1197), _Verbum Abbreviatum_, c. 84 (_P. L._ ccv. 254) ‘Ioculatori
cuidam papa Alexander (Alex. III) nec concessit vivere de officio
suo, nec ei penitus interdixit.’ In c. 49 of the same work Petrus
Cantor inveighs learnedly _Contra dantes histrionibus_. Doubtless the
Alexander in question is Alexander III (1159-81), though the (Alex.
III) above may be due to the seventeenth-century editor, Galopinus. A
hasty glance at the voluminous and practically unindexed decrees and
letters of Alexander III in _P. L._ cc. and Jaffé, _Regesta Pontificum
Romanorum_ (ed. 2, 1885-8), ii. 145-418, has not revealed the source
of the story; and I doubt whether the Pope’s decision, if it was ever
given, is to be found in black and white. The two reports of it by
Thomas de Cabham and Petrus Cantor are barely consistent. In any case,
it never got into the Gregorian Decretals.
[248] Gautier, ii. 42; Bédier, 389; Ten Brink, i. 186; Ducange, s.
vv. _Golia_, &c.; O. Hubatsch, _Lat. Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters_
(1870).
[249] _Le Département des Livres_ (Méon, _N. R._ i. 404):
‘A Bouvines delez Dinant
Li perdi-je Ovide le grant ...
Mon Lucan et mon Juvenal
Oubliai-je a Bonival,
Eustace le grant et Virgile
Perdi aus dez a Abeville.’
[250] The chief collections of goliardic verse are Schmeller, _Carmina
Burana_ (ed. 3, 1894), and T. Wright, _Latin Poems attributed to Walter
Mapes_ (C. S. 1841): for others cf. Hubatsch, 16. Latin was not unknown
amongst lay minstrels: cf. _Deus Bordeors Ribauz_ (Montaiglon-Raynaud,
i. 3):
‘Mais ge sai aussi bien conter,
Et en roumanz et en latin.’
[251] Hubatsch, 15. The origin, precise meaning, and mutual relations
of the terms _Golias_, _goliardi_ are uncertain. Probably the goliardic
literature arose in France, rather than in England with Walter Mapes,
the attribution to whom of many of the poems is perhaps due to a
confusion of G[olias] with G[ualterus] in the MSS. Giraldus Cambrensis
(ob. 1217), _Speculum Ecclesiae_, says ‘Parasitus quidam Golias nomine
nostris diebus gulositate pariter et leccacitate famosissimus ... in
papam et curiam Romanam carmina famosa ... evomuit’: but the following
note points to a much earlier origin for Golias and his _pueri_, and
this is upheld by W. Scherer, _Gesch. d. deutsch. Dichtung im 11. und
12. Jahrh. 16._
[252] Early decrees forbidding the clergy to be _ioculatores_ are
given on p. 39. More precise is the order of Gautier of Sens (†913)
in his _Constitutiones_, c. 13 (Mansi, xviii. 324) ‘Statuimus quod
clerici ribaldi, maxime qui dicuntur de familia Goliae, per episcopos,
archidiaconos, officiales, et decanos Christianitatis, tonderi
praecipiantur vel etiam radi, ita quod eis non remaneat tonsura
clericalis: ita tamen quod sine periculo et scandalo ita fiant.’ If
Mansi’s date is right, this precedes by three centuries the almost
identical _Conc. of Rouen_, c. 8 (Mansi, xxiii. 215), and _Conc. of
Castle Gonther_ (Tours), c. 21 (Mansi, xxiii. 237), both in 1231.
Gautier, _Les Tropaires_, i. 186, dwells on the influence of the
_goliardi_ on the late and ribald development of the tropes, and
quotes _Conc. of Treves_ (1227), c. 9 (Mansi, xxiii. 33) ‘praecipimus
ut omnes sacerdotes non permittant trutannos et alios vagos scholares
aut goliardos cantare versus super _Sanctus_ et _Agnus Dei_.’ On their
probable share in the Feast of Fools cf. ch. xiv. For later legislation
cf. Hubatsch, 14, 95, and the passage from the _Liber Sextus_ of
Boniface VIII on p. 39. It lasts to the _Conc. Frisingense_ (1440)
‘statuimus ne clerici mimis, ioculatoribus, histrionibus, buffonibus,
galliardis, largiantur’ (Labbe, xiii. 1286). By this time ‘goliard’
seems little more than a synonym for ‘minstrel.’ The ‘mynstralle, a
gulardous,’ of Mannyng, 148, does not appear to be a clerk, while
Chaucer’s ‘goliardeys’ is the Miller (_C. T._ prol. 560). On the other
hand, Langland’s ‘Goliardeys, a glotoun of wordes’ (_Piers Plowman_,
prol. 139), speaks Latin. Another name for the _goliardi_ occurs in
an _Epistola Guidonis S. Laurentii in Lucina Cardinalis_, xx. (1266,
Hartzheim, iii. 807) against ‘vagi scolares, qui Eberdini vocantur,’
and who ‘divinum invertunt officium, unde laici scandalizantur.’
[253] Baudouin de Condé in his _Contes des Hiraus_ contrasts the ‘grans
menestreus,’ the
‘Maistres de sa menestrandie,
Qui bien viele ou ki bien die
De bouce’
with the ‘felons et honteux,’ who win pence,
‘l’un por faire l’ivre,
L’autre le cat, le tiers le sot,’
while in _Les États du Monde_ his son Jean sets up a high standard of
behaviour for the true minstrels:
‘Soies de cuer nes et polis,
Courtois, envoisiés, et jolis,
Pour les boinnes gens solacier’
(Scheler, _Dits et Contes de Baudouin de Condé et de son fils Jean
de Condé_, i. 154; ii. 377). Cf. Watriquet de Couvin, _Dis du fol
menestrel_ (ed. Scheler, 367):
‘Menestriex se doit maintenir
Plus simplement c’une pucele, ...
Menestrel qui veut son droit faire
Ne doit le jangleur contrefaire,
Mais en sa bouche avoir tous dis
Douces paroles et biaus dis,
Estre nés, vivre purement.’
These three writers belong to the end of the thirteenth and the
beginning of the fourteenth century.
[254] A. Jubinal, _Jongleurs et Trouvères_, 165. Cf. Gautier, ii. 78;
Bédier, 418.
[255] F. Diaz, _Poesie der Troubadours_ (ed. Bartsch), 63; K. Bartsch,
_Grundriss der provenzalischen Literatur_, 25; F. Hueffer, _The
Troubadours_, 63. Diaz, _op. cit._ 297, prints the documents.
[256] There is nothing to show that Scilling, the companion of Widsith
(_Widsith_, 104), was of an inferior grade.
[257] Hueffer, 52; G. Paris, 182: A. Stimming in Grober’s _Grundriss_,
ii. 2. 15; Gautier, ii. 45, 58. The commonest of phrases in troubadour
biography is ‘cantet et trobet.’ The term _trobador_ is properly the
accusative case of _trobaire_.
[258] Petrarch, _Epist. Rerum Senil._ n. 3 ‘sunt homines non magni
ingenii, magnae vero memoriae, magnaeque diligentiae, sed maioris
audaciae, qui regum ac potentum aulas frequentant, de proprio
nudi, vestiti autem carminibus alienis, dumque quid ab hoc, aut ab
illo exquisitius materno praesertim charactere dictum sit, ingenti
expressione pronunciant, gratiam sibi nobilium, et pecunias quaerunt,
et vestes et munera.’ Fulke of Marseilles, afterwards bishop of
Toulouse, wrote songs in his youth. He became an austere Cistercian;
but the songs had got abroad, and whenever he heard one of them sung
by a _joglar_, he would eat only bread and water (_Sermo_ of Robert de
Sorbonne in Hauréau, _Man. Fr._ xxiv. 2. 286).
[259] In the first edition of his _Reliques_ (1765), Percy gave the
mediaeval minstrel as high a status as the Norse _scald_ or Anglo-Saxon
_scôp_. This led to an acrid criticism by Ritson who, in his essay
_On the ancient English Minstrels_ in _Ancient Songs and Ballads_
(1829), easily showed the low repute in which many minstrels were
held. See also his elaborate _Dissertation on Romance and Minstrelsy_
in his _Ancient English Metrical Romances_ (1802). The truth really
lay between the two, for neither appreciated the wide variety covered
by a common name. On the controversy, cf. Minto in _Enc. Brit._ s. v.
_Minstrels_, Courthope, i. 426-31, and H. B. Wheatley’s Introduction to
his edition of Percy’s _Reliques_, xiii-xv. Percy in his later editions
profited largely by Ritson’s criticism; a careful collation of these is
given in Schroer’s edition (1889).
[260] Magnin, _Journal des Savants_ (1846), 545.
[261] Lambertus Ardensis, _Chronicon_, c. 81 (ed. Godefroy Menilglaise,
175) ‘quid plura? tot et tantorum ditatus est copia librorum ut
Augustinum in theologia, Areopagitam Dionysium in philosophia, Milesium
fabularium in naeniis gentium, in cantilenis gestoriis, sive in
eventuris nobilium, sive etiam in fabellis ignobilium, ioculatores
quosque nominatissimos aequiparare putaretur.’
[262] Freymond, _Jongleurs et Menestrels_, 34:
‘Il est de tout bons menesterieux:
Il set peschier, il set chacier,
Il set trop bien genz solacier;
Il set chançons, sonnez et fables,
Il set d’eschez, il set des tables,
Il set d’arbalestre et d’airon.’
[263] _Daurel et Beton_ (ed. Meyer, _Soc. des anc. textes fr._ 1886),
1206:
‘El va enant, a lor des jocz mostratz,
Dels us e dels altres, qu’el ne sap pro asatz.
Pueis pres l[a] arpa, a .ij. laisses notatz,
Et ab la viola a los gen deportat[z],
Sauta e tomba; tuh s’en son alegratz.’
[264] Montaiglon-Raynaud, i. 1:
‘Ge sai contes, ge sai flabeax;
Ge sai conter beax dix noveax,
Rotruenges viez et noveles,
Et sirventois et pastorels.
Ge sai le flabel du Denier,
. . . . . . .
Si sai de Parceval l’estoire,
. . . . . . .
Ge sai joer des baasteax,
Et si sai joer des costeax,
Et de la corde et de la fonde,
Et de toz les beax giex du monde,
. . . . . . .
De totes les chansons de geste.’
[265] Three of these _Enseignamens_, by Guiraut de Cabreira (†1170),
Guiraut de Calanso (†1200), and Bertran de Paris (†1250), are printed
by K. Bartsch, _Denkmäler der provenzalischen Litteratur_, 85-101. Cf.
Bartsch, _Grundriss der prov. Lit._ 25; Hueffer, _The Troubadours_, 66;
_Hist. Litt._ xvii. 581.
[266] Bernhard, iii. 397, gives some French references, one dated 1395,
for ‘menestriers de bouches,’ a term signifying minstrels who sang as
well as played instruments.
[267] There are numerous payments to jugglers, tumblers and dancers in
the Household Accounts of Henry VII (Bentley, _Excerpta Historica_,
85-113; Collier, i. 50). A letter to Wolsey of July 6, 1527, from
R. Croke, the tutor of Henry VIII’s natural son, the Duke of
Richmond, complains of difficulties put in his way by R. Cotton, the
Clerk-comptroller of the duke’s household, and adds: ‘At hic tamen in
praeceptore arcendo diligens, libenter patitur scurras et mimos (qui
digna lupanari in sacro cubiculo coram principe cantillent) admitti’
(Nichols, _Memoir of Henry Fitzroy_ in _Camden Miscellany_, iii.
xxxviii).
[268] For the _ioculator regis_, cf. Appendix E, and Leach, _Beverley
MSS._ 179. He is called ‘jugler’ in _N. H. B._ 67. Is he distinct
from the royal _gestator_ (_gestour_, _jester_)? Both appear in the
Shrewsbury accounts (s. ann. 1521, 1549). In 1554 both _le jugler_ and
_le gester_ were entertained. The _gestator_ seems to have merged in
the _stultus_ or court fool (ch. xvi). The accounts in App. E often
mention the royal bearward, who remained an important official under
Elizabeth.
[269] 2 _Hen. IV_, ii. 4. 12.
[270] Cf. Appendix H (i).
[271] Courthope, i. 445; A. Lang, s.v. _Ballad_ in _Enc. Brit._ and
in _A Collection of Ballads_, xi; _Quarterly Review_ (July, 1898);
Henderson, 335; G. Smith, 180. But I think that Gummere, _B. P.
passim_, succeeds in showing that the element of folk-poetry in
balladry is stronger than some of the above writers recognize.
[272] Sidney, _Apologie for Poetrie_ (ed. Arber), 46 ‘Certainly I must
confess my own barbarousness. I never heard the old song of _Percy and
Douglas_, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet. And
yet is it sung but by some blind Crowder, with no rougher voice than
rude style.’ For the Puritan view, see Stubbes, i. 169.
[273] Ritson, ccxxiv, quotes the following lines, ascribed to Dr. Bull
(†1597), from a _Harl. MS._, as the epitaph of minstrelsy:
‘When Jesus went to Jairus’ house
(Whose daughter was about to dye),
He turned the minstrels out of doors,
Among the rascal company:
Beggars they are, with one consent,
And rogues, by Act of Parliament.’
[274] _Du Vilain au Buffet_ (Montaiglon-Raynaud, iii. 202):
‘Li quens manda les menestrels,
Et si a fet crier entr’els
Qui la meillor truffe sauroit
Dire ne fere, qu’il auroit
Sa robe d’escarlate nueve.
L’uns menestrels a l’autre rueve
Fere son mestier, tel qu’il sot,
L’uns fet l’ivre, l’autre le sot;
Li uns chante, li autres note,
Et li autres dit la riote,
Et li autres la jenglerie;
Cil qui sevent de jouglerie
Vielent par devant le conte;
Aucuns i a qui fabliaus conte,
Où il ot mainte gaberie,
Et li autres dit l’_Erberie_,
Là où il ot mainte risée.’
Cf. p. 67; also the similar list in Wace, _Brut_, 10823, and _Piers
Plowman_, Passus xvi. 205:
‘Ich can nat tabre ne trompe · ne telle faire gestes,
Farten, ne fithelen · at festes, ne harpen,
Iapen ne iogelen · ne gentelliche pipe,
Nother sailen ne sautrien · ne singe with the giterne.’
[275] Gautier, ii. 63; Strutt, 207. L. T. Smith, _Derby Accounts_
(Camden Soc.), 109, records a payment by Henry of Bolingbroke when in
Prussia in 1390-1 ‘cuidam tumblere facienti ministralciam suam.’ See
miniatures of tumblers (Strutt, 211, 212), stilt-dancing (ibid. 226),
hoop-vaulting (ibid. 229), balancing (ibid. 232-4), a contortionist
(ibid. 235).
