A crown, a cross, an angel, and bishops head, could not be endured, so much as in a sign. Our garters, bellows, and warming pans wore godly mottos, our bandboxes were lined with wholesome instructions, and even our trunks with the Assembly-men's sayings. Ribbons were converted into Biblestrings. Nay, in our zeal we visited the gardens and apothecary's shops. Unguentum Apostolicum, Carduus benedictus, Angelica, St. John's Wort, and Our Ladies Thistle, were summoned before a class, and commanded to take new names. We unsainted the Apostles." 2 The author of the pamphlet entitled The Way to Things by Words, and Words by Things, in his specimen of an Etymological Vocabulary, considers the May-pole in a new and curious light. We gather from him that our ancestors held an anniversary assembly on May-day; and that the column of May (whence our May-pole) was the great standard of justice in the Ey-Commons or Fields of May. Here it was that the people, if they saw cause, deposed or punished their governors, their barons, and their kings. The judge's bough or wand (at this time discontinued, and only faintly represented by a trifling nosegay), and the staff or rod of authority in the civil and in the military (for it was the mace of civil power, and the truncheon of the field officers), are both derived from hence. A mayor, he says, received his name from this May, in the sense of lawful power; the crown, a mark of dignity and symbol of power, like the mace and sceptre, was also taken from the May, being representative of the garland or crown, which, when hung on the top of the May or pole, was the great signal for convening the ["He rides up and down the countrey, and every town he comes at with a May-pole, he wonders what the Aristotelean parson and the people mean, that they do not presently cut it down, and set up such a one as is at Gresham College, or St. James's Park; and to what purpose is it to preach to people, and go about to save them, without a telescope, and a glass for fleas. And for all this, perhaps this great undervaluer of the clergie, and admirer of his own ingenuity, can scarce tell the difference between aqua fortis and aqua vitæ, or between a pipkin and a crucible." -Eachard's Observations, 8vo. 1671, p. 167.] 2 "At Hesket (in Cumberland) yearly on St. Barnabas's Day, by the highway side, under a thorn-tree (according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the open air), is kept the court for the whole Forest of Englewood."-Nicolson and Burn's Hist. of Westmor. and Cumb. ii. 344. people; the arches of it, which spring from the circlet, and meet together at the mound or round bell, being necessarily so formed, to suspend it to the top of the pole. The word May-pole, he observes, is a pleonasm; in French it is called singly the Mai. He further tells us, that this is one of the most ancient customs, which from the remotest ages has been, by repetition from year to year, perpetuated down to our days, not being at this instant totally exploded, especially in the lower classes of life. It was considered as the boundary day that divided the confines of winter and summer, allusively to which there was instituted a sportful war between two parties; the one in defence of the continuance of winter, the other for bringing in the summer. The youth were divided into troops, the one in winter livery, the other in the gay habit of the spring. The mock battle was always fought booty; the spring was sure to obtain the victory, which they celebrated by carrying triumphantly green branches with May flowers, proclaiming and singing the song of joy, of which the burthen was in these or equivalent terms: "We have brought the summer home." Keysler, says Mr. Borlase, thinks that the custom of the May-pole took its rise from the earnest desire of the people to see their king, who, seldom appearing at other times, made bis procession at this time of year to the great assembly of the States held in the open air. Sir Henry Piers, in his Description of Westmeath, in Ireland, 1682, says: "On May Eve, every family sets up before their door a green bush, strewed over with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully. In countries where timber is plentiful they erect tall slender trees, which stand high, and they continue almost the whole year; so as a stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses." "A singular custom," says Ireland, in his Views of the Medway, "used to be annually observed on May Day by the boys of Frindsbury and the neighbouring town of Stroud. They met on Rochester bridge, where a skirmish ensued between them. This combat probably derived its origin from a drubbing received by the monks of Rochester in the reign of Edward I. These monks, on