thumb|upright=1.3|14th century, England. Performers dressed as a stag, rabbit and boar dance to the music of a [[gittern. The image is not labeled and these have been interpreted as "mummers" and "minstrels."]]
Mummers were bands of men and women from the medieval to early modern era who (during public festivities) dressed in fantastic clothes and costumes and serenaded people outside their houses, or joined the party inside. Costumes were varied and might include bears, unicorns, deer (with deer hides and antlers) or rams (with rams' horns). These "revels" and "guisings" may have been an early form of masque and the early use of the term "mumming" appears to refer specifically to a performance of dicing with the host for costly jewels, after which the mummers would join the guests for dancing, an event recorded in 1377 when 130 men on horseback went "mumming" to the Prince of Wales, later Richard II.
Some of these habits carried over to Christmas, including exchanging clothes and visiting neighbors "in the manner which Germans call mummery," wassailing, and Saint Stephen's Day celebrations. The idea of mumming in the 19th century was that it looked back to "simpler times" and mumming antics became part of a "controlled expression of seasonal 'misrule'". A similar incident, involving an Englishman, is attested for the French court by the German count and chronicler Froben Christoph von Zimmern: during carnival 1540, while the French king Francis I was residing at Angers, an Englishman (ain Engellender) wearing a mask and accompanied by other masked persons paid a visit to the king and offered him a momschanz (a game of dice).
While mum(en)schanz was played not only by masked persons, and not only during carnival, the German word mummenschanz nevertheless took on the meaning "costume, masquerade" and, by the 18th century, had lost its association with gambling and dice. Other than this association there is no clear evidence linking these late medieval and early modern customs with English mumming.
Etymology
The word mummers appears in late Middle English. It derived from the Old French word momeur, itself from momer ("to act in a mime").
Mummery ties to the similar Old French word mommerie.
The word is related to mum (silence, mum's the word), mum (to act in a dumb show), mumble (to speak indistinctly, silent utterance) and murmer. This kind of dance and disguised "guising" through the town can be traced in various records. When Anne of Denmark came to Scotland in May 1590, twelve Edinburgh men performed a sword dance in costume with white shoes and floral hats, and other performed a Highland dance in costume. James VI himself wore a costume with a Venetian mask and danced at a wedding at Tullibardine in June 1591.