[1196] Reynolds, _op. cit._ 87 ‘_Prohibitio ludorum theatralium et

spectaculorum et ostentationum larvarum in Ecclesia_. Item, cum

infra septimanam Pentecostes et etiam in aliis festivitatibus fiant

a laicis ludi theatrales in ecclesia praedicta et non solum ad

ludibriorum spectacula introducantur in ea monstra larvarum, verum

etiam in sanctorum Innocentium et aliorum sanctorum festivitatibus

quae Natale Christi secuntur, Presbyteri Diaconi et Subdiaconi dictae

Wellensis ecclesiae vicissim insaniae suae ludibria exercentes per

gesticulationem debacchationes obscenas divinum officium impediant in

conspectu populi, decus faciant clericale vilescere quem potius illo

tempore deberent praedicatione mulcere....’ The statute goes on to

threaten offenders with excommunication.

[1197] F. C. Hingeston Randolph, _Bishop Grandison’s Register_,

Part iii, p. 1213; _Inhibicio Episcopi de ludis inhonestis_. The

bishop writes to all four bodies in identical terms. He wishes them

‘Salutem, et morum clericalium honestatem,’ and adds ‘Ad nostram,

non sine gravi cordis displicencia et stupore, pervenit noticiam

quod, annis praeteritis et quibusdam praecedentibus, in Sanctissimis

Dominice Nativitatis, ac Sanctorum Stephani, Iohannis, Apostoli et

Evangelistae, ac Innocencium Solempniis, quando omnes Christi Fideles

Divinis laudibus et Officiis Ecclesiasticis devocius ac quiescius

insistere tenentur, aliqui praedicte Ecclesie nostre Ministri, cum

pueris, nedum Matutinis et Vesperis ac Horis aliis, set, quod magis

detestandum est, inter Missarum Sollempnia, ludos ineptos et noxios,

honestatique clericali indecentes, quia verius Cultus Divini ludibria

detestanda, infra Ecclesiam ipsam inmiscendo committere, Divino

timore postposito, pernicioso quarundam Ecclesiarum exemplo, temere

praesumpserunt; Vestimenta et alia Ornamenta Ecclesie, in non modicum

eiusdem Ecclesie nostre et nostrum dampnum et dedecus, vilium scilicet

scenulentorumque (_or_ scev.) sparsione multipliciter deturpando. Ex

quorum gestis, seu risibus et cachinnis derisoriis, nedum populus, more

Catholico illis potissime temporibus ad Ecclesiam conveniens, a debita

devocione abstrahitur, set et in risum incompositum ac oblectamenta

illicita dissolvitur; Cultusque Divinus irridetur et Officium perperam

impeditur....’

[1198] On the _Pastores_ cf. ch. xix. Gasté, 33, gives several Rouen

chapter acts from 1449 to 1457 requiring them to officiate ‘cessantibus

stultitiis et insolenciis.’ These orders and those quoted on p. 341

above were prompted by the _Letter_ of the Paris theologians against

the Feast of Fools and similar revels. In 1445 (or 1449) a committee

was chosen ‘ad videndum et visitandum ordinationem ecclesiae pro festis

Nativitatis Domini et deliberationes Facultatis Theologiae super hoc

habitas et quod tollantur derisiones in ipsis fieri solitas.’

[1199] At Sarum a _Constitutio_ of Roger de Mortival in 1324 (Dayman

and Jones, _Sarum Statutes_, 52) forbade drinking when the antiphon

‘O Sapientia’ was sung after Compline on Dec. 16. John of Avranches

(†1070) allowed for the feast of his ‘O’ at Rouen ‘unum galonem vini

de cellario archiepiscopi,’ and the ‘vin de l’O’ was still given in

1377 (Gasté, 47). On these ‘Oes,’ sung by the great functionaries of

cathedrals and monasteries, see E. Green, _On the words ‘O Sapientia’

in the Kalendar_ (_Archaeologia_, xlix. 219); Cynewulf, _Christ_ (ed.

A. S. Cook), xxxv. Payments ‘cantoribus ad ludum suum’ or ‘ad’ or ‘ante

natale’ appear in Durham accounts; cf. _Finchale Priory_ ccccxxviii

(Surtees Soc.,) and _Durham Accounts_, _passim_ (Surtees Soc.). I do

not feel sure what feast is here referred to.

[1200] Chérest, 49 sqq.

[1201] Ioannes Abrincensis, _de Eccl. Offic._ (_P. L._ cxlvii. 42)

‘Licet, ut in morte Domini, _Te Deum_ et _Gloria in excelsis_ et

_Alleluia_ in aliquot ecclesiis, ex more antiquo, omittantur; quia ut

Christus occideretur tot parvuli occidi iubentur; et illis occisis

fit mors Christi secundum aestimationem Herodis; tamen quia placuit

modernis, placet et nobis ut cantentur’; cf. the passage from Belethus

quoted on p. 336; also Honorius Augustodunensis, _Gemma Animae_, iii.

14 (_P. L._ clxxii. 646), and Martene, iii. 40.

[1202] _Ordinarium_ of Rouen (fourteenth century) in Ducange, s.v.

_Kalendae_; _P. L._ cxlvii. 155; Gasté, 35. On the Rouen feast cf. also

Gasté, 48.

[1203] These chants are taken from _Revelation_, xiv. 3 ‘nemo poterat

dicere canticum, nisi illa centum quadraginta quatuor millia, qui

empti sunt de terra. Hi sunt, qui cum mulieribus non sunt coinquinati,

virgines enim sunt. Hi sequuntur Agnum quocumque ierit.’ This passage

is still read in the ‘Epistle’ at Mass on Holy Innocents’ day. Cf. the

use of the same chants at Salisbury (Appendix M).

[1204] ‘Et tamdiu cantetur _Deposuit potentes_ quod baculus accipiatur

ab eo qui accipere voluerit.’

[1205] _Ordinarium_ of Bayeux (undated) in Gasté, 37. On the Bayeux

feast and its _parvus episcopus_ or _petit évêque_ cf. F. Pluquet,

_Essai sur Bayeux_, 274.

[1206] ‘Dum perventum fuerit ad illum: _Deposuit potentes_, vadunt

omnes ad medium ecclesiae et ibi qui in processione stant ordinate

eumdem versum, episcopo inchoante, plures replicantes. Qui dum

sic cantatur, offert ipse episcopus sociis suis de choro baculum

pastoralem. Post multas itaque resumptiones dicti versus, revertuntur

in chorum, _Te Deum laudamus_, si habent novum episcopum, decantantes,

et ita canendo deducunt eum ad altare, et mitra sibi imposita et baculo

cum capa serica, revertuntur in chorum, illo qui fuerat episcopus

explente officium capellani, creato nihilominus novo cantore. Tunc

chorus, si non fuerit ibi novus episcopus, vel novus episcopus qui

baculum duxerit capiendum, cum suis sociis resumit a capite psalmum

_Magnificat_, et sic cantant vesperas usque ad finem.’

[1207] _Novus Ordinarius_ of Coutances (undated) in Gasté, 39.

[1208] ‘Post Matutinas conveniant omnes pueri ad suam tabulam

faciendam, quibus licitum est maiores personas Ecclesiae minoribus

officiis deputare. Diaconis et subdiaconis ordinatis, thuribula

imponantur et candelabra maiora videlicet et minora. Episcopo vero,

cantori et aliis canonicis aquam, manutergium, missale, ignem et

campanam possunt imponere pro suae libito voluntatis. Nihil tamen

inhonestum aut impertinens apponatur; antiquiores primi ponantur in

tabula et ultimi iuniores.’

[1209] ‘Quo facto dicat [Episcopus] _Deposuit_. Statimque electus

Episcopus, tradito sibi baculo pastorali a pueris ad altare

praesentetur, et osculato altari in domum suam a dictis pueris

deferatur. Et interim, finito tumultu, eat processio ad altare S.

Thomae martyris.’

[1210] _Rituale_ (fourteenth century) of Tours in Martene, iii. 39.

There was a _cantor puerorum_ as well as the _episcopus_. At second

Vespers ‘quando _Magnificat_ canitur, veniunt clericuli in choro cum

episcopo habentes candelas accensas de proprio et quando _Deposuit_

canitur, accipit cantor puerorum baculum, et tunc in stallo ascendunt

pueri, et alii descendunt.’

[1211] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_.

[1212] ‘Omnes pueri et subdiaconi feriati, qui in numero dictorum

Innocentium computantur.’

[1213] ‘Ipsa autem die de mane equitare habet idem episcopus

Innocentium ad monasteria SS. Mansueti et Apri per civitatem transeundo

in comitiva suorum aequalium, quibus etiam maiores et digniores

personae dignitatum comitantur per se vel suos servitores et equos, et

descendentes ad fores ecclesiarum praedictarum intonat unam antiphonam

et dicit episcopus orationem, sibique debentur a quolibet monasteriorum

eorundem xviij den. Tullenses, qui si illico non solvantur, possunt

accipere libros vel vadia.’

[1214] ‘Cantatis eiusdem diei vesperis, episcopus ipse cum mimis et

tubis procedit per civitatem cum sua comitiva, via qua fiunt generales

processiones.’

[1215] ‘In crastino Innocentium, quo omnes vadunt per civitatem post

prandium, faciebus opertis, in diversis habitibus, et si quae farsae

practicari valeant, tempore tamen sicco, fiunt in aliquibus locis

civitatis, omnia cum honestate.’ Another passage, referring more

generally to the feast, has ‘Fiunt ibi moralitates vel simulacra

miraculorum cum farsis et similibus ioculis, semper tamen honestis.’

[1216] ‘In octavis Innocentium rursus vadit episcopus cum omni comitiva

sua in habitibus suis ad ecclesiam B. Genovefae, ubi cantata antiphona

de ipsa virgine cum collecta, itur ad domum parochialem eius ecclesiae

vel alibi, ubi magister et fratres domus Dei, quibus ipsa ecclesia est

unita, paraverint focapam unam, poma, nuces, &c. ad merendam oportuna;

et ibi instituuntur officiarii ad marencias super defectibus aut

excessibus in officio divino per totum annum commissis.’

[1217] ‘Fit ... assignatio post coenam diei Innocentium; ita quod is

qui illa die festum peregit, gratias refert episcopo et toti comitivae,

ac excusari petit, si in aliquo defecit; et finaliter pileum romarini

vel alterius confectionis floreum exhibet ipsi episcopo, ut tradat

canonico in receptione sequenti constituto ad futurum annum ipsum

festum agendum.’ Cf. the bouquets at the ‘defructus’ (p. 324).

[1218] ‘Si autem facere contemneret adveniente festo, suspenderetur

cappa nigra in raustro medio chori, et tamdiu ibi maneret in illius

vituperium, quamdiu placeret subdiaconis feriatis et pueris chori; et

in ea re non tenerentur nobis capitulo obedire.’

[1219] Amiens: Rigollot, 13 and passim; cf. p. 339.

[1220] St. Quentin: Rigollot, 32; Grenier, 360.

[1221] Senlis: Rigollot, 26; Grenier, 360.

[1222] Soissons: Matton, _Archives de Soissons_, 75.

[1223] Roye: Rigollot, 33; Grenier, 359.

[1224] Peronne: Rigollot, 34; Grenier, 359, 413.

[1225] Rheims: Rigollot, 50; Petit de Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 348;

Marlot, _Hist. de Rheims_, ii. 266. In 1479 the chapter undertook

the expense, ‘modo fiat sine larvis et strepitu tubicinis, ac sine

equitatione per villam.’ Martene, iii. 40, says that there is no trace

of any of the _triduum_ ceremonies in the early thirteenth-century

Rheims _Ordinarium_.

[1226] Brussels: Laborde, _Ducs de Bourgogne_, ii. 2. 286 ‘[1378] Item

xxi decembris episcopo scholarium sanctae Gudilae profecto Sancti

Nycolay quod scholares annuatim faciunt 1¹⁄₂ mut[ones].’

[1227] Lille: E. Hautcœur, _Hist. de Saint-Pierre de Lille_, ii. 217,

223. On June 29, 1501, Guillemot de Lespine ‘trépassa évêque des

Innocens.’ His epitaph is in the cloister gallery (Hautcœur, _Doc.

liturg. de S. P. de Lille_, 342).

[1228] Liège: Rigollot, 42; Dürr, 82. A statute of 1330 laid the

expense on the last admitted canon ‘nisi canonicus scholaris sub virga

existens ipsum exemerit.’

[1229] Laon: Rigollot, 21; Grenier, 356, 413; C. Hidé, _Bull. de la

Soc. acad. de Laon_, xiii. 122; E. Fleury, _Cinquante Ans de Laon_, 52.

A chapter act of 1546 states that the custom of playing a comedy at the

election of the Boy Bishop on St. Eloi’s day (Dec. 1) has ceased. The

Mass is not to be disturbed, but ‘si les escoliers veulent faire un

petit discours, il seroit entendu avec plaisir.’

[1230] Troyes: T. Boutiot, _Hist. de Troyes_, iii. 20.

[1231] Mans: Gasté, 43; Julleville, _Les Com._ 38.

[1232] Bourges: Martene, iii. 40.

[1233] Châlons-sur-Saône: Du Tilliot, 20; C. Perry, _Hist. de Châlons_

(1659), 435.

[1234] Grenoble: Pilot de Thorey, _Usages, Fêtes et Coutumes en

Dauphiné_, i. 181.

[1235] _C. of Cognac_ (1260), c. 2 (Mansi, xxiii. 1033) ‘cum in

balleatione quae in festo SS. Innocentium in quibusdam Ecclesiis fieri

inolevit, multae rixae, contentiones et turbationes, tam in divinis

officiis quam aliis consueverint provenire, praedictas balleationes

ulterius sub intimatione anathematis fieri prohibemus; nec non et

Episcopos in praedicto festo creari; cum hoc in ecclesia Dei ridiculum

existat, et hoc dignitatis episcopalis ludibrio fiat.’ _C. of Salzburg_

(1274), c. 17 (Labbé, xi. 1004) ‘ludi noxii quos vulgaris elocutio

Eptus puor. appellat’; _CC. of Chartres_ (1526 and 1575; Bochellus,

_Decr. Eccl. Gall._ iv. 7. 46; Du Tilliot, 66) ‘stultum aut ridiculum

in ecclesia’ on days of SS. Nicholas and Catharine, and the Innocents;

_C. of Toledo_ (1565), ii. 21 (Labbé, xv. 764) ‘ficta illa et puerilis

episcopatus electio’; _C. of Rouen_ (1581; Hardouin, _Concilia_, x.

1217) ‘in festivitate SS. Innocentium theatralia.’

[1236] There are traces of it in the eighteenth century at Lyons

(Martene, iii. 40) and Rheims (Barthélemy, v. 334); at Sens, in the

nineteenth, the choir-boys still play at being bishops on Innocents’

day, and name the ‘archbishop’ _âne_ (Chérest, 81).

[1237] Grenier, 358, quoting Le Vasseur, _Epistolae_, Cent. ii. Epist.

