History of English Humour Volume I Part 10

CHAPTER III.

Origin of Modern Comedy--Ecclesiastical Buffoonery--Jougleurs and Minstrels--Court Fools--Monks' Stories--The "Tournament of Tottenham"--Chaucer--Heywood--Roister Doister--Gammer Gurton.

As the early drama of Greece arose from the celebration of religious rites, so that of modern times originated in the church. This does not seem so strange when we remember that religion is in connection with abstract thought, and with an exercise of the representative powers of the mind. And if we ask how comedy could have been thus introduced, the reply must be that the ideal of former ages was very different from our own. In the days when the mind was dull and inactive, striking ill.u.s.trations were very necessary to awaken interest in moral and spiritual teaching. They changed in accordance with the progress of the times and country--sometimes the medium was fables or other such impossible fictions, sometimes it was similitudes from nature, as parables, and sometimes dramatic performances. Whatever drama the Jews had was of a religious character. It is supposed by some that the words--"When your children shall say unto you, 'What mean ye by this service,'" refers to some commemorative representation. However this may be, we know that about the year 100 B.C., Ezekiel, an Alexandrian Jew, wrote a play in Greek on the Exodus, which somewhat resembled a "mystery." Luther thought that the books of Judith and Tobit were originally in a dramatic form; and, even among the Jews, a comic element was sometimes introduced--as in the ancient Ahasuerus' play at the feast of Purim--with a view of attracting attention at a time when people had little reflection, and were not very particular about the intermingling of utterly incongruous feelings, whether religion and cruelty, or religion and humour.

We have traced the gradual decline of the drama in Rome, until it consisted but of buffooneries and mimes; and so its revival in modern times commenced with performances in dumb show, the low intellectual character of the age being reflected in popular exhibitions. The mimi were people who performed barefooted, clothed in skins of animals, with shaven heads, and faces smeared with soot. The Italians gradually came to relish nothing but a sort of pantomime, and it seems to have occurred to the Roman Church, always enterprising and fond of adaptation, that they might turn this taste of the people to some account. Accordingly, we read of religious mummings in Spain as early as the sixth century, and in 1264 the Brotherhood of the Gonfalone was founded in Italy to represent the sufferings of Christ in dumb show and processions.[48] In France the performance of holy plays, termed Mysteries, dates from the conclusion of the fourteenth century, when a company of pilgrims from the Holy Land, with their gowns hung with scallop sh.e.l.ls and images, a.s.sisted at the marriage of Charles VI. and Isabella of Bavaria. They were incorporated as a Society in Paris to give dramatic entertainments, and were known as the "Fraternity of the Pa.s.sion." Originally the intention was to represent scenes in Scripture history, but gradually they introduced "Moralities"--fanciful pieces in which G.o.d, the Devil, the Virtues, &c., were the dramatis personae. In one of these, for instance, the Devil invites the Follies to a banquet on their arrival in h.e.l.l. When they sit down the table seems hospitably spread, but as soon as they begin to touch the food it all bursts into flame, and the piece concludes with fireworks. We can see that a comic element might easily be introduced into such performances. But Charles VI., who seems to have been fond of all mimetic exhibitions, formed another company named "L'Inst.i.tution Joyeuse," composed of the sons of the best families in Paris, who, under the name of the "Enfans sans Souci," and presided over by the "Prince des Sots," made France laugh at the follies of the day, personal and political. The above mentioned religious fraternity joined these gay performers without apparently seeing anything objectionable in such a connection, and under the name of the "Clercs de la Bazoche," or clerks of the revels, acted with them alternately. Even in the Mysteries, an occasional element of humour was evidently introduced, although many things which would appear ludicrous to us did not so affect the people of that day. A tinge of buffoonery was thought desirable. Thus in the "Ma.s.sacre of the Holy Innocents," a good deal of scuffling takes place on the stage, especially where the women attack with their distaffs a low fool, who has requested Herod to knight him that he may join in the gallant adventure. In France there was "The Feast of a.s.ses," in which the priests were attired like the Ancient Prophets, and accompanied by Virgil! Balaam, armed with a tremendous pair of spurs, rode a wooden a.s.s, in which a man was enclosed. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, forbade the celebration in churches of the "Feast of Fools," in which the clergy danced and gesticulated in masks. The "Mysteries" seem sometimes to have been of extraordinary length, for there was a play called "The Creation,"

performed at Clerkenwell which lasted eight days.

