Early Performers and Performance in the Northeast of England 9781641893442, 9781641893459

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EARLY SOCIAL PERFORMANCE Series Editors Andrew Kirkman, Uni­ver­sity of Birmingham Elisabeth L’Estrange, Uni­ver­sity of Birmingham Advisory Board

Alexandra Johnston, Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Véronique Plesch, Colby College Robert L. A. Clark, Kansas State Uni­ver­sity Jesse Hurlbut, Brigham Young Uni­ver­sity Magnus Williamson, Newcastle Uni­ver­sity Acquisitions Editor Pamela King

Further Information and Publications arc-humanities.org/our-series/arc/esp/

EARLY PERFORMERS AND PERFORMANCE IN THE NORTHEAST OF ENGLAND Edited by

DIANA WYATT and JOHN McKINNELL

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ISBN (print): 9781641893442 e-ISBN (PDF): 9781641893459

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Introduction JOHN McKINNELL and DIANA WYATT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Chapter 1. Comic Performance in the Tudor and Stuart Percy Households BOB ALEXANDER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 2. Wedding Revels at the Earl of Northumberland’s Household SUZANNE WESTFALL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Chapter 3. Weddings and Wives in some West Riding Performance Records SYLVIA THOMAS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Chapter 4. Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors DAVID KLAUSNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Chapter 5. Travelling Players in the East Riding of Yorkshire DIANA WYATT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Chapter 6. Northern Catholics, Equestrian Sports, and the Gunpowder Plot GAŠPER JAKOVAC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Chapter 7. Wool, Cloth, and Economic Movement: Journeying with the York and Towneley Shepherds JAMIE BECKETT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

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Chapter 8. Visiting Players in the Durham Records: An Exotic Monster, a French Magician, and Scottish Ministralli MARK CHAMBERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Chapter 9. Rural and Urban Folk Ceremonies in County Durham JOHN McKINNELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Chapter 10. Rush-bearings of Yorkshire West Riding C. E. McGEE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Chapter 11. Boy Bishops in Medi­eval Durham JOHN McKINNELL and MARK CHAMBERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Chapter 12. Regional Performance as Intangible Cultural Heritage BARBARA RAVELHOFER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Biblio­graphy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figures Figure 1: The First Northumberland Household Book: “A bill of clothes bought for Thomas Wiggen the ffoole september 29 1609.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Figure 2: The Carlisle Bells: Prizes for Horse Racing since 1599 or earlier. . . . . . . . . . . 70 Figure 3: Record of “A certaine Italian” bringing “A very greate, strange & monstrous serpent” into Durham. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Figure 4: The Durham Song: the Robin Hood Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Figure 5: The Durham Song: the Young Maids’ Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Figure 6: “Unseemly Dancing.” Salomé is rewarded with the head of John the Baptist for dancing before Herod: Pickering Church, North Riding. . . . . . . 137 Figure 7: Aerial view of the peninsula of Durham. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Figure 8: Music for a Boy Bishop: Johannes decanus, “Mos florentis venustatis” and “Flos campi profert lilium,” from the Moosburg Gradual. . . . . . . . . 175–76 Figure 9: The tradition of Durham’s Boy Bishops as Celebrated on Palace Green in 2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Maps

Map 1:

Yorkshire, North Riding: Gentry Estates with Household Accounts. . . . . . . 44

Map 3:

Route of the Egton Players’ Tour in January 1614/15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Map 2:

Map 4: Map 5: Map 6:

Route of the Egton Players’ (Simpson’s Company’s) Tour during and after Christmas 1609–10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Route of the Hutton Buscel Players’ (Hudson’s Company’s) Tour, December to February 1615–16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Durham Cathedral Priory: Prior’s Manors in the County Palatine, 1277–ca. 1405. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Rush-Bearings in Yorkshire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Any volume like the present one relies on information gathered from many other scholars who have each studied large numbers of documents, of which only a minority have usually yielded positive results. We would like to begin by acknowledging our debt to those who have found or helped us to interpret many of the records referred to in this book: Prof. Tom Craik†, Dr. Ian Doyle†, Prof. Claire Lees and Dr. Anna Spackman (all for County Durham); Dr. Barbara Palmer† and Dr. John Wasson† (both for the West Riding of Yorkshire); Dr. Jim Gibson† (for the Percy papers); and, of course, also the many earlier scholars whose discoveries were already known when we began our work. We would also like to thank the staff of all the collections of archives who have given us access and allowed us to quote from their manu­scripts and documents: these include the Duke of Northumberland’s Archives at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland and the archives of Petworth House in the care of West Sussex Record Office (including permissions by the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Egremont and with special thanks to the Duke’s Archivist, Mr. Christopher Hunwick, for assistance in retrieving and describing Alnwick documents); the College of Arms; Drapers’ Hall; the East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Local Studies in Beverley; the British Library; the Bodleian Library (Uni­ver­sity of Oxford); the Devonshire collections at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire; the Doncaster Archives; Durham County Record Office; Durham Uni­ver­ sity Library (and especially Michael Stansfield and Andrew Gray); the Cecil Papers at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire; the National Archives at Kew; Lambeth Palace Library; the Uni­ver­sity of Leeds Special Collections; Northumberland County Record Office in Newcastle upon Tyne; North Yorkshire County Record Office in Northallerton; Inspire Nottinghamshire Archives; Sheffield Archives; the West Yorkshire Archive Service in Bradford; the Yorkshire Archaeo­logical and Historical Society; the Yorkshire Archive Service; the Dean and Chapter Library in York Minster; and the Borthwick Institute for Archives, Uni­ver­sity of York. All the contributors to this volume are members of the research project Records of Early English Drama North-East (part of the Toronto-centred Records of Early English Drama, regularly abbreviated hereafter to REED). REED N-E is based in the Department of English Studies and the Institute of Medi­eval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS), Durham Uni­ver­sity. Collaborative research projects like Records of Early English Drama North-East, whose members produced the studies in this book, need generous financial support, and during the years 2013–2018 our main source of funding was a major grant from the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council, as we explain in our Intro-

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duction; we are most grateful for their help and encouragement. We would also like to express our gratitude to a number of other bodies who have helped us, either by funding research visits to archive collections or by supporting the practical productions of early drama which were an essential part of our 2016 conference and festival. These included the American Philosophical Society (Franklin Research Grant); Arts Council England; Durham Uni­ver­sity Impact and International Engagement Funds; the Father Jackman Trust, Toronto; the Malone Society; the Marc Fitch Fund; the National Endowment for the Humanities (US); Point Park Uni­ver­sity; the Scouloudi Foundation; the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Records of Early English Drama, Uni­ ver­sity of Toronto; and the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Connaught New Researcher Awards. We would like to thank all of them for their support and for showing faith in our project. Lastly but certainly not least, we would like to thank those who made the illustrations in this book possible. The four maps in David Klausner’s chapter and the one in C. E. McGee’s were drawn by Byron Moldofsky, GIS and Carto­graphic Consulting; the picture of the Carlisle bells, which are discussed in the chapter by Gašper Jakovac, is reproduced by permission of the Tullie House Museum in Carlisle; Durham County Record Office have given us permission to use the image of the parish register of St. Nicholas’s Church, Durham for 1569, which is discussed by Mark Chambers in his consideration of dragon figures; we would also like to thank the vicar and past and present churchwardens of St. Nicholas’s Church, Durham. Angie Robley has kindly transcribed the Robin Hood and Young Maids sections of the Durham Song into modern musical notation for John McKinnell’s chapter, and the map of Durham Priory manors used in the same chapter is reproduced by permission of the Surtees Society from Richard Britnell, Durham Priory Manorial Accounts 1277–1310 (Surtees Society, vol. 218). Mark Chambers’s photo­graph of the wall painting in Pickering Church of Salomé dancing before Herod is used by kind permission of the vicar, church wardens and parochial church council of Pickering. The image on our front cover, of the foolish virgins of Matthew ch. 25, is a detail of the Great Hall fireplace in Burton Agnes Hall, East Riding of Yorkshire, and is reproduced by kind permission of the owners.

INTRODUCTION JOHN McKINNELL and DIANA WYATT

Until about the middle of the twentieth century, early English drama was often labelled “pre-Shakespearean,”1 a designation which was unsatisfactory in a number of ways: First, it tended to define its material as secondary rather than worthy of study in its own right, and to assume a “prophetic” knowledge of what was to come which none of its performers or audiences could possibly have shared. As Peter Happé has memorably put it: “often they were so overpowered by Shakespeare, and indeed so ‘literary’, that they condemned the material before them even as they studied it.”2 Secondly, because purpose-built theatres evolved in Elizabethan London, the label “Pre-Shakespearean” imposed a highly centralized view of early performance, dominated by what was happening in the capital and at court, with little analysis of performance elsewhere. Admittedly, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the mystery cycles which were performed in provincial cities such as York and Chester, but recognition of these was often tinged with the patronising assumption that they were the naive work of uneducated tradesmen.3 Similarly, the gradual discovery of the effectiveness of some morality plays in performance, which began in the 1930s,4 was too often ignored by scholars who condemned all plays of this genre as irredeemably boring without ever having seen them performed. Even more seriously, it assumed a view of what drama is which required any performance to have a fictional or historical plot, appropriate scenery and props, impersonated characters wearing costumes suitable to their roles, and a firm separation between performers and audience. This encouraged an anachronistic view of drama as the product of a largely middle-class culture, and excluded many types of performance which were significant in the culture of the time, including liturgy, public ceremonies and 1  See, for instance, Adams, Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas.

2  Happé, “A Guide to Criticism of Medi­eval English Theatre,” 326. Even the most learned and perceptive critics of the period provide examples of this, e.g., “Any attention we can give to the material that lay behind Shakespeare—and often enough we shall be dealing with somewhat primitive material—will make us more fully alive to the uniqueness of Shakespeare’s own achievement.” (Clemen, English Tragedy before Shakespeare, 18).

3  See, for instance, Wilson, The English Drama 1485–1585, 3: “yet though sometimes pedantic, sometimes dull and crude, they often interpret the drama of the Christian religion with a moving simplicity which has triumphed over all the mutations of taste and belief.”

4  Notable examples are Neville Coghill’s production of Everyman in Oxford in 1934 and at Tewkesbury Abbey in 1935, and Cecil Quentin’s production of The Castle of Perseverance in Oxford and at Windsor Castle in 1938; further, see Wickham, The Medi­eval Theatre, 234–38 at 235.

INTRODUCTION JOHN McKINNELL and DIANA WYATT

Until about the middle of the twentieth century, early English drama was often labelled “pre-Shakespearean,”1 a designation which was unsatisfactory in a number of ways: First, it tended to define its material as secondary rather than worthy of study in its own right, and to assume a “prophetic” knowledge of what was to come which none of its performers or audiences could possibly have shared. As Peter Happé has memorably put it: “often they were so overpowered by Shakespeare, and indeed so ‘literary’, that they condemned the material before them even as they studied it.”2 Secondly, because purpose-built theatres evolved in Elizabethan London, the label “Pre-Shakespearean” imposed a highly centralized view of early performance, dominated by what was happening in the capital and at court, with little analysis of performance elsewhere. Admittedly, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the mystery cycles which were performed in provincial cities such as York and Chester, but recognition of these was often tinged with the patronising assumption that they were the naive work of uneducated tradesmen.3 Similarly, the gradual discovery of the effectiveness of some morality plays in performance, which began in the 1930s,4 was too often ignored by scholars who condemned all plays of this genre as irredeemably boring without ever having seen them performed. Even more seriously, it assumed a view of what drama is which required any performance to have a fictional or historical plot, appropriate scenery and props, impersonated characters wearing costumes suitable to their roles, and a firm separation between performers and audience. This encouraged an anachronistic view of drama as the product of a largely middle-class culture, and excluded many types of performance which were significant in the culture of the time, including liturgy, public ceremonies and 1  See, for instance, Adams, Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas.

2  Happé, “A Guide to Criticism of Medi­eval English Theatre,” 326. Even the most learned and perceptive critics of the period provide examples of this, e.g., “Any attention we can give to the material that lay behind Shakespeare—and often enough we shall be dealing with somewhat primitive material—will make us more fully alive to the uniqueness of Shakespeare’s own achievement.” (Clemen, English Tragedy before Shakespeare, 18).

3  See, for instance, Wilson, The English Drama 1485–1585, 3: “yet though sometimes pedantic, sometimes dull and crude, they often interpret the drama of the Christian religion with a moving simplicity which has triumphed over all the mutations of taste and belief.”

4  Notable examples are Neville Coghill’s production of Everyman in Oxford in 1934 and at Tewkesbury Abbey in 1935, and Cecil Quentin’s production of The Castle of Perseverance in Oxford and at Windsor Castle in 1938; further, see Wickham, The Medi­eval Theatre, 234–38 at 235.

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processions, performances at weddings and on other celebratory occasions, dramatic and musical performances by resident fools and travelling ministralli, sporting contests, and activities that would nowadays be regarded as circus acts, such as performances by tightrope walkers and those who trained animals. Contemporary records often make no distinction between these different types of performer, and a narrow definition of what we would now regard as “the theatre” fails to understand the large extent to which they flowed into each other. These attitudes gradually came to seem quaintly outdated, and some critics began to protest against them, though not altogether consistently.5 Writers about early drama began to look for literary and liturgical sources, but were still often inclined to express value judgments based on reading in the study more than on productions that the writer had seen or on historical records.6 The lack of modern experience of productions could only be solved by time,7 and much practical experience of what “works” has been gained from reconstructive productions over the last fifty years or so.8 But most of the documents in which historical records of performance might be found remained unstudied, so that ideas about who the performers were and the conditions in which they worked were often based on mere supposition. To remedy this problem, the Toronto-based project Records of Early English Drama (REED) set out to discover and publish all the surviving evidence for performance in Britain up to the government’s closure of the London theatres in 1642, city by city and county by county, beginning with York and Chester in 1979. Thanks to the dedicated work of a large number of researchers, the project had by 2010 published collections of records from two nations (Wales and the Isle of Man), eight provincial cities (Bristol, Cambridge, Chester, Coventry, Newcastle, Norwich [but only from 1540 onwards], Oxford and York), two categories of London records (Ecclesiastical and Inns of Court), and thirteen English counties (Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Sussex, Westmorland, and Worcestershire).9 5  See, for instance, Hardin Craig’s English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages, 10–11: “Let us get rid of the idea that the Corpus Christi cycles were written, managed, and acted by ignorant peasants and townspeople of low class”; but also p. 9: “when one considers how these plays passed into the hands of very simple medi­eval people—authors, players, managers, and all—one can see that their technique was inevitably naï�ve and firmly conventional.”

6  Thus Woolf, The English Mystery Plays, often states a preference for one cycle’s treatment of an episode over another’s on literary or philosophical grounds, as when she condemns the Chester Fall of the Angels as “much the least convincing, since he inevitably raises in his diffuse play a moral and psycho­logical problem that it was well beyond his capacity and intention to answer” (Woolf 107).

7  Even Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi, who is well aware of the need to see the mystery plays as “scores for speech and action,” lists only four productions which he has had the chance to see (Kolve 7).

8  For an annotated list of productions of medi­eval drama between 1901 and 1977, see Wickham, The Medi­eval Theatre, 234–38; for a critical discussion of productions up to 2004, see John McKinnell, “Modern Productions of Medi­eval English Drama.” 9  See the REED website https://reed.utoronto.ca/. Since 2010 four more collections have been



Introduction

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These volumes provided scholars with a rich variety of newly discovered records from all over England, Wales and the Isle of Man, but still left some large English regions, notably the North East and East Anglia, unrepresented except for collections from the cities of York, Newcastle, and Norwich, whose civic nature was likely to make them untypical of their regions as a whole. As the northeast was large, diverse, and far from the capital it always seemed likely that its traditions of performance would show many differences from those of London and the court, and that any balanced view of medi­eval and early modern performance in England as a whole would have to take account of them. To deal with this problem, an international group of REED scholars coordinated by Durham Uni­ver­sity’s Department of English Studies and Institute of Medi­eval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS) made a successful funding bid to the British Arts and Humanities Research Council to make it possible to compile and publish six collections of records, from Durham, Northumberland, the former East, North, and West Ridings of Yorkshire, and the Percy family papers. The AHRC funding, which ran from October 2013 to September 2018, also facilitated the organization of an international conference and festival of early drama, with an exhibition in Durham Cathedral (2016), the funding of two PhD students, the sharing and discussion of new discoveries at a succession of summer meetings, and the compilation of a volume of academic studies based on these discussions. Our brief from the AHRC also encouraged consideration of the possible significance of our material, both for the academic understanding of the period in which the records were written and for their continuing cultural relevance in our own time. This book is that collection of studies. Because the boundaries between types of performance are so fluid, we deliberately take the word “performance” in the broadest sense, to include not only drama and music but also any other kind of meaningful public ceremonial activity, including processions like those of the Young Maids in Durham and the rush bearings of West Yorkshire, symbolic assertions of social status such as contests in horsemanship and Lord Neville’s stag ceremony, and even examples of conspicuous “performance of the self” like John Taylor’s advertisement of his wherry voyage from London to York via Hull.10 Many of the types of performance that were popular in the North East during the late medi­eval and early modern periods were commissioned or encouraged by noble families. Our first two chapters consider aspects of performance that are illustrated by documents from the households of the Percy family, earls of Northumberland. Bob Alexander considers the range of comic performers who visited or were employed by the family in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Some were visiting entertainers who were paid for single performances, and although they are often named as and/or said to be the servants of other noblemen, the records usually give little information about what they performed, although they clearly varied considerably in social published (Civic London to 1558 in hard copy, Staffordshire, Berkshire, and Hampshire in a new online format), and many more are in preparation, including two of records from Scotland.

10  See the chapters in this volume by John McKinnell (the stag ceremony and the young maids), C. E. McGee (rush-bearings), Gašper Jakovac (contests in horsemanship) and Diana Wyatt (Taylor’s wherry voyage).

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status, from John Garrett, “the Prince’s fool,” who was rewarded by the thirteenth earl in January 1604–5, to the anonymous “tomfoole” and the blind harper who entertained him when he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, accused of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. Variety in the status of performers had existed for centuries,11 but the Percy papers can tell us more about the performances and careers of some of those who were retained by the family on a more permanent basis. These included the fool Thomas Wiggan, who accompanied George Percy, the younger brother of the thirteenth earl, on his visit to the colony in Virginia. Even more interesting are payments to “Iacomo the Italyan,” a solo performer, possibly in the tradition of Commedia dell’Arte, who presented comedies in which he seems to have played every role himself. Suzanne Westfall’s chapter studies another of the Percy papers, the Second Northumberland Household Book (now Oxford Bodleian MS Eng. hist. b. 208), a collection of ordinances which specify in great detail the rules for ceremonial activities in the various households of Henry Algernon Percy, fifth Earl of Northumberland. Usually dated to some time in the first two decades of the sixteenth century, it includes instructions to household servants for procedures at religious and secular celebrations and at the family’s very public observation of supposedly “domestic” occasions such as weddings, christenings and funerals. The focus in this chapter is on the ceremonial prescribed for noble weddings (articles 10–12 of the book), which may have been derived from the wedding of the fifth earl’s sister Eleanor to Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham in 1480. Here it is difficult to draw any clear distinction between customary ceremonial and dramatic performance, since the instructions governing the wedding involve assertion of a hierarchical order in which everyone present was expected to perform a prescribed role, usually one quite different from their duties in everyday life. The revels therefore become a form of theatre, with specific sets, hierarchical characters, precise blocking, linear structure, and costumes appropriate to the literal and/or symbolic roles played by each participant. Even the chapel is transformed into a “set” of shining white linen, colourful tapestries and carpets, and glowing silver and gold, in which there are roles for a dean, subdean, gospeller, Lady Mass priest, master of grammar, riding chaplain, almoner, six additional chaplains, a choirmaster, a “pistoler” (who presumably read the Epistle), and an organist, with Percy’s chapel choir of at least twenty-eight singers performing elaborate polyphonic music. The bride’s procession to the chapel is then described in minute detail, with many variations according to the social status of her family, and the rules for the wedding mass and supper are carefully specified, after which there is an afternoon of dancing to music provided by the earl’s minstrels and an evening of entertainment performed by disguisers and players. Such disguisings often included mock intrusions by supposedly exotic masked foreigners who were actu11  For example, payments to entertainers in the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Durham Cathedral Priory bursars’ accounts range from Robert Pelidod, who had been the fool of King Edward II (bursar’s accounts 1333–34 and 1341–42), to performers with the stage-names “Modyr Naked” and “Jestour Jawdewyne” (bursar’s accounts 1433–34 and 1362–63); they also include several blind harpers and “Thomas stultus,” the prior’s fool, whose funeral was paid for by the priory (bursar’s accounts and brior’s expenses 1356–57).



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ally members of the earl’s family and friends, but the plays were probably presented by four semi-professional actors, permanent members of his household, who certainly performed as part of his Twelfth Night celebrations. A traditional “modern” view of drama might exclude all of this except the plays acted by the earl’s players, but this would be to misunderstand the whole occasion, which was clearly designed as a dramatization of the splendour of the earl and his family. The chapter by Sylvia Thomas also looks at weddings, beginning with some of those which took place at court in the reign of James VI and I. The letters which preserve contemporary gossip surrounding these occasions often give the sort of information about the content of dramatic presentations which is lacking from the Second Northumberland Household Book. Many of these entertainments were hugely expensive masques, such as Thomas Campion’s The Lords’ Masque (performed at the wedding of the king’s daughter Elizabeth in February 1613 at a cost of £400); Campion’s The Somerset Masque, Ben Jonson’s A Challenge at Tilt and The Irish Masque (all performed at the Earl of Somerset’s wedding to Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk in December 1613 and January 1614); and the lost masque Juno and Hymenaeus (performed at the wedding of Sir Philip Herbert to Susan de Vere in December 1604). The wedding of Viscount Haddington to Lady Elizabeth Radclyffe in 1608 was accompanied by a masque performed by five English and seven Scottish lords, which was thought to have cost the participants £300 each. Weddings of the gentry and nobility in West Yorkshire, such as that of Elizabeth Nevile in January 1526 at Chevet Hall, near Wakefield, (described in the Nevile Memoranda Book12 and in John Croft’s Excerpta Antiqua) were less ostentatious, but still included a feast, masque, and dancing. Considerable sums might be spent on music; for example, the Clifford archives at Chatsworth contain accounts for music at Elizabeth Clifford’s wedding to Lord Dungarvan at Londesborough in July 1634 which include payments of six pounds to a group of French musicians and a singer, and of no less than fifteen pounds to the waits from Stamford, Lincolnshire for playing for nine weeks in connection with the wedding. Noble households might also pay for music at their servants’ weddings, as when the Saviles of Thornhill paid five shillings for music at the wedding of Gilbert and Ann Hodson, both members of their household, in June 1642. Entertainment at the weddings of untitled gentry was on a smaller scale, but still usually included payments to musicians, which might come from wedding guests as well as from the head of the household, and there is one payment for what look like masque costumes, when Sir Henry Slingsby of Moor Monkton pays for six suits of buckram “for an antike” at the marriage of his daughter Eleanor in January 1623. Music and dancing were not always approved of, however, especially when they became indications of domestic or public rebellion. Francis Stringer of Sharlston near Wakefield complains in his commonplace book for 1604 that his wife Dorothy has been keeping him awake all night by quarrelling and singing foolish songs such as Surrey’s pastoral “Phillida was a fair maid.” Dorothy Stringer’s unhappy marriage seems to have remained a private matter, but accusations of riotous dancing in public, espe12  Beverley, ERALS DDWS/8/1/1/1.

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cially against members of the clergy, could have legal consequences. When John Birkbie of Moor Monkton was accused at the Ripon Visitation of 1567, the charge against him included the wearing of ostentatious clothing and nocturnal dancing with “lewd women,” but this was probably because some puritan members of his congregation thought it immoral for a clergyman to dance at all. But when Tristram Tildsley of Rufforth was accused at the York diocesan court in 1581, the complaint against him alleged that when the dancing at a wedding had continued at a nearby ale house he had tried to kiss the innkeeper’s daughter (possibly as part of the dance?), and that this had caused an affray in which swords were drawn, so this may have been seen as a deliberate breach of normally acceptable behaviour. The next two papers analyse the evidence for companies of travelling players in the North Riding of Yorkshire (David Klausner) and the East Riding (Diana Wyatt); this is a logical progression, since such companies relied on noble patronage whether they were performing at weddings or for other special occasions. Patronage could consist either in the performers being identified as the servants of a nobleman (although they usually travelled without their patron), or in invitations from noble and gentry families to perform in their houses. Thus the Fairfax family at Gilling Castle were visited by the Earl of Worcester’s men in 1571 and by Lord Berkeley’s men in 1581; the Cholmeley family at Brandsby hosted Lord Wharton’s men in 1615 and 1617/18 and the King’s men in 1622; and the Bellasis family at Newburgh Priory were entertained by Lord Monteagle’s men in 1611 and the Queen’s men in 1615 and 1616. This sort of patronage, which protected the players against the possibility of arrest for vagrancy, was very old, though in earlier records it is often hard to tell what kind(s) of performer they were.13 It is not usually possible to identify the nature of individual performances, or even to say whether the performers were actors and/or musicians, but Richard Cholmeley’s notebook reveals that in January 1618 Lord Wharton’s men performed Gervase Markham and Lewis Machin’s play The Dumb Knight, which had been published in 1608. However, this play has thirty-eight speaking parts, little doubling is possible, and when Lord Wharton’s men played for the Cliffords at Londesborough in 1599 and 1600 they numbered only between eight and twelve. It therefore seems likely either that they performed a radically pruned version of The Dumb Knight or that a large number of members of Cholmeley’s household were conscripted to take part, which would probably have involved a good deal of rehearsal in addition to the performance. In his 1615 entry, Cholmeley identifies the (presumed) leader of Lord Wharton’s men as “Iarvis,” but nothing more is known of him to date. The travelling companies who performed at Gilling, Brandsby, and Newburgh Priory cannot all be identified, but they probably had noble patronage and would not have found it difficult to travel from one of these noble households to another, since one could cover all three of them in a journey of less than twenty miles over the relatively flat terrain of the Vale of York. However, there were also two locally-based companies which had a more precarious existence. One of them, based at Egton near Whitby and orga-

13  For examples in the fourteenth-century Durham Priory bursars’ accounts see Mark Chambers’s chapter in this volume.



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nized by a family called Simpson, existed by 1595 and seems to have been reliant on invitations to perform at country houses owned by recusant families. The other, which was smaller and not overtly Catholic in sympathy, was led by a weaver called Richard Hudson of Hutton Buscel, five miles southwest of Scarborough. Neither had an official patron and both were prosecuted at the court of Quarter Sessions under the Statute on Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars, largely because of the officiousness of an unpopular puritan magistrate, Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby. This makes it possible to trace the detailed itineraries of the Simpsons’ company at Christmas, 1609, when they performed at Gowthwaite Hall and then at seven towns in the North Riding, and in January 1615, when their tour took in nine country houses owned by recusant gentry families. The itinerary of Hudson’s company from December 1615 to February 1616 was even more ambitious, taking in no fewer than thirty-two locations, which were again carefully planned to avoid long distances or steep hills between performances. Although the hosts who invited these two groups to perform were regularly fined ten shillings each, the players themselves usually escaped punishment, except that Hudson himself was condemned to be whipped. Diana Wyatt’s chapter on performance in the East Riding of Yorkshire considers and refutes the common idea that this area was (and to many people still is) remote and inaccessible. She begins with what might nowadays be regarded as a publicity stunt, when a Thames ferryman known as John Taylor “the water poet,” who had links with the professional theatre companies in London, set himself the challenge of rowing his river wherry from London to York. He incorporated a diversion to the port of Hull, to whose mayor he had letters of introduction, and this involved rowing along the potentially dangerous stretch of the Humber estuary from the mouth of the River Trent to Hull; Taylor celebrated his own achievement and the warm hospitality he received in Hull in the lively verse of his Very Merry Wherry-Ferry Voyage, published in 1622. Such exploits were theatrical rather than actual theatre, but Taylor was not unique: another well known piece of self-publicity by a performer is Will Kemp’s Nine daies wonder, in which this famous clown describes how he danced from London to Norwich in 1599.14 But if Taylor could reach Hull after setting himself such a tough challenge it cannot have been too difficult for professional acting companies with noble patronage to get there. It is therefore surprising that there are no records of visits by any of the major acting companies in the surviving Hull bench books (corporation minute books) or chamberlains’ accounts. There are two small payments for wine for visiting players from the nearby villages of Cottingham and Hessle in the 1440s, but later evidence from Hull is decidedly negative: an explicit prohibition in 1599 imposes a fine of two shillings and sixpence on any inhabitant who goes to see a play and of twenty shillings on the owner of any house where a play has been allowed to take place; and in 1629 a man who presented the mayor with a licence to perform plays and interludes purporting to come from the Master of the Revels was dismissed, apparently because of a suspicion that the document was not genuine. The overall impression given by the Hull records, at least during and after the Reformation, is that visiting players were not welcome. 14  Kemps nine daies wonder, 1600.

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However, the records from Beverley give a quite different impression: between 1560 and 1629 its accounts and minute books record visits, all rewarded, from players under the patronage of twenty-four different royal or noble patrons, including five of the companies who visited Gilling, Brandsby and Newburgh Abbey in the North Riding (those under the patronage of the Earl of Worcester, Lord Berkeley, Lord Monteagle, and the Queens Elizabeth and Anne of Denmark).15 Surviving records from smaller towns in the East Riding are sparse, but the fragmentary chamberlains’ rolls from Hedon include a payment of six shillings to the Earl of Worcester’s men for a play, probably in 1563; and the records of the Cliffords of Londesborough Hall near Market Weighton show that between 1594 and the 1620s they welcomed visiting performers of all kinds, including troupes patronized by the king, Queen Anne of Denmark and other members of the royal family. It seems, therefore, that although Hull was the largest borough in the East Riding, its (probably puritan) objection to acting companies was not shared by other centres in the area. Gašper Jakovac’s chapter shows that the demonstration of control over a “great horse” was a way of publicly asserting noble status, which vndoubtedly […] importeth a maiestie & drede to inferior persones / beholding him aboue the common course of other men / daunting a fierce and cruell beaste,16 and that this could be most effectively achieved through hunting and horse-racing contests. Many of the northeastern gentry were recusants, and the fines and restrictions placed on them during Queen Elizabeth’s reign no doubt sharpened a sense that they needed to assert their traditional social authority, even when their hunting and racing activities provoked suspicions that they were planning a rebellion. On one occasion these suspicions were actually justified, when a hunt meeting on Dunsmore Heath in Warwickshire was arranged in 1605 as part of a plan to support the Gunpowder Plot. This produced an instant Protestant over-reaction by figures such as Dean William James of Durham, whose letter to Robert Cecil in December 1605 reveals that he suspects that many members of the Northumberland and Durham gentry, including some who are not open recusants, are still looking for an opportunity to rebel. But Dean James was also concerned that the demonstration of their equestrian skills might lead the general population to sympathize with the recusant gentry, although in fact most of them seem merely to have enjoyed competing against one another in a way that would uphold their traditional status. This is exemplified in many entries in the diary of Thomas Chaytor of Butterby near Durham. During the first half of the seventeenth century many annual hunting or racing meetings sprang up, the distinction between the two types of contest became more definite, and horses were deliberately bred to have greater stamina for hunting or more explosive speed for flat races. In Jamie Beckett’s chapter the focus moves from activities sponsored by the gentry to those controlled by civic authorities, and parts of the York and Towneley mystery cycles are considered in the light of changing fortunes in the economics of the wool and 15  See David Klausner’s chapter in the present volume.

16  Elyot, The boke named the gouernour, fol. 68v.



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textile trades. In the early thirteenth century York held an unrivalled position as a centre for collection and export of high-quality wool from all over northern England, but by the middle of the fourteenth this pre-eminence was being challenged by the consequences of the Black Death and by competition from other centres, notably towns in the West Riding whose woollen textiles were often exported through London. This led the city of York to diversify into the production of textiles, often made from the poorer quality wool produced by small-scale farmers. This meant that money was still coming into York but was being shared between a large number of artisans rather than concentrated on the much fewer large-scale merchants of earlier times. The earliest records we have of the York Corpus Christi performances come from the late fourteenth century, and the cycle may have developed at that time as an attempt to counter the city’s perceived economic decline, to reinforce civic pride, and to emphasize York’s position as a religious centre. Certainly, its Corpus Christi performances drew in large numbers of spectators from elsewhere: for example, The Book of Margery Kempe records a conversation between Margery and her husband on Friday, June 23, 1413, the day after Corpus Christi, when they were walking from York towards the port of Bridlington on their way home to King’s Lynn.17 Margery does not actually say that they had gone to York to see the cycle, but that would be the obvious reason for being where they were on that day. Most visitors were probably less pious than Margery, and as they followed the pageant wagons from Micklegate to the Pavement the tradesfolk of York would certainly have invited them to engage with commercial as well as spiritual opportunities. In the York pageants of the Nativity and the Offering the distinction between the fictive city of Bethlehem and the actual one of York is deliberately blurred, as is that between the first two shepherds as prophets of the birth of Christ and the third as a blunt Yorkshire herdsman. The wagons on which these two pageants were played probably processed together, so that the rural location of the angel’s appearance to the shepherds was contrasted with and subordinated to the presence of the Christ-child in the “urban” setting of the Nativity in Bethlehem (and York). In the Offering, each of the shepherds expresses the hope that his offering will result in material benefits for him personally, and this may reflect a forced optimism in the face of the increasing difficulties experienced by the city’s wool and textile trades during the mid-fifteenth century. By way of contrast with this, the Towneley Prima and Secunda Pastorum plays concentrate mainly on the tribulations and foibles of their distinct characters: hostile weather conditions, unhappy marriages, and the tendency of masters to defraud their apprentices of wages and food. Here the shepherds are joined and sometimes outwitted by trickster figures (Jak Garcio in Prima, Mak the sheep stealer and his wife Gill in Secunda) who also seem firmly anchored in the rural life of the West Riding. All of them are in very evident need of redemption, but the gifts of the shepherds to the infant Jesus are offered without any suggestion that they expect a material return. There is thus a consistent difference of viewpoint between, on the one hand, the York play’s emphasis on “Bethlehem” as a trade-oriented urban centre to which the shepherds come in hopes 17  The Book of Margery Kempe, 23, 269n.

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of material profit, and on the other, Towneley’s focus on the hardships of the rural background from which they come and to which they will have to return. Mark Chambers’s chapter on some aspects of performance in medi­eval and early modern Durham makes use both of civic records and of expenditure in the voluminous accounts of the cathedral priory and its cells and manors. The government of the Palatinate and City of Durham was highly centralized and even its civic institutions were dominated by the bishop (who had quasi-regal powers over the city’s trade companies and borough courts) and the priory (which controlled most of its public ceremonial). In some respects, payments made by the prior to resident and visiting performers resemble those made elsewhere by secular lords, but the information that can be gathered from each run of accounts has its own strengths and limitations: for example, the surviving bursars’ accounts begin as early as 1278 and preserve a huge number of payments to performers, but are much less useful in the fifteenth century, when the large scale of the priory’s financial affairs led to gifts to visiting and resident performers usually being lumped together into the single summary item of Dona et exennia ministrallis et alijs pauperculis, “Gifts and grants to performers and other poor people of low status,” except for a brief period in the 1430s when an incompetent bursar tried to conceal the priory’s financial problems in a mass of minor details, and in the early 1530s, when some items of the bursar’s running expenditure survive in rough notebooks. It is sometimes difficult to be certain whether recipients who are given labels such as “Harpour” were actually performers, or whether they merely had these surnames, but when such names appear more than once over a relatively short period it is often possible to reach a conclusion about this from differences of wording between one entry and another. We must also pay attention to changes in termino­logy over time. Until the 1360s performers are usually called histriones except when a more specific term is used, but this term is gradually replaced by ministralli, the last payment to histriones appearing in the account for 1395–96. There is no evidence of any difference in meaning between the two terms, or that one referred to actors and the other to musicians, as has sometimes been assumed. There are also many instances of payments to musicians who played specific instruments, especially harpers (sometimes said to be blind), but also tabor players, rotours (psaltery players), crowders (players on the Welsh-derived stringed instrument known as a crwth), cytharatores (probably cittern players), lutenists, vielle players, pipers, trumpeters, waits, and at least one female singer who was accompanied by her lutenist husband.18 But other specific terms indicate people who were not necessarily musicians: visiting and resident fools,19 illusionists,20 a wrestler,21 a tumbler,22 18  For most of these, see Chambers’s chapter; pipers include William Piper of Brancepeth, who was the leader of a group and appears in the bursars’ accounts between 1334 and 1360.

19  Bishop’s fools (bursar’s accounts, 1334 and 1478–9); Thomas fatuus, the prior’s fool (bursar’s accounts between 1330 and 1357). 20  For example, bursar’s accounts 1349–50.

21  Hostiller’s accounts 1376, 1379). 22  Bursar’s accounts 1381–82.



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animal keepers and trainers,23 and several groups of lusores “actors.”24 At least one term is ambiguous: jugulatores may have been jesters, actors, or both, and some performers were probably both musicians and actors, for example “Master” Nicholas Dwery of York, a harper who was probably also a dwarf.25 This chapter also investigates two other themes that crop up in the Durham records. The parish register from St. Nicholas’s Church, Durham for 1569 notes that “a certain Italian” showed off a “greate, strange & monstrous serpent” in the city, which, it was claimed, had been killed “in Æthiopia within the Turke’s dominions.” Chambers shows how this took advantage of a widespread northeastern fascination with dragons which is also evident in their prominence in Rogationtide or St. George’s Day processions at Ripon (between 1439–40 and 1540–41), Newcastle (1510 and 1511), York (1554) and elsewhere. They are also prominent in northeastern folktales such as that of the ­Sockburn Worm, first recorded in the early seventeenth century, according to which the Worm was killed by Sir John Conyers with a falchion which until 1832 was used by the family to affirm their loyalty to each prince bishop when he first arrived in the Palatinate, and which can still be seen in the cathedral treasury. Chambers contrasts the exotic “other” represented by the Italian showman’s dragon with the more mundane practical “other” represented by the Scots. All the surviving ordinaries of Durham trade companies impose heavy fines on any member who employs a Scot or teaches him their craft, and this was legally inevitable, since membership of a Durham trade company involved a declaration of loyalty to the kings of England, and therefore support for their claim to lordship over their Scottish counterparts, which was usually incompatible with loyalty to the Scottish crown. The Durham bursars’ accounts include few payments to Scottish performers, and most exceptions either pre-date Edward I’s attempt to annexe Scotland (a payment to a minstrel of King Alexander III in 1278–9), relate to histriones of Edward Balliol, a puppet claimant whose claim to the Scottish throne had English support (three payments in the period 1332–36), or may relate to the presence of a Scottish king in England (a payment in 1363–64 of ten shillings to three histriones of David II, who was in England trying to secure a peace treaty). Two payments to Scottish ministralli and one to a rotour in 1394–95 are harder to explain, but overall, there are rather few payments to Scottish performers, and attitudes towards them in Durham seem always to have been guarded at best. The next chapter, by John McKinnell, looks at rural and urban ceremonies in County Durham which may be described as “folk” performances, although one of them was actually led by a nobleman. Robert Graystanes’s chronicle history of Durham Cathedral Priory describes a curious dispute between the priory and Lord Ranulf Neville of Raby, who claimed a traditional right to process into Durham Cathedral with his foresters blowing their hunting horns on the Feast of the Translation of St. Cuthbert (September 4), and to offer a recently hunted stag at the shrine of St. Cuthbert, in return for which they 23  Bursar’s accounts 1379–80.

