novaque
carminum compositione sive modulatione ... cunctos praecelleret.’

[143] Philippe Mouskes, _de Poetis Provincialibus_ (quoted Ducange, s.
v. _leccator_):

‘Quar quant li buens Rois Karlemaigne
Ot toute mise à son demaine
Provence, qui mult iert plentive
De vins, de bois, d’aigue, de rive,
As lecours, as menestreus,
Qui sont auques luxurieus,
Le donna toute et departi.’

[144] Kögel, i. 2. 220.

[145] Theganus, _de gestis Ludovici Pii_ (_M. G. H. Scriptores_, ii.
594), c. 19 ‘Poetica carmina gentilia, quae in iuventute didicerat,
respuit, nec legere nec audire nec docere voluit,’ and ‘nunquam in risu
exaltavit vocem suam, nec quando in festivitatibus ad laetitiam populi
procedebant thymelici, scurrae, et mimi cum choraulis et citharistis
ad mensam coram eo, tunc ad mensuram ridebat populus coram eo, ille
nunquam vel dentes candidos suos in risu ostendit.’ The ‘carmina
gentilia,’ so much disliked by Louis, were probably Frankish and not
classic poems.

[146] Benedictus Levita, vi. 205 (_M. G. H. Leges_, ii. 2. 83), ‘ne in
illo sancto die vanis fabulis aut locutionibus sive cantationibus vel
saltationibus stando in biviis et plateis ut solet inserviant.’ On this
collection see Schaff, v. 272.

[147] This capitulary is of doubtful date, but belongs to the reign
either of Louis the Pious, or Lothair (Boretius, i. 334; Pertz, i.
324; Ben. Levita, ii. 49) ‘ut in palatiis nostris ad accusandum et
iudicandum et testimonium faciendum non se exhibeant viles personae
et infames, histriones scilicet, nugatores, manzeres, scurrae,
concubinarii, ... aut servi aut criminosi’; cf. R. Sohm, _Die fränk.
Reichs-und Gerichtsverfassung_, 354.

[148] For ninth-century prohibitions see _Statutes_ of Haito, Bp. of
Basle (807-23), c. 11 (Boretius, i. 364); _Conc. of Maintz_ (847), c.
13 (Boretius, ii. 179); _Conc. of Maintz_ (852), c. 6 (Boretius, ii.
187); _Capit._ of Walter of Orleans (858), c. 17 (Mansi, xv. 507),
_Capit._ of Hincmar of Rheims (_P. L._ cxxv. 776); and cf. Prynne, 556.
Stress is often laid on the claims of the poor; e.g. Agobardus (†836),
_de Dispens. Eccles. Rer._ 30 (_P. L._ civ. 249) ‘satiat praeterea et
inebriat histriones, mimos, turpissimosque et vanissimos ioculares, cum
pauperes ecclesiae fame discruciati intereant.’

[149] Otto Frisingensis, _Chronicon_, vi. 32, records of the Emperor
Henry III in 1045 that ‘quumque ex more regio nuptias Inglinheim
celebraret, omne balatronum et histrionum collegium, quod, ut assolet,
eo confluxerat, vacuum abire permisit, pauperibusque ea quae membris
diaboli subtraxerat, large distribuit.’ After the death of the Emperor
Henry I of Germany his widow Matilda ‘neminem voluit audire carmina
saecularia cantantem’ (_Vita Machtildis Antiquior_ in _M. G. H.
Scriptores_, iv. 294).

[150] Honorius Augustodunensis, _Elucidarium_ (†1092), ii. 18 (_P. L._
clxxii. 1148) ‘Habent spem ioculatores? nullam; tota namque intentione
sunt ministri Satanae’; on the vogue of this book cf. _Furnivall
Miscellany_, 88.

[151] The following passages of the _Decretum Gratiani_, besides those
already quoted, bear on the subject: (_a_) i. 23. 3, _ex Isid. de
Eccl. Officiis_, ii. 2 ‘His igitur lege Patrum cavetur, ut a vulgari
vita seclusi a mundi voluptatibus sese abstineant; non spectaculis,
non pompis intersint’: (_b_) i. 44. 7, _ex Conc. Nannetensi_ ‘Nullus
presbyterorum ... quando ad collectam presbyteri convenerit ... plausus
et risus inconditos, et fabulas inanes ibi referre aut cantare
praesumat, aut turpia ioca vel urso vel tornatricibus ante se fieri
patiatur’; I cannot identify the Council of Nantes referred to: the
canon is not amongst those supposed to belong to the Council of 660,
and given by Mansi, xviii. 166: (_c_) i. 46. 6, _ex Conc. Carthag._ iv.
c. 60 [398. Mansi, iii. 956] ‘Clericum scurrilem et verbis turpibus
ioculatorem ab officio retrahendum censemus’: (_d_) ii. 4. 1. 1, _ex
Conc. Carthag._ vii (419) ‘Omnes etiam infamiae maculis aspersi, id est
histriones ... ab accusatione prohibentur.’ The _Decretum Gratiani_
was drawn up †1139. The _Decretales_ of Gregory IX (1234) incorporate
can. 16 of the _Lateran Council_ (Mansi, xxii. 1003), held in 1215
(_Decr. Greg. IX_, iii. 1. 15) ‘[Clerici] mimis, ioculatoribus, et
histrionibus non intendant’; and the _Liber Sextus_ of Boniface VIII
(1298) adds the following decree of that Pope (_Sext. Decr._ iii. 1.
1) ‘Clerici qui, clericalis ordinis dignitati non modicum detrahentes,
se ioculatores seu goliardos faciunt aut bufones, si per annum artem
illam ignominiosam exercuerint, ipso iure, si autem tempore breviori,
et tertio moniti non resipuerint, careant omni privilegio clericali.’

[152] Wilkins, i. 585. For can. 16 of the Lateran council see last
note. The prohibition is again confirmed by can. 17 of the Synod of
Exeter in 1287 (Wilkins, ii. 129).

[153] _Constitutiones_ of Bp. Grosseteste in his _Epistolae_ (R. S.),
159 ‘ne mimis, ioculatoribus, aut histrionibus intendant.’ In 1230,
Grosseteste’s predecessor, Hugh of Wells, had bid his archdeacons
inquire, ‘an aliqui intendant histrionibus’ (Wilkins, i. 627).

[154] _Annales de Burton_ (_Ann. Monast._ R. S. i. 485) ‘histrionibus
potest dari cibus, quia pauperes sunt, non quia histriones; et eorum
ludi non videantur, vel audiantur, vel permittantur fieri coram abbate
vel monachis.’

[155] _Const._ of Roger de Mortival, § 46 (Dayman and Jones, _Sarum
Statutes_, 76) ‘licet robustos corpore, laborem ad quem homo nascitur
subire contemnentes, et in delicato otio sibi victum quaerere sub
inepta laetitia saeculi eligentes, qui “menestralli” et quandoque
“ludorum homines” vulgari eloquio nuncupantur, non quia tales sunt,
sed quia opus Dei nostramque naturam conspicimus in eisdem, nostris
domibus refectionis gratia aliquotiens toleremus,’ yet no money or
goods convertible into money may be given them; ‘nec ad fabulas quas
referunt, et quae in detractationibus, turpiloquio, scurrilitate
consistunt, ullus voluntarium praebeat auditum, nec ad eas audiendas
aures habeat prurientes, sed per obauditionem ab huiusmodi relatibus,
quin potius latratibus, in quantum fieri poterit, excludantur, tamen
nemo libenter invito referat auditori.’ They may, if they are not
women, have their dole of bread, and keep peace from evil words. ‘Nec
debet de huiusmodi personarum, quae infames sunt, laude, immo verius
fraude, seu obloquio, aut alias vanae laudis praeconio, ecclesiasticus
vir curare, cum nihil eo miserius sit praelato, qui luporum laudibus
gloriatur.’ The statute is headed ‘De maledicis, adulatoribus,
histrionibus, et detractoribus respuendis.’

[156] Thomas Walsingham, _Gesta Abbatum S. Albani_ (ed. Riley, R. S.
ii. 469) ‘illicita spectacula prorsus evitent’ (1326-35).

[157] J. T. Fowler, _Memorials of Ripon Minster_, ii. 68 (Surtees
Soc.); the charge was that ‘vicarii, capellani, et caeteri
ministri ... spectaculis publicis, ludibriis et coreis, immo
teatricalibus ludis inter laicos frequentius se immiscent.’

[158] The _Statutes_, i. 5. 4, of St. Paul’s, as late as †1450, direct
the beadles ‘quod menestrallos coram altaribus Virginis et Crucis
indevote strepitantes arceant et eiiciant’ (W. S. Simpson, _Register of
St. Paul’s_, 72).

[159] John of Salisbury, _Polycraticus_ (†1159), i. 8 (_P. L._ cxcix.
406) ‘satius enim fuerat otiari quam turpiter occupari. Hinc mimi,
salii vel saliares, balatrones, aemiliani, gladiatores, palaestritae,
gignadii, praestigiatores, malefici quoque multi, et tota ioculatorum
scena procedit.’

[160] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. London.

[161] R. Mannyng de Brunne (†1303), _Handlyng Synne_ (ed. Furnivall),
148. ‘Here doyng ys ful perylous’ he translates William of Wadington’s
‘Qe unt trop perilus mester’; and tells a tale of divine judgement on
‘a mynstralle, a gulardous,’ who disturbed a priest at mass.

[162] _Piers the Plowman, C. text_, viii. 97:

‘Clerkus and knyȝtes · welcometh kynges mynstrales,
And for loue of here lordes · lithen hem at festes;
Muche more, me thenketh · riche men auhte
Haue beggars by-fore hem · whiche beth godes mynstrales.’

[163] _Cant. Tales_ (ed. Skeat), § 69 ‘Soothly, what thing that he
yeveth for veyne glorie, as to minstrals and to folk, for to beren his
renoun in the world, he hath sinne ther-of, and noon almesse.’

[164] e.g. Stubbes, _Anatomy_, i. 169.

[165] _Aucassin et Nicolete_ (†1150-1200), ed. Bourdillon (1897), 22.
The term ‘caitif’ has puzzled the editors. Surely the minstrel has
in mind the abusive epithets with which the clergy bespattered his
profession. See Appendix B.

[166] See especially _Le Tombeor de Notre Dame_ (_Romania_, ii. 315).
Novati (_Rom._ xxv. 591) refers to a passage quoted by Augustine, _de
Civ. Dei_, vi. 10, from the lost work of Seneca, _de Superstitionibus_,
‘doctus archimimus, senex iam decrepitus, cotidie in Capitolio mimum
agebat, quasi dii libenter spectarent quem illi homines desierant.’
Somewhat similar are _Don Cierge qui descendi au Jougleour_ (Gautier de
Coincy), _Miracles de Nostre Dame_ (†1223, ed. Poquet, 1859), and _Le
Harpeor de Roncestre_ (Michel, _Roms., Contes, Dits, Fabl._ ii. 108).
_Saint Pierre et le Jongleur_ (Montaiglon Raynaud, v. 117) is a witty
tale, in which a minstrel, left in charge of hell, loses so many souls
to St. Peter at dice, that no minstrel has been allowed there since. B.
Joannes Bonus (_Acta SS. Oct._ ix. 693) was a minstrel in his youth,
but the patron saints of the minstrels were always St. Genesius the
mime (cf. p. 10), and St. Julian Hospitator (_Acta SS. Jan._ iii. 589),
who built a hospital and once entertained an angel unawares.

[167] Paris, 113; Bédier, 333.

[168] Brooke, _Eng. Lit._ 305; Ten Brink, i. 149.

[169] Sophus Bugge, in _Bidrag til den aeldste Skaldedigtnings
Historie_ (1894; cf. L. Duvau in _Rev. Celt._ xvii. 113), holds that
Skaldic poetry began in the Viking raids of the eighth and ninth
centuries, under the influence of the Irish _filid_. The tenth-century
skald as described in the _Raven-Song_ of Hornklofi at the court of
Harold Fair-hair is very like the _scôp_ (_C. P. B._ i. 254), and here
too tumblers and buffoons have found their way. Cf. Kögel, i. 1. 111;
E. Mogk, in Paul, _Grundriss_^2, iii. 248.

[170] Guy of Amiens, _de Bello Hastingensi_ (†1068), 391, 399:

‘Histrio, cor audax nimium quem nobilitabat ...
... Incisor-ferri mimus cognomine dictus.’

Wace, _Roman de Rou_ (†1170) (ed. Andresen, iii. 8035):

‘Taillefer, ki mult bien chantout,
Sor un cheval ki tost alout,
Devant le duc alout chantant
De Karlemaigne et de Rolant
Et d’Oliver et des vassals
Qui morurent en Rencevals.’

Cf. Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, iii. 477.

[171] Domesday Book, _Gloc._ f. 162; _Hants_, f. 38 (b). Before the
Conquest, not to speak of Widsith and Deor, Edmund Ironside had given
the hills of Chartham and Walworth ‘cuidam ioculatori suo nomine
Hitardo’ (Somner-Battely, _Antiq. of Canterbury_, app. 39). Hitardus,
wishing to visit Rome, gave it to Christ Church, Canterbury.

[172] Bernhard, iii. 378, gives a thirteenth-century regulation for the
Petit Pont entry of Paris: ‘Et ausi tot li jougleur sunt quite por i
ver de chançon.’

[173] Gautier, ii. 124.

[174] There were 426 at the wedding of Margaret of England with John of
Brabant in 1290 (Chappell, i. 15, from _Wardrobe Bk._ 18 Edw. I).

[175] Rigordus, _de gestis Philippi Augusti_ (1186) ‘vidimus quondam
quosdam principes qui vestes diu excogitatas et variis florum
picturationibus artificiossisimis elaboratas, pro quibus forsan viginti
vel triginta marcas argenti consumpserant, vix revolutis septem diebus,
histrionibus, ministris scilicet diaboli, ad primam vocem dedisse.’

[176] The _Annales_ (†1330) of Johannes de Trokelowe (R. S.), 98,
tell _s. a._ 1317, how when Edward II was keeping Pentecost in
Westminster ‘quaedam mulier, ornatu histrionali redimita, equum bonum,
histrionaliter phaleratum, ascensa, dictam aulam intravit, mensas more
histrionum circuivit.’ She rode to the king, placed an insulting letter
in his hands, and retired. The ‘ianitores et hostiarii,’ when blamed,
declared ‘non esse moris regii, alicui menestrallo, palatium intrare
volenti, in tanta solemnitate aditum denegare’; cf. Walsingham, _Hist.
Angl._ (R. S.). i. 149.

[177] Strutt, 189, has a fourteenth-century story of a youth rebuked
for coming to a feast in a coat bardy, cut German fashion like a
minstrel’s; cf. the complaint against knights in _A Poem on the times
of Edward II_ (Percy Soc. lxxxii), 23:

‘Now thei beth disgysed,
So diverselych i-diȝt,
That no man may knowe
A mynstrel from a knyȝt
Wel ny.’

The miniatures show minstrels in short coats to the knees and sometimes
short capes with hoods. The _Act of Apparel_ (1463, 3 _Edw. IV_, c. 5)
excepts minstrels and ‘players in their interludes.’ The Franciscan
story (p. 57) shows that some of the humbler minstrels went shabby
enough.

[178] Klein, iii. 635; Du Méril, _Or. Lat._ 30; Gautier, ii. 104;
Geoffrey of Monmouth, _Historia Britonum_, ix. 1 ‘rasit capillos suos
et barbam, cultumque ioculatoris cum cithara cepit.’ Cf. the canon
quoted on p. 61 requiring Goliardic clerks to be shorn or shaven, to
obliterate the tonsure. The flat shoe had been a mark of the _mimi
planipedes_ at Rome.

[179] Gautier, ii. 105. Thus Nicolete (_Aucassin et Nicolete_, ed.
Bourdillon, 120) ‘prist une herbe, si en oinst son cief et son visage,
si qu’ele fu tote noire et tainte. Et ele fist faire cote et mantel et
cemisse et braies, si s’atorna a guise de jogleor’; cf. _King Horn_
(ed. Hall, 1901), 1471-2:

‘Hi sede, hi weren harpurs,
And sume were gigours.’

[180] Roger de Hoveden, _Chronicon_ (R. S.), iii. 143 ‘De regno
Francorum cantores et ioculatores muneribus allexerat, ut de illo
canerent in plateis; et iam dicebatur quod non erat talis in orbe.’

[181] Ten Brink, i. 314.

[182] Malory, _Morte d’Arthur_, x. 27, 31. Even King Mark let the
minstrel go quit, because he was a minstrel.

[183] Cf. p. 40.

[184] Ordericus Vitalis, _Hist. Eccles._ xii. 19 ‘pro derisoriis
cantionibus ... quin etiam indecentes de me cantilenas facetus choraula
composuit, ad iniuriam mei palam cantavit, malevolosque mihi hostes ad
cachinnos ita saepe provocavit.’ Lucas de Barre seems to have been of
noble birth, but ‘palam cantavit cantilenas.’

[185] Cf. p. 30.

[186] _Speculum Perfectionis_ (ed. Sabatier), 197. When Francis
had finished his Canticle of the Sun, he thought for a moment of
summoning ‘frater Pacificus qui in saeculo vocabatur rex versuum et
fuit valde curialis doctor cantorum,’ and giving him a band of friars
who might sing it to the people at the end of their sermons: ‘finitis
autem laudibus volebat quod praedicator diceret populo: “Nos sumus
ioculatores Domini, et pro his volumus remunerari a vobis, videlicet
ut stetis in vera paenitentia.” Et ait: “Quid enim sunt servi Dei nisi
quidam ioculatores eius qui corda hominum erigere debent et movere
ad laetitiam spiritualem.”’ Cf. Sabatier, _Life of St. Francis_, 9,
51, 307. Perhaps Francis may have heard of Joachim of Flora, his
contemporary, who wrote in his _Commentary on the Apocalypse_, f. 183.
a. 2 ‘qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam.’

[187] The MS. of the famous thirteenth-century canon _Sumer is
icumen in_ has religious words written beneath the profane ones;
cf. Wooldridge, _Oxford Hist. of Music_, i. 326. Several religious
adaptations of common motives of profane lyric are amongst the English
thirteenth-century poems preserved in Harl. MS. 2253 (_Specimens of
Lyrical Poetry_: Percy Soc., 1842, no. 19, and ed. Böddeker, Berlin,
1878).

[188] Jusserand, _E. W. L._ 195, 199, 215; Strutt, 194-5, 210, 227;
Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 119; Chappell, i. 15; Collier, i. 22; _Wardrobe
Accounts of Edward I_ (Soc. Antiq.), 163, 166, 168.

[189] Cf. Appendix C.

[190] Cf. Appendix D.

[191] This cannot be the famous Adan de le Hale (cf. ch. viii), known
as ‘le Bossu,’ if Guy, 178, is right in saying that his nephew, Jean
Mados, wrote a lament for his death in 1288. He quotes _Hist. Litt._
xx. 666, as to this.

[192] Gautier, ii. 103; Bédier, 405, quote many similar names;
e.g. Quatre Œufs, Malebouche, Ronge-foie, Tourne-en-fuie,
Courtebarbe, Porte-Hotte, Mal Quarrel, Songe-Feste a la grant viele,
Mal-appareillié, Pelé, Brise-Pot, Simple d’Amour, Chevrete, Passereau.

[193] William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Reg. Angl._ (R. S.), ii. 494.

[194] Ordericus Vitalis, v. 12, &c. On one occasion ‘ad ecclesiam, quia
nudus erat, non pervenit.’

[195] Bédier, 359.

[196] Gautier, chs. xx, xxi, gives an admirable account of the
_jougleur’s_ daily life, and its seamy side is brought out by Bédier,
399-418. A typical _jougleur_ figure is that of the poet Rutebeuf, a
man of genius, but often near death’s door from starvation. See the
editions of his works by Jubinal and Kressner, and the biography by
Clédat in the series of _Grands Écrivains français_.

[197] Morley, _Bartholomew Fair_, 1-25, from _Liber Fundacionis_
in _Cott. Vesp. B. ix_; Leland, _Collectanea_, 1, 61, 99; Dugdale,
_Monasticon_, ii. 166; Stow, _Survey_, 140; C. Knight, _London_, ii.
34; Percy, 406. No minstrels, however, appear in the formal list of
Henry I’s Norman Household (†1135), which seems to have been the
nucleus of the English Royal Household as it existed up to 1782 (Hall,
_Red Book of Exchequer_, R.S., iii. cclxxxvii, 807).

[198] Gautier, ii. 47, 54; G. Paris, § 88; Ambroise, _L’Estoire de
la Guerre Sainte_, ed. G. Paris (_Documents inédits sur l’Hist. de
France_, 1897).

[199] Percy, 358.

[200] Madox, _Hist. of Exchequer_, 268.

[201] Percy, 365.

[202] Walter Hemmingford, _Chronicon_, c. 35 (_Vet. Hist. Angl.
Script._ ii. 591).

[203] Chappell, i. 15, from _Wardrobe Book_, 18 Edw. I.

[204] _Wardrobe Accounts of Edw. I_ (Soc. Antiq.), 323.

[205] Anstis, _Register of Order of the Garter_, ii. 303, from _Pat. de
terr. forisfact._ 16 Edw. III. Cf. _Gesta Edw. de Carnarvon_ in _Chron.
of Edw. I and II_ (R. S.), ii. 91 ‘adhaesit cantoribus, tragoedis,
aurigis, navigiis et aliis huiuscemodi artificiis mechanicis.’

[206] Strutt, 194; _Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham_ (ed. Devon),
54-57, 296-8.

[207] _Household Ordinances_, 4, 11.

[208] Rymer, vii. 555.

[209] Ibid. ix. 255, 260, 336.

[210] Ibid. x. 287; xi. 375.

[211] _Household Ordinances_, 48.

[212] Rymer, xi. 642; cf. Appendix D.

[213] Ibid. xiii. 705; Collier, i. 45; Campbell, i. 407, 516, 570; ii.
100, 224.

[214] _Wardrobe Accounts of Edw. I_ (Soc. Antiq.), 7, 95; _Calendar of
Anc. Deeds_, ii. A, 2050, 2068, 2076.

[215] Strutt, 189.

[216] Collier, i. 46; Campbell, i. 407, 542, 572; ii. 68, 84, 176.

[217] The entry ‘ad solvendum histrionibus’ occurs in 1364 (_Compoti
Camerarii Scot._ i. 422). The Exchequer Rolls from 1433-50 contain
payments to the ‘mimi,’ ‘histriones,’ ‘ioculatores regis’; and in
1507-8 for the ‘histriones in scaccario’ or ‘minstrels of the chekkar’
(_Accounts of Treasurer of Scotland_, i. xx, cxcix; ii. lxxi).

[218] Cf. Appendix C.

[219] Collier, i. 21, from _Lansd. MS._ 1. Two of this lord’s
_menestriers_ were entertained by Robert of Artois, who also had his
own (Guy, 154).

[220] Gautier, ii. 51; cf. the extracts from various _computi_ in
Appendix E. There are many entries also in the accounts of King’s Lynn
(_Hist. MSS._ xi. 3. 213); Beverley (Leach, _Beverley MSS._ 171), &c.

[221] L. T. Smith, _Derby Accounts_ (C. S.), xcvi.

[222] Percy, _N. H. B._ 42, 344.

[223] Stowe, _Survey_, 39 (London); Smith, _English Guilds_, 423, 447
(Bristol, Norwich); Davies, 14 (York); Kelly, 131 (Leicester); Morris,
348 (Chester); Civis, No. xxi (Canterbury); Sharpe, 207 (Coventry);
_Hist. MSS._ xi. 3. 163 (Lynn); Leach, _Beverley MSS._ 105, &c.
(Beverley); for Shrewsbury cf. Appendix E. On _Waits’ Badges_, cf.
Ll. Jewitt, in _Reliquary_, xii. 145. Gautier, ii. 57, describes the
communal _cantorini_ of Perugia, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth
century. The usual Latin term for the Beverley waits is _speculatores_;
but they are also called _ministralli_, _histriones_ and _mimi_.
Apparently waits are intended by the _satrapi_ of the Winchester
Accounts (App. E. (iv)). Elsewhere _histriones_ is the most usual term.
The signatories to the 1321 statutes of the Paris guild include several
_guètes_ (Bernhard, iii. 402).

[224] _Household Ordinances_, 48 ‘A Wayte, that nyghtly, from
Mighelmasse till Shere-Thursday, pipeth the watche within this courte
fower tymes, and in the somer nyghtes three tymes.’ He is also to
attend the new Knights of the Bath when they keep watch in the chapel
the night before they are dubbed.

[225] The Lynn waits had to go through the town from All Saints to
Candlemas. Those of Coventry had similar duties, and in 1467 were
forbidden ‘to pass this Cite but to Abbotts and Priors within x myles
of this Cite.’

[226] The six minstrels of the Earl of Derby in 1391 had a livery of
‘blod ray cloth and tanne facings’ (Wylie, iv. 160).

[227] _Household Ordinances_, 48: ‘Mynstrelles, xiii, whereof one is
verger, that directeth them all in festivall dayes to theyre stations,
to bloweings and pipynges, to suche offices as must be warned to
prepare for the king and his houshold at metes and soupers, to be
the more readie in all servyces; and all these sittinge in the hall
togyder; whereof sume use trumpettes, sume shalmuse and small pipes,
and sume as strengemen, comyng to this courte at five festes of the
yere, and then to take theyre wages of houshold after iiij^d ob. a
day, if they be present in courte, and then they to avoyde the next
day after the festes be done. Besides eche of them anothyr reward
yerely, taking of the king in the resceyte of the chekker, and clothing
wynter and somer, or xx^s a piece, and lyverey in courte, at evyn
amonges them all, iiij gallons ale; and for wynter season, iij candels
wax, vj candells peris’, iiij talwood, and sufficiaunt logging by
the herberger, for them and theyre horses, nygh to the courte. Also
havyng into courte ij servauntes honest, to beare theyre trumpettes,
pipes, and other instrumentes, and a torche for wynter nyghts, whyles
they blowe to souper, and other revelles, delyvered at the chaundrey;
and allway ij of these persons to continue in courte in wages, beyng
present to warne at the kinge’s rydinges, when he goeth to horse-backe,
as ofte as it shall require, and by theyre blowinges the houshold
meny may follow in the countries. And if any of these two minstrelles
be sicke in courte, he taketh ij loves, one messe of grete mete, one
gallon ale. They have no part of any rewardes gevyn to the houshold.
And if it please the kinge to have ij strenge Minstrelles to contynue
in like wise. The kinge wull not for his worshipp that his Minstrelles
be too presumptuous, nor too familier to aske any rewardes of the
lordes of his londe, remembring De Henrico secundo imperatore [1002-24]
qui omnes Ioculatores suos et Armaturos monuerit, ut nullus eorum in
eius nomine vel dummodo steterint in servicio suo nihil ab aliquo in
regno suo deberent petere donandum; sed quod ipsi domini donatores pro
Regis amore citius pauperibus erogarent.’

[228] Percy, _N. H. B._ (†1512), 339. The king’s shawms, if they
came yearly, got 10_s._, the king’s jugler and the king’s or queen’s
bearward, 6_s._ 8_d._; a duke’s or earl’s trumpeters, if they came six
together, also got 6_s._ 8_d._, an earl’s minstrels only 3_s._ 4_d._
If the troupe came only once in two or three years, and belonged to a
‘speciall Lorde, Friende, or Kynsman’ of the earl, the rate was higher.

[229] Gautier, ii. 107, from _Bibl. de l’Arsenal MS._ 854; e.g.
‘_Deprecatio pro dono instrioni impendendo_. Salutem et amoris perpetui
firmitatem. R. latorem praesentium, egregium instrionem qui nuper
meis interfuit nuptiis, ubi suum officium exercuit eleganter, ad vos
cum magna confidentia destinamus, rogantes precibus, quibus possumus,
quatinus aliquid subsidium gracie specialis eidem impendere debeatis.’
Collier, i. 42, gives a letter of Richard III for his bearward.

[230] Collier, i. 41.

[231] Strutt, 194; Gautier, ii. 173-8; H. Lavoix, ii. 198. They are
called _Scolae ministrorum_, _Scolae mimorum_. They can be traced to
the fourteenth century. Genève and Bourg-en-Bresse also had them. The
Paris statutes of 1407 (cf. Appendix F) require a licence from the _roi
des ménestrels_ for such an assembly. A Beauvais _computus_ (1402) has
‘Dati sunt de gratia panes ducenti capitulares mimis in hac civitate de
diversis partibus pro cantilenis novis addiscendis confluentibus.’

[232] Hearne, _Appendix ad Lelandi Collectanea_, vi. 36; Percy, 367.
The proclamation is dated Aug. 6, 9 Edw. II (i. e. 1315).

[233] No technical term seems, however, intended in _Launfal_ (ed.
Ritson), 668:

‘They hadde menstrales of moch honours,
Fydelers, sytolyrs, and trompours.’

[234] C. J. Ribton-Turner, _Vagrants and Vagrancy_, chs. 3, 4, 5. The
proclamation of 1284 against ‘Westours, Bards, and Rhymers and other
idlers and vagabonds, who live on the gifts called Cymmortha,’ and the
Act of 1402 (4 _Hen. IV_, c. 27) in the same sense, seem only to refer
to the Welsh bards (cf. p. 77).

[235] Ribton-Turner, 107 (14 _Eliz._ c. 5). Whipping is provided for
‘all Fencers Bearewardes Comon Players in Enterludes & Minstrels, not
belonging to any Baron of this Realme or towards any other honourable
personage of greater Degree; all Juglers Pedlars Tynkers and Petye
Chapmen; whiche said Fencers Bearewardes comon Players in Enterludes
Mynstrels Juglers Pedlars Tynkers & Petye Chapmen, shall wander abroade
and have not Lycense of two Justices of the Peace at the leaste,
whereof one to be of the Quorum, wher and in what Shier they shall
happen to wander.’ The terms of 39 _Eliz._ c. 4 (1597-8) are very
similar, but 1 _Jac. I_, c. 7 (1603-4), took away the exemption for
noblemen’s servants.

[236] Appendix F.

[237] Gautier, ii. 156; Ducange, s.v. _Ministelli_.

[238] Gautier, ii. 158. Strutt, 195, quotes from _Cott. MS. Nero_, c.
viii a payment of Edw. III ‘ministrallo facienti ministralsiam suam
coram imagine Beatae Mariae in Veltam, rege praesente.’ Chaucer’s
pilgrims had no professional minstrels, but the miller did as well:

‘He was a janglere and a goliardeys, ...
... A baggepype wel koude he blowe and sowne,
And therwithal he broghte us out of towne.’

It was in the absence of regular minstrels that the pilgrims fell to
telling one another stories.

[239] Gautier, ii. 160. Richard Swinfield, bishop of Hereford, more
than once rewarded minstrels on his episcopal rounds (J. Webb,
_Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield_, C. S. i. 152, 155). The
bishops of Durham in 1355, Norwich in 1362, and Winchester in 1374,
1422, and 1481 had ‘minstrels of honour,’ like any secular noble (see
Appendix E, &c.). Even the austere Robert Grosseteste had his private
harper, if we may credit Mannyng, 150:

‘He louede moche to here the harpe;
For mannys wyt hyt makyth sharpe.
Next hys chaumbre, besyde hys stody,
Hys harpers chaumbre was fast therby.’

Mannyng represents Grosseteste as excusing his predilection by a
reference to King David.

[240] Madox, _Hist. of Exchequer_, 251.

[241] _Norfolk Archaeology_, xi. 339 (Norwich); Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 97;
Kennet, _Parochial Antiq._ ii. 259 (Bicester); _Decem Scriptores_, 2011
(Canterbury); for the rest cf. Appendix E.

[242] Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 97; iii. 118, quotes from the _Register_
of St. Swithin’s amongst the _Wolvesey MSS._; in 1338 ‘cantabat
ioculator quidam nomine Herebertus canticum Colbrondi, necdum gestum
Emmae reginae a iudicio ignis liberatae, in aula prioris’: in 1374
‘In festo Alwynis episcopi ... in aula conventus sex ministralli, cum
quatuor citharisatoribus, faciebant ministralcias suas. Et post cenam,
in magna camera arcuata domini Prioris, cantabant idem gestum....
Veniebant autem dicti ioculatores a castello domini regis et ex
familia episcopi.’ The ‘canticum Colbrondi’ was doubtless a romance
of Guy of Warwick, of which Winchester is the locality. Fragments of
early fourteenth-century English versions exist (Ten Brink, i. 246;
Jusserand, _E. L._ i. 224; Zupitza, _Guy of Warwick_, E. E. T. S.; G.
L. Morrill, _Speculum Gy de Warewyke_, E. E. T. S. lxxxi).

[243] Bartholomaeus (Albizzi) de Pisis (1385-99), _Liber Conformitatum_
(ed. 1590, i. 94^b); Antoninus Episc. Florentiae (1389-1459),
_Chronicon_ (ed. 1586, iii. 752) ‘alterius linguae ioculatores eos
existimans’; cf. A. Wood, _Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon._ (1674), i. 69;
_City of Oxford_ (O. H. S.), ii. 349.

[244] See Appendix E. At Paris the _Statutes_ of Cornouaille College
(1380) required abstinence from ‘ludis mimorum, ioculatorum,
histrionum, goliardorum, et consimilium.’ Bulaeus, v. 782, gives
another Paris regulation allowing ‘mimi, ad summum duo’ on Twelfth
Night (Rashdall, ii. 674).

[245] Thomas Aquinas, _Summa Theologiae_ (†1274), ii. 2, quaest. 168,
art. 3 ‘Sicut dictum est, ludus est necessarius ad conversationem
vitae humanae. ad omnia autem, quae sunt utilia conversationi humanae,
deputari possunt aliqua officia licita. et ideo etiam officium
histrionum, quod ordinatur ad solatium hominibus exhibendum, non est
secundum se illicitum, nec sunt in statu peccati: dummodo moderate ludo
utantur, id est, non utendo aliquibus illicitis verbis vel factis ad
ludum, et non adhibendo ludum negotiis et temporibus indebitis ... unde
illi, qui moderate iis subveniunt, non peccant, sed iusta faciunt,
mercedem ministerii eorum iis attribuendo. si qui autem superflue sua
in tales consumunt, vel etiam sustentant illos histriones qui illicitis
ludis utuntur, peccant, quasi eos in peccatis foventes. unde Augustinus
dicit, _super Ioan._ quod _donare res suas histrionibus vitium est
immane_,’ &c., &c.

[246] Cf. Appendix G.

[247] Another version of this story is given by Petrus Cantor (ob.
1197), _Verbum Abbreviatum_, c. 84 (_P. L._ ccv. 254) ‘Ioculatori
cuidam papa Alexander (Alex. III) nec concessit vivere de officio
suo, nec ei penitus interdixit.’ In c. 49 of the same work Petrus
Cantor inveighs learnedly _Contra dantes histrionibus_. Doubtless the
Alexander in question is Alexander III (1159-81), though the (Alex.
III) above may be due to the seventeenth-century editor, Galopinus. A
hasty glance at the voluminous and practically unindexed decrees and
letters of Alexander III in _P. L._ cc. and Jaffé, _Regesta Pontificum
Romanorum_ (ed. 2, 1885-8), ii. 145-418, has not revealed the source
of the story; and I doubt whether the Pope’s decision, if it was ever
given, is to be found in black and white. The two reports of it by
Thomas de Cabham and Petrus Cantor are barely consistent. In any case,
it never got into the Gregorian Decretals.

[248] Gautier, ii. 42; Bédier, 389; Ten Brink, i. 186; Ducange, s.
vv. _Golia_, &c.; O. Hubatsch, _Lat. Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters_
(1870).

[249] _Le Département des Livres_ (Méon, _N. R._ i. 404):

‘A Bouvines delez Dinant
Li perdi-je Ovide le grant ...
Mon Lucan et mon Juvenal
Oubliai-je a Bonival,
Eustace le grant et Virgile
Perdi aus dez a Abeville.’

[250] The chief collections of goliardic verse are Schmeller, _Carmina
Burana_ (ed. 3, 1894), and T. Wright, _Latin Poems attributed to Walter
Mapes_ (C. S. 1841): for others cf. Hubatsch, 16. Latin was not unknown
amongst lay minstrels: cf. _Deus Bordeors Ribauz_ (Montaiglon-Raynaud,
i. 3):

‘Mais ge sai aussi bien conter,
Et en roumanz et en latin.’

[251] Hubatsch, 15. The origin, precise meaning, and mutual relations
of the terms _Golias_, _goliardi_ are uncertain. Probably the goliardic
literature arose in France, rather than in England with Walter Mapes,
the attribution to whom of many of the poems is perhaps due to a
confusion of G[olias] with G[ualterus] in the MSS. Giraldus Cambrensis
(ob. 1217), _Speculum Ecclesiae_, says ‘Parasitus quidam Golias nomine
nostris diebus gulositate pariter et leccacitate famosissimus ... in
papam et curiam Romanam carmina famosa ... evomuit’: but the following
note points to a much earlier origin for Golias and his _pueri_, and
this is upheld by W. Scherer, _Gesch. d. deutsch. Dichtung im 11. und
12. Jahrh. 16._

[252] Early decrees forbidding the clergy to be _ioculatores_ are
given on p. 39. More precise is the order of Gautier of Sens (†913)
in his _Constitutiones_, c. 13 (Mansi, xviii. 324) ‘Statuimus quod
clerici ribaldi, maxime qui dicuntur de familia Goliae, per episcopos,
archidiaconos, officiales, et decanos Christianitatis, tonderi
praecipiantur vel etiam radi, ita quod eis non remaneat tonsura
clericalis: ita tamen quod sine periculo et scandalo ita fiant.’ If
Mansi’s date is right, this precedes by three centuries the almost
identical _Conc. of Rouen_, c. 8 (Mansi, xxiii. 215), and _Conc. of
Castle Gonther_ (Tours), c. 21 (Mansi, xxiii. 237), both in 1231.
Gautier, _Les Tropaires_, i. 186, dwells on the influence of the
_goliardi_ on the late and ribald development of the tropes, and
quotes _Conc. of Treves_ (1227), c. 9 (Mansi, xxiii. 33) ‘praecipimus
ut omnes sacerdotes non permittant trutannos et alios vagos scholares
aut goliardos cantare versus super _Sanctus_ et _Agnus Dei_.’ On their
probable share in the Feast of Fools cf. ch. xiv. For later legislation
cf. Hubatsch, 14, 95, and the passage from the _Liber Sextus_ of
Boniface VIII on p. 39. It lasts to the _Conc. Frisingense_ (1440)
‘statuimus ne clerici mimis, ioculatoribus, histrionibus, buffonibus,
galliardis, largiantur’ (Labbe, xiii. 1286). By this time ‘goliard’
seems little more than a synonym for ‘minstrel.’ The ‘mynstralle, a
gulardous,’ of Mannyng, 148, does not appear to be a clerk, while
Chaucer’s ‘goliardeys’ is the Miller (_C. T._ prol. 560). On the other
hand, Langland’s ‘Goliardeys, a glotoun of wordes’ (_Piers Plowman_,
prol. 139), speaks Latin. Another name for the _goliardi_ occurs in
an _Epistola Guidonis S. Laurentii in Lucina Cardinalis_, xx. (1266,
Hartzheim, iii. 807) against ‘vagi scolares, qui Eberdini vocantur,’
and who ‘divinum invertunt officium, unde laici scandalizantur.’

[253] Baudouin de Condé in his _Contes des Hiraus_ contrasts the ‘grans
menestreus,’ the

‘Maistres de sa menestrandie,
Qui bien viele ou ki bien die
De bouce’

with the ‘felons et honteux,’ who win pence,

‘l’un por faire l’ivre,
L’autre le cat, le tiers le sot,’

while in _Les États du Monde_ his son Jean sets up a high standard of
behaviour for the true minstrels:

‘Soies de cuer nes et polis,
Courtois, envoisiés, et jolis,
Pour les boinnes gens solacier’

(Scheler, _Dits et Contes de Baudouin de Condé et de son fils Jean
de Condé_, i. 154; ii. 377). Cf. Watriquet de Couvin, _Dis du fol
menestrel_ (ed. Scheler, 367):

‘Menestriex se doit maintenir
Plus simplement c’une pucele, ...
Menestrel qui veut son droit faire
Ne doit le jangleur contrefaire,
Mais en sa bouche avoir tous dis
Douces paroles et biaus dis,
Estre nés, vivre purement.’

These three writers belong to the end of the thirteenth and the
beginning of the fourteenth century.

[254] A. Jubinal, _Jongleurs et Trouvères_, 165. Cf. Gautier, ii. 78;
Bédier, 418.

[255] F. Diaz, _Poesie der Troubadours_ (ed. Bartsch), 63; K. Bartsch,
_Grundriss der provenzalischen Literatur_, 25; F. Hueffer, _The
Troubadours_, 63. Diaz, _op. cit._ 297, prints the documents.

[256] There is nothing to show that Scilling, the companion of Widsith
(_Widsith_, 104), was of an inferior grade.

[257] Hueffer, 52; G. Paris, 182: A. Stimming in Grober’s _Grundriss_,
ii. 2. 15; Gautier, ii. 45, 58. The commonest of phrases in troubadour
biography is ‘cantet et trobet.’ The term _trobador_ is properly the
accusative case of _trobaire_.

[258] Petrarch, _Epist. Rerum Senil._ n. 3 ‘sunt homines non magni
ingenii, magnae vero memoriae, magnaeque diligentiae, sed maioris
audaciae, qui regum ac potentum aulas frequentant, de proprio
nudi, vestiti autem carminibus alienis, dumque quid ab hoc, aut ab
illo exquisitius materno praesertim charactere dictum sit, ingenti
expressione pronunciant, gratiam sibi nobilium, et pecunias quaerunt,
et vestes et munera.’ Fulke of Marseilles, afterwards bishop of
Toulouse, wrote songs in his youth. He became an austere Cistercian;
but the songs had got abroad, and whenever he heard one of them sung
by a _joglar_, he would eat only bread and water (_Sermo_ of Robert de
Sorbonne in Hauréau, _Man. Fr._ xxiv. 2. 286).

[259] In the first edition of his _Reliques_ (1765), Percy gave the
mediaeval minstrel as high a status as the Norse _scald_ or Anglo-Saxon
_scôp_. This led to an acrid criticism by Ritson who, in his essay
_On the ancient English Minstrels_ in _Ancient Songs and Ballads_
(1829), easily showed the low repute in which many minstrels were
held. See also his elaborate _Dissertation on Romance and Minstrelsy_
in his _Ancient English Metrical Romances_ (1802). The truth really
lay between the two, for neither appreciated the wide variety covered
by a common name. On the controversy, cf. Minto in _Enc. Brit._ s. v.
_Minstrels_, Courthope, i. 426-31, and H. B. Wheatley’s Introduction to
his edition of Percy’s _Reliques_, xiii-xv. Percy in his later editions
profited largely by Ritson’s criticism; a careful collation of these is
given in Schroer’s edition (1889).

[260] Magnin, _Journal des Savants_ (1846), 545.

[261] Lambertus Ardensis, _Chronicon_, c. 81 (ed. Godefroy Menilglaise,
175) ‘quid plura? tot et tantorum ditatus est copia librorum ut
Augustinum in theologia, Areopagitam Dionysium in philosophia, Milesium
fabularium in naeniis gentium, in cantilenis gestoriis, sive in
eventuris nobilium, sive etiam in fabellis ignobilium, ioculatores
quosque nominatissimos aequiparare putaretur.’

[262] Freymond, _Jongleurs et Menestrels_, 34:

‘Il est de tout bons menesterieux:
Il set peschier, il set chacier,
Il set trop bien genz solacier;
Il set chançons, sonnez et fables,
Il set d’eschez, il set des tables,
Il set d’arbalestre et d’airon.’

[263] _Daurel et Beton_ (ed. Meyer, _Soc. des anc. textes fr._ 1886),
1206:

‘El va enant, a lor des jocz mostratz,
Dels us e dels altres, qu’el ne sap pro asatz.
Pueis pres l[a] arpa, a .ij. laisses notatz,
Et ab la viola a los gen deportat[z],
Sauta e tomba; tuh s’en son alegratz.’

[264] Montaiglon-Raynaud, i. 1:

‘Ge sai contes, ge sai flabeax;
Ge sai conter beax dix noveax,
Rotruenges viez et noveles,
Et sirventois et pastorels.
Ge sai le flabel du Denier,
. . . . . . .
Si sai de Parceval l’estoire,
. . . . . . .
Ge sai joer des baasteax,
Et si sai joer des costeax,
Et de la corde et de la fonde,
Et de toz les beax giex du monde,
. . . . . . .
De totes les chansons de geste.’

[265] Three of these _Enseignamens_, by Guiraut de Cabreira (†1170),
Guiraut de Calanso (†1200), and Bertran de Paris (†1250), are printed
by K. Bartsch, _Denkmäler der provenzalischen Litteratur_, 85-101. Cf.
Bartsch, _Grundriss der prov. Lit._ 25; Hueffer, _The Troubadours_, 66;
_Hist. Litt._ xvii. 581.

[266] Bernhard, iii. 397, gives some French references, one dated 1395,
for ‘menestriers de bouches,’ a term signifying minstrels who sang as
well as played instruments.

[267] There are numerous payments to jugglers, tumblers and dancers in
the Household Accounts of Henry VII (Bentley, _Excerpta Historica_,
85-113; Collier, i. 50). A letter to Wolsey of July 6, 1527, from
R. Croke, the tutor of Henry VIII’s natural son, the Duke of
Richmond, complains of difficulties put in his way by R. Cotton, the
Clerk-comptroller of the duke’s household, and adds: ‘At hic tamen in
praeceptore arcendo diligens, libenter patitur scurras et mimos (qui
digna lupanari in sacro cubiculo coram principe cantillent) admitti’
(Nichols, _Memoir of Henry Fitzroy_ in _Camden Miscellany_, iii.
xxxviii).

[268] For the _ioculator regis_, cf. Appendix E, and Leach, _Beverley
MSS._ 179. He is called ‘jugler’ in _N. H. B._ 67. Is he distinct
from the royal _gestator_ (_gestour_, _jester_)? Both appear in the
Shrewsbury accounts (s. ann. 1521, 1549). In 1554 both _le jugler_ and
_le gester_ were entertained. The _gestator_ seems to have merged in
the _stultus_ or court fool (ch. xvi). The accounts in App. E often
mention the royal bearward, who remained an important official under
Elizabeth.

[269] 2 _Hen. IV_, ii. 4. 12.

[270] Cf. Appendix H (i).

[271] Courthope, i. 445; A. Lang, s.v. _Ballad_ in _Enc. Brit._ and
in _A Collection of Ballads_, xi; _Quarterly Review_ (July, 1898);
Henderson, 335; G. Smith, 180. But I think that Gummere, _B. P.
passim_, succeeds in showing that the element of folk-poetry in
balladry is stronger than some of the above writers recognize.

[272] Sidney, _Apologie for Poetrie_ (ed. Arber), 46 ‘Certainly I must
confess my own barbarousness. I never heard the old song of _Percy and
Douglas_, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet. And
yet is it sung but by some blind Crowder, with no rougher voice than
rude style.’ For the Puritan view, see Stubbes, i. 169.

[273] Ritson, ccxxiv, quotes the following lines, ascribed to Dr. Bull
(†1597), from a _Harl. MS._, as the epitaph of minstrelsy:

‘When Jesus went to Jairus’ house
(Whose daughter was about to dye),
He turned the minstrels out of doors,
Among the rascal company:
Beggars they are, with one consent,
And rogues, by Act of Parliament.’

[274] _Du Vilain au Buffet_ (Montaiglon-Raynaud, iii. 202):

‘Li quens manda les menestrels,
Et si a fet crier entr’els
Qui la meillor truffe sauroit
Dire ne fere, qu’il auroit
Sa robe d’escarlate nueve.
L’uns menestrels a l’autre rueve
Fere son mestier, tel qu’il sot,
L’uns fet l’ivre, l’autre le sot;
Li uns chante, li autres note,
Et li autres dit la riote,
Et li autres la jenglerie;
Cil qui sevent de jouglerie
Vielent par devant le conte;
Aucuns i a qui fabliaus conte,
Où il ot mainte gaberie,
Et li autres dit l’_Erberie_,
Là où il ot mainte risée.’

Cf. p. 67; also the similar list in Wace, _Brut_, 10823, and _Piers
Plowman_, Passus xvi. 205:

‘Ich can nat tabre ne trompe · ne telle faire gestes,
Farten, ne fithelen · at festes, ne harpen,
Iapen ne iogelen · ne gentelliche pipe,
Nother sailen ne sautrien · ne singe with the giterne.’

[275] Gautier, ii. 63; Strutt, 207. L. T. Smith, _Derby Accounts_
(Camden Soc.), 109, records a payment by Henry of Bolingbroke when in
Prussia in 1390-1 ‘cuidam tumblere facienti ministralciam suam.’ See
miniatures of tumblers (Strutt, 211, 212), stilt-dancing (ibid. 226),
hoop-vaulting (ibid. 229), balancing (ibid. 232-4), a contortionist
(ibid. 235).

[276] _Annales Corbeienses_, s. a. 1135 (Leibnitz, _Rer. Brunsv.
Script._ ii. 307) ‘funambulus inter lusus suos in terram deiectus.’

[277] Gautier, ii. 64, quotes _Annales Basilienses_, s. a. 1276
‘Basileam quidam corpore debilis venit, qui funem protensum de
campanili maioris ecclesiae ad domum cantoris manibus et pedibus
descendebat’; for later English examples cf. ch. xxiv.

[278] Strutt, 172, 176, 209; Jusserand, i. 214, and _E. W. L._ 23.

[279] Strutt, 173, 197; Jusserand, _E. W. L._ 212; Wright, 33-7.

[280] Gautier, ii. 67, quotes _Joufrois_, 1146:

‘Ainz veïssiez toz avant traire
Les jogleors et maint jou faire.
Li uns dançoit ...
Li autre ovrent de nigremance.’

[281] Strutt, 194, quotes from Cott. MS. _Nero_, c. viii, a payment
‘Janins le Cheveretter (bagpiper) called le Tregettour,’ for playing
before Edw. II. Collier, i. 30, quotes Lydgate, _Daunce de Macabre_
(Harl. 116):

‘Maister John Rykell, sometyme tregitoure
Of noble Henry kynge of Englonde,
And of Fraunce the myghty conqueroure,
For all the sleightes and turnyngs of thyne honde,
Thou must come nere this daunce to understonde.
. . . . . . . .
Lygarde de mayne now helpeth me right nought.’

[282] Ducange, s. v. _bastaxi_; Gautier, ii. 11; C. Magnin, _Hist. des
Marionnettes en Europe_ (ed. 2, 1862); cf. ch. xxiv. _Bastaxus_ seems
to be the origin of the modern _bateleur_, used in a wide sense of
travelling entertainers.

[283] Du Méril, _Com._ 74; Strutt, 253; Jusserand, _E. W. L._ vi. 218.
Amongst the letters commendatory of minstrels quoted by Gautier, ii.
109, is one ‘De illo qui scit volucrum exprimere cantilenas et voces
asininas.’ Baudouin de Condé mentions a minstrel who ‘fait le cat’ (cf.
p. 63, n. 1).

[284] See figures of bears (Strutt, 176, 214, 239, 240), apes (ibid.
240, 241; Jusserand, _E. W. L._ 218), horses (Strutt, 243, 244),
dog (ibid. 246, 249), hare (ibid. 248), cock (ibid. 249). For the
_ursarius_ and for lion, marmoset, &c., cf. pp. 53, 68, and Appendix E.

[285] Strutt, 256. A horse-baiting is figured in Strutt, 243.

[286] Strutt, 244, figures a combat between man and horse. Gautier,
ii. 66, cites _Acta SS. Jan._ iii. 257 for the intervention of St.
Poppo when a naked man smeared with honey was to fight bears before the
emperor Henry IV (†1048).

[287] Strutt, 260, 262.

[288] _Adam Davie_ (†1312):

‘Merry it is in halle to here the harpe,
The minstrelles synge, the jogelours carpe.’

[289] John of Salisbury, _Polycraticus_, i. 8 ‘Quorum adeo error
invaluit, ut a praeclaris domibus non arceantur, etiam illi qui
obscenis partibus corporis oculis omnium eam ingerunt turpitudinem,
quam erubescat videre vel cynicus. Quodque magis mirere, nec tunc
eiiciuntur, quando tumultuantes inferius crebro sonitu aerem foedant,
et turpiter inclusum turpius produnt’; Adam of Bremen (_M. G. H._),
iii. 38 ‘Pantomimi, qui obscoenis corporis motibus oblectare vulgus
solent.’ Raine, _Hist. Papers from Northern Registers_ (R. S.), 398,
prints a letter of Archbishop Zouche of York on the indecent behaviour
of some clerks of the bishop of Durham in York Minster on Feb. 6, 1349,
‘subtus imaginem crucifixi ventositates per posteriora dorsi cum foedo
strepitu more ribaldorum emittere fecerunt pluries ac turpiter et
sonore.’

[290] Gautier, ii. 69; Lavoix, _La Musique au Siècle de Saint-Louis_,
i. 315; cf. Appendix C.

[291] W. Mapes, _de Nugis Curialium_ (Camden Soc.), dist. v. prol.,
‘Caesar Lucani, Aeneas Maronis, multis vivunt in laudibus, plurimum
suis meritis et non minimum vigilantia poetarum; nobis divinam
Karolorum et Pepinorum nobilitatem vulgaribus rithmis sola mimorum
concelebrat nugacitas.’

[292] Lavoix, ii. 295.

[293] Ibid. ii. 344. The Paris MS. (_B. N._ f. fr. 2168) of _Aucassin
et Nicolete_ preserves the musical notation of the verse sections. Only
three musical phrases, with very slight variations, are used. Two of
these were probably repeated, alternately or at the singer’s fancy,
throughout the tirade; the third provided a cadence for the closing
line (Bourdillon, _Aucassin et Nicolette_ (1897), 157).

[294] Chaucer, _House of Fame_, 1197:

‘Of alle maner of minstrales,
And gestiours, that tellen tales,
Bothe of weping and of game.’

Cf. _Sir Thopas_, 134; and Gower, _Confessio Amantis_, vii. 2424:

‘And every menstral hadde pleid,
And every disour hadde seid.’

The evidence of Erasmus is late, of course, for the hey-day of
minstrelsy, but in his time there were certainly English minstrels
who merely recited, without musical accompaniment; cf. _Ecclesiastes_
(_Opera_, v. col. 958) ‘Apud Anglos est simile genus hominum, quales
apud Italos sunt circulatores, de quibus modo dictum est; qui irrumpunt
in convivia magnatum, aut in cauponas vinarias; et argumentum aliquod,
quod edidicerunt, recitant; puta mortem omnibus dominari, aut
laudem matrimonii. Sed quoniam ea lingua monosyllabis fere constat,
quemadmodum Germanica; atque illi studio vitant cantum, nobis latrare
videntur verius quam loqui.’

[295] Ten Brink, i. 193, 225, 235, old gleeman tradition was probably
less interfered with in the lowlands of Scotland than in England
proper; cf. Henderson, _Scottish Vernacular Literature_, 16.

[296] Ten Brink, i. 322; Jusserand, i. 360; Courthope, i. 197. Minot’s
poems have been edited by J. Hall (Oxford, 1887). See also Wright,
_Political Songs_ (C.S.) and _Political Poems and Songs_ (R.S.). Many
of these, however, are Latin.

[297] On Welsh bardism see H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, _Intr. à l’Étude
de la Litt. celtique_, 63; Stephens, _Literature of the Kymry_, 84,
93, 97, 102; Ernest David, _Études historiques sur la Poésie et la
Musique dans la Cambrie_, 13, 62-103, 147-64. In Wales, an isolated
corner of Europe, little touched by Latin influences, the bards long
retained the social and national position which it is probable they
once had held in all the Aryan peoples. Their status is defined in the
laws of Howel Dha (†920) and in those of Gruffyd ab Cynan (1100). The
latter code distinguishes three orders of bards proper, the _Pryddyd_
or Chair bards, the _Teuluwr_ or Palace bards, and the _Arwyddfardd_
or heralds, also called _Storiawr_, the _cantores historici_ of
Giraldus Cambrensis. The _Pryddyd_ and _Teuluwr_ differ precisely as
poets and executants, _trouvères_ and _jougleurs_. Below all these
come the _Clerwr_, against whom official bardism from the sixth to
the thirteenth century showed an inveterate animosity. These are an
unattached wandering folk, players on flutes, tambourines, and other
instruments meaner than the _telyn_ or harp, and the _crwth_ or viol
which alone the bards proper deigned to use. Many of them had also
picked up the mime-tricks of the foreigners. It was probably with these
_Clerwr_ that the English and French neighbours of the Kelts came
mainly into contact. Padelford, 5, puts this contact as early as the
Anglo-Saxon period.

[298] Giraldus Cambrensis, _Descriptio Cambriae_, i. 17 ‘famosus ille
fabulator Bledhericus, qui tempora nostra paulo praevenit.’ Thomas,
_Tristan_ (†1170, ed. Michel, ii. 847):

‘Mès sulum ço que j’ai oy
N’el dient pas sulum Breri,
Ky solt les gestes e les cuntes
De tuz les reis, de tuz les cuntes
Ki orent esté en Bretaingne.’

[299] G. Paris, in _Hist. Litt._ xxx. 1-22; _Litt. Fr._ §§ 53-5;
Nutt, _Legend of the Holy Grail_, 228; Rhys, _Arthurian Legend_,
370-90. These views have been vigorously criticized by Prof. Zimmer in
_Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen_ (1891), 488, 785, and elsewhere.

[300] David, _op. cit._ 13, 235; cf. p. 54.

[301] Paris, §§ 118, 122, and _Orig._ (_passim_); Jeanroy, 1, 84,
102, 387; _Lang. et Litt._ i. 345; cf. ch. viii. Texts of _chansons à
personnages_ and _pastourelles_ in Bartsch, _Altfranzösische Romanzen
und Pastourellen_; of _aubes_ in Bartsch, _Chrestomathie de l’ancien
français_.

[302] Paris, § 126; _Orig._ (_passim_); Jeanroy, 45, and in _Lang. et
Litt._ i. 384; Bartsch, _Grundriss der prov. Lit._ 34; Hueffer, _The
Troubadours_, 112; Stimming in Gröber’s _Grundriss_, ii. 2. 24.

[303] In 1386 we hear of ‘des compaingnons, pour de jeux de parture
juer et esbattre’ at Douai (Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 323), which looks
as if, by the end of the fourteenth century, the _partures_ were being
professionally performed.

[304] Paris, § 109; Bédier, 31. A _fabliau_ is properly a ‘conte à rire
en vers’; the term _dit_ is applied more generally to a number of short
poems which deal, ‘souvent avec agrément, des sujets empruntés à la vie
quotidienne.’ Some _dits_ are satirical, others eulogistic of a class
or profession, others descriptive. But the distinction is not very well
defined, and the _fabliaux_ are often called _dits_ in the MSS.

[305] Montaiglon-Raynaud, i. 1; ii. 257. The _dit_ is also called _La
Jengle au Ribaut et la Contrejengle_.

[306] Rutebeuf (ed. Kressner), 99.

[307] Barbazan-Méon, i. 356. Bédier, 33, considers _Courtois d’Arras_
as the oldest French comedy, a _jeu dramatique_ with intercalated
narrative by a _meneur de jeu_. But the fact that it ends with the
words _Te Deum_ leads one to look upon it as an adaptation of a
religious play; cf. ch. xix.

[308] On the _débats_ in general, see _Hist. Litt._ xxiii. 216 sqq.;
Paris, _Litt. fr._ §§ 110, 155; Arthur Piaget, _Littérature didactique_
in _Lang. et Litt._ ii. 208; Jeanroy, 48; R. Hirzel, _Der Dialog_, ii.
382; _Literaturblatt_ (1887), 76. A full list is given by Petit, _Rép.
Com._ 405-9. The _débats_ merge into such allegorical poems as Henri
d’Andeli’s _Bataille des Vins_ (Barbazon-Méon, i. 152) or _Le Mariage
des Sept Arts et des Sept Vertus_ (Jubinal, _Œuvres de Rutebeuf_, ii.
415); cf. Paris, _Litt. fr._ 158.

[309] Ten Brink, i. 215; Hubatsch, 24; Gummere, _B. P._ 200, 306.
The _Débat de l’Yver et de l’Esté_ has the nearest folk-lore origin;
cf. ch. ix. Paris, _Origines_, 28, mentions several Greek and Latin
versions beginning with Aesop (Halm, 414). The most important is the
ninth-century _Conflictus Veris et Hiemis_ (Riese, _Anth. Lat._ i. 2.
145), variously ascribed to Bede (Wernsdorff, _Poetae Latini Minores_,
ii. 239), Alcuin (_Alc. Opera_, ed. Froben, ii. 612) and others. French
versions are printed in Montaiglon-Rothschild, _Anc. Poés. fr._ vi.
190, x. 41, and Jubinal, _N. R._ ii. 40. There are imitations in all
tongues: cf. M. Émile Picot’s note in Mont.-Rothsch. _op. cit._ x. 49;
_Hist. Litt._ xxiii. 231; Douhet, 1441.--_La Disputoison du Vin et de
l’Iaue_ is printed in Jubinal, _N. R._ i. 293; Wright, _Lat. Poems of
Walter Mapes_, 299; _Carmina Burana_, 232. It is based on the _Goliae
Dialogus inter Aquam et Vinum_ (Wright, _loc. cit._ 87); cf. _Hist.
Litt._ xxiii. 228; _Romania_, xvi. 366.--On the complicated history
of the _Débat du Corps et de l’Âme_, see T. Batiouchkof in _Romania_,
xx. 1. 513; G. Kleinert, _Ueber den Streit von Leib und Seele_; _Hist.
Litt._ xxii. 162; P. de Julleville, _Répertoire Comique_, 5, 300, 347;
Wright, _Latin Poems_, xxiii. 95, 321. Latin, French and other versions
are given by Wright, and by Viollet-Leduc, _Anc. Thé. fr._ iii.
325.--_Phillis et Flora_, or _De Phyllis qui aime un chevalier et de
Flora qui aime un prêtre_, is also referred by Paris, _Orig._ 28, to a
folk-song beginning; cf. _H. L._ xxii. 138, 165; _Romania_, xxii. 536.
Latin versions are in _Carmina Burana_, 155; Wright, _Latin Poems of
W. Mapes_, 258.--A possible influence of the Theocritean and Virgilian
eclogues upon these _débats_, through their neo-Latin forms, must be
borne in mind.

[310] Wülker, 384; Brooke, i. 139, ii. 93, 221, 268; Jusserand, i. 75,
443. The passages of dialogue dwelt on by these writers mostly belong
to the work of Cynewulf and his school. It has been suggested that
some of them, e.g. the A.-S. _Descent into Hell_ (Grein, iii. 175;
cf. _Anglia_, xix. 137), or the dialogue between Mary and Joseph in
Cynewulf’s _Christ_, 163 (ed. Gollancz, p. 16), may have been intended
for liturgical use by half-choirs; but of this there is really no
proof. Wülker, _loc. cit._, shows clearly that the notion of a dramatic
representation was unfamiliar to the Anglo-Saxons.

