ENGLISH RITUAL DRAMA (Mummers Plays)
By the end of the nineteenth century, despite changes within society resulting from the industrial revolution, the villages of England remained socially isolated and much of everyday life was ruled by folklore and local customs. This was often based on superstition and primitive rituals with wisewomen, country cures and medicines and charms for events such as birth, death, marriage and tasks like churning butter, baking or brewing. Alongside this the rural calendar, which reflected the ever changing seasons, welded the population into a tight community with dancing, plays and ritual.
Even today many of these customs linger on as part of the collective wisdom of village communities. Of these practices, Mumming Plays have proved to be the most persistent and while few 'traditional' performances survive, they were widely known in towns and villages - each with their own variant - until the 1914-18 war decimated the male population.
The origins of this Ritual are lost in history and while the early theories about it being based on pre Christian primitive magic are not substantiated by any evidence there are, nevertheless, records of the custom dating back some 250 years.
Historically, in England, the drama was performed in the old style winter months commencing at All Souls (31 October) and ending at Easter although appearances were most common at Christmas when players collected money to augment low winter earnings. It is this socio-economic aspect of the performance which modern theories focus on as a key element in the birth and survival of the tradition.
Traditionally performers were always men, even when a female character was required. While early theories suggested that to be recognised broke the 'luck' brought by the players causing them to hide their identity by dressing in disguise consisting of strips of paper or rag attached to ordinary clothes which completely covered the wearer, including the face, modern thinking tends to see the disguise as a simple means of avoiding identification by authorities concerned with the 'rough' behaviour and begging aspect of the performance. This style of costume appears to have survived longest in the rural Southern counties but eventually performers began to dress according to the character.
In this country three distinct forms of the play exist. The most common is called Hero Combat in which each performer enters in turn, introduces his character by name and proceeds in rhyme to issue challenge and counter challenge. A fight follows in which a player is 'killed' only to be revived by a Quack Doctor. This form includes both Soul Cake plays from Cheshire performed at All Souls in the autumn and Pace Egg plays from the North West performed at Easter.
Of the other forms, one - from the East Midlands - is normally performed in early January on Plough Monday and has, in addition to the Hero Combat scene, a courtship sequence and representation of three generations of life with an old couple, a young couple and a baby while the other, found only in the North East, combines the dramatic action with an intricate 'sword' dance in which performers link themselves together with strips of wood or metal and the 'death' results from the action of the entire group.
These forms of the ritual are unique to England but similar traditions have been noted from the Pyrenees, through the Swiss-German border area, Rumania, Thrace and Macedonia in the Balkans to Skyros in the Aegean.
Recommended references:
English Ritual Drama [Geographical Index] E C Cawte, Folklore Society 1967
Alex Helm & N Peacock
The English Mummers and Their Plays Alan Brody Routledge & Kegan Paul 1969
Irish Folk Drama Alan Gailey Mercier Press [Cork] 1969
The English Folk Play Sir E Chambers University Press Oxon R 1969
The Mummer' Play R J E Tiddy Oxford University Press 1972
Irish Folk Drama Alan Gailey Folklore Vol 85 Folklore Society [Spring 1974]
The English Mummers' Play Alex Helm Folklore Society 1981
Rites and Riots Bob Pegg Blandford Press 1981
By Rite Bob Bushaway Junction Books 1982
Popular Culture & Custom in 19th C England R D Storch Croom Helm Ltd 1982
Galoshins [The Scottish Folk Play] Brian Hayward Edinburgh Univ Press 1992
Room, Room, Ladies and Gentlemen
- an Introduction to the English Mummers' Play Eddie Cass & Steve Roud EFDSS 2002
The Lancashire Pace-Egg Play Eddie Cass Folklore Society 2002
Folk Music Journal [various] E.F.D.S.S. 1961-1999
Contacts:
Ron Shuttleworth [Mumming archivist for The Morris Ring]
E mail: mumming@usa.net
In addition Ron was, in 1966, a founder member of the highly respected Coventry Mummers http://www.brinklow-57.freeserve.co.uk/pwmum1.htm
David Staveley is also running a 'Mumming' site which is devoted specifically to Sussex on: http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/aspen/sussex/mumming.html
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