Blackface and Morris dancing

Later evidence from France includes this quote from Thoinot Arbeau circa 1580: "In fashionable society when I was young, a small boy, his face daubed with black and his forehead swathed in a white or yellow handkerchief, would make an appearance after supper.

Writing in 1778, he states "we are authorised ... to call some of the representations on my window, Morris Dancers, though I am uncertain whether it exhibits one Moorish personage, as none of them have black or tawny faces, nor do they brandish swords or staves in their hands, nor are they, in their shirts adorned with ribbons.

In the Kent and Essex enclosure riots of 1450–51 men cross-dressed as 'Queen of the Fairies'[8] (similar to the related Doamna Zînelor, of the Călușari) including those wearing blackface.

Thirty-two men, nineteen of them yeomen, were named in subsequent indictment which made clear that a good number had escaped by its claim that there had been a total of a hundred present (not a figure to be taken too literally).

Protesters adopted such fictive personas not only to conceal identity but also perhaps to associate their grievances with Everyman and to invoke a popular culture of misrule.

She goes on to describe later accounts of Henry VIII's Shrovetide banquet for ambassadors in 1509, in which the torchbearers "were appareyled in crymosen satyne and grene lyke Moreskoes, their faces blacke".

The following year, in 1510, "there was a Pageant like a mountain, out of which came a Lady of Gold, and the children of honour called the Henchemen, which were freshly disguysed, and danced a Morice before the Kyng".

E. C. Cawte's (1963) work on morris dancing in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire[13] quotes A History of Shrewsbury[14] regarding the Visitation at St. Mary's Parish Church, Shrewsbury, in 1584, when it was asked, "Whether there have bene any lords of mysrule, or somer lords and ladies, or any disguised persons, as morice dancers, maskers or mumm'ers, or such lyke, within the parishe, ether in the nativititide or in som'er, or at any other tyme, and what be their names?"

The explanation of disguise is also given for the blackface in the later periods, and that during the hard winters of the 17th and 18th century, out of work labourers and builders sought to anonymously supplement their income by a bit of dancing and begging.

[19] Theresa Buckland's (1990) research details the linkages between the 19th-century Lancashire Britannia Coconut Dancers and minstrel shows, although it does not discuss any link to Welsh border morris.

She argued, "The 'disguise' function of the costume has most likely been influenced by Cecil Sharp's [1911] interpretation of the black face [...] which has been repeated in various publications and ephemera of the English Folk Dance and Song Society ...

Accounts of the Morris of Shakespeare's time make no mention of blackface, while the border teams contemporary with minstrel shows typically blacked up.

Unfamiliar with the localised and historicised explanations of Morris tradition used by dancers, audiences might historically contextualise blackface in terms of entertainment forms such as vaudeville and view it in light of the overtly or covertly racist ideas associated with these practices.

Although initially confined to specific folk events or newspaper articles, the issue was brought into focus by the rapidly changed social awareness following the George Floyd Protests and growing international impact of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Over the past few years, many morris teams have already proactively taken the decision to stop using full face black makeup to avoid causing offence or hurt.