Pageantry as well as humour--devices appealing to the senses--were largely employed to enliven the exhibitions of early times. In the Christmas games in the reign of Edward I., we find they made use of eighty tunics of buckram of various colours, forty-two vizors, fourteen faces of women, fourteen of men, and the same number of angels, as well as imitations of dragons, peac.o.c.ks, and swans.

The taking of Constantinople in 1453 scattered the men of learning throughout the West, and led to a revival of literature. The drama recommenced with representations of the old plays of Plautus. They were performed at the Universities, and on state occasions, as in 1528, when Henry VIII. had a stage erected in his great hall at Greenwich.

But the first development seems to have been in Spain, where the old Romans had left their impress, and where the cruel games of the circus still survive in the form of bull-fights. Lopez de Reuda, of Seville, first brought comedy on the stage, but Cervantes tells us that then the whole wardrobe of an actor consisted of four sheep-skins, trimmed with gilt leather, four beards, four wigs, and four shepherds' crooks.

Nevertheless, after the cla.s.sical period, Spain became the repertory for the comedians of Europe.

So far we have traced the origin of comedy as to public performance. We now come to consider what tendencies of disposition opened the way for it, and led to its becoming a branch of literature. The love of amus.e.m.e.nt, which is so strong in man, induced the patronage, which in early times was extended to the various kinds of professors of light arts.

In the days of Greece, as in those of Rome, there were ball-players, and mountebanks, and we may remember an occasion on which Terence complained that a rope-dancer had enticed away his audience. In Sparta there were men who represented the tricks of thieves and impostors in dances, and whose entertainments, though poor, were superior to that of mere mountebanks. The mimes were a still greater improvement, in which a certain amount of amusing narrative was ill.u.s.trated by dances, songs, contortions, and as the name implies by mimicry. We have seen Plato introducing mimi from Greece, and Julius Caesar interesting himself in such performers. Our mediaeval fool has been traced to the Roman mime, who continued to please the country-people with coa.r.s.e and debased representations after Rome had fallen, and comedy had perished. Some have even given a cla.s.sic origin to our pantomime, considering harlequin to be Mercury, the clown Momus, pantaloon Charon, and columbine Psyche.

The Roman Sannio and Manducus certainly somewhat corresponded to our fool and clown, the latter especially in his gormandising propensities.

But it is scarcely necessary to travel so far back, for the desire for amus.e.m.e.nt has in all countries produced an indigenous supply.

Court-jesters are heard of as early as the reign of Philip of Macedon, but they seem to have been at first little more than parasites of inferior rank and education. In Roman times they were little more than buffoons,[49] and not very different from the mediaeval fools. They seem to have received nicknames, and Petronius describes a very low buffoon performing antics in a myrtle robe with a belt round his waist.

As in ancient times we find Achilles singing to his lyre, so the English musicians and story-tellers were originally amateurs of high rank. We read of King Alfred charming the Danes with his minstrelsy. So also in the Arthurian legends Sir Kaye is represented as amusing the company; but at the time of Hoel Dha's Welsh laws, the bard was paid, for we read that the king was to allow him a horse and a woollen garment, and the queen to give him a linen robe; the prefect of the palace is privileged to sit near him on festivals and to hand him his harp. Canute seems to have treated his scalds with less ceremony, for he threatened to put one of them to death because he recounted his exploits in too short a poem, but the man escaped by producing thirty strophes on the subject next day. The Saxon gleemen were generally of humble origin and not only performed music, but exhibited tricks. So also among the Normans we find the barons originally amusing one another with "gabs," _i.e._ boastful and exaggerated accounts of their achievements. But soon a greater amount of leisure and luxury led them to pay for amus.e.m.e.nt; professed musicians and story-tellers were introduced, and were cla.s.sed with the _ministri_ or servants, whence came the name minstrel, which was soon confined to them alone. We find Talliefer going before William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings chanting the brave deeds of Charlemagne and making a display of skill in tossing and catching his sword and spear. This union of tricks and music became so common that the words minstrel and jougleur were soon synonymous, though there was originally a distinction between them. The word jougleur, sometimes by mistake written jongleur, is derived from the latin _joculator_. This cla.s.s of people were conjurers, as their name suggests, and often went about the country with performing animals, especially bears and monkeys.

