MASK

This is a large Visard mask (also spelled 'vizard'), worn by gentlewomen in the 16th and possibly into the early 17th centuries.

The mask was found during the renovation of an inner wall of a 16th-century stone building. The wall was approximately four feet thick, and the mask was found concealed within the inner hard core of the wall, which consisted of soil, straw and horse hair (for insulation). The mask was folded in half, lengthways, and placed within a small rectangular niche behind the face of the wall. Due to the conditions when found, the mask has an amount of soil and straw adhering to one half. The opposite half still has the velvet material in relatively good condition, but is in need of some conservation to prevent further damage.

The mask is oval and measures 195mm in length and 170mm in width. The eyes are lentoid, 30mm wide and 15mm high. The mouth is 48mm wide, widening in the centre to make a gap for the nose. The nose area is strengthened to stand out and form a case around the wearer's nose. The mask weighs 32.4g (although this weight is inaccurate, due to the amount of soil and straw adhering to one side).

The outer fabric is black velvet. The lining is silk. The inside is strengthened by a pressed-paper inner. The three layers are stitched together by a black cotton thread.

On the lining, just below the centre of the mouth, is a loose thread of white cotton. This cotton would have held the black glass bead (found in association with the mask). The bead is 10mm in diameter and weighs 1.42g. There is some wear at the hole, which is 3mm in diameter. The black glass bead was used to hold the mask in place. With a lack of holes to allow string or elastic to be put around the head, the mask would have instead been held in place by the wearer holding the black bead in her mouth.

An exerpt from Phillip Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses, published in 1583, he wrote: "When they use to ride abrod, they have invisories, or masks, visors made of velvet, wherwith they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they look. So that if a man, that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of them, he would think hee met a monster or a devil; for face hee can see none, but two brode holes against her eyes with glasses in them".

Another Elizabethan scholar, Randle Holme, wrote: "A mask . . . This is a thing that in former times Gentlewomen used to put over their Faces when they travel to keep them from Sun burning....Visard Mask, which covers the whole face, having holes for the eyes, a case for the nose, and a slit for the mouth, and to speak through; this kind of Mask is taken off and put in a moment of time, being only held in the Teeth by means of a round bead fastned on the inside over against the mouth." (taken from the website http://www.houseffg.org/belphoebe/Research/Gloves%20and%20Muffs%20and%20Masks.pdf).

These masks rarely survive. One parallel can be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the form of a 17th-century doll's mask, belonging to the collection of Lady Chapman. This example is almost identical to our mask. Another is held at Norwich Musuem, although their example is more crudely made than the one described here.

With regard to the mask's deposition within the walls of a 16th-century building, the University of Southampton is currently researching such concealed items. The practise of placing a shoe was common in 16th- and 17th-century house building, as was the practice of concealing elaborate artefacts, or multiple associated artefacts, as 'witch deposits'.

The University of Southampton website: http://www.concealedgarments.org suggests: "These objects may have been concealed as a protective device to ward off evil and other maleficent forces or they may have been used as counter-magic to deflect a curse or other negative circumstance, such as illness or economic blight considered to be the consequence of malevolent spirits or witches, e.g. the use of witch bottles, charms and curses. The objects may also have been viewed as 'lucky things', perhaps heirlooms from an ancestor or from another person considered to be spiritually powerful and so they were perceived as lucky for the household. Or did builders constructing or altering a building or the householders themselves just want to leave their 'mark'?"