ABSTRACT
An obvious iconographic allusion to the theatricality of mountebanks is their costume, which usually contrasts with that of their audiences. That of medically active mountebanks drew on three main groups: stage costume, exotic Easterninspired clothes modelled on the type worn by gypsies or Turks and the typical outfit of conventionally qualified sedentary physicians. This last, by far the most popular model for troupe leaders, inspired a wide spectrum of imitations, from flashy parody, through authentic mimicry, right down to the feeblest attempts to ape and fake the trappings of medical authority and success. From earliest times, the mountebank is concerned to emphasize his credibility. The mid-thirteenth-century quack of Rutebeuf’s Li diz de l’erberie, for example, assures audiences that he has special medical powers and secrets, and is not to be compared with run-of-the-mill quacks.1 John Rastell’s quack of 1566 ‘seeketh not after gaines, as the couetous and beggarly knaues doe, but as it becommeth a good Gentleman, he trauaileth farre and wide vpon his owne Charges to get such geare, as may bring Commodities to whole Countries’. To bolster such claims, he kept up appearances by:
standing first vp like a worshipful man, Arayed in his silkes and veluettes, And al to be rayed with braslettes & bowed peeces of golde, And chained about the neck with a great thing (of copper and gylt, as many iudge, but) of pure and fine gold, as farre as the eye seeth.2