They gradually added songs to their accomplishments, which more a.s.similated them to the minstrels, and they became connected with, and were sometimes called "troubadours." In these minstrels or jougleurs, though sometimes strolling independently, being often attached to great households, we find an element of the domestic, or as he is called, court fool, and we find another in their performances being of that primitive character, which appeals chiefly to the perception of the senses. For although the "jocular" part, originally subordinate, had been increased, it took so rude a form that the ludicrous was not always easily distinguished from the humorous. The Fool was a strange mixture of both, varying from a mere idiot and b.u.t.t to a man of genius, far superior to his masters. He made shrewd remarks, and performed senseless antics, the city fool, on Lord Mayor's day, was to jump clothes and all into a large bowl of custard. To a certain extent he generally corresponded with his name in having some mental weakness or eccentricity, and it was a recommendation if he were dwarfish or deformed. He wore a "motley" suit of discordant colours to make him ridiculous, and correspond with the incongruity of his mind and actions--a dress similar to the hundred patched _paniculus centunculus_ of the Roman mimes. Sometimes he wore a petticoat or calf-skin to resemble an idiot. Finally, he had his head shaved and wore a cowl to make him like a monk, as his buffooneries would thus have a stranger character, and the n.o.bles had no great affection for the church.[50] The domestic fool was common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries up to the time of Louis XIV.; but it is said that there were such men at the Court of Louis le Debonnaire. Giraldus Cambrenses writes that when he was preaching for the Crusades in South Wales, one John Spang "who by simulating fatuity, and having a quick tongue was wont to be a great comfort to the court," said to Resus, the king: "You should be greatly indebted to your relative the Archdeacon for sending a hundred of your men to day to follow Christ, and if he had spoken Welsh I do not believe that one of all your people would remain to you." This was towards the end of the twelfth century, but it does not seem clear that John Spang was a court jester. We may fairly consider that the inst.i.tution of the domestic fools, the employment of men, who professed jocularity as a branch of art distinct from music and legerdemain increased mental activity, and a growing desire for humour. But the men who made jesting their profession were generally regarded with contempt, and an Act of Parliament in the reign of Edward III. ordered strollers of this kind to be whipped out of the town. An old satire written at the time of the Reformation brings together actors, dustmen, jugglers, conjurers, and sellers of indulgences.

But we want something more than wits and drolleries, and even public performances, to complete our idea of Comedy. We must have literary composition and artistic construction. From songs of warlike achievements such as were chanted by the old scalders to cheer their chiefs over the bowl, there arose by degrees fanciful tales with which the Saxons and their successors amused themselves after their dinner, and round the blazing hearth. In the tenth century the clergy found stories to amuse the post-prandial hour--extravagant, indelicate, or profane--such were the times, but marking improved activity of thought.