[276] _Annales Corbeienses_, s. a. 1135 (Leibnitz, _Rer. Brunsv.
Script._ ii. 307) ‘funambulus inter lusus suos in terram deiectus.’
[277] Gautier, ii. 64, quotes _Annales Basilienses_, s. a. 1276
‘Basileam quidam corpore debilis venit, qui funem protensum de
campanili maioris ecclesiae ad domum cantoris manibus et pedibus
descendebat’; for later English examples cf. ch. xxiv.
[278] Strutt, 172, 176, 209; Jusserand, i. 214, and _E. W. L._ 23.
[279] Strutt, 173, 197; Jusserand, _E. W. L._ 212; Wright, 33-7.
[280] Gautier, ii. 67, quotes _Joufrois_, 1146:
‘Ainz veïssiez toz avant traire
Les jogleors et maint jou faire.
Li uns dançoit ...
Li autre ovrent de nigremance.’
[281] Strutt, 194, quotes from Cott. MS. _Nero_, c. viii, a payment
‘Janins le Cheveretter (bagpiper) called le Tregettour,’ for playing
before Edw. II. Collier, i. 30, quotes Lydgate, _Daunce de Macabre_
(Harl. 116):
‘Maister John Rykell, sometyme tregitoure
Of noble Henry kynge of Englonde,
And of Fraunce the myghty conqueroure,
For all the sleightes and turnyngs of thyne honde,
Thou must come nere this daunce to understonde.
. . . . . . . .
Lygarde de mayne now helpeth me right nought.’
[282] Ducange, s. v. _bastaxi_; Gautier, ii. 11; C. Magnin, _Hist. des
Marionnettes en Europe_ (ed. 2, 1862); cf. ch. xxiv. _Bastaxus_ seems
to be the origin of the modern _bateleur_, used in a wide sense of
travelling entertainers.
[283] Du Méril, _Com._ 74; Strutt, 253; Jusserand, _E. W. L._ vi. 218.
Amongst the letters commendatory of minstrels quoted by Gautier, ii.
109, is one ‘De illo qui scit volucrum exprimere cantilenas et voces
asininas.’ Baudouin de Condé mentions a minstrel who ‘fait le cat’ (cf.
p. 63, n. 1).
[284] See figures of bears (Strutt, 176, 214, 239, 240), apes (ibid.
240, 241; Jusserand, _E. W. L._ 218), horses (Strutt, 243, 244),
dog (ibid. 246, 249), hare (ibid. 248), cock (ibid. 249). For the
_ursarius_ and for lion, marmoset, &c., cf. pp. 53, 68, and Appendix E.
[285] Strutt, 256. A horse-baiting is figured in Strutt, 243.
[286] Strutt, 244, figures a combat between man and horse. Gautier,
ii. 66, cites _Acta SS. Jan._ iii. 257 for the intervention of St.
Poppo when a naked man smeared with honey was to fight bears before the
emperor Henry IV (†1048).
[287] Strutt, 260, 262.
[288] _Adam Davie_ (†1312):
‘Merry it is in halle to here the harpe,
The minstrelles synge, the jogelours carpe.’
[289] John of Salisbury, _Polycraticus_, i. 8 ‘Quorum adeo error
invaluit, ut a praeclaris domibus non arceantur, etiam illi qui
obscenis partibus corporis oculis omnium eam ingerunt turpitudinem,
quam erubescat videre vel cynicus. Quodque magis mirere, nec tunc
eiiciuntur, quando tumultuantes inferius crebro sonitu aerem foedant,
et turpiter inclusum turpius produnt’; Adam of Bremen (_M. G. H._),
iii. 38 ‘Pantomimi, qui obscoenis corporis motibus oblectare vulgus
solent.’ Raine, _Hist. Papers from Northern Registers_ (R. S.), 398,
prints a letter of Archbishop Zouche of York on the indecent behaviour
of some clerks of the bishop of Durham in York Minster on Feb. 6, 1349,
‘subtus imaginem crucifixi ventositates per posteriora dorsi cum foedo
strepitu more ribaldorum emittere fecerunt pluries ac turpiter et
sonore.’
[290] Gautier, ii. 69; Lavoix, _La Musique au Siècle de Saint-Louis_,
i. 315; cf. Appendix C.
[291] W. Mapes, _de Nugis Curialium_ (Camden Soc.), dist. v. prol.,
‘Caesar Lucani, Aeneas Maronis, multis vivunt in laudibus, plurimum
suis meritis et non minimum vigilantia poetarum; nobis divinam
Karolorum et Pepinorum nobilitatem vulgaribus rithmis sola mimorum
concelebrat nugacitas.’
[292] Lavoix, ii. 295.
[293] Ibid. ii. 344. The Paris MS. (_B. N._ f. fr. 2168) of _Aucassin
et Nicolete_ preserves the musical notation of the verse sections. Only
three musical phrases, with very slight variations, are used. Two of
these were probably repeated, alternately or at the singer’s fancy,
throughout the tirade; the third provided a cadence for the closing
line (Bourdillon, _Aucassin et Nicolette_ (1897), 157).
[294] Chaucer, _House of Fame_, 1197:
‘Of alle maner of minstrales,
And gestiours, that tellen tales,
Bothe of weping and of game.’
Cf. _Sir Thopas_, 134; and Gower, _Confessio Amantis_, vii. 2424:
‘And every menstral hadde pleid,
And every disour hadde seid.’
The evidence of Erasmus is late, of course, for the hey-day of
minstrelsy, but in his time there were certainly English minstrels
who merely recited, without musical accompaniment; cf. _Ecclesiastes_
(_Opera_, v. col. 958) ‘Apud Anglos est simile genus hominum, quales
apud Italos sunt circulatores, de quibus modo dictum est; qui irrumpunt
in convivia magnatum, aut in cauponas vinarias; et argumentum aliquod,
quod edidicerunt, recitant; puta mortem omnibus dominari, aut
laudem matrimonii. Sed quoniam ea lingua monosyllabis fere constat,
quemadmodum Germanica; atque illi studio vitant cantum, nobis latrare
videntur verius quam loqui.’
[295] Ten Brink, i. 193, 225, 235, old gleeman tradition was probably
less interfered with in the lowlands of Scotland than in England
proper; cf. Henderson, _Scottish Vernacular Literature_, 16.
[296] Ten Brink, i. 322; Jusserand, i. 360; Courthope, i. 197. Minot’s
poems have been edited by J. Hall (Oxford, 1887). See also Wright,
_Political Songs_ (C.S.) and _Political Poems and Songs_ (R.S.). Many
of these, however, are Latin.
[297] On Welsh bardism see H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, _Intr. à l’Étude
de la Litt. celtique_, 63; Stephens, _Literature of the Kymry_, 84,
93, 97, 102; Ernest David, _Études historiques sur la Poésie et la
Musique dans la Cambrie_, 13, 62-103, 147-64. In Wales, an isolated
corner of Europe, little touched by Latin influences, the bards long
retained the social and national position which it is probable they
once had held in all the Aryan peoples. Their status is defined in the
laws of Howel Dha (†920) and in those of Gruffyd ab Cynan (1100). The
latter code distinguishes three orders of bards proper, the _Pryddyd_
or Chair bards, the _Teuluwr_ or Palace bards, and the _Arwyddfardd_
or heralds, also called _Storiawr_, the _cantores historici_ of
Giraldus Cambrensis. The _Pryddyd_ and _Teuluwr_ differ precisely as
poets and executants, _trouvères_ and _jougleurs_. Below all these
come the _Clerwr_, against whom official bardism from the sixth to
the thirteenth century showed an inveterate animosity. These are an
unattached wandering folk, players on flutes, tambourines, and other
instruments meaner than the _telyn_ or harp, and the _crwth_ or viol
which alone the bards proper deigned to use. Many of them had also
picked up the mime-tricks of the foreigners. It was probably with these
_Clerwr_ that the English and French neighbours of the Kelts came
mainly into contact. Padelford, 5, puts this contact as early as the
Anglo-Saxon period.
[298] Giraldus Cambrensis, _Descriptio Cambriae_, i. 17 ‘famosus ille
fabulator Bledhericus, qui tempora nostra paulo praevenit.’ Thomas,
_Tristan_ (†1170, ed. Michel, ii. 847):
‘Mès sulum ço que j’ai oy
N’el dient pas sulum Breri,
Ky solt les gestes e les cuntes
De tuz les reis, de tuz les cuntes
Ki orent esté en Bretaingne.’
[299] G. Paris, in _Hist. Litt._ xxx. 1-22; _Litt. Fr._ §§ 53-5;
Nutt, _Legend of the Holy Grail_, 228; Rhys, _Arthurian Legend_,
370-90. These views have been vigorously criticized by Prof. Zimmer in
_Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen_ (1891), 488, 785, and elsewhere.
[300] David, _op. cit._ 13, 235; cf. p. 54.
[301] Paris, §§ 118, 122, and _Orig._ (_passim_); Jeanroy, 1, 84,
102, 387; _Lang. et Litt._ i. 345; cf. ch. viii. Texts of _chansons à
personnages_ and _pastourelles_ in Bartsch, _Altfranzösische Romanzen
und Pastourellen_; of _aubes_ in Bartsch, _Chrestomathie de l’ancien
français_.
[302] Paris, § 126; _Orig._ (_passim_); Jeanroy, 45, and in _Lang. et
Litt._ i. 384; Bartsch, _Grundriss der prov. Lit._ 34; Hueffer, _The
Troubadours_, 112; Stimming in Gröber’s _Grundriss_, ii. 2. 24.
[303] In 1386 we hear of ‘des compaingnons, pour de jeux de parture
juer et esbattre’ at Douai (Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 323), which looks
as if, by the end of the fourteenth century, the _partures_ were being
professionally performed.
[304] Paris, § 109; Bédier, 31. A _fabliau_ is properly a ‘conte à rire
en vers’; the term _dit_ is applied more generally to a number of short
poems which deal, ‘souvent avec agrément, des sujets empruntés à la vie
quotidienne.’ Some _dits_ are satirical, others eulogistic of a class
or profession, others descriptive. But the distinction is not very well
defined, and the _fabliaux_ are often called _dits_ in the MSS.
[305] Montaiglon-Raynaud, i. 1; ii. 257. The _dit_ is also called _La
Jengle au Ribaut et la Contrejengle_.
[306] Rutebeuf (ed. Kressner), 99.
[307] Barbazan-Méon, i. 356. Bédier, 33, considers _Courtois d’Arras_
as the oldest French comedy, a _jeu dramatique_ with intercalated
narrative by a _meneur de jeu_. But the fact that it ends with the
words _Te Deum_ leads one to look upon it as an adaptation of a
religious play; cf. ch. xix.
[308] On the _débats_ in general, see _Hist. Litt._ xxiii. 216 sqq.;
Paris, _Litt. fr._ §§ 110, 155; Arthur Piaget, _Littérature didactique_
in _Lang. et Litt._ ii. 208; Jeanroy, 48; R. Hirzel, _Der Dialog_, ii.
382; _Literaturblatt_ (1887), 76. A full list is given by Petit, _Rép.
Com._ 405-9. The _débats_ merge into such allegorical poems as Henri
d’Andeli’s _Bataille des Vins_ (Barbazon-Méon, i. 152) or _Le Mariage
des Sept Arts et des Sept Vertus_ (Jubinal, _Œuvres de Rutebeuf_, ii.
415); cf. Paris, _Litt. fr._ 158.
[309] Ten Brink, i. 215; Hubatsch, 24; Gummere, _B. P._ 200, 306.
The _Débat de l’Yver et de l’Esté_ has the nearest folk-lore origin;
cf. ch. ix. Paris, _Origines_, 28, mentions several Greek and Latin
versions beginning with Aesop (Halm, 414). The most important is the
ninth-century _Conflictus Veris et Hiemis_ (Riese, _Anth. Lat._ i. 2.
145), variously ascribed to Bede (Wernsdorff, _Poetae Latini Minores_,
ii. 239), Alcuin (_Alc. Opera_, ed. Froben, ii. 612) and others. French
versions are printed in Montaiglon-Rothschild, _Anc. Poés. fr._ vi.
190, x. 41, and Jubinal, _N. R._ ii. 40. There are imitations in all
tongues: cf. M. Émile Picot’s note in Mont.-Rothsch. _op. cit._ x. 49;
_Hist. Litt._ xxiii. 231; Douhet, 1441.--_La Disputoison du Vin et de
l’Iaue_ is printed in Jubinal, _N. R._ i. 293; Wright, _Lat. Poems of
Walter Mapes_, 299; _Carmina Burana_, 232. It is based on the _Goliae
Dialogus inter Aquam et Vinum_ (Wright, _loc. cit._ 87); cf. _Hist.
Litt._ xxiii. 228; _Romania_, xvi. 366.--On the complicated history
of the _Débat du Corps et de l’Âme_, see T. Batiouchkof in _Romania_,
xx. 1. 513; G. Kleinert, _Ueber den Streit von Leib und Seele_; _Hist.
Litt._ xxii. 162; P. de Julleville, _Répertoire Comique_, 5, 300, 347;
Wright, _Latin Poems_, xxiii. 95, 321. Latin, French and other versions
are given by Wright, and by Viollet-Leduc, _Anc. Thé. fr._ iii.
325.--_Phillis et Flora_, or _De Phyllis qui aime un chevalier et de
Flora qui aime un prêtre_, is also referred by Paris, _Orig._ 28, to a
folk-song beginning; cf. _H. L._ xxii. 138, 165; _Romania_, xxii. 536.
Latin versions are in _Carmina Burana_, 155; Wright, _Latin Poems of
W. Mapes_, 258.--A possible influence of the Theocritean and Virgilian
eclogues upon these _débats_, through their neo-Latin forms, must be
borne in mind.
[310] Wülker, 384; Brooke, i. 139, ii. 93, 221, 268; Jusserand, i. 75,
443. The passages of dialogue dwelt on by these writers mostly belong
to the work of Cynewulf and his school. It has been suggested that
some of them, e.g. the A.-S. _Descent into Hell_ (Grein, iii. 175;
cf. _Anglia_, xix. 137), or the dialogue between Mary and Joseph in
Cynewulf’s _Christ_, 163 (ed. Gollancz, p. 16), may have been intended
for liturgical use by half-choirs; but of this there is really no
proof. Wülker, _loc. cit._, shows clearly that the notion of a dramatic
representation was unfamiliar to the Anglo-Saxons.
[311] Ten Brink, i. 312. Several English versions of the _Debate
between Body and Soul_ are given by Wright, _loc. cit._ 334. An English
_Debate and Stryfe betwene Somer and Wynter_ is in W. C. Hazlitt,
_Early Popular Poetry_, iii. 29.
