It appears that many abuses were committed under the sanction of these disguisements; and for this reason an ordinance was established, by which a man was liable to punishment who appeared in the streets of London with "a painted visage." [784] In the third year of the reign of Henry VIII. it was ordained that no persons should appear abroad like mummers, covering their faces with vizors, and in disguised apparel, under pain of imprisonment for three months. The same act enforced the penalty of 20s. against such as kept vizors in their houses for the purpose of mumming. [785]
Bourne, in his Vulgar Antiquities, [786] speaks of a kind of mumming practised in the North about Christmas time, which consisted in "changing of clothes between the men and the women, who, when dressed in each other's habits, go," says he, "from one neighbour's house to another, and partake of their Christmas cheer, and make merry with them in disguise, by dancing and singing and such like merriments."
XII.—MUMMING TO ROYAL PERSONAGES.
Persons capable of well-supporting assumed characters were frequently introduced at public entertainments, and also in the pageants exhibited on occasions of solemnity; sometimes they were the bearers of presents, and sometimes the speakers of panegyrical orations. Froissart tells us, that, after the coronation of Isabel of Bavaria, the queen of Charles VI. of France, she had several rich donations brought to her by mummers in different disguisements; one resembling a bear, another an unicorn, others like a company of Moors, and others as Turks or Saracens. [787]
When queen Elizabeth was entertained at Kenilworth castle, various spectacles were contrived for her amusement, and some of them produced without any previous notice, to take her as it were by surprise. It happened about nine o'clock one evening, as her majesty returned from hunting, and was riding by torch-light, there came suddenly out of the wood, by the road-side, a man habited like a savage, covered with ivy, holding in one of his hands an oaken plant torn up by the roots, who placed himself before her, and, after holding some discourse with a counterfeit echo, repeated a poetical oration in her praise, which was well received. This man was Thomas Gascoyne the poet; and the verses he spoke on the occasion were his own composition. The circumstance took place on the 10th of July, 1575. [788]
The savage men, or wodehouses, as they are sometimes called, frequently made their appearance in the public shows; they were sometimes clothed entirely with skins, and sometimes they were decorated with oaken leaves, or covered, as above, with ivy.
XIII.—PARTIAL IMITATIONS OF ANIMALS.
The jugglers and the minstrels, observing how lightly these ridiculous disguisements were relished by the people in general, turned their talents towards the imitating of different animals, and rendered their exhibitions more pleasing by the addition of their new acquirements. Below are specimens of their performances, from the Bodleian MS. before cited. [789]
