[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 xxjo, in quo expendebantur xx
iiij. 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 xxijdo 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 cr 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. 198b ‘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. 172v (cf. Archaeologia, xxii. 208). I print the original text, which Stowe paraphrases, introducing, e.g., the term ‘maskers’: ‘At ye same tyme ye Comons of London made great sporte and solemnity to ye yong prince: for upon ye monday next before ye purification of our lady at night and in ye night were 130 men disguizedly aparailed and well mounted on horsebacke to goe on mumming to ye 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 ye 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 ye same maner: after ye 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 ye 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 ye yong prince made his aboad with his mother and the D. of Lancaster and ye 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 ye mansion they alighted on foot and entered into ye haule and sone after ye prince and his mother and ye other lordes came out of ye chamber into ye haule, and ye said mummers saluted them, shewing a pair of dice upon a table to play with ye prince, which dice were subtilly made that when ye prince shold cast he shold winne and ye said players and mummers set before ye prince three jewels each after other: and first a balle of gould, then a cupp of gould, then a gould ring, ye which ye 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 ye other earles euery one a gould ringe and ye mother and ye lordes wonne them. And then ye prince caused to bring ye wyne and they dronk with great joye, commanding ye minstrels to play and ye trompets began to sound and other instruments to pipe &c. And ye prince and ye lordes dansed on ye one syde, and ye mummers on ye 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 13s. 4d. 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 6s. 8d. 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 Willm, 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 St. Iohn’s, high Regent of ye Hall, Duke of St. Giles, Marquesse of Magdalens, Landgraue of ye Groue, County Palatine of ye Cloisters, Cheife Bailiffe of ye 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 ‘Mr of ye 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 xiiis. ixd.’

[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.