[312] Cf. ch. xx.
[313] Ten Brink, i. 214, 309. _The Owl and the Nightingale_ (c.
1216-72), was printed by J. Stevenson (Roxburghe Club); _the Thrush and
the Nightingale_ and _the Fox and the Wolf_, by W. C. Hazlitt, _Early
Popular Poetry_, i. 50, 58. There are also a _Debate of the Carpenter’s
Tools_ (Hazlitt, i. 79) and an English version of a Latin _Disputacio
inter Mariam et Crucem_ (R. Morris, _Legends of the Holy Rood_, 131);
cf. Ten Brink, i. 259, 312. An A.-S. version of the _Debate between
Body and Soul_ is in the _Exeter Book_ (Grein, ii. 92).
[314] Ælred (†1166), _Speculum Charitatis_, ii. 23 (_P. L._ cxcv.
571) ‘Videas aliquando hominem aperto ore quasi intercluso halitu
expirare, non cantare, ac ridiculosa quadam vocis interceptione quasi
minitari silentium; nunc agones morientium, vel extasim patientium
imitari. Interim histrionicis quibusdam gestibus totum corpus agitatur,
torquentur labia, rotant, ludunt humeri; et ad singulas quasque
notas digitorum flexus respondet. Et haec ridiculosa dissolutio
vocatur religio!... Vulgus ... miratur ... sed lascivas cantantium
gesticulationes, meretricias vocum alternationes et infractiones,
non sine cachinno risuque intuetur, ut eos non ad oratorium sed ad
theatrum, non ad orandum, sed ad spectandum aestimes convenisse.’ Cf.
_op. cit._ ii. 17 ‘Cum enim in tragediis vanisve carminibus quisquam
iniuriatus fingitur, vel oppressus ... si quis haec, vel cum canuntur
audiens, vel cernens si recitentur ... moveatur’; and Johannes de
Janua, s.v. _persona_ (cited Creizenach, i. 381) ‘Item persona dicitur
histrio, repraesentator comoediarum, qui diversis modis personat
diversas repraesentando personas.’ All these passages, like the
ninth-century _responsio_ of arch-bishop Leidradus referred to on p.
36, may be suspected of learning rather than actuality. As for the
epitaph of the mime Vitalis (Riese, _Anth. Lat._ i. 2. 143; Baehrens,
_P. L. M._ iii. 245), sometimes quoted in this connexion, it appears
to be classical and not mediaeval at all; cf. Teuffel-Schwabe, §§ 8.
11; 32. 6. Probably this is also the case with the lines _De Mimo iam
Sene_ in Wright, _Anecdota Literaria_, 100, where again ‘theatra’ are
mentioned.
[315] Cf. p. 71. The mention of a ‘Disare that played the sheppart’ at
the English court in 1502 (Nicolas, _Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth
of York_) is too late to be of importance here.
[316] Creizenach, i. 383, citing at second-hand from fourteenth-century
accounts of a Savoy treasurer ‘rappresentando i costumi delle compagnie
inglesi e bretoni.’
[317] Creizenach, i. 380.
[318] Thomas de Cabham mentions the _horribiles larvae_ of some
minstrels. A. Lecoy de la Marche, _La Chaire française_ (ed. 2,
1886), 444, quotes a sermon of Étienne de Bourbon in _MS. B. N. Lat._
15970, f. 352 ‘ad similitudinem illorum ioculatorum qui ferunt facies
depictas quae dicuntur artificia gallicè, cum quibus ludunt et homines
deludunt.’ Cf. Liudprand, iii. 15 (Pertz, iii. 310) ‘histrionum
mimorumve more incedere, qui, ut ad risum facile turbas illiciant,
variis sese depingunt coloribus.’ The _monstra larvarum_, however, of
various ecclesiastical prohibitions I take to refer specifically to the
Feast of Fools (cf. ch. xiii).
[319] Schack, _Gesch. der dram. Litt. und Kunst in Spanien_, i. 30,
quotes a Carolingian capitulary, from Heineccius, _Capit._ lib. v.
c. 388 ‘si quis ex scenicis vestem sacerdotalem aut monasticam vel
mulieris religiosae vel qualicunque ecclesiastico statu similem indutus
fuerit, corporali poena subsistat et exilio tradatur.’ This prohibition
is as old as the _Codex Theodosianus_; cf. p. 14.
[320] _Œuvres_ de Rutebeuf (ed. Kressner), 115; cf. _Romania_, xvi.
496; Julleville, _Les Com._ 24; _Rép. Com._ 407.
[321] Creizenach, i. 386, further points out that a stage was not
indispensable to the Latin _mimus_, who habitually played before the
curtain and probably with very little setting; that the favourite
situations of fifteenth-century French farce closely resemble those of
the mimes; and that the use of marionettes is a proof of some knowledge
of dramatic methods amongst the minstrels.
[322] On this treatise, cf. ch. xx.
[323] A ‘japer’ is often an idle talker, like a ‘jangler’ which is
clearly sometimes confused with a ‘jongleur’; cf. Chaucer, _Parson’s
Tale_, 89 ‘He is a japere and a gabber and no verray repentant
that eft-soone dooth thing for which hym oghte repente.’ Langland
uses the term in a more technical sense. _Activa Vita_ in _Piers
Plowman_, xvi. 207, is no minstrel, because ‘Ich can not ... japen
ne jogelen.’ No doubt a ‘jape’ would include a _fabliau_. It is
equivalent etymologically to ‘gab,’ and Bédier, 33, points out that
the _jougleurs_ use _gabet_, as well as _bourde_, _trufe_, and _risée_
for a _fabliau_.--The use of ‘pleye’ as ‘jest’ may be illustrated by
Chaucer, _Pardoner’s Tale_ (_C. T._ 12712) ‘My wit is greet, though
that I bourde and pleye.’--The ‘japis’ of the _Tretise_ are probably
the ‘knakkes’ of the passage on ‘japeris’ in _Parson’s Tale_, 651
‘right so conforten the vileyns wordes and knakkes of japeris hem that
travaillen in the service of the devel.’
[324] Montaiglon-Raynaud, ii. 243. Cf. _Hist. Litt._ xxiii. 103;
Jusserand, _Lit. Hist._ i. 442. A shorter prose form of the story
is found in _La Riote du Monde_ (ed. Fr. Michel, 1834), a popular
_facétie_ of which both French and Anglo-Norman versions exist; cf.
Paris, _Litt. fr._ 153. And a Latin form, _De Mimo et Rege Francorum_
is in Wright, _Latin Stories_, No. 137. The point consists in the
quibbling replies with which the _jougleur_ meets the king’s questions.
Thus, in _La Riote du Monde_: ‘Dont ies tu?--Je suis de no vile.--U est
te vile?--Entor le moustier.--U est li moustiers?--En l’atre.--U est li
atres?--Sor terre.--U siet cele terre?--Sor l’iaue.--Comment apiel-on
l’iaue?--On ne l’apiele nient; ele vient bien sans apieler.’
[325] Cf. Appendix V.
[326] Cf. ch. viii.
[327] Ed. P. Meyer, in _Jahrbuch für romanische und englische
Literatur_, vi. 163. The piece was probably written in Flanders,
between 1266 and 1290. Cf. Creizenach, i. 398.
[328] See Appendix U. References for the earlier non-dramatic versions
in Latin, French, and English of the story are given by Jusserand,
_Lit. Hist._ i. 447. A Cornish dramatic fragment of the fourteenth
century is printed in the _Athenæum_ for Dec. 1, 1877, and _Revue
celtique_, iv. 259; cf. Creizenach, i. 401.
[329] Stephens-Hunt, ii. 301; F. S. Stevenson, _Robert Grosseteste_,
126. The disciplinary attack seems to have begun with Grosseteste’s
predecessor, Hugh de Wells, in 1230 (Wilkins, i. 627), but he, like
Roger Weseham, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, in 1252 (_Annales
Monastici_, R. S. i. 296), merely condemns _ludi_, a term which may
mean folk-festivals or minstrelsy, or both. A similar ambiguity
attaches to the obligation of the anchoresses of Tarrant Keyneston not
to look on at a _ludus_ (_pleouwe_) in the church-yard (_Ancren Riwle_,
C. S. 318).
[330] In 1236 Grosseteste wrote to his archdeacons forbidding ‘arietum
super ligna et rotas elevationes, caeterosque ludos consimiles,
in quo decertatur pro bravio; cum huiusmodi ludorum tam actores
quam spectatores, sicut evidenter demonstrat Isidorus, immolant
daemonibus, ... et cum etiam huiusmodi ludi frequenter dant occasiones
irae, odii, pugnae, et homicidii.’ His _Constitutiones_ of 1238 say
‘Praecipimus etiam ut in singulis ecclesiis denuncietur solenniter
ne quisquam levet arietes super rotas, vel alios ludos statuat, in
quibus decertatur pro bravio: nec huiusmodi ludis quisquam intersit,
&c.’ About 1244 he wrote again to the archdeacons: ‘Faciunt etiam, ut
audivimus, clerici ludos quos vocant miracula: et alios ludos quos
vocant Inductionem Maii sive Autumni; et laici scotales ... miracula
etiam et ludos supra nominatos et scotales, quod est in vestra
potestate facili, omnino exterminetis’ (Luard, _Letters of Robert
Grosseteste_ (R. S.) _Epp._ xxii, lii, cvii, pp. 74, 162, 317). For his
condemnations of the Feast of Fools cf. ch. xiv.
[331] _Const. Walt. de Cantilupo_ (Wilkins, i. 673) ‘prohibemus
clericis ... nec sustineant ludos fieri de Rege et Regina, nec arietas
levari, nec palaestras publicas fieri, nec gildales inhonestas.’ The
clergy must also abstain and dissuade the laity from ‘compotationibus
quae vocantur scottales’ (Wilkins, i. 672). On ‘ram-raisings,’ &c., cf.
ch. vii; on ‘gildales’ and ‘scotales’ ch. viii.
[332] Surely the reference is to the mock kings and queens of the
village festivals, and not, as Guy, 521; Jusserand, _Litt. Hist._ i.
444, suggest, to the question-and-answer game of _Le Roi qui ne ment_
described in Jean de Condé’s _Sentier Batu_ (Montaiglon-Raynaud,
iii. 248), although this is called playing ‘as rois et as reines’ in
Adan de la Hale’s _Robin et Marion_ (ed. Monmerqué-Michel, 121) and
elsewhere (cf. Guy, 222), and possibly grew out of the festival custom.
Yet another game of _King and Queen_, of the practical joke order, is
described as played at Golspie by Nicholson, 119.
[333] Wilkins, i. 666.
[334] Anstey, _Munimenta Academica_ (R. S.), i. 18 ‘ne quis choreas
cum larvis seu strepitu aliquo in ecclesiis vel plateis ducat, vel
sertatus, vel coronatus corona ex foliis arborum, vel florum vel
aliunde composita alicubi incedat ... prohibemus.’
[335] _Inquisitiones ... de vita et conversatione clericorum et
laicorum_ in _Annales de Burton_ (_Ann. Monast._ R. S. i. 307) ‘an
aliqui laici mercata, vel ludos, seu placita peculiaria fieri faciant
in locis sacris, et an haec fuerint prohibita ex parte episcopi....
An aliqui laici elevaverint arietes, vel fieri faciant schothales,
vel decertaverint de praeeundo cum vexillis in visitatione matricis
ecclesiae.’
[336] Wilkins, ii. 129 ‘c. 13 ... Ne quisquam luctas, choreas, vel
alios ludos inhonestos in coemeteriis exercere praesumat; praecipue
in vigiliis et festis sanctorum, cum huiusmodi ludos theatrales et
ludibriorium spectacula introductos per quos ecclesiarum coinquinatur
honestas, sacri ordines detestantur.’
[337] Wilkins, iii. 68 ‘c. 2 ... nec in ipsis [locis sacris] fiant
luctationes, sagittationes, vel ludi.’ A special caution is given
against ludi ‘in sanctorum vigiliis’ and ‘in exequiis defunctorum.’
[338] T. F. Kirby, _Wykeham’s Register_ (Hampshire Record Soc.), ii.
410, forbids ‘ad pilas ludere, iactaciones lapidum facere ... coreas
facere dissolutas, et interdum canere cantilenas, ludibriorum
spectacula facere, saltaciones et alios ludos inhonestos frequentare,
ac multas alias insolencias perpetrare, ex quibus cimeterii huiusmodi
execracio seu pollucio frequencius verisimiliter formidetur.’
[339] _Handlyng Synne_ (ed. Furnivall), p. 148, l. 4684:
‘Daunces, karols, somour games,
Of many swych come many shames.’
This poem is a free adaptation (†1303) of the thirteenth-century
Anglo-Norman _Manuel de Péché_, which is probably by William de
Wadington, but has been ascribed to Bishop Grosseteste himself. The
corresponding lines in this are
‘Muses et tieles musardries,
Trippes, dances, et teles folies.’
Cf. also _Handlyng Synne_, p. 278, l. 8989:
‘Karolles, wrastlynges, or somour games,
Who so euer haunteþ any swyche shames,
Yy cherche, oþer yn cherche-ȝerde,
Of sacrylage he may be a ferde;
Or entyrludës, or syngynge,
Or tabure bete, or oþer pypynge,
Alle swychë þyng forbodyn es,
Whyle þe prest stondeþ at messe’;
where the _Manuel de Péché_ has
‘Karoles ne lutes nul deit fere,
En seint eglise qe me veut crere;
Car en cymiter neis karoler
Est outrage grant, ou luter:
Souent lur est mes auenu
Qe la fet tel maner de iu;
Qe grant peche est, desturber
Le prestre quant deit celebrer.’
[340] The Puritan Fetherston, in his _Dialogue agaynst light, lewde,
and lascivious Dancing_ (1583), sign. D. 7, says that he has ‘hearde
of tenne maidens which went to set May, and nine of them came home
with childe.’ Stubbes, i. 149, has a very similar observation. Cf. the
adventures of Dr. Fitzpiers and Suke Damson on Midsummer Eve in Thomas
Hardy’s novel, _The Woodlanders_, ch. xx.
[341] Grosseteste, in 1236, quotes ‘Isidorus’ as to the pagan origin of
‘_ludi, in quo decertatur de bravio_.’ The reference is to Isidore of
Seville (560-636), _Etymologiarum_, xviii. 27, _De ludis circensibus_
(_P. L._ lxxxii. 653). This, of course, refers directly to the
religious associations of Roman rather than Celto-Teutonic _ludi_.
[342] Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 30 ‘idolorum cultus insequere, fanorum
aedificia everate.’
