Pageantry as well as humour—devices appealing to the senses—were largely employed to enliven the exhibitions of early times. In the Christmas games in the reign of Edward I., we find they made use of eighty tunics of buckram of various colours, forty-two vizors, fourteen faces of women, fourteen of men, and the same number of angels, as well as imitations of dragons, peacocks, and swans.
The taking of Constantinople in 1453 scattered the men of learning throughout the West, and led to a revival of literature. The drama recommenced with representations of the old plays of Plautus. They were performed at the Universities, and on state occasions, as in 1528, when Henry VIII. had a stage erected in his great hall at Greenwich.
But the first development seems to have been in Spain, where the old Romans had left their impress, and where the cruel games of the circus still survive in the form of bull-fights. Lopez de Reuda, of Seville, first brought comedy on the stage, but Cervantes tells us that then the whole wardrobe of an actor consisted of four sheep-skins, trimmed with gilt leather, four beards, four wigs, and four shepherds' crooks. Nevertheless, after the classical period, Spain became the repertory for the comedians of Europe.
So far we have traced the origin of comedy as to public performance. We now come to consider what tendencies of disposition opened the way for it, and led to its becoming a branch of literature. The love of amusement, which is so strong in man, induced the patronage, which in early times was extended to the various kinds of professors of light arts.
In the days of Greece, as in those of Rome, there were ball-players, and mountebanks, and we may remember an occasion on which Terence complained that a rope-dancer had enticed away his audience. In Sparta there were men who represented the tricks of thieves and impostors in dances, and whose entertainments, though poor, were superior to that of mere mountebanks. The mimes were a still greater improvement, in which a certain amount of amusing narrative was illustrated by dances, songs, contortions, and as the name implies by mimicry. We have seen Plato introducing mimi from Greece, and Julius Cæsar interesting himself in such performers. Our mediæval fool has been traced to the Roman mime, who continued to please the country-people with coarse and debased representations after Rome had fallen, and comedy had perished. Some have even given a classic origin to our pantomime, considering harlequin to be Mercury, the clown Momus, pantaloon Charon, and columbine Psyche. The Roman Sannio and Manducus certainly somewhat corresponded to our fool and clown, the latter especially in his gormandising propensities. But it is scarcely necessary to travel so far back, for the desire for amusement has in all countries produced an indigenous supply.
Court-jesters are heard of as early as the reign of Philip of Macedon, but they seem to have been at first little more than parasites of inferior rank and education. In Roman times they were little more than buffoons,[49] and not very different from the mediæval fools. They seem to have received nicknames, and Petronius describes a very low buffoon performing antics in a myrtle robe with a belt round his waist.
As in ancient times we find Achilles singing to his lyre, so the English musicians and story-tellers were originally amateurs of high rank. We read of King Alfred charming the Danes with his minstrelsy. So also in the Arthurian legends Sir Kaye is represented as amusing the company; but at the time of Hoel Dha's Welsh laws, the bard was paid, for we read that the king was to allow him a horse and a woollen garment, and the queen to give him a linen robe; the prefect of the palace is privileged to sit near him on festivals and to hand him his harp. Canute seems to have treated his scalds with less ceremony, for he threatened to put one of them to death because he recounted his exploits in too short a poem, but the man escaped by producing thirty strophes on the subject next day. The Saxon gleemen were generally of humble origin and not only performed music, but exhibited tricks. So also among the Normans we find the barons originally amusing one another with "gabs," i.e. boastful and exaggerated accounts of their achievements. But soon a greater amount of leisure and luxury led them to pay for amusement; professed musicians and story-tellers were introduced, and were classed with the ministri or servants, whence came the name minstrel, which was soon confined to them alone. We find Talliefer going before William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings chanting the brave deeds of Charlemagne and making a display of skill in tossing and catching his sword and spear. This union of tricks and music became so common that the words minstrel and jougleur were soon synonymous, though there was originally a distinction between them. The word jougleur, sometimes by mistake written jongleur, is derived from the latin joculator. This class of people were conjurers, as their name suggests, and often went about the country with performing