LORDS OF MISRULE
Christmases past saw the unleashing of chaotic forces and the overthrow of the accepted social order as the world was turned upside down by the Lord of Misrule and his retinue of fools. THERESE TAYLOR asks if it’s time to resurrect this Yuletide tradition...
Christmases past saw the unleashing of chaotic forces and the overthrow of the accepted social order as the world was turned upside down by the Lord of Misrule and his retinue of fools. THERESE TAYLOR asks if it’s time to resurrect this particular Yuletide tradition...
Ch ristmas, in past times, included adult entertainment and also the celebration of dark themes such as death and retribution. The death of the old year, and the turning point of the Winter Solstice, was a time to affirm the contrast of light and darkness.
Dark Christmas figures such as Black Peter ( FT309:34-39) and Krampus ( FT348-26-33), fell out of favour in 20th-century culture, and even Santa Claus lost his solemn aura of holy intercession. Recent years, though, have seen these ghoulish characters of Yuletide making something of a return. Perhaps the Lord of Misrule, too, might recover his surreal presence in public celebrations. His clowning and satirical disrespect for authority would certainly offer a welcome change in mood.
In mediæval Europe, the Lord of Misrule was a Christmas celebrant who was either elected by his peers or appointed by the authorities to lead chaotic displays of the reversal of authority. He was sometimes called the ‘Christmas Lord’ or the ‘Abbot of Misrule’, and reigned for the season between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night.
As a time of carnival, Christmas was a moment when the subordinate lower orders could temporarily mock their betters and enjoy feasting and carousing. Similar feasts were held at midsummer, where a Harvest Lord or a Lord of Summer would sometimes preside.
As king of his season, the Lord of Misrule wore a costume that usually contradicted sacred or noble emblems. He had such parodies as a crown of tin, an abbot’s robe of scarlet, or a woman’s dress combined with male garments. He would issue orders which had to be obeyed, in the spirit of the feast. He led his followers into parades of drinking and dancing and mockeries of decorum. The faults of the powerful and respected could be denounced with impunity by the Lord of Misrule.
The chaotic nature of such carnival displays was tolerated less and less from the 12th century onwards. But, despite the disapproval, the Lord of Misrule and his attendants broke out into revelry again and again. It was a difficult tradition to repress. The kingdom of the Lord of Misrule manifested itself in popular culture well into the industrial era of the 19th century.
THE LOWER ORDERS COULD MOCK THEIR BETTERS AND ENJOY FEASTING & CAROUSING
AMONG RULERS
In Tudor England, the Lord of Misrule came to the fore during the reign of the boy king, Edward VI. This is surprising, given that Edward was educated in an austere form of the Protestant tradition, which was specifically critical of carnivals. However, during the three years of his reign, as noted by historian Sydney Anglo: “The Lord of Misrule – who had been a regular though minor figure in earlier Christmas shows – came briefly to the fore, and dominated court entertainments with his peculiar and macabre buffoonery.”
In October 1551 the court of Edward VI had an upheaval, as his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, was arrested by political rivals, replaced as Lord Protector, and executed. This caused some popular discontent, and according to a chronicler, in order to take “talk out of mens’ mouths, and also to recreate and refresh the troubled spirits of the young King, it was devised that the feast of Christ’s Nativity, commonly called Christmas, which was then at hand, should be solemnly kept at Greenwich with open household… there is always one appointed to make sport in the Court, called commonly Lord of Misrule, whose office is not unknown to such as have been brought up in Noblemen’s houses, and among the keepers of great houses, which use liberal feasting in that season.”
The Lord of Misrule at the court of Edward VI was George Ferrers, an educated gentleman and therefore not from the ranks of actors and jesters who commonly entertained the nobility. His displays included references to Greek and Latin mythologies. There were also more traditional Lord of Misrule activities such as processions with music, the giving of pardons and mock executions of authority figures. Significant resources were put into these entertainments, which cost hundreds of pounds – a huge sum at that time.
