Charivari
Since the crowd aimed to make as much noise as possible by beating on pots and pans or anything that came to hand, these parades were often referred to as rough music.
[9] Where effigies of the "wrongdoers" were made they were frequently burned as the climax of the event (as the inscription on the Rampton photograph indicates[10]) or "ritually drowned" (thrown into a pond or river).
[12] There were in fact some examples after the Second World War in Sussex, at West Hoathly in 1947 and Copthorne around 1951, and an attempt at traditional rough music practice was last documented by the folklorist Theo Brown in a Devonshire village around 1973.
[17] Noisy, masked processions were held outside the home of the accused wrongdoer, involving the cacophonous rattling of bones and cleavers, the ringing of bells, hooting, blowing bull's horns, the banging of frying pans, saucepans, kettles, or other kitchen or barn implements with the intention of creating long-lasting embarrassment to the alleged perpetrator.
Men who had allowed themselves to be dominated by their shrewish wives were liable to be targeted and a frieze from Montecute House, an Elizabethan Manor in Somerset depicts just such an occurrence.
Rough music song originating from South Stoke, Oxfordshire:[21] There is a man in our town Who often beats his wife, So if he does it any more, We'll put his nose right out before.
However, rough music was also used as a sanction against those who committed certain species of economic crimes such as blocking footpaths, preventing traditional gleaning, or profiteering at times of poor harvests.
Occupational groups, such as butchers, employed rough music against others in the same trade who refused to abide by the commonly agreed labour customs.
Some accounts describe the participants as carrying ladles and spoons with which to beat each other, at least in the case of skimmingtons prompted by marital discord.
The noisy parade passed through the neighbourhood, and served as a punishment to the offender and a warning to others to abide by community norms; Roberts suggests that the homes of other potential victims were visited in a pointed manner during a skimmington.
[17] The antiquary and lexicographer Francis Grose described a skimmington as: "Saucepans, frying-pans, poker and tongs, marrow-bones and cleavers, bulls horns, etc.
During the Western Rising of 1628–1631, which was a rebellion in south-west England against the enclosure of royal forest lands, the name "Lady Skimmington" was adopted by the leader of the protest movement.
[29] Tuneless, cacophonous "rough music", played on horns, bugles, whistles, tin trays and frying pans, was a feature of the custom known as Teddy Rowe's Band.
This had taken place annually, possibly for several centuries, in the early hours of the morning, to herald the start of Pack Monday Fair at Sherborne, Dorset, until it was banned by the police in 1964 because of hooliganism the previous year.
The Tin Can Band at Broughton, Northamptonshire, a seasonal custom, takes place at midnight on the third Sunday in December.
In the early 17th century at the Council of Tours, the Catholic Church forbade the ritual of charivari and threatened its practitioners with excommunication.
[36] The two main purposes of the charivari in Europe were to facilitate change in the current social structure and to act as a form of censure within the community.
Examples from the south of France include five cases of a charivari victim's firing on his accusers: these incidents resulted in two people being blinded and three killed.
[41] It is possible that the blowing of car horns after weddings in France (and indeed in many European countries) today is a holdover from the charivari of the past.
After the widow of François Vézier dit Laverdure remarried only three weeks after her husband’s death, people of Quebec City conducted a loud and strident charivari against the newlyweds at their home.
While embellished with some European traditions, in a North American charivari participants might throw the culprits into horse tanks or force them to buy candy bars for the crowd.
In parts of the midwest US, such as Kansas, in the mid 1960–1970s, shivaree customs continued as good natured wedding humour along the lines of the musical Oklahoma!.
[46] In Tampa, Florida, in September 1885, a large chivaree was held on the occasion of local official James T. Magbee's wedding.
For an 1860 English charivari against a wife-beater, someone wrote an original chant which the crowd was happy to adopt: Has beat his wife!
The man was made to "ride the 'stang", which meant that he was placed backwards on a horse, mule or ladder and paraded through town to be mocked, while people banged pots and pans.
In the mid-16th century, historic records attest to a charivari against Martin Guerre in the small village of Artigat in the French Pyrenees for that reason.
In Bavaria, charivari was adopted as the name for the silver ornaments worn with Lederhosen; the items consist of small trophies from game, like teeth from wild boar, or deer, jaws and fangs from foxes and various marters, feathers and claws from jaybirds and birds of prey.
Notable examples are those of the renowned viola da gamba virtuoso Marin Marais in his five collections of pieces for the basse de viole and continuo.
The British period instrument/early music ensemble Charivari Agréable (founded in 1993) states that their name translates as "'pleasant tumult' (from Saint-Lambert’s 1707 treatise on accompaniment)".
The numerous lights round the two effigies threw them up into lurid distinctness; it was impossible to mistake the pair for other than the intended victims.