68; cf. on the Noyon feast, Leach, 135; Du Tilliot, 17; Rigollot, 27;

L. Mazière, _Noyon religieux_, in _Comptes-Rendus et Mémoires_, xi. 91,

of _The Comité arch. et hist. de Noyon_. Le Vasseur, an ex-Rector of

the University of Paris, writes to François Geuffrin ‘ecce ludunt etiam

ante ipsas aras; internecionem detestamur, execramur carnificem. Ludunt

et placet iste ludus ecclesiae.... Tam grandis est natu ritus iste,

quem viguisse deprehendo iam ante quadringentos annos in hac aede,

magno totius orbis ordinum et aetatum plausu fructuque.... O miserum

saeculum! ... solo gestu externoque habitu spectabiles, sola barba et

pallio philosophi, caetera pecudes!’

[1238] _Chronicon Montis Sereni_ in Pertz, _Scriptores_, xxiii. 144.

[1239] _Monum. Boic._ xiii. 214, quoted by Specht, 228 ‘in festo

nativitatis Dominicae annuatim sibi ludendo constituentes episcopum.’

[1240] Vitus Arnpekius, _Chron. Baioariorum_, v. 53, cited by Martene,

iii. 40.

[1241] Specht, 228.

[1242] Ibid. 225; Creizenach, i. 391; both quoting E. Meyer, _Gesch.

des hamburgischen Schul-und Unterrichtswesens im Mittelalter_, 197

‘praeterea scholares nunquam, sive in electione sive extra, aliquos

rhythmos faciant, tam in latino, quam in teutonico, qui famam alicuius

valeant maculare.’ In the thirteenth century a child-abbot was chosen

in Hamburg on St. Andrew’s day (Nov. 30). On St. Nicholas’ day (Dec.

6) he gave way to a child-bishop, who remained in office until Dec. 28

(Tille, _D. W._ 31, citing Beneke, _Hamburgische Geschichte und Sagen_,

90).

[1243] Specht, 229.

[1244] Ibid. 228.

[1245] Cf. p. 319.

[1246] Tille, _D. W._ 31.

[1247] Ibid. 299.

[1248] Dürr, 67, quoting a _Ritual_ of the cathedral (‘tempore

Alberti’).

[1249] It began:

‘Iam tuum festum Nicolae dives

more solemni recolit iuventus,

nec tibi dignus, sacerdotum Caesar,

promere laudes.’

[1250] Tille, _D. W._ 31, citing Nork, _Festkalender_, 783. Dürr’s

tract was published at Mainz in 1755.

[1251] Wetzer und Welte, s. v. _Feste_ ‘consuetudo seu potius

detestabilis corruptela, qua pueri a die S. Nicolai usque ad festum SS.

Innocentium personatum Episcopum colunt ... ea puerilibus levitatibus

et ineptiis plena coeperit esse multumque gravitatis et decoris divinis

detrahat officiis ... ne clerus se pueris die SS. Inn. submittat ac

eorum locum occupet, aut illis functiones aliquas in divinis officiis

permittat, neque praesentes aliquis Episcopus benedictiones faciat,

aliique pueri in cantandis horariis precibus lectionibus et collectis

Sacerdotum, Diaconorum aut Subdiaconorum officia quaedam usurpent;

multo minus convenit ut Canonici aut Vicarii ex collegarum suorum

numero aliquem designent Episcopum qui reliquos omnes magnis impendiis

liberali convivio excipiat.’

[1252] W. H. R. Jones, _Vetus Registr. Sarisb._ (R. S.), ii. 128;

Wordsworth, _Proc._ 170 ‘Item, annulus unus aureus ad Festum Puerorum.’

[1253] _Constitutiones_, § 45 (Jones and Dayman, _Sarum Statutes_,

75; cf. Jones, _Fasti_, 295) ‘Electus puer chorista in episcopum modo

solito puerili officium in ecclesia, prout fieri consuevit, licenter

exequatur, convivium aliquod de caetero, vel visitationem exterius

seu interius nullatenus faciendo, sed in domo communi cum sociis

conversetur, nisi cum ut choristam ad domum canonici causa solatii ad

mensam contigerit evocari, ecclesiam et scholas cum caeteris choristis

statim post festum Innocentium frequentando. Et quia in processione

quam ad altare Sanctae Trinitatis faciunt annuatim pueri supradicti

per concurrentium pressuras et alias dissolutiones multiplices

nonnulla damna personis et ecclesiae gravia intelleximus priscis

temporibus pervenisse, ex parte Dei omnipotentis et sub poena maioris

excommunicationis, quam contravenientes utpote libertates dictae

ecclesiae nostrae infringentes et illius pacem et quietem temerarie

perturbantes declaramus incurrere ipso facto, inhibemus ne quis pueros

illos in praefata processione vel alias in suo ministerio premat vel

impediat quoquomodo, quominus pacifice valeant facere et exequi quod

illis imminet faciendum; sed qui eidem processioni devotionis causa

voluerint interesse, ita modo maturo se habeant et honeste sicut et

in aliis processionibus dictae ecclesiae se habent qui ad honorem Dei

frequentant quando que ecclesiam supradictam.’

[1254] Appendix M.

[1255] Jones, _Fasti_, 299.

[1256] Wordsworth, _Proc._ 259. The _oblationes_ vary from lvi_s._

viii_d._ in 1448 to as much as lxxxix_s._ xi_d._ in 1456.

[1257] Jones, _Fasti_, 300; Rimbault, xxviii; Planché, in _Journal of

Brit. Archaeol. Assoc._ xv. 123. Gregory, 93, gives a cut of the statue.

[1258] _Ordinale secundum Usum Exon._ (ed. H. E. Reynolds), f. 30.

[1259] _Archaeologia_, l. 446, 472 sqq. (_Invent._ of 1245) ‘mitra alia

alba addubbata aurifrigio, plana est; quam dedit J. Belemains episcopo

innocentum.... Mitra episcopi innocentum, nullius precii.... Capa et

mantella puerorum ad festum Innocentum et Stultorum [cf. p. 323] sunt

xxviij debiles et contritae.’ In 1402 there were two little staves for

the Boy Bishop (Simpson, _St. Paul’s Cathedral and Old City Life_, 40).

[1260] _Statutes_, bk. i, pars vi. c. 9, _De officio puerorum in

festo Sanctorum Innocencium_ (W. S. Simpson, _Registrum Statutorum et

Consuetudinum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sancti Pauli Londinensis_, 91).

[1261] ‘Memorandum, quod Anno Domini Millesimo cc lxiij. tempore G.

de fferring, Decani, ordinatum fuit de officio Puerorum die Sanctorum

Innocencium, prout sequitur. Provida fuit ab antiquis patribus

predecessoribus nostris deliberacione statutum, ut in sollennitate

Sanctorum Innocencium, qui pro Innocente Christo sanguinem suum

fuderunt, innocens puer Presulatus officio fungeretur, ut sic puer

pueris preesset, et innocens innocentibus imperaret, illius tipum

tenens in Ecclesia, quem sequuntur iuvenes, quocumque ierit. Cum

igitur quod ad laudem lactencium fuit adinventum, conversum sit

in dedecus, et in derisum decoris Domus Dei, propter insolenciam

effrenatae multitudinis subsequentis eundem, et affluentis improborum

turbae pacem Praesulis exturbantis, statuendum duximus ut praedicti

pueri, tam in eligendo suo Pontifice et personis dignitatum Decani,

Archidiaconorum, et aliorum, necnon et Stacionariorum, antiquum suum

ritum observent, tabulam suam faciant, et legant in Capitulo. Hoc

tamen adhibito moderamine, ut nullum decetero de Canonicis Maioribus

vel Minoribus ad candelabra, vel turribulum, vel ad aliqua obsequia

eiusdem Ecclesiae, vel ipsius Pontificis deputent in futurum, set

suos eligant ministeriales de illis qui sunt in secunda forma vel in

tercia. Processionem suam habeant honestam, tam in incessu, quam habitu

et cantu, competenti; ita vero se gerant in omnibus in Ecclesia, quod

clerus et populus illos habeant recommendatos.’

[1262] ‘Die vero solemnitatis post prandium ad mandatum personae Decani

convenient omnes in atrio Ecclesiae, ibidem equos ascendant ituri ad

populum benedicendum. Tenetur autem Decanus Presuli presentare equum,

et quilibet Stacionarius sua personae in equo providere.’

[1263] _Statutes_, bk. i, pars vii. c. 6 (Simpson, _op. cit._ 129), a

statute made in the time of Dean Ralph de Diceto (1181-†1204) ‘Debet

eciam novus Residenciarius post cenam die Sanctorum Innocencium ducere

puerum suum cum daunsa et chorea et torchiis ad Elemosinariam, et ibi

cum torticiis potum et species singulis ministrare, et liberatam vini

cervisiae et specierum et candellarum facere, et ibidem ministri sui

expectare, quousque alius puer Canonici senioris veniat. Et secundam

cenam in octavis Innocencium tenebit, Episcopum cum pueris et eorum

comitiva pascendo, et in recessu dona dando, et, si diu expectat

adventum illorum nocte illa, ad matutinos non teneatur venire.’

[1264] Rimbault, xxxii.

[1265] Printed in Rimbault, 1. Duff, _Handlists_, ii. 5, notes also a

_Sermo pro episcopo puerorum_ by J. Alcock, printed in the fifteenth

century by R. Pynson.

[1266] _Concio de puero Iesu pronunciata a puero in nova schola

Iohannis Coleti per eum instituta Londini in qua praesidet imago Pueri

Iesu docentis specie_ (Erasmi _Opera_ (1704), v. 599). The English

version was printed by W. Redman (Lupton, _Life of Colet_, 176). It is

not clear that this _Concio_ was preached by a boy bishop, for Colet’s

school (cf. next note) attended the ‘bishop’ of St. Paul’s song-school.

[1267] Lupton, _op. cit._ 175 ‘Alle these Chyldren shall every

Chyldremasse day come to paulis Church and here the Chylde Bisshoppis

sermon, and after be at the hye masse, and eche of them offre a 1^d. to

the Childe Bisshopp; and with theme the Maisters and surveyours of the

scole.’

[1268] _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 98 ‘Inveniet [thesaurarius] Stellas cum

omnibus ad illas pertinentibus, preter cirpos, quos inveniet Episcopus

Puerorum futurorum [?fatuorum], vnam in nocte Natalis Domini pro

pastoribus et ·ij^{as} in nocte Epiphanie, si debeat fieri presentacio

·iij^{um} regum.’

[1269] Warton, iv. 224 ‘Ioannes de Quixly confirmatur Episcopus

Puerorum, et Capitulum ordinavit, quod electio Episcopi Puerorum in

ecclesia Eboracensi de cetero fieret de eo, qui diutius et magis in

dicta ecclesia laboraverit, et magis idoneus repertus fuerit, dum tamen

competenter sit corpore formosus, et quod aliter facta electio non

valebit.’

[1270] Warton, iv. 237 ‘nisi habuerit claram vocem puerilem.’

[1271] Warton, iv. 224.

[1272] Appendix M. Cf. Rimbault, xi, for further elucidations of the

_Computus_.

[1273] Percy, _North. H. B._ 340.

[1274] _York Missal_, i. 23. The rubric at the beginning of Mass is

‘Omnibus pueris in Capis, Praecentor illorum incipiat.’ There are

some responds for the ‘Praecentor’ and the ‘turba puerorum.’ After

the Kyrie, ‘omnibus pueris in medio Chori stantibus et ibi omnia

cantantibus, Episcopo eorum interim in cathedra sedente; et si Dominica

fuerit, dicitur ab Episcopo stante in cathedra _Gloria in excelsis

Deo_: aliter non.’ The _Sequentia_ for the day is

‘Celsa pueri concrepent melodia,

eia, Innocentum colentes tripudia, &c.’

[1275] Rimbault, xvi. The dates are between 1416 and 1537.

[1276] Raine, _Fabric Rolls of York Minster_ (Surtees Soc.), 213

sqq. (†1500, the additions in brackets being †1510) ‘una mitra parva

cum petris pro episcopo puerorum ... [unus annulus pro episcopo

puerorum et duo owchys, unus in medio ad modum crucis cum lapidibus

in circumferenciis cum alio parvo cum uno lapide in medio vocato

turchas].... Capae Rubiae.... Una capa de tyssue pro Episcopo

puerili ... [duae capae veteres olim pro Episcopo puerorum].’ Leach,

132, says ‘At York, in 1321, the Master of the Works gave “a gold ring

with a great stone for the Bishop of the Innocents.” In 1491 the Boy

Bishop’s pontifical was mended with silver-gilt.’

[1277] _Lincoln Statutes_, i. 290 (_Black Book_, †1300); ii. ccxxxi.

[1278] _Archaeologia_, liii. 25, 50; _Monasticon_, viii. 1282 ‘Item,

a coope of Rede velvett w^t Rolles & clowdes ordenyd for the barne

busshop w^t this scriptur “the hye wey ys best”.’ The entry is repeated

in a later inventory of 1548.

[1279] Hereford, _Consuetudines_ of thirteenth century (_Lincoln

Statutes_, ii. 67) ‘Thesaurarius debet invenire ... in festo

Innocencium pueris candelas et ·ij^{os} cereos coram parvo Episcopo.’

[1280] Lichfield--J. C. Cox, _Sports in Churches_, in W. Andrews,

_Curious Church Customs_, 3, quoting inventories of 1345 and of the

fifteenth century. The latter uses the term ‘Nicholas Bishop.’

[1281] Gloucester--Rimbault, 14, prints from _Cotton MSS. Vesp._ A.

xxv, f. 173, a _Sermon of the Child Bishop, Pronownysed by John Stubs,

Querester, on Childermas Day, at Gloceter_, 1558.

[1282] Norwich--a fourteenth-century antiphonal of Sarum Use, probably

of Norwich _provenance_ (_Lansd. MS._ 463, f. 16^v), provides for the

giving of the _baculus_ to the _Episcopus Puerorum_ at Vespers on St.

John’s Day.

[1283] Beverley--the fifth earl of Northumberland about 1522 gave

xx_s._ at Christmas to the ‘Barne Bishop’ of Beverley, as well as to

him of York (Percy, _North. H. B._ 340); cf. p. 357.

[1284] Wordsworth, _Proc._ 52; cf. Appendix M (1).

[1285] Ottery--_Statutes_ of Bishop Grandisson (1337), quoted by

Warton, ii. 229 ‘Item statuimus, quod nullus canonicus, vicarius, vel

secundarius, pueros choristas in festo sanctorum Innocentium extra

parochiam de Otery trahant, aut eis licentiam vagandi concedant.’

[1286] Magdalen--see Appendix E.

[1287] All Souls--An inventory has ‘j chem. j cap et mitra pro Episcopo

Nicholao’ (Rock, iii. 2. 217).

[1288] In 1299 Edward I heard vespers said ‘de Sancto Nicholao ... in

Capella sua apud Heton iuxta Novum Castrum super Tynam’ (_Wardrobe

Account_, ed. Soc. of Antiq., 25). In 1306 a Boy Bishop officiated

before Edward II on St. Nicholas’ Day in the king’s chapel at Scroby

(_Wardrobe Account_ in _Archaeologia_, xxvi. 342). In 1339 Edward III

gave a gift ‘Episcopo puerorum ecclesiae de Andeworp cantanti coram

domino rege in camera sua in festo sanctorum Innocentium’ (Warton,

ii. 229). There was a yearly payment of £1 to the Boy Bishop at St.