Thus they enjoyed such a tale as that a "prophet" went to Heriger (Archbishop of Mayence about 920) and told him he had been to the nether world, a place, he said, surrounded by woods. The Archbishop replied that, if that was the case, he would send his lean swine there to eat acorns. The prophet added that afterwards he went to heaven, and saw Christ and his saints sitting at table and eating; John the Baptist was the butler, and served the wine, and St. Peter was the cook. The Archbishop asked the stranger how he fared himself, and on his saying that he sat in the corner and stole a piece of liver--Heriger instead of praising his sanct.i.ty ordered him to be tied to a stake, and flogged for theft. The "Supper," as old as the tenth century, is another humorous description. A grave a.s.sembly of scriptural characters, from Adam and Eve downwards, are invited, Cain sits on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail &c.; two, Paul and Esau, are obliged to stand for want of room, and Job complains of having nothing to sit on but a dunghill. Jonah is here the butler. Samson brings honey to the dessert, and Adam apples--

"Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia.

David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana, Judith ch.o.r.eas ducebat et Jubal psalteria Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias."[51]

Thus stories, by degrees, began to be not only composed, but written, and although not intended for acting, to be dignified with the old name of "Comedies." Such poems were written by Robert Baston, who accompanied Edward II. to Scotland.

The Tournament of Tottenham is a merry story of this kind, written in the reign of Henry VI. It is full of a rough kind of hostile humour, and shows the sort of things which amused at that time. Here we have a burlesque upon the deeds of chivalry. A mock tournament is held, the prize is to be the Reve of Tottenham's daughter, a brood hen, a dun cow, a grey mare, and a spotted sow. The combatants--clowns and rustics--provide themselves with flails, and poles, and sheep skins

"They armed tham in mattes; They set on ther nollys (heads) For to kape ther pollys, G.o.de blake bollys (bowls) For t' batryng of battes (cudgels)."

The fierceness of the combat is described:

"And fewe wordys spoken, There were flayles al to-slatered, Ther were scheldys al to-flatred, Bollys and dysches al to-schatred, And many hedys brokyn."

We find some specimen of the kind of tales called Comedies, which preceded acted Comedy, in the works of Chaucer, who died in 1400.

Scarcely any part of Chaucer's writings would raise a laugh at the present day, though they might a blush.[52] But he was by no means a man who revelled in indelicacy. We may suppose that he was moderate for the time in which he lived, and when he makes an offensive allusion, he usually adds some excuse for it. The antiquated language in which his works are written prevents our now appreciating much of the humour they contained; generally, there is more refinement and grace in his writings. No doubt at the time he was thought witty, and his tendency in this direction is shown by his praise of mirth in the "Romaunt of the Rose."

"Full faire was mirth, full long and high, A fairer man I never sigh: As round as apple was his face, Full roddie and white in every place, Fetis he was and well besey, With meetly mouth and eyen gray, His nose by measure wrought full right, Crispe was his haire, and eke full bright, His shoulderes of large trede And smallish in the girdlestede: He seemed like a purtreiture, So n.o.ble was he of his stature, So faire, so jolly, and so fetise With limmes wrought at point devise, Deliver smart, and of great might; Ne saw thou never man so light Of berd unneth had he nothing, For it was in the firste spring, Full young he was and merry of thought, And in samette with birdes wrought And with golde beaten full fetously His bodie was clad full richely.

Wrought was his robe in straunge gise And all slitttered for queintise In many a place, low and hie, And shode he was with great maistrie With shoone decoped and with lace, By drurie and by solace His leefe a rosen chapelet Had made, and on his head it set."

He speaks in equally high terms of "Dame Gladnesse."

We can appreciate Chaucer's address to his empty purse--

"To you my purse, and to none other wight Complaine I, for ye be my lady dere, I am sorry now that ye be light, For certes ye now make me heauy chere Me were as lefe laid vpon a bere, For which vnto your mercy thus I crie Be heauy againe or els mote I die.

"Now vouchsafe this day or it be night That I of you the blissful sowne may here, Or see your colour like the sunne bright That of yelowness had neuer pere; Ye be my life, ye be my hertes stere Queen of comfort, and good companie Be heauy againe, or els mote I die.

"Now purse that art to me my liues delight And sauiour, as downe in this world here, Out of this towne helpe me by your might Sith that you woll not be my treasure, For I am shave as nere as any frere, But I pray vnto your curtesie Be heauy againe, or els mote I die."

