Editing Lord of Misrule (section)

==History==
=== Ancient Rome ===
On 1 January, AD 400, the bishop [[Asterius of Amasea]]<ref name=AA/> in Pontus (modern [[Amasya Province|Amasya, Turkey]]) preached a sermon against the Feast of [[Calends]] ("this foolish and harmful delight")<ref name=AS/> that describes the role of the mock king in [[Late Antiquity]]. The New Year's feast included children arriving at each doorstep, exchanging their gifts for reward:<ref name="AA">
  "[[Asterius of Amasia]], Sermons (1904). Preface to
  the online edition", Roger Pearse (translator),
  Ipswich, UK, December 2003, webpage:
  [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/asterius_00_eintro.html  ECWritings-Aste]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}.
</ref><ref name="AS">
  "On the Festival of the Calends", Asterius, AD 400.
</ref>
{{quote|This festival teaches even the little children, artless and simple, to be greedy, and accustoms them to go from house to house and to offer novel gifts, fruits covered with silver tinsel. For these they receive, in return, gifts double their value, and thus the tender minds of the young begin to be impressed with that which is commercial and sordid.|Asterius, in ''"Oratio 4: Adversus Kalendarum Festum"''<ref name=AS/>}}

It contrasted with the Christian celebration held, not by chance, on the adjoining day:
{{quote|We celebrate the birth of Christ, since at this time God manifested himself in the flesh. We celebrate the Feast of Lights (Epiphany), since by the forgiveness of our sins we are led forth from the dark prison of our former life into a life of light and uprightness.|Asterius, ''"Oratio 4"''}}

Significantly, for Asterius the Christian feast was explicitly an entry from darkness into light, and although no conscious solar nature could have been expressed, it is certainly the renewed light at midwinter that was celebrated among Roman pagans, officially from the time of [[Aurelian]], as the [[Sol Invictus|"festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun"]]. Meanwhile, throughout the city of Amasea, although entry into the temples and holy places had been forbidden by the decree of [[Theodosius I]] (391), the festival of gift-giving when "all is noise and tumult" in "a rejoicing over the new year" with a kiss and the gift of a coin, went on all around, to the intense disgust and scorn of the bishop:
{{quote|This is misnamed a feast, being full of annoyance; since going out-of-doors is burdensome, and staying within doors is not undisturbed. For the common vagrants and the jugglers of the stage, dividing themselves into squads and hordes, hang about every house. The gates of public officials they besiege with especial persistence, actually shouting and clapping their hands until he that is beleaguered within, exhausted, throws out to them whatever money he has and even what is not his own. And these mendicants going from door to door follow one after another, and, until late in the evening, there is no relief from this nuisance. For crowd succeeds crowd, and shout, shout, and loss, loss.|Asterius, ''"Oratio 4"''<ref name=AS/>}}

Honest farmers coming into the city were likely to be jeered at, spanked<ref>"Flogged" is the bishop's unlikely remark.</ref> and robbed. Worse,
{{quote|"Even our most excellent and guileless prophets, the unmistakable  representatives of God, who when unhindered in their work are our faithful ministers, are treated with insolence." For the soldiers, they spend all their wages in riot and loose women, see plays perhaps, "for they learn vulgarity and the practices of actors".

Their military discipline is relaxed and slackened. They make sport of the laws and the government of which they have been appointed guardians. For they ridicule and insult the august government. They mount a chariot as though upon a stage; they appoint pretended lictors and publicly act like buffoons. This is the nobler part of their ribaldry. But their other doings, how can one mention them? Does not the champion, the lion-hearted man, the man who when armed is the admiration of his friends and the terror of his foes, loose his tunic to his ankles, twine a girdle about his breast, use a woman's sandal, put a roll of hair on his head in feminine fashion, and ply the distaff full of wool, and with that right hand which once bore the trophy, draw out the thread, and changing the tone of his voice utter his words in the sharper feminine treble?}}

In [[The Golden Bough]], [[James Frazer]] cites a Greek [[martyrology]] which claims that during Saturnalia in [[Durostorum]] on the [[Danube]] (modern [[Silistra]]), Roman soldiers would choose a man from among themselves to be a ceremonial "temporary king" for thirty days. At the end of that term, this soldier was to cut his own throat on the altar of Saturn. The Christian Saint Dasius was supposedly chosen for this ritual, but refused to participate, and was martyred as a result.  Frazer speculated that a similar ritual of [[human sacrifice]] could be the origin of the British Lord of Misrule.<ref>{{Cite wikisource
 | last  = Frazer
 | first = James
 | title = The Golden Bough 
 |chapter= Human Scapegoats in Classical Antiquity
 | year  = 1922
}}https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough/Human_Scapegoats_in_Classical_Antiquity</ref>

=== Tudor England ===
[[File:The Abbot of Unreasons - L'Abbé de la Déraison.jpg|thumb|''The Abbot of Unreasons'' by [[George Cruikshank|Cruikshank]]]]
In the Tudor period, John Stow in his ''Survey of London'', published in 1603, gives a description of the Lord of Misrule:<ref name=":0" />
<blockquote>[I]n the feaste of Christmas, there was in the kinges house, wheresoeuer hee was lodged, a Lord of Misrule, or Maister of merry disports, and the like had yee in the house of euery noble man, of honor, or good worshippe, were he spirituall or temporall. Amongst the which the Mayor of London, and eyther of the shiriffes had their seuerall Lordes of Misrule, euer contending without quarrell or offence, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the Beholders. These Lordes beginning their rule on Alhollon Eue [Halloween], continued the same till the morrow after the Feast of the Purification, commonlie called Candlemas day: In all which space there were fine and subtle disguisinges, Maskes and Mummeries, with playing at Cardes for Counters, Nayles and pointes in euery house, more for pastimes then for gaine.
</blockquote>

The Lord of Misrule is also mentioned by Philip Stubbes in his ''Anatomie of Abuses'' (1585), where he states that "the wilde heades of the parishe conventynge together, chuse them a grand Capitaine (of mischeefe) whom they ennobel with the title Lorde of Misrule." He then describes how they dress colourfully, tie bells onto their legs, and "go to the churche (though the minister be at praier or preachyng) dauncying and swingyng their handercheefes."