Xmas Programme

The Lord of Misrule
Music for a Medieval Christmas

The Lord of Misrule was an early Christmas tradition that sanctioned a brief period of anarchy while the established social order was turned upside down. Such frivolities would have been long forgotten, were it not for the outrage they provoked in a puritanical writer by name of Philip Stubbes. His Anatomie of Abuses of 1583 is a blow-by-blow account of all that he claimed to most abhor, from dancing and cards to the new game of football. His chapter on Lords of Misrule is particularly entertaining in its savouring of every detail, with the relish of a true connoisseur. Quite how such a model of rectitude knew so much about these goings-on is a matter for literary historians and his own conscience, but we are grateful to him for providing as good an insight into what made as good a medieval party as we could hope for. Sirinu's programme of medieval Christmas music is spiced by readings from his work and elsewhere, inviting you to experience the festive reign of a Lord of Misrule long before tinsel and the Age of Reason...