Note 1462 — Chapter XVII · MASKS AND MISRULE

Stowe, Survey, 37 ‘There was in the feast of Christmas in the King’s house, wheresoever he was lodged, a Lord of Misrule or Master of Merry Disports; and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal. Among the which, the Mayor of London and either of the Sheriffs had their several Lords of Misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders. These Lords beginning their rule on Allhollons eve, continued the same til the morrow after the feast of the Purification, commonly called Candlemas-day. In all which space there were fine and subtle disguisings, masks and mummeries’; Holinshed (ed. 1587), iii. 1067 ‘What time [at Christmas], of old ordinarie course, there is alwaies one appointed to make sport in the court, called commonlie lord of misrule: whose office is not unknowne to such as haue beene brought up in noble mens houses, & among great house keepers which use liberall feasting in that season.’ The sense of ‘misrule’ in this phrase is ‘disorder’; cf. the ‘uncivil rule’ of Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 132.