24  Bursar’s accounts 1408 onwards.

25  Bursar’s accounts between 1347–48 and 1358–59.

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received the prior’s hospitality, while Neville’s men took over the kitchen and organized the feast. In 1290 Prior Richard Hoton disputed this right, claiming that it was not an offering but part of the rent for the estate, which as landlord he had the right to refuse. The dispute became even more embarrassing when a fight broke out, in which monks wielding candlesticks drove the foresters out of the cathedral. Both sides then resorted to law, but the dispute remained unresolved until Ranulf’s son Radulf (later first Earl of Westmorland) tried to revive the custom in 1331. An inquiry then found that although it had existed before the death of Ranulf’s father, Lord Robert Neville in 1280, the offering had traditionally taken place on Holy Cross Day (September 14). The prior took this opportunity to abolish the custom, almost certainly because it was (correctly) regarded as pre-Christian. A rural custom which went on in many more places was the plough ceremony (Latin dies carucarum, English ploudrawe, forthdrawe or ploughday), which took place on the day after Epiphany, January 7, although there is occasional evidence for an additional performance as part of harvest celebrations. There are plough ceremony payments in the accounts of sixteen different manors in County Durham, beginning with one of the earliest manorial accounts (Pittington 1277–78), and the custom was clearly well established by then. It is not completely clear what the custom involved, but it certainly included the plough being pulled by a group of men known as “les Boves,” led by their custos; they were often rewarded for this demonstration of strength with bread, cheese and ale provided at the expense of the manor, and at least in some instances they also begged for money from bystanders. No evidence has yet been found of more elaborate plough plays like those collected in the nineteenth century, which often featured characters such as St. George and the Turkish knight, but the custos may have resembled the “caller in” who introduces the characters in many plough plays. One manor (Pittington 1390–97 and 1433–52) also preserves evidence for a female character known as “le Garthwoman,” who seems to have been connected with harvest celebrations and may have presided over the harvest feast; she was evidently a female servant, sometimes the woman who tended the manor garden, and she is sometimes named. However, we have found no evidence from other manors to confirm her ceremonial role. Moving from the countryside to the city, the treble part of an extended musical piece known as the Durham Song survives in MS BL Harley 7578, a composite manu­script from the latter half of the sixteenth century, and this provides an account of May games, including two competitive events between the young people of the Durham city parishes. The first, for young men, is centred on piping, dancing, songs, and dysgysyng about Robin Hood; it may have included a performance of a Robin Hood play or ballad and possibly a mock fight with quarterstaffs, and it certainly incorporated several “Robyn” songs. This is followed by a Young Maids procession and song, in which the young women of the North Bailey (the church of St. Mary le Bow) claim victory with the refrain The bayly berith the bell away. In the course of a bitter diatribe against fellow members of the cathedral chapter, the early seventeenth-century puritan Peter Smart claims that his high-church Laudian enemies have brought back into use at least two of the priory’s medi­eval copes, one of which had been used for many years by the young people of Durham in their May games. He does not say how they used it, but one obvious possibility



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is that it was worn by the “authority figure” who adjudicated the competition between the parishes. There seems to be a difference of function between the rural ceremonies, which probably helped to reinforce the ancient loyalties between lord and retainer, and the later urban ones, which gave young people of both genders the opportunity to show off to potential marriage partners. The next chapter, by C. E. McGee, looks at another type of festive ceremonial which was popular at parish level throughout much of northern England, namely the custom of processing to the parish church and strewing its floor with fresh rushes. Previous studies of rush-bearing have concentrated mainly on the northwestern counties of Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmorland, although Barbara Palmer identified six seventeenth-century examples from the West Riding of Yorkshire and one from Brandsby in the North Riding. McGee’s chapter, which also uses documents from proceedings of the Court of Star Chamber, identifies eleven rush-bearings from ten parishes in the West Riding and considers how they were influenced by debates about the proper uses of the sabbath, the parish church and the churchyard. In his 1571 Injunctions, Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of York, orders ministers and churchwardens to forbid a variety of popular celebrations including both rush-bearings and May games, but his real objection seems to be less to the customs themselves than to the dancing, irreverence, and lewdness which often accompanied them and interfered with church services and prayers. The patterns of what went on at rush-bearings varied from one parish to another, but commonly seem to have included a piper and drummer leading a procession (often only of young women) who carried garlands or towers of rushes and flowers, and decorated and draped pieces of wood which were carried like banners. Some of the additions made in individual parishes resemble the description of May games in the Durham Song (see McKinnell’s chapter described above); these include a play of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham (Brandsby), a young maids’ procession (Heptonstall) and a disguisement (Cawthorne). In 1596 a sabbatarian objector, Sir Charles Barnby of Cawthorne, objected to any Sunday performances of playes, interludes, showes, disguisementes, rishbearinges or sommer games. It seems that in puritan eyes, all such activities were lumped together, but King James’s Book of Sports (written in Lancashire in 1617 but published and extended to the whole realm in 1618) declared rush-bearings on Sundays to be acceptable provided that the participants had attended divine service first. However, this did not prevent further dispute, and within two years the Court of Star Chamber had to decide a number of cases in which parishioners complained that their puritan opponents had either impeded legitimate rush-bearings (as at Leeds in 1618 and 1619 and Fewston in 1619) or had denied the king’s right to pronounce on the issue, as William Clough, vicar of Bramham, did after a rush-bearing at Thorner in 1619. If the witnesses were all telling the truth, both sides were probably at fault in the Fewston case: the objectors had assaulted several members of the rush-bearing procession, while the women in the procession had been accompanied by a group of young men who had climbed onto the communion table and overthrown the communion cup. The Leeds case was fuelled by personal animosity between John Metcalfe, a burgess of Leeds, and Alexander Cooke, the vicar, who was vehemently opposed to the rush-bearing. In 1618 his supporters are said to have attacked the musicians who led the procession and to have

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destroyed their instruments, and in 1619 it was alleged that Cooke had tried to lock the church to prevent the rush-bearers from gaining access. He argued in response that the king would not have allowed rush-bearings in his Book of Sports if he had realized that they would lead to violence in towns like Leeds, but since he and his supporters had allegedly been responsible for that violence, this argument seems rather hypocritical. Elsewhere the custom seems usually to have enjoyed general support and proceeded in an orderly way, and it is clear from the Slingsby papers and the commonplace book of Richard Shann that rush-bearings at Scriven, Knaresborough, and Methley were enjoyed and supported by local gentry families. The evidence for rush-bearings shows that ceremonial processions could be very adaptable. Another notable instance of this can be seen in the evidence for the almonry or boy bishop of Durham, which can be seen in hundreds of small payments by obedientiaries and masters of the cells of the cathedral priory, as Mark Chambers and John McKinnell demonstrate in the next chapter. The York Minster Statute Book shows that the custom was already established there by about 1225, and late-fourteenth-century accounts show that the York boy bishop (called the episcopus innocencium) and his “officials” (all children) were required, at least in some years, to fulfill an exhausting schedule of ceremonial and visits to places outside York which might last from Holy Innocents’ Day (December 28) until Candlemas (February 2). There is also evidence that the “barne bishop” of Beverley also visited noble houses outside Beverley itself. The boy bishop ceremony at Durham probably began shortly after the founding of the Almonry School in 1338. In most centres it was attached either to Holy Innocents’ Day or to the feast of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children (December 6), and a payment to clerici Sancti Nicholai in the account of the prior of Holy Island for 1342–43 may suggest that at Durham it was initially observed on St. Nicholas’s Day, although it is not certain that this entry refers to the almonry bishop and his entourage and the earliest payment which certainly refers to him appears in the prior of Lytham’s account for 1346–47. Whichever feast the custom was attached to when it was first introduced in Durham, it soon moved to a date in early summer. The earliest evidence for this is a payment to the almonry bishop in the hostiller’s account for 1355, which covers only the period from the Octave of Easter (April 12) to Ascension Day (May 14), but the most conclusive is in the hostiller’s account for 1405–6, which records a nil payment quia non erat propter guerras eo tempore “because it did not take place on account of the wars at that time”; this can only refer to Archbishop Scrope’s rebellion in May 1405, which was defeated by a force levied in Durham by Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland. Other years in which the custom did not take place are 1438–40, when the priory was experiencing a financial crisis, and 1459–61, when the northeast was caught up in the Wars of the Roses. From 1475 on, all almonry bishop payments were made to the office of the feretrar, the guardian of the shrine of St. Cuthbert in the cathedral, but the feretrars’ accounts do not include any corresponding outgoings; it seems probable that the ceremony (or at least the involvement of children) actually ceased in 1475, becoming no more than a tax levied by the feretrar on the heads of cells. This may explain why the custom is not mentioned in The Rites of Durham, which gives a detailed account of ceremonies in and around the cathedral and the city just before the Dissolution in



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1540. However, the Rites does describe processions to the city churches of St. Nicholas, St. Oswald, and St. Margaret on the three Rogation days in Ascension week, following each of which one of the monks delivered a sermon. It seems likely that before 1475 these processions and sermons were led and delivered by the boy bishop of Durham; this probability is strengthened by evidence in the accounts of the hostiller, the prior of Finchale and the Elvethall manorial accounts that between 1424 and 1479 the parish of St. Oswald’s had its own boy bishop, known as Episcopus puerilis ecclesie Sancti Oswaldi, “Boy bishop of the church of St. Oswald” or “Bishop of Elvet.” Parish boy bishops are very rare, and it seems probable that both the almonry bishop of Durham and the “bishop of Elvet” discharged their duties in and after the Rogation days processions in Ascension week. There is no evidence in the Durham records to suggest any element of burlesque or entertaining extraneous material; the participants may have been children, but the liturgy to which they contributed seems to have remained completely serious and may even have reminded onlookers that “of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Our volume concludes with a consideration by Barbara Ravelhofer, one of the two Principal Investigators of the REED North-East project, of the significance and potential uses of performance of northeastern drama and ceremony as part of the intangible cultural heritage of the region. One of our aims has been to remedy the widespread neglect of the area in academic accounts of early English drama and ceremony; we have sought to do this in academic articles and exhibitions, but also by organizing an international conference and festival in which both discussions and productions of northeastern drama took a prominent part. Wherever possible, these productions were filmed and added to the project website; they include the “Lindisfarne” Harrowing of Hell, Lawrence of Durham’s Peregrini (neither of which had been seen before in modern times), the Antrobus Souling Play and combinations of regional traditions, including ballads and folktales in our compilations Theatrum mundi and Lost Voices of the North-East. However, our most important aim has been to encourage knowledge of and pride in the culture of the region among its modern inhabitants; our website has also been useful for this purpose. We have also worked with schools (for example at Kirk Merrington) and given talks to local societies such as the local history societies in Beverley, Durham, Hexham, and Hull. All these contacts suggest that there is an abiding interest in the historical culture of our region which has not yet achieved full expression. We hope this project may help to awake the sleeping giant of our intangible regional heritage, and that this will inspire regional pride and self-confidence in the future.

Chapter 1

COMIC PERFORMANCE IN THE TUDOR AND STUART PERCY HOUSEHOLDS BOB ALEXANDER

The role of the clown, fool, or jester has received considerable attention from students of Shakespeare’s plays, such as Twelfth Night.1 After the conclusion of Twelfth Night and the end of “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith,”2 today’s audience might have further thoughts about the role of Feste, the wise fool who shapes much of the play’s action. He also has the last word in a closing song.3 Playgoers might wonder about the relationship between art and historical reality, and might ask to what extent the comic Feste corresponds to the everyday experience in a private household of early modern England, as evidenced by documentary records.4 What was the role of the fool or jester or clown, and of comic performance generally, in this early modern environment? What evidence is there for their function within the general scheme of household management? How might a family support comic performers, and what kinds of entertainment did they present? What theories of humour or comedy are reinforced by this evidence? First, humour and discussions of it can be important in art and life, and not merely frills or “relief” from so-called “serious” concerns. According to the Talmud, humour can make the world better, and jesters will be rewarded. In this story, while the prophet Elijah was conversing in the marketplace, … two [men] passed by and [Elijah] remarked, These two have a share in the world to come. R. Beroka then approached and asked them, What is your occupation? They replied, We are jesters, when we see men depressed we cheer them up; furthermore when we see two people quarrelling we strive hard to make peace between them.5

*  Dr. Mark Chambers assisted in the revision of this chapter.

1  For instance, see Wiles, Shakespeare’s Clown. Shakespeare references in this paper are from Shakespeare, The Complete Works, ed. Bevington. 2  Coleridge’s Poetry and Prose, 490.

3  5. 1. 389–408.

4  See Southworth, Fools and Jesters at the English Court, and Welsford, The Fool.

5  Ta’anith, 22a, ed. and trans. Rabbinowitz, in Seder Mo’ed. The Babylonian Talmud, ed. and trans. Epstein et al., 4:110. This section is summarized by Morreall, Comic Relief, 124. Sam Siskind, Librarian of the Rodef Shalom Congregation, Pittsburgh, helped me track down this reference.

Prof. Bob Alexander is Emeritus Professor of English at Point Park Uni­ver­sity in Pittsburgh, and editor of the Percy papers for Records of Early English Drama.

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One good way to begin examining comics in Tudor and Stuart households is to focus on the documents of the Percys, earls of Northumberland, especially the documents of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth earls, which include many references to comic performance as well as play-texts. In general, available records from early modern private households are somewhat sparse and difficult to retrieve, but the Percys are unusual in that many of their account rolls may be reviewed on microfilms.6 Historians sometimes refer to these Percys as the eighth, ninth, and tenth earls of Northumberland. However, this paper, following the REED “Patrons and Performances” website, uses the numbering of the Complete Peerage.7 The eighth, ninth, and tenth North­ umberland earls will be designated the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, respectively. 1. The twelfth earl was born “about 1532,”8 succeeded to the peerage August 22, 1572, and died June 20/21, 1585, possibly by suicide.9

2. The thirteenth earl was born “shortly before 27 April 1564,”10 succeeded to the peerage in 1585, and died November 5, 1632.11 Accused of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1605 to 1621.12 3. The fourteenth earl was born September 29, 1602, succeeded to the peerage in 1632, and died October 13, 1668.13

To provide a context and understanding of the records, the following discussion will refer as well to REED publications of documents from other private households. Evidence for Percy support of comic performance will be considered broadly here, and will include content in letters, discussion of estate management, formal essays, and family anecdotes, as well as evidence for ownership of printed texts and composition of plays. Percy account rolls, in addition, include payments to many kinds of comic performers. References to jesters in the documents of towns are widespread in the REED publications, but data in this paper may help to give a sense of the way or ways in which a private household, or at least the Percy household, may have made a distinctive contribution to comic entertainment. The historical reality, from these documents, seems to be complex and varied. Documents show that the comic performer existed in the private households, but especially in the Percy household, there were different kinds of performers, and they functioned 6  See British Manu­scripts Project: A Checklist of the Microfilms, 83–91.

7  See Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 9:701–51. 8  The Complete Peerage, 9:730. 9  The Complete Peerage, 9:731.

10  The Complete Peerage, 9:732.

11  The Complete Peerage, 9:734.

12  Batho, “The Percies at Petworth,” 3.

13  The Complete Peerage, 9:735–38. For short bio­graphical sketches of these earls, and discussion of their documents, see the introduction to the Percy Papers dramatic records on the REED N-E website. In keeping with REED practices, the end date for this discussion will be 1642, when the theatres were closed by act of Parliament. See Butler, “The Condition of the Theatres in 1642,” 439.



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in different ways. For instance, most of the Percy comics are termed “fools,” but one is designated as a “juggler” or “jongleur.” The performer “Iacomo” presented “a comody,” but he is identified only as “the Italyan,” without further information. So one cannot tell if these performers were “natural” or “artificial” fools. “Natural” fools provoked laughter unintentionally by means of some mental or physical disability. “Artificial” fools, however, “consciously crafted witty discourse and entertaining behaviour” to receive payments.14 One would like to know something about the kinds of entertainment they offered, and in at least some cases, the documentary context suggests possibilities. However, it would be difficult to claim that the Percys thought very explicitly or intentionally about comic performance as part of their households. Argument from silence is not convincing, but still, it should be noted that the extant Percy discussions of education for youth and of household management have little or nothing to say about jesters or comic performers. For instance, the thirteenth earl’s Advice to his Son, 1609, has good words for training in dance and tennis, but no good words for the other performing arts: And it is requisite, their exercises be such as doth promise most use, either for the defence of themselves or the service of their country…. Dancing amongst the rest may be admitted to grace the carriage; tennis for variety to procure nimbleness and health; but music, singing, cards, dice, chess, and the rest of this nature are but lost labour, being qualities neither profitable to themselves, nor anything else. 15

Other thoughts on household practices appear in a Petworth House Archive HMC 116, an encyclopedic book of lists which the thirteenth earl apparently compiled while he was imprisoned in the Tower. The manu­script includes lists related to many topics, including care of grounds for an estate (255r), proper feed for horses (254v), surgical instruments (188r), diseases of horses (66r), names of musical instruments (268r and 268v), and names of vagabonds (292r), but nothing about jesters, comedy, or theatre in general appears.16 Other manu­scripts, however, suggest that in practice some family members enjoyed comic performance, even if they did not say so explicitly. In this letter of December 27, 1600 to “Mr Carlington” (Dudley Carleton?), Charles Percy, younger brother of the thirteenth earl, refers to clowns in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part II: 14  Carpenter, “Laughing at Natural Fools,” 3.

15  Henry Percy, Advice to his Son, 63–64.

16  Dr. Caroline Adams drew my attention to this document. A description follows: Chichester, West Sussex; West Sussex Record Office; Petworth House Archives HMC 116; early seventeenth c.; English; paper; ii + 293 + lxv; foliation in ink contemporaneous with MS; 314 mm × 193 mm (260 mm × 105 mm); there is some decoration on some pages, and they are lined and writing is in a large, formal hand; catchwords are at the bottom of some pages; binding is thick, solid brown leather with gold stamp on the front and back of the Order of the Garter with the motto “Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense”; spine has “Miscellan” pasted on it and “116” at the bottom; probably 18th c.; at one time the volume was tied by green ribbons, but only one remains; table of contents indicates that the document is not complete, because the last two items in the table, “The names of Pretious stones” and “The names of Manuell occupacions of England” are not in the body of the document.

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I am so pestered with country business, that I cannot come to London. If I stay here long, you will find me so dull that I shall be taken for Justice Silence or Justice Shallow; therefore take pity of me, and send me news from time to time, the knowledge of which, though perhaps it will not exempt me from the opinion of a Justice Shallow at London, yet will make me pass for a very sufficient gentleman in Gloucestershire.17

The First Northumberland Household Book at Alnwick Castle, from 1512, also includes a statement about paying “the Kings Jugler,” possibly a jongleur or jester: FURST My Lorde usith and accustomyth To gyf to the Kings Jugler if he have wone When they custome to come unto hym yerely—vj s. viiij d.18

This First Household Book is a manual for Percy household management, not a list of actual payments, so this entry does not establish definitely that the “King’s Jugler” actually visited the ninth Earl. Still, someone thought that the event was important enough to include in the manual. Moreover, regardless of the earls’ explicit statements about comedy, or lack thereof, the Percy libraries included printed comedies. In “a note of [the thirteenth earl’s] bookes sent from the Tower to Syon in December 1614”19 are the entries “I morti vivi, Comedia,” “Il duello d’amore, Comedia,” and “Comedie. 3. del Sig. Sforza degl’ Oddi.”20 This last collection of three comedies was annotated by the earl, so he must have read the plays, or parts of them.21 The fourteenth earl, Algernon Percy, also included many comedies in his collection of 148 plays in sixteen volumes now at Petworth House, West Sussex. Among these comedies are John Day’s Humour out of Breath (1608), Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1607), Robert Armin’s The History of Two Maids of More-Clacke (1609), and Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost (1631). By referring to Alnwick Castle account rolls, Dr. Maria Kirk argues that the fourteenth earl probably bought the play-texts in 1638.22 In collecting published plays, the fourteenth Earl Percy was not unusual among owners of private households. Sir Edward Dering23 and Sir Roger Townshend also collected plays.24 One member of the family, William Percy (born 1570 or 1574, died 1648) younger brother of the thirteenth earl, wrote the comedy The Cuck-queanes And Cuckolds Errants or The Bearing down of the Inne. The date 1601 is given in the manu­script.25 There is evidence that St. Paul’s boys might have staged his plays, but if they did, the date of perfor17  SP Dom 12/275, f 240. See also Calendar SP Dom, 502.

18  Percy, The Regulations … of the Household of Henry Algernon Percy, 339.

19  Sy: W.II.1a.

20  These titles may be found in the list published by de Fonblanque, 2:630.

21  See Batho, “The Library of the ‘Wizard’ Earl,” 256. Helpful information on the Italian plays was supplied by Prof. Francesca Savoia, Uni­ver­sity of Pittsburgh (e-mail to the author, January 27, 2018). 22  Kirk, “Performing Consumption and Consuming Performance,” 53–57.

23  REED: Kent, 913–26.

24  Fehrenbach, and Leedham Green, Private Libraries in Renaissance England, 3:134. 25  REED: Ecclesiastical London, 278.



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mance is not certain.26 Another younger brother of the thirteenth earl, Josceline Percy, was a friend of Ben Jonson. Josceline Percy did not write plays, as far as is known, but in 1601, he composed a bawdy mock will bequeathing various body parts to individuals who, he thought, were in need of them.27 With respect to Percy account rolls, it should be noted to provide context, that employing jesters was not unique to the Percys, and that other private households, before 1642, had resident fools. Robert Armin’s Foole upon Foole (1600) supports this point with respect to “Jack Miller,” who may or may not have been a real person.28 REED editors Elizabeth Baldwin, Lawrence M. Clopper, and David Mills note that a record in the Malpas parish registers of the burial of Thomas Bosewell on 27 January 1572/3, “Beynge the foole of the hall,” suggests that possibly the Breretons of Shocklach, who occupied the “Old Hall” at Malpas in the sixteenth century, kept a fool. Hinde, in his A Faithfull Remonstrance, certainly implies that household fools were not uncommon … 29

Also, at some point between 1590 and 1635/36, Sir Peter Legh in Cheshire “kept his own ‘fool’ or jester, who was clothed and fed at his master’s expense.”30 The practice of keeping fools in households was sufficiently widespread to provoke a sly jestbook pun at the employer’s expense: “What reason,” says one to his friend, “has your Lord to keep a fool?” “He hath no reason at all,” answered the other.31

Theodore Leinwand argues convincingly that a lord’s fool was not necessarily a mere entertainer, relegated to the margins of the household. Henry Patenson, for instance, the fool of Sir Thomas More, felt secure enough to advise his master to take the Oath of Supremacy.32 In a Hans Holbein portrait of the More family, Patenson occupies a central position: “With arms akimbo, in a pose reminiscent of Henry VIII, Patenson alone among eleven figures faces directly out at the viewer.”33 If the performer travelled, he might be rewarded, perhaps partly to maintain connection with his employer. Alan Nelson writes, “In 1456–7 the college [King’s Hall, Cambridge] rewarded the jester (‘Burderio’) of the Duke of York ….”34 In 1575 the Earl of Essex’s “gesters” were given two shillings.35 The Bailiffs’ and Chamberlains’ Accounts

26  For titles of William Percy’s plays, manu­script descriptions, discussion of stage directions, and modern editions, see “Appendix 5: William Percy and Plays at Paul’s,” in REED: Ecclesiastical London, 276–91. For bio­graphical information on William Percy, see REED: Ecclesiastical London and Nicholls, “‘As Happy a Fortune as I Desire’,” 298. 27  Nicholls and Williams, Sir Walter Raleigh, 172–73.

28  See Robert Armin, Foole upon Foole.

29  REED: Cheshire including Chester, lxxii.

30  REED: Cheshire including Chester, 817. 31  Zall, ed., A Nest of Ninnies, 81.

32  Leinwand, “Conservative Fools,” 219–20.

33  “Conservative Fools,” 219, describes a copy of a Holbein family portrait. 34  REED: Cambridge, 711. 35  REED: Coventry, 270.

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of Ludlow, Shropshire, record a payment in 1585–86 of twelve pence to “Shington” or Sheyntton, probably the fool of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord President.36 On September 3, 1569, Ludlow also paid two shillings and sixpence to “on mr lockrood the Quenys mayestys Iestere.”37 With respect to the Percys, their payments to comic performers are like the examples cited from other households, but there are more of them than can be found in most of the other REED collections from private households. These Percy records give examples of the different venues and contexts in which a comic might perform. An important qualification is that this list of these payments is almost certainly incomplete. Approximately two hundred accounting rolls and books from Syon are extant, and the Percys had many other great households, and so it seems likely that only a fraction of the rolls have survived. The vast majority of the Syon accounts cover the period from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and surely there were accounts from earlier periods. Some financial documents are labeled “old accounts— useless,” so many MSS must have been destroyed. Undoubtedly documents from other Percy households have gone missing as well. Basically, the extant references to jesters or comics in the Percy account rolls fall into two main categories: first, occasional disbursements to miscellaneous performers, apparently in the service of other households or institutions; and second, more regular stipends for performers who seem to have been on the family payroll. These family employees could have several functions in the household, and they could occasionally participate in staged performances. Often the entries can be very cryptic, offering little information in themselves about performance details, but sometimes comparison with records from other households can suggest details about the nature of performance.

Miscellaneous Fools

The earls paid several different individuals called “fools” who don’t seem to have been connected permanently with the family, although records that indicate such a connection may have been lost. In 1581–82 the twelfth earl Percy gave “Mack the foole and others xxxj s. viij d.,”38 and on January 31, 1604/5, the thirteenth earl Percy gave six shillings to “Garatt the Prince his foole.”39 This Garatt may have been John Garrett, “The fool of Elizabeth’s declining years,”40 who joined Queen Anne’s players and participated in her funeral in 1619.41 Garrett died from “too much claret” in 1640, if the same person is

36  REED: Shropshire, 88 and 645.

37  REED: Shropshire, 83.

38  Sy: U.I.2/13/1 sheet [2]. 39  Sy: U.I.50 (2) fol. [32v].

40  Southworth, Fools and Jesters, 117. 41  Fools and Jesters, 119.



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referred to by this name.42 He may have been small in stature, because John Chamberlain describes him as riding a mastiff at the Great Tiltyard on November 17, 1602.43 Additional payments in this same document from 1606–7, are to the “lord lumley’s fool” for ten shillings, and to “a Iugler” for twenty shillings.44 This last performer may have been someone who could keep a lot of objects in the air, as we would use the word today. However, the term, as Southworth points out,45 could also be related to “jongleur,” or “jester,” as in the OED “One who entertains or amuses people by stories, songs, buffoonery, tricks, etc.; a jester, buffoon. (Often used with implied contempt or reprobation.) Obs.” One intriguing occasional payment was “geven in reward to Clarke the foole of the starchambe˹r˺ by his Lordshi˹ps˺ Commande the 12˹th˺ of February x s” in 1604/5.46 At first a fool in this context might seem bizarre; what kind of laughs could have been produced in the Court of the Star Chamber, which could impose heavy fines and grisly physical punishments? Perhaps, though, this kind of entertainment was not unusual for a peer of the realm, or for the thirteenth Earl of Northumberland. In the Tower, he was amused by “tomfoole,” a “blind harpor,” and “lyons.”47

Household Fools

The Percys also kept several fools on the family payroll. The fool of Sir Richard Percy, younger brother of the thirteenth earl, for instance, was paid two shillings and sixpence in 1604 or 160548 and sixpence “for A philipe” in the same accounting period.49 The only one of these jesters identified by first and last name is Thomas Wigen, Wygen, or Wiggan, who is mentioned at least four times in the account rolls. He appears first in 1605 in a menial role, paid six shillings and eightpence “for taking up foundations in the garden May the 13˹th˺.”50 More interesting is a tailor’s bill of September 29, 1609, a single sheet with the heading “A bill of clothes bought for Thomas Wiggen the ffoole september 29 1609.” The endorsement reads “Thomas ffooles bill/ for Virginia paid/ September 29.”51

[Insert Illustration 1 here.] 42  Fools and Jesters, 119.

43  Fools and Jesters, 117.

44  Sy: U.I.3/55/7 fol. [1v]. 45  Fools and Jesters, 62.

46  Sy: U.I.50/(2) fol. [33r]. 47  Alnwick MS 790.

48  Sy: U.I.50/(3) fol. [17v]. 49  Sy: U.I.50/(3) fol. [17r]

50  Sy: U.I.8b fol. [4r]. Westfall, “‘An example of courtesy and liberality’,” 204–5, points out that “often resident entertainers served in more than one occupational capacity.” 51  Sy: U.I.14/a/3.

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Figure 1: The First Northumberland Household Book: “A bill of clothes bought for Thomas Wiggen the ffoole september 29 1609.” Archives of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle, Sy: U.I.14/a/3, by permission of the Duke of Northumberland.

So if everything happened according to plan, Thomas Wiggan the fool was with George Percy in his efforts to establish Jamestown, Virginia. George was the youngest brother of Henry Percy, thirteenth Earl of Northumberland.52 The clothes sent there for Thomas were: A Ierkin and hose of Cloth A greene wastcoate A payre of Knytt Stockinges A payre of Shooes A monmoath Capp with a band A Shirt And two falling bandes 1 li. 17 s. 6 d.

Records of payment for fools’ clothes are common in the REED volumes,53 but this payment is the only one to suggest the presence of a fool in the New World. No additional evidence of Wiggan’s presence in America has been found as yet, but if the comic did make this trip, then he was caught up in the horrors associated with the beginnings of Jamestown, including war, starvation, and cannibalism. George Percy’s grim history “A Trewe Relacyon” narrates one atrocity after another committed by the settlers against each other and against the Native Americans. Surely any normal person who survived these events would have been traumatized by them. Percy’s history does not refer to Wiggan the fool. However, it does mention “Dawse,” a part-time entertainer who played the drum and danced to help lead the “Salvanges” into an ambush: Then S[i]r Tho[mas] Gates beinge desyreous for to be Revendged upon the Indyans att Kekowhatan did goe thither by water w[i]th a certeine number of men, and amongste

52  Nicholls, “‘As Happy a Fortune’,” 311.

53  For instance, see REED: Newcastle Upon Tyne, 135–39.



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the reste a Taborer w[i]th him. beinge Landed he cawsed the Taborer to play and dawnse thereby to allure the Indyans to come unto him.54

The ruse worked, and the Native Americans in this battle were routed. Later Dawse was the only survivor of a retaliatory ambush.55 There is further evidence that some of the dramatic activity studied for REED N-E made its way to America. This happened at Mount Wollaston, in colonial Massachusetts, where maypole dances and other English folk customs were staged in May 1628 by Thomas Morton and others, scandalizing the good citizens of Boston.56 Nathaniel Hawthorne gives a fictional account of Mount Wollaston in his short story “The May-pole of Merry Mount,” from Twice-Told Tales (1837). In the story, dour Puritans break up a maypole wedding ceremony, but the narrator suggests that this result is best for the newlyweds: “They went heavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount.”57 In any case, Thomas Wiggan may have returned to England and prospered in spite of his Virginia experiences, because this name appears again in connection with James Shirley’s masque The Triumph of Peace (1634). In Folger Shakespeare Library Z.e.1 (25), “The Manner of the progression of the Masque,” “Thomas Wiggan” is listed as one of the “Torchbearers” for “m˹r˺ Webb and m˹r˺ Porter rydeinge togeather.”58 If the name refers to the same Thomas Wiggan or Wygen from the 1605 records, then this person served almost thirty years in the employ of two earls of Northumberland, and rose from remover of foundations to a participant in a masque. The career trajectory of Thomas Wiggan might have been similar to other jesters who became actors, such as John Garrett, who became a member of the Queen’s Men.59 One cannot be sure that these two references are to the same person, but they are consistent with a Percy connection in “The Manner of the progression of the Masque:” the fourteenth Percy earl’s coachman is “Chariotteer” of “The second Charyott for Musicke.”60 Another jester on the family payroll is “stone the fool,” paid four shillings on July 22, 1603 “for his bordwages.”61 Stone also received tenpence sometime in 1604 or 1605.62 If “stone the fool” and “stone” in this last entry are the same person, then this performer was on the list for regular payments from the family. 54  Nicholls, “George Percy’s ‘Trewe Relacyon’,” 252. According to Nicholls, “the force set out on 9 July 1610.” 55  “George Percy’s ‘Trewe Relacyon’,” 255.

56  Orians, “Hawthorne and ‘The Maypole of Merry-Mount’.” 57  Hawthorne, “The May-pole of Merry Mount.” 58  Limon, “Neglected Evidence,” 7.

59  Southworth, Fools and Jesters, 119. 60  Limon, “Neglected Evidence,” 6. 61  Sy: U.I.50A (3) fol. 28r.

62  Sy: U.I.50 (3) fol. [17v].

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There may be some identification for Mr. Stone. Southworth provides information about a fool of the same name who got in trouble for taking his jokes too far, and is mentioned in Ben Jonson’s Volpone. At court, Stone called a lord a fool and was whipped.63 An additional recipient of regular payments from the Percys was “Iacomo the Italyan,” who is never termed a “fool,” but seems to have been a comic actor or playwright or both according to this 1596 entry in a rough paper account book: “to Iacomo the Italyan for playing a comody [by] him self befor his lordship … xxs.”64 A roll from April 27, 1596 to February 16, 1597 gives the same information, except that “by” is not cancelled.65 These entries raise questions: did Iacomo perform the “comody” by himself alone? What does the term “comody” mean in this context? As Suzanne Westfall points out, household accounts do not usually provide this kind of information. The accountants “were, of course, concerned with paying the pipers rather than recording the tunes they played.”66 Some possible answers, though, are suggested by additional documents. For instance, another one-man performance is indicated by a payment of thirty-three shillings on December 21, 1617 “vnto Mr Iames Cranford for acting a Commedye.”67 Also, a passage in Robert Armin’s Foole upon Foole explicitly describes a play performed by a single actor. According to Armin, “Iacke Miller … would imitate playes dooing all himselfe, King, Clowne, Gentleman and all hauing spoke for one, he would sodainly goe in, and againe returne for the other, and stambring, so beastly he did, made mighty mirth.”68 These one-man performances by James Cranford and Jack Miller, and maybe Iacomo, have a parallel in Twelfth Night, when Feste torments Malvolio (4.2) by alternately pretending to be himself and Topas the curate. Perhaps some in Shakespeare’s audience would have enjoyed this dramatization of an entertainment that they had experienced in private houses.69 Perhaps, also, this scene from Twelfth Night encouraged one-man shows in the earl’s household and other private households. As for the kind of comedy Iacomo performed, no definite claim is possible, but something in the Commedia dell’Arte tradition seems plausible. Iacomo is called “the Italyan” in the records, and the improvisational nature of the Commedia dell’Arte would 63  Fools and Jesters, 139–40.

64  Sy: U.I.2/30/9 fol. 1v.

65  Petworth House 580 sheet [2]. See also REED: Sussex, xl and xcvi, n. 180.

66  Westfall, “‘He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune’,” 266. Max Harris discusses the Feast of Fools activities in Sacred Folly. 67  See REED: Coventry, 400.

68  See REED: Herefordshire/Worcestershire, 376, 319–20.

69  See Wiles, Shakespeare’s Clown, 147. Directions for early sixteenth-century Percy Twelfth Night celebrations may be found in Ian Lancashire’s “Orders.” For a royal Twelfth Night celebration of 1601, see Alexander, “A Record of Twelfth Night Celebrations.” Leslie Hotson (“Thomas Savage and John Jackson”) contends that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was performed at this 1601 event, but John H. Astington, in “A Drawing of the Great Chamber at Whitehall in 1601,” 6–11 argues convincingly against Hotson.



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be convenient for a one-man performance.70 The Commedia form was known in England in the later sixteenth century,71 and Chambers lists several Italian groups touring the island, one of which performed “the unchaste, shamelesse and unnaturall tomblinge of the Italian weomen.”72 Chambers also cites another Italian visitor to England, the Italian Commedia dell’Arte player Drusiano of Mantua,73 “comedian to the Duke of Mantua in 1595.”74 Perhaps Iacomo was intended to serve a similar purpose in the Percy household. According to Southworth, the Italian “Monarcho” was a jester for Queen Elizabeth.75 An erudita comedy is also possible, however, because as is noted above, the list of books sent to Syon from the Tower in December 1614 includes a “Comedie” by the erudita Italian playwright Sforza Oddi. Moreover, the volume remains in the Alnwick Castle archives, and includes annotations in the earl’s hand. Evidently he had read the text, or perhaps part of it, and perhaps he would have wanted to see it performed, or something like it.76 When not performing comedies, what kinds of jokes were the jesters telling? Here again the account rolls are not helpful, but the literature of early modern jestbooks is voluminous. Robert Armin and Richard Tarleton are among the better-known writers,77 and there were many others. Pamela Allen Brown bases her paper “Jesting Rights,” for instance, on “hundreds of ‘small merry books’.”78 The nature of the written jokes varies from bawdy, scato­logical bathroom humour79 to snarky jabs at the nobility. In one example, blindness prompts a lord to reveal his foolishness: The aforesaid Nobleman having had a Harper that was blind play to him after supper somewhat late, at last he arose and commanded one of his servants to light the Harper down the stairs; to whom the Servingman said, “My Lord, the Harper is blind.” “Thou ignorant knave,” quoth my Lord, “he hath the more need of light.”80

Shakespeare, Brown points out, refers to these texts in Much Ado about Nothing when Beatrice is insulted by Benedick’s claim that her wit comes from a joke book.81 70  See Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 42.

71  Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 2:262. 72  The Elizabethan Stage, 2: 262.