Stephen’s, Westminster, in 1382 (Devon, _Issues of Exchequer_, 222),

and about 1528-32 (Brewer, iv. 1939).

[1289] The fifth earl of Northumberland (†1512) was wont to ‘gyfe yerly

upon Saynt Nicolas-Even if he kepe Chapell for Saynt Nicolas to the

Master of his Childeren of his Chapell for one of the Childeren of

his Chapell yerely vj^{s.} viij^{d.} And if Saynt Nicolas com owt of

the Towne wher my Lord lyeth and my Lord kepe no Chapell than to have

yerely iij^{s.} iiij^{d.}’ (Percy, _North. H. B._ 343). An elaborate

_Contenta de Ornamentis Ep., puer._, of uncertain _provenance_, is

printed by Percy, _op. cit._ 439.

[1290] St. Mary at Hill (Brand, i. 233); St. Mary de Prees

(_Monasticon_, iii. 360); St. Peter Cheap (Journal of _Brit. Arch.

Ass._ xxiv. 156); Hospital of St. Katharine by the Tower (_Reliquary_,

iv. 153); Lambeth (Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 310); cf. p. 367.

[1291] Louth (E. Hewlett, _Boy Bishops_, in W. Andrews, _Curious

Church Gleanings_, 241)--the payments for the Chyld Bishop include

some for ‘making his See’ (_sedes_); Nottingham (_Archaeologia_, xxvi.

342); Sandwich (Boys, _Hist. of S._ 376); New Romney (_Hist. MSS._ v.

517-28), Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Somersetshire (J. C. Cox, _Sports in

Churches_, in W. Andrews, _Curious Church Customs_); Bristol--L. T.

Smith, _Ricart’s Kalendar_, 80 (1479-1506, Camden Soc.). On Nov. 24,

the Mayor, Sheriff, and ‘worshipfull men’ are to ‘receyue at theire

dores Seynt Kateryn’s pleyers, making them to drynk at their dores

and rewardyng theym for theire playes.’ On Dec. 5 they are ‘to walke

to Seynt Nicholas churche, there to hire theire even-song: and on the

morowe to hire theire masse, and offre, and hire the bishop’s sermon,

and have his blissyng.’ After dinner they are to play dice at the

mayor’s counter, ‘and when the Bishope is come thedir, his chapell

there to synge, and the bishope to geve them his blissyng, and then he

and all his chapell to be serued there with brede and wyne.’ And so to

even-song in St. Nicholas’ church.

[1292] _L. T. Accounts_, i. ccxlvi record annual payments by James

IV (†1473-98) to Boy Bishops from Holyrood Abbey and St. Giles’s,

Edinburgh.

[1293] Wilkins, ii. 38 ‘Puerilia autem solemnia, quae in festo

solent fieri Innocentum post vesperas S. Iohannis, tantum inchoari

permittimus, et in crastino in ipsa die Innocentum totaliter

terminentur.’

[1294] _Archaeologia_, lii. 221 sqq.

[1295] _Transactions_ of _London and Middlesex Arch. Soc._ vols. iv, v.

[1296] _Athenæum_ (1900), ii. 655, 692 ‘data Pueris de Elemosinaria

ludentibus coram Domino apud Westmonasterium, iij^{s.} iiij^{d.}’ Dr.

E. J. L. Scott and Dr. Rutherford found in this entry a proof of the

existence of the Westminster Latin play at ‘a period anterior to the

foundation of Eton’!

[1297] Rimbault, xviii; _Finchale Priory_ (Surtees Soc.), ccccxxviii;

_Durham Accounts_ (Surtees Soc.), iii. xliii, and passim.

[1298] _Hist. MSS._ xiv. 8. 124, 157.

[1299] _Computi_ of Cellarer (Warton, ii. 232, iii. 300) ‘1397, pro

epulis Pueri celebrantis in festo S. Nicholai ... 1490, in larvis

et aliis indumentis Puerorum visentium Dominum apud Wulsey, et

Constabularium Castri Winton, in apparatu suo, necnon subintrantium

omnia monasteria civitatis Winton, in festo sancti Nicholai.’

[1300] G. W. Kitchin, _Computus Rolls of St. Swithin’s_ (_Hampshire

Rec. Soc._), passim; G. W. Kitchin and F. T. Madge, _Winchester Chapter

Documents_ (_H. R. Soc._), 24.

[1301] Warton, ii. 231 ‘1441, pro pueris Eleemosynariae una cum pueris

Capellae sanctae Elizabethae, ornatis more puellarum, et saltantibus,

cantantibus, et ludentibus, coram domina Abbatissa et monialibus

Abbathiae beatae Mariae virginis, in aula ibidem in die sanctorum

Innocentium.’

[1302] Harpsfield, _Hist. Eccl. Angl._ (1622), 441, citing Peckham’s

_Register_. He says the mandate was in French.

[1303] _Visitations of Diocese of Norwich_ (Camden Soc.), 209 ‘Domina

Iohanna Botulphe dicit ... quod ... habent in festo Natalis Domini

iuniorem monialem in abbatissam assumptam, vocandi [? iocandi] gratia;

cuius occasione ipsa consumere et dissipare cogitur quae vel elemosina

vel aliorum amicorum largitione acquisierit ... Iniunctum est ... quod

de cetero non observetur assumptio abbatissae vocandi causa.’

[1304] Gregory of Tours, x. 16 (_M. G. H. Script. Rerum Meroving._ i.

427), mentions among the complaints laid before the visitors of the

convent of St. Radegund in Poitou, that the abbess ‘vittam de auro

exornatam idem neptae suae superflue fecerit, barbaturias intus eo quod

celebraverit.’ Ducange, s. v. _Barbatoriae_, finds here a reference to

some kind of masquing, and Peter of Blois, _Epist._ 14, certainly uses

_barbatores_ as a synonym for _mimi_. The M. G. H. editors of Gregory,

however, explain ‘_barbatoria_’ as ‘_primam barbam ponere_’ the sense

borne by the term in Petronius, _Sat._ lxxiii. 6. The abbess’s niece

had probably no beard, but may not the reference be to the cutting of

the hair of a novice when she takes the vows?

[1305] Ducange, s. v. _Kalendae_ (‘de monialibus Villae-Arcelli’),

‘Item inhibemus ne de caetero in festis Innocentum et B. M. Magdalenae

ludibria exerceatis consueta, induendo vos scilicet vestibus

saecularium aut inter vos seu cum secularibus choreas ducendo’;

and again ‘in festo S. Iohannis et Innocentium mimia iocositate et

scurrilibus cantibus utebantur, ut pote farsis, conductis, motulis;

praecepimus quod honestius et cum maiori devotione alias se haberent’;

Gasté, 36 (on Caen) ‘iuniores in festo Innocentium cantant lectiones

suas cum farsis. Hoc inhibuimus.’ In 1423, the real abbess gave place

to the little abbess at the _Deposuit_. Gasté, 44, describes a survival

of the election of an ‘abbess’ from amongst the _pensionnaires_ on

the days of St. Catherine and the Innocents in the Abbaye aux Bois,

Faubourg St. Germain, from the _Mémoires_ of Hélène Massalska. This was

about 1773.

[1306] Howlett, _Monumenta Franciscana_ (R. S.), ii. 93 ‘Caveant

fratres in festo Sancti Nicolai seu Innocentium, vel quibuscunque

aliis festis vestes extraneas religiosas seu seculares aut clericales

vel muliebres sub specie devotionis induere; nec habitus fratrum

secularibus pro ludis faciendis accommodentur sub poena amotionis

confusibilis de conventu.’

[1307] Denifle, i. 532. It was forbidden ‘in eisdem festis vel aliis

paramenta nec coreas duci in vico de die nec de nocte cum torticiis vel

sine.’ But it was on Innocents’ Day that the _béjaunes_ or ‘freshmen’

of the Sorbonne were subjected to rites bearing a close analogy to

the feast of fools; cf. Rigollot, 172 ‘1476 ... condemnatus fuit in

crastino Innocentium capellanus abbas beiannorum ad octo solidos

parisienses, eo quod non explevisset officium suum die Innocentium post

prandium, in mundationem beiannorum per aspersionem aquae ut moris est,

quanquam solemniter incoepisset exercere suum officium ante prandium

inducendo beiannos per vicum super asinum.’

[1308] Denifle, iii. 166.

[1309] ‘Verbis nedum gallicis sed eciam latinis, ut ipsi qui de

partibus alienis oriundi linguam gallicam nequaquam intelligebant

plenarie.’

[1310] S. F. Hulton, _Rixae Oxonienses_, 68. There had been many

earlier brawls.

[1311] _Statute_ xxix (T. F. Kirby, _Annals of Winchester College_,

503) ‘Permittimus tamen quod in festo Innocencium pueri vesperas

matutinas et alia divina officia legenda et cantanda dicere et

exsequi valeant secundum usum et consuetudinem ecclesiae Sarum.’ The

same formula is used in _New College Statute_ xlii (_Statutes of the

Colleges of Oxford_, vol. i).

[1312] Cf. Appendix E. Kirby, _op. cit._ 90, quotes an inventory of

1406 ‘Baculus pastoralis de cupro deaurato pro Epõ puerorum in die

Innocencium ... Mitra de panno aureo ex dono Dñi. Fundatoris hernesiat

(mounted) cum argento deaurato ex dono unius socii coll. [Robert Heete]

pro Epõ puerorum.’

[1313] _The Charter of King’s College_ (1443), c. 42 (_Documents

relating to the Univ. of Camb._ ii. 569; Heywood and Wright, _Ancient

Laws of the Fifteenth Century for King’s Coll. Camb. and Eton Coll._

112), closely follows Wykeham’s formula: ‘excepto festo S^{ti}

Nicholai praedicto, in quo festo et nullatenus in festo Innocentium,

permittimus quod pueri ... secundum usum in dicto Regali Collegio

hactenus usitatum.’ The Eton formula (c. 31) in 1444 is slightly

different (Heywood and Wright _op. cit._ 560) ‘excepto in festo Sancti

Nicholai, in quo, et nullatenus in festo Sanctorum Innocentium, divina

officia praeter missae secreta exequi et dici permittimus per episcopum

puerorum scholarium, ad hoc de eisdem annis singulis eligendum.’

[1314] Warton, ii. 228; Leach, 133. The passage from the

_Consuetudinarium_ is given from _Harl. MS._ 7044 f. 167 (apparently

a transcript from a _C. C. C. C. MS._) by Heywood and Wright, _op.

cit._ 632; E. S. Creasy, _Eminent Etonians_, 91 ‘in die S^{ti} Hugonis

pontificis solebat Aetonae fieri electio Episcopi Nihilensis, sed

consuetudo obsolevit. Olim episcopus ille puerorum habebatur nobilis,

in cuius electione et literata et laudatissima exercitatio, ad

ingeniorum vires et motus excitandos, Aetonae celebris erat.’

[1315] _Eton Audit Book_, 1507-8, quoted by H. C. Maxwell-Lyte, _Hist.

of Eton_ (ed. 1899), 149 ‘Pro reparatione le rochet pro episcopo

puerorum, xj^{d.}’ An inventory of Henry VIII’s reign says that this

rochet was given by James Denton (K. S. 1486) for use at St. Nicholas’

time.

[1316] Maxwell-Lyte, _op. cit._ 450.

[1317] Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, 674 ‘Item, unam Mitram de

Cloth of goold habentem 2 knoppes arḡ. enameld, dat. ad occupand. per

Barnebishop.’

[1318] John Stone, a monk of Canterbury, records in his _De Obitibus

et aliis Memorabilibus sui Coenobii_ (_MS. C. C. C. C._, Q. 8, quoted

Warton, ii. 230) ‘Hoc anno, 1464, in festo Sancti Nicolai non erat

episcopus puerorum in schola grammatica in civitate Cantuariae ex

defectu Magistrorum, viz. I. Sidney et T. Hikson.’

[1319] J. Stuart, _Extracts from Council Registers of Aberdeen_

(Spalding Club), i. 186. The council ordered on Nov. 27, 1542, ‘that

the maister of thair grammar scuyll sell haf iiij^s Scottis, of the

sobirest persoun that resauis him and the bischop at Sanct Nicolace

day.’ This is to be held a legal fee, ‘he hes na uder fee to leif on.’

[1320] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. 860 ‘And whereas heretofore dyverse

and many superstitious and childysshe observations have been usid, and

yet to this day are observed and kept in many and sondry parties of

this realm, as upon sainte Nicolas, sainte Catheryne, sainte Clement,

the holye Innocentes, and such like; children be strangelye decked

and apparelid to counterfaite priestes, bysshopps, and women; and so

ledde with songes and daunces from house to house, bleasing the people,

and gatherynge of monye; and boyes doo singe masse, and preache in

the pulpitt, with suche other unfittinge and inconvenyent usages,

rather to the derision than to any true glory of God, or honour of his

saints; the kyng’s majestie therefore mynding nothing so moche, as to

avaunce the true glorye of God without vayne superstition, willith and

commaundeth, that from henceforth all suche superstitions be loste and

clyerlye extinguisshed throughowte all this his realmes and dominions,

forasmoche as the same doo resemble rather the unlawfull superstition

of gentilitie, than the pure and sincere religion of Christe.’ Brand,

i. 236, suggests that there was an earlier proclamation of July 22,

1540, to the same effect. Johan Bale in his _Yet a Course at the

Romyshe Foxe_ (1542), says that if Bonner’s censure of those who lay

aside certain ‘auncyent rytes’ is justified, ‘then ought my Lorde also

to suffer the same selfe ponnyshment, for not goynge abought with Saynt

Nycolas clarkes.’ Thomas Becon, _Catechism_, 320 (ed. Parker Soc.),

compares a bishop who does not preach, a ‘dumb dog,’ to a ‘Nicholas

bishop.’ The _Articles_ put to bishop Gardiner in 1550 required him

to declare ‘that the counterfeiting St. Nicholas, St. Clement, St.

Catherine and St. Edmund, by children, heretofore brought into the

church, was a mockery and foolishness’ (Froude, iv. 550).

[1321] _Machyn’s Diary_, 75 ‘The xij day of November [1554] was

commondyd by the bysshope of London to all clarkes in the dyoses of

London for to have Sant Necolas and to go a-brod, as mony as wold have

ytt ... [the v day of December, the which was Saint Nicholas’ eve,

at even-song time, came a commandment that St. Nicholas should not

go abroad, nor about. But, notwithstanding, there went about these

Saint Nicholases in divers parishes, as St. Andrew’s, Holborn, and

St.] Nicolas Olyffe in Bredstret.’ Warton, iv. 237, says that during

Mary’s reign Hugh Rhodes, a gentleman or musician of the Chapel royal,

printed in black letter quarto a poem of thirty-six octave stanzas,

entitled _The Song of the Chyldbysshop, as it was songe before the

queenes maiestie in her privie chamber at her manour of saynt James in

the Feeldes on Saynt Nicholas day and Innocents day this yeare nowe

present, by the chylde bysshope of Poules churche with his company_.’

