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Early Modern England Encyclopedia
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In early modern England, the celebration of May Day brought people together and served as a source of great entertainment. The day had roots in Roman and Celtic fertility practices such as the Roman festival of the goddess Flora and the Celtic holiday of Beltane, but May Day occurred without religious context in England by the Middle Ages, according to scholar John Chu. As the name suggests, May Day was generally celebrated on the first of May. The lively celebrations were especially popular among rural and country folk. John Stow’s 1598
Mayingsand
Maygamesexcited the different parishes of the growing capitol city as well. We see reference to May Day celebrations, including both the maypole and Morris dancing, in some of Shakespeare’s work.
May Day consisted of games, feasting, and dancing. There were activities for children, young women, young men, village groups, and even entertainment by hired professionals. A few key activities iconic to May Day include:
May Day celebrations have persisted to the present day in the British Isles, although they were frowned upon by Puritans during the Elizabethan period and even banned by the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum (1642–1660). They were later restored under King Charles II, who saw to it that a large maypole was installed in London.
In his 1583 attack on all sorts of behaviors, Puritan religious reformer Philip Stubbes complains of the lewd activities practiced on May Day and extended through other summer celebrations such as Midsummer Day:
Dr. Will Tosh explains that this kind of ritualised suspension of normal rules of propriety that allowed couples to stay out all night in the woods and fields was common in pre-modern England, as it is in other world cultures.
The Maypole’s origins were that of a decorated tree; the tallest tree in the forest would be cut down and brought into the public square to serve as the maypole. This was an annual tradition, the maypole being set up in the morning, with the people decorating it with garlands of greenery and flowers. The May Pole, a type of phallic symbol, arises from the celebration’s origins as a fertility rite in Celtic pagan cultures. The decorated maypole might be left up for the year. Ribbons twined around the pole became a part of the ritual in Victorian times.
Morris dancing is a type of folk dance that includes movements of jogging, skipping, and oftentimes a mock battle where props like wooden swords, sticks, and hobby horses are incorporated. Dancers often wear bells on their legs. A lively country dance, the Morris was familiar to theatrical audiences during the early modern period. Various regions and towns had their own takes on the dance, which often enacted the death of the May King as part of the Morris Sword Dance, according to J.M. Mackley. It arose in the English Middle Ages but is still practiced in the 21st century, and the Morris Dance remains a significant part of British culture.
Morris Dancing has evolved over hundreds of years, including one practice that has been especially adapted: the use of face paint. Black face paint was traditionally used in early modern Morris dancing, but today, most Morris groups have changed the color to green or blue or removed face paint entirely due to the racist practices associated with blackface.
Morris Dance is mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays such as
the nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud(2.1.101) In this scene, she uses the way that bad weather hinders a Morris Dance as a metaphor for the disruption in communities that occurs when she and Oberon are in a disagreement.
In Shakespeare’s