charivari

The tradition & historical record

Charivari (, UK also, US also, alternatively spelled shivaree or chivaree and also called a skimmington) was a European and North American folk custom designed to shame a member of the community, in which a mock parade was staged through the settlement accompanied by a discordant mock serenade. 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. Parades were of three types. In the first and generally most violent form, an alleged wrongdoer (or wrongdoers) might be dragged from their home or place of work and paraded by force through a community. In the process, the victim was subject to the derision of the crowd and might be pelted, and was frequently dunked at the end of the proceedings. A safer form involved a neighbour of the wrongdoer impersonating the victim while being carried through the streets. The impersonator was not themselves punished, and often cried out or sang ribald verses mocking the wrongdoer. In the common form, an effigy was employed instead, abused and often burnt at the end of the proceedings. Communities used "rough music" to express their disapproval of different types of violation of community norms. For example, they might target marriages of which they disapproved, such as a union between an older widower and much younger woman, or the premature remarriage of a widow or widower. ¹

The origin of the word charivari is likely from the Vulgar Latin caribaria, plural of caribarium, already referring to the custom of rattling kitchenware with an iron rod, itself probably from the Greek καρηβαρία (karēbaría), literally "heaviness in the head" but also used to mean "headache", from κάρα "head" and βαρύς "heavy". In any case, the tradition has been practised for at least 700 years. A painting in the early 14th-century French manuscript Roman de Fauvel shows a charivari underway. ¹

So-called "rough music" practices in England were known by many regional or local designations. In the North the most commonly employed term was "stang riding", a stang being a long pole carried on the shoulders of two men between which an object or a person could be mounted. In the South, the term skimmington, or skimmington ride, was most commonly employed, a skimmington being a type of large wooden ladle with which an unruly wife might beat her husband. Other terms include "lewbelling", "tin-panning", "ran tanning", a "nominey" or "wooset". 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) or "ritually drowned" (thrown into a pond or river). The very essence of the practice was public humiliation of the victim under the eyes of their neighbours Rough music practices were irregularly scattered throughout English communities in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth they declined but endured in a few places, such as Rampton, Nottinghamshire (1909), Middleton Cheney (1909) and Blisworth (1920s and 1936), Northamptonshire. 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. ¹

In Warwickshire, the custom was known as "loo-belling" or "lewbelling", and in northern England as "riding the stang". ¹

Skimmingtons are recorded in England in early medieval times and they are recorded in colonial America from around the 1730s. The term is particularly associated with the West Country region of England and, although the etymology is not certain, it has been suggested that it derived from the ladle used in that region for cheesemaking, which was perceived as a weapon used by a woman to beat a weak or henpecked husband. The rationale for a skimmington varied, but one major theme was disapproval of a man for weakness in his relationship with his wife. A description of the custom in 1856 cites three main targets: a man who is worsted by his wife in a quarrel; a cuckolded man who accepts his wife's adultery; and any married person who engages in licentious conduct. To "ride such a person skimmington" involved exposing them or their effigy to ridicule on a cart, or on the back of a horse or donkey. 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. According to one citation, a skimmington was broken up by the police in a village in Dorset as late as 1917; and incidents have been reported from the 1930s, the 1950s and perhaps even the 1970s. The antiquary and lexicographer Francis Grose described a skimmington as: "Saucepans, frying-pans, poker and tongs, marrow-bones and cleavers, bulls horns, etc. beaten upon and sounded in ludicrous processions" (A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796). ¹

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. According to some sources the name was used by a number of men involved with the Western Rising, who dressed in women's clothes not only as a method of disguise, but also in order to symbolise their protest against a breach of the established order. ¹

Many folk customs around the world have involved making loud noises to scare away evil spirits. 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 fair is still held, on the first Monday after Old Michaelmas Day (10 October) – St Michael's Day in the Old Style calendar. The Tin Can Band at Broughton, Northamptonshire, a seasonal custom, takes place at midnight on the third Sunday in December. The participants march around the village for about an hour, rattling pans, dustbin lids, kettles and anything else that will make a noise. The council once attempted to stop the tin-canning; participants were summoned and fined, but a dance was organised to raise money to pay the fines and the custom continues. The village is sufficiently proud of its custom for it to feature on the village sign. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Charivari”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

charivari is folk custom, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 12 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²