[343] Bede, _Hist. Eccl._ i. 30; Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 37 ‘Dicite
[Augustino], quid diu mecum de causa Anglorum cogitans tractavi:
videlicet quia fana idolorum destrui in eadem gente minime debeant;
sed ipsa quae in illis sunt idola destruantur, aqua benedicta fiat, in
eisdem fanis aspergatur, altaria construantur, reliquiae ponantur: quia
si fana eadem bene constructa sunt, necesse est ut a cultu daemonum
in obsequium veri Dei debeant commutari, ut dum gens ipsa eadem
fana sua non videt destrui, de corde errorem deponat, et Deum verum
cognoscens ac adorans, ad loca, quae consuevit, familiarius concurrat.
Et quia boves solent in sacrificio daemonum multos occidere, debet
eis etiam hac de re aliqua solemnitas immutari: ut die dedicationis,
vel natalitii sanctorum martyrum quorum illic reliquiae ponuntur,
tabernacula sibi circa easdem ecclesias quae ex fanis commutatae
sunt, de ramis arborum faciant, et religiosis conviviis sollemnitatem
celebrent; nec diabolo iam animalia immolent, sed ad laudem Dei in esum
suum animalia occidant, et donatori omnium de satietate sua gratias
referant: ut dum eis aliqua exterius gaudia reservantur, ad interiora
gaudia consentire facilius valeant. Nam duris mentibus simul omnia
abscindere impossibile esse non dubium est, quia et is qui summum locum
ascendere nititur gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus elevatur’....
[344] Stanley, _Memorials of Canterbury_, 37.
[345] H. B. Wheatley, _London, Past and Present_, iii. 39; Donne,
_Poems_ (Muses’ Library), ii. 23.
[346] Bede, ii. 13 ‘iussit sociis destruere ac succendere fanum
cum omnibus septis suis.’ In Essex in a time of plague and famine
(664), Sigheri and his people ‘coeperunt fana, quae derelicta sunt,
restaurare, et adorare simulacra.’ Bp. Jaruman induced them to reopen
the churches, ‘relictis sive destructis fanis arisque’ (Bede, iii. 30).
[347] Bede, ii. 15. So too in eighth-century Germany there were priests
who were equally ready to sacrifice to Wuotan and to administer the
sacrament of baptism (Gummere, 342). See also Grimm, i. 7, and the
letter of Gregory the Great to queen Brunichildis in _M. G. H. Epist._
ii. 1. 7 ‘pervenit ad nos, quod multi Christianorum et ad ecclesias
occurrant, et a culturis daemonum non abscedant.’
[348] Willibald (_Gesch.-Schreiber der deutschen Vorzeit_, 27) relates
that in Germany, when Boniface felled the sacred oak of Thor (robur
Iovis) he built the wood into a church.
[349] A Saxon _formula abrenuntiationis_ of the ninth century
(Müllenhoff-Scherer, _Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus dem
8.-12. Jahrhundert_, 1892, No. li) specifically renounces ‘Thuner ende
Uuôden ende Saxnôte ende allum thêm unholdum thê hira genôtas sint.’
Anglo-Saxon laws and council decrees contain frequent references to
sacrifices and other lingering remnants of heathenism. Cf. _Councils of
Pincanhale and Cealcythe_ (787), c. 19 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 458) ‘si
quid ex ritu paganorum remansit, avellatur, contemnatur, abiiciatur.’
_Council of Gratlea_ (928), c. 3 (Wilkins, i. 205) ‘diximus ... de
sacrificiis barbaris ... si quis aliquem occiderit ... ut vitam
suam perdat.’ _Council of London_ (1075) (Wilkins, i. 363) ‘ne offa
mortuorum animalium, quasi pro vitanda animalium peste, alicubi
suspendantur; nec sortes, vel aruspicia, seu divinationes, vel aliqua
huiusmodi opera diaboli ab aliquo exerceantur.’ Also _Leges_ of Wihtred
of Kent (696), c. 12 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 235), and other A.-S. laws
quoted by Kemble, i. 523.
[350] _Penitential of Theodore_ (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 189), i. 15, _de
Cultura Idolorum_; _Penitential of Egbert_ (H.-S. iii. 424), 8, _de
Auguriis vel Divinationibus_.
[351] Pearson, ii. 1 (Essay on _Woman as Witch_); cf. A.-S. spells in
Kemble, i. 528, and Cockayne, _Leechdoms_ (R. S.), iii. 35, 55. Early
and mediaeval Christianity did not deny the existence of the heathen
gods, but treated them as evil spirits, demons.
[352] An Essex case of 664 has just been quoted. Kemble, i. 358, gives
two later ones from the _Chronicle of Lanercost_. In 1268 ‘cum hoc anno
in Laodonia pestis grassaretur in pecudes armenti, quam vocant usitate
Lungessouth, quidam bestiales, habitu claustrales non animo, docebant
idiotas patriae ignem confrictione de lignis educere et simulachrum
Priapi statuere, et per haec bestiis succurrere.’ In 1282 ‘sacerdos
parochialis, nomine Johannes, Priapi prophana parans, congregatis ex
villa puellulis, cogebat eis, choreis factis, Libero patri circuire.’
By Priapus-Liber is probably meant Freyr, the only Teutonic god
known to have had Priapic characteristics (Adam of Bremen, _Gesta
Hammaburgensis Eccles. Pontif._ iv. 26 in _M. G. H. Script._ vii. 267).
[353] Grimm, i. 5, 11, 64, 174; iii. xxxiv-xlv; Keary, 90; Pearson, ii.
16, 32, 42, 243, 285, 350. The Virgin Mary succeeds to the place of
the old Teutonic goddess of fertility, Freyja, Nerthus. So elsewhere
does St. Walpurg. The toasts or _minni_ drunk to Odin and Freyja are
transferred to St. John and St. Gertrude. The travels of Odin and
Loki become the travels of Christ and St. Peter. Many examples of the
adaptation of pre-existing customs to Christianity will be found in the
course of this book. A capitulary of Karlmann, drawn up in 742 after
the synod of Ratisbon held by Boniface in Germany, speaks of ‘hostias
immolatitias, quas stulti homines iuxta ecclesias ritu pagano faciunt
sub nomine sanctorum martyrum vel confessorum’ (Boretius, _Capitularia
Reg. Franc._ i. 24 in _M. G. H._; Mansi, xii. 367). At Kirkcudbright in
the twelfth century bulls were killed ‘as an alms and oblation to St.
Cuthbert’ (_F. L._ x. 353).
[354] In the present state of Gaulish and still more of Irish studies,
only a glimmering of possible equations between Teutonic and Keltic
gods is apparent.
[355] Recent ethnological research is summed up in G. Vacher de
Lapouge, _L’Aryen_ (1899); W. Z. Ripley, _The Races of Europe_ (1900);
A. H. Keane, _Ethnology_ (1896); _Man, Past and Present_ (1899); J.
Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (1900); G. Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_
(1901). The three racial types that, in many pure and hybrid forms,
mainly compose the population of Europe may be distinguished as (1)
_Homo Europaeus_, the tall blonde long-headed (dolichocephalic) race of
north Europe, (including Teutons and red-haired ‘Kelts’), to which the
Aryan speech seems primarily to have belonged; (2) _Homo alpinus_, the
medium coloured and sized brachycephalic (round-headed) race of central
Europe; (3) _Homo meridionalis_ (Lapouge) or _mediterranensis_ (Keane),
the small dark dolichocephalic race of the Mediterranean basin and the
western isles (including dark ‘Kelts’). During the formative period of
European culture (2) was probably of little importance, and (1) and (3)
are possibly of closer racial affinity to each other than either of
them is to (2).
[356] Gomme, _Ethnology in Folk-lore_, 21; _Village Community_, 69;
_Report of Brit. Ass._ (1896), 626; _F. L. Congress_, 348; _F. L._
x. 129, ascribes the fire customs of Europe to Aryans and the water
customs to the pre-Aryans. A. Bertrand, _Religion des Gaulois_, 68,
considers human sacrifice characteristically pre-Aryan. There seems
to me more hope of arriving at a knowledge of specific Mediterranean
cults, before the Aryan intermixture, from a study of the stone amulets
and cup-markings of the megaliths (Bertrand, _op. cit._ 42) or from
such investigations into ‘Mycenaean’ antiquity as that of A. J. Evans,
_Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult_ (1901). The speculations of Nietzsche,
in _A Genealogy of Morals_ and elsewhere, as to the altruistic
‘slave’ morality of the pre-Aryan and the self-regarding morality of
the conquering Aryan ‘blond beast’ are amusing or pitiful reading,
according to one’s mood.
[357] Frazer, _G. B._ i. 9 ‘The fundamental principles on which it
[savage magic] is based would seem to be reducible to two: first, that
like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and second,
that things which have once been in contact, but have ceased to be so,
continue to act upon each other as if the contact still persisted.
From the first of these principles, the savage infers that he can
produce any desired effect merely by imitating it; from the second he
concludes that he can influence at pleasure and at any distance any
person of whom, or any thing of which, he possesses a particle. Magic
of the latter sort, resting as it does on the belief in a certain
secret sympathy which unites indissolubly things that have once been
connected with each other may appropriately be termed sympathetic
in the strict sense of the term. Magic of the former kind, in which
the supposed cause resembles or simulates the supposed effect, may
conveniently be described as imitative or mimetic.’ Cf. Jevons, 31 ‘The
savage makes the generalization that like produces like; and then he is
provided with the means of bringing about anything he wishes, for to
produce an effect he has only to imitate it. To cause a wind to blow,
he flaps a blanket, as the sailor still whistles to bring a whistling
gale.... If the vegetation requires rain, all that is needed is to dip
a branch in water, and with it to sprinkle the ground. Or a spray of
water squirted from the mouth will produce a mist sufficiently like
the mist required to produce the desired effect; or black clouds of
smoke will be followed by black clouds of rain.’ I do not feel that
magic is altogether a happy term for this sort of savage science. In
its ordinary sense (the ‘black art’), it certainly contains a large
element of what Dr. Frazer distinguishes from magic as religion, ‘a
propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are
believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.’
True, these powers are not to whom the orthodox religion is directed,
but the approach to them is religious in the sense of the above
definition. Such magic is in fact an amalgam of charms, which are Dr.
Frazer’s ‘magic,’ and spells, which are his ‘religion.’ But so are many
more recognized cults.
[358] Some facts of European animal worship are dealt with in two
important recent papers, one by S. Reinach in _Revue celtique_, xxi.
269, the other by N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 227. The relation of
such worship to the group of savage social institutions classed as
totemism is a difficult and far from solved problem, which cannot be
touched upon here.
[359] Gummere, 39; Caesar, _de B. G._ iv. 1. 7; vi. 22. 2; Tacitus,
_Germ._ 26.
[360] Schräder-Jevons, 281, says that the Indo-Europeans begin their
history ‘acquainted with the rudiments of agriculture,’ but ‘still
possessed with nomadic tendencies.’ He adds that considerable progress
must have been made before the dispersion of the European branches, and
points out that agriculture would naturally develop when the migratory
hordes from the steppes reached the great forests of central Europe.
For this there would be two reasons, the greater fertility of the soil
and the narrowed space for pasturage. On the other hand, V. Hehn,
_Culturpflanzen und Haustiere_, and Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, i. 16,
find the traces of agriculture amongst the undivided Indo-Europeans
very slight; the word yáva-ζέα, which is common to the tongues, need
mean nothing more than a wild cereal.
[361] Jevons, 240, 255; Pearson, ii. 42; O. T. Mason, _Woman’s Share in
Primitive Culture_, 14.
[362] Burne-Jackson, 352, 362; Rhys, _C. F._ i. 312; _F. L._ v. 339;
Dyer, 133; Ditchfield, 70; cf. ch. vi. One of the hills so visited is
the artificial one of Silbury, and perhaps the custom points to the
object with which this and the similar ‘mound’ at Marlborough were
piled up.
[363] Frazer, ii. 261, deals very fully with the theriomorphic
corn-spirits of folk belief.
[364] On these triads and others in which three male or three female
figures appear, cf. Bertrand, 341; A. Maury, _Croyances et Légendes
du Moyen Âge_ (1896), 6; _Matronen-Kultus_ in _Zeitschrift d. Vereins
f. Volkskultur_, ii. 24. I have not yet seen L. L. Paine, _The Ethnic
Trinities and their Relation to the Christian Trinity_ (1901).
[365] Mogk, iii. 333; Golther, 298; Grimm, iv. 1709; Kemble, i. 335;
Rhys, _C. H._ 282; H. M. Chadwick, _Cult of Othin_ (1899).
[366] Mogk, iii. 366; Golther, 428.
[367] Mogk, iii. 374; Golther, 488; Tille, _Y. and C._ 144; Bede, _de
temp. ratione_, c. 15 (_Opera_, ed. Giles, vi. 179) ‘Eostur-monath
qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum, quae
Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit;
a cuius nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae
observationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.’ There
seems no reason for thinking with Golther and Tille, that Bede made a
mistake. Charlemagne took the name _Ôstarmánoth_ for April, perhaps
only out of compliment to the English, such as Alcuin, at his court.
[368] _A Charm for unfruitful or bewitched land_ (O. Cockayne,
_Leechdoms of Early England_, R. S. i. 399); cf. Grimm, i. 253;
Golther, 455; Kögel, i. 1. 39. The ceremony has taken on a Christian
colouring, but retains many primitive features. Strips of turf are
removed, and masses said over them. They are replaced after oil,
honey, barm, milk of every kind of cattle, twigs of every tree, and
holy water have been put on the spot. Seed is bought at a double price
from almsmen and poured into a hole in the plough with salt and herbs.
Various invocations are used, including one which calls on ‘Erce, Erce,
Erce, Eorthan modor,’ and implores the Almighty to grant her fertility.
Then the plough is driven, and a loaf, made of every kind of corn with
milk and holy water, laid under the first furrow. Kögel considers
_Erce_ to be derived from _ero_, ‘earth.’ Brooke, i. 217, states on
the authority of Montanus that a version of the prayer preserved in
a convent at Corvei begins ‘Eostar, Eostar, Eordhan modor.’ He adds:
‘nothing seems to follow from this clerical error.’ But why an error?
The equation Erce-Eostre is consistent with the fundamental identity of
the light-goddess and the earth-goddess.
[369] Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 51; Mogk, iii. 373; Golther, 458; cf. ch. xii.
[370] Gomme, _Village Community_, 157; B. C. A. Windle, _Life in Early
Britain_, 200; F. W. Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, 142, 337,
346.
