The Lord of MisruleBy Amy Baldwin
The Lord of Misrule is yet another character in the long history of the mythic impulse that manifests as the Fool. His roots range as far back as the shaman priests through Medieval court jesters, the Pope of Fools, Harlequin, modern clowns, and comedians. In primitive agrarian society, the Pagan ritual fool of northern Europe used propitiatory magic to appease the deities and encourage fertility in the field and within the tribe. He was sacrificed, at first literally, later in effigy, in a representation of the death of winter and the rebirth of spring. When killed, he had the power to magically revive himself. Vestiges of the folk Fool remain in the mummers' plays, sword dances, May games, and Morris dances.
In England the Lord of Misrule rules, creates, and oversees the Christmas revelries as this description by a rigid Puritan suggests: (The mid-English spelling has been modernized for easy reading)
"First, all the wild heads of the parish, convening together, choose them a grand Captain whom they ignoble with the title of my Lord of Misrule, and him they crown with great solemnity, and adopt for their king. This king, anointed, chooses for the twenty lusty guttes like to himself, to wait upon his lordly majesty. Then every one of these his men he invests with his liveries of some light wanton colour. They bedeck themselves with scarves, ribbons, and laces. This done, they tie about either leg twenty bells with rich handkerchiefs in their hands. They have their Hobby horses, Dragons, and other antiques, together with their bawdy Pipers, and thundering Drummers to strike up the Devil's dance withall, then march these Heathen company towards the Church and Churchyard, their Pipers piping, Drummers thundering, their stumps dancing, their Bells jingling, their handkerchiefs swinging about their heads like madmen, their Hobby horses, and other Monsters skirmishing amongst the throng. Then the foolish people, they look, they stare, they laugh, they fleer, and mount upon forms and pews, to see these goodly pageants, solemnized in this sort."
Sir Thomas Urquhart says, "They may be said to use their King as about Christmas we use to do the King of Misrule whom we invest with that title to no other end but to countenance the Bacchanalian riots and preposterous disorders of the family where he is installed." Christmas, says Seldon, succeeds the Saturnalia, the same time, the same number of holy days; then the Master waited upon the servant like the Lord of Misrule.
Is the fool a defier of authority, or the vestige of the former head priest, or the divine made manifest? One last comment by William Willeford:
"The fool, deficient in normal understanding and in the normal appreciation of order, readmits the magical power of chaos; he makes us surreptitiously feel that a debt of honesty has been paid."
References: Program notes to Feast of Fools created by Geoff Hoyle
Observations on Popular Antiquities by John Brand
The Fool and His Sceptor by William Willeford
A couple of places to learn more:
Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Misrule
The Master of Revels Country of Origin: Europe and America http://www.stcharleschristmas.com/masterofrevels.htmHappy New Year! The Feast of Fools http://www.newyorkcarver.com/feastoffools.htm |
