Sixteenth-century Courtly mumming and masking: Alexander Montgomerie’s The Navigatioun

Courtly entertainment throughout the sixteenth century developed vivid theatrical forms of elaborated disguising which eventually led towards the more familiar and well-recorded Stuart masque. These were spectacularly ephemeral shows, primarily based on costume, dance and music. Not all were scripted, and of those that were the spoken texts are very rarely recorded, and almost never published in print. This essay will focus on one of the rare manuscript survivals: two presenters’ speeches by Alexander Montgomerie, from mask or mumming entertainments performed at the court of the young James VI of Scotland, probably during the Christmas festivities of 1579/80. It will look to set them in the context of other manuscript evidence for this kind of performance: material from financial accounts, documents associated with production, and eyewitness narratives of courtly performances.