[371] I have followed in many points the views on Teutonic chronology
of Tille, _Deutsches Weihnacht_ (1893) and _Yule and Christmas_ (1899),
which are accepted in the main by O. Schräder, _Reallexicon der
indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, s.vv. Jahr, Jahreszeiten, and partly
correct those of Weinhold, _Ueber die deutsche Jahrtheilung_ (1862),
and Grotefend, _Die Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters_ (1891).
[372] In Scandinavia the winter naturally began earlier and ended
later. Throughout, Scandinavian seasons diverged from those of
Germany and the British Isles. In particular the high summer feast
and the consequent tripartition of the year do not seem to have
established themselves (_C. P. B._ i. 430). Further south the period
of stall-feeding was extended when a better supply of fodder made it
possible (Tille, _Y. and C._ 56, 62; Burne-Jackson, 380).
[373] Cf. ch. xi, where the winter feasts are discussed in more detail.
[374] Grimm, ii. 675, 693, 762, notes the heralds of summer.
[375] Jahn, 34; Mogk, iii. 387; Golther, 572; Schräder-Jevons, 303.
The Germans still knew three seasons only when they came into contact
with the Romans; cf. Tacitus, _Germ._ 26 ‘annum quoque ipsum non
in totidem digerunt species: hiems et ver et aestas intellectum ac
vocabula habent, autumni perinde nomen ac bona ignorantur.’ I do not
agree with Tille, _Y. and C._ 6, that the tripartition of the year, in
this pre-calendar form, was ‘of foreign extraction.’ Schräder shows
that it is common to the Aryan languages. The Keltic seasons, in
particular, seem to be closely parallel to the Teutonic. Of the three
great Keltic feasts described by Rhys, _C. H._ 409, 513, 676; _C. F._
i. 308, the Lugnassad was probably the harvest feast, the Samhain the
old beginning of winter feast, and the Beltain the high summer feast.
The meaning of ‘Beltain’ (cf. _N. E. D._ s.v. Beltane) seems quite
uncertain. A connexion is possible but certainly unproved with the
Abelio of the Pyrenean inscriptions, the Belenus-Apollo of those of
the eastern Alps, and, more rarely, Provence (Röscher, _Lexicon_, s.v.
Belenus; Holder, _Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz_, s.vv. Belenus, Abelio;
Ausonius, _Professores_, iv. 7), or the Bel of Bohemia mentioned by
Allso (ch. xii). The Semitic Baal, although a cult of Belus, found its
way into the Roman world (cf. Appendix N, No. xxxii, and Wissowa, 302),
is naturally even a less plausible relation. But it is dear to the
folk-etymologist; cf. e.g. S. M. Mayhew, _Baalism_ in _Trans. of St.
Paul’s Ecclesiological Society_, i. 83.
[376] Tille, _Y. and C._ 7, 148, suggests an Egyptian or Babylonian
origin, but the equation of the Gothic _Jiuleis_ and the Cypriote
ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος, ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος as names for winter periods makes a
Mediterranean connexion seem possible.
[377] Cf. ch. xi.
[378] Grimm, ii. 615, notes that Easter fires are normal in the
north, Midsummer fires in the south of Germany. The Beltane fires
both of Scotland and Ireland are usually on May 1, but some of the
Irish examples collected by J. Jamieson, _Etym. Dict. of the Scottish
Language_, s. v., are at midsummer.
[379] Tille, _Y. and C._ 71; Rhys, _C. H._ 419. The primitive year
was thermometric, not astronomic, its critical moments, not the
solstices, a knowledge of which means science, but the sensible
increase and diminution of heat in spring and autumn. The solstices
came through Rome. The _Sermo Eligii_ (Grimm, iv. 1737) has ‘nullus
in festivitate S. Ioannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemnitatibus
solstitia ... exerceat,’ but Eligius was a seventh-century bishop,
and this _Sermo_ may have been interpolated in the eighth century
(O. Reich, _Über Audoen’s Lebensbeschreibung des heiligen Eligius_
(1872), cited in _Rev. celtique_, ix. 433). It is not clear that the
un-Romanized Teuton or Kelt made a god of the sun, as distinct from the
heaven-god, who of course has solar attributes and emblems. In the same
_Sermo_ Eligius says ‘nullus dominos solem aut lunam vocet, neque per
eos iuret.’ But the notion of ‘domini’ may be post-Roman, and the oath
is by the permanent, rather than the divine; cf. A. de Jubainville,
_Intr. à l’Étude de la Litt. celt._ 181. It is noticeable that German
names for the sun are originally feminine and for the moon masculine.
[380] Mogk, iii. 393; Golther, 584; Jahn, 84; Caspari, 35; Saupe,
7; Hauck, ii. 357; Michels, 93. The ploughing feast is probably
the _spurcalia_ of the _Indiculus_ and of Eadhelm, _de laudibus
virginitatis_, c. 25, and the _dies spurci_ of the _Hom. de
Sacrilegiis_. This term appears in the later German name for February,
_Sporkele_. It seems to be founded on Roman analogy from _spurcus_,
‘unclean.’ Pearson, ii. 159, would, however, trace it to an Aryan root
_spherag_, ‘swell,’ ‘burst,’ ‘shoot.’ Bede, _de temp. rat._ c. 15,
calls February _Sol-monath_, which he explains as ‘mensis placentarum.’
September, the month of the harvest-festival, is _Haleg-monath_, or
‘mensis sacrorum.’
[381] Pfannenschmidt, 244; Brand, ii. 1; Ditchfield, 130;
Burne-Jackson, 439; Burton, _Rushbearing_, 147; Schaff, vi. 544;
Duchesne, 385. The dedication of churches was solemnly carried out
from the fourth century, and the anniversary observed. Gregory the
Great ordered ‘solemnitates ecclesiarum dedicationum per singulos
annos sunt celebrandae.’ The A.-S. _Canons_ of Edgar (960), c. 28
(Wilkins, i. 227), require them to be kept with sobriety. Originally
the anniversary, as well as the actual dedication day, was observed
with an all night watch, whence the name _vigilia_, wakes. Belethus,
_de rat. offic._ (_P. L._ ccii. 141), c. 137, says that the custom was
abolished owing to the immorality to which it led. But the ‘eve’ of
these and other feasts continued to share in the sanctity of the ‘day,’
a practice in harmony with the European sense of the precedence of
night over day (cf. Schräder-Jevons, 311; Bertrand, 267, 354, 413). An
Act of Convocation in 1536 (Wilkins, iii. 823) required all wakes to
be held on the first Sunday in October, but it does not appear to have
been very effectual.
[382] S. O. Addy, in _F. L._ xii. 394, has a full account of ‘Garland
day’ at Castleton, Derbyshire, on May 29; cf. _F. L._ xii. 76
(Wishford, Wilts); Burne-Jackson, 365.
[383] The classification of agricultural feasts in U. Jahn, _Die
deutschen Opfergebräuche_, seems throughout to be based less on the
facts of primitive communal agriculture, than on those of the more
elaborate methods of the later farms with their variety of crops.
[384] Frazer, i. 193; ii. 96; Brand, i. 125; Dyer, 223; Ditchfield, 95;
Philpot, 144; Grimm, ii. 762; &c., &c. A single example of the custom
is minutely studied by S. O. Addy, _Garland Day at Castleton_, in _F.
L._ xii. 394.
[385] A. B. Gomme, ii. 507; Hartland, _Perseus_, ii. 187; Grimm, iv.
1738, 1747; Gaidoz, _Un vieux rite médical_ (1893).
[386] Tacitus, _Germania_, 40.
[387] Vigfusson and Ungar, _Flateyjarbok_, i. 337; Grimm, i. 107;
Gummere, _G. O._ 433; Mogk, iii. 321; Golther, 228.
[388] Sozomenes, _Hist. Eccles._ vi. 37. Cf. also _Indiculus_ (ed.
Saupe, 32) ‘de simulacro, quod per campos portant,’ the fifth-century
_Vita S. Martini_, c. 12, by Sulpicius Severus (_Opera_, ed. Halm,
in _Corp. Script. Eccl. Hist._ i. 122) ‘quia esset haec Gallorum
rusticis consuetudo, simulacra daemonum, candido tecta velamine, misera
per agros suos circumferre dementia,’ and Alsso’s account of the
fifteenth-century _calendisationes_ in Bohemia (ch. xii).
[389] Cf. ch. x.
[390] Cf. _Representations_ (Chester, London, York). There were similar
watches at Nottingham (Deering, _Hist. of Nott._ 123), Worcester
(Smith, _English Gilds_, 408), Lydd and Bristol (Green, _Town Life in
the Fifteenth Century_, i. 148), and on St. Thomas’s day (July 7) at
Canterbury (_Arch. Cant._ xii. 34; _Hist. MSS._ ix. 1. 148).
[391] Harris, 7; Hartland, _Fairy Tales_, 71.
[392] Dyer, 205.
[393] Cf. ch. viii.
[394] Dyer, 275; Ditchfield, III; cf. the phrase ‘in and out the
windows’ of the singing game _Round and Round the Village_ (A. B.
Gomme, s. v.).
[395] M. Deloche, _Le Tour de la Lunade_, in _Rev. celtique_, ix. 425;
Bérenger-Féraud, i. 423; iii. 167.
[396] Bower, 13.
[397] Duchesne, 276; Usener, i. 293; Tille, _Y. and C._ 51; W. W.
Fowler, 124; Boissier, _La Religion romaine_, i. 323. The Rogations or
_litaniae minores_ represent in Italy the Ambarvalia on May 29. But
they are of Gallican origin, were begun by Mamertus, bishop of Vienne
(†470), adapted by the _Council of Orleans_ (511), c. 27 (Mansi, viii.
355), and required by the English _Council of Clovesho_ (747), c. 16
(Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 368), to be held ‘non admixtis vanitatibus, uti
mos est plurimis, vel negligentibus, vel imperitis, id est in ludis
et equorum cursibus, et epulis maioribus.’ Jahn, 147, quotes the
German abbess Marcsuith (940), who describes them as ‘pro gentilicio
Ambarvali,’ and adds, ‘confido autem de Patroni huius misericordia,
quod sic ab eo gyrade terrae semina uberius provenient, et variae
aeris inclementiae cessent.’ Mediaeval Rogation litanies are in _Sarum
Processional_, 103, and York Processional (_York Manual_, 182). The
more strictly Roman _litania major_ on St. Mark’s day (March 25) takes
the place of the _Robigalia_, but is not of great importance in English
folk-custom.
[398] _Injunctions_, ch. xix, of 1559 (Gee-Hardy, _Docts. illustrative
of English Church History_, 426). Thanks are to be given to God ‘for
the increase and abundance of his fruits upon the face of the earth.’
The _Book of Homilies_ contains an exhortation to be used on the
occasion. The episcopal injunctions and interrogatories in _Ritual
Commission_, 404, 409, 416, &c., endeavour to preserve the Rogations,
and to eliminate ‘superstition’ from them; for the development of the
notion of ‘beating of bounds,’ cf. the eighteenth-century notices in
Dyer, _Old English Social Life_, 196.
[399] The image is represented by the doll of the May-garland, which
has sometimes, according to Ditchfield, 102, become the Virgin Mary,
with a child doll in its arms, and at other times (e.g. Castleton,
_F. L._ xii. 469) has disappeared, leaving the name of ‘queen’ to a
particular bunch of flowers; also by the ‘giant’ of the midsummer
watch. The Salisbury giant, St. Christopher, with his hobby-horse,
Hob-nob, is described in _Rev. d. T. P._ iv. 601.
[400] Grimm, i. 257; Golther, 463; Mogk, iii. 374; Hahn, _Demeter und
Baubo_, 38; Usener, _Die Sintfluthsagen_, 115. There are parallels
in south European custom, both classical and modern, and Usener even
derives the term ‘carnival,’ not from _carnem levare_, but from the
_currus navalis_ used by Roman women. A modern survival at Fréjus is
described in _F. L._ xii. 307.
[401] Ditchfield, 103; _Transactions of Devonshire Association_, xv.
104; cf. the Noah’s ship procession at Hull (_Representations_, s. v.).
[402] Brand, ii. 223; Grimm, ii. 584; Elton, 284; Gomme, _Ethnology_,
73; Hartland, _Perseus_, ii. 175; Haddon, 362; Vaux, 269; Wood-Martin,
ii. 46; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 291; R. C. Hope, _Holy Wells_; M.-L.
Quiller-Couch, _Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall_ (1894); J. Rhys,
_C. F._ i. 332, 354, and in _F. L._ iii. 74, iv. 55; A. W. Moore, in
_F. L._ v. 212; H. C. March, in _F. L._ x. 479 (Dorset).
[403] A. B. Gomme, s. v.; Haddon, 362.
[404] Schaff, iii. 247; Duchesne, 281, 385; Rock, iii. 2. 101, 180;
Maskell, i. cccxi; Feasey, 235; Wordsworth, 24; Pfannenschmidt,
_Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus_ (1869). The
_Benedictio Fontium_ took place on Easter Saturday, in preparation for
the baptism which in the earliest times was a characteristic Easter
rite. The formulae are in _York Missal_, i. 121; _Sarum Missal_, 350;
Maskell, i. 13.
[405] Frazer, iii. 237; Gomme, in _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 626;
Simpson, 195; Grenier, 380; Gaidoz, 16; Bertrand, 98; Gummere, _G. O._
400; Grimm, ii. 601; Jahn, 25; Brand, i. 127, 166; Dyer, 269, 311, 332;
Ditchfield, 141; Cortet, 211.
[406] To this custom may possibly be traced the black-a-vised figures
who are persistent in the folk _ludi_, and also the curious tradition
which makes May-day especially the chimney-sweeps’ holiday.
[407] The reasons given are various, ‘to keep off hail’ (whence
the term _Hagelfeuer_ mentioned by Pfannenschmidt, 67), ‘vermin,’
‘caterpillars,’ ‘blight,’ ‘to make the fields fertile.’ In Bavaria
torches are carried round the fields ‘to drive away the wicked
sower’ (of tares?). In Northumberland raids are made on the ashes of
neighbouring villages (Dyer, 332).
[408] Cf. p. 113.
[409] I know of no English Easter folk-fires, but St. Patrick is said
to have lit one on the hill of Slane, opposite Tara, on Easter Eve, 433
(Feasey, 180).
[410] Schaff, v. 403; Duchesne, 240; Rock, iii. 2. 71, 94, 98, 107,
244; Feasey, 184; Wordsworth, 204; Frazer, iii. 245; Jahn, 129;
Grimm, ii. 616; Simpson, 198. The formulae of the _benedictio ignis_
and _benedictio cereorum_ at Candlemas, and the _benedictio ignis_,
_benedictio incensi_, and _benedictio cerei_ on Easter Eve, are in
_Sarum Missal_, 334, 697; _York Missal_, i. 109; ii. 17. One York MS.
has ‘Paschae ignis de berillo vel de silice exceptus ... accenditur.’