occasion of a long drought, set out on a procession for Frindsbury to pray for rain; but the day proving windy, they apprehended the lights would be blown out, the banners tossed about, and their order much discomposed. They therefore requested of the Master of Stroud Hospital leave to pass through the orchard of his house, which he granted without the permission of his brethren; who, when they had heard what the Master had done, instantly hired a company of ribalds, armed with clubs and bats, who way-laid the poor monks in the orchard, and gave them a severe beating. The monks desisted from proceeding that way, but soon after found out a pious mode of revenge, by obliging the men of Frindsbury, with due humility, to come yearly on Whit Monday, with their clubs, in procession to Rochester, as a penance for their sins. Hence probably came the by-word of Frindsbury Clubs." In the British Apollo, 1708, vol. i. No. 25, to one asking "whence is derived the custom of setting up May-poles, and dressing them with garlands; and what is the reason that the milk-maids dance before their customers' doors with their pails dressed up with plate?" it is answered: "It was a custom among the ancient Britons, before converted to Christianity, to erect these May-poles, adorned with flowers, in honour of the goddess Flora; and the dancing of the milkmaids may be only a corruption of that custom in complyance with the town." "The Tears of Old May-Day. "To her no more Augusta's wealthy pride No more the May-pole's verdant height around, MORRIS-DANCERS. THE Morris-dance, in which bells are gingled, or staves or swords clashed, was learned, says Dr. Johnson, by the Moors, and was probably a kind of Pyrrhic, or military dance. "Morisco," says Blount, "(Span.) a Moor; also a dance, so called, wherein there were usually five men, and a boy dressed in a girl's habit, whom they called the Maid Marrion, or perhaps Morian, from the Italian Morione, a head-piece, because her head was wont to be gaily trimmed up. Common people call it a Morris-dance." The Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Books of Kingstonupon-Thames furnished Lysons with the following particulars illustrative of our subject, given in the Environs of London, i. 226 : The word Livery was formerly used to signify anything delivered: see the Northumberland Household Book, p. 60. If it ever bore such an acceptation at that time, one might be induced to suppose, from the following entries, that it here meant a badge, or something of that kind: 15 c. of leveres for Robin-hode For pynnes and leveryes For 13 c. of leverys For 24 great lyverys Probably these were a sort of cockades, given to the company from whom the money was collected. 2 ["A kind of loose upper garment, sometimes furnished with a hood, and originally worn by men and soldiers, but in later times the term seems to have been applied exclusively to a sort of cloak worn by women,' Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 465.] 5 Hen. VIII. 11 Hen. VIII. 99 To Mayde Marian, for her labour for two yeers Recd for Robyn-hood's gaderyng 4 marks1 Shoes for the Mores daunsars, the frere, and 13 Hen. VIII. Eight yerds of fustyan for the Mores daunsars A dosen of gold skynnes for the Morres 15 Hen. VIII. Hire of hats for Robyn hode Paid for the hat that was lost 3 10 6 16 Hen. VIII. Recd at the Church-ale and Robyn-hode, all things deducted Payd for 6 yerdsof satyn for Robyn-hode's cotys For makyng the same. For 3 ells of locram3 For spunging and brushing Robyn-hode's cotys 0 0 4 yerds of cloth for the fole's cote 2 ells of worstede for Maide Maryan's kyrtle 0 0 4 0 2 0. 0 6 8 0 4 6 0 10 8 To the fryer and the piper for to go to Croydon 008 29 Hen. VIII. Mem. lefte in the keping of the Wardens now beinge, a fryer's cote of russet, and a kyrtle of worsted weltyd with red cloth, a mowren's cote of buckram, and 4 Morres daunsars cotes of white fustain spangelyd, and two gryne saten cotes, and a dysardd's cote of cotton, and 6 payre of garters with bells." After this period, says Mr. Lysons, I find no entries relating to the above game. 6 It It appears that this, as well as other games, was made a parish concern. * Probably gilt leather, the pliability of which was particularly accommodated to the motion of the dancers. 3 A sort of coarse linen. Probably a Moor's coat; the word Morian is sometimes used to express a Moor. Black buckram appears to have been much used for the dresses of the ancient mummers. 5 Disard is an old word for a fool. 6 In the Churchwardens' Accounts of Great Marlow, it appears that dresses for the Morris Dance "were lent out to the neighbouring parishes. They are accounted for so late as 1629." See Langley's Antiquities of Desborough, 4to. 1797, p. 142. |