[1428] Riley, Memorials, 658.
[1429] Ibid. 669. It was proclaimed ‘that no manere persone, of what astate, degre, or condicioun that euere he be, duryng this holy tyme of Cristemes be so hardy in eny wyse to walk by nyght in any manere mommyng, pleyes, enterludes, or eny other disgisynges with eny feynyd berdis, peyntid visers, diffourmyd or colourid visages in eny wyse ... outake that hit be leful to eche persone for to be honestly mery as he can, with in his owne hous dwellyng.’
[1430] Stowe, Survey (ed. Thoms), 37, from a fragment of an English chronicle, in a sixteenth-century hand, in Harl. MS. 247, f. 172v (cf. Archaeologia, xxii. 208). I print the original text, which Stowe paraphrases, introducing, e.g., the term ‘maskers’: ‘At ye same tyme ye Comons of London made great sporte and solemnity to ye yong prince: for upon ye monday next before ye purification of our lady at night and in ye night were 130 men disguizedly aparailed and well mounted on horsebacke to goe on mumming to ye said prince, riding from Newgate through Cheape whear many people saw them with great noyse of minstralsye, trumpets, cornets and shawmes and great plenty of waxe torches lighted and in the beginning they rid 48 after ye maner of esquiers two and two together clothed in cotes and clokes of red say or sendall and their faces covered with vizards well and handsomely made: after these esquiers came 48 like knightes well arayed after ye same maner: after ye knightes came one excellent arrayed and well mounted as he had bene an emperor: after him some 100 yards came one nobly arayed as a pope and after him came 24 arayed like cardinals and after ye cardinals came 8 or 10 arayed and with black vizardes like deuils appearing nothing amiable seeming like legates, riding through London and ouer London bridge towards Kenyton wher ye yong prince made his aboad with his mother and the D. of Lancaster and ye Earles of Cambridge, Hertford Warrick and Suffolk and many other lordes which were with him to hould the solemnity, and when they were come before ye mansion they alighted on foot and entered into ye haule and sone after ye prince and his mother and ye other lordes came out of ye chamber into ye haule, and ye said mummers saluted them, shewing a pair of dice upon a table to play with ye prince, which dice were subtilly made that when ye prince shold cast he shold winne and ye said players and mummers set before ye prince three jewels each after other: and first a balle of gould, then a cupp of gould, then a gould ring, ye which ye said prince wonne at thre castes as before it was appointed, and after that they set before the prince’s mother, the D. of Lancaster, and ye other earles euery one a gould ringe and ye mother and ye lordes wonne them. And then ye prince caused to bring ye wyne and they dronk with great joye, commanding ye minstrels to play and ye trompets began to sound and other instruments to pipe &c. And ye prince and ye lordes dansed on ye one syde, and ye mummers on ye other a great while and then they drank and tooke their leaue and so departed toward London.’ Collier, i. 26, speaks of earlier mummings recorded by Stowe in 1236 and 1298; but Stowe only names ‘pageants’ (cf. ch. xxiii). M. Paris, Chronica Maiora (R. S. lvii), v. 269, mentions ‘vestium transformatarum varietatem’ at the wedding of Alexander III of Scotland and Margaret of England in 1251, but this probably means ‘a succession of rapidly changed robes.’
[1431] A Chronicle of London (†1442, ed. N. H. Nicolas or E. Tyrrell, 1827), 85 ‘to have sclayn the kyng ... be a mommynge’; Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon (before 1455, ed. J. A. Giles), 7 ‘conduxerunt lusores Londoniam, ad inducendum regi praetextum gaudii et laetitiae iuxta temporis dispositionem, ludum nuncupatum Anglice Mummynge’; Capgrave, Chronicle of England (†1464, R. S.), 275 ‘undir the coloure of mummeris in Cristmasse tyme’; An English Chronicle (†1461-71, C. S.), 20 ‘to make a mommyng to the king ... and in that mommyng they purposid to sle him’; Fabian, Chronicle, 567 ‘a dysguysynge or a mummynge.’ But other chroniclers say that the outbreak was to be at a tournament, e. g. Continuatio Eulogii (R. S. ix), iii. 385; Annales Henrici (R. S. xxviii), 323 ‘Sub simulatione natalitiorum vel hastiludiorum.’ I suppose ‘natalitia’ is ‘Christmas games’ and might cover a mumming. Hall, Chronicle (ed. 1809), 16, makes it ‘justes.’ So does Holinshed (ed. 1586), iii. 514, 516, but he knew both versions; ‘them that write how the king should have beene made awaie at a justs; and other that testifie, how it should have been at a maske or mummerie’; cf. Wylie, Henry the Fourth, i. 93; Ramsay, L. and Y. i. 20.