[311] Ten Brink, i. 312. Several English versions of the _Debate
between Body and Soul_ are given by Wright, _loc. cit._ 334. An English
_Debate and Stryfe betwene Somer and Wynter_ is in W. C. Hazlitt,
_Early Popular Poetry_, iii. 29.

[312] Cf. ch. xx.

[313] Ten Brink, i. 214, 309. _The Owl and the Nightingale_ (c.
1216-72), was printed by J. Stevenson (Roxburghe Club); _the Thrush and
the Nightingale_ and _the Fox and the Wolf_, by W. C. Hazlitt, _Early
Popular Poetry_, i. 50, 58. There are also a _Debate of the Carpenter’s
Tools_ (Hazlitt, i. 79) and an English version of a Latin _Disputacio
inter Mariam et Crucem_ (R. Morris, _Legends of the Holy Rood_, 131);
cf. Ten Brink, i. 259, 312. An A.-S. version of the _Debate between
Body and Soul_ is in the _Exeter Book_ (Grein, ii. 92).

[314] Ælred (†1166), _Speculum Charitatis_, ii. 23 (_P. L._ cxcv.
571) ‘Videas aliquando hominem aperto ore quasi intercluso halitu
expirare, non cantare, ac ridiculosa quadam vocis interceptione quasi
minitari silentium; nunc agones morientium, vel extasim patientium
imitari. Interim histrionicis quibusdam gestibus totum corpus agitatur,
torquentur labia, rotant, ludunt humeri; et ad singulas quasque
notas digitorum flexus respondet. Et haec ridiculosa dissolutio
vocatur religio!... Vulgus ... miratur ... sed lascivas cantantium
gesticulationes, meretricias vocum alternationes et infractiones,
non sine cachinno risuque intuetur, ut eos non ad oratorium sed ad
theatrum, non ad orandum, sed ad spectandum aestimes convenisse.’ Cf.
_op. cit._ ii. 17 ‘Cum enim in tragediis vanisve carminibus quisquam
iniuriatus fingitur, vel oppressus ... si quis haec, vel cum canuntur
audiens, vel cernens si recitentur ... moveatur’; and Johannes de
Janua, s.v. _persona_ (cited Creizenach, i. 381) ‘Item persona dicitur
histrio, repraesentator comoediarum, qui diversis modis personat
diversas repraesentando personas.’ All these passages, like the
ninth-century _responsio_ of arch-bishop Leidradus referred to on p.
36, may be suspected of learning rather than actuality. As for the
epitaph of the mime Vitalis (Riese, _Anth. Lat._ i. 2. 143; Baehrens,
_P. L. M._ iii. 245), sometimes quoted in this connexion, it appears
to be classical and not mediaeval at all; cf. Teuffel-Schwabe, §§ 8.
11; 32. 6. Probably this is also the case with the lines _De Mimo iam
Sene_ in Wright, _Anecdota Literaria_, 100, where again ‘theatra’ are
mentioned.

[315] Cf. p. 71. The mention of a ‘Disare that played the sheppart’ at
the English court in 1502 (Nicolas, _Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth
of York_) is too late to be of importance here.

[316] Creizenach, i. 383, citing at second-hand from fourteenth-century
accounts of a Savoy treasurer ‘rappresentando i costumi delle compagnie
inglesi e bretoni.’

[317] Creizenach, i. 380.

[318] Thomas de Cabham mentions the _horribiles larvae_ of some
minstrels. A. Lecoy de la Marche, _La Chaire française_ (ed. 2,
1886), 444, quotes a sermon of Étienne de Bourbon in _MS. B. N. Lat._
15970, f. 352 ‘ad similitudinem illorum ioculatorum qui ferunt facies
depictas quae dicuntur artificia gallicè, cum quibus ludunt et homines
deludunt.’ Cf. Liudprand, iii. 15 (Pertz, iii. 310) ‘histrionum
mimorumve more incedere, qui, ut ad risum facile turbas illiciant,
variis sese depingunt coloribus.’ The _monstra larvarum_, however, of
various ecclesiastical prohibitions I take to refer specifically to the
Feast of Fools (cf. ch. xiii).

[319] Schack, _Gesch. der dram. Litt. und Kunst in Spanien_, i. 30,
quotes a Carolingian capitulary, from Heineccius, _Capit._ lib. v.
c. 388 ‘si quis ex scenicis vestem sacerdotalem aut monasticam vel
mulieris religiosae vel qualicunque ecclesiastico statu similem indutus
fuerit, corporali poena subsistat et exilio tradatur.’ This prohibition
is as old as the _Codex Theodosianus_; cf. p. 14.

[320] _Œuvres_ de Rutebeuf (ed. Kressner), 115; cf. _Romania_, xvi.
496; Julleville, _Les Com._ 24; _Rép. Com._ 407.

[321] Creizenach, i. 386, further points out that a stage was not
indispensable to the Latin _mimus_, who habitually played before the
curtain and probably with very little setting; that the favourite
situations of fifteenth-century French farce closely resemble those of
the mimes; and that the use of marionettes is a proof of some knowledge
of dramatic methods amongst the minstrels.

[322] On this treatise, cf. ch. xx.

[323] A ‘japer’ is often an idle talker, like a ‘jangler’ which is
clearly sometimes confused with a ‘jongleur’; cf. Chaucer, _Parson’s
Tale_, 89 ‘He is a japere and a gabber and no verray repentant
that eft-soone dooth thing for which hym oghte repente.’ Langland
uses the term in a more technical sense. _Activa Vita_ in _Piers
Plowman_, xvi. 207, is no minstrel, because ‘Ich can not ... japen
ne jogelen.’ No doubt a ‘jape’ would include a _fabliau_. It is
equivalent etymologically to ‘gab,’ and Bédier, 33, points out that
the _jougleurs_ use _gabet_, as well as _bourde_, _trufe_, and _risée_
for a _fabliau_.--The use of ‘pleye’ as ‘jest’ may be illustrated by
Chaucer, _Pardoner’s Tale_ (_C. T._ 12712) ‘My wit is greet, though
that I bourde and pleye.’--The ‘japis’ of the _Tretise_ are probably
the ‘knakkes’ of the passage on ‘japeris’ in _Parson’s Tale_, 651
‘right so conforten the vileyns wordes and knakkes of japeris hem that
travaillen in the service of the devel.’

[324] Montaiglon-Raynaud, ii. 243. Cf. _Hist. Litt._ xxiii. 103;
Jusserand, _Lit. Hist._ i. 442. A shorter prose form of the story
is found in _La Riote du Monde_ (ed. Fr. Michel, 1834), a popular
_facétie_ of which both French and Anglo-Norman versions exist; cf.
Paris, _Litt. fr._ 153. And a Latin form, _De Mimo et Rege Francorum_
is in Wright, _Latin Stories_, No. 137. The point consists in the
quibbling replies with which the _jougleur_ meets the king’s questions.
Thus, in _La Riote du Monde_: ‘Dont ies tu?--Je suis de no vile.--U est
te vile?--Entor le moustier.--U est li moustiers?--En l’atre.--U est li
atres?--Sor terre.--U siet cele terre?--Sor l’iaue.--Comment apiel-on
l’iaue?--On ne l’apiele nient; ele vient bien sans apieler.’

[325] Cf. Appendix V.

[326] Cf. ch. viii.

[327] Ed. P. Meyer, in _Jahrbuch für romanische und englische
Literatur_, vi. 163. The piece was probably written in Flanders,
between 1266 and 1290. Cf. Creizenach, i. 398.

[328] See Appendix U. References for the earlier non-dramatic versions
in Latin, French, and English of the story are given by Jusserand,
_Lit. Hist._ i. 447. A Cornish dramatic fragment of the fourteenth
century is printed in the _Athenæum_ for Dec. 1, 1877, and _Revue
celtique_, iv. 259; cf. Creizenach, i. 401.

[329] Stephens-Hunt, ii. 301; F. S. Stevenson, _Robert Grosseteste_,
126. The disciplinary attack seems to have begun with Grosseteste’s
predecessor, Hugh de Wells, in 1230 (Wilkins, i. 627), but he, like
Roger Weseham, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, in 1252 (_Annales
Monastici_, R. S. i. 296), merely condemns _ludi_, a term which may
mean folk-festivals or minstrelsy, or both. A similar ambiguity
attaches to the obligation of the anchoresses of Tarrant Keyneston not
to look on at a _ludus_ (_pleouwe_) in the church-yard (_Ancren Riwle_,
C. S. 318).

[330] In 1236 Grosseteste wrote to his archdeacons forbidding ‘arietum
super ligna et rotas elevationes, caeterosque ludos consimiles,
in quo decertatur pro bravio; cum huiusmodi ludorum tam actores
quam spectatores, sicut evidenter demonstrat Isidorus, immolant
daemonibus, ... et cum etiam huiusmodi ludi frequenter dant occasiones
irae, odii, pugnae, et homicidii.’ His _Constitutiones_ of 1238 say
‘Praecipimus etiam ut in singulis ecclesiis denuncietur solenniter
ne quisquam levet arietes super rotas, vel alios ludos statuat, in
quibus decertatur pro bravio: nec huiusmodi ludis quisquam intersit,
&c.’ About 1244 he wrote again to the archdeacons: ‘Faciunt etiam, ut
audivimus, clerici ludos quos vocant miracula: et alios ludos quos
vocant Inductionem Maii sive Autumni; et laici scotales ... miracula
etiam et ludos supra nominatos et scotales, quod est in vestra
potestate facili, omnino exterminetis’ (Luard, _Letters of Robert
Grosseteste_ (R. S.) _Epp._ xxii, lii, cvii, pp. 74, 162, 317). For his
condemnations of the Feast of Fools cf. ch. xiv.

[331] _Const. Walt. de Cantilupo_ (Wilkins, i. 673) ‘prohibemus
clericis ... nec sustineant ludos fieri de Rege et Regina, nec arietas
levari, nec palaestras publicas fieri, nec gildales inhonestas.’ The
clergy must also abstain and dissuade the laity from ‘compotationibus
quae vocantur scottales’ (Wilkins, i. 672). On ‘ram-raisings,’ &c., cf.
ch. vii; on ‘gildales’ and ‘scotales’ ch. viii.

[332] Surely the reference is to the mock kings and queens of the
village festivals, and not, as Guy, 521; Jusserand, _Litt. Hist._ i.
444, suggest, to the question-and-answer game of _Le Roi qui ne ment_
described in Jean de Condé’s _Sentier Batu_ (Montaiglon-Raynaud,
iii. 248), although this is called playing ‘as rois et as reines’ in
Adan de la Hale’s _Robin et Marion_ (ed. Monmerqué-Michel, 121) and
elsewhere (cf. Guy, 222), and possibly grew out of the festival custom.
Yet another game of _King and Queen_, of the practical joke order, is
described as played at Golspie by Nicholson, 119.

[333] Wilkins, i. 666.

[334] Anstey, _Munimenta Academica_ (R. S.), i. 18 ‘ne quis choreas
cum larvis seu strepitu aliquo in ecclesiis vel plateis ducat, vel
sertatus, vel coronatus corona ex foliis arborum, vel florum vel
aliunde composita alicubi incedat ... prohibemus.’

[335] _Inquisitiones ... de vita et conversatione clericorum et
laicorum_ in _Annales de Burton_ (_Ann. Monast._ R. S. i. 307) ‘an
aliqui laici mercata, vel ludos, seu placita peculiaria fieri faciant
in locis sacris, et an haec fuerint prohibita ex parte episcopi....
An aliqui laici elevaverint arietes, vel fieri faciant schothales,
vel decertaverint de praeeundo cum vexillis in visitatione matricis
ecclesiae.’

[336] Wilkins, ii. 129 ‘c. 13 ... Ne quisquam luctas, choreas, vel
alios ludos inhonestos in coemeteriis exercere praesumat; praecipue
in vigiliis et festis sanctorum, cum huiusmodi ludos theatrales et
ludibriorium spectacula introductos per quos ecclesiarum coinquinatur
honestas, sacri ordines detestantur.’

[337] Wilkins, iii. 68 ‘c. 2 ... nec in ipsis [locis sacris] fiant
luctationes, sagittationes, vel ludi.’ A special caution is given
against ludi ‘in sanctorum vigiliis’ and ‘in exequiis defunctorum.’

[338] T. F. Kirby, _Wykeham’s Register_ (Hampshire Record Soc.), ii.
410, forbids ‘ad pilas ludere, iactaciones lapidum facere ... coreas
facere dissolutas, et interdum canere cantilenas, ludibriorum
spectacula facere, saltaciones et alios ludos inhonestos frequentare,
ac multas alias insolencias perpetrare, ex quibus cimeterii huiusmodi
execracio seu pollucio frequencius verisimiliter formidetur.’

[339] _Handlyng Synne_ (ed. Furnivall), p. 148, l. 4684:

‘Daunces, karols, somour games,
Of many swych come many shames.’

This poem is a free adaptation (†1303) of the thirteenth-century
Anglo-Norman _Manuel de Péché_, which is probably by William de
Wadington, but has been ascribed to Bishop Grosseteste himself. The
corresponding lines in this are

‘Muses et tieles musardries,
Trippes, dances, et teles folies.’

Cf. also _Handlyng Synne_, p. 278, l. 8989:

‘Karolles, wrastlynges, or somour games,
Who so euer haunteþ any swyche shames,
Yy cherche, oþer yn cherche-ȝerde,
Of sacrylage he may be a ferde;
Or entyrludës, or syngynge,
Or tabure bete, or oþer pypynge,
Alle swychë þyng forbodyn es,
Whyle þe prest stondeþ at messe’;

where the _Manuel de Péché_ has

‘Karoles ne lutes nul deit fere,
En seint eglise qe me veut crere;
Car en cymiter neis karoler
Est outrage grant, ou luter:
Souent lur est mes auenu
Qe la fet tel maner de iu;
Qe grant peche est, desturber
Le prestre quant deit celebrer.’

[340] The Puritan Fetherston, in his _Dialogue agaynst light, lewde,
and lascivious Dancing_ (1583), sign. D. 7, says that he has ‘hearde
of tenne maidens which went to set May, and nine of them came home
with childe.’ Stubbes, i. 149, has a very similar observation. Cf. the
adventures of Dr. Fitzpiers and Suke Damson on Midsummer Eve in Thomas
Hardy’s novel, _The Woodlanders_, ch. xx.

[341] Grosseteste, in 1236, quotes ‘Isidorus’ as to the pagan origin of
‘_ludi, in quo decertatur de bravio_.’ The reference is to Isidore of
Seville (560-636), _Etymologiarum_, xviii. 27, _De ludis circensibus_
(_P. L._ lxxxii. 653). This, of course, refers directly to the
religious associations of Roman rather than Celto-Teutonic _ludi_.

[342] Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 30 ‘idolorum cultus insequere, fanorum
aedificia everate.’

[343] Bede, _Hist. Eccl._ i. 30; Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 37 ‘Dicite
[Augustino], quid diu mecum de causa Anglorum cogitans tractavi:
videlicet quia fana idolorum destrui in eadem gente minime debeant;
sed ipsa quae in illis sunt idola destruantur, aqua benedicta fiat, in
eisdem fanis aspergatur, altaria construantur, reliquiae ponantur: quia
si fana eadem bene constructa sunt, necesse est ut a cultu daemonum
in obsequium veri Dei debeant commutari, ut dum gens ipsa eadem
fana sua non videt destrui, de corde errorem deponat, et Deum verum
cognoscens ac adorans, ad loca, quae consuevit, familiarius concurrat.
Et quia boves solent in sacrificio daemonum multos occidere, debet
eis etiam hac de re aliqua solemnitas immutari: ut die dedicationis,
vel natalitii sanctorum martyrum quorum illic reliquiae ponuntur,
tabernacula sibi circa easdem ecclesias quae ex fanis commutatae
sunt, de ramis arborum faciant, et religiosis conviviis sollemnitatem
celebrent; nec diabolo iam animalia immolent, sed ad laudem Dei in esum
suum animalia occidant, et donatori omnium de satietate sua gratias
referant: ut dum eis aliqua exterius gaudia reservantur, ad interiora
gaudia consentire facilius valeant. Nam duris mentibus simul omnia
abscindere impossibile esse non dubium est, quia et is qui summum locum
ascendere nititur gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus elevatur’....

[344] Stanley, _Memorials of Canterbury_, 37.

[345] H. B. Wheatley, _London, Past and Present_, iii. 39; Donne,
_Poems_ (Muses’ Library), ii. 23.

[346] Bede, ii. 13 ‘iussit sociis destruere ac succendere fanum
cum omnibus septis suis.’ In Essex in a time of plague and famine
(664), Sigheri and his people ‘coeperunt fana, quae derelicta sunt,
restaurare, et adorare simulacra.’ Bp. Jaruman induced them to reopen
the churches, ‘relictis sive destructis fanis arisque’ (Bede, iii. 30).

[347] Bede, ii. 15. So too in eighth-century Germany there were priests
who were equally ready to sacrifice to Wuotan and to administer the
sacrament of baptism (Gummere, 342). See also Grimm, i. 7, and the
letter of Gregory the Great to queen Brunichildis in _M. G. H. Epist._
ii. 1. 7 ‘pervenit ad nos, quod multi Christianorum et ad ecclesias
occurrant, et a culturis daemonum non abscedant.’

[348] Willibald (_Gesch.-Schreiber der deutschen Vorzeit_, 27) relates
that in Germany, when Boniface felled the sacred oak of Thor (robur
Iovis) he built the wood into a church.

[349] A Saxon _formula abrenuntiationis_ of the ninth century
(Müllenhoff-Scherer, _Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus dem
8.-12. Jahrhundert_, 1892, No. li) specifically renounces ‘Thuner ende
Uuôden ende Saxnôte ende allum thêm unholdum thê hira genôtas sint.’
Anglo-Saxon laws and council decrees contain frequent references to
sacrifices and other lingering remnants of heathenism. Cf. _Councils of
Pincanhale and Cealcythe_ (787), c. 19 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 458) ‘si
quid ex ritu paganorum remansit, avellatur, contemnatur, abiiciatur.’
_Council of Gratlea_ (928), c. 3 (Wilkins, i. 205) ‘diximus ... de
sacrificiis barbaris ... si quis aliquem occiderit ... ut vitam
suam perdat.’ _Council of London_ (1075) (Wilkins, i. 363) ‘ne offa
mortuorum animalium, quasi pro vitanda animalium peste, alicubi
suspendantur; nec sortes, vel aruspicia, seu divinationes, vel aliqua
huiusmodi opera diaboli ab aliquo exerceantur.’ Also _Leges_ of Wihtred
of Kent (696), c. 12 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 235), and other A.-S. laws
quoted by Kemble, i. 523.

[350] _Penitential of Theodore_ (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 189), i. 15, _de
Cultura Idolorum_; _Penitential of Egbert_ (H.-S. iii. 424), 8, _de
Auguriis vel Divinationibus_.

[351] Pearson, ii. 1 (Essay on _Woman as Witch_); cf. A.-S. spells in
Kemble, i. 528, and Cockayne, _Leechdoms_ (R. S.), iii. 35, 55. Early
and mediaeval Christianity did not deny the existence of the heathen
gods, but treated them as evil spirits, demons.

[352] An Essex case of 664 has just been quoted. Kemble, i. 358, gives
two later ones from the _Chronicle of Lanercost_. In 1268 ‘cum hoc anno
in Laodonia pestis grassaretur in pecudes armenti, quam vocant usitate
Lungessouth, quidam bestiales, habitu claustrales non animo, docebant
idiotas patriae ignem confrictione de lignis educere et simulachrum
Priapi statuere, et per haec bestiis succurrere.’ In 1282 ‘sacerdos
parochialis, nomine Johannes, Priapi prophana parans, congregatis ex
villa puellulis, cogebat eis, choreis factis, Libero patri circuire.’
By Priapus-Liber is probably meant Freyr, the only Teutonic god
known to have had Priapic characteristics (Adam of Bremen, _Gesta
Hammaburgensis Eccles. Pontif._ iv. 26 in _M. G. H. Script._ vii. 267).

[353] Grimm, i. 5, 11, 64, 174; iii. xxxiv-xlv; Keary, 90; Pearson, ii.
16, 32, 42, 243, 285, 350. The Virgin Mary succeeds to the place of
the old Teutonic goddess of fertility, Freyja, Nerthus. So elsewhere
does St. Walpurg. The toasts or _minni_ drunk to Odin and Freyja are
transferred to St. John and St. Gertrude. The travels of Odin and
Loki become the travels of Christ and St. Peter. Many examples of the
adaptation of pre-existing customs to Christianity will be found in the
course of this book. A capitulary of Karlmann, drawn up in 742 after
the synod of Ratisbon held by Boniface in Germany, speaks of ‘hostias
immolatitias, quas stulti homines iuxta ecclesias ritu pagano faciunt
sub nomine sanctorum martyrum vel confessorum’ (Boretius, _Capitularia
Reg. Franc._ i. 24 in _M. G. H._; Mansi, xii. 367). At Kirkcudbright in
the twelfth century bulls were killed ‘as an alms and oblation to St.
Cuthbert’ (_F. L._ x. 353).

[354] In the present state of Gaulish and still more of Irish studies,
only a glimmering of possible equations between Teutonic and Keltic
gods is apparent.

[355] Recent ethnological research is summed up in G. Vacher de
Lapouge, _L’Aryen_ (1899); W. Z. Ripley, _The Races of Europe_ (1900);
A. H. Keane, _Ethnology_ (1896); _Man, Past and Present_ (1899); J.
Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (1900); G. Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_
(1901). The three racial types that, in many pure and hybrid forms,
mainly compose the population of Europe may be distinguished as (1)
_Homo Europaeus_, the tall blonde long-headed (dolichocephalic) race of
north Europe, (including Teutons and red-haired ‘Kelts’), to which the
Aryan speech seems primarily to have belonged; (2) _Homo alpinus_, the
medium coloured and sized brachycephalic (round-headed) race of central
Europe; (3) _Homo meridionalis_ (Lapouge) or _mediterranensis_ (Keane),
the small dark dolichocephalic race of the Mediterranean basin and the
western isles (including dark ‘Kelts’). During the formative period of
European culture (2) was probably of little importance, and (1) and (3)
are possibly of closer racial affinity to each other than either of
them is to (2).

[356] Gomme, _Ethnology in Folk-lore_, 21; _Village Community_, 69;
_Report of Brit. Ass._ (1896), 626; _F. L. Congress_, 348; _F. L._
x. 129, ascribes the fire customs of Europe to Aryans and the water
customs to the pre-Aryans. A. Bertrand, _Religion des Gaulois_, 68,
considers human sacrifice characteristically pre-Aryan. There seems
to me more hope of arriving at a knowledge of specific Mediterranean
cults, before the Aryan intermixture, from a study of the stone amulets
and cup-markings of the megaliths (Bertrand, _op. cit._ 42) or from
such investigations into ‘Mycenaean’ antiquity as that of A. J. Evans,
_Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult_ (1901). The speculations of Nietzsche,
in _A Genealogy of Morals_ and elsewhere, as to the altruistic
‘slave’ morality of the pre-Aryan and the self-regarding morality of
the conquering Aryan ‘blond beast’ are amusing or pitiful reading,
according to one’s mood.

[357] Frazer, _G. B._ i. 9 ‘The fundamental principles on which it
[savage magic] is based would seem to be reducible to two: first, that
like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and second,
that things which have once been in contact, but have ceased to be so,
continue to act upon each other as if the contact still persisted.
From the first of these principles, the savage infers that he can
produce any desired effect merely by imitating it; from the second he
concludes that he can influence at pleasure and at any distance any
person of whom, or any thing of which, he possesses a particle. Magic
of the latter sort, resting as it does on the belief in a certain
secret sympathy which unites indissolubly things that have once been
connected with each other may appropriately be termed sympathetic
in the strict sense of the term. Magic of the former kind, in which
the supposed cause resembles or simulates the supposed effect, may
conveniently be described as imitative or mimetic.’ Cf. Jevons, 31 ‘The
savage makes the generalization that like produces like; and then he is
provided with the means of bringing about anything he wishes, for to
produce an effect he has only to imitate it. To cause a wind to blow,
he flaps a blanket, as the sailor still whistles to bring a whistling
gale.... If the vegetation requires rain, all that is needed is to dip
a branch in water, and with it to sprinkle the ground. Or a spray of
water squirted from the mouth will produce a mist sufficiently like
the mist required to produce the desired effect; or black clouds of
smoke will be followed by black clouds of rain.’ I do not feel that
magic is altogether a happy term for this sort of savage science. In
its ordinary sense (the ‘black art’), it certainly contains a large
element of what Dr. Frazer distinguishes from magic as religion, ‘a
propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are
believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.’
True, these powers are not to whom the orthodox religion is directed,
but the approach to them is religious in the sense of the above
definition. Such magic is in fact an amalgam of charms, which are Dr.
Frazer’s ‘magic,’ and spells, which are his ‘religion.’ But so are many
more recognized cults.

[358] Some facts of European animal worship are dealt with in two
important recent papers, one by S. Reinach in _Revue celtique_, xxi.
269, the other by N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 227. The relation of
such worship to the group of savage social institutions classed as
totemism is a difficult and far from solved problem, which cannot be
touched upon here.

[359] Gummere, 39; Caesar, _de B. G._ iv. 1. 7; vi. 22. 2; Tacitus,
_Germ._ 26.

[360] Schräder-Jevons, 281, says that the Indo-Europeans begin their
history ‘acquainted with the rudiments of agriculture,’ but ‘still
possessed with nomadic tendencies.’ He adds that considerable progress
must have been made before the dispersion of the European branches, and
points out that agriculture would naturally develop when the migratory
hordes from the steppes reached the great forests of central Europe.
For this there would be two reasons, the greater fertility of the soil
and the narrowed space for pasturage. On the other hand, V. Hehn,
_Culturpflanzen und Haustiere_, and Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, i. 16,
find the traces of agriculture amongst the undivided Indo-Europeans
very slight; the word yáva-ζέα, which is common to the tongues, need
mean nothing more than a wild cereal.

[361] Jevons, 240, 255; Pearson, ii. 42; O. T. Mason, _Woman’s Share in
Primitive Culture_, 14.

[362] Burne-Jackson, 352, 362; Rhys, _C. F._ i. 312; _F. L._ v. 339;
Dyer, 133; Ditchfield, 70; cf. ch. vi. One of the hills so visited is
the artificial one of Silbury, and perhaps the custom points to the
object with which this and the similar ‘mound’ at Marlborough were
piled up.

[363] Frazer, ii. 261, deals very fully with the theriomorphic
corn-spirits of folk belief.

[364] On these triads and others in which three male or three female
figures appear, cf. Bertrand, 341; A. Maury, _Croyances et Légendes
du Moyen Âge_ (1896), 6; _Matronen-Kultus_ in _Zeitschrift d. Vereins
f. Volkskultur_, ii. 24. I have not yet seen L. L. Paine, _The Ethnic
Trinities and their Relation to the Christian Trinity_ (1901).

[365] Mogk, iii. 333; Golther, 298; Grimm, iv. 1709; Kemble, i. 335;
Rhys, _C. H._ 282; H. M. Chadwick, _Cult of Othin_ (1899).

[366] Mogk, iii. 366; Golther, 428.

[367] Mogk, iii. 374; Golther, 488; Tille, _Y. and C._ 144; Bede, _de
temp. ratione_, c. 15 (_Opera_, ed. Giles, vi. 179) ‘Eostur-monath
qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum, quae
Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit;
a cuius nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae
observationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.’ There
seems no reason for thinking with Golther and Tille, that Bede made a
mistake. Charlemagne took the name _Ôstarmánoth_ for April, perhaps
only out of compliment to the English, such as Alcuin, at his court.

[368] _A Charm for unfruitful or bewitched land_ (O. Cockayne,
_Leechdoms of Early England_, R. S. i. 399); cf. Grimm, i. 253;
Golther, 455; Kögel, i. 1. 39. The ceremony has taken on a Christian
colouring, but retains many primitive features. Strips of turf are
removed, and masses said over them. They are replaced after oil,
honey, barm, milk of every kind of cattle, twigs of every tree, and
holy water have been put on the spot. Seed is bought at a double price
from almsmen and poured into a hole in the plough with salt and herbs.
Various invocations are used, including one which calls on ‘Erce, Erce,
Erce, Eorthan modor,’ and implores the Almighty to grant her fertility.
Then the plough is driven, and a loaf, made of every kind of corn with
milk and holy water, laid under the first furrow. Kögel considers
_Erce_ to be derived from _ero_, ‘earth.’ Brooke, i. 217, states on
the authority of Montanus that a version of the prayer preserved in
a convent at Corvei begins ‘Eostar, Eostar, Eordhan modor.’ He adds:
‘nothing seems to follow from this clerical error.’ But why an error?
The equation Erce-Eostre is consistent with the fundamental identity of
the light-goddess and the earth-goddess.

[369] Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 51; Mogk, iii. 373; Golther, 458; cf. ch. xii.

[370] Gomme, _Village Community_, 157; B. C. A. Windle, _Life in Early
Britain_, 200; F. W. Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, 142, 337,
346.

[371] I have followed in many points the views on Teutonic chronology
of Tille, _Deutsches Weihnacht_ (1893) and _Yule and Christmas_ (1899),
which are accepted in the main by O. Schräder, _Reallexicon der
indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, s.vv. Jahr, Jahreszeiten, and partly
correct those of Weinhold, _Ueber die deutsche Jahrtheilung_ (1862),
and Grotefend, _Die Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters_ (1891).

[372] In Scandinavia the winter naturally began earlier and ended
later. Throughout, Scandinavian seasons diverged from those of
Germany and the British Isles. In particular the high summer feast
and the consequent tripartition of the year do not seem to have
established themselves (_C. P. B._ i. 430). Further south the period
of stall-feeding was extended when a better supply of fodder made it
possible (Tille, _Y. and C._ 56, 62; Burne-Jackson, 380).

[373] Cf. ch. xi, where the winter feasts are discussed in more detail.

[374] Grimm, ii. 675, 693, 762, notes the heralds of summer.

[375] Jahn, 34; Mogk, iii. 387; Golther, 572; Schräder-Jevons, 303.
The Germans still knew three seasons only when they came into contact
with the Romans; cf. Tacitus, _Germ._ 26 ‘annum quoque ipsum non
in totidem digerunt species: hiems et ver et aestas intellectum ac
vocabula habent, autumni perinde nomen ac bona ignorantur.’ I do not
agree with Tille, _Y. and C._ 6, that the tripartition of the year, in
this pre-calendar form, was ‘of foreign extraction.’ Schräder shows
that it is common to the Aryan languages. The Keltic seasons, in
particular, seem to be closely parallel to the Teutonic. Of the three
great Keltic feasts described by Rhys, _C. H._ 409, 513, 676; _C. F._
i. 308, the Lugnassad was probably the harvest feast, the Samhain the
old beginning of winter feast, and the Beltain the high summer feast.
The meaning of ‘Beltain’ (cf. _N. E. D._ s.v. Beltane) seems quite
uncertain. A connexion is possible but certainly unproved with the
Abelio of the Pyrenean inscriptions, the Belenus-Apollo of those of
the eastern Alps, and, more rarely, Provence (Röscher, _Lexicon_, s.v.
Belenus; Holder, _Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz_, s.vv. Belenus, Abelio;
Ausonius, _Professores_, iv. 7), or the Bel of Bohemia mentioned by
Allso (ch. xii). The Semitic Baal, although a cult of Belus, found its
way into the Roman world (cf. Appendix N, No. xxxii, and Wissowa, 302),
is naturally even a less plausible relation. But it is dear to the
folk-etymologist; cf. e.g. S. M. Mayhew, _Baalism_ in _Trans. of St.
Paul’s Ecclesiological Society_, i. 83.

[376] Tille, _Y. and C._ 7, 148, suggests an Egyptian or Babylonian
origin, but the equation of the Gothic _Jiuleis_ and the Cypriote
ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος, ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος as names for winter periods makes a
Mediterranean connexion seem possible.

[377] Cf. ch. xi.

[378] Grimm, ii. 615, notes that Easter fires are normal in the
north, Midsummer fires in the south of Germany. The Beltane fires
both of Scotland and Ireland are usually on May 1, but some of the
Irish examples collected by J. Jamieson, _Etym. Dict. of the Scottish
Language_, s. v., are at midsummer.

[379] Tille, _Y. and C._ 71; Rhys, _C. H._ 419. The primitive year
was thermometric, not astronomic, its critical moments, not the
solstices, a knowledge of which means science, but the sensible
increase and diminution of heat in spring and autumn. The solstices
came through Rome. The _Sermo Eligii_ (Grimm, iv. 1737) has ‘nullus
in festivitate S. Ioannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemnitatibus
solstitia ... exerceat,’ but Eligius was a seventh-century bishop,
and this _Sermo_ may have been interpolated in the eighth century
(O. Reich, _Über Audoen’s Lebensbeschreibung des heiligen Eligius_
(1872), cited in _Rev. celtique_, ix. 433). It is not clear that the
un-Romanized Teuton or Kelt made a god of the sun, as distinct from the
heaven-god, who of course has solar attributes and emblems. In the same
_Sermo_ Eligius says ‘nullus dominos solem aut lunam vocet, neque per
eos iuret.’ But the notion of ‘domini’ may be post-Roman, and the oath
is by the permanent, rather than the divine; cf. A. de Jubainville,
_Intr. à l’Étude de la Litt. celt._ 181. It is noticeable that German
names for the sun are originally feminine and for the moon masculine.

[380] Mogk, iii. 393; Golther, 584; Jahn, 84; Caspari, 35; Saupe,
7; Hauck, ii. 357; Michels, 93. The ploughing feast is probably
the _spurcalia_ of the _Indiculus_ and of Eadhelm, _de laudibus
virginitatis_, c. 25, and the _dies spurci_ of the _Hom. de
Sacrilegiis_. This term appears in the later German name for February,
_Sporkele_. It seems to be founded on Roman analogy from _spurcus_,
‘unclean.’ Pearson, ii. 159, would, however, trace it to an Aryan root
_spherag_, ‘swell,’ ‘burst,’ ‘shoot.’ Bede, _de temp. rat._ c. 15,
calls February _Sol-monath_, which he explains as ‘mensis placentarum.’
September, the month of the harvest-festival, is _Haleg-monath_, or
‘mensis sacrorum.’

[381] Pfannenschmidt, 244; Brand, ii. 1; Ditchfield, 130;
Burne-Jackson, 439; Burton, _Rushbearing_, 147; Schaff, vi. 544;
Duchesne, 385. The dedication of churches was solemnly carried out
from the fourth century, and the anniversary observed. Gregory the
Great ordered ‘solemnitates ecclesiarum dedicationum per singulos
annos sunt celebrandae.’ The A.-S. _Canons_ of Edgar (960), c. 28
(Wilkins, i. 227), require them to be kept with sobriety. Originally
the anniversary, as well as the actual dedication day, was observed
with an all night watch, whence the name _vigilia_, wakes. Belethus,
_de rat. offic._ (_P. L._ ccii. 141), c. 137, says that the custom was
abolished owing to the immorality to which it led. But the ‘eve’ of
these and other feasts continued to share in the sanctity of the ‘day,’
a practice in harmony with the European sense of the precedence of
night over day (cf. Schräder-Jevons, 311; Bertrand, 267, 354, 413). An
Act of Convocation in 1536 (Wilkins, iii. 823) required all wakes to
be held on the first Sunday in October, but it does not appear to have
been very effectual.

[382] S. O. Addy, in _F. L._ xii. 394, has a full account of ‘Garland
day’ at Castleton, Derbyshire, on May 29; cf. _F. L._ xii. 76
(Wishford, Wilts); Burne-Jackson, 365.

[383] The classification of agricultural feasts in U. Jahn, _Die
deutschen Opfergebräuche_, seems throughout to be based less on the
facts of primitive communal agriculture, than on those of the more
elaborate methods of the later farms with their variety of crops.

[384] Frazer, i. 193; ii. 96; Brand, i. 125; Dyer, 223; Ditchfield, 95;
Philpot, 144; Grimm, ii. 762; &c., &c. A single example of the custom
is minutely studied by S. O. Addy, _Garland Day at Castleton_, in _F.
L._ xii. 394.

[385] A. B. Gomme, ii. 507; Hartland, _Perseus_, ii. 187; Grimm, iv.
1738, 1747; Gaidoz, _Un vieux rite médical_ (1893).

[386] Tacitus, _Germania_, 40.

[387] Vigfusson and Ungar, _Flateyjarbok_, i. 337; Grimm, i. 107;
Gummere, _G. O._ 433; Mogk, iii. 321; Golther, 228.

[388] Sozomenes, _Hist. Eccles._ vi. 37. Cf. also _Indiculus_ (ed.
Saupe, 32) ‘de simulacro, quod per campos portant,’ the fifth-century
_Vita S. Martini_, c. 12, by Sulpicius Severus (_Opera_, ed. Halm,
in _Corp. Script. Eccl. Hist._ i. 122) ‘quia esset haec Gallorum
rusticis consuetudo, simulacra daemonum, candido tecta velamine, misera
per agros suos circumferre dementia,’ and Alsso’s account of the
fifteenth-century _calendisationes_ in Bohemia (ch. xii).

[389] Cf. ch. x.

[390] Cf. _Representations_ (Chester, London, York). There were similar
watches at Nottingham (Deering, _Hist. of Nott._ 123), Worcester
(Smith, _English Gilds_, 408), Lydd and Bristol (Green, _Town Life in
the Fifteenth Century_, i. 148), and on St. Thomas’s day (July 7) at
Canterbury (_Arch. Cant._ xii. 34; _Hist. MSS._ ix. 1. 148).

[391] Harris, 7; Hartland, _Fairy Tales_, 71.

[392] Dyer, 205.

[393] Cf. ch. viii.

[394] Dyer, 275; Ditchfield, III; cf. the phrase ‘in and out the
windows’ of the singing game _Round and Round the Village_ (A. B.
Gomme, s. v.).

[395] M. Deloche, _Le Tour de la Lunade_, in _Rev. celtique_, ix. 425;
Bérenger-Féraud, i. 423; iii. 167.

[396] Bower, 13.

[397] Duchesne, 276; Usener, i. 293; Tille, _Y. and C._ 51; W. W.
Fowler, 124; Boissier, _La Religion romaine_, i. 323. The Rogations or
_litaniae minores_ represent in Italy the Ambarvalia on May 29. But
they are of Gallican origin, were begun by Mamertus, bishop of Vienne
(†470), adapted by the _Council of Orleans_ (511), c. 27 (Mansi, viii.
355), and required by the English _Council of Clovesho_ (747), c. 16
(Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 368), to be held ‘non admixtis vanitatibus, uti
mos est plurimis, vel negligentibus, vel imperitis, id est in ludis
et equorum cursibus, et epulis maioribus.’ Jahn, 147, quotes the
German abbess Marcsuith (940), who describes them as ‘pro gentilicio
Ambarvali,’ and adds, ‘confido autem de Patroni huius misericordia,
quod sic ab eo gyrade terrae semina uberius provenient, et variae
aeris inclementiae cessent.’ Mediaeval Rogation litanies are in _Sarum
Processional_, 103, and York Processional (_York Manual_, 182). The
more strictly Roman _litania major_ on St. Mark’s day (March 25) takes
the place of the _Robigalia_, but is not of great importance in English
folk-custom.

[398] _Injunctions_, ch. xix, of 1559 (Gee-Hardy, _Docts. illustrative
of English Church History_, 426). Thanks are to be given to God ‘for
the increase and abundance of his fruits upon the face of the earth.’
The _Book of Homilies_ contains an exhortation to be used on the
occasion. The episcopal injunctions and interrogatories in _Ritual
Commission_, 404, 409, 416, &c., endeavour to preserve the Rogations,
and to eliminate ‘superstition’ from them; for the development of the
notion of ‘beating of bounds,’ cf. the eighteenth-century notices in
Dyer, _Old English Social Life_, 196.

[399] The image is represented by the doll of the May-garland, which
has sometimes, according to Ditchfield, 102, become the Virgin Mary,
with a child doll in its arms, and at other times (e.g. Castleton,
_F. L._ xii. 469) has disappeared, leaving the name of ‘queen’ to a
particular bunch of flowers; also by the ‘giant’ of the midsummer
watch. The Salisbury giant, St. Christopher, with his hobby-horse,
Hob-nob, is described in _Rev. d. T. P._ iv. 601.

[400] Grimm, i. 257; Golther, 463; Mogk, iii. 374; Hahn, _Demeter und
Baubo_, 38; Usener, _Die Sintfluthsagen_, 115. There are parallels
in south European custom, both classical and modern, and Usener even
derives the term ‘carnival,’ not from _carnem levare_, but from the
_currus navalis_ used by Roman women. A modern survival at Fréjus is
described in _F. L._ xii. 307.

[401] Ditchfield, 103; _Transactions of Devonshire Association_, xv.
104; cf. the Noah’s ship procession at Hull (_Representations_, s. v.).

[402] Brand, ii. 223; Grimm, ii. 584; Elton, 284; Gomme, _Ethnology_,
73; Hartland, _Perseus_, ii. 175; Haddon, 362; Vaux, 269; Wood-Martin,
ii. 46; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 291; R. C. Hope, _Holy Wells_; M.-L.
Quiller-Couch, _Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall_ (1894); J. Rhys,
_C. F._ i. 332, 354, and in _F. L._ iii. 74, iv. 55; A. W. Moore, in
_F. L._ v. 212; H. C. March, in _F. L._ x. 479 (Dorset).

[403] A. B. Gomme, s. v.; Haddon, 362.

[404] Schaff, iii. 247; Duchesne, 281, 385; Rock, iii. 2. 101, 180;
Maskell, i. cccxi; Feasey, 235; Wordsworth, 24; Pfannenschmidt,
_Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus_ (1869). The
_Benedictio Fontium_ took place on Easter Saturday, in preparation for
the baptism which in the earliest times was a characteristic Easter
rite. The formulae are in _York Missal_, i. 121; _Sarum Missal_, 350;
Maskell, i. 13.

[405] Frazer, iii. 237; Gomme, in _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 626;
Simpson, 195; Grenier, 380; Gaidoz, 16; Bertrand, 98; Gummere, _G. O._
400; Grimm, ii. 601; Jahn, 25; Brand, i. 127, 166; Dyer, 269, 311, 332;
Ditchfield, 141; Cortet, 211.

[406] To this custom may possibly be traced the black-a-vised figures
who are persistent in the folk _ludi_, and also the curious tradition
which makes May-day especially the chimney-sweeps’ holiday.

[407] The reasons given are various, ‘to keep off hail’ (whence
the term _Hagelfeuer_ mentioned by Pfannenschmidt, 67), ‘vermin,’
‘caterpillars,’ ‘blight,’ ‘to make the fields fertile.’ In Bavaria
torches are carried round the fields ‘to drive away the wicked
sower’ (of tares?). In Northumberland raids are made on the ashes of
neighbouring villages (Dyer, 332).

[408] Cf. p. 113.

[409] I know of no English Easter folk-fires, but St. Patrick is said
to have lit one on the hill of Slane, opposite Tara, on Easter Eve, 433
(Feasey, 180).

[410] Schaff, v. 403; Duchesne, 240; Rock, iii. 2. 71, 94, 98, 107,
244; Feasey, 184; Wordsworth, 204; Frazer, iii. 245; Jahn, 129;
Grimm, ii. 616; Simpson, 198. The formulae of the _benedictio ignis_
and _benedictio cereorum_ at Candlemas, and the _benedictio ignis_,
_benedictio incensi_, and _benedictio cerei_ on Easter Eve, are in
_Sarum Missal_, 334, 697; _York Missal_, i. 109; ii. 17. One York MS.
has ‘Paschae ignis de berillo vel de silice exceptus ... accenditur.’
The correspondence between Pope Zacharias and St. Boniface shows
that the lighting of the _ignis_ by a crystal instead of from a lamp
kept secretly burning distinguished Gallican from Roman ceremonial
in the eighth century (Jaffé, 2291). All the lights in the church
are previously put out, and this itself has become a ceremony in the
_Tenebrae_. Ecclesiastical symbolism explained the extinction and
rekindling of lights as typifying the Resurrection. Sometimes the
_ignis_ provides a light for the folk-fire outside.

[411] Belethus (†1162), _de Div. Offic._ c. 137 (_P. L._ ccii. 141),
gives three customs of St. John’s Eve. Bones are burnt, because (1)
there are dragons in air, earth, and water, and when these ‘in aere ad
libidinem concitantur, quod fere fit, saepe ipsum sperma vel in puteos
vel in aquas fluviales eiiciunt, ex quo lethalis sequitur annus,’ but
the smoke of the bonfires drives them away; and (2) because St. John’s
bones were burnt in Sebasta. Torches are carried, because St. John was
a shining light. A wheel is rolled, because of the solstice, which
is made appropriate to St. John by _St. John_ iii. 30. The account
of Belethus is amplified by Durandus, _Rationale Div. Offic._ (ed.
corr. Antwerp, 1614) vii. 14, and taken in turn from Durandus by a
fifteenth-century monk of Winchelscombe in a sermon preserved in _Harl.
MS._ 2345, f. 49 (b).

[412] Gaidoz, 24, 109; Bertrand, 122; Dyer, 323; Stubbes, i. 339, from
Naogeorgos; Usener, ii. 81; and the mediaeval calendar in Brand, i. 179.

[413] Gomme, in _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 636 (Moray, Mull); _F. L._
ix. 280 (Caithness, with illustration of wood used); Kemble, i. 360
(Perthshire in 1826, Devonshire).

[414] Grimm, ii. 603; Kemble, i. 359; Elton, 293; Frazer, iii. 301;
Gaidoz, 22; Jahn, 26; Simpson, 196; Bertrand, 107; Golther, 570. The
English term is _need-fire_, Scotch _neidfyre_, German _Nothfeuer_. It
is variously derived from _nôt_ ‘need,’ _niuwan_ ‘rub,’ or _hniotan_
‘press.’ If the last is right, the English form should perhaps be
_knead-fire_ (Grimm, ii. 607, 609; Golther, 570). Another German term
is _Wildfeuer_. The Gaelic _tin-egin_ is from _tin_ ‘fire,’ and _egin_
‘violence’ (Grimm, ii. 609). For ecclesiastical prohibitions cf.
_Indiculus_ (Saupe, 20) ‘de igne fricato de ligno, i. e. _nodfyr_’;
_Capit. Karlmanni_ (742), c. 5 (Grimm, ii. 604) ‘illos sacrilegos ignes
quos _niedfyr_ vocant.’

[415] Gaidoz, 1; Bertrand, 109, 140; Simpson, 109, 240; Rhys, _C. H._
54. The commonest form of the symbol is the swastika, but others appear
to be found in the ‘hammer’ of Thor, and on the altars and statues of a
Gaulish deity equated in the _interpretatio Romana_ with Jupiter. There
is a wheel decoration on the _barelle_ or cars of the Gubbio _ceri_
(Bower, 4).

[416] Brand, i. 97; Dyer, 159; Ditchfield, 78. Eggs are used
ceremonially at the Scotch Beltane fires (Frazer, iii. 261; Simpson,
285). Strings of birds’ eggs are hung on the Lynn May garland (_F. L._
x. 443). In Dauphiné an omelette is made when the sun rises on St.
John’s day (Cortet, 217). In Germany children are sent to look for
the Easter eggs in the nest of a hare, a very divine animal. Among
the miscellaneous Benedictions in the _Sarum Manual_, with the _Ben.
Seminis_ and the _Ben. Pomorum in die S^{ti} Iacobi_ are a _Ben.
Carnis Casei Butyri Ovorum sive Pastillarum in Pascha_ and a _Ben.
Agni Paschalis, Ovorum et Herbarum in die Paschae_. These Benedictions
are little more than graces. The _Durham Accounts_, i. 71-174, contain
entries of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century payments ‘fratribus et
sororibus de Wytton pro eorum Egsilver erga festum pasche.’

[417] _Tw. N._ i. 3. 42 ‘He’s a coward and a coystrill, that will not
drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe like a parish-top.’
Steevens says ‘a large top was formerly kept in every village, to
be whipt in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by
exercise and out of mischief while they could not work.’ This is
evidently a ‘fake’ of the ‘Puck of commentators.’ Hone, _E. D. B._
i. 199, says ‘According to a story (whether true or false), in one
of the churches of Paris, a choir boy used to whip a top marked with
_Alleluia_, written in gold letters, from one end of the choir to the
other.’ The ‘burial of Alleluia’ is shown later on to be a mediaeval
perversion of an agricultural rite. On the whole question of tops, see
Haddon, 255; A. B. Gomme, s. v.

[418] Leber, ix. 391; Barthélemy, iv. 447; Du Tilliot, 30; Grenier,
385; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 427; Belethus, c. 120 ‘Sunt nonnullae
ecclesiae in quibus usitatum est, ut vel etiam episcopi et
archiepiscopi in coenobiis cum suis ludant subditis, ita ut etiam se
ad lusum pilae demittant. atque haec quidem libertas ideo dicta est
decembrica ... quamquam vero magnae ecclesiae, ut est Remensis, hanc
ludendi consuetudinem observent, videtur tamen laudabilius esse non
ludere’; Durandus, vi. 86 ‘In quibusdam locis hac die, in aliis in
Natali, praelati cum suis clericis ludunt, vel in claustris, vel in
domibus episcopalibus; ita ut etiam descendant ad ludum pilae, vel
etiam ad choreas et cantus, &c.’ Often the ball play was outside the
church, but the canons of Evreux on their return from the _procession
noire_ of May 1, played ‘ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae’; and the
Easter _pilota_ of Auxerre which lasted to 1538, took place in the nave
before vespers. Full accounts of this ceremony have been preserved.
The dean and canons danced and tossed the ball, singing the _Victimae
paschali_. For examples of Easter hand-ball or marbles in English
folk-custom, cf. Brand, i. 103; Vaux, 240; _F. L._ xii. 75; Mrs. Gomme,
s. v. _Handball_.

[419] Brand, i. 93; Burne-Jackson, 335. A Norfolk version (_F. L._ vii.
90) has ‘dances as if in agony.’ On the Mendips (_F. L._ v. 339) what
is expected is ‘a lamb in the sun.’ The moon, and perhaps the sun also,
is sometimes ‘wobbly,’ ‘jumping’ or ‘skipping,’ owing to the presence
of strata of air differing in humidity or temperature, and so changing
the index of refraction (Nicholson, _Golspie_, 186). At Pontesford Hill
in Shropshire (Burne-Jackson, 330) the pilgrimage was on Palm Sunday,
actually to pluck a sprig from a haunted yew, traditionally ‘to look
for the golden arrow,’ which must be solar. In the Isle of Man hills,
on which are sacred wells, are visited on the Lugnassad, to gather
ling-berries. Others say that it is because of Jephthah’s daughter, who
went up and down on the mountains and bewailed her virginity. And the
old folk now stop at home and read _Judges_ xi (Rhys, _C. F._ i. 312).
On the place of hill-tops in agricultural religion cf. p. 106, and for
the use of elevated spots for sun-worship at Rome, ch. xi.

[420] Simpson, _passim_; cf. _F. L._ vi. 168; xi. 220. _Deasil_ is from
Gaelic _deas_, ‘right,’ ‘south.’ Mediaeval ecclesiastical processions
went ‘contra solis cursum et morem ecclesiasticum’ only in seasons of
woe or sadness (Rock, iii. 2. 182).

[421] Dr. Murray kindly informs me that the etymology of _withershins_
(A.-S. _wiþersynes_) is uncertain. It is from _wiþer_, ‘against,’
and either some lost noun, or one derived from _séon_, ‘to see,’ or
_sinþ_, ‘course.’ The original sense is simply ‘backwards,’ and the
equivalence with _deasil_ not earlier than the seventeenth century. A
folk-etymology from _shine_ may account for the aspirate.

[422] Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 196; Jevons, 130;
Frazer, ii. 352; Grant Allen, 318; Hartland, ii. 236; Turnbull, _The
Blood Covenant_. Perhaps, as a third type of sacrifice, should be
distinguished the ‘alimentary’ sacrifice of food and other things made
to the dead. This rests on the belief in the continuance of the mortal
life with its needs and desires after death.

[423] Grimm, i. 47; Golther, 565; Gummere, _G. O._ 40, 457. Gregory III
wrote (†731) to Boniface (_P. L._ lxxxix. 577) ‘inter cetera agrestem
caballum aliquantos comedere adiunxisti plerosque et domesticum.
hoc nequaquam fieri deinceps sinas,’ cf. _Councils of Cealcythe and
Pincanhale_ (787), c. 19 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 458) ‘equos etiam
plerique in vobis comedunt, quod nullus Christianorum in Orientalibus
facit.’ The decking of horses is a familiar feature of May-day in
London and elsewhere.

[424] C. J. Billson, _The Easter Hare_, in _F. L._ iii. 441.

[425] N. W. Thomas in _F. L._ xi. 227.

[426] Grimm, i. 55; Golther, 559, 575; Gummere, _G. O._ 456. The
universal Teutonic term for sacrificing is _blôtan_.

[427] Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 20; Jevons, 130, 191. Does the modern
huntsman know why he ‘bloods’ a novice?

[428] Grimm, i. 47, 57, 77; Jahn, 24; Gummere, _G. O._ 459. Hence the
theriomorphic ‘image.’

[429] Robertson Smith, 414, 448; Jevons, 102, 285; Frazer, ii. 448;
Lang, _M. R. R._^1 ii. 73, 80, 106, 214, 226; Grant Allen, 335; Du
Méril, _Com._ i. 75. Hence the theriomorphic _larva_ or mask (Frazer,
_Pausanias_, iv. 239).

[430] Grimm, i. 46, 57; Golther, 576; Frazer, ii. 318, 353; Jevons,
144; Grant Allen, 325. Savages believe that by eating an animal they
will acquire its bodily and mental qualities.

[431] Jahn, 14, and for classical parallels Frazer, ii. 315;
_Pausanias_, iii. 288; Jevons, _Plutarch_, lxix. 143. Grant Allen, 292,
was told as a boy in Normandy that at certain lustrations ‘a portion of
the Host (stolen or concealed, I imagine) was sometimes buried in each
field.’

[432] Frazer, ii. 318; Grant Allen, 337; Jevons, 206.

[433] _F. L._ vi. 1.

[434] Frazer, ii. 319; Jevons, 214; cf. the πάνσπερμα at the Athenian
Pyanepsia.

[435] In the Beltane rite (_F. L._ vi. 2) a bit of the bannock is
reserved for the ‘cuack’ or cuckoo, here doubtless the inheritor of the
gods.

[436] Grimm, iii. 1240.

[437] Elton, 428.

[438] Grimm, i. 59; Gummere, _G. O._ 455.

[439] V. Hehn, _Culturpflanzen_, 438.

[440] Grimm, i. 44, 48, 53; Golther, 561; Gummere, _G. O._ 459;
Schräder, 422; Mogk, iii. 388; Meyer, 199, and for Keltic evidence
Elton, 270. Many of these examples belong rather to the war than to
the agricultural cult. The latest in the west are _Capit. de partib.
Saxon._ 9 ‘Si quis hominem diabolo sacrificaverit et in hostiam, more
paganorum, daemonibus obtulerit’; _Lex Frisionum_, additio sup. tit.
42 ‘qui fanum effregerit ... immolatur diis, quorum templa violavit’;
_Epist. Greg. III_, 1 (_P. L._ lxxxix, 578) ‘hoc quoque inter alia
crimina agi in partibus illis dixisti, quod quidam ex fidelibus ad
immolandum paganis sua venundent mancipia.’

[441] Frazer, ii. 1; Jevons, 279.

[442] Frazer, ii. 5, 59.

[443] Strabo, iv. 5. 4; Bastian, _Oestl. Asien_, v. 272. The Mexican
evidence given by Frazer, iii. 134, does not necessarily represent a
primitive notion of the nature of the rite.

[444] Jevons, 291; _Plutarch_, lxx. For traces of the blood-guiltiness
incurred by sacrifice, cf. the βουφόνια at Athens and the _regifugium_
at Rome (Frazer, ii. 294; Robertson Smith, i. 286).

[445] Frazer, ii. 15, 55, 232; Jevons, 280; Grant Allen, 242, 296, 329.

[446] In three successive years of famine the Swedes sacrificed first
oxen, then men, finally their king Dômaldi himself (_Ynglingasaga_, c.
18).

[447] Frazer, ii. 24; Jevons, 280; Grant Allen, 296.

[448] The British rule in India forbids human sacrifice, and the
Khonds, a Dravidian race of Bengal, have substituted animal for human
victims within the memory of man (Frazer, ii. 245).

[449] Hartland, iii. 1; Frazer, _Pausanias_, iv. 197; v. 44, 143;
Bérenger-Féraud, i. 207. Mr. Frazer enumerates forty-one versions of
the legend.

[450] Hartland, iii. 81; Grimm, ii. 494; Gummere, _G. O._ 396. The
slaves of Nerthus were drowned in the same lake in which the goddess
was dipped.

[451] _F. L._ vi. i.

[452] Frazer, iii. 319; Gaidoz, 27; Cortet, 213; Simpson, 221;
Bertrand, 68; _F. L._ xii. 315. The work of Posidonius does not
exist, but was possibly used by Caesar, _B. G._ vi. 15; Strabo, iv.
4. 5; Diodorus, v. 32. Wicker ‘giants’ are still burnt in some French
festival-fires. But elsewhere, as in the midsummer shows, such ‘giants’
seem to be images of the agricultural divinities, and it is not clear
by what process they came to be burnt and so destroyed. Perhaps they
were originally only smoked, just as they were dipped.

[453] Gomme, _Ethnology_, 137; _F. L._ ii. 300; x. 101; xii. 217; Vaux,
287; Rhys, _C. F._ i. 306.

[454] _F. L._ ii. 302; Rhys, _C. F._ i. 307. In 1656, bulls were
sacrificed near Dingwall (_F. L._ x. 353). A few additional examples,
beyond those here given, are mentioned by N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi.
247.

[455] 1 _N. Q._ vii. 353; Gomme, _Ethnology_, 32; _Village Community_,
113; Grant Allen, 290. The custom was extinct when it was first
described in 1853, and some doubt has recently been thrown upon the
‘altar,’ the ‘struggle’ and other details; cf. _Trans. of Devonshire
Assn._ xxviii. 99; _F. L._ viii. 287.

[456] 1 _N. Q._ vii. 353; Gomme, _Ethnology_, 30; Vaux, 285.

[457] Blount, _Jocular Tenures_ (ed. Beckwith), 281; Dyer, 297.

[458] Dunkin, _Hist. of Bicester_ (1816), 268; P. Manning, in _F. L._
viii. 313.

[459] P. Manning, in _F. L._ viii. 310; Dyer, 282.

[460] N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 227; Dyer, 285, 438, 470;
Ditchfield, 85, 131.

[461] Certain lands were held of the chapter for which a fat buck was
paid on the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), and a fat doe on the
Commemoration of St. Paul (June 30). They were offered, according to
one writer, alive, at the high altar; the flesh was baked, the head and
horns carried in festal procession. The custom dated from at least 1274
(Dyer, 49; W. Sparrow Simpson, _St. Paul’s Cath. and Old City Life_,
234).

[462] _F. L._ iv. 9; x. 355. White bulls are said to have been led
to the shrine by women desirous of children. F. C. Conybeare, in _R.
de l’Hist. des Religions_, xliv. 108, describes some survivals of
sacrificial rites in the Armenian church which existed primitively in
other Greek churches also.

[463] _F. L._ vii. 346. Bull-baiting often took place on festivals, and
in several cases, as at Tutbury, the bull was driven into or over a
river. Bear-baiting is possibly a later variant of the sport.

[464] Burton, 165; _Suffolk F. L._ 71; Ditchfield, 227; Dyer, 387;
Pfannenschmidt, 279; cf. the Abbots Bromley Horn-dance (ch. viii).

[465] _F. L._ iv. 5. The custom of sacrifice at the foundation of a new
building has also left traces: cf. Grant Allen, 248; _F. L._ xi. 322,
437; Speth, _Builders’ Rites and Ceremonies_.

[466] Douce, 598, gives a cut of a hobby-horse, i. e. a man riding
a pasteboard or wicker horse with his legs concealed beneath a
foot-cloth. According to Du Méril, _Com._ i. 79, 421, the device
is known throughout Europe. In France it is the _chevalet_,
_cheval-mallet_, _cheval-fol_, &c.; in Germany the _Schimmel_.

[467] Dyer, 182, 266, 271; Ditchfield, 97; Burton, 40; _F. L._ viii.
309, 313, 317; cf. ch. ix on the ‘fool’ or ‘squire’ in the sword and
morris dances, and ch. xvi on his court and literary congener. The
folk-fool wears a cow’s tail or fox’s brush, or carries a stick with a
tail at one end and a bladder and peas at the other. He often wears a
mask or has his face blacked. In Lancashire he is sometimes merged with
the ‘woman’ grotesque of the folk-festivals, and called ‘owd Bet.’

[468] W. Gregor, _F. L. of N. E. Scotland_, 181, says that bread and
cheese were actually laid in the field, and in the plough when it was
‘strykit.’

[469] Dyer, 20, 207, 447; Ditchfield, 46; _F. L._ vi. 93. Pirminius
v. Reichenau, _Dicta_ (†753), c. 22, forbids ‘effundere super truncum
frugem et vinum.’

[470] _F. L. Congress_, 449, gives a list of about fifty ‘feasten’
cakes. Some are quite local; others, from the Shrove Tuesday pancake to
the Good Friday hot cross bun, widespread.

[471] Grimm, i. 57; Frazer, ii. 344; Grant Allen, 339; Jevons, 215;
Dyer, 165; Ditchfield, 81.

[472] _F. L._ vi. 57; viii. 354; ix. 362; x. 111.

[473] _F. L._ vi. 1.

[474] Ditchfield, 116, 227; _Suffolk F. L._ 108; Dyer, _Old English
Social Life_, 197. The boys are now said to be whipped in order that
they may remember the boundaries; but the custom, which sometimes
includes burying them, closely resembles the symbolical sacrifices of
the harvest field (p. 158). Grant Allen, 270, suggests that the tears
shed are a rain-charm. I hope he is joking.

[475] Brand, ii. 13; _Suffolk F. L._ 69, 71; _Leicester F. L._ 121. A
‘harvest-lord’ is probably meant by the ‘Rex Autumnalis’ mentioned in
the _Accounts_ of St. Michael’s, Bath (ed. Somerset Arch. Soc. 88),
in 1487, 1490, and 1492. A _corona_ was hired by him from the parish.
Often the reaper who cuts the last sheaf (i.e. slays the divinity)
becomes harvest-lord.

[476] Gomme, _Village Community_, 107; Dyer, 339; Northall, 202;
_Gloucester F. L._ 33.

[477] Frazer, i. 216; E. Pabst, _Die Volksfeste des Maigrafen_ (1865).

[478] Frazer, i. 219; Cortet, 160; Brand, i. 126; Dyer, 266;
Ditchfield, 98.

