The Lord of Misrule’s company in church

The wild heads of the parish chose a Lord of Misrule for the summer games, and his twenty to a hundred men, dressed in green or yellow liveries with scarves, ribbons and twenty or forty bells on each leg, marched with hobby horses, dragons, pipers and drummers into the church itself, even while the minister was praying or preaching. The congregation climbed on the forms and pews to watch them dance and swing their handkerchiefs over their heads. Afterwards they feasted and danced all day, and perhaps all night, in summer halls and bowers set up in the churchyard. Stubbes, who hated it, did not name the day but set it among the Sabbath games of summer alongside the May games.