Anthony Wood wrote that from its first foundation the fellows of Merton College, Oxford, elected each year about St Edmund’s Day in November a Christmas Lord, or Lord of Misrule. The college registers styled him Rex Fabarum, King of the Beans. The custom lasted until the Reformation, after which it was condemned as popish. St John’s College had a similar Christmas Prince chosen by the juniors.
The Merton Christmas Lord
20 November · Merton College, Oxford
No longer kept
elected, about St. Edmund's Day, in November, a Christmas Lord, or Lord of Misrule, styled in the registers Rex Fabarum
From Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 498. Read the original
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