264 MERRIE ENGLAND
church, he might behold the elaborate miming which portrayed
to the congregation the rising of Christ and His absence from the
tomb. Then again at the Corpus Christi feast he would take part
in the processions, and enjoy such rough dramatic representa-
tions of the events of the Scriptures as the wandering players,
or the nearby town gilds could perform. Less closely associated
with the Church were the great popular festivals of May Day,
or of Midsummer Day, when the whole village gave itself up to
mirth and dance. "From a very early period in England the
summer festivals were celebrated elaborately with dance and
song and games, and there are many references to them in the
fourteenth century "9l and these references make no suggestion
that the games are new. On the contrary they tacitly assume
their antiquity, and "somour games" may be looked on as one
of the oldest elements of English social life.
As well as these ceremonies which were part of the communal
life of the whole village we must also notice the way in which the
great occasions of life in the individual families were celebrated.
Birth, marriage and death were all eagerly seized upon by the
peasant as a welcome relaxation from his daily cares. Marriage,
indeed, was so scandalously made an occasion of immoderate
mirth that we have a constant series of episcopal pronounce-
ments against the lax behaviour of those attending the marriage
ceremony. Bishop Poore, about 1223, ordered that marriages
"be celebrated reverently and with honour, not with laughter or
sport, or in taverns or at public potations or feasts".2 A number
of similar injunctions during the next hundred years show how
difficult it was to keep these "bride ales" (as they were often
called) within reasonable limits.3 After the church ceremony
the party would adjourn to a private house, or to the village ale-
house, and there drink heavily of the ale which had been brewed
for the occasion, and the profits of which went to the new bride.4
These "bride ales" attracted such characters as Perkin, the
prentice of The Cokes Tale, and the Wife of Bath herself.5
1 Baskervill, Studies in Philology, xvn, 5iff. and references there.
1 Charters and Docs, of Salisbury (R.S.), IS4J cf. Wilkins, op. tit. i, 581.
* See Wilkins, op. tit. I, 595; n, 135, 513. E.H.R. xxxi, 294-5.
4 Piers Plowman, B. u, 54; C. in, 56; and for much information of later
conditions, see Brand's Popular Antiquities, ed. Ellis (1841), n, goff.
5 C.T. Cokes Tale, 1. n; Wife of Bath's Prologue, 1. 558.