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Mummings and Entertainments
by John Lydgate, edited by Claire Sponsler
John Lydgate, the Benedictine monk of Bury, was a prolific fifteenth-century poet. Though Lydgate is known for his longer literary works, this edition compiles fifteen of his Middle English mummings, folk dramas typically performed at festivals, holy days, and royal or civic ceremonies. They may include music, spoken word, costuming, and gesture or action to accompany occasions like pageants, royal processions, and pictorial representations. For example, Soteltes at the Coronation Banquet of Henry VI offers verses recited during themed subtleties (culinary conceits made of confectionary) at the titular king’s inaugural feast while The Legend of St. George dramatizes the eponymous hero to honor the building of a guild hall for London armorers. Some embrace a comic or ludic tone, inviting audience participation, while others suggest proper behavior through Classical and Biblical exempla. Written from the late 1420s to the early 1430s in Lydgate’s “aureate” style, these mummings provide rare insight into how performances were commissioned, created, and disseminated.
