A change of clothes, like a change of place, mutes the angel voice of self-restraint. : Hi, Ho Come to the Chaos

Among the achievements of England’s Renaissance during the 16th Century, in addi tion to the first use of carrier pigeons and the proliferation of Italian cooking, was the licensing of ale houses and taverns on the British Isles.

This occurred in 1551 and initiated an age of debauchery which has long outlasted periods of lesser social impact, including brief epochs of peace and sobriety.

Its contribution to the American culture has been so important, in fact, that once a year for the past 23 years we have paused to honor the visionaries who first bellied up to the bar and spoke those ringing words: “ ‘Alf a pint, m’luv.”

The observance is called the Renaissance Pleasure Faire.

I spent a good part of my life on Sunday along with 25,000 others elbowing my way through crowds and staring into faces greased by turkey legs and beef ribs in order to participate in what we Southern Californians regard as homage to the Elizabethans.

I shopped for overpriced pottery, studied overpriced leather, purchased an overpriced walking stick and stood in lines that reached from here to the Tower of London in order to achieve the simple pleasure of a cold drink.

But that wasn’t the Renaissance Faire. The real Faire consisted of high-spirited young people, the essential decency of their nature masked by costumes and their senses dulled by beer and sun, gamboling down the dusty trails and bouncing off the dusty crowds.

They communicated in bellows, much as certain types of forest mammals, and when they were not thus involved they pursued fair wench, excuse me faire wench, in order to share in the historical nature of the celebration.

One young man in black leather kept shouting, “Everybody get naked,” a suggestion, I am pleased to say, no one saw fit to honor.

However, I did calculate that of those in costume, probably 40% had their hands at one time or another on a behind other than their own. The figure went up as the day wore on.

Something happens to people when they don costumes. In shedding their everyday clothes they also shed whatever inhibitions keep them, as it were, chained to the bedpost of civilized behavior. They run amok.

We like nothing better in L.A. than to dress up, an inclination that can be traced to film’s enhancement of masked emotions and costumed relationships. A change of clothes, like a change of place, mutes the angel voice of self-restraint. We aren’t responsible for what emerges when the devil runs free.

As a result, a high percentage of the Faire’s spectators, as well as its participants, garbed themselves Sunday in costumes ranging from rawhide loincloths to layers of finery meant to remind us that decolletage was also a gift of the Renaissance.

I don’t know what the loincloths were supposed to signify. Possibly that America was still peopled by Indians while in England they were refining the orgy.

A good many of the women who were not costumed did, however, acknowledge the occasion by wearing see-through blouses and French-cut shorts. One was poured into a leotard adorned with bird feathers from head to toe and, when noticed, accommodated by strutting about the premises like a chicken. It was that kind of day.

However, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that the Faire’s only attractions were roving bands of bellowing young drunks and half-naked wenches afire with new and imaginative ways to celebrate the birth of debauchery in 1551.

Little babies in their strollers seemed content not to drink beer or engage in social foreplay, and old men sat quietly on hay bales in the shade pondering the misfortune of being old at a time in the sexual revolution when sex seemed to be winning.

The merchants, of course, were there to sell, which is what most fairs are all about in the first place, and couldn’t care less about the behavior or the dress standards of the crowd, so long as they did not impede on the cash flow or block the way to the credit card imprint machine.

The Renaissance Faire probably manifests more imagination than most similar celebrations, which is why tens of thousands come each year to the rolling countryside of Agoura Hills. The organized entertainment is often well done if you lean toward foot-stomping and high-stepping, and some of the music has a compelling, haunting quality.

It’s just too bad that the whole thing has taken on the aura of an Elizabethan happy hour, with all of a happy hour’s attendant unpleasantries, but I guess that’s what happens when fun becomes a desperate quest rather than an easy adjunct.

There will be about 50,000 of you at the Faire on Memorial Day weekend. But, since my vision of hell is being anywhere out of the house on a three-day weekend, you’ll have to survive without me.

Grab what you can, drink what you find and let the devil take tomorrow. He’ll be the one in black leather, bellowing for everyone to get naked.