Chapter XVII: Masks and Misrule (1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

END OF VOL. I

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[10] Ovid, _Tristia_, ii. 497:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[16] Lucian, _de Saltatione_, 69.

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

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

[19] Dion Cassius, liv. 17.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘eques Romanus lare egressus meo
domum revertar mimus.’

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

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

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

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

[34] Cf. p. 38.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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