The sports and pastimes of the people of England including the rural and domestic recreations, May games, mummeries, shows, processions, pageants, and pompous spectacles, from the earliest period to the present time / By Joseph Strutt. Illustrated by one hundred and forty engravings.

  • Joseph Strutt
Date:
183l
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sports and pastimes of the people of England including the rural and domestic recreations, May games, mummeries, shows, processions, pageants, and pompous spectacles, from the earliest period to the present time / By Joseph Strutt. Illustrated by one hundred and forty engravings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    caused “ the gyauutes in the midsomer show to be broken,” and not to goe; the devil in liis feathers,” alluding perhaps to some fantastic representation not mentioned in the fonuer or- dinance, “ he put awaye, and the cuppes and Cannes, and the dragon and the naked boys.” In a more modern liand it is added, “ And he caused a man in complete armour to go in their stead. He also caused the bull-ring to be taken up,” &c. But in the year 1601, John RatclyfFe, beer-brewer, being mayor, “ sett out the giaunts and midsommer show, as of oulde it was wont to be kept.”* In the time of the CommonAvealth this spectacle was discontinued, and the giants, with the beasts, Avere destroyed. At the restoration of Charles II. it was agreetl by the citizens to replace the pageant as usual, on the eve of the festival of St. John the Baptist, in 1661; and as the following computation of the charges for the different parts of the show are exceedingly curious, I shall lay them before the reader without any farther apology. We are told that “ all things were to be made new, by reason the ould modells were all broken.” The compiitist then] proceeds: “ For finding all the materials, with the workmanship of the four great giants, all to be made new, as neere as may be lyke as they were before, at five pounds a giant the least that can be, and four men to carry them at two shillings and six pence each.” The materials for the composition of these monsters are afterwards specified to be “ hoops of various magnitudes, and other productions of the _^cooper, deal boards, nails, pasteboard, scaleboard, paper of various sorts, with buckram, size cloth, and old sheets for their bodies, sleeves, and shirts, which were to be coloured.” One pair of the “olde sheets” were provided to cover the “ father and mother giants.” Another article specifies “ three yards of bucki’am for the]mother’s and daughter’s hoods ; ” which seems to prove that three of these stupendous pasteboard per- sonages were the representatives of females. There were “ also tinsille, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colours of different kinds, with glue and paste in abundance.” Respecting the last article, a very ridiculous entry occurs in the bill of charges, it runs thus : “ For arsnick to put into the paste to save the giants from being eaten by the rats, one shilling and fourpence.” But to go on with the estimate. “ For the new making the city mount, called the maior’s mount, as auntiently it was, and for hreing of bays for the same, and a man to can’y it, three « Harl. MS. 2125