ABSTRACT
What were masks made of, and how were they made? Most of the guild accounts and inventories give little help, as they record only the finished articles, or mending, though surviving accounts from a large-scale civic French production, the Mons Passion of 1501, provide useful comparative material.1 The Wardrobe and the Revels accounts from the court are far more informative, as these Offices bought and accounted for their raw materials wholesale, and it is sometimes possible to link materials to finished products. They suggest that, apart from synthetic substances, medieval and early-modern mask-makers used fairly similar methods and materials to their modern counterparts, except that there is little use of papier mache until the early sixteenth century.2 Leather, canvas, plaster bandage; carving, moulding, and decorating seem part of a continuing history.
