[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).