[479] Tacitus, _Germ._ c. 43 ‘apud Nahanarvalos antiquae religionis
lucus ostenditur. praesidet sacerdos muliebri ornatu.’

[480] _Conc. of Trullo_ (692), c. 62 (Mansi, xi. 671) ‘Nullus vir
deinceps muliebri veste induatur, vel mulier veste viro conveniente’;
_Conc. of Braga_ (of doubtful date), c. 80 (Mansi, ix. 844) ‘Si quis
ballationes ante ecclesias sanctorum fecerit, seu quis faciem suam
transformaverit in habitu muliebri et mulier in habitu viri emendatione
pollicita tres annos poeniteat.’ The exchange of head-gear between
men and women remains a familiar feature of the modern bank-holiday.
Some Greek parallels are collected by Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 197.
E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_ (1902), viii. 371, suggests another
explanation, which would connect the custom with the amorous side of
the primitive festivals.

[481] Frazer, ii. 93, 109.

[482] Ibid. i. 220; Brand, i. 157; Dyer, 217; Ditchfield, 97; Kelly,
62: cf. ch. viii.

[483] Pearson, ii. 24, 407. Cf. the evidence for a primitive human
pairing-season in Westermarck, 25.

[484] Purity of life is sometimes required of those who are to kindle
the new fire (Frazer, iii. 260, 302).

[485] H. Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 629; K. Groos, _Play
of Man_, 361; Hirn, 25.

[486] Gummere, _G. O._ 331.

[487] Frazer, i. 217; iii. 258.

[488] Chaucer says of the Miller (_C. T._ prol. 548):

‘At wrastlynge he wolde have alwey the ram’;

and of Sir Thopas (_C. T._ 13670):

‘Of wrastlynge was ther noon his peer,
Ther any ram shal stonde.’

Strutt, 82, figures a wrestling from _Royal MS._ 2, B. viii, with a
cock set on a pole as the prize.

[489] Cf. Appendix I., and Frazer, ii. 316; Jevons, _Plutarch_,
lxix. 143, on the struggle between two wards--the Sacred Way and the
Subura--for the head of the October Horse at Rome.

[490] Haddon, 270. The tug-of-war reappears in Korea and Japan as a
ceremony intended to secure a good harvest.

[491] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv. _Bandyball_, _Camp_, _Football_, _Hockey_,
_Hood_, _Hurling_, _Shinty_. These games, in which the ball is fought
for, are distinct from those already mentioned as having a ceremonial
use, in which it is amicably tossed from player to player (cf. p. 128).
If _Golf_ belongs to the present category, it is a case in which the
endeavour seems to be actually to bury the ball. It is tempting to
compare the name _Hockey_ with the _Hock-cart_ of the harvest festival,
and with _Hock-tide_; but it does not really seem to be anything but
_Hookey_. The original of both the hockey-stick and the golf-club was
probably the shepherd’s crook. Mr. Pepys tried to cast stones with a
shepherd’s crook on those very Epsom downs where the stockbroker now
foozles his tee shot.

[492] _F. L._ vii. 345; M. Shearman, _Athletics and Football_,
246; Haddon, 271; Gomme, _Vill. Comm._ 240; Ditchfield, 57, 64; W.
Fitzstephen, _Vita S. Thomae_ (†1170-82) in _Mat. for Hist. of Becket_
(R. S.), iii. 9, speaks of the ‘lusum pilae celebrem’ in London ‘die
quae dicitur Carnilevaria.’ Riley, 571, has a London proclamation of
1409 forbidding the levy of money for ‘foteballe’ and cok-thresshyng.’
At Chester the annual Shrove Tuesday football on the Roodee was
commuted for races in 1540 (_Hist. MSS._ viii. 1. 362). At Dublin there
was, in 1569, a Shrove Tuesday ‘riding’ of the ‘occupacions’ each
‘bearing balles’ (Gilbert, ii. 54).

[493] Haddon, _loc. cit._; Gomme, _loc. cit._; _Gloucester F. L._ 38.
Cf. the _conflictus_ described in ch. ix, and the classical parallels
in Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 267.

[494] _F. L._ iii. 441; Ditchfield, 85.

[495] _F. L._ vii. 330 (a very full account); viii. 72, 173;
Ditchfield, 50. There is a local aetiological myth about a lady who
lost her hood on a windy day, and instituted the contest in memory of
the event.

[496] Mrs. Gomme, s. v. _Oranges and Lemons_.

[497] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv.

[498] Dyer, 6, 481. ‘Stang’ is a word, of Scandinavian origin, for
‘pole’ or ‘stake.’ The Scandinavian _nið-stöng_ (scorn-stake) was a
horse’s head on a pole, with a written curse and a likeness of the man
to be ill-wished (Vigfusson, _Icel. Dict._ s. v. _níð_).

[499] Cf. with Mr. Barrett’s account, Northall, 253; Ditchfield, 178;
_Northern F. L._ 29; Julleville, _Les Com._ 205; also Thomas Hardy’s
_Mayor of Casterbridge_, and his _The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s_
(_Wessex Poems_, 201). The penalty is used by schoolboys (_Northern F.
L._ 29) as well as villagers.

[500] Grenier, 375; Ducange, s. v. _Charivarium_, which he defines as
‘ludus turpis tinnitibus et clamoribus variis, quibus illudunt iis,
qui ad secundas convolant nuptias.’ He refers to the statutes of Melun
cathedral (1365) in _Instrumenta Hist. Eccl. Melud._ ii. 503. Cf.
_Conc. of Langres_ (1404) ‘ludo quod dicitur Chareuari, in quo utuntur
larvis in figura daemonum, et horrenda ibidem committuntur’; _Conc.
of Angers_ (1448), c. 12 (Labbé, xiii. 1358) ‘pulsatione patellarum,
pelvium et campanarum, eorum oris et manibus sibilatione, instrumento
aeruginariorum, sive fabricantium, et aliarum rerum sonorosarum,
vociferationibus tumultuosis et aliis ludibriis et irrisionibus,
in illo damnabili actu (qui cariuarium, vulgariter _charivari_,
nuncupatur) circa domos nubentium, et in ipsorum detestationem et
opprobrium post eorum secundas nuptias fieri consuetum, &c.’

[501] Cf. ch. xvi, and Leber, ix. 148, 169; Julleville, _Les Com._ 205,
243. In 1579 a regular _jeu_ was made by the Dijon _Mère-Folle_ of the
_chevauchée_ of one M. Du Tillet. The text is preserved in _Bibl. Nat.
MS._ 24039 and analysed by M. Petit de Julleville.

[502] In Berks a draped horse’s head is carried, and the proceeding
known as a Hooset Hunt (Ditchfield, 178).

[503] Ducange, s. v. _Asini caudam in manu tenens_.

[504] Julleville, _Les Com._ 207.

[505] So on Ilchester Meads, where the proceeding is known as Mommets
or Mommicks (Barrett, 65).

[506] On Hock-tide and the Hock-play generally see Brand-Ellis, i. 107;
Strutt, 349; Sharpe, 125; Dyer, 188; S. Denne, _Memoir on Hokeday_ in
_Archaeologia_, vii. 244.

[507] Cf. Appendix H. An allusion to the play by Sir R. Morrison
(†1542) is quoted in chap. xxv.

[508] Laneham, or his informant, actually said, in error, 1012. On the
historical event see Ramsay, i. 353.

[509] There were performers both on horse and on foot. Probably
hobby-horses were used, for Jonson brings in Captain Cox ‘in his
Hobby-horse,’ which was ‘foaled in Queen Elizabeth’s time’ in the
_Masque of Owls_ (ed. Cunningham, iii. 188).

[510] Cf. _Representations_, s. v. Coventry.

[511] Rossius, _Hist. Regum Angliae_ (ed. Hearne, 1716), 105 ‘in cuius
signum usque hodie illa die vulgariter dicta Hox Tuisday ludunt in
villis trahendo cordas partialiter cum aliis iocis.’ Rous, who died
1491, is speaking of the death of Hardicanute. On the event see Ramsay,
i. 434. Possibly both events were celebrated in the sixteenth century
at Coventry. Two of the three plays proposed for municipal performance
in 1591 were the ‘Conquest of the Danes’ and the ‘History of Edward the
Confessor.’ These were to be upon the ‘pagens,’ and probably they were
more regular dramas than the performance witnessed by Elizabeth in 1575
(_Representations_, s. v. Coventry).

[512] Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), v. 298 ‘uno certo die heu
usitato (_forsan_ Hoc vocitato) hoc solempni festo paschatis transacto,
mulieres homines, alioque die homines mulieres ligare, ac cetera media
utinam non inhonesta vel deteriora facere moliantur et exercere, lucrum
ecclesiae fingentes, set dampnum animae sub fucato colore lucrantes,
&c.’ Riley, 561, 571, gives London proclamations against ‘hokkyng’ of
1405 and 1409.

[513] Brand-Ellis, i. 113; Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 229; C.
Kerry, _Accts. of St. Lawrence, Reading_; Hobhouse, 232; _N. E. D._ s.
vv. _Hock_, &c.

[514] Owen and Blakeway, _Hist. of Shrewsbury_, i. 559.

[515] Dyer, 191; Ditchfield, 90.

[516] _N. E. D._ s. v. _Hock-day_.

[517] Brand-Ellis, i. 106.

[518] Ibid. i. 109.

[519] Ducange, s. v. _Prisio_; Barthélemy, iv. 463. On Innocents’ Day,
the customs of taking in bed and whipping were united (cf. ch. xii).

[520] _Northern F. L._ 84; Brand-Ellis, i. 94, 96; Vaux, 242;
Ditchfield, 80; Dyer, 133.

[521] Brand-Ellis, i. 106; Owen and Blakeway, i. 559; Dyer, 173;
Ditchfield, 90; Burne-Jackson, 336; _Northern F. L._ 84; Vaux, 242. A
dignified H. M. I. is said to have made his first official visit to
Warrington on Easter Monday, and to have suffered accordingly. Miss
Burne describes sprinkling as an element in Shropshire heaving.

[522] Belethus, c. 120 ‘notandum quoque est in plerisque regionibus
secundo die post Pascha mulieres maritos suos verberare ac vicissim
viros eas tertio die.’ The spiritually minded Belethus explains the
custom as a warning to keep from carnal intercourse.

[523] Dyer, 79; Ditchfield, 83.

[524] Brand-Ellis, i. 114; Ditchfield, 252. Mr. W. Crooke has just
studied this and analogous customs in _The Lifting of the Bride_ (_F.
L._ xiii. 226).

[525] _Suffolk F. L._ 69; _F. L._ v. 167. The use of _largess_, a
Norman-French word (_largitio_), is curious. It is also used for the
subscriptions to Lancashire gyst-ales (Dyer, 182).

[526] Ditchfield, 155.

[527] Frazer, ii. 233; Pfannenschmidt, 93.

[528] Haddon, 335; Grosse, 167; Herbert Spencer in _Contemp. Review_
(1895), 114; Groos, _Play of Man_, 88, 354. Evidence for the wide use
of the dance at savage festivals is given by Wallaschek, 163, 187.

[529] Grimm, i. 39; Pearson, ii. 133; Müllenhoff, _Germania_, ch. 24,
and _de antiq. Germ. poesi chorica_, 4; Kögel, i. 1. 8. The primitive
word form should have been _laikaz_, whence Gothic _laiks_, O. N.
_leikr_, O. H. G. _leih_, A.-S. _lâc_. The word has, says Müllenhoff,
all the senses ‘_Spiel, Tanz, Gesang, Opfer, Aufzug_.’ From the same
root come probably _ludus_, and possibly, through the Celtic, the O. F.
_lai_. The A.-S. _lâc_ is glossed _ludus_, _sacrificium_, _victima_,
_munus_. It occurs in the compounds _ecga-gelâc_ and _sveorða-gelâc_,
both meaning ‘sword-dance,’ _sige-lâc_, ‘victory-dance,’ _as-lâc_,
‘god-dance,’ _wine-lâc_, ‘love-dance’ (cf. p. 170), &c. An A.-S.
synonym for _lâc_ is _plega_, ‘play,’ which gives _sweord-plega_ and
_ecg-plega_. _Spil_ is not A.-S. and _spilian_ is a loan-word from O.
H. G.

[530] Gummere, _B. P._ 328; Kögel, i. 1. 6.

[531] S. Ambrose, _de Elia et Ieiunio_, c. 18 (_P. L._ xiv. 720),
_de Poenitentia_, ii. 6 (_P. L._ xvi. 508); S. Augustine, _contra
Parmenianum_, iii. 6 (_P. L._ xliii. 107); S. Chrysostom, _Hom._ 47 _in
Iulian. mart._ p. 613; _Hom._ 23 _de Novilun._ p. 264; _C. of Laodicea_
(†366), c. 53 (Mansi, ii. 571). Cf. _D. C. A._ s. v. Dancing, and ch.
i. Barthélemy, ii. 438, and other writers have some rather doubtful
theories as to liturgical dancing in early Christian worship; cf.
Julian. _Dict. of Hymn._ 206.

[532] Du Méril, _Com._ 67; Pearson, ii. 17, 281; Gröber, ii. 1. 444;
Kögel, i. 1. 25; _Indiculus Superstitionum_ (ed. Saupe), 10 ‘de
sacrilegiis per ecclesias.’ Amongst the prohibitions are Caesarius of
Arles (†542), _Sermo_ xiii. (_P. L._ xxxix. 2325) ‘quam multi rustici
et quam multae mulieres rusticanae cantica diabolica, amatoria et
turpia memoriter retinent et ore decantant’; _Const. Childeberti_
(c. 554) _de abol. relig. idololatriae_ (Mansi, ix. 738) ‘noctes
pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis, etiam in ipsis
sacris diebus, pascha, natale Domini, et reliquis festivitatibus, vel
adveniente die Dominico dansatrices per villas ambulare ... nullatenus
fieri permittimus’; _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 9 (Maassen, i.
180) ‘non licet in ecclesia choros secularium vel puellarum cantica
exercere nec convivia in ecclesia praeparare’; _C. of Chalons_
(639-54), c. 19 (Maassen, i. 212) ‘Valde omnibus noscetur esse
decretum, ne per dedicationes basilicarum aut festivitates martyrum
ad ipsa solemnia confluentes obscoena et turpia cantica, dum orare
debent aut clericos psallentes audire, cum choris foemineis, turpia
quidem decantare videantur. unde convenit, ut sacerdotes loci illos
a septa basilicarum vel porticus ipsarum basilicarum etiam et ab
ipsis atriis vetare debeant et arcere.’ _Sermo Eligii_ (Grimm, iv.
1737) ‘nullus in festivitate S. Ioannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum
solemnitatibus solstitia aut vallationes vel saltationes aut caraulas
aut cantica diabolica exerceat’; _Iudicium Clementis_ (†693), c.
20 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 226) ‘si quis in quacunque festivitate ad
ecclesiam veniens pallat foris, aut saltat, aut cantat orationes
amatorias ... excommunicetur’ (apparently a fragment of a penitential
composed by Clement or Willibrord, an A.-S. missionary to Frisia,
on whom see Bede, _H. E._ v. 9, and the only dance prohibition of
possible A.-S. _provenance_ of which I know); _Statuta Salisburensia_
(Salzburg: †800; Boretius, i. 229) ‘Ut omnis populus ... absque
inlecebroso canticu et lusu saeculari cum laetaniis procedant’; _C. of
Mainz_ (813), c. 48 (Mansi, xiv. 74) ‘canticum turpe atque luxuriosum
circa ecclesias agere omnino contradicimus’; _C. of Rome_ (826), c.
35 (Mansi, xiv. 1008) ‘sunt quidam, et maxime mulieres, qui festis ac
sacris diebus atque sanctorum natalitiis non pro eorum quibus debent
delectantur desideriis advenire, sed ballando, verba turpia decantando,
choros tenendo ac ducendo, similitudinem paganorum peragendo, advenire
procurant’; cf. _Dicta abbatis Pirminii_ (Caspari, _Kirchenhistorische
Anecdota_, 188); _Penitentiale pseudo-Theodorianum_ (Wasserschleben,
607); _Leonis IV Homilia_ (847, Mansi, xiv. 895); Benedictus Levita,
_Capitularia_ (†850), vi. 96 (_M. G. H. Script._ iv. 2); and for Spain,
_C. of Toledo_ (589), c. 23 (Mansi, ix. 999), and the undated _C. of
Braga_, c. 80 (quoted on p. 144). Cf. also the denunciations of the
_Kalends_ (ch. xi and Appendix N). Nearly four centuries after the
_C. of Rome_ we find the _C. of Avignon_ (1209), c. 17 (Mansi, xxii.
791) ‘statuimus, ut in sanctorum vigiliis in ecclesiis historicae
saltationes, obscoeni motus, seu choreae non fiant, nec dicantur
amatoria carmina, vel cantilenae ibidem....’ Still later the _C. of
Bayeux_ (1300), c. 31 (Mansi, xxv. 66) ‘ut dicit Augustinus, melius
est festivis diebus fodere vel arare, quam choreas ducere’; and so
on _ad infinitum_. The pseudo-Augustine _Sermo_, 265, _de Christiano
nomine cum operibus non Christianis_ (_P. L._ xxxix. 2237), which is
possibly by Caesarius of Arles, asserts explicitly the pagan character
of the custom: ‘isti enim infelices et miseri homines, qui balationes
et saltationes ante ipsas basilicas sanctorum exercere non metuunt nec
erubescunt, etsi Christiani ad ecclesiam venerint, pagani de ecclesia
revertuntur; quia ista consuetudo balandi de paganorum observatione
remansit.’ A mediaeval preacher (quoted by A. Lecoy de la Marche,
_Chaire française au Moyen Âge_, 447, from _B. N. Lat. MS._ 17509, f.
146) declares, ‘chorea enim circulus est cuius centrum est diabolus, et
omnes vergunt ad sinistrum.’

[533] Tille, _D. W._ 301; G. Raynaud, in _Études dédiées à Gaston
Paris_, 53; E. Schröder, _Die Tänzer von Kölbigk_, in _Z. f.
Kirchengeschichte_, xvii. 94; G. Paris, in _Journal des Savants_
(1899), 733.

[534] H. E. Reynolds, _Wells Cathedral_, 85 ‘cum ex choreis ludis et
spectaculis et lapidum proiectionibus in praefata ecclesia et eius
cemeteriis ac claustro dissentiones sanguinis effusiones et violentiae
saepius oriantur et in hiis dicta Wellensis ecclesia multa dispendia
patiatur.’

[535] Menestrier, _Des Ballets anciens et modernes_ (1863), 4; on
other French church dances, cf. Du Tilliot, 21; Barthélemy, iv. 447;
Leber, ix. 420. The most famous are the _pilota_ of Auxerre, which
was accompanied with ball-play (cf. ch. vi) and the _bergeretta_ of
Besançon. Julian, _Dict. of Hymn._ 206, gives some English examples.

[536] Grove, 106. A full account of the ceremony at the feast of the
Conception in 1901 is given in the _Church Times_ for Jan. 17, 1902.

[537] Grove, 103; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 430; _Mélusine_ (1879), 39;
_N. and Q._ for May 17, 1890. The dance is headed by the clergy, and
proceeds to a traditional tune from the banks of the Sûre to the
church, up sixty-two steps, along the north aisle, round the altar
_deasil_, and down the south aisle. It is curious that until the
seventeenth century only _men_ took part in it. St. Willibrord is
famous for curing nervous diseases, and the pilgrimage is done by way
of vow for such cures. The local legend asserts that the ceremony had
its origin in an eighth-century cattle-plague, which ceased through an
invocation of St. Willibrord: it is a little hard on the saint, whose
prohibition of dances at the church-door has just been quoted.

[538] Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 409. A similarly named saint, St. Martial,
was formerly honoured in the same way. Every psalm on his day ended,
not with the _Gloria Patri_, but with a dance, and the chant,
‘Saint-Marceau, pregas per nous, et nous epingaren per vous’ (Du Méril,
_La Com._ 68).

[539] Cf. p. 26. There were ‘madinnis that dansit’ before James IV of
Scotland at Forres, Elgin and Dernway in 1504, but nothing is said of
songs (_L. H. T. Accounts_, ii. 463).

[540] _Carm. Bur._ 191:

‘ludunt super gramina virgines decorae
quarum nova carmina dulci sonant ore.’

_Ibid._ 195:

‘ecce florescunt lilia,
et virginum dant agmina
summo deorum carmina.’

[541] W. Fitzstephen, _Descriptio Londin_. (_Mat. for Hist. of Becket_,
R. S. iii. 11) ‘puellarum Cytherea ducit choros usque imminente luna,
et pede libero pulsatur tellus.’

[542] Jeanroy, 102, 387; Guy, 504; Paris, _Journal des Savants_ (1892),
407. M. Paris points out that dances, other than professional, first
appear in the West after the fall of the Empire. The French terms for
dancing--_baller_, _danser_, _treschier_, _caroler_--are not Latin.
Caroler, however, he thinks to be the Greek χοραυλεῖν, ‘to accompany a
dance with a flute.’ But the French _carole_ was always accompanied,
not with a flute, but with a sung _chanson_.

[543] Paris, _loc. cit._ 410; Jeanroy, 391. In Wace’s description of
Arthur’s wedding, the women _carolent_ and the men _behourdent_. Cf.
Bartsch, _Romanzen und Pastourellen_, i. 13:

‘Cez damoiseles i vont por caroler,
cil escuier i vont por behorder,
cil chevalier i vont por esgarder.’

[544] On the return of Edward II and Isabella of France in 1308, the
mayor and other dignitaries of London went ‘coram rege et regina
karolantes’ (_Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II_, R. S. i. 152). On
the birth of Prince Edward in 1312, they ‘menerent la karole’ in church
and street (Riley, 107).

[545] Kögel, i. 1. 6.

[546] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 228; Haddon, 345.

[547] Cf. ch. vi on the motion _deasil_ round the sacred object. It is
curious that the modern round dances go _withershins_ round a room.
Grimm, i. 52, quotes Gregory the Great, _Dial._ iii. 28 on a Lombard
sacrifice, ‘caput caprae, hoc ei, per circuitum currentes, carmine
nefando dedicantes.’

[548] At Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts (which preserves its Anglo-Saxon
church), and at South Petherton, Somerset, in both cases on Shrove
Tuesday (Mrs. Gomme, ii. 230); cf. Vaux, 18. The church at Painswick,
Gloucester, is danced round on wake-day (_F. L._ viii. 392). There
is a group of games, in which the players wind and unwind in spirals
round a centre. Such are _Eller Tree_, _Wind up the Bush Faggot_, and
_Bulliheisle_. These Mrs. Gomme regards as survivals of the ritual
dance round a sacred tree. Some obscure references in the rhymes used
to ‘dumplings’ and ‘a bundle of rags’ perhaps connect themselves with
the cereal cake and the rags hung on the tree for luck. In Cornwall
such a game is played under the name of ‘Snail’s Creep’ at certain
village feasts in June, and directed by young men with leafy branches.

[549] Du Méril, _La Com._ 72; Haddon, 346; Grove, 50, 81; Haigh, 14; N.
W. Thomas, _La Danse totémique en Europe_, in _Actes d. Cong. intern.
d. Trad. pop._ (1900).

[550] Plot, _Hist. of Staffs._ (1686); _F. L._ iv. 172; vii. 382 (with
cuts of properties); Ditchfield, 139.

[551] The O. H. G. _hîleih_, originally meaning ‘sex-dance,’ comes to
be ‘wedding.’ The root _hi_, like _wini_ (cf. p. 170), has a sexual
connotation (Pearson, ii. 132; Kögel, i. 1. 10).

[552] Coussemaker, _Chants populaires des Flamands de France_, 100:

‘In den hemel is eenen dans:
Alleluia.
Daer dansen all’ de maegdekens:
Benedicamus Domino,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
‘t is voor Amelia:
Alleluia.
Wy dansen naer de maegdekens:
Benedicamus, etc.’

[553] Frazer, i. 35; Dyer, 7; Northall, 233. A Lancashire song is sung
‘to draw you these cold winters away,’ and wishes ‘peace and plenty’ to
the household. A favourite French May _chanson_ is

‘Étrennez notre épousée,
Voici le mois,
Le joli mois de Mai,
Étrennez notre épousée
En bonne étrenne.
Voici le mois,
Le joli mois de Mai,
Qu’on vous amène.’

If the _quêteurs_ come on a churl, they have an ill-wishing variant.
The following is characteristic of the French peasantry:

‘J’vous souhaitons autant d’enfants,
Qu’y a des pierrettes dans les champs.’

Often more practical tokens of revenge are shown. The Plough Monday
‘bullocks’ in some places consider themselves licensed to plough up the
ground before a house where they have been rebuffed.’

[554] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 1, 399; Haddon, 343; Du Méril, _La Com._ 81.
Amongst the _jeux_ of the young Gargantua (Rabelais, i. 22) was one ‘à
semer l’avoyne et au laboureur.’ This probably resembled the games of
_Oats and Beans and Barley_, and _Would you know how doth the Peasant?_
which exist in English, French, Catalonian, and Italian versions. On
the mimetic character of these games, cf. ch. viii.

[555] Text from _Harl. MS._ 978 in H. E. Wooldridge, _Oxford Hist.
of Music_, i. 326, with full account. The music, to which religious
as well as the secular words are attached, is technically known as a
_rota_ or _rondel_. It is of the nature of polyphonic part-song, and of
course more advanced than the typical mediaeval _rondet_ can have been.

[556] On these songs in general, see Northall, 233;
Martinengo-Cesaresco, 249; Cortet, 153; Tiersot, 191; Jeanroy, 88;
Paris, _J. des Savants_ (1891), 685, (1892), 155, 407.

[557] H. A. Wilson, _Hist. of Magd. Coll._ (1899), 50. Mr. Wilson
discredits the tradition that the performance began as a mass for the
obit of Henry VII. The hymn is printed in Dyer, 259; Ditchfield, 96.
It has no relation to the summer festival, having been written in
the seventeenth century by Thomas Smith and set by Benjamin Rogers
as a grace. In other cases hymns have been attached to the village
festivals. At Tissington the well-dressing,’ on Ascension Day includes
a clerical procession in which ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘A Living Stream’ are
sung (Ditchfield, 187). A special ‘Rushbearers’ Hymn’ was written for
the Grasmere Rushbearing in 1835, and a hymn for St. Oswald has been
recently added (E. G. Fletcher, _The Rushbearing_, 13, 74).

[558] Dyer, 240, from Hertfordshire. There are many other versions; cf.
Northall, 240.

[559] Kögel, i. 1. 32.

[560] Pertz, _Leges_, i. 68 ‘nullatenus ibi uuinileodos scribere vel
mittere praesumat.’ Kögel, i. 1. 61: Goedeke, i. 11, quote other uses
of the term from eighth-century glosses, e.g. ‘_uuiniliod_, cantilenas
saeculares, psalmos vulgares, seculares, plebeios psalmos, cantica
rustica et inepta.’ _Winiliod_ is literally ‘love-song,’ from root
_wini_ (conn. with _Venus_). Kögel traces an earlier term O. H. G.
_winileih_, A.-S. _winelâc_ = _hîleih_. On the erotic motive in savage
dances, cf. Grosse, 165, 172; Hirn, 229.

[561] _Romania_, vii. 61; _Trad. Pop._ i. 98. Mr. Swinburne has adapted
the idea of this poem in _A Match_ (_Poems and Ballads_, 1st Series,
116).

[562] _Romania_, ix. 568.

[563] K. Bartsch, _Chrest. Prov._ 111. A similar _chanson_ is in G.
Raynaud, _Motets_, i. 151, and another is described in the _roman_ of
_Flamenca_ (ed. P. Meyer), 3244. It ends

‘E, si parla, qu’il li responda:
Nom sones mot, faitz vos en lai,
Qu’entre mos bracs mos amics j’ai.
Kalenda maia. E vai s’ en.’

[564] _Trimousette_, from _trî mâ câ_, an unexplained burden in some of
the French _maierolles_.

[565] Guy, 503.

[566] Tiersot, _Robin et Marion_; Guy, 506. See the refrain in Bartsch,
197, 295; Raynaud, _Rec. de Motets_, i. 227.

[567] Langlois, _Robin et Marion: Romania_, xxiv. 437; H. Guy, _Adan
de la Hale_, 177; J. Tiersot, _Sur le Jeu de Robin et Marion_ (1897);
Petit de Julleville, _La Comédie_, 27; _Rep. Com._ 21, 324. A _jeu_ of
_Robin et Marion_ is recorded also as played at Angers in 1392, but
there is no proof that this was Adan de la Hale’s play, or a drama at
all. There were folk going ‘desguiziez, à un jeu que l’en dit Robin et
Marion, ainsi qu’il est accoutumé de fere, chacun an, en les foiries
de Penthecouste’ (Guy, 197). The best editions of _Robin et Marion_
are those by E. Langlois (1896), and by Bartsch in _La Langue et la
Littérature françaises_ (1887), col. 523. E. de Coussemaker, _Œuvres
de Adam de la Halle_ (1872), 347, gives the music, and A. Rambeau,
_Die dem Trouvère Adam de la Halle zugeschriebenen Dramen_ (1886),
facsimiles the text. On Adan de la Hale’s earlier _sottie_ of _La
Feuillée_, see ch. xvi.

[568] Thomas Wright, _Lyrical Poems of the Reign of Edward I_ (Percy
Soc.).

[569] Cf. ch. xvii.

[570] The May-game is probably intended by the ‘Whitsun pastorals’
of _Winter’s Tale_, iv. 4. 134, and the ‘pageants of delight’ at
Pentecost, where a boy ‘trimmed in Madam Julias gown’ played ‘the
woman’s part’ (i. e. Maid Marian) of _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, iv. 4.
163. Cf. also W. Warner, _Albion’s England_, v. 25:

‘At Paske began our Morrise, and ere Penticost our May.’

[571] _Flores Historiarum_ (R. S.), iii. 130 ‘aestimo quod rex
aestivalis sis; forsitan hyemalis non eris.’

[572] Cf. Appendix E.

[573] ‘King-play’ at Reading (_Reading St. Giles Accounts_ in
Brand-Hazlitt, i. 157; Kerry, _Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 226).

[574] ‘King’s revel’ at Croscombe, Somerset (_Churchwardens’ Accounts_
in Hobhouse, 3).

[575] ‘King’s game’ at Leicester (Kelly, 68) and ‘King-game’ at
Kingston (Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 225). On the other hand
the King-game in church at Hascombe in 1578 (_Representations_, s. v.
Hascombe), was probably a miracle-play of the Magi or Three Kings of
Cologne. This belongs to Twelfth night (cf. ch. xix), but curiously the
accounts of St. Lawrence, Reading, contain a payment for the ‘Kyngs of
Colen’ on _May day_, 1498 (Kerry, _loc. cit._).

[576] Cf. ch. xvii. Local ‘lords of misrule’ in the _summer_ occur
at Montacute in 1447-8 (Hobhouse, 183 ‘in expensis Regis de Montagu
apud Tyntenhull existentis tempore aestivali’), at Meriden in 1565
(Sharpe, 209), at Melton Mowbray in 1558 (Kelly, 65), at Tombland, near
Norwich (_Norfolk Archaeology_, iii. 7; xi. 345), at Broseley, near
Much Wenlock, as late as 1652 (Burne-Jackson, 480). See the attack on
them in Stubbes, i. 146. The term ‘lord of misrule’ seems to have been
borrowed from Christmas (ch. xvii). It does not appear whether the
lords of misrule of Old Romney in 1525 (_Archaeologia Cantiana_, xiii.
216) and Braintree in 1531 (Pearson, ii. 413) were in winter or summer.

[577] Owen and Blakeway, i. 331; Jackson and Burne, 480 (cf. Appendix
E). Miss Burne suggests several possible derivations of the name; from
_mar_ ‘make mischief,’ from Mardoll or Marwell (St. Mary’s Well),
streets in Shrewsbury, or from Muryvale or Meryvalle, a local hamlet.
But the form ‘Mayvoll’ seems to point to ‘Maypole.’

[578] _Representations_, s. v. Aberdeen. Here the lord of the summer
feast seems to have acted also as presenter of the Corpus Christi plays.

[579] Cf. ch. xvii.

[580] Batman, _Golden Books of the Leaden Gods_ (1577), f. 30. The Pope
is said to be carried on the backs of four deacons, ‘after the maner of
carying whytepot queenes in Western May games.’ A ‘whitepot’ is a kind
of custard.

[581] Such phrases occur as ‘the May-play called Robyn Hod’ (Kerry,
_Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 226, s. a. 1502), ‘Robin Hood and
May game’ and Kynggam and Robyn Hode’ (_Kingston Accounts_, 1505-36,
in Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 225). The accounts of St. Helen’s,
Abingdon, in 1566, have an entry ‘for setting up Robin Hood’s bower’
(Brand-Hazlitt, i. 144). It is noticeable that from 1553 Robin Hood
succeeds the Abbot of Mayvole in the May-game at Shrewsbury (Appendix
E). Similarly, in an Aberdeen order of 1508 we find ‘Robert Huyid
and Litile Johne, quhilk was callit, in yers bipast, Abbat and Prior
of Bonacord’ (_Representations_, s. v. Aberdeen). Robin Hood seems,
therefore, to have come rather late into the May-games, but to have
enjoyed a widening popularity.

[582] The material for the study of the Robin Hood legend is gathered
together by S. Lee in _D. N. B._ s. v. Hood; Child, _Popular Ballads_,
v. 39; Ritson, _Robin Hood_ (1832); J. M. Gutch, _Robin Hood_ (1847).
Prof. Child gives a critical edition of all the ballads.

[583] _Piers Plowman_, B-text, passus v. 401.

[584] Fabian, _Chronicle_, 687, records in 1502 the capture of ‘a
felowe whych hadde renewed many of Robin Hode’s pagentes, which named
himselfe Greneleef.’

[585] Cf. p. 177.

[586] Kühn, in Haupt’s _Zeitschrift_, v. 481.

[587] Ramsay, _F. E._ i. 168.

[588] In the Nottingham _Hall-books (Hist. MSS._ i. 105), the same
locality seems to be described in 1548 as ‘Robyn Wood’s Well,’ and in
1597 as ‘Robyn Hood’s Well.’ Robin Hood is traditionally clad in green.
If he is mythological at all, may he not be a form of the ‘wild-man’
or ‘wood-woz’ of certain spring dramatic ceremonies, and the ‘Green
Knight’ of romance? Cf. ch. ix.

[589] The earliest mention of her is (†1500) in A. Barclay, _Eclogue_,
5, ‘some may fit of Maide Marian or else of Robin Hood.’

[590] _Hist. MSS._ i. 107, from _Convocation Book_, ‘pecuniae ecclesiae
ac communitatis Welliae ... videlicet, provenientes ante hoc tempus
de Robynhode, puellis tripudiantibus, communi cervisia ecclesiae, et
huiusmodi.’

[591] The accounts of Croscombe, Somerset, contain yearly entries of
receipts from ‘Roben Hod’s recones’ from 1476 to 1510, and again in
1525 (Hobhouse, 1 sqq.). At Melton Mowbray the amount raised by the
‘lord’ was set aside for mending the highways (Kelly, 65).

[592] Lysons, _Environs_, i. 225. Mention is made of ‘Robin Hood,’ ‘the
Lady,’ ‘Maid Marion,’ ‘Little John,’ ‘the Frere,’ ‘the Fool,’ ‘the
Dysard,’ ‘the Morris-dance.’

[593] _Archaeologia Cantiana_, xiii. 216.

[594] C. Kerry, _History of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 226. ‘Made Maryon,’
‘the tree’ and ‘the morris-dance,’ are mentioned.

[595] _L. H. T. Accounts_, ii. 377.

[596] Stowe, _Survey_ (1598), 38. He is speaking mainly of the period
before 1517, when there was a riot on ‘Black’ May-day, and afterwards
the May-games were not ‘so freely used as before.’

[597] Appendix E (vi).

[598] Cf. _Representations_.

[599] Bower (†1437), _Scotichronicon_ (ed. Hearne), iii. 774 ‘ille
famosissimus sicarius Robertus Hode et Litill-Iohanne cum eorum
complicibus, de quibus stolidum vulgus hianter in comoediis et
tragoediis prurienter festum faciunt, et, prae ceteris romanciis, mimos
et bardanos cantitare delectantur.’ On the ambiguity of ‘comoediae’ and
‘tragoediae’ in the fifteenth century, cf. ch. xxv.

[600] Gairdner, _Paston Letters_, iii. 89; Child, v. 90; ‘W. Woode,
whyche promysed ... he wold never goo ffro me, and ther uppon I have
kepyd hym thys iij yer to pleye Seynt Jorge and Robyn Hod and the
Shryff off Nottyngham, and now, when I wolde have good horse, he is
goon into Bernysdale, and I withowt a keeper.’ The _Northumberland
Household Book_, 60, makes provision for ‘liveries for Robin Hood’ in
the Earl’s household.

[601] Printed by Child, v. 90; Manly, i. 279. The MS. of the fragment
probably dates before 1475.

[602] Printed by Child, v. 114, 127; Manly, i. 281, 285. They were
originally printed as one play by Copland (†1550).

[603] Printed in Dodsley-Hazlitt, vol. viii. These plays were written
for Henslowe about February 1598. In November Chettle ‘mended Roben
hood for the corte’ (_Henslowe’s Diary_, 118-20, 139). At Christmas
1600, Henslowe had another play of ‘Roben hoodes penerths’ by William
Haughton (_Diary_, 174-5). An earlier ‘pastoral pleasant comedie of
Robin Hood and Little John’ was entered on the Stationers’ Registers
on May 18, 1594. These two are lost, as is _The May Lord_ which Jonson
wrote (_Conversations with Drummond_, 27). Robin Hood also appears in
Peele’s _Edward I_ (†1590), and the anonymous _Look About You_ (1600),
and is the hero of Greene’s _George a Greene the Pinner of Wakefield_
(†1593). Anthony Munday introduced him again into his pageant of
_Metropolis Coronata_ (1615), and a comedy of _Robin Hood and his
Crew of Soldiers_, acted at Nottingham on the day of the coronation
of Charles II, was published in 1661. On all these plays, cf. F. E.
Schelling, _The English Chronicle Play_, 156.

[604] Furnivall, _Robert Laneham’s Letter_, clxiii. Chaucer, _Rom. of
Rose_, 7455, has ‘the daunce Joly Robin,’ but this is from his French
original ‘li biaus Robins.’

[605] Cf. p. 176.

[606] Dyer, 278; Drake, 86; Brand-Ellis, i. 157; Cutts, _Parish
Priests_, 317; _Archaeologia_, xii. 11; Stubbes, i. 150; _F. L._ x.
350. At an ‘ale’ a cask of home-brewed was broached for sale in the
church or church-house, and the profits went to some public object; at
a church-ale to the parish, at a clerk-ale to the clerk, at a bride-ale
or bridal to the bride, at a bid-ale to some poor man in trouble. A
love-ale was probably merely social.

[607] At Reading in 1557 (C. Kerry, _Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading_,
226).

[608] At Tintinhull in 1513 (Hobhouse, 200, ‘Robine Hood’s All’).

[609] Brand-Ellis, i. 157; Dyer, 278. A carving on the church of St.
John’s, Chichester, represents a Whitsun-ale, with a ‘lord’ and ‘lady.’

[610] Cf. p. 141.

[611] At Ashton-under-Lyne, from 1422 to a recent date (Dyer, 181).
‘Gyst’ appears to be either ‘gist’ (_gîte_) ‘right of pasturage’ or a
corruption of ‘guising’; cf. ch. xvii.

[612] Cf. p. 91. On _Scot-ale_, cf. Ducange, s. v. Scotallum;
_Archaeologia_, xii. 11; H. T. Riley, _Munimenta Gildhallae Londin_.
(R. S.), ii. 760. The term first appears as the name of a tax, as
in a Northampton charter of 1189 (Markham-Cox, _Northampton Borough
Records_, i. 26) ‘concessimus quod sint quieti de ... Brudtol et
de Childwite et de hieresgiue et de Scottale, ita quod Prepositus
Northamptonie ut aliquis alius Ballivus scottale non faciat’; cf. the
thirteenth-century examples quoted by Ducange. The _Council of Lambeth_
(1206), c. 2, clearly defines the term as ‘communes potationes,’ and
the primary sense is therefore probably that of an _ale_ at which a
_scot_ or tax is raised.

[613] Malory, _Morte d’ Arthur_, xix. 1. 2.

[614] Hall, 515, 520, 582; Brewer, _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII_,
ii. 1504. In 1510, Henry and his courtiers visited the queen’s chamber
in the guise of Robin Hood and his men on the inappropriate date of
January 18. In Scotland, about the same time, Dunbar wrote a ‘cry’ for
a maying with Robin Hood; cf. _Texts_, s. v. Dunbar.

[615] Latimer, _Sermon vi before Edw. VI_ (1549, ed. Arber, 173).
Perhaps the town was Melton Mowbray, where Robin Hood was very popular,
and where Latimer is shown by the churchwardens’ accounts to have
preached several years later in 1553 (Kelly, 67).

[616] Machyn, 20.

[617] Ibid. 89, 137, 196, 201, 283, 373. In 1559, e.g. ‘the xxiiij of
June ther was a May-game ... and Sant John Sacerys, with a gyant, and
drumes and gunes [and the] ix wordes (worthies), with spechys, and a
goodly pagant with a quen ... and dyvers odur, with spechys; and then
Sant Gorge and the dragon, the mores dansse, and after Robyn Hode and
lytyll John, and M[aid Marian] and frere Tuke, and they had spechys
round a-bout London.’

[618] ‘Mr. Tomkys publicke prechar’ in Shrewsbury induced the bailiffs
to ‘reform’ May-poles in 1588, and in 1591 some apprentices were
committed for disobeying the order. A judicial decision was, however,
given in favour of the ‘tree’ (Burne-Jackson, 358; Hibbert, _English
Craft-Gilds_, 121). In London the Cornhill May-pole, which gave its
name to St. Andrew Undershaft, was destroyed by persuasion of a
preacher as early as 1549 (Dyer, 248); cf. also Stubbes, i. 306, and
Morrison’s advice to Henry VIII quoted in ch. xxv.

[619] Archbishop Grindal’s _Visitation Articles_ of 1576 (_Remains_,
Parker Soc. 175), ‘whether the minister and churchwardens have
suffered any lords of misrule or summer lords or ladies, or any
disguised persons, or others, in Christmas or at May-games, or any
morris-dancers, or at any other times, to come unreverently into the
church or churchyard, and there to dance, or play any unseemly parts,
with scoffs, jests, wanton gestures, or ribald talk, namely in the
time of Common Prayer.’ Similarly worded _Injunctions_ for Norwich
(1569), York (1571), Lichfield (1584), London (1601) and Oxford (1619)
are quoted in the _Second Report_ of the Ritual Commission; cf.
the eighty-eighth _Canon_ of 1604. It is true that the _Visitation
Articles_ for St. Mary’s, Shrewsbury, in 1584 inquire more generally
‘whether there have been any lords of mysrule, or somer lords or
ladies, or any disguised persons, as morice dancers, maskers, or
mum’ers, or such lyke, within the parishe, ether in the nativititide
or in som’er, or at any other tyme, and what be their names’; but this
church was a ‘peculiar’ and its ‘official’ the Puritan Tomkys mentioned
in the last note (Owen and Blakeway, i. 333; Burne-Jackson, 481).

[620] Stafford, 16.

[621] Stubbes, i. 146; cf. the further quotations and references there
given in the notes.

[622] 6 _Mary_, cap. 61.

[623] Child, v. 45; cf. _Representations_, s.v. Aberdeen, on the
breaches of the statute there in 1562 and 1565.

[624] Dyer, 228; Drake, 85. At Cerne Abbas, Dorset, the May-pole was
cut down in 1635 and made into a town ladder (_F. L._ x. 481).

[625] Grimm, ii. 784; _Kleinere Schriften_, v. 281; Pearson, ii. 281.

[626] Frazer, ii. 82; Grant Allen, 293, 315; Grimm, ii. 764; Pearson,
ii. 283.

[627] Frazer, ii. 86; Martinengo-Cesaresco, 267. Cf. the use of
the bladder of blood in the St. Thomas procession at Canterbury
(_Representations_, s. v.).

[628] Frazer, iii. 70. Amongst such customs are the expulsion of
Satan on New Year’s day by the Finns, the expulsion of Kore at Easter
in Albania, the expulsion of witches on March 1 in Calabria, and on
May 1 in the Tyrol, the frightening of the wood-sprites Strudeli and
Strätteli on Twelfth night at Brunnen in Switzerland. Such ceremonies
are often accompanied with a horrible noise of horns, cleavers and
the like. Horns are also used at Oxford (Dyer, 261) and elsewhere on
May 1, and I have heard it said that the object of the Oxford custom
is to drive away evil spirits. Similar discords are _de rigueur_ at
Skimmington Ridings. I very much doubt whether they are anything but a
degenerate survival of a barbaric type of music.

[629] Frazer, iii. 121.

[630] Tylor, _Anthropology_, 382.

[631] Caspari, 10 ‘qui in mense februario hibernum credit
expellere ... non christianus, sed gentilis est.’

[632] Frazer, ii. 91.

[633] Frazer, ii. 60.

[634] Sometimes the _Pfingstl_ is called a ‘wild man.’ Two ‘myghty
woordwossys [cf. p. 392] or wyld men’ appeared in a revel at the court
of Henry VIII in 1513 (_Revels Account_ in Brewer, ii. 1499), and
similar figures are not uncommon in the sixteenth-century masques and
entertainments.

[635] Frazer, ii. 62.

[636] Ibid. ii. 61, 82; E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche
aus Schwaben_, 374, 409.

[637] _Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knyghte_ (ed. Madden, Bannatyne Club,
1839); cf. J. L. Weston, _The Legend of Sir Gawain_, 85. Arthur was
keeping New Year’s Day, when a knight dressed in green, with a green
beard, riding a green horse, and bearing a holly bough, and an axe of
green steel, entered the hall. He challenged any man of the Round Table
to deal him a buffet with the axe on condition of receiving one in
return after the lapse of a year. Sir Gawain accepts. The stranger’s
head is cut off, but he picks it up and rides away with it. This is a
close parallel to the resurrection of the slain ‘wild man.’

[638] Frazer, ii. 105, 115, 163, 219; _Pausanias_, iii. 53; v. 259;
Gardner, _New Chapters in Greek History_, 395, give Russian, Greek, and
Asiatic parallels.

[639] Frazer, ii. 71; Pfannenschmidt, 302. The victim is sometimes
known as the Carnival or Shrovetide ‘Fool’ or ‘Bear.’

[640] Dyer, 93. The Jack o’ Lent apparently stood as a cock-shy from
Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, and was then burnt. Portuguese sailors
in English docks thrash and duck an effigy of Judas Iscariot on Good
Friday (Dyer, 155).

[641] Alleluia was not sung during Lent. Fosbrooke, _British
Monachism_, 56, describes the Funeral of Alleluia by the choristers
of an English cathedral on the Saturday before Septuagesima. A turf
was carried in procession with howling to the cloisters. Probably this
cathedral was Lincoln, whence Wordsworth, 105, quotes payments ‘pro
excludend’ Alleluya’ from 1452 to 1617. Leber, ix. 338; Barthélemy,
iii. 481, give French examples of the custom; cf. the Alleluia top, p.
128.

[642] Dyer, 158. Reeds were woven on Good Friday into the shape of a
crucifix and left in some hidden part of a field or garden.

[643] Dyer, 333. The village feast was on St. Peter’s day, June 29.
On the Saturday before an effigy was dug up from under a sycamore on
May-pole hill; a week later it was buried again. In this case the order
of events seems to have been inverted.

[644] Frazer, i. 221. The French May-queen is often called _la mariée_
or _l’épouse_.

[645] Frazer, i. 225; Jevons, _Plutarch R. Q._ lxxxiii. 56.

[646] Waldron, _Hist. of Isle of Man_, 95; Dyer, 246.

[647] Olaus Magnus, _History of Swedes and Goths_, xv. 4, 8, 9; Grimm,
ii. 774.

[648] Grimm, ii. 765; Paul, _Grundriss_ (ed. 1), i. 836.

[649] Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 267.

[650] Cf. ch. iv.

[651] Grimm, ii. 675, 763; Swainson, _Folk-lore of British Birds_ (F.
L. S.), 109; Hardy, _Popular History of the Cuckoo_, in _F. L. Record_,
ii; Mannhardt, in _Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie_, iii. 209. Cf.
ch. v.

[652] Aristotle, _Poetics_, i. 5 αὐτῷ δέ τῷ ῥυθμῷ [ποιεῖται τὴν
μίμησιν] χωρὶς ἁρμονίας ἡ [τέχνη] τῶν ὀρχηστῶν, καὶ γὰρ οὗτοι διά
τῶν σχηματιζομένων ῥυθμῶν μιμοῦνται καὶ ἤθη καὶ πάθη καὶ πράξεις.
Cf. Lucian, _de Saltatione_, xv. 277. Du Méril, 65, puts the thing
well: ‘La danse n’a été l’invention de personne: elle s’est produite
d’elle-même le jour que le corps a subi et dû refléter un état de
l’âme.... On ne tarda pas cependant à la séparer de sa cause première
et à la reproduire pour elle-même ... en simulant la gaieté on
parvenait réellement à la sentir.’

[653] Wallaschek, 216; Grosse, 165, 201; Hirn, 157, 182, 229, 259,
261; Du Méril, _Com._ 72; Haddon, 346; Grove, 52, 81; Mrs. Gomme, ii.
518; G. Catlin, _On Manners ... of N. Amer. Indians_ (1841), i. 128,
244. Lang, _M. R. R._ i. 272, dwells on the representation of myths in
savage mystery-dances, and points out that Lucian (_loc. cit._) says
that the Greeks used to ‘dance out’ (ἐξορχεῖσθαι) their mysteries.

[654] The _chanson_ of _Transformations_ (cf. p. 170) is sung by
peasant-girls as a semi-dramatic duet (_Romania_, vii. 62); and that
of _Marion_ was performed ‘à deux personnages’ on Shrove Tuesday in
Lorraine (_Romania_, ix. 568).

[655] Giraldus Cambrensis, _Itinerarium Cambriae_, i. 2 (_Opera_,
R.S. vi. 32) ‘Videas enim hic homines seu puellas, nunc in ecclesia,
nunc in coemiterio, nunc in chorea, quae circa coemiterium cum
cantilena circumfertur, subito in terram corruere, et primo tanquam
in extasim ductos et quietos; deinde statim tanquam in phrenesim
raptos exsilientes, opera quaecunque festis diebus illicite perpetrare
consueverant, tam manibus quam pedibus, coram populo repraesentantes.
videas hunc aratro manus aptare, illum quasi stimulo boves excitare; et
utrumque quasi laborem mitigando solitas barbarae modulationis voces
efferre. videas hunc artem sutoriam, illum pellipariam imitari. item
videas hanc quasi colum baiulando, nunc filum manibus et brachiis in
longum extrahere, nunc extractum occandum tanquam in fusum revocare;
istam deambulando productis filis quasi telam ordiri: illam sedendo
quasi iam orditam oppositis lanceolae iactibus et alternis calamistrae
cominus ictibus texere mireris. Demum vero intra ecclesiam cum
oblationibus ad altare perductos tanquam experrectos et ad se redeuntes
obstupescas.’

[656] Cf. p. 151 with Mrs. Gomme’s _Memoir_ (ii. 458) _passim_, and
Haddon, 328. Parallel savage examples are in Wallaschek, 216; Hirn,
157, 259.

[657] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 399, 494 and s. vv.; Haddon, 340. Similar games
are widespread on the continent; cf. the Rabelais quotation on p. 167.
Haddon quotes a French formula, ending

‘Aveine, aveine, aveine,
Que le Bon Dieu t’amène.’

[658] Wallaschek, 273; Hirn, 285.

[659] The German data here used are chiefly collected by Müllenhoff and
F. A. Mayer; cf. also Creizenach, i. 408; Michels, 84; J. J. Ammann,
_Nachträge zum Schwerttanz_, in _Z. f. d. Alterthum_ xxxiv (1890), 178;
A. Hartmann, _Volksschauspiele_ (1880), 130; F. M. Böhme, _Geschichte
des Tanzes in Deutschland_ (1886); Sepp, _Die Religion der alten
Deutschen, und ihr Fortbestand in Volkssagen, Aufzügen und Festbräuchen
bis zur Gegenwart_ (1890), 91; O. Wittstock, _Ueber den Schwerttanz der
Siebenbürger Sachsen_, in _Philologische Studien: Festgabe für Eduard
Sievers_ (1896), 349.

[660] Tacitus, _Germania_, 24 ‘genus spectaculorum unum atque in omni
coetu idem. nudi iuvenes, quibus id ludicrum est, inter gladios se
atque infestas frameas saltu iaciunt. exercitatio artem paravit, ars
decorem, non in quaestum tamen aut mercedem; quamvis audacis lasciviae
pretium est voluptas spectantium.’

[661] _Beowulf_, 1042. It is in the hall of Hrothgar at Heorot,

‘þæt wæs hilde-setl: heah-cyninges,
þonne sweorda-gelác: sunu Healfdenes
efnan wolde: nǽfre on óre lǽg
wíd-cúþes wíg: þonne walu féollon.’

[662] Appendix N, no. xxxix; ‘arma in campo ostendit.’

[663] Strutt, 215. The tenth-century τὸ γοτθικόν at Byzantium seems to
have been a kind of sword-dance (cf. ch. xii _ad fin._).

[664] Strutt, 260; Du Méril, _La Com._ 84.

[665] Mayer, 259.

[666] Müllenhoff, 145, quoting _Don Quixote_, ii. 20; _Z. f. d. A._
xviii. 11; Du Méril, _La Com._ 86.

[667] Webster, _The White Devil_, v. 6, ‘a matachin, it seems by your
drawn swords’; the ‘buffons’ is included in the list of dances in the
_Complaynt of Scotland_ (†1548); cf. Furnivall, _Laneham’s Letter_,
clxii.

[668] Tabourot, _Orchésographie_, 97, _Les Bouffons ou Mattachins_. The
dancers held bucklers and swords which they clashed together. They also
wore bells on their legs.

[669] Cf. Appendix J.

[670] Henderson, 67. The sword-dance is also mentioned by W.
Hutchinson, _A View of Northumberland_ (1778), ii _ad fin._ 18; by J.
Wallis, _Hist. of Northumberland_ (1779), ii. 28, who describes the
leader as having ‘a fox’s skin, generally serving him for a covering
and ornament to his head, the tail hanging down his back’; and as
practised in the north Riding of Yorks, by a writer in the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ (1811), lxxxi. 1. 423. Here it took place from St. Stephen’s
to New Year’s Day. There were six lads, a fiddler, Bessy and a Doctor.
At Whitby, six dancers went with the ‘Plough Stots’ on Plough Monday.
The figures included the placing of a hexagon or rose of swords on
the head of one of the performers. The dance was accompanied with
‘_Toms_ or _clowns_’ masked or painted, and ‘_Madgies_ or Madgy-Pegs’
in women’s clothes. Sometimes a farce, with a king, miller, clown and
doctor was added (G. Young, _Hist. of Whitby_ (1817), ii. 880).

[671] Cf. Appendix J.

[672] R. Bell, _Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of
England_, 175.

[673] Cf. Appendix J.

[674] Mayer, 230, 417.

[675] Henderson, 67. The clown introduces each dancer in turn; then
there is a dance with raised swords which are tied in a ‘knot.’
Henderson speaks of a later set of verses also in use, which he does
not print.

[676] R. Bell, _Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of
England_, 175 (from Sir C. Sharpe’s _Bishoprick Garland_). A Christmas
dance. The captain began the performance by drawing a circle with his
sword. Then the Bessy introduced the captain, who called on the rest in
turn, each walking round the circle to music. Then came an elaborate
dance with careful formations, which degenerated into a fight. Bell
mentions a similar set of verses from Devonshire.

[677] Bell, 172. A Christmas dance. The clown makes the preliminary
circle with his sword, and calls on the other dancers.

[678] Bell, 181. The clown calls for ‘a room,’ after which one of the
party introduces the rest. This also is a Christmas dance, but as the
words ‘we’ve come a pace-egging’ occur, it must have been transferred
from Easter. Bell says that a somewhat similar performance is given
at Easter in Coniston, and Halliwell, _Popular Rhymes and Nursery
Tales_, 244, describes a similar set of rhymes as used near York for
pace-egging.

[679] Described by Müllenhoff, 138, from _Ausland_ (1857), No. 4, f.
81. The clown gives the prologue, and introduces the rest.

[680] Cf. p. 221.

[681] Mayer prints and compares all three texts.

[682] Cf. p. 185. The original names seem to be best preserved in the
Styrian verses: they are Obersteiner (the _Vortänzer_) or Hans Kanix,
Fasching (the _Narr_), Obermayer, Jungesgsell, Grünwald, Edlesblut,
Springesklee, Schellerfriedl, Wilder Waldmann, Handssupp, Rubendunst,
Leberdarm, Rotwein, Höfenstreit.

[683] H. Pröhle, _Weltliche und geistliche Volkslieder und
Volksschauspiele_ (1855), 245.

[684] Müllenhoff, _Z. f. d. A._ xx. 10.

[685] Brand-Ellis, i. 142; Douce, 576; Burton, 95; Gutch, _Robin Hood_,
i. 301; Drake, 76.

[686] Burton, 117; Warner, _Albion’s England_, v. 25 ‘At Paske begun
our Morrise, and ere Penticost our May.’ The morris was familiar in
the revels of Christmas. Laneham, 23, describes at the Bride-ale shown
before Elizabeth at Kenilworth ‘a lively morrisdauns, according too the
auncient manner: six daunserz, Mawdmarion, and the fool.’

[687] A good engraving of the window is in _Variorum Shakespeare_, xvi.
419, and small reproductions in Brand, i. 145; Burton, 103; Gutch, i.
349; Mr. Tollet’s own account of the window, printed in the _Variorum_,
_loc. cit._, is interesting, but too ingenious. He dates the window in
the reign of Henry VIII; Douce, 585, a better authority, ascribes it to
that of Edward IV.

[688] Ben Jonson, _The Gipsies Metamorphosed_ (ed. Cunningham, iii.
151):

‘_Clod._ They should be morris-dancers by their gingle, but they have
no napkins.

‘_Cockrel._ No, nor a hobby-horse.

‘_Clod._ Oh, he’s often forgotten, that’s no rule; but there is no Maid
Marian nor Friar amongst them, which is the surer mark.

‘_Cockrel._ Nor a fool that I see.’

[689] The lady, the fool, the hobby-horse are all in Tollet’s window,
and in a seventeenth-century printing by Vinkenboom from Richmond
palace, engraved by Douce, 598; Burton, 105. Cf. the last note and
other passages quoted by Douce, Brand, and Burton. In _Two Noble
Kinsmen_, iii. 5, 125, a morris of six men and six women is thus
presented by Gerrold, the schoolmaster:

‘I first appear ...
The next, the Lord of May and Lady bright,
The Chambermaid and Serving-man, by night
That seek out silent hanging: then mine Host
And his fat Spouse, that welcomes to their cost
The galled traveller, and with a beck’ning
Informs the tapster to inflame the reck’ning:
Then the beast-eating Clown, and next the Fool,
The Bavian, with long tail and eke long tool;
_Cum multis aliis_, that make a dance.’

Evidently some of these _dramatis personae_ are not traditional; the
ingenuity of the presenter has been at work on them. ‘Bavian’ as a
name for the fool, is the Dutch _baviaan_, ‘baboon.’ His ‘tail’ is to
be noted; for the phallic shape sometimes given to the bladder which
he carries, cf. Rigollot, 164. In the Betley window the fool has a
bauble; in the Vinkenboom picture a staff with a bladder at one end,
and a ladle (to gather money in) at the other. In the window the ladle
is carried by the hobby-horse. ‘The hobby-horse is forgot’ is a phrase
occurring in _L. L. L._ iii. 1. 30; _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 144, and alluded
to by Beaumont and Fletcher, _Women Pleased_, iv. 1, and Ben Jonson,
in the masque quoted above, and in _The Satyr_ (Cunningham, ii. 577).
Apparently it is a line from a lost ballad.

[690] Stubbes, i. 147, of the ‘devil’s daunce’ in the train of the lord
of misrule, evidently a morris, ‘then haue they their Hobby-horses,
dragons & other Antiques.’ In W. Sampson’s _Vow-breaker_ (1636), one
morris-dancer says ‘I’ll be a fiery dragon’; another, ‘I’ll be a
thund’ring Saint George as ever rode on horseback.’

[691] Burton, 40, 43, 48, 49, 56, 59, 61, 65, 69, 75, 115, 117, 121,
123, cites many notices throughout the century, and gives several
figures. The morris is in request at wakes and rushbearings. Both
men and women dance, sometimes to the number of twenty or thirty.
Gay dresses are worn, with white skirts, knee-breeches and ribbons.
Handkerchiefs are carried or hung on the arm or wrist, or replaced
by dangling streamers, cords, or skeins of cotton. Bells are not
worn on the legs, but jingling horse-collars are sometimes carried
on the body. There is generally a fool, described in one account as
wearing ‘a horrid mask.’ He is, however, generally black, and is known
as ‘King Coffee’ (Gorton), ‘owd sooty-face,’ ‘dirty Bet,’ and ‘owd
molly-coddle.’ This last name, like the ‘molly-dancers’ of Gorton,
seems to be due to a linguistic corruption. In 1829 a writer describes
the fool as ‘a nondescript, made up of the ancient fool and Maid
Marian.’ At Heaton, in 1830, were two figures, said to represent Adam
and Eve, as well as the fool. The masked fool, mentioned above, had as
companion a shepherdess with lamb and crook.

[692] Burton, 115, from _Journal of Archaeol. Assoc._ vii. 201. The
dancers went on Twelfth-night, without bells, but with a fool, a
‘fool’s wife’ and sometimes a hobby-horse.

[693] Jackson and Burne, 402, 410, 477. The morris-dance proper is
mainly in south Shropshire and at Christmas. At Shrewsbury, in 1885,
were ten dancers, with a fool. Five carried trowels and five short
staves which they clashed. The fool had a black face, and a bell on
his coat. No other bells are mentioned. Staves or wooden swords are
used at other places in Shropshire, and at Brosely all the faces are
black. The traditional music is a tabor and pipe. A 1652 account of the
Brosely dance with six sword-bearers, a ‘leader or lord of misrule’ and
a ‘vice’ (cf. ch. xxv) called the ‘lord’s son’ is quoted. In north-east
Shropshire, the Christmas ‘guisers’ are often called ‘morris-dancers,’
‘murry-dancers,’ or ‘merry-dancers.’ In Shetland the name ‘merry
dancers’ is given to the _aurora borealis_ (J. Spence, _Shetland
Folk-Lore_, 116).

[694] _Leicester F. L._ 93. The dance was on Plough Monday with paper
masks, a plough, the bullocks, men in women’s dresses, one called Maid
Marian, Curly the fool, and Beelzebub. This is, I think, the only
survival of the name Maid Marian, and it may be doubted if even this is
really popular and not literary.

