A Medley of Madness

Characters from Contemporary Life in the Jacobean Masque 1613 and 1614 Following the introduction of professionals as dancers into the elite English court masque in 1609, dubbed ‘the antimasque’, the king and his government could animate political messages in a fresh and vivid manner. The antimasque section presented the antithesis to the thesis of good government in the main masque by the nobility. Fol lowing the presentation of supernatural figures of witches and satyrs, from 1613 a range of town and country characters were frequently to be seen. Through discussion of the mad people of The Lords’ Masque, the country folk in The Masque of Grays Inn and Lincoln’s Inn, both of 1613 the Irish footmen of The Irish Masque at Court and the sailors of The Somerset Masque of 1614, this paper will trace how they were represented in music, dance and costume and the multiple layers of political symbolism deployed in the entries. Two of the character-types belonged to the world of early 17th-century London: mariners on the Thames, Irish footmen employed as messengers, and each of the mad people representing social types. The country folk were a bizarre mix of human and animal types. Antimasque dancers were also estab lishing a new profession of dancer, drawn from the profession of players, not that of musician as in France, leading, I argue, to a significant emphasis on verisimilitude in representation. Anne Daye is a teacher, researcher and writer on historical dance, primarily of social and theatre dance of England within the European Renaissance. Her doctoral thesis 2008 broke new ground by discussing the performance and dance of the Jacobean masque. Investigating the vernacular forms of morris and country dance is central to her studies. Anne publishes widely, most recently an article on Shakespeare’s use of masque for The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and the Dance 2019 and on court dancing for Performances at Court in the Age of Shakespeare for Cambridge University Press 2019. Following a career as lecturer in Dance His tory in HE Dance Departments, Anne continues to research in retirement and is Director of Education and Research for the Historical Dance Society. The 24th Oxford Dance Symposium ‘Dancing in Town and Country’ New College, Oxford, 19 & 20 April 2022