Warton apparently saw the poem, for he describes it as ‘a fulsome

panegyric on the queen’s devotion, in which she is compared to Judith,

Esther, the Queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary,’ but no copy of it is

now known; cf. F. J. Furnivall, _The Babees Book_ (E. E. T. S.), lxxxv.

[1322] _Machyn’s Diary_, 121 ‘The v day of Desember [1556] was Sant

Necolas evyn, and Sant Necolas whentt a-brod in most partt in London

syngyng after the old fassyon, and was reseyvyd with mony good pepulle

in-to ther howses, and had myche good chere as ever they had, in mony

plasses.’ Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, viii. 726, celebrates the wit

of a ‘godly matron,’ Mrs. Gertrude Crockhay, who shut ‘the foolish

popish Saint Nicholas’ out of her house in this year, and told her

brother-in-law, Dr. Mallet, when he remonstrated, that she had heard

of men robbed by ‘Saint Nicholas’s clerks.’ This was a slang term for

thieves, of whom, as of children, St. Nicholas was the patron; for

the reason of which cf. _Golden Legend_, ii. 119. Another procession

forbidden by the proclamation of 1541 was also revived in 1556; cf.

_Machyn’s Diary_, 119 ‘[The xxiv day of November, being the eve of

Saint Katharine, at six of the clock at night] sant Katheryn(’s) lyght

[went about the battlements of Saint Paul’s with singing,] and Sant

Katheryn gohying a prossessyon.’

[1323] At Exton in Rutlandshire, children were allowed at the beginning

of the nineteenth century to play in the church on Innocents’ Day

_(Leicester and Rutland Folk-Lore_, 96). Probably a few other examples

could be collected.

[1324] At Mainz, not only the _pueri_, but also the _diaconi_ and

the _sacerdotes_, had their _episcopus_ (Dürr, 71). On the other

hand at Vienne the term used at all the feasts, of the _triduum_ and

on January 1 and 6, was _rex_ (Pilot de Thorey, _Usages, Fêtes et

Coutumes en Dauphiné_, i. 179). The Boy Bishops received, for their

brief day, all the external marks of honour paid to real bishops.

They are alleged to have occasionally enjoyed more solid privileges.

Louvet (_Hist. et Ant. de Beauvais_, cited Rigollot, 142), says that

at Beauvais the right of presentation to chapter benefices falling

vacant on Innocents’ Day fell to the _pueri_. Jean Van der Muelen or

Molanus (_De Canonicis_ (1587), ii. 43) makes a similar statement

as to Cambrai: ‘Immo personatus hic episcopus in quibusdam locis

reditus, census et capones, annue percipit: alibi mitram habet, multis

episcoporum mitris sumptuosiorem. In Cameracensi ecclesia visus est

vacantem, in mense episcopi, praebendam, quasi iure ad se devoluto,

conferre; quam collationem beneficii vere magnifici, reverendissimus

praesul, cum puer grato animo, magistrum suum, bene de ecclesia

meritum, nominasset, gratam et raram habuit.’ At Mainz lost tradition

had it that if an Elector died during the tenure of office by a Boy

Bishop, the revenues _sede vacante_ would fall to him. Unfortunately

the chapter and verse of history disprove this (Dürr, 67, 79). On the

other hand it is certain that the Boy Bishops assumed the episcopal

privilege of coinage. Rigollot, 52 sqq., describes and figures a long

series of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century coins or medals mostly struck

by ‘bishops’ of the various churches and monastic houses of Amiens.

They are the more interesting, because some of them bear ‘fools’ as

devices, and thus afford another proof of the relations between the

feasts of Boys and Fools. Lille _monetae_ of the sixteenth century are

figured by Vanhende, _Numismatique Lilloise_, 256, and others from

Laon by C. Hidé, in _Bull. de la Soc. acad. de Laon_, xiii. 126. Some

of Rigollot’s specimens seem to have belonged, not to Boy Bishops, but

to _confréries_, who struck them as ‘jetons de présence’ (Chartier,

_L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris_, 178); and probably this is also

the origin of the pieces found at Bury St. Edmunds, which have nothing

in their devices to connect them with a Boy Bishop (Rimbault, xxvi).

[1325] Ivo Carnotensis, _Epist._ 67, _ad papam Urbanum_ (_P. L._ clxii.

87)

‘eligimus puerum, puerorum festa colentes,

non nostrum morem, sed regis iussa sequentes.’

Cf. Rigollot, 143.

[1326] Lucas Cusentinus (†1203-24) _Ordinarium_ (Martene, iii. 39):

‘Puero episcopello pontificalia conceduntur insignia, et ipse dicit

orationes.’

[1327] _The Ritual_ (†1264) of St. Omer (_Mém. de la Soc. des Antiq. de

la Morinie_, xx. 186) has the following rubric for St. Nicholas’ Day

‘in secundis vesperis ... a choristis incipitur prosa _Sospitati dedit

egros_, in qua altercando cantatur iste versus _Ergo laudes_ novies

tantum, ne immoderatum tedium generet vel derisum.’ The same rubric

recurs on St. Catherine’s Day. At St. Omer, as at Paris (cf. p. 363),

these were the two winter holidays for scholars. Cf. also p. 289, and

A. Legrand, _Réjouissances des écoliers de N.-D. de St. Omer, le jour

de St.-Nicholas, leur glorieux patron_ (_Mémoires_, _ut cit._ vii.

160). The St. Omer _Episcopus puerorum_ also officiated on Innocents’

Eve and the octave. Dreves, _Anal. Hymn._ xxi. 82, gives various

_cantiones_ for St. Nicholas’ Day; e.g.

‘Nicolai praesulis

Festum celebremus,

. . . . .

In tanto natalitio

Patrum docet traditio

Ut consonet in gaudio

Fidelium devotio,

Est ergo superstitio

Vacare a tripudio.’

In England it is probable that the Beverley Boy Bishop also officiated

on St. Nicholas’ Day. A chapter order of Jan. 7, 1313, directs the

transfer of the ‘servitium sancti Nicholai in festo eiusdem per

Magistrum Scholarum Beverlacensium celebrandum’ to the altar of St.

Blaize during the building of a new nave (A. F. Leach, _Memorials of

Beverley Minster_, Surtees Soc. i. 307).

[1328] Tille, _D. W._ 32; Leach, 130. The connexion of St. Nicholas

with children may be explained by, if it did not rather give rise

to, either the legend of his early piety, ‘The first day that he was

washed and bained, he addressed him right up in the bason, and he wold

not take the breast nor the pap but once on the Wednesday and once

on the Friday, and in his young age he eschewed the plays and japes

of other young children’ (_Golden Legend_, ii. 110); or the various

other legends which represent him as bringing children out of peril.

Cf. _Golden Legend_, ii. 119 sqq., and especially the history of the

resurrection of three boys from a pickle-tub narrated by Mr. Leach

from Wace. A. Maury, (_Croyances et Légendes du Moyen Âge_ (ed. 1896),

149) tries to find the origin of this in misunderstood iconographic

representations of the missionary saint at the baptismal font.

[1329] Leach, 130; _Golden Legend_, ii. 111.

[1330] Cf. ch. xi. The position of St. Nicholas’ Day in the ceremonies

discussed in this chapter is sometimes shared by other feasts of the

winter cycle: St. Edmund’s (Nov. 20), St. Clement’s (Nov. 23), St.

Catherine’s (Nov. 25), St. Andrew’s (Nov. 30), St. Eloi’s (Dec. 1),

St. Lucy’s (Dec. 13). Cf. pp. 349-51, 359, 366-8. The feast of St.

Mary Magdalen, kept in a Norman convent (p. 362), was, however, in the

summer (July 22).

[1331] Specht, 229; Tille, _D. W._ 300; Wetze and Welte, iv. 1411.

Roman schoolmasters expected a present at the _Minervalia_ (March

18-23); cf. the passage from Tertullian in Appendix N (1).

[1332] Martin Franc, _Champion des dames_ (_Bibl. de l’École des

Chartes_, v. 58).

[1333] Du Tilliot, 87.

[1334] Julleville, _Les Com._ 241.

[1335] Julleville, _Les Com._ 193, 256; Du Tilliot, 97. The

chief officers of the chapel _fous_ were the ‘bâtonnier’ and the

‘protonotaire et procureur des fous.’ In the _Infanterie_ these are

replaced by the emblematical _Mère Folle_ and the ‘Procureur fiscal’

known as ‘Fiscal vert’ or ‘Griffon vert.’ Du Tilliot and others have

collected a number of documents concerning the _Infanterie_, together

with representations of seals, badges, &c., used by them. These may be

compared in Du Tilliot with the _bâton_ belonging to the Chapel period

(1482), which he also gives. The motto of the _Infanterie_ is worth

noticing. It was _Numerus stultorum infinitus est_, and was taken from

_Ecclesiastes_, i. 15. It was used also at Amiens (Julleville, _Les

Com._ 234).

[1336] At Amiens the ‘feste du Prince des Sots’ existed in 1450

(Julleville, _Les Com._ 233), but the ‘Pope of Fools’ was not finally

suppressed in the cathedral for another century. But at Amiens there

was an immense multiplication of ‘fool’-organizations. Each church and

convent had its ‘episcopus puerorum,’ and several of these show _fous_

on their coins. Rigollot, 77, 105, figures a coin with _fous_, which he

assigns to a _confrérie_ in the parish of St. Remigius; also a coin,

dated 1543, of an ‘Evesque des Griffons.’

[1337] Julleville, _Les Com._ 144.

[1338] The term _cornard_ seems to be derived from the ‘cornes’ of the

traditional fool headdress. Leber, ix. 353, reprints from the _Mercure

de France_ for April, 1725, an account of a procession made by the

_abbas cornardorum_ at Evreux mounted upon an ass, which directly

recalls the Feast of Fools. A macaronic _chanson_ used on the occasion

of one of these processions is preserved:

‘_De asino bono nostro,_

_Meliori et optimo,_

_Debemus_ faire fête.

En revenant de Gravignariâ,

Un gros chardon _reperit in viâ_;

Il lui coupa la tête.

_Vir monachus, in mense Iulio,_

_Egressus est e monasterio_,

C’est dom de la Bucaille.

_Egressus est sine licentiâ_,

Pour aller voir donna Venissia,

Et faire la ripaille.’

Research has identified Dom de la Bucaille and Donna Venissia as

respectively a prior of St. Taurin, and a prioress of St. Saviour’s, in

Evreux.

[1339] A _coquille_ is a misprint, and this _société_ was composed of

the printers of Lyon.

[1340] _Conc. of Avignon_ (1326), c. 37, _de societatibus

colligationibus et coniurationibus quas confratrias appellant radicitus

extirpandis_ (Labbé, xi. 1738), forbids both clerks and laymen ‘ne

se confratres priores abbatas praedictae societatis appellent.’ The

charges brought against the _confréries_ are of perverting justice, not

of wanton revelry, and therefore it is probably not ‘sociétés joyeuses’

that are in question; cf. Ducange, s. v. _Abbas Confratriae_, quoting

a Paris example. Grenier, 362, however, mentions a ‘confrérie’ in the

Hôpital de Rue at Amiens (†1210) which was under an ‘évêque’; cf. the

following note.

[1341] I find an ‘évesque des folz’ at Béthune, a ‘M. le Cardinal’

as head of the ‘Joyeux’ at Rheims (Julleville, _Les Com._ 242; _Rép.

Com._ 340), and an ‘évesque des Griffons’ at Amiens (Rigollot, 105).

Exceptional is, I believe, the _Société des Foux_ founded on the lines

of a chivalric order by Adolphe, Comte de Clèves, in 1380 (Du Tilliot,

84).

[1342] Julleville, 236; Guy, 471.

[1343] Julleville, 88, 136. The Paris _Basoche_ was a ‘royaume’; those

of Chambéry and Geneva were ‘abbayes.’

[1344] Cf. p. 304.

[1345] Julleville, _Les Com._ 152.

[1346] Bulaeus, _Hist. Univ. Paris_, v. 690; Julleville, _Les Com._

297; Rashdall, _Universities of Europe_, ii. 611. It was probably to

this student custom that the Tournai rioters of 1499 appealed (cf. p.

301). In 1470 the Faculty of Arts ordered the suppression of it. Cf.

C. Jourdain, _Index Chartarum Paris_. 294 (No. 1369). On Jan. 5 they

met ‘ad providendum remedium de electione regis fatuorum,’ and decreed

‘quod nullus scolaris assumeret habitum fatui pro illo anno, nec in

collegio, nec extra collegium, nisi forsan duntaxat ludendo farsam vel

moralitatem.’ Several scholars ‘portantes arma et assumentes habitus

fatuorum’ were corrected on Jan. 24, and it was laid down that ‘reges

vero fatuorum priventur penitus a gradu quocumque.’

[1347] Grenier, 365; Ducange, s. v. _Deposuit_, quoting _Stat. Hosp.

S. Iacobi Paris._ (sixteenth century), ‘après le diner, on porte

le baton au cueur, et là est le trésorier, qui chante et fait le

_Deposuit_.’ _Stat. Syn. Petri de Broc. episc. Autiss._ (1642) ‘pendant

que les bâtons de confrérie seront exposez, pour être enchéris, l’on

ne chantera _Magnificat_, et n’appliquera-t-on point ces versets

_Deposuit_ et _Suscepit_ à la délivrance d’iceux; ains on chantera

quelque antienne et répons avec l’oraison propre en l’honneur du Saint,

duquel on célèbre la feste.’

[1348] Cf. ch. iii and Appendix F; and on the general character of

the _puys_, Julleville, _Les Com._ 42; Guy, xxxiv; Paris, 185. Some

documents with regard to a fourteenth-century _puy_ in London are in

Riley, _Liber Custumarum_, xlviii. 216, 479 (_Munim. Gildh. Lond._ in

R. S.); _Memorials of London_, 42.

[1349] Julleville, _Les Com._ 92, 233, 236, 241.

[1350] Clément-Hémery, _Fêtes du Dép. du Nord_, 184, states on the

authority of a MS. without title or signature that this _fête_

originated in a prose with a bray in it, sung by the canons of St.

Peter’s. The lay form of the feast can be traced from †1476 to 1668.

Leber, x. 135, puts the (clerical) origin before 1282.

[1351] Julleville, _Les Com._ 92, 204, 247.

[1352] F. Guérard, _Les Fous de Saint-Germain_, in _Mélanges d’Hist. et

d’Arch._ (Amiens, 1861), 17. On the Saturday before the first Sunday in

May children in the rue St. Germain carry boughs, singing

‘Saint Germain, coucou,

Ch’est l’fette d’chés fous, &c.’

In the church they used to place a bottle crowned with yellow

primroses, called ‘coucous.’ The dwellers in the parish are locally

known as ‘fous,’ and an historical myth is told to account for this.

Probably May-day has here merged with St. Germain’s Day (May 2) in a

‘fête des fous.’ Payments for decking the church appear in old accounts.