[695] P. Manning, _Oxfordshire Seasonal Festivals_, in _F. L._
viii. 317, summarizes accounts from fourteen villages, and gives
illustrations. There are always six dancers. A broad garter of
bells is worn below the knee. There are two sets of figures: in one
handkerchiefs are carried, in the other short staves are swung and
clashed. Sometimes the dancers sing to the air, which is that of an
old country-dance. There is always a fool, who carries a stick with a
bladder and cow’s tail, and is called in two places ‘Rodney,’ elsewhere
the ‘squire.’ The music is that of a pipe and tabor (‘whittle’ and
‘dub’) played by one man; a fiddle is now often used. At Bampton there
was a solo dance between crossed tobacco-pipes. At Spelsbury and at
Chipping Warden the dance used to be on the church-tower. At the
Bampton Whit-feast and the Ducklington Whit-hunt, the dancers were
accompanied by a sword-bearer, who impaled a cake. A sword-bearer also
appears in a list of Finstock dancers, given me by Mr. T. J. Carter,
of Oxford. He also told me that the dance on Spelsbury church-tower,
seventy years ago, was by women.

[696] Norfolk, Monmouthshire, Berkshire (Douce, 606); Worcestershire,
Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire,
Warwickshire, and around London (Burton, 114).

[697] _L. H. T. Accounts_, ii. 414; iii. 359, 381.

[698] Pfannenschmidt, 582; Michels, 84; Creizenach, i. 411. Burton,
102, reproduces, from _Art Journal_ (1885), 121, cuts of ten
morris-dancers carved in wood at Munich by Erasmus Schnitzer in 1480.

[699] Douce, 585, and Burton, 97, reproduce Israel von Mecheln’s
engraving (†1470) of a morris with a fool and a lady.

[700] Coquillart, _Œuvres_ (†1470), 127.

[701] _Mémoires de Pétrarque_, ii. app. 3, 9; Petrarch danced ‘en
pourpoint une belle et vigoureuse moresque’ to please the Roman ladies
on the night of his coronation.

[702] _Somers Tracts_, ii. 81, 87. The Earl of Nottingham, when on
an embassy from James I, saw morrice-dancers in a Corpus Christi
procession.

[703] Douce, 480; Favine, _Theater of Honor_, 345: at a feast given by
Gaston de Foix at Vendôme, in 1458, ‘foure young laddes and a damosell,
attired like savages, daunced (by good direction) an excellent
_Morisco_, before the assembly.’

[704] Tabourot, _Orchésographie_, 94: in his youth a lad used to come
after supper, with his face blackened, his forehead bound with white or
yellow taffeta, and bells on his legs, and dance the morris up and down
the hall.

[705] Douce, 577; Burton, 95.

[706] A dance certainly of Moorish origin is the fandango, in which
castanets were used; cf. the comedy of _Variety_ (1649) ‘like a
Bacchanalian, dancing the Spanish Morisco, with knackers at his
fingers’ (Strutt, 223). This, however, seems to show that the fandango
was considered a variety of morisco. Douce, 602; Burton, 124, figure an
African woman from Fez dancing with bells on her ankles. This is taken
from Hans Weigel’s book of national costumes published at Nuremberg in
1577.

[707] Tabourot’s morris-dancing boy had his face blackened, and Junius
(F. Du Jon), _Etymologicum Anglicanum_ (1743), says of England ‘faciem
plerumque inficiunt fuligine, et peregrinum vestium cultum assumunt,
qui ludicris talibus indulgent, ut Mauri esse videantur, aut e longius
remota patria credantur advolasse, atque insolens recreationis genus
ad vexisse.’ In _Spousalls of Princess Mary_ (1508) ‘morisks’ is
rendered ‘ludi Maurei quas morescas dicunt.’ In the modern morris the
black element is represented, except at Brosely, chiefly by ‘owd sooty
face,’ the fool: in Leicestershire it gives rise to a distinct figure,
Beelzebub.

[708] Du Méril, _La Com._ 89, quotes a sixteenth-century French
sword-dance of ‘Mores, Sauvages, et Satyres.’ In parts of Yorkshire the
sword-dancers had black faces or masks (Henderson, 70).

[709] Cotgrave, ‘_Dancer les Buffons_, To daunce a morris.’ The term
‘the madman’s morris’ appears as the name of the dance in _The Figure
of Nine_ (temp. Charles II); cf. Furnivall, _Laneham’s Letter_, clxii.
The _buffon_ is presumably the ‘fool’; cf. Cotgrave, ‘_Buffon_: m. A
buffoon, jeaster, sycophant, merrie fool, sportfull companion: one that
lives by making others merrie.’

[710] Henderson, 70. In Yorkshire the sword-dancers carried the image
of a white horse; in Cheshire a horse’s head and skin.

[711] Cf. ch. x; also Wise, _Enquiries concerning the
Inhabitants, ... of Europe_, 51 ‘the common people in many parts of
England still practise what they call a Morisco dance, in a wild
manner, and as it were in armour, at proper intervals striking upon one
another’s staves,’ &c. Johnson’s _Dictionary_ (1755) calls the morris
‘a dance in which bells are gingled, or staves or swords clashed.’

[712] Müllenhoff, 124; cf. Mayer, 236.

[713] Douce, 602; Burton, 123. The bells were usually fastened upon
broad garters, as they are still worn in Oxfordshire. But they also
appear as anklets or are hung on various parts of the dress. In a
cut from Randle Holme’s _Academie of Armorie_, iii. 109 (Douce, 603;
Burton, 127), a morris-dancer holds a pair of bells in his hands.
Sometimes the bells were harmonized. In _Pasquil and Marforius_ (1589)
Penry is described as ‘the fore gallant of the Morrice with the treble
bells’; cf. Rowley, _Witch of Edmonton_, i. 2.

[714] Müllenhoff, 123; Mayer, 235.

[715] Tabourot, _Orchésographie_, 97.

[716] Cf. Appendix J. A figure with a bow and arrow occurs in the
Abbots Bromley horn-dance (p. 166).

[717] W. Kempe’s _Nine Days Wonder_ (ed. Dyce, Camden Soc.) describes
his dancing of the morris in bell-shangles from London to Norwich in
1599.

[718] Müllenhoff, 114.

[719] The ‘Squire’s Son’ of the Durham dances is probably the clown’s
son of the Wharfdale version; for the term ‘squire’ is not an uncommon
one for the rustic fool. Cf. also the Revesby play described in the
next chapter. Why the fool should have a son, I do not know.

[720] The ‘Nine Worthies’ of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, v. 2, are a
pageant not a dance, and the two sets of speeches quoted from Bodl.
Tanner MS. 407, by Ritson, _Remarks on Shakespeare_, 38, one of which
is called by Ashton, 127, the earliest mummers’ play that he can find,
also probably belong to pageants. The following, also quoted by Ritson
_loc. cit._ from _Harl. MS._ 1197, f. 101* (sixteenth century), looks
more like a dance or play:

‘I ame a knighte
And menes to fight
And armet well ame I
Lo here I stand
With swerd ine hand
My manhoud for to try.

Thou marciall wite
That menes to fight
And sete vppon me so
Lo heare J stand
With swrd in hand
To dubbelle eurey blow.’

[721] Mayer, 230, 425, finds in the dance a symbolical drama of the
death of winter; but he does not seem to see the actual relic of a
sacrificial rite.

[722] Müllenhoff, 114; Du Méril, _La Com._ 82; Plato, _Leges_, 815;
Dion Cassius, lx. 23; Suetonius, _Julius_, 39, _Nero_, 12; Servius
_ad Aen._ v. 602; cf. p. 7. A Thracian sword-dance, ending in a mimic
death, and therefore closely parallel to the west European examples
mentioned in the next chapter, is described by Xenophon, _Anabasis_, v.
9.

[723] Müllenhoff, 115; Frazer, iii. 122; W. W. Fowler, _The Roman
Festivals_, 38, 44. The song of the _Salii_ mentioned Saeturnus,
god of sowing. It appears also to have been their function to expel
the Mamurius Veturius in spring. Servius _ad Aen._ viii. 285, says
that the _Salii_ were founded by Morrius, king of Veii. According to
Frazer, Morrius is etymologically equivalent to Mamurius--Mars. He even
suggests that Morris may possibly belong to the same group of words.

[724] Cf. Appendix J. In other dances a performer stands on a similar
‘knot’ or _Stern_ of swords. Mayer, 230, suggests that this may
represent the triumph of summer, which seems a little far-fetched.

[725] Mayer, 243; O. Wittstock, in _Sievers-Festgabe_, 349.

[726] Grimm, i. 304, gives the following as communicated to him by J.
M. Kemble, from the mouth of an old Yorkshireman: ‘In some parts of
northern England, in Yorkshire, especially Hallamshire, popular customs
show remnants of the worship of Fricg. In the neighbourhood of Dent, at
certain seasons of the year, especially autumn, the country folk hold
a procession and perform old dances, one called the giant’s dance: the
leading giant they name _Woden_, and his wife _Frigga_, the principal
action of the play consisting in two swords being swung and clashed
together about the neck of a boy without hurting him.’ There is nothing
about this in the account of Teutonic mythology in J. M. Kemble’s own
_Saxons in England_. I do not believe that the names of Woden and
Frigga were preserved in connexion with this custom continuously from
heathen times. Probably some antiquary had introduced them; and in
error, for there is no reason to suppose that the ‘clown’ and ‘woman’
of the sword-dance were ever thought to represent gods. But the
description of the business with the swords is interesting.

[727] Müllenhoff, _Z. f. d. A._ xviii. 11, quoting Covarubias, _Tesoro
della lengua castellana_ (1611), s.v. _Danza de Espadas_: ‘una mudanza
que llaman la degollada, porque cercan el cuello del que los guia con
las espadas.’ With these sword manœuvres should be compared the use
of scythes and flails in the mock sacrifices of the harvest-field and
threshing-floor (p. 158), the ‘Chop off his head’ of the ‘Oranges and
Lemons’ game (p. 151), and the ancient tale of Wodan and the Mowers.

[728] Mayer, 229.

[729] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, lxxxi (1811), 1. 423. The dance was given
in the north Riding from St. Stephen’s day to the New Year. Besides the
Bessy and the Doctor there were six lads, one of whom acted king ‘in a
kind of farce which consists of singing and dancing.’

[730] Bell, 178; cf. p. 193. I do not feel sure whether the actual
parish clergyman took part, or whether a mere personage in the play
is intended; but see what Olaus Magnus (App. J (i)) says about the
propriety of the sword-dances for _clerici_. It will be curious if the
Christian priest has succeeded to the part of the heathen priest slain,
first literally, and then in mimicry, at the festivals.

[731] Printed by Mr. T. F. Ordish in _F. L. J._ vii. 338, and again by
Manly, i. 296. The MS. used appears to be headed ‘October Ye 20, 1779’;
but the performers are called ‘The Plow Boys or Morris Dancers’ and the
prologue says that they ‘takes delight in Christmas toys.’ I do not
doubt that the play belonged to Plough Monday, which only falls just
outside the Christmas season.

[732] On the name Pickle Herring, see W. Creizenach, _Die Schauspiele
der englischen Komödianten_, xciii. It does not occur in old English
comedy, but was introduced into Anglo-German and German farce as a name
for the ‘fool’ or ‘clown’ by Robert Reynolds, the ‘comic lead’ of a
company of English actors who crossed to Germany in 1618. Probably it
was Reynolds’ invention, and suggested by the _sobriquet_ ‘Stockfish’
taken by an earlier Anglo-German actor, John Spencer. The ‘spicy’ names
of the other Revesby clowns are probably imitations of Pickle Herring.

[733] The lines (197-8)

‘Our old Fool’s bracelet is not made of gold
But it is made of iron and good steel’

suggest the vaunt of the champions in the St. George plays.

[734] Is ‘Anthony’ a reminiscence of the Seven Champions? The Fool says
(ll. 247-9), like Beelzebub in the St. George plays,

‘Here comes I that never come yet, ...
I have a great head but little wit.’

He also jests (l. 229) on his ‘tool’; cf. p. 196 n.

[735] Brand, i. 278; Dyer, 37; Ditchfield, 47; Drake, 65; Mrs. Chaworth
Musters, _A Cavalier Stronghold_, 387. Plough Monday is the Monday
after Twelfth night, when the field work begins. A plough is dragged
round the village and a _quête_ made. The survivals of the custom are
mainly in the north, east and east midlands. In the city, a banquet
marks the day. A Norfolk name is ‘Plowlick Monday,’ and a Hunts one
‘Plough-Witching.’ The plough is called the ‘Fool Plough,’ ‘Fond
Plough,’ ‘Stot Plough’ or ‘White Plough’; the latter name probably from
the white shirts worn (cf. p. 200). At Cropwell, Notts, horses cut out
in black or red adorn these. In Lincolnshire, bunches of corn were worn
in the hats. Those who draw the plough are called ‘Plough Bullocks,’
‘Boggons’ or ‘Stots.’ They sometimes dance a morris-or sword-dance,
or act a play. At Haxey, they take a leading part in the Twelfth
day ‘Hood-game’ (p. 150). In Northants their faces are blackened or
reddled. The plough is generally accompanied by the now familiar
grotesques, ‘Bessy’ and the Fool or ‘Captain Cauf-Tail.’ In Northants
there are two of each; the Fools have humps, and are known as ‘Red
Jacks’; there is also a ‘Master.’ In Lincolnshire, reapers, threshers,
and carters joined the procession. A contribution to the _quête_ is
greeted with the cry of ‘Largess!’ and a churl is liable to have the
ground before his door ploughed up. Of old the profits of the _quête_
or ‘plow-gadrin’ went into the parish chest, or as in Norfolk kept a
‘plow-light’ burning in the church. A sixteenth century pamphlet speaks
of the ‘sensing the Ploughess’ on Plough Monday. Jevons, 247, calls the
rite a ‘worship of the plough’; probably it rather represents an early
spring perambulation of the fields in which the divinity rode upon a
plough, as elsewhere upon a ship. A ploughing custom of putting a loaf
in the furrow has been noted. Plough Monday has also its water rite.
The returning ploughman was liable to be soused by the women, like the
bearer of the ‘neck’ at harvest. Elsewhere, the women must get the
kettle on before the ploughman can reach the hearth, or pay forfeit.

[736] Printed by Mrs. Chaworth Musters in _A Cavalier Stronghold_
(1890), 388, and in a French translation by Mrs. H. G. M.
Murray-Aynsley, in _R. d. T. P._ iv. 605.

[737] ‘Hopper Joe’ also calls himself ‘old Sanky-Benny,’ which invites
interpretation. Is it ‘Saint Bennet’ or ‘Benedict’?

[738]

‘In comes I, Beelzebub,
On my shoulder I carry my club,
In my hand a wet leather frying-pan;
Don’t you think I’m a funny old man?’

Cf. the St. George play (p. 214).

[739] ‘Dame Jane’ says,

‘My head is made of iron,
My body made of steel,
My hands and feet of knuckle-bone,
I think nobody can make me feel.’

In the Lincolnshire play Beelzebub has this vaunt. Cf. the St. George
play (p. 220).

[740] The Doctor can cure ‘the hipsy-pipsy, palsy, and the gout’; cf.
the St. George play (p. 213).

[741] Printed in French by Mrs. Murray Aynsley in _R. d. T. P._ iv. 609.

[742] The farce recorded as occasionally introduced at Whitby (cf. p.
192, n. 1) but not described, probably belonged to the ‘popular’ type.

[743] Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, 169, prints a Peebles
version. Instead of George, a hero called Galatian fights the Black
Knight. Judas, with his bag, replaces Beelzebub. But it is the same
play. Versions or fragments of it are found all over the Lowlands.
The performers are invariably called ‘guizards.’ In a Falkirk version
the hero is Prince George of Ville. Hone, _E. D. B._, says that the
hero is sometimes Galacheus or St. Lawrence. But in another Falkirk
version, part of which he prints, the name is Galgacus, and of this
both Galacheus and Galatian are probably corruptions, for Galgacus or
Calgacus was the leader of the Picts in their battle with Agricola at
the Mons Graupius (A. D. 84; Tacitus, _Agricola_, 29).

[744] Appendix K. Other versions may be conveniently compared in Manly,
i. 289; Ditchfield, 310. The best discussions of the St. George plays
in general, besides Mr. Ordish’s, are J. S. Udall, _Christmas Mummers
in Dorsetshire_ (_F. L. R._ iii. 1. 87); Jackson and Burne, 482; G. L.
Gomme, _Christmas Mummers_ (_Nature_, Dec. 23, 1897). The notes and
introductions to the versions tabulated above give many useful data.

[745] In _F. L._ x. 351, Miss Florence Grove describes some Christmas
mummers seen at Mullion, Cornwall, in 1890-1. ‘Every one naturally
knows who the actors are, since there are not more than a few hundred
persons within several miles; but no one is supposed to know who
they are or where they come from, nor must any one speak to them,
nor they to those in the houses they visit. As far as I can remember
the performance is silent and dramatic; I have no recollection of
reciting.’ The dumb show is rare and probably a sign of decadence, but
the bit of rural etiquette is archaic and recurs in savage drama.

[746] In Berkshire and at Eccleshall, Slasher is ‘come from Turkish
land.’ On the other hand, the two often appear in the same version, and
even, as at Leigh, fight together.

[747] Burne-Jackson, 483.

[748] Ibid. 483. He appears in the MSS. written by the actors as
‘Singuy’ or ‘Singhiles.’ Professor Skeat points out that, as he ‘sprang
from English ground,’ St. Guy (of Warwick) was probably the original
form, and St. Giles a corruption.

[749] Here may be traced the influence of the Napoleonic wars. In
Berkshire, Slasher is a ‘French officer.’

[750] _F. L._ v. 88.

[751] Ditchfield, 12.

[752] Sandys, 153.

[753] P. Tennant, _Village Notes_, 179.

[754] Beelzebub appears also in the Cropwell Plough Monday play; cf.
p. 209. Doubtless he once wore a calf-skin, like other rural ‘Fools,’
but, as far as I know, this feature has dropped out. Sandys, 154,
however, quotes ‘Captain Calf-tail’ as the name of the ‘Fool’ in an
eighteenth-century Scotch version, and Mr. Gomme (_Nature_, Dec. 23,
1897), says ‘some of the mummers, or maskers as the name implies,
formerly disguised themselves as animals--goats, oxen, deer, foxes
and horses being represented at different places where details of the
mumming play have been recorded.’ Nowadays, Beelzebub generally carries
a club and a ladle or frying-pan, with which he makes the _quête_. At
Newport and Eccleshall he has a bell fastened on his back; at Newbold
he has a black face. The ‘Fool’ figured in the Manchester chap-book
resembles Punch.

[755] See notes to Steyning play in _F. L. J._ ii. 1.

[756] Mr. Gomme, in _Nature_ for Dec. 23, 1897, finds in this broom
‘the magic weapon of the witch’ discussed by Pearson, ii. 29. Probably,
however, it was introduced into the plays for the purposes of the
_quête_; cf. p. 217. It is used also to make a circle for the players,
but here it may have merely taken the place of a sword.

[757] Parish, _Dict. of Sussex Dialect_, 136. The mummers are called
‘John Jacks.’

[758] Cf. p. 268, n. 4.

[759] Sandys, 301.

[760] Cf. Capulet, in _Romeo and Juliet_, i. 5. 28 ‘A hall, a hall!
give room! and foot it, girls’; and Puck who precedes the dance of
fairies in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, v. 1. 396

‘I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.’

[761] Ditchfield, 315. ‘The play in this village is performed in most
approved fashion, as the Rector has taken the matter in hand, coached
the actors in their parts, and taught them some elocution.’ This sort
of thing, of course, is soon fatal to folk-drama.

[762] Burne-Jackson, 484; Manly, i. 289.

[763] Burne-Jackson, 402, 410; _F. L._ iv. 162; Dyer, 504. The broom
is used in Christmas and New Year _quêtes_ in Scotland and Yorkshire,
even when there is no drama. Northall 205, gives a Lancashire Christmas
song, sung by ‘Little David Doubt’ with black face, skin coat and
broom. At Bradford they ‘sweep out the Old Year’; at Wakefield they
sweep up dirty hearths. In these cases the notion of threatening to do
the unlucky thing has gone.

[764] Ditchfield, 12. An ‘Old Bet’ is mentioned in 5 _N. Q._ iv. 511,
as belonging to a Belper version. The woman is worked in with various
ingenuity, but several versions have lost her. The prologue to the
Newcastle chap-book promises a ‘Dives’ who never appears. Was this the
woman? In the Linton in Craven sword-dance, she has the similar name of
‘Miser.’

[765] I hardly like to trace a reminiscence of the connexion with
the _renouveau_ in the ‘General Valentine’ and ‘Colonel Spring’ who
fight and are slain in the Dorset (A) version; but there the names
are. Mr. Gomme (_Nature_ for Dec. 23, 1897) finds in certain mumming
costumes preserved in the Anthropological Museum at Cambridge and made
of paper scales, a representation of leaves of trees. Mr. Ordish, I
believe, finds in them the scales of the dragon (_F. L._ iv. 163). Some
scepticism may be permitted as to these conjectures. In most places
the dress represents little but rustic notions of the ornamental.
Cf. Thomas Hardy, _The Return of the Native_, bk. ii. ch. 3: ‘The
girls could never be brought to respect tradition in designing and
decorating the armour: they insisted on attaching loops and bows of
silk and velvet in any situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget,
gusset, bassinet, cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view
of these feminine eyes were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps
of fluttering colour.’ The usual costume of the sword-dancers, as we
have seen (p. 200), was a clean white smock, and probably that of the
mummers is based upon this.

[766] T. F. Ordish, in _F. L._ iv. 158.

[767] Printed in _The Old English Drama_ (1830), vol. iii.
Burne-Jackson, 490, think that ‘the masque owes something to the
play,’ but the resemblances they trace are infinitesimal. A play of
_St. George for England_, by William or Wentworth Smith, was amongst
the manuscripts destroyed by Warburton’s cook, and a Bartholomew Fair
‘droll’ of _St. George and the Dragon_ is alluded to in the _Theatre of
Compliments_, 1688 (Fleay, _C. H._ ii. 251; Hazlitt, _Manual_, 201).

[768] In the Dorset (A) version, the king of Egypt is ‘Anthony’ and
the doctor ‘Mr. Martin Dennis.’ Conceivably these are reminiscences
of St. Anthony of Padua and St. Denys of France. The Revesby Plough
Monday play (cf. p. 208) has also an ‘Anthony.’ The ‘Seven Champions’
do not appear in the English sword-dances described in ch. ix, but the
morris-dancers at Edgemond wake used to take that name (Burne-Jackson,
491). Mrs. Nina Sharp writes in _F. L. R._ iii. 1. 113: ‘I was staying
at Minety, near Malmesbury, in Wilts (my cousin is the vicar), when
the mummers came round (1876). They went through a dancing fight in
two lines opposed to each other--performed by the Seven Champions of
Christendom. There was no St. George, and they did not appear to have
heard of the Dragon. When I inquired for him, they went through the
performance of drawing a tooth--the tooth produced, after great agony,
being a horse’s. The mummers then carried into the hall a bush gaily
decorated with coloured ribbons.... [They] were all in white smock
frocks and masks. At Acomb, near York, I saw very similar mummers a
few years ago, but they distinguished St. George, and the Dragon was
a prominent person. There was the same tooth-drawing, and I think the
Dragon was the patient, and was brought back to life by the operation.’
I wonder whether the ‘Seven Champions’ were _named_ or whether Mrs.
Sharp _inferred them_. Anyhow, there could not have been _seven_ at
Minety, without St. George. The ‘bush’ is an interesting feature.
According to C. R. Smith, _Isle of Wight Words_ (_Eng. Dial. Soc._
xxxii. 63) the mummers are known in Kent as the ‘Seven Champions.’

[769] Entered on the _Stationers’ Registers_ in 1596. The first extant
edition is dated 1597. Johnson first introduced Sabra, princess of
Egypt, into the story; in the mediaeval versions, the heroine is an
unnamed princess of Silena in Libya. The mummers’ play follows Johnson,
and makes it Egypt. On Johnson was based Heylin’s _History of St.
George_ (1631 and 1633), and on one or both of these Kirke’s play.

[770] Jackson and Burne, 489: ‘Miss L. Toulmin Smith ... considers that
the diction and composition of the [Shropshire] piece, as we now have
it, date mainly from the seventeenth century.’

[771] Dyer, 193; Anstis, _Register of the Garter_ (1724), ii. 38; E.
Ashmole, _Hist. of the Garter_ (ed. 1672), 188, 467; (ed. 1715), 130,
410.

[772] F. Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_ (1805), iv. 6, 347; Mackerell,
MS. _Hist. of Norfolk_ (1737), quoted in _Norfolk Archaeology_, iii.
315; _Notices Illustrative of Municipal Pageants and Processions_ (with
plates, publ. C. Muskett, Norwich, 1850); Toulmin Smith, _English
Gilds_ (E. E. T. S.), 17, 443; Kelly, 48. Hudson and Tingey, _Cal. of
Records of Norwich_ (1898), calendar many documents of the guild.

[773] Hartland, iii. 58, citing Jacobus à Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_,
xciii, gives the story of St. Margaret, and the appearance of the devil
to her in the shape of a dragon. She was in his mouth, but made the
sign of the cross, and he burst asunder.

[774] Cf. p. 177.

[775] Kelly, 37. The ‘dressyng of the dragon’ appears in the town
accounts for 1536. The guild had dropped the riding, even before the
Reformation.

[776] Harris, 97, 190, 277; Kelly, 41. The guild was formed by
journeymen in 1424. Probably there was a riding. In any case, at the
visit of Prince Edward in 1474, there was a pageant or _mystère mimé_
‘upon the Conddite in the Crosse Chepyng’ of ‘seint George armed and
Kynges dought^r knelyng afore hym w^t a lambe and the fader and the
moder beyng in a toure a boven beholdyng seint George savyng their
dought^r from the dragon.’ There was a similar pageant at the visit of
Prince Arthur in 1498.

[777] Kelly, 42.

[778] Morris, 139, 168; Fenwick, _Hist. of Chester_, 372; Dyer, 195.
The Fraternity of St. George was founded for the encouragement of
shooting in 1537. They had a chapel with a George in the choir of St.
Peter’s. St. George’s was the great day for races on the Rooddee.
In 1610 was a famous show, wherein St. George was attended by Fame,
Mercury, and various allegorical figures.

[779] Cf. _Representations_, s. v. York, Dublin.

[780] Dyer, 194, gives from Coates, _Hist. of Reading_, 221, the
account for setting-up a ‘George’ in 1536. Dugdale, _Hist. of
Warwickshire_, 928, has a notice of a legacy in 1526 by John Arden to
Aston church of his ‘white harneis ... for a George to were it, and to
stand on his pewe, a place made for it.’

[781] R. W. Goulding, _Louth Records_, quotes from the churchwardens’
accounts for 1538 payments for taking down the image of St. George and
his horse.

[782] _Representations_, s. v. Windsor, Lydd, New Romney, Bassingbourne.

[783] For the legend, see _Acta Sanctorum_, _April_, iii. 101; Jacobus
à Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_ (1280), lviii; E. A. W. Budge, _The
Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George of Cappadocia: the Coptic Texts_
(Oriental Text Series, 1888). In Rudder, _Hist. of Gloucestershire_,
461, and _Gloucester F. L._ 47, is printed an English version of the
legend, apparently used for reading in church on the Sunday preceding
St. George’s day, April 23. Cf. also Gibbon (ed. Bury), ii. 472, 568;
Hartland, _Perseus_, iii. 38; Baring-Gould, _Curious Myths of the
Middle Ages_, 266; Zöckler, s. v. St. Georg, in Herzog and Plitt’s
_Encyclopedia_; F. Görres, _Ritter St. Georg in Geschichte, Legende und
Kunst, in Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie_, xxx (1887),
54; F. Vetter, _Introduction_ to Reimbot von Durne’s _Der heilige
Georg_ (1896). Gibbon identified St. George with the Arian bishop
George of Cappadocia, and the dragon with Athanasius. This view has
been recently revived with much learning by J. Friedrich in _Sitzb.
Akad. Wiss. München_ (_phil.-hist. Kl._), 1899, ii. 2. Pope Gelasius
(†495) condemned the _Passio_ as apocryphal and heretical, but he
admits the historical existence of the saint, whose cult indeed was
well established both in East and West in the fifth century. Budge
tries to find an historical basis for him in a young man at Nicomedia
who tore down an edict during the persecution of Diocletian (†303), and
identifies his torturer Dadianus with the co-emperor Galerius.

[784] Du Méril, _La Com._ 98. He quotes Novidius, _Sacri Fasti_ (ed.
1559), bk. vi. f. 48^{vo}:

‘perque annos duci monet [rex] in spectacula casum
unde datur multis annua scena locis.’

A fifteenth-century Augsburg miracle-play of St. George is printed by
Keller, _Fastnachtsspiele_, No. 125; for other Continental data cf.
Creizenach, i. 231, 246; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 10, 644; D’Ancona,
i. 104.

[785] Rabelais, _Gargantua_, iv. 59. The dragon was called Graoully,
and snapped its jaws, like the Norwich ‘snap-dragons’ and the English
hobby-horse.

[786] Cf. p. 138. The myth has attached itself to other undoubtedly
historical persons besides St. George (Bury, _Gibbon_, ii. 569). In
his case it is possibly due to a misunderstood bit of rhetoric. In the
Coptic version of the legend edited by Budge (p. 223), Dadianus is
called ‘the dragon of the abyss.’ There is no literal dragon in this
version: the princess is perhaps represented by Alexandra, the wife of
Dadianus, whom George converts. Cf. Hartland, _Perseus_, iii. 44.

[787] Cf. ch. xxiv, as to these plays.

[788] I ought perhaps to say that in one of the Coptic versions of the
legend St. George is periodically slain and brought back to life by a
miracle during the space of seven years. But I do not think that this
episode occurs in any of the European versions of the legend.

[789] ‘Sant George and the dragon’ are introduced into a London
May-game in 1559 (ch. viii).

[790] See the Manchester _Peace Egg_ chap-book. At Manchester,
Langdale, and, I believe, Coniston, the play is performed at Easter:
cf. Halliwell, _Popular Rhymes_, 231. The Steyning play is believed
to have been given at May-day as well as Christmas. Of course, so far
as this goes, the transference might have been from Christmas, not to
Christmas, but the German analogies point the other way. The Cheshire
performance on All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2), mentioned by Child, v. 291, is,
so far as I know, exceptional.

[791] Cf. ch. xvii: In the Isle of Wight the performers are called
the ‘Christmas Boys’ (C. R. Smith, _Isle of Wight Words_, in _E. D.
S._ xxxii. 63). The terms ‘Seven Champions’ (Kent) and ‘John Jacks’
(Salisbury) have already been explained. The Steyning ‘Tipteers’ or
‘Tipteerers’ may be named from the ‘tips’ collected in the _quête_.
The ‘Guisers’ of Staffordshire become on the Shropshire border
‘Morris-dancers,’ ‘Murry-dancers,’ or ‘Merry-dancers’--a further proof
of the essential identity of the morris- or sword-dance with the play.

[792] Tille, _Y. and C._ 78, 107; Rhys, _C. H._ 519; cf. ch. v.

[793] Tille, _Y. and C._ 18; _D. W._ 6. Bede, _D. T. R._ 15, gives
Blot-monath as the Anglo-Saxon name for November, and explains it as
‘mensis immolationum, quia in ea pecora quae occisuri erant, Diis suis
voverent.’

[794] Burton, 15, notes a tradition at Disley, in Cheshire, that the
local wake was formerly held after the first fall of snow.

[795] Tille, _Y. and C._ 18.

[796] Mogk, iii. 391; Tille, _Y. and C._ 24, find the winter feast
in the festival of Tanfana which the Marsi were celebrating when
Germanicus attacked them in A. D. 14 (Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 51). Winter,
though imminent, had not yet actually set in, but this might be the
case in any year after the festival had come to be determined by a
fixed calendar.

[797] Tille, _Y. and C._ 57.

[798] Rhys, _C. H._ 513, says that the _Samhain_ fell on Nov. 1. The
preceding night was known as _Nos Galan-geaf_, the ‘night of winter
calends,’ and that following as _Dy’ gwyl y Meirw_, ‘the feast of the
Dead.’ In _F. L._ ii. 308 he gives the date of the Manx _Samhain_ as
Nov. 12, and explains this as being Nov. 1, O. S. But is it not really
the original date of the feast which has been shifted elsewhere to the
beginning of the month?

[799] Tille, _Y. and C._ 12, citing M. Heyne, _Ulfilas_, 226: ‘In a
Gothic _calendarium_ of the sixth century November, or _Naubaímbaír_,
is called _fruma Iiuleis_, which presupposes that December was called
*_aftuma Iiuleis_.’

[800] Bede, _de temp. rat._ c. 15. Tille, _Y. and C._ 20, points out
that the application of the old tide-name to fit November and December
by the Goths and December and January by the Anglo-Saxons is fair
evidence for the belief that the tide itself corresponded to a period
from mid-November to mid-January.

[801] Tille, _Y. and C._ 147. The terms _gehhol_, _geóhel_, _geól_,
_giúl_, _iûl_, &c. signify the Christmas festival season from the ninth
century onwards, and from the eleventh also Christmas Day itself. The
fifteenth-century forms are _Yule_, _Ywle_, _Yole_, _Yowle_. In the
A.-S. Chronicle the terms used for Christmas are ‘midewinter,’ ‘Cristes
mæssa,’ ‘Cristes tyde,’ ‘Natiuitedh.’ As a single word ‘Cristesmesse’
appears first in 1131 (Tille, _Y. and C._ 159). The German ‘Weihnacht’
(M.H.G. _wich_, ‘holy’) appears †1000 (Tille, _D. W._ 22).

[802] Pfannenschmidt, 238, 512.

[803] The notion is of a circular course of the sun, passing through
the four turning- or wheeling-points of the solstices and equinoxes. Cf.
ch. vi for the use of the wheel as a solar symbol.

[804] Mogk, iii. 391, quoting Kluge, _Englische Studien_, ix. 311, and
Bugge, _Ark. f. nord. Filolog._ iv. 135. Tille, _Y. and C._ 8, 148,
desirous to establish an Oriental origin for the Three Score Day tides,
doubts the equation *_jehwela_ = _ioculus_, and suggests a connexion
between the Teutonic terms and the old Cypriote names ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος,
ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος for the period Dec. 22 to Jan. 23 (K. F. Hermann,
_Über griech. Monatskunde_, 64), and, more hesitatingly, with the Greek
Ἴουλος or hymn to Ceres. Weinhold, _Deutsche Monatsnamen_, 4; _Deutsche
Jahrteilung_, 15, thinks that both the Teutonic and Cypriote names are
the Roman _Julius_ transferred from mid-summer to mid-winter. Northall,
208, makes _yule_ = _ol_, _oel_, a feast or ‘ale,’ for which I suppose
there is nothing to be said. Skeat, _Etym. Dict._ s. v., makes it ‘a
time of revelry,’ and connects with M.E. _youlen_, _yollen_, to ‘yawl’
or ‘yell,’ and with A.-S. _gýlan_, Dutch _joelen_, to make merry, G.
_jolen_, _jodeln_, to sing out. He thus gets in a different way much
the sense given in the text.

[805] At a Cotswold Whitsun ale a lord and lady ‘of yule’ were chosen
(_Gloucester F. L._ 56). Rhys, _C. H._ 412, 421, 515, and in _F. L._
ii. 305, gives _Gwyl_ as a Welsh term for ‘feast’ in general, and in
particular mentions, besides the _Gwyl y Meirw_ at the _Samhain_,
the _Gwyl Aust_ (Aug. 1, Lammas or Lugnassad Day). This also appears
in Latin as the _Gula Augusti_ (Ducange, s. v. temp. Edw. III), and
in English as ‘the Gule of August’ (Hearne, _Robert of Gloucester’s
Chron._ 679). Tille, _Y. and C._ 56, declares that _Gula_ here is only
a mutilation of _Vincula_, Aug. 1 being in the ecclesiastical calendar
the feast of St. Peter _ad Vincula_.

[806] Kluge and Lutz, _English Etymology_, s. v. Yule.

[807] Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 15 ‘ipsam noctem nobis sacrosanctam, tunc
gentili vocabulo _Modranicht_ [v.l. _Modraneht_], id est, matrum
noctem appellabant; ob causam ut suspicamur ceremoniarum, quas in ea
pervigiles agebant.’

[808] Mogk, iii. 391. Tille, _Y. and C._ 152, gives some earlier
explanations, criticizes that of Mogk, and offers as his own a
reference to a custom of baking a cake (_placenta_) to represent the
physical motherhood of the Virgin. The practice doubtless existed and
was condemned by Pope Hormisdas (514-23), by the Lateran Council of
649, the Council of Hatfield (680), and the Trullan Council (692).
But Bede must have known this as a Christian abuse, and he is quite
plainly speaking of a pre-Christian custom. J. M. Neale, _Essays in
Liturgiology_ (1867), 511, says, ‘In most Celtic languages Christmas
eve is called the night of Mary,’ the Virgin, here as elsewhere, taking
over the cult of the mother-goddesses.

[809] Tille, _Y. and C._ 65. In his earlier book _D. W._ 7, 29, Dr.
Tille held the view that there had always been a second winter feast
about three weeks after the first, when the males held over for
breeding were slain.

[810] According to Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 15, the Anglo-Saxons had adopted
the system of intercalary months which belongs to the pre-Julian
and not the Julian Roman calendar. But Bede’s chapter is full of
confusions: cf. Tille, _Y. and C._ 145.

[811] All Saints’ day or Hallowmas (November 1) and All Souls’ day
(November 2) have largely, though not wholly, absorbed the November
feast of the Dead.

[812] Pfannenschmidt, 203; Jahn, 229; Tille, _Y. and C._ 21, 28, 36,
42, 57; _D. W._ 23.

[813] Tille, _D. W._ 29; Müller, 239, 248. According to Tille, _D. W._
63, Christmas only replaced the days of St. Martin and St. Nicholas as
a German children’s festival in the sixteenth century.

[814] Tille, _Y. and C._ 34, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206; Dyer, 418;
N. Drake, _Shakespeare and his Times_ (1838), 93. Martinmas was a
favourite Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval legal term. It survived also as
a traditional ‘tyme of slauchter’ for cattle. ‘Martlemas beef’ was a
common term for salt beef. In Scotland a Mart is a fat cow or bullock,
but the derivation of this appears to be from a Celtic word _Mart_ =
cow.

[815] Rhys, in _F. L._ ii. 308.

[816] Mommsen, _C. I. L._ i^2. 287; Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl._ s. v.
_Bruma_; Tomaschek, in _Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. Wien_, lx (1869), 358.

[817] Ovid, _Fasti_, i. 163 ‘bruma novi prima est veterisque novissima
solis.’

[818] Cf. p. 112.

[819] Preller, ii. 408; P. Allard, _Julien l’Apostat_, i. 16; J.
Réville, _La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères_ (1885); Wissowa, 306. An
earlier cult of the same type introduced by Elagabalus did not survive
its founder.

[820] The earliest reference is probably that in the calendar of the
Greek astronomer, of uncertain date, Antiochus, Ἡλίου γενέθλιον·
αὔξει φῶς (Cumont, i. 342, from _Cod. Monac._ gr. 287, f. 132). The
_Fasti_ of Furius Dionysius Philocalus (A.D. 354) have ‘VIII. KAL. IAN.
N[atalis] INVICTI C[ircenses] M[issus] XXX’ (_C. I. L._ i^2. 278, 338).
Cf. Julian, _Orat._ 4 (p. 156 ed. Spanheim) εὐθέως μετὰ τὸν τελευταῖον
τοῦ Κρόνου μῆνα ποιοῦμεν ἡλίῳ τὸν περιφανέστατον ἀγῶνα, τὴν ἑορτὴν Ἡλίῳ
καταφημίσαντες Ἀνικήτῳ; Corippus, _de laud. Iust. min._ i. 314 ‘Solis
honore novi grati spectacula circi’; cf. the Christian references on
p. 242. Mommsen’s _Scriptor Syrus_ quoted _C. I. L._ i^2. 338 tells us
that lights were used; ‘accenderunt lumina festivitatis causa.’

[821] Preller, ii. 410; Gibbon, ii. 446.

[822] On Mithraicism, cf. F. Cumont, _Textes et Monuments relatifs
aux Mystères de Mithra_ (1896-9); also the art. by the same writer in
Roscher’s _Lexicon_, ii. 3028, and A. Gasquet, _Le Culte de Mithra_
(_Revue des Deux Mondes_ for April 1, 1899); J. Réville, _La Religion à
Rome sous les Sévères_, 77; Wissowa, 307; Preller, ii. 410; A. Gardner,
_Julian the Apostate_, 175; P. Allard, _Julien l’Apostat_, i. 18; ii.
232; G. Zippel, _Le Taurobolium_, in _Festschrift f. L. Friedländer_
(1895), 498. Mithra was originally a form of the Aryan Sun-god, who
though subordinated in the Mazdean system to Ahoura Mazda continued to
be worshipped by the Persian folk. His cult made its appearance in Rome
about 70 B.C., and was developed during the third and fourth centuries
A.D. under philosophic influences. Mithra was regarded as the fount
of all life, and the yearly obscuration of the sun’s forces in winter
became a hint and promise of immortality to his worshippers: cf. _Carm.
adv. paganos_, 47 ‘qui hibernum docuit sub terra quaerere solem.’
Mithraic votive stones have been found in all parts of the empire,
Britain included. They are inscribed ‘Soli Invicto,’ ‘Deo Soli Invicto
Mithrae,’ ‘Numini Invicto Soli Mithrae,’ and the like.

[823] Cumont, _Textes et Mon._ i. 325; ii. 66, and in Roscher’s
_Lexicon_, ii. 3065; Lichtenberger, _Encycl. des Sciences religieuses_,
s. v. Mithra.

[824] Preller, _R. M._ ii. 15; Mommsen, in _C. I. L._ i^2. 337;
Marquardt and Mommsen, _Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer_, vi. 562;
_Dict. of Cl. A._ s. v. Saturnalia; Tille, _Y. and C._ 85; Frazer, iii.
138; W. W. Fowler, 268; C. Dezobry, _Rome au Siècle d’Auguste_ (ed. 4,
1875), iii. 140.

[825] Horace, _Satires_, ii. 7. 4:

‘age, libertate Decembri,
quando ita maiores voluerunt, utere; narra.’

[826] The democratic character of the feast is brought out in the νόμοι
put by Lucian (Luc. _Opp._ ed. Jacobitz, iii. 307; _Saturnalia_, p.
393) in the mouth of the divinely instructed νομοθέτης, Chronosolon,
and in the ‘Letters of Saturn’ that follow.

[827] According to Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 15, Nero was king of the
Saturnalia at the time of the murder of Britannicus. On the nature of
this sovereignty, cf. Arrian, _Epictetus_, i. 25; Martial, xi. 6:

‘unctis falciferi senis diebus,
regnator quibus imperat fritillus.’

Lucian, _Saturnalia_, p. 385, introduces a dialogue between Saturn
and his priests. Saturn says ἑπτὰ μὲν ἡμερῶν ἡ πᾶσα βασιλεία, καὶ
ἢν ἐκπρόθεσμος τούτων γένωμαι, ἰδιώτης εὐθύς εἰμι, καὶ τοῦ πολλοῦ
δήμου εἷσ· ἐν αὐταῖς δέ ταῖς ἑπτὰ σπουδαῖον μὲν οὐδὲν οὐδὲ ἀγοραῖον
διοικήσασθαί μοι συγκεχώρηται, πίνειν δὲ καὶ μεθύειν καὶ βοᾶν καὶ
παίζειν καὶ κυβεύειν καὶ ἄρχοντας καθίσταναι καὶ τοὺς οἰκέτας εὐωχεῖν
καὶ γυμνὸν ἄδειν καὶ κροτεῖν ὑποτρέμοντα, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ἐς ὕδωρ
ψυχρὸν ἐπὶ κεφαλὴν ὠθεῖσθαι ἀσβόλῳ κεχρισμένον τὸ πρόσωπον, ταῦτα
ἐφεῖταί μοι ποιεῖν; and again: εὐωχώμεθα δὲ ἤδη καὶ κροτῶμεν καὶ ἐπὶ
τῆ ἑορτῆ ἐλευθεριάζωμεν, εἲτα πεττεύωμεν ἐς τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἐπὶ καρύων καὶ
βασιλέας χειροτονῶμεν καὶ πειθαρχῶμεν αὐτοῖσ· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν τὴν παροιμίαν
ἐπαληθεύσαιμι, ἥ φησι, παλίμπαιδας τοὺς γέροντας γίγνεσθαι. The ducking
is curiously suggestive of western festival customs, but I do not feel
sure whether it was the image of Saturn that was ducked or the _rex_
with whom he appears to half, and only half, identify himself. Frazer,
iii. 140, lays stress on the primitive sacrificial character of the
‘rex,’ who is said still to have been annually slain in Lower Moesia
at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.; cf. _Acta S. Dasii_, in
_Acta Bollandiana_, xvi. (1897), 5; Parmentier et Cumont, _Le Roi des
Saturnales_, in _R. de Philologie_, xxi (1897), 143.

[828] Frazer, iii. 144, suggests that the _Saturnalia_ may once have
been in February, and have left a trace of themselves in the similar
festival of the female slaves, the _Matronalia_, on March 1, which,
like the winter feasts, came in for Christian censure; cf. Appendix N.
No. (i).

[829] Preller, _R. M._ i. 64, 178; ii. 13; C. Dezobry, _Rome au Siècle
d’Auguste_ (ed. 4, 1875), ii. 169; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 545; vii.
245; Roscher, _Lexicon_, ii. 37; W. W. Fowler, 278; Tille, _Y. and C._
84; M. Lipenius, _Strenarum Historia_ in J. G. Graevius, _Thesaurus
Antiq. Rom._ (1699), xii. 409. The last-named treatise contains a
quantity of information set out with some obsolete learning. The most
important contemporary account is that of Libanius (314-†95) in his
είς τὰς καλάνδας and his καλανδῶν ἔκφρασις (ed. Reiske, i. 256; iv.
1053; cf. Sievers, _Das Leben der Libanius_, 170, 204). In the former
speech he says ταύτην τὴν ἑορτὴν εὔροι τ’ ἂν τεταμένην ἐφ’ ἅπαν, ὅσον ἡ
Ῥωμαίων ἀρχὴ τέταται, in the latter, μίαν δὲ οἶδα κοινὴν ἁπάντων ὁπόσοι
ζῶσιν ὑπὸ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχήν. Under the emperors, who made much of the
_strenae_ and _vota_, the importance of the Kalends grew, probably at
the expense of the Saturnalia; cf. Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i. 2. 1
‘adsunt feriae quas indulget magna pars mensis Iano dicati.’

[830] Preller, i. 180; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 14; vii. 245; W. W.
Fowler, 278; Tille, _Y. and C._ 84, 104. _Strenia_ was interpreted in
the sense of ‘strenuous’; cf. Symmachus, _Epist._ x. 15 ‘ab exortu
paene urbis Martiae strenarum usus adolevit auctore Tatio rege, qui
verbenas felicis arboris ex luco Streniae anni novi auspices primus
accepit.... Nomen indicio est viris strenuis haec convenire virtute.’
Preller calls Strenia a Sabine _Segensgöttin_.

[831] Mommsen and Marquardt, vii. 245; Lipenius, 489. The gifts were
often inscribed ‘anno novo faustum felix tibi.’ It is probable that
the sweet cakes and the lamps like the _verbenae_ had originally a
closer connexion with the rites of the feast than that of mere omens.
The emperors expected liberal _strenae_, and from them the custom
passed into mediaeval and Renaissance courts. Queen Elizabeth received
sumptuous new year gifts from her subjects. For a money payment the
later empire used the term καλανδικόν or _kalendaticum_. _Strenae_
survives in the French _étrennes_ (Müller, 150, 504).

[832] Appendix N, Nos. (i), (ii).

[833] The most recent authorities are Tille, _Y. and C._ 119;
H. Usener, _Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen_, i, _Das
Weihnachtsfest_ (1889); L. Duchesne, _Origines du Culte chrétien_ (ed.
2, 1898), 247, and in _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 41; F. C. Conybeare,
_The History of Christmas_, in _American Journal of Theology_ (1899),
iii. 1, and _Introduction_ to _The Key of Truth_ (1898); F. Cumont,
_Textes et Monuments mithraïques_, i (1899), 342, 355. I have not been
able to see an article praised by Mr. Conybeare, in P. de Lagarde,
_Mittheilungen_ (1890), iv. 241.

[834] Conybeare, _Am. J. Th._ iii. 7, cites, without giving exact
references, two ‘north Italian homilies’ of the fourth century, which
seem to show this.

[835] _Sermo_ ccii (_P. L._ xxxviii. 1033).

[836] The _depositio martyrum_, attached to the _Fasti_ of Philocalus
drawn up in 354, opens with the entry ‘viii kl. ianu. natus Christus
in Bethleem Iudeae.’ December 25 was therefore kept as the birthday
at least as early as 353. Usener, i. 267, argued that the change must
have taken place in this very year, because Liberius, while veiling
Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, on the Epiphany, spoke of the
day as ‘natalem Sponsi tui’ (_de Virginibus_, iii. 1, in _P. L._ xvi.
219). But it is not proved either that this event took place in 363,
or that it was on Epiphany rather than Christmas day. Liberius refers
to the Marriage at Cana and the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But the
first allusion is directly led up to by the _sponsalia_ of Marcellina,
and both events, although at a later date commemorated at Epiphany, may
have belonged to Christmas at Rome, before Epiphany made its appearance
(Duchesne, _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 41). Usener adds that Liberius
built the _Basilica Liberii_, also known as _Sta. Maria ad Praesepe_ or
_Sta. Maria Maggiore_, which is still a great station for the Christmas
ceremonies, in honour of the new feast. But Duchesne shows that the
dedication to St. Mary only dates from a rebuilding in the fifth
century, that the _praesepe_ cannot be traced there before the seventh,
and that the original Christmas _statio_ was at St. Peter’s.

[837] Duchesne, _Bulletin critique_ (1890), 44. This document also
belongs to the collection of Philocalus.

[838] Conybeare, _Key of Truth_, clii-clvii, quoting an Armenian bishop
Hippolytus in _Bodl. Armen. Marsh_ 467, f. 338^a, ‘as many as were
disobedient have divided the two feasts.’ According to the _Catechism
of the Syrian Doctors_ in the same MS., Sahak asked Afrem why the
churches feast Dec. 25: the teacher replied, ‘The Roman world does so
from idolatry, because of the worship of the Sun. And on the 25th of
Dec., which is the first of Qanûn; when the day made a beginning out
of the darkness they feasted the Sun with great joy, and declared that
day to be the nuptials [? ‘natals,’ but cf. p. 241, n. 1] of the Sun.
However, when the Son of God was born of the Virgin, they celebrated
the same feast, although they had turned from their idols to God. And
when their bishops (_or_ primates) saw this, they proceeded to take the
Feast of the Birth of Christ, which was on the sixth of January, and
placed it there (viz. on Dec. 25). And they abrogated the feast of the
Sun, because it (the Sun) was nothing, as we said before.’ Mommsen, _C.
I. L._ i^2. 338, quotes to the same effect another _Scriptor Syrus_ (in
Assemanus, _Bibl. Orient._ ii. 164): cf. p. 235. The early apologists
(Tertullian, _Apol._ 16; _ad Nationes_, i. 13; Origen, _contra Celsum_,
viii. 67) defend Christianity against pagan charges of Sun-worship.

[839] Conybeare, _J. Am. Th._ iii. 8.

[840] Most of these dates were in the spring (Duchesne, 247). As
late as †243 the Pseudo-Cyprianic _de Pascha computus_ gives March
28. On the other hand, December 25 is given early in the third
century by Hippolytus, _Comm. super Danielem_, iv. 23 (p. 243, ed.
Bonwetsch, 1897), although the text has been suspected of interpolation
(Hilgenfeld, in _Berlin. phil. Wochenschrift_, 1897, p. 1324, s.).
Ananias of Shirak (†600-50), _Hom. de Nat._ (transl. in _Expositor_,
Nov. 1890), says that the followers of Cerinthus first separated the
birth and baptism: cf. Conybeare, _Key of Truth_, cliv. This is further
explained by Paul of Taron (ob. 1123), _adv. Theopistum_, 222 (quoted
Conybeare, clvi), who says that Artemon calculated the dates of the
Annunciation as March 25 and the Birth as December 25, ‘the birth,
not however of the Divine Being, but only of the mere man.’ Both
Cerinthus (end of 1st cent.) and Artemon (†202-17) appear to have held
Adoptionist tenets: cf. Schaff, iv. 465, 574. Paul adds that Artemon
calculated the dates from those for the conception and nativity of John
the Baptist. This implies that St. John Baptist’s day was already June
24 by †200. It was traditional on that day by St. Augustine’s time,
‘Hoc maiorum traditione suscepimus’ (_Sermo_ ccxcii. 1, in Migne, _P.
L._ xxxviii. 1320). The six months’ interval between the two nativities
may be inferred from _St. Luke_ i. 26. St. Augustine refers to the
symbolism of their relation to each other, and quotes with regard to
their position on the solstices the words ascribed to the Baptist in
_St. John_ iii. 30 ‘illum oportet crescere, me autem minui’ (_Sermo_
cxciv. 2; cclxxxvii. 3; cclxxxviii. 5; Migne, _P. L._ xxxviii. 1016,
1302, 1306). Duchesne, 250, conjectures that the varying dates of West
(Dec. 25) and East (Jan. 6) depended on a similar variation in the date
assigned to the Passion, it being assumed in each case that the life
of Christ must have been a complete circle, and that therefore he must
have died on the anniversary of his conception in the womb. Thus St.
Augustine (_in Heptat._ ii. 90) upbraids the Jews, ‘non coques agnum in
lacte matris suae.’ March 25 was widely accepted for the Passion from
Tertullian onwards, and certain Montanists held to the date of April
6. Astronomy makes it impossible that March 25 can be historically
correct, and therefore the whole calculation, if Duchesne is right,
probably started from an arbitrary identification of a Christian date
with the spring equinox, just as, if Ananias of Shirak is right, it
started from a similar identification of another such date with the
summer solstice. But it seems just as likely that the birth was fixed
first, and the Annunciation and St. John Baptist’s day calculated
back from that. If the Passion had been the starting-point, would not
the feast of Christmas, as distinct from the traditional date for the
event, have become a movable one?

[841] The Armenian criticism just quoted only re-echoes that put by St.
Augustine in the mouth of the Manichaeans in _Contra Faustum_, xx. 4
(_Corp. Script. Eccl._ xxv) ‘Faustus dixit ... solemnes gentium dies
cum ipsis celebratis ut Kalendas et solstitia.’ Augustine answers other
criticisms of the same order in the course of the book, but he does not
take up this one.

[842] Augustine, in his sermons, uses a solar symbolism in two ways,
besides drawing the parallel with St. John already quoted. Christ is
_lux e tenebris_: ‘quoniam ipsa infidelitas quae totum mundum vice
noctis obtexerat, minuenda fuerat fide crescente; ideo die Natalis
Domini nostri Iesu Christi, et nox incipit perpeti detrimenta, et dies
sumere augmenta’ (_Sermo_ cxc. 1 in _P. L._ xxxviii. 1007). He is
also _sponsus procedens de thalamo suo_ (_Sermo_ cxcii. 3; cxcv. 3,
in _P. L._ xxxviii. 1013, 1018). Following this Caesarius or another
calls Christmas the _dies nuptialis Christi_, on which ‘sponsae suae
Ecclesiae adiunctus est’ (_Serm. Pseudo-Aug._ cxvi. 2, in _P. L._
xxxix. 1975). Cumont, i. 355, gives other examples of _Le Soleil
Symbole du Christ_ from an early date, and especially of the use of the
phrase _Sol Iustitiae_ from _Malachi_, iv. 2.

[843] Pseudo-Chrysostom (Italian, 4th cent.), _de solstitiis et
aequinoctiis_ (_Op._ Chrys. ed. 1588, ii. 118) ‘Sed et dominus nascitur
mense Decembri, hiemis tempore, viii kal. Ianuarias.... Sed et invicti
natalem appellant. Quis utique tam invictus nisi dominus noster qui
Mortem subactam devicit? vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est
Sol iustitiae de quo Malachias propheta dixit’; St. Augustine, _Sermo_
cxc. 1 (_P. L._ xxxviii. 1007) ‘habeamus, igitur, fratres, solemnem
istum diem; non sicut infideles propter hunc solem, sed propter eum qui
fecit hunc solem’; _Tract. in Iohann._ xxxiv. 2 (_P. L._ xxxv. 1652)
‘numquid forte Dominus Christus est Sol iste qui ortu et occasu peragit
diem? Non enim defuerunt heretici qui ita senserunt ... (c. 4) ne quis
carnaliter sapiens solem istum intelligendum putaret’; Pseudo-Ambrose
(perhaps Maximus of Turin, †412-65), _Sermo_ vi. (_P. L._ xvii. 614)
‘bene quodammodo sanctum hunc diem natalis Domini solem novum vulgus
appellat ... quod libenter nobis amplectendum est; quia oriente
Salvatore non solum humani generis salus, sed etiam solis ipsius
claritas innovatur’; Leo Magnus, _Sermo_ xxii, _in Nativ. Dom._ (_P.
L._ liv. 198) ‘Ne idem ille tentator, cuius iam a vobis dominationem
Christus exclusit, aliquibus vos iterum seducat insidiis, et haec
ipsa praesentis diei gaudia suae fallaciae arte corrumpat, illudens
simplicioribus animis de quorumdam persuasione pestifera, quibus haec
dies solemnitatis nostrae non tam de nativitate Christi quam de novi,
ut dicunt, solis ortu honorabilis videatur’; _Sermo_ xxvii, _in Nat.
Dom._ (_P. L._ liv. 218) ‘De talibus institutis etiam illa generatur
impietas ut sol in inchoatione diurnae lucis exsurgens a quibusdam
insipientioribus de locis eminentioribus adoretur; quod nonnulli etiam
Christiani adeo se religiose facere putant, ut priusquam ad B. Petri
apostoli basilicam, quae uni Deo vivo et vero est dedicata, perveniant,
superatis gradibus quibus ad suggestum areae superioris ascenditur,
converso corpore ad nascentem se solem reflectant, et curvatis
cervicibus, in honorem se splendidi orbis inclinent. Quod fieri partim
ignorantiae vitio, partim paganitatis spiritu, multum tabescimus et
dolemus.’ Eusebius, _Sermo_ xxii. περὶ ἀστρονόμων (_P. G._ lxxxvi.
453), also refers to the adoration of the sun by professing Christians.
The ‘tentator’ of Leo and the ‘heretici’ of Augustine are probably
Manichaeus and his followers, against whose sun-worship Augustine
argues at length in _Contra Faustum_, xx (_Corp. Script. Eccl._ xxv).

[844] Duchesne, 248.

[845] Cf. p. 14.

[846] _C. Agathense_, c. 21 (Mansi, viii. 328) ‘Pascha vero, natale
domini, epiphania, ascensionem domini, pentecostem, et natalem S.
Ioannis Baptistae, vel si qui maximi dies in festivitatibus habentur,
non nisi in civitatibus aut in parochiis teneant.’

[847] _Conc. Bracarense_ (†560), Prop. 4 (Mansi, ix. 775) ‘Si quis
natalem Christi secundum carnem non bene honorat, sed honorare se
simulat, ieiunans in eodem die, et in dominico; quia Christum in
vera hominis natura natum esse non credit, sicut Cerdon, Marcion,
Manichaeus, et Priscillianus, anathema sit.’ A similar prohibition
is given by Gregory II (†725), _Capitulare_, c. 10 (_P. L._ lxxxix.
534). To failings in the opposite direction the Church was more
tender: cf. _Penitentiale Theodori_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 177),
_de Crapula et Ebrietate_ ‘Si vero pro infirmitate aut quia longo
tempore se abstinuerit, et in consuetudine non erit ei multum bibere
vel manducare, aut pro gaudio in Natale Domini aut in Pascha aut pro
alicuius Sanctorum commemoratione faciebat, et tunc plus non accipit
quam decretum est a senioribus, nihil nocet. Si episcopus iuberit, non
nocet illi, nisi ipse similiter faciat.’

[848] Tille, _Y. and C._ 122.

[849] Cf. Appendix N, No. xxii.

[850] _Epist. Gregorii ad Eulogium_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 12).

[851] _Epist. Bedae ad Egbertum_ (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 323).

[852] _Leges Ethelredi_ (Thorpe, _Ancient Laws_, i. 309) ‘Ordâl
and âdhar sindon tocweden ... fram Adventum Domini odh octavas
Epiphanie.... And beo tham hâlgum tîdan eal swa hit riht is, eallum
cristenum mannum sib and sôm gemæne, and ælc sacu getwæmed.’ Cf. _Leges
Edwardi_ (Thorpe, i. 443).

[853] _C. Moguntiacum_, c. 36 (Mansi, xiv. 73) ‘In natali Domini dies
quatuor, octavas Domini, epiphaniam Domini.’

[854] Tille, _Y. and C._ 203.

[855] Cf. the collection of prohibitions in Appendix N.

[856] _C. of Tours_, c. 18 (Appendix N, No. xxii).

[857] R. Sinker, in _D. C. A._ s. v. Circumcision.

[858] On this difficult subject see Tille, _Y. and C._ 134; H.
Grotefend, _Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung_ (1898), 11; F. Ruhl,
_Chronologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit_ (1897), 23; C. Plummer,
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ii. cxxix; R. L. Poole, in _Eng. Hist. Review_
(1901), 719.

[859] The position of Christmas would have made it natural that it
should attract observances from the spring festivals also, and, in
fact, it did attract the Mummers’ play: cf. p. 226. It cannot of course
be positively said whether the Epiphany fires and some of the other
agricultural rites to be presently mentioned (ch. xii) came from the
November or the ploughing festival.

[860] _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 11 (Appendix N. No. xxv).

[861] In the south of France Christmas is _Chalendes_, in Provence
_Calendas_ or _Calenos_. The log is _calignau_, _chalendau_,
_chalendal_, _calignaon_, or _culenos_, and the peasants sang round it
‘Calène vient’ (Tille, _D. W._ 286; Müller, 475, 478). Thiers, i. 264,
speaks of ‘le pain de Calende.’ Christmas songs used to be known in
Silesia as _Kolendelieder_ (Tille, _D. W._ 287). The Lithuanian term
for Christmas is _Kalledos_ and the Czechic _Koleda_ (Polish _Kolenda_,
Russian _Koljada_). A verb _colendisare_ appears as a Bohemian law term
(Tille, _Y. and C._ 84); while in the fourteenth century the Christmas
_quête_ at Prague was known as the _Koledasammeln_ (Tille, _D. W._
112). The Bohemian Christmas procession described by Alsso (cf. ch.
xii) was called _Calendizatio_, and according to tradition St. Adalbert
(tenth century) transferred it from the Kalends to Christmas, and
called it _colendizatio_ ‘_a colendo_.’

[862] _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 5 (Appendix N, No. xxv).
Pfannenschmidt, 498, has collected a number of notices of _Martinalia_
from the tenth century onwards.

[863] Pfannenschmidt, 279; Dyer, 386, describe the ‘Horn Fair’ at
Charlton, Kent, on St. Luke’s Day, Oct. 18. A king and queen were
chosen, who went in procession to the church, wearing horns. The
visitors wore masks or women’s clothes, and played practical jokes with
water. Rams’ horns were sold at the fair, which lasted three days, and
the gilt on the gingerbread took the same shape. It will be remembered
that the symbol of St. Luke in Christian art is a horned ox.

[864] Cf. p. 114. According to Spence, 196, the Shetland Christmas
begins on St. Thomas’s Day and ends on Jan. 18, known as ‘Four and
Twenty Day.’ Candlemas (Feb. 2) is also often regarded as the end of
the Christmas season. The Anglo-Saxon Christmas feast lasted to the
Octave of Epiphany (Tille, _Y. and C._ 165).

[865] Dyer, 451; Ashton, 118, where the custom is said to have
been ‘started by the Rev. J. Kenworthy, Rector of Ackworth, in
Yorkshire, ... for the special benefit of the birds.’

[866] Frazer, i. 177, ii. 172, 286; Grimm, iv. 1783; Tille, _D. W._ 50,
178; Alsso, in Usener, ii. 61, 65.

[867] Lipenius, 423; cf. Appendix N, Nos. i, vi, xiii, xxiv.

[868] Tille, _Y. and C._ 103, 174; Philpot, 164; Jackson and Burne,
397; Dyer, 457; Stow, _Survey of London_ (ed. 1618), 149 ‘Against the
feast of Christmas, euery mans house, as also their parish Churches,
were decked with Holm, Iuy, Bayes, and whatsoever the season of the
yeere aforded to be greene. The Conduits and Standards in the streetes
were, likewise, garnished.’ He gives an example from 1444.

[869] Burne-Jackson, 245, 397, 411; Ashton, 95. Customs vary: here
the evergreens must be burnt; there given to the cattle. They should
not touch the ground (Grimm, iii. 1207). With this taboo compare that
described by ancient writers, probably on the authority of Posidonius,
as existing in a cult of a god identified with Dionysus amongst the
Namnites on the west coast of Gaul. A temple on an island was unroofed
and reroofed by the priestesses annually. Did one of them drop her
materials on the ground, she was torn to pieces by her companions
(Rhys, _C. H._ 196). They are replaced on Candlemas by snowdrops, or,
according to Herrick, ‘the greener box.’ In Shropshire a garland made
of blackthorn is left hanging from New Year to New Year, and then burnt
in a festival fire (_F. L._ x. 489; xii. 349).

[870] The Christmas, rivalry between holly and ivy is the subject
of carols, some dating from the fifteenth century; cf. Ashton, 92;
Burne-Jackson, 245.

[871] Grimm, iii. 1205.

[872] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxi. 95.

[873] Ashton, 81, 92; Ditchfield, 18; Brand, i. 285; Dyer, 458;
Philpot, 164. Mistletoe is the chief ingredient of the ‘kissing-bunch,’
sometimes a very elaborate affair, with apples and dolls hung in it.
The ecclesiastical taboo is not universal; in York Minster, e.g.,
mistletoe was laid on the altar.

[874] Tille, _Y. and C._ 174; _D. W._ 256, and in _F. L._ iii. 166;
Philpot, 164; Ashton, 189; Kempe, _Loseley MSS._ 75. The earliest
English mention is in 1789.

[875] Tille, _Y. and C._ 170.

[876] Ibid. 172; Ashton, 105, quoting Aubrey, _Natural Hist. of Wilts_,
‘Mr. Anthony Hinton, one of the officers of the Earle of Pembroke,
did inoculate, not long before the late civill warres (ten yeares or
more), a bud of Glastonbury Thorne, on a thorne, at his farm house, at
Wilton, which blossoms at Christmas, as the other did. My mother has
had branches of them for a flower-pott, several Christmasses, which I
have seen. Elias Ashmole, Esq., in his notes upon _Theatrum Chymicum_,
saies that in the churchyard at Glastonbury grew a walnutt tree, that
did putt out young leaves at Christmas, as doth the King’s Oake in the
New Forest. In Parham Park, in Suffolk (Mr. Boutele’s), is a pretty
ancient thorne, that blossomes like that at Glastonbury; the people
flock hither to see it on Christmas day. But in the rode that leades
from Worcester to Droitwiche is a black thorne hedge at Clayes, half
a mile long or more, that blossoms about Christmas-day for a week or
more together. Dr. Ezerel Tong sayd that about Rumly-Marsh in Kent,
are thornes naturally like that near Glastonbury. The Soldiers did
cutt downe that near Glastonbury: the stump remaines.’ Specimens are
still found about Glastonbury of _Crataegus oxyacantha praecox_, a
winter-flowering variety of hawthorn: some of the alleged slips from
the Glastonbury thorn appear, however, to be _Prunus communis_, or
blackthorn. A writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1753 reports
that the opponents of the ‘New Style’ introduced in 1752 were
encouraged by the refusal of the thorns at Glastonbury and Quainton in
Buckinghamshire to flower before Old Christmas day. A Somerset woman
told a writer in 3 _N. Q._ ix. 33 that the buds of the thorns burst
into flower at midnight on Christmas Eve, ‘As they comed out, you could
hear ‘um haffer.’

[877] Tille, _Y. and C._ 175.

[878] Usener, ii. 61. Alsso says that St. Adalbert substituted a
crucifix for the idol, and the cry of ‘Vele, Vele,’ for that of ‘Bely,
Bely.’

[879] Ashton, 244; Dyer, 483; Ditchfield, 15. The dolls sometimes
represent the Virgin and Child. ‘Wesley-bob’ and the alternative
‘vessel-cup’ appear to be corruptions of ‘wassail.’

[880] Cf., however, the Burghead ceremony (p. 256).

[881] Brand, i. 217; Burne-Jackson, 381; Dyer, 405; Ditchfield, 25,
161; Northall, 216; Henderson, 66; Haddon, 476; Pfannenschmidt, 206.
The _N. E. D._ plausibly explains ‘gooding,’ which seems to be used
of any of these _quêtes_ as ‘wishing good,’ and ‘hooding’ may be a
corruption of this.

[882] Brand, i. 1; Dyer, 501; Ditchfield, 42; Northall, 183. Skeat
derives _wassail_, M.E. _wasseyl_, ‘a health-drinking,’ from N.E. _wæs
hǽl_, A.-S. _wes hál_, ‘be whole.’

[883] Ducange, _Gloss_, s. v. Kalendae Ianuarii, quoting _Cerem. Rom.
ad calcem Cod. MS. eccl. Camerac._ ‘Hii sunt ludi Romani communes in
Kalendis Ianuarii. In vigilia Kalendarum in sero surgunt pueri, et
portant scutum. Quidam eorum est larvatus cum maza in collo; sibilando
sonant timpanum, eunt per domos, circumdant scutum, timpanum sonat,
larva sibilat. Quo ludo finito, accipiunt munus a domino domus,
secundum quod placet ei. Sic faciunt per unamquamque domum. Eo die de
omnibus leguminibus comedunt. Mane autem surgunt duo pueri ex illis,
accipiunt ramos olivae et sal, et intrant per domos, salutant domum:
Gaudium et laetitia sit in hac domo; tot filii, tot porcelli, tot agni,
et de omnibus bonis optant, et antequam sol oriatur, comedunt vel favum
mellis, vel aliquid dulce, ut totus annus procedat eis dulcis, sine
lite et labore magno.’

[884] Du Tilliot, 67, quoting J. B. Thiers, _Traité des jeux et des
divertissemens_, 452; Müller, 103. There are some Guillaneu songs in
Bujeaud, ii. 153. The _quête_ was prohibited by two synods of Angers in
1595 and 1668.

[885] Brand, i. 247; Dyer, 505; Ditchfield, 44; Ashton, 217; Northall,
181; Henderson, 76; Tille, _Y. and C._ 204; Nicholson, _Golspie_, 100;
Rhys, in _F. L._ ii. 308. Properly speaking, ‘Hogmanay’ is the gift
of an oaten farl asked for in the _quête_. It is also applied to the
day on which the _quête_ takes place, which is in Scotland generally
New Year’s Eve. Besides the _quête_, Hogmanay night, like Halloween
elsewhere, is the night for horse-play and practical joking. The name
appears in many forms, ‘Hogmana,’ ‘Hogomanay,’ ‘Nog-money’ (Scotland),
‘Hogmina’ (Cumberland), ‘Hagmena’ (Northumberland), ‘Hagman heigh!’
‘Hagman ha!’ (Yorkshire), ‘Agganow’ (Lancashire), ‘Hob dy naa,’ ‘Hob
ju naa’ (Isle of Man). It is generally accepted as equivalent to the
French _aguilanneuf_, _aguilanleu_, _guillaneu_, _hagui men lo_,
_hoquinano_, &c., ad infin., the earliest form being _auguilanleu_
(1353). With the Scotch

‘Hogmanay,
Trollolay,
Give us of your white bread and none of your grey’!

may be compared the French,

‘Tire lire,
Maint de blanc, et point du bis.’

On no word has amateur philology been more riotous. It has been
derived from ‘au gui menez,’ ‘à gui l’an neuf,’ ‘au gueux menez,’
‘Hálig monath,’ ἁγία μήνη, ‘Homme est né,’ and the like. Tille thinks
that the whole of December was formerly Hogmanay, and derives from
_monâth_ and either *_hoggva_, ‘hew,’ _hag_, ‘witch,’ or _hog_, ‘pig.’
Nicholson tries the other end, and traces _auguilanleu_ to the Spanish
_aguinaldo_ or _aguilando_, ‘a New Year’s gift.’ This in turn he
makes the gerund of *_aguilar_, an assumed corruption of _alquilar_,
‘to hire oneself out.’ Hogmanay will thus mean properly ‘handsel’ or
hiring-money,’ and the first Monday in the New Year is actually called
in Scotland ‘Handsel Monday.’ This is plausible, but, although no
philologist, I think a case might be made out for regarding the terms
as corruptions of the Celtic _Nos Galan-gaeaf_, ‘the night of the
winter Calends’ (Rhys, 514). This is All Saints’ eve, while the Manx
‘Hob dy naa’ _quête_ is on Hollantide (November 12; cf. p. 230).

[886] A Gloucestershire wassail song in Dixon, _Ancient Poems_, 199,
ends,

‘Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best:
I hope your soul in heaven will rest;
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down fall butler, bowl and all.’

[887] In Herefordshire and the south of Scotland it is lucky to draw
‘the cream of the well’ or ‘the flower of the well,’ i. e. the first
pail of water after midnight on New Year’s eve (Dyer, 7, 17). In
Germany _Heilwag_ similarly drawn at Christmas is medicinal (Grimm, iv.
1810). Pembroke folk sprinkle each other on New Year’s Day (_F. L._
iii. 263). St. Martin of Braga condemns amongst Kalends customs ‘panem
in fontem mittere (Appendix N, No. xxiii), and this form of well-cult
survives at Christmas in the Tyrol (Jahn, 283) and in France (Müller,
500). Tertullian chaffs the custom of early bathing at the _Saturnalia_
(Appendix N, No. ii). Gervase of Tilbury (ed. Liebrecht, ii. 12)
mentions an English belief (†1200) in a wonder-working Christmas dew.
This Tille (_Y. and C._ 168) thinks an outgrowth from the Advent chant
_Rorate coeli_, but it seems closely parallel to the folk belief in
May-dew.

[888] Burne-Jackson, 388; Simpson, 202; _F. L._ v. 38; Dyer, 410. The
festival in its present form can only date from the reign of James I,
but the Pope used to be burned in bonfires as early as 1570 upon the
accession day of Elizabeth, Nov. 17 (Dyer, 422).

[889] Dyer, 389 (Sussex).

[890] Brand, i. 210, 215 (Buchan, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, North
Wales).

[891] Pfannenschmidt, 207; Jahn, 240.

[892] Ashton, 47 (Isle of Man, where the day is called ‘Fingan’s Eve’).

[893] Jahn, 253.

[894] _F. L._ xii. 349; W. Gregor, _Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 620
(Minnigaff, Galloway; bones being saved up for this fire); Gomme,
_Brit. Ass. Rept._ (1896), 633 (Biggar, Lanarkshire).

[895] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22 (Gloucestershire, Herefordshire). Twelve
small fires and one large one are made out in the wheat-fields.

[896] Dyer, 507; Ashton, 218; Simpson, 205; Gomme, _Brit. Ass. Rept._
(1896), 631; _F. L. J._ vii. 12; _Trans. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ x. 649.

[897] Simpson, 205, quoting Gordon Cumming, _From the Hebrides to the
Himalayas_, i. 245.

[898] Bede, _D. T. R._ c. 17: cf. the A.-S. passage quoted by
Pfannenschmidt, 495; Jahn, 252. Other Germanic names for the winter
months are ‘Schlachtmonat,’ ‘Gormânaða’: cf. Weinhold, _Die deutschen
Monatsnamen_, 54.

[899] Jahn, 229; Tille, _Y. and C._ 28, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206, 217,
228.

[900] Dyer, 456, 470, 474, 477; Ashton, 171; Karl Blind, _The Boar’s
Head Dinner at Oxford and an Old Teutonic Sun-God_, in _Saga Book_ of
Viking Club for 1895.

[901] Dyer, 473.

[902] Hampson, i. 82.

[903] Gummere, _G. O._ 433.

[904] Tacitus, _Germ._ 45, of the Aestii, ‘matrem deum venerantur.
insigne superstitionis formas aprorum gestant: id pro armis omnique
tutela securum deae cultorem etiam inter hostis praestat.’

[905] Dyer, 439.

[906] Dyer, 492; Ashton, 204; Grimm, iv. 1816.

[907] Dyer, 481; N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 250. Cf. ch. xvii for the
hunt of a cat and a fox at the ‘grand Christmas’ of the Inner Temple.

[908] Dyer, 494, 497; Frazer, ii. 442; Northall, 229.

[909] Ashton, 114 (Reculver); Dyer, 472 (Ramsgate); Ditchfield, 27
(Walmer), 28 (Cheshire: All Souls’ day).

[910] Dyer, 486.

[911] Ditchfield, 28.

[912] Bertrand, 314; Arbois de Jubainville, _Cycl. myth._ 385; Rhys,
_C. H._ 77.

[913] Tille, _D. W._ 109.

[914] C. de Berger (1723), _Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis
seu mascharis_, 218 ‘Vecolo aut cervolo facere; hoc est sub forma
vitulae aut cervuli per plateas discurrere, ut apud nos in festis
Bacchanalibus vulgo dicitur _correr la tora_’; J. Ihre (†1769), _Gloss.
Suio-Gothicum_, s. v. Jul. ‘Julbock est ludicrum, quo tempore hoc
pellem et formam arietis induunt adolescentuli et ita adstantibus
incursant. Credo idem hoc esse quod exteri scriptores cervulum
appellant.’ In the _Life of Bishop Arni_ (nat. 1237) it is recorded
how in his youth he once joined in a _scinnleic_ or ‘hide-play’ (_C.
P. B._ ii. 385). Frazer, ii. 447, describes the New Year custom of
_colluinn_ in Scotland and St. Kilda. A man clad in a cowhide is driven
_deasil_ round each house to bless it. Bits of hide are also burnt for
amulets. Probably the favourite Christmas game of Blind Man’s Buff was
originally a _scinnleic_ (N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 262).

[915] Brand, i. 210, 217; Jackson and Burne, 381, 392, 407; Ashton,
178; Jahn, 487, 500; Müller, 487, 500. Scandinavian countries bake
the Christmas ‘Yule-boar.’ Often this is made from the last sheaf and
the crumbs mixed with the seed-corn (Frazer, ii. 29). Germany has its
_Martinshörner_ (Jahn, 250; Pfannenschmidt, 215).

[916] Dyer, 501; Ashton, 214.

[917] Brand, i. 19; Dyer, 21, 447; Ashton, 86, 233. Brand, i. 210,
describes a Hallow-e’en custom in the Isle of Lewis of pouring a cup of
ale in the sea to ‘Shony,’ a sea god.

[918] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22, 448; Northall, 187. A cake with a hole in
the middle is hung on the horn of the leading ox.

[919] Grimm, iv. 1808. Hens are fed on New Year’s day with mixed corn
to make them lay well.

[920] Gregory, _Posthuma_, 113 ‘It hath been a Custom, and yet is
elsewhere, to whip up the Children upon Innocents-Day morning, that
the memory of this Murther might stick the closer, and in a moderate
proportion to act over the cruelty again in kind.’ In Germany, adults
are beaten (Grimm, iv. 1820). In mediaeval France ‘innocenter,’ ‘donner
les innocents,’ was a custom exactly parallel to the Easter _prisio_
(Rigollot, 138, 173).

[921] Dyer, 24; Cortet, 32; Frazer, iii. 143; Deslyons, _Traités contre
le Paganisme du Roi boit_ (2nd ed. 1670). The accounts of Edward II
record a gift to the _rex fabae_ on January 1, 1316 (_Archaeologia_,
xxvi. 342). Payments to the ‘King of Bene’ and ‘for furnissing his
graith’ were made by James IV of Scotland between 1490 and 1503 (_L.
H. T. Accounts_, 1. ccxliii; 11. xxiv, xxxi, &c.). The familiar mode
of choosing the king is thus described at Mont St. Michel ‘In vigilia
Epyphaniae ad prandium habeant fratres gastellos et ponatur faba in
uno; et frater qui inveniet fabam, vocabitur rex et sedebit ad magnam
mensam, et scilicet sedebit ad vesperas ad matutinam et ad magnam
missam in cathedra parata’ (Gasté, 53). The pre-eminence of the bean,
largest of cereals, in the mixed cereal cake (cf. ch. vi) presents no
great difficulty; on the religious significance attached to it in South
Europe, cf. W. W. Fowler, 94, 110, 130. Lady Jane Grey was scornfully
dubbed a Twelfth-day queen by Noailles (Froude, v. 206), just as the
Bruce’s wife held her lord a summer king (ch. viii).

[922] _Accts. of St. Michael’s, Bath_, s. ann. 1487, 1490, 1492
(_Somerset Arch. Soc. Trans._ 1878, 1879, 1883). One entry is ‘pro
corona conducta Regi Attumnali.’ The learned editor explains this as ‘a
quest conducted by the King’s Attorney’!

[923] Ashton, 119; Dyer, 388, 423, 427.

[924] Brand, i. 261, prints from Leland, _Itinerary_ (ed. 1769), iv.
182, a description of the proclamation of Youle by the sheriffs at the
‘Youle-Girth’ and throughout the city. In Davies, 270, is a letter from
Archbp. Grindal and other ecclesiastical commissioners to the Lord
Mayor, dated November 13, 1572, blaming ‘a very rude and barbarouse
custome maynteyned in this citie and in no other citie or towne of
this realme to our knowledge, that yerely upon St. Thomas day before
Christmas twoo disguysed persons, called Yule and Yule’s wife, shoulde
ryde throughe the citie very undecently and uncomely....’ Hereupon the
council suppressed the riding. Drake, _Eboracum_ (1736), 217, says that
originally a friar rode backwards and ‘painted like a Jew.’ He gives an
historical legend to account for the origin of the custom. Religious
interludes were played on the same day: cf. _Representations_. The
‘Yule’ of York was perhaps less a ‘king’ than a symbolical personage
like the modern ‘Old Father Christmas.’

[925] Ramsay, _Y. and L._ ii. 52; Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_,
iii. 149. The riot was against the Abbot of St. Benet’s Holm, and the
monks declared that one John Gladman was set up as a king, an act of
treason against Henry VI. The city was fined 1,000 marks. In 1448 they
set forth their wrongs in a ‘Bill’ and explained that Gladman ‘who
was ever, and at thys our is, a man of sad disposition, and trewe and
feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte as hath ben acustomed
in ony cite or burgh thorowe alle this realme, on Tuesday in the last
ende of Cristemesse, viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with
hys neyghbours, havyng his hors trappyd with tynnsoyle and other nyse
disgisy things, coronned as kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson
should end with the twelve monethes of the yere, aforn hym yche moneth
disguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton clad in whyte and red
heryngs skinns, and his hors trapped with oystyr-shells after him, in
token that sadnesse shuld folowe, and an holy tyme, and so rode in
diverse stretis of the cite, with other people, with hym disguysed
makyng myrth, disportes and plays.’

[926] Jevons, _Plutarch’s Romane Questions_, 86. The Ides (Jan. 9) must
have practically been included in the Kalends festival. The Agonium,
probably a sacrifice to Janus, was on that day (W. W. Fowler, 282).

[927] Appendix N, Nos. ix, xi, xiv, xvii, xviii, xxviii, xxxvi.

[928] G. L. Gomme, in _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 616 sqq.; Tille, _D.
W._ 11, _Y. and C._ 90; Jahn, 253; Dyer, 446, 466; Ashton, 76, 219;
Grimm, iv. 1793, 1798, 1812, 1826, 1839, 1841; Bertrand, 111, 404;
Müller, 478.

[929] Tille, _Y. and C._ 95.

[930] Dyer, 456; Ashton, 125, 188. A Lombard _Capitulary_ (App. N,
No. xxxviii) forbids a Christmas candle to be burnt beneath the
kneading-trough.

[931] Müller, 236; Dyer, 430; Ashton, 54; Rigollot, 173; _Records of
Aberdeen_ (Spalding Club), ii. 39, 45, 66. In Belgium the household
keys are entrusted to the youngest child on Innocents’ day (Durr, 73).

[932] Saupe, 9; Tille, _Y. and C._ 118; Duchesne, 267. A custom of
feasting on the tombs of the dead on the day of St. Peter de Cathedra
(Feb. 22) is condemned by the _Council of Tours_ (567), c. 23 (Maassen,
i. 133) ‘sunt etiam qui in festivitate cathedrae domui Petri apostoli
cibos mortuis offerunt, et post missas redeuntes ad domos proprias, ad
gentilium revertuntur errores, et post corpus Domini, sacratas daemoni
escas accipiunt.’ I do not doubt that the Germano-Keltic tribes had
their spring _Todtenfest_, but the date Feb. 22 seems determined by the
Roman _Parentalia_ extending from Feb. 13 to either Feb. 21 (_Feralia_)
or Feb. 22 (_Cara Cognatio_): cf. Fowler, 306. The ‘cibi’ mentioned
by the council of Tours seem to have been offered in the house, like
the winter offerings described below; but there is also evidence for
similar Germano-Keltic offerings on the tomb or howe itself; and these
were often accompanied by _dadsisas_ or dirges; cf. Saupe, _Indiculus_,
5-9. Saupe considers the _spurcalia in Februario_, explained above (p.
114) as a ploughing rite, to be funereal.

[933] Pfannenschmidt, 123, 165, 435; Saupe, 9; Golther, 586; _C. P. B._
i. 43; Jahn, 251. The chronicler Widukind, _Res gestae Sax._ (Pertz,
_Mon. SS._ iii. 423), describes a Saxon three-days’ feast in honour
of a victory over the Thuringi in 534. He adds ‘acta sunt autem haec
omnia, ut maiorum memoria prodit, die Kal. Octobris, qui dies erroris,
religiosorum sanctione virorum mutati sunt in ieiunia et orationes,
oblationes quoque omnium nos praecedentium christianorum.’ This is
probably a myth to account for the harvest _Todtenfest_, which may more
naturally be thought of as transferred with the agricultural rites from
November. For the mediaeval _Gemeinwoche_, beginning on the Sunday
after Michaelmas, was common to Germany, and not confined to Saxony.
Michaelmas, the feast of angels, known at Rome in the sixth century,
and in Germany by the ninth, also adapts itself to the notion of a
_Todtenfest_.

[934] Pfannenschmidt, 168, 443.

[935] Mogk, in Paul, iii. 260; Tille, _Y. and C._ 107.

[936] Cf. p. 231.

[937] Appendix N, Nos. xii, xvii, xxvii, xxxiii, xxxv, xxxix.

[938] Appendix N, No. xlii.

[939] Martin of Amberg, _Gewissensspiegel_ (thirteenth century, quoted
Jahn, 282), the food and drink are left for ‘Percht mit der eisnen
nasen.’

[940] _Thes. Paup._ s. v. Superstitio (fifteenth century, quoted
Jahn, 282) ‘multi credunt sacris noctibus inter natalem diem Christi
et noctem Epiphaniae evenire ad domos suas quasdam mulieres, quibus
praeest domina Perchta ... multi in domibus in noctibus praedictis
post coenam dimittunt panem et caseum, lac, carnes, ova, vinum, et
aquam et huiusmodi super mensas et coclearea, discos, ciphos, cultellos
et similia propter visitationem Perhtae cum cohorte sua, ut eis
complaceant ... ut inde sint eis propitii ad prosperitatem domus et
negotiorum rerum temporalium.’

[941] Usener, ii. 84 ‘Qui preparant mensam dominae Perthae’ (fifteenth
century). Schmeller, _Bairisch. Wörterb._ i. 270, gives other
references for Perchte in this connexion.

[942] Usener, ii. 58.

[943] _Dives and Pauper_ (Pynson, 1493) ‘Alle that ... use nyce
observances in the ... new yere, as setting of mete or drynke,
by nighte on the benche, to fede Atholde or Gobelyn.’ In English
folk-custom, food is left for the house-spirit or ‘brownie’ on ordinary
as well as festal days; cf. my ‘Warwick’ edition of _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_, 145.

[944] Jahn, 283; Brand, i. 18; Bertrand, 405; Cortet, 33, 45.

[945] Appendix N, No. xxiii. If the words ‘in foco’ are not part of the
text, ‘youling’ (cf. pp. 142, 260) may be intended.

[946] Bertrand, 111, 404.

[947] Jahn, 120, 244, 269: the _Gertruden-minnes_ on St. Gertrude’s
day (March 17) perhaps preserve another fragment of the spring
_Todtenfest_, St. Gertrude here replacing the mother-goddess; cf.
Grimm, iii. xxxviii.

[948] Grimm, i. 268, 273, 281; Mogk, in Paul, iii. 279. The especial
day of Frau Perchte is Epiphany.

[949] Mogk, in Paul, iii. 260; Tille, _D. W._ 173.

[950] Grimm, iv. 1798.

[951] Ibid. iv. 1814.

[952] Tille, _D. W._ 163; Grimm, iv. 1782.

[953] Ashton, 104.

[954] Müller, 496.

[955] _Hamlet_, i. 1. 158. I do not know where Shakespeare got the
idea, of which I find no confirmation; but its origin is probably an
ecclesiastical attempt to parry folk-belief. Other Kalends notions have
taken on a Christian colouring. The miraculous events of Christmas
night are rooted in the conception that the Kalends must abound in all
good things, in order that the coming year may do so. But allusions to
Christian legend have been worked into and have transformed them. On
Christmas night bees sing (Brand, i. 3), and water is turned into wine
(Grimm, iv. 1779, 1809). While the genealogy is sung at the midnight
mass, hidden treasures are revealed (Grimm, iv. 1840). Similarly, the
cattle of heathen masters naturally shared in the Kalends good cheer;
whence a Christian notion that they, and in particular the ox and the
ass, witnesses of the Nativity, can speak on that night, and bear
testimony to the good or ill-treatment of the farmers (Grimm, iv. 1809,
1840); cf. the _Speculum Perfectionis_, c. 114, ed. Sabatier, 225 ‘quod
volebat [S. Franciscus] suadere imperatori ut faceret specialem legem
quod in Nativitate Domini homines bene providerent avibus et bovi et
asino et pauperibus’: also p. 250, n. 1.--Ten minutes after writing
the above note, I have come on the following passage in Tolstoi,
_Résurrection_ (trad. franç.), i. 297 ‘Un proverbe dit que les coqs
chantent de bonne heure dans les nuits joyeuses.’

[956] Müller, 272.

[957] Pfannenschmidt, 207.

[958] Müller, 235, 239, 248.

[959] Tille, _D. W._ 107; _Y. and C._ 116; Saupe, 28; Io. Iac. Reiske,
_Comm. ad Const. Porph., de Caeremoniis_, ii. 357 (_Corp. Script. Byz._
1830) ‘Vidi puerulus et horrui robustos iuvenes pelliceis indutos,
cornutos in fronte, vultus fuligine atratos, intra dentes carbones
vivos tenentes, quos reciprocato spiritu animabant, et scintillis
quaquaversum sparsis ignem quasi vomebant, cum saccis cursitantes,
in quos abdere puerulos occursantes minitabantur, appensis cymbalis
et insano clamore frementes.’ He calls them ‘die Knecht Ruperte,’
and says that they performed in the Twelve nights. The _sacci_ are
interesting, for English nurses frighten children with a threat that
the chimney-sweep (here as in the May-game inheriting the tradition on
account of his black face) will put them in his sack. The _beneficent_
Christmas wanderers use the sack to bring presents in; cf. the
development of the sack in the Mummers’ play (p. 215).

[960] Müller, 235, 248.

[961] A mince-pie eaten in a different house on each night of the
Twelves (_not_ twelve mince-pies eaten _before_ Christmas) ensures
twelve lucky months. The weather of each day in the Twelves determines
that of a month (Harland, 99; Jackson and Burne, 408). I have heard of
a custom of leaping over twelve lighted candles on New Year’s eve. Each
that goes out means ill-luck in a corresponding month.

[962] Caesarius; Boniface (App. N, Nos. xvii, xviii, xxxiii); Alsso,
in Usener, ii. 65; _F. L._ iii. 253; Jackson and Burne, 400; Ashton,
111; _Brit. Ass. Report_ (1896), 620. In some of the cases quoted under
the last reference and elsewhere, _nothing_ may be taken out of the
house on New Year’s Day. Ashes and other refuse which would naturally
be taken out in the morning were removed the night before. Ashes, of
course, share the sanctity of the fire. Cf. the maskers’ threat (p.
217).

[963] Boniface (App. N, No. xxxiii); cf. the Kloster Scheyern (Usener,
ii. 84) condemnation of those ‘qui vomerem ponunt sub mensa tempore
nativitatis Christi.’ For other uses of iron as a potent agricultural
charm, cf. Grimm, iv. 1795, 1798, 1807, 1816; Burne-Jackson, 164.

[964] Cf. Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii); Grimm, iv. 1793, with many
other superstitions in the same appendix to Grimm; Brand, i. 9; Ashton,
222; Jackson and Burne, 403. The practical outcome is to begin jobs for
form’s sake and then stop. The same is done on Saint Distaff’s day,
January 7; cf. Brand, i. 15.

[965] Harland, 117; Jackson and Burne, 314; _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896),
620; Dyer, 483; Ashton, 112, 119, 224. There is a long discussion in
_F. L._ iii. 78, 253. I am tempted to find a very early notice of the
‘first foot’ in the prohibition ‘pedem observare’ of Martin of Braga
(App. N, No. xxiii).

[966] _F. L._ iii. 253.

[967] _Kloster Scheyern MS._ (fifteenth century) in Usener, ii. 84 ‘Qui
credunt, quando masculi primi intrant domum in die nativitatis, quod
omnes vaccae generent masculos et e converso.’

[968] Müller, 269 (Italy). Grimm, iv. 1784, notes ‘If the first person
you meet in the morning be a virgin or a priest, ’tis a sign of bad
luck; if a harlot, of good’: cf. Caspari, _Hom. de Sacrilegiis_,
§ 11 ‘qui clericum vel monachum de mane aut quacumque hora videns
aut o[b]vians, abominosum sibi esse credet, iste non solum paganus,
sed demoniacus est, qui christi militem abominatur.’ These German
examples have no special relation to the New Year, and the ‘first
foot’ superstition is indeed only the ordinary belief in the ominous
character of the first thing seen on leaving the house, intensified by
the critical season.

[969] Tille, _D. W._ 189; _Y. and C._ 84, 95, 104.

[970] Cf. p. 238.

[971] Brand, i. 3, 209, 226, 257; Spence, _Shetland Folk-Lore_, 189;
Grimm, iv. 1777-1848 _passim_; Jackson and Burne, 176, 380, &c., &c.
Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii) mentions that the Germans took New Year
omens sitting girt with a sword on the housetop or upon a [sacrificial]
skin at the crossways. This was called _liodorsâza_, a term which a
_glossator_ also uses for the kindred custom of _cervulus_ (Tille, _Y.
and C._ 96). Is the man in _Hom. de Sacr._ (App. N, No. xxxix) ‘qui
arma in campo ostendit’ taking omens like the man on the housetop, or
is he conducting a sword-dance?

[972] Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii).

[973] Brand, i. 209.

[974] Grimm, iv. 1781, 1797, 1818.

[975] Quoted Pfannenschmidt, 489 ‘quod autem obscoena carmina finguntur
a daemonibus et perditorum mentibus immittuntur, quidam daemon
nequissimus, qui in Nivella urbe Brabantiae puellam nobilem anno domini
1216 prosequebatur, manifeste populis audientibus dixit: cantum hunc
celebrem de Martino ego cum collega meo composui et per diversas terras
Galliae et Theutoniae promulgavi. Erat autem cantus ille turpissimus
et plenus luxuriosis plausibus.’ On _Martinslieder_ in general cf.
Pfannenschmidt, 468, 613.

[976] T. Gascoigne, _Loci e Libro Veritatum_ (1403-58), ed. Rogers, 144.

[977] Aubrey, _Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (_F. L. S._), 1.

[978] Tille, _D. W._ 55; K. Simrock, _Deutsche Weihnachtslieder_
(1854); Cortet, 246; Grove, _Dict. of Music_, s. v. Noël; Julian,
_Dict. of Hymn._ s. v. Carol; A. H. Bullen, _Carols and Poems_,
1885; Helmore, _Carols for Christmastide_. The cry ‘Noël’ appears in
the fifteenth century both in France and England as one of general
rejoicing without relation to Christmas. It greeted Henry V in London
in 1415 and the Marquis of Suffolk in Rouen in 1446 (Ramsay, _Lancaster
and York_, i. 226; ii. 60).

[979] Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, _de Caeremoniis Aulae Byzantinae_,
Bk. i. c. 83 (ed. Reiske, in _Corp. Script. Hist. Byz._ i. 381); cf.
Bury-Gibbon, vi. 516; Kögel, i. 34; D. Bieliaiev, _Byzantina_, vol. ii:
Haupt’s _Zeitschrift_, i., 368; C. Kraus, _Gotisches Weihnachtsspiel_,
in _Beitr. z. Gesch. d. deutschen Sprache und Litteratur_, xx (1895),
223.

[980] Fouquier-Cholet, _Hist. des Comtes de Vermandois_, 159, says
that Heribert IV (ob. †1081) persuaded the clergy of the Vermandois to
suppress the _fête de l’âne_. This would have been a century before
Belethus wrote. But he does not give his _probatum_, and I suspect he
misread it.

[981] Belethus, c. 72 ‘Festum hypodiaconorum, quod vocamus stultorum, a
quibusdam perficitur in Circumcisione, a quibusdam vero in Epiphania,
vel in eius octavis. Fiunt autem quatuor tripudia post Nativitatem
Domini in Ecclesia, levitarum scilicet, sacerdotum, puerorum, id est
minorum aetate et ordine, et hypodiaconorum, qui ordo incertus est.
Unde fit ut ille quandoque annumeretur inter sacros ordines, quandoque
non, quod expresse ex eo intelligitur quod certum tempus non habeat, et
officio celebretur confuso.’ Cf. ch. xv on the three other _tripudia_.

[982] Lebeuf, _Hist. de Paris_ (1741), ii. 277; Grenier, 365:

_Ad amicum venturum ad festum Baculi._
Festa dies aliis Baculus venit et novus annus,
Qua venies, veniet haec mihi festa dies.

Leonius is named as canon of N.-D. in the _Obituary_ of the church
Guérard, _Cartulaire de N.-D._ in (_Doc. inédits sur l’Hist. de
France_, iv. 34), but unfortunately the year of his death is not given.

[983] During the fifteenth century the _Chantre_ of N.-D. ‘porta le
baston’ at the chief feasts as ruler of the choir (F. L. Chartier,
_L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris_ (1897), 176). This _baculus_ must
be distinguished from the _baculus pastoralis_ or _episcopi_.

[984] Guérard, _Cartulaire de N.-D._ (_Doc. inéd. sur l’Hist. de
France_), i. 73; also printed by Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_; _P. L._
ccxii. 70. The _charta_, dated 1198, runs in the names of ‘Odo [de
Soliaco] episcopus, H. decanus, R. cantor, Mauricius, Heimericus et
Odo archidiaconi, Galo, succentor, magister Petrus cancellarius, et
magister Petrus de Corbolio, canonicus Parisiensis.’ Possibly the real
moving spirit in the reform was the dean H[ugo Clemens], to whom the
Paris _Obituary_ (Guérard, _loc. cit._ iv. 61) assigns a similar reform
of the feast of St. John the Evangelist. Petrus de Corbolio we shall
meet again. Eudes de Sully was bishop 1196-1208. His _Constitutions_
(_P. L._ ccxii. 66) contain a prohibition of ‘choreae ... in ecclesiis,
in coemeteriis et in processionibus.’ In a second decree of 1199 (_P.
L._ ccxii. 72) he provided a _solatium_ for the loss of the Feast of
Fools in a payment of three _deniers_ to each clerk below the degree
of canon, and two _deniers_ to each boy present at Matins on the
Circumcision. Should the abuses recur, the payment was to lapse. This
donation was confirmed in 1208 by his successor Petrus de Nemore (_P.
L._ ccxii. 92).

[985] A ‘hearse’ was a framework of wood or iron bearing spikes for
tapers (Wordsworth, _Mediaeval Services_, 156). The _penna_ was also a
stand for candles (Ducange, s.v.).

[986] A _prosa_ is a term given in French liturgies to an additional
chant inserted on festal occasions as a gloss upon or interpolation in
the text of the office or mass. It covers nearly, though not quite,
the same ground as _Sequentia_, and comes under the general head of
_Tropus_ (ch. xviii). For a more exact differentiation cf. Frere,
_Winchester Troper_, ix. _Laetemur gaudiis_ is a prose ascribed to
Notker Balbulus of St. Gall.

[987] _cum farsia_: a _farsia_, _farsa_, or _farsura_ (Lat.
_farcire_, ‘to stuff’), is a _Tropus_ interpolated into the text of
certain portions of the office or mass, especially the _Kyrie_, the
_Lectiones_ and the _Epistola_. Such farces were generally in Latin,
but occasionally, especially in the Epistle, in the vernacular (Frere,
_Winchester Troper_, ix, xvi).

[988] _Laetabundus_: i. e. St. Bernard’s prose beginning _Laetabundus
exultet fidelis chorus; Alleluia_ (Daniel, _Thesaurus Hymnologicus_,
ii. 61), which was widely used in the feasts of the Christmas season.

[989] The document is too long to quote in full. These are the
essential passages. The legate says: The Church of Paris is famous,
therefore diligence must be used ‘ad exstirpandum penitus quod ibidem
sub praetextu pravae consuetudinis inolevit ... Didicimus quod in
festo Circumcisionis Dominicae ... tot consueverunt enormitates et
opera flagitiosa committi, quod locum sanctum ... non solum foeditate
verborum, verum etiam sanguinis effusione plerumque contingit
inquinari, et ... ut sacratissima dies ... festum fatuorum nec
immerito generaliter consueverit appellari.’ Odo and the rest order:
‘In vigilia festivitatis ad Vesperas campanae ordinate sicut in duplo
simplici pulsabuntur. Cantor faciet matriculam (the roll of clergy for
the day’s services) in omnibus ordinate; rimos, personas, luminaria
herciarum nisi tantum in rotis ferreis, et in penna, si tamen voluerit
ille qui capam redditurus est, fieri prohibemus; statuimus etiam ne
dominus festi cum processione vel cantu ad ecclesiam adducatur, vel ad
domum suam ab ecclesia reducatur. In choro autem induet capam suam,
assistentibus ei duobus canonicis subdiaconis, et tenens baculum
cantoris, antequam incipiantur Vesperae, incipiet prosam _Laetemur
gaudiis_: qua finita episcopus, si praesens fuerit ... incipiet
Vesperas ordinate et solemniter celebrandas; ... a quatuor subdiaconis
indutis capis sericis Responsorium cantabitur.... Missa similiter cum
horis ordinate celebrabitur ab aliquo praedictorum, hoc addito quod
Epistola cum farsia dicetur a duobus in capis sericis, et postmodum a
subdiacono ... Vesperae sequentes sicut priores a _Laetemur gaudiis_
habebunt initium: et cantabitur _Laetabundus_, loco hymni. _Deposuit_
quinquies ad plus dicetur loco suo; et si captus fuerit baculus,
finito _Te Deum laudamus_, consummabuntur Vesperae ab eo quo fuerint
inchoatae.... Per totum festum in omnibus horis canonici et clerici in
stallis suis ordinate et regulariter se habebunt.’

[990] The feast lasted from Vespers on the vigil to Vespers on the day
of the Circumcision. The _Hauptmoment_ was evidently the _Magnificat_
in the second Vespers. But what exactly took place then? Did the
cathedral precentor hand over the _baculus_ to the _dominus festi_,
or was it last year’s _dominus festi_, who now handed it over to his
newly-chosen successor? Probably the latter. The _dominus festi_ is
called at first Vespers ‘capam redditurus’: doubtless the cope and
_baculus_ went together. The _dominus festi_ may have, as elsewhere,
exercised disciplinary and representative functions amongst the
inferior clergy during the year. His title I take to have been, as
at Sens, _precentor stultorum_. The order says, ‘si captus fuerit
baculus’; probably it was left to the chapter to decide whether the
formal installation of the _precentor_ in church should take place in
any particular year.

[991] _P. L._ ccxv. 1070 ‘Interdum ludi fiunt in eisdem ecclesiis
theatrales, et non solum ad ludibriorum spectacula introducuntur in
eas monstra larvarum, verum etiam in tribus anni festivitatibus, quae
continue Natalem Christi sequuntur, diaconi, presbiteri ac subdiaconi
vicissim insaniae suae ludibria exercentes, per gesticulationum
suarum debacchationes obscoenas in conspectu populi decus faciunt
clericale vilescere.... Fraternitati vestrae ... mandamus,
quatenus ... praelibatam vero ludibriorum consuetudinem vel potius
corruptelam curetis e vestris ecclesiis ... exstirpare.’ As to the
scope of this decretal and the glosses of the canonists upon it, cf.
the account of miracle plays (ch. xx).

[992] _Decretales Greg. IX_, lib. iii. tit. i. cap. 12 (_C. I. Can._
ed. Friedberg, ii. 452). I cannot verify an alleged confirmation of the
decretal by Innocent IV in 1246.

[993] _C. of Paris_ (1212), pars iv. c. 16 (Mansi, xxii. 842) ‘A festis
vero follorum, ubi baculus accipitur, omnino abstineatur. Idem fortius
monachis et monialibus prohibemus.’ Can. 18 is a prohibition against
‘choreae,’ similar to that of Eudes de Sully already referred to. Such
general prohibitions are as common during the mediaeval period as
during that of the conversion (cf. ch. viii), and probably covered the
Feast of Fools. See e.g. _C. of Avignon_ (1209), c. 17 (Mansi, xxii.
791), _C. of Rouen_ (1231), c. 14 (Mansi, xxiii. 216), _C. of Bayeux_
(1300), c. 31 (Mansi, xxv. 66).

[994] _Codex Senonen._ 46 A. There are two copies in the _Bibl. Nat._,
(i) _Cod. Parisin._ 10520 B, containing the text only, dated 1667; (ii)
_Cod. Parisin._ 1351 C, containing text and music, made for Baluze
(1630-1718). The _Officium_ has been printed by F. Bourquelot in
_Bulletin de la Soc. arch. de Sens_ (1858), vi. 79, and by Clément, 125
sqq. The metrical portions are also in Dreves, _Analecta Hymnica Medii
Aevi_, xx. 217, who cites other _Quellen_ for many of them. See further
on the MS., Dreves, _Stimmen aus Maria-Laach_, xlvii. 575; Desjardins,
126; Chérest, 14; A. L. Millin, _Monuments antiques inédits_
(1802-6), ii. 336; Du Tilliot, 13; J. A. Dulaure, _Environs de Paris_
(1825), vii. 576; Nisard, in _Archives des Missions scientifiques et
littéraires_ (1851), 187; Leber, ix. 344 (l’Abbé Lebeuf). Before the
_Officium_ proper, on f. 1^{vo} of the MS. a fifteenth-century hand
(Chérest, 18) has written the following quatrain:

‘Festum stultorum de consuetudine morum
omnibus urbs Senonis festivat nobilis annis,
quo gaudet precentor, sed tamen omnis honor
sit Christo circumciso nunc semper et almo’:

and the following couplet:

‘Tartara Bacchorum non pocula sunt fatuorum,
tartara vincentes sic fiunt ut sapientes.’

Millin, _loc. cit._ 344, cites a MS. dissertation of one Père Laire,
which ascribes these lines to one Lubin, an official at Chartres. The
last eight pages of the MS. contain epistles for the feasts of St.
Stephen, St. John the Evangelist, and the Innocents.

[995] Chérest, 14; Millin, _op. cit._ ii. 336 (plates), and _Voyage
dans le Midi_, i. 60 (plates); Clément, 122, 162; Bourquelot, _op.
cit._ vi. 79 (plates); A. de Montaiglon, in _Gazette des Beaux-arts_
(1880), i. 24 (plates); E. Molinier, _Hist. générale des Arts
appliqués_, i; _Les Ivoires_ (1896), 47 (plate); A. M. Cust, _Ivory
Workers of the Middle Ages_ (1902), 34. This last writer says that
the diptych is now in the Bibl. Nationale. The leaves of the diptych
represent a Triumph of Bacchus, and a Triumph of Artemis or Aphrodite.
It has nothing to do with the Feast of Fools, and is of sixth-century
workmanship.

[996] Dreves, 575, thinks the MS. was ‘für eine Geckenbruderschaft,’ as
the chants are not in the contemporary Missals, Breviaries, Graduais,
and Antiphonals of the church. But if they were, a separate _Officium_
book would be superfluous. Such special _festorum libri_ were in use
elsewhere, e.g. at Amiens. Nisard, _op. cit._, thinks the _Officium_
was an imitation one written by ‘notaires’ to amuse the choir-boys,
and cites a paper of M. Carlier, canon of Sens, before the Historic
Congress held at Sens in 1850 in support of this view. Doubtless the
_goliardi_ wrote such imitations (cf. the _missa lusorum_ in Schmeller,
_Carmina Burana_, 248; the _missa de potatoribus_ in Wright-Halliwell,
_Reliquiae Antiquae_, ii. 208; and the _missa potatorum_ in F.
Novati, _La Parodia sacra nelle Letterature moderne_ (_Studi critici
e letterari_, 289)); but this is too long to be one, and is not a
burlesque at all.

[997] Cf. the chapter decree of 1524 ‘festum Circumcisionis a
defuncto Corbolio institutum,’ which is doubtless the authority for
the statements of Taveau, _Hist. archiep. Senonen_. (1608), 94;
Saint-Marthe, _Gallia Christiana_ (1770), xii. 60; Baluze, note in _B.
N. Cod. Parisin_. 1351 C. (quoted Nisard, _op. cit._).

[998] Dreves, 575; Chérest, 15, who quotes an elaborate opinion of M.
Quantin, ‘archiviste de l’Yonne.’ M. Quantin believes that the hand
is that of a charter of Pierre de Corbeil, dated 1201, in the Yonne
archives. On the other hand Nisard, _op. cit._, and Danjou, _Revue
de musique religieuse_ (1847), 287, think that the MS. is of the
fourteenth century.

[999] Chérest, 35; Dreves, 576.

[1000] Liturgically a _conductus_ is a form of _Cantio_, that is, an
interpolation in the mass or office, which stands as an independent
unit, and not, like the Tropes, Proses and Sequences, as an extension
of the proper liturgical texts. The _Cantiones_ are, however, only a
further step in the process which began with Tropes (Nisard, _op. cit._
191; Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 6). From the point of view of musical
science H. E. Wooldridge, _Oxford Hist. of Music_, i. 308, defines a
_conductus_ as ‘a composition of equally free and flowing melodies in
all the parts, in which the words are metrical and given to the lower
voice only.’ The term is several times used in the _Officium_. Clément,
163, falls foul of Dulaure for taking it as an adjective throughout,
with _asinus_ understood.

[1001] Wordsworth, _Mediaeval Services_, 289; Clément, 126, 163.
Dulaure seems to have taken the _tabula_ for the altar. The English
name for the _tabula_ was _wax-brede_. An example (†1500) is printed by
H. E. Reynolds, _Use of Exeter Cathedral_, 73.

[1002] Appendix L; where the various versions of the ‘Prose’ are
collated.

[1003] There are many hymns beginning _Salve, festa dies_. The model
is a couplet of Venantius Fortunatus, _Carmina_, iii. 9, _Ad Felicem
episcopum de Pascha_, 39 (M. G. H. _Auct. Antiquiss_. iv. 1. 60):

‘Salve, festa dies, toto venerabilis aevo,
qua Deus infernum vicit et astra tenet.’

[1004] Clément, 127, correcting an error of Lebeuf. A still more
curious slip is that of M. Bourquelot, who found in the word _euouae_,
which occurs frequently in the _Officium_, an echo of the Bacchic cry
_évohé_. Now _euouae_ represents the vowels of the words _Seculorum
amen_, and is noted at the ends of antiphons in most choir-books to
give the tone for the following psalm (Clément, 164).

[1005] Clément, 138, reads _Conductus ad Ludos_, and inserts before _In
Laudibus_ the word _Ludarius_. Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 221, reads
_Conductus ad Laudes_. The section _In Laudibus_, not being metrical,
is not printed by him, so I do not know what he makes of _Ludarius_. If
Clément is right, I suppose a secular revel divided Matins and Lauds,
which seems unlikely.

[1006] I follow Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 228. Clément, 151, has again
_Ludarium_.

[1007] Prudentius, _Cathemerinon_, iii.

[1008] _Egerton MS._ 2615 (_Catalogue of Additions to MSS. in B. M._
1882-87, p. 336). On the last page is written ‘Iste liber est beati
petri beluacensis.’ On ff. 78, 110^v are book-plates of the chapter of
Beauvais, the former signed ‘Vollet f[ecit].’ The MS. was bought by the
British Museum in 1883, and formerly belonged to Signor Pachiarotti
of Padua. It was described and a facsimile of the harmonized Prose
of the Ass given in _Annales archéologiques_ (1856), xvi. 259, 300.
Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 230 (1895), speaks of it as ‘vielleicht noch
in Italien in Privatbesitz.’ This, and not the MS. used by Ducange’s
editors, is the MS. whose description Desjardins, 127, 168, gives from
a 1464 Beauvais inventory: ‘N^o. 76. Item ung petit volume entre deux
ais sans cuir l’ung d’icelx ais rompu à demy contenant plusieurs proses
antiennes et commencemens des messes avec oraisons commençant au ii^e
feuillet _Belle bouche_ et au pénultième _coopertum stolla candida_.’
The broken board was mended, after 420 years, by the British Museum in
1884.

[1009] _B. M. Catalogue_, _loc. cit._, ‘Written in the xiii^{th} cent.,
probably during the pontificate of Gregory IX (1227-41) and before the
marriage of Louis IX to Marguerite of Provence in 1234.’ There are
prayers for Gregorius Papa and Ludovicus Rex on ff. 42, 42^v, but none
for any queen of France.

[1010] Between ff. 40^{vo} and 41.

[1011] So _B. M. Catalogue_, _loc. cit._ To me it reads like ‘Conductus
asi ... adducitur.’

[1012] F. 43.

[1013] Cf. ch. xix.

[1014] Louis VII married Adèle de Champagne in 1160 and died in 1180.

[1015] Pierre Louvet, _Hist. du Dioc. de Beauvais_ (1635), ii. 299,
quoted by Desjardins, 124. I am sorry not to have been able to get hold
of the original. Nor can I find E. Charvet, _Rech. sur les anciens
théâtres de Beauvais_ (1881).

[1016] Grenier, 362. He says the ‘cérémonial’ is ‘tiré d’un ms. de
la cathédrale de Beauvais,’ and gives the footnote ‘Preuv. part
1, n^o. .’ On the prose _Kalendas Ianuarias_ and the censing his
footnotes refer to Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_. The ‘Preuves’ for his
history are scattered through the _MSS. Picardie_ in the _Bibl. Nat._
No doubt the reference here is to MSS. 14 and 158 which are copies of
the Beauvais office (Dreves, in _Stimmen aus Maria-Laach_, xlvii. 575).
These, or parts of them, are printed by F. Bourquelot, in _Bulletin de
la Soc. arch. de Sens_ (1854), vi. 171 (which also, unfortunately, I
have not seen), and chants from them are in Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx.
229. But here Dreves seems to speak of them as copies of Pacchiarotti’s
MS. (_Egerton MS._ 2615). And Desjardins, 124, says that Grenier
and Bourquelot used extracts from eighteenth-century copies of
Pacchiarotti’s MS. in the library of M. Borel de Brétizel. Are these
writers mistaken, or did Grenier only see the copies, and take his
description from Louvet? And what has become of the twelfth-century MS.?

[1017] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_, ‘MS. codice Bellovac. ann. circiter
500, ubi 1^a haec occurrit rubrica _Dominus ... ianuae_. Et alibi
_Hac ... saucita_.’

[1018] Ducange, s. v. _Festum Asinorum_. Desjardins and other writers
give the date of the ‘codex’ as twelfth century. But 500 years from
1733-6 only bring it to the thirteenth century. The mistake is due to
the fact that the _first_ edition of Ducange, in which the ‘codex’ is
not mentioned, is of 1678. Clément, 158, appears to have no knowledge
of the MS. but what he read in Ducange; and it is not quite clear what
he means when he says that it ‘d’après nos renseignements, ne renferme
pas un office, mais une sorte de _mystère_ postérieur d’un siècle au
moins à l’office de Sens, et n’ayant aucune autorité historique et
encore bien moins religieuse.’ The MS. was contemporary with the Sens
_Officium_, and although certainly influenced by the religious drama
was still liturgic (cf. ch. xx).

[1019] Cf. Appendix L, on an _Officium_ (1553) for Jan. 1 without
_stulti_ or _asinus_, from Puy.

[1020] Leber, ix. 238. This is a note by J. B. Salques to the reprint
of D’Artigny’s memoir on the _Fête des Fous_. The writer calls the
ceremony the ‘fête des apôtres,’ and says that it was held at the same
time as the ‘fête de l’âne.’ He describes a Rabelaisian _contretemps_,
which is said to have put an end to the procession in 1634. No
authority is given for this account, which I believe to be the source
of all later notices. I may add that Ducange gives the name _Festum
Apostolorum_ to the feast of St. Philip and St. James on May 1.

[1021] _Cod. Senonens_. G. 133, printed by Chérest, 47; Quantin,
_Recueil de pièces pour faire suite au Cartulaire général de l’Yonne_
(1873), 235 (N^o. 504) ‘mandamus, quatenus illa festorum antiqua
ludibria, quae in contemptum Dei, opprobrium cleri, et derisum
populi non est dubium exerceri, videlicet, in festis Sancti Ioannis
Evangelistae, Innocentium, et Circumcisionis Domini, iuxta pristinum
modum nullatenus faciatis aut fieri permittatis, sed iuxta formam
et cultum aliarum festivitatum quae per anni circulum celebrantur,
ita volumus et praecipimus celebrari. Ita quod ipso facto sententiam
suspensionis incurrat quicumque in mutatione habitus aut in sertis de
floribus seu aliis dissolutionibus iuxta praedictum ritum reprobatum
adeo in praedictis festivitatibus seu aliis a modo praesumpserit se
habere.’

[1022] L. Deschamps de Pas, _Les Cérémonies religieuses dans la
Collégiale de Saint-Omer au xiii^e Siècle_ (_Mém. de la Soc. de la
Morinie_, xx. 147). The directions for Jan. 1 are fragmentary: ‘In
quo vicarii ceterique clerici chorum frequentantes et eorum episcopus
se habeant in cantando et officiando sicut superius dictum est in
festo Sanctorum Innocentium (cf. p. 370), hoc tamen excepto quod omnia
quae ista die fiunt officiando quando est festum fatuorum pro posse
fiunt et etiam ullulando ... domino decano fatuorum ferunt incensum
sed prepostere ut dictum est.’ _Ululatus_ is, however, sometimes a
technical term in church music; cf. vol. ii. p. 7.

[1023] _R. de Renard_, xii. 469 (ed. Martin, vol. ii. 14):

‘Dan prestre, il est la feste as fox.
Si fera len demein des chox
Et grant departie a Baieus:
Ales i, si verres les jeus.’

Branch xii of the _Roman_ is the composition of Richart de Lison,
who, according to Martin, suppl. 72, wrote in Normandy †1200. The
phrase ‘faire les choux’ = ‘get drunk,’ cabbages being regarded as
prophylactic of the ill effects of liquor.

[1024] _Hist. de l’Église d’Autun_ (1774), 469, 631 ‘Item innovamus,
quod ille qui de caetero capiet baculum anni novi nihil penitus habebit
de bursa Capituli’ (_Registr. Capit._ s. a. 1230).

[1025] Martene and Durand, _Thesaurus Anecdotorum_, iv. 1070 ‘in
festo stultorum, scilicet Innocentium et anni novi ... multa fiunt
inhonesta ... ne talia festa irrisoria de cetero facere praesumant.’

[1026] Ducange, s. v. _abbas esclaffardorum_, quoting _Hist. Delphin._
i. 132; J. J. A. Pilot de Thorey, _Usages, Fêtes et Coutumes en
Dauphiné_, i. 182. The latter writer says that there was also an
_episcopus_, who was not suppressed, that the canons did reverence to
him, and that the singing of the _Magnificat_ was part of the feast.

[1027] C. Hidé, _Bull. de la Soc. acad. de Laon_ (1863), xiii. 115.

[1028] Grenier, 361 ‘Si hoc dicitur festum stultorum a subdiaconis
fiat, et dominica eveniat, ab ipsis fiat festum in cappis sericis,
sicut in libris festorum continetur.’ These _libri_ possibly resembled
those of Sens and Beauvais.

[1029] _Summa Gulielmi Autissiodorensis de Off. Eccles._ (quoted by
Chérest, 44, from _Bibl. Nat. MS._ 1411) ‘Quaeritur quare in hac die
fit festum stultorum.... Ante adventum Domini celebrabant festa quae
vocabant Parentalia; et in illa die spem ponebant credentes quod si in
illa die bene eis accideret, quod similiter in toto anno. Hoc festum
voluit removere Ecclesia quod contra fidem est. Et quia extirpare
omnino non potuit, festum illud permittit et celebrat illud festum
celeberrimum ut aliud demittatur: et ideo in matutinali officio
leguntur lectiones quae dehortantur ab huiusmodi quae sunt contra
fidem (cf. p. 245). Et si ista die ab ecclesia quaedam fiunt praeter
fidem, nulla tamen contra fidem. Et ideo ludos qui sunt contra fidem
permutavit in ludos qui non sunt contra fidem.’ There is clearly
a confusion here between the Roman _Parentalia_ (Feb. 13-22) and
_Kalendae_ (Jan. 1). On William of Auxerre, whose work remains in MS.,
cf. Lebeuf, in P. Desmolets, _Mémoires_, iii. 339; _Nouvelle Biographie
universelle_, s. n. He was bishop of Auxerre, translated to Paris
in 1220, ob. 1223. He must be distinguished from another William of
Auxerre, who was archdeacon of Beauvais (†1230), and wrote a comment on
Petrus Lombardus, printed at Paris in 1500 (Gröber, _Grundriss der röm.
Philologie_, ii. 1. 239).

[1030] Gulielmus Durandus, _Rationale Div. Off._ (Antwerp, 1614), vi.
15, _de Circumcisione_, ‘In quibusdam ecclesiis subdiaconi fortes
et iuvenes faciunt hodie festum ad significandum quod in octava
resurgentium, quae significatur per octavam diem, qua circumcisio
fiebat, nulla erit debilis aetas, non senectus, non senium, non
impotens pueritia ... &c.’ A reference to the heathen Kalends
follows; cf. also vii. 42, _de festis SS. Stephani, Ioannis Evang.
et Innocentium_, ‘... subdiaconi vero faciunt festum in quibusdam
ecclesiis in festo circumcisionis, ut ibi dictum est: in aliis in
Epiphania et etiam in aliis in octava Epiphaniae, quod vocant festum
stultorum. Quia enim ordo ille antiquitus incertus erat, nam in
canonibus antiquis (extra de aetate et qualitate) multis quandoque
vocatur sacer et quandoque non, ideo subdiaconi certum ad festandum non
habent diem, et eorum festum officio celebratur confuso.’ On Durandus
cf. the translation of his work by C. Barthélemy (1854). He was born at
Puymisson in the diocese of Béziers (1230), finished the _Rationale_
(1284), became bishop of Mende (1285), and ob. (1296).

[1031] A. Lecoy de la Marche, _La Chaire française au M. A._ 368,
citing _Bibl. Nat. MSS. fr._ 13314, f. 18; 16481, N^o. 93. The latter
MS., which is analysed by Echard, _Script. Ord. Predicatorum_, i. 269,
contains Dominican sermons delivered in Paris, 1272-3.

[1032] Chérest, 49 sqq., from Sens _Chapter Accounts_ in _Archives de
l’Yonne_, at Auxerre. The _Compotus Camerarii_ begins in 1295-6. The
_Chapter Register_ is missing before 1662: some of Baluze’s extracts
from it are in _Bibl. Nat. Cod. Parisin._ 1351.

[1033] Chérest, 55 ‘pro servitio faciendo die dicti festi quatenus
tangit canonicos subdiaconos in ecclesia.’

[1034] Towards the end of this period the accounts are in French: ‘le
précentre de la feste aux fols.’

[1035] _Epistola de Reformatione Theologiae_ (Gerson, _Opera Omnia_,
i. 121), from Bruges, 1st Jan. 1400 ‘ex sacrilegis paganorum
idololatrarumque ritibus reliquiae,’ &c.; _Solemnis oratio ex parte
Universitatis Paris. in praesentia Regis Caroli Sexti_ (1405, _Opera_
iv. 620; cf. French version in _Bibl. Nat. anc. f. fr._ 7275, described
P. Paris, _Manus. franç. de la Bibl. du Roi_, vii. 266) ‘hic commendari
potest bona Regis fides et vestrum omnium Dominorum variis modis
religiosorum, ... in hoc quod iam dudum litteras dedistis contra
abominabiles maledictiones et quasi idolatrias, quae in Francorum fiunt
ecclesiis sub umbra Festi fatuorum. Fatui sunt ipsi, et perniciosi
fatui, nec sustinendi, opus est executione’; _Rememoratio quorumdam
quae per Praelatum quemlibet pro parte sua nunc agenda viderentur_
(1407-8, _Opera_, ii. 109) ‘sciatur quomodo ritus ille impiissimus
et insanus qui regnat per totam Franciam poterit evelli aut saltem
temperari. De hoc scilicet quod ecclesiastici faciunt, vel in die
Innocentium, vel in die Circumcisionis, vel in Epiphania Domini, vel in
Carnisprivio per Ecclesias suas, ubi fit irrisio detestabilis Servitii
Domini et Sacramentorum: ubi plura fiunt impudenter et execrabiliter
quam fieri deberent, in tabernis vel prostibulis, vel apud Saracenos et
Iudaeos; sciunt qui viderunt, quod non sufficit censura Ecclesiastica;
quaeratur auxilium potestatis Regiae per edicta sua vehementer
urgentia’; _Quinque conclusiones super ludo stultorum communiter fieri
solito_ (_Opera_ iii. 309) ‘qui per Regnum Franciae in diversis fiunt
Ecclesiis et Abbatiis monachorum et monialium ... hae enim insolentiae
non dicerentur cocis in eorum culina absque dedecore aut reprehensione,
quae ibi fiunt in Ecclesiis Sacrosanctis, in loco orationis, in
praesentia Sancti Sacramenti Altaris, dum divinum cantatur servitium,
toto populo Christiano spectante et interdum Iudaeis ... adhuc
peius est dicere, festum hoc adeo approbatum esse sicut festum
Conceptionis Virginis Mariae, quod paulo ante asseruit quidam in urbe
Altissiodorensi secundum quod dicitur et narrari solet, &c.’

[1036] _Council of Langres_ (1404) ‘prohibemus clericis ... ne
intersint ... in ludis illis inhonestis quae solent fieri in aliquibus
Ecclesiis in festo Fatuorum quod faciunt in festivitatibus Natalis
Domini.’

[1037] _Council of Nantes_ (1431), c. 13 (J. Maan, _Sancta et Metrop.
Eccl. Turonensis_, ii. 101) ‘quia in talibus Ecclesiis Provinciae
Turonensis inolevit et servatur usus, ... quod festis Nativitatis
Domini, Sanctorum Stephani, Ioannis et Innocentium, nonnulli
Papam, nonnulli Episcopum, alii Ducem vel Comitem aut Principem in
suis Ecclesiis ex novitiis praecipuis faciunt et ordinant ... Et
talia ... vulgari eloquio festum stultorum nuncupatur, quod de residuis
Kalendis Ianuariis a multo tempore ortum fuisse credatur.’

[1038] _Council of Basle_, sessio xxi (June 9, 1435), can. xi (Mansi,
xxix. 108) ‘Turpem etiam illum abusum in quibusdam frequentatum
Ecclesiis, quo certis anni celebritatibus nonnullis cum mitra, baculo
ac vestibus pontificalibus more episcoporum benedicunt, alii ut reges
ac duces induti quod festum Fatuorum, vel Innocentum seu Puerorum in
quibusdam regionibus nuncupatur, alii larvales et theatrales iocos,
alii choreas et tripudia marium et mulierum facientes homines ad
spectacula et cachinnationes movent, alii comessationes et convivia
ibidem praeparant.’

[1039] _Council of Bourges_, July 7, 1438 (_Ordonnances des Rois de
France de la Troisième Race_, xiii. 287) ‘Item. Acceptat Decretum de
spectaculis in Ecclesia non faciendis, quod incipit: _Turpem_, &c.’

[1040] F. Aubert, _Le Parlement de Paris, sa Compétence, ses
Attributions_, 1314-1422 (1890), 182; _Hist. du Parlement de Paris_,
1250-1515 (1894), i. 163.

[1041] _Epistola et xiv. conclusiones facultatis theologiae Parisiensis
ad ecclesiarum praelatos contra festum fatuorum in Octavis Nativitatis
Domini vel prima Ianuarii in quibusdam Ecclesiis celebratum_ (H.
Denifle, _Chartularium Univ. Paris_. iv. 652; _P. L._ ccvii. 1169). The
document is too long and too scholastic to quote in full. The date is
March 12, 144⁴⁄₅.

[1042] ‘Quis, quaeso, Christianorum sensatus non diceret malos illos
sacerdotes et clericos, quos divini officii tempore videret larvatos,
monstruosis vultibus, aut in vestibus mulierum, aut lenonum, vel
histrionum choreas ducere in choro, cantilenas inhonestas cantare,
offas pingues supra cornu altaris iuxta celebrantem missam comedere,
ludum taxillorum ibidem exercere, thurificare de fumo fetido ex
corio veterum sotularium, et per totam ecclesiam currere, saltare,
turpitudinem suam non erubescere, ac deinde per villam et theatra
in curribus et vehiculis sordidis duci ad infamia spectacula, pro
risu astantium et concurrentium turpes gesticulationes sui corporis
faciendo, et verba impudicissima ac scurrilia proferendo?’

[1043] ‘Concludimus, quod a vobis praelatis pendet continuatio vel
abolitio huius pestiferi ritus; nam ipsos ecclesiasticos ita dementes
esse et obstinatos in hac furia non est verisimile, quod si faciem
praelati reperirent rigidam et nullatenus flexibilem a punitione cum
assistentia inquisitorum fidei, et auxilio brachii saecularis, quam
illico cederent aut frangerentur. Timerent namque carceres, timerent
perdere beneficia, perdere famam et ab altaribus sacris repelli.’

[1044] T. Boutiot, _Hist. de la Ville de Troyes_ (1870-80), ii. 264;
iii. 19. A chapter decree of 1437 lays down that a vicar who has served
as ‘archbishop’ and has subsequently left the cathedral and returned
again, need not serve a second time. It was doubtless an expensive
dignity.

[1045] Boutiot, _op. cit._ iii. 20; A. de Jubainville, _Inventaire
sommaire des Archives départementales de l’Aube_, i. 244 (G. 1275); P.
de Julleville, _Les Com._ 35, _Rép. Com._ 330; A. Vallet de Viriville,
in _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, iii. 448. The letter of Jean Leguisé
to Louis de Melun is printed in _Annales archéologiques_, iv. 209;
_Revue des Soc. Savantes_ (2nd series), vi. 94; _Journal de Verdun_,
Oct. 1751, and partly by Rigollot, 153. It is dated only Jan. 23, but
clearly refers to the events of 1444-5. The _Ordonnance_ of Charles
VII is in Martene and Durand, _Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum_, i. 1804;
H. Denifle, _Chartularium Univ. Paris_, iv. 657. Extracts are given
by Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_. The king speaks of the Troyes affair
as leading to the Theological Faculty’s letter. It is permissible to
conjecture that he was moved, no doubt by the abstract rights and
wrongs of the case, but also by a rumour spread at Troyes that he had
revoked the Pragmatic Sanction. For, as a matter of fact, Peter of
Brescia, the papal legate, was trying hard to get him to revoke it.

[1046] Boutiot, _op. cit._ i. 494, iii. 20. The chapters of St.
Stephen’s and St. Urban’s and the abbey of St. Loup all continued to
make payments for their feasts after 1445. They may have been pruned of
abuses. In the sixteenth century the Comte of Champagne pays five sous
to the ‘archevesque des Saulx’ at St. Stephen’s, and this appears to be
the _droit_ charged upon the royal demesne up to 1789.

[1047] Chérest, 66, from _Acta Capitularia_ (Dec. 4, 1444) in _Bibl.
Nat. Cod. Paris._ 1014 and 1351 ‘De servitio dominicae circumcisionis,
viso super hoc statuto per quemdam legatum edito, et consideratis
aliis circa hoc considerandis, et ad evitandum scandala, quae super
hoc possent exoriri, ordinatum fuit unanimiter et concorditer, nemine
discrepante, quod de caetero dictum servitium fiet, prout iacet
in libro ipsius servitii, devote et cum reverentia; absque aliqua
derisione, tumultu aut turpitudine, prout fiunt alia servitia in
aliis festis, in habitibus per dictum statutum ordinatis, et non
alias, et voce modulosa, absque dissonantia, et assistant in huiusmodi
servitio omnes qui tenentur in eo interesse, et faciant debitum suum
absque discursu aut turbatione servitii, potissime in ecclesia; nec
proiiciatur aqua in vesperis super praecentorem stultorum ultra
quantitatem trium sitularum ad plus; nec adducantur nudi in crastino
festi dominicae nativitatis, sine brachis verenda tegentibus, nec etiam
adducantur in ecclesia, sed ducantur ad puteum claustri, non hora
servitii sed alia, et ibi rigentur sola situla aquae sine lesione.
Qui contrarium fecerit occurrit ipso facto suspensionis censuram per
dictum statutum latam; attamen extra ecclesiam permissum est quod
stulti faciant alias ceremonias sine damno aut iniuria cuiusquam.’ The
proceedings on the day after the Nativity are probably explained by
the election of the precentor on that day (after Vespers). The victims
ducked may have failed to be present at the election; but cf. the
Easter _prisio_ (ch. vii).

[1048] Saint-Marthe, _Gallia Christiana_, xii. 96, partly quoted by
Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_. The bishop describes the feast almost in the
_ipsissima verba_ of the Paris Theologians, but in one passage (‘nudos
homines sine verendorum tegmine inverecunde ducendo per villam et
theatra in curribus et vehiculis sordidis, &c.’) he adds a trait from
the Sens chapter act just quoted.

[1049] Chérest, 68. The councils of Sens in 1460 and 1485 (p. 300) are
for the province. That of 1528 (sometimes called of Sens, but properly
of Paris) is national. They are not evidence for the feast at Sens
itself.

[1050] Ibid. 72 ‘Insolentias, tam de die quam de nocte, faciendo
tondere barbam parte, ut fieri consuevit, in theatro ... ac ludere
personagia, die scilicet circumcisionis Domini.’ The shaven face was
characteristic of the mediaeval fool, minstrel, or actor (cf. ch. ii).
Dreves, 586, adds that Tallinus Bissart, the precentor of this year,
was threatened with excommunication.

[1051] Ibid. 75.

[1052] Ibid. 76 ‘prohibitum vicariis ne attentent, ultima die anni,
in theatro tabulato ante valvas ecclesiae aut alibi in civitate
Senonensi, publice barbam illius qui se praecentorem fatuorum nominat,
aut alterius, radere, radifacere, permittere, aut procurare; et ne ad
electionem dicti praecentoris die festo Sancti Iohannis Evangelistae
sub poenis excommunicationis.’

[1053] Ibid. 77 ‘honeste, ac devote, sine laternis, sine precentore,
sine delatione baculi domini precentoris, nec poterunt facere rasuram
in theatro ante ecclesiam.’

[1054] Ibid. 78.

[1055] Dreves, 586.

[1056] _Prov. C. of Rouen_ (1445), c. 11 (Labbé, xiii. 1304) ‘prohibet
haec sancta synodus ludos qui fatuorum vulgariter nuncupantur
cum larvatis faciebus et alias inhoneste fieri in ecclesiis aut
cemeteriis’; _Prov. C. of Sens_ (1485, repeats decrees of earlier
council of 1460), c. 3 (Labbé, xiii. 1728), quoting and adopting Basle
decree, with careful exception for _consuetudines_ of Nativity and
Resurrection; cf. ch. xx; _Dioc. C. of Chartres_ (1526, apparently
repeated 1550, tit. 16; cf. Du Tilliot, 62) quoted Bochellus, iv. 7.
46 ‘denique ab Ecclesia eiiciantur vestes fatuorum personas scenicas
agentium’; _Nat. C. of Paris_ (1528, held by Abp. of Sens as primate),
_Decr. Morum_, c. 16 (Labbé, xiv. 471) ‘prohibemus ne fiat deinceps
festum fatuorum aut innocentium, neque erigatur decanatus patellae.’
The _Prov. C. of Rheims_ (1456, held at Soissons) in Labbé, xiii. 1397,
mentions only ‘larvales et theatrales ioci,’ ‘choreae,’ ‘tripudia,’ but
refers explicitly to the Pragmatic Sanction. This, it may be observed,
was suspended for a while in 1461 and finally annulled in 1516. Still
more general are the terms of the _C. of Orleans_ (1525, repeated 1587;
Du Tilliot, 61); _C. of Narbonne_ (1551), c. 46 (Labbé, xv. 26); _C.
of Beauvais_ (1554; E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_, 53); _C. of
Cambrai_ (1565), vi. 11 (Labbé, xv. 160); _C. of Rheims_ (1583), c. 5
(Labbé, xv. 889); _C. of Tours_ (1583, quoted Bochellus, iv. 7. 40).
See also the councils quoted as to the Boy Bishop, in ch. xv. Finally,
the _C. of Trent_, although in its 22nd session (1562) it renewed the
decrees of popes and councils ‘de choreis, aleis, lusibus’ (_Decr. de
Reformatione_, c. 1), made no specific mention of ‘fatui’ (_Can. et
Decr. Sacros. Oec. Conc. Tridentini_, (Romae, 1845), 127). Probably the
range of the feast was by this time insignificant.

[1057] Cf. ch. xvi.

[1058] But there was another revel on Aug. 28. F. L. Chartier,
_L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris_, 175, quotes _Archives
Nationales_, LL. 288, p. 219 ‘iniunctum est clericis matutinalibus, ne
in festo S. Augustini faciant dissolutiones quas facere assueverant
annis praeteritis.’

[1059] Dulaure, _Hist. de Paris_, iii. 81; Grenier, 370. A ‘cardinal’
was chosen on Jan. 13, and took part in the office.

[1060] Grenier, 362. A model account form has the heading ‘in die
Circumcisionis, si fiat festum stultorum.’ The ‘rubriques du luminaire’
provide for a distribution of wax to the sub-deacons and choir-clerks.

[1061] Martonne, 49, giving no authority.

[1062] Grenier, 361; Dreves, 583; Rigollot, 15, quoting _Actum Capit._
Leave was given to John Cornet, of St. Michael’s, John de Nœux of St.
Maurice’s, rectors, and Everard Duirech, _capellanus_ of the cathedral,
‘pridem electi, instituti et assumpti in papatum stultorum villae
Ambianensis ... quod dictus Cornet ... et sui praedecessores in ipso
papatu ordinati superstites die circumcisionis Domini ... facerent
prandium in quo beneficiati ipsius villae convocarentur ... ut
inibi eligere instituere et ordinare valerent papam ac papatum
relevarent absque tamen praeiudicio in aliquo tangendo servitium
divinum ... faciendum.’ Apparently the parochial clergy of Amiens
joined with the cathedral vicars and chaplains in the feast.

[1063] Grenier, 362; Rigollot, 15 ‘Servitium divinum facient honeste
in choro ecclesiae solemne, absque faciendo insolentias aut aliquas
irrisiones, nec deferendo aliquas campanas in dicta ecclesia, aut
alibi, et si dicti vicarii facere voluerint aliqua convivia, erit eorum
sumptibus et non sumptibus Dominorum canonicorum.’

[1064] Rigollot, 16 ‘inhibuerunt capellanis et vicariis ... facere
recreationes solitas in pascha annotino, etiam facere electionem de
Papa Stultorum.’ Later in the year the ‘iocalia Papae, videlicet
annulus aureus, tassara (_sic_) argentea et sigillum’ were put in
charge of the ‘canonicus vicarialis.’

[1065] Rigollot, 17 ‘licentiam dederunt ... ludere die dominica proxima
brioris.’ Rigollot and Leber think that ‘brioris’ may be for ‘burarum,’
the feast of ‘buras’ or ‘brandons’ on the first Sunday in Lent. Can it
be the same as the ‘fête des Braies’ of Laon?

[1066] Grenier, 414; Rigollot, 17.

[1067] L. Maziére, _Noyon Religieux_ in _Comptes-Rendus et Mémoires_ of
the _Comité arch. et hist. de Noyon_ (1895), xi. 92; Grenier, 370, 413;
Rigollot, 28, quoting _Actum Capit._ of 1497 ‘cavere a cantu carminum
infamium et scandalosorum, nec non similiter carminibus indecoris et
impudicis verbis in ultimo festo Innocentium per eos fetide decantatis;
et si vicarii cum rege vadant ad equitatum solito, nequaquam fiet
chorea et tripudia ante magnum portale, saltem ita impudice ut fieri
solet.’

[1068] Grenier, 365; Rigollot, 29, quoting, I think, a ceremonial
(1350) of the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre-au-Parvis. The masquers
obtained permission from some canons seated on a theatre near the house
called _Grosse-Tête_.

[1069] Grenier, 365; Rigollot, 26; Dreves, 584, quoting cathedral
_Actum Capit._ of 19 Dec. 1403, from Grenier’s _MS. Picardie_, 158.
Five canons said ‘quod papa fieret in ecclesia, sed nulla elevatio, et
quod, qui vellet venire, in habitu saeculari honesto veniret, et quod
nulla dansio ibi fieret’; but the casting-vote of the dean was against
them, ‘sed extra possent facere capellani et alii quidquid vellent.’

[1070] Grenier, 370; Rigollot, 22; E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_,
16; C. Hidé, in _Bull. de la Soc. académique de Laon_ (1863), xiii. 111.

[1071] Hidé, _op. cit._ 116, thinks that the Patriarch used _jetons
de présence_, similar to those used by the Boy Bishop at Amiens and
elsewhere (ch. xv). He figures some, but they may belong to the period
of the _confrérie_.

[1072] _MS. Hist._ of Dom. Bugniatre (eighteenth century) quoted
Fleury, _op. cit._ 16. I do not feel sure that the term ‘fête des ânes’
was really used at Laon.

[1073] Julleville, _Les Com._ 36; _Rép. Com._ 348; L. Paris,
_Remensiana_, 32, _Le Théâtre à Reims_, 30; Coquillart, _Œuvres_ (Bibl.
Elzév.), i. cxxxv. Coquillart is said to have written verses for the
Basoche on this occasion.

[1074] Rigollot, 211, from A. Hugo, _La France pittoresque_, ii. 226,
on the authority of a register of 1570 in the cathedral archives.

[1075] It begins ‘Cantemus ad honorem, gloriam et laudem Sancti
Stephani.’

[1076] L. Deschamps de Pas, in _Mém. de la Soc. des Antiq. de la
Morinie_, xx. 104, 107, 133; O. Bled, in _Bull. Hist., de la même Soc._
(1887), 62.

[1077] Deschamps de Pas, _op. cit._ 133 ‘solitum est fieri gaude in
cena ob reverentiam ipsius sancti.’

[1078] Ibid. _op. cit._ 107. Grenier, 414, citing Sammarthanus, _Gallia
Christiana_, x. 1510, calls Francis de Melun ‘bishop of Terouanne.’
An earlier reform of the feast seems implied by the undated Chapter
Statute in Ducange, s. v. _Episcopus Fatuorum_ ‘quia temporibus
retroactis multi defectus et plura scandala, deordinationes et mala,
occasione Episcopi Fatuorum et suorum evenerint, statuimus et ordinamus
quod de caetero in festo Circumcisionis Domini Vicarii caeterique
chorum frequentantes et eorum Episcopus se habeant honeste, cantando et
officiando sicut continetur plenius in Ordinario Ecclesiae.’

[1079] De la Fons-Melicocq, _Cérémonies dramatiques et Anciens Usages
dans les Eglises du Nord de la France_ (1850), 4. In 1445 is a payment
to the ‘évêque des fous de Saint-Aldegonde’ for a ‘jeu’; in 1474, one
for the chapter’s share of ‘le feste du vesque des asnes, par dessus
tout ce que ly cœurz paya.’

[1080] E. Hautcœur, _Hist. de l’Église collégiale de Saint-Pierre de
Lille_ (1896-9), ii. 30; Id. _Cartulaire de l’Église_, &c. ii. 630,
651 (_Stat. Capit._ of July 7, 1323, confirmed June 23, 1328); ‘item
volumus festum folorum penitus anullari.’

[1081] Hautcœur, _Hist._ ii. 215; De la Fons-Melicocq, _Archives hist.
et litt. du Nord de France_ (3rd series), v. 374; Flammermont, _Album
paléographique du Nord de la France_ (1896), No. 45.

[1082] Ducange, s. v. _Deposuit_ (_Stat. Capit. S. Petri Insul._
July 13, 1531, ex Reg. k.) ‘Scandala et ludibria quae sub Fatuitatis
praetextu per beneficiatos et habituatos dictae nostrae ecclesiae
a vigilia usque ad completas octavas Epiphaniae fieri et exerceri
consueverunt ... deinceps nullus nominetur, assumatur et creetur
praelatus follorum, nec ludus, quem Deposuit vocant, in dicta vigilia,
aut alio quocumque tempore, ludatur, exerceatur, aut fiat.’ Probably
to this date belongs the very similarly worded but undated memorandum
in Delobel, _Collectanea_, f. 76, which Hautcœur, _Hist._ ii. 220,
224, assigns to 1490. This adds ‘de non ... faciendo officio ... per
vicarios in octava Epiphaniae.’ The municipal duties of the _praelatus_
fell to the _confrérie_ of the Prince des Foux, afterwards Prince
d’Amour, which held revels in 1547 (Du Tilliot, 87), and still later to
the ‘fou de la ville’ who led the procession of the Holy Sacrament, and
flung water at the people in the eighteenth century (Leber, ix. 265).

[1083] Rigollot, 14.

[1084] Two documents are preserved, each giving a full account of the
event: (_a_) summons of the delinquents before the Parlement, dated
March 16, 149⁸⁄₉ (J. F. Foppens, _Supplément_ (1748), to A. Miraeus,
_Opera Diplomatica_, iv. 295). This is endorsed with some notes of
further proceedings; (_b_) official notes of the hearing on Nov. 18,
1499 (_Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, iii. 568); cf. Julleville,
_Rép. com._ 355; Cousin, _Hist. de Tournay_, Bk. iv. 261. The Synod
of Tournai in 1520 still found it necessary to forbid students to
appear in church ‘en habits de fous, en représentant des personnages de
comédie’ on St. Nicholas’ day, Innocents’ day, or ‘la fête de l’évêque’
(E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_, 54).

[1085] Rigollot, 19, 157.

[1086] Cf. ch. xix.

[1087] Martene, iii. 41 ‘[at second Vespers] Cantor ... dicit ter
_Deposuit_ baculum tenens, et si baculus capitur, _Te Deum Laudamus_
incipietur ... [at Compline] ascendunt duo clerici super formam
thesaurarii et cantant _Haec est sancta dies_, &c. et post _Conserva
Deus_, et dum canitur verberant eum clerici baculis, et ante eos
cantores festi et erupitores.... Post incipit cantor novus _Verbum caro
factum est_, et hoc cantando ducunt eum in domum suam per parietes cum
baculis feriendo. Si autem baculus non accipitur, nihil de iis dicitur,
sed vadunt, et extinguitur luminare.’

[1088] Cf. Appendix L.

[1089] Chérest, 9, 55, quoting _Acta Capit._ (1453) ‘item circa festum
Innocentium ordinatum est quod in ecclesia nullae fient insolenciae
seu derisiones potissime tempore divini servitii et quod pulsentur
matutinae non ante quartam horam. Permittimus tamen quod reverenter
et in habitu ecclesiastico per Innocentes et alios iuvenes de sedibus
inferioribus dictum fiat officium, saltem circa ea quae sine sacris
ordinibus possunt exerceri’; (1510) ‘item turpem illum abusum festi
fatuorum in nostra hactenus ecclesia, proh dolor, frequentatum quo
in celebritate sanctorum Innocentium quidam sub nomine patriarchali
divinum celebrant officium, penitus detestamus, abolemus et
interdicimus.’

[1090] Lebeuf, _Mém. concernant l’Histoire ... d’Auxerre_ (ed. Challe
et Quantin, 1848-55), ii. 30; iv. 232 (quoting _Acta Capit._ partly
extracted by Ducange, s.v. _Kalendae_); and in Leber, ix. 358, 375, 385.

[1091] ‘Cum domini nostri rex et alii regales Franciae sint valde
dolorosi, propter nova armaturae factae in partibus Ungariae contra
Saracenos et inimicos fidei’; cf. Bury-Gibbon, vii. 35.

[1092] ‘Ordinavit quod de caetero omnes, qui de festo fatuorum fuerint,
non pulsent campanam capituli sui post prandium, dempta prima die in
qua suum episcopum eligent, et etiam quod in suis sermonibus fatuis non
ponant seu dicant aliqua opprobria in vituperium alicuius personae.’

[1093] Lebeuf, _Hist. d’Auxerre_, ii. 30.

[1094] I suppose the intended action took shape in the _Quinque
Conclusiones_ of Gerson (p. 292), in which he quotes the dictum of
an Auxerre preacher that the feast of Fools was as _approbatum_ as
that of the Conception. To this there seems to be a reference in
the account of the Abbot of Pontigny’s sermon in the _Acta Capit._
‘praedicavit ... quod dictum festum non erat, nec unquam fuerat a Deo
nec Ecclesia approbandum seu approbatum.’ Lebeuf, in Leber, ix. 385,
points out that Gerson was intimate with one member of the Auxerre
chapter. This was Nicolas de Clamengis, whose _Opera_, 151 (ed. Lydius,
1613), include a treatise _De novis celebritatibus non instituendis_,
in which the suppression of feasts in his diocese by Michael of Auxerre
is alluded to.

[1095] These were canons of inferior rank at Auxerre (Ducange, s. v.
_tortarius_).

[1096] Canons J. Boileaue, Devisco, Pavionis, Viandi and H. Desnoes.
Was Viandi the canon John Vivien who, according to Lebeuf, _Hist.
d’Auxerre_, iv. 234, noted on his Breviary (now _Bibl. Nat. Cod.
Colbert._ 4227) that at first Vespers on the Circumcision, _Hodie
Christus_ was sung after each Psalm, ‘quia Festum Circumcisionis
vocatur in diversis ecclesiis festum Fatuorum’?

[1097] Chérest, 76; Julleville, _Les Com._ 234; Lebeuf, in Leber,
ix. 358, 373, quoting a _Cry pour l’abbé de l’église d’Ausserre et
ses supposts_, from the _Œuvres_ of Roger de Collerye (1536). This
resembles the productions of the _confréries des fous_ (cf. ch. xvi)
and begins,

‘Sortez, saillez, venez de toutes parts,
Sottes et sots plus prompts que liépars.’

[1098] Dunot de Charnage, _Hist. de Besançon_, i. 227; Rigollot, 47;
Leber, ix. 434; x. 40.

[1099] The anonymous author of the _Histoire de l’Église d’Autun_
(1774), 462, 628, gives _probata_ from the _Acta Capitularia_ for some,
but not all of his statements. Du Tilliot, 24 and possibly Ducange, s.
v. _Festum Asinorum_ appear also to have seen at least one register
kept by the _rotarius_ which covered the period 1411 to 1416.

[1100] ‘Deliberaverunt super festo folorum quod fieri consuevit anno
quolibet in festo Circumcisionis Domini, ad resecandum superfluitates
et derisiones quae fieri consueverunt ... item quod amodo non adducatur
asinus ad processionem dictae diei, ut fuit solitum fieri, nec dicatur
cantilena quae dici solebat super dictum asinum, et supra officio
quod fieri consuetum est dicta die in Ecclesia dicti Domini postea
providebunt.’ Ducange says that the ass had a golden foot-cloth of
which four of the principal canons held the corners. On the _cantilena_
cf. Appendix L.

[1101] ‘Ordinaverunt quod festum folorum penitus cesset.’

[1102] ‘Concluserunt ad requestum stultorum quod hoc anno fiat festum
folorum ... cum solemnitatibus in dicto festo requisitis in libris
dicti festi descriptis ... qui defecerit in matutinis et aliis horis
statutis comburatur in fonte.’

[1103] ‘In fine Matutinarum nonnulli larvati alii inordinate vestiti
choreas, tripudia et saltus in eadem ecclesia faciunt ... [aliquos] ad
fontem deferunt et ibi aqua intinguntur.’

[1104] Cf. ch. xix. A representation of the ‘Flight into Egypt’
might well come into a play of Herod. The _Hist. d’Autun_, 462, says
that, before the reform of 1411, the ass appeared as Balaam’s ass in
connexion with a _Prophetae_ on a stage at the church door. There was a
procession to church, and the Prose. The _rex_ received a cheese from
the chapter.

[1105] Cf. ch. xv.

[1106] ‘Regna Herodis et Episcopatus Innocentium, seu fatuorum festa
hactenus ... fieri solita ... abolentes.’

[1107] ‘Quod vulgo dicitur _Les Gaigizons_ ... amplius neminem balneare
aut ... pignus aufferre.’ It is here only the choice of ‘bishop’ and
‘dean’ of Innocents, ‘quod festum fatuorum a nonnullis nuncupatur’ that
is forbidden. Apparently ‘Herod’ had died out.

[1108] Du Tilliot, 100; Petit de Julleville, _Les Com._ 194. Amongst Du
Tilliot’s woodcuts is one of a _bâton_ (No. 4) bearing this date 1482.
It represents a nest of fools.

[1109] Ibid. 21.

[1110] Ibid. 74 ‘Icelle cour a ordonné et ordonne, que defenses seront
faites aux Choriaux et habitués de ladite Église Saint-Vincent et de
toutes autres Églises de son Ressort, et dorésnavant le jour de la Fête
des Innocens, et autres jours faire aucunes insolences et tumultes
esdites Églises, vacquer en icelles, et courir parmi les villes avec
danses et habits indécens à leur état ecclésiastique.’

[1111] Pilot de Thorey, i. 177.

[1112] Pilot de Thorey, i. 178 (_Statuta_, c. 40) ‘Item statuimus et
ordinamus, quod ex nunc cessent abusus qui fieri consueverunt per
abbatem vulgariter vocatum stultorum seu sociorum ... Item statuimus et
ordinamus, cum in ecclesia Dei non deceat fieri ludibria vel inhonesta
committi, quod, in festis Sanctorum Stephani, Iohannis evangelistae,
Innocentium et Epiphaniae, domino de cetero officiatur et desserviatur
in divinis, prout in aliis diebus infra fieri statuetur, et quod
nullus, de cetero, ut quandoque factum fuisse audivimus, portetur in
Rost, et quod, de nulla persona ecclesiastica vel seculari cuiuscumque
status existat, inhonesti vel diffamatorii rithmi recitentur, et quod
nullus pignoret aut aliena rapiat quovisimodo.’ A Vienne writer, in
Leber, ix. 259, adds that the performance of the office on the three
post-Nativity feasts by deacons, priests, and choir in the high stalls
was continued by these Statutes, but suppressed about 1670.

[1113] Lancelot, in _Hist. de l’Académie des Inscriptions_ (ed. 4to),
vii. 255, (ed. 12mo), iv. 397; Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_; Du Tilliot,
46.

[1114] ‘... _Te Deum_, et tunc per consocios subtollitur, et elevatur,
ac super humeros ad domum, ubi caeteri pro potu sunt congregati,
laetanter deportatur, atque in loco ad hoc specialiter ornato et
praeparato ponitur, statuitur et collocatur. Ad eius introitum omnes
debent assurgere, etiam dominus Episcopus, si fuerit praesens, ac
impensa reverentia consueta per consodales et consocios electo, fructus
species et vinum cum credentia ei dentur, &c. Sumpto autem potu idem
Abbas vel maior succentor ex eius officio absente Abbate incipit
cantando ea quae secuntur; ab ista enim parte sclafardi, clericuli
ceterique de suptus chorum debent esse simulque canere, ceteri vero
desuper chorum ab alia parte simul debent respondere.... Sed dum
eorum cantus saepius et frequentius per partes continuando cantatu
tanto amplius ascendendo elevatur in tantum quod una pars cantando,
clamando, _è fort cridar_, vincit aliam. Tunc enim inter se ad invicem
clamando, sibilando, ululando, cachinnando, deridendo ac cum manibus
demonstrando, pars victrix quantum potest partem adversam deridere
conatur ac superare, iocosasque trufas sine taedio breviter inferre.

A parte Abbatis. _Heros._

Alter chorus. _Et nolic. nolierno._

A parte Abbatis. _Ad fons sancti bacon._

Alii. _Kyrie Eleison._

Quo finito illico gachia ex eius officio facit praeconizationem sic
dicendo: _De par Mossenhor Labat è sos Cosselliers vos fam assaber que
tot homs lo sequa, lay on voura anar, ea quo sus la pena de talhar lo
braye_. Tunc Abbas aliique domum exeunt impetum facientes. Iuniores
canonici chorarii scutiferique domini Episcopi et canonicorum Abbatem
comitantur per urbem, cui transeunti salutem omnes impertiunt. In istis
vero visitationibus (quae usque ad vigiliam Natalis Domini quotidie
vespere fiunt) Abbas debet semper deportare habitum, sive fuerit manta,
sive tabardum, sive cappa una cum capputio de variis folrato.’ It is
curious how the characteristic meridional love of sheer noise and of
gesture comes out.

[1115] _De indulgentiis dandis_:

[St. Stephen’s Day]

De par Mossenhor l’Evesque,
Que Dieus vos donne gran mal al bescle,
Avec una plena balasta de pardos
E dos das de raycha de sot lo mento.

[St. John’s Day]

Mossenhor ques ayssi presenz
Vos dona xx balastas de mal de dens,
Et à vos autras donas atressi
Dona 1^a coa de rossi.

[1116] ‘Deinde electus per sclafardos subtollitur et campanilla
precedente portatur ad domum episcopalem, ad cuius adventum ianuae
domus, absente vel praesente ipso domino Episcopo, debent totaliter
aperiri, ac in una de fenestris magni tinelli debet deponi, et stans
dat ibi iterum benedictionem versus villam.’

[1117] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_; Bérenger-Féraud, iv. 14.

[1118] Papon, _Hist. de Provence_ (1784), iv. 212.

[1119] Rigollot, 125.

[1120] Bérenger-Féraud, iv. 131, quoting Mireur, _Bull. hist. et
philos. du Comité des Travaux hist._ (1885), N^{os}. 3, 4.

[1121] Rigollot, 171; Fauris de Saint-Vincent, in _Magasin
encyclopédique_ (1814), i. 24. A chapter inventory mentions a ‘mitra
episcopi fatuorum.’ The _Council of Aix_ in 1585 (Labbé, xv. 1146)
ordered the suppression of ‘ludibria omnia et puériles ac theatrales
lusus’ on Innocent’s day.

[1122] Thiers, _Traité des Jeux et des Divertissements_, 449; Du
Tilliot, 33, 39, quoting [Mathurin de Neuré] _Querela ad Gassendum, de
parum Christianis Provincialium suorum ritibus ... &c._ (1645) ‘Choro
cedunt omnes Therapeutae Sacerdotes, et ipse Archimandrita; in quorum
omnium locos sufficiuntur Coenobii mediastini viles, quorum aliis
manticae explendae cura est, aliis culina, aliis hortus colendus:
Fratres Laicos vocant, qui tunc occupatis hinc et inde Initiatorum
ac Mystarum sedibus, ... Sacerdotalibus nempe induuntur vestibus,
sed laceris, si quae suppetant, ac praepostere aptatis, inversisque;
inversos etiam tenent libros in quibus se fingunt legere, appensis
ad nasum perspicillis, quibus detractum vitrum, eiusque loco mali
aurati putamen insertum.... Thuricremi Sanniones in cuiusque faciem
cineres exsufflarunt, et favillas ex acerris, quas per ludibrium temere
iactantes, stolidis quandoque capitibus affundunt; sic autem instructi
non hymnos, non Psalmos, non liturgias de more concinunt, sed confusa
ac inarticula verba demurmurant, insanasque prorsus vociferationes
derudunt.’ The same M. de Neuré (whose real name was Laurent Mesme)
says more generally that in many towns of the province on Innocents’
day, ‘Stolidorum se Divorum celebrare festa putant, quibus stolide
litandum sit, nec aliis quam stolidis illius diei sacra ceremoniis
peragenda.’ He quotes (p. 72) from a _Rituale_ a direction for the
singing of the _Magnificat_ to the tune ‘Que ne vous requinquez-vous,
vielle? Que ne vous requinquez-vous donc?’

[1123] Bérenger-Féraud, iv. 17.

[1124] _C. of Toledo_, N^o. 38, in 1582 (Aguirre, _Coll. Conc. Hisp._
vi. 12); _C. of Oriolana_, in 1600 (Aguirre, vi. 452): cf. pp. 162, 350.

[1125] Pearson, ii. 285; C. M. Engelhardt, _H. von Landsberg_ (1818),
104; C. Schmidt, _H. von Landsberg_, 40. Herrad was abbess of
Hohenburg, near Strasburg, 1167-95. The MS. of her _Hortus Deliciarum_
was destroyed at Strasburg in 1870, but Engelhardt, and from him
Pearson, translated the bit about the Epiphany feasts: cf. ch. xx.

[1126] Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xx. 22 (from the Gradual, _Cod. Monacens._
157, f. 231^{vo}); after quoting a decree against _cantiones_ of
the _C. of Lyons_ in 1274; ‘ne igitur propter scholarium episcopum,
cum quo in multis ecclesiis a iuniore clero ad specialem laudem et
devotionem natalis Domini solet tripudiari, saecularia parliamenta nec
non strepitus clamorque et cachitus mundanarum cantionum in nostro
choro invalescant ... ego Iohannes, cognomine de Perchausen, Decanus
ecclesiae Mosburgensis, antequam in decanum essem assumptus ... infra
scriptas cantiones, olim ab antiquis etiam in maioribus ecclesiis
cum scholarium episcopo decantatas, paucis modernis, etiam aliquibus
propriis, quas olim, cum rector fuissem scholarium, pro laude
nativitatis Domini et beatae Virginis composui, adiunctis, coepi in
unum colligere et praesenti libro adnectere pro speciali reverentia
infantiae Salvatoris, ut sibi tempore suae nativitatis his cantionibus
a novellis clericulis quasi ex ore infantium et lactentium laus et
hymnizans devotio postposita vulgarium lascivia possit tam decenter
quam reverenter exhiberi.’

[1127] The following may all be for Jan. 1, and I do not think that
there was a _scholarium episcopus_ on any other day at Mosburg:
_Gregis pastor Tityrus_ (Dreves, _op. cit._ 110), _Ecce novus annus
est_ (Dreves, 131, headed in MS. ‘ad novum annum’), _Nostri festi
gaudium_ (Dreves, 131, ‘in circumcisione Domini’), _Castis psallamus
mentibus_ (Dreves, 135, 251, ‘cum episcopus eligitur’), _Mos florentis
venustatis_ (Dreves, 135 ‘dum itur extra ecclesiam ad choream’),
_Anni novi novitas_ (Dreves, 136 ‘cum infulatus et vestitus praesul
inthronizatur’). Some other New Year _cantiones_ found elsewhere by
Dreves (pp. 130, 131) have no special reference to the feast.

[1128] Dreves, _op. cit._ 136 (beginning _anni novi novitas_), 250,
with musical notation.

[1129] Dreves, _op. cit._ 110, 254, with notation.

[1130] Wetzer und Welte, _Kirchenlexicon_, s. v. _Epiphany_, quoting
Crombach, _Hist. Trium Regum_ (1654), 752; Galenius, _de admir.
Coloniae_ (1645), 661. The date of the _Ritual_ is not given, but the
ceremony had disappeared by 1645.

[1131] ‘Admiscent autem natalitias cantiones, non sine gestientis animi
voluptate.’

[1132] _Tractatus de precatione Dei_, i. 302 (†1406-15), in F. Palacký,
_Documenta Mag. Ioannis Hus vitam illustrantia_ (1869), 722: ‘Quantam
autem quamque manifestam licentiam in ecclesia committant, larvas
induentes--sicut ipse quoque adolescens proh dolor larva fui--quis
Pragae describat? Namque clericum monstrosis vestibus indutum
facientes episcopum, imponunt asinae, facie ad caudam conversa,
in ecclesiam eum ad missam ducunt, praeferentes lancem iusculi et
cantharum vel amphoram cerevisiae; atque dum haec praetendunt, ille
cibum potionemque in ecclesia capit. Vidi quoque eum aras suffientem
et pedem sursum tollentem audivique magna voce clamantem: bú! Clerici
autem magnas faces cereorum loco ei praeferebant, singulas aras obeunti
et suffienti. Deinde vidi clericos cucullos pellicios aversa parte
induentes et in ecclesia tripudiantes. Spectatores autem rident atque
haec omnia religiosa et iusta esse putant; opinantur enim, hos esse
in eorum rubricis, id est institutis. Praeclarum vero institutum:
pravitas, foeditas!--Atque quum tenera aetate et mente essem, ipse
quoque talium nugarum socius eram; sed ut primum dei auxilio adiutus
sacras literas intelligere coepi, statim hanc rubricam, id est
institutum huius insaniae, ex stultitia mea delevi. Ac sanctae memoriae
dominus Ioannes archiepiscopus, is quidem excommunicationis poena
proposita hanc licentiam ludosque fieri vetuit, idque summo iure, &c.’

[1133] The quotation given above is a translation by J. Kvíčala
from the Bohemian of Huss. There seems to be a confusion between the
‘bishop’ and his steed. It was probably the latter who lifted up his
leg and cried _bú_.

[1134] Grosseteste, _Epistolae_ (ed. Luard, R. S.), 118 ‘vobis
mandamus in virtute obedientiae firmiter iniungentes, quatenus festum
stultorum cum sit vanitate plenum et voluptatibus spurcum, Deo odibile
et daemonibus amabile, ne de caetero in ecclesia Lincolniensi die
venerandae circumcisionis Domini nullatenus permittatis fieri.’

[1135] Ibid. _op. cit._ 161 ‘execrabilem etiam consuetudinem, quae
consuevit in quibusdam ecclesiis observari de faciendo festo stultorum,
speciali authoritate rescripti apostolici penitus inhibemus; ne de
domo orationis fiat domus ludibrii, et acerbitas circumcisionis Domini
Iesu Christi iocis et voluptatibus subsannetur.’ The ‘rescript’ will
be Innocent III’s decretal of 1207, just republished in Gregory IX’s
_Decretales_ of 1234; cf. p. 279.

[1136] _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 247 ‘quia in eadem visitacione nostra
coram nobis a nonnullis fide dignis delatum extitit quod vicarii et
clerici ipsius ecclesiae in die Circumcisionis Domini induti veste
laicali per eorum strepitus truffas garulaciones et ludos, quos festa
stultorum communiter et convenienter appellant, divinum officium
multipliciter et consuete impediunt, tenore presencium. Inhibemus ne
ipsi vicarii qui nunc sunt, vel erunt pro tempore, talibus uti de
caetero non praesumant nec idem vicarii seu quivis alii ecclesiae
ministri publicas potaciones aut insolencias alias in ecclesia, quae
domus oracionis existit, contra honestatem eiusdem faciant quouismodo.’
Mr. Leach, in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 222, notes ‘a sarcastic vicar has
written in the margin, “Harrow barrow. Here goes the Feast of Fools
(_hic subducitur festum stultorum_).”’

[1137] What was _ly ffolcfeste_ of which Canon John Marchall complained
in Bishop Alnwick’s visitation of 1437 that he was called upon to
bear the expense? Cf. _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 388 ‘item dicit quod
subtrahuntur ab ipso expensae per eum factae pascendo ly ffolcfeste
in ultimo Natali, quod non erat in propria, nec in cursu, sed tamen
rogatus fecit cum promisso sibi facto de effusione expensarum et non
est sibi satisfactum.’

[1138] _Statutes_ of Thos. abp. of York (1391) in _Monasticon_, vi.
1310 ‘in die etiam Circumcisionis Domini subdiaconis et clericis
de secunda forma de victualibus annis singulis, secundum morem et
consuetudinem ecclesiae ab antiquo usitatos, debite ministrabit
[praepositus], antiqua consuetudine immo verius corruptela regis
stultorum infra ecclesiam et extra hactenus usitata sublata penitus et
extirpata.’

[1139] _Inventory_ of St. Paul’s (1245) in _Archaeologia_, l. 472, 480
‘Baculus stultorum est de ebore et sine cambuca, cum pomello de ebore
subtus indentatus ebore et cornu: ... capa et mantella puerorum ad
festum Innocentum et Stultorum sunt xxviij debiles et contritae.’

[1140] Sarum _Inventory_ of 1222 in W. H. R. Jones, _Vetus Registr.
Sarisb._ (R. S.), ii. 135 ‘Item baculi ii ad “Festum Folorum.”’

[1141] N^o. 27 in the list given for ch. x. Father Christmas says ‘Here
comes in “The Feast of Fools.”’

[1142] Cf. the further account of these post-Nativity feasts in ch. xv.

[1143] The _C. of Paris_ in 1212 (p. 279) forbids the Feast of Fools in
religious houses. But that in the Franciscan convent at Antibes is the
only actual instance I have come across.

[1144] There were _canonici presbiteri_, _diaconi_, _subdiaconi_ and
even _pueri_ at Salisbury (W. H. Frere, _Use of Sarum_, i. 51).

[1145] On the nature and growth of vicars choral, cf. Cutts, 341; W.
H. Frere, _Use of Sarum_, i. xvii; _Lincoln Statutes_, passim; A. R.
Maddison, _Vicars Choral of Lincoln_ (1878); H. E. Reynolds, _Wells
Cathedral_, xxix, cvii, clxx. Vicars choral make their appearance in
the eleventh century as choir substitutes for non-resident canons. At
Lincoln they got benefactions from about 1190, and in the thirteenth
century formed a regularly organized _communitas_. The _vicarii_ were
often at the same time _capellani_ or chantry-priests. On chantries see
Cutts, 438.

[1146] The Lincoln vicars chose two Provosts yearly (Maddison, _op.
cit._); the Wells vicars two Principals (Reynolds, _op. cit._ clxxi).

[1147] Reynolds, _op. cit._, gives numerous and interesting notices of
chapter discipline from the Wells _Liber Ruber_.

[1148] In Leber, ix. 379, 407, is described a curious way of raising
funds for choir suppers, known at Auxerre and in Auvergne, and not
quite extinct in the eighteenth century. It has a certain analogy
to the _Deposuit_. From Christmas to Epiphany the Psalm _Memento_
was sung at Vespers, and the anthem _De fructu ventris_ inserted in
it. When this began the ruler of the choir advanced and presented a
bouquet to some canon or _bourgeois_ as a sign that the choir would
sup with him. This was called ‘annonce en forme d’antienne,’ and the
suppers _defructus_. The _C. of Narbonne_ (1551), c. 47, forbade
‘parochis ... ne ... ad commessationes quas defructus appellant, ullo
modo parochianos suos admittant, nec permittant quempiam canere ut
dicunt: Memento, Domine, _David sans truffe_, &c. Nec alia huiusmodi
ridenda, quae in contemptum divini officii ac in dedecus et probrum
totius cleri et fiunt et cantantur.’

[1149] When, however, Ducange says that the feast was not called
_Subdiaconorum_, because the sub-deacons held it, but rather as being
‘ebriorum Clericorum seu Diaconorum: id enim evincit vox _Soudiacres_,
id est, ad litteram, _Saturi Diaconi_, quasi _Diacres Saouls_,’ we must
take it for a ‘sole joke of Thucydides.’ I believe there is also a joke
somewhere in Liddell and Scott.

[1150] Cf. p. 60; Gautier, _Les Tropaires_, i. 186; and _C. of Treves_
in 1227 (J. F. Schannat, _Conc. Germ._ iii. 532) ‘praecipimus ut
omnes Sacerdotes non permittant trutannos et alios vagos scolares aut
goliardos cantare versus super _Sanctus_ et _Agnus Dei_.’

[1151] The ‘abbot’ appears to have been sometimes charged with choir
discipline throughout the year, and at Vienne and Viviers exists side
by side with another _dominus festi_. Similarly at St. Omer there was
a ‘dean’ as well as a ‘bishop.’ The vicars of Lincoln and Wells also
chose two officers.

[1152] I suppose that ‘portetur in rost’ at Vienne means that the
victims were roasted like the fags in _Tom Brown_.

[1153] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_.

[1154] Gibbon-Bury, v. 201. The Byzantine authorities are Genesius, iv.
p. 49 B (_Corp. Hist. Byz._ xi. 2. 102); Paphlagon (Migne, _P. G._ cv.
527); Theophanes Continuatus, iv. 38 (_Corp. Hist. Byz._ xxii. 200);
Symeon Magister, p. 437 D (_Corp. Hist. Byz._ xxii. 661), on all of
whom see Bury, App. I to tom. cit.

[1155] _C. of Constantinople_ (869-70), c. 16 (Mansi, xvi. 169,
_ex versione Latina, abest in Graeca_) ‘fuisse quosdam laicos, qui
secundum diversam imperatoriam dignitatem videbantur capillorum comam
circumplexam involvere atque reponere, et gradum quasi sacerdotalem
per quaedam inducia et vestimenta sacerdotalia sumere, et, ut
putabatur, episcopos constituere, superhumeralibus, id est, palliis,
circumamictos, et omnem aliam Pontificalem indutos stolam, qui
etiam proprium patriarcham adscribentes eum qui in adinventionibus
risum moventibus praelatus et princeps erat, et insultabant et
illudebant quibusque divinis, modo quidem electiones, promotiones et
consecrationes, modo autem acute calumnias, damnationes et depositiones
episcoporum quasi ab invicem et per invicem miserabiliter et
praevaricatorie agentes et patientes. Talis autem actio nec apud gentes
a saeculo unquam audita est.’

[1156] Cedrenus, _Historiarum Compendium_, p. 639 B (ed. Bekker, in
_Corp. Hist. Byz._ xxiv. 2. 333), follows verbatim the still unprinted
eleventh-century John Scylitzes (Gibbon-Bury, v. 508). Theophylactus
was Patriarch from 933 to 956.

[1157] Theodorus Balsamon, _In Can. lxii Conc. in Trullo_ (_P. G._
cxxxvii. 727) Σημείωσαι τὸν παρόντα κανόνα, καὶ ζήτησον διόρθωσιν ἐπὶ
τοῖς γινομένοις παρὰ τῶν κληρικῶν εἰς τήν ἑορτὴν ἐπὶ τῆς γεννήσεως τοῦ
Χριστοῦ, καὶ τὴν ἑορτὴν τῶν Φώτων [Luminarium, Candlemas] ὑπεναντίως
τούτῳ· καὶ μᾶλλον εἰς τὴν ἁγιωτάτην Μεγάλην ἐκκλησίαν ... ἀλλὰ καί
τινες κληρικοὶ κατά τινας ἑορτὰς πρὸς διάφορα μετασχηματίζονται
προσωπεῖα. καὶ ποτὲ μὲν ξιφήρεις ἐν τῷ μεσονάω τῆς ἐκκλησίας μετὰ
στρατιωτικῶν ἀμφίων εἰσέρχονται, ποτὲ δὲ καὶ ὡς μοναχοὶ προοδεύουσιν, ἢ
καὶ ὡς ζῶα τετράποδα. ἐρωτήσας οὖν ὅπως ταῦτα παρεχωρήθησαν γίνεσθαι,
οὐδέν τε ἕτερον ἤκουσα ἀλλ’ ἢ ἐκ μακρᾶς συνθείας ταῦτα τελεῖσθαι.
τοιαῦτά εἰσιν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, καὶ τὰ παρά τινων δομεστικευόντων ἐν
κλήρῳ γινόμενα, τὸν ἀέρα τοῖς δακτύλοις κατὰ ἡνιόχους τυπτόντων,
καὶ φύκη ταῖς γνάθοις δῆθεν περιτιθεμένων καὶ ὑπορρινομένων ἔργα
τινὰ γυναικεῖα, καὶ ἕτερα ἀπρεπῆ, ἵνα πρὸς γελωτα τοὺς βλέποντας
μετακινήσωσι. τὸ δὲ γελᾶν τοὺς ἀγρότας ἐγχεομένους τοῦ οἴνου τοῖς
πίθοις, ὡσεί τι παρεπόμενον ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἐστὶ τοῖς ληνοβατοισιν· εἰ μήτις
εἴπη τὴν σατανικὴν ταύτην ἐργασίαν καταργεῖσθαι διὰ τοῦ λέγειν τοὺς
ἀγρότας συχνότερον ἐφ’ ἑκάστῳ μέτρῳ σχεδὸν τό, Κύριε ἐλέησον. τὰ μέντοι
ποτὲ γινόμενα ἀπρεπῆ παρὰ τῶν νοταρίων παιδοδιδασκάλων κατὰ τὴν ἑορτὴν
τῶν ἁγίων νοταρίων, μετὰ προσωπείων σκηνικῶν διερχομένων τὴν ἀγοράν,
πρὸ χρόνων τινῶν κατηργήθησαν, καθ’ ὁρισμὸν τοῦ ἁγιωτάτου ἐκείνου
πατριάρχου κυρίου Λουκᾶ.

[1158] Belethus, c. 120, compares the ecclesiastical ball-play at
Easter to the _libertas Decembrica_. He is not speaking here of the
Feast of Fools.

[1159] e.g. Du Tilliot, 2.

[1160] S. R. Maitland, _The Dark Ages_, 141, tilts at the Protestant
historian Robertson’s _History of Charles V_, as do F. Clément,
159, and A. Walter, _Das Eselsfest_ in _Caecilien-Kalender_ (1885),
75, at Dulaure, _Hist. des Environs de Paris_, iii. 509, and other
‘Voltairiens.’

[1161] Chérest, 81.

[1162] J. Bujeaud, _Chants et Chansons populaires des Provinces de
l’Ouest_, i. 63. The _ronde_ is known in Poitou, Aunis, Angoumois. P.
Tarbé, _Romancero de Champagne_ (2^e partie), 257, gives a variant.
Bujeaud, i. 61, gives another _ronde_, the _Testament de l’Âne_, in
which the ass has fallen into a ditch, and amongst other legacies
leaves his tail to the _curé_ for an _aspersoir_. This is known in
Poitou, Angoumois, Franche-Comté. He also says that he has heard
children of Poitou and Angoumois go through a mock catechism, giving an
ecclesiastical significance to each part of the ass. The tail is the
_goupillon_, and so forth. Fournier-Verneuil, _Paris, Tableau moral et
philosophique_ (1826), 522, with the Beauvais _Officium_ in his mind,
says ‘Voulez-vous qu’au lieu de dire, _Ite, missa est_, le prêtre se
mette à braire trois fois de toute sa force, et que le peuple réponde
en chœur, comme je l’ai vu faire en 1788, dans l’église de Bellaigues,
en Périgord?’

[1163] Cf. ch. xx. Gasté, 20, considers the Rouen _Festum Asinorum_
‘l’origine de toutes les Fêtes de l’Âne qui se célébraient dans
d’autres diocèses’: but the Rouen MS. in which it occurs is only of
the fourteenth century, and the Balaam episode does not occur at all
in the more primitive forms of the _Prophetae_, while the Sens Feast
of Fools is called the _festa asinaria_ in the _Officium_ of the early
thirteenth century.

[1164] Tille, _D. W._ 31. In Madrid an ass was led in procession on
Jan. 17, with anthems on the Balaam legend (Clément, 181).

[1165] Clément, 182; Didron, _Annales archéologiques_, xv. 384.

[1166] Dulaure, _Hist. des Environs de Paris_, iii. 509, quotes a
legend to the effect that the very ass ridden by Christ came ultimately
to Verona, died there, was buried in a wooden effigy at S^{ta}-Maria in
Organo, and honoured by a yearly procession. He guesses at this as the
origin of the Beauvais and other _fêtes_. Didron, _Annales arch._ xv.
377, xvi. 33, found that nothing was known of this legend at Verona,
though such a statue group as is described above apparently existed
in the church named. Dulaure gives as his authorities F. M. Misson,
_Nouveau Voyage d’ Italie_ (1731), i. 164; _Dict. de l’ Italie_, i.
56. Misson’s visit to Verona was in 1687, although the passage was not
printed in the first edition (1691) of his book. It is in the English
translation of 1714 (i. 198). _His_ authority was a French merchant
(M. Montel) living in Verona, who had often seen the procession. In
_Cenni intorno all’ origine e descrizione della Festa che annualmente
si celebra in Verona l’ ultimo Venerdì del Carnovale, comunamente
denominata Gnoccolare_ (1818), 75, is a mention of the ‘asinello
del vecchio padre Sileno’ which served as a mount for the ‘Capo de’
Maccheroni.’ This is probably Misson’s procession, but there is no
mention of the legend in any of the eighteenth-century accounts quoted
in the pamphlet. Rienzi was likened to an ‘Abbate Asinino’ (Gibbon,
vii. 269).

[1167] Ducange, s. v. _Festum Asinorum_; cf. Leber, ix. 270; Molanus,
_de Hist. SS. Imaginum et Picturarum_ (1594), iv. 18.

[1168] T. Naogeorgus (Kirchmeyer), _The Popish Kingdom_, iv. 443
(1553, transl. Barnabe Googe, 1570, in New Shakspere Society edition
of Stubbes, _Anatomy of Abuses_, i. 332); cf. _Beehive of the Roman
Church_, 199. The earliest notice is in Gerardus, _Leben St. Ulrichs
von Augsburg_ (ob. 973), c. 4. E. Bishop, in _Dublin Review_, cxxiii.
405, traces the custom in a Prague fourteenth-century _Missal_ and
sixteenth-century _Breviary_; also in the modern Greek Church at Moscow
where until recently the Czar held the bridle. But there is no ass, as
he says, in the Palm Sunday ceremony described in the _Peregrinatio
Silviae_ (Duchesne, 486).

[1169] A peeress of the realm lately stated that this custom had been
introduced in recent years into the Anglican church. Denials were to
hand, and an amazing conflict of evidence resulted. Is there any proof
that the _Palmesel_ was ever an English ceremony at all? The Hereford
riding of 1706 (cf. _Representations_) was not in the church. Brand,
i. 73, quotes _A Dialogue: the Pilgremage of Pure Devotyon_ (1551?),
‘Upon Palme Sondaye they play the foles sadely, drawynge after them
an Asse in a rope, when they be not moche distante from the Woden
Asse that they drawe.’ Clearly this, like Googe’s translation of
Naogeorgus, is a description of contemporary continental Papistry.
W. Fulke, _The Text of the New Testament_ (ed. 1633), 76 (_ad Marc._
xi. 8) quotes a note of the Rheims translation to the effect that in
memory of the entry into Jerusalem is a procession on Palm Sunday
‘with the blessed Sacrament reverently carried as it were Christ upon
the Asse,’ and comments, ‘But it is pretty sport, that you make the
Priest that carrieth the idoll, to supply the roome of the Asse on
which Christ did ride.... Thus you turn the holy mysterie of Christ’s
riding to Jerusalem to a May-game and Pageant-play.’ Fulke, who lived
1538-89, is evidently unaware that there was an ass, as well as the
priest, in the procession, from which I infer that the custom was not
known in England. Not that this consideration would weigh with the
mediaevally-minded curate, who is as a rule only too ready to make up
by the ceremonial inaccuracy of his mummeries for the offence which
they cause to his congregation.

[1170] Marquardt-Mommsen, vi. 191; Jevons, _Plutarch’s Romane
Questions_, 134; Fowler, 304, 322; Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 531:

‘stultaque pars populi, quae sit sua curia, nescit;
sed facit extrema sacra relata die.’

[1171] Fowler, 306.

[1172] Schaff, iii. 131.

[1173] Belethus, c. 70 ‘Debent ergo vesperae Natalis primo integre
celebrari, ac postea conveniunt diaconi quasi in tripudio, cantantque
_Magnificat_ cum antiphona de S. Stephano, sed sacerdos recitat
collectam. Nocturnos et universum officium crastinum celebrant
diaconi, quod Stephanus fuerit diaconus, et ad lectiones concedunt
benedictiones, ita tamen, ut eius diei missam celebret hebdomarius,
hoc est ille cuius tum vices fuerint eam exsequi. Sic eodem modo
omne officium perficient sacerdotes ipso die B. Ioannis, quod hic
sacerdos fuerit, et pueri in ipso festo Innocentium, quia innocentes
pro Christo occisi sunt, ... in festo itaque Innocentium penitus
subticentur cantica laetitiae, quoniam ii ad inferos descenderunt.’
Cf. also c. 72, quoted on p. 275. Durandus, _Rat. Div. Off._ (1284),
vii. 42, _De festis SS. Stephani, Ioannis Evang. et Innocentium_, gives
a similar account. At Vespers on Christmas Day, he says, the deacons
‘in tripudio convenientes cantant antiphonam de sancto Stephano, et
sacerdos collectam. Nocturnos autem et officium in crastinum celebrant
et benedictiones super lectiones dant: quod tamen facere non debent.’
So too for the priests and boys on the following days.

[1174] Honorius Augustodunensis, _Gemma Animae_, iii. 12 (_P. L._
clxxii. 646).

[1175] Ioannes Abrincensis (bishop of Rouen †1070), _de Eccl. Offic._
(_P. L._ cxlvii. 41), with fairly full account of the ‘officia.’

[1176] Ekkehardus IV, _de Casibus S. Galli_, c. 14 (ed. G. Meyer von
Knonau, in _Mittheilungen zur vaterländischen Gesch._ of the Hist.
Verein in St. Gallen, N. F., v.; _M. G. H. Scriptores_, ii. 84)
‘longum est dicere, quibus iocunditatibus dies exegerit et noctes,
maxime in processione infantum; quibus poma in medio ecclesiae
pavimento antesterni iubens, cum nec unum parvissimorum moveri nec ad
ea adtendere vidisset, miratus est disciplinam.’ Ekkehart was master
of the song-school, and von Knonau mentions some _cantiones_ written
by him and others for the feast, e.g. one beginning ‘Salve lacteolo
decoratum sanguine festum.’ He has another story (c. 26) of how Solomon
who was abbot of the monastery, as well as bishop of Constance, looking
into the song-school on the ‘dies scolarium,’ when the boys had a
‘ius ... ut hospites intrantes capiant, captos, usque dum se redimant,
teneant,’ was duly made prisoner, and set on the master’s seat. ‘Si in
magistri solio sedeo,’ cried the witty bishop, ‘iure eius uti habeo.
Omnes exuimini.’ After his jest, he paid his footing like a man. The
‘Schulabt’ of St. Gall is said to have survived until the council of
Trent.

[1177] Frere, _Winch. Troper_, 6, 8, 10. The deacons sang ‘Eia,
conlevitae in protomartyris Stephani natalicio ex persona ipsius
cum psalmista ouantes concinnamus’; the priests, ‘Hodie candidati
sacerdotum chori centeni et milleni coniubilent Christo dilectoque suo
Iohanni’; the boys, ‘Psallite nunc Christo pueri, dicente propheta.’

[1178] Rock, iii. 2. 214; Clément, 118; Grenier, 353; Martene, iii.
38. These writers add several references for the _triduum_ or one
or other of its feasts to those here given: e.g. Martene quotes on
St. Stephen’s feast _Ordinarium of Langres_, ‘finitis vesperis fiunt
tripudia’; _Ordinarium of Limoges_, ‘vadunt omnes ad capitulum, ubi
Episcopus, sive praesens, sive absens fuerit, dat eis potum ex tribus
vinis’; _Ordinarium of Strasburg_ (†1364), ‘propinatur in refectorio,
sicut in vigilia nativitatis.’

[1179] Martene, iii. 38 ‘tria festa, quae sequuntur, fiunt cum magna
solemnitate et tripudio. Primum faciunt diaconi, secundum presbiteri,
tertium pueri.’

[1180] Grenier, 353 ‘si festa [S. Stephani] fiant, ut consuetum est, a
diaconis in cappis sericis ... fit statio in medio choro, et ab ipsis
regitur chorus ... et fiant festa sicut docent libri’; and so for the
two other feasts.

[1181] Martene, iii. 38 ‘cum in primis vesperis [in festo S. Stephani]
ad illum cantici _Magnificat_ versiculum _Deposuit potentes_ perventum
erat, cantor baculum locumque suum diacono, qui pro eo chorum regeret,
cedebat’; and so on the other feasts.

[1182] Cf. p. 315.

[1183] Durr, 77. Here the sub-deacons shared in the deacons’ feast.

[1184] The _Consuetudinarium_ of †1210 (Frere, _Use of Sarum_, i. 124,
223) mentions the procession of deacons after Vespers on Christmas
day, but says nothing of the share of the priests and boys in those
of the following days. The _Sarum Breviary_ gives all three (Fasc. i.
cols. cxcv, ccxiii, ccxxix), and has a note (col. clxxvi) ‘nunquam enim
dicitur Prosa ad Matutinas per totum annum, sed ad Vesperas, et ad
Processionem, excepto die sancti Stephani, cuius servitium committitur
voluntati Diaconorum; et excepto die sancti Iohannis, cuius servitium
committitur voluntati Sacerdotum; et excepto die sanctorum Innocentium,
cuius servitium committitur voluntati Puerorum.’

[1185] _York Missal_, i. 20, 22, 23 (from fifteenth-century MS. _D_
used in the Minster) ‘_In die S. Steph._ ... finita processione,
si Dominica fuerit, ut in Processionali continetur, Diaconis
et Subdiaconis in choro ordinatim astantibus, unus Diaconus,
cui Praecentor imposuerit, incipiat Officium.... _In die S.
Ioann._ ... omnibus Personis et Presbyteris civitatis ex antiqua
consuetudine ad Ecclesiam Cathedralem convenientibus, et omnibus
ordinate ex utraque parte Chori in Capis sericis astantibus, Praecentor
incipiat Officium.... _In die SS. Innoc._ ... omnibus pueris in Capis,
Praecentor illorum incipiat.’ There are responds for the ‘turba
diaconorum,’ ‘presbyterorum’ or ‘puerorum.’

[1186] _Lincoln Statutes_, i. 290; ii. ccxxx, 552.

[1187] Gasquet, _Old English Bible_, 250.

[1188] Martene, iii. 40.

[1189] Ibid. iii. 39.

[1190] In his second decree of 1199 as to the feast of the Circumcision
at Paris (cf. p. 276), Bishop Eudes de Sully says (_P. L._ ccxii.
73) ‘quoniam festivitas beati protomartyris Stephani eiusdem fere
subiacebat dissolutionis et temeritatis incommodo, nec ita solemniter,
sicut decebat et martyris merita requirebant, in Ecclesia Parisiensi
consueverat celebrari, nos, qui eidem martyri sumus specialiter
debitores, quoniam in Ecclesia Bituricensi patronum habuerimus,
in cuius gremio ab ineunte aetate fuimus nutriti; de voluntate et
assensu dilectorum nostrorum Hugonis decani et capituli Parisiensis,
festivitatem ipsam ad statum reducere regularem, eumque magnis
Ecclesiae solemnitatibus adnumerare decrevimus; statuentes ut in ipso
festo tantum celebritatis agatur, quantum in ceteris festis annualibus
fieri consuevit.’ Eudes de Sully made a donative to the canons and
clerks present at Matins on the feast, which his successor Petrus
de Nemore confirmed in 1208 (_P. L._ ccxii. 91). Dean Hugo Clemens
instigated a similar reform of St. John’s day (see p. 276).

[1191] Martene, iii. 40; Grenier, 353, 412. The _Ritual_ of Bishop
Nivelon, at the end of the twelfth century, orders St. Stephen’s to be
kept as a triple feast, ‘exclusa antiqua consuetudine diaconorum et
ludorum.’

[1192] Schannat, iv. 258 (1316) ‘illud, quod ... causa devotionis
ordinatum fuerat ... ut Sacerdotes singulis annis in festivitate Beati
Iohannis Evangelistae unum ex se eligant, qui more episcopi illa die
Missam gloriose celebret et festive, nunc in ludibrium vertitur, et in
ecclesia ludi fiunt theatrales, et non solum in ecclesia introducuntur
monstra larvarum, verum etiam Presbyteri, Diaconi et Subdiaconi
insaniae suae ludibria exercere praesumunt, facientes prandia
sumptuosa, et cum tympanis et cymbalis ducentes choreas per domos et
plateas civitatis.’

[1193] At Rouen in 1445 the feast of St. John, held by the _capellani_,
was alone in question. The chapter ordered (Gasté, 46) ‘ut faciant die
festi sancti euangelistae Iohannis servicium divinum bene et honeste,
sine derisionibus et fatuitatibus; et inhibitum fuit eisdem ne habeant
vestes difformes, insuper quod fiat mensa et ponantur boni cantores,
qui bene sciant cantare, omnibus derisionibus cessantibus.’ But in 1446
the feast of St. Stephen needed reforming, as well as that of St. John
(A. Chéruel, _Hist. de Rouen sous la Domination anglaise_, 206); and in
1451 all three (Gasté, 47) ‘praefati Domini capitulantes ordinaverunt
quod in festis solemnitatis Nativitatis Domini nostri Ihesu Christi
proxime futuris, omnes indecencie et inhonestates consuete fieri in
dedecus ecclesie, tam per presbyteros dyaconos quam pueros chori et
basse forme, cessent omnino, nec sit aliquis puer in habitu episcopi,
sed fiat servicium devote et honorifice prout in aliis festis similis
gradus.’

[1194] _C. of Toledo_ (1473), c. 19 (Labbé, xiii. 1460) ‘Quia vero
quaedam tam in Metropolitains quam in Cathedralibus et aliis Ecclesiis
nostrae provinciae consuetudo inolevit ut videlicet in festis
Nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et sanctorum Stephani, Ioannis
et Innocentium aliisque certis diebus festivis, etiam in solemnitatibus
Missarum novarum dum divina aguntur, ludi theatrales, larvae,
monstra, spectacula, necnon quamplurima inhonesta et diversa figmenta
in Ecclesiis introducuntur ... huiusmodi larvas, ludos, monstra,
spectacula, figmenta et tumultuationes fieri ... prohibemus....
Per hoc tam honestas repraesentationes et devotas, quae populum ad
devotionem movent, tam in praefatis diebus quam in aliis non intendimus
prohibere’; _C. of Lyons_ (1566 and 1577), c. 15 (Du Tilliot, 63) ‘Es
jours de Fête des Innocens et autres, l’on ne doit souffrir ès Églises
jouer jeux, tragédies, farces, &c.’; cf. the Cologne statutes (1662)
quoted on p. 352.

[1195] H. E. Reynolds, _Wells Cathedral_, 75 ‘_Quod non sint ludi
contra honestatem Ecclesiae Wellensis_. Item a festo Nativitatis Domini
usque ad octavas Innocentium quod Clerici Subdiaconi Diaconi Presbiteri
etiam huius ecclesiae vicarii ludos faciant theatrales in ecclesia
Wellensi et monstra larvarum introducentes, in ea insaniae suae
ludibria exercere praesumunt contra honestatem clericalem et sacrorum
prohibitionem canonum divinum officium multipliciter impediendo; quod
de cetero in ecclesia Wellensi et sub pena canonica fieri prohibentes
volumus quod divinum officium in festo dictorum sanctorum Innocentium
sicuti in festis sanctorum consimilibus quiete ac pacifice absque
quocunque tumultu et ludibrio cum devotione debita celebretur.’

[1196] Reynolds, _op. cit._ 87 ‘_Prohibitio ludorum theatralium et
spectaculorum et ostentationum larvarum in Ecclesia_. Item, cum
infra septimanam Pentecostes et etiam in aliis festivitatibus fiant
a laicis ludi theatrales in ecclesia praedicta et non solum ad
ludibriorum spectacula introducantur in ea monstra larvarum, verum
etiam in sanctorum Innocentium et aliorum sanctorum festivitatibus
quae Natale Christi secuntur, Presbyteri Diaconi et Subdiaconi dictae
Wellensis ecclesiae vicissim insaniae suae ludibria exercentes per
gesticulationem debacchationes obscenas divinum officium impediant in
conspectu populi, decus faciant clericale vilescere quem potius illo
tempore deberent praedicatione mulcere....’ The statute goes on to
threaten offenders with excommunication.

[1197] F. C. Hingeston Randolph, _Bishop Grandison’s Register_,
Part iii, p. 1213; _Inhibicio Episcopi de ludis inhonestis_. The
bishop writes to all four bodies in identical terms. He wishes them
‘Salutem, et morum clericalium honestatem,’ and adds ‘Ad nostram,
non sine gravi cordis displicencia et stupore, pervenit noticiam
quod, annis praeteritis et quibusdam praecedentibus, in Sanctissimis
Dominice Nativitatis, ac Sanctorum Stephani, Iohannis, Apostoli et
Evangelistae, ac Innocencium Solempniis, quando omnes Christi Fideles
Divinis laudibus et Officiis Ecclesiasticis devocius ac quiescius
insistere tenentur, aliqui praedicte Ecclesie nostre Ministri, cum
pueris, nedum Matutinis et Vesperis ac Horis aliis, set, quod magis
detestandum est, inter Missarum Sollempnia, ludos ineptos et noxios,
honestatique clericali indecentes, quia verius Cultus Divini ludibria
detestanda, infra Ecclesiam ipsam inmiscendo committere, Divino
timore postposito, pernicioso quarundam Ecclesiarum exemplo, temere
praesumpserunt; Vestimenta et alia Ornamenta Ecclesie, in non modicum
eiusdem Ecclesie nostre et nostrum dampnum et dedecus, vilium scilicet
scenulentorumque (_or_ scev.) sparsione multipliciter deturpando. Ex
quorum gestis, seu risibus et cachinnis derisoriis, nedum populus, more
Catholico illis potissime temporibus ad Ecclesiam conveniens, a debita
devocione abstrahitur, set et in risum incompositum ac oblectamenta
illicita dissolvitur; Cultusque Divinus irridetur et Officium perperam
impeditur....’

[1198] On the _Pastores_ cf. ch. xix. Gasté, 33, gives several Rouen
chapter acts from 1449 to 1457 requiring them to officiate ‘cessantibus
stultitiis et insolenciis.’ These orders and those quoted on p. 341
above were prompted by the _Letter_ of the Paris theologians against
the Feast of Fools and similar revels. In 1445 (or 1449) a committee
was chosen ‘ad videndum et visitandum ordinationem ecclesiae pro festis
Nativitatis Domini et deliberationes Facultatis Theologiae super hoc
habitas et quod tollantur derisiones in ipsis fieri solitas.’

[1199] At Sarum a _Constitutio_ of Roger de Mortival in 1324 (Dayman
and Jones, _Sarum Statutes_, 52) forbade drinking when the antiphon
‘O Sapientia’ was sung after Compline on Dec. 16. John of Avranches
(†1070) allowed for the feast of his ‘O’ at Rouen ‘unum galonem vini
de cellario archiepiscopi,’ and the ‘vin de l’O’ was still given in
1377 (Gasté, 47). On these ‘Oes,’ sung by the great functionaries of
cathedrals and monasteries, see E. Green, _On the words ‘O Sapientia’
in the Kalendar_ (_Archaeologia_, xlix. 219); Cynewulf, _Christ_ (ed.
A. S. Cook), xxxv. Payments ‘cantoribus ad ludum suum’ or ‘ad’ or ‘ante
natale’ appear in Durham accounts; cf. _Finchale Priory_ ccccxxviii
(Surtees Soc.,) and _Durham Accounts_, _passim_ (Surtees Soc.). I do
not feel sure what feast is here referred to.

[1200] Chérest, 49 sqq.

[1201] Ioannes Abrincensis, _de Eccl. Offic._ (_P. L._ cxlvii. 42)
‘Licet, ut in morte Domini, _Te Deum_ et _Gloria in excelsis_ et
_Alleluia_ in aliquot ecclesiis, ex more antiquo, omittantur; quia ut
Christus occideretur tot parvuli occidi iubentur; et illis occisis
fit mors Christi secundum aestimationem Herodis; tamen quia placuit
modernis, placet et nobis ut cantentur’; cf. the passage from Belethus
quoted on p. 336; also Honorius Augustodunensis, _Gemma Animae_, iii.
14 (_P. L._ clxxii. 646), and Martene, iii. 40.

[1202] _Ordinarium_ of Rouen (fourteenth century) in Ducange, s.v.
_Kalendae_; _P. L._ cxlvii. 155; Gasté, 35. On the Rouen feast cf. also
Gasté, 48.

[1203] These chants are taken from _Revelation_, xiv. 3 ‘nemo poterat
dicere canticum, nisi illa centum quadraginta quatuor millia, qui
empti sunt de terra. Hi sunt, qui cum mulieribus non sunt coinquinati,
virgines enim sunt. Hi sequuntur Agnum quocumque ierit.’ This passage
is still read in the ‘Epistle’ at Mass on Holy Innocents’ day. Cf. the
use of the same chants at Salisbury (Appendix M).

[1204] ‘Et tamdiu cantetur _Deposuit potentes_ quod baculus accipiatur
ab eo qui accipere voluerit.’

[1205] _Ordinarium_ of Bayeux (undated) in Gasté, 37. On the Bayeux
feast and its _parvus episcopus_ or _petit évêque_ cf. F. Pluquet,
_Essai sur Bayeux_, 274.

[1206] ‘Dum perventum fuerit ad illum: _Deposuit potentes_, vadunt
omnes ad medium ecclesiae et ibi qui in processione stant ordinate
eumdem versum, episcopo inchoante, plures replicantes. Qui dum
sic cantatur, offert ipse episcopus sociis suis de choro baculum
pastoralem. Post multas itaque resumptiones dicti versus, revertuntur
in chorum, _Te Deum laudamus_, si habent novum episcopum, decantantes,
et ita canendo deducunt eum ad altare, et mitra sibi imposita et baculo
cum capa serica, revertuntur in chorum, illo qui fuerat episcopus
explente officium capellani, creato nihilominus novo cantore. Tunc
chorus, si non fuerit ibi novus episcopus, vel novus episcopus qui
baculum duxerit capiendum, cum suis sociis resumit a capite psalmum
_Magnificat_, et sic cantant vesperas usque ad finem.’

[1207] _Novus Ordinarius_ of Coutances (undated) in Gasté, 39.

[1208] ‘Post Matutinas conveniant omnes pueri ad suam tabulam
faciendam, quibus licitum est maiores personas Ecclesiae minoribus
officiis deputare. Diaconis et subdiaconis ordinatis, thuribula
imponantur et candelabra maiora videlicet et minora. Episcopo vero,
cantori et aliis canonicis aquam, manutergium, missale, ignem et
campanam possunt imponere pro suae libito voluntatis. Nihil tamen
inhonestum aut impertinens apponatur; antiquiores primi ponantur in
tabula et ultimi iuniores.’

[1209] ‘Quo facto dicat [Episcopus] _Deposuit_. Statimque electus
Episcopus, tradito sibi baculo pastorali a pueris ad altare
praesentetur, et osculato altari in domum suam a dictis pueris
deferatur. Et interim, finito tumultu, eat processio ad altare S.
Thomae martyris.’

[1210] _Rituale_ (fourteenth century) of Tours in Martene, iii. 39.
There was a _cantor puerorum_ as well as the _episcopus_. At second
Vespers ‘quando _Magnificat_ canitur, veniunt clericuli in choro cum
episcopo habentes candelas accensas de proprio et quando _Deposuit_
canitur, accipit cantor puerorum baculum, et tunc in stallo ascendunt
pueri, et alii descendunt.’

[1211] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_.

[1212] ‘Omnes pueri et subdiaconi feriati, qui in numero dictorum
Innocentium computantur.’

[1213] ‘Ipsa autem die de mane equitare habet idem episcopus
Innocentium ad monasteria SS. Mansueti et Apri per civitatem transeundo
in comitiva suorum aequalium, quibus etiam maiores et digniores
personae dignitatum comitantur per se vel suos servitores et equos, et
descendentes ad fores ecclesiarum praedictarum intonat unam antiphonam
et dicit episcopus orationem, sibique debentur a quolibet monasteriorum
eorundem xviij den. Tullenses, qui si illico non solvantur, possunt
accipere libros vel vadia.’

[1214] ‘Cantatis eiusdem diei vesperis, episcopus ipse cum mimis et
tubis procedit per civitatem cum sua comitiva, via qua fiunt generales
processiones.’

[1215] ‘In crastino Innocentium, quo omnes vadunt per civitatem post
prandium, faciebus opertis, in diversis habitibus, et si quae farsae
practicari valeant, tempore tamen sicco, fiunt in aliquibus locis
civitatis, omnia cum honestate.’ Another passage, referring more
generally to the feast, has ‘Fiunt ibi moralitates vel simulacra
miraculorum cum farsis et similibus ioculis, semper tamen honestis.’

[1216] ‘In octavis Innocentium rursus vadit episcopus cum omni comitiva
sua in habitibus suis ad ecclesiam B. Genovefae, ubi cantata antiphona
de ipsa virgine cum collecta, itur ad domum parochialem eius ecclesiae
vel alibi, ubi magister et fratres domus Dei, quibus ipsa ecclesia est
unita, paraverint focapam unam, poma, nuces, &c. ad merendam oportuna;
et ibi instituuntur officiarii ad marencias super defectibus aut
excessibus in officio divino per totum annum commissis.’

[1217] ‘Fit ... assignatio post coenam diei Innocentium; ita quod is
qui illa die festum peregit, gratias refert episcopo et toti comitivae,
ac excusari petit, si in aliquo defecit; et finaliter pileum romarini
vel alterius confectionis floreum exhibet ipsi episcopo, ut tradat
canonico in receptione sequenti constituto ad futurum annum ipsum
festum agendum.’ Cf. the bouquets at the ‘defructus’ (p. 324).

[1218] ‘Si autem facere contemneret adveniente festo, suspenderetur
cappa nigra in raustro medio chori, et tamdiu ibi maneret in illius
vituperium, quamdiu placeret subdiaconis feriatis et pueris chori; et
in ea re non tenerentur nobis capitulo obedire.’

[1219] Amiens: Rigollot, 13 and passim; cf. p. 339.

[1220] St. Quentin: Rigollot, 32; Grenier, 360.

[1221] Senlis: Rigollot, 26; Grenier, 360.

[1222] Soissons: Matton, _Archives de Soissons_, 75.

[1223] Roye: Rigollot, 33; Grenier, 359.

[1224] Peronne: Rigollot, 34; Grenier, 359, 413.

[1225] Rheims: Rigollot, 50; Petit de Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 348;
Marlot, _Hist. de Rheims_, ii. 266. In 1479 the chapter undertook
the expense, ‘modo fiat sine larvis et strepitu tubicinis, ac sine
equitatione per villam.’ Martene, iii. 40, says that there is no trace
of any of the _triduum_ ceremonies in the early thirteenth-century
Rheims _Ordinarium_.

[1226] Brussels: Laborde, _Ducs de Bourgogne_, ii. 2. 286 ‘[1378] Item
xxi decembris episcopo scholarium sanctae Gudilae profecto Sancti
Nycolay quod scholares annuatim faciunt 1¹⁄₂ mut[ones].’

[1227] Lille: E. Hautcœur, _Hist. de Saint-Pierre de Lille_, ii. 217,
223. On June 29, 1501, Guillemot de Lespine ‘trépassa évêque des
Innocens.’ His epitaph is in the cloister gallery (Hautcœur, _Doc.
liturg. de S. P. de Lille_, 342).

[1228] Liège: Rigollot, 42; Dürr, 82. A statute of 1330 laid the
expense on the last admitted canon ‘nisi canonicus scholaris sub virga
existens ipsum exemerit.’

[1229] Laon: Rigollot, 21; Grenier, 356, 413; C. Hidé, _Bull. de la
Soc. acad. de Laon_, xiii. 122; E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_, 52.
A chapter act of 1546 states that the custom of playing a comedy at the
election of the Boy Bishop on St. Eloi’s day (Dec. 1) has ceased. The
Mass is not to be disturbed, but ‘si les escoliers veulent faire un
petit discours, il seroit entendu avec plaisir.’

[1230] Troyes: T. Boutiot, _Hist. de Troyes_, iii. 20.

[1231] Mans: Gasté, 43; Julleville, _Les Com._ 38.

[1232] Bourges: Martene, iii. 40.

[1233] Châlons-sur-Saône: Du Tilliot, 20; C. Perry, _Hist. de Châlons_
(1659), 435.

[1234] Grenoble: Pilot de Thorey, _Usages, Fêtes et Coutumes en
Dauphiné_, i. 181.

[1235] _C. of Cognac_ (1260), c. 2 (Mansi, xxiii. 1033) ‘cum in
balleatione quae in festo SS. Innocentium in quibusdam Ecclesiis fieri
inolevit, multae rixae, contentiones et turbationes, tam in divinis
officiis quam aliis consueverint provenire, praedictas balleationes
ulterius sub intimatione anathematis fieri prohibemus; nec non et
Episcopos in praedicto festo creari; cum hoc in ecclesia Dei ridiculum
existat, et hoc dignitatis episcopalis ludibrio fiat.’ _C. of Salzburg_
(1274), c. 17 (Labbé, xi. 1004) ‘ludi noxii quos vulgaris elocutio
Eptus puor. appellat’; _CC. of Chartres_ (1526 and 1575; Bochellus,
_Decr. Eccl. Gall._ iv. 7. 46; Du Tilliot, 66) ‘stultum aut ridiculum
in ecclesia’ on days of SS. Nicholas and Catharine, and the Innocents;
_C. of Toledo_ (1565), ii. 21 (Labbé, xv. 764) ‘ficta illa et puerilis
episcopatus electio’; _C. of Rouen_ (1581; Hardouin, _Concilia_, x.
1217) ‘in festivitate SS. Innocentium theatralia.’

[1236] There are traces of it in the eighteenth century at Lyons
(Martene, iii. 40) and Rheims (Barthélemy, v. 334); at Sens, in the
nineteenth, the choir-boys still play at being bishops on Innocents’
day, and name the ‘archbishop’ _âne_ (Chérest, 81).

[1237] Grenier, 358, quoting Le Vasseur, _Epistolae_, Cent. ii. Epist.
68; cf. on the Noyon feast, Leach, 135; Du Tilliot, 17; Rigollot, 27;
L. Mazière, _Noyon religieux_, in _Comptes-Rendus et Mémoires_, xi. 91,
of _The Comité arch. et hist. de Noyon_. Le Vasseur, an ex-Rector of
the University of Paris, writes to François Geuffrin ‘ecce ludunt etiam
ante ipsas aras; internecionem detestamur, execramur carnificem. Ludunt
et placet iste ludus ecclesiae.... Tam grandis est natu ritus iste,
quem viguisse deprehendo iam ante quadringentos annos in hac aede,
magno totius orbis ordinum et aetatum plausu fructuque.... O miserum
saeculum! ... solo gestu externoque habitu spectabiles, sola barba et
pallio philosophi, caetera pecudes!’

[1238] _Chronicon Montis Sereni_ in Pertz, _Scriptores_, xxiii. 144.

[1239] _Monum. Boic._ xiii. 214, quoted by Specht, 228 ‘in festo
nativitatis Dominicae annuatim sibi ludendo constituentes episcopum.’

[1240] Vitus Arnpekius, _Chron. Baioariorum_, v. 53, cited by Martene,
iii. 40.

[1241] Specht, 228.

[1242] Ibid. 225; Creizenach, i. 391; both quoting E. Meyer, _Gesch.
des hamburgischen Schul-und Unterrichtswesens im Mittelalter_, 197
‘praeterea scholares nunquam, sive in electione sive extra, aliquos
rhythmos faciant, tam in latino, quam in teutonico, qui famam alicuius
valeant maculare.’ In the thirteenth century a child-abbot was chosen
in Hamburg on St. Andrew’s day (Nov. 30). On St. Nicholas’ day (Dec.
6) he gave way to a child-bishop, who remained in office until Dec. 28
(Tille, _D. W._ 31, citing Beneke, _Hamburgische Geschichte und Sagen_,
90).

[1243] Specht, 229.

[1244] Ibid. 228.

[1245] Cf. p. 319.

[1246] Tille, _D. W._ 31.

[1247] Ibid. 299.

[1248] Dürr, 67, quoting a _Ritual_ of the cathedral (‘tempore
Alberti’).

[1249] It began:

‘Iam tuum festum Nicolae dives
more solemni recolit iuventus,
nec tibi dignus, sacerdotum Caesar,
promere laudes.’

[1250] Tille, _D. W._ 31, citing Nork, _Festkalender_, 783. Dürr’s
tract was published at Mainz in 1755.

[1251] Wetzer und Welte, s. v. _Feste_ ‘consuetudo seu potius
detestabilis corruptela, qua pueri a die S. Nicolai usque ad festum SS.
Innocentium personatum Episcopum colunt ... ea puerilibus levitatibus
et ineptiis plena coeperit esse multumque gravitatis et decoris divinis
detrahat officiis ... ne clerus se pueris die SS. Inn. submittat ac
eorum locum occupet, aut illis functiones aliquas in divinis officiis
permittat, neque praesentes aliquis Episcopus benedictiones faciat,
aliique pueri in cantandis horariis precibus lectionibus et collectis
Sacerdotum, Diaconorum aut Subdiaconorum officia quaedam usurpent;
multo minus convenit ut Canonici aut Vicarii ex collegarum suorum
numero aliquem designent Episcopum qui reliquos omnes magnis impendiis
liberali convivio excipiat.’

[1252] W. H. R. Jones, _Vetus Registr. Sarisb._ (R. S.), ii. 128;
Wordsworth, _Proc._ 170 ‘Item, annulus unus aureus ad Festum Puerorum.’

[1253] _Constitutiones_, § 45 (Jones and Dayman, _Sarum Statutes_,
75; cf. Jones, _Fasti_, 295) ‘Electus puer chorista in episcopum modo
solito puerili officium in ecclesia, prout fieri consuevit, licenter
exequatur, convivium aliquod de caetero, vel visitationem exterius
seu interius nullatenus faciendo, sed in domo communi cum sociis
conversetur, nisi cum ut choristam ad domum canonici causa solatii ad
mensam contigerit evocari, ecclesiam et scholas cum caeteris choristis
statim post festum Innocentium frequentando. Et quia in processione
quam ad altare Sanctae Trinitatis faciunt annuatim pueri supradicti
per concurrentium pressuras et alias dissolutiones multiplices
nonnulla damna personis et ecclesiae gravia intelleximus priscis
temporibus pervenisse, ex parte Dei omnipotentis et sub poena maioris
excommunicationis, quam contravenientes utpote libertates dictae
ecclesiae nostrae infringentes et illius pacem et quietem temerarie
perturbantes declaramus incurrere ipso facto, inhibemus ne quis pueros
illos in praefata processione vel alias in suo ministerio premat vel
impediat quoquomodo, quominus pacifice valeant facere et exequi quod
illis imminet faciendum; sed qui eidem processioni devotionis causa
voluerint interesse, ita modo maturo se habeant et honeste sicut et
in aliis processionibus dictae ecclesiae se habent qui ad honorem Dei
frequentant quando que ecclesiam supradictam.’

[1254] Appendix M.

[1255] Jones, _Fasti_, 299.

[1256] Wordsworth, _Proc._ 259. The _oblationes_ vary from lvi_s._
viii_d._ in 1448 to as much as lxxxix_s._ xi_d._ in 1456.

[1257] Jones, _Fasti_, 300; Rimbault, xxviii; Planché, in _Journal of
Brit. Archaeol. Assoc._ xv. 123. Gregory, 93, gives a cut of the statue.

[1258] _Ordinale secundum Usum Exon._ (ed. H. E. Reynolds), f. 30.

[1259] _Archaeologia_, l. 446, 472 sqq. (_Invent._ of 1245) ‘mitra alia
alba addubbata aurifrigio, plana est; quam dedit J. Belemains episcopo
innocentum.... Mitra episcopi innocentum, nullius precii.... Capa et
mantella puerorum ad festum Innocentum et Stultorum [cf. p. 323] sunt
xxviij debiles et contritae.’ In 1402 there were two little staves for
the Boy Bishop (Simpson, _St. Paul’s Cathedral and Old City Life_, 40).

[1260] _Statutes_, bk. i, pars vi. c. 9, _De officio puerorum in
festo Sanctorum Innocencium_ (W. S. Simpson, _Registrum Statutorum et
Consuetudinum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sancti Pauli Londinensis_, 91).

[1261] ‘Memorandum, quod Anno Domini Millesimo cc lxiij. tempore G.
de fferring, Decani, ordinatum fuit de officio Puerorum die Sanctorum
Innocencium, prout sequitur. Provida fuit ab antiquis patribus
predecessoribus nostris deliberacione statutum, ut in sollennitate
Sanctorum Innocencium, qui pro Innocente Christo sanguinem suum
fuderunt, innocens puer Presulatus officio fungeretur, ut sic puer
pueris preesset, et innocens innocentibus imperaret, illius tipum
tenens in Ecclesia, quem sequuntur iuvenes, quocumque ierit. Cum
igitur quod ad laudem lactencium fuit adinventum, conversum sit
in dedecus, et in derisum decoris Domus Dei, propter insolenciam
effrenatae multitudinis subsequentis eundem, et affluentis improborum
turbae pacem Praesulis exturbantis, statuendum duximus ut praedicti
pueri, tam in eligendo suo Pontifice et personis dignitatum Decani,
Archidiaconorum, et aliorum, necnon et Stacionariorum, antiquum suum
ritum observent, tabulam suam faciant, et legant in Capitulo. Hoc
tamen adhibito moderamine, ut nullum decetero de Canonicis Maioribus
vel Minoribus ad candelabra, vel turribulum, vel ad aliqua obsequia
eiusdem Ecclesiae, vel ipsius Pontificis deputent in futurum, set
suos eligant ministeriales de illis qui sunt in secunda forma vel in
tercia. Processionem suam habeant honestam, tam in incessu, quam habitu
et cantu, competenti; ita vero se gerant in omnibus in Ecclesia, quod
clerus et populus illos habeant recommendatos.’

[1262] ‘Die vero solemnitatis post prandium ad mandatum personae Decani
convenient omnes in atrio Ecclesiae, ibidem equos ascendant ituri ad
populum benedicendum. Tenetur autem Decanus Presuli presentare equum,
et quilibet Stacionarius sua personae in equo providere.’

[1263] _Statutes_, bk. i, pars vii. c. 6 (Simpson, _op. cit._ 129), a
statute made in the time of Dean Ralph de Diceto (1181-†1204) ‘Debet
eciam novus Residenciarius post cenam die Sanctorum Innocencium ducere
puerum suum cum daunsa et chorea et torchiis ad Elemosinariam, et ibi
cum torticiis potum et species singulis ministrare, et liberatam vini
cervisiae et specierum et candellarum facere, et ibidem ministri sui
expectare, quousque alius puer Canonici senioris veniat. Et secundam
cenam in octavis Innocencium tenebit, Episcopum cum pueris et eorum
comitiva pascendo, et in recessu dona dando, et, si diu expectat
adventum illorum nocte illa, ad matutinos non teneatur venire.’

[1264] Rimbault, xxxii.

[1265] Printed in Rimbault, 1. Duff, _Handlists_, ii. 5, notes also a
_Sermo pro episcopo puerorum_ by J. Alcock, printed in the fifteenth
century by R. Pynson.

[1266] _Concio de puero Iesu pronunciata a puero in nova schola
Iohannis Coleti per eum instituta Londini in qua praesidet imago Pueri
Iesu docentis specie_ (Erasmi _Opera_ (1704), v. 599). The English
version was printed by W. Redman (Lupton, _Life of Colet_, 176). It is
not clear that this _Concio_ was preached by a boy bishop, for Colet’s
school (cf. next note) attended the ‘bishop’ of St. Paul’s song-school.

[1267] Lupton, _op. cit._ 175 ‘Alle these Chyldren shall every
Chyldremasse day come to paulis Church and here the Chylde Bisshoppis
sermon, and after be at the hye masse, and eche of them offre a 1^d. to
the Childe Bisshopp; and with theme the Maisters and surveyours of the
scole.’

[1268] _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 98 ‘Inveniet [thesaurarius] Stellas cum
omnibus ad illas pertinentibus, preter cirpos, quos inveniet Episcopus
Puerorum futurorum [?fatuorum], vnam in nocte Natalis Domini pro
pastoribus et ·ij^{as} in nocte Epiphanie, si debeat fieri presentacio
·iij^{um} regum.’

[1269] Warton, iv. 224 ‘Ioannes de Quixly confirmatur Episcopus
Puerorum, et Capitulum ordinavit, quod electio Episcopi Puerorum in
ecclesia Eboracensi de cetero fieret de eo, qui diutius et magis in
dicta ecclesia laboraverit, et magis idoneus repertus fuerit, dum tamen
competenter sit corpore formosus, et quod aliter facta electio non
valebit.’

[1270] Warton, iv. 237 ‘nisi habuerit claram vocem puerilem.’

[1271] Warton, iv. 224.

[1272] Appendix M. Cf. Rimbault, xi, for further elucidations of the
_Computus_.

[1273] Percy, _North. H. B._ 340.

[1274] _York Missal_, i. 23. The rubric at the beginning of Mass is
‘Omnibus pueris in Capis, Praecentor illorum incipiat.’ There are
some responds for the ‘Praecentor’ and the ‘turba puerorum.’ After
the Kyrie, ‘omnibus pueris in medio Chori stantibus et ibi omnia
cantantibus, Episcopo eorum interim in cathedra sedente; et si Dominica
fuerit, dicitur ab Episcopo stante in cathedra _Gloria in excelsis
Deo_: aliter non.’ The _Sequentia_ for the day is

‘Celsa pueri concrepent melodia,
eia, Innocentum colentes tripudia, &c.’

[1275] Rimbault, xvi. The dates are between 1416 and 1537.

[1276] Raine, _Fabric Rolls of York Minster_ (Surtees Soc.), 213
sqq. (†1500, the additions in brackets being †1510) ‘una mitra parva
cum petris pro episcopo puerorum ... [unus annulus pro episcopo
puerorum et duo owchys, unus in medio ad modum crucis cum lapidibus
in circumferenciis cum alio parvo cum uno lapide in medio vocato
turchas].... Capae Rubiae.... Una capa de tyssue pro Episcopo
puerili ... [duae capae veteres olim pro Episcopo puerorum].’ Leach,
132, says ‘At York, in 1321, the Master of the Works gave “a gold ring
with a great stone for the Bishop of the Innocents.” In 1491 the Boy
Bishop’s pontifical was mended with silver-gilt.’

[1277] _Lincoln Statutes_, i. 290 (_Black Book_, †1300); ii. ccxxxi.

[1278] _Archaeologia_, liii. 25, 50; _Monasticon_, viii. 1282 ‘Item,
a coope of Rede velvett w^t Rolles & clowdes ordenyd for the barne
busshop w^t this scriptur “the hye wey ys best”.’ The entry is repeated
in a later inventory of 1548.

[1279] Hereford, _Consuetudines_ of thirteenth century (_Lincoln
Statutes_, ii. 67) ‘Thesaurarius debet invenire ... in festo
Innocencium pueris candelas et ·ij^{os} cereos coram parvo Episcopo.’

[1280] Lichfield--J. C. Cox, _Sports in Churches_, in W. Andrews,
_Curious Church Customs_, 3, quoting inventories of 1345 and of the
fifteenth century. The latter uses the term ‘Nicholas Bishop.’

[1281] Gloucester--Rimbault, 14, prints from _Cotton MSS. Vesp._ A.
xxv, f. 173, a _Sermon of the Child Bishop, Pronownysed by John Stubs,
Querester, on Childermas Day, at Gloceter_, 1558.

[1282] Norwich--a fourteenth-century antiphonal of Sarum Use, probably
of Norwich _provenance_ (_Lansd. MS._ 463, f. 16^v), provides for the
giving of the _baculus_ to the _Episcopus Puerorum_ at Vespers on St.
John’s Day.

[1283] Beverley--the fifth earl of Northumberland about 1522 gave
xx_s._ at Christmas to the ‘Barne Bishop’ of Beverley, as well as to
him of York (Percy, _North. H. B._ 340); cf. p. 357.

[1284] Wordsworth, _Proc._ 52; cf. Appendix M (1).

[1285] Ottery--_Statutes_ of Bishop Grandisson (1337), quoted by
Warton, ii. 229 ‘Item statuimus, quod nullus canonicus, vicarius, vel
secundarius, pueros choristas in festo sanctorum Innocentium extra
parochiam de Otery trahant, aut eis licentiam vagandi concedant.’

[1286] Magdalen--see Appendix E.

[1287] All Souls--An inventory has ‘j chem. j cap et mitra pro Episcopo
Nicholao’ (Rock, iii. 2. 217).

[1288] In 1299 Edward I heard vespers said ‘de Sancto Nicholao ... in
Capella sua apud Heton iuxta Novum Castrum super Tynam’ (_Wardrobe
Account_, ed. Soc. of Antiq., 25). In 1306 a Boy Bishop officiated
before Edward II on St. Nicholas’ Day in the king’s chapel at Scroby
(_Wardrobe Account_ in _Archaeologia_, xxvi. 342). In 1339 Edward III
gave a gift ‘Episcopo puerorum ecclesiae de Andeworp cantanti coram
domino rege in camera sua in festo sanctorum Innocentium’ (Warton,
ii. 229). There was a yearly payment of £1 to the Boy Bishop at St.
Stephen’s, Westminster, in 1382 (Devon, _Issues of Exchequer_, 222),
and about 1528-32 (Brewer, iv. 1939).

[1289] The fifth earl of Northumberland (†1512) was wont to ‘gyfe yerly
upon Saynt Nicolas-Even if he kepe Chapell for Saynt Nicolas to the
Master of his Childeren of his Chapell for one of the Childeren of
his Chapell yerely vj^{s.} viij^{d.} And if Saynt Nicolas com owt of
the Towne wher my Lord lyeth and my Lord kepe no Chapell than to have
yerely iij^{s.} iiij^{d.}’ (Percy, _North. H. B._ 343). An elaborate
_Contenta de Ornamentis Ep., puer._, of uncertain _provenance_, is
printed by Percy, _op. cit._ 439.

[1290] St. Mary at Hill (Brand, i. 233); St. Mary de Prees
(_Monasticon_, iii. 360); St. Peter Cheap (Journal of _Brit. Arch.
Ass._ xxiv. 156); Hospital of St. Katharine by the Tower (_Reliquary_,
iv. 153); Lambeth (Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 310); cf. p. 367.

[1291] Louth (E. Hewlett, _Boy Bishops_, in W. Andrews, _Curious
Church Gleanings_, 241)--the payments for the Chyld Bishop include
some for ‘making his See’ (_sedes_); Nottingham (_Archaeologia_, xxvi.
342); Sandwich (Boys, _Hist. of S._ 376); New Romney (_Hist. MSS._ v.
517-28), Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Somersetshire (J. C. Cox, _Sports in
Churches_, in W. Andrews, _Curious Church Customs_); Bristol--L. T.
Smith, _Ricart’s Kalendar_, 80 (1479-1506, Camden Soc.). On Nov. 24,
the Mayor, Sheriff, and ‘worshipfull men’ are to ‘receyue at theire
dores Seynt Kateryn’s pleyers, making them to drynk at their dores
and rewardyng theym for theire playes.’ On Dec. 5 they are ‘to walke
to Seynt Nicholas churche, there to hire theire even-song: and on the
morowe to hire theire masse, and offre, and hire the bishop’s sermon,
and have his blissyng.’ After dinner they are to play dice at the
mayor’s counter, ‘and when the Bishope is come thedir, his chapell
there to synge, and the bishope to geve them his blissyng, and then he
and all his chapell to be serued there with brede and wyne.’ And so to
even-song in St. Nicholas’ church.

[1292] _L. T. Accounts_, i. ccxlvi record annual payments by James
IV (†1473-98) to Boy Bishops from Holyrood Abbey and St. Giles’s,
Edinburgh.

[1293] Wilkins, ii. 38 ‘Puerilia autem solemnia, quae in festo
solent fieri Innocentum post vesperas S. Iohannis, tantum inchoari
permittimus, et in crastino in ipsa die Innocentum totaliter
terminentur.’

[1294] _Archaeologia_, lii. 221 sqq.

[1295] _Transactions_ of _London and Middlesex Arch. Soc._ vols. iv, v.

[1296] _Athenæum_ (1900), ii. 655, 692 ‘data Pueris de Elemosinaria
ludentibus coram Domino apud Westmonasterium, iij^{s.} iiij^{d.}’ Dr.
E. J. L. Scott and Dr. Rutherford found in this entry a proof of the
existence of the Westminster Latin play at ‘a period anterior to the
foundation of Eton’!

[1297] Rimbault, xviii; _Finchale Priory_ (Surtees Soc.), ccccxxviii;
_Durham Accounts_ (Surtees Soc.), iii. xliii, and passim.

[1298] _Hist. MSS._ xiv. 8. 124, 157.

[1299] _Computi_ of Cellarer (Warton, ii. 232, iii. 300) ‘1397, pro
epulis Pueri celebrantis in festo S. Nicholai ... 1490, in larvis
et aliis indumentis Puerorum visentium Dominum apud Wulsey, et
Constabularium Castri Winton, in apparatu suo, necnon subintrantium
omnia monasteria civitatis Winton, in festo sancti Nicholai.’

[1300] G. W. Kitchin, _Computus Rolls of St. Swithin’s_ (_Hampshire
Rec. Soc._), passim; G. W. Kitchin and F. T. Madge, _Winchester Chapter
Documents_ (_H. R. Soc._), 24.

[1301] Warton, ii. 231 ‘1441, pro pueris Eleemosynariae una cum pueris
Capellae sanctae Elizabethae, ornatis more puellarum, et saltantibus,
cantantibus, et ludentibus, coram domina Abbatissa et monialibus
Abbathiae beatae Mariae virginis, in aula ibidem in die sanctorum
Innocentium.’

[1302] Harpsfield, _Hist. Eccl. Angl._ (1622), 441, citing Peckham’s
_Register_. He says the mandate was in French.

[1303] _Visitations of Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), 209 ‘Domina
Iohanna Botulphe dicit ... quod ... habent in festo Natalis Domini
iuniorem monialem in abbatissam assumptam, vocandi [? iocandi] gratia;
cuius occasione ipsa consumere et dissipare cogitur quae vel elemosina
vel aliorum amicorum largitione acquisierit ... Iniunctum est ... quod
de cetero non observetur assumptio abbatissae vocandi causa.’

[1304] Gregory of Tours, x. 16 (_M. G. H. Script. Rerum Meroving._ i.
427), mentions among the complaints laid before the visitors of the
convent of St. Radegund in Poitou, that the abbess ‘vittam de auro
exornatam idem neptae suae superflue fecerit, barbaturias intus eo quod
celebraverit.’ Ducange, s. v. _Barbatoriae_, finds here a reference to
some kind of masquing, and Peter of Blois, _Epist._ 14, certainly uses
_barbatores_ as a synonym for _mimi_. The M. G. H. editors of Gregory,
however, explain ‘_barbatoria_’ as ‘_primam barbam ponere_’ the sense
borne by the term in Petronius, _Sat._ lxxiii. 6. The abbess’s niece
had probably no beard, but may not the reference be to the cutting of
the hair of a novice when she takes the vows?

[1305] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_ (‘de monialibus Villae-Arcelli’),
‘Item inhibemus ne de caetero in festis Innocentum et B. M. Magdalenae
ludibria exerceatis consueta, induendo vos scilicet vestibus
saecularium aut inter vos seu cum secularibus choreas ducendo’;
and again ‘in festo S. Iohannis et Innocentium mimia iocositate et
scurrilibus cantibus utebantur, ut pote farsis, conductis, motulis;
praecepimus quod honestius et cum maiori devotione alias se haberent’;
Gasté, 36 (on Caen) ‘iuniores in festo Innocentium cantant lectiones
suas cum farsis. Hoc inhibuimus.’ In 1423, the real abbess gave place
to the little abbess at the _Deposuit_. Gasté, 44, describes a survival
of the election of an ‘abbess’ from amongst the _pensionnaires_ on
the days of St. Catherine and the Innocents in the Abbaye aux Bois,
Faubourg St. Germain, from the _Mémoires_ of Hélène Massalska. This was
about 1773.

[1306] Howlett, _Monumenta Franciscana_ (R. S.), ii. 93 ‘Caveant
fratres in festo Sancti Nicolai seu Innocentium, vel quibuscunque
aliis festis vestes extraneas religiosas seu seculares aut clericales
vel muliebres sub specie devotionis induere; nec habitus fratrum
secularibus pro ludis faciendis accommodentur sub poena amotionis
confusibilis de conventu.’

[1307] Denifle, i. 532. It was forbidden ‘in eisdem festis vel aliis
paramenta nec coreas duci in vico de die nec de nocte cum torticiis vel
sine.’ But it was on Innocents’ Day that the _béjaunes_ or ‘freshmen’
of the Sorbonne were subjected to rites bearing a close analogy to
the feast of fools; cf. Rigollot, 172 ‘1476 ... condemnatus fuit in
crastino Innocentium capellanus abbas beiannorum ad octo solidos
parisienses, eo quod non explevisset officium suum die Innocentium post
prandium, in mundationem beiannorum per aspersionem aquae ut moris est,
quanquam solemniter incoepisset exercere suum officium ante prandium
inducendo beiannos per vicum super asinum.’

[1308] Denifle, iii. 166.

[1309] ‘Verbis nedum gallicis sed eciam latinis, ut ipsi qui de
partibus alienis oriundi linguam gallicam nequaquam intelligebant
plenarie.’

[1310] S. F. Hulton, _Rixae Oxonienses_, 68. There had been many
earlier brawls.

[1311] _Statute_ xxix (T. F. Kirby, _Annals of Winchester College_,
503) ‘Permittimus tamen quod in festo Innocencium pueri vesperas
matutinas et alia divina officia legenda et cantanda dicere et
exsequi valeant secundum usum et consuetudinem ecclesiae Sarum.’ The
same formula is used in _New College Statute_ xlii (_Statutes of the
Colleges of Oxford_, vol. i).

[1312] Cf. Appendix E. Kirby, _op. cit._ 90, quotes an inventory of
1406 ‘Baculus pastoralis de cupro deaurato pro Epõ puerorum in die
Innocencium ... Mitra de panno aureo ex dono Dñi. Fundatoris hernesiat
(mounted) cum argento deaurato ex dono unius socii coll. [Robert Heete]
pro Epõ puerorum.’

[1313] _The Charter of King’s College_ (1443), c. 42 (_Documents
relating to the Univ. of Camb._ ii. 569; Heywood and Wright, _Ancient
Laws of the Fifteenth Century for King’s Coll. Camb. and Eton Coll._
112), closely follows Wykeham’s formula: ‘excepto festo S^{ti}
Nicholai praedicto, in quo festo et nullatenus in festo Innocentium,
permittimus quod pueri ... secundum usum in dicto Regali Collegio
hactenus usitatum.’ The Eton formula (c. 31) in 1444 is slightly
different (Heywood and Wright _op. cit._ 560) ‘excepto in festo Sancti
Nicholai, in quo, et nullatenus in festo Sanctorum Innocentium, divina
officia praeter missae secreta exequi et dici permittimus per episcopum
puerorum scholarium, ad hoc de eisdem annis singulis eligendum.’

[1314] Warton, ii. 228; Leach, 133. The passage from the
_Consuetudinarium_ is given from _Harl. MS._ 7044 f. 167 (apparently
a transcript from a _C. C. C. C. MS._) by Heywood and Wright, _op.
cit._ 632; E. S. Creasy, _Eminent Etonians_, 91 ‘in die S^{ti} Hugonis
pontificis solebat Aetonae fieri electio Episcopi Nihilensis, sed
consuetudo obsolevit. Olim episcopus ille puerorum habebatur nobilis,
in cuius electione et literata et laudatissima exercitatio, ad
ingeniorum vires et motus excitandos, Aetonae celebris erat.’

[1315] _Eton Audit Book_, 1507-8, quoted by H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, _Hist.
of Eton_ (ed. 1899), 149 ‘Pro reparatione le rochet pro episcopo
puerorum, xj^{d.}’ An inventory of Henry VIII’s reign says that this
rochet was given by James Denton (K. S. 1486) for use at St. Nicholas’
time.

[1316] Maxwell-Lyte, _op. cit._ 450.

[1317] Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, 674 ‘Item, unam Mitram de
Cloth of goold habentem 2 knoppes arḡ. enameld, dat. ad occupand. per
Barnebishop.’

[1318] John Stone, a monk of Canterbury, records in his _De Obitibus
et aliis Memorabilibus sui Coenobii_ (_MS. C. C. C. C._, Q. 8, quoted
Warton, ii. 230) ‘Hoc anno, 1464, in festo Sancti Nicolai non erat
episcopus puerorum in schola grammatica in civitate Cantuariae ex
defectu Magistrorum, viz. I. Sidney et T. Hikson.’

[1319] J. Stuart, _Extracts from Council Registers of Aberdeen_
(Spalding Club), i. 186. The council ordered on Nov. 27, 1542, ‘that
the maister of thair grammar scuyll sell haf iiij^s Scottis, of the
sobirest persoun that resauis him and the bischop at Sanct Nicolace
day.’ This is to be held a legal fee, ‘he hes na uder fee to leif on.’

[1320] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. 860 ‘And whereas heretofore dyverse
and many superstitious and childysshe observations have been usid, and
yet to this day are observed and kept in many and sondry parties of
this realm, as upon sainte Nicolas, sainte Catheryne, sainte Clement,
the holye Innocentes, and such like; children be strangelye decked
and apparelid to counterfaite priestes, bysshopps, and women; and so
ledde with songes and daunces from house to house, bleasing the people,
and gatherynge of monye; and boyes doo singe masse, and preache in
the pulpitt, with suche other unfittinge and inconvenyent usages,
rather to the derision than to any true glory of God, or honour of his
saints; the kyng’s majestie therefore mynding nothing so moche, as to
avaunce the true glorye of God without vayne superstition, willith and
commaundeth, that from henceforth all suche superstitions be loste and
clyerlye extinguisshed throughowte all this his realmes and dominions,
forasmoche as the same doo resemble rather the unlawfull superstition
of gentilitie, than the pure and sincere religion of Christe.’ Brand,
i. 236, suggests that there was an earlier proclamation of July 22,
1540, to the same effect. Johan Bale in his _Yet a Course at the
Romyshe Foxe_ (1542), says that if Bonner’s censure of those who lay
aside certain ‘auncyent rytes’ is justified, ‘then ought my Lorde also
to suffer the same selfe ponnyshment, for not goynge abought with Saynt
Nycolas clarkes.’ Thomas Becon, _Catechism_, 320 (ed. Parker Soc.),
compares a bishop who does not preach, a ‘dumb dog,’ to a ‘Nicholas
bishop.’ The _Articles_ put to bishop Gardiner in 1550 required him
to declare ‘that the counterfeiting St. Nicholas, St. Clement, St.
Catherine and St. Edmund, by children, heretofore brought into the
church, was a mockery and foolishness’ (Froude, iv. 550).

[1321] _Machyn’s Diary_, 75 ‘The xij day of November [1554] was
commondyd by the bysshope of London to all clarkes in the dyoses of
London for to have Sant Necolas and to go a-brod, as mony as wold have
ytt ... [the v day of December, the which was Saint Nicholas’ eve,
at even-song time, came a commandment that St. Nicholas should not
go abroad, nor about. But, notwithstanding, there went about these
Saint Nicholases in divers parishes, as St. Andrew’s, Holborn, and
St.] Nicolas Olyffe in Bredstret.’ Warton, iv. 237, says that during
Mary’s reign Hugh Rhodes, a gentleman or musician of the Chapel royal,
printed in black letter quarto a poem of thirty-six octave stanzas,
entitled _The Song of the Chyldbysshop, as it was songe before the
queenes maiestie in her privie chamber at her manour of saynt James in
the Feeldes on Saynt Nicholas day and Innocents day this yeare nowe
present, by the chylde bysshope of Poules churche with his company_.’
Warton apparently saw the poem, for he describes it as ‘a fulsome
panegyric on the queen’s devotion, in which she is compared to Judith,
Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary,’ but no copy of it is
now known; cf. F. J. Furnivall, _The Babees Book_ (E. E. T. S.), lxxxv.

[1322] _Machyn’s Diary_, 121 ‘The v day of Desember [1556] was Sant
Necolas evyn, and Sant Necolas whentt a-brod in most partt in London
syngyng after the old fassyon, and was reseyvyd with mony good pepulle
in-to ther howses, and had myche good chere as ever they had, in mony
plasses.’ Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, viii. 726, celebrates the wit
of a ‘godly matron,’ Mrs. Gertrude Crockhay, who shut ‘the foolish
popish Saint Nicholas’ out of her house in this year, and told her
brother-in-law, Dr. Mallet, when he remonstrated, that she had heard
of men robbed by ‘Saint Nicholas’s clerks.’ This was a slang term for
thieves, of whom, as of children, St. Nicholas was the patron; for
the reason of which cf. _Golden Legend_, ii. 119. Another procession
forbidden by the proclamation of 1541 was also revived in 1556; cf.
_Machyn’s Diary_, 119 ‘[The xxiv day of November, being the eve of
Saint Katharine, at six of the clock at night] sant Katheryn(’s) lyght
[went about the battlements of Saint Paul’s with singing,] and Sant
Katheryn gohying a prossessyon.’

[1323] At Exton in Rutlandshire, children were allowed at the beginning
of the nineteenth century to play in the church on Innocents’ Day
_(Leicester and Rutland Folk-Lore_, 96). Probably a few other examples
could be collected.

[1324] At Mainz, not only the _pueri_, but also the _diaconi_ and
the _sacerdotes_, had their _episcopus_ (Dürr, 71). On the other
hand at Vienne the term used at all the feasts, of the _triduum_ and
on January 1 and 6, was _rex_ (Pilot de Thorey, _Usages, Fêtes et
Coutumes en Dauphiné_, i. 179). The Boy Bishops received, for their
brief day, all the external marks of honour paid to real bishops.
They are alleged to have occasionally enjoyed more solid privileges.
Louvet (_Hist. et Ant. de Beauvais_, cited Rigollot, 142), says that
at Beauvais the right of presentation to chapter benefices falling
vacant on Innocents’ Day fell to the _pueri_. Jean Van der Muelen or
Molanus (_De Canonicis_ (1587), ii. 43) makes a similar statement
as to Cambrai: ‘Immo personatus hic episcopus in quibusdam locis
reditus, census et capones, annue percipit: alibi mitram habet, multis
episcoporum mitris sumptuosiorem. In Cameracensi ecclesia visus est
vacantem, in mense episcopi, praebendam, quasi iure ad se devoluto,
conferre; quam collationem beneficii vere magnifici, reverendissimus
praesul, cum puer grato animo, magistrum suum, bene de ecclesia
meritum, nominasset, gratam et raram habuit.’ At Mainz lost tradition
had it that if an Elector died during the tenure of office by a Boy
Bishop, the revenues _sede vacante_ would fall to him. Unfortunately
the chapter and verse of history disprove this (Dürr, 67, 79). On the
other hand it is certain that the Boy Bishops assumed the episcopal
privilege of coinage. Rigollot, 52 sqq., describes and figures a long
series of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century coins or medals mostly struck
by ‘bishops’ of the various churches and monastic houses of Amiens.
They are the more interesting, because some of them bear ‘fools’ as
devices, and thus afford another proof of the relations between the
feasts of Boys and Fools. Lille _monetae_ of the sixteenth century are
figured by Vanhende, _Numismatique Lilloise_, 256, and others from
Laon by C. Hidé, in _Bull. de la Soc. acad. de Laon_, xiii. 126. Some
of Rigollot’s specimens seem to have belonged, not to Boy Bishops, but
to _confréries_, who struck them as ‘jetons de présence’ (Chartier,
_L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris_, 178); and probably this is also
the origin of the pieces found at Bury St. Edmunds, which have nothing
in their devices to connect them with a Boy Bishop (Rimbault, xxvi).

[1325] Ivo Carnotensis, _Epist._ 67, _ad papam Urbanum_ (_P. L._ clxii.
87)

‘eligimus puerum, puerorum festa colentes,
non nostrum morem, sed regis iussa sequentes.’

Cf. Rigollot, 143.

[1326] Lucas Cusentinus (†1203-24) _Ordinarium_ (Martene, iii. 39):
‘Puero episcopello pontificalia conceduntur insignia, et ipse dicit
orationes.’

[1327] _The Ritual_ (†1264) of St. Omer (_Mém. de la Soc. des Antiq. de
la Morinie_, xx. 186) has the following rubric for St. Nicholas’ Day
‘in secundis vesperis ... a choristis incipitur prosa _Sospitati dedit
egros_, in qua altercando cantatur iste versus _Ergo laudes_ novies
tantum, ne immoderatum tedium generet vel derisum.’ The same rubric
recurs on St. Catherine’s Day. At St. Omer, as at Paris (cf. p. 363),
these were the two winter holidays for scholars. Cf. also p. 289, and
A. Legrand, _Réjouissances des écoliers de N.-D. de St. Omer, le jour
de St.-Nicholas, leur glorieux patron_ (_Mémoires_, _ut cit._ vii.
160). The St. Omer _Episcopus puerorum_ also officiated on Innocents’
Eve and the octave. Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xxi. 82, gives various
_cantiones_ for St. Nicholas’ Day; e.g.

‘Nicolai praesulis
Festum celebremus,
. . . . .
In tanto natalitio
Patrum docet traditio
Ut consonet in gaudio
Fidelium devotio,
Est ergo superstitio
Vacare a tripudio.’

In England it is probable that the Beverley Boy Bishop also officiated
on St. Nicholas’ Day. A chapter order of Jan. 7, 1313, directs the
transfer of the ‘servitium sancti Nicholai in festo eiusdem per
Magistrum Scholarum Beverlacensium celebrandum’ to the altar of St.
Blaize during the building of a new nave (A. F. Leach, _Memorials of
Beverley Minster_, Surtees Soc. i. 307).

[1328] Tille, _D. W._ 32; Leach, 130. The connexion of St. Nicholas
with children may be explained by, if it did not rather give rise
to, either the legend of his early piety, ‘The first day that he was
washed and bained, he addressed him right up in the bason, and he wold
not take the breast nor the pap but once on the Wednesday and once
on the Friday, and in his young age he eschewed the plays and japes
of other young children’ (_Golden Legend_, ii. 110); or the various
other legends which represent him as bringing children out of peril.
Cf. _Golden Legend_, ii. 119 sqq., and especially the history of the
resurrection of three boys from a pickle-tub narrated by Mr. Leach
from Wace. A. Maury, (_Croyances et Légendes du Moyen Âge_ (ed. 1896),
149) tries to find the origin of this in misunderstood iconographic
representations of the missionary saint at the baptismal font.

[1329] Leach, 130; _Golden Legend_, ii. 111.

[1330] Cf. ch. xi. The position of St. Nicholas’ Day in the ceremonies
discussed in this chapter is sometimes shared by other feasts of the
winter cycle: St. Edmund’s (Nov. 20), St. Clement’s (Nov. 23), St.
Catherine’s (Nov. 25), St. Andrew’s (Nov. 30), St. Eloi’s (Dec. 1),
St. Lucy’s (Dec. 13). Cf. pp. 349-51, 359, 366-8. The feast of St.
Mary Magdalen, kept in a Norman convent (p. 362), was, however, in the
summer (July 22).

[1331] Specht, 229; Tille, _D. W._ 300; Wetze and Welte, iv. 1411.
Roman schoolmasters expected a present at the _Minervalia_ (March
18-23); cf. the passage from Tertullian in Appendix N (1).

[1332] Martin Franc, _Champion des dames_ (_Bibl. de l’École des
Chartes_, v. 58).

[1333] Du Tilliot, 87.

[1334] Julleville, _Les Com._ 241.

[1335] Julleville, _Les Com._ 193, 256; Du Tilliot, 97. The
chief officers of the chapel _fous_ were the ‘bâtonnier’ and the
‘protonotaire et procureur des fous.’ In the _Infanterie_ these are
replaced by the emblematical _Mère Folle_ and the ‘Procureur fiscal’
known as ‘Fiscal vert’ or ‘Griffon vert.’ Du Tilliot and others have
collected a number of documents concerning the _Infanterie_, together
with representations of seals, badges, &c., used by them. These may be
compared in Du Tilliot with the _bâton_ belonging to the Chapel period
(1482), which he also gives. The motto of the _Infanterie_ is worth
noticing. It was _Numerus stultorum infinitus est_, and was taken from
_Ecclesiastes_, i. 15. It was used also at Amiens (Julleville, _Les
Com._ 234).

[1336] At Amiens the ‘feste du Prince des Sots’ existed in 1450
(Julleville, _Les Com._ 233), but the ‘Pope of Fools’ was not finally
suppressed in the cathedral for another century. But at Amiens there
was an immense multiplication of ‘fool’-organizations. Each church and
convent had its ‘episcopus puerorum,’ and several of these show _fous_
on their coins. Rigollot, 77, 105, figures a coin with _fous_, which he
assigns to a _confrérie_ in the parish of St. Remigius; also a coin,
dated 1543, of an ‘Evesque des Griffons.’

[1337] Julleville, _Les Com._ 144.

[1338] The term _cornard_ seems to be derived from the ‘cornes’ of the
traditional fool headdress. Leber, ix. 353, reprints from the _Mercure
de France_ for April, 1725, an account of a procession made by the
_abbas cornardorum_ at Evreux mounted upon an ass, which directly
recalls the Feast of Fools. A macaronic _chanson_ used on the occasion
of one of these processions is preserved:

‘_De asino bono nostro,_
_Meliori et optimo,_
_Debemus_ faire fête.
En revenant de Gravignariâ,
Un gros chardon _reperit in viâ_;
Il lui coupa la tête.
_Vir monachus, in mense Iulio,_
_Egressus est e monasterio_,
C’est dom de la Bucaille.
_Egressus est sine licentiâ_,
Pour aller voir donna Venissia,
Et faire la ripaille.’

Research has identified Dom de la Bucaille and Donna Venissia as
respectively a prior of St. Taurin, and a prioress of St. Saviour’s, in
Evreux.

[1339] A _coquille_ is a misprint, and this _société_ was composed of
the printers of Lyon.

[1340] _Conc. of Avignon_ (1326), c. 37, _de societatibus
colligationibus et coniurationibus quas confratrias appellant radicitus
extirpandis_ (Labbé, xi. 1738), forbids both clerks and laymen ‘ne
se confratres priores abbatas praedictae societatis appellent.’ The
charges brought against the _confréries_ are of perverting justice, not
of wanton revelry, and therefore it is probably not ‘sociétés joyeuses’
that are in question; cf. Ducange, s. v. _Abbas Confratriae_, quoting
a Paris example. Grenier, 362, however, mentions a ‘confrérie’ in the
Hôpital de Rue at Amiens (†1210) which was under an ‘évêque’; cf. the
following note.

[1341] I find an ‘évesque des folz’ at Béthune, a ‘M. le Cardinal’
as head of the ‘Joyeux’ at Rheims (Julleville, _Les Com._ 242; _Rép.
Com._ 340), and an ‘évesque des Griffons’ at Amiens (Rigollot, 105).
Exceptional is, I believe, the _Société des Foux_ founded on the lines
of a chivalric order by Adolphe, Comte de Clèves, in 1380 (Du Tilliot,
84).

[1342] Julleville, 236; Guy, 471.

[1343] Julleville, 88, 136. The Paris _Basoche_ was a ‘royaume’; those
of Chambéry and Geneva were ‘abbayes.’

[1344] Cf. p. 304.

[1345] Julleville, _Les Com._ 152.

[1346] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Paris_, v. 690; Julleville, _Les Com._
297; Rashdall, _Universities of Europe_, ii. 611. It was probably to
this student custom that the Tournai rioters of 1499 appealed (cf. p.
301). In 1470 the Faculty of Arts ordered the suppression of it. Cf.
C. Jourdain, _Index Chartarum Paris_. 294 (No. 1369). On Jan. 5 they
met ‘ad providendum remedium de electione regis fatuorum,’ and decreed
‘quod nullus scolaris assumeret habitum fatui pro illo anno, nec in
collegio, nec extra collegium, nisi forsan duntaxat ludendo farsam vel
moralitatem.’ Several scholars ‘portantes arma et assumentes habitus
fatuorum’ were corrected on Jan. 24, and it was laid down that ‘reges
vero fatuorum priventur penitus a gradu quocumque.’

[1347] Grenier, 365; Ducange, s. v. _Deposuit_, quoting _Stat. Hosp.
S. Iacobi Paris._ (sixteenth century), ‘après le diner, on porte
le baton au cueur, et là est le trésorier, qui chante et fait le
_Deposuit_.’ _Stat. Syn. Petri de Broc. episc. Autiss._ (1642) ‘pendant
que les bâtons de confrérie seront exposez, pour être enchéris, l’on
ne chantera _Magnificat_, et n’appliquera-t-on point ces versets
_Deposuit_ et _Suscepit_ à la délivrance d’iceux; ains on chantera
quelque antienne et répons avec l’oraison propre en l’honneur du Saint,
duquel on célèbre la feste.’

[1348] Cf. ch. iii and Appendix F; and on the general character of
the _puys_, Julleville, _Les Com._ 42; Guy, xxxiv; Paris, 185. Some
documents with regard to a fourteenth-century _puy_ in London are in
Riley, _Liber Custumarum_, xlviii. 216, 479 (_Munim. Gildh. Lond._ in
R. S.); _Memorials of London_, 42.

[1349] Julleville, _Les Com._ 92, 233, 236, 241.

[1350] Clément-Hémery, _Fêtes du Dép. du Nord_, 184, states on the
authority of a MS. without title or signature that this _fête_
originated in a prose with a bray in it, sung by the canons of St.
Peter’s. The lay form of the feast can be traced from †1476 to 1668.
Leber, x. 135, puts the (clerical) origin before 1282.

[1351] Julleville, _Les Com._ 92, 204, 247.

[1352] F. Guérard, _Les Fous de Saint-Germain_, in _Mélanges d’Hist. et
d’Arch._ (Amiens, 1861), 17. On the Saturday before the first Sunday in
May children in the rue St. Germain carry boughs, singing

‘Saint Germain, coucou,
Ch’est l’fette d’chés fous, &c.’

In the church they used to place a bottle crowned with yellow
primroses, called ‘coucous.’ The dwellers in the parish are locally
known as ‘fous,’ and an historical myth is told to account for this.
Probably May-day has here merged with St. Germain’s Day (May 2) in a
‘fête des fous.’ Payments for decking the church appear in old accounts.

[1353] Guérard, _op. cit._ 46.

[1354] Leber, x. 125, from _Mercure de France_ for April, 1726; Gasté,
46.

[1355] ‘ludunt ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae ... faciunt podia,
choreas et choros ... et reliqua sicut in natalibus.’

[1356] Leber, ix. 261.

[1357] Julleville, _Les Com._ 233, quotes a decree of the municipality
of Amiens in 1450, ‘Il a esté dit et declairié qu’il semble que ce sera
tres grande recreacion, considéré les bonnes nouvelles que de jour en
jour en disoit du Roy nostre sire, et que le ducée de Normendie est du
tout reunye en sa main, de fere la feste du Prince des Sots.’

[1358] Ibid. 214.

[1359] Cf. ch. vii.

[1360] Julleville, _Les Com._ 209.

[1361] Leber, ix. 150, reprints the _Recueil de la Chevauchée faicte
en la Ville de Lyon le dix septiesme de novembre_, 1578. Another Lyon
_Recueil_ dates from 1566. Cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 234 (Amiens), 243
(Lyon), 248 (Rouen).

[1362] Cf. chs. xiii, xiv. The _theatrales ludi_ of Pope Innocent III’s
decree in 1207 probably refers only to the burlesque ‘offices’ of the
feasts condemned; and even the terms used by the Theological Faculty
in 1445--_spectacula_, _ludi theatrales_, _personagiorum ludi_--might
mean no more, for at Troyes in the previous year the ‘_jeu du sacre de
leur arcevesque_’ was called a ‘jeu de personnages,’ and this might
have been a mere burlesque consecration. However, ‘jeu de personnages’
generally implies something distinctly dramatic (cf. ch. xxiv). It
recurs in the Sens order of 1511. The Beauvais _Daniel_ was possibly
played at a Feast of Fools: at Tours a _Prophetae_ and a _miraculum_
appear under similar conditions; at Autun a _Herod_ gave a name to the
_dominus festi_. At Laon there were ‘mysteries’ in 1464 and 1465; by
1531 these had given way to ‘comedies.’ Farces were played at Tournai
in 1498 and comedies at Lille in 1526.

[1363] Cf. ch. xv. The Toul _Statutes_ of 1497 mention the playing of
miracles, morals, and farces. At Laon the playing of a comedy had been
dropped before 1546.

[1364] Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 321 (_Catalogue des representations_),
and elsewhere, gives many examples. The following decree (†1327)
of Dominique Grima, bishop of Pamiers, is quoted by L. Delisle, in
_Romania_, xxii. 274: ‘Dampnamus autem et anathematizamus ludum cenicum
vocatum _Centum Drudorum_, vulgariter _Cent Drutz_, actenus observatum
in nostra dyocesi, et specialiter in nostra civitate Appamiensi et
villa de Fuxo, per clericos et laycos interdum magni status; in quo
ludo effigiabantur prelati et religiosi graduum et ordinum diversorum,
facientes processionem cum candelis de cepo, et vexilis in quibus
depicta erant membra pudibunda hominis et mulieris. Induebant etiam
confratres illius ludi masculos iuvenes habitu muliebri et deducebant
eos processionaliter ad quendam quem vocabant priorem dicti ludi, cum
carminibus inhonestissima verba continentes....’ The _confrates_ and
the _prior_ here look like a _société joyeuse_, but the ‘ludus cenicus’
was probably less a regular play than a dramatized bit of folk-ritual,
like the Troyes _Sacre de l’arcevesque_ and the _Charivaris_. The
change of sex-costume is to be noted.

[1365] Cf. ch. xx.

[1366] Julleville, _Les Com._ 33; _La Com._ 73 ‘Le premier qui s’avisa,
pendant l’ivresse bruyante de la fête, de monter dans la chaire
chrétienne et d’y parodier le prédicateur dans une improvisation
burlesque, débita le premier sermon joyeux. C’est à l’origine,
comme nous avons dit, “une indécente plaisanterie de sacristain en
goguette.”’ A list of extant _sermons joyeux_ is given by Julleville,
_Rép. Com._ 259.

[1367] Julleville, _Les Com._ 32, 145; _La Com._ 68; E. Picot, _La
Sottie en France_ (_Romania_, vii. 236). Jean Bouchet, _Épîtres morales
et familières du Traverseur_ (1545), i. 32, thus defines the _Sottie_:

‘En France elle a de _sotie_ le nom,
Parce que sotz des gens de grand renom
Et des petits jouent les grands follies
Sur eschaffaux en parolles polies.’

[1368] Cf. ch. viii.

[1369] Creizenach, i. 395; Julleville, _Les Com._ 46; _La Com._ 19;
_Rép. Com._ 20; E. Langlois, _Robin et Marion_, 13; Guy, 337; M. Sepet,
_Le Jeu de la Feuillée_, in _Études romaines dédiées à G. Paris_, 69.
The play is sometimes called _Le Jeu d’Adam_. The text is printed in
Monmerque et Michel, _Théâtre français au Moyen Âge_, 55, and E. de
Coussemaker, _Œuvres de Adam de la Halle_, 297.

[1370] The extant _sotties_ are catalogued by Julleville, _Rép. Com._
104, and E. Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 249.

[1371] Creizenach, i. 406; G. Gregory Smith, _Transition Period_, 317;
Goedeke, _Deutsche Dichtung_, i. 325; V. Michels, _Studien über die
ältesten deutschen Fastnachtspiele_, 101. The latter writer inclines to
consider the _Narr_ of these plays as substituted by fifteenth century
for a more primitive _Teufel_. The plays themselves are collected by A.
von Keller, _Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15. Jahrhundert_ (1853-8).

[1372] C. H. Herford, _Literary Relations of England and Germany_,
323 sqq.; cf. G. Gregory Smith, _op. cit._ 176. On an actual
pseudo-chivalric Order of Fools cf. p. 375.

[1373] F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, _Register of Bishop Grandisson_,
ii. 1055, _Litera pro iniqua fraternitate de Brothelyngham_. ‘Ad
nostrum, siquidem, non sine inquietudine gravi, pervenit auditum,
quod in Civitate nostra Exonie secta quedam abhominabilis quorundam
hominum malignorum, sub nomine Ordinis, quin pocius erroris, de
Brothelyngham, procurante satore malorum operum, noviter insurrexit;
qui, non Conventum sed conventiculam facientes evidenter illicitam
et suspectam, quemdam lunaticum et delirum, ipsorum utique operibus
aptissime congruentem, sibi, sub Abbatis nomine, prefecerunt, ipsumque
Monachali habitu induentes ac in Theatro constitutum velut ipsorum
idolum adorantes, ad flatum cornu, quod sibi statuerunt pro campana,
per Civitatis eiusdem vicos et plateas, aliquibus iam elapsis diebus,
cum maxima equitum et peditum multitudine commitarunt [sic]; clericos
eciam laicos ceperunt eis obviam tunc prestantes, ac aliquos de ipsorum
domibus extraxerunt, et invitos tam diu ausu temerario et interdum
sacrilego tenuerunt, donec certas pecuniarum summas loco sacrificii,
quin verius sacrilegii, extorserunt ab eisdem. Et quamvis hec videantur
sub colore et velamine ludi, immo ludibrii, attemptari, furtum est,
tamen, proculdubio, in eo quod ab invitis capitur et rapina.’ There is
no such place as Brothelyngham, but ‘brethelyng,’ ‘brethel,’ ‘brothel,’
mean ‘good-for-nothing’ (_N. E. D._, s. vv.).

[1374] Du Tilliot, pl. 4.

[1375] Ibid. pll. 1-12 passim.

[1376] Julleville, _Les Com._ 234.

[1377] Ibid. 246; Rigollot, lxxxiv.

[1378] Marot, _Epistre du Coq en l’Asne_ (ed. Jannet, i. 224; ed.
Guiffrey, iii. 352):

‘Attachez moy une sonnette
Sur le front d’un moyne crotté,
Une aureille à chaque costé
Du capuchon de sa caboche;
Voyla un sot de la Basoche,
Aussi bien painct qu’il est possible.’

For other Paris evidence cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 144, 147; E. Picot,
in _Romania_, vii. 242.

[1379] Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 245; Keller, _Fastnachtspiele_, 258.

[1380] Rigollot, 73, 166, and passim; Strutt, 222; Douce, 516;
Julleville, _Les Com._ 147. There are many examples in the literature
referred to on p. 382.

[1381] Rigollot, lxxix.

[1382] F. de Ficoroni, _Le Maschere sceniche e le Figure comiche
d’antichi Romani_, 186, pl. 72.

[1383] Dieterich, 237, traces the coxcomb to Italian comedy of the
Atellane type; cf. ch. xxiii, on ‘Punch.’

[1384] Douce, pl. 3; cf. Leber, in Rigollot, lxi. 164, quoting the
proverb ‘pisa in utre perstrepentia’ and a statement of Savaron,
_Traité contre les Masques_ (1611), that at Clermont in Auvergne men
disguised ‘en Fols’ ran through the streets at Christmas ‘tenant des
masses à la main, farcies de paille ou de bourre, en forme de braiette,
frappant hommes et femmes.’ I suppose the bauble, like the hood, was
originally part of the sacrificial _exuviae_ and the _marotte_ a
sophistication of it.

[1385] Julleville, _Les Com._ 147, quoting _Réponse d’Angoulevent à
l’archipoète des pois pillez_ (1603):

‘Qu’après, dedans le char de la troupe idiotte
Ayant pour sceptre en main une peinte marotte,
Tu sois parmi Paris pourmené doucement,
Vestu de jaune et vert en ton accoustrement.’

[1386] Leber, in Rigollot, lxviii.

[1387] Julleville, _Les Com._ 195, 203.

[1388] Du Tilliot, 84.

[1389] See e.g. the plate (p. 9) and description (p. xii) of
Touchstone in Miss E. Fogerty’s ‘costume edition’ of _As You Like It_.

[1390] _Twelfth Night_, i. 5. 95, 101; _Lear_, i. 4. 220.

[1391] To the English data given by the historians of court fools may
be added _Wardrobe Account_ 28 _Edw. I_, 1299-1300 (Soc. Antiq.), 166
‘Martinetto de Vasconia fatuo ludenti coram dicto domino Edwardo,’ and
_Lib. de Comp. Garderobae_, temp. Edw. II (_MS. Cotton, Nero_, C. viii.
ff. 83, 85), quoted by Strutt, 194 ‘twenty shillings paid to Robert le
Foll to buy a _boclarium ad ludendum_ before the king.’ Robert le Foll
had also a _garcio_. For fools at the Scottish court of James IV cf.
_L. H. T._ i. cxcix, &c.; iii. xcii, &c.; and on Thomas, the fool of
Durham Priory in the fourteenth century, Appendix E (1).

[1392] Rigollot, 74; Moreau, 180, quoting a (clearly misdated) letter
of Charles V to the municipality of Troyes, which requires the
provision of a new ‘fol de cour’ by that city as a royal _droit_.
The king’s eulogy of his fool is rather touching: ‘savoir faisons
à leurs dessus dictes seigneuries que Thévenin nostre fol de cour
vient de trespasser de celluy monde dedans l’aultre. Le Seigneur Dieu
veuille avoir en gré l’âme de luy qui oneques ne faillit en sa charge
et fonction emprès nostre royale Seigneurie et mesmement ne voult
si trespasser sans faire quelque joyeuseté et gentille farce de son
métier.’

[1393] Moreau, 177, 197.

[1394] Quoted by Julleville, _Les Com._ 148:

‘L’un [le poète] a la teste verte; et l’autre va couvert
D’un joli chapperon, fait de jaune et de vert;
L’un s’amuse aux grelots, et l’autre à des sornettes.’

[1395] _Requestes présentées au Roy ... par le S. de Vertau_ (1605),
quoted by Leber, in Rigollot, lxvi; Julleville, _Les Com._ 147 ‘un
habit ... qui estoit faict par bandes de serge, moitié de couleur verte
et l’autre de jaune; et là où il y avoit des bandes jaunes, il y avoit
des passemens verts, et sur les vertes des passemens jaunes ... et un
bonnet aussi moitié de jaune et vert, avec des oreilles, &c.’

[1396] Kempe, _Loseley MSS_, 35, 47, 85.

[1397] Douce, 512; Doran, 293. Lodge, _Wits Miserie_ (1599), describes
a fool as ‘in person comely, in apparell courtly.’ The Durham accounts
(Appendix E (1)) contain several entries of cloth and shoes purchased
for the fool Thomas, but there is no mention of a hood.

[1398] Douce, 510.

[1399] Ibid. 510, 511. Hence the common derived sense of ‘coxcomb’ for
a foolish, vain fellow.

[1400] Douce, 509, quoting ‘the second tale of the priests of Peblis,’
which, for all I know, may be a translation, ‘a man who counterfeits a
fool is described “with club and bel and partie cote with eiris”; but
it afterwards appears that he had both a club and a bauble.’

[1401] Douce, 510.

[1402] Douce, 512, quoting _Gesta Grayorum_, ‘the scribe claims the
manor of Noverinte, by providing sheepskins and calves-skins to wrappe
his highness wards and idiotts in’; cf. _King John_, iii. 1. 129 ‘And
hang a calf’s-skin on those recreant limbs.’

[1403] Douce, 511.

[1404] _Twelfth Night_, i. 5. 63; _As You Like It_, ii. 7. 13, 43;
_King Lear_, i. 4. 160; _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, iv. 1. 215. But the
‘long motley coat guarded with yellow’ of _Hen. VIII_, prol. 16, does
not quite correspond to anything in the ‘habit de fou.’

[1405] _King Lear_, i. 4. 106. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, ii. 1. 226
‘What is your crest? a coxcomb?’

[1406] _All’s Well that Ends Well_, iv. 5. 32. There are _double
entendre’s_ here and in the allusion to the ‘bauble’ of a ‘natural’ in
_Romeo and Juliet_, ii. 4. 97, which suggest less a ‘marotte’ than a
bauble of the bladder type; cf. p. 197.

[1407] _As You Like It_, ii. 4. 47.

[1408] Cf. ch. xxv.

[1409] _Twelfth Night_, ii. 3. 22.

[1410] Fools appear in _As You Like It_ (†1599), _All’s Well that Ends
Well_ (†1601), _Twelfth Night_ (†1601), _King Lear_ (†1605); cf. the
allusion to Yorick, the king’s jester in _Hamlet_, v. 1. 198 (†1603).
Kempe seems to have left the Shakespearian company in 1598 or 1599.

[1411] According to Fleay, _Biog. Chron._ i. 25, Armin’s _Nest of
Ninnies_, of 1608 (ed. Shakes. Soc.), is a revision of his _Fool upon
Fool_ of 1605.

[1412] _As You Like It_, v. 4. 111. Cf. Lionel Johnson, _The Fools of
Shakespeare_, in _Noctes Shakespearianae_ (Winchester Sh. Soc.); J.
Thümmel, _Ueber Sh.’s Narren_ (_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, ix. 87).

[1413] Tille, _Y. and C._ 162; Sandys, 20. At Christmas, 1065, Edward
the Confessor ‘curiam tenuit’ at London, and dedicated Westminster
Abbey on Innocents’ day (Florence of Worcester, _Chronicle_, ed.
Thorpe, i. 224).

[1414] Tille, _Y. and C._ 160; Ramsay, _F. of E._ ii. 43.

[1415] Sandys, 23; Ashton, 9.

[1416] Sandys, 53; Ashton, 14; Drake, 94.

[1417] Ashton, 26; Stubbes, i. 173. Cf. Vaughan’s _Poems_ (_Muses
Library_, i. 107):

‘Alas, my God! Thy birth now here
Must not be number’d in the year.’

[1418] Cf. ch. xiii. There is much learning on the use of masks in
seasonal festivals in C. Noirot, _Traité de l’origine des masques_
(1609, reprinted in Leber, ix. 5); Savaron, _Traité contre les masques_
(1611); J. G. Drechssler, _de larvis natalitiis_ (1683); C. H. de
Berger, _Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascheratis_ (1723);
Pfannenschmidt, 617; Fr. Back, _de Graecorum caeremoniis in quibus
homines deorum vice fungebantur_ (1883); W. H. Dall, _On masks, labrets
and certain aboriginal customs_ (_Third Annual Report of American
Bureau of Ethnology_, 1884, p. 73); Frazer, _Pausanias_, iv. 239.

[1419] _Archaeologia_, xxxi, 37, 43, 44, 120, 122.

[1420] ‘Et ad faciendum ludos domini Regis ad festum Natalis domini
celebratum apud Guldefordum anno Regis xxj^o, in quo expendebantur
iiij^{xx}. iiij. tunicae de bokeram diversorum colorum, xlij viseres
diversorum similitudinum (_specified as_ xiiij similitudines facierum
mulierum, xiiij similitudines facierum hominum cum barbis, xiiij
similitudines capitum angelorum de argento) xxviij crestes (_specified
as_ xiiij crestes cum tibiis reversatis et calciatis, xiiij crestes cum
montibus et cuniculis), xiiij clocae depictae, xiiij capita draconum,
xiiij tunicae albae, xiiij capita pavonum cum alis, xiiij tunicae
depictae cum oculis pavonum, xiiij capita cygnorum cum suis alis, xiiij
tunicae de tela linea depictae, xiiij tunicae depictae cum stellis
de auro et argento vapulatis.’ The performers seem to have made six
groups of fourteen each, representing respectively men, women, angels,
dragons, peacocks, and swans. A notion of their appearance is given by
the cuts from miniatures (†1343) in Strutt, 160.

[1421] ‘Et ad faciendum ludos Regis ad festum Natalis domini anno
Regis xxij^{do} celebratum apud Ottefordum ubi expendebantur viseres
videlicet xij capita hominum et desuper tot capita leonum, xij
capita hominum et tot capita elephantum, xij capita hominum cum alis
vespertilionum, xij capita de wodewose [cf. p. 185], xvij capita
virginum, xiiij supertunicae de worsted rubro guttatae cum auro et
lineatae et reversatae et totidem tunicae de worsted viridi.... Et
ad faciendum ludos Regis in festo Epiphaniae domini celebrato apud
Mertonum ubi expendebantur xiij visers cum capitibus draconum et xiij
visers cum capitibus hominum habentibus diademata, x c^r tepies de
bokeram nigro et tela linea Anglica.’

[1422] _Archaeologia_, xxxi. 29, 30, 118. The element of semi-dramatic
_spectacle_ was already getting into the fourteenth-century tournament.
In 1331 Edward III and his court rode to the lists in Cheap, ‘omnes
splendido apparatu vestiti et ad similitudinem Tartarorum larvati’
(_Annales Paulini_ in _Chron. Edw. I and II_, R. S. i. 354). In 1375
‘rood dame Alice Perrers, as lady of the sune, fro the tour of London
thorugh Chepe; and alwey a lady ledynge a lordys brydell. And thanne
begun the grete justes in Smythefeld’ (_London Chronicle_, 70). These
ridings closely resemble the ‘mummings’ proper. But they were a prelude
to _hastiludia_, which from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century
constantly grew less actual and more mimetic. In 1343 ‘fuerunt pulchra
hastiludia in Smethfield, ubi papa et duodecim cardinales per tres
dies contra quoscumque tirocinium habuerunt’ (Murimuth, _Continuatio
Chronicarum_, R. S. 146). And so on, through the jousts of Pallas
and Diana at the coronation of Henry VIII (Hall, 511) to the regular
Elizabethan ‘Barriers,’ such as the siege of the ‘Fortress of Perfect
Beauty’ by the ‘Four Foster Children of Desire,’ in which Sidney took
part in 1581.

[1423] This seems to be clearly the sense of the _ludi Domini Prioris_
in the accounts of Durham Priory (cf. Appendix E). The Scottish
Exchequer Rolls between 1446 and 1478 contain such entries as ‘iocis
et ludis,’ ‘ludis et interludiis,’ ‘ioculancium et ludencium,’ ‘ludos
et disportus suos,’ where all the terms used, except ‘interludiis’
(cf. ch. xxiv), appear to be more or less equivalent (_Accounts of the
Treasurer of Scotland_, i. ccxxxix). The _Liber Niger_ of Edward IV
declares that in the _Domus_ of Henry I were allowed ‘ludi honesti,’
such as military sports ‘cum ceterorum iocorum diversitate’ (_Household
Ordinances_, 18). ‘Ioca’ is here exactly the French ‘jeux.’ Polydore
Vergil, _Hist. Anglica_ (ed. Thysius), 772, says of the weddings of
the children of Henry VII ‘utriusque puellae nuptiae omnium generum
ludis factae.’ For ‘disports’ cf. Hall, 774, ‘enterludes ... maskes
and disportes,’ and _Paston Letters_, iii. 314, where Lady Morley is
said to have ordered in 1476 that on account of her husband’s death
there should be at Christmas ‘non dysgysyngs, ner harpyng, ner lutyng,
ner syngyn, ner non lowde dysports, but pleyng at the tabyllys, and
schesse, and cards. Sweche dysports sche gave her folkys leve to play,
and non odyr.’ I find the first use of ‘revels’ in the Household Books
of Henry VII for 1493 (Collier, i. 50). In 1496 the same source gives
the Latin ‘revelliones’ (Collier, i. 46). Sir Thomas Cawarden (1545)
was patented ‘magister iocorum, revellorum et mascorum’ (Rymer, xv.
62). Another synonym is ‘triumph,’ used in 1511 (Arnold, _Chronicle_,
xlv). The latter means properly a royal entry or reception; cf. ch.
xxiii.

[1424] Warton, ii. 220, from _Compotus Magn. Garderobae_, 14 Ric.
II, f. 198^b ‘pro xxi coifs de tela linea pro hominibus de lege
contrafactis pro ludo regis tempore natalis domini anno xii.’

[1425] Froissart (ed. Buchon, iii. 176), Bk. iv, ch. 32, describes the
dance of 1393, in which Charles VI dressed in flax as a wild man was
nearly burnt to death.

[1426] The English _William of Palerne_, 1620 (†1350, ed. Skeat, E. E.
T. S.), has ‘daunces disgisi.’

[1427] H. T. Riley, _Liber Albus_ (R. S. xii), i. 644, 645, 647, 673,
676; _Memorials of London_, 193, 534, 561. For similar orders elsewhere
cf. L. T. Smith, _Ricart’s Calendar_, 85 (Bristol), and _Harl. MS._
2015, f. 64 (Chester).

[1428] Riley, _Memorials_, 658.

[1429] Ibid. 669. It was proclaimed ‘that no manere persone, of what
astate, degre, or condicioun that euere he be, duryng this holy
tyme of Cristemes be so hardy in eny wyse to walk by nyght in any
manere mommyng, pleyes, enterludes, or eny other disgisynges with eny
feynyd berdis, peyntid visers, diffourmyd or colourid visages in eny
wyse ... outake that hit be leful to eche persone for to be honestly
mery as he can, with in his owne hous dwellyng.’

[1430] Stowe, _Survey_ (ed. Thoms), 37, from a fragment of an English
chronicle, in a sixteenth-century hand, in _Harl. MS._ 247, f. 172^v
(cf. _Archaeologia_, xxii. 208). I print the original text, which
Stowe paraphrases, introducing, e.g., the term ‘maskers’: ‘At y^e same
tyme y^e Comons of London made great sporte and solemnity to y^e yong
prince: for upon y^e monday next before y^e purification of our lady
at night and in y^e night were 130 men disguizedly aparailed and well
mounted on horsebacke to goe on mumming to y^e said prince, riding from
Newgate through Cheape whear many people saw them with great noyse of
minstralsye, trumpets, cornets and shawmes and great plenty of waxe
torches lighted and in the beginning they rid 48 after y^e maner of
esquiers two and two together clothed in cotes and clokes of red say
or sendall and their faces covered with vizards well and handsomely
made: after these esquiers came 48 like knightes well arayed after y^e
same maner: after y^e knightes came one excellent arrayed and well
mounted as he had bene an emperor: after him some 100 yards came one
nobly arayed as a pope and after him came 24 arayed like cardinals and
after y^e cardinals came 8 or 10 arayed and with black vizardes like
deuils appearing nothing amiable seeming like legates, riding through
London and ouer London bridge towards Kenyton wher y^e yong prince
made his aboad with his mother and the D. of Lancaster and y^e Earles
of Cambridge, Hertford Warrick and Suffolk and many other lordes which
were with him to hould the solemnity, and when they were come before
y^e mansion they alighted on foot and entered into y^e haule and sone
after y^e prince and his mother and y^e other lordes came out of y^e
chamber into y^e haule, and y^e said mummers saluted them, shewing a
pair of dice upon a table to play with y^e prince, which dice were
subtilly made that when y^e prince shold cast he shold winne and y^e
said players and mummers set before y^e prince three jewels each after
other: and first a balle of gould, then a cupp of gould, then a gould
ring, y^e which y^e said prince wonne at thre castes as before it was
appointed, and after that they set before the prince’s mother, the D.
of Lancaster, and y^e other earles euery one a gould ringe and y^e
mother and y^e lordes wonne them. And then y^e prince caused to bring
y^e wyne and they dronk with great joye, commanding y^e minstrels to
play and y^e trompets began to sound and other instruments to pipe &c.
And y^e prince and y^e lordes dansed on y^e one syde, and y^e mummers
on y^e other a great while and then they drank and tooke their leaue
and so departed toward London.’ Collier, i. 26, speaks of earlier
mummings recorded by Stowe in 1236 and 1298; but Stowe only names
‘pageants’ (cf. ch. xxiii). M. Paris, _Chronica Maiora_ (R. S. lvii),
v. 269, mentions ‘vestium transformatarum varietatem’ at the wedding
of Alexander III of Scotland and Margaret of England in 1251, but this
probably means ‘a succession of rapidly changed robes.’

[1431] _A Chronicle of London_ (†1442, ed. N. H. Nicolas or E. Tyrrell,
1827), 85 ‘to have sclayn the kyng ... be a mommynge’; _Incerti
Scriptoris Chronicon_ (before 1455, ed. J. A. Giles), 7 ‘conduxerunt
lusores Londoniam, ad inducendum regi praetextum gaudii et laetitiae
iuxta temporis dispositionem, ludum nuncupatum Anglice Mummynge’;
Capgrave, _Chronicle of England_ (†1464, R. S.), 275 ‘undir the coloure
of mummeris in Cristmasse tyme’; _An English Chronicle_ (†1461-71,
C. S.), 20 ‘to make a mommyng to the king ... and in that mommyng
they purposid to sle him’; Fabian, _Chronicle_, 567 ‘a dysguysynge or
a mummynge.’ But other chroniclers say that the outbreak was to be
at a tournament, e.g. _Continuatio Eulogii_ (R. S. ix), iii. 385;
_Annales Henrici_ (R. S. xxviii), 323 ‘Sub simulatione natalitiorum
vel hastiludiorum.’ I suppose ‘natalitia’ is ‘Christmas games’ and
might cover a mumming. Hall, _Chronicle_ (ed. 1809), 16, makes it
‘justes.’ So does Holinshed (ed. 1586), iii. 514, 516, but he knew both
versions; ‘them that write how the king should have beene made awaie at
a justs; and other that testifie, how it should have been at a maske or
mummerie’; cf. Wylie, _Henry the Fourth_, i. 93; Ramsay, _L. and Y._ i.
20.

[1432] Stowe, _Survey_ (ed. Thoms), 37, doubtless from _A Chronicle of
London_ (†1442, _ut supra_), 87. I do not find the mumming named in
other accounts of the visit.

[1433] _Gregory’s Chronicle_ (before 1467, in _Hist. Collections of a
Citizen of London_, C. S.), 108 ‘the whyche Lollers hadde caste to have
made a mommynge at Eltham, and undyr coloure of the mommynge to have
destryte the Kynge and Hooly Chyrche.’

[1434] _Acte against disguysed persons and Wearing of Visours_ (3 Hen.
VIII, c. 9). The preamble states that ‘lately wythin this realme dyvers
persons have disgysed and appareld theym, and covert theyr fayces with
Vysours and other thynge in such manner that they sholde nott be knowen
and divers of theym in a Companye togeder namyng them selfe Mummers
have commyn to the dwellyng place of divers men of honor and other
substanciall persones; and so departed unknowen.’ Offenders are to be
treated as ‘Suspectes or Vacabundes.’

[1435] The _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (†1440 C. S.), ii. 348, translates
‘_Mummynge_’ by ‘_mussacio vel mussatus_’ (‘murmuring’ or ‘keeping
silence,’ conn. _mutus_), and gives a cognate word ‘Mummȳn, as
they that noȝt speke _Mutio_.’ This is of course the ordinary sense
of _mum_. But Skeat (_Etym. Dict._ s.v.) derives ‘mummer’ from the
Dutch through Old French, and explains it by the Low German _Mumme_,
a ‘mask.’ He adds ‘The word is imitative, from the sound _mum_ or
_mom_, used by nurses to frighten or amuse children, at the same time
pretending to cover their faces.’ Whether the fourteenth-century
mumming was silent or not, there is no reason to suppose that the
primitive folk-procession out of which it arose was unaccompanied
by dance and song; and silence is rarely, if ever (cf. p. 211) _de
rigueur_ in modern ‘guisings.’

[1436] They are in _Trin. Coll. Camb. MS._ R. iii. 20 (Shirley’s; cf.
E. P. Hammond, _Lydgate’s Mumming at Hertford_ in _Anglia_, xxii.
364), and copied by or for Stowe ‘out of þe boke of John Sherley’
in _B. M. Add. MS._ 29729, f. 132 (cf. E. Sieper, _Lydgate’s Reson
and Sensuallyte_, E. E. T. S. i. xvi). The Hertford verses have been
printed by Miss Hammond (_loc. cit._) and the others by Brotanek,
306. I do not find any notice of disguisings when Henry VI spent the
Christmas of 1433 at Lydgate’s own monastery of Bury St. Edmunds (F. A.
Gasquet. _A Royal Christmas_ in _The Old English Bible_, 226). Devon,
_Issues of the Exchequer_, 473, notes a payment for the king’s ‘plays
and recreations’ at Christmas, 1449.

[1437] ‘A lettre made in wyse of balade by daun Johan, brought by a
poursuyant in wyse of Mommers desguysed to fore þe Mayre of London,
Eestfeld, vpon þe twelffeþe night of Cristmasse, ordeyned Ryallych by
þe worthy Merciers, Citeseyns of london’ and ‘A lettre made in wyse of
balade by ledegate daun Johan, of a mommynge, whiche þe Goldesmythes of
þe Cite of London mommed in Right fresshe and costele welych desguysing
to þeyre Mayre Eestfeld, vpon Candelmasse day at nyght, affter souper;
brought and presented vn to þe Mayre by an heraude, cleped ffortune.’
The Mercer’s pursuivant is sent from Jupiter; the Goldsmiths’ mummers
are David and the twelve tribes. The Levites were to sing. William
Eastfield was mayor 1429-30 and 1437-8. Brotanek, 306, argues that, as
a second term is not alluded to, this was probably the first. Fairholt,
_Lord Mayors’ Pageants_, ii. 240, prints a similar letter of Lydgate’s
sent to the Sheriffs at a May-day dinner.

[1438] ‘A balade made by daun John Lidegate at Eltham in Cristmasse
for a momyng tofore þe kyng and þe Qwene.’ Bacchus, Juno and Ceres
send gifts ‘by marchandes þat here be.’ The same collections contain a
balade, ‘gyven vnto þe Kyng Henry and to his moder the quene Kateryne
sittyng at þe mete vpon the yeares day in the castell of Hertford.’
Some historical allusions make 1427 a likely date (Brotanek, 305).

[1439] ‘Þe devyse of a momyng to fore þe kyng henry þe sixte, beinge
in his Castell of wyndesore, þe fest of his crystmasse holdyng þer,
made by lidegate daun John, þe munk of Bury, howe þampull and þe floure
delys came first to þe Kynges of ffraunce by myrakle at Reynes.’ An
allusion to Henry’s coming coronation in Paris fixes the date to
1429-30.

[1440] ‘Þe deuyse of a desguysing to fore þe gret estates of þis lande,
þane being at London, made by Lidegate daun Johan, þe Munk of Bury, of
dame fortune, dame prudence, dame Rightwysnesse and dame ffortitudo.
beholdeþe, for it is moral, plesaunt and notable.’ A fifth dame is
‘Attemperaunce.’ The time is ‘Cristmasse.’ An elaborate pageant in
which Fortune dwelt is described. A song is directed at the close.
Henry V is spoken of as dead.

[1441] ‘Nowe foloweth here the maner of a bille by weye of supplycation
put to the kynge holdinge his noble fest of crystmasse in the
castell of hartford as in dysguysinge of þe rude vpplandishe people
complayninge on their wyues with the boystrus answere of ther wyues
deuysed by lidgate at þe requeste of the countrowlore Brys slain at
louiers.’ Louviers was taken by the French in 1430 and besieged next
year (Brotanek, 306). The text has marginal notes, ‘demonstrando vj
rusticos,’ &c.

[1442] Cf. p. 393. There is a disguising of 1483 in the Howard Accounts
(Appendix E, vii).

[1443] _L. H. T. Accounts_, i. ccxl ‘Iohanni Rate, pictori, pro le
mumre regis’ (1465-6); ad le mumre grath’ (1466-7).

[1444] Ibid. i. lxxix, cxliv, ccxxxix; ii. lxxi, cx; iii. xlvi, lv,
and passim, have many payments for dances at court, of which some were
morris dances, with ‘leg-harnis,’ and also to ‘madinnis,’ ‘gysaris,’ or
‘dansaris’ who ‘dansit’ or ‘playit’ to the king in various parts of the
country.

[1445] Campbell, _Materials for a Hist. of Henry VII_ (R. S.),
_passim_; Collier, i. 38-64; Bentley, _Excerpta Historica_, 85-133;
Leland, _Collectanea_, iii. 256.

[1446] Collier, i. 58, from _Harl. MS._ 69. A word which Collier prints
‘Maskers’ is clearly a misprint for ‘Masters,’ and misleading.

[1447] Ibid. i. 53. The ‘morris’ provided a grotesque element,
analogous to the ‘antimasque’ of Jonson’s day.

[1448] Ibid. i. 24, from _Fairfax MSS._ Of this _Booke of all manner of
Orders concerning an Earle’s house_ ‘some part is dated 16 Henry VII,
although the handwriting appears to be that of the latter end of the
reign of Henry VIII.’

[1449] Hall, 513; Brewer, ii. 1490.

[1450] _Hen. VIII_, i. 4; Hall, 719; Stowe, _Chronicle_, 845;
Cavendish, _Life of Wolsey_, 112; Boswell-Stone, _Shakespeare’s
Holinshed_, 441; R. Brown, _Venetian Papers_, iv. 3, 4.

[1451] Brewer, iii. 1552.

[1452] Ibid. iv. 1390-3; Hall, 722.

[1453] Ibid. ii. 1495, 1497, 1499, 1501, 1509; iii. 1558.

[1454] Hall, 597, speaks of a disguising in 1519, which apparently
included ‘a goodly commedy of Plautus’ and a mask. Away from court
in 1543 four players were committed to the Counter for ‘unlawful
disguising’ (_P. C. Acts_, i. 109, 110, 122). They surely played
interludes. It may be further noted (i) the elaborate disguisings of
Henry VII and Henry VIII, with much action and speechifying besides
the dancing, are difficult to distinguish when merely described from
interludes. What Hall, 518, calls in 1511 an interlude, seems from the
Revels Accounts (Brewer, ii. 1495) to have been really a disguising.
Hall, 641, speaks of a ‘disguisyng or play’ in 1522, and Cavendish,
_Life of Wolsey_, i. 136, of a ‘disguising or interlude’ in 1527; (ii)
a disguising or dance might be introduced, as _entr’acte_ or otherwise,
into an interlude. In 1514 an interlude ‘conteyned a moresk of vj
persons and ij ladys’ (Collier, i. 68). In 1526 a moral play was ‘set
forth with straunge deuises of Maskes and Morrishes’ (Hall, 719). The
interlude of _The Nature of the Four Elements_ (early Hen. VIII) has
after the _dramatis personae_ the direction, ‘Also yf ye lyst ye may
brynge in a dysgysynge’; cf. Soergel, 21.

[1455] Hall, 526.

[1456] Evans, xxi. Other not very plausible suggestions are made by
Ward, i. 150; Soergel, 13. There is a good account of the Italian
_mascherata_ from about 1474 in Symonds, _Shakespeare’s Predecessors_,
321.

[1457] Brewer, ii. 1497. There is a further entry in an account of 1519
(Brewer, iii. 35) of a revel, called a ‘masklyne,’ after the manner of
Italy.

[1458] ‘Maske’ first appears in 1514 (Collier, i. 79 ‘iocorum
larvatorum, vocat. Maskes, Revelles, and Disguysings’); ‘masque’
is not English until the seventeenth century (Evans, xiii). Skeat
derives through the French _masque_, _masquer_, _masquerer_, and the
Spanish _mascara_, _mascarada_ (Ital. _mascherata_) from the Arabic
_maskharat_, a buffoon or droll (root _sakhira_, ‘he ridiculed’). The
original sense would thus be ‘entertainment’ and that of ‘face-mask’
(_larva_, ‘vizard,’ ‘viser’) only derivative. But late Latin has
already _masca_, _talamasca_ in this sense; e.g. Burchardus of Worms,
_Coll. Decretorum_ (before 1024), bk. ii. c. 161 ‘nec larvas daemonum
quas vulgo Talamascas dicunt, ibi ante se ferri consentiat’; cf.
Ducange, s.v. _Talamasca_; Pfannenschmidt, 617, with some incorrect
etymology. And the French _masque_ is always the face-mask and never
the performance; while _se masquier_, _masquillier_, _maschurer_,
are twelfth-to thirteenth-century words for ‘blacken,’ ‘dirty.’ I
therefore prefer the derivation of Brotanek, 120, from a Germanic
root represented by the M. E. _maskel_ ‘stain’; and this has the
further advantage of explaining ‘maskeler,’ ‘maskeling,’ which appear,
variously spelt, in documents of †1519-26. Both terms signify the
performance, and ‘maskeler’ the performer also (Brotanek, 122).
Face-masks were _de rigueur_ in the Mask to a late date. In 1618
John Chamberlain writes ‘the gentlemen of Gray’s Inn came to court
with their show, for I cannot call it a masque, seeing they were not
disguised, nor had vizards’ (Nichols, _James I_, iii. 468).

[1459] Ben Jonson, iii. 162. _Masque of Augurs_ (1623) ‘Disguise was
the old English word for a masque, sir, before you were an implement
belonging to the Revels’; ii. 476, _A Tale of a Tub_ (1634), v. 2:

‘_Pan._ A masque! what’s that?

_Scriben._ A mumming or a shew,
With vizards and fine clothes.

_Clench._ A disguise, neighbour,
Is the true word.’

[1460] Cf. ch. x. Less dramatic performances are described for the
‘guizards’ of the Scottish Lowlands by R. Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of
Scotland_, 169, for the ‘mummers’ of Ireland in _N. and Q._ 3rd series,
viii. 495, for the ‘mummers’ of Yorkshire in _F. L._ iv. 162. The
latter sweep the hearth, humming ‘mumm-m-m.’

[1461] _L. H. T. Accounts_, i. ccxl, 270, 327; ii. cx, 111, 320, 374,
430, 431; iii. 127. In 1504 is a payment ‘to the barbour helit Paules
hed quhen he wes hurt with the Abbot of Unresoun.’ Besides the court
Abbot, there was an ‘Abbot of Unresone of Linlithgow’ in 1501, who
‘dansit to the king,’ and an ‘Abbot of Unresoun of the pynouris of
Leith’ in 1504. Such entries cease after the Scottish Act of Parliament
of 1555 (cf. p. 181).

[1462] Stowe, _Survey_, 37 ‘There was in the feast of Christmas in
the King’s house, wheresoever he was lodged, a Lord of Misrule or
Master of Merry Disports; and the like had ye in the house of every
nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal.
Among the which, the Mayor of London and either of the Sheriffs had
their several Lords of Misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or
offence, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders.
These Lords beginning their rule on Allhollons eve, continued the
same til the morrow after the feast of the Purification, commonly
called Candlemas-day. In all which space there were fine and subtle
disguisings, masks and mummeries’; Holinshed (ed. 1587), iii. 1067
‘What time [at Christmas], of old ordinarie course, there is alwaies
one appointed to make sport in the court, called commonlie lord of
misrule: whose office is not unknowne to such as haue beene brought up
in noble mens houses, & among great house keepers which use liberall
feasting in that season.’ The sense of ‘misrule’ in this phrase is
‘disorder’; cf. the ‘uncivil rule’ of _Twelfth Night_, ii. 3. 132.

[1463] Collier, i. 48-55; Bentley, _Excerpt. Historica_, 90, 92;
Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 255. The ‘Lords’ named are one
Ringley in 1491, 1492, and 1495, and William Wynnesbury in 1508. In
this year the terms ‘Lordship’ and ‘Abbot’ are both used. The ‘Lord’
got a fee each year of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ Also the queen (1503) gave him
£1.

[1464] Collier, i. 74, 76; Brewer, i. cxi. Wynnesbury was Lord in 1509,
1511 to 1515, and 1519, Richard Pole in 1516, Edmund Trevor in 1518,
William Tolly in 1520. The fees gradually rise to £13 6_s._ 8_d._ and
a ‘rewarde’ of £2. Madden, _Expenses of Princess Mary_, xxvi, enters
a gift in 1520 ‘domino mali gubernatoris [? gubernationis] hospicii
domini Regis.’

[1465] Brewer, vii. 589.

[1466] Madden, _op. cit._ xxviii. He was John Thurgood.

[1467] Ellis, _Original Letters_ (1st series), i. 270.

[1468] Campbell, _Materials for Hist. of Hen. VII_ (R. S.), i. 337; ii.
60, 83; Collier, i. 50; Yorke, _Hardwicke Papers_, 19. Payments are
made for ‘revels’ or ‘disguisings’ to Richard Pudsey ‘serjeant of the
cellar,’ Walter Alwyn, Peche, Jaques Haulte, ‘my Lord Suff, my Lord
Essex, my Lord Will^m, and other,’ John Atkinson, Lewes Adam, ‘master
Wentworth.’ In 1501 Jaques Hault and William Pawne are appointed to
devise disguisings and morisques for a wedding. The term ‘Master of the
Revels’ is in none of these cases used. But in an ‘Order for sitting
in the King’s great Chamber,’ dated Dec. 31, 1494 (_Ordinances and
Regulations_, Soc. Antiq. 113), it is laid down that ‘if the master of
revells be there, he may sit with the chaplains or with the squires or
gentlemen ushers.’

[1469] _Revels Accounts_ (Brewer, ii. 1490; iii. 1548), s. ann.
1510, 1511, 1512, 1513, 1515, 1517, 1522; Brewer, i. 718; ii. 1441;
xiv. 2. 284; Kempe, 69; Collier, i. 68. Guildford is several times
called ‘master of the revels’; so is Harry Wentworth in 1510. In 1522
Guildford is ‘the hy kountrolleler.’ It was the ‘countrowlore’ at whose
request Lydgate prepared one of his disguisings (p. 398).

[1470] Rymer, xv. 62 ‘dedimus et concessimus eidem Thomae officium
Magistri Iocorum Revelorum & Mascorum omnium & singularium nostrorum
vulgariter nuncupatorum Revells & Masks.’ The tenure of office was to
date from March 16, 1544, and the annual fee was £10.

[1471] Collier, i. 79, 131, 139, 153; Kempe, 69, 73, 93, 101; _Molyneux
Papers_ (Hist. MS. Comm., seventh Rep.), 603, 614; Brewer, ii. 2. 1517;
xiii. 2. 100; xiv. 2. 159, 284; xvi. 603; Halliwell, _A Collection
of Ancient Documents respecting the Office of Master of the Revels_
(1870); P. Cunningham, _Extracts from the Accounts of Revels at Court_
(Sh. Soc. 1842).

[1472] Kempe, 19; Collier, i. 147; Holinshed (_ut cit. supra_, p. 403);
W. F. Trench, _A Mirror for Magistrates, its Origin and Influence_, 66,
76.

[1473] Kempe, 23. One of Ferrers’ letters to Cawarden is endorsed
‘Ferryrs, the Lorde Myserable, by the Cunsell’s aucketorryte.’ Ferrers
solemnly heads his communications ‘Qui est et fuit,’ and alludes to the
king as ‘our Founder.’

[1474] Kempe, 85.

[1475] Ibid. 28.

[1476] Machyn, 13.

[1477] Kempe, 32; Collier, i. 148; W. F. Trench, _op. cit._ 21; D. N.
B. s. v. _William Baldwin_; G[ulielmus] B[aldwin] _Beware the Cat_
(1570, reprinted by Halliwell, 1864). In this pamphlet Baldwin tells
a story heard by him at court ‘the last Christmas,’ where he was with
‘Maister Ferrers, then maister of the King’s Majesties pastimes.’ The
date seems fixed to 1552 by a mention of ‘Maister Willott and Maister
Stremer, the one his [Ferrers’] Astronomer, the other his Divine’ (cf.
Kempe, 34). The pamphlet was probably printed in 1553 and suppressed.

[1478] Machyn, 28; Stowe, _Annals_, 608. Abraham Fleming in Holinshed
(ed. 1587), copying Stowe, transfers the events of this Christmas by
mistake to 1551-2.

[1479] Kempe, 53; cf. p. 369.

[1480] Ibid. 47.

[1481] The letter from Ferrers dated in Kempe, 37 ‘Saynt John’s Daye,
ano 1553,’ clearly belongs to the Christmas of 1552. The additional
garments asked for therein are in the accounts for that year (Kempe,
52).

[1482] A. Wood, _Athenae Oxonienses_ (ed. Bliss), iii. 480 ‘The
custom was not only observed in that [St. John’s] college, but in
several other houses, particularly in Merton College, where, from the
first foundation, the fellows annually elected, about St. Edmund’s
day, in November, a Christmas lord, or lord of misrule, styled in
their registers _Rex Fabarum_ and _Rex Regni Fabarum_; which custom
continued until the reformation of religion, and then, that producing
puritanism, and puritanism presbytery, the profession of it looked
upon such laudable and ingenious customs as popish, diabolical and
antichristian’; _Hist. and Antiq. of the Univ. of Oxford_, ii. 136,
‘s. a. 1557’ mentions an oration ‘de ligno et foeno’ made by David de
la Hyde, in praise of ‘Mr. Jasper Heywood, about this time King, or
Christmas Lord, of the said Coll. [Merton] being it seems the last
that bore that commendable office. That custom hath been as ancient
for ought that I know as the College itself, and the election of them
after this manner. On the 19th of November, being the vigil of S.
Edmund, king and martyr, letters under seal were pretended to have
been brought from some place beyond sea, for the election of a king
of Christmas, or Misrule, sometimes called with us of the aforesaid
college, Rex Fabarum. The said letters being put into the hands of the
Bachelaur Fellows, they brought them into the Hall that night, and
standing, sometimes walking, round the fire, there reading the contents
of them, would choose the senior Fellow that had not yet borne that
office, whether he was a Doctor of Divinity, Law, or Physic, and being
so elected, had power put into his hands of punishing all misdemeanours
done in the time of Christmas, either by imposing exercises on the
juniors, or putting into the stocks at the end of the Hall any of the
servants, with other punishments that were sometimes very ridiculous.
He had always a chair provided for him, and would sit in great state
when any speeches were spoken, or justice to be executed, and so this
his authority would continue till Candlemas, or much about the time
that the Ignis Regentium was celebrated in that college’; _Life and
Times_ (O. H. S.), i. 423 ‘Fresh nights, carolling in public halls,
Christmas sports, vanished, 1661.’

[1483] The title is borrowed from the Twelfth-Night King; cf. p. 260.
Perhaps ‘Rex de Faba’ was an early name for the Lord of Misrule at the
English court. In 1334 Edward III made a gift to the minstrels ‘in
nomine Regis Fabae’ (Strutt, 344).

[1484] G. C. Brodrick, _Memorials of Merton College_, 46 and _passim_;
B. W. Henderson, _Merton College_, 267.

[1485] _The Christmas Prince in 1607_, printed in _Miscellanea Antiqua
Anglicana_ (1816); M. L. Lee, _Narcissus: A Twelfth Night Merriment_,
xvii.

[1486] The Prince’s designation was ‘The most magnificent and renowned
THOMAS by the fauour of Fortune, Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord S^t.
Iohn’s, high Regent of y^e Hall, Duke of S^t. Giles, Marquesse of
Magdalens, Landgraue of y^e Groue, County Palatine of y^e Cloisters,
Cheife Bailiffe of y^e Beaumonts, high Ruler of Rome, Maister of the
Man̄or of Waltham, Gouernour of Gloster-greene, Sole Com̄aunder of all
Titles, Turneaments and Triumphes, Superintendent in all Solemnities
whatsoeuer.’ His seal, a crowned and spotted dog, with the motto _Pro
aris et focis_, bears the date 1469. Amongst his officers was a ‘M^r of
y^e Reuells.’ His Cofferer was Christopher Wren.

[1487] Wood, _Hist. of Oxford_ (_ut supra_, p. 408), ii. 136, has the
following note ‘New Coll. in Cat. MSS., p. 371 ... Magd. Coll. v.
Heylin’s Diary, an. 1617, 1619 et 1620.’

[1488] Warton, iii. 304 ‘pro prandio Principis Natalicii eodem tempore
xiii^s. ix^d.’

[1489] H. H. Henson, _Letters relating to Oxford in the fourteenth
century_ in the Oxford Hist. Soc.’s _Collectanea_, i. 39. The learned
editor does not give the MS. from which he takes the letters, but the
rest of his collection is from the fourteenth-century _Brit. Mus. Royal
MS._ 12 D, xi.

[1490] ‘Quocirca festi praesentis imminenti vigilia, vos ut accepimus
in loco potatorio, hora extraordinaria prout moris est, unanimiter
congregati, dominum Robertum Grosteste militem in armis scolasticis
scitis [Ed. satis] providum et expertum, electione concordi sustulistis
ad apicem regiae dignitatis.’

[1491] Cf. p. 279.

[1492] Grosseteste probably became a student at Oxford before 1196.
About 1214 he became Chancellor, and it seems hardly likely, as Mr.
Stevenson thinks, that he would have been _rex natalicius_ as late as
†1233 (F. S. Stevenson, _Robert Grosseteste_, 8, 25, 110). There were
of course no colleges †1200; if _rex_, he was _rex_ at a hall. But 1200
is an early date even in the history of the Feast of Fools.

[1493] Cooper, _Annals of Cambridge_, ii. 32; _Stat. Acad. Cantab._ 161.

[1494] Fuller, _Good Thoughts in Worse Times_ (1646), 193 ‘Some sixty
years since, in the University of Cambridge it was solemnly debated
betwixt the Heads to debarre young schollers of that liberty allowed
them in Christmas, as inconsistent with the Discipline of Students. But
some grave Governors mentioned the good use thereof, because thereby,
in twelve days, they more discover the dispositions of Scholars than
in twelve moneths before’; _Hist. of Cambridge_ (ed. M. Prickett and
J. Wright), 301 (s. a. 1610-11), describing a University Sermon by
Wm. Ames, Fellow of Christ’s, who ‘had (to use his own expression)
the place of a watchman for an hour in the tower of the University;
and took occasion to inveigh against the liberty taken at that time,
especially in such colleges who had lords of misrule, a pagan relic
which (he said) as Polidore Vergil showeth, remaineth only in England.’
W. Ames had, in consequence, to ‘forsake his college.’ Polydore Vergil,
_de Inventoribus Rerum_, v. 2 (transl. Langley, f. 102^v), speaks of
‘the Christemass Lordes’ of England.

[1495] Cooper, _op. cit._ ii. 112; Baker, _St. John’s_, ii. 573. Lords
in 1545 and 1556.

[1496] Ibid. ii. 111. A lord in 1566. Peile, _Christ’s College_,
54, quotes payments of the time of Edward VI ‘for sedge when the
Christenmasse lords came at Candlemas to the Colledge with shewes’;
‘for the lordes of S. Andrewes and his company resorting to the
Colledge.’ These were perhaps from the city; cf. p. 419.

[1497] Dee, _Compendious Rehearsal_ (_Chronicle of John of
Glastonbury_, ed. T. Hearne, 502), ‘in that College also (by my advice
and by my endeavors, divers ways used with all the other colleges) was
their Christmas Magistrate first named and confirmed an Emperor. The
first was one Mr. Thomas Dun, a very goodly man of person, stature
and complexion, and well learned also.’ Warton, iii. 302, describes
a draught of the college statutes in _Rawl. MS. 233_, in which cap.
xxiv is headed ‘de Praefecto Ludorum qui Imperator dicitur,’ and
provides for the superintendence by the Imperator of the _Spectacula_
at Christmas and Candlemas. But the references to the Imperator have
been struck out with a pen, and the title altered to ‘de Comoediis
Ludisque in natali Christi exhibendis.’ This is the title of cap. xxiv
as actually issued in 1560 (Mullinger, _University of Cambridge_, 579).
The earlier statutes of 1552 have no such chapter.

[1498] H. King, _Funeral Sermon of Bishop Duppa_ (1662), 34 ‘Here he
had the greatest dignity which the School could afford put upon him,
to be the Paedonomus at Christmas, Lord of his fellow scholars: which
title was a pledge and presage that, from a Lord in jeast, he should,
in his riper age, become one in earnest’; cf. J. Sargeaunt, _Annals of
Westminster School_, 64.

[1499] _Records of Lincoln’s Inn: Black Books_, i. 1.

[1500] _Paston Letters_, i. 186. The names of two gentlemen chosen
stewards this year at the Middle and Inner Temples are mentioned.

[1501] Fortescue, _de Laudibus_, cap. xlix.

[1502] _N. E. D._ s. v. _Cockney_, supposes the word to be here used in
the sense of ‘cockered child,’ ‘mother’s darling.’

[1503] _Records of Lincoln’s Inn: Black Books_, i. xxx, 181, 190;
ii. xxvii, 191; iii. xxxii, 440; W. Dugdale, 246; W. Herbert, 314;
J. A. Manning, _Memoirs of Rudyerd_, 16; J. Evelyn, _Diary_ (s. ann.
1661-2). As an appendix to vol. iii of the Black Book is reprinted
’Εγκυκλοχορεία, or _Universal Motion_, Being part of that Magnificent
Entertainment by the noble Prince de la Grange, Lord Lieutenant of
Lincoln’s Inn. Presented to the High and Mighty Charles II’ (1662).
Evelyn mentions the ‘solemne foolerie’ of the Prince de la Grange.

[1504] Cf. p. 257.

[1505] ‘Supper ended, the Constable-Marshall presenteth himself with
Drums afore him, mounted upon a Scaffold, born by four men; and goeth
three times round about the Harthe, crying out aloud “A Lorde, a Lorde,
&c.”--Then he descendeth and goeth to dance, &c., & after he calleth
his Court, every one by name, in this manner: “Sir Francis Flatterer,
of Fowleshurst, in the county of Buckingham. Sir Randle Rackabite,
of Rascall Hall, in the County of Rakehell. Sir Morgan Mumchance, of
Much Monkery, in the County of Mad Mopery. Sir Bartholmew Baldbreech,
of Buttocke-bury, in the County of Brekeneck”.... About Seaven of the
Clocke in the Morning the Lord of Misrule is abroad, and if he lack any
Officer or attendant, he repaireth to their Chambers, and compelleth
them to attend in person upon him after Service in the Church, to
breakfast, with Brawn, Mustard, and Malmsey. After Breakfast ended, his
Lordship’s power is in suspence, until his personal presence at night;
and then his power is most potent.’

[1506] W. Dugdale, 153; Herbert, 205, 254; F. A. Inderwick, _Calendar
of the I. T. Records_, i. xxxiv, 3, 75, 171, 183.

[1507] G. Legh, _Accedens of Armory_ (1562), describes the proceedings;
cf. Dugdale, 151; Herbert, 248; Inderwick, _op. cit._ lxiv, 219.
Machyn, 273, mentions the riding through London of this ‘lord of
mysrull’ on Dec. 27.

[1508] Cf. references for _Gesta Grayorum_ in p. 417.

[1509] Ashton, 155, quoting _The Reign of King Charles_ (1655)
‘A Lieutenant, which we country folk call a Lord of Misrule.’ In
the sixteenth century the lieutenant was only an officer of the
constable-marshal.

[1510] Dugdale, 149; Herbert, 201.

[1511] Dugdale, 202, 205; Herbert, 215, 231, 235.

[1512] J. A. Manning, _Memoirs of Rudyerd_, 9. Carleton wrote to
Chamberlain on Dec. 29, 1601, that ‘Mrs. Nevill, who played her prizes,
and bore the belle away in the Prince de Amour’s revels, is sworn maid
of honour’ (_Cal. S. P. Dom. Eliz._ 1601-3, 136).

[1513] Dugdale, 191.

[1514] G. Garrard to Strafford (_Strafford Letters_, i. 507); Warton,
iii. 321; Ward, iii. 173.

[1515] Dugdale, 285; Herbert, 333; R. J. Fletcher, _Pension Book of
Gray’s Inn_ (1901), xxviii, xxxix, xlix, 68 and passim.

[1516] His full title was ‘The High and Mighty Prince Henry, Prince
of Purpoole, Arch-duke of Stapulia and Bernardia, Duke of High and
Nether Holborn, Marquis of St. Giles and Tottenham, Count Palatine of
Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell, Great Lord of the Cantons of Islington,
Kentish Town, Paddington and Knightsbridge, Knight of the most heroical
Order of the Helmet, and Sovereign of the same.’

[1517] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 122; Ward, ii. 27, 628; Sandys, 93;
Spedding, _Works of Bacon_, viii. 235; S. Lee, _Life of Shakespeare_,
70; W. R. Douthwaite, _Gray’s Inn_, 227; Fletcher, 107. A full
description of the proceedings is in the _Gesta Grayorum_ (1688),
reprinted in Nichols, _Progresses of Elizabeth_, iii. 262.

[1518] Douthwaite, _op. cit._ 234; Fletcher, 72, 299; Nichols,
_Progresses of James I_, iii. 466. To this year belong the proceedings
of ‘Henry the Second,’ Prince of Purpoole, printed by Nichols, _Eliz._
iii. 320, as the ‘Second Part’ of the _Gesta Grayorum_; cf. Hazlitt,
_Manual_, 95, 161. ‘Henry the Second, Prince of Graya and Purpulia,’
was a subscriber to Minsheu’s _Dictionary_ (1617). An earlier Prince of
Purpoole is recorded in 1587 (Fletcher, 78).

[1519] Dugdale, 281, 286; Herbert, 334, 336.

[1520] Douthwaite, _op. cit._ 243, 245.

[1521] Percy, _N. H. B._ 344, 346.

[1522] Machyn, 125.

[1523] _Archaeologia_, xviii. 333; Ashton, 144. Other passages showing
that lords of misrule were appointed in private houses are given by
Hazlitt-Brand, i. 272.

[1524] Ashton, 144; cf. p. 407.

[1525] _Hist. of Cov._ in Fordun, _Scotichronicon_, ed. Hearne, v.
1450; Morris, 353.

[1526] Cf. p. 261.

[1527] Machyn, 162, 274. The Westminster lord seems to have been
treated with scant courtesy, for ‘he was browth in-to the contur in the
Pultre; and dyver of ys men lay all nyght ther.’

[1528] Cf. p. 173.

[1529] Brewer, ix. 364. The lord of misrule was chosen in the church
‘to solace the parish’ at Christmas.

[1530] Cf. p. 181.

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