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PAGEANT,
an exhibition, spectacle, show. (Low Lat.—L.) A.
The history of this curious word is completely known, by which means the
etymology has been solved. It orig. meant 'a moveable scaffold,'
such as was used in the representation of the old mysteries. A
picture of such a scaffold will be found in Chambers, Book of Days, i.
634. The Chester plays 'were always acted in the open air, and
consisted of 24 parts, each part or pageant being taken by one of the
guilds of the city... Twenty-four large scaffolds or stages were made,' &c.;
Chambers, as above; see the whole passage. Phillips, ed. 1706, well
defines pageant as 'a triumphal chariot or arch, or other pompous device
usually carried about in publick shows.' B. M.E. pagent.
The entry 'pagent, pagina,' occurs in Prompt. Parv. p. 377; where there
is nothing to shew whether a pageant is meant or a page of a book, the words
being ultimately the same; see Page (2).
But Way's excellent note on this entry is full of information, and should be
consulted. He says: 'the primary signification of pageant
appears to have been a stage or scaffold, which was called pagina, it may
be supposed, from its construction, being a machine compaginata, framed
and compacted together. The curious extracts from the Coventry
records given by Mr. Sharp, in his Dissertation on the Pageants or Mysteries
performed there, afford definite information on this subject. The
term is variously written, and occasionally pagyn, pagen, approaching
closely the Lat. pagina. The various plays or pageants
composing the Chester mysteries... are entitled Pagina prima,... Pagina
secunda,... and so forth; see Chester Plays, ed. Wright. A
curious contemporary account has been preserved of the construction of the pageants
[scaffolds] at Chester during the xvith century, "which pagiants
were a high scafold with 2 rowmes, a higher and a lower, upon 4 wheeles;"
Sharp, Cov. Myst. p. 17. The term denoting the stage whereon the
play was exhibited subsequently denoted also the play itself; but the primary
sense... is observed by several writers, as by Higins, in his version of
Junius's Nomenclator, 1585: "Pegma, lignea machina in altum
educta, tabulatis etiam in sublime crescentibus compaginata, de loco in
locum portatilis, aut quæ vehi potest, ut in pompis fieri solet: Eschaffaut, a pageant, or scaffold."' Palsgrave has: 'Pagiant
in a playe, mystere;' and Cotgrave explains O.F. pegmate as 'a stage or frame
whereon pageants be set or carried.' See further illustrations in
Wedgwood. C. Thus we know that, just as M.E. pagent is
used as a variant of pagine, in the sense of page of a book, so the M.E. pagent
(or pagiant, &c.) was formed, by the addition of an excrescent t
after n, from an older pagen or pagin, which is nothing but
an Anglicised form of Low Lat. pagina in the sense of scaffold or
stage. For examples of excrescent t, cf. ancient, margent,
tyrant, pheasant. D. Though this sense of pagina
is not given by Ducange, it was certainly in use, as shewn above, and a very
clear instance is cited by Wedgwood from Munimenta Gildhalliæ Londoniensis, ed.
Riley, iii. 459, where we find: 'parabatur machina satis pulcra... in
eadem pagina erigebantur duo animalia vocata antelops;' shewing that machina and
pagina were synonymous. E. The true sense of pagina I take to have
been simply 'stage' or 'platform;' since we find one sense of Lat. pagina
to be a slab of marble or plank of wood (White). Cf. Lat. paginatus,
planked, built, constructed (White); which is rather a derivative from pagina
than the original of it, as seems to have been Way's supposition. F.
Hence the derivation is (not from paginatus, but) from Lat. pangere
(base pag-), to fasten, fix; see Pact.
G. Finally, we may note that another word for the old stage was pegma
(stem pegmat-, whence O.F. pegmate in Cotgrave); this is the
corresponding and cognate Greek name, from Gk.
πῆγμα (stem
πηγματ-), a
platform, stage, derived from the base of Gk.
πῆγνυμι, I fix, cognate with Lat.
pangere. Indeed it is very probable that Low Lat. pagina, a stage,
is a translation of Gk.
πῆγμα, but it is not merely borrowed from it, being an
independent formation from the same base and root. Der. pageant,
verb, to play, Shak. Troil. i. 3. 151; pageant-r-y, Pericles, v. 2. 6. [†]
ADDENDA
In the Cov. Mysteries, p.
1. we find: 'In the ffyrst pagent, we thenke to play How God dede
make,' &c. Here the 'first pagent' is the first
scene. The Lat. pagina occurs in the Gloss. to Liber Albus,
iii. 470, where the editor suspects it to be wrong (though it is quite right),
but afterwards compares it with the form pegma, of Gk.
origin. An important example of M.E. pagyn (without the added
t) occurs in Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, i. 129, l. 5; 'And þes pagyn
playen þei' = and this pageant they play.
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