[1353] Guérard, _op. cit._ 46.

[1354] Leber, x. 125, from _Mercure de France_ for April, 1726; Gasté,

46.

[1355] ‘ludunt ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae ... faciunt podia,

choreas et choros ... et reliqua sicut in natalibus.’

[1356] Leber, ix. 261.

[1357] Julleville, _Les Com._ 233, quotes a decree of the municipality

of Amiens in 1450, ‘Il a esté dit et declairié qu’il semble que ce sera

tres grande recreacion, considéré les bonnes nouvelles que de jour en

jour en disoit du Roy nostre sire, et que le ducée de Normendie est du

tout reunye en sa main, de fere la feste du Prince des Sots.’

[1358] Ibid. 214.

[1359] Cf. ch. vii.

[1360] Julleville, _Les Com._ 209.

[1361] Leber, ix. 150, reprints the _Recueil de la Chevauchée faicte

en la Ville de Lyon le dix septiesme de novembre_, 1578. Another Lyon

_Recueil_ dates from 1566. Cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 234 (Amiens), 243

(Lyon), 248 (Rouen).

[1362] Cf. chs. xiii, xiv. The _theatrales ludi_ of Pope Innocent III’s

decree in 1207 probably refers only to the burlesque ‘offices’ of the

feasts condemned; and even the terms used by the Theological Faculty

in 1445--_spectacula_, _ludi theatrales_, _personagiorum ludi_--might

mean no more, for at Troyes in the previous year the ‘_jeu du sacre de

leur arcevesque_’ was called a ‘jeu de personnages,’ and this might

have been a mere burlesque consecration. However, ‘jeu de personnages’

generally implies something distinctly dramatic (cf. ch. xxiv). It

recurs in the Sens order of 1511. The Beauvais _Daniel_ was possibly

played at a Feast of Fools: at Tours a _Prophetae_ and a _miraculum_

appear under similar conditions; at Autun a _Herod_ gave a name to the

_dominus festi_. At Laon there were ‘mysteries’ in 1464 and 1465; by

1531 these had given way to ‘comedies.’ Farces were played at Tournai

in 1498 and comedies at Lille in 1526.

[1363] Cf. ch. xv. The Toul _Statutes_ of 1497 mention the playing of

miracles, morals, and farces. At Laon the playing of a comedy had been

dropped before 1546.

[1364] Julleville, _Rép. Com._ 321 (_Catalogue des representations_),

and elsewhere, gives many examples. The following decree (†1327)

of Dominique Grima, bishop of Pamiers, is quoted by L. Delisle, in

_Romania_, xxii. 274: ‘Dampnamus autem et anathematizamus ludum cenicum

vocatum _Centum Drudorum_, vulgariter _Cent Drutz_, actenus observatum

in nostra dyocesi, et specialiter in nostra civitate Appamiensi et

villa de Fuxo, per clericos et laycos interdum magni status; in quo

ludo effigiabantur prelati et religiosi graduum et ordinum diversorum,

facientes processionem cum candelis de cepo, et vexilis in quibus

depicta erant membra pudibunda hominis et mulieris. Induebant etiam

confratres illius ludi masculos iuvenes habitu muliebri et deducebant

eos processionaliter ad quendam quem vocabant priorem dicti ludi, cum

carminibus inhonestissima verba continentes....’ The _confrates_ and

the _prior_ here look like a _société joyeuse_, but the ‘ludus cenicus’

was probably less a regular play than a dramatized bit of folk-ritual,

like the Troyes _Sacre de l’arcevesque_ and the _Charivaris_. The

change of sex-costume is to be noted.

[1365] Cf. ch. xx.

[1366] Julleville, _Les Com._ 33; _La Com._ 73 ‘Le premier qui s’avisa,

pendant l’ivresse bruyante de la fête, de monter dans la chaire

chrétienne et d’y parodier le prédicateur dans une improvisation

burlesque, débita le premier sermon joyeux. C’est à l’origine,

comme nous avons dit, “une indécente plaisanterie de sacristain en

goguette.”’ A list of extant _sermons joyeux_ is given by Julleville,

_Rép. Com._ 259.

[1367] Julleville, _Les Com._ 32, 145; _La Com._ 68; E. Picot, _La

Sottie en France_ (_Romania_, vii. 236). Jean Bouchet, _Épîtres morales

et familières du Traverseur_ (1545), i. 32, thus defines the _Sottie_:

‘En France elle a de _sotie_ le nom,

Parce que sotz des gens de grand renom

Et des petits jouent les grands follies

Sur eschaffaux en parolles polies.’

[1368] Cf. ch. viii.

[1369] Creizenach, i. 395; Julleville, _Les Com._ 46; _La Com._ 19;

_Rép. Com._ 20; E. Langlois, _Robin et Marion_, 13; Guy, 337; M. Sepet,

_Le Jeu de la Feuillée_, in _Études romaines dédiées à G. Paris_, 69.

The play is sometimes called _Le Jeu d’Adam_. The text is printed in

Monmerque et Michel, _Théâtre français au Moyen Âge_, 55, and E. de

Coussemaker, _Œuvres de Adam de la Halle_, 297.

[1370] The extant _sotties_ are catalogued by Julleville, _Rép. Com._

104, and E. Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 249.

[1371] Creizenach, i. 406; G. Gregory Smith, _Transition Period_, 317;

Goedeke, _Deutsche Dichtung_, i. 325; V. Michels, _Studien über die

ältesten deutschen Fastnachtspiele_, 101. The latter writer inclines to

consider the _Narr_ of these plays as substituted by fifteenth century

for a more primitive _Teufel_. The plays themselves are collected by A.

von Keller, _Fastnachtspiele aus dem 15. Jahrhundert_ (1853-8).

[1372] C. H. Herford, _Literary Relations of England and Germany_,

323 sqq.; cf. G. Gregory Smith, _op. cit._ 176. On an actual

pseudo-chivalric Order of Fools cf. p. 375.

[1373] F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, _Register of Bishop Grandisson_,

ii. 1055, _Litera pro iniqua fraternitate de Brothelyngham_. ‘Ad

nostrum, siquidem, non sine inquietudine gravi, pervenit auditum,

quod in Civitate nostra Exonie secta quedam abhominabilis quorundam

hominum malignorum, sub nomine Ordinis, quin pocius erroris, de

Brothelyngham, procurante satore malorum operum, noviter insurrexit;

qui, non Conventum sed conventiculam facientes evidenter illicitam

et suspectam, quemdam lunaticum et delirum, ipsorum utique operibus

aptissime congruentem, sibi, sub Abbatis nomine, prefecerunt, ipsumque

Monachali habitu induentes ac in Theatro constitutum velut ipsorum

idolum adorantes, ad flatum cornu, quod sibi statuerunt pro campana,

per Civitatis eiusdem vicos et plateas, aliquibus iam elapsis diebus,

cum maxima equitum et peditum multitudine commitarunt [sic]; clericos

eciam laicos ceperunt eis obviam tunc prestantes, ac aliquos de ipsorum

domibus extraxerunt, et invitos tam diu ausu temerario et interdum

sacrilego tenuerunt, donec certas pecuniarum summas loco sacrificii,

quin verius sacrilegii, extorserunt ab eisdem. Et quamvis hec videantur

sub colore et velamine ludi, immo ludibrii, attemptari, furtum est,

tamen, proculdubio, in eo quod ab invitis capitur et rapina.’ There is

no such place as Brothelyngham, but ‘brethelyng,’ ‘brethel,’ ‘brothel,’

mean ‘good-for-nothing’ (_N. E. D._, s. vv.).

[1374] Du Tilliot, pl. 4.

[1375] Ibid. pll. 1-12 passim.

[1376] Julleville, _Les Com._ 234.

[1377] Ibid. 246; Rigollot, lxxxiv.

[1378] Marot, _Epistre du Coq en l’Asne_ (ed. Jannet, i. 224; ed.

Guiffrey, iii. 352):

‘Attachez moy une sonnette

Sur le front d’un moyne crotté,

Une aureille à chaque costé

Du capuchon de sa caboche;

Voyla un sot de la Basoche,

Aussi bien painct qu’il est possible.’

For other Paris evidence cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 144, 147; E. Picot,

in _Romania_, vii. 242.

[1379] Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 245; Keller, _Fastnachtspiele_, 258.

[1380] Rigollot, 73, 166, and passim; Strutt, 222; Douce, 516;

Julleville, _Les Com._ 147. There are many examples in the literature

referred to on p. 382.

[1381] Rigollot, lxxix.

[1382] F. de Ficoroni, _Le Maschere sceniche e le Figure comiche

d’antichi Romani_, 186, pl. 72.

[1383] Dieterich, 237, traces the coxcomb to Italian comedy of the

Atellane type; cf. ch. xxiii, on ‘Punch.’

[1384] Douce, pl. 3; cf. Leber, in Rigollot, lxi. 164, quoting the

proverb ‘pisa in utre perstrepentia’ and a statement of Savaron,

_Traité contre les Masques_ (1611), that at Clermont in Auvergne men

disguised ‘en Fols’ ran through the streets at Christmas ‘tenant des

masses à la main, farcies de paille ou de bourre, en forme de braiette,

frappant hommes et femmes.’ I suppose the bauble, like the hood, was

originally part of the sacrificial _exuviae_ and the _marotte_ a

sophistication of it.

[1385] Julleville, _Les Com._ 147, quoting _Réponse d’Angoulevent à

l’archipoète des pois pillez_ (1603):

‘Qu’après, dedans le char de la troupe idiotte

Ayant pour sceptre en main une peinte marotte,

Tu sois parmi Paris pourmené doucement,

Vestu de jaune et vert en ton accoustrement.’

[1386] Leber, in Rigollot, lxviii.

[1387] Julleville, _Les Com._ 195, 203.

[1388] Du Tilliot, 84.

[1389] See e.g. the plate (p. 9) and description (p. xii) of

Touchstone in Miss E. Fogerty’s ‘costume edition’ of _As You Like It_.

[1390] _Twelfth Night_, i. 5. 95, 101; _Lear_, i. 4. 220.

[1391] To the English data given by the historians of court fools may

be added _Wardrobe Account_ 28 _Edw. I_, 1299-1300 (Soc. Antiq.), 166

‘Martinetto de Vasconia fatuo ludenti coram dicto domino Edwardo,’ and

_Lib. de Comp. Garderobae_, temp. Edw. II (_MS. Cotton, Nero_, C. viii.

ff. 83, 85), quoted by Strutt, 194 ‘twenty shillings paid to Robert le

Foll to buy a _boclarium ad ludendum_ before the king.’ Robert le Foll

had also a _garcio_. For fools at the Scottish court of James IV cf.

_L. H. T._ i. cxcix, &c.; iii. xcii, &c.; and on Thomas, the fool of

Durham Priory in the fourteenth century, Appendix E (1).

[1392] Rigollot, 74; Moreau, 180, quoting a (clearly misdated) letter

of Charles V to the municipality of Troyes, which requires the

provision of a new ‘fol de cour’ by that city as a royal _droit_.

The king’s eulogy of his fool is rather touching: ‘savoir faisons

à leurs dessus dictes seigneuries que Thévenin nostre fol de cour

vient de trespasser de celluy monde dedans l’aultre. Le Seigneur Dieu

veuille avoir en gré l’âme de luy qui oneques ne faillit en sa charge

et fonction emprès nostre royale Seigneurie et mesmement ne voult

si trespasser sans faire quelque joyeuseté et gentille farce de son

métier.’

[1393] Moreau, 177, 197.

[1394] Quoted by Julleville, _Les Com._ 148:

‘L’un [le poète] a la teste verte; et l’autre va couvert

D’un joli chapperon, fait de jaune et de vert;

L’un s’amuse aux grelots, et l’autre à des sornettes.’

[1395] _Requestes présentées au Roy ... par le S. de Vertau_ (1605),

quoted by Leber, in Rigollot, lxvi; Julleville, _Les Com._ 147 ‘un

habit ... qui estoit faict par bandes de serge, moitié de couleur verte

et l’autre de jaune; et là où il y avoit des bandes jaunes, il y avoit

des passemens verts, et sur les vertes des passemens jaunes ... et un

bonnet aussi moitié de jaune et vert, avec des oreilles, &c.’

[1396] Kempe, _Loseley MSS_, 35, 47, 85.

[1397] Douce, 512; Doran, 293. Lodge, _Wits Miserie_ (1599), describes

a fool as ‘in person comely, in apparell courtly.’ The Durham accounts

(Appendix E (1)) contain several entries of cloth and shoes purchased

for the fool Thomas, but there is no mention of a hood.

[1398] Douce, 510.

[1399] Ibid. 510, 511. Hence the common derived sense of ‘coxcomb’ for

a foolish, vain fellow.

[1400] Douce, 509, quoting ‘the second tale of the priests of Peblis,’

which, for all I know, may be a translation, ‘a man who counterfeits a

fool is described “with club and bel and partie cote with eiris”; but

it afterwards appears that he had both a club and a bauble.’

[1401] Douce, 510.

[1402] Douce, 512, quoting _Gesta Grayorum_, ‘the scribe claims the

manor of Noverinte, by providing sheepskins and calves-skins to wrappe

his highness wards and idiotts in’; cf. _King John_, iii. 1. 129 ‘And

hang a calf’s-skin on those recreant limbs.’

[1403] Douce, 511.

[1404] _Twelfth Night_, i. 5. 63; _As You Like It_, ii. 7. 13, 43;

_King Lear_, i. 4. 160; _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, iv. 1. 215. But the

‘long motley coat guarded with yellow’ of _Hen. VIII_, prol. 16, does

not quite correspond to anything in the ‘habit de fou.’

[1405] _King Lear_, i. 4. 106. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, ii. 1. 226

‘What is your crest? a coxcomb?’

[1406] _All’s Well that Ends Well_, iv. 5. 32. There are _double

entendre’s_ here and in the allusion to the ‘bauble’ of a ‘natural’ in

_Romeo and Juliet_, ii. 4. 97, which suggest less a ‘marotte’ than a

bauble of the bladder type; cf. p. 197.

[1407] _As You Like It_, ii. 4. 47.

[1408] Cf. ch. xxv.

[1409] _Twelfth Night_, ii. 3. 22.

[1410] Fools appear in _As You Like It_ (†1599), _All’s Well that Ends

Well_ (†1601), _Twelfth Night_ (†1601), _King Lear_ (†1605); cf. the

allusion to Yorick, the king’s jester in _Hamlet_, v. 1. 198 (†1603).

Kempe seems to have left the Shakespearian company in 1598 or 1599.

[1411] According to Fleay, _Biog. Chron._ i. 25, Armin’s _Nest of

Ninnies_, of 1608 (ed. Shakes. Soc.), is a revision of his _Fool upon

Fool_ of 1605.

[1412] _As You Like It_, v. 4. 111. Cf. Lionel Johnson, _The Fools of

Shakespeare_, in _Noctes Shakespearianae_ (Winchester Sh. Soc.); J.

Thümmel, _Ueber Sh.’s Narren_ (_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, ix. 87).

