''Christmas, His Masque'', also called ''Christmas His Show'', was a Jacobean-era

masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque ...

, written by

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

and performed at the English royal court at Christmas of 1616. Jonson's masque displays the traditional folklore and iconography of Christmas at an early-modern and pre-commercial stage of its development.

The masque

The masque opens with the entrance of a personified Christmas and his attendants, one of whom leads the way in, beating a drum. Christmas is dressed in a

doublet Doublet is a word derived from the Latin ''duplus'', "twofold, twice as much",