XI.—MUMMINGS AND MASQUERADES.
In the middle ages, mummings were very common. Mumm is said to be derived from the Danish word mumme, or momme in Dutch, and signifies to disguise oneself with a mask: hence a mummer; which is properly defined by Dr. Johnson to be a masker, one who performs frolics in a personated dress. The following verse occurs in Milton's Samson Agonistes, line 1325:
Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics.
At court, as well as in the mansions of the nobility, on occasions of festivity, it frequently happened that the whole company appeared in borrowed characters; and, full licence of speech being granted to every one, the discourses were not always kept within the bounds of decency. [781] These spectacles were exhibited with great splendour in former times and particularly during the reign of Henry VIII. [782] they have ceased, however, of late years to attract the notice of the opulent; and the regular masquerades which succeeded them, are not supported at present with that degree of mirthful spirit which, we are told, abounded at their institution; and probably it is for this reason they are declining so rapidly in the public estimation.
The mummeries practised by the lower classes of the people usually took place at the Christmas holidays; and such persons as could not procure masks rubbed their faces over with soot, or painted them; hence Sebastian Brant, in his Ship of Fools, [783] alluding to this custom, says,
The one hath a visor ugley set on his face,
Another hath on a vile counterfaite vesture,
Or painteth his visage with fume in such case,
That what he is, himself is scantily sure.