[1413] Tille, _Y. and C._ 162; Sandys, 20. At Christmas, 1065, Edward

the Confessor ‘curiam tenuit’ at London, and dedicated Westminster

Abbey on Innocents’ day (Florence of Worcester, _Chronicle_, ed.

Thorpe, i. 224).

[1414] Tille, _Y. and C._ 160; Ramsay, _F. of E._ ii. 43.

[1415] Sandys, 23; Ashton, 9.

[1416] Sandys, 53; Ashton, 14; Drake, 94.

[1417] Ashton, 26; Stubbes, i. 173. Cf. Vaughan’s _Poems_ (_Muses

Library_, i. 107):

‘Alas, my God! Thy birth now here

Must not be number’d in the year.’

[1418] Cf. ch. xiii. There is much learning on the use of masks in

seasonal festivals in C. Noirot, _Traité de l’origine des masques_

(1609, reprinted in Leber, ix. 5); Savaron, _Traité contre les masques_

(1611); J. G. Drechssler, _de larvis natalitiis_ (1683); C. H. de

Berger, _Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascheratis_ (1723);

Pfannenschmidt, 617; Fr. Back, _de Graecorum caeremoniis in quibus

homines deorum vice fungebantur_ (1883); W. H. Dall, _On masks, labrets

and certain aboriginal customs_ (_Third Annual Report of American

Bureau of Ethnology_, 1884, p. 73); Frazer, _Pausanias_, iv. 239.

[1419] _Archaeologia_, xxxi, 37, 43, 44, 120, 122.

[1420] ‘Et ad faciendum ludos domini Regis ad festum Natalis domini

celebratum apud Guldefordum anno Regis xxj^o, in quo expendebantur

iiij^{xx}. iiij. tunicae de bokeram diversorum colorum, xlij viseres

diversorum similitudinum (_specified as_ xiiij similitudines facierum

mulierum, xiiij similitudines facierum hominum cum barbis, xiiij

similitudines capitum angelorum de argento) xxviij crestes (_specified

as_ xiiij crestes cum tibiis reversatis et calciatis, xiiij crestes cum

montibus et cuniculis), xiiij clocae depictae, xiiij capita draconum,

xiiij tunicae albae, xiiij capita pavonum cum alis, xiiij tunicae

depictae cum oculis pavonum, xiiij capita cygnorum cum suis alis, xiiij

tunicae de tela linea depictae, xiiij tunicae depictae cum stellis

de auro et argento vapulatis.’ The performers seem to have made six

groups of fourteen each, representing respectively men, women, angels,

dragons, peacocks, and swans. A notion of their appearance is given by

the cuts from miniatures (†1343) in Strutt, 160.

[1421] ‘Et ad faciendum ludos Regis ad festum Natalis domini anno

Regis xxij^{do} celebratum apud Ottefordum ubi expendebantur viseres

videlicet xij capita hominum et desuper tot capita leonum, xij

capita hominum et tot capita elephantum, xij capita hominum cum alis

vespertilionum, xij capita de wodewose [cf. p. 185], xvij capita

virginum, xiiij supertunicae de worsted rubro guttatae cum auro et

lineatae et reversatae et totidem tunicae de worsted viridi.... Et

ad faciendum ludos Regis in festo Epiphaniae domini celebrato apud

Mertonum ubi expendebantur xiij visers cum capitibus draconum et xiij

visers cum capitibus hominum habentibus diademata, x c^r tepies de

bokeram nigro et tela linea Anglica.’

[1422] _Archaeologia_, xxxi. 29, 30, 118. The element of semi-dramatic

_spectacle_ was already getting into the fourteenth-century tournament.

In 1331 Edward III and his court rode to the lists in Cheap, ‘omnes

splendido apparatu vestiti et ad similitudinem Tartarorum larvati’

(_Annales Paulini_ in _Chron. Edw. I and II_, R. S. i. 354). In 1375

‘rood dame Alice Perrers, as lady of the sune, fro the tour of London

thorugh Chepe; and alwey a lady ledynge a lordys brydell. And thanne

begun the grete justes in Smythefeld’ (_London Chronicle_, 70). These

ridings closely resemble the ‘mummings’ proper. But they were a prelude

to _hastiludia_, which from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century

constantly grew less actual and more mimetic. In 1343 ‘fuerunt pulchra

hastiludia in Smethfield, ubi papa et duodecim cardinales per tres

dies contra quoscumque tirocinium habuerunt’ (Murimuth, _Continuatio

Chronicarum_, R. S. 146). And so on, through the jousts of Pallas

and Diana at the coronation of Henry VIII (Hall, 511) to the regular

Elizabethan ‘Barriers,’ such as the siege of the ‘Fortress of Perfect

Beauty’ by the ‘Four Foster Children of Desire,’ in which Sidney took

part in 1581.

[1423] This seems to be clearly the sense of the _ludi Domini Prioris_

in the accounts of Durham Priory (cf. Appendix E). The Scottish

Exchequer Rolls between 1446 and 1478 contain such entries as ‘iocis

et ludis,’ ‘ludis et interludiis,’ ‘ioculancium et ludencium,’ ‘ludos

et disportus suos,’ where all the terms used, except ‘interludiis’

(cf. ch. xxiv), appear to be more or less equivalent (_Accounts of the

Treasurer of Scotland_, i. ccxxxix). The _Liber Niger_ of Edward IV

declares that in the _Domus_ of Henry I were allowed ‘ludi honesti,’

such as military sports ‘cum ceterorum iocorum diversitate’ (_Household

Ordinances_, 18). ‘Ioca’ is here exactly the French ‘jeux.’ Polydore

Vergil, _Hist. Anglica_ (ed. Thysius), 772, says of the weddings of

the children of Henry VII ‘utriusque puellae nuptiae omnium generum

ludis factae.’ For ‘disports’ cf. Hall, 774, ‘enterludes ... maskes

and disportes,’ and _Paston Letters_, iii. 314, where Lady Morley is

said to have ordered in 1476 that on account of her husband’s death

there should be at Christmas ‘non dysgysyngs, ner harpyng, ner lutyng,

ner syngyn, ner non lowde dysports, but pleyng at the tabyllys, and

schesse, and cards. Sweche dysports sche gave her folkys leve to play,

and non odyr.’ I find the first use of ‘revels’ in the Household Books

of Henry VII for 1493 (Collier, i. 50). In 1496 the same source gives

the Latin ‘revelliones’ (Collier, i. 46). Sir Thomas Cawarden (1545)

was patented ‘magister iocorum, revellorum et mascorum’ (Rymer, xv.

62). Another synonym is ‘triumph,’ used in 1511 (Arnold, _Chronicle_,

xlv). The latter means properly a royal entry or reception; cf. ch.

xxiii.

[1424] Warton, ii. 220, from _Compotus Magn. Garderobae_, 14 Ric.

II, f. 198^b ‘pro xxi coifs de tela linea pro hominibus de lege

contrafactis pro ludo regis tempore natalis domini anno xii.’

[1425] Froissart (ed. Buchon, iii. 176), Bk. iv, ch. 32, describes the

dance of 1393, in which Charles VI dressed in flax as a wild man was

nearly burnt to death.

[1426] The English _William of Palerne_, 1620 (†1350, ed. Skeat, E. E.

T. S.), has ‘daunces disgisi.’

[1427] H. T. Riley, _Liber Albus_ (R. S. xii), i. 644, 645, 647, 673,

676; _Memorials of London_, 193, 534, 561. For similar orders elsewhere

cf. L. T. Smith, _Ricart’s Calendar_, 85 (Bristol), and _Harl. MS._

2015, f. 64 (Chester).

[1428] Riley, _Memorials_, 658.

[1429] Ibid. 669. It was proclaimed ‘that no manere persone, of what

astate, degre, or condicioun that euere he be, duryng this holy

tyme of Cristemes be so hardy in eny wyse to walk by nyght in any

manere mommyng, pleyes, enterludes, or eny other disgisynges with eny

feynyd berdis, peyntid visers, diffourmyd or colourid visages in eny

wyse ... outake that hit be leful to eche persone for to be honestly

mery as he can, with in his owne hous dwellyng.’

[1430] Stowe, _Survey_ (ed. Thoms), 37, from a fragment of an English

chronicle, in a sixteenth-century hand, in _Harl. MS._ 247, f. 172^v

(cf. _Archaeologia_, xxii. 208). I print the original text, which

Stowe paraphrases, introducing, e.g., the term ‘maskers’: ‘At y^e same

tyme y^e Comons of London made great sporte and solemnity to y^e yong

prince: for upon y^e monday next before y^e purification of our lady

at night and in y^e night were 130 men disguizedly aparailed and well

mounted on horsebacke to goe on mumming to y^e said prince, riding from

Newgate through Cheape whear many people saw them with great noyse of

minstralsye, trumpets, cornets and shawmes and great plenty of waxe

torches lighted and in the beginning they rid 48 after y^e maner of

esquiers two and two together clothed in cotes and clokes of red say

or sendall and their faces covered with vizards well and handsomely

made: after these esquiers came 48 like knightes well arayed after y^e

same maner: after y^e knightes came one excellent arrayed and well

mounted as he had bene an emperor: after him some 100 yards came one

nobly arayed as a pope and after him came 24 arayed like cardinals and

after y^e cardinals came 8 or 10 arayed and with black vizardes like

deuils appearing nothing amiable seeming like legates, riding through

London and ouer London bridge towards Kenyton wher y^e yong prince

made his aboad with his mother and the D. of Lancaster and y^e Earles

of Cambridge, Hertford Warrick and Suffolk and many other lordes which

were with him to hould the solemnity, and when they were come before

y^e mansion they alighted on foot and entered into y^e haule and sone

after y^e prince and his mother and y^e other lordes came out of y^e

chamber into y^e haule, and y^e said mummers saluted them, shewing a

pair of dice upon a table to play with y^e prince, which dice were

subtilly made that when y^e prince shold cast he shold winne and y^e

said players and mummers set before y^e prince three jewels each after

other: and first a balle of gould, then a cupp of gould, then a gould

ring, y^e which y^e said prince wonne at thre castes as before it was

appointed, and after that they set before the prince’s mother, the D.

of Lancaster, and y^e other earles euery one a gould ringe and y^e

mother and y^e lordes wonne them. And then y^e prince caused to bring

y^e wyne and they dronk with great joye, commanding y^e minstrels to

play and y^e trompets began to sound and other instruments to pipe &c.

And y^e prince and y^e lordes dansed on y^e one syde, and y^e mummers

on y^e other a great while and then they drank and tooke their leaue

and so departed toward London.’ Collier, i. 26, speaks of earlier

mummings recorded by Stowe in 1236 and 1298; but Stowe only names

‘pageants’ (cf. ch. xxiii). M. Paris, _Chronica Maiora_ (R. S. lvii),

v. 269, mentions ‘vestium transformatarum varietatem’ at the wedding

of Alexander III of Scotland and Margaret of England in 1251, but this

probably means ‘a succession of rapidly changed robes.’

[1431] _A Chronicle of London_ (†1442, ed. N. H. Nicolas or E. Tyrrell,

1827), 85 ‘to have sclayn the kyng ... be a mommynge’; _Incerti

Scriptoris Chronicon_ (before 1455, ed. J. A. Giles), 7 ‘conduxerunt

lusores Londoniam, ad inducendum regi praetextum gaudii et laetitiae

iuxta temporis dispositionem, ludum nuncupatum Anglice Mummynge’;

Capgrave, _Chronicle of England_ (†1464, R. S.), 275 ‘undir the coloure

of mummeris in Cristmasse tyme’; _An English Chronicle_ (†1461-71,

C. S.), 20 ‘to make a mommyng to the king ... and in that mommyng

they purposid to sle him’; Fabian, _Chronicle_, 567 ‘a dysguysynge or

a mummynge.’ But other chroniclers say that the outbreak was to be

at a tournament, e.g. _Continuatio Eulogii_ (R. S. ix), iii. 385;

_Annales Henrici_ (R. S. xxviii), 323 ‘Sub simulatione natalitiorum

vel hastiludiorum.’ I suppose ‘natalitia’ is ‘Christmas games’ and

might cover a mumming. Hall, _Chronicle_ (ed. 1809), 16, makes it

‘justes.’ So does Holinshed (ed. 1586), iii. 514, 516, but he knew both

versions; ‘them that write how the king should have beene made awaie at

a justs; and other that testifie, how it should have been at a maske or

mummerie’; cf. Wylie, _Henry the Fourth_, i. 93; Ramsay, _L. and Y._ i.

20.

[1432] Stowe, _Survey_ (ed. Thoms), 37, doubtless from _A Chronicle of

London_ (†1442, _ut supra_), 87. I do not find the mumming named in

other accounts of the visit.

[1433] _Gregory’s Chronicle_ (before 1467, in _Hist. Collections of a

Citizen of London_, C. S.), 108 ‘the whyche Lollers hadde caste to have

made a mommynge at Eltham, and undyr coloure of the mommynge to have

destryte the Kynge and Hooly Chyrche.’

[1434] _Acte against disguysed persons and Wearing of Visours_ (3 Hen.

VIII, c. 9). The preamble states that ‘lately wythin this realme dyvers

persons have disgysed and appareld theym, and covert theyr fayces with

Vysours and other thynge in such manner that they sholde nott be knowen

and divers of theym in a Companye togeder namyng them selfe Mummers

have commyn to the dwellyng place of divers men of honor and other

substanciall persones; and so departed unknowen.’ Offenders are to be

treated as ‘Suspectes or Vacabundes.’

[1435] The _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (†1440 C. S.), ii. 348, translates

‘_Mummynge_’ by ‘_mussacio vel mussatus_’ (‘murmuring’ or ‘keeping

silence,’ conn. _mutus_), and gives a cognate word ‘Mummȳn, as

they that noȝt speke _Mutio_.’ This is of course the ordinary sense

of _mum_. But Skeat (_Etym. Dict._ s.v.) derives ‘mummer’ from the

Dutch through Old French, and explains it by the Low German _Mumme_,

a ‘mask.’ He adds ‘The word is imitative, from the sound _mum_ or

_mom_, used by nurses to frighten or amuse children, at the same time

pretending to cover their faces.’ Whether the fourteenth-century

mumming was silent or not, there is no reason to suppose that the

primitive folk-procession out of which it arose was unaccompanied

by dance and song; and silence is rarely, if ever (cf. p. 211) _de

rigueur_ in modern ‘guisings.’

[1436] They are in _Trin. Coll. Camb. MS._ R. iii. 20 (Shirley’s; cf.

E. P. Hammond, _Lydgate’s Mumming at Hertford_ in _Anglia_, xxii.

364), and copied by or for Stowe ‘out of þe boke of John Sherley’

in _B. M. Add. MS._ 29729, f. 132 (cf. E. Sieper, _Lydgate’s Reson

and Sensuallyte_, E. E. T. S. i. xvi). The Hertford verses have been

printed by Miss Hammond (_loc. cit._) and the others by Brotanek,

306. I do not find any notice of disguisings when Henry VI spent the

Christmas of 1433 at Lydgate’s own monastery of Bury St. Edmunds (F. A.