animals, especially bears and monkeys. They gradually added songs to their accomplishments, which more assimilated them to the minstrels, and they became connected with, and were sometimes called "troubadours." In these minstrels or jougleurs, though sometimes strolling independently, being often attached to great households, we find an element of the domestic, or as he is called, court fool, and we find another in their performances being of that primitive character, which appeals chiefly to the perception of the senses. For although the "jocular" part, originally subordinate, had been increased, it took so rude a form that the ludicrous was not always easily distinguished from the humorous. The Fool was a strange mixture of both, varying from a mere idiot and butt to a man of genius, far superior to his masters. He made shrewd remarks, and performed senseless antics, the city fool, on Lord Mayor's day, was to jump clothes and all into a large bowl of custard. To a certain extent he generally corresponded with his name in having some mental weakness or eccentricity, and it was a recommendation if he were dwarfish or deformed. He wore a "motley" suit of discordant colours to make him ridiculous, and correspond with the incongruity of his mind and actions—a dress similar to the hundred patched paniculus centunculus of the Roman mimes. Sometimes he wore a petticoat or calf-skin to resemble an idiot. Finally, he had his head shaved and wore a cowl to make him like a monk, as his buffooneries would thus have a stranger character, and the nobles had no great affection for the church.[50] The domestic fool was common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries up to the time of Louis XIV.; but it is said that there were such men at the Court of Louis le Débonnaire. Giraldus Cambrenses writes that when he was preaching for the Crusades in South Wales, one John Spang "who by simulating fatuity, and having a quick tongue was wont to be a great comfort to the court," said to Resus, the king: "You should be greatly indebted to your relative the Archdeacon for sending a hundred of your men to day to follow Christ, and if he had spoken Welsh I do not believe that one of all your people would remain to you." This was towards the end of the twelfth century, but it does not seem clear that John Spang was a court jester. We may fairly consider that the institution of the domestic fools, the employment of men, who professed jocularity as a branch of art distinct from music and legerdemain increased mental activity, and a growing desire for humour. But the men who made jesting their profession were generally regarded with contempt, and an Act of Parliament in the reign of Edward III. ordered strollers of this kind to be whipped out of the town. An old satire written at the time of the Reformation brings together actors, dustmen, jugglers, conjurers, and sellers of indulgences.
But we want something more than wits and drolleries, and even public performances, to complete our idea of Comedy. We must have literary composition and artistic construction. From songs of warlike achievements such as were chanted by the old scalders to cheer their chiefs over the bowl, there arose by degrees fanciful tales with which the Saxons and their successors amused themselves after their dinner, and round the blazing hearth. In the tenth century the clergy found stories to amuse the post-prandial hour—extravagant, indelicate, or profane—such were the times, but marking improved activity of thought. Thus they enjoyed such a tale as that a "prophet" went to Heriger (Archbishop of Mayence about 920) and told him he had been to the nether world, a place, he said, surrounded by woods. The Archbishop replied that, if that was the case, he would send his lean swine there to eat acorns. The prophet added that afterwards he went to heaven, and saw Christ and his saints sitting at table and eating; John the Baptist was the butler, and served the wine, and St. Peter was the cook. The Archbishop asked the stranger how he fared himself, and on his saying that he sat in the corner and stole a piece of liver—Heriger instead of praising his sanctity ordered him to be tied to a stake, and flogged for theft. The "Supper," as old as the tenth century, is another humorous description. A grave assembly of scriptural characters, from Adam and Eve downwards, are invited, Cain sits on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail &c.; two, Paul and Esau, are obliged to stand for want of room, and Job complains of having nothing to sit on but a dunghill. Jonah is here the butler. Samson brings honey to the dessert, and Adam apples—
"Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia.
David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana,
Judith choreas ducebat et Jubal psalteria
Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias."[51]
Thus stories, by degrees, began to be not only composed, but written, and although not intended for acting, to be dignified with the old name of "Comedies." Such poems were written by Robert Baston, who accompanied Edward II. to Scotland.