ABSTRACT
Robin Hood plays were clearly dynamic and hugely popular. Like the Christmas Lord of Misrule entertainments and perhaps the spring Saint George ridings, too, they released working people from poverty and their day-to-day drudgery. Notable in the Hocktide entertainments is the fact of women performing, because their contribution to early drama has often been ignored or overlooked. In fact, evidence of the equal participation of women in these pastimes is quite extensive and should be borne in mind when considering many of the manifestations discussed here. In Lincolnshire, for example, women participated in traditional entertainments in Gainsborough, Boston, Stamford and Lincoln itself. The agricultural year was marked by a large number of traditional festivals, which the church often appropriated for a particular saint or Christian happening. The Christmas Lord of Misrule, or ‘master of merry disports’ as Stubbs called him, was perhaps a kind of secular equivalent to the Boy Bishop.