The correspondence between Pope Zacharias and St. Boniface shows
that the lighting of the _ignis_ by a crystal instead of from a lamp
kept secretly burning distinguished Gallican from Roman ceremonial
in the eighth century (Jaffé, 2291). All the lights in the church
are previously put out, and this itself has become a ceremony in the
_Tenebrae_. Ecclesiastical symbolism explained the extinction and
rekindling of lights as typifying the Resurrection. Sometimes the
_ignis_ provides a light for the folk-fire outside.
[411] Belethus (†1162), _de Div. Offic._ c. 137 (_P. L._ ccii. 141),
gives three customs of St. John’s Eve. Bones are burnt, because (1)
there are dragons in air, earth, and water, and when these ‘in aere ad
libidinem concitantur, quod fere fit, saepe ipsum sperma vel in puteos
vel in aquas fluviales eiiciunt, ex quo lethalis sequitur annus,’ but
the smoke of the bonfires drives them away; and (2) because St. John’s
bones were burnt in Sebasta. Torches are carried, because St. John was
a shining light. A wheel is rolled, because of the solstice, which
is made appropriate to St. John by _St. John_ iii. 30. The account
of Belethus is amplified by Durandus, _Rationale Div. Offic._ (ed.
corr. Antwerp, 1614) vii. 14, and taken in turn from Durandus by a
fifteenth-century monk of Winchelscombe in a sermon preserved in _Harl.
MS._ 2345, f. 49 (b).
[412] Gaidoz, 24, 109; Bertrand, 122; Dyer, 323; Stubbes, i. 339, from
Naogeorgos; Usener, ii. 81; and the mediaeval calendar in Brand, i. 179.
[413] Gomme, in _Brit. Ass. Rep._ (1896), 636 (Moray, Mull); _F. L._
ix. 280 (Caithness, with illustration of wood used); Kemble, i. 360
(Perthshire in 1826, Devonshire).
[414] Grimm, ii. 603; Kemble, i. 359; Elton, 293; Frazer, iii. 301;
Gaidoz, 22; Jahn, 26; Simpson, 196; Bertrand, 107; Golther, 570. The
English term is _need-fire_, Scotch _neidfyre_, German _Nothfeuer_. It
is variously derived from _nôt_ ‘need,’ _niuwan_ ‘rub,’ or _hniotan_
‘press.’ If the last is right, the English form should perhaps be
_knead-fire_ (Grimm, ii. 607, 609; Golther, 570). Another German term
is _Wildfeuer_. The Gaelic _tin-egin_ is from _tin_ ‘fire,’ and _egin_
‘violence’ (Grimm, ii. 609). For ecclesiastical prohibitions cf.
_Indiculus_ (Saupe, 20) ‘de igne fricato de ligno, i. e. _nodfyr_’;
_Capit. Karlmanni_ (742), c. 5 (Grimm, ii. 604) ‘illos sacrilegos ignes
quos _niedfyr_ vocant.’
[415] Gaidoz, 1; Bertrand, 109, 140; Simpson, 109, 240; Rhys, _C. H._
54. The commonest form of the symbol is the swastika, but others appear
to be found in the ‘hammer’ of Thor, and on the altars and statues of a
Gaulish deity equated in the _interpretatio Romana_ with Jupiter. There
is a wheel decoration on the _barelle_ or cars of the Gubbio _ceri_
(Bower, 4).
[416] Brand, i. 97; Dyer, 159; Ditchfield, 78. Eggs are used
ceremonially at the Scotch Beltane fires (Frazer, iii. 261; Simpson,
285). Strings of birds’ eggs are hung on the Lynn May garland (_F. L._
x. 443). In Dauphiné an omelette is made when the sun rises on St.
John’s day (Cortet, 217). In Germany children are sent to look for
the Easter eggs in the nest of a hare, a very divine animal. Among
the miscellaneous Benedictions in the _Sarum Manual_, with the _Ben.
Seminis_ and the _Ben. Pomorum in die S^{ti} Iacobi_ are a _Ben.
Carnis Casei Butyri Ovorum sive Pastillarum in Pascha_ and a _Ben.
Agni Paschalis, Ovorum et Herbarum in die Paschae_. These Benedictions
are little more than graces. The _Durham Accounts_, i. 71-174, contain
entries of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century payments ‘fratribus et
sororibus de Wytton pro eorum Egsilver erga festum pasche.’
[417] _Tw. N._ i. 3. 42 ‘He’s a coward and a coystrill, that will not
drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe like a parish-top.’
Steevens says ‘a large top was formerly kept in every village, to
be whipt in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by
exercise and out of mischief while they could not work.’ This is
evidently a ‘fake’ of the ‘Puck of commentators.’ Hone, _E. D. B._
i. 199, says ‘According to a story (whether true or false), in one
of the churches of Paris, a choir boy used to whip a top marked with
_Alleluia_, written in gold letters, from one end of the choir to the
other.’ The ‘burial of Alleluia’ is shown later on to be a mediaeval
perversion of an agricultural rite. On the whole question of tops, see
Haddon, 255; A. B. Gomme, s. v.
[418] Leber, ix. 391; Barthélemy, iv. 447; Du Tilliot, 30; Grenier,
385; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 427; Belethus, c. 120 ‘Sunt nonnullae
ecclesiae in quibus usitatum est, ut vel etiam episcopi et
archiepiscopi in coenobiis cum suis ludant subditis, ita ut etiam se
ad lusum pilae demittant. atque haec quidem libertas ideo dicta est
decembrica ... quamquam vero magnae ecclesiae, ut est Remensis, hanc
ludendi consuetudinem observent, videtur tamen laudabilius esse non
ludere’; Durandus, vi. 86 ‘In quibusdam locis hac die, in aliis in
Natali, praelati cum suis clericis ludunt, vel in claustris, vel in
domibus episcopalibus; ita ut etiam descendant ad ludum pilae, vel
etiam ad choreas et cantus, &c.’ Often the ball play was outside the
church, but the canons of Evreux on their return from the _procession
noire_ of May 1, played ‘ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae’; and the
Easter _pilota_ of Auxerre which lasted to 1538, took place in the nave
before vespers. Full accounts of this ceremony have been preserved.
The dean and canons danced and tossed the ball, singing the _Victimae
paschali_. For examples of Easter hand-ball or marbles in English
folk-custom, cf. Brand, i. 103; Vaux, 240; _F. L._ xii. 75; Mrs. Gomme,
s. v. _Handball_.
[419] Brand, i. 93; Burne-Jackson, 335. A Norfolk version (_F. L._ vii.
90) has ‘dances as if in agony.’ On the Mendips (_F. L._ v. 339) what
is expected is ‘a lamb in the sun.’ The moon, and perhaps the sun also,
is sometimes ‘wobbly,’ ‘jumping’ or ‘skipping,’ owing to the presence
of strata of air differing in humidity or temperature, and so changing
the index of refraction (Nicholson, _Golspie_, 186). At Pontesford Hill
in Shropshire (Burne-Jackson, 330) the pilgrimage was on Palm Sunday,
actually to pluck a sprig from a haunted yew, traditionally ‘to look
for the golden arrow,’ which must be solar. In the Isle of Man hills,
on which are sacred wells, are visited on the Lugnassad, to gather
ling-berries. Others say that it is because of Jephthah’s daughter, who
went up and down on the mountains and bewailed her virginity. And the
old folk now stop at home and read _Judges_ xi (Rhys, _C. F._ i. 312).
On the place of hill-tops in agricultural religion cf. p. 106, and for
the use of elevated spots for sun-worship at Rome, ch. xi.
[420] Simpson, _passim_; cf. _F. L._ vi. 168; xi. 220. _Deasil_ is from
Gaelic _deas_, ‘right,’ ‘south.’ Mediaeval ecclesiastical processions
went ‘contra solis cursum et morem ecclesiasticum’ only in seasons of
woe or sadness (Rock, iii. 2. 182).
[421] Dr. Murray kindly informs me that the etymology of _withershins_
(A.-S. _wiþersynes_) is uncertain. It is from _wiþer_, ‘against,’
and either some lost noun, or one derived from _séon_, ‘to see,’ or
_sinþ_, ‘course.’ The original sense is simply ‘backwards,’ and the
equivalence with _deasil_ not earlier than the seventeenth century. A
folk-etymology from _shine_ may account for the aspirate.
[422] Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 196; Jevons, 130;
Frazer, ii. 352; Grant Allen, 318; Hartland, ii. 236; Turnbull, _The
Blood Covenant_. Perhaps, as a third type of sacrifice, should be
distinguished the ‘alimentary’ sacrifice of food and other things made
to the dead. This rests on the belief in the continuance of the mortal
life with its needs and desires after death.
[423] Grimm, i. 47; Golther, 565; Gummere, _G. O._ 40, 457. Gregory III
wrote (†731) to Boniface (_P. L._ lxxxix. 577) ‘inter cetera agrestem
caballum aliquantos comedere adiunxisti plerosque et domesticum.
hoc nequaquam fieri deinceps sinas,’ cf. _Councils of Cealcythe and
Pincanhale_ (787), c. 19 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 458) ‘equos etiam
plerique in vobis comedunt, quod nullus Christianorum in Orientalibus
facit.’ The decking of horses is a familiar feature of May-day in
London and elsewhere.
[424] C. J. Billson, _The Easter Hare_, in _F. L._ iii. 441.
[425] N. W. Thomas in _F. L._ xi. 227.
[426] Grimm, i. 55; Golther, 559, 575; Gummere, _G. O._ 456. The
universal Teutonic term for sacrificing is _blôtan_.
[427] Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 20; Jevons, 130, 191. Does the modern
huntsman know why he ‘bloods’ a novice?
[428] Grimm, i. 47, 57, 77; Jahn, 24; Gummere, _G. O._ 459. Hence the
theriomorphic ‘image.’
[429] Robertson Smith, 414, 448; Jevons, 102, 285; Frazer, ii. 448;
Lang, _M. R. R._^1 ii. 73, 80, 106, 214, 226; Grant Allen, 335; Du
Méril, _Com._ i. 75. Hence the theriomorphic _larva_ or mask (Frazer,
_Pausanias_, iv. 239).
[430] Grimm, i. 46, 57; Golther, 576; Frazer, ii. 318, 353; Jevons,
144; Grant Allen, 325. Savages believe that by eating an animal they
will acquire its bodily and mental qualities.
[431] Jahn, 14, and for classical parallels Frazer, ii. 315;
_Pausanias_, iii. 288; Jevons, _Plutarch_, lxix. 143. Grant Allen, 292,
was told as a boy in Normandy that at certain lustrations ‘a portion of
the Host (stolen or concealed, I imagine) was sometimes buried in each
field.’
[432] Frazer, ii. 318; Grant Allen, 337; Jevons, 206.
[433] _F. L._ vi. 1.
[434] Frazer, ii. 319; Jevons, 214; cf. the πάνσπερμα at the Athenian
Pyanepsia.
[435] In the Beltane rite (_F. L._ vi. 2) a bit of the bannock is
reserved for the ‘cuack’ or cuckoo, here doubtless the inheritor of the
gods.
[436] Grimm, iii. 1240.
[437] Elton, 428.
[438] Grimm, i. 59; Gummere, _G. O._ 455.
[439] V. Hehn, _Culturpflanzen_, 438.
[440] Grimm, i. 44, 48, 53; Golther, 561; Gummere, _G. O._ 459;
Schräder, 422; Mogk, iii. 388; Meyer, 199, and for Keltic evidence
Elton, 270. Many of these examples belong rather to the war than to
the agricultural cult. The latest in the west are _Capit. de partib.
Saxon._ 9 ‘Si quis hominem diabolo sacrificaverit et in hostiam, more
paganorum, daemonibus obtulerit’; _Lex Frisionum_, additio sup. tit.
42 ‘qui fanum effregerit ... immolatur diis, quorum templa violavit’;
_Epist. Greg. III_, 1 (_P. L._ lxxxix, 578) ‘hoc quoque inter alia
crimina agi in partibus illis dixisti, quod quidam ex fidelibus ad
immolandum paganis sua venundent mancipia.’
[441] Frazer, ii. 1; Jevons, 279.
[442] Frazer, ii. 5, 59.
[443] Strabo, iv. 5. 4; Bastian, _Oestl. Asien_, v. 272. The Mexican
evidence given by Frazer, iii. 134, does not necessarily represent a
primitive notion of the nature of the rite.
[444] Jevons, 291; _Plutarch_, lxx. For traces of the blood-guiltiness
incurred by sacrifice, cf. the βουφόνια at Athens and the _regifugium_
at Rome (Frazer, ii. 294; Robertson Smith, i. 286).
[445] Frazer, ii. 15, 55, 232; Jevons, 280; Grant Allen, 242, 296, 329.
[446] In three successive years of famine the Swedes sacrificed first
oxen, then men, finally their king Dômaldi himself (_Ynglingasaga_, c.
18).
[447] Frazer, ii. 24; Jevons, 280; Grant Allen, 296.
[448] The British rule in India forbids human sacrifice, and the
Khonds, a Dravidian race of Bengal, have substituted animal for human
victims within the memory of man (Frazer, ii. 245).
[449] Hartland, iii. 1; Frazer, _Pausanias_, iv. 197; v. 44, 143;
Bérenger-Féraud, i. 207. Mr. Frazer enumerates forty-one versions of
the legend.
[450] Hartland, iii. 81; Grimm, ii. 494; Gummere, _G. O._ 396. The
slaves of Nerthus were drowned in the same lake in which the goddess
was dipped.
[451] _F. L._ vi. i.
[452] Frazer, iii. 319; Gaidoz, 27; Cortet, 213; Simpson, 221;
Bertrand, 68; _F. L._ xii. 315. The work of Posidonius does not
exist, but was possibly used by Caesar, _B. G._ vi. 15; Strabo, iv.
4. 5; Diodorus, v. 32. Wicker ‘giants’ are still burnt in some French
festival-fires. But elsewhere, as in the midsummer shows, such ‘giants’
seem to be images of the agricultural divinities, and it is not clear
by what process they came to be burnt and so destroyed. Perhaps they
were originally only smoked, just as they were dipped.
[453] Gomme, _Ethnology_, 137; _F. L._ ii. 300; x. 101; xii. 217; Vaux,
287; Rhys, _C. F._ i. 306.
[454] _F. L._ ii. 302; Rhys, _C. F._ i. 307. In 1656, bulls were
sacrificed near Dingwall (_F. L._ x. 353). A few additional examples,
beyond those here given, are mentioned by N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi.
247.