Gasquet. _A Royal Christmas_ in _The Old English Bible_, 226). Devon,

_Issues of the Exchequer_, 473, notes a payment for the king’s ‘plays

and recreations’ at Christmas, 1449.

[1437] ‘A lettre made in wyse of balade by daun Johan, brought by a

poursuyant in wyse of Mommers desguysed to fore þe Mayre of London,

Eestfeld, vpon þe twelffeþe night of Cristmasse, ordeyned Ryallych by

þe worthy Merciers, Citeseyns of london’ and ‘A lettre made in wyse of

balade by ledegate daun Johan, of a mommynge, whiche þe Goldesmythes of

þe Cite of London mommed in Right fresshe and costele welych desguysing

to þeyre Mayre Eestfeld, vpon Candelmasse day at nyght, affter souper;

brought and presented vn to þe Mayre by an heraude, cleped ffortune.’

The Mercer’s pursuivant is sent from Jupiter; the Goldsmiths’ mummers

are David and the twelve tribes. The Levites were to sing. William

Eastfield was mayor 1429-30 and 1437-8. Brotanek, 306, argues that, as

a second term is not alluded to, this was probably the first. Fairholt,

_Lord Mayors’ Pageants_, ii. 240, prints a similar letter of Lydgate’s

sent to the Sheriffs at a May-day dinner.

[1438] ‘A balade made by daun John Lidegate at Eltham in Cristmasse

for a momyng tofore þe kyng and þe Qwene.’ Bacchus, Juno and Ceres

send gifts ‘by marchandes þat here be.’ The same collections contain a

balade, ‘gyven vnto þe Kyng Henry and to his moder the quene Kateryne

sittyng at þe mete vpon the yeares day in the castell of Hertford.’

Some historical allusions make 1427 a likely date (Brotanek, 305).

[1439] ‘Þe devyse of a momyng to fore þe kyng henry þe sixte, beinge

in his Castell of wyndesore, þe fest of his crystmasse holdyng þer,

made by lidegate daun John, þe munk of Bury, howe þampull and þe floure

delys came first to þe Kynges of ffraunce by myrakle at Reynes.’ An

allusion to Henry’s coming coronation in Paris fixes the date to

1429-30.

[1440] ‘Þe deuyse of a desguysing to fore þe gret estates of þis lande,

þane being at London, made by Lidegate daun Johan, þe Munk of Bury, of

dame fortune, dame prudence, dame Rightwysnesse and dame ffortitudo.

beholdeþe, for it is moral, plesaunt and notable.’ A fifth dame is

‘Attemperaunce.’ The time is ‘Cristmasse.’ An elaborate pageant in

which Fortune dwelt is described. A song is directed at the close.

Henry V is spoken of as dead.

[1441] ‘Nowe foloweth here the maner of a bille by weye of supplycation

put to the kynge holdinge his noble fest of crystmasse in the

castell of hartford as in dysguysinge of þe rude vpplandishe people

complayninge on their wyues with the boystrus answere of ther wyues

deuysed by lidgate at þe requeste of the countrowlore Brys slain at

louiers.’ Louviers was taken by the French in 1430 and besieged next

year (Brotanek, 306). The text has marginal notes, ‘demonstrando vj

rusticos,’ &c.

[1442] Cf. p. 393. There is a disguising of 1483 in the Howard Accounts

(Appendix E, vii).

[1443] _L. H. T. Accounts_, i. ccxl ‘Iohanni Rate, pictori, pro le

mumre regis’ (1465-6); ad le mumre grath’ (1466-7).

[1444] Ibid. i. lxxix, cxliv, ccxxxix; ii. lxxi, cx; iii. xlvi, lv,

and passim, have many payments for dances at court, of which some were

morris dances, with ‘leg-harnis,’ and also to ‘madinnis,’ ‘gysaris,’ or

‘dansaris’ who ‘dansit’ or ‘playit’ to the king in various parts of the

country.

[1445] Campbell, _Materials for a Hist. of Henry VII_ (R. S.),

_passim_; Collier, i. 38-64; Bentley, _Excerpta Historica_, 85-133;

Leland, _Collectanea_, iii. 256.

[1446] Collier, i. 58, from _Harl. MS._ 69. A word which Collier prints

‘Maskers’ is clearly a misprint for ‘Masters,’ and misleading.

[1447] Ibid. i. 53. The ‘morris’ provided a grotesque element,

analogous to the ‘antimasque’ of Jonson’s day.

[1448] Ibid. i. 24, from _Fairfax MSS._ Of this _Booke of all manner of

Orders concerning an Earle’s house_ ‘some part is dated 16 Henry VII,

although the handwriting appears to be that of the latter end of the

reign of Henry VIII.’

[1449] Hall, 513; Brewer, ii. 1490.

[1450] _Hen. VIII_, i. 4; Hall, 719; Stowe, _Chronicle_, 845;

Cavendish, _Life of Wolsey_, 112; Boswell-Stone, _Shakespeare’s

Holinshed_, 441; R. Brown, _Venetian Papers_, iv. 3, 4.

[1451] Brewer, iii. 1552.

[1452] Ibid. iv. 1390-3; Hall, 722.

[1453] Ibid. ii. 1495, 1497, 1499, 1501, 1509; iii. 1558.

[1454] Hall, 597, speaks of a disguising in 1519, which apparently

included ‘a goodly commedy of Plautus’ and a mask. Away from court

in 1543 four players were committed to the Counter for ‘unlawful

disguising’ (_P. C. Acts_, i. 109, 110, 122). They surely played

interludes. It may be further noted (i) the elaborate disguisings of

Henry VII and Henry VIII, with much action and speechifying besides

the dancing, are difficult to distinguish when merely described from

interludes. What Hall, 518, calls in 1511 an interlude, seems from the

Revels Accounts (Brewer, ii. 1495) to have been really a disguising.

Hall, 641, speaks of a ‘disguisyng or play’ in 1522, and Cavendish,

_Life of Wolsey_, i. 136, of a ‘disguising or interlude’ in 1527; (ii)

a disguising or dance might be introduced, as _entr’acte_ or otherwise,

into an interlude. In 1514 an interlude ‘conteyned a moresk of vj

persons and ij ladys’ (Collier, i. 68). In 1526 a moral play was ‘set

forth with straunge deuises of Maskes and Morrishes’ (Hall, 719). The

interlude of _The Nature of the Four Elements_ (early Hen. VIII) has

after the _dramatis personae_ the direction, ‘Also yf ye lyst ye may

brynge in a dysgysynge’; cf. Soergel, 21.

[1455] Hall, 526.

[1456] Evans, xxi. Other not very plausible suggestions are made by

Ward, i. 150; Soergel, 13. There is a good account of the Italian

_mascherata_ from about 1474 in Symonds, _Shakespeare’s Predecessors_,

321.

[1457] Brewer, ii. 1497. There is a further entry in an account of 1519

(Brewer, iii. 35) of a revel, called a ‘masklyne,’ after the manner of

Italy.

[1458] ‘Maske’ first appears in 1514 (Collier, i. 79 ‘iocorum

larvatorum, vocat. Maskes, Revelles, and Disguysings’); ‘masque’

is not English until the seventeenth century (Evans, xiii). Skeat

derives through the French _masque_, _masquer_, _masquerer_, and the

Spanish _mascara_, _mascarada_ (Ital. _mascherata_) from the Arabic

_maskharat_, a buffoon or droll (root _sakhira_, ‘he ridiculed’). The

original sense would thus be ‘entertainment’ and that of ‘face-mask’

(_larva_, ‘vizard,’ ‘viser’) only derivative. But late Latin has

already _masca_, _talamasca_ in this sense; e.g. Burchardus of Worms,

_Coll. Decretorum_ (before 1024), bk. ii. c. 161 ‘nec larvas daemonum

quas vulgo Talamascas dicunt, ibi ante se ferri consentiat’; cf.

Ducange, s.v. _Talamasca_; Pfannenschmidt, 617, with some incorrect

etymology. And the French _masque_ is always the face-mask and never

the performance; while _se masquier_, _masquillier_, _maschurer_,

are twelfth-to thirteenth-century words for ‘blacken,’ ‘dirty.’ I

therefore prefer the derivation of Brotanek, 120, from a Germanic

root represented by the M. E. _maskel_ ‘stain’; and this has the

further advantage of explaining ‘maskeler,’ ‘maskeling,’ which appear,

variously spelt, in documents of †1519-26. Both terms signify the

performance, and ‘maskeler’ the performer also (Brotanek, 122).

Face-masks were _de rigueur_ in the Mask to a late date. In 1618

John Chamberlain writes ‘the gentlemen of Gray’s Inn came to court

with their show, for I cannot call it a masque, seeing they were not

disguised, nor had vizards’ (Nichols, _James I_, iii. 468).

[1459] Ben Jonson, iii. 162. _Masque of Augurs_ (1623) ‘Disguise was

the old English word for a masque, sir, before you were an implement

belonging to the Revels’; ii. 476, _A Tale of a Tub_ (1634), v. 2:

‘_Pan._ A masque! what’s that?

_Scriben._ A mumming or a shew,

With vizards and fine clothes.

_Clench._ A disguise, neighbour,

Is the true word.’

[1460] Cf. ch. x. Less dramatic performances are described for the

‘guizards’ of the Scottish Lowlands by R. Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of

Scotland_, 169, for the ‘mummers’ of Ireland in _N. and Q._ 3rd series,

viii. 495, for the ‘mummers’ of Yorkshire in _F. L._ iv. 162. The

latter sweep the hearth, humming ‘mumm-m-m.’

[1461] _L. H. T. Accounts_, i. ccxl, 270, 327; ii. cx, 111, 320, 374,

430, 431; iii. 127. In 1504 is a payment ‘to the barbour helit Paules

hed quhen he wes hurt with the Abbot of Unresoun.’ Besides the court

Abbot, there was an ‘Abbot of Unresone of Linlithgow’ in 1501, who

‘dansit to the king,’ and an ‘Abbot of Unresoun of the pynouris of

Leith’ in 1504. Such entries cease after the Scottish Act of Parliament

of 1555 (cf. p. 181).

[1462] Stowe, _Survey_, 37 ‘There was in the feast of Christmas in

the King’s house, wheresoever he was lodged, a Lord of Misrule or

Master of Merry Disports; and the like had ye in the house of every

nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal.

Among the which, the Mayor of London and either of the Sheriffs had

their several Lords of Misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or

offence, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders.

These Lords beginning their rule on Allhollons eve, continued the

same til the morrow after the feast of the Purification, commonly

called Candlemas-day. In all which space there were fine and subtle

disguisings, masks and mummeries’; Holinshed (ed. 1587), iii. 1067

‘What time [at Christmas], of old ordinarie course, there is alwaies

one appointed to make sport in the court, called commonlie lord of

misrule: whose office is not unknowne to such as haue beene brought up

in noble mens houses, & among great house keepers which use liberall

feasting in that season.’ The sense of ‘misrule’ in this phrase is

‘disorder’; cf. the ‘uncivil rule’ of _Twelfth Night_, ii. 3. 132.

[1463] Collier, i. 48-55; Bentley, _Excerpt. Historica_, 90, 92;

Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 255. The ‘Lords’ named are one

Ringley in 1491, 1492, and 1495, and William Wynnesbury in 1508. In

this year the terms ‘Lordship’ and ‘Abbot’ are both used. The ‘Lord’

got a fee each year of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ Also the queen (1503) gave him

£1.

[1464] Collier, i. 74, 76; Brewer, i. cxi. Wynnesbury was Lord in 1509,

1511 to 1515, and 1519, Richard Pole in 1516, Edmund Trevor in 1518,

William Tolly in 1520. The fees gradually rise to £13 6_s._ 8_d._ and

a ‘rewarde’ of £2. Madden, _Expenses of Princess Mary_, xxvi, enters

a gift in 1520 ‘domino mali gubernatoris [? gubernationis] hospicii

domini Regis.’

[1465] Brewer, vii. 589.

[1466] Madden, _op. cit._ xxviii. He was John Thurgood.

[1467] Ellis, _Original Letters_ (1st series), i. 270.

[1468] Campbell, _Materials for Hist. of Hen. VII_ (R. S.), i. 337; ii.

60, 83; Collier, i. 50; Yorke, _Hardwicke Papers_, 19. Payments are

made for ‘revels’ or ‘disguisings’ to Richard Pudsey ‘serjeant of the

cellar,’ Walter Alwyn, Peche, Jaques Haulte, ‘my Lord Suff, my Lord

Essex, my Lord Will^m, and other,’ John Atkinson, Lewes Adam, ‘master

Wentworth.’ In 1501 Jaques Hault and William Pawne are appointed to

devise disguisings and morisques for a wedding. The term ‘Master of the

Revels’ is in none of these cases used. But in an ‘Order for sitting

in the King’s great Chamber,’ dated Dec. 31, 1494 (_Ordinances and

Regulations_, Soc. Antiq. 113), it is laid down that ‘if the master of

revells be there, he may sit with the chaplains or with the squires or

gentlemen ushers.’

[1469] _Revels Accounts_ (Brewer, ii. 1490; iii. 1548), s. ann.

1510, 1511, 1512, 1513, 1515, 1517, 1522; Brewer, i. 718; ii. 1441;

xiv. 2. 284; Kempe, 69; Collier, i. 68. Guildford is several times

called ‘master of the revels’; so is Harry Wentworth in 1510. In 1522

Guildford is ‘the hy kountrolleler.’ It was the ‘countrowlore’ at whose

request Lydgate prepared one of his disguisings (p. 398).

[1470] Rymer, xv. 62 ‘dedimus et concessimus eidem Thomae officium

Magistri Iocorum Revelorum & Mascorum omnium & singularium nostrorum

vulgariter nuncupatorum Revells & Masks.’ The tenure of office was to

date from March 16, 1544, and the annual fee was £10.

[1471] Collier, i. 79, 131, 139, 153; Kempe, 69, 73, 93, 101; _Molyneux

Papers_ (Hist. MS. Comm., seventh Rep.), 603, 614; Brewer, ii. 2. 1517;

xiii. 2. 100; xiv. 2. 159, 284; xvi. 603; Halliwell, _A Collection

of Ancient Documents respecting the Office of Master of the Revels_

(1870); P. Cunningham, _Extracts from the Accounts of Revels at Court_

(Sh. Soc. 1842).

[1472] Kempe, 19; Collier, i. 147; Holinshed (_ut cit. supra_, p. 403);

W. F. Trench, _A Mirror for Magistrates, its Origin and Influence_, 66,

76.

[1473] Kempe, 23. One of Ferrers’ letters to Cawarden is endorsed

‘Ferryrs, the Lorde Myserable, by the Cunsell’s aucketorryte.’ Ferrers

solemnly heads his communications ‘Qui est et fuit,’ and alludes to the

king as ‘our Founder.’

[1474] Kempe, 85.

[1475] Ibid. 28.

[1476] Machyn, 13.

[1477] Kempe, 32; Collier, i. 148; W. F. Trench, _op. cit._ 21; D. N.