Chaucer was very fond of allegory. This is especially visible not only in the "Romaunt of the Rose," but in the "Court of Love," "Flower and Leaf," the "House of Fame," and the "Cuckoo and Nightingale." In the "a.s.sembly of Fowls" we have a fable. Chaucer was attached to the service of John of Gaunt, which may have led to his attacking the clergy, but in his youth he was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street. He favoured Wickliffe, and was for this reason eventually obliged to flee the country; but he returned and obtained remunerative appointments. It is said that on his death-bed he lamented the encouragement which vice might receive from his writings, but their indelicacy was not really great for the age in which he lived.

Henry Heywood has been called the "Father of English Comedy," and he was certainly one of the first that wrote original dramas, representing the ordinary social life of this country. His pieces, which all appeared before 1550, were short and simple, and seem to us very deficient in delicacy and humour. But in his day he was considered a great wit, and as a court-jester drew many a l.u.s.ty laugh from old King Hal, and could even soothe the rugged brow of the fanatical Mary. One of his best sayings was addressed to her. When the Queen told Heywood that the priests must forego their wives, he answered. "Then your Grace must allow them _lemans_, for the clergy cannot live without sauce." He was called the epigrammatist, but the greater part of his jests seem to have little point. Some of them have been attributed to Sir Thomas More.

One of the earliest English comedies written by Nicholas Udall, and found entered in the books of the Stationers' Company in the year, 1566, is Royster Doister.

"Which against the vayne glorious doth invey Whose humour the roysting sort continually doth feede."

The play turns on Ralph Royster Doister--a conceited fool--thinking every woman must fall in love with him. Much of the humour is acoustic, and depends on repet.i.tions--

"Then tw.a.n.g with our sonnets, and tw.a.n.g with our dumps, And hey hough for our heart, as heavie as lead lumps.

Then to our recorder with toodle doodle p.o.o.pe, As the howlet out of an yvie bushe should hoope Anon to our gitterne, thrumpledum, thrumpledrum thrum, Thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrum."

Royster is duped into sending Custance a love-letter, telling her that he seeks only her fortune, and that he will annoy her in every way after marriage. On discovering the deception, he determines to take vengeance on the scribbler who wrote the love-letter for him:--

"Yes, for although he had as many lives As a thousande widowes and a thousande wives, As a thousande lyons and a thousande rattes, A thousande wolves and a thousande cattes, A thousande bulles, and a thousande calves And a thousande legions divided in halves, He shall never 'scape death on my sworde's point Though I shoulde be torne therefore joynt by joynt."

Where he prepares to punish Custance and her friends for refusing him, there is a play on the word "stomacke"--used for courage:

_Ralph Royster._ Yea, they shall know, and thou knowest I have a stomacke.

_M.M._ A stomacke (quod you) you, as good as ere man had.

_R. Royster._ I trowe they shall finde and feele that I am a lad.

_M.M._ By this crosse I have seene you eate your meat as well.

As any that ere I have seene of, or heard tell, A stomacke quod you? he that will that denie, I know was never at dynner in your companie.

_R. Royster._ Nay, the stomacke of a man it is that I meane.

_M.M._ Nay, the stomacke of a horse or a dogge I weene.

_R. Royster._ Nay, a man's stomacke with a weapon mean I.

_M.M._ Ten men can scarce match you with a spoon in a pie.

"Gammer Gurton's Needle" was acted in 1552. It bears marks of an early time in its words being coa.r.s.ely indelicate, but not amatory. The humour is that of blows and insults and we may observe the great value then attached to needles. It is "a right pithy, pleasant and merry comedy"--a country story of an old dame who loses her needle when sewing a patch on the seat of her servant Hodge's breeches. The cat's misdoings interrupt her, and her needle is lost. The hunt for the needle is amusing, and Gammer Gurton and Dame Chat, whom she suspects of having stolen it, abuse and call each other witches. Hodge, the man with the patched breeches encourages Gammer Gurton, who seems little to require it.