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A crucial Christmas entertainment was the temporary government of the Lord of Misrule. At the royal court, in noble houses, Inns of Court and university college
by ogogmad 4y ago
A crucial Christmas entertainment was the temporary government of the Lord of Misrule. At the royal court, in noble houses, Inns of Court and university colleges, Misrule presided, mocking and turning the world upside down. He even had a gibbet for mock executions. Similarly, in cathedrals and churches, boys from the choir were ‘appointed’ as bishops. Such inversion of the norms was fun and necessary.
This is really strange. Did Manorialism exist at this time, and did the peasants do this with their Lord?
- sgt101 4y agoYes, and yes... But of course, if they went too far the rest of the year was fit for regrets!
- hprotagonist 4y agoit’s also exactly on-brand for the holiday: what starker example of “Freaky Friday” inversion of social order is there than the Incarnation, and as the child of an itinerant nobody at the ass-end of the world, to boot? And this, proclaimed as good news. I feel like we’ve lost something important in the loss of this yearly moment of re-enactment of incarnation’s radical weirdness and challenge to establishment; the 14th century cleric’s remarks in the article seem pretty wise. Don’t wine skins and barrels burst very often if the air-hole is not opened from time to time? We too are old barrels.