is some reason to think that a traditional form of grotesque mask at court was the morris. This is of course a familiar type of folk-dance, and may owe its Tudor name to the moresche, which were dances introduced as intermedii into Italian plays.[1]
The spectacular and literary elaboration of the Jacobean mask must not be allowed to blind our eyes to the fact that after all it was not a dramatic illusion but a choregraphic compliment which remained the central purpose of the entertainment. Scenery and speech and song occupy perhaps a disproportionate share of the attention of the poets who, to their own glorification and that of the architects, wrote the descriptions; but the greater part of the considerable number of hours during which the mask lasted was devoted to the actual dancing. And the dancing involved an intimacy, and not a detachment, in the relation between performers and spectators. It is true that some of the traditional features which accompanied the mask, when court ceremonial first took it up from folk custom, tended under the new conditions to pass into the state of survivals. Thus the torch-bearers, whether or not their burning brands represent some original element of ritual in the folk festival, were certainly de rigueur as a concomitant of the mask during the sixteenth century. They had two clear functions. They provided, in dim halls, the abundance of light which was so necessary to give full value to the bright stuffs and metallic spangles worn by the dancers. And their own costumes, harmonized or contrasting with those of the dancers, afforded the variety of interest which otherwise, while the presenters were still limited to one or two 'truchmen', might have been lacking. They were always kept in strict subordination to the maskers proper. They were their attendants; Hinds in a mask of Clowns, Almains in a mask of Swart Rutters, Moorish friars in a mask of Moors. Their garments were inferior, taffeta, as against satin or cloth of gold. When George Ferrers, as Lord of Misrule in 1552, had occasion to complain of the apparel furnished by the Master of the Revels for his councillors, he wrote that the gentlemen who were to take the parts 'wolde not be seen in London so torchebererlyke disgysed for asmoche as they ar worthe or hope to be worthe'.[2] And when the measures began, they had little to do, but to stand
- ↑ The relation of the morris-dance to the folk is described in The Mediaeval Stage, i. 195, but I think that the history of the name requires further examination. There are traces of morris-dances at court in 1559 and 1579, and there was a sword-dance on 6 Jan. 1604.
- ↑ Feuillerat, Edw. and Mary, 59.
