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Definition: Lord Of Misrule |
Lord Of MisruleNoun1. A person appointed master of revels at a Christmas celebration. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Lord of Misrule called in Scotland Abbo of Unreason, prohibited in 1555. Stow says, "At the feast of Christmas, in the king's court, there was always appointed, on All-Hallow's seve, a master of mirth and fun," who remained in office till the Feast of Purification. A similar "lord" was appointed by the lord mayor of London, the sheriffs, and the chief nobility. Stubbs tells us that these mock dignitaries had from twenty to sixty officers under them, and were furnished with hobby-horses, dragons, and musicians. They first went to church with such a confused noise that no one could hear his own voice. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Lord of Misrule, known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason was an officer appointed at Halloween to preside over the Feast of Fools. The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant appointed to be in charge of the revelry, which often included drunkenness and wild partying. The Church held a similar festival involving a Boy Bishop. The celebration of the Feast of Fools was outlawed in 1555.While mostly known as a British holiday custom, the appointment of a Lord of Misrule comes from antiquity. In ancient Rome, from the 17th to the 23rd of December, a Lord of Misrule was appointed for the feast of Saturnalia, in the guise of the good god Saturn. During this time the ordinary rules of life were turned topsy-turvy as masters served their serfs, and the offices of state were held by slaves. The Lord of Misrule presided over all of this, and had the power to command anyone to do anything during the holiday period. This holiday seems to be the precursor to the more modern holiday.
However, according to the anthropologist James Frazer, there was a darker side to the Saturnalia festival. In Durostorum, Roman soldiers would choose a man from among them to be the Lord of Misrule for thirty days. At the end of that thirty days, his throat was cut on the altar of Saturn. Similar origins of the British Lord of Misrule, as a sacrificial king (a temporary king, as Frazer puts it) who was later put to death for the benefit of all, have also been recorded.
References to this ancient sacrifice have been spotted in the 1973 film The Wicker Man.
While the mediaeval and later Roman custom of a Lord of Misrule as a master of revels, a figure of fun and no more than that is most familar, there does seem to be some indication of an earlier and more unpleasant aspect to this figure. Frazer recounts:
"We are justified in assuming that in an earlier and more barbarous age it was the universal practice in ancient Italy, wherever the worship of Saturn prevailed, to choose a man who played the part and enjoyed all the traditionary privileges of Saturn for a season, and then died, whether by his own or another?s hand, whether by the knife or the fire or on the gallows-tree, in the character of the good god who gave his life for the world."
External Link
http://www.bartleby.com/196/145.html - The portion of James Frazer's Golden Bough which deals with the Lord of Misrule.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Lord of Misrule."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Bungler | Land lubber; fresh water sailor, fair weather sailor; horse marine; fish out of water, ass in lion's skin,land lubber; fresh water sailor, fair weather sailor; horse marine; fish out of water, ass in lion's skin, jackdaw in peacock's feathers; quack; (deceiver); lord of misrule. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Lord Of Misrule |
| English words defined with "Lord of Misrule": Abbot of Misrule. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-f-i-l-l-m-o-o-r-r-s-u" | |
-4 letters: drumfires, drumrolls, firerooms, fluorides, folderols, lemuroids, melodious. | |
-5 letters: dimerous, doorsill, dormouse, drillers, drumfire, drumlier, drumroll, emulsoid, fireroom, flooders, floorers, fluoride, fluorids, flurried, flurries, folderol, foursome, frillers, lemuroid, lordlier, lorimers, loudlier, misorder, misruled, modiolus, moidores, morellos, moulders, mouldier, redrills, refloods, roomfuls, rouilles, slumlord, slurried, smoulder, ursiform. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4C 6F 72 64 4F 66 4D 69 73 72 75 6C 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001100 01101111 01110010 01100100 00100000 01001111 01100110 00100000 01001101 01101001 01110011 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)L o r d   O f   M i s r u l e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004C 006F 0072 0064 004F 0066 004D 0069 0073 0072 0075 006C 0065 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4681847024972247758584877871 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Anagrams | 5. Orthography 6. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