[455] 1 _N. Q._ vii. 353; Gomme, _Ethnology_, 32; _Village Community_,
113; Grant Allen, 290. The custom was extinct when it was first
described in 1853, and some doubt has recently been thrown upon the
‘altar,’ the ‘struggle’ and other details; cf. _Trans. of Devonshire
Assn._ xxviii. 99; _F. L._ viii. 287.
[456] 1 _N. Q._ vii. 353; Gomme, _Ethnology_, 30; Vaux, 285.
[457] Blount, _Jocular Tenures_ (ed. Beckwith), 281; Dyer, 297.
[458] Dunkin, _Hist. of Bicester_ (1816), 268; P. Manning, in _F. L._
viii. 313.
[459] P. Manning, in _F. L._ viii. 310; Dyer, 282.
[460] N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 227; Dyer, 285, 438, 470;
Ditchfield, 85, 131.
[461] Certain lands were held of the chapter for which a fat buck was
paid on the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), and a fat doe on the
Commemoration of St. Paul (June 30). They were offered, according to
one writer, alive, at the high altar; the flesh was baked, the head and
horns carried in festal procession. The custom dated from at least 1274
(Dyer, 49; W. Sparrow Simpson, _St. Paul’s Cath. and Old City Life_,
234).
[462] _F. L._ iv. 9; x. 355. White bulls are said to have been led
to the shrine by women desirous of children. F. C. Conybeare, in _R.
de l’Hist. des Religions_, xliv. 108, describes some survivals of
sacrificial rites in the Armenian church which existed primitively in
other Greek churches also.
[463] _F. L._ vii. 346. Bull-baiting often took place on festivals, and
in several cases, as at Tutbury, the bull was driven into or over a
river. Bear-baiting is possibly a later variant of the sport.
[464] Burton, 165; _Suffolk F. L._ 71; Ditchfield, 227; Dyer, 387;
Pfannenschmidt, 279; cf. the Abbots Bromley Horn-dance (ch. viii).
[465] _F. L._ iv. 5. The custom of sacrifice at the foundation of a new
building has also left traces: cf. Grant Allen, 248; _F. L._ xi. 322,
437; Speth, _Builders’ Rites and Ceremonies_.
[466] Douce, 598, gives a cut of a hobby-horse, i. e. a man riding
a pasteboard or wicker horse with his legs concealed beneath a
foot-cloth. According to Du Méril, _Com._ i. 79, 421, the device
is known throughout Europe. In France it is the _chevalet_,
_cheval-mallet_, _cheval-fol_, &c.; in Germany the _Schimmel_.
[467] Dyer, 182, 266, 271; Ditchfield, 97; Burton, 40; _F. L._ viii.
309, 313, 317; cf. ch. ix on the ‘fool’ or ‘squire’ in the sword and
morris dances, and ch. xvi on his court and literary congener. The
folk-fool wears a cow’s tail or fox’s brush, or carries a stick with a
tail at one end and a bladder and peas at the other. He often wears a
mask or has his face blacked. In Lancashire he is sometimes merged with
the ‘woman’ grotesque of the folk-festivals, and called ‘owd Bet.’
[468] W. Gregor, _F. L. of N. E. Scotland_, 181, says that bread and
cheese were actually laid in the field, and in the plough when it was
‘strykit.’
[469] Dyer, 20, 207, 447; Ditchfield, 46; _F. L._ vi. 93. Pirminius
v. Reichenau, _Dicta_ (†753), c. 22, forbids ‘effundere super truncum
frugem et vinum.’
[470] _F. L. Congress_, 449, gives a list of about fifty ‘feasten’
cakes. Some are quite local; others, from the Shrove Tuesday pancake to
the Good Friday hot cross bun, widespread.
[471] Grimm, i. 57; Frazer, ii. 344; Grant Allen, 339; Jevons, 215;
Dyer, 165; Ditchfield, 81.
[472] _F. L._ vi. 57; viii. 354; ix. 362; x. 111.
[473] _F. L._ vi. 1.
[474] Ditchfield, 116, 227; _Suffolk F. L._ 108; Dyer, _Old English
Social Life_, 197. The boys are now said to be whipped in order that
they may remember the boundaries; but the custom, which sometimes
includes burying them, closely resembles the symbolical sacrifices of
the harvest field (p. 158). Grant Allen, 270, suggests that the tears
shed are a rain-charm. I hope he is joking.
[475] Brand, ii. 13; _Suffolk F. L._ 69, 71; _Leicester F. L._ 121. A
‘harvest-lord’ is probably meant by the ‘Rex Autumnalis’ mentioned in
the _Accounts_ of St. Michael’s, Bath (ed. Somerset Arch. Soc. 88),
in 1487, 1490, and 1492. A _corona_ was hired by him from the parish.
Often the reaper who cuts the last sheaf (i.e. slays the divinity)
becomes harvest-lord.
[476] Gomme, _Village Community_, 107; Dyer, 339; Northall, 202;
_Gloucester F. L._ 33.
[477] Frazer, i. 216; E. Pabst, _Die Volksfeste des Maigrafen_ (1865).
[478] Frazer, i. 219; Cortet, 160; Brand, i. 126; Dyer, 266;
Ditchfield, 98.
[479] Tacitus, _Germ._ c. 43 ‘apud Nahanarvalos antiquae religionis
lucus ostenditur. praesidet sacerdos muliebri ornatu.’
[480] _Conc. of Trullo_ (692), c. 62 (Mansi, xi. 671) ‘Nullus vir
deinceps muliebri veste induatur, vel mulier veste viro conveniente’;
_Conc. of Braga_ (of doubtful date), c. 80 (Mansi, ix. 844) ‘Si quis
ballationes ante ecclesias sanctorum fecerit, seu quis faciem suam
transformaverit in habitu muliebri et mulier in habitu viri emendatione
pollicita tres annos poeniteat.’ The exchange of head-gear between
men and women remains a familiar feature of the modern bank-holiday.
Some Greek parallels are collected by Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 197.
E. Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_ (1902), viii. 371, suggests another
explanation, which would connect the custom with the amorous side of
the primitive festivals.
[481] Frazer, ii. 93, 109.
[482] Ibid. i. 220; Brand, i. 157; Dyer, 217; Ditchfield, 97; Kelly,
62: cf. ch. viii.
[483] Pearson, ii. 24, 407. Cf. the evidence for a primitive human
pairing-season in Westermarck, 25.
[484] Purity of life is sometimes required of those who are to kindle
the new fire (Frazer, iii. 260, 302).
[485] H. Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 629; K. Groos, _Play
of Man_, 361; Hirn, 25.
[486] Gummere, _G. O._ 331.
[487] Frazer, i. 217; iii. 258.
[488] Chaucer says of the Miller (_C. T._ prol. 548):
‘At wrastlynge he wolde have alwey the ram’;
and of Sir Thopas (_C. T._ 13670):
‘Of wrastlynge was ther noon his peer,
Ther any ram shal stonde.’
Strutt, 82, figures a wrestling from _Royal MS._ 2, B. viii, with a
cock set on a pole as the prize.
[489] Cf. Appendix I., and Frazer, ii. 316; Jevons, _Plutarch_,
lxix. 143, on the struggle between two wards--the Sacred Way and the
Subura--for the head of the October Horse at Rome.
[490] Haddon, 270. The tug-of-war reappears in Korea and Japan as a
ceremony intended to secure a good harvest.
[491] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv. _Bandyball_, _Camp_, _Football_, _Hockey_,
_Hood_, _Hurling_, _Shinty_. These games, in which the ball is fought
for, are distinct from those already mentioned as having a ceremonial
use, in which it is amicably tossed from player to player (cf. p. 128).
If _Golf_ belongs to the present category, it is a case in which the
endeavour seems to be actually to bury the ball. It is tempting to
compare the name _Hockey_ with the _Hock-cart_ of the harvest festival,
and with _Hock-tide_; but it does not really seem to be anything but
_Hookey_. The original of both the hockey-stick and the golf-club was
probably the shepherd’s crook. Mr. Pepys tried to cast stones with a
shepherd’s crook on those very Epsom downs where the stockbroker now
foozles his tee shot.
[492] _F. L._ vii. 345; M. Shearman, _Athletics and Football_,
246; Haddon, 271; Gomme, _Vill. Comm._ 240; Ditchfield, 57, 64; W.
Fitzstephen, _Vita S. Thomae_ (†1170-82) in _Mat. for Hist. of Becket_
(R. S.), iii. 9, speaks of the ‘lusum pilae celebrem’ in London ‘die
quae dicitur Carnilevaria.’ Riley, 571, has a London proclamation of
1409 forbidding the levy of money for ‘foteballe’ and cok-thresshyng.’
At Chester the annual Shrove Tuesday football on the Roodee was
commuted for races in 1540 (_Hist. MSS._ viii. 1. 362). At Dublin there
was, in 1569, a Shrove Tuesday ‘riding’ of the ‘occupacions’ each
‘bearing balles’ (Gilbert, ii. 54).
[493] Haddon, _loc. cit._; Gomme, _loc. cit._; _Gloucester F. L._ 38.
Cf. the _conflictus_ described in ch. ix, and the classical parallels
in Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 267.
[494] _F. L._ iii. 441; Ditchfield, 85.
[495] _F. L._ vii. 330 (a very full account); viii. 72, 173;
Ditchfield, 50. There is a local aetiological myth about a lady who
lost her hood on a windy day, and instituted the contest in memory of
the event.
[496] Mrs. Gomme, s. v. _Oranges and Lemons_.
[497] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv.
[498] Dyer, 6, 481. ‘Stang’ is a word, of Scandinavian origin, for
‘pole’ or ‘stake.’ The Scandinavian _nið-stöng_ (scorn-stake) was a
horse’s head on a pole, with a written curse and a likeness of the man
to be ill-wished (Vigfusson, _Icel. Dict._ s. v. _níð_).
[499] Cf. with Mr. Barrett’s account, Northall, 253; Ditchfield, 178;
_Northern F. L._ 29; Julleville, _Les Com._ 205; also Thomas Hardy’s
_Mayor of Casterbridge_, and his _The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s_
(_Wessex Poems_, 201). The penalty is used by schoolboys (_Northern F.
L._ 29) as well as villagers.
[500] Grenier, 375; Ducange, s. v. _Charivarium_, which he defines as
‘ludus turpis tinnitibus et clamoribus variis, quibus illudunt iis,
qui ad secundas convolant nuptias.’ He refers to the statutes of Melun
cathedral (1365) in _Instrumenta Hist. Eccl. Melud._ ii. 503. Cf.
_Conc. of Langres_ (1404) ‘ludo quod dicitur Chareuari, in quo utuntur
larvis in figura daemonum, et horrenda ibidem committuntur’; _Conc.
of Angers_ (1448), c. 12 (Labbé, xiii. 1358) ‘pulsatione patellarum,
pelvium et campanarum, eorum oris et manibus sibilatione, instrumento
aeruginariorum, sive fabricantium, et aliarum rerum sonorosarum,
vociferationibus tumultuosis et aliis ludibriis et irrisionibus,
in illo damnabili actu (qui cariuarium, vulgariter _charivari_,
nuncupatur) circa domos nubentium, et in ipsorum detestationem et
opprobrium post eorum secundas nuptias fieri consuetum, &c.’
[501] Cf. ch. xvi, and Leber, ix. 148, 169; Julleville, _Les Com._ 205,
243. In 1579 a regular _jeu_ was made by the Dijon _Mère-Folle_ of the
_chevauchée_ of one M. Du Tillet. The text is preserved in _Bibl. Nat.
MS._ 24039 and analysed by M. Petit de Julleville.
[502] In Berks a draped horse’s head is carried, and the proceeding
known as a Hooset Hunt (Ditchfield, 178).
[503] Ducange, s. v. _Asini caudam in manu tenens_.
[504] Julleville, _Les Com._ 207.
[505] So on Ilchester Meads, where the proceeding is known as Mommets
or Mommicks (Barrett, 65).
[506] On Hock-tide and the Hock-play generally see Brand-Ellis, i. 107;
Strutt, 349; Sharpe, 125; Dyer, 188; S. Denne, _Memoir on Hokeday_ in
_Archaeologia_, vii. 244.
[507] Cf. Appendix H. An allusion to the play by Sir R. Morrison
(†1542) is quoted in chap. xxv.
[508] Laneham, or his informant, actually said, in error, 1012. On the
historical event see Ramsay, i. 353.
[509] There were performers both on horse and on foot. Probably
hobby-horses were used, for Jonson brings in Captain Cox ‘in his
Hobby-horse,’ which was ‘foaled in Queen Elizabeth’s time’ in the
_Masque of Owls_ (ed. Cunningham, iii. 188).
[510] Cf. _Representations_, s. v. Coventry.
[511] Rossius, _Hist. Regum Angliae_ (ed. Hearne, 1716), 105 ‘in cuius
signum usque hodie illa die vulgariter dicta Hox Tuisday ludunt in
villis trahendo cordas partialiter cum aliis iocis.’ Rous, who died
1491, is speaking of the death of Hardicanute. On the event see Ramsay,
i. 434. Possibly both events were celebrated in the sixteenth century
at Coventry. Two of the three plays proposed for municipal performance
in 1591 were the ‘Conquest of the Danes’ and the ‘History of Edward the
Confessor.’ These were to be upon the ‘pagens,’ and probably they were
more regular dramas than the performance witnessed by Elizabeth in 1575
(_Representations_, s. v. Coventry).
[512] Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), v. 298 ‘uno certo die heu
usitato (_forsan_ Hoc vocitato) hoc solempni festo paschatis transacto,
mulieres homines, alioque die homines mulieres ligare, ac cetera media
utinam non inhonesta vel deteriora facere moliantur et exercere, lucrum
ecclesiae fingentes, set dampnum animae sub fucato colore lucrantes,
&c.’ Riley, 561, 571, gives London proclamations against ‘hokkyng’ of
1405 and 1409.
[513] Brand-Ellis, i. 113; Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 229; C.
Kerry, _Accts. of St. Lawrence, Reading_; Hobhouse, 232; _N. E. D._ s.
vv. _Hock_, &c.
[514] Owen and Blakeway, _Hist. of Shrewsbury_, i. 559.
[515] Dyer, 191; Ditchfield, 90.
[516] _N. E. D._ s. v. _Hock-day_.
[517] Brand-Ellis, i. 106.
[518] Ibid. i. 109.
[519] Ducange, s. v. _Prisio_; Barthélemy, iv. 463. On Innocents’ Day,
the customs of taking in bed and whipping were united (cf. ch. xii).
[520] _Northern F. L._ 84; Brand-Ellis, i. 94, 96; Vaux, 242;
Ditchfield, 80; Dyer, 133.
