Early Morris
Where
Initially in rich or royal households later moving out into rural locations.
Context
It is likely that Medieval morris was part of a wider European dance trend. Morris appears to have been created as a medieval form of courtly entertainment relating in some way to the Moors, an old word which means people of North-African descent. There are dances of similar age which have similar names and choreography across Europe.
Many of the early morris performances would have been part of masques, an elaborate courtly entertainment with outlandish costumes and incredible special effects. The performance and choreography would have been very different to the styles of morris done today. It appears to have been performed as part of a drama containing characters such as the Fool and female characters such as Beauty and Venus. This early type of morris eventually evolved into several different forms: Cotswold, Border, Northwest and Carnival.
What
The earliest reference to costume comes from the account books of a wealthy family from Lanherne in Cornwall in 1466. The account book of the family notes that they brought 48 bells and a massive pile of paper and glue with which to perform a disguising and a morris. Disguisings were the forerunner to the elaborate masques, involving costly costumes and elaborate scenery. Paper in its old form was thick, like parchment and would have been imported and very expensive. What they did with all that paper and glue we can only imagine! Sometimes the morris was performed by characters within a masque.
One account from 1511 describes a performance in the court of Henry VIII and mentions costumes of fine silk cloth in red and white. Each of the four dancers had 200 glittering ‘Baubles’ on their costumes and 108 bells attached to their arms and legs – they would have made quite an impression. Over the course of the next four hundred years morris moved out of court and into the countryside where it was learnt and danced by tradesmen as a form of additional income. With this came a change in the costume from garments costing hundreds of pounds, to everyday clothes adorned with additional items (particularly bells) which were used to symbolise the morris. These symbolic items included: feathers, bell-pads (bells attached to cloth often worn below the knee) and sashes (pieces of often brightly coloured cloth, knotted or pinned either at the waist or diagonally across the chest). These additional symbolic items were often worn over regular clothing.
Why Bells?
It is likely that the use of bells for morris dancers relates to the fact that bells were used in masques to represent Moorish people. It is likely that the earliest dancers would have had bells (like glittery spangles) all over their body and later they became more associated with the leg area and were finally confined to a special bell-pad worn on the shin.
Why Handkerchiefs’?
Only in the 1700s do dancers start to use handkerchiefs as a dance prop. Earlier medieval fashions had long hanging sleeves and the morris historian John Forrest believes that people started to use handkerchiefs for morris when the dance was done without the costly coats. They substituted the long hanging sleeves which would have added colour and movement to fabric pinned at the shoulder and finally to the fabric held in the hands still used by dancers today.