Charivari was a European and North American folk custom designed to shame a member of the community, in which a mock parade was staged through the settlement accompanied by a discordant mock serenade. Since the crowd aimed to make as much noise as possible by beating on pots and pans or anything that came to hand, these parades were often referred to as rough music.
William Hogarth's engraving "Hudibras Encounters the Skimmington" (illustration to Samuel Butler's Hudibras)
Depiction of charivari, early 14th century (from the Roman de Fauvel)
Paris men sing a drunken serenade in Honoré Daumier's series of humorous cartoons, The Musicians of Paris.
The Roman de Fauvel is a 14th-century French allegorical verse romance of satirical bent, generally attributed to Gervais du Bus, a clerk at the French royal chancery. The original narrative of 3,280 octosyllabics is divided into two books, dated to 1310 and 1314 respectively, during the reigns of Philip IV and Louis X. In 1316–7 Chaillou de Pesstain produced a greatly expanded version.
As the horse Fauvel is about to join Vainglory in the bridal bed, the people form a charivari in protest. From the Roman de Fauvel.
Opening page (fol. 1r) from manuscript of Fauvel, BN fr. 146.