However, the winter of 1537 was to be the date of the last appearance of the Lord of Misrule among England’s sovereigns. Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I did not continue the tradition, possibly because as Queens they would not enjoy a spectacle of male authority, even in jest. As Elizabeth I said: “I will have here but one mistress and no master.” Elizabeth did not have the Lord of Misrule, but she participated in lavish Twelve Days of Christmas festivities, and two plays by Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night – make apparent reference to the Royal Court, and to dazzling, comic and liminal figures who throw reason to the winds and enjoy the powers of misrule.
DISAPPROVAL AND DEFENDERS
The Lord of Misrule came under an official ban from the 1540s. The reformation of religion, the spread of education and greater social controls, all put carnival behaviour under restraint. Many traditions continued, though, and as late as the 19th century further efforts were required in industrialising nations to prevent workers from extending Christian feast days into a week of leisure and buffoonery.
In 1631, English writer John Taylor published the Complaint of Christmas, and reproached the ruling class, who were no longer willing to offer general hospitality: “In this Hall have I seen strewed with rushes, a sign of the soft and kind entertainment the guests should have. I have seen a Lord of Misrule, that with his honest mirth hath made old Christmas laugh.”
In 1583, the Puritan writer Phillip Stubbs had given a scathing description of Misrule festivities in The Anatomie of Abuses: “First, all the wild heads of the parish, conventing together, choose them a Grand Captain (of all mischief) whom they ennoble with the title of Lord of Misrule, and him they crown with great solemnity and adopt for their king… Then every one of these his men he investeth with his liveries of green, yellow or some other light wanton colour; and as though they were not (bawdy) gaudy enough I should say… then have they their hobby horses, dragons and other antics, together with their bawdy pipers and thundering drummers to strike up the devil’s dance withal. Then march these heathen company towards the church and churchyard, their pipers piping, their 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. And in this sort they go to the church… dancing and swinging their handkerchiefs over their heads in the church like devils incarnate.”
In the French town of Amiens, the same colours – green and yellow – were worn by the Prince of Fools, who enlivened New Year’s Day each year with a parade of excesses and breaking of rules. A 19th century French observer mildly suggested that: “The Feast of the Prince of Fools evidently has a moral aim, despite the follies and eccentricities of the said Prince. The disorder of this feast in effect teach people how one degrades oneself if one is abandoned without restraint to one’s passions.”
IN CHURCHES
The clerical equivalent of the Lord of Misrule was the Boy Bishop, who in mediæval chorister schools was elected Bishop either for the feast of St Nicolas or the feast of the Holy Innocents, both in December. This child was dressed in carefully made episcopal robes, and presided over all religious services except Mass. He was surrounded by the other children, and the bishops and clerics went in procession after him, carrying candles and missals, as if they were the students.
Ronald Hutton writes that: “At St Paul’s the Boy Bishop was chosen by the senior clergy, and was expected to preach a sermon. Three of these have survived, all clearly written by adults but with a great deal of dry humour at the expense of authority.”
The charming mediæval custom of the Boy Bishop was abandoned during the Reformation. Since the 1980s, the custom has been revived in a few Cathedrals in England, Spain and the United States, and nowadays Girl Bishops sometimes appear as well. These ceremonies are rare, but seem to attract great attention and a sense of celebration among young people.
The mediæval French version of these festivities was more burlesque in nature. During the Feast of Fools, at Christmas time, a choir boy or novice would be elected bishop and would sit in state while minor clergy made parody performances of the sacraments. An ass would be led around the church. These types of misrule celebrations were no longer allowed in the cathedrals by the late 15th century.
At the cathedral in Strasbourg, around 1490, the choristers would chant the verse from the Magnificat: “He hath cast down the mighty, and raised the lowly” on the eve of the mid-summer feast of St Jean. This was a preparation for going onto the streets, singing and dancing in the churches and convents, and “bringing trouble and disorder everywhere”, according to Catholic preacher and reformer Jean Geiler de Kaysersberg.