B. s. v. _William Baldwin_; G[ulielmus] B[aldwin] _Beware the Cat_

(1570, reprinted by Halliwell, 1864). In this pamphlet Baldwin tells

a story heard by him at court ‘the last Christmas,’ where he was with

‘Maister Ferrers, then maister of the King’s Majesties pastimes.’ The

date seems fixed to 1552 by a mention of ‘Maister Willott and Maister

Stremer, the one his [Ferrers’] Astronomer, the other his Divine’ (cf.

Kempe, 34). The pamphlet was probably printed in 1553 and suppressed.

[1478] Machyn, 28; Stowe, _Annals_, 608. Abraham Fleming in Holinshed

(ed. 1587), copying Stowe, transfers the events of this Christmas by

mistake to 1551-2.

[1479] Kempe, 53; cf. p. 369.

[1480] Ibid. 47.

[1481] The letter from Ferrers dated in Kempe, 37 ‘Saynt John’s Daye,

ano 1553,’ clearly belongs to the Christmas of 1552. The additional

garments asked for therein are in the accounts for that year (Kempe,

52).

[1482] A. Wood, _Athenae Oxonienses_ (ed. Bliss), iii. 480 ‘The

custom was not only observed in that [St. John’s] college, but in

several other houses, particularly in Merton College, where, from the

first foundation, the fellows annually elected, about St. Edmund’s

day, in November, a Christmas lord, or lord of misrule, styled in

their registers _Rex Fabarum_ and _Rex Regni Fabarum_; which custom

continued until the reformation of religion, and then, that producing

puritanism, and puritanism presbytery, the profession of it looked

upon such laudable and ingenious customs as popish, diabolical and

antichristian’; _Hist. and Antiq. of the Univ. of Oxford_, ii. 136,

‘s. a. 1557’ mentions an oration ‘de ligno et foeno’ made by David de

la Hyde, in praise of ‘Mr. Jasper Heywood, about this time King, or

Christmas Lord, of the said Coll. [Merton] being it seems the last

that bore that commendable office. That custom hath been as ancient

for ought that I know as the College itself, and the election of them

after this manner. On the 19th of November, being the vigil of S.

Edmund, king and martyr, letters under seal were pretended to have

been brought from some place beyond sea, for the election of a king

of Christmas, or Misrule, sometimes called with us of the aforesaid

college, Rex Fabarum. The said letters being put into the hands of the

Bachelaur Fellows, they brought them into the Hall that night, and

standing, sometimes walking, round the fire, there reading the contents

of them, would choose the senior Fellow that had not yet borne that

office, whether he was a Doctor of Divinity, Law, or Physic, and being

so elected, had power put into his hands of punishing all misdemeanours

done in the time of Christmas, either by imposing exercises on the

juniors, or putting into the stocks at the end of the Hall any of the

servants, with other punishments that were sometimes very ridiculous.

He had always a chair provided for him, and would sit in great state

when any speeches were spoken, or justice to be executed, and so this

his authority would continue till Candlemas, or much about the time

that the Ignis Regentium was celebrated in that college’; _Life and

Times_ (O. H. S.), i. 423 ‘Fresh nights, carolling in public halls,

Christmas sports, vanished, 1661.’

[1483] The title is borrowed from the Twelfth-Night King; cf. p. 260.

Perhaps ‘Rex de Faba’ was an early name for the Lord of Misrule at the

English court. In 1334 Edward III made a gift to the minstrels ‘in

nomine Regis Fabae’ (Strutt, 344).

[1484] G. C. Brodrick, _Memorials of Merton College_, 46 and _passim_;

B. W. Henderson, _Merton College_, 267.

[1485] _The Christmas Prince in 1607_, printed in _Miscellanea Antiqua

Anglicana_ (1816); M. L. Lee, _Narcissus: A Twelfth Night Merriment_,

xvii.

[1486] The Prince’s designation was ‘The most magnificent and renowned

THOMAS by the fauour of Fortune, Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord S^t.

Iohn’s, high Regent of y^e Hall, Duke of S^t. Giles, Marquesse of

Magdalens, Landgraue of y^e Groue, County Palatine of y^e Cloisters,

Cheife Bailiffe of y^e Beaumonts, high Ruler of Rome, Maister of the

Man̄or of Waltham, Gouernour of Gloster-greene, Sole Com̄aunder of all

Titles, Turneaments and Triumphes, Superintendent in all Solemnities

whatsoeuer.’ His seal, a crowned and spotted dog, with the motto _Pro

aris et focis_, bears the date 1469. Amongst his officers was a ‘M^r of

y^e Reuells.’ His Cofferer was Christopher Wren.

[1487] Wood, _Hist. of Oxford_ (_ut supra_, p. 408), ii. 136, has the

following note ‘New Coll. in Cat. MSS., p. 371 ... Magd. Coll. v.

Heylin’s Diary, an. 1617, 1619 et 1620.’

[1488] Warton, iii. 304 ‘pro prandio Principis Natalicii eodem tempore

xiii^s. ix^d.’

[1489] H. H. Henson, _Letters relating to Oxford in the fourteenth

century_ in the Oxford Hist. Soc.’s _Collectanea_, i. 39. The learned

editor does not give the MS. from which he takes the letters, but the

rest of his collection is from the fourteenth-century _Brit. Mus. Royal

MS._ 12 D, xi.

[1490] ‘Quocirca festi praesentis imminenti vigilia, vos ut accepimus

in loco potatorio, hora extraordinaria prout moris est, unanimiter

congregati, dominum Robertum Grosteste militem in armis scolasticis

scitis [Ed. satis] providum et expertum, electione concordi sustulistis

ad apicem regiae dignitatis.’

[1491] Cf. p. 279.

[1492] Grosseteste probably became a student at Oxford before 1196.

About 1214 he became Chancellor, and it seems hardly likely, as Mr.

Stevenson thinks, that he would have been _rex natalicius_ as late as

†1233 (F. S. Stevenson, _Robert Grosseteste_, 8, 25, 110). There were

of course no colleges †1200; if _rex_, he was _rex_ at a hall. But 1200

is an early date even in the history of the Feast of Fools.

[1493] Cooper, _Annals of Cambridge_, ii. 32; _Stat. Acad. Cantab._ 161.

[1494] Fuller, _Good Thoughts in Worse Times_ (1646), 193 ‘Some sixty

years since, in the University of Cambridge it was solemnly debated

betwixt the Heads to debarre young schollers of that liberty allowed

them in Christmas, as inconsistent with the Discipline of Students. But

some grave Governors mentioned the good use thereof, because thereby,

in twelve days, they more discover the dispositions of Scholars than

in twelve moneths before’; _Hist. of Cambridge_ (ed. M. Prickett and

J. Wright), 301 (s. a. 1610-11), describing a University Sermon by

Wm. Ames, Fellow of Christ’s, who ‘had (to use his own expression)

the place of a watchman for an hour in the tower of the University;

and took occasion to inveigh against the liberty taken at that time,

especially in such colleges who had lords of misrule, a pagan relic

which (he said) as Polidore Vergil showeth, remaineth only in England.’

W. Ames had, in consequence, to ‘forsake his college.’ Polydore Vergil,

_de Inventoribus Rerum_, v. 2 (transl. Langley, f. 102^v), speaks of

‘the Christemass Lordes’ of England.

[1495] Cooper, _op. cit._ ii. 112; Baker, _St. John’s_, ii. 573. Lords

in 1545 and 1556.

[1496] Ibid. ii. 111. A lord in 1566. Peile, _Christ’s College_,

54, quotes payments of the time of Edward VI ‘for sedge when the

Christenmasse lords came at Candlemas to the Colledge with shewes’;

‘for the lordes of S. Andrewes and his company resorting to the

Colledge.’ These were perhaps from the city; cf. p. 419.

[1497] Dee, _Compendious Rehearsal_ (_Chronicle of John of

Glastonbury_, ed. T. Hearne, 502), ‘in that College also (by my advice

and by my endeavors, divers ways used with all the other colleges) was

their Christmas Magistrate first named and confirmed an Emperor. The

first was one Mr. Thomas Dun, a very goodly man of person, stature

and complexion, and well learned also.’ Warton, iii. 302, describes

a draught of the college statutes in _Rawl. MS. 233_, in which cap.

xxiv is headed ‘de Praefecto Ludorum qui Imperator dicitur,’ and

provides for the superintendence by the Imperator of the _Spectacula_

at Christmas and Candlemas. But the references to the Imperator have

been struck out with a pen, and the title altered to ‘de Comoediis

Ludisque in natali Christi exhibendis.’ This is the title of cap. xxiv

as actually issued in 1560 (Mullinger, _University of Cambridge_, 579).

The earlier statutes of 1552 have no such chapter.

[1498] H. King, _Funeral Sermon of Bishop Duppa_ (1662), 34 ‘Here he

had the greatest dignity which the School could afford put upon him,

to be the Paedonomus at Christmas, Lord of his fellow scholars: which

title was a pledge and presage that, from a Lord in jeast, he should,

in his riper age, become one in earnest’; cf. J. Sargeaunt, _Annals of

Westminster School_, 64.

[1499] _Records of Lincoln’s Inn: Black Books_, i. 1.

[1500] _Paston Letters_, i. 186. The names of two gentlemen chosen

stewards this year at the Middle and Inner Temples are mentioned.

[1501] Fortescue, _de Laudibus_, cap. xlix.

[1502] _N. E. D._ s. v. _Cockney_, supposes the word to be here used in

the sense of ‘cockered child,’ ‘mother’s darling.’

[1503] _Records of Lincoln’s Inn: Black Books_, i. xxx, 181, 190;

ii. xxvii, 191; iii. xxxii, 440; W. Dugdale, 246; W. Herbert, 314;

J. A. Manning, _Memoirs of Rudyerd_, 16; J. Evelyn, _Diary_ (s. ann.

1661-2). As an appendix to vol. iii of the Black Book is reprinted

’Εγκυκλοχορεία, or _Universal Motion_, Being part of that Magnificent

Entertainment by the noble Prince de la Grange, Lord Lieutenant of

Lincoln’s Inn. Presented to the High and Mighty Charles II’ (1662).

Evelyn mentions the ‘solemne foolerie’ of the Prince de la Grange.

[1504] Cf. p. 257.

[1505] ‘Supper ended, the Constable-Marshall presenteth himself with

Drums afore him, mounted upon a Scaffold, born by four men; and goeth

three times round about the Harthe, crying out aloud “A Lorde, a Lorde,

&c.”--Then he descendeth and goeth to dance, &c., & after he calleth

his Court, every one by name, in this manner: “Sir Francis Flatterer,

of Fowleshurst, in the county of Buckingham. Sir Randle Rackabite,

of Rascall Hall, in the County of Rakehell. Sir Morgan Mumchance, of

Much Monkery, in the County of Mad Mopery. Sir Bartholmew Baldbreech,

of Buttocke-bury, in the County of Brekeneck”.... About Seaven of the

Clocke in the Morning the Lord of Misrule is abroad, and if he lack any

Officer or attendant, he repaireth to their Chambers, and compelleth

them to attend in person upon him after Service in the Church, to

breakfast, with Brawn, Mustard, and Malmsey. After Breakfast ended, his

Lordship’s power is in suspence, until his personal presence at night;

and then his power is most potent.’

[1506] W. Dugdale, 153; Herbert, 205, 254; F. A. Inderwick, _Calendar

of the I. T. Records_, i. xxxiv, 3, 75, 171, 183.

[1507] G. Legh, _Accedens of Armory_ (1562), describes the proceedings;

cf. Dugdale, 151; Herbert, 248; Inderwick, _op. cit._ lxiv, 219.

Machyn, 273, mentions the riding through London of this ‘lord of

mysrull’ on Dec. 27.

[1508] Cf. references for _Gesta Grayorum_ in p. 417.

[1509] Ashton, 155, quoting _The Reign of King Charles_ (1655)

‘A Lieutenant, which we country folk call a Lord of Misrule.’ In

the sixteenth century the lieutenant was only an officer of the

constable-marshal.

[1510] Dugdale, 149; Herbert, 201.

[1511] Dugdale, 202, 205; Herbert, 215, 231, 235.

[1512] J. A. Manning, _Memoirs of Rudyerd_, 9. Carleton wrote to

Chamberlain on Dec. 29, 1601, that ‘Mrs. Nevill, who played her prizes,

and bore the belle away in the Prince de Amour’s revels, is sworn maid

of honour’ (_Cal. S. P. Dom. Eliz._ 1601-3, 136).

[1513] Dugdale, 191.

[1514] G. Garrard to Strafford (_Strafford Letters_, i. 507); Warton,

iii. 321; Ward, iii. 173.

[1515] Dugdale, 285; Herbert, 333; R. J. Fletcher, _Pension Book of

Gray’s Inn_ (1901), xxviii, xxxix, xlix, 68 and passim.

[1516] His full title was ‘The High and Mighty Prince Henry, Prince

of Purpoole, Arch-duke of Stapulia and Bernardia, Duke of High and

Nether Holborn, Marquis of St. Giles and Tottenham, Count Palatine of

Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell, Great Lord of the Cantons of Islington,

Kentish Town, Paddington and Knightsbridge, Knight of the most heroical

Order of the Helmet, and Sovereign of the same.’

[1517] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 122; Ward, ii. 27, 628; Sandys, 93;

Spedding, _Works of Bacon_, viii. 235; S. Lee, _Life of Shakespeare_,

70; W. R. Douthwaite, _Gray’s Inn_, 227; Fletcher, 107. A full

description of the proceedings is in the _Gesta Grayorum_ (1688),

reprinted in Nichols, _Progresses of Elizabeth_, iii. 262.

[1518] Douthwaite, _op. cit._ 234; Fletcher, 72, 299; Nichols,

_Progresses of James I_, iii. 466. To this year belong the proceedings

of ‘Henry the Second,’ Prince of Purpoole, printed by Nichols, _Eliz._

iii. 320, as the ‘Second Part’ of the _Gesta Grayorum_; cf. Hazlitt,

_Manual_, 95, 161. ‘Henry the Second, Prince of Graya and Purpulia,’

was a subscriber to Minsheu’s _Dictionary_ (1617). An earlier Prince of

Purpoole is recorded in 1587 (Fletcher, 78).

[1519] Dugdale, 281, 286; Herbert, 334, 336.

[1520] Douthwaite, _op. cit._ 243, 245.

[1521] Percy, _N. H. B._ 344, 346.

[1522] Machyn, 125.

[1523] _Archaeologia_, xviii. 333; Ashton, 144. Other passages showing

that lords of misrule were appointed in private houses are given by

Hazlitt-Brand, i. 272.

[1524] Ashton, 144; cf. p. 407.

[1525] _Hist. of Cov._ in Fordun, _Scotichronicon_, ed. Hearne, v.

1450; Morris, 353.

[1526] Cf. p. 261.

[1527] Machyn, 162, 274. The Westminster lord seems to have been

treated with scant courtesy, for ‘he was browth in-to the contur in the

Pultre; and dyver of ys men lay all nyght ther.’

[1528] Cf. p. 173.

[1529] Brewer, ix. 364. The lord of misrule was chosen in the church

‘to solace the parish’ at Christmas.

[1530] Cf. p. 181.