[1432] Stowe, Survey (ed. Thoms), 37, doubtless from A Chronicle of London (†1442, ut supra), 87. I do not find the mumming named in other accounts of the visit.
[1433] Gregory’s Chronicle (before 1467, in Hist. Collections of a Citizen of London, C. S.), 108 ‘the whyche Lollers hadde caste to have made a mommynge at Eltham, and undyr coloure of the mommynge to have destryte the Kynge and Hooly Chyrche.’
[1434] Acte against disguysed persons and Wearing of Visours (3 Hen. VIII, c. 9). The preamble states that ‘lately wythin this realme dyvers persons have disgysed and appareld theym, and covert theyr fayces with Vysours and other thynge in such manner that they sholde nott be knowen and divers of theym in a Companye togeder namyng them selfe Mummers have commyn to the dwellyng place of divers men of honor and other substanciall persones; and so departed unknowen.’ Offenders are to be treated as ‘Suspectes or Vacabundes.’
[1435] The Promptorium Parvulorum (†1440 C. S.), ii. 348, translates ‘Mummynge’ by ‘mussacio vel mussatus’ (‘murmuring’ or ‘keeping silence,’ conn. mutus), and gives a cognate word ‘Mummȳn, as they that noȝt speke Mutio.’ This is of course the ordinary sense of mum. But Skeat (Etym. Dict. s.v.) derives ‘mummer’ from the Dutch through Old French, and explains it by the Low German Mumme, a ‘mask.’ He adds ‘The word is imitative, from the sound mum or mom, used by nurses to frighten or amuse children, at the same time pretending to cover their faces.’ Whether the fourteenth-century mumming was silent or not, there is no reason to suppose that the primitive folk-procession out of which it arose was unaccompanied by dance and song; and silence is rarely, if ever (cf. p. 211) de rigueur in modern ‘guisings.’
[1436] They are in Trin. Coll. Camb. MS. R. iii. 20 (Shirley’s; cf. E. P. Hammond, Lydgate’s Mumming at Hertford in Anglia, xxii. 364), and copied by or for Stowe ‘out of þe boke of John Sherley’ in B. M. Add. MS. 29729, f. 132 (cf. E. Sieper, Lydgate’s Reson and Sensuallyte, E. E. T. S. i. xvi). The Hertford verses have been printed by Miss Hammond (loc. cit.) and the others by Brotanek, 306. I do not find any notice of disguisings when Henry VI spent the Christmas of 1433 at Lydgate’s own monastery of Bury St. Edmunds (F. A. Gasquet. A Royal Christmas in The Old English Bible, 226). Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, 473, notes a payment for the king’s ‘plays and recreations’ at Christmas, 1449.
[1437] ‘A lettre made in wyse of balade by daun Johan, brought by a poursuyant in wyse of Mommers desguysed to fore þe Mayre of London, Eestfeld, vpon þe twelffeþe night of Cristmasse, ordeyned Ryallych by þe worthy Merciers, Citeseyns of london’ and ‘A lettre made in wyse of balade by ledegate daun Johan, of a mommynge, whiche þe Goldesmythes of þe Cite of London mommed in Right fresshe and costele welych desguysing to þeyre Mayre Eestfeld, vpon Candelmasse day at nyght, affter souper; brought and presented vn to þe Mayre by an heraude, cleped ffortune.’ The Mercer’s pursuivant is sent from Jupiter; the Goldsmiths’ mummers are David and the twelve tribes. The Levites were to sing. William Eastfield was mayor 1429-30 and 1437-8. Brotanek, 306, argues that, as a second term is not alluded to, this was probably the first. Fairholt, Lord Mayors’ Pageants, ii. 240, prints a similar letter of Lydgate’s sent to the Sheriffs at a May-day dinner.