Father Kaysersberg was not deceived by the singing of a verse from the Bible, and his biographer suggested that the “hideous scandals” of misrule at Strasbourg, which included midnight feasts within the cathedral itself, must be “the traces of the festivals which the pagans celebrated around their temples, and which
the Church tolerated in the first centuries of the Middle Ages.” It was no longer permitted after the 1500s.
THE PRINCE OF FOOLS
In Italy and France, the Prince of Fools, or the Pope of Fools, were the continental versions of the Lord of Misrule. They took part in carnivals, and were sometimes supported by organised societies, ‘abbeys of misrule’, who maintained these archaic traditions in regional towns.
An obvious question about the Lord of Misrule is whether this figure is derived from the pagan Saturnalia, the end of year Roman festival of slaves when the masters served their underlings and the powerful were mocked. These rituals often ended with the sacrifice of the king of the festival.
The early folklorists saw a straight continuation between pagan beliefs and popular revels that echoed their forms in Christian communities. In his famous work The Golden Bough, James Frazer confidently equated the Christmas Lord with the males who were exulted then killed during the rites of Saturn, stating that “this grotesque personage is no other than a direct successor of the old King of the Saturnalia, the master of the revels, the real man who personated Saturn and, when the revels were over, suffered a real death in his assumed character. The King of the Bean on Twelfth Night and the mediæval Bishop of Fools, Abbot of Unreason, or Lord of Misrule are figures of the same sort.”’
This interpretation of the Lord of Misrule is no longer accepted in mainstream academic thinking. As Ronald Hutton writes of English festivals: “There is absolutely no evidence that the people who kept these customs were anything but Christian or had any notion that by carrying on these activities they were commemorating older deities. Furthermore… only a few folk rituals can be traced back beyond the Christian era with any certainty.”
In my view, the pagan element cannot be entirely dismissed. The role of the young male as a figure of dynamic fun, but also of poignant loss, is a continuation of the agenda of the fertility cults. As Natalie Zelmon Davis wrote of the French Abbeys of Misrule, they were based on youth groups – the bachelors of each town – and the young unmarried men had specific tasks which they alone could perform. “In the Fete des Brandons at the beginning of Lent, it was they who bore the brands of blazing straw and jumped and danced to ensure the village’s agricultural and sexual fertility for the coming year; on All Souls’ Day it was they who rang the bells for the dead ancestors’ village.”
LEGACIES IN ARTWORK
There are numerous references to the Lord of Misrule in mediæval art. Pictures of animals hunting with bows, of dogs leading masters, and other such parodies, are often depictions of the followers of the Lord of Misrule. An understanding of this festival is therefore essential to a cultural appreciation of the heritage of the mediæval world.
Misrule is a concept which divides time and allocates some seasons as moments of licence. By departing from authority, people get a respite from reality itself. We no longer celebrate in this way, but the vital energies of the Lord of Misrule might one day be revived in our Christmas feasts. People who tire of the mass-produced trivia and the artificial sweetness of our commercial Christmas season should consider forming societies of the Abbey of Misrule and electing a Lord. His rule might be no more irrational than that of his counterparts in real life.
FURTHER READING
Sydney Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early Tudor Policy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
Leon Dacheux, Un réformateur catholique a la fin du XVe siècle, Jean Geiler de Kaysersberg: prédicateur a la Cathédrale de Strasbourg, 1478-1510; étude sur sa vie et son temps (Paris, 1876). Hyacinthe Dusevel, Notice et documents sur la Fête du Prince des Sots à Amiens, (Amiens, 1859). James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Abridged ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1963),
Ronald Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘The Reasons of Misrule: Youth Groups and Charivaris in Sixteenth-Century France,’ Past & Present, Feb., 1971, No. 50 (Feb 1971), pp.41-75.
✒ THERESE TAYLOR is a scholar in the field of French religious history. She is the author of a biography, Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, Her Life, Death and Visions (Bloomsbury Press, 2008). She writes on folklore and cultural studies in publications including Hellebore and Fortean Times.