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.