73  The Elizabethan Stage, 2:263.

74  The Elizabethan Stage, 2:263n4.

75  Southworth, Fools and Jesters,112–13.

76  See Batho, “Library.” A copy is printed by De Fonblanque, Annals of the House of Percy, Appendix 19, 2:626–30. See also Berry, “Italian Definitions of Tragedy and Comedy Arrive in England.” For help with discussion of Italian comedy, my thanks are due to Uni­ver­sity of Pittsburgh Profs. Marianne Novy (Department of English) and Francesca Savoia (Department of French and Italian). 77  Collections by these writers and others are available in A Nest of Ninnies. 78  Brown, “Jesting Rights.”

79  “Jesting Rights,” 311–12.

80  Zall, A Nest of Ninnies, 131.

81  2.1 123–125; Brown, “Jesting Rights,” 306.

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Of course, writing and speaking are different kinds of communication, and jokes that were written down might not have been spoken, and vice versa. Some research, however, does provide information about jesters’ performances that could have taken place in private households. “At court and in private houses,” for instance, Richard Tarleton would appear at banquets and tell jokes among the guests “until the small hours.”82 Improvisation was a mainstay of his performance; sometimes members of the audience would challenge him with rhymes or “themes” to which he would respond with his own rhymes.83 There is some evidence that comedians’ delivery was somewhat different from that of other performers, and was valued. “Thomas Newton,” Tiffany Stern notes, “tells young men to speak aloud to music in order to achieve the kind of ‘bigge tuned sounds’ made of ‘stoppes and certayn Pauses’ that ‘Comicall felowes’ could so easily produce.”84 Other than delivery, what could make a joke funny? What makes someone laugh? This subject has been under discussion at least since Aristotle,85 and this chapter is not the place for an exhaustive discussion of this complex topic.86 Still, with reference to the comic performers discussed here, some suggestions are possible. One early modern approach to defining comedy is developed by Phillip Sidney in his Defense of Poesy, where he argues that comedy discourages vice and sin by making them laughable: “comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he [the dramatist] representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one.”87 A more explicitly Christian interpretation of Shakespeare’s fools is advanced by Sandra J. Pyle who argues that: the clown ministry of Shakespeare’s holy fools, predicated on divine rather than worldly wisdom, corresponds to Christ’s ministry. … To reveal sin, revive sick souls, and restore broken relationships, both human and divine, holy fools often do what their culture considers foolish. This holy madness or folly, however, acts as a metaphysical medicine to purge sinful souls and degenerate societies. The laughter induced by holy madness can lead to repentance88

Unfortunately, the Percy records do not provide enough information about the jesters’ actual words to support either Sidney’s view or a Christian concept of their comedy. However, theories of humour advanced by Henri Bergson in Laughter and John Morreall in Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour may help account for humour in some of the performances attested by these records. In Laughter, Bergson holds that comedy derives from any mechanical or rigid imposition on the naturally changing, creative, human self.89 Bergson agrees with Sidney that laughter is corrective, but the 82  Wiles, Shakespeare’s Clown, 15.

83  Shakespeare’s Clown, 14.

84  Stern, “Actors’ Parts,” 503.

85  Golden, Aristotle on Tragic and Comic Mimesis.

86  For a good summary of the main issues, see Morreall, “Philosophy of Humour.” 87  Phillip Sidney, The Defense of Poesy.

88  Pyle, Mirth and Morality of Shakespeare’s Holy Fools, 14.

89  Bergson, Laughter, 34–35.



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specific problem it addresses, for Bergson, is any restriction of this constant free change and development.90 Bergson provides many examples from Molière’s plays.91 Today’s reader, though, might also think of Charlie Chaplin’s repetitive, machine-like, hilarious actions on an assembly line (Modern Times, 1936). Another dramatization of this principle occurs when Chaplin’s character is sucked into the machinery of his factory and is unhurt but imprisoned amidst its gears and wheels. In Sleeper (1973), Woody Allen develops this theme again when his character pretends to be a robot in a futuristic dystopia. After the truth is uncovered, there’s a chase scene reminiscent of Modern Times. Bergson also emphasizes the necessity of emotional distance in comedy. One cannot laugh at something that arouses strong emotions such as sorrow or horror. Bergson writes about: the absence of feeling which usually accompanies laughter. It seems as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment, for laughter has no greater foe than emotion. … In a society composed of pure intelligences there would probably be no more tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter.92

As Charlie Chaplin observed, according to John Morreall, “life is a tragedy in close-up but a comedy in long-shot.”93 If Bergson had thought of Twelfth Night, he might have cited Malvolio’s attempts to impose rigid morality on Sir Toby Belch and his zany friends in Countess Olivia’s household. Sir Toby asks, “Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?” (2.3.114–115). Someone like Malvolio, according to Bergson’s theory, is usually the butt of comedic laughter. The comic or jester, on the other hand, organizes and directs the laughter, using his creative mental agility. He or she is the opposite of a rigid personality.94 In Twelfth Night, a good example of this comic would be Feste, who can alternately be himself and then Sir Topas the curate while Malvolio is locked in a cell. Earlier, Feste told Viola that “A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be turn’d outward!” (3. 1. 11–13); in the next Act, Feste becomes such a glove, transforming himself into Sir Topas to persecute Malvolio (4.2). Another example of this flexible, creative comedy, the opposite of rigidity, could be Earl Percy’s Iacomo, who, as noted above, presented “a comody [by] him self befor his lordship.” Like James Cranford and Jack Miller, Iacomo might have played the different parts alternately, walking off and returning as different characters. John Morreall reinforces and adds to Bergson’s ideas in Comic Relief. Like Bergson, Morreall emphasizes creativity and emotional distance as needed for laughter, but for him the essential ingre-

90  Laughter, 66–68.

91  Laughter, 91. 92  Laughter, 2.

93  Morreall, Comic Relief, 138. 94  Bergson, Laughter, 86–98.

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dient is a “cognitive shift,” an abrupt movement in tone, focus, or style that provokes laughter.95 This is the principle behind Woody Allen’s aphorisms in Getting Even: It is impossible to experience one’s own death objectively and still carry a tune.

The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind—a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you’ve just made a down payment on a house. Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you’re dressed for it.96

The performance of multiple roles by one performer could be related to this theory as well. If Iacomo performed one role, walked off, and came back on stage to perform another one, the change itself might have contributed to successful comedy. Documents indicate, then, that the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth Percy earls enjoyed and supported comedy, both in print and in live performance, even though they may not have discussed the subject explicitly, so far as is known. The records of the thirteenth earl, in particular, suggest the range of functions, some quite menial, that a jester or comic performer might fulfill in a household. In these respects, the Percy household may have been like other private households, but they may have been unique in sending a jester to America. Some of these activities, also, would not have been supported by the towns, which certainly paid jesters, but did not pay for libraries or explorations of the New World, as far as one knows. Specific texts of the Percy jesters are not available, but some of the account entries indicate performances that relate to theories of comedy. These conclusions are preliminary, of course, and may need to be revised as more records of comics and private households become available on the REED N-E website. The discussion of humour, its purposes, value, and historical context will not end in the foreseeable future. Future discoveries may support or revise the findings of this chapter.

95  Comic Relief, 50.

96  Allen, Getting Even, 25.

Chapter 2

WEDDING REVELS AT THE EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND’S HOUSEHOLD SUZANNE WESTFALL

In his book

The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre asks, “What exactly were the great cathedrals? The answer is that they were political acts.”1 Similarly, ceremonial occasions at aristocratic households were political acts. Although we might underestimate the semiotic power of such occasions, household books from the early modern period act as correctives, recording in minute detail the specifics of weddings, funerals, holidays—virtually any private, religious, or public celebration that a nobleman might celebrate in his own court. From restaurants that offer the “Medi­eval Banquet” experience to action films that feature choreo­graphed fights and much flinging about of food, most popular culture images tend to be egregious misrepresentations of great household occasions, since all ceremonies, from the medi­eval through the interregnum periods, were carefully choreo­graphed procedures, dictated by protocols encoded in household ordinances and courtesy books, organized and executed by household officers, and designed to express order, power, privilege, hierarchy, and social control. Every moment of the event was a signifier—from the gathering and presentation of specific foods, to the participants’ wardrobe, to each person’s position in processions, at chapel, at table and in private chambers. The rituals in the household of Henry Algernon Percy, fifth Earl of Northumberland, reflected the dynamics and structures of early modern society in his northeastern court, which comparison with royal accounts shows was as elaborate, if not more elaborate than the king’s.2 With very good reason Henry VII fined the earl £10,000 (estimated at £2,310,000 or three million dollars in today’s money) for excess “ostentation.”3 The ­Second Northumberland Household Book preserved ordinances for fashioning such socio-political space for special occasions, preserving detailed accounts for the production of public ceremonies in the earl’s household.4 1  Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 74.

2  For detailed information about the entertainments of the Percy family, see Bob Alexander’s chapter in this volume. 3  Brenan, A History of the House of Percy, 1:141, 168–69.

4  I am indebted to Ian Lancashire both for his mentorship and for his superb work with dating, auspices, and analysis of articles in Bodleian MS Eng. hist. b. 208 (the complete manu­script has not, to date, been transcribed or edited). Lancashire’s groundbreaking work appears in his Prof. Suzanne Westfall is Professor and Head of Theater at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, and editor of the Records of Early English Drama volume for Northumberland.

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When a great household celebrated a major religious feast or secular festival, it strove to amalgamate, to produce a multi-dimensional entertainment by enlisting the cooperation of many people, from cooks to composers, from priests to players. The revels surrounding an actual early sixteenth-century wedding celebrated in Northumberland showed clearly that, in this case, art was often designed specifically to reflect life, at least in its idealized form; through a cooperative effort of household servants, the wedding revels illustrated the ideo­logy and aesthetics of noble marriage. The revels were theatre, with specific sets, hierarchical characters, indexical costumes, precise blocking and a choreo­graphy that reflected both synchronic and diachronic structures. At the same time, the revels commingled public and private space, public and private experience, as the participants progressed in an ebb and flow through the geo­graphical space of the household. To be sure, an aristocratic household was itself a paradoxical establishment, embodying binary oppositions such as static/active, private/public, and domestic/commercial.5 Moving from property to property, from manor to castle to London townhouse, a superstructure of servitors transporting both themselves and household “stuff” (known as the “riding” household) would progress periodically throughout an aristocrat’s far-flung holdings. Family “seats” were rather public private homes to the resident household—a nobleman, his extended family, his staff and their families, as well as all of their servants, a number sometimes reaching two hundred and fifty. And of course, a household was an economic unit, a corporation of managers and workers who happened to live (occasionally) under the same roof. The nobleman’s wife and children might also retain their own households, as was clearly the case at the royal courts. Consequently, entertainments in the noble households tended to represent a curious admixture of the public and the private, an opportunity for the formal pretensions of largess as well as the casual celebration of personal leisure. The Second Northumberland Household Book (hereafter “2NHB”) came to the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1962 and was catalogued as MS Eng. hist. b. 208. This manu­script set of twenty-three articles detailed the responsibilities of household servants on: domestic ceremonial occasions such as weddings, christenings, and burials; religious occasions such as Maundy Thursday and Epiphany; and more secular occasions such as St. George’s Day and the Garter services (though many of these, of course, overlap in the nature of the auspices). Ian Lancashire suggests that the book was compiled between 1519 and 1527, and that the collected ordinances themselves dated between 1500 and 1519.6 Here I focus on the three orders for the marriage of an earl’s daughter, specifically number ten, which outlines the lady’s progress to the wedding ceremony, number eleven, which concerns the ceremony and subsequent festivities, and number twelve, which describes the dressing of the chapel where the ceremony is to be concluded. “Orders for Twelfth Day and Night circa 1515”; details about the Percy family as patrons of the arts appear at 11–15. 5  For a detailed discussion of households, see Westfall, Patrons and Performance. 6  Lancashire, “Orders,” 9.



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These orders were probably followed for the marriages of the fifth earl’s sister and/or his daughter, between 1511 and 1515.7 Since the orders focused on the bride rather than on the groom, it is likely that they pertained to celebrations within the earl’s own household, conducted by the earl’s servitors. As is usual for Tudor household occasions, no specific guest-lists, contemporary descriptions, personal letters, or financial accounts for the marriages survive, so it is difficult to speculate about the magnitude or scope of these particular occasions. If Percy celebrated weddings in similar fashion as his brother-in-law Buckingham did, the occasions were likely to be expensive. In each of the two years 1518 and 1519, when Buckingham married off a daughter and a son and entertained Henry VIII at his household at Penshurst, his household expenditure for provisions rose by £1000 compared with the figure in the 1517 accounts (roughly £1,133,000 in present value); his wardrobe expenditures rose by £1500 in each of the two years (£1,700,000 in present value).8 At first glance, a family wedding may seem a private and secular event, and in comparison to the great religious feasts, it certainly was. In fact, in pre-Reformation England a religious service was not specifically required to celebrate a marriage; only a civil contract and “betrothal” were demanded by law and by custom. Nevertheless, when two aristocratic families merged, the marriage became a public and liturgical event, requiring the participation of the clergy, specifically Percy’s Chapel. In addition, such a marriage was likely to be a political and economic event, attended by many guests who bore public witness not only to the alliance, but also to the political, economic, and social power of the families involved.9 Consequently, the family produced a public show of their “private” life, displaying family treasures of plate, jewels, and arras, providing lavish banquets with every variety of food the earl’s far-flung properties could provide or exotic delicacies his unstinting purse could purchase. In addition to these displays, 7  “Orders,” 10.

8  Rawcliffe, The Staffords, 134–35.

9  The political effect of wedding celebrations may be observed in the royal weddings celebrated during the reign of Henry VII. When Henry married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, the wedding revels must have been subdued, for they pass almost without comment. Edward Hall notes only that “lyke a good prynce accordyng to his othe and promes, he did both solempnise and consummate [the marriage] in brief tyme after, that is to say on the xviij daye of Ianuary” (Hall, Vnion, 424–25). Henry was adamant that his subjects recognize that the throne was his through his own noble lineage, conquest, and divine right rather than through his marriage to the heiress of the previous monarch. In marked contrast, when Henry married his heir Prince Arthur to Princess Katherine of Aragon, the king required that the world bear witness to the alliance, for the marriage symbolized international recognition of the Tudor dynasty. Consequently, this marriage was marked by perhaps the most elaborate revels of his reign, including a tournament, four elaborate banquets, and disguisings. (See Anglo, Spectacle, 56–103.) Similarly, when Princess Margaret was married by proxy to James IV of Scotland in 1502, Henry once again seized the opportunity to broadcast the alliance by staging a tournament and disguising (Leland, De Rebvs Britannicis, 4:258–300). Although this second wedding was celebrated more simply than the previous year’s (perhaps due to the recent deaths of the Queen and Prince), it certainly outshone the king’s own wedding in 1486.

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entertainments by the earl’s retained performers demonstrated the sophistication of his private household and ensured that wedding guests left in suitable awe of their host. The twelfth order of the Second Northumberland Household Book shows that the earl took the opportunity to display his wealth, almost as set decoration for the theatre that was to come. Thus, the earl “produced,” in the Marxist sense explored by Lefebvre, a social space, demarcating his territory by transmogrifying the church (which today many might well consider an egalitarian and public space where all the assembled company could be equal in the sight of God), into a chamber within his home, foregrounding his possessions. The first four of the six articles within the order stipulate that the high altar, the choir (including the desks, stalls, and walls), the body of the chapel, and the two altars at the chapel door were to be covered with “the best stuf that they have,” hung with “arras or counterfeat arras”; carpets covered the floor of the choir and the body of the chapel. Percy’s church plate, including “a crosse vppon a stage,” “ymages” of saints, silver and gilt candlesticks, basins, ewers, cruets, and chalices, was displayed on the high and doorway altars.10 In the midst of this “set” of shining white linen, colourful tapestries, and carpets, and glowing silver and gold, Percy’s Chapel singers performed: Item the vth article is that if the lorde keip a chapell and it thought convenient that the service of the messe the saide Day be Doon by most The hyghe mess in the saide chappell be ordourid aftir this wise the said Daye yf the Queir beneth be not sufficiaunte of Rowm for the chappell to stand in to sing at the saide masse Than they to be in the roode loft of the saide Chappell and their to Sing the saide messe 11

Under normal circumstances, the choir would certainly have been large enough to accommodate the fifth earl’s Chapel, which numbered twenty-eight, including six children,12 a number that compares with distinction to the royal chapel (which numbered thirty-seven in the household of King Edward IV13). Percy’s Chapel included: a dean, subdean, gospeller, Lady Mass priest, master of grammar, riding chaplain, almoner, six additional chaplains, and nine gentlemen. The nine gentlemen were further specified as a choirmaster, a “pistoler,” an organist, four counter-tenors, and two tenors, soon to be swelled with two more counter-tenors.14 It is likely that on the day of the wedding the choir, crowded with guests, would have forced the singers, whose number was perhaps swelled by clerics that visiting friends and relatives had brought along, to retreat to other spaces; from above, the trained voices of other of the earl’s “possessions”— the retained Chapel Gentlemen and Children—filled the room with the polyphonic music for which they were distinguished. This configuration once again foregrounds the earl’s socio-economic standing, supplanting the liturgical elements of the wedding (the chapel) with the secular elements (the guests). We should also note the conditional 10  2NHB, fol. 31.

11  2NHB, fol. 33.

12  Grose, “The Earl of Northumberland’s Household Book,” 27. 13  Myers, The Household Book of Edward IV, 133–36.

14  Grose, “The Earl of Northumberland’s Household Book,” 163.



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language of the order; events couched in phrases qualified terms such as “if the lorde keip a chapell and it thought convenient,” “the saide Day,” yf the Queir beneth be not sufficiaunte of Rowm” [my italics] indicate a document composed for prescriptive rather than descriptive purposes, or perhaps that the household book is indeed a document based on other noble or indeed royal collections of ordinances. The other orders in the Northumberland Household Book are similarly constructed. The tenth order, eight articles describing the bride’s progress to the service, falls within the province of the chamberlain and the gentlemen ushers, rather like the stage managers in the modern theatre, who were responsible for ensuring that each link in the chain of social order was properly placed. Concerned primarily with matters of hierarchy and protocol, the order has three functions: to ensure that each person is properly situated according to rank; to facilitate the precise timing of the procession; and to stipulate the attendance and dress of the bride, depending upon her marital history— whether she were a maiden, a widow, or previously betrothed. The first function of the order, precedence, is addressed by articles four, six, and seven. After the bride has “made redy in the Chamber of my lady her moder,” and “my lordes chamberlayn when she is comyn Down into the saide chamber” has commanded “a gentleman ussher to fetche the two gentlemen whiche shall lede hir to the chirche as be bachelors yf she go for a made,” the order of the bridal party is prescribed: Item the iiijth article is That all thois Gentilwomen as schalbe Attending vppon hir that Day shall go behind hir to the churche And from the churche in Degree next hir as two and two togeder as they be of birth ande the best to go next hir15

While the Chamberlain was arranging the bride and her attendants in the specified order, the bridegroom and his attendants, including “his breder in Lawe the said Laidies bredren and all outher suche as be their gentlemen,” were fetched by gentlemen ushers to wait for the bride at the chapel door. This sixth article also stipulates that the lord himself was waiting in the choir to give the bride away “yf their be not A better to yef her that Day.”16 This last comment is particularly interesting, for it indicates that rank was more important than kinship, that the family patriarch customarily relinquished his paternal right to public patriarchy, if a guest of higher rank were in attendance. This is clear evidence that the private, domestic aspect of marriage was, in aristocratic nuptials, turned inside out, with the private publicly reconstructed and displayed. The seventh order confirms this idea, adding that the earl might in turn provide the service for families of lower rank than his: Item the vijth Article is That if the lorde her fader be not their nor A better than he is Than the next of hir kynne be att the saide Churche Door to gif her when the priest askth who shall gif this woman and yf it be an outher laidy or gentlewoman that schalbe maried in the saide lordes hous Than the said lorde not to com Down Except the faider or fryndes of the said bride Deasire hum to yef hir for hir mor worschipp17

15  2NHB, fol. 23v.

16  2NHB, fol. 24. 17  2NHB, fol. 24.

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Here we see clear distinctions between the private and public social space. The bride progresses from the relative privacy of her mother’s rooms to the increasingly public rooms, corridors, and eventually to the church, crowded with servitors, family members, performers, and guests. The earl himself is not to emerge into public space unless required by his daughter or requested by another family. Besides careful attention to rank and timing, the tenth order also dictates procedures based upon the past marital status of the couple involved. Here it would seem that the most intimate details of a woman’s life are foregrounded to the point of becoming iconic. According to the third article, if the bride is sixteen or seventeen, and “hath made no consent of Matromeny befor of wedlocke,” she proceeds to the chapel with her hair down, adorned with a chaplet; if her condition be otherwise, she wears a bonnet “as sche is vsed to go in Daily.”18 Further, the fifth article allows the bride a maiden attendant to bear her train only if the bride is herself a maiden; otherwise, a knight’s wife does her service or the bride’s sister or aunt could bear the train. Thus, in the emblematic fashion so common to Tudor ceremonials, the marital history and age of the bride were instantly and visually communicated as semiotic indices to the assembled witnesses, perhaps to forestall later accusations of pre-contract or false testimony, legal issues certainly foregrounded during the multiple divorce and marriage negotiations of King Henry VIII. Later in the celebration this important personal information would be reiterated during the feast. The eleventh order, by far the longest and most complex of the three, describes the wedding ceremony (articles one through eleven), the wedding supper and festivities (articles twelve through twenty-eight), and the bedding procedures (articles twentynine through thirty-five). Like the tenth order, the eleventh is concerned with matters of precedence and procedure, and therefore involves the Chamberlain and gentleman ushers. The order also describes the supper,19 which required the service of cooks and servants, an afternoon of dancing, for which the earl’s minstrels played, and an evening of entertainment performed by disguisers and players.20 The first part of the order, the articles that describe the wedding mass, are interesting from an historical viewpoint but yield little that will be of direct interest to the theatre historian. A few points there contained should, however, be mentioned. As in the preceding order, degree and decorum take priority. Articles six and nine indicate that the guests performed the offering and took the cup of assay at the finish of the ceremony 18  2NHB, fol. 23v.

19  Although the menu is, of course, non-extant, Percy’s household accounts provide some indication of the foods that may have been served. Over the twelve days of Christmas, the revellers consumed venison, swans, cranes, herons, pheasants, peacocks, and other birds (Grose, “The Earl of Northumberland’s Household Book,” 103, 167). In 1552, when Sir William Petre celebrated his daughter’s wedding, he hired a master cook and four apprentices, and entertained four hundred guests for two days (Emmison, Tudor Food and Pastimes, 32). Percy’s wedding festivities may well have been on the same scale, if his banquet and entertainment of Princess Margaret in 1502, mentioned in the note above, are any indication. 20  2NHB, fols. 25–31v.



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in the order of their assigned social degrees. Furthermore, rank dictated even the location within the church of the marriage ceremony itself: Item the Secounde article is yf She be an Erle is doughter or barrounes Doughter or a greatir estate to be made married at the Quier Door And yf sche be a knightes wif within the chirche or chappell Doir ande yf sche be of a lower Degre to be married without the church door.21

The fifth article includes another semiotic index to the previous alliances of both the male and female celebrants in the marriage: Item the vth article is That at the Agnus tyme of the masse yf they be maides both and haith not byn married befor Than a gentleman vscher to comaunde two gentillmen to hold the cayr clothe ovir their hedes and yf he have byn maried befor to a widow and marryd a maide aftir than to have a cayr cloth inlikecaas ovir hym Ande yf he had byn maried to a maid befor than to have no cayr clothe holdyn ovir hym but ovir hir.22

Several interesting signifiers appear here. First, the word “maides” refers to both male and female (presumably virginal) participants in a first marriage, although a man previously married to a widow nevertheless gets treated to the cayr cloth (variously styled as “care” or “carke” cloth, by the Oxford English Dictionary). Second, we see the tradition of the canopy held over the heads of the young couple, similar to the chuppah that still prevails in Jewish weddings but has largely disappeared from Christian ceremonies. Once again, social and legal markers are encoded in the visual language of the performance. After the ceremony has concluded and the bride and groom have been escorted from public space to private, to their respective chambers to rest (articles twelve through fourteen), the family and guests were treated to dinner, dancing, and entertainments. Articles fifteen through twenty-five dictate the ceremonial service of the dinner, which in many ways resembles the service of the banquet at Percy’s Twelfth Night celebration,23 with two important differences. First, whereas the earl is the focus of the Twelfth Night service, the bride is the central character in the wedding dinner; she is formally served each course by bowing gentlemen ushers before her female attendants are served. Second, and perhaps unexpectedly to the modern observer, the wedding dinner is segregated by sex, the bride and her women dining in one chamber, the groom and his men dining in another. During this dinner, the order utterly neglects directions for the men’s activities, as it does throughout the day. Only after dinner do the couple meet: Item the xxiiijth article is That when the Secound course is servid & they have ettyn a certaine space and the cloith with Drawyn from befor the bride than the bride grome to

21  2NHB, fol. 25.

22  2NHB, fol. 25v.

23  For details of the style of service, see Lancashire, “Orders,” 37–42. Each item of the dinner is served separately, by a gentleman usher, household officer, or yeoman usher bearing a towel over his arm, like a contemporary maître d’hôtel. Each servitor makes his obeisance, serves the bride, then departs. Only after the bride has been served are her attendants served. Thus, a gentleman usher and yeoman usher bring the basin and towel for her to wash, they retreat, the chaplain says grace, and then the carver and sewer process to the bride with the first course. They in turn are succeeded by the cupbearer (2NHB fols. 27v–29).

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be fetched vp to th[e] chambre wheir the bride Sittes by A gentillman vsher and their to vse hym as is accustomed and that Doon he to make his obeisaunce and to re[turn] to his chambre agayn and a gentillman vscher befor him to his Chambre again.24

This sort of segregation by gender and separation from the rest of the family and wedding guests seems extremely odd for a nuptial celebration, and I have found no analogues in playscripts or in diaries. What the compiler of the household book intended by the phrase “vse him as is accustomed” in reference to the groom’s visit is puzzling, but I doubt what a twentieth-century interpretation of the phrase might suggest. The opportunity is hardly private, and household musicians are not in evidence, so perhaps this moment at the end of the midday meal was reserved for conversation, or for games such as chess, dicing, and cards. The language of the order is unusually general here, so it is possible that visiting entertainers, who were not subject to the rule of Percy’s Chamberlain, might perform for the group. Local jugglers, acrobats, or players (reminiscent of the “hard-handed men that work in Athens” at Theseus’s wedding in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) might conveniently fit into the revels here without disturbing the pre-ordained design. The “cloth with Drawyn from befor the bride” refers to article eighteen, which once again deals with signifiers of rank and marital history:25 Item the xviijth Article is That the bride schall have no cloith halden befour hir at Dynnar in an Erle is hous Except sche be a countess or an Erle is Doughtir Or schalbe a barones by her marriage Ande than it to be holdyn by two gentilwomen vnmarried if the bride be made and no widow … they to Draw the saide cloith befor hir face and hold it to the tyme be sche have ettyn and Dronkyn suche sustynaunc as sche wod taike for hir repaist and than they to make their obeisaunc and withdraw it from befor hir and taike it and lay it vppon her Arme and go to a gentleman vscher and deliuer it And the bride to have it so ordoured yf sche be A maide and if sche be a widow than she to haue no cloith holdyn befor 26

After the bride and groom have dined, conversed, entertained themselves and returned once again to their chambers to rest, the evening’s public entertainments began. Since these articles deal most directly with theatrical activities, I transcribe them in full. Item the xxvjth article is That when the bride haeth restid her a spac in hir chaumbre where sche commeth too aftir dynnar Than a gentillman vscher to com to hir and schew hir that the mynstrallis be redy and yf sche be a countesse Doughter and hir moder present Than sche to yef hir moder hir right hand when sche goith to the chambre to Daunc if she pleas to com furth with hir and a gentillman vscher to go befor hir And when sche is in the said chambre Than the minstrallis to playe Than a gentillman to com and make his obeisaunc to hir and Daunc with hir and if sche have breder at Age or Vncles the auncien-

24  2NHB, fol. 29. The script in this article is marred at the points indicated by brackets, apparently by smudges of ink.

25  As an interesting side note, a pregnant Anne Boleyn had the cayr cloth held before her at her coronation banquet (Hall, Vnion, 804). Although she was far from virgin at that point, she seems to have been manipulating social custom and proxemics to make a coy political point about her previous sexual alliances. 26  2NHB, fol. 28.



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test of theim to Daunc with hir Or ellis the most auncientest gentillman their that vsith to Daunc And all the outher gentilwomen to sit on Row oon by an outher along the toon side of the chambre whilles she is in Daunsinge Except thois that schalbe appointed to Daunc when sche Daunsis And if my Laidy hir moder be not Disposide to go furth with hir to the Dansing Than sche to go alloon and all the gentilwomen to follow hir and my Lord and my Laidy to com into hir When they ar in Daunsing if it be their pleaser so to Doo Item the xxvij Article is That when the Daunsing is Doon That then my Laidy to taike the bride vppon hir left hand agayn and have hir to hir Chambre wher she shalbe and a gentillman vscher to go befor yonder to the said chambre wher they shall rest and then the gentillman vschers to bring theym brede & wyne and to Departe from theim When they have so servid theim and to Deliver it to the gentilwomen

Item the xxviijth article is That night The saide bride ande all the Laidies & the Gentilwomen that schall await vppon hir to supp aloon in the chambre appointed for theim to Sowp in that night and noon to com within the chamber but women and a yoman vscher ande a yoman of the chambre and a groim to waite at the Door without to goo for suche thinges as they wol call fore ande the bride groim to sowp in his chambre wheir he lay inlikecaas with suche gentillmen as he liste to haue company with him the said night And When they have souped that then they be brought into the great chambre again to se suche passe tymes as is their ordirid for theim As Disguisinges enterludes or playes

Item xxixth article is That when sche haith so Daunced at aftir Sopar yf their be ordayned a banket for hir Than sche to be had thethir and aftir sche have byn their certain spac Than sche to be conveyd to hir chambre With a certain gentilwomen Wher sche schall lye and within a certain spac aftir The chamber to be voided and than all the residue of the said gentilwomen to goo to the said bride27

Amidst all the travels from great chamber to private chamber, with many apparently much-needed resting periods and perhaps changes of clothing, the wedding festivities are divided into two parts. First, the guests danced in the late afternoon before supper, to music probably provided by Percy’s household minstrels, a taboret, a luter, and a rebec-player, perhaps augmented by local minstrels, itinerant patronized troupes, or minstrels that noble guests had brought along. The family dance may seem rather informal, and the other guests appear, at least at first, to be sitting and watching the dance, which may imply that the initial dances of the afternoon were complex, perhaps requiring choreo­graphy and rehearsal. After an extraordinarily private afternoon, the second part of the revels took place in the evening and encompassed more public dinners or a “banket” (banquet), at which disguisers and players performed. Some clarification of the various types of food service seems necessary here. At the Earl of Northumberland’s, as at all noble households in early modern England, the household enjoyed many different types of communal eating: the feast, the banquet, the voidee, supper, dinner, and at Christmas, the wassail. The first reference to a feast as “a sumptuous meal or entertainment” was in 1200, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and the term shares an interesting etymo­logy with the religious feast (the occasions for which most of these household ceremonies occurred) and the “fest,” alluding to the festival or performative nature of the occasion. The banquet or often “bankett,” sometimes called the “running banquet,” was not generally a 27  2NHB, fol. 29v–30.

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full feast, but rather a dessert course of sweetmeats, a snack between meals (which was roundly condemned, for divergent reasons, by many ecclesiastical and health treatises), often served outside the great hall; this definition was frequently applied in northern England and particularly in Scotland. The “voidee,” as it sounds, was a final “nightcap,” before guests retired or departed, generally, as specified in the Northumberland Twelfth Night Ordinance, spiced wine, various sweetmeats, comfits, or the like, to accompany the evening’s end in gambling, games and dancing.28 Supper was simply the last meal of the day, whether ceremonial (for religious feasts, social occasions, and multi-day celebrations like royal progresses) or not. Dinner, the main meal, was usually taken at midday. Concerned with the logistics of the evening rather than with the content, the wedding orders preserve no details of the dramatic entertainments for the marriage of the earl’s daughter, but his Twelfth Night revels and descriptive accounts from royal weddings provide some indication of the form the wedding revels might take. The three-part performance at Percy’s Twelfth Night began with a play, produced probably by the earl’s own retained troupe of four, who were ordered to attend him at Christmas. Percy’s players are well documented, including: at Henry VII’s royal court in 1493; several times at Selby Abbey in 1500; and at Thornbury, the seat of Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham, the earl’s brother-in-law, at Christmas 1507.29 In addition, they appeared fairly regularly at the Guildhall in Cambridge.30 After the play, minstrels escorted gentlemen and gentlewomen into the hall to perform a disguising, which was interrupted by the entrance of a pageant vehicle out of which erupted noble henchmen performing a morris dance, almost in the style of an anti-masque. At the close of the morris, the disguisers resumed their dances to end their portion of the evening’s entertainment.31 The morris dance, a folk-based fool’s wooing,32 seems particularly appropriate to the celebrations for a marriage, which perhaps accounts for Middleton’s and Rowley’s choice of a dance of madmen and fools for the wedding in The Changeling. The combination of banquet and disguising appears to be a popular structure for wedding revels. In 1501 Henry VII celebrated the marriage of his heir Prince Arthur to Princess Katherine of Aragon, perhaps the most splendid and expensive theatrical occasion of Henry’s reign.33 No plays are mentioned in the accounts or descriptions of the week’s revels, but each of the four magnificent banquets did incorporate an elaborate disguising that reflected the politics of the alliance as well as the theme of noble marriage. The first and most complex disguising, probably scripted by William Cornish (Cornysh) senior and performed with the assistance of the Chapel, enacted the popular courtly allegory of the attack on the Castle of Love, using three pageant devices: a 28  Lancashire, “Orders,” 14–15.

29  Lancashire, “Orders,” 11–12.

30  Records of Early English Drama “Patrons and Performances,” https://reed.library.utoronto. ca/troupe-list/E?page=2. 31  Lancashire, “Orders,” 34–36.

32  Forrest, The History of Morris Dancing.

33  Anglo, Spectacle, 101–03.



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castle for the ladies; a ship in full sail for the ambassadors who sought their favour; and a mountain for the Knights who would compel the ladies to surrender and dance with them. The central metaphor of this disguising certainly suits the theme of marriage; the static feminine domicile, in the form of the protecting castle (a rather obvious sexual metaphor), is “invaded” by active male forces from outside, both intellectually by ambassadors and physically by knights. The battle of courtship, including the ladies’ resistance, the knights’ perseverance, the diplomats’ embassy, and the final union of the dance, reenact the process of romantic noble courtship as well as the political contract. In addition, the pageant devices used are specific to the occasion—a young woman dressed in Spanish garb entered on the ship, just as Princess Katherine had from her home in Aragon, and the knights rode in on a richly-decorated mountain, a transparent reference to Henry VII’s title of Earl of Richmond. The other three disguisings were simpler but echoed the same matrimonial themes in various styles. For the first, an arbour containing the gentlemen confronted a transparent lantern through which the ladies could be seen. The vegetative imagery of the arbour is sexual and romantic, suggesting fruition and fertility, and the lantern may be reminiscent of Hymen, Greek god of marriage (who carried a veil and torch), an image that Chaucer used in the wedding scene of “The Merchant’s Tale,” and that Shakespeare used in seven plays: Titus Andronicus, Much Ado about Nothing, Hamlet, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and The Tempest. In the third disguising, the metaphor was political rather than overtly romantic. A green mount (again suggesting Henry VII’s title) bearing English gentlemen was linked by a golden chain to a scorched but bejewelled mount bearing ladies costumed in the Spanish fashion; this pageant more obviously represents the alliance of the two countries. The fourth pageant, a two-storey tower, conveyed gentlemen on the first level, ladies on the second, and was drawn in by seahorses accompanied by chapel children dressed as mermaids. Since the action of this pageant is sketchily described, it is difficult to comment upon; but once again the separation and final union of the men and women parallel the process of courtship, and, incidentally, echo the “blocking” of the bridal parties in Percy’s household, who were continually meeting, parting, and meeting again. These pointed allegories of love and political alliance show a remarkable aesthetic unity that indicates that the entertainments were commissioned specifically for this occasion, perhaps from John English and William Cornish. If the King commissioned disguisings to comment upon the royal wedding, it is not unlikely that Percy would have done the same for his own daughter’s revels, since he clearly possessed the funds and retained the performers. In 1502, Henry VII marked the wedding celebration of his daughter Margaret to James of Scotland in less extravagant fashion, typical of the thrifty king.34 While no plays are specifically mentioned, nevertheless the revels included a disguising with pageant device and a banquet: 34  Scottish entertainments were much more extravagant, expensive, and appropriate. See Carpenter, “‘Gely wyth tharmys of Scotland England’.”

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… there was in the Hall a goodly Pageant, curiously wrought with Fenestrallis, having many Lights brenning in the same, in Manner of a Lantron, out of wich sorted divers Sortes of Morisks. Also a very goodly Disguising of Six Gentlemen and Six Gentlewomen, which danced divers Dances. After which there was a notable Banquet or Voyde.35

The lantern device is likely the same one used for the marriage of Prince Arthur the previous year; it was typical of the circumspect Henry VII to practice careful husbandry by recycling a visually striking and expensive device from his son’s wedding for use at his daughter’s. And once again we see a morris dance and disguising in the context of food service. The nobility followed the royal example of celebrating marriages with disguisings and banquets. In 1536, at the Earl of Rutland’s advowson at Halywell Nunnery, Shoreditch, on the occasion of a triple wedding that united the houses of Oxford, Westmorland, and Rutland, Henry VIII himself contributed to the entertainment. After a dinner of “diverse greate dishes and delicate meates with sotteltes, and diverse manner of instruments playinge at the same,” the King came theder in a maske, rydynge from Yorke Place, with 11 more with him, wherof the Kinge and 7 more with him ware garmentes after the Turkes fashion, richlye embrodred with gold, with Turkes hattes of blake velwett and whyte fethers on there heades and their faces, and 4 other ware arayed in purple sarcenett, lyke Turkes, which were as their pages, and so they daunsed with the ladyes a good while; …36

The suitability of this particular masque for a wedding celebration is questionable, unless the Turks perhaps performed a morris. Henry was fond of disguising himself as a Turk (a character that appears frequently in mumming plays), or so many of Hall’s descriptions attest; but Hall never implies that the king performed a morris, and the thought of the king performing in a fool’s wooing verges on the blasphemous, even if, ironically, it was actually indicative of the king’s marital forays. After the masque, Henry presented the guests with a banquet of forty dishes before returning to York Place. Just as it was typical of Henry VII to recycle disguising materials or to fine ostentatious nobles in order to discourage excessive display, it was equally typical of Henry VIII to provide an expensive display of his own. Regardless of the personality differences, both father and son favoured the banquet-and-disguising structure for wedding revels. Few descriptions of noble wedding revels from the early Tudor period survive, but some references to such festivities during the reign of Queen Elizabeth testify that the banquet-disguising structure did indeed continue to be popular at noble marriages. “Mummeries and masks” were performed on each of the four days of the wedding revels that united the houses of Talbot and Herbert at Baynard’s Castle in February 1563. In July 1565, Sir Francis Knollys and Sir Ambrose Cave celebrated the marriage of their children with two disguisings lasting until one thirty in the morning at Durham Place. The 1566 wedding guests of the Earl of Southampton and the daughter of Lord Montague saw a disguising with an oration, like Henry VII’s “Castle of Love” for Princess 35  Leland, De Rebvs Britannicis, 4:263.

36  Hamilton, A Chronicle of England During the Reigns of the Tudors, 2:50–51.



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Katherine. During July of the same year a disguising of Venus, Diana, Pallas, and Juno (classical ladies perfectly suited to the themes of love, chastity, and fidelity intrinsic to courtly marriage) was performed at the wedding of the Earl of Sussex’s sister.37 The masque or disguising, sometimes including rhetoric with music and dance, continued in popularity as a wedding entertainment throughout Elizabeth’s reign. George Gascoigne wrote verses for one at the seat of Lord Montague in 1572, the costumes for which were hired from the Revels Office. In 1595, the marriage of Burghley’s granddaughter to the Earl of Derby was celebrated with a disguising. In 1600, the Queen’s own maids of honour performed a disguising of eight Muses in search of their sister when their companion Elizabeth Russell married the Earl of Worcester’s son.38 The portrait of Sir Henry Unton (https://www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/makingart-in-tudor-britain/case-studies/the-portrait-of-sir-henry-unton-c.-1558-1596, post�humously painted ca. 1596) at the National Portrait Gallery depicts Unton presiding at a banquet while a masque of Mercury and Diana is performed with child cupids and attendant minstrels. Several facets of performance unique to the disguising made it extremely popular as a courtly entertainment, particularly for weddings. Unlike a play designed to be performed repeatedly, a disguising would be commissioned to celebrate a specific occasion by referring to particular events and people and by employing allegory complementary to the themes of the marriage. A play performed by a small troupe of interluders, however, could never hope to be as extravagant a theatrical display as could a disguising that involved a greater number and variety of performers. Chapel gentlemen and children, singing and perhaps speaking, joined with minstrels and dancing gentlemen and gentlewomen to create a visual and aural extravaganza that interluders could not match. Other qualities of the disguising made it an ideal entertainment for a patron who wished to impress his guests with his wealth and artistic sophistication. A disguising was expensive, including costs for costumes and scenic devices, and was completely ephemeral (except, perhaps, for recycled scenery); since it was never intended to be recreated it could never return a profit or even meet expenses—the patron’s household absorbed the entire expense. In addition, the disguising involved the guests in a fashion that a play could not. Some may have participated themselves as disguisers, others recognized friends among the dancers. Never intended for plebeian audiences, the disguising not only entertained the elite but flattered them as well, complimenting their intellect with its classical themes, and reflecting their own courtly life-style. The sole profit to the patron, the grandeur of the impression, made it a splendidly wasteful display. Plays, in comparison to disguisings, seem relatively rare in the scarce narratives or records of wedding celebrations. Neither the descriptive accounts nor John Heron’s financial accounts mention plays or players at Prince Arthur’s 1501 wedding, although Henry VII’s player John English was paid for a “pagent.” Other payments went to Cornish for “iij pageants,” and to the “Children of the Kinges Chapell,” probably for singing in 37  Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 1:160–62.

38  The Elizabethan Stage, 1:162–68.

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the pageants.39 Yonge does not mention plays at the proxy marriage of Princess Margaret nor on her progress north, although John English and his players did accompany the Princess, may have performed along the way, and certainly performed a “moralitie” when they reached the Scottish court.40 Although disguisings rather than plays occupied a prominent role in the wedding revels of Henry VII, Percy’s known patronage of players, combined with the facts that both the wedding orders and the Twelfth Night orders mention plays, indicates the earl’s personal taste may have encouraged play production for his own revels, since, as we know, Percy’s almoner, who appears in the list of resident Chapel personnel, was a “maker of interludes,” and a chaplain, Peres or Pyers, apparently also wrote for the chapel.41 What sort of play might be considered suitable for a wedding revels? John Yonge’s reference to the “moralitie” enacted at the Scottish court shows that wedding plays need not always be romantic, classical, or comic, as the disguisings often were. Audiences could be reminded of the serious religious and social implications of marriage, particularly if they were to be later diverted by lighter themes. Some extant playtexts refer to courtship and marriage, but for various reasons most are unsuitable for wedding performances. For example, the plot of Fulgens and Lucrece concerns the rivalry between two suitors for a desirable bride. Similarly, Wit and Science enacts Wit’s wooing of Lady Science, ending with their union after the protagonist has conquered his considerable character flaws. Both these plays do contain extremely flattering portraits of brides, characterizing the ladies as models of patience and virtue. The central conflicts in these plays, however, address the problems of the male suitors, and since the bride is clearly the focus of the Second Northumberland Household Book wedding orders, this sudden shift in attention to the socio-political problems of the groom creates a disturbing imbalance. The content of the plays might also be interpreted as insulting to a new son-in-law. Godly Queen Hester has similar problems. The situation of the play is uncomplimentary to the male characters, although it is unswervingly complimentary to the royal bride. Popular tales of virtuous wives such as Susannah and Griselda also criticize husbands. One of the liveliest satires of courtship, Rafe Roister Doister, characterizes the potential bridegroom as a foolish fop, an impression that great household wedding plays would surely eschew. Far better to avoid the issue of marriage altogether if a play that would be laudatory to both parties could not be commissioned. A morality or scriptural play, emphasizing Christian values and free from the risk of insult, could well be considered appropriate for a wedding. Classical comedies, like those of Terence and Plautus, either in translation or in Latin (which would again flatter the learning of the elite audience) would also be good choices for neutral entertainment. Tragedies might be considered poor taste for such a festive and optimistic occa39  Anglo, Spectacle, 37.

40  Leland, De Rebvs Britannicis, 4:258–300.

41  Grose, “The Earl of Northumberland’s Household Book,” 61, 92, 97, 199. Lancashire, “Orders,” 13n.



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sion (think how many tragedies begin with a marriage), so that plays like the Troilus and Pandar enacted at court by Cornish and the chapel were probably avoided. Heywood’s comic farces, like moralities and scriptural plays, were neutral and conciliatory, with the added advantage of being comic, which could make them suitable wedding plays. The Play of the Weather and The Play of Love in particular are lively and entertaining, but carry no risk of insult in their harmless disputations. Johan Johan, with its condescending satire of the trials of wedded life among the common people, might also appeal to the humour and snobbery of an elite audience. None of the extant plays was clearly designed to be used for wedding revels, but some might be appropriate. The single most important factor in choosing a wedding play, as Duke Theseus comments in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is that it entertain everyone and insult no one, that it be not “some satire keen and critical, /Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.” Celebrating union and alliance, a noble wedding was clearly not the time to stage a play that attempted reform by criticizing noble behaviour or life-style. Rather, wedding plays should celebrate noble actions, or else remain safely neutral. Percy would have been even more inclined to include a play in his wedding revels because he could not produce the entertainment that figured most prominently in the royal weddings: the allegorical tournament. Both Prince Arthur’s and Princess Margaret’s weddings were marked by chivalric jousts, the former lasting an entire week.42 We have extant evidence of only one case of a nobleman hosting a tournament. No doubt with the King’s approval Sir Rhys ap Thomas staged one at Carew Castle in 1507 (see REED: Wales, 256–67) specifically to advance a royal agenda. Otherwise, there is no evidence that any nobleman other than the king ever staged his own tournament, for obvious reasons; no monarch would smile at a martial display from a powerful vassal, and few aristocrats could afford either the financial expense or the risk of treason that the tournament could imply. At best, Percy would have limited himself to mock-combats within the context of the disguising, or to verbal combats within the context of a play. After Percy’s guests enjoyed the banquet, disguising, and play in his Great Hall, they prepared to witness the “hallowing of the bed,” which is the concern of the last five articles of the eleventh order. Although these articles allow the modern reader a unique view of the public witnessing of the preliminaries of consummation, there is little here that is overtly theatrical. Rather, the sexual symbolism of marriage was reverently and ceremoniously displayed. The bridal chamber, covered with carpets and cushions and including a cupboard with a display of plate,43 once again allowed the earl to produce a public space from a private one, one last opportunity to dazzle the guests with his wealth. In addition, this most intimate moment was publicly displayed, probably with legal implications, as the guests see the couple into bed, share a spice plate and a drink to wish them well, and depart, perhaps to continue the festivities with sports and games well into the night. 42  Leland, De Rebvs Britannicis 4:262; Anglo, Spectacle, 100.

43  2NHB, fol. 31.

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After the great effort and expense of the preparations for the wedding, after many guests had travelled various distances to participate, it is unlikely that Percy’s wedding revels ended after one short day. Beatrice-Joanna’s continues for three days in The Changeling; the 1563 Talbot–Herbert union was celebrated for four days; royal marriages such as Prince Arthur’s and Princess Margaret’s went on far longer. The wedding orders in the Second Northumberland Household Book describe only the activities of the marriage day, but feasting, dancing, hunting and theatrical performances may well have continued afterward. Percy’s wedding revels demanded exhausting participation from household servants, officers and entertainers, so that the earl and his guests could enjoy virtually ceaseless activity. On the wedding day itself the revels were precisely organized to produce a number of effects. Noble preoccupation with hierarchy, precedence, and maintenance is reflected in the ceremonial processions and services that frame the wedding itself and the wedding supper. Music, both religious and secular, echoed throughout the day, in the Chapel’s complex singing of the high mass, in the afternoon dance when the guests performed for each other, and in the evening’s disguising and play, when prepared artistic constructs were presented for them by professional entertainers resident in the household. Visual effects were exploited, both in costume and in setting; the ostentatious finery of the guests, surrounded by richly-coloured tapestries and carpets, and reflected in glowing displays of silver and gold plate, combined to create magnificent spectacle. But most important, the private lives and spaces of the aristocratic family were intentionally turned inside out, made public for the occasion. Masculine and feminine worlds, choreo­graphed like a pavane, meet, retreat, and mingle once again in Great Chamber and Bedchamber. The hospitality of the home is enlarged and orchestrated into a corporate event employing hundreds of family retainers. Rather than the domestic intervening in the outside world of politics and economics, the domestic becomes a cauldron for these forces, enclosing them in its familial embrace. And all of this ceremonalia, over three hundred pages of The Northumberland Household Book is, as Lefebvre suggests, in service to dynastic politics.

Chapter 3

WEDDINGS AND WIVES IN SOME WEST RIDING PERFORMANCE RECORDS SYLVIA THOMAS The lucky find in the East Riding Archives at Beverley of an account of the Nevile family wedding feast, highlighted by East Riding editor Diana Wyatt in a recent article, provided a timely reminder to look at the material we have for the kind of performance activity which is recorded at weddings of all sorts of people associated with the West Riding.1 Some of them are very well known. We start at the very top, with Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, whose wedding celebrations on Valentine’s Day, or Shrove Sunday, 1613, were recorded by the Yorkshire antiquary, John Hopkinson, from papers of the Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, and others. Hopkinson, of Lofthouse, near Leeds (1610–1680), was an antiquary who in the 1660s was employed, with Yorkshire historian Nathaniel Johnston, in arranging the Talbot papers at Sheffield Castle. The royal festivities were also mentioned in a letter by Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, to Sir William Wentworth, father of Thomas Wentworth, later Earl of Strafford. Cumberland’s son, Henry Clifford, was one of the “viij Noble men, and viij Ladies, of which Number my Sonne is first of the 4 barons. …” appointed to take part in a masque at the marriage.2 Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662) eldest and only surviving daughter of James I, married Frederick V, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire (1596–1632) on February 14, 1613.3 It may be that the marriage to this Protestant prince was part of James I’s plan to provide a balance against potential Catholic marriages for his sons Henry and Charles, but Elizabeth’s elder brother, Henry, Prince of Wales, had other ideas and had probably commissioned a masque for her wedding called The Masque of Truth (author uncertain), which symbolised the final triumph of light against the evil darkness of popery. Unfortunately Henry died on November 6,

1  ERALS, MS DDWS/8/1/1/1. Wyatt, “Elizabeth Nevile’s Wedding Entertainments.” Compare also Suzanne Westfall’s chapter in this volume.

2  Sheffield Archives, MS WWM/STR P 20 (c) (194), January 13, 1612/13. Eight male masquers represented transformed Stars, with eight female masquers representing transformed Statues. Chambers only mentions two documents identifying the masquers, which furnished the names of Philip Herbert (1584–1649/50), Earl of Montgomery (later twenty-third Earl of Pembroke), William Cecil (1591–1668), sixteenth Earl of Salisbury, James (ca. 1580–1636), Lord Hay (later second Earl of Carlisle), and Ann Dudley, but not that of Henry Clifford. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 3:241–42; ODNB: “Thomas Campion.” 3  Historical detail in this chapter is based on ODNB.

Sylvia Thomas, now retired, was Chief Archivist for West Yorkshire and is co-editor of the Records of Early English Drama volume for the West Riding of Yorkshire.

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1612, and this masque was not performed. Instead, The Lords’ Masque, by Thomas Campion (1567–1620), was put on, at a cost of £400, to celebrate the marriage. As Hopkinson records, a special temporary building was erected at Whitehall for the purpose: The Lord ArchBishop of Canterburie maried them, and the Lord Bishop of Bathe preached the bridall sermon, which being ended; they all returned from the Church in the same roiall state & order as they went thither: the Bride being then ledd by two maried menn, the Duke of Lennox, and the Earle of Nottingham Lord Admiral, the bride & bridegroome, Prince Charles, Count Henricke with other Noblemen strangers, all the great Lords of the privie Councell, the cheife Ladies of the Court & others, who all dined that day in the new large roome builded for that purpose which roome was adorned with stately hangings curiously wrought representing the sea fight betweene the English and Spanish fleete in the yeare one thousand five hundreth eightye eight, with Maskes of Lords & Ladies, and the foure severall Inns of Court4

This cost was as nothing, however, in comparison to the expense of the “Navall fight of fireworkes on the Thames,” and other fireworks, which totalled £7,680. The total cost of the wedding was reported to come to £53,293, plus the princess’s portion of £40,000.5 Hopkinson quotes at length the elaborate nuptial poem which was performed, heralded by a trumpet, comparing the bride to Queen Elizabeth, who, it is implied, might have benefited from having such a husband as Frederick. Barbara Palmer notes that the other court masques performed over the period from February 11 to 20, 1613, besides Campion’s Lords’ Masque, were Chapman’s Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn, and Beaumont’s Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn. 6 Later the same year, at Christmas, another notorious wedding occasioned further court celebrations, again described by Hopkinson. This time it was the marriage of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset (1585/6?–1645), a Scot, and favourite of James I. Carr was brought up in the royal household, knighted in 1607 and created a gentleman of the bedchamber. He acquired money, land and prestige, and from the end of 1610 began to be more active politically. In 1611 he was created Viscount Rochester, a knight of the garter, keeper of Westminster Palace and in 1612 a privy councillor. At some time probably in 1611 or 1612 Rochester had begun a secret romantic relationship with the Earl of Suffolk’s daughter, Frances Howard (1590–1632), who was unhappily married to Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex. The Countess of Essex sued for annulment of her marriage 4  Bradford, WYAS, Hopkinson 32D86/27, fols. 120–122v. These are antiquarian copies of original documents, many now lost. The title page describes the volume as: “A transcript or collection of seuerall passages in the latter end of the raigne of Queene Elizabeth of famous memorye; King Iames his raigne, out of the papers and memorialls of the late right honorable Iohn. Lord Sauile Baron of Pontefract, and, Edward Taylor formerly of ffurniualls Inn, Holborne, London, my late father, all of them deceased many yeares since, with some others in the raigne of the late Kinge Charles the first of hartie blessed memorie, collected and transcribed in Anno Domini 1674. by J. H. of L.”

5  According to BL Add MS 58833: “Revenues and Disbursements of James I …,” abstract for the years 1603 to 1617 (1617–1619).

6  REED: Yorkshire West Riding (forthcoming), original editors the late Barbara D. Palmer and John Wasson.



Weddings and Wives in some West Riding Performance Records

33

on the grounds of her husband’s sexual impotence. This shocked many at court but, with the king’s encouragement, a panel of ecclesiastical commissioners by a narrow majority found in the countess’s favour on September 25, 1613, and so, on December 26, in a lavish court wedding, Carr finally married Frances Howard. In a later year the couple were tried for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, a former friend of Carr, who had antagonized them by his attitude to their liaison, but in 1613 Carr was in high favour, and their wedding was adorned with Thomas Campion’s The Somerset Masque, and Ben Jonson’s A Challenge at Tilt, performed on December 27, 1613 and January 1, 1614, and The Irish Masque, performed on December 29 and January 3. (Ironically, Jonson had also written a masque—Hymenaei, performed on Twelfth Night—for Frances Howard’s first wedding in 1606.) Hopkinson records an original account of the scene: That night [December 26, 1613] there was at Court a gallant maske of the Lords, and vpon wednesday at night, a maske by the Princes Gentlemen, which pleased the kinge soe well that he caused them to performe it again, vpon the munday following, and vpon twesday the fourth day of January, the Bride and the Bridegroome being accompanied with the duke of Lennox, the Earle of Northampton Lord privie seale; the Lord Chamberlaine, the Earles of Worcester, Pembroke, Montgomerie and others, with many honorable Barons, Knights & Gentlemen of qualitie. came vnto Merchant taylors hall, where the Lord Maier & Aldermen of London, in their scarlet robes, entertained them with harty(?) welcome and feasted with great magnificence; they were entertained with ingenious speeches, and pleasant musique; after supper they had a Masque & a playe, with wassaile a banquet & pleasant dances, and about three of the clocke in the morneing retorned all backe vnto Whitehall.7

Ten years or so earlier there was evidently some hilarity at court about the marriage of the sixty-seven-year-old Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, the Lord High Admiral and hero of the Armada conflict, to Lady Margaret Stewart, a young ward of the new queen, Anne of Denmark. Howard’s first wife, Catherine Carey, had died on February 25, 1603, only a short while before Queen Elizabeth, to whom she was First Lady of the Bedchamber and a close confidante of many years. The Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, were a prominent Northern family, with estates in the West Riding (based on the castle and manor of Sheffield), Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Shropshire. In a letter written on September 11, 1603 to Gilbert Talbot, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury, Sir Thomas Edmonds, who was with the king at Woodstock, wrote: “the Queene remayned at Basing Hill the kinges Coming hither, and she hath as well enterteyned her self with good dansing; which hath brought fourth the effectes of a marriage betweene my lord Admyrall and the lady Mary Stuart.”8 The Earl of Worcester, in a letter written to Shrewsbury on September 24, 1603, added: And nowe my good lord youe shall not thinke but wee haue gallantes of 70 yeres that in one nyght Could dance himself into a fayr ladyes faver, for my lord admirell is marryed

7  Bradford, WYAS, Hopkinson 32D86/27, fol. 125. The masque after supper was Thomas Middle­ ton’s lost “The Masque of Cupids.” See Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4:129 (Chambers says there were two masques); ODNB: “Thomas Middleton.” 8  Lambeth Palace, Talbot 3201, Letter 143. It should be “Margaret Stuart.”

34

Sylvia Thomas

and greatly bostethe of his actes the first nyght but the next day he was seke of the ague but now houldes owt very well saving that my lady singethe the greatest part of the nyght whether to bring him a sleepe or to keepe him a wake I leave to youre Lordships Iudgement that ar Cunninger then I in those matters.9

The couple probably had the last laugh, however. They went on to have two children, and the Lord Admiral lived for a further twenty-one years. The Shrewsbury correspondence includes references to a further two marriages celebrated by masques. Sir Philip Herbert married Lady Susan de Vere, daughter of the recently deceased seventeenth Earl of Oxford, on December 27, 1604. On December 5 Thomas Edmonds wrote from Whitehall: “Our Cort of ladyes is preparing to sollempnize the Christmas with a gallant Maske which doth Cost the Escheqer 3000 li. Sir Phillip Herbertes Marriage will also produce an other maske amonge the noblemen & gentellmen.”10 The wedding masque was “Juno and Hymenaeus,” a lost work by an unknown author. However, it was performed by Sir Philip’s elder brother the Earl of Pembroke, and seven other gentlemen in the presence of the King and Queen, her brother the Duke of Holstein, and various ambassadors. The second was the marriage of another of King James’s favourites, this time John, Lord Ramsay, Viscount Haddington, a Scot who had saved the king’s life in 1600 when he was threatened with assassination by the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, and who had accompanied him to England. On February 9, 1608 he married his English bride, Lady Elizabeth Radclyffe, daughter of Robert Radclyffe, fifth Earl of Sussex. Roland Whyte, royal postmaster and prolific commentator to the Sidneys, the Herberts and the Shrewsburys, reported: “The great Maske intended for my Lord Hadingtons marriage is now the only thing thought vpon at court by 5. English. Lord Arundel. Lord pembroke Lord Mentgomery Lord Theophilus Howard and sir Robert Rich. and by 7. Scottes. duke lenox. d’obigney. Hay. Mr of Mar yong Erskin Sankier, and Kenedin. Yt will cost them about 300 li a man.”11 Robert Sidney, Viscount Lisle, on January 29 claimed that he would gladly have sent Shrewsbury an earlier masque (probably Ben Jonson’s Masque of Beauty), but: “no sooner had hee made an end of this, but that hee vndertooke a new charge for the maske that is to be at the Vicount Hadingtons marriage on Shrouve Tuesday12 at night so at 13 the best I cannot have the first but then for the interest and principal cost I will send your Lordship both.”14 Lord Arundel, who was a participant, apo­logised to his father-in-law Shrewsbury that: “My wife defers her writinge till she may sende your 9  Lambeth Palace, Talbot 3203, Letter 18.

10  Lambeth Palace, Talbot 3201, Letter 235. There is a brief account of this masque in Welsford, The Court Masque, 173.

11  London, Lambeth Palace, Talbot 3202, Letter 131.

12  ODNB: “Ben Jonson.” 13  Illegible.

14  London, Lambeth Palace, Talbot 3202, Letter 134. The next masque was Jonson’s Hue and Cry after Cupid. See Welsford, The Court Masque, 180–84. Lord Arundel’s letter is London, Lambeth Palace, Talbot 3202, Letter 173, while Sir Henry Savile’s is Bodleian MS Add.C.259, fol. 1–1v.



Weddings and Wives in some West Riding Performance Records

35

Lordship the booke of the Queenes masque; which will be shortly: and I am so troubled with an other masque [i.e., Haddington’s] as, I want leisure to write any more to your Lordship at this time.” Another account of the celebrations comes from Sir Henry Savile junior, who wrote to Richard Beaumont at Whitley, near Huddersfield: … yesterday [st] was the great mariage of the vicount Hadington & a singular braue maske of Englishe & scottes att which I stayed with my wyfe [&] her mother & my sister there till three a clocke in the morninge. The kinge drunke a health to the Bridegrome & his Bryde in a Cuppe of gould & when he hade donne sent ytt by my lord of Fenton & therin a pension out of the Exchequer of six hundred pound a yeare to him & to her & to the longer lyuer of them. Att the maske I sawe Thomas Beaumont, & sett in annother place a certain gentlewoman called Mrs Greseley attended vpon by yonge sir Gervaise Clifton and wat Hastinges.

The Nevile wedding feast nearly a century earlier, a description of which has been quoted by Diana Wyatt, also features in the West Riding materials gathered by Barbara Palmer and John Wasson, though what they found was a published version, the whereabouts of the original being unknown.15 The version collected by John Croft appeared in his Excerpta Antiqua: or, a Collection of Original Manu­scripts, published by William Blanchard in York in 1797, of which there is a copy in the Bodleian Library, and also online. It is satisfying to have found the source of this text, which describes the celebrations at the wedding of Elizabeth Nevile to Roger Rockley in January 1526. We must assume that the festivities took place at Chevet Hall, near Wakefield, the seat of Elizabeth’s father, Sir John Nevile. Although the hall no longer exists we do have a building account from 1516/17, now in the Bradfer-Lawrence collection in the archives of the Yorkshire Archaeo­logical and Historical Society, which gives an idea of the setting in which this feast, masque and dancing must have taken place.16 The building account was published by the Society in its Journal in 1936, and shows that the house, his wife’s inheritance, was substantially remodelled by Sir John.17 It boasted twenty-eight rooms, including a chapel, a hall with dais for a high table, a great gallery, a great chamber, a little gallery and a parlour, as well as a gatehouse. The Neviles also had a king’s and a queen’s chamber, so perhaps they had, or planned to have, royal guests. Not all marriages were happy: a sad tale emerges from the commonplace book of Francis Stringer (1565–1637) from Sharlston, near Wakefield. Stringer was twice married: his first wife having died, his second wife was Dorothy, widow of Cuthbert Fleming of Sharlston Hall, and the Stringers subsequently lived at the Hall. In June 1604 he records that his wife had fallen out with him, and had sat by the fire all night, refusing to come up to bed. Later in the year she was unhappy again: vpon the 29. of November my wyfe dyd abowte mydnyghte synge fyllydaye was a fayre mayde & other follyse [sals] songes & some salmes.

15  See n. 1 above.

16  Leeds Uni­ver­sity Library, YAS MD335/3/2.

17  Preston, “A Sixteenth-Century Account-Roll,” 326–30.

36

Sylvia Thomas

… vpon the 2. of december she dyd singe & dyd wyshe that I shold have as lytell comforte as any mane vpon the earthe & [dyd] when I did Intreat her to be quyet that wee myghte sleep her answer was that she wold leave me the chamber & goe into ane other chamber & mad a profer as thoghe she wold ryse & then presentlye she dyd lyge her downe agayne & sayd that by god I shold not get shute of her so – & that she would tarrye better by me then so. after that when she would not be quyet I dyd ryse & went into the gavell chamber & ther dyd lyge that nyghte & one other & then vpon her promyse that she wold lyge quyetlye I went to my owne beyde agayne.18

The song she sang was to be found in the collection of lyrical and pastoral poems published in 1600 with the title England’s Helicon. “Phyllida was a fair maid,” by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is the herdsman Harpalus’ complaint “on Phyllida’s love bestowed on Corin, who loved her not, and denied him that loved her.”19 The renowned Lady Anne Clifford married twice, but her life, and her relationships, were dominated by the great dispute with her uncle Francis Clifford, fourth Earl of Cumberland, and subsequently with his son Henry, over her right to inherit her father’s titles and estates. She had to wait until she had outlived them all before she could come into her own. Her uncle, meanwhile, was a great patron of music and drama, and the Clifford archives now at Chatsworth contain accounts for the music at the wedding at Londesborough of his granddaughter, Elizabeth Clifford, to Richard Boyle, Lord Dungarvan, son and heir of the Earl of Cork, on July 3, 1634. On July 26 “certeyn french Musicians & a singer, which were at my la. Dungarvans mariadge” were paid £6, and “the Musick of Stamford for their reward and service done here at my la Dungarvans mariage 9 weekes the some of fifteene poundes.”20 Great households such as that of the Saviles of Thornhill were accustomed to paying for musicians to entertain them, and this appears to have extended also to a payment for music at the wedding of two of their servants on June 7, 1642: “given to the Musique at Gilberts and Ann Hodsons marriage 0–5–0.”21 Both principals were named on the “houshold in ordinary” list of July 26, 1637, and Gilbert must have been well-trusted, as he is noted as having the responsible task in 1641 of collecting the baby Margaret Savile, who was born at Thornhill, from her wet nurse and taking her to the Saviles’ other seat at Rufford in Nottinghamshire. The Slingsby family of Scriven and Red House, Moor Monkton were less exalted socially than the Saviles or the Neviles, but nonetheless Sir Henry Slingsby celebrated the marriage of his daughter Eleanor in January 1623 to Sir Arthur Ingram junior, known as “Little Arthur,” in some style, paying: “To Richard Atcheson for 6: sewtes [f] of buckeram for an antike at Sir Arthur Ingrams wedding ˹at the 12: nighte˺ l s.” Strangely, 18  Leeds Uni­ver­sity Library, YAS MS311, fol. 59. Also REED N-E “Flower of the Month” blog for April 2015 (https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?p=1200). 19  Englands Helicon, 42–45.

20  The Devonshire Archives, Chatsworth, Bolton Abbey MSS, Book 172, fol. 78. See also Stokes, The Waits of Lincolnshire, 86n. I am grateful to C. E. McGee for this reference.

21  Nottinghamshire Archives, DD/SR/A4/25, fol. 135v, Savile of Rufford account. See also Nuttall, The Saviles of Thornhill, 51.



Weddings and Wives in some West Riding Performance Records

37

perhaps, to our eyes, although this appears in Sir Henry’s account book, he refers to the wedding as Sir Arthur’s, rather than Eleanor’s.22 The many other references to wedding entertainments in West Riding sources are much more modest and mundane, but still show that people liked to enjoy themselves. Most are to be found in the accounts of John Matteson, steward to Sir Arthur Ingram senior of Temple Newsam near Leeds. He seems to have attended quite a few (nine between 1615 and 1624) as can be seen from his frequent notes of payments to “the music” either at the “brid house” or, very often, “afterwards,” presumably at a local hostelry. A typical payment for the music would be one penny or twopence, though occasionally he laid out as much as eightpence. Clearly at these more ordinary weddings it was assumed that guests would tip the musicians, who may have been town waits.23 In Doncaster in 1585 the Town Council decreed that: “the said waites shall not Receyve at any wedding for their waiges aboue two shillinges ˹eight pence˺ and to devid the sam Indifferently amonges them.”24 As we have seen, wedding celebrations could go on well into the evening, and in Aldborough with Boroughbridge, also in 1585, there was a pain laid that: “ffrom hensfurthe no manner of minstrell shall play in any parte of the towne of Aldeburghe at any time whearby to Call or kepe any manns servauntes or Children from ther masters or parentes howses after ix of the Cloke at night except it be at a wedding vpon payne for euery such mynstrell so playing to forfeyte x s.”25 Minstrels who played for money at weddings were not necessarily viewed with favour by the powers that be, as witnessed by the lengths gone to at York in 1564 to prove that William Smith of Headingley was an honest serving man who happened to be a musician. In an ecclesiastical cause paper there is considerable evidence given to argue that: the said Willelmi Smithe, although that at the tyme of his production and examinacion he could and yeate can plaie of the lute and of the gethering as commonlie many serving can yeate nevertheles he was not, or is not commonlie reputed and taken, for a mynstrell nether yeate haithe vsed nor dothe use to Resorte to marriages ffaires or suche like notable assembles or common ale houses as common mynstrelles do, nether yeate by the tyme afforesaid haithe vsed or dothe use to take any money for playing.26

Not that minstrels were necessarily the only ones to be looked at askance. In 1567 John Birkbie, the minister of the parish church of Moor Monkton, was described (though he denied it) at the Visitation at Ripon as: of verie dissolute lieffe and lewde Conversacion and vsethe veine vndecent apparell namelie great britcheis cut and drawen oute with sarcenet and taffitie, and great Ruffes

22  Leeds Uni­ver­sity Library, YAS DD56/J/3/4, fol. 173v, Slingsby account.

23  John Matteson’s accounts are at Leeds, WYAS, WYL100/EA/12 and 13.

24  Doncaster Archives, AB.2/1/1, fol. 38v, Doncaster Borough courtier: waits’ regulations. 25  TNA, DL30/494/11, mb. 12d, Honour of Knaresborough court roll.

26  York, Borthwick Institute, CP.G.988, York diocesan cause paper. See also C. E. McGee’s REED N-E “Flower of the Month” blog for April 2016 (https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?p=1847); and, for further discussion of William Smith and Tristram Tildsley, see also his chapter in this volume, “Rush-bearings of Yorkshire West Riding”.

38

Sylvia Thomas

laid on with laceis of gold and silk and of late toke vpon him to minister or saie devine Service in the Churche of Rippon vpon a holie daie in the assemblie of the people in his Cote without gowne or Cloke with a long sword by his side And he is also vehementlie Suspected to be a notable ffornicator, and he haithe divers times in the night time bene taken abroade in the towne of Rippon by the wakeman and other officers with Lewde women. and he vseth to Daunce verie offencivelie at alehowses and mariages in the presence of Common people to the verie evell example of others and the greate Slaunder of the ministerie.27

Similarly, Tristram Tildsley, the vicar or curate of Rufforth, in cause papers of 1581 is accused repeatedly of dancing, among “light, youthful company” at weddings, drinkings and rushbearings, scandalising some of his parishioners. He agreed that “he daunced [ond] thre tymes vpon sondayes and hollydayes emonges youthfull company both men & women not at weddinges marrynge the weddinge dayes, but sometymes on the next dayes after the said maryages And doth deny the Rest of this article to be true, other­ wyse then before he hath confessed.” However, the following week he was accused again. A witness maintained that: he sawe Trystrame Tyldesly Clerke daunce emonges yonge men and yonge women, after a pyper vpon a sonday in the after noone about a yere ago in Rufforde towne gate which this iuratur both then and yet thought an vnfyt thinge in a mynister and offensyve it was to many who sawe it of his hearinge and it was on a Rishebearinge day And also he sayeth that vpon a sonday within nyght about a leven a clocke and after in sommer last this iuratus also saw the said Syr Trystrame daunce at a weddinge, at William hunters hous in Rufforde emonge many yonge folkes both men and women, when the brydegrome and bryde were in bedd and they were come from the weddinge hous to the said hunters hous beinge an ale hous wher the said trystrame was so lusty in his dauncinge that eyther he kyssed or offered to kysse the said hunters doughter a yonge woman and a yonge felowe who kyssed her was beaten on the face by sir trystrome or by some other stondinge by, but as he Remembreth it was Sir Trystrome, so that dyvers swordes were drawne and a great tumulte had lyke to have bene. which was all begonne and sett on by the said Trystrome by his owne syght and hearinge.28

Even if the kissing in some instances could have been an accepted element of a dance, it does look as if on this occasion it all got rather out of hand. The performance records in West Riding sources which illustrate weddings and married life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries throw light on all levels of society, from royalty and the aristocracy, to gentry, and to ordinary folk celebrating in local taverns. Sometimes details are found in direct descriptions of the proceedings, either in letters from those present or in antiquarian collections recorded many years later; sometimes they emerge incidentally in lists of expenses, or through a personal diary account. Occasional evidence can be gleaned from official records, such as local byelaws, or prosecutions in the church courts. Taken together, these sources illuminate the vivid experiences of real people, whose stories are brought to life through the rich variety of records of one Yorkshire Riding. 27  Borthwick Institute, V. 1567–8, fol. 104v–5, Ripon visitation, diocesan court book.

28  Borthwick Institute, CP.G.3306, York diocesan cause paper. See also C. E. McGee, REED N-E “Flower of the Month” blog for October 2015 (https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?p=1551).

Chapter 4

TRAVELLING PLAYERS ON THE NORTH YORKSHIRE MOORS DAVID KLAUSNER

This paper will consist of two parts. The first part will survey the records the REED North-East (REED N-E) project has uncovered documenting the touring practices in the North Riding of Yorkshire of professional companies based, for the most part, outside the county and protected from judicial and administrative interference by the patronage of a member of the gentry or aristocracy, whether local or London-based. The second part will consider the records which document the practices of local touring companies based within the North Riding, operating for the most part without formal gentry patronage. In other counties, REED research has shown that touring companies relied on two sorts of destination: gentry houses, in which a great hall would provide a suitable playing space, and civic administrations, which would be able to provide access to a town hall or guildhall.1 The North Riding is unique in preserving extensive records of local recusant players who operated without the formal protection of a gentry patron; these players, who included the Simpson company from the village of Egton, were doubly vulnerable, contravening both the recusancy laws and the statute for the control of “rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars.”2 The towns of the North Riding did not, for the most part, provide an attractive destination for players, whether indigenous or extraneous. In part, these differences reflect the differences in urban structure between the North Riding and other counties. The 1  The results of REED research on the routes and patronage of professional travelling companies are presented in the “Patrons & Performances” website (reed/library/utoronto.ca).

2  The statute was first promulgated under Henry VIII (27 Hen VIII, c.25), but was repeated on a regular basis during Elizabeth’s reign, (14 Eliz I, c.5) and remained on the books until 1712 (13 Anne, c. 26). For full references and texts, see Williams, English Historical Documents 1485–1558; Slack, The English Poor Law 1531–1782.   There is extensive literature on the Simpsons, since they are well documented in the context of the Star Chamber prosecution of Sir John Yorke for hosting the company at his estate Gowthwaite Hall, Nidderdale, in February 1609. Although Nidderdale is now in the North Riding, in the seventeenth century it was in the West Riding, and the documents connected with the Yorke case will appear in the REED West Riding collection. See Boddy, “Players of Interludes”; also Howard, Sir John Yorke of Nidderdale; Sisson, “Shakespeare Quartos”; Jensen, “Recusancy, Festivity and Community”; Keenan, “The Simpson Players.” Prof. David Klausner is Emeritus Professor in the Department of English and Centre for Medi­eval Studies, Uni­ver­sity of Toronto, and editor of the Records of Early English Drama volume for the North Riding of Yorkshire.

40

David Klausner

North Riding had only two boroughs, Richmond in the northwest, and Scarborough in the southeast. The third important centre of population, Whitby, did not have borough status, but held its liberties and privileges from the abbot of St. Mary’s Abbey until the Dissolution, and then remained without a formal civic government until the nineteenth century. It is also unfortunate that neither of the boroughs, Richmond and Scarborough, has preserved more than a small proportion of its civic records, and very little in the way of civic accounts. For the “come from away” players from London and elsewhere, the principal sources lie in household account books. Since these performers were under the licensed patronage of gentry, often based a considerable distance from the North Riding, we can I think conclude that (unlike the Simpsons of Egton) these travelling players were Protestant at least on the surface, and that their orthodoxy and their licence meant that the North Riding’s legal authorities took little interest in their comings and goings. Surviving household books allow us to look at the hiring practices of three North Riding families, with particular reference to where their visiting players came from, how they got to their destination, when they played, and what repertoire they presented. The families are: Bellasis of Newburgh Priory, Cholmeley of Brandsby, and Fairfax of Gilling Castle.3 The earliest of these sources is the account book of the Fairfax family. During a substantial part of the dates recorded, the Fairfaxes were in the process of rebuilding the Great Hall in Gilling Castle, a splendid room with oak panelling and a drop ceiling. The room is in use today as the dining hall of St. Martin’s, the prep school for Ampleforth College. Only two references to players appear in the surviving Fairfax household book, one before and one after the renovations to the Hall. The Gilling steward kept his accounts in three columns, the first indicating whether those dining are just members of the family, or whether they include others, “strangers” indicating those other than the household. The second column simply notes which meal is being accounted, and the third column identifies those who attended the meal. The Fairfax steward must have been a man with a serious case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, for he follows the list of those dining with an exhaustive list of the food consumed at the meal, down to the last pat of butter. So on September 12, 1571, before the renovations, there were guests for dinner, identified as a family friend, Mrs. Methame and the earl of Worcester’s players. William Somerset, eighth Earl of Worcester, was based at Raglan, Monmouthshire, and Hackney, Middlesex, and his well-known playing company was London-based, though they are known to have toured to York in 1584/5.4 12 September 1571 Strangers dynner                 Mrs methame and the Earle of worsseters players with others 5 April 1581 Plaires in beinge my Lord Bartilles men and tumblers both.5

3  A map of gentry estates in the three ridings is in Cliffe, Yorkshire Gentry, p. 447 .

4  Dorothy Metham was the mother of Francis Metham, a Fairfax family friend, and a descendant of the poet John Metham, whose romance Amoryus and Cleopes was written in 1449. 5  Northallerton, North Yorkshire County Record Office (NYCRO): ZCV (F), box 1, book 11, fol. [5v].



Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors

41

Worcester’s company is known to have included the great actor Edward Alleyn, but at the time of their visit to Gilling, Alleyn was only five years old and not yet an actor. The 1581 visit of the players of Henry, Lord Berkeley (“Bartille” is a common variant spelling), would have occurred during or after the Hall’s reconstruction. Berkeley’s seat was in Gloucestershire, and since it does not appear that his playing company had regular access to a London theatre, they may have spent much of their time on the road. Richard Cholmeley kept a detailed notebook from 1602 to 1622, including an accounting of expenses for entertainment. Cholmeley’s seat at Brandsby was, like Gilling, easily approachable from York. 23 January 1615/16 Iarvis & the rest of the Lord Whartons men players I gaue

21 January 1617/18 Players, Philip Lord Whartons men one play, ye dumb knight/

December 1622 Players the kinges on Christmas eve & Christmas day 3 playes Players an other company of ye kinges servants

vj s. vj s.

xxx s. 13 s. 4 d.6

The players of Philip, Lord Wharton, played for Cholmeley twice, in January of 1615/16, and two years later in 1617/18. There is no evidence that Wharton’s company played in London, and it is likely that they were resident at his seat at Healaugh Park Priory, southwest of York. On their second appearance, Wharton’s men played Gervase Markham and Lewis Machin’s The Dumb Knight, and this performance raises an interesting problem. The play, originally in the repertoire of the Children of the King’s Revels and published in 1608, is an odd choice for touring in the far north. Markham has been criticized for packing sufficient plot into The Dumb Knight for two whole plays, and there is some truth in this, for the play has thirty-eight speaking parts and at least nine non-speaking roles and miscellaneous lords and ladies. Initially, it seemed that the play would provide an excellent opportunity for extensive doubling, but that appears not to be the case, for almost no doubling is possible, except among the supernumeraries, and even these changes only reduce the cast by two or three. It is highly unlikely that Wharton’s Men could run to such numbers. Where, then, did the rest of the cast come from? Was the whole staff of Healaugh Park Priory commandeered for the tour, or did they shanghai members of Cholmeley’s household? Admittedly, travel from Healaugh to Brandsby would not be overly difficult, but where did the personnel come from?7 Was the play as toured significantly reduced from its published form? Cutting a lengthy play is now taken for granted—when was the last time any of us saw an uncut Hamlet? Wharton’s company and their production of The Dumb Knight shows just how little we know about how travelling companies dealt with large-cast plays. 6  NYCRO: ZQG XII 4, fols. 40v, 63, 124.

7  There are two Healaughs in Yorkshire. Healaugh Park Priory, Wharton’s estate, lies just southwest of York; the village of Healaugh in Richmondshire lies six miles west of Richmond.

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When Wharton’s Men played at Londesborough in 1600, their company numbered eight, and their reward of six shillings for The Dumb Knight, compared with the thirteen shillings and eightpence they received at Londesborough would not suggest such a large company.8 Cholmeley generally had good taste in theatre (the rather messy Dumb Knight may have been a temporary aberration), and at Christmas 1622 he hosted two companies with royal patent, the King’s Players and “an other company of ye kinges servantes”. One of these two companies must have been the King’s Men who, as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, had received their royal patent on James’s accession in 1603. The other company “of ye kinges servantes” is less clear, but it seems likely that it was Prince Charles’s Men, which company had been formed in 1609, though the word “players” is notoriously ambiguous, and this second company might be one of the groups of royal tumblers or other performers who visited York in the 1620s and 1630s. If they were royal musicians, they might have been providing music for the King’s Men’s play. Cholmeley is an interesting example of the provincial supporter of drama and music: his 1622 Christmas entertainments cost him over two pounds. The phrasing of the entry for January 1615/6 would seem to imply that “Iarvis” was a member of Lord Wharton’s company. Wharton’s Men played several times for the Cliffords, with payments made to them on February 14, 1595; January 31 to February 2, 1599/1600; and January 7, 1615.9 A particularly extensive set of records belongs to the household of Thomas Bellasis, first Viscount Fauconberg, of Newburgh Priory. He was a frequent patron of players, and during the period from 1610 to 1616 he attended fourteen performances by companies of players. Not all of these took place at Newburgh, as some of the entries make clear: 11 February 1610 Item for Mr. harry at ij playes Item given your Worship at your going to the play Item for seats at the play & going there 12 October 1611 Item goinge into the higher roome at a play.

23 December 1611 Item to the players my Lord mountegls men 28 September 1612 Item to the players that came september 28 1 February 1613/14 Item to Iervys the player

20 November 1614 Item the same day to players

xij d. v s. ij s. vj d. xs.

ij s.

vj s. viij d. xx s.

8  Chatsworth House, Household Accounts BAM 144, fol. 17v (January 30, 1600). Wharton’s Men, as a company of twelve, also played for the Cliffords on 2 May 1599, likely at Londesborough, Chatsworth House, Pantry Accounts, BAM 28 (May 2). 9  Chatsworth House, Household Accounts, BAM 216, fol. 20; Pantry Accounts, BAM 28, no folio number; Household Accounts, BAM 95, fol. 123v. I am grateful to Dr. Diana Wyatt for these references.



Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors

18 December 1614 Item to the players .18. December

31 December 1614 Item to Christopher ffarnham about the play 14 August 1615 Item to the quenes players 14 August 17 September 1615 Item to the players that Day

24 July 1616 Item to the Quenes players the 24th of Iulie

19 October 1616 Item to players at Newburgh the xix of October

43

xx s.

xxj s. vj d. xx s. xx s.

v s.

xiij s. iiij d.10

Not all of these companies can be identified, but those that can include the players of William Parker, Lord Monteagle. Parker’s seat was at Hornby Castle, Lancashire, but he also had at least one London house. The payment on February 1, 1613/14 to “Iervys the player” seems to be to the same performer who played before Richard Cholmeley at Brandsby in 1615/16 as one of Lord Wharton’s Men. His fee at Newburgh was six shillings and eightpence, at Brandsby six shillings. The later payment was to “Iarvis & the rest of the Lord Whartons men players,” and I would suggest that in both cases the fee was for the playing company as a whole, and that it was paid in both cases to Iarvis as their leader. This may also be the case with the very large payment of twenty-one shillings and sixpence to Christopher Farnham “about the play” for Christmas of 1614, though it has not yet been possible to identify Farnham. Bellasis hosted the Queen’s Men twice in summer, in August 1615 and July 1616. It is likely that this company is Queen Anne’s Men, since the other possible candidate, The Queen of Bohemia’s Players, was formed in 1616 after the breakup of Lady Elizabeth’s Players following the death of Philip Henslowe. Although these are the only payments in the Bellasis household books to named companies of players, I would suggest that several of the other payments in the books refer also to licensed companies from outside the county. The books contain a number of payments to unidentified players, consisting of amounts from sixpence to two shillings. A middle group of provincial players, among whom I would include Wharton’s Men, were paid between two and five shillings, while a smaller number (mostly unidentified, but including the Queen’s Men) were paid ten shillings and more, with five companies paid twenty shillings and more. Map 1 shows the North Riding, with particular reference to the location of the gentry estates visited by players based outside the county. The three estates considered so far are close to each other, and all lie just at the southwest edge of the moors, on the east side of the Vale of York, with the Great North Road running up the centre of the valley. Immediately to the north of these estates lies Sutton Bank, at the south end of the How10  NYCRO: ZDV V 10, fols. [50v], [54v], [55], [76v], [82], [95v], [103], [107], [123v], [128], [145v], [192v].

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Map 1: Yorkshire, North Riding: Gentry Estates with Household Accounts. Map drawn by Byron Moldofsky.

ardian Hills, a very steep road up which the prospect of pushing a wagon might well deter a touring company. Alan Somerset, editor of the Shropshire REED collection, notes the extensive records of the wealthy and thriving town of Much Wenlock, which surprisingly show virtually no visits by performers of any kind. The situation made complete sense to him only when he visited Much Wenlock and discovered what was not clear from the maps, that it was at the top of Wenlock Edge, a formidably steep climb from the Shropshire plain. There is an object lesson here: as we come to know more and more about the routes taken by travelling players it is vitally important to remember to take the terrain into account. The three locations I’ve been considering all lie within easy reach of the Great North Road, the main London–Scotland route up the Vale of York; they are also on a direct line from York up the road which is now the B1363, but which in the medi­eval period was the principal route from York to the important monastic sites of Rievaulx and Byland. The touring practices of locally based companies were markedly different, and in the North Riding we are fortunate to have sufficient information to reconstruct the routes taken by two companies in 1615–16. The information lies primarily in the records of the court of Quarter Sessions, where the players were prosecuted under the Statute on Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars (14 Eliz I, c.5: see above, n. 2). The Statute provided also for the prosecution of those who hosted unlicensed players, and the court records often noted the location for these hosts, allowing us to reconstruct the touring



Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors

45

routes. One company, the Egton-based group under the direction of Robert Simpson, was a particular target of the court, since they were a recusant company playing, among other things, anti-Protestant plays in recusant gentry households. The second company, based in Hutton Buscel and led by Richard Hudson, does not appear to have had any sectarian aims, but the Statute was sufficient to attract the interest of the local magistrate, Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby. Hoby, a recent incomer to Yorkshire, had moved to Hackness, just inland from Whitby, the estate which had been purchased for his wife Margaret and her previous husband, Walter Devereux, the younger son of the earl of Essex. Hoby, a puritanical Protestant, did not endear himself to the highly traditional (and frequently recusant) Yorkshire society. He was described by Yorkshire contemporaries as a “spindleshanked ape” and “the little knight who useth to draw up his breeches with a shooing horn,” and the suggestion has been made that he may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Malvolio.11 Hoby threw himself into local politics at Hackness; he was appointed justice of the peace in the East Riding shortly after his arrival, and he held the same office for the North Riding from 1601. He was MP for Scarborough in 1597 and soon became both muster master and tax collector. As Dr. Jack Binns has described him, “It seemed that nothing was safe from his humourless, haughty, searching investigations and reforms; his knowledge of the law was intimidating; and his pursuit of Catholic recusants unrelenting. A reaction against him was inevitable.”12 It was also inevitable that the Egton recusant players would find themselves in his sights. The company, under the direction of Christopher and Robert Simpson, had been in operation at least since 1595, when their names appeared in Cecil’s recusant lists as “stage players.”13 The Egton players seem to have been remarkably successful at eluding the authorities, and though they were brought before the Quarter Sessions on several occasions, the fines levied did little to deter the players. Moreover, the records of attempts by Hoby and his colleague Sir Stephen Proctor to bring the players to justice allow us to map the company’s tour during and after the Christmas season of 1609. These records are extensive, since one stop on their tour was at Gowthwaite Hall, Nidderdale, the home of Sir John Yorke.14 At Gowthwaite, they played a St. Christopher play which included an anti-Protestant scene in which a priest bested a minister, who was promptly carried off to Hell. The case against Yorke as their host went to Star Chamber, and the collective depositions which were generated give a list of both the locations at which performances had been given prior to the Gowthwaite Hall occasion, and the stops which the company made after escaping from Gowthwaite (though their hosts did not). 11  Hatfield House, Cecil Papers; CP 90/80; TNA STAC 5/H50/4; Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 1:5, 217; Wilson, “Shakespeare and a Yorkshire Quarrel.” See also Binns, “Sir Thomas Hoby.” 12  “Sir Thomas Hoby,” 9.

13  Hatfield House, Cecil Papers 238/1, fol. [29].

14  Gowthwaite Hall still exists, but it is located at the bottom of Gowthwaite Reservoir, which was built between 1893 and 1901. A replacement residence was built nearby using some of the materials from Gowthwaite Hall.

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David Klausner

Location

Host

Distance to next site

Pickering

15 miles (24 km)

Helmsley

12 mi.

Thirsk

11 mi.

Ripon

11 mi.

Nidderdale Richmond Northallerton

Sir John Yorke

22 mi. 12 mi. n/a

Map 2: Route of the Egton Players’ (Simpson’s Company’s) Tour during and after Christmas 1609–10. Map drawn by Byron Moldofsky.

Map 2 shows the route the Egton players took. If the company began their journey from Egton, they would not have had to cross the moorland to Pickering; the road from Pickering to Helmsley would involve a relatively easy day’s journey along the valley which would later form the route of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (built 1836). The shorter trip from Helmsley to Thirsk would involve crossing more difficult terrain, with the steep climb up Sutton Bank taking the company across the south end of the Hambleton Hills. The average of ten to twelve miles per day seems sensible, and the very long journey from Nidderdale to Richmond might very well be a reflection of the company’s desire to distance itself as much as possible from the chaos at Gowthwaite Hall as Sir Stephen Proctor and his men placed Sir John Yorke and his family under arrest. The Star Chamber depositions do not, of course, extend in their detail to the precise routes which the Egton players took, but it would not have been difficult for them to adjust their itinerary in order to avoid travelling across the moors entirely. From their home



Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors

Date

Place

Host

January 1, 1614/15

Marske

Ralph Rokeby, esq.

January 2, 1614/15

Wilton

Will Stephenson

January 3, 1614/15

Marton

John Wildon, gent.

3.5 mi.

January 4, 1614/15

Stainsby

Sir John Gower

14 mi.

January 6, 1614/15

Croft

Will Chayton, esq.

5 mi.

January7, 1614/15

Smeaton

Marmaduke Vincent, esq.

1 mi.

January 8, 1614/15

Great Hornby

Thomas Best, gent.

January 8,* 1614/15

Appleton Wiske

Richard Lodge

January 13, 1614/15

Lealholm

Richard Stringer

47

Distance to next site 3 miles (5 km) 6 mi.

2 mi. 22 mi. n/a

* The Quarter Sessions records give the dates for this entry and the previous one as “octavo die” and “viijo die” (QSM 2/2, fols. 201v–202). This may well indicate that the company played twice on the same day, since “viij” is unlikely to be an error for “ix”. Given the very short distance between Great Hornby and Appleton Wiske, this is a possible explanation of the repeated date.

Map 3: Route of the Egton Players’ Tour in January 1614/15. Map drawn by Byron Moldofsky.

base in Egton they could have taken the coast road from Whitby south to Scarborough, then west to Pickering, skirting the south side of the moors; similarly, from Helmsley travelling south through Gilling would have brought them to the Vale of York, south of the steep climb of Sutton Bank. The routes from Ripon to Nidderdale, and from Nidderdale to Richmond (presumably in a hurry) lie over dale land, not moorland, and would have posed few difficulties for an experienced company. The Simpsons’ company was brought before the magistrates of Quarter Sessions at Helmsley on January 9, 1615/16, when they were charged as “communes histriones

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David Klausner

Date December 29, 1615 December 31, 1615 January 1, 1615/16 January 3, 1615/16 January 4, 1615/16 January 5, 1615/16 January 6, 1615/16 January 8, 1615/16 January 9, 1615/16 January 10, 1615/16 January 12, 1615/16 January 13, 1615/16 January 14, 1615/16 January 15, 1615/16 January 19, 1615/16 January 22, 1615/16 January 25, 1615/16 January 26, 1615/16 January 28, 1615/16 January 31, 1615/16 February 2, 1615/16 February 3, 1615/16 February 5, 1615/16 February 6, 1615/16 February 7, 1615/16 February 8, 1615/16 February 9, 1615/16 February 10, 1615/16 February 11, 1615/16 February 12, 1615/16 February 17, 1615/16 February 18, 1615/16

Place Buttercrambe New Malton Hovingham Cawton Gilling Whenby Brandsby Easingwold Thirsk Kirby Wiske Ainderby Steeple South Otterington Thornton le Moor Burneston Middleham Masham Bolton on Swale Bedale Aldbrough Yarm Brompton Osmotherley Swainby Great Ayton Marton Wilton Marske Skelton Danby Egton Bridge Hutton Buscel East Ayton

Host Will West, yeoman Will Strong, yeoman Ralph Bulmer, yeoman John Garbutt, yeoman Jane Strangeways, widow Thomas Barton, esq. Richard Cholmeley, gent. Will Slater, yeoman Peter Langburn, yeoman Frances Tebbe, yeoman Richard Cape, yeoman Roger Fauconbridge, gent. Michael Martin, husbandman Ralph Sadler, yeoman Francis Turner, yeoman Richard Lodge, yeoman Henry Ward, yeoman Michael Todd, yeoman John Welford, yeoman Cuthbert Thompson, yeoman Thomas Rimer, yeoman Edward Peigham, yeoman Will Thompson, yeoman Richard Levers John Wildon, gent. James Stubbs Ralph Stubbs Christopher Hobson Christopher Ford Francis Tomlin Will Gascoigne John Beanes

Distance to next site 10 miles (16 km) 7 mi. 2 mi. 2 mi. 5 mi. 3 mi. 4 mi. 10 mi. 4 mi. 5 mi. 4 mi. 2 mi. 6 mi. 11 mi. 8 mi. 12 mi. 6 mi. 8 mi. 12 mi. 6 mi. 15 mi. 4 mi. 7 mi. 4 mi. 5 mi. 4 mi. 2 mi. 7 mi. 7 mi. 13 mi. 2 mi.

Map 4: Route of the Hutton Buscel Players’ (Hudson’s Company’s) Tour, December to February 1615–16. Map drawn by Byron Moldofsky.



Travelling Players on the North Yorkshire Moors

49

vagabundos et mendicos validos (anglice common players of enterludes vagabundes and sturdy beggars) hac illac passim vagantes ludicra ludentes (anglice playing of enterludes).”15 The prosecution included bringing forward the gentlemen and yeomen who had hosted the players in their houses, who were fined alongside the players. The court records include their names and locations, and these are the focus of Map 3. The January tour in 1614/15 was short, extending only to two weeks, and it covered a quite different part of the North Riding from the earlier tour. Their first stop was at Marske, up the coast road from Egton and Whitby, at the house of Sir Ralph Rokeby, a well-known recusant. The company’s next few stops were very close together: Marske, Wilton, Marton, and Stainsby all lie between three and six miles apart following the Tees and its estuary. Their first long day took in the fourteen miles between Stainsby and Croft-on-Tees, not a problematic distance by the standards of their 1609 tour. Three nearby residences completed the short tour, Smeaton (five miles from Croft), Hornby (only a mile or so from Smeaton), and Appleton Wiske (less than two miles east of Smeaton). The tour concluded with a long trip of twenty-two miles across the moors to their final performance at Lealholm, just over two miles from Egton. This gap may well have been filled by further performances; the company played at Appleton Wiske on January 8, and did not present their play at Lealholm until January 13. The road across the moors passes through Stokesley and Danby, both sites where willing hosts for plays resided. The company might have wished to avoid Stokesley, since it was the site of their arrest in the summer of 1612. Although the Quarter Sessions prosecutions do not give sufficient detail to be certain of the exact routes taken by the Egton players, it does appear that aside from longer journeys to and from their homes in the Egton area, the company made use of existing major roads, travelling in relatively straight lines with daily distances small enough to allow for setup and rehearsal time. It is also worth noting that the Quarter Sessions prosecutions seem to have been uninterested in the Simpsons’ recusancy status. The presentments to the court give extensive detail, listing the members of the company for each case with a separate prosecution for each of their hosts. These prosecutions are explicitly brought forward under the Statute on Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars, with the performers’ recusancy never mentioned. This is the reverse of the situation deriving from their performance at Gowthwaite Hall, where the recusancy of their host, Sir John Yorke, became a central element of the Star Chamber prosecution. A second company of North Riding players operated from the village of Hutton Buscel, five miles southwest of Scarborough. These players, under the guidance of Richard Hudson, weaver, also fell afoul of the Statute and appeared with the Simpsons’ company before Quarter Sessions at Helmsley on 8 July 1612. The magistrate was Thomas Posthumous Hoby. The Quarter Sessions records imply that the two companies had joined forces and played together at Stokesley in 1612, but there is no indication of what they may have played.16 The records list a total of twenty-two members of the Egton company, 15  NYCRO: QSM 2/2, fol. 200.

16  Boddy, ‘Players of Interludes,’ pp. 108–109.

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David Klausner

including five members of the Simpson family. The smaller Hutton Buscel company had seven members, two adults, two young men, and three boys “etatis septem annorum et amplius” (seven years of age and above).17 A year after the Simpsons’ two-week tour, the Hudson company set out on tour at the end of December, 1615. Over the course of just under eight weeks, they played at an astonishing thirty-two houses. At the Quarter Sessions which followed their arrest each of their hosts was fined ten shillings. Their itinerary is given in Map 4, and the table below it lists their host sites and the approximate distance to the next location. Several points emerge from a comparison of the three maps. The Hutton Buscel players tended to travel much shorter distances between hosts, frequently five miles or less, and with the single exception of the journey from Brompton to Osmotherley they did not perform on consecutive days when the distance to their next venue was more than eight miles. For the most part they skirted the moors, with the majority of their stops lying in the Vale of York and the Tees valley. Their route home at the conclusion of the tour, with stops at Danby and Egton Bridge, makes it unlikely that they would have been able to use the coast road. Although several locations (Marske, Wilton, Marton, Thirsk) were visited by both companies, each troupe had their own list of patrons, and these did not overlap extensively. The Hutton Buscel players’ preference for short distances meant that they would frequently back-track; this is particularly evident in the sequence of seven performances in the Vale of York, and the six performances in the Tees and Swale valleys. The reconstruction of the 1615–16 touring routes for the two local North Riding companies, made possible only by the Quarter Sessions prosecutions of their North Riding hosts, shows that they followed well-trodden routes: the Tees and Derwent valleys, the Vale of York and the Great North Road, and the coast road between the Tees and the Humber. These routes were not only chosen for ease of travel, but also because few of their patrons occupied moorland residences.18 There does not seem to have been any choice of routes with the object of avoiding the authorities, although the two companies seem to have been remarkably successful in this. In a Session before Sir Thomas Hoby at Thirsk on April 19, 1616, Richard Hudson, co-director of the Hutton Buscel company was sentenced to a whipping, but despite the widespread interest in the Star Chamber case against Sir John Yorke, the Simpson company was never caught nor fined for their involvement.19

17  NYCRO, QSM 2/3, fol.10v.

18  Cliffe, Yorkshire Gentry, 447. 19  NYCRO: QSM 2/3, fol. 10v.

Chapter 5

TRAVELLING PLAYERS IN THE EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE DIANA WYATT

The research on which this chapter is based originated in a simple question: “Did Shakespeare’s company ever go to Hull?” As it turned out, the question was far from simple to answer, and required a widening of perspective to take in the whole of the East Riding in the attempt to address it—which is what this chapter aims to do. More correctly, Hull is Kingston upon Hull, so named after King Edward I purchased the small port of Wyke upon Hull, standing at the point where the River Hull flows into the River Humber, from Meaux Abbey in 1293 and developed it as a royal supply base. “Shakespeare’s company” covers both the Chamberlain’s Men (1597–1603) and the King’s Men from 1603. The question arose from a hint I read, without any reference to a source, that the company had at some point in its existence travelled to Hull, and had either performed there or been turned away. Old histories of Hull contain several unsupported claims for which no evidence can be found, for example that there was a theatre in Whitefriargate in the sixteenth century.1 But on the face of it, the claim that the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men had at least attempted to perform in Hull seemed plausible enough: it was a big and important port through which a great volume of goods was shipped to continental Europe as well as to other parts of Britain by coastal and inland routes. Its size and importance would be likely to attract entertainers in search of large and varied audiences. Extensive searches through printed sources and surviving Hull town manu­scripts, however, proved fruitless: not only was there no evidence for any visit from the Chamberlain’s or King’s Men, there was very little for any kind of performance rewarded, or indeed recorded, by the town council of Hull in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. There was a band of town waits, recorded over a long period, who were regularly paid and issued with livery chains, badges, and coats, but no surviving records kept *  This essay has been developed from an earlier paper delivered at the joint Durham Colloquium of the Société Internationale pour l’Etude du Théâtre Medi­eval (SITM) and Records of Early English Drama North-East (REED N-E) in July 2016. 1  For example, Sheahan, History of Kingston-upon-Hull.

Dr. Diana Wyatt is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of English Studies and IMEMS, Durham Uni­ver­sity, and editor of the Records of Early English Drama volume for the East Riding of Yorkshire.

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Diana Wyatt

by the council record visits (rewarded or otherwise) by companies of travelling players.2 Certainly they might have performed at private houses in the area, which would naturally leave no traces in the records of the council, but no appropriate evidence appears to survive from likely households, such as that of the De La Poles in Hull itself, or the houses of landowning families nearby such as the Constables. In the absence of any such evidence there is little to be made of the intriguing possibility that the Chamberlain’s/ King’s Men or other major companies performed privately in or near Hull. The only interesting finding that emerged from this vain search for the Chamberlain’s /King’s Men in Hull came not from any of the original records I searched but from a published essay by Leslie Hotson, in which he argued that a certain John Jackson, one of the trustees named in Shakespeare’s purchase of the Blackfriars Gate House in March 1613, was a native of Hull. Hotson’s case is plausible enough as far as it goes: he traced John Jackson’s will, in which several bequests are made to members of Hull merchant families. Jackson clearly had a close connection with them, and it seems reasonable to suggest that he grew up among them before moving to London.3 In his article, Hotson also drew attention to the possible connection of John Jackson with John Taylor, “The Water Poet,” whose extraordinary journey, entirely by coastal and inland waterways in a Thames ferry-boat, from London to York, via Hull, was wonderfully commemorated in lively verse in his account of the expedition in 1622.4 John Taylor was a Thames waterman whose main occupation was to ferry passengers on the Thames in London in a wherry—a small rowing boat, in effect a river-taxi. He seems to have been known to actors and theatregoers, and evidently frequented the Mermaid tavern in the company of many of them. His verse records several adventurous journeys around Britain, by land and water, from London to various points; Edinburgh was evidently the farthest. My interest in him (beyond Hotson’s confident assertion that he knew Shakespeare’s trustee John Jackson) was sparked by his struggle to ferry himself down the Humber to reach Hull.5 Taylor remarks on the difficulty of reaching Hull, which he almost suggests would not have been worth the effort but for the letters of introduction he had been given to the Mayor and others: To Humber’s churlish streames, our course we fram’d… And there the swift ebbe tide ran in such sort, The winde at east, the waves brake thick and short, That in some doubts, it me began to strike, For in my life, I ne’er had seen the like. My way was up to Yorke, but my intent Was contrary, for from the fall of Trent

2  Hull corporation bench books and chamberlains’ accounts survive for considerable stretches of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries: see discussion and references below. 3  Hotson, “Thomas Savage and John Jackson.” I later wrote up this finding for the BBC website “Shakespeare on Tour,” developed in collaboration with REED to commemorate the 400 th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death: see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/33k18Gkk yKs557JLzl1CcmD/shakespeare-the-hull-connection. 4  “Thomas Savage and John Jackson,” 135–37.

5  Taylor, “A Very Merry Wherry-Ferry-Voyage.”



Travelling Players in the East Riding of Yorkshire

53

I fifteene mile went downewards east northeast, When as my way was upward west southwest, And as against the wind we madly venter, The waves like pirates boord our boate and enter, For though they came in fury, and amaine Like thieves we cast them over-boord againe. This conflict lasted two houres to the full, Untill we gat to Kingston upon Hull: For to that towne I had a proved friend, That letters did and commendations send By me unto the worthy maiestrate, The maior, and some of’s brethren, in that state.6

Taylor and his handful of companions on the voyage were given a very warm welcome in Hull, and his poem sings the praises of the mayor and others who offered hospitality, and of the town itself. However, the suggestion that he needed a very good reason to venture to Hull at all, together with the paucity of surviving records of visiting entertainers there, seemed to merit further consideration: was Hull, or indeed north Humberside and the more easterly part of Yorkshire in general, regarded as in some way “off-limits” to the major, and especially the London-based, touring companies such as the Chamberlain’s and King’s Men, or the Admiral’s Men? Although records are found in published REED collections of players patronized by nobles and gentry from as early as the late fifteenth century, such records increase significantly in frequency from the mid-sixteenth.7 Focusing my East Riding search, therefore, on the period from ca. 1560, early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, an initial comparison of records from northern towns and cities on or near the Great North Road— York, Durham, Newcastle—with those in the East Riding whose records I had so far examined for the REED: Yorkshire East Riding collection—Hull, Beverley, and Hedon (a once-thriving market town in the East Riding area described unpromisingly by Chaucer as “a mersshy countree called Holdernesse”)8—did initially seem to support the suggestion that the major companies avoided the East Riding.9 A glance at the index to REED: York shows, among many others, numerous visits between 1576 and 1633 from compa6  “A Very Merry Wherry-Ferry-Voyage,” 79–80.

7  The REED “Patrons and Performances” website (https://reed.library.utoronto.ca/), drawing on published REED collections, lists many minstrels and other, often unspecified, entertainers, going back to the thirteenth century. The first “player” (of the Marquess of Dorset) appears in Canterbury in 1447, but companies of players so called only begin to appear with any regularity from the 1470s. The earliest appearances of companies with royal or noble patrons in York and Beverley respectively are in 1540 (“honorable men players” including those of the Earl of Suffolk and the Lord Privy Seal) and 1541 (the King’s and the Prince’s players, during the northern progress of Henry VIII, with whom they were probably travelling). After that in each case there are no references until after the mid-century. 8  Chaucer, The Summoner’s Tale (Fragment D, l. 1710).

9  Records for Beverley and Hedon have been searched in the East Riding Archives and Local Studies (ERALS) office in Beverley, and records for Hull at the Hull City Archives in Hull History Centre. So far, no relevant records for other sizeable East Riding towns such as Pocklington, Driffield and Bridlington have been found.

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nies with royal and noble patrons, including the Queen’s Men, the King’s Men and “the company of His Majesty’s Revels” as well as the Lord Admiral’s Men.10 Newcastle records visits from the Queen’s Men (1591, 1593) and the Lord Admiral’s Men (1593, evidently in a collaborative venture with Lord Morden’s Men, because the amalgamated troupe was paid thirty shillings with a note that they were “all in one companye”; and 1597, when a payment of twenty shillings was made to “one of my lord Admyralles menne,” presumably representing the whole troupe).11 No evidence has yet been found among the surviving Durham records, on which REED research is still in progress, of actual visits by any of the London companies, but one record of 1608 suggests a real possibility that they did include Durham in their northern itinerary: the City Order Book stipulates that the Mayor should permit no players to play in the Tolbooth (the Town Hall), “except the Kings plaiers or such other as he shall like of.” Leaving aside the odd hint in that last phrase that the Mayor may in fact invite whichever players he pleases, it seems unlikely that the city authorities would specifically allow visits from a company that never came to Durham at all. But however intriguing, the record remains indefinite, and concrete evidence of any visit is lacking.12 Initially, the evidence so far gathered from Hull, Beverley, and Hedon seemed to support my suspicion that the East Riding was simply not on the touring routes for these “big” professional companies: there are no records of any of them in the surviving Hull bench books (corporation minute books) or chamberlains’ accounts; Beverley, whose records are by far the most promising of the three in this context, was nonetheless disappointing in showing no evidence of visits from either the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men or the Admiral’s Men. The surviving Hedon records of the period are few and fragmentary. However, it quickly became clear on examining the evidence for other visiting players that the picture in the East Riding was considerably brighter than my first suspicion suggested. John Taylor’s heroically preposterous efforts to reach Hull by Thames wherry, after all, made the wherry itself the point of the exercise: in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, as for many years before that, there would be no need for any traveller who was not setting himself a deliberately eccentric challenge to attempt to reach Hull, nor indeed Hedon or Beverley, by taking a small boat down the Humber from the mouth of the Trent. A traveller from Lincolnshire, on the south side of the Humber, could cross directly to Hull by means of the regular ferry from Barton, and those travelling eastward from York had well-trodden roads at their disposal. Hull was, by the later sixteenth century, a major port, established as such in the early thirteenth century after Edward I bought the town from Meaux Abbey precisely in order to develop it. Goods for 10  REED: York, subject index, under headwords “Revels” and “Travelling Players.” See below for details of these companies and their visits to York.

11  REED: Newcastle, 79 (Queen’s Men 1591), 92 (Queen’s Men 1593), 90 (Lord Admiral’s and Lord Morden’s Men), and 117 (one of Lord Admiral’s Men). The status of the Queen’s Men, or their royal patron, is reflected in their higher rewards: five pounds in 1591 and three pounds in 1593. Different sums of course may also reflect varying numbers of actors and of performances.

12  DCRO, Order Book of the City of Durham fol.15 v, 9 December 1608. I am grateful to the coeditors of the REED Durham records, John McKinnell and Mark Chambers, for this information.



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export came by river from Beverley, York, and beyond for shipping out of Hull—which seems to prove that the right type and size of vessel could navigate the Humber from York to Hull successfully as a matter of routine - and imports made the same journey in reverse.13 Beverley was a sizeable and important market town in the later Middle Ages, and although by the late sixteenth century its trade and importance had certainly declined (Leland called it a “pretty” town but noted that its cloth-making industry was “much decayed”), it remained on various main roads from other parts of Yorkshire and from the south via York. Leland himself, in the years around 1540, seems to have made his way from York to Beverley, Hull and further east by road without any great difficulty, even though in fact he does not always seem to have used roads: for example he says he walked “from York to Kexby bridge by champaine meatley fertile,” and later, after leaving the park of Beverley en route to Hull, “and so a mile by low medow ground to Cotingham.” The low and marshy ground in the Hull area proved no problem: “From Cotingham to Kingeston about a 4 miles by low ground, wherof 2 miles be causey way.”14 A comparison between the surviving records of Beverley and York shows in fact that Beverley regularly received, and paid, visiting companies of players, as well as minstrels and other entertainers such as bearwards, over a long period and on a scale which— allowing for the difference in size between the two towns—stands comparison with that of York. The index of REED: York lists thirty travelling troupes with noble patrons between 1576 and 1634, which visited York eighty-five times among them, some regularly—although those listed were not always paid for performing: on six occasions troupes were rewarded for coming but not invited to perform.15 The absence of the Chamberlain’s or King’s Men, or of the Admiral’s Men, from Beverley is compensated for by the list of companies recorded in the town’s accounts and minute books as having been paid during the period in question: between 1560 and 1629 (after which there is a long gap in the surviving town records), the accounts and minute books record visits, all rewarded, from the players of Lord Robert (Dudley), under that name and later as the Earl of Leicester, Lord Ambrose Dudley, the Duke of Suffolk, the Duchess of Suffolk, the Queen, Lord Strange, Lord Worcester, Lord Shrewsbury, the Earl of Bedford, Lord Willoughby, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Rich, the Earl of Exeter, Lord Berkeley, the Earl of Sussex, Lord Montague, Lord Luxborough, Lord Monteagle, the Lieutenant of the Tower, Lord Mountjoy, Lord Clinton, the Earl of Skaithe, the Countess of Essex, and Lord Darcy. Several of these troupes returned repeatedly. 13  “Goods bound to or from Beverley, or York and other places on the Ouse, were loaded into keels of 30 to 40 tons for the river passage, while for passengers there were ferries across both the River Hull, at least until North Bridge was built, and the Humber.” VCH: Hull, 131.

14  Leland’s description of his East Riding journey is extracted from his Itinerary in Woodward, Descriptions of East Yorkshire, 7–19 at 7, 9.

15  REED: York, 464 (Worcester’s Men, 1593, paid twenty shillings), 479 (unnamed troupe, 1597, sent away because of plague locally, paid twenty shillings), 481 and 482 (Queen’s Men, 1598, paid forty shillings), 486 (Worcester’s Men, 1599, paid twenty shillings), 501 (Lord Lincoln’s Men, 1602, paid twenty shillings), 528 (Lord Eure’s [“Evers”] Men, 1608, paid forty shillings). Only in the case of the unidentified company who came during an outbreak of plague in 1597 is a reason stated for the lack of performance.

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This list is strictly of players rather than minstrels or other entertainers, of which many are also recorded in the Beverley town accounts and minute books. It is also limited to companies with royal or noble patrons and omits recorded performances by local groups such as the schoolmaster’s players or groups belonging to other East Riding towns and villages such as Cottingham, or indeed to places further afield—for example Whitby and Richmond (North Riding), Barwick in Elmet (West Riding), or Lincolnshire (town unspecified). My particular interest in this paper is, after all, the playing companies travelling under noble patronage; none the less it is worth noting in passing, firstly that the surviving records witness a positive climate in which all kinds of entertainers were welcomed to Beverley over a long period, and secondly that entertainers travelled from other parts of Yorkshire and across the Humber from Lincolnshire—useful evidence that local roads and ferries made such travel not only possible but apparently worthwhile. To return to the licensed companies of players visiting Beverley: a careful look at the surviving records shows that, although they record no visits by either the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men or the Admiral’s Men, Beverley was not avoided or overlooked by major companies: the list includes both Lord Strange’s Men and the Queen’s Men. Two superb, meticulously-detailed studies have been published in recent years, one on each of these companies.16 Both draw on REED evidence collected by editors working around the country and available in increasing, and fascinating, detail on the REED “Patrons and Performances” website.17 Each of the books traces the very active touring patterns around the country of these two most significant troupes over a number of years, and they make it clear that Beverley was, at least on occasion, included as a touring venue. Lord Strange’s Men appear twice in the extant Beverley records, once in 1566 under the patronage of Henry Stanley; and then in 1584–85, this time more significantly perhaps as the troupe patronised by Ferdinando Stanley—the troupe which may well have been the origin of Shakespeare’s company, as Manley and MacLean note.18 In the years round about 1566, the earlier company is on record as having toured to several parts of the country: Hampshire in the south, Gloucestershire and Somerset in the southwest, Kent in the southeast, and parts of East Anglia, as well as Beverley.19 They do not appear in York, Newcastle, or elsewhere in the northeast, but such an absence may say as much about the loss of records as of the omission of venues from a touring route. At any rate the definite evidence for Beverley suggests that they may have visited other towns and cities in Yorkshire and further north at the same time. 16  McMillin and MacLean, The Queen’s Men, and Manley and MacLean, Lord Strange’s Men.

17  https://reed.library.utoronto.ca/. As work on the Yorkshire East Riding collection is still progressing, however, Beverley evidence does not yet appear on the website.

18  “The name of Shakespeare, absent from the sharers mentioned in the [1593] Privy Council license for Strange’s Men but regularly linked to them after 1594, provides one essential motive for our study of Lord Strange’s Men: this may be the company … for whom Shakespeare was writing or acting before he became documented as a Lord Chamberlain’s man.” Manley and MacLean, Lord Strange’s Men, 1. 19  Lord Strange’s Men, 18.



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The later Lord Strange’s company appears from the surviving evidence to have travelled widely in the early 1580s—to towns and cities in Kent, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, Hampshire, Devon, and Warwickshire, as well as to Westminster and Windsor. Beverley is the only venue for which we have definite evidence in 1584–85, but again that survival suggests that other northern towns and cities were also on the route for what may have been a northern tour in that year.20 Ironically, far from being the neglected or overlooked poor relation of more prominent northern tour venues such as York, Beverley provides our only current evidence that Strange’s Men travelled north of the Humber at all. That record in the Beverley town accounts becomes, in the circumstances, an even more valuable piece of evidence. Beverley records of the Queen’s Men are equally interesting: payments to a company under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth appear in surviving accounts and minute books for the years 1560–61, 1562–63, 1563–64, 1570–71, 1572–73 and 1586–87; and after a period fraught with gaps in the surviving records, two payments appear to the players of Queen Anne of Denmark, consort of King James VI and I, in 1606–7 and 1608–9.21 My brief discussion here will focus on the Elizabethan Queen’s Men, one of the major companies of the period. However, there was more than one company of Queen’s players patronized over the course of her reign by Elizabeth, and all but one of the dates of visits found in the Beverley records refer to the earlier company—an existing royal company which the queen had inherited at her accession, and to which she seems not to have given any special encouragement: McMillin and MacLean note that “they were fairly active in the provinces until the mid-1570s; yet they did not perform at court after 1569, and they seem to have been allowed to fade away by attrition (the last of the troupe died in 1580).”22 The Beverley tour dates from 1562 to 1572 tend to bear that out—their absence thereafter suggests that the company was more or less moribund. The “real” Queen’s Men were a very different matter, formed principally as a touring company in 1583 by order of Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s principal secretary, who asked the Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney, to select the twelve best players from existing companies for the purpose.23 The newly-formed Queen’s Men thus constituted an elite company, its members cherry-picked from companies such as Leicester’s Men (who, incidentally, are last recorded in Beverley in 1574, although gaps in the records may account for their apparent absence in subsequent years). The new Queen’s 20  Lord Strange’s Men, 341, Appendix C: Itineraries of Lord Strange’s Men, 1576–1593.

21  ERALS: Beverley town account rolls for 1560–61 (BC/II/6/25), 1562–63 (BC/II/6/26), 1570–71 (BC/II/6/28), 1572–73 (BC/II/6/29), 1586–87 (BC/II/6/39), 1606–7 (BC/II/6/47), 1608–9 (BC/II/6/49). Governors’ minute book II (BC/II/7/2), fols. 48v and 65. Governors’ minute book III (BC/II/7/3), fols. 25 and 47.

22  McMillin and MacLean, The Queen’s Men, 2. The surviving evidence does not show whether Elizabeth’s apparent lack of support for the inherited company was connected with their patronage by her Catholic predecessor Queen Mary.

23  The Queen’s Men, 24ff. McMillin and MacLean note that Walsingham’s motivation was presumably political: the company “would not only carry the name and influence of the monarch throughout the country, but would also give the impression of a watchful monarch … whose ‘men’ ranged over the land” (28).

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Men toured widely and constantly: McMillin and MacLean’s Appendix A, “Recorded performances of the Queen’s Men,” yields fourteen closely-packed pages of dates between 1583 and 1603.24 In the light of the existing evidence, the one date of a visit by the Queen’s Men that turns up in the Beverley records may seem insignificant, but it is nonetheless interesting as proving that Beverley at least, if not other East Riding towns, was considered an appropriate venue for inclusion on a touring route for this major company. In any case there is some interest in the fact that the date is given precisely in the Beverley account, which reads: …Item given in Reward to the quenes maiesties plaiers & others vpon a bill datid the iiijth of September 1587 lix s ij d25

The date of the bill presented for reimbursement is likely to be the same as that of the performance itself, when the company was paid; from the records of the company’s movements around that time it is impossible to work out a full touring route, but we do know that they were in York five days later on September 9. McMillin and MacLean’s table of recorded performances shows no fewer than thirty tour stops in 1586–87 (and it must be remembered that some records have probably been lost). Beverley and York are certainly the most northerly points for which we now have records, but in August 1587 the company is found in Nottingham; in the same period, either before or after the Yorkshire dates, in Leicester; and twice in September, presumably both after York, they returned to the Midlands to play in Coventry.26 On where the actors stayed and what they did between the fourth and the ninth of September 1587 we have no information—or not yet.27 What the existing evidence allows us to say is that the thirty-mile journey southeast from York and the Great North Road was evidently considered worth the effort of making the journey; and if it was done once, it may well have been done on other occasions too. Beverley then offers at least modest evidence for its accessibility even for major companies with many other tour stops to choose from: what of other East Riding towns? Unfortunately, as no performance evidence, so far as I can find, survives from Pocklington, Market Weighton, Driffield, or Bridlington, we have only the fragmentary remains from Hedon to go on. The picture there is very unclear because so few records of the late-medi­eval and early-modern periods have survived. However, a few fragmentary town chamberlains’ rolls suggest that at least occasional travelling performers were welcomed there in the mid-sixteenth century: in an account dated to the early 1560s occurs the entry “to therle of worcesters men for a play, 6 s.”—the only surviving mention of a 24  The Queen’s Men, 170–88.

25  ERALS BC/II/6/39, memb. 5. The sizeable payment of fifty-nine shillings and twopence also covers the “others,” for whom we have no details: evidently only the Queen’s Men were important enough to name. It is possible that the “others” were not players but other entertainers, perhaps minstrels playing to accompany the Queen’s Men as they performed their play. 26  McMillin and MacLean, The Queen’s Men, 177.

27  They may have stayed in Beverley for several days giving public performances; they may even have performed at Market Weighton or Pocklington before going on to York, though no records survive.



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specific licensed company in these few extant accounts, but at least enough to suggest other possibilities beyond the handful of other items of a similar period recording payments to unnamed players, minstrels and, once, the Queen’s bearward.28 Although the account listing Worcester’s Men has no internal date, the fact that the company was paid seven shillings for playing in Beverley in 1563 suggests the possibility that they were in Hedon at about the same time.29 We know that they travelled as far north as Newcastle, where they performed late in 1565, although no other records of their activities in the northeast have turned up.30 But again, the survival even of these fragments of evidence allows for the possibility that even Hedon, in the easterly “mersshy countree” of Holderness, could attract acting companies with wide touring circuits on a regular basis. Hull, the biggest of these three East Riding towns and in a way the starting point of this investigation, is almost startlingly lacking in evidence of visits from touring players (or any other entertainers). Although John Taylor the Water Poet versifies his warm welcome from the mayor and others in positively lyrical terms (“Their loves (like Humber) over-flow’d the bankes, / And though I ebbe in worth, I’le flowe in thankes”),31 neither in 1622 nor evidently for generations before that did successive town councils of Hull welcome players. The chamberlains’ accounts of the mid- and later fifteenth century record payments of fees and liveries for the town waits as well as, in the 1440s, two payments for wine for visiting players from Cottingham and Hessle, both in the immediate area of Hull itself, and the sums are modest (twelve pence, sixteen pence). Two other payments for visiting entertainers occur in the mid-century accounts, referred to by their patrons’ names (Lord Buckingham and Lord Beaumont respectively): one record refers to three histriones, and the other to a single histrio—the same term as the contemporary accounts use to denote the town waits, which suggests that these may have been minstrels rather than actors—although it must be remembered that the term histrio in the usage of the period generally could denote any kind of performer.32 Records of the Hull waits continue in a broken series of chamberlains’ accounts throughout the sixteenth century, but I have found no further records of payments to visiting entertainers in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries: on the contrary, one of the few entries in the bench books to mention plays or players is a very strict and explicit prohibition dated 1599, not against visiting players themselves, but against their encouragement by the citizens of Hull: any inhabitant of Hull, man or woman, who goes 28  ERALS DDHE/19, 320.

29  “Item gyven in rewarde to my Lord of worceter players vij s.” ERALS BC/II/7/2, fol. 55.

30  REED: Newcastle, 43–44: “Item paid to my lord of worssyturs players for plaiinge in the Marchant court at the commandment of Mr maior and his bretheringe xx s”—a much more substantial reward than they had received in either Beverley or Hedon, but rewards in cities were generally higher than in smaller towns. 31  Taylor, “A Very Merry Wherry-Ferry-Voyage,” 81.

32  Hull History Centre, Hull chamberlains’ accounts: C BRF 2 series, surviving from 1320. Records of the town waits begin at C BRF 2/361 (1444–45), memb. 2, where the payments to the players from Cottingham and Hessle are also found. For the histriones of Lords Buckingham and Beaumont, see C BRF 2/365 (1451–52), memb. 2, and C BRF 2/367 (1454–55), memb. 2 respectively.

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to see any play or interlude played within Hull will be fined two shillings and sixpence, and the owner of any house where players perform will be fined the considerable sum of twenty shillings. The council’s stated reasons are a curious mixture of the economic and the moral (and perhaps altogether Puritan): local people have been wasting time and money on “hearinge such fryvolous and vaine exercises to the evill examples of many.” The council’s decision to penalise the local inhabitants rather than the players themselves is explained by the comment that the players are “for the most part straingers” who could not be “convenientlie restrayned frome playing.”33 It is not entirely clear why the council was unable to forbid the players to play—unless both the actors on one hand, and their hosts and audiences on the other, were simply arranging performances in private without reference to a council who would be bound to forbid them. The only other Hull record that mentions visiting players during the period under consideration—in equally negative though less sweeping terms—is of 1629: an individual arrived at the mayor’s house “with a lycenc as from the Master of the Revills for Stage playes or Enterludes, but he who brought … the same lycence was not one of those who were specially named in the lycense…”—which perhaps predictably resulted in the hopeful player’s dismissal by the mayor and three of the aldermen, who were with him at the time.34 This is a different sort of case from the blanket prohibition of thirty years earlier, with strict penalties, against the encouragement of “strange” players: in this case there seems to have been some genuine doubt about the validity of the licence. But the negative evidence from Hull is not, as far as I can find, balanced in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries by anything positive: acting companies, or any other entertainers, evidently found no welcome, and certainly no financial reward recorded in their surviving documents, from successive Hull councils. Clearly the issue as far as Hull was concerned was one not of topo­graphy but of attitude: Hull was not difficult to reach by conventional roads or ferries, but most companies, if they had heard anything of the unwelcoming attitude of the Hull authorities, would no doubt avoid running the high risk of a wasted journey. Humber’s churlish streams would not have been a deterrent for touring players; the likely churlishness of their reception by the mayor and council might well have been so. It is always possible that they would have made an exception, as did the Durham authorities in 1608 (cited above), for the King’s Men; but if so no written trace of it survives.35 My consideration of the possibilities for touring companies in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has so far concentrated on towns; but even though performers on tour might have learned to avoid an avowedly entertainment-resistant town like Hull, they might very well find a welcome at any great house in the area. Unfortunately I have found no surviving records from the period for several of the major landowning families in the East Riding—the Boyntons and Griffiths of Burton Agnes, and the various branches of the Constables. And by this period, the 33  Hull History Centre, bench book 4 (1555–1609): C BRB–2, fol. 325v.

34  Hull History Centre, bench book 5 (1609–50): C BRB–3, fol. 101v.

35  The problematic attitudes of successive Hull corporations to visiting players are examined in more depth in Wyatt, “‘Such fryvolous and vayne exercises’.”



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Percy Earls of Northumberland, once so prominent in the area, were no longer using their East Riding castles of Wressle and Leconfield as bases.36 What does survive, however, gives a clear indication of the thriving state of the performing arts in one great household in the years immediately before and after 1600. Londesborough Hall near Market Weighton, about ten miles northwest of Beverley in the direction of York, was built in about 1590 by Francis Clifford, who in 1605 became the fourth Earl of Cumberland. Its surviving records, from 1594, contain remarkably full evidence of visiting entertainers of all kinds during Francis Clifford’s tenure, and make abundantly clear that he gave regular and generous encouragement to performers, both by employing his own and by regularly welcoming those on tour.37 Richard Spence, in his history of the house, devotes a chapter, “The Muses Pallace” (quoting Thomas Campion’s compliment to the cultural status of Londesborough in the fourth Earl’s time), to an account of the wealth of evidence available for visiting entertainers between 1594 (the earliest surviving record) and the 1620s.38 Spence lists numerous visits from acting troupes in the 1590s, including the players of the Queen, Lord Willoughby, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Pembroke, and others. After a gap of several years during which Francis Clifford and his family lived on their estates elsewhere, Spence notes that Londesborough, by now “well established as a venue,” saw the resumption of regular visits from entertainers, apparently in even greater numbers: the Boys of the Revels, the players of the King, Princess Elizabeth, Queen Anne, Prince Charles, the Earl of Derby, Lord Monteagle, Lord Stafford, and several others are listed, many visiting on a number of occasions and staying in the house.39 On occasions when the family was absent or otherwise occupied and no performance invited, household staff in residence were clearly instructed to reward any performers who arrived rather than send them away empty-handed: payments of between two shillings and sixpence and twenty shillings are recorded on those occasions.40 One record is curiously phrased: in January 1625 a company “goeing by the name of the Kinges Players” was paid the handsome sum of three pounds for three performances; as Spence comments, they “clearly satisfied their hosts”—but whether the cau36  The sixth Earl had left both Wressle and Leconfield castles to Henry VIII at his death in 1537 in payment of debts, and although both properties were later restored to the Percy family, they seem to have been unoccupied thereafter by the family, although Wressle was tenanted. 37  All the material quoted or referred to below comes originally from Chatsworth House, Bolton MSS. All items in those manu­scripts recording performance will be included in REED: Yorkshire West Riding and Derbyshire, ed. by Sylvia Thomas and C. E. McGee (in preparation). 38  Spence, Londesborough House.

39  Londesborough House, 64–65.

40  For example, “On 1 September … [1609] the earl was away at Helmsley Castle [Yorks. North Riding] when the Queen’s Players came, so they were sent away, but ten shillings better off.” Spence, Londesborough House, 65. These Queen’s Players were the company whose patron was Anne of Denmark, consort of James VI and I. They were evidently more successful at Beverley on September 13, when they were paid twenty shillings, presumably for performing: ERALS BC/II/6/49, memb. 7. It seems likely that they went to York on the same tour, but unfortunately the York city chamberlains’ accounts for that year have not survived.

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tious phrasing of the account suggests that their royal patronage was in some doubt is not clear.41 They may have been a detachment of the London-based company, formed for more northerly tours.42 At any rate there is no suggestion but that they were as welcome as any other company who came to Londesborough in those halcyon years for performers. REED research on the East Riding continues, which gives hope that more records from both towns and private houses may turn up to shed greater light on the touring picture there. What is clear is that “Humber’s churlish streams” were no bar to acting companies who wanted to move east from the main north-south routes. The question whether Shakespeare’s company went to Hull certainly turns out to have a negative answer—not only for Shakespeare’s but apparently for all other acting companies of the period, but for reasons which show Hull to have been the exception within its region. In other parts of the East Riding, the cultural climate in the late-sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries, both in towns and among landowning families, seems to have been as receptive to good-quality performance as any other part of the country, and the records demonstrate that some of the major companies, at least on occasion, did include East Riding venues on their regular touring routes.

41  Spence, Londesborough House, 65.

42  The possibility that a company might split into touring branches for financial reasons is raised by McMillin and MacLean in their discussion of the Elizabethan Queen’s Men: “Two groups of Queen’s Men, each numbering about six main actors and a few hired men and boys, could aim to double the overall income of the company [by visiting twice as many venues as a single company, and thus receiving twice as many fees] without entailing a similar increase in road expenses.” McMillin and MacLean, The Queen’s Men, 61.

Chapter 6

NORTHERN CATHOLICS, EQUESTRIAN SPORTS, AND THE GUNPOWDER PLOT GAŠPER JAKOVAC This chapter considers some confessional aspects of equestrian sports in the early Stuart north of England. In particular, I want to explore why Protestant authorities occasionally interpreted Catholic participation in a thriving horse-racing culture as dangerous to the State. Although evidence remains fragmented, a variety of records suggest that northern Catholic gentlemen were avid hunters and horse runners in spite of the financial restraints which many of them suffered due to recusancy.1 In many ways, the extant records are not surprising. Yorkshire, and the north more generally, was a major centre for horse breeding and racing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, even after King Charles II’s establishment of Newmarket as a preeminent racing hub of national importance.2 But understanding the social impact of Catholic equestrianism as well as the motives of members of the Catholic elite for their costly investments into racing, remains an important and so far neglected element in the history of horse racing. In a culturalist perspective, equestrian sports are not simply ephemeral recreations, but important symbolic practices which transformed the hunting field or the racecourse into sites of public politics.3 For Catholic gentry, whose access to more conventional means of *  A preliminary version of this chapter was presented in the “Ideas, Concepts, Theory” research group and early modern reading group at the European Uni­ver­sity Institute. The author is particularly grateful to Jorge Dí�az Ceballos, Ian Hathaway, Lana Martysheva, and Viola Müller for their constructive comments and suggestions.

1  For some evidence of Catholic racing, see the diary of Thomas Chaytor of Butterby, DUL, Add. MS. 866; the recusancy papers of the Meynell family in Miscellanea, 35–36; Cholmeley, The Memoirs and Memorials, 75.

2  Wilkinson, Early Horse Racing in Yorkshire; on Hambleton, the famous North Yorkshire racecourse, see Fairfax-Blakeborough, Northern Turf History, vol. 1; on the racing at Newmarket, see Cassidy, The Sport of Kings; and Oldrey, Cox, and Nash, The Heath and the Horse. For a discussion of the relocation narrative and the process of national appropriation of a regional sport, once confined to the north and Yorkshire in particular, see Nash, “‘Honest English Breed’,” 254–68. 3  For the “cultural turn” in political history, see Stollberg-Rilinger, “State and Political History”; on the notion of “public sphere” in early modern England, see Lake and Questier, “Puritans, Papists, and the ‘Public Sphere’ in Early Modern England.”

Dr. Gašper Jakovac, who was sponsored as a PhD student by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the City of Ljubljana, was awarded the degree in 2018 for his thesis on Early Modern Catholic Performance in the North of England, and is now Max Weber fellow at the European Uni­ver­sity Institute.

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­ olitical participation, such as officeholding, was severely restricted, horse racing p offered an especially convenient alternative. However, instead of attempting to comprehensively recover Catholic attitudes and views on equestrian sports—a challenging task which would demand a separate inquiry—this chapter will lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive reading of Catholic equestrianism in the future. Focusing on the records mainly produced by Protestant officials and dating from around the time of the Gunpowder Plot, I analyse Protestant anxieties about Catholic ownership and matching of horses. I discuss the kinds of racing Catholic gentry commonly engaged in and the reasons why public display of recusant horsemanship could have been perceived by the authorities as an act verging on sedition. In the course of my discussion, early Stuart equestrian sports emerge as politically contentious symbolic practices crucial for ­Catholic self-definition and participation in a wider Protestant society.

Catholics on Dunsmore Heath

On Monday morning, November 4, 1605, Sir Everard Digby (ca. 1578–1606), accompanied by seven servants, left Gayhurst and rode northwest towards Dunchurch, near Rugby, to attend a hunting match on Dunsmore Heath. His horses and greyhounds had already been sent to Warwickshire on October 29, when his wife and their children left for Coughton Court, the seat of the Throckmortons, where the Digbys were to stay for at least a month. The hunting party convened in Dunchurch at the Red Lion inn, where Sir Everard was joined by his uncle Sir Robert Digby, Stephen and Humphrey Littleton, and a number of other friends and relatives.4 They were all Catholics, but only Sir Everard knew what plot was afoot in London. They had convened in order to “be merry some three or fower daies” together, as Robert Catesby told the Littletons.5 The Littletons believed that Catesby was assembling English Catholic troops in order to take them to Flanders, into the service of the Archduke Albert, rather than preparing a rebellion at home. Although the next morning they in fact hunted and raced, the match was in truth planned as a cover for the mustering of forces in the midlands and the kidnapping of Princess Elizabeth from Coombe Abbey, which was to follow the intended assassination of the king and the blowing up of Parliament.6 Although the planned insurrection failed to snowball, the mustered forces were not entirely negligible: Digby alone had seventeen great horses ready at Dunchurch.7 It is not surprising that the arrangements for the Dunsmore Heath match and the subsequent rising in the midlands were entrusted to Sir Everard. John Gerard s.j. 4  See Ross Williamson, The Gunpowder Plot, 164–65; Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot, 165–66; the examination of Sir Everard Digby, November 19, 1605, SP 14/16, fols. 170r–73r; see also the examinations of Digby’s servants: William Handy, November 27, 1605, SP 14/216/1, fols. 22r–23v; William Ellis, November 21, 1605, SP 14/216/1, fols. 161r–62r; and Richard Hollis, December 2, 1605, SP 14/216/2, fols. 53r–54r.

5  Robert Wintour to the Lord Commissioners for the Plot, January 21, 1606, SP 14/216/2, fol. 106v; Ross Williamson, The Gunpowder Plot, 150–51. 6  Ross Williamson, The Gunpowder Plot, 148–50; Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot, 165. 7  The confession of William Andrew, November 9, 1605, SP 14/216/1, fol. 104v.



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described Digby as a paragon of chivalry, a man expert “in all things that deserved estimation or might win affection.”8 He was tall, well-spoken, handsome, an accomplished musician, as well as expert in gentlemanly sports, including fencing, hunting, hawking, and most importantly breeding and riding of “great horses, of which he kept divers in his stable continually with a skilful rider for them.” Such was his love for field sports that a hunting match became the most convenient and natural pretence for “his going into Warwickshire […] and of drawing company together of his friends” on the eve of the fifth of November.9 Gerard’s assessment of Digby’s skills can be trusted. The Jesuit priest himself was an experienced huntsman, who eagerly took advantage of gentlemen’s love of sports in order to catch them in St Peter’s net and ultimately divert them from worldly pursuits. Sir Everard Digby was one such sportsman: his conversion to Catholicism began in the hunting field, his fate as a “popish” Nimrod sealed on Dunsmore Heath.10 But Sir Everard’s involvement in the hunting match was not only convenient because it was in character. Equally important were his noble deportment and expert horsemanship which were widely admired. Horses were immensely important in shaping the identity of the elites in the early modern period. Among the prescriptive literature in England, Thomas Elyot’s acclamation of horse riding as the most noble of gentlemanly pursuits aptly illustrates contemporary appreciation of horsemanship and its centrality to the elite’s fashioning of their public personae: [T]he moste honourable exercise in myne opinion / and that besemeth the estate of euery noble persone / is to ryde suerly & clene / on a great horse […] which vndoubtedly […] importeth a maiestie & drede to inferior persones / beholding him aboue the common course of other men / daunting a fierce and cruell beaste […]11

Riding in public was for gentlemen always a highly self-conscious performative act, “a piece of social theatre” in which “the rider and the onlookers were playing out set roles.” The image of an elevated nobleman subduing a mighty beast to his own will “provided the spectators with a ­graphic reminder of who ruled them and why,” justifying the elite’s fitness and right to rule.12 Combining horsemanship with competitive sport increased the stakes. Aside from providing an opportunity for male bonding and honing of vital transferable skills which could later be used in warfare, equestrian sports functioned both as a display of status and wealth as well as tools for maintaining the social standing and natural superiority of the upper classes.13 Hunting, hawking, horse racing, tilting, running at the ring, and other 8  Gerard, “Narrative,” 88.

9  “Narrative,” 88–89.

10  See Gerard, The Autobio­graphy, 45–46, 206–10. For Digby as Nimrod, see A discovrse, L2r. 11  Elyot, The boke named the gouernour, fol. 68v.

12  Edwards, “Image and Reality,” 294.

13  See Edwards, Horse and Man, 69–88, 119–44; Edwards, “Horse and Elite Identity”; Kirch, “‘For Amusement, Merrymaking and Good Company’”; Bayreuther, “Breeding Nobility”; Edwards, Horses and the Aristocratic Lifestyle; Daniel Roche, La Gloire et la puissance; a number of essays in

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recreations conducted from horseback gave gentlemen a chance to show off their equitation and mastery of a variety of weapons which, if successfully demonstrated, enabled individual participants to accumulate symbolic capital and rise in public esteem.14 The hunting match on Dunsmore Heath cannot be properly understood without acknowledging that the value of horses in the early modern world was not only functional, but also iconic, symbolic, and performative. The conspirators hoped—considering his excellent sportsmanship and noble demeanour—that Sir Everard Digby was going to act as a reassuring PR figure, whose charisma and awe-inspiring presence on the Warwickshire fields would facilitate the uprising and spur sympathetic gentlemen and commoners alike to join the cause. The hunt meet was to be a public display, a performance of Catholic nobility, authority, and unity. Well-trained horses and impeccable horsemanship were crucial in achieving these objectives. Digby’s attempt to use the hunting match as a tool for starting a rebellion vividly demonstrates the political and subversive potential of the hunting field and the racecourse in early modern England.15 Although Catholic participation in hunting and racing was for the most part neither suspicious nor deliberately seditious, recusant ownership of horses and male sociability of Catholics in the open field stimulated anxieties about “popish” insurrection, particularly during periods of political crises. In the months following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot and the Dunsmore Heath match, the equestrian enthusiasm of the northeastern Catholics suddenly came under considerable scrutiny.

Durham Hunting Matches

In late autumn 1605, after the failure of the conspirators, anti-Catholic sentiment swept through the country. The home of Thomas Percy, the northeast, which was considered by many contemporaries a religious backwater, was hardly spared the hysteria.16 In Durham, the right hand of Bishop Toby Matthew, Dean William James, who was soon to become the next bishop of Durham, played a central role in persecuting recusants and searching for potential suspects involved in the conspiracy. Raber and Tucker, The Culture of the Horse; Edwards, Enenkel, and Graham, The Horse as Cultural Icon; and Fielitz, The Horse as Representative of Cultural Change; Beaver, Hunting and the Politics of Violence, 15–31. King James I endorsed hunting and riding in his Basilicon Doron, see Political Writings, 56–57.

14  In an extended definition, Bourdieu defines symbolic capital as “an ordinary property (physical strength, wealth, warlike valour, etc.) which, perceived by social agents endowed with the categories of perception and appreciation permitting them to perceive, know and recognize it, becomes symbolically efficient, like a veritable magical power: a property which, because it responds to socially constituted ‘collective expectations’ and beliefs, exercises a sort of action from a distance, without physical contact” (Practical Reason, 102).

15  During the Civil War, for example, regulation of racing became a matter of national security. In the 1650s, Cromwell had several proclamations issued banning horse racing (Edwards, Horse and Man, 99; Pasupathi, “Jockeying Jony,” 165–66) 16  See Gavin, “Reverberations in Durham.”



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On December 9, 1605, Dean James wrote to his patron Robert Cecil, the secretary of state, complaining about the state of religion in the diocese of Durham. Although the Catholic plot was discovered in time and “the monster Thomas Percye (odium dei et hominum) dead,” the recusant menace and the shadow of Catholic rebellion continued to upset the northern parts.17 James believed that Percy had not grown in a vacuum and deemed it unlikely that he had consorted with “warwickshire, worcestershire & staffordshire recusantes, & not with any in northumberland, where he lyved.”18 In the past two years, the Catholic gentry of Durham and Northumberland seemed to have been actively preparing for “this late hellishe tragedie” by selling and transferring their lands and leases and moving south to London.19 The reasons behind these numerous transactions were not entirely clear to James, but he was certain that their alleged losses of property had not left the northeastern Catholic elite any poorer or politically inert. On the contrary. How many of these men, James wondered, were perhaps privy to the Gunpowder Plot, how many of them were likely to be “men of action, how furnished with horse & armour, how many of them were now at London, about the Court […].”20 Dean James suspected that Catholic gentry had been deliberately amassing horses in their stables, making all the necessary preparations for the planned insurrection. Moreover, James believed that in the past years they had been consistently using equestrian sports in order to muster support for their cause among the local populace: It hath for these 2 years past beene observed by his maiesties good subiectes, yt many of our northerne recusantes, had and have more horses in there stables then they are otherwyse worth. & what huntinges & matches have beene of late appoynted, & euer between them selves wherevnto resorted many well affected, but chiefly as lookers on; but the vulgar all as admyrers, & divided as the fashion is half on one syde, half on the other, to muse & gaze on, & to magnifie modo hunc modo illum. sometymes hundredes in the field at once. & the chiefe recusantes.21

The passage requires close examination. The recent events on Dunchurch Heath had clearly sharpened the Dean’s awareness of Catholic equestrianism in his diocese. He identified public assemblies of recusants in the hunting field as a fairly recent phenomenon; they had started around two years ago, about the time of King James’s accession to the throne. William James had been employed in the diocese since 1596 and would therefore have been privy to any new trends in the sociability of northeastern Catholics, so we can certainly trust his estimation. Moreover, observations of other “good subjects,” such as those of Henry Sanderson, a Newcastle customs official and a diligent persecutor of northern Catholics, indeed second James’s remarks. In October 1603, Sanderson protested to the Privy Council that Durham and Northumberland recusants: 17  William James to Robert Cecil, December 9, 1605, TNA, SP 14/17, fol. 32r.

18  James to Cecil, fol. 32r–v.

19  James to Cecil, fol. 32r; see also Henry Sanderson to Lord Sheffield, May 6, 1605, Hatfield House, CP 110/138. 20  James to Cecil, fol. 32r.

21  James to Cecil, fol. 32v.

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are growne to that hight, and insolencie: as was not the like in many yeares. bearinge sway in all assemblies and meetinges: at huntinges, bowlinges &c. Some of them goinge where they will and when they will, without limitacion, as thoughe there were neyther lawe nor magestrate to restrayne them.22

Both Dean James and Sanderson associated recusant sociability in the hunting field with their growing confidence which coincided with the beginning of the new monarch’s reign, who promised, and at first also demonstrated, greater leniency towards Catholics. In the first year of King James’s reign, the recusancy laws were temporarily suspended, which encouraged Catholics—particularly those in the north—to anticipate imminent toleration.23 Writing to Sanderson in November 1603 from Brancepeth, Ralph Fetherstonhalgh exclaimed that it is: hardly credible in what iolity they [Catholics] now liue […] What? (say they) haithe not ye Kinge restored Arundell Westmerlande & Pagett all of them knowne fauoreres if not professors of the romishe religion? haithe he not graced with the ordre of knightehoode sundrye famous recusants? doeth he not refuse to take either the penalty of xxlb monethly or the two partes of there Landes? be there not some notoriously knowne to affect popery yea whose wifes are recusants yt of laite since his Maiestie came to ye Crowne (& not before) are bothe putt into ye Commission for the peace & sworne of the Counsell at Yorke? are not theese (say they) good testifications of his Maiestie his gratious disposition & fauorable inclination to our cause?

Encouraged by King James’s leniency, recusants were clearly not afraid of publically demonstrating their hopes and contentment as they did at Staindrop with “pealing & ringing of bells” when “ye Earele of good Westmerlande was restored.”24 Instead of interpreting Catholic joy as an expression of loyalty, Fetherstonhalgh believed such boldness only exacerbated local religious tensions and posed an unprecedented risk to the country’s political stability. Because Catholic hopes for toleration were fuelled by the Crown, they were now in “greate ruffe & brauerye,” determined “rather to hazarde all at once then to liue in sutche slauery & bondage as they did vnder Queen Elizabeth.”25 Meeting in the field on horseback and drawing together a crowd of commoners was understandably considered a more threatening display of Catholic confidence than pealing and ringing of bells. Dean James’s letter to Cecil is remarkable because it provides us with a detailed account of such Catholic assemblies. “Huntings” and “matches,” which Catholics now enthusiastically engaged in under the new Stuart monarch, could denote a number of field sports involving equitation: from buck, stag, and hare hunting, to private matching of hunting or running horses for a wager. However, the dean’s vivid account of contentious recreations, which includes a description of sympathetic audience distinctly divided along a straight course, can only refer to some kind of horse racing. Northern Catholics participated in all types of racing which took place in early Stuart England. The diary of Thomas Chaytor of Butterby, an enthusiastic sportsmen who 22  Henry Sanderson on recusancy in Durham and Northumberland, October 3, 1603, SP 14/4, fol. 7r.

23  Questier, “The Politics of Religious Conformity.”

24  Ralph Fetherstonhalgh to Henry Sanderson, November 12, 1603, CP 102/16. 25  Fetherstonhalgh to Sanderson.



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worked as a registrar of Durham consistory court, is full of references to the annual bell and plate courses mainly in County Durham and Yorkshire as well as the more private hunting and running matches.26 Chaytor was officially a conforming Protestant, but his second wife, Jane Tempest, daughter of Sir Nicholas Tempest of Stella, was a recusant. His social circle was also predominantly Catholic, so we have a good reason to believe that he nourished some Catholic sympathies.27 In his notes, Catholics or Catholic-leaning gentlemen, such as Sir William Blakiston of Blakiston, Sir George Conyers of Sockburn, and Sir Bertram Bulmer of Tursdale are often presented as protagonists in the local racing events. On February 20, 1616, for example, Chaytor records “a match in hunting betwixt Sir Bartram Bulmer Sir George conyers & 2 or 3 more for companie & the wager easie & frendlie.”28 Such hunting matches, which over ten years ago had alarmed Dean James and other Protestant officials, clearly enabled Catholic gentlemen to bond in a context of friendly antagonism. Both hunting and running matches were intended to test the speed of horses and the horsemanship of their owners in a race involving a wager between competitors as well as additional betting among the audience. In fact, terms such as “hunting,” “hunting match,” “running match,” or more generally “horse match” or “horse race” could often be used interchangeably. In examinations taken in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot, the Dunchurch meeting was most commonly described as a hunting match, but one of the witnesses, Lodwick Grant, called it a “horse race.”29 Thomas Carpenter of Norton likewise confessed that the conspirator John Grant had told him “that there was a race to bee runn in Northamptonshire and he was to goe thither.”30 The differences between the two types of horse matching crucially stemmed from the kinds of horses they were designed to test: in hunting matches, hunting horses or hunters were trialled; in running matches, running horses or gallopers. Although contemporary writers generally believed that the blood of North African or Middle Eastern horses, such as Barbs, Turks, or Arabians, was needed to produce the swiftest running horse, the difference between hunters and gallopers was not so much in their breed or shape as: in their ends of training, for the hunting Horse must endure long and laboursome toyle, with heates and colds, but the running Horse must dispatch his businesse in a moment of time (in respect of the other) shewing swiftnesse and speed.31

The chase mostly required endurance; the racecourse, explosiveness. Distinct matches were therefore set up in order to nurture and test particular dispositions required of hunting and running horses respectively. 26  Add. MS. 866, fols. 2v, 13v–14r, 22r, 23r, 24r, 32v, 44r, 46r, 57r.

27  For more details on Chaytor and his social circle, see Newton, “A Crisis of Regional Identity.” 28  Add. MS. 866, fol. 44r.

29  Extracts from examinations, November 21, 1605, SP 14/216/2, fol. 194r.

30  The examination of Thomas Carpenter, November 7, 1605, SP 14/216/1, fol. 56r. 31  Baret, Hipponomie, 3:3–4.

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Figure 2: The Carlisle Bells: Prizes for Horse Racing since 1599 or earlier. Photo courtesy of the Tullie House Museum, Carlisle.

Although hunting matches formed a significant part of pre-Restoration racing, ­ istorians tend to relegate them to a footnote in the evolution of steeplechase and the h establishment of the royal plate at Newmarket.32 One of the reasons for this scholarly neglect is the lack of sources. But the absence of records does not necessarily mean that hunting matches were rare, since the great majority of them simply remained unrecorded. Because hunting matches were ad hoc events, arranged at relatively short notice and executed in the context of hunting, they must have been the most common way of racing among the Elizabethan and early Stuart gentry. Two early seventeenth century authorities on horsemanship, Gervase Markham and Michael Baret, both treat the preparation for hunting matches and the training of horses for a running match or the annual bell and plate courses with equal consideration.33 The annual race meetings, established under the patronage of local gentry or more commonly by urban corporations, began to appear around England in the early sixteenth century.34 Northern towns in particular led the way. Some of the earliest known races took place at Chester, Carlisle, Gatherley Moor near Richmond, at Kiplingcotes in East Yorkshire, and in the forest of Galtres, north of York. The riders normally competed for a piece of plate in gold or silver, most commonly 32  See Blew, A History of Steeple-Chasing, 3–4; Cook, A History of the English Turf, 1:48; Longrigg, The History of Horse Racing, 39, 46–49, 155. King James VI and I was an avid huntsman and he regularly matched his hunting horses in Scotland. After his accession to the English throne, such matches often took place on Newmarket Heath in Suffolk, where a royal plate was later established. 33  See Markham, Caualarice; and Baret, Hipponomie.

34  For an excellent overview of horse racing in the period, see Edwards, Horse and Man, 89–117. See also Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance, 181–97; and Fairfax-Blakeborough, Northern Turf History.



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bells such as those awarded to the winner of the Carlisle Bell, a race which is still run each year and has been in existence since at least 1599.35 Bells were gradually replaced in the seventeenth century by gold cups. Although both hunting and running matches, unlike the official plates, lacked strict formal rules, running matches often occurred in the context of plates, while the matches of hunting horses, which began as an ancillary exercise to stag and hare hunting, remained a more private and less institutionalized sport. For Gervase Markham, a typical hunting match consisted of an actual hare hunt or a number of “train scents,” followed by a “wild-goose chase.”36 For Baret, writing only eleven years later, a hunting match was “either traine-sents and the Wild-goose-chase, or else traine-sents and a Bell-course either single or double.”37 Hare hunting was now out of the picture, while the wild-goose chase was clearly deemed anachronistic, being: an vnmercifull and vnreasonable toyle […] an exercise not worthy of the time, because it is the hazard of the spoyle and ruine of such excellent creatures [i.e., horses].38

By the time of Baret’s Hipponomie, the matching of hunting horses was clearly in the process of detaching itself from the chase by adopting a type of trial primarily intended for a proper racecourse. In the later seventeenth century, Gerard Langbaine, better known for his bio­graphies of English dramatists, suggested a further evolution of hunting-match rules: the running of train scents was eventually substituted with three simple heats, thus making the use of hounds obsolete. Moreover, the lovers of hunting horses also began establishing their special plates “purposely for Hunters,” some of which “exclude all others (namely 35  Two Carlisle bells survive: according to the inscription on them, the older may have been donated by Lady Dacre in 1559 (Mortimer, Onslow and Willett, Bio­graphical Encyclopaedia of British Flat Racing, 107) and the younger by Henry Baines, mayor of Carlisle, in 1599 (Strutt, The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, 34).

36  Markham, Cauelarice, 3:56–60. In the narrow sense, a “train scent” denoted the dragging of a dead hare or a cat on the ground for the training of hounds and horses. But this type of chase was also used “for the tryall of matches betweene Horse and Horse” (Cauelarice, 3:9–10). In such a match, horses run after hounds that “hunt a Cat, which is by some Huntsman drawne in a long string three or foure mile at the most, vppe and downe the fieldes, eyther crosse plowed lands, or thwart greene fieldes, leaping Ditches, Hedges, or other Pales, Rayles or Fences, or running throw Waters, as the leader of the Catte shall thinke best for the aduauntage of the Horse, for whose benefite hee rydeth” (Cauelarice, 3:9). A predetermined number of train scents was always run in a given match; each subsequent scent began where the previous one ended, and each one was led by a different leader.   A “wilde-goose chase” was a method of racing which took its name from the flight of wild geese (which generally fly one after another). After the horses have started the wild-goose chase and run approximately two hundred and fifty yards, the horse that comes behind “is bound to followe [the leader] whether soeuer hee goes […] And if eyther Horse get before the other tweluescore yeards, or according as the match is made, then the hinder Horse looseth the match” (Markham, Cauelarice, 3:10–11). 37  Baret, Hipponomie, 3:52.

38  Hipponomie, 3:52–53.

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Gallopers) from Running.”39 Such origins could perhaps be ascribed to the Woodham Moor race near Durham, which took place every Tuesday before Palm Sunday, for in the earliest known reference to the race, the 1613 recognizance, a value of a piece of plate is mentioned which ought to be provided for a “hunting prize.”40 Longrigg rightly points out that a “hunting prize” does not mean that the Woodham Moor race included jumps, as a steeplechase would, and neither should it be confused with hunting matches themselves.41 Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that racing on Woodham Moor ­originated in informal hunting meets or that it was, at least initially, intended for the trial of hunting horses only. Clearly there was a considerable fluidity between the various coexisting racing genres in the first half of the seventeenth century. Experience from the hunting field informed the training of running horses and vice versa. Baret found it profitable to sometimes take a running horse: into the field to hunt him after the hounds […] to learne him to ride vpon broken swarth & deepe earths, and to preserue the senseableness of his mouth.42

Such training practices blurred the generally established difference between the hunting and running horses. It is telling that in the period which we can perhaps define as the pre-history of the thoroughbred horse (an early eighteenth-century creation produced by controlled cross-breeding of middle eastern and north African stallions with native mares, which uniquely combines both speed and stamina) Baret already dismissed a popular fallacy, namely that “one horse cannot both bee swift and tough.”43 Markham articulated the same idea more vividly and in a distinctly patriotic tone: “for infinite labour, and long indurance, which is easiest to bee discerned in our English hunting matches, I haue not seene any horse able to compare with the English horse,” a beast “of tollerable shape, strong, valiant, swift and durable.”44

Distinctive features of a perfectly balanced horse which was to become a thoroughbred had been negotiated between the hunting field and the racecourse and had already preoccupied the imagination of the early-seventeenth-century breeders. However, reducing hunting matches to an evolutionary stage in a teleo­logical narrative of British racing risks blurring a set of crucial assumptions which contemporaries associated with this distinct sport. Although for Markham nothing was “more famous in this renowned Arte of Horsemanshippe, then the practise and vse of running Horses,” in

39  Gerard Langbaine, The Hunter, 73. From 1686 onward, Langbaine’s work was reprinted multiple times as part of Nicholas Cox’s influential compendium The Gentleman’s Recreation. Langbaine’s discussion was consistently used in later sporting literature, see for example The Sportsman’s Dictionary, 1:Z5r. 40  TNA, Records of the Chancery of Durham, DURH 3/95 (1612–1614), fol. 18 (no. 59); Surtees, vol. 3. 41  Longrigg, The History of Horse Racing, 41.

42  Baret, Hipponomie, 3:68. 43  Hipponomie, 3:52.

44  Markham, Cauelarice, 1:10.



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which the Ancients excelled, when it came to versatility, a running horse could not beat a well-trained hunter. A good hunting horse was not only useful for man’s pleasure, for the “sport of hunting, or for his profite, where a man hath tyed him selfe to any greate match or wager,” it was also “seruiceable in the wars […] as in sodaine and desperate exploytes, as vpon surprises, Ambascados, long marches, or such like.”45 According to Baret, hunting prepared the horse for “Martiall seruice,” and, when well-trained and well-kept, “one hunting Horse may be made more seruiceable for warre, then foure other” due to his “toughnesse and speed.”46 Training hunting horses and testing them in hunting matches was therefore more than a capricious pastime for the affluent. It was a long-term investment into a strategic resource which might be of service to the State in times of war.47

Horses and Subversion

For Dean James, the abundance of versatile hunters in Catholic stables was of course a cause for concern rather than enthusiasm. But it was not only the experience of the recent conspiracy which fuelled his worries. James’s fears ought to be understood in a much wider context of the State’s anxiety about the dangers of a foreign invasion and recusant possession of arms. In the name of national security, recusant gentlemen were ­periodically disarmed from the start of the war with Spain in 1585 onwards.48 Sequestrations of horses only rarely took place before the late seventeenth century, when the stables of Catholics with Jacobite sympathies were frequently emptied of horses whose value was five pounds or more.49 An early example of the sequestration of Catholic horses is the 1599 order of the Privy Council which was intended to deter recusants from assisting potential foreign invaders and simultaneously to levy horses for service in Ireland. The lords lieutenants and commissioners of the musters were ordered to: cause all the horses or gueldinges in the possession or belonging to any recusant to be for this present time sequestred from them and committed to the custo[dy] of some well affected gentlemen their neighbours, that their service maie [be] used yf there be occation, and in the meane season, they shalbe keapt and mantayned at the charge of the owners, and restored sa[fely] againe.50

45  Cauelarice, 3:2.

46  Baret, Hipponomie, 3:3.

47  Some believed that training horses for hunting and running matches was not particularly beneficial to the advancement of country’s military capabilities. Sir Edward Harwood, for example, claimed that it was in fact the elite’s addiction to “Running and Hunting-horses” which was responsible for the shortcomings of English cavalry (The Harleian Miscellany, 4:262). In reality, the main reason for the perennial deficiency of English cavalry was not the poor quality of horses, but rather the stubbornness of owners who were reluctant to commit themselves to extra expense and be enrolled in muster books (Edwards, Horse and Man, 159–65). 48  See Quintrell, “The Practice and Problems of Recusant Disarming.”

49  Edwards, Horse and Man, 142.

50  Petti, Recusant Documents, 101–2; see also The Manu­scripts of his Grace the Duke of Rutland, 1:355.

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More commonly, recusants would simply be charged with providing furnished horses for the Crown’s foreign campaigns. In autumn 1585, after the outbreak of war with Spain, commissioners were sent to the counties in order to extract the contribution of recusants towards the Earl of Leicester’s military expedition to the Low Countries. Catholics were charged with providing a number of light horses (according to their abilities) or pay a substantial sum of twenty-five pounds for each unsupplied horse. John Talbot of Grafton, for example, was charged with providing four light horses, but instead of supplying the animals, “willinglye submitteth hymselfe to the payment of xxvli in lue of everye horse.”51 The benefit of such policy was again twofold: it provided the necessary means for the military expedition and simultaneously frustrated potential Catholic threats. However, the latent danger of Catholic horses would only become tangible on the hunting field or the racecourse. Only through the public and collective act of assembling with the purpose of participating in equestrian sports could a potential power of ­Catholic cavalry be properly assessed. Almost a year after the failed Gunpowder Plot, Lord Sheffield, the president of the Council of the North, reported to Robert Cecil that “these wicked papistes” must be conspiring again, for their carriage is more highe and insolente then ordinarie and as before the late Develishe devise have many mitinges ounder coller of hountinges and strive to horse themselves exterordinarily well refusing even any prise for them yf on go aboute to buie them this hathe ben ther favoringe corses ever when they have had any plot in hande bout I know these things are better knowne to your lordship then to me.52

However, to a more careful observer such as William James, it would have been selfevident that the dynamics of the hunting field were not only about secret plotting and brute force. Above all, Dean James was intrigued by the symbolic aspects of equestrian sports which could initiate profound and lasting changes in the fabric of the local community even before the actual insurrection might take place. Unlike the Dunsmore Heath match, Durham Catholic matches had not degenerated into open rebellion. For James, Durham meets were scandalous and potentially subversive because of how competitive racing itself shaped the commoners’ perception of the upper-class riders. Catholic ownership and accumulation of horses was only part of the problem. Even worse was the social impact of publicly matching them. A Catholic hunting or running match was a performative and communication event, through which the putatively disloyal religious dissenters presented themselves as noble, honourable, and fundamentally agreeable. We need to remember that the “vulgar sort” were not praising a professional jockey or even a particular horse, but primarily the owners of horses, the local Catholic gentry, who ran the matches themselves. Dean James was clearly afraid that Catholic performance of horsemanship might solicit the audience’s admiration and sympathies which would extend beyond the bounds of mere sportsmanship. He was afraid that recognizing the symbolic capital of Catholic competitors would compel 51  Thomas Bishoppe to the Privy Council, October 22, 1585, SP 12/183, fol. 103r.

52  Lord Sheffield to the Earl of Salisbury, October 30, 1606, CP 118/30.



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their gazing tenants, neighbours, and co-religionists not only to identify the sportsmen as respectable notables, but also encourage them to question their political loyalties. The same tactics were used by the Gunpowder Plotters on Dunsmore Heath; the same abuse of the hunting field and the cultural value of horsemanship might very well happen again.

Conclusion

The northeastern records are particularly valuable because they show the importance of horse racing for the early seventeenth-century political culture, particularly in the north of England.53 When members of the Catholic community, whose political allegiances were deeply suspected, engaged in equestrian sports, Protestant officials might perceive their activities as antagonistic and dangerous. Hunting matches were a particularly contentious racing genre because they were less institutionalized and because participants would use them to trial hunting horses, which were deemed an important military resource. At the time when the Crown had no standing army at its disposal, any unregulated assembly of men on horseback could pose an immediate threat to the established order. When gathered men were recusants or suspected Catholics, the risks grew exponentially. The hunting field as a performance space, where the Catholic self and its place in the Protestant society could be fashioned and negotiated, was an additional hazard. Dean William James seemed to believe that racing enabled Catholic dissenters to display their skills and wealth, win public approval, and present themselves as uncontentious actors in public life. James leaves little doubt that such prudent cultural politics might eventually lead towards a more direct subversive action. However, for the marginalized ­Catholic gentry, whom the law barred from holding public offices, accumulation of symbolic capital through horse racing was not necessarily a means towards violent insurrection. In their perpetual struggle for respectability and acceptance, Catholic gentry might have seen racing not as an open challenge to the Protestant authorities, but as an opportunity for public affirmation of their rank, martial qualities, and political loyalty. Racing could perhaps be understood as one of the many strategies available to the Catholic elite which helped them maintain their local standing and enabled them to participate in the public arena on an equal footing. Although the surviving reports of local officials tell us little about Catholic perspectives, James’s letter offers a good starting point for the recovery of latent Catholic attitudes towards equestrian sports not only in the North East, but throughout post-Reformation Britain.

53  Scholars have much more thoroughly explored the intersection of politics and horse racing for the later Stuart and Georgian periods, when racing became a truly national sport, see for example Richard Nash, “‘Beware a Bastard Breed’”; Mike Huggins, Horse Racing and British Society; Oliver Cox, “‘Newmarket, that Infamous Seminary’.”

Chapter 7

WOOL, CLOTH, AND ECONOMIC MOVEMENT: JOURNEYING WITH THE YORK AND TOWNELEY SHEPHERDS JAMIE BECKETT The pageants of the York Corpus Christi Cycle are still usually amongst a reader’s first introduction to early drama, but this should not diminish their importance to the history of performance. The thorough work of the REED project has demonstrated the diversity and widespread nature of such activity throughout the medi­eval and early modern periods, and has helped to demonstrate that “cycle” models such as those at York, Chester, or Coventry were distinctive initiatives rather than merely examples of a broader norm.1 Performances took place in a dizzying array of contexts, where shared traditions both responded to and influenced local circumstances; interdisciplinary studies have been crucial to acknowledging this reflexivity, exploring the integration of “performance with culture and culture with performance.”2 Because of the relative wealth of medi­eval sources relating to York and the auspicious survival of British Library MS Additional 35390, the Register containing scripts of the city’s Corpus Christi pageants, the “mystery plays” have received a great deal of scholarly attention. But the REED N-E project has brought to light sources which help illuminate a broad map of dynamic performance activity across the region, emphasising that York was not some isolated bastion of culture. From a very early period York formed the centre of a wide web of roads, waterways, and other travelling routes in northern England, and each village, town, or city in this web was necessarily defined by its connections to others. Connectivity and movement—of both commodities and ideas— across this network are central to the arguments which follow. The chapter begins with reassessment of the economic circumstances which have underpinned most arguments about York’s Corpus Christi performances. It goes on to think about what the surviving biblical drama of York and the Towneley manu­script—once associated with Wakefield, and now more generally with the West Riding of Yorkshire—might tell us about contemporary perceptions of the profound economic changes wrought over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, across the whole of northern England. 1  See Sponsler, The Queen’s Dumbshows, 2–4.

2  Chaganti, “The Platea Pre- and Postmodern,” 255.

Dr. Jamie Beckett, who was sponsored as a PhD student by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, was awarded the degree in 2018 for his thesis on Humour and Laughter in the York and Towneley Mystery Cycles and is now based in the Uni­ver­sity of Coventry.

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Seemingly innocuous substances, wool and cloth are at the heart of these arguments. Scholars of the York plays have given a great deal of attention to how the interests of civic and craft hierarchies influenced the structure and content of performances. But looking beyond the internal politics of the city, most have continued to rely on a narrative of late medi­eval economic prosperity which has been questioned in recent years. This is that York—the so-called “northern capital”—successfully negotiated the shifting commercial pattern of English trade away from wool and towards cloth after the Black Death, only to decline in the later fifteenth century. In recent years a more complicated picture has emerged. Substituting prosperity for a far earlier decline, this has the capacity to change the way we understand motivations behind York’s Corpus Christi performances, the content of pageant scripts which survive to represent them, and other ­dramatic works— including the Towneley Plays—which they went on to influence.

Untangling the Wool Trade

From at least the early thirteenth century York held regional and national eminence as a “collecting centre” for wool in England, at the heart of a large network of producers from much of northern England, including Yorkshire and the northwest.3 It was well-known and important: as an historical centre associated with Roman rule and the foundation of the English Church; as a fortified stronghold where campaigns against Scotland were launched; and as a trading hub at the confluence of the rivers Foss and Ouse.4 It lay at the heart of a series of roads and waterways which connected it with the surrounding countryside, including prominent towns, cities, and ports allowing passage to the European continent and beyond.5 English wool was highly valued, and the city capitalised on its connectedness to a vast wool-producing hinterland. York’s prosperity as a wool hub was firmly rooted by the thirteenth century, with the city’s merchants acting as middlemen between producers and alien exporters who traded through Hull and London.6 The dominance of York was such that at times even Durham Priory preferred to trade through the city, rather than its closest regional collecting centre Newcastle, or its own port of Hartlepool.7 York’s near-hegemony brought a great influx of coin into the city and its surrounding area, which in turn facilitated local credit and the potential for investment in other urban projects. These were perhaps most materially evident in building projects on parish churches, hospitals, and civic structures, funded by townspeople, local seigniorial figures, wealthy Minster clergy, and the religious institutions on whose lands the sheep were pastured.8 3  Bell, Brooks and Dryburgh, The English Wool Market, 54–55; Nightingale, Enterprise, Money and Credit in England, 89. 4  Rees Jones, York: The Making of a City, 237, 253–57; Kermode, Medi­eval Merchants, 4–8. 5  See Edwards and Hindle, “Transportation System,” 123–34, esp. 127, 130, 132.

6  Kermode, Medi­eval Merchants, 7–8.

7  See Threlfall-Holmes, “Newcastle Trade and Durham Priory,” 143–44. 8  Nightingale, Enterprise, Money and Credit in England, 83.



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It also supported the area’s burgeoning literary and artistic culture, epitomised by influential writers including Richard Rolle and Nicholas Love.9 Those bringing their wool to the city from all over the north also represented a huge pool of commercial consumers, giving local merchants and artisans access to an extensive market for the distribution of their wares.10 It is no exaggeration to say that the wool network helped establish York as the premier urban trade centre of the north, with incoming coin increasing the confidence of investors, and bolstering its status as second or third wealthiest city in England.11 Precisely when York’s economic fortunes began to decline has been a matter of considerable debate, though by the early sixteenth century its status, wealth, and population size had been markedly reduced. Historians have broadly established that during the early fourteenth century the wool trade in York suffered for various reasons: a severe famine from 1315 to 1322 led to a much-reduced rural population; wars between France and Flanders, as well as the Flemish civil war, made exports more difficult; and repeated military incursions of the Scots into Yorkshire put a strain on wool production.12 Many York merchants appear to have borne decreasing revenue and status as a result: indicative of this, from 1322 to 1363 the city’s mayoralty was dominated by those with landed, rather than mercantile, wealth.13 In the lay subsidy of 1334 few of York’s taxpayers are listed as merchants and only two were wool exporters, compared to fiftysix in 1298–1305.14 From the mid-fourteenth century York’s economic fortunes shifted again, not least due to the major social upheaval caused by the Black Death. Whilst it continued to act as a wool hub, the Crown’s restrictions on this trade from 1352–57, and the rise in competition from merchants in ports such as Hull, led to a diversification into the cloth trade.15 Representing a shift from wool, a significant proportion of York’s population became engaged in the textile sector, with the city becoming one of the largest centres of production in the region.16 For a number of years the historical consensus, led by J. N. Bartlett and Edward Miller, was that the emergence of the cloth trade in the late fourteenth century brought a new economic flourishing to York, which lasted until the beginning of the sixteenth century.17 This idea has greatly influenced the study of the York Cycle, as it has been assumed that the Corpus Christi performances arose from a period of renewed confidence in the urban economy. Although there was an economic slump, the so-called 9  See Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 251–97.

10  Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 8.

11  Palliser, Medi­eval York, 182–84; for comparative data see Dyer, “Appendix,” 735, 758. 12  Ormrod, “York and the Crown,” 14–33; Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 12.

13  Liddy, “Urban Conflict,” 4–5.

14  Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 13–14.

15  See Kermode, “Northern Towns,” 678–79; “The Rise and Decline,” 19–20. 16  Rees Jones, York: The Making of A City, 255; Palliser, Medi­eval York, 233.

17  Bartlett, “The Expansion and Decline of York,” 17–33; Miller, “Medi­eval York,” 34–37.

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“northern capital” weathered it well, with the Cycle as testament to this.18 But in recent years, scholars have questioned the economic trajectory underpinning this notion. In an extensive study of debt certificates over the late-thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, Pamela Nightingale has convincingly argued that after the fall of York’s wool trade, the turn to cloth did little to mitigate its economic decline. Whereas York merchants had formerly exploited lucrative positions as middlemen, handling the wool of wealthy rural landowners and selling to buyers from overseas, the upheavals of the mid-fourteenth century caused a detrimental shift. Production was increasingly undertaken by tenantfarmers managing small flocks rather than large-scale demesne wool farmers. This had two principal effects. Wool quality generally decreased due to a loss of trade expertise, and producers would no longer extend credit to merchants, and wait for profits after sales. Instead they sold to local woolmen or “broggers,” who brought the wool to towns and expected direct payment for it.19 By the late 1370s large numbers in York were working in the cloth industry, and a rise in numbers of freemen, taken alongside a surge in the city’s population, has been interpreted as a sign of heightened prosperity—though this has been questioned.20 Although this commercial change did bring money to York, Nightingale notes that incomes on average remained smaller, and wealth was spread across a far larger number of people. The cloth trade involved more traders and artisans in the production chain than the wool trade: material passed from producers to the broggers, and then to anyone from carders and spinners to tailors who worked the materials into cloth for sale. Payments were spread wider, and fewer people commanded the kind of profits which allowed for large-scale investment in the city. Even at its highest, the value of cloth exports was less than a quarter of what that from wool had been.21 Relying on the less lucrative cloth trade, York had reduced access to credit and also felt increased competition from elsewhere in the region. Alongside other long-established urban centres nearby such as Beverley, Hull, and Scarborough, the city lost out to competition from towns in the West Riding. Importantly, they bypassed the commercial network which York had previously been at the heart of, and began to trade directly with London as an exporter.22 Although it is unclear how much of this would have been felt by the inhabitants of York, Nightingale links the rise in general dissatisfaction with the city’s economy to the uprisings of the 1380s, particularly to popular discontent with 18  For example King, “The York and Coventry Mystery Cycles,” 21–22.

19  Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 3–42, esp. 4, 32–33. Wool dealers are recorded as producers of “The Travellers to Emmaus” in the Ordo Paginarum and “Apparicio Christi peregrinis” in the York A/Y Memorandum Book, both intriguingly with a similar focus on travel networks and movement. The history of their involvement is ambiguous, however.

20  Palliser, Tudor York, 201; Beadle, “The York Corpus Christi Play,” 100. See Goddard, Credit and Trade, 188–89. 21  Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 39.

22  Palliser, Medi­eval York, 234–36; Kermode, “Northern Towns,” 676–77. Also Kermode, “The Greater Towns,” 454.



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the wealthy merchants who were no longer in the ascendancy.23 As she notes, this may be what Archbishop Richard Scrope was referring to in 1405 when—trying to rally the York’s wealthy citizens to his cause against Henry IV—he criticised policies which had caused the “grete poverte of the marchauntis in whom was wont to be the substaunce of the riches of alle the land.”24 The earliest records we have of the York Corpus Christi performances derive from the late fourteenth century. Rather than being rooted in a time of renewed prosperity the growth of the Cycle may have been—at least in part—a response to perceptions of economic decline, shoring up civic pride and representing York as an idealised city in the face of its diminishing commercial stature. In 1997 R. B. Dobson argued that the “mystery plays” emerged as an initiative by the city’s governing elite to better regulate craft organization, and to demonstrate civic control over those working in the city.25 Alexandra Johnston notes that as a consequence “the York Cycle … can be seen as the creation of two complementary impulses for political control and religious education.”26 If the York Cycle was instigated as a specific response to decline, the surviving pageant scripts (compiled almost a century later) may be testament to the continued economic fall of the city. Certainly, by the 1470s and 1480s, when the surviving scripts were compiled, there is evidence that anxieties over decline were widely felt among the commons of York.27 It is unclear how the economic downturn was experienced by the diverse range of people occupied in producing, performing, or watching the York Cycle, but in an urban area whose population and access to coin had already been greatly reduced since the fourteenth century, the infrastructure surrounding the plays presented the illusion of well-controlled industry. Mervyn James argued that civic performances “helped to extend and confirm the network of contacts with those whose wealth and power made them significant in the external relationships of the community.”28 More recently Catherine Casson has ­demonstrated that urban centres used initiatives such as performances, religious imagery, and building projects to foster a sound reputation internally and externally, with “the potential to increase the volume of trade and generate wealth.”29 The northern capital was conscious of maintaining its commercial standing, and performance traditions were perhaps a means to reiterate it both to the inhabitants of York and to those coming into the city as spectators. An oft-cited 1399 entry to the A/Y Memorandum Book talks of the Corpus Christi Play being produced “en honour & reuerence nostre-seignour Iesu 23  Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 24.

24  Davies, ed., An English Chronicle, 31.

25  Dobson, “Craft Guilds and City,” 91–105; see also Swanson, “The Illusion of Economic Structure,” 29–48. 26  Johnston, “The City as Patron: York,” 153.

27  Liddy, “Urban Enclosure Riots,” 61–62.

28  James, “Ritual, Drama, and Social Body,” 12–13.

29  Casson, “Reputation and Responsibility,” 387–408, esp. 387–88.

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Crist & honour & profit de […] la Citee.”30 Performances honoured Christ, but also conferred status on the urban environment in which they were performed. Although York had lost its central source of wealth through the decline of the wool trade, the city was still the devotional centre of the region, and could use this identity to reassert its status. York’s Corpus Christi performances drew in large numbers of spectators from far afield. This influx of people re-traced trade networks which were beginning to lose their importance, bolstering York’s position as a regional centre. In procession, the pageant wagons tracked a route beginning at Micklegate (the great southern entry point to York), traversing the major thoroughfares and passing impressive landmarks (including the Guildhall and Minster) before finally reaching the Pavement, location of one of the city’s principal markets. Those following the route walked a pilgrimage, imagining the streets anew as the thoroughfares of the Holy Land. But spectators were also invited to engage in a journey of commercial opportunities, enriching the space materially as well as spiritually. The honour of the city was rooted in the networks it could draw upon, and the performances glorified York as a centre of devotion, celebrating (and reasserting) the city as a tangible nexus of trade.

Pastoral Movements

Johnston has written that the York Plays abound with “motifs of travelling, of constant greetings and farewells … written into the text as the natural response to a performance that was constantly moving.”31 The York “Offering of the Shepherds” is perhaps the pageant we can most firmly assume was imaginatively associated with the wool trade in the city, portraying the movements of those sheep-rearing rustics from the hillsides of the Holy Land to Bethlehem. Standing in for the holy city of the Christ’s birth, York’s significance is underlined. But given its recent experience of decline, this elision of formerly lucrative trade routes with the physical pathways to devotion, and to Christ, may reveal more about a conscious remodelling of the city—not in wood or stone, but within the public imagination. We might consider the shepherds of the “Offering” in figurative terms, associated with the priests, prophets, and patriarchs of the Biblical landscape. Yet to contemporary spectators they also represented real-life workers, many of whom had farmed a vast hinterland surrounding York and nurtured the creatures at the heart of the once-roaring trade in wool, and now textiles. Chester Scoville has argued that in the York Cycle, and in the “Offering” particularly, the urban centre is represented as a dominant place of order, “taming” the wild spaces of the hinterland which surrounds it.32 The “Offering” portrays the journey of three shepherds in pilgrimage: it evokes their movement from “felles” (l. 34) and fields—sites of wool production—to the central trading hub or Holy City. Scholars of the “Offering,” as well as the more popular “Prima” and “Secunda Pastorum” 30  REED: York, 11; for translation “in honour and reverence of our lord Jesus Christ and honour and profit of the […] city,” see 697. 31  Johnston, “The City as Patron: York,” 153.

32  Scoville, “The Rural in the York Cycle,” 175–87.



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of the Towneley manu­script (which I will return to later) have previously made allusions to the relevance of the wool and cloth trades to the plays.33 Yet recent developments in economic, social and theatrical history mean we can better consider how the surviving play-texts, analysed comparatively, respond to specific changes in the commercial framework of contemporary Yorkshire. Movement to the city is the foremost imperative of the “Offering,” where the urban centre—both York and Bethlehem—is privileged as a sacred place, to which the shepherds must journey to fulfill their destiny. In the previous pageant, “The Nativity,” Joseph’s words capture the hubbub and vitality of the city, and the influx of people feeding into it: Joseph:

For we haue sought bothe vppe and doune Thurgh diuerse stretis in [th]is cite. So mekill pepull is comen to towne [Th]at we can no nowhare herbered be …

(York, “Nativity,” ll. 8–11)

The “diuerse stretis” constitute a network of travel, through which “mekill pepull” move to and from Bethlehem. In the “Offering” this idea of movement is almost instantly seized upon by the First Shepherd, who after calling for his brothers’ attention begins with the line “Sen we walke thus, withouten were” (l. 3), both describing their imminent travel, and the humble faith they have in it. Their walking “withouten were” marks a shift from Joseph’s frantic route “vppe and doune,” suggesting a change in both purpose and possibility after the birth of the Christ-child—though likely staged on a wagon depicting the countryside, the shepherds talk from a fictive performance space temporarily estranged from the urban world.34 At the beginning of the “Offering” the shepherds speak of Christ even before the visitation of the Angel. Needing no celestial being (or body) to guide their way, they have knowledge of both the holy birth and the best route towards it—making the later appearance of the guiding “sterne” onstage (ll. 15) somewhat superfluous. The York shepherds anticipate not only the coming of Christ, but also their imminent voyage to the city: 1 Pastor: And in Bedlem hereby Sall that same barne by borne.

2 Pastor: Or he be borne in burgh hereby, […]        (ll. 11–13)

The site of the birth—“Bedlem”—is mentioned before the coming of the “barne” himself, marking the importance of the urban location. Referring to this site more generally as the “burgh hereby” also blurs the boundaries between York and Bethlehem. The city is a distant yet dramatically imminent entity, the clear focus of the shepherds’ travels. Where the First and Second Shepherd know of Christ’s impending arrival, the Third Shepherd still sees it as a remote prospect. Reflecting the most pervasively comic reflex in the York Cycle—the incongruous confrontation of the Biblical with the contempo33  See Richardson, “English and French Shepherds Plays,” 259–69.

34  Beadle, York Plays, 2:114.

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rary—the Third Shepherd sharply shifts the focus of the audience from the divine to the mundane through his own anticlimactic speech: 3 Pastor:

I have herde say, by that same light, The children of Israell shulde be made free, The force of the feende to felle in fighte, And all his pouer excluded shulde be Wherefore, brether, I rede that wee Flitte faste overe thees felles To frayste to fynde oure fee And talke of sumwhat ellis. (ll. 29–36.)35

Initially following his fellow herdsmen, the Third Shepherd’s words move disjointedly from prophecy—evoking the “children of Israell”—to a practical concern for his sheep or “fee” (l. 35). The incongruity expressed here is clearly comic, highlighting the internal disparity of the men as both prophets and sheep-herdsmen. This is perhaps the only moment in the “Offering” when the practicalities of caring for livestock are actually mentioned, and it is important that the reference is placed in comic contrast with the other shepherds’ speeches. His assertion that they should find their sheep and “talke of sumwhat ellis” expresses the intrusion of commercial interests into the biblical scene. Whilst the First and Second Shepherds might be good prophets, their shepherding skills leave a great deal to be desired. The comic turn of the Third Shepherd represents the possibility of deviation from the route which he and his companions will ultimately follow to the Christchild, his call to “flitte fast overe these felles” evoking movement away from the “burgh,” rather than towards it. The alliterative quality of this line is suggestive of speed, but also the flimsiness of the Third Shepherd’s plans: his intention for them to “flitte” (or move around from place to place) is juxtaposed with the steady “walke” which his companions propose, to reach Christ at their set destination. Scoville comments that in the “Offering” there is an attitude towards the rural which is “both suspicious and colonizing,” distinguishing the city from the uncivilised wasteland that lies beyond its bounds. The fields of the shepherds are distinctly non-urban, justified and ordered only by their association with the city.36 Further than this the location which the shepherds inhabit is presented in the pageant as only a transient space, whose existence is defined by its position within a travel route. Any unwillingness to establish or draw on a network to the urban centre, which it must properly look to as central and superior, is a commercial issue as much as a devotional one. After the visitation the First and Second Shepherd repeat that they will journey to “Bedlam” (l. 73) or “the burgh” (l. 87) to visit the babe, and the Third Shepherd’s reluctance is now placated, his faith in their movements restored: “Hym for to fine has we no drede” (l. 79). Beadle has suggested that in performances of the “Offering” actors passed from a wagon representing the countryside to the stage previously used in the Tilethatch35  My emphasis.

36  Scoville, “The Rural in the York Cycle,” 175–77.



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ers’ “Nativity,” presumably settled nearby.37 Stepping down to join the Nativity scene, the shepherds make the journey from country to city, the byways of York becoming the streets of Bethlehem. In this transition the urban space is clearly prioritised, placed at the centre of the shepherds’ journey, but importantly not at the end of it. Once they have visited the Christ-child the shepherds go “hame agayne” (l. 130) spreading the word of his birth far and wide in a journey which fulfills their role as conduits of the “good news,” but also evoking the reciprocal movement of commercial goods into and out of the city.

Decline and Fall

York’s position as a central hub in the wool trade may have had a profound effect on the Corpus Christi Cycle, but in the “Offering” in particular we can find a response to the fall of this system. In a very brief analysis of the pageant Woolf comments that on reaching the site of the holy birth the shepherds chiefly express three things: “regret for their poverty and simplicity, an affectionate delight in the Christ-Child as a baby, and a faith in His power.”38 It is easy to brush over the first of these: the humbleness of the shepherds seems an obvious part of the play, especially when compared to the wealth of the Magi, and of Herod’s court, so close in the order of the Cycle. Yet it should not be ignored that whilst the shepherds make these professions of poverty and simplicity—traditional models of Christian humbleness and faith—they also demonstrate a keen interest in money and commerce in the pageant. This begins when the Second Shepherd declares that Christ “with his blissid bloode … shulde us by” (l. 19), and redeem what has been lost. The use of “b[u]y” here is interesting for the way it turns the holy blood into a commodity, to be traded for renewed prosperity. The blurring of commercial and sacrificial language is not uncommon in this context, but against the backdrop of the economic decline of York the works take on a new meaning. Christ with his Crucifixion will pay for the sins of the world, but here he is playfully turned into an active trader, rather than a product to be sacrificed for sale. The idea that Christ will “buy” back the sins of humankind in a grand act of redemption is reinforced later in the text when the shepherds gather around the newborn babe. Aside from the acts of gift giving, which may also be interpreted as trade activities, the language used by the shepherds implores Christ to offer them favour and facilitate change. 1 Pastor: And whenne ȝe shall welde all, Gud sonne, forget noȝt me Yf any fordele falle.

(ll. 105–7)

2 Pastor: And whan ȝe shall be lorde in lande, Dose goode agayne, forgete me noght, For I haue herde declared Of connyng clerkis and clene That bountith askis rewarde, Nowe watte ȝe what I mene. (ll. 114–19) 37  Beadle, York Plays, 2:114.

38  Woolf, The English Mystery Plays, 184.

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These requests to Christ may be considered in purely spiritual or pastoral terms—the characters want the infant to care for them as they care for their sheep. The acknowledgement that Christ will “welde all” and “be Lorde in land” demonstrates the authority vested in him as a figure of the centre, with control over the vast network at its periphery. But rather than praising who he is and what he will do for the world more generally, it is notable that the shepherds—in a pageant with such universal meaning—focus keenly on their own interests in this exchange. The request repeated by both characters that Christ should “forget noȝt me” and “forgete me noght” stresses their individual identities, looking to the Christ-child’s capacity to allow them access to God in intimate terms. Yet their requests also seem to call for a boost in trade. The First Shepherd’s line “forget noȝt me // Yf any fordele falle” sounds as much like a business proposition as a call for salvation, with “fordele” denoting worldly benefit as much as spiritual profit. In spelling out that “bountith askis rewarde,” it is unclear whether the Second Shepherd is actually propositioning the newborn Christ to offer him something in exchange for the “two cobill notis uppon a bande” (l. 112) he has given as a gift, or if he sees Christ as a bounty which asks compensation from the world. The addition of the final line “Nowe watte ye what I mene” in this context is abrupt, and even vulgarly comic—the language of trade and barter greets the Christ child, whose new existence becomes a promise for prosperity and wealth. Mixing ideas of economic prosperity with devotion, the shepherds’ words reinforce the suggestion that these dramas worked to bolster and further York’s reputation as a centre for both religion and trade. Yet whilst the “Offering” betrays an anticipation or hope for change through Christ, it is nevertheless nostalgic. The pageant opens with prophecies of the Old Testament, and the shepherds begin by looking backwards. Drawing on biblical typo­logy as we might expect, through this the shepherds also bring an intimate edge to ideas of the past, remembering the patriarchs as “formefadres” (forefathers) (l. 5), their own ancestors. Through references to these figures the characters become more than just poor rustics on a hillside; they are ennobled and redefined by the past, painting themselves as people of prosperous and venerable stock, fallen on hard times. The First Shepherd asserts that—presumably like his fellows—he is “but a simple knave,” but he comes from a “curtayse kynne” (ll. 100–101). Although consistent with the biblical narrative, these comments also resonate with York’s repeated pleas of poverty to the Crown from 1442, marking its fall from prosperity.39 The “Offering” re-establishes York as the central hub of a vast hinterland, an urban space which draws in the shepherds, to be enriched and sanctified by their visit. Gaining promises of credit and new prosperity, the characters are sent back to retrace the network to their “felles”; they go “hame agayne / and make mirthe” (ll. 130–31), re-walking the route of trade now imbued with this new devotional impetus. By the time the surviving script of the “Offering” was recorded, York had reached a point of decline which was likely becoming clearer to spectators, even if an illusion of prosperity had remained through the city’s involvement in the cloth trade. Up until the mid-fifteenth century 39  See Kermode, Medi­eval Merchants, 61–62; Palliser, Medi­eval York, 238.



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a small number of York merchants continued to trade in wool, gleaning considerable wealth from this traditional commerce. Several mayors of York were wool traders, and a number of York merchants became mayor of the Wool Staple in Calais. This may have led to a hope that the former hub of the wool trade would regain its position, on which the city’s prosperity had largely relied.40 Nightingale notes that following various attempts to re-invigorate the York wool trade throughout the early fifteenth century, a “mortal blow” came in May 1454, when the garrison at Calais seized all wool stocks in the port after a dispute over unpaid wages. York merchants had invested heavily in exports to the town and—unlike their London counterparts—they had not received any warning of the impending seizure of goods. Due to the precarious balance of credit necessary to the trade, after 1455 wool exports from York merchants through Hull floundered, and never recovered.41 Recorded only one or two decades after this disaster, the York “Offering” may speak of what the wool trade had once offered to the city, and how the urban space had suffered at its loss. Following Nightingale, we can link the York Cycle—or at least the version of it denoted by the surviving late-fifteenth century play-scripts—with the city’s decline, rather than its economic flourishing. Yet the “Offering” leaves us with an optimistic anticipation of change, not dejection at the loss of commerce. The pageant draws on themes of suffering and loss in terms of wealth and topo­graphy, both spiritual and earthly, but it anticipates the return of the city through Christ. It was through relying on its traditional significance as the second most important religious centre of England—and the prestigious and lucrative status which this could still bring to the urban population—that the city looked to restoring its former glory.

Shifting Fortunes

York’s fall has rarely been mentioned by economic historians without reference to the simultaneous rise of towns in the West Riding of Yorkshire, at the forefront of the cloth trade. Again, the formerly-accepted narrative that the “villages” of this region sapped away York’s wealth has been questioned: D. M. Palliser makes clear that alongside competition from the West Riding a plethora of other detrimental circumstances hit the commercial ventures of the “northern capital,” precipitating its fall. These include a national recession beginning at the start of the fifteenth century, and the increasing exclusion of English merchants by the Hanse in the Baltic after 1402. Coin was in short supply following the closure of the Calais mint in 1404, severely limiting credit.42 In Yorkshire specifically, an agrarian crisis hit from 1438 to 1440, with harvest failures and resultant epidemics and famine.43 This was only made worse by a mid-fifteenth century economic 40  Medi­eval Merchants, 169.

41  Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 34, 39.

42  Palliser, Medi­eval York, 236–37; Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 35. 43  Pollard, “The North-Eastern Economy,” 88–105.

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slump, hitting London in the 1440s and spreading beyond, reducing trade, employment, and mercantile credit in York and elsewhere.44 Although all of the region was suffering, in relative terms York and the once-dominant towns of the East Riding perhaps felt the strongest sense of decline, whilst the West Riding benefited as the economic system was restructured.45 York remained an important economic power in Yorkshire after 1450, and even produced nearly twice as much cloth as any single town in the region until the end of the fifteenth century.46 But older urban centres were being outpaced by smaller towns including Wakefield, Barnsley, Bradford, and Leeds, and by 1478 West Riding mills outstripped all other northern producers. In a major shift, the fifteenth century saw cloth production become as important to urban success and prosperity as trade.47 Just as it is interesting to consider how the York Plays might be read as a response to the declining fortunes of the city, it is striking that in the Towneley manu­script we find comparable play-texts which may be read as a testament to a later period, reflecting a much-altered state of affairs in the area. Surviving from a proximate region and produced around eighty years later, the Towneley manu­script has a well-established association with the West Riding.48 Scholars now largely dismiss the idea that the plays within the manu­script represent the lost Corpus Christi cycle of the town of Wakefield, largely following Barbara Palmer’s exposition of certain irregularities and controversies surrounding the attribution, including several ‘medi­eval’ records falsified in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, a number of plays within the manu­script were certainly associated with Wakefield, and the whole manu­script was likely produced in the West Riding, at a time when the economic trajectory of this region was ascendant.49 Just as we have considered the York “Offering” in relation to the city’s economic misfortunes by the end of the fifteenth century, we might compare it to the shepherds’ plays of the Towneley MS—compiled ca. 1553–58, at a time when cloth was king. Before turning fully to the Towneley shepherds, it is notable that by this time it would have been clear that the economic clout of York, formerly at the heart of the region, was unlikely to return. A 1561 petition made to Elizabeth I on behalf of the York weavers by the Mayor, Aldermen and Sheriffs of the city attests to the decline of the cloth industry, pleading for release from the yearly fee farm they had paid to the Exchequer. They state that in York “…where as in olde tyme past the said Citie hath moche prospered in clothe making… in processe of tyme the said occupieng decreased and at last utterly decayed in the said Citie.” Those in the business, we are told, had “fled the most part forth of the said 44  Medi­eval York, 237.

45  See Campbell, “Benchmarking,” 938, cited in Rees Jones, York: The Making of A City, 254.

46  Medi­eval York, 238.

47  Kermode, “Northern Towns,” 675–77.

48  See Palmer, “‘Towneley Plays’ or ‘Wakefield Cycle’ Revisited,” 323–29. For a brief discussion see Butterworth, “The Bible and the Towneley Plays,” 106–108. 49  See “‘Towneley Plays’ or ‘Wakefield Cycle’ Revisited,” 335–36. More recently, see Coletti and Gibson, “The Tudor Origins of Medi­eval Drama,” esp. 236–41; Johnston, “The Towneley Plays: Huntington Library MS HM1.”



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Citie, inhabityng in the contry… sauf onely a fewe very poore men nowe remaynyng.”50 Cloth no longer brought wealth into York, with the former hub of the region’s trade network now sidelined by the newer towns of the West Riding—whose reliance on wool production and treatment may have given its inhabitants further cause to ruminate on the biblical shepherds, and their woolly ruminants. The Towneley shepherds differ wildly from their York counterparts, and to find a cause for this we may look again to the performance of the relationship between the hinterland which the figures inhabit and the idealised urban centre of Bethlehem. The most noticeable shift between the York “Offering” and the Towneley “Prima” and “Secunda Pastorum” is in the way the shepherds respond to the news of Christ’s birth. In York the pastoral characters look immediately to His coming—somewhat oddly, even before they are told of it by the Angel. But in Towneley this is certainly not the case. In both plays of this collection the shepherds are given time to fully inhabit the non-urban space, and their lives, mores, and working conditions are brought into focus before their trip to Bethlehem. The “Prima” begins with a long speech from the First Shepherd concerning the changeable weather, social injustice and poverty, and pestilence suffered by his sheep (l. 38). This is directly followed by a similar speech from the Second Shepherd complaining about the ills which have befallen him, and the entrance of the Third Shepherd in conversation with the first two. The character of Jak Garcio, the boy, brings a festive element to the production, before the shepherds sit down to their much-discussed feast.51 It is not until line 296 that the angel appears, and the shepherds begin to talk of Jesus’s birth. Likewise, the “Secunda” begins with long speeches from the First, Second, and Third Shepherds consecutively, who complain of their lives and conditions before arguing together (ll. 252–53). Much has been written on the possible devotional meanings of the shepherds’ speeches and arguments, but the comic vitality of this dialogue as an entertainment should not be understated.52 Mak’s entrance follows, an untrustworthy figure whose antics—stealing a lamb and orchestrating a cover-up parodying the Adoration—have become synonymous with the play.53 It is only following all of this comic action that the angel appears, and the shepherds are finally informed of the coming of Christ at line 920. The Towneley “shepherds” plays, especially the “Secunda,” have been regarded as masterpieces of early theatre, mostly for their intelligent pacing and blending of low humour with high drama. This would be unimaginable without the space afforded to the shepherds at the beginning of both plays, where each is distinctly characterised. In the York “Offering” the First and Second Shepherds are generally indistinguishable, with some comic dissent from the Third Shepherd, and the narrative is driven swiftly away from the countryside towards the city, and Christ. In both Towneley plays the shepherds 50  See Raine, ed., York Civic Records, 6:13–14.

51  Speyser, “Dramatic Illusion and Sacred Reality,” 1–19.

52  See Campbell, “Why Do the Shepherds Prophesy?,” 137–50.

53  Roney, “The Wakefield First and Second Shepherds Plays,” 696–723, esp. 714–17.

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are more fully realised as individuals, with their own distinct concerns and identities resonant of their existence in the countryside. Here the lives of the shepherds, and the hinterland they inhabit, are worthy of consideration, criticism, or even celebration, even if this initially distracts them from the central biblical narrative. The “Prima” and the “Secunda” focus on the environment the shepherds occupy, rather than drawing our attention directly to the urban space, as in York: complaints about the weather and the harsh landscape are prominent at the beginning of both plays. In the “Prima” the First Shepherd talks of “heyll […] weytt […] blast” and “rane”(ll. 7–8), tied into the difficulties of his life. Similarly the First Shepherd of the “Secunda” talks of “cold”(l. 1), “stormes and tempest” (l. 10), before describing his own personal troubles. Importantly this challenging environment is described far more fully than the single reference made to “felles” in the “Offering”; the Towneley shepherds “walkys on the moore” (l. 15), their “landys lyys fallow” (ll. 20–21), and they “sytt in a stone” (l. 74). Continuing into the play, the Third Shepherd makes reference to “feyldys” (ll. 193, 243), “corne” (l. 259), and “the moore” (ll. 15, 295), again evoking the physical presence of the countryside. The surviving script of the York “Offering” is far shorter than both the “Prima” and “Secunda,” and features a lacuna around the point where the angel appears to the shepherds.54 Yet it is clear that the latter plays simply had a different focus to the former. Descriptions of the pastoral environment have a clear position in the plays, and squarely place the shepherds in a specific geo­graphical space. After the First Shepherd’s description of the weather in the “Prima,” the Second Shepherd makes a passing reference to “plogh and wane” (l. 90) before asking if his companion is “in this towne” (l. 127). His comment recalls the urban space, but only as a geo­graphical marker: he is a figure passing by, moving through the region. His claim that “Poore men ar in the dyke” (l. 135) again roots the characters in the countryside, as the First Shepherd goes on to talk about “pasture” (l. 153), “plane” (l. 167) and “myln whele” (l. 182). Noticeably, the men inhabit a non-urban space: just as in the Secunda they only begin to walk to Bethlehem after their position in the countryside has been firmly established. The humour of these characters may be read in different ways, but certainly through it the space they inhabit is elevated as it becomes less miserable, dreary, and windswept. The rural hinterland—where sheep are raised and wool is produced—is important, and the plays demonstrate a willingness to celebrate these characters who inhabit it.

Celebrating the Hinterland

This shift in focus from the city in the York “Offering” to the countryside in the Towneley “Prima” and “Secunda” has important implications. In the “Offering” the shepherds help to reinforce York’s position as both the Holy City and an important trade nexus, blending spiritual and commercial identities: in the Towneley plays the prestige of Bethlehem as an urban space is less keenly stressed. This perhaps reflects a crucial difference in the relative successes of York and the West Riding in the wool and cloth trades respectively. 54  See Beadle, York Plays, 2:110–11, 113.



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York had formerly held a position as a pre-eminent entrepôt in the lucrative wool industry, with wealth derived from trade activity rooted in its position at the central point of a network of villages, towns, and cities across northern England. In the city’s heyday, wool had been transported to York from as far as Westmorland, and figures ranging from merchants to kings had drawn on its enviable resources. The towns of the West Riding, on the other hand, largely gained their wealth as places of production rather than mercantile activity. From as early as the 1360s West Riding merchants were trading cloth directly outside the region with Londoners, acquiring the “credit, coin and raw materials” which allowed them to bypass local collecting centres.55 Whilst York may have lost its position as a trading hub, the towns of the West Riding did take over this status: by the late 1470s these cloth manufacturing boroughs had “assumed from York’s exporters the chief responsibility for bringing coin into the region, but only through transportation of their goods for sale in the capital.”56 At this point in the fifteenth century London, with greater access to bullion and credit, became the unrivalled centre of trade in England. We may locate the important shift of these commercial systems in the plays. In the Towneley “Prima” and “Secunda” the image of the idealised city or Bethlehem is figured as a distant urban centre, removed from the shepherds’ own home, much like London. In York the coming of the Christ-child offers both salvation and a solution to the city’s problems, but in both Towneley plays the portrayal of the relationship between the shepherds and the urban centre is entirely different. This is perhaps alluded to early in the “Secunda” at the arrival of Mak, where to threaten the shepherds he adopts the voice of “a yoman //… of the king” (ll. 291–92) who threatens to have the shepherds “thwang” (l. 307) or flogged if they do not follow his bidding. Although none of those gathered are fooled by the pretence, calls for Mak to “take outt that sothren tothe” (l. 311) suggest he was using a false southern English accent to evoke ideas of mastery. If we imagine that this “sothren tothe” meant that Mak was associated with London, here the play may acknowledge that for the Towneley shepherds authority had become vested entirely outside of the local region: perhaps this so inspired their resentment because the location of wealth and mastery had now become somewhere beyond their reach. At the close of the York “Offering” the shepherds give gifts to Christ while exhorting him to remember them, acting like free traders negotiating with the babe for spiritual and commercial aid, calling for a restoration of that which had been lost. In the “Prima,” the shepherds talk only of being granted the grace to see God; they praise him, but are in no position to negotiate. After all of their complaints at the beginning of the play, the Virgin offers only vague assurances that Christ will “rewarde” them with “good grace,” a speedy return, and “good ending” (ll. 703, 708, 710–11) at the termination of their journey. In the “Secunda” the shepherds only celebrate the child, with the Virgin promising them “He [will] kepe you fro wo […]” (l. 1072), apparently on her own initiative. 55  Palliser, Medi­eval York, 234–35; Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 40.

56  Nightingale, “The Rise and Decline,” 36.

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Whereas the York “Offering” ends with the shepherds being given a voice, used to call for aid and protection from Christ to bring new prosperity to them, the “Prima” and “Secunda” seem to mute the shepherds’ claims, despite their celebratory singing at the end of each play. In York the urban space, and its regeneration, is central to the performance; in Towneley the shepherds are far happier to inhabit the countryside, despite the problems which they suffer there. In all of the plays the visit to the Christ-child offers the promise of salvation and protection, signifying the episode’s importance in establishing the relationship between God and the layperson. But whereas in York the economic interests and the interests of the city come to the fore, anticipating or pleading for a prosperous future, in the Towneley manu­script the shepherds must be content to celebrate their hinterland, at some distance from the centre from which Christ’s prosperity emanates. The plays of York and Towneley are products of their cultures, “intervening”—to borrow from Nadia van Pelt’s recent work—in the “social, historical, and chrono­logical context” to which they belong.57 Observing differences between these two collections of plays—written in geo­ graphically proximate locations—can situate each as testament to the major restructuring which the English economy underwent in the fourteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries when mercantile activity—and perhaps perceptions of the cultural innovations associated with it—began to be dominated by the increasingly-monopolising capital, London. The plays allow us to think about how performances would have been influenced by changes in movement, trade, and the physical networks which underpinned all life in this period. More broadly, they further expose a relationship which may seem initially distant, between the blunt forces of economic change, and the creative impulses which characterize some of the most valued remnants of early drama, best known to scholars and audiences today.

57  Van Pelt, Drama in Medi­eval and Early Modern Europe, 1–2.

Chapter 8

VISITING PLAYERS IN THE DURHAM RECORDS: AN EXOTIC MONSTER, A FRENCH MAGICIAN, AND SCOTTISH MINISTRALLI MARK CHAMBERS

In the parish register from St. Nicholas’s Church in Durham’s central Market Place, scribbled below a list of christenings for the year 1569, there is an intriguing and now locally infamous reference to a travelling “performer” in the city: Notandum: Memorandum that A certaine Italian brought into the Cittie of Durham the 11th Day of Iune in the yeare aboue sayd A very greate, strange & mon strous serpent in length sixxteene feete, In quantitie of dimentions greater than a great horse. Which was taken & killed by speciall pollicie in Æthiopia within the Turke’s dominions. But before it was killed, It had deuoured (as it is credibly thought) more than 1000 persons And also destroyed a whole Countrey.1

What the precise nature of the “great, strange and monstrous” serpent may have been is hard to say. Was it some sort of preserved python, crocodile, or the like? Or else something fabricated, such as a mechanical stage dragon—an increasingly common sight in late-medi­eval civic performances?2 Regardless of its actual property, it is clear that the parish register’s scribe found the creature’s “foreignness,” as well as that of its handler, something worthy of comment. The mention of the serpent’s Ethiopian origin, from “within the Turke’s dominions,” marks the beast’s exoticism, connecting it with common conceptions of the wider Levant and probably nodding towards the legend of St. George.3 1  DCRO ref. EP/Du.SN 1/2, my transcription. This “Durham Dragon” reference has featured in a number of talks by the REED N-E project team, including McKinnell, “Worms, Stags and Other Folk Performances.” See http://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/.

2  For a history of medi­eval stage dragon construction, see Butterworth, “Late Medi­eval Per­forming Dragons.”

3  For collections and analysis of post-medi­eval dragon legends from the British Isles, see Westwood and Simpson, The Lore of the Land, and Simpson, “Fifty British Dragon Tales.” In April 2019 John McKinnell gave a paper in Krakow on “English and Norse dragons, ancient and modern” in which he suggested that many “worm” legends (especially those from Northumbria) may derive from the claims of local landowning families to descent from Germanic heroes such as Sigemund / Sigurðr. I am grateful to John McKinnell for this reference and for his valuable input on the present chapter.

Dr. Mark Chambers is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of English Studies and IMEMS, Durham University, and co-editor of the REED volume for County Durham.

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Figure 3: Record of “A certaine Italian” bringing “A very greate, strange & monstrous serpent” into Durham; Parish Register of St. Nicholas’s Church, Durham, Christenings, 1569; DCRO EP/Du.SN 1/2, fol. 10r.

Stage dragons were indeed very popular in entertainments throughout late-medi­ eval Britain, particularly in St. George plays, and there is ample evidence from the region we now refer to as England’s northeast and the Scottish borders.4 In the chamberlains’ accounts from Newcastle upon Tyne, for example, there are records, first from April 1510 and again in May 1511, listing payments to various individuals for contributing and attending to the city’s “Dragon” for St. George’s Day.5 Phillip Butterworth suggests that the Newcastle dragon may have been constructed along the lines of those detailed 4  Today, the northeast region refers to the modern administrative counties of Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Northumberland. The REED N-E project additionally includes the traditional three Ridings of Yorkshire. 5  REED: Newcastle Upon Tyne, 13–14, 16.



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in numerous records surviving in the St. George’s Guild accounts from Norwich.6 He further suggests that the “Rogger brown” who appears in the Newcastle account of 1511 receiving payment “ffor the attendans off the Dragon” may have served as some sort of barker or money collector.7 The Italian showman in Durham may have played a similar role, although there may have been restrictions on his ability to collect money if, indeed, he was an actual foreigner. As C. E. McGee points out, Ripon in North Yorkshire has also left regional evidence of performing dragons: in Ripon Minster’s chamberlains’ accounts, there are records of payments for the man who carried (portanti) the dragon in the Rogationtide processions. These appear ten times in the century of accounts running 1439–40 to 1540–41.8 The appearance of the Ripon dragon differs from those from elsewhere in that it was connected to Rogationtide rather than St. George’s Day. Some fourteen years later, for example—and just fifteen years before the serpent’s appearance in Durham Market Place—another record of a performing dragon is attested in nearby York. In the 1554 York chamberlains’ book, the following expenses are listed under “Chargys and Expences mayd vppon Saynt George Day:”9 Item to the porters for beryng of the pagyant the dragon and St. christofer

xviij d

Item to Iohn Ellys for Layne of St. George harness & his followers

xx d

Item to Iohn Stamper for playing St George

iiij d

[…]

Item to Roger walker for mendyng the dragon

iij s

jd

Dragons for St. George plays are the most numerous in the REED evidence, including that from the northeast, but—as with the Ripon dragon at Rogationtide—they are not exclusive. In the parish of Holbeach just to the south in Lincolnshire, there is a record from 1547 of a payment of three pence to “John Mays wyffe for the Dracon,” apparently for a Nativity play.10 These other northeastern dragons were obviously fabricated ones, built for roles in their respective authorities’ pageants for saints’ feasts and other holy days. Clearly, their comparison with the Durham serpent is limited, but they do attest to the wider context of performing dragons and other serpent-like creatures on display in the region during the period. 6  REED: Norwich, 1540–1642, 4–5 sic passim.

7  Butterworth, “Late Medi­eval Performing Dragons,” 329.

8  Leeds, Brotherton Library MS Ripon 183; see McGee, REED N-E “Flower of the Month” blog for September 2018 (https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?p=3835). He notes that the tenth and final entry (of 1540–41) records a nihil payment apparently coinciding with monastic suppression and dissolution. 9  REED: York, 318–19.

10  REED: Lincolnshire, 98 and 425.

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What is more, the “strange” exhibition that took place on that June day in Durham Market Place would have given locals the chance to see with their own eyes a fearsome creature like those known from Northumbrian legend. The infamous “Sockburn Worm” for instance, associated with the village of Sockburn on Durham’s southern border, was said to have been slain by local lord Sir John Conyers (1255–1304).11 A thirteenth-century falchion (a kind of curved broad sword) traditionally reputed to have been used by Conyers to slay the Worm can still be seen in Durham Cathedral today.12 Clearly stemming from a much older tradition, the “Worm of Sockburn” is first mentioned in a seventeenth-century manu­script, where it is described as a “monstrous venom’d, & poyson’d Wiverne, Ask, (Asp?) or Worme, which overthrew & devour’d many People.”13 Such description is curiously reminiscent of the language used in the Durham parish register, with its “greate, strange & monstrous serpent” said to have “deuoured […] more than 1000 persons.” It seems that to the Durham imagination, local and foreign serpents shared similarly “monstrous” traits. What is particularly conspicuous in the Durham parish register, however, and what differs from many other local records and legends of dragons and “worms,” is the degree of “foreignness” attributed to the Ethiopian serpent and its handler. Along with the creature’s size and monstrousness, its description seems to be at pains to emphasise the pair’s alien-ness and exoticism. Whether or not the travelling showman was actually Italian, the attribution serves to render him as strange as his monster, come from out of “the Turke’s dominions.” The degree of foreignness attributed to the spectacle that day in Durham Market Place must have given its performers, at the very least, a degree of other-worldly authenticity. Throughout its late medi­eval and early modern heyday, the Palatinate of Durham hosted an array of travelling performers, many of them either musicians or “players” attached to local or regional magnates, from royal households, or from foreign climes, such as our Italian with his exotic monster. Perhaps all exotic to a degree, the various travelling players to the regional capital could suggest a means of approaching Durham’s sense of regional identity in the period.14 This chapter will look at some of the evidence for travelling performers visiting the priory and city of Durham from the growing REED 11  The legend of the Sockburn Worm is the earliest recorded Northumbrian “worm” legend (the Lambton Worm is another). For more, see Beckett, “The History of the Lambton Worm and Sockburn Worm.” As in many other “worm” legends, the story seems to have been used to validate the control of the Conyers family over the Sockburn estate (as retainers of the Bishop of Durham); but the impressive number of tenth-century sculpted monuments from Sockburn suggests that it was already a centre of local power in the Anglo-Norse period; for more on the monuments, see Cramp, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, 1:135–56.

12  The falchion is currently on display in the Open Treasure Gallery in the former monks’ dormitory.

13  From BL MS Harleian 2118 (ca. 1625–49), fol. 39; this transcription from A Catalogue of the Harleian Manu­scripts.

14  For more, see Holford, King, and Liddy, “North-Eastern England”; and Newton, “Borders and Bishopric.”



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collection, focusing in particular on the pre-Reformation priory and civic records.15 It also hopes to hint at some ways in which the new online publication of REED might address past criticism of an apparent “lack of criteria for interpretation,”16 allowing a greater degree of inclusivity and contextualization to help further refine the study of early performance.

Accountancy Evidence

As with other REED collections, records of performance and performers survive from Durham in a variety of document types, including legal, financial, civic, ecclesiastical, and, to a large degree, monastic. One of the more fruitful sources of such records is the remarkable extant collection of medi­eval accounts and administrative documents associated with Durham’s great Benedictine priory. Having responsibility for the final resting place and shrine of the North’s greatest spiritual patron, St. Cuthbert, the brethren of Durham maintained their cathedral priory with some care, as well as diligently managing its demesne, properties, rights and privileges. The surviving evidence from the priory’s meticulous bureaucracy is extensive: R. B. Dobson highlights the “preservation of long series of financial records, the annual account rolls produced by Durham obedientiaries and the heads of nine Durham cells,” stating that “no other English monastery has preserved a more comprehensive collection.”17 Durham’s REED evidence is well served by this preservation. Relevant documents providing evidence of performers and performance include the accounts tendered annually by Durham Priory’s nine dependent monastic cells—including the Priory of Coldingham in Berwickshire, north of the Tweed—as well as the multiple accounts produced by the priory’s own officers and obedientiaries, which are also exceptionally well preserved.18 When the last prior of Durham, Hugh Whitehead, surrendered his office in 1540 following monastic suppression, he was promptly appointed dean of the now Protestant cathedral alongside twelve new prebendary canons drawn largely from his fellow monks. It may be that this relatively smooth transition by the brethren of Durham to the new religion saved much of the priory’s local estate, including much of its substantial library and amassed archival record.19 15  Ed. John McKinnell and Mark Chambers, “Durham,” REED Online, at https://ereed.library. utoronto.ca/ (forthcoming 2021). Thanks also to Professor Tom Craik, Professor Claire Lees, and Dr. Anna Spackman, who discovered many of the entries discussed. 16  Coletti, “Reading REED,” 248–84.

17  Dobson, Durham Priory, 5.

18  Before the Reformation, the priory’s daughter houses/cells included Coldingham, Farne, Finchale, Holy Island, Jarrow, Lytham (Lancashire), St. Leonard’s Stamford (Lincolnshire), Wearmouth, as well as Durham College, Oxford; the relevant estate and obedientiary accounts include the almoner’s, bursar’s, cellarer’s, chamberlain’s, communar’s, feretrar’s, hostiller’s, infirmarer’s, and sacrist’s (all DCD, held in DUL).

19  VCH County of Durham, 2:101–2; Boyde, Life in a Medi­eval Monastery, 48. It is likely that the stipulations of this ‘choice’ were largely imposed on the monks by the reforming commissioners: Woodward, The Dissolution of the Monasteries, 112–13 and 148–49.

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By far the single largest source of individual records of performers and performance survives in the accounts of the bursar, the priory’s chief financial officer.20 Running from 1278 to 1540, the extant bursars’ accounts, many surviving in duplicate or even triplicate copies, record numerous performers of the sort we find in similar accounts from Britain’s other great monastic houses. These include both named and unnamed musicians and “players”; histriones and ministralli (who may be either of the previous), as well as various bearwards, fools, heralds, jugglers, macers, waits, wrestlers, and, in a couple of records, possible illusionists. In the account of 1366–67, for example, an unnamed French “trechetour”—presumably some kind of conjuror or sleight-of-hand artist21—is recorded as having received payment from a certain Robert of Masham: “Cuidam trechetour de francia per Robertum de Massham – iij.s iiij.d.”22 Further details of the French trechetour’s performance, such as where it took place or the identity of his patron Robert (perhaps a servant of the prior?), remain as mysterious as his possible act. The record of the French performer here illustrates an overriding difficulty with using accounts such as these as REED evidence: often there is just enough there to suggest the likelihood of a performance or performer (such as the “trechetour de francia”), but not quite enough to be absolutely certain. In these cases, further scrutiny is required. A few isolated examples here will serve by way of illustration: in the account of the priory’s chamberlain for 1374–75 (running May 15 to June 4), there is a record of a payment of twelve pence to “Willelmo hArpour ad ludum apud Beaurepaire.”23 In this case, “Harpour” could well be William’s surname. However, this seems unlikely: William’s presence “ad ludum” at Beaurepaire—the Prior’s country retreat about two miles west of Durham now known as Bearpark24—as well as the relatively small sum he receives, suggest that he is indeed a musician (a harpist). Moreover, the term ludus and its variants commonly appear in the accounts referring to those periods in which the prior and his fellow monks were at leisure, “on holiday” as it were, an idiosyncratic, if not entirely unique usage in the Durham records.25 The prior or other members of the community are often described as being “ad ludum” at the prior’s country seats of Beaurepaire or Pittington, or else in the nearby rural cell at Finchale.26 This suggests that William Harpour may have been paid to perform for the prior and his guests during their regular holidaying or feasting at Beaurepaire. 20  DUL DCD Burs. acs.

21  s.v. “tregetour, n.,” OED online.

22  DCD Burs. acs. 1366–7, memb. 4. Additionally, payments of two shillings to a “Roberto Tregetour / Trigetour” are also recorded alongside payments to other performers in DCD Burs. acs. 1349–50, memb. 3d; and 1354–55, memb. 3d. 23  DCD Cham. acs. 1374–75.

24  Dobson, Durham Priory, 95.

25  Durham Priory, 97–98; s.v. “ludus,” in Latham and Howlett, The Dictionary of Medi­eval Latin from British Sources. The present participle form is also used as a substantive referring to a “person [monk] on holiday”; s.v. “ludere, -are” (sense 6). 26  As in DCD Burs. acs. 1399–1400, memb. 5;1464–5, memb. 5d; sic passim.



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A wider survey of other accounts from around this time presents some possible candidates for this particular William, some of whom we can be more certain were harp players. The most likely is one “Willelmo Harpour de Wolueston,” who, with his wife Joan, leased a toft in the village of Wolviston some seventeen miles southeast of Durham, from the priory’s communar, on June 30, 1360.27 This “William Harpour” (more probably “William, harper”) of Wolviston appears alongside other musicians in the bursar’s accounts from this period, where he is recorded as having been paid two shillings at Pittington in 1359, three at the Feast of the Ascension in 1363, and two more at the Christmas celebrations for 1372.28 These are typical amounts for performers at annual events, and they feature amongst payments to other identified musicians. And there are four other “William Harpours” in this period of accounts who are not otherwise identified, yet who are recorded as having been paid alongside other musicians at Easter 1364, at Christmas 1368, twice in 1369, and again at Christmas 1370.29 We suggest that these could be the same William, our presumed “harper” of Wolviston, although it is impossible to be sure, as there are other performers simply named “William” in the same run of accounts.30 However, the fact that payments to these William Harpours appear alongside payments to identifiable performers, amongst the standard dona et exennia—gifts and grants—for feast days and holidays (typically ranging between two shillings and three shillings four pence), strongly suggests that William “Harpour” in these sets of accounts refers to a harp player. It is possible, in fact, that he was the same William “Harpour” or harp player “of Wolviston,” first mentioned alongside other performers at the prior’s retreat of Pittington in 1359. This example points to the difficulty of attempting to ascertain the activity or even presence of possible performers in many such accounts. The use of surnames evolved extensively through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular, and often it is impossible to tell if a nominal surname is occupational (such as we propose for William “Harpour”) or—and this is especially true for the names of Durham monks31—if it signalled another attribute, such as place of origin, or (increasingly) paternal lineage. This can make attempting to identify medi­eval performers challenging. Amongst the accounts of the bursar from the previous decades, there are payments to named “performers” such as “Roberto le Taburer” (1298–99) and “Ricardo le Wayt” 27  Misc. Charter (DCD Misc. Ch.) 6525. In the lease, he is named as “William of Swaledale, called ‘Harper’” (“Willelmo de Swhaldale dicto Harpour”). The priory’s communar provided minor physical comforts for the monks such as fire, as well as wine, walnuts, spices and figs for Lent: Fowler, Rites of Durham, 101. 28  DCD Burs. acs. 1358–59 (B, fair copy), memb. 6d; 1363 (B, fair copy); and 1371–73, memb. 4.

29  DCD Burs. acs. 1363–64, memb. 5d; 1368–69, memb. 7; and 1370–71, memb. 6.

30  Such as “Willelmo Blyndharpour de Nouo Castro” (William, the blind harper of Newcastle), who appears in DCD Burs. acs. 1357–58, memb. 6; 1358–59 (B, fair copy), memb. 6d; and 1363 (B, fair copy).

31  For example, Durham monks often assumed a new surname “in religion” upon entering the convent, which was typically toponymic: Greenslade, “The Last Monks of Durham Cathedral Priory,” 107–9; and Dobson, Durham Priory, 56–57.

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(1317–18). The French definite article in these earlier accounts suggests the use of an occupational attribution: i.e., “Robert the tabor player”; “Richard the wait.”32 Here we are on reasonably solid ground. But in the following decades we find payments made to, for example, Thomas “Roter” in the bursar’s account of 1331–2, another Thomas “Roter” in the bursar’s account of 1347–8, and William “Rotour” in the bursar’s account of 1363.33 In the first of these examples, it is impossible to say for certain that this Thomas was indeed a “rote” or psaltery player (a kind of stringed instrument).34 Not only is he paid a salary (stipendium), which would be unusual for a musician, but he also receives the rather large sum of six shillings and eight pence; this would be quite an amount for an individual performance. For 1347–8, it is more certain that this Thomas is a rote player and may in fact be the same man as the previous: whilst the payment is also large, here he is paid from the gifts and grants of the prior (dona & exennia) and is paid alongside other performers (histriones): Dona & exennia Prioris:

Istrionibus ad natale – vj.s. viij.d. Istrionibus ad festum Sancti Cuthberti in Marcio xx.s. Eisdem ad Festum Sancti Cuthberti in Septembri – xx.s. Magistro Nicholao de Eboraco – ij.s. Istrionibus dominorum Willelmi de la Pole & Iohannis de Streuelyn die martis proximo post festum Sancti Iacobi apostoli – vj.s.viij.d […] Thome Roter de dono eiusdem – xiij.s.iiij.d […] Gifts & grants of the Prior:

To performers at Christmas – six shillings and eightpence. To performers at the Feast of St. Cuthbert in March (20th) – twenty shillings. To the same (histrionibus) at the Feast of St. Cuthbert in September (4th) – twenty shillings. To Master Nicholas of York (a harpist) – twenty shillings. To performers of Lords William de la Pole (d. 1366) and John of Stirling (d. 1373) on the Tuesday after the Feast of St. James the Apostle (25 July) – six shillings and eightpence … to Thomas “Roter” from the same gift – eight shillings and fourpence.…

Finally, in the 1363 bursar’s account the reference to “William Rotour” also likely refers to a musician, as the standard payment of two shillings is similarly listed amongst those for performers on feast days: Dona & exhennia Prioris: […] […] Item Willelmo Rotour ex dono Prioris Dominica in festo Sancti Gregorii – .ij.s. Item Willelmo le Blyndharpour de Nouo Castro in festo Pasche ex dono Prioris – iij.s.iiij.d.

32  DCD Burs. acs. 1298–99, memb. 4; and 1317–80, schedule 1; the payment of twenty shillings in the first example is surprisingly large for a performer; he may have been a performer for the king, or, since this is in a time of war, he may have been paid for spying, an activity for which travelling performers were well suited. For an introduction to the use of the French definite article in medi­ eval accounting, see Wright, “A Pilot Study on the Singular Definite Articles.” 33  DCD Burs. acs. 1331–32, memb. 2d; 1347–48, memb. 1d; and 1363 (B).

34  McKinnon, “Psaltery.”



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Gifts & grants of the Prior: … … Item, to William Rotour, from a gift of the Lord Prior at the Feast of St. Gregory (March 12) – two shillings. Item, to William, the blind harper of Newcastle, at Easter, from a gift of the Prior – three shillings and fourpence.

Along similar lines, in 1358 there is record of payment to one “Petro Crowder” at Beaurepaire, who may or may not have been a “crowder” or crwth player (a kind of stringed instrument of Welsh origin);35 and again in 1360 to the same “Petro Crouder” whilst the Prior was holidaying at Pittington.36 As with the “Harpours” and “Roters” discussed above, Peter’s surname in the accounts suggests he was an instrumentalist, and payments to him are recorded for those periods when the Prior and his fellow monks seem to have been ad ludum at Beaurepaire and Pittington. On both of these occasions, Peter receives the higher, but standard rate for an instrumentalist of three shillings and fourpence, paid alongside other performers who are identified as such (that is, as harpists or pipers). Moreover, the suggestion that Peter “Crowder”/”Crouder” is indeed a crowder or crwth player is supported by a near contemporary record for another performer: in the account for 1363, just over two years later, one John Bouland evidently played before guests at Beaurepaire around the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, where he is clearly identified as a crowder: Item Iohanni bouland Crouder apud beaurepayre circa conuersione Sancti pauli per manus domini Thome de Kyllyngall – iij.s iiij.d

Item, to John Bouland, crowder, whilst at Beaurepaire around the Conversion of St. Paul [January 25], by the hand of Thomas de Killingale – three shillings and fourpence37

Peter “the crowder” does not disappear from the northeastern records, and it seems that his talents may have been in wider demand. Durham’s tiny dependent cell of Wearmouth sits on the north bank of the River Wear some fourteen miles northeast of the city. In the Master of Wearmouth’s account for 1361–62, just a year or two after Peter’s appearance at Pittington, a Peter “Cruther” is recoded as having been paid three shillings four pence “from gratuities” for playing at the house: “Item Petro Cruther ex curialitate – iij.s.iiij.d.”38 Is this the same Peter? And can we be certain he was some form of crwth player? Looking at all of the evidence from across the various accounts, both seem highly likely. These passing examples illustrate the difficulty with “surname” evi35  Typically played with a bow: Miles and Evans, “Crwth.”

36  DCD Burs. acs. 1345; and 1358–59, memb. 6d; 1359–60, memb. 6d. In the last of these, Peter is paid the standard amount of three shillings four pence, plus a quarter of barley (vno quartio ordei sibi) from the prior. There are also several payments in grain to men with “performer” names in the accounts of Durham manorial estates—e.g., three payments of barley to Nicholas Harpour at Houghall between 1375–79; a payment to William Trumpour at Ketton, 1394–95. Such payments may have been “pensions” to local performers who had often performed for the prior. 37  DCD Burs. acs. 1363–4, memb. 5d.

38  DCD Wrm. acs. 1361–62 (B).

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dence, and they represent only the tip of the iceberg in the wider array of the Durham accounts. Identifying records of travelling players in pre-modern accountancy often proves quite challenging, but a policy of inclusivity can help bring the evidence to light. Moreover, REED Online’s emerging digital platform will help to facilitate such inclusivity, allowing detailed, forensic comparison through robust tagging and hyperlinking, as well as convenient comparison across REED collections.

“Foreign” Performers in the Durham Records

As the above examples from the accounts indicate, there is a great deal of evidence in the Durham records for the presence of players of stringed instruments (as well as other instruments) at the medi­eval priory and at its wider demesnes. Indeed, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular, Durham’s bishop, its prior, the heads of its dependent daughter houses, and the community’s brethren seem to have enjoyed a wide array of both local and visiting instrumentalists, including crowders, cytharists, harpists, luters (lutenists), roters, and vielle players.39 With regard to the relative “foreignness” of such performers, it is clear that many travelled to Durham from other places and were often attached to distant patrons or households. However, whilst the recurrence of the term crowder and players of the Welsh-derived crwth in the records indicate a linguistic association with Wales and harp playing, this need not imply any contemporary Welsh connection. The reference to the “Walsharpour” of Dominus William de Dalton in the 1360–61 bursar’s account,40 for example, does not mean that Lord Dalton’s man was a harpist from Wales, merely that he played an instrument considered Welsh in design or origin, such as the crwth. However, one particular category of ostensibly foreign performers who feature across the accounts are those identified as Scots. