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NOT unified: (1) three shepherds, one a boy, complain at length about weather and wives; (2) they sing; (3) the untrustworthy Mak enters and they all sleep together; (4) Mak steals a sheep and carries it off to his wife, then returns among the sleepers, then they all part; (5) the shepherds discover the missing sheep and approach Mak and his wife, who have dressed it up as a baby; (6) it almost works, but they return to give gifts and kisses they discover the trick, take back their sheep, and "cast [Mak] in canvas"; (7) AN ANGEL APPEARS? and sings to them that Christ is born, and they sing too; (8) they follow the star to Bethlehem and present the Christ child with gifts and praise
Makers and critics of sixteenth-century drama (starting in France and Italy) used as a standard of quality Aristotle's concept of the unity of action: that a dramatic work [of tragedy] is "an artistic whole" only if it has a "complete and ordered structure of actions, directed toward the intended effect, in which none of the prominent component parts is non-functional" (see Abrams).
Consider Wit and Science: time and place don't really apply... but can you identify any elements of its plot that do not get "used" for something later on, or any element of its ending that does not "use" what came before?
THREE UNITIES
PRE-THEATRICAL STAGING
NORWICH GROCERS' PLAY
1473, Norwich area, Reference to Robin Hood and Sheriff performance:
“I have kepyd hym [a horse-keeper named W. Wood] thys iij. yer to pleye Seynt Jorge and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham."
There are poems
extant, but this is the
first play text (whatever
that means) and the
only one for a century.
Transcribed from Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.2.64 (fragment), c. 1475:
Syr sheryffe for thy sake Robyn hode wull y take.
I wyll the gyffe golde and fee This be heste þu holde me.
Robyn hode ffayre and fre vndre this lynde shote we.
with the shote y wyll Alle thy lustes to full fyll.
Have at the pryke. And y cleue the styke.
late vs caste the stone I grunte well be seynt Iohn.
late vs caste the exaltre have a foote be fore the.
syr knyght ye haue a falle. And I the Robyn qwyte shall
Owte on the I blowe myn horne. hit ware better be vn borne.
lat vs fyght at ottraunce he that fleth god gyfe hym myschaunce.
Now I haue the maystry here off I smyte this sory swyre
This knyghtys clothis wolle I were And in my hode his hede woll bere.
welle mete felowe myn What herst þu of gode Robyn
Robin hode and his menye wt the sheryffe takyn be.
sette on foote wt gode wyll And the sheryffe wull we kyll
Be holde wele ffrere tuke howe he dothe his bowe pluke
3eld yow syrs to the sheryffe. Or elles shall yor bowes clyffe.
Now we be bownden alle in same ffrere [T]uke þis is no game.
Co[m]e þu forth þu fals outlawe . Þu shall [be] hangyde and y drawe.
Now allas what shall we doo we [m]oste to the prysone goo
Opy[n] the yatis [faste] anon An[d la]te theis thevys ynne gon
THE CASTLE OF PERSEVERANCE
MARGERY KEMPE
WISDOM (DIGBY AND MACRO)
N-TOWN BIBLICAL PLAYS
By the late fifteenth century, East Anglia had become the major cloth-producing area in England, [bringing] wealth to many EA merchants... small prosperous communities peopled by a large portion of free peasantry became the main social unit... a densely packed network of towns and villages, evenly distributed over the region, with few distiguishable urban centres. Except for Norwich, and to a lesser degree Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Thetford, the dense population spread out in this tight matrix of small communities... East Anglia shared in larger political developments, although its isolation from much of the country because of the fens tended to keep politics relatively local. (CCMET)
DIGBY CONVERSION OF ST PAUL
But they also added two more unities of their own, which end up being treated as natural extensions of Aristotle: the unity of place, which restricts dramatized action to a single location (i.e., Illyria), and the unity of time, which restricts dramatized action to twenty-four hours at most.
MANKIND
line 691: Vade in pace!
Exorcism, hellmouth (?), thunder
(Bad Angel seems to cross into platea to get to D's
stage later)
line 722: Satan freaks out; costumes; violence (lines
735-6); spreading pitch on the Sins (739+SD)
line 743+SD: fire/smoke (no narrative reason)
line 775+SD: Lazarus suddenly begins dying; dies at
823+SD
line 841+SD: the "weepers" and burial, using many stagehands (soldiers); though Martha can move the stone solo later
line 910+SD: raising of Lazarus
line 925: a new tyrant! out of nowhere (cover scene
change?)
line 962+SD: a devil in horrible array, big speech
line 1095+SD: avoideth Jesus suddenly (disappearance) and
then reappearance at line 1110, disappears at 1124+SD
lines 1142- : heathen mass (let's read), big priest, beating (1177+SD), song (line 1227+SD)
line 1348: Here shall heaven open; Jesus appears; angel descends
line 1394: A BOAT ENTERS; beating (at line 1418); song(1438+SD); ship (big enough to bear 4 ppl later on) goes OUT OF THE PLACE (at 1445+SD)
line 1561+SD: following more tyrant fun, the mament trembles and quakes; cloud descends, fire, sinking
line 1597+SD: Jesus appears; Angels descend; costume change: Mary in white; LIGHT (line 1631)
Latin SDs, line 1715+SD: BOAT AGAIN...STORM (1746)
line 1899: another resurrection
Back to English, line 2018: angels descend/clouds, bringing manna (and eventually Eucharist)
line 2119: Mary ascends (?); song in heaven; song on earth
CROXTON PLAY OF THE SACRAMENT
VARIOUS FRAGMENTS (RICKINGHALL,
REYNES, WINCHESTER)
DUX MORAUD
Sontag, "Notes on Camp," 1964:
Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility -- unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it -- that goes by the cult name of "Camp." A sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about; but there are special reasons why Camp, in particular, has never been discussed. It is not a natural mode of sensibility, if there be any such.
Indeed the essence of Camp is its
love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric -- something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques… To talk about Camp is therefore to betray it… Though I am speaking about sensibility only -- and about a sensibility that, among other things, converts the serious into the frivolous -- these are grave matters.
SONTAG's identifying characteristics include:
artificiality, extravagance, style-over-content
"Camp sees everything in quotation marks."
"The essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve...Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously because it is "too much.""
style: camp
TEAMS edition:
Copland's introductory remark that it is "verye proper to be played in Maye Games" suggests that the two dramatic pieces were typical of the numerous Robin Hood plays sponsored by parishes and civic organizations all across Britain throughout the Tudor era. The lengthy festive season for May games often extended from May 1 through Whitsuntide (a holy day celebrated seven weeks after Easter) when towns and villages chose a May King and Queen (or Lord and Lady) to preside over various festivities, including dances around the Maypole, nights sleeping in the greenwood, sporting contests (e.g., wrestling and archery) and processions around town and to neighboring villages, often for the purpose of raising money for poor relief and church maintenance.
By the end of the fifteenth century, many villages and towns renamed their May king (also known as Summer Lord, Lord of Misrule, Abbot of Bon Accord) Robin Hood, and followed suit by calling the May Queen Maid Marian and their attendants, Friar Tuck, Little John, and the rest of the merry band of outlaws bearing pipes, tabors, and drums...
[in the ] carnivalesque atmosphere of the May games... social conventions were mocked or inverted. [but then... how are they social conventions in the first place? roll video!]
LYDGATE
See page 110!
(Compare to Towneley Second Shepherds
and Like Will to Like!)
Passages that caught my eye:
2.2.51
2.4.9
2.5. 8-10
3.4.15-16, 27
4.1.1-16
4.2.45-49
5.1.15-16
5.2.221, 227-8, 240, 244, 268-85,
324-9
What caught yours?
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I am nothing a-cold;
I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
I love no roast but a nut-brown toast,
And a crab laid in the fire;
A little bread shall do me stead,
Much bread I not desire.
No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow,
Can hurt me if I would,
I am so wrapped,
and throughly lapped
Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
And Tib my wife, that as her life
Loveth well good ale to seek,
Full oft drinks she, till ye may see
The tears run down her cheeks.
Then doth she troll
to me the bowl,
Even as a maltworm should,
And saith,
“Sweetheart, I took my part
Of this jolly good ale and old.”
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
Now let them drink, till they nod and wink,
Even as good fellows should do;
They shall not miss
to have the bliss
Good ale doth bring men to;
And all poor souls
that have scoured bowls
Or have them lustily trolled,
God save the lives of them and their wives,
Whether they be young or old.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
Whan had thou, Lorde that all thing has,
Hungir or thirste sen thou God is?
Whan was thou in prisoune was,
Whan was thou naked or herberles?
Whan was it we sawe thee seke, allas;
Whan kid we thee this unkyndinesse?
Werie or wette to late thee passe,
When did we thee this wikkidnesse?
TO SIN... IS TO REFUSE TO SHARE FOOD AND DRINK.
EVERYTHING ELSE
IS FORGIVABLE.
Countering the demand by the vengeful Rat that Diccon should die, the genial Chaucerian magistrate Master Bailly suggests an ‘open kind of penance’… Also ‘open’ are the deeper resonances in the scatological farce that reflect on the hunger and poverty resulting from the economic disasters of the Edwardian reign: Could the polity again be compassionate? Could citizens put public duty before personal wealth or maintain, as in the pre-Henrician days, support systems for the poor?
-- William A. Sessions, “Literature and the Court”
"Civic authorities in Europe, seeing the benefits of regulating prostitution, proceeded to institutionalize the practice between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Britain, Henry II had licensed 'stews' in the twelfth century and, somewhat incongruously, places their control under the auspices of the Bishop of Winchester. Prostitution was limited to areas outside the city: in London this meant south of the river. Official state brothels could be found beyond London; for example, in 1475 Sandwich was recorded as having a licensed whorehouse. Though prostitutes were regulated (the 1382 Regulation of Prostitutes' Clothes statute forbade them to wear fur and ordered them to wear 'hoods of ray', a striped cloth), they appeared to have a reasonable degree of legal status. Whores are recorded as bringing legal suits against other people, and the often left wills... Karras suggests that the regulation governing Southwark brothels indicate how central the issue of control over women was to the regulation of prostitution.
The tolerant attitude shown towards prostitution (and, to some extent, sexuality) in the late Middle Ages is perhaps one reason why Magdalene, even with the connotations of her harlotry, became an acceptable figure of piety. However, magninimity towards prostitution was short-lived. Between 1520 and 1570 European clerical and regal authorities rejected the notion that such a practice was best granted licensed visibility. Fuelled by an epidemic of venereal disease and the heightened sexual morality of Protestant groups such as the Lutherans and Calvinists, Pope Leo X banished whores from Rome in 1520, while by 1546 Henry VIII had also begun to eradicate the practice in England. But for a short time, at a point which coincided with the peak of the Corpus Christi cycles, prostitution was a tolerated social institution and whores were afforded some legal and civic rights." -- K. Normington, Gender and Medieval Drama
Poor laws are implemented to deal with rising poverty,
but relief provisions fail to stem the rising tide, and many commoners without kin or masters -- predominantly (but not only) single men -- must become beggars or subsistence migrants, often migrating to subjecting themselves to arrest under vagrancy laws.
VAGRANCY LAWS
rise during the mid-Tudor crisis, to control groups regarded as dangerous to the state (veterans, entertainers, students, peddlers). Their ostensible goal is to separate the deserving poor from the undeserving.
Local unpaid constables are given powers of arrest and punishment.
Those deemed undeserving turn increasingly to crime.
1560-1640
England's population doubles.
(see Beier, Masterless Men)
1489
Inflation erodes the real wages of rural and urban labor by about 50%.
Agriculture becomes more commercial: small landholdings are consolidated into large ones.
JOHN BALE, 1550, IN A TRACT AGAINST PRIESTLY CELIBACY:
[T]o your sayd chaplaynes, whom I fynde foystered wyth the popes old deggres and leuen of hypocrisy. I desyre you therfore to perpende yt thoughe Socrates be a frynd, and Plato a frind, yet is the veryte to be preferred in fryndeshyp to them both... Thy teachynge is, that no man shulde take vpon hym to vowe that thynge, whych he is not able to perfourme, accordynge to the nature and true meanynge of the texte in that Psalme. And bycause S. Augustyne wolde haue thys poynt taken for the seasonynge salte or grounde of all that shulde followe concernynge that matter, he reherseth it here twyse. But why left yow thys out, ye most spyghtfull aduersary to all veryte and truthe? why lete ye it passe by? yea, why toke ye it not with yow? Bycause ye would play the dissembler, lyar, mocker, poisener, thefe, and sowle murtherer, euer lyke your selfe, a full exercysed craftesman in that occupyeng of mischefe. But tel me maistre person, who hath taught yow to playe so wycked partes as these are... Ye haue succked muche of the diuinite doggerel of that dronken papist Iohan Eckius, in thys matter. As the sayinge is, lyke wyl to lyke, as the deuyl fyndeth out the colyar. I maruel muche of your ygnoraunt beastlynesse, or els of your obstinate hypocrisye. Ye playe here the Pelagyane ryght oute, geuynge to our corrupted and synnefull nature, that is onelye due to the grace and mercy of God...
"Today we think of religion as a belief, rather than a practice, as defiinable in terms of creeds rather than in modes of behaviour. But [the latter] description would have fitted the popular Catholicism of the Middle Ages better than it fits many other primitive religions. A medieval peasant’s knowledge of Biblical history or Church doctrine was, so far as one can tell, usually extremely slight. The Church was important to him not because of its formalised code of belief, but because its rites were an essential accompaniment to the important events in his own life – birth, marriage, and death. It solemnised these occasions by providing appropriate rites of passage to emphasize their social significance. Religion was a ritual method of living, not a set of dogmas." (Thomas 1971)
CRITICISM
NOTE: for ENG 331, I am most interested in seeing you work through criticism in discussion; essays will mainly work other muscles.
In sixteenth-century usage, a humanist was one who taught or wrote in the studia humanitatis (the "humanities," primarily the classical humanities): grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, moral philosophy. [The term enters English by 1589, following the French humaniste (in use by 1539), which follows the earliest appearance of the term,] in Italy, [where] by the mid-fifteenth century umanisti is being used to describe the cultural movement initiated by literary artist-scholars like Petrarch (1304-74).
", or more specifically literary criticism, is the overall term for studies concerned with defining, classifying, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating works of literature. Theoretical criticism proposes an explicit theory of literature, in the sense of general principles, together with a set of terms, distinctions, and categories, to be applied to identifying and analyzing works of literature, as well as the criteria (the standards, or norms) by which these works and their writers are to be evaluated... Practical criticism, or applied criticism, concerns itself with particular works and writers; in an applied critique, the theoretical principles controlling the analysis, interpretation, and evaluation are often left implicit, or brought in only as the occasion demands... In practical criticism, a frequent distinction is made between impressionistic and judicial criticism: Impressionistic criticism attempts to represent in words the felt qualities of a particular passage or work, and to express the responses (the "impression") that the work directly evokes from the critic... Judicial criticism, on the other hand, attempts not merely to communicate, but to analyze and explain the effects of a work by reference to its subject, organization, techniques, and style, and to base the critic's individual judgments on specified criteria of literary excellence... Types of traditional critical theories and of applied criticism can be usefully distinguished by their orientation -- that is, according to whether, in defining, explaining, and judging a work of literature, they refer the work primarily to the outer world,
Except for the reflection questions, everything here is quoted from Abrams and Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms (10th ed), 67-70.
or to the author,
or else treat the work as an independent entity:"
or to the reader,
To "imitate ancient authors and to emulate them in the elegance of their style, vocabulary, and literary composition" -- and then to create our own daring innovations from there
To newly recover, edit, and interpret ancient Greek and Latin texts
To bring that classical learning into the classroom and educate "complete men"
EXPRESSIVE
OBJECTIVE
MIMETIC
PRAGMATIC
criticism views the literary work as an imitation, or refection, or representation of the world and human life, and the primary criterion applied to a work is the "truth" and "adequacy" of its representation to the matter that it represents
criticism... describes the literary product as a self-sufficient and autonomous object, or else as a world-in-itself, which is to be contemplated as its own end, and to be analyzed and judged solely by 'intrinsic' criteria such as its complexity, coherence, equilibrium, integrity, and the interrelations of its component elements
criticism views the work as something which is constructed in order to achieve certain effects on the audience (effects such as aesthetic pleasure, instruction, or kinds of emotion), and it tends to judge the value of the work according to its success in achieving that aim
criticism treats a literary work primarily in relation to its author [or authors, or makers]... it tends to judge the work by its sincerity, or its adequacy to the poet's individual vision or state of mind, and it often seeks in the work evidences of the particular temperament and experiences of the author who, deliberately or unconsciously, has revealed himself or herself in it
HUMANISTS
mimetic
how is it real?
Is it real?
Is it effective? Evocative?
Is it beautiful?
Is it sincere?
How is it beautiful?
How is it real?
How is it effective?
to be distinguished, by those of us who wish to be extra cautious, from the much later term humanism
How is it sincere?
Powerful? Sublime?
CUPAR
Does it ring true?
1552
Outdoor performance (with Cupar Proclamation)
What does it set out to do? Does it do it? How?
Can we perceive the makers in the work? How?
MEDIEVAL
Driven by what Simpson calls reformist ideals:
"The old system needs to be fixed!"
unresolved juxtaposition of genres
complicated accretion, multivocality
addition, contribution, development
a recognition of historical totality
(and continuity into the present)
(all of this is adapted from Simpson's Reform and Cultural Revolution)
Does it cohere? How?
The Nuntius announces the show to
come—there will be a great king, and he will hold a Parliament!;
Cotter wants to see the show but his wife Bessy beats
him;
Fynlaw brags about his efforts at the battle of Pinkie
Cleuch;
the Fule reveals that Fynlaw is lying;
he then joins three other men in courting Bessy, whose
husband has put her in a chastity belt; the Fule
wins because he manages to steal the key, a fact about which
Bessy seems pleased.
None of this has anything to do with the primary narrative of Ane Satyre.
Let’s spend a bit of time on
medieval Scots English.
Spot-translate:
2438-2475
2586-2597
2800-2820
2989-3035
3763-3798
How does it reflect a real truth?
To draw on literary texts, not only sacred ones, for moral education
To incorporate pre-Christian ideas into [pious] Christian belief and practce
To insist on and celebrate the power of human reason and achievement in a Christian universe
Is it well-crafted? How?
Does it do more?
Do we want to be around them?
Are they... ethical?
...or reveal one?
KNOWN ANE SATYRE PERFORMANCES: 1540, 1552, 1554
BUT WHO WILL IDENTIFY THE BIG JOKE FIRST?
But these notes are written by "the English commander of Berwick, Sir William Lyall, to Henry VIII's lord privy seal, Thomas Cromwell," reporting on how amenable to Henrician reform the play's contents were. What may have been left out of this report?
1540
James V’s royal palace at Linlithgow: seems to have been a relatively bare morality play on good kingship
Outdoors in Edinburgh, with many nobles present, including Mary of Guise
1554
LINLITHGOW
EDINBURGH
1560
The Scottish Reformation. Scotland’s Parliament breaks from the Roman Catholic Church.
1561
The Catholic Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, returns from France to rule Scotland. She is tolerant of, and permits, Protestantism. Her father was James V; his mother was Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's older sister. Take a moment to think about that.
1566
Mary gives birth to James VI of Scotland; the Lords try to force her to abdicate, and to leave James as king (with a regency). Mary, escaping the rebels (1567), winds up held captive in Elizabethan England for 19 years.
1587
The English execute Mary.
Her son James VI protests, lightly.
He has reasons not to alienate Elizabeth and England.
1568, Edinburgh
Bannatyne Manuscript written down, including earliest extant copy of Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estatis.
1602, Edinburgh
Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estatis printed, with some naughty parts removed.
< before 1530 or so: English religious expression is doxic
1491
Prince Henry is born: the third child of Henry VII (after Prince Arthur, who dies at 16 with no issue, despite his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, and Princess Margaret, who marries King James IV of Scotland -- the first effective and powerful Scottish leader in a while -- in 1503).
1513
James IV sides with France, staging a failed invasion of England. He dies in the Battle of Flodden. James V is one year old—making his mother regent, until she is kicked out.
1538
King James V marries the French Mary of Guise.
1542
Another all-out war with England. James V suffers a collapse and dies, leaving only an infant female heir: Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots. Strife over the regency reflects Catholic-Protestant division.
1548
Mary Stewart is betrothed to the French Dauphin Francis. Mary leaves for France. More anger, more military aggression from England, more regency drama over the Catholic-Protestant divide throughout 1540s. The Catholic Mary of Guise becomes Queen Regent and remains sole heir until 1566.
SCOTLAND
.
.
1536
Cranmer's Ten Articles;
Pilgrimage of Grace suppressed;
Act of Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries
1536-9
Bale's Kyng Johan performed at Cranmer's house (1538-9);
Pilgrimage of Grace suppressed (1536-7);
Act of Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries (1539)
1570: The Roman Catholic Pope officially excommunicates Elizabeth I
1530s: various Acts, under Henry VIII, sever England's religion from the Roman Catholic Church, making England's monarch the legal leader of England's religion; under Henry and Elizabeth's administrators, that religion becomes increasingly Lutheran (i.e., Protestant)
1547
Act of the Dissolution of the Chantries
1549
Act of Uniformity abolishes Latin services and institutes the first Book of Common Prayer
of the English Church from Catholic to Protestant, through a [messy] series of [harsh] top-down policies
1541
Destruction of all shrines ordered (Thomas Beckett's shrine destroyed in 1538)
1534
Thomas Cromwell appointed Principal Secretary
1530s-1570s:
English Reformation
[line 368]
Under the name of Honest Recreation,
She, lo, bringeth in her abomination!
Mark her dancing, her masquing and mumming…
Her carding, her dicing, daily and nightly…
As for her singing, piping, and fiddling,
What unthriftiness therein is twiddling?
MEDIEVAL
Driven by what Simpson calls reformist ideals:
"The old system needs to be fixed!"
unresolved juxtaposition of genres
complicated accretion, multivocality
addition, contribution, development
a recognition of historical totality
(and continuity into the present)
(all of this is adapted from Simpson's Reform and Cultural Revolution)
EARLY MODERN
Provoked by what Simpson calls revolutionary ideals:
"The old system needs to be replaced!"
distinction of genres by propriety
cleanness of line, unity of purpose
novelty, innovation, conversion
a return to originary purity (Greco-Roman or biblical), reaching past large slices of intervening history
1546
Anne Askew burned for heresy.
1533
Thomas Cranmer appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
1553-4
Under Mary I, Parliament passes First and Second Acts of Repeal, which reverse all anti-papal legislation since 1529 and effectively return England's official religion to Roman Catholicism.
1529
Wolsey falls (dies 1530); More is appointed Lord Chancellor, Reformation Parliament convenes (thru 1536)
1532
More resigns
1534
Under Henry VIII, Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy (the monarch is head of the English Church), the Treason Act (openly rejecting the Act of Supremacy is treason, punishable by death), and the Act of Submission of the Clergy (clergy are answerable to the monarch). Multiple further Acts through 1549 dissolve institutions on which English social cohesion had depended (monasteries, shrines, etc) and delegalize religious practices that were still common among English believers.
1559
Under Elizabeth I, Parliament passes the Settlement of Religion, which reverses the First and Second Acts of Repeal, restoring Henry's legislation and returning England's official religion to what we now call Protestantism.
1530s through 1570s: some English religious expression stays doxic (esp. far from London); some is heterodox or orthodox or both, some is just in a state of crisis
after 1580 or so: English religious expression >
is, or must contend with, orthodoxy
+ plays tend to be finished products for consumption, usually by strangers
+ plays tend to be rough-hewn traces from ongoing processes, for circulation of wealth among communities
YORKSHIRE
KENDAL
"[T]he institutional simplifications and centralizations of the sixteenth century provoked correlative simplifications and narrowings in literature… this is a narrative of diminishing liberties...
[I]n the first half of the sixteenth century, a culture that simplified and centralized jurisdiction aggressively displaced a culture of jurisdictional heterogeneity... Sudden concentrations of cultural and political power both permit and necessitate an aggressive physical and ideological demolition of the 'old' order. Accordingly, such concentrations provoke cultural practices that stress the values of unity and novelty above all...
Thus the stress on unity: whereas the old order will be redescribed as subject to a bedevilling complication of lines of authority, the new order will highlight a simple chain of command… These values of unity and novelty will inform all cultural practices, and especially architecture, historiography, jurisprudence, theology, philology, politics, painting, and literature.” (Simpson, RaCR, 1).
THE TUDORS' "INSTITUTIONAL SIMPLIFICATIONS AND CENTRALIZATIONS"
H7
builds upon England's distrust of prior governmental disarray (that is, the Wars of the Roses) to reposition and empower nobles as enforcers of royal law. Regionalism begins to give way to a tightening of English power and culture around London, in a state with newly streamlined apparatus to enforce law even down to the peasantry (see J.S. Block), and with the new technology of the printing press, which homogenizes public culture and language. Henry and his court are famously humanist in their tastes.
(1485-1509)
H8
(1509-1547)
's administrators modernize English government's finances (under soon-to-be Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Crown tax revenue increases from ~£30K per year to £100K in 1514 alone); among his administrators is Thomas More, one of the most prominent humanists. Spurred by Henry's well-known desire to invalidate his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon and start a new one with Anne Boleyn, various Acts in the 1530s sever England's religion from the Roman Catholic Church, making England's monarch the legal leader of England's religion, while gaining massively more income from reclaimed Church lands; the hasty Dissolution of the Monasteries, since monasteries had held the preeminent libraries of medieval England, results in the permanent loss or destruction of countless (literally countless) books, a massive proportion of the witnesses to pre-print culture that might otherwise have survived. Writing, increasingly in print, is increasingly monitored by, and answerable to, the Crown; administrators also reorganize education, often establishing new schools (and sometimes requiring attendance) in the place of the old Catholic institutions.
(Mid-Tudor Crisis: 1547-1558)
E1
(1558-1603)
builds upon England's distrust of prior governmental disarray (that is, the "mid-Tudor crisis" regarding Henry's successors and their varied religions) and on increasing anxiety about her own succession (stoked by a number of rebellions and assassination plots by Catholic resistors) to considerably tighten power, culture, money, and religion around the Crown; her administrators' increased military might subjugates Ireland and the North far more effectively than before, then initiates global naval imperialism and colonialism. She passes laws to restrict both recusancy and Puritanism. Under her watch, poverty rises (prior tightenings have created inflation, the commercializing of agriculture, and a population boom); Elizabethan laws increase controls over laborers, land rights, the poor, the mentally ill, sex workers, and vagrants. She and her administrators enforce growing Protestant iconoclasm and scriptural adherence, ordering church art to be destroyed or painted over with Bible quotes, and cracking down on religious plays. Meanwhile, her Master of Revels presides over and supports the growth of newly licensed professional London players, each with a noble or royal as its official patron; Elizabeth's administration enforces increasingly fastidious policies about where and when these players can work and what they can present, part of a newly thorough system of the surveillance and censorship of texts, which the now-established print culture makes possible.
1489
The Yorkshire Rebellion, against unusually heavy taxation demands from the Crown.
c. 1525-30
Inscription of the Sykes Manuscript, a guild-owned one-play copy of the York Doubting Thomas, from an exemplum different from (but certainly related to, and mostly identical to) the source of the Doubting Thomas in the 1463-77 York Register MS. No other York play survives outside the Register.
YORKSHIRE REBELLION (1489)
"[A]gainst unusually heavy taxation demands from the geographically remote centre of power [i.e. London]... political undertones of resistance to the newly established Tudor monarchy. The rebels in Yorkshire killed Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, the most powerful supporter of Henry VII in the north of England, and also the man responsible for collecting the subsidy tax granted that year. They later took York, but dispersed when a large and well-organized royal army advanced on the city." (Whittle and Rigby)
1536
The Pilgrimage of Grace, a major Northern rising against Reformation legislation (as well as against increased government control in the North, including the enclosure of once communal lands). In 1537, the Crown installs the Council of the North to assert its power.
1550s (?)
Inscription of the Towneley Manuscript (a late compilation of plays composed as early as 1400-50, with parts likely revised or rewritten in the interim).
1567
"John Clerke, 'under clerk' to the 'common Clerk of this city' between the 1530s and the suppression of the pageants in 1569" (CD), enters the only extant copy of the York Purification into the York Register MS. During his time as "under clerk," Clerke made numerous "[n]otations in the margins" to the Register, indicating "that at least in the final years what was played had not always been entered in the Register" (CD).
1569-70
The Northern Rebellion aims to destroy Elizabeth I and replace her with her Catholic cousin, Mary Stewart. 1569 also marks the final performance of the York Corpus Christi Plays.
PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE (1536)
"Pilgrimage of Grace, (1536), a rising in the northern counties of England, the only overt immediate discontent shown against the Reformation legislation of King Henry VIII. Part of the resentment was caused by attempts, especially under Henry’s minister Thomas Cromwell, to increase government control in the north; there was an element of agrarian opposition to enclosures for pasture; and there was a religious element, aroused especially by the dissolution of the monasteries, then in progress. The arrival of commissioners sent by Cromwell to collect a financial subsidy and to dissolve the smaller monasteries triggered the rising. In Louth in Lincolnshire there were riots on October 1, and commissioners were attacked. The rebels occupied Lincoln, demanding an end to the dissolution, revenge on Cromwell, and the dismissal of heretical bishops. But Henry refused to treat with men in arms against him (although professing their loyalty), and the Lincolnshire movement collapsed on October 19. Meanwhile, a more serious rising had begun in Yorkshire, led by Robert Aske, a country gentleman and lawyer. Aske took York and by October 24 was supported by about 30,000 armed men and by magnates such as Edward Lee, archbishop of York, and Thomas Darcy, Baron Darcy of Templehurst. The government had insufficient troops in the area, but on October 27, at Doncaster Bridge, Thomas Howard, the 3rd duke of Norfolk, temporized with Aske, playing for time until adequate forces could be assembled. At a council at Pontefract on December 2, the rebels drew up their demands, similar to those of the Lincolnshire men but including a return of England to papal obedience and the summoning of a Parliament free from royal influence. To these Norfolk, on December 6, made vague promises and offered a full pardon, whereupon Aske naively assumed he had gained his objectives and persuaded his followers to disperse. Sporadic riots in January and February 1537 enabled the government to deal with the troubles piecemeal; about 220–250 men were executed, including Darcy and Aske. The pilgrimage achieved nothing and received no support from other parts of the country" (EB).
?
How long does the medieval Catholic doxa persist in the North after Reform?
TOWNELEY PLAYS
Based on its handwriting and decorations (including a Tudor rose design), Malcolm Parkes was able to strongly date the inscription of Huntington MS HM 1 to 1553-8; the scribe was likely copying from earlier plays from various sources in West Yorkshire, perhaps composed much earlier, maybe c. 1400-1450, but also subject to ongoing revision since then -- it is also likely that these 32 biblical plays (covering biblical history from Creation toe Judgment, but unevenly -- no Nativity, two Shepherds plays, etc) were not compiled together, into this big biblical-play series, until this particular 1550s inscription did so. There are references in the plays to a few landmarks in West Yorkshire.
We think that the creation of this luxury manuscript may have been a wedding gift in 1556. We’re sure the Towneleys, a rich recusant family living near Burnley, Lancashire, had the manuscript in their possession during the time of Christopher Towneley (1604-74). So we call it the Towneley Manuscript.
NORTHERN REBELLION (1569-70)
"The Catholic Thomas Percy, earl of Northumberland, came from a family of ancient lineage but at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign was stripped of posts... Similarly, the descendant of a Yorkshire family of long standing, Richard Norton, was dropped from the Council of the North. They, along with another leading Catholic nobleman, conspired to raise a rebellion with the aim of destroying Elizabeth and replacing her with [her cousin] Mary Stewart [descended from Henry VII's daughter]. Drawing the head of another ancient northern family, Charles Neville... into the revolt, the rebellion of the northern earls of 1569 was to be the most serious of the reign. Religion was clearly a major cause, with the rebels rallying around banners displaying the five wounds of Christ (the emblem of the Pilgrimage of Grace). Prominent too were the standards of the Percies and Nevilles, for most of those joining the revolt came from their estates. Besides being a Catholic uprising, this was a revolt led by the traditional ruling families of the North opposed to the new political order centred at the Court and council in Westminster. [T]he revolt of the earls can be seen as one of the last gasps of the declining feudal aristocracy."
(David Dean, "Elizabethan Government and Politics")
"[T]he institutional simplifications and centralizations of the sixteenth century provoked correlative simplifications and narrowings in literature… this is a narrative of diminishing liberties...
[I]n the first half of the sixteenth century, a culture that simplified and centralized jurisdiction aggressively displaced a culture of jurisdictional heterogeneity... Sudden concentrations of cultural and political power both permit and necessitate an aggressive physical and ideological demolition of the 'old' order. Accordingly, such concentrations provoke cultural practices that stress the values of unity and novelty above all...
Thus the stress on unity: whereas the old order will be redescribed as subject to a bedevilling complication of lines of authority, the new order will highlight a simple chain of command… These values of unity and novelty will inform all cultural practices, and especially architecture, historiography, jurisprudence, theology, philology, politics, painting, and literature.” (Simpson, RaCR, 1).
YORK
SOMEWHERE IN WEST YORKSHIRE
Al men that walkis by waye or strete,
Takes tente ye schalle no travayle tyne.
Byholdes myn heede, myn handis, and my feete,
And fully feele nowe, or ye fyne,
Yf any mournyng may be meete
Or myscheve mesured unto myne.
My Fadir, that alle bales may bete,
Forgiffis thes men that dois me pyne.
What thai wirke wotte thai noght.
Therfore, my Fadir, I crave
Latte nevere ther synnys be sought,
But see their saules to save.
Let’s act this one out. Lines 71-264.
Mi postelis and my darlyngis dere,
The dredfull dome this day is dight.
Both heven and erthe and hell schall here
Howe I schall holde that I have hight:
That ye schall sitte on seetis sere
Beside myselffe to se that sight,
And for to deme folke ferre and nere
Aftir ther werkyng, wronge or right.
Whanne I was seke and soriest
Ye visitte me noght, for I was poure;
In prisoune faste whan I was feste
Was none of you loked howe I fore.
Whenne I wiste nevere where for to reste,
With dyntes ye draffe me fro your dore,
Butte ever to pride thanne were ye preste;
Mi flessh, my bloode ofte ye forswore.
Clothles whanne I was ofte and colde,
At nede of you, yede I full naked,
House ne herborow, helpe ne holde
Hadde I none of you, thof I quaked.
Mi mischeffe sawe ye manyfolde,
Was none of you my sorowe slaked,
Butt evere forsoke me, yonge and alde.
Therfore schall ye nowe be forsaked.
Notice the action to dialogue ratio!
Notice the pre-Copernican
universe!
Notice the hints of a
Northern accent!
Notice “I bid ye wax
forth!” line 167
Syne that this world es ordand evyn,
Furth well I publysch my power.
Noght by my strenkyth but by my stevyn
A firmament I byd apere.
Emange the waterris, lyght so levyn,
There cursis lely for to lere,
And that same sall be namyd hewvyn
With planitys and with clowdis clere.
The water I will be set
To flowe both fare and nere,
And than the firmament
In mydis to set thame sere.
The firmament sal nought move,
But be a mene, thus will I mene,
Ovir all the worlde to halde and hove,
And be tho tow wateris betwyne.
Undir the hevyn, and als above
The wateris serly sall be sene,
And so I wille my post prove
By creaturis of kyndis clene.
This warke his to my pay
Righit will, withoutyn wyne.
Thus sese the secunde day
Of my doyingys bydene.
Moo sutyll werkys assesay I sall
For to be set in service sere:
All the waterris grete and smalle
That undir hevyne er ordande here,
Gose togedir and holde yow all
And be a flode festynde in fere
So that the erthe, both downe and dale,
In drynesch playnly may apere.
The drynes “lande” sall be
Namyd, bothe ferre and nere,
And then I name the “se”
Geddryng of wateris clere.
The erthe sall fostyr and furthe bryng
Buxsumly, as I wyle byde,
Erbys and also othyr thyng
Well for to wax and worthe to wede.
Treys also tharon sall spryng
With braunchis and with bowis on brede,
With flouris fayr on heght to hyng
And fruth also to fylle and fede.
And thane I will that thay
Of themselfe have the sede
And mater that thay may
Be lastande furth in lede.
And all ther materis es in mynde
For to be made of mekyl might,
And to be kest in dyveris kynde
So for to bere sere burguns bright.
And when ther frutys is fully fynde
And fayrest semande unto syght,
Thane the wedris wete and wynde
Oway I will it wende full wyght,
And of there sede full sone
New rotys sall ryse upright.
The third day thus is done:
Thire dedis er dewly dyght.
Now sene the erthe thus ordand es,
Mesurid and made by myn assent,
Grathely for to growe with gres
And wedis that sone away bese went,
Of my gudnes now will I ges
So that my werkis no harmes hent,
Two lyghtis, one more and one lesse,
To be fest in the firmament:
The more light to day
Fully suthely sall be sent;
The lesse lyght allway
To the nyght sall take entent.
Thir figuris fayre that furth er fun
Thus on sere sydys serve thai sall:
The more lyght sall be namid the son,
Dymnes to wast be downe and be dale.
Erbis and treys that er bygune:
All sall he governe, gret and smale.
With cald yf thai be closid or bun,
Thurgh hete of the sun thai sal be hale.
Als thei have honours
In alkyn welth to wale,
So sall my creaturis
Evir byde withoutyn bale.
The son and the mone on fayre manere
Now grathly gange in your degré;
Als ye have tane youre curses clere
To serve furth loke ye be fre,
For ye sall set the sesons sere
Kyndely to knowe in ilke cuntré,
Day fro day, and yere fro yere,
By sertayne signes suthly to se.
The hevyn sall be overhyld
With sternys to stand plenté.
The furth day his fulfillid:
This werke well lykys me.
Now sen thir werkis er wroght with wyne,
And fundyn furth be firth and fell,
The see now will I set within
Whallis whikly for to dewell,
And othir fysch to flet with fyne,
Sum with skale and sum with skell,
Of diveris materis more and myn,
In sere maner to make and mell.
Sum sall be meke and milde
And sum both fers and fell:
This world thus will I eke
Syn I am witt of well.
Also up in the ayre on hyght
I byd now that thore be ordande
For to be foulis fayre and bright,
Dewly in thare degre dwelland,
With fedrys fayre to frast ther flight
For stede to stede whore thai will stande,
And also leythly for to lyght
Whoreso thame lykis in ilke a londe.
Thane fysch and foulis sere
Kyndely I you commande
To meng on youre manere
Both be se and sande.
This materis more yitt will I mende
So for to fulfill my forthoght
With diveris bestis in lande to lende,
To brede and be with bale furth brught.
And with bestis I wille be blende
Serpentis to be sene unsoght
And wormis upon thaire wombis sall wende
To won in erth and worth to noght.
And so it sall be kende
How all that eme is oght,
Begynnyng, mydes, and ende
I with my worde hase wrothe.
For als I byde bus all thyng be
And dewly done als I will dresse,
Now bestys ar sett in sere degré
On molde to move, both more and lesse.
Thane foulis in ayre and fische in see
And bestis on erthe of bone and flesch,
I byde ye wax furth fayre plenté
And grathly growes, als I yow gesse.
So multiply ye sall
Ay furth in fayre processe:
My blyssyng have ye all.
The fift day endyd es.
What ways of knowing human culture, history, live performance, and shared experience, through our human bodies, senses, and presence cannot be addressed by the usual scholarly practices of reading, writing, and talking about the arts and humanities? If we recover something crucial that those usual practices cannot comprehend or articulate, how can we communicate and remember that recovery: through more words? or through our bodies? (Plays, sacraments, and sacramental plays must be live: but why, exactly?)
LEEDS
BURNLEY
1580, Letter of Edmund Assheton to William Farrington: "I am sure (Righte worshippful) your haue not forgotten the laste yere sturres at Brunley, about Robyn hoode and the May games, Nowe Consideringe that itt is a Cause that bringeth no good effecte beinge Contrarie to the beste Therfore a Numbre of the Iustices of peace herein in Sallforde hundrethe haue Consulted with the Comyssioners to suppresse those Lewde sportes tendinge to no other ende but to stirre vpp our ffrayle Natures to wantonnes..."
HULL
WAKEFIELD
The word Wakefield has been written on the first page of the Towneley MS, added to an embellished decorated title for the Creation. The title of the Noah play is presented as Processus Noe cum filiis Wakefield.
Wakefield historians John Walker and Thomas Peacock first announced in 1928 (in the Times Literary Supplement) that they had found twelve entries in the Burgess Court Rolls for Wakefield that decisively linked the Towneley Manuscript plays to a full biblical cycle produced at Wakefield.
MANCHESTER
THE REFORMATION
The English look to Rome
The English look to Luther
CHESHIRE
LIVERPOOL
SHEFFIELD
LINCOLN
DEE RIVER (has shifted since 16th C)
before 1237
Distant from London, rich in resources, at a trade port and strategically on the border with then-antagonistic Wales, the county of Cheshire takes on palatine status, giving it significant administrative and judicial independence from the rest of England.
1301
Edward I, conquering Wales, gives his son Edward the titles prince of Wales and earl of Chester. The tradition carries on into the present day. The dominance of the earl, who of course did not live in Chester, discourages other great lords from establishing any seats in this remote county. Cestrians feel themselves to be a people apart.
c. 1421
The first known production of Corpus Christi biblical guild drama at Chester. The 1422 record refers to two episodes assigned to two guild groups, depicting the Buffeting/Scourging and the Crucifixion, as well as another unnamed episode assigned to the Wrights. Productions (of one kind or another) seem to have occurred every few years. There’s some debate about when they took the form we know today.
from 1532 on,
Early modern organizational practices, led by at least one fastidious mayor, start to reshape the way Chester keeps its records. Archives from here are clearer — and they witness the full cycle of plays being produced in a form similar to the currently known one, once every few years, at Whitsun week.
The gouldsmyths then full soone will hye
& massons theyre Craft to magnifye
theis 2 Crafts will them applye
theyre worshipp for to wyne
how herod king of Galalye
for that Intent Cryst to distrye
Slew the Inosents most Cruely
of tow yers & within
The wurshipfful wyffys of this towne
ffynd of our Lady thassumpcion
It to bryng forth they be bowne
And meytene with all theyre might
GGAM: Guild Groups Assigned Material [in the 1591 MS]
ARLD: Activities Resembling Later Descriptions
GA/ RSC: Guild Assignment/Roughly Similar Content
ETs: Early Texts
1
[5?]
3
2
4
1578: One more performance of the Chester Shepherds play, on its own
1578
Final performance of Chester Shepherds
The two lodged with the mayor, who indulged Henry’s well-known taste for performance with “a spectrum of the ‘home-grown’ dramatic entertainments available in the city.” The Shepherds pageant was staged at the High Cross (a prominent spot in the center of Chester, formerly the second station for the Whitsun plays and a popular performance site). Two other entertainments framed the Shepherds pageant: a Latin comedy by Terence, produced by a local schoolmaster at the mayor’s residence, and “triumphs” performed at the Roodee, a large open field outside the city walls to the west.11
From Nicole Rice, " Artisan Drama, Patronage, and Fellowship Reconfigured":
Cestrians saw their cycle performed for the last time, amid controversy and in a reduced form, at Midsummer 1575. According to one civic record, this staging aroused “the great dislike of many,” for while the cycle had since the early sixteenth century been performed over three
days at Whitsuntide (Pentecost), at five stations throughout the city, this final staging took place merely “in on[e] part of the Citty.” Moreover, the production lacked certain episodes, “leaueinge others vnplaid which were thought might not be Iustified for the superstition that was in them. Although the Maior was enjoyned not to proceed therein.” This record suggests the resentment that many Cestrians felt for those who criticized and opposed their cycle. For in 1575, as in 1572, the mayor endorsed play production with his city council’s consent, defying a 1572 injunction that the archbishop of York had issued against performance. In 1575 this injunction was supported by letters from the archbishop and the president of the Council of the North, a body charged with bringing the northern counties into conformity with reformed religion. Although Chester’s early
Elizabethan mayors had strongly defended their local tradition of cycle drama, the 1575 performance proved to be the cycle’s last, amid opposition from the council and the reforming archibishop, as well as by local Puritans who criticized the plays’ “popish” content.
In the sole known staging of a Chester pageant between the cycle’s abrogation and its twentieth-century revival, in summer 1578 the Shepherds play was included by Mayor Thomas Bellin in a multipart civic spectacle mounted to entertain Henry Stanley, the fourth Earl of Derby. This local dignitary visited Chester that summer with his son Ferdinando, Lord Strange.
When we turn to contemporary notes of the event, and to the Painters’ own records for that year, we find a conspicuous absence of artisans in connection to what must have been a spectacular performance. The civic records note in three separate places that the mayor “caused the
Sheappeardes playe to be played at the hie Crosse”; “The sheppards play was plaied at the high Crosse and other Tryumphs on the Roods eye”; “The Shepheards playe played at the hie Crosse.” We find no mention of who played in the pageant. Yet the most detailed surviving record, in Mayors
List 13, offers some clues to how the event was organized and understood by contemporaries:
Henrye Earle of darbye: with his sonne. fardinando.
Lord Strange. Came to this Cittye in August. and was
honorably received. by the mayor into his howse and
did lye there two Nightes: mr parvise Scollers: playd
A Commodie out of the book of Terence before hym. The
Shepeards playe played at the hie Crosse. with other
Trivmphes vpon. the Rode eye, Alsoe the two Sheriffes:
had bene the mayor prenteses in former tyme / Master
Maior. A cittizin borne.
In relating key facts, the document also highlights intergenerational relationships flourishing within a nexus of hospitality and performance. First we find the father-son pair of Earl Henry and young Ferdinando, “honorably received” by the mayor. Next appear the schoolmaster and his intellectual progeny, the young “scollers” entertaining the earl with their comedy, presumably within the mayor’s residence.15 “The Shepeards playe played at the hie cross” runs directly into the “Trivmphes vpon the Rode eye,” perhaps indicating that one followed hard upon the other, or that the triumphs formed a continuation of the Shepherds play. The note that Bellin’s two sheriffs “had bene the mayor prenteses” (Bellin was a mercer by trade) locates the mayor at the source of a circuit of masculine nurture and patronage enhanced by performance.
(The Painters are not on this list.)
(This is the first mention of the Chester Shepherds play in the records.)
1536
The Pilgrimage of Grace, a major Northern rising against Reformation legislation (as well as against increased government control in the North, including the enclosure of once communal lands). In 1537, the Crown installs the Council of the North to assert its power.
1541
The Bishop of Chester established to enforce Protestant faith. What was once St Werburgh's Abbey is now Chester Cathedral. At some point around here, one of the plays listed in the 1530s records disappears and is not mentioned in records again.
Before 10 May 1572: Christopher Goodman and his fellow Cestrian puritans write a series of angry letters to authorities, complaining about the Chester plays. The mayor ignores them.
1572
The Chester Plays, which have been running repeatedly on wagon stages in Chester for many decades (and, in some form, for over 150 years), are de-legalized by the Archbishop of York. The 1572 production proceeds anyway..
15 May 1572: The Archbishop writes to the mayor: "We... command you forthwith upon the sight hereof to surcease from further preparation for setting forth the said plays, & utterly to forbear the playing thereof for this Summer & for all times hereafter till your said plays shall be perused corrected & reformed by such learned men as by us shall be thereunto appointed..."
6-8 June 1572: The full Chester plays are performed in Chester.
11 June 1572: Goodman and his fellow puritans draft a letter to the Archbishop, ""We have according to your Grace's request sent herewithall the notes of such absurdities as are truly collected out of their old originall, the which your wisdoms may easily judge of the rest. For albeit divers have gone about the correction of the same at sundry times & mended divers things, yet hath it not been done by such as are by authority allowed, nor the same their corrections viewed & approved according to order, nor yet so played for the most part as they have been corrected."
1575
“In 1575 the [next] mayor, Sir John Savage, with the consent of the city council, prepared to authorize another performance of the plays… The 1575 production [which did indeed happen] was understandably seen as an act of defiance against the archbishop and the earl of Huntingdon. Consequently John Savage was summoned to London to appear before the privy council.”
1578
And then there's one more performance of what the records call the "Shepherds" play.
1591
The earliest surviving copy of the Chester Plays is completed.
CREWE
This side would eventually be called Catholic. Associated terms in England, 1485-1603, include: Popish, Old, recusant.
NOTTINGHAM
This side would eventually be called Protestant. Associated terms in England, 1485-1603, include: reform, Puritan.
1534: It’s hard to imagine that Robert Croo’s copying out of a “newly corrected” version of the Coventry Shearmen and Tailors’ Play in 1534 didn’t have something to do with this sweeping, sudden, and harsh array of new laws and enforcements out of London. But [contrary to K&D 5] we don’t really know what that something was. King and Davidson point out that the “prophets section” of the play we read seems like a newly added bit that linked together two previously separate plays, and “includes some assertions that are less consistent with Rome than with Wittenberg” (K&D 5).
DERBY
1512
Date inscribed in the Digby Manuscript (includes plays composed as early as the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries).
WALSINGHAM
1516
Henry and Katherine have their first child: Mary. But no boys. To pray for an heir, Henry makes several pilgrimages to Our Lady of Walsingham, a statue of the Virgin Mary in East Anglia, once walking there two miles barefoot; he makes multiple donations to the priory there.
Known as "England's Nazareth," Walsingham had been an international centre of pilgrimage rivaled only by Santiago de Compostela in Spain and by Rome itself.
1538
The famous cult statue of Our Lady of Walsingham is burned with much fanfare in London streets.
1549
Crowds, who had gathered to watch a traditional play celebrating the life of St Thomas Becket (whose commemorations were outlawed under Henry VIII), erupt into Kett’s Rebellion, a rising against increased taxes and enclosure.
The fervent worship of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus "that we associate today with Italy or Spain... was in the Middle Ages of English renown. It was not Italy or Spain but medieval England that was known by the popular epithet "the dower of the Virgin," England whose intensity of Marian devotion would be eradicated finally, not by the fanatical zeal of Puritan iconoclasm (although every medieval English church bears terrible, mute witness of it), but by a shrewdly calculated transference of the cult of the Virgin to the political cult of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth in the Renaissance." (Gibson ToD 138)
WALES
EAST ANGLIA
Bridgnorth
"Et solutum pro tunicis et aliis vestimentis ac pi[c]tura earundem pro Robyn hood," Shrewsbury 1552-3
SHREWSBURY
1588-9, Bridgnorth Chamberlain's Accounts:
Item paid at Roger Harleis by the commaundement of master bailiffes vpon then which plaied Robin Hood ii s. vj d...
Ludlow
"more that was geven to Robyn whod," 1566-7
NORWICH
1549
Kett's Rebellion breaks out
"But it was in Norfolk that the most serious of the East Anglian insurrections broke out. On Saturday 6 July, crowds gathered at Wymondham to watch the Wymondham Game, a traditional play which celebrated the life of St Thomas Becket. This was itself tinged with sedition, since the commemoration of the life of St Thomas Becket had been outlawed under HenryVIII. The feast day of Wymondham Game took place on the Sunday; and the festivities ended on Monday 8 July. But, inspired by the news that rebels in Kent had risen, commotioners in Norfolk used the opportunity of the Wymondham Game to organise an insurrection of their own... St Thomas Becket ‘was commonly associated with resistance to Henry II’s plans for taxes on the poor’; at a time of renewed taxation, this was an important association. Again, as evidence of the links between urban and rural commons that characterised the 1549 rebellions, plans for the Wymondham rising also drew in the poor of Norwich" (Wood, The 1549 Rebellions, 60-61).
Corpus Christi
(Latin for "the body of Christ")
is a sacrament
BIRMINGHAM
According to Catholic belief (usually), bread and wine, when blessed properly by a priest (that is, consecrated), undergo transubstantiation (that is, they are not changed in appearance, but in substance) to become the body and blood of Jesus Christ; these enter into believers, who eat and drink them regularly. (The holy bread is also called the Host or Eucharist.) In the Eucharist, Jesus -- the incarnate (embodied in real flesh) aspect of the Holy Trinity (that is, God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) -- is substantially, physically present at every church, however large or small, and in every believer.
guilds:
social organizations (clubs?), usually organized around a craft or trade (e.g. Tailors) or a broad religious idea (e.g. Corpus Christi), which organized urban life by producing various events and ceremonies -- and often by influencing civic government or policies
that inspires a holiday
Corpus Christi Day happens on a different date each year, ranging from late May to mid-June. It's a way for churches to celebrate that the Real Presence of Jesus is as much right there with them as anywhere else, even Rome, and so is often paired with celebrations or ceremonies marking local self-government, power, or culture.
like a trade union mixed with a frat
(though many were open to women)
Al men that walkis by waye or strete,
Takes tente ye schalle no travayle tyne.
Byholdes myn heede, myn handis, and my feete,
And fully feele nowe, or ye fyne,
Yf any mournyng may be meete
Or myscheve mesured unto myne.
My Fadir, that alle bales may bete,
Forgiffis thes men that dois me pyne.
What thai wirke wotte thai noght.
Therfore, my Fadir, I crave
Latte nevere ther synnys be sought,
But see their saules to save.
Al men that walkis by waye or strete,
Takes tente ye schalle no travayle tyne.
Byholdes myn heede, myn handis, and my feete,
And fully feele nowe, or ye fyne,
Yf any mournyng may be meete
Or myscheve mesured unto myne.
My Fadir, that alle bales may bete,
Forgiffis thes men that dois me pyne.
What thai wirke wotte thai noght.
Therfore, my Fadir, I crave
Latte nevere ther synnys be sought,
But see their saules to save.
Let’s act this one out. Lines 71-264.
Mi postelis and my darlyngis dere,
The dredfull dome this day is dight.
Both heven and erthe and hell schall here
Howe I schall holde that I have hight:
That ye schall sitte on seetis sere
Beside myselffe to se that sight,
And for to deme folke ferre and nere
Aftir ther werkyng, wronge or right.
Whanne I was seke and soriest
Ye visitte me noght, for I was poure;
In prisoune faste whan I was feste
Was none of you loked howe I fore.
Whenne I wiste nevere where for to reste,
With dyntes ye draffe me fro your dore,
Butte ever to pride thanne were ye preste;
Mi flessh, my bloode ofte ye forswore.
Clothles whanne I was ofte and colde,
At nede of you, yede I full naked,
House ne herborow, helpe ne holde
Hadde I none of you, thof I quaked.
Mi mischeffe sawe ye manyfolde,
Was none of you my sorowe slaked,
Butt evere forsoke me, yonge and alde.
Therfore schall ye nowe be forsaked.
celebrated with live drama, all over England.
Most notably, in York and Chester, we have REED evidence that clearly witnesses a series of biblical adaptation plays done on Corpus Christi Day (at Chester, they moved to Whitsun week) using moving wagon stages, called "pageants", that would pull all 26, or all 50, plays through multiple simultaneous repetitions across the city. All but two of York's surviving copies date from before 1485, so we don't study them much in this class.
Notice the action to dialogue ratio!
Notice the pre-Copernican
universe!
Notice the hints of a
Northern accent!
Notice “I bid ye wax
forth!” line 167
Syne that this world es ordand evyn,
Furth well I publysch my power.
Noght by my strenkyth but by my stevyn
A firmament I byd apere.
Emange the waterris, lyght so levyn,
There cursis lely for to lere,
And that same sall be namyd hewvyn
With planitys and with clowdis clere.
The water I will be set
To flowe both fare and nere,
And than the firmament
In mydis to set thame sere.
The firmament sal nought move,
But be a mene, thus will I mene,
Ovir all the worlde to halde and hove,
And be tho tow wateris betwyne.
Undir the hevyn, and als above
The wateris serly sall be sene,
And so I wille my post prove
By creaturis of kyndis clene.
This warke his to my pay
Righit will, withoutyn wyne.
Thus sese the secunde day
Of my doyingys bydene.
Moo sutyll werkys assesay I sall
For to be set in service sere:
All the waterris grete and smalle
That undir hevyne er ordande here,
Gose togedir and holde yow all
And be a flode festynde in fere
So that the erthe, both downe and dale,
In drynesch playnly may apere.
The drynes “lande” sall be
Namyd, bothe ferre and nere,
And then I name the “se”
Geddryng of wateris clere.
The erthe sall fostyr and furthe bryng
Buxsumly, as I wyle byde,
Erbys and also othyr thyng
Well for to wax and worthe to wede.
Treys also tharon sall spryng
With braunchis and with bowis on brede,
With flouris fayr on heght to hyng
And fruth also to fylle and fede.
And thane I will that thay
Of themselfe have the sede
And mater that thay may
Be lastande furth in lede.
And all ther materis es in mynde
For to be made of mekyl might,
And to be kest in dyveris kynde
So for to bere sere burguns bright.
And when ther frutys is fully fynde
And fayrest semande unto syght,
Thane the wedris wete and wynde
Oway I will it wende full wyght,
And of there sede full sone
New rotys sall ryse upright.
The third day thus is done:
Thire dedis er dewly dyght.
Now sene the erthe thus ordand es,
Mesurid and made by myn assent,
Grathely for to growe with gres
And wedis that sone away bese went,
Of my gudnes now will I ges
So that my werkis no harmes hent,
Two lyghtis, one more and one lesse,
To be fest in the firmament:
The more light to day
Fully suthely sall be sent;
The lesse lyght allway
To the nyght sall take entent.
Thir figuris fayre that furth er fun
Thus on sere sydys serve thai sall:
The more lyght sall be namid the son,
Dymnes to wast be downe and be dale.
Erbis and treys that er bygune:
All sall he governe, gret and smale.
With cald yf thai be closid or bun,
Thurgh hete of the sun thai sal be hale.
Als thei have honours
In alkyn welth to wale,
So sall my creaturis
Evir byde withoutyn bale.
The son and the mone on fayre manere
Now grathly gange in your degré;
Als ye have tane youre curses clere
To serve furth loke ye be fre,
For ye sall set the sesons sere
Kyndely to knowe in ilke cuntré,
Day fro day, and yere fro yere,
By sertayne signes suthly to se.
The hevyn sall be overhyld
With sternys to stand plenté.
The furth day his fulfillid:
This werke well lykys me.
Now sen thir werkis er wroght with wyne,
And fundyn furth be firth and fell,
The see now will I set within
Whallis whikly for to dewell,
And othir fysch to flet with fyne,
Sum with skale and sum with skell,
Of diveris materis more and myn,
In sere maner to make and mell.
Sum sall be meke and milde
And sum both fers and fell:
This world thus will I eke
Syn I am witt of well.
Also up in the ayre on hyght
I byd now that thore be ordande
For to be foulis fayre and bright,
Dewly in thare degre dwelland,
With fedrys fayre to frast ther flight
For stede to stede whore thai will stande,
And also leythly for to lyght
Whoreso thame lykis in ilke a londe.
Thane fysch and foulis sere
Kyndely I you commande
To meng on youre manere
Both be se and sande.
This materis more yitt will I mende
So for to fulfill my forthoght
With diveris bestis in lande to lende,
To brede and be with bale furth brught.
And with bestis I wille be blende
Serpentis to be sene unsoght
And wormis upon thaire wombis sall wende
To won in erth and worth to noght.
And so it sall be kende
How all that eme is oght,
Begynnyng, mydes, and ende
I with my worde hase wrothe.
For als I byde bus all thyng be
And dewly done als I will dresse,
Now bestys ar sett in sere degré
On molde to move, both more and lesse.
Thane foulis in ayre and fische in see
And bestis on erthe of bone and flesch,
I byde ye wax furth fayre plenté
And grathly growes, als I yow gesse.
So multiply ye sall
Ay furth in fayre processe:
My blyssyng have ye all.
The fift day endyd es.
WYMONDHAM
(Norwich had a cycle of guild-produced biblical plays on wagons, too, but all the scripts have been lost, except for two very late copies of short fragments of their Adam and Eve)
How is this yearly play possible in the first place? Think about it, and about what that means about sixteenth-century life... and you'll get a deeper understanding of some of the core ideas of this class.
The Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, “staged by the town guilds at Corpus Christi, seem to have been well known throughout all of England. Held in conjunction with Coventry’s annual Corpus Christi fair, these religious plays were presented in the streets both for local audiences and for visitors to the city… [multiple citations attest] to their great popularity and their ability to attract large crowds. The central location of Coventry in the Midlands in relation to the principal roads leading to other parts of the country was, of course, also a factor” (K&D 1-2).
The Coventry Corpus Christi Plays included these Bible episodes, at least at some points in their history:
We only have surviving texts for these,
in Robert Croo's 1534 revised versions.
Shearmen and Tailors -- Annunciation, Nativity, Slaughter
Weavers -- Mary's Purification/Presentation, Boy Jesus & Teachers
Smiths -- Trial, Torture, Crucifixion/Passion
[Pinners & Needlers -- "Taking Down of God Fro The Cros"]
Cappers -- Harrowing of Hell, Resurrection, Marys at Tomb
Mercers -- probably Death, Assumption, Coronation of Mary
Drapers -- Doomsday and Judgment
Other pageants, now unknown, came from the guilds
of Tanners, Girdlers, Cutlers, Butchers, Carpenters
1491-1520
From these years, the Records of Early English Drama includes multiple references to reworking, rewriting, and reassigning the Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, probably because of serious shrinkage in Coventry’s textile-manufacturing economy.
In 1491, a new text [now lost] is created for the Smiths’ guild (K&D 6). With the various guilds suffering from economic decline – see here how in 1494 the performances have already been going on “time out of mind”, but that means that the participating guilds, when their pageant assignments (here “charges”) were originally given, the guilds were “more wealthy, rich, and more in number than now,” so in 1494 some ask for relief and help. From here, evidence suggests that the Coventry Corpus Christi plays start being redacted and shifted, probably “as efforts at accommodation to changing guild resources” (K&D 3). In 1519, an entry reports new plays, in the plural, appearing on the scene.
ST. DISTAFF'S DAY
Nobility and even royalty sometimes attended the plays, sometimes with special extra showings added just for them.
Coventry, which at the close of the fourteenth century used to be the second or third most populous city in London overall, had by 1520 “shrunk severely both demographically and economically” (K&D 3). “In the 1530s, no more than ten pageants seem to have been included at Coventry in contrast to the forty-seven in York’s surviving text from the 1460s” (K&D 3). “Coventry was a single-product economy, the hub of a rural network, based on the manufacture of textiles… from an economic standpoint, therefore, the city was much more vulnerable than York with its greater diversity of guilds” (K&D 5); supplies of woad, a key dyeing supply for the big seller “Coventry blue,” collapsed during the fifteenth century (K&D 6).
(Gibson ToD 42-43)
WHERE ARE THE MEN?
1485
King Richard III sees the Coventry Corpus Christi plays in late May or early June; in August, he is killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, and his forces defeated, by Henry Tudor. Soon after, Henry Tudor, descended from a legitimate-ish line, is crowned King Henry VII; as his Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry appoints John Morton. Henry sees the Coventry plays in 1493.
1534
Robert Croo finishes inscribing the “nevly correcte” revisions of the Coventry Weavers’ Play and the Shearmen and Tailors’ play. The latter manuscript has since been lost; only a late transcript now survives.
WHERE ARE THESE YOUNG WOMEN COMING FROM?
"Her virgines, as many as a man wylle"
"Ther be but women"
use of platea: 232+SD/280+SD
note that the soldiers and
Holy Family are there at the same time
Coventry
Hock Tuesday Plays
REED gives us a sense of how broad, frequent, and varied live drama and performance were in any given county, beyond those plays for which playscripts survive. The records that survive are still very incomplete, and so they hint at the vastness of how much has been lost.
(second Tuesday after Easter)
Watkyn
St. Katherine play, Little Park, 1490 or 1491
St. Christian play, Little Park, 1505
"A Tragedy," 1600, presented by the grammar school to the Mayor
How are these wives characterized?
See the grammar of lines 297-300...
Candlemes Day and the
In 1600, Lord Chandos' touring company imprisoned for playing the "Angel" in defiance of the mayor
1563-1590: "Mr Smith's Players of Coventry," aka "The Players of Coventry," tour Abingdon, Bristol, Leicester, Nottingham, and Coventry
DIGBY KILLING OF THE CHILDREN
...and many more
of Israelle
"Give us a dance!"
comparatively low budget:
the spectacle here is community
(including girls and women)
COVENTRY
"A procession round about the temple [with tapers]"
?
(this is all paraphrased from Scoville's introduction)
Legenda Aurea
Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anoints Jesus' feet at the house of Simon the Leper (John 11, Luke 10: 38-42, John 12, Matthew 26). In Luke 7, an unnamed sinful woman washes and anoints Jesus' feet at the house of Simon the Pharisee.
Mary Magdalene, with Mary Salome and Mary Jacobi, stands by the Cross with Jesus' mother Mary (John 19:25); Jesus had previously cast out seven devils from her (Mark 16:9)
Mary of Egypt, a 4th/5th century saint whose story spread throughout the medieval world: Mary supposedly lived as a hermit in the desert after having converted and given up a life of sexual freedom and abandon
DIGBY MARY MAGDALENE
Most editors of medieval English drama simply gloss the name Mahound as the name of the prophet and founder of Islam, ostensibly to call out (and guard against) Islamophobia and xenophobia.
< Roman pagans
< St Vincent lived in Spain, centuries before Islam
< a god attributed to "Saracens" (Arabs)
< representing non-Jewish religion in a David and Goliath story (pre-Christian, pre-Islam)
Mahound
< a god attributed to "Saracens" (Arabs), but pre-Islam
Composed c. 1500?
< medieval drama: depicts the torturers of Jesus (pre-Islam) as vaguely Roman and Jewish
< medieval drama: an English personification of bad study habits
But none of the characters in medieval English drama that swear by or pray to Mahound are Muslim. The name is certainly derived from the prophet's, but I argue that most editors, and the OED revisers (2000 revision), with the best of intentions, are here committing an etymological fallacy (akin to calling all punk music fundamentally homophobic), alienating present-day Muslim readers by framing a series of texts as Islamophobic -- when they seem to be barely aware of Islam at all. But mine is the minority opinion on this issue, so I invite you to evaluate the texts in a way that makes sense to you -- or research further.
a huge, sprawling, vibrant hot mess
of a play
Being able to critique editors by close reading the text they edit will make a huge difference as you read the Digby Mary Magdalene's "heathen" religion scene, which takes place in Southern France during what seems to be the life of Jesus (centuries before 570-632). Is this supposed to represent what the editor assumes it does?
Christ’s College Accounts (see REED: Cambridge):
Item allowed to sir Stephenson at his play setting furth vt pateo per billam… xxiij d (1550-1)
Item spente vpon ye yonge men yat toke pains in sir stephenson play… xijd
Item for candells spente at ye same and for nayles… xd
Item to ye carpenter for removing ye tables in ye haul & setting yem vp ageine with ye houses & other thinges paid… xij d (1551-2)
Cambridge was at the center of things,
dialect-wise.
It was also, of course, a
university.
1525
Myles Blomefylde
born
The town/gown divide
manifested a cultural
divide between the
educated and the more
rural locals.
NORTHAMPTON
BURY ST
EDMUNDS
(This is the 1575 printing, the earliest we have. We also have a record of a license in the London Stationers' Company Register to print a play called Dyccon of Bedlam in 1562-63.)
1511-45
College plays become commonplace at Cambridge University, including Christ's College (how common were they earlier? what left its mark on the public record?)
1546-64
College drama at its height. A third of all known performances happen in this 18-year period. The vast majority of performances are in Latin. These plays are known and discussed across England; high-ranking ambassadors and even royalty are known to attend.
SOMEWHERE IN EAST ANGLIA
COVENTRY
Home of one of the most important monasteries in England, Bury St Edmunds Abbey, which was a major cultural centre for medieval England (and produced 1420s dramatist John Lydgate). Well, it was until 1539, when it was dissolved by Henry VIII (the Dissolution of the Monasteries).
1562-3
A license in the London Stationers' Company Register (to whom?) to print a play called Dyccon of Bedlam.
1565-
Puritanism spreads; Christ’s College, now a puritan stronghold, ends its drama entirely after this year. (Or at least the drama visible in the public record).
CAMBRIDGE
CAMBRIDGE
CHELMSFORD
OXFORD
1562(?)
From the mid 1560s until his death in 1603, Miles Blomefylde keeps the Digby MS here, where he becomes a churchwarden who practices alchemy and white magic
as well as medicine (CCMET).
1562(?)
A large-scale drama festival happens in Chelmsford, Essex; soon afterward, Miles Blomefylde is also living in Chelmsford, with the Digby Manuscript in his library there.
BOSWORTH FIELD
SWANSEA
LONDON
From A Hundred Mery Tales (anonymous, printed by John Rastell, in London, 1526):
In 1476, the advent of print in English literature introduces for the first time fast, cheap, nearly identical copies of texts. As a result, the immediately subsequent decades witness the first emergence in English of standardized spelling and grammar (including silent letters), an increasingly easy-to-read layout (even in handwritten texts) aimed at increasingly solitary reading (as opposed to reading aloud to others), and a singular, dominant dialect and style centered on London.
KEY TERMS:
manuscript (a handwritten copy of a text)
composition date (the first formation of a text as we know it)
extant (the copy that survives) exemplar (the text a copy was made from)
inscription date (when the earliest extant copy was written down)
BRISTOL
SHOREDITCH
1567
A summary prepared in Hilary term 1569 of a lawsuit filed the autumn before provides details of the construction of the Red Lion Theatre. John Brayne, grocer and citizen, has sued John Reynolds, carpenter, over a bond of 20 marks for the building of the stage and tower at the Red Lion, which Reynolds has refused to pay. Brayne claims that Reynolds has not fulfilled the obligations of their contract; Reynolds counters that he has, but has been impeded by Brayne. He is willing to offer proof of his work to date. The court resolves to bring in a jury on the case before the Queen at Westminster. Specific details of the planned construction of the stage include that the single scaffold or stage must be of well-seasoned timber, it must be five feet above the ground and measure forty feet north and south by thirty feet east and west. A 'certayne space or voyde parte of the same stage [must be] left unborded.' Also called for is a turret over the stage measuring thirty feet high from the ground with 'a convenyent flower [floor] or Tymber and boords within the same turrett seaven foote under the toppe of the same turrett.' The turret must be well-braced as well. (EMLoT)
RED LION (1564)
"Edward IV had begun the process of restoring effective government, and Henry VII made it the centrepiece of his reign. The aristocracy was persuaded to renounce adventures in civil war in favour of their traditional place in society as the party of law and order. Monarchy, convinced of the political utility of living of its own, attended to the state of royal finances and made available the resources necessary to govern. Regionalism slowly began to respond to if not to yield to central authority. The nobility, so often involved in factional opposition to one king or another, were encouraged, while playing their traditional roles, to stay out of dangerous plots and schemes. The crown developed new jobs for them, and patronage offered opportunities for advancement [and lucrative rewards] with minimal risk. Thus the central authority increased its influence over the nobility by creating a partnership that benefited all and reduced the perceived need for conflict. Official, centralized authority combined with tight local control over peasants by men who possessed land... All men of wealth, fearing unrest and upheaval from below, saw a clear mutual interest with the king in controlling the peasantry. A strong king brought to this partnership effective government and the power wrought by the symbolic imagery of a divinely appointed monarchy... Henry VII left his son 'a safe throne, a full treasury, a functioning machinery of government, and a reasonably ordered and prosperous country.'" (J.S. Block, "The Rise of the Tudor State")
ST ANDREW'S HOLBORN
c. 1528(?)-47
Redford's Wit and Science
(fragmentary quarto manuscript)
ST PAUL'S
London performance, before the 1530s
c. 1490-1500
Composition/performance of Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres (published c. 1512).
ST. PAUL'S
CATHEDRAL
From REED: Ecclesiastical London
The survival of Redford’s play Wit and Science [in manuscript!] has generally been taken to imply its performance by the chapel boys [of St Paul’s].
The play is undated, but its composition has to fall sometime within Redford’s tenure as choirmaster. “The circumstances of the play’s performance, however, are unknown — though its epilogue shows it was acted before a king, queen, and court.”
Interludes like this one (and like Fulgens) were often performed at court or at the great houses of great men; we have records of other interlude performances (including ones using boy performers) at Henry’s court.
BLACKFRIARS
"From 1221 to 1538 the Blackfriars [i.e., of the Dominican Order] Monastery was located on the riverside. It was a wealthy and influential institution, and its halls were often used for government council meetings..." (EB)
"The estates of the priory were split up in 1538 at the suppression of the English monasteries under Henry VIII, and in 1576, under Elizabeth I, Richard Farrant, Master of the Children of the Chapel, leased part of the buildings along the western side of the priory cloisters so that the children could present their plays in this 'private' theatre before performing them at court. Other children’s companies also acted there until 1584, when the buildings reverted to their owner.
"In 1596 another part of the old monastery was bought by James Burbage (the father of actor Richard Burbage), who converted it into a theatre... He inherited the second Blackfriars Theatre in 1597, and in 1608 he formed a company of “owners” (called housekeepers) along the lines of that operating at the Globe Theatre. His company of players (by now called the King’s Men) played at the Blackfriars during the winter seasons. Shakespeare’s later plays were performed there..." (EB)
THAMES ESTUARY
1476
William Caxton starts up England's first printing press, in London.
Marlowe's work featured here. Faustus first performed 1589 (?), probably at the Rose.
1485
King Richard III is killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, and his forces defeated, by Henry Tudor. Soon after, Henry Tudor, descended from a legitimate-ish line, is crowned King Henry VII; as his Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry appoints John Morton.
MIDSUMMER:
c. 1595 First composed for performance
1600 First Quarto
1619 Second Quarto
1623 First Folio
DOCTOR FAUSTUS:
1604 A-text published
1616 B-text, with major additions (Henslowe's diary reports, in 1602, payments to Bird and Rowley for 'additions' to the play)
Let's watch this annoying but helpful video from 00:53 to 06:33, then explore E-REED.
ROSE THEATRE (1587)
SWAN THEATRE (1595)
(founded and run by Philip Henslowe)
GLOBE THEATRE (1599)
If time allows, let's explore the fascinating Appendix 3. You can find Faustus and... biblical plays?!
1490
A twelve-year-old Thomas More begins his career at court, entering Morton’s service as a household page for two years.
1491
Prince Henry Tudor is born: the third child of Henry VII (after Prince Arthur, who dies at 16 with no issue, despite his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, and Princess Margaret Tudor, who marries King James IV of Scotland in 1503)
SOUTHWARK
1493
Morton is made a cardinal (second-highest rank to Pope; their number is fixed at 70 in 1586).
1500
Morton dies. Henry Medwall has been rising in the ranks of Morton's legal staff; he is by now a key member.
1509
Henry VII dies. His son is crowned Henry VIII; he marries Arthur's widow, Katherine of Aragon. Coventry coroner John Rastell, More's brother-in-law, relocates to London, working as a printer/publisher (and lawyer).
Here is a gentleman (line 628)
I trow your dishes be not bare
(See lines 1411ff for more)
"the hollow ash"
ASK ME about
my theory on
why Fulgens
never re-enters!
"What mean ye, sirs, to stand so still? / Have ye not eaten -- and your fill! -- and paid nothing therefore?" (lines 2-4).
Here ye stand musing...
1514-15
Thomas Wolsey made Archbishop of York, then Cardinal, and appointed Lord Chancellor of England. Among other centralizing reforms, Wolsey initiates the first significant reassessment of tax rates since 1334. Before Wolsey, the crown raised about £30K in taxes per year. In 1514, it raised £100K.
At some point during Medwall’s service under Morton (and perhaps during the young More’s?), Medwall composed Fulgens and Lucres. The play is clearly meant to be performed at a great hall; the top contender would be Morton’s grand house at Lambeth Palace, just south of London. (Think, for a playfully conjectural moment, about which young joker might have been recruited to play “B”).
LAMBETH PALACE
1516
Henry and Katherine have their first child: Mary. But no boys. To pray for an heir, Henry makes several pilgrimages to Our Lady of Walsingham, a statue of the Virgin Mary in East Anglia, once walking there two miles barefoot; he makes multiple donations to the priory there. Also in this year, Thomas More publishes his Utopia, marking the beginning of his illustrious career as a famous humanist author and, soon after, a rising star among the king's council.
DEPTFORD
1517
Martin Luther publishes the 95 Theses at Wittenburg, Germany, initiating the Protestant Reformation there. More, who has just published Utopia (1516) and has a bright political-public career ahead of him (1521-32), strongly opposes Luther, English Reformer William Tyndale, and the developing Reformation.
1580
Sir Nicholas Woodrofe, Lord Mayor of London, writes to Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer concerning the spread of infection in and around the city. He complains particularly of the proliferation of playhouses, which promote the spread of plague, draw people away from the service of God, and attract unmanageable multitudes to London. Accompanying the letter is a list of draft regulations, itemizing particular sources of danger, and including an injunction against the 'haunting of playes.' (EMLoT)
ereed.library.utoronto.ca
1579
Stephen Gosson in his anti-theatrical tract 'The School of Abuse' notes that players flout the sumptuary laws regulating the clothing different sorts of people are allowed to wear: 'the very hyerlings of some of our Players, which stand at reuersion of vi.s [six shillings], by the weeke, iet vnder Gentlemen's noses in sutes of silke[.]'
Gosson notes that a very few players and plays may be absolved of his general charges against playhouses, but he identifies three theatres, the Bel Savage, the Bull, and the Theatre, which offer approved plays. The Bull offers two plays, 'The Jew' and 'Ptolemy', which offer sound moral precepts and neither wound the eye 'w[i]t[h] amorous gesture,' nor hurt chaste ears 'with slouenly talke.' At the Bel Savage, the spectator may see performed two prose books (as opposed to verse drama) 'where you shall finde neuer a woorde, without witte, neuer a line without pith, neuer a letter place in vaine.' At the Theatre audiences will find moral instruction in the Turk play 'The Blacksmith's Daughter' and in Gosson's own 'Cataline's Conspiracies.' He explains the intended moral of his play. (EMLoT)
May 30, 1593
Ten days after his interrogation before the Privy Council, and three days before Baines's letter accusing him of blasphemy, atheism, and sodomy is delivered officially, Marlowe gets into a barroom fight here -- and is killed.
1584
In a letter describing many events over the past Whitsunweek to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, William Fleetwood, recorder of London, describes an attempt to suppress the Theatre and the Curtain on 14 June, 1584. On the advice of one of the Queen's players, Fleetwood ordered the owner of the Theatre (James Burbage) to be arrested, but he refused because he was 'my Lo of hunsdons man.' He did bind himself to appear at the sessions of oyer and terminer, 'where he said that he was sure the court would not bind him.' Fleetwood notes that Burbage is due to appear before the sessions tomorrow, and is convinced that Burbage will be bound, or worse. Fleetwood writes that 'very nere the Theatre or Curten at the tyme of the Playes' a gentleman, Challes, disturbed an apprentice sleeping the field and they soon fell to blows. The altercation escalated so that many apprentices threatened to riot the next day, and many were arrested. Fleetwood also describes an altercation at the Theatre door between a serving man named Browne and 'certain poor boys, handicraft apprentices'. A crowd of 1,050 gathered to witness the quarrel. Browne, the aggressor, attempted to escape, but was 'taken after'. (EMLoT)
1527
Still no boys. Henry asks the Pope to annul (dissolve) his marriage to Katherine. The Pope refuses.
Wait, what?
No...
c. 1528(?)-47
Inscription of the fragmentary quarto manuscript of Redford’s Play of Wit and Science.
September 1533
Henry has a new daughter, Elizabeth Tudor, with Anne Boleyn.
ELIZABETHAN TROUPES
1534
Under Henry VIII, Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy (the monarch is head of the English Church), the Treason Act (openly rejecting the Act of Supremacy is treason, punishable by death), the Act of Submission of the Clergy (clergy are answerable to the monarch),the Act of Succession (Mary Tudor is a bastard; Elizabeth is the heir). More, against supremacy and annulment, is imprisoned (and executed in 1535: "I die the King's good servant, but God's first").
1577
Thomas White's sermon, preached at Paul's Cross on 3 November: "Look but upon the common plays of London, and see the multitude that flocketh to them and followeth them! Behold the sumptuous theater houses, a continual monument of London prodigality and folly! But I understand they are now forbidden because of the plague. I like the policy well if it hold still, for a disease is but botched patched up that is not cured in the cause, and the cause of plagues is sin, if you look to it well, and the cause of sin are plays. Therefore the cause of plagues are plays." (EMLoT)
"Queen Elizabeth I ordered sentences of
scripture painted over the censored 'pictures
and other like facies' in English parish churches."
-- Gibson, ToD
The fervent worship of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus "that we associate today with Italy or Spain... was in the Middle Ages of English renown. It was not Italy or Spain but medieval England that was known by the popular epithet "the dower of the Virgin," England whose intensity of Marian devotion would be eradicated finally, not by the fanatical zeal of Puritan iconoclasm (although every medieval English church bears terrible, mute witness of it), but by a shrewdly calculated transference of the cult of the Virgin to the political cult of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth in the Renaissance." (Gibson ToD 138)
1536
Anne Boleyn executed. Elizabeth illegitimated. Henry marries Jane Seymour. The Act of Suppression initiates the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
iconoclasm
1537
Jane gives birth to a son, Edward Tudor, then dies.
1567
The first English theatre opens (the Red Lion in Shoreditch)
1544
Third Act of Succession: if Edward has no heirs, then crown goes to Mary (and her heirs), then Elizabeth (and hers).
1540
In the year following the Second Suppression Act of 1539, the Dissolution of the Monasteries is essentially completed: English abbeys, monasteries, and other religious houses, once major centres of literature and culture, are disbanded (some dismantled and destroyed, along with their vast libraries), and their holdings given to Tudor allies, or sold. Also in this year, Henry marries Anne of Cleves, based initially on a long-distance courtship using Hans Holbein’s portrait of Anne. The marriage is disappointing in person. Annulling that marriage, Henry marries Katherine Howard. (That marriage lasts about a year; in 1542 Katherine is executed for treason – i.e. adultery -- and Henry marries Katherine Parr.)
1547
Henry VIII dies. His only living legitimate son, Edward VI, is crowned at age nine.
1570
Elizabeth I excommunicated by Pope Pius V, who says all good Catholics should support her overthrow. There are various subsequent plots to assassinate Elizabeth.
1562
A manuscript chronicle describes a 'mask' and procession through the streets of London, involving more than a hundred gorgeously dressed maskers, accompanied by torches, trumpets, drums and men at arms. The procession ended at court, where 'Julyus Sesar played'.. (EMLoT)
1553
Edward VI, who had never been in particularly good health, dies at age 15. Under the powerful influence of the Duke of Northumberland, Edward VI had named Lady Jane Grey, great-niece of Henry VIII (and daughter-in-law of Northumberland), as his heir. She reigns for nine days, but popular opinion is rallied instead behind Henry VIII’s eldest daughter, Mary. So, Mary I, first Queen Regnant of England, takes the throne. During this year and 1554, the First and Second Acts of Repeal reverse all anti-papal legislation since 1529.
1576
The Ecclesiastical Commission of the North officially prohibits any representation of God in any play (not written into the statutes, but enforced until 1951)
1557:
A warrant written by Queen Mary to her Master of Wardrobe Sir Edward Walgrave instructs him to deliver a specified list of clothing and materials to her Master of Revels Sir Thomas Cawarden so that he may furnish 'a notorious maske of Almaynes pilgrymes and Irishemen' to be presented at court next St. Mark's day (EMLoT).
1565
Paul's Boys and Westminster's Boys performed at court in January 1565. The record is a payment of £8 6s. 8p. for provisioning officers, tailors, and mercers for airing and repairing costumes and cloth for 'playes by the gramar skolle of westmynster and the childerne of powles.'. (EMLoT). (There are 2 more records of the Westminster Boys playing at court in 1567, 3 more in 1572, 2 in 1574, )
1584
"The national nightmare was the assassination of their sovereign queen. In 1584 hundreds of Protestants across the realm signed a Bond of Association, swearing to put to the death anyone seeking the queen's harm and to resist anyone benefiting from her death by way of succession. The Bond was supported in a parliamentary act of 1584-5 entitled 'for the Queen's safety...." (David Dean).
1555-8
John Rogers is burned for remaining Protestant in 1555. Bishops Latimer and Ridley burned soon after. Archbishop Cranmer burned in 1556. By 1558, 300 Protestants have been executed.
1587
The Rose Theatre is built.
1558
Mary dies of illness, leaving the crown to her half-sister, Henry VII’s next eldest daughter, Elizabeth I.
1559
Settlement of Religion: Acts of Repeal reversed.
1588
The defeat of the Spanish Armada establishes England, for the first time, as a naval superpower.
c. 1552-63:
"That were too sore. A spiritual man to be so extreme?"
1593
Act Against Popish Recusants (against Catholics); Act to Retain the Queen's Subjects in Obedience (against Puritans).
1603
After a powerful 45-year reign, during which she never married, Elizabeth I dies, bringing the 118-year Tudor dynasty to an end.
SEVERN ESTUARY
Before the 1530s:
"[T]he Rood of Grace from the Cisterican Abbey
of Boxley in Kent... had been designed by means
of 'certain engines and old wires' to nod its head,
move its eyes, and to shed tears in response to the prayers of penitents. This statue was enormously popular with pilgrims; in 1510, the crowd of eager pilgrims to Boxley Rood included young Henry VIII, who prayed and made an offering before the image" (Gibson 15).
LONDON
1564
Christopher Marlowe
born
BOXLEY
During the 1530s:
"Cromwell's commissioners... sought out, exhibited, and destroyed [the Boxley] Rood with special zeal... we must be wary of assuming along with the propagandists for the Reformation that the sole purpose of the Crucifix was to deceive the unwary pilgrim. It may well be wondered if the Boxley Rood... may not be better understood as the logical result of the Middle Ages' intense focus on the fleshly reality of the Incarnation, of that same nearly hallucinatory concreteness..." (Gibson, ToD)
CANTERBURY
Canterbury Cathedral was the site of the shrine of St Thomas Becket, famously a major site of pilgrimage (think Chaucer). Well, it was until 1538, when Henry VIII had the shrine -- and the bones within it -- destroyed. Canterbury saw many dramatic performances, too (see REED: Kent).
EXETER