[521] Brand-Ellis, i. 106; Owen and Blakeway, i. 559; Dyer, 173;
Ditchfield, 90; Burne-Jackson, 336; _Northern F. L._ 84; Vaux, 242. A
dignified H. M. I. is said to have made his first official visit to
Warrington on Easter Monday, and to have suffered accordingly. Miss
Burne describes sprinkling as an element in Shropshire heaving.
[522] Belethus, c. 120 ‘notandum quoque est in plerisque regionibus
secundo die post Pascha mulieres maritos suos verberare ac vicissim
viros eas tertio die.’ The spiritually minded Belethus explains the
custom as a warning to keep from carnal intercourse.
[523] Dyer, 79; Ditchfield, 83.
[524] Brand-Ellis, i. 114; Ditchfield, 252. Mr. W. Crooke has just
studied this and analogous customs in _The Lifting of the Bride_ (_F.
L._ xiii. 226).
[525] _Suffolk F. L._ 69; _F. L._ v. 167. The use of _largess_, a
Norman-French word (_largitio_), is curious. It is also used for the
subscriptions to Lancashire gyst-ales (Dyer, 182).
[526] Ditchfield, 155.
[527] Frazer, ii. 233; Pfannenschmidt, 93.
[528] Haddon, 335; Grosse, 167; Herbert Spencer in _Contemp. Review_
(1895), 114; Groos, _Play of Man_, 88, 354. Evidence for the wide use
of the dance at savage festivals is given by Wallaschek, 163, 187.
[529] Grimm, i. 39; Pearson, ii. 133; Müllenhoff, _Germania_, ch. 24,
and _de antiq. Germ. poesi chorica_, 4; Kögel, i. 1. 8. The primitive
word form should have been _laikaz_, whence Gothic _laiks_, O. N.
_leikr_, O. H. G. _leih_, A.-S. _lâc_. The word has, says Müllenhoff,
all the senses ‘_Spiel, Tanz, Gesang, Opfer, Aufzug_.’ From the same
root come probably _ludus_, and possibly, through the Celtic, the O. F.
_lai_. The A.-S. _lâc_ is glossed _ludus_, _sacrificium_, _victima_,
_munus_. It occurs in the compounds _ecga-gelâc_ and _sveorða-gelâc_,
both meaning ‘sword-dance,’ _sige-lâc_, ‘victory-dance,’ _as-lâc_,
‘god-dance,’ _wine-lâc_, ‘love-dance’ (cf. p. 170), &c. An A.-S.
synonym for _lâc_ is _plega_, ‘play,’ which gives _sweord-plega_ and
_ecg-plega_. _Spil_ is not A.-S. and _spilian_ is a loan-word from O.
H. G.
[530] Gummere, _B. P._ 328; Kögel, i. 1. 6.
[531] S. Ambrose, _de Elia et Ieiunio_, c. 18 (_P. L._ xiv. 720),
_de Poenitentia_, ii. 6 (_P. L._ xvi. 508); S. Augustine, _contra
Parmenianum_, iii. 6 (_P. L._ xliii. 107); S. Chrysostom, _Hom._ 47 _in
Iulian. mart._ p. 613; _Hom._ 23 _de Novilun._ p. 264; _C. of Laodicea_
(†366), c. 53 (Mansi, ii. 571). Cf. _D. C. A._ s. v. Dancing, and ch.
i. Barthélemy, ii. 438, and other writers have some rather doubtful
theories as to liturgical dancing in early Christian worship; cf.
Julian. _Dict. of Hymn._ 206.
[532] Du Méril, _Com._ 67; Pearson, ii. 17, 281; Gröber, ii. 1. 444;
Kögel, i. 1. 25; _Indiculus Superstitionum_ (ed. Saupe), 10 ‘de
sacrilegiis per ecclesias.’ Amongst the prohibitions are Caesarius of
Arles (†542), _Sermo_ xiii. (_P. L._ xxxix. 2325) ‘quam multi rustici
et quam multae mulieres rusticanae cantica diabolica, amatoria et
turpia memoriter retinent et ore decantant’; _Const. Childeberti_
(c. 554) _de abol. relig. idololatriae_ (Mansi, ix. 738) ‘noctes
pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis, etiam in ipsis
sacris diebus, pascha, natale Domini, et reliquis festivitatibus, vel
adveniente die Dominico dansatrices per villas ambulare ... nullatenus
fieri permittimus’; _C. of Auxerre_ (573-603), c. 9 (Maassen, i.
180) ‘non licet in ecclesia choros secularium vel puellarum cantica
exercere nec convivia in ecclesia praeparare’; _C. of Chalons_
(639-54), c. 19 (Maassen, i. 212) ‘Valde omnibus noscetur esse
decretum, ne per dedicationes basilicarum aut festivitates martyrum
ad ipsa solemnia confluentes obscoena et turpia cantica, dum orare
debent aut clericos psallentes audire, cum choris foemineis, turpia
quidem decantare videantur. unde convenit, ut sacerdotes loci illos
a septa basilicarum vel porticus ipsarum basilicarum etiam et ab
ipsis atriis vetare debeant et arcere.’ _Sermo Eligii_ (Grimm, iv.
1737) ‘nullus in festivitate S. Ioannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum
solemnitatibus solstitia aut vallationes vel saltationes aut caraulas
aut cantica diabolica exerceat’; _Iudicium Clementis_ (†693), c.
20 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 226) ‘si quis in quacunque festivitate ad
ecclesiam veniens pallat foris, aut saltat, aut cantat orationes
amatorias ... excommunicetur’ (apparently a fragment of a penitential
composed by Clement or Willibrord, an A.-S. missionary to Frisia,
on whom see Bede, _H. E._ v. 9, and the only dance prohibition of
possible A.-S. _provenance_ of which I know); _Statuta Salisburensia_
(Salzburg: †800; Boretius, i. 229) ‘Ut omnis populus ... absque
inlecebroso canticu et lusu saeculari cum laetaniis procedant’; _C. of
Mainz_ (813), c. 48 (Mansi, xiv. 74) ‘canticum turpe atque luxuriosum
circa ecclesias agere omnino contradicimus’; _C. of Rome_ (826), c.
35 (Mansi, xiv. 1008) ‘sunt quidam, et maxime mulieres, qui festis ac
sacris diebus atque sanctorum natalitiis non pro eorum quibus debent
delectantur desideriis advenire, sed ballando, verba turpia decantando,
choros tenendo ac ducendo, similitudinem paganorum peragendo, advenire
procurant’; cf. _Dicta abbatis Pirminii_ (Caspari, _Kirchenhistorische
Anecdota_, 188); _Penitentiale pseudo-Theodorianum_ (Wasserschleben,
607); _Leonis IV Homilia_ (847, Mansi, xiv. 895); Benedictus Levita,
_Capitularia_ (†850), vi. 96 (_M. G. H. Script._ iv. 2); and for Spain,
_C. of Toledo_ (589), c. 23 (Mansi, ix. 999), and the undated _C. of
Braga_, c. 80 (quoted on p. 144). Cf. also the denunciations of the
_Kalends_ (ch. xi and Appendix N). Nearly four centuries after the
_C. of Rome_ we find the _C. of Avignon_ (1209), c. 17 (Mansi, xxii.
791) ‘statuimus, ut in sanctorum vigiliis in ecclesiis historicae
saltationes, obscoeni motus, seu choreae non fiant, nec dicantur
amatoria carmina, vel cantilenae ibidem....’ Still later the _C. of
Bayeux_ (1300), c. 31 (Mansi, xxv. 66) ‘ut dicit Augustinus, melius
est festivis diebus fodere vel arare, quam choreas ducere’; and so
on _ad infinitum_. The pseudo-Augustine _Sermo_, 265, _de Christiano
nomine cum operibus non Christianis_ (_P. L._ xxxix. 2237), which is
possibly by Caesarius of Arles, asserts explicitly the pagan character
of the custom: ‘isti enim infelices et miseri homines, qui balationes
et saltationes ante ipsas basilicas sanctorum exercere non metuunt nec
erubescunt, etsi Christiani ad ecclesiam venerint, pagani de ecclesia
revertuntur; quia ista consuetudo balandi de paganorum observatione
remansit.’ A mediaeval preacher (quoted by A. Lecoy de la Marche,
_Chaire française au Moyen Âge_, 447, from _B. N. Lat. MS._ 17509, f.
146) declares, ‘chorea enim circulus est cuius centrum est diabolus, et
omnes vergunt ad sinistrum.’
[533] Tille, _D. W._ 301; G. Raynaud, in _Études dédiées à Gaston
Paris_, 53; E. Schröder, _Die Tänzer von Kölbigk_, in _Z. f.
Kirchengeschichte_, xvii. 94; G. Paris, in _Journal des Savants_
(1899), 733.
[534] H. E. Reynolds, _Wells Cathedral_, 85 ‘cum ex choreis ludis et
spectaculis et lapidum proiectionibus in praefata ecclesia et eius
cemeteriis ac claustro dissentiones sanguinis effusiones et violentiae
saepius oriantur et in hiis dicta Wellensis ecclesia multa dispendia
patiatur.’
[535] Menestrier, _Des Ballets anciens et modernes_ (1863), 4; on
other French church dances, cf. Du Tilliot, 21; Barthélemy, iv. 447;
Leber, ix. 420. The most famous are the _pilota_ of Auxerre, which
was accompanied with ball-play (cf. ch. vi) and the _bergeretta_ of
Besançon. Julian, _Dict. of Hymn._ 206, gives some English examples.
[536] Grove, 106. A full account of the ceremony at the feast of the
Conception in 1901 is given in the _Church Times_ for Jan. 17, 1902.
[537] Grove, 103; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 430; _Mélusine_ (1879), 39;
_N. and Q._ for May 17, 1890. The dance is headed by the clergy, and
proceeds to a traditional tune from the banks of the Sûre to the
church, up sixty-two steps, along the north aisle, round the altar
_deasil_, and down the south aisle. It is curious that until the
seventeenth century only _men_ took part in it. St. Willibrord is
famous for curing nervous diseases, and the pilgrimage is done by way
of vow for such cures. The local legend asserts that the ceremony had
its origin in an eighth-century cattle-plague, which ceased through an
invocation of St. Willibrord: it is a little hard on the saint, whose
prohibition of dances at the church-door has just been quoted.
[538] Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 409. A similarly named saint, St. Martial,
was formerly honoured in the same way. Every psalm on his day ended,
not with the _Gloria Patri_, but with a dance, and the chant,
‘Saint-Marceau, pregas per nous, et nous epingaren per vous’ (Du Méril,
_La Com._ 68).
[539] Cf. p. 26. There were ‘madinnis that dansit’ before James IV of
Scotland at Forres, Elgin and Dernway in 1504, but nothing is said of
songs (_L. H. T. Accounts_, ii. 463).
[540] _Carm. Bur._ 191:
‘ludunt super gramina virgines decorae
quarum nova carmina dulci sonant ore.’
_Ibid._ 195:
‘ecce florescunt lilia,
et virginum dant agmina
summo deorum carmina.’
[541] W. Fitzstephen, _Descriptio Londin_. (_Mat. for Hist. of Becket_,
R. S. iii. 11) ‘puellarum Cytherea ducit choros usque imminente luna,
et pede libero pulsatur tellus.’
[542] Jeanroy, 102, 387; Guy, 504; Paris, _Journal des Savants_ (1892),
407. M. Paris points out that dances, other than professional, first
appear in the West after the fall of the Empire. The French terms for
dancing--_baller_, _danser_, _treschier_, _caroler_--are not Latin.
Caroler, however, he thinks to be the Greek χοραυλεῖν, ‘to accompany a
dance with a flute.’ But the French _carole_ was always accompanied,
not with a flute, but with a sung _chanson_.
[543] Paris, _loc. cit._ 410; Jeanroy, 391. In Wace’s description of
Arthur’s wedding, the women _carolent_ and the men _behourdent_. Cf.
Bartsch, _Romanzen und Pastourellen_, i. 13:
‘Cez damoiseles i vont por caroler,
cil escuier i vont por behorder,
cil chevalier i vont por esgarder.’
[544] On the return of Edward II and Isabella of France in 1308, the
mayor and other dignitaries of London went ‘coram rege et regina
karolantes’ (_Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II_, R. S. i. 152). On
the birth of Prince Edward in 1312, they ‘menerent la karole’ in church
and street (Riley, 107).
[545] Kögel, i. 1. 6.
[546] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 228; Haddon, 345.
[547] Cf. ch. vi on the motion _deasil_ round the sacred object. It is
curious that the modern round dances go _withershins_ round a room.
Grimm, i. 52, quotes Gregory the Great, _Dial._ iii. 28 on a Lombard
sacrifice, ‘caput caprae, hoc ei, per circuitum currentes, carmine
nefando dedicantes.’
[548] At Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts (which preserves its Anglo-Saxon
church), and at South Petherton, Somerset, in both cases on Shrove
Tuesday (Mrs. Gomme, ii. 230); cf. Vaux, 18. The church at Painswick,
Gloucester, is danced round on wake-day (_F. L._ viii. 392). There
is a group of games, in which the players wind and unwind in spirals
round a centre. Such are _Eller Tree_, _Wind up the Bush Faggot_, and
_Bulliheisle_. These Mrs. Gomme regards as survivals of the ritual
dance round a sacred tree. Some obscure references in the rhymes used
to ‘dumplings’ and ‘a bundle of rags’ perhaps connect themselves with
the cereal cake and the rags hung on the tree for luck. In Cornwall
such a game is played under the name of ‘Snail’s Creep’ at certain
village feasts in June, and directed by young men with leafy branches.
[549] Du Méril, _La Com._ 72; Haddon, 346; Grove, 50, 81; Haigh, 14; N.
W. Thomas, _La Danse totémique en Europe_, in _Actes d. Cong. intern.
d. Trad. pop._ (1900).
[550] Plot, _Hist. of Staffs._ (1686); _F. L._ iv. 172; vii. 382 (with
cuts of properties); Ditchfield, 139.
[551] The O. H. G. _hîleih_, originally meaning ‘sex-dance,’ comes to
be ‘wedding.’ The root _hi_, like _wini_ (cf. p. 170), has a sexual
connotation (Pearson, ii. 132; Kögel, i. 1. 10).
[552] Coussemaker, _Chants populaires des Flamands de France_, 100:
‘In den hemel is eenen dans:
Alleluia.
Daer dansen all’ de maegdekens:
Benedicamus Domino,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
‘t is voor Amelia:
Alleluia.
Wy dansen naer de maegdekens:
Benedicamus, etc.’
[553] Frazer, i. 35; Dyer, 7; Northall, 233. A Lancashire song is sung
‘to draw you these cold winters away,’ and wishes ‘peace and plenty’ to
the household. A favourite French May _chanson_ is