[514] Ibid. 394; Reyher, 499; from Harl. MS. 247, f. 172ᵛ
[515] Mediaeval Stage, i. 396.
[516] Leland, Collectanea, v. 359; Reyher, 500; from Ralph Starkey, Booke of Certain Triumphes (Harl. MS. 69, f. 29v); Grose and Astle, The Antiquarian Repertory, ii. 249.
[517] Halle, i. 15, 21, 22, 25, 40; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490 sqq., from Revels Accounts (Misc. Bks. Exch., T. of R. 217).
[518] Brotanek, 118; Reyher, 14, citing, inter alia, A Manifest Detection of ... Diceplay (Percy Soc. lxxxvii), 37, 'If it be winter season when masking is most in use ... they hire ... a suit of right masking apparel, and after, invite divers guests to a supper, all such as be then of estimation, to give them credit by their acquaintance, or such as ... will be liberal to hazard some thing in a mumchance; by which means they assure themselves, at the least, to have supper scot free; perchance to win xxˡᶦ about. And howsoever the common people esteem the thing I am clear out of doubt, that the more half of your gay masks in London are grounded upon such cheating crafts, and tend only the pouling and robbing of the King's subjects'. The dice were loaded otherwise for Richard II. A 'mummery', with 'foure visards, foure gownes, a boxe and a drumme', is dramatized in Soliman and Perseda (Boas, Kyd, 189), ii. 1, 187, where for 'Charleman is come' (l. 228), lege 'Christemas is come'. It is in dumb show, which confirms the supposed etymological connexion with 'mum' (cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 396). 'Mumchance' is a common term for dice-play. But the French momon, momerie, and Italian mumia do not appear to have been specialized in the English sense. 'Some goodly mummery at supper' was planned for the meeting of Henry VIII and Charles V at Gravelines in July 1520 (Rutland Papers, C. S. 54). Jonson introduces Mumming as a dancer in his Masque of Christmas (1616).
[519] For France, cf. the examples of 1377, 1389, 1393, 1457, &c., cited by Brotanek, 287, Prunières, 3; the verses of Charles d'Orléans (> 1415) for a mommerie of women (ed. d'Héricault, i. 148); the 'danse en barboire, en laquelle fut dancé à la mode de France, de l'Allemaigne, d'Espaigne et Lombardye, et à la fin en la manière de Poitou' at the betrothal of Claude of France and Charles of Austria in 1501 (Jean d'Auton, Chron. de Louis XII, ii. 99); and the revels during the Italian campaigns of Louis at Pavia and Milan in 1507 (Jean d'Auton, iv. 289, 311). At Milan lords danced 'en masque' and ladies danced 'a relays les unes après les autres', but it is not definitely said that ladies and maskers danced together. The 'danse en barboire' possibly illustrates the enigmatical barbaturiae of which the nuns of St. Radegund in Poitou were guilty in the eighth century (Mediaeval Stage, i. 362). For Burgundy, cf. Prunières, 10, citing accounts of the crusaders' Feast of the Pheasant (1454), and the wedding of Duke Charles and Margaret of York (1468). In 1454 there were dumb shows of the Golden Fleece, followed by the entry of Grâce-Dieu and her train of Virtues, who delivered a speech and then 'commencèrent à danser en guise de mommeries'. In 1468 there were 'entremectz mouvans' of the Labours of Hercules (Olivier de la Marche, ed. Soc. H. F. iii. 134, 143). These shows were given while the guests were still at table. When they were over, the tables were cleared away, and the guests danced.
[520] To the entremetz of France correspond the intermedii of Italy. These, as described by Creizenach, ii. 419; D'Ancona, ii. 168, 420; Symonds, Shakspeare's Predecessors, 321; Renaissance in Italy, v. 122; Prunières, 28; Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies, xxxix, and in M. L. A. xxii. 150 and M. P. iv. 597, were entr'actes to late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century plays, but very similar shows were given independently at banquets; e. g. the mimetic chori with Silenus for risus devised by Bergonzio Botta for the wedding of Giangaleazzo Sforza and Isabella of Aragon at Tortona in 1489 (Calchi, Nuptiae Mediolaniorum Ducum in Graevius, Thesaurus, ii. 1, 509). Trionfi are primarily out-of-door processions with cars.
[521] Halle, i. 40; Brewer, ii. 1497, from Revels Accounts.
[522] Mediaeval Stage, i. 401; cf. Brotanek, 67.
[523] Evans, xxi; Reyher, 491; Cunliffe in M. L. A. xxii. 140.