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.