The Fool in the 18th-19th Century Hero-Combat Mummers' Plays and in the 13th-16th Century Illuminated Manuscripts

The presentation consists of:

1. Brief description of a typical revived hero-combat play of today. Despite the play being usually performed by the morris dancers, their Fool rarely appears in the play. Some structural elements, however, of his one-time part in the play and something of his character that may still be found in the morris dance will be referred to.
2. Various reasons for the shortening of the play during the nineteenth century, the reducing of the Fool's part and its editing out of chapbooks will be considered.
3. Presentation of the result of a comparative structural analysis of 170 complete hero-combat texts of the nineteenth century show changes in the play in terms of structure, theme, ritual to secular drama, conclusion and suggested ritual objective.
4. Consideration of the differences between the role and character of the Doctor and that of the Fool.
5. Examination of the few complete eighteenth-century composite texts and proposal that most of them show that the Fool is not only the main character in the hero-combat play, but also in the wooing and sword dance plays.
6. Comparison of the difference between St. George the Dragon slaying hero and Fool as Dragon taming hero.
7. Concluding presentation: the showing of some fifteen coloured slides of 13th-16th century illuminated MSS in the Bodleian Library illustrating the folk Fool's evolving costume and emblems of his office, and providing some background to the mummer's play.

[Ron Shuttleworth Collection holds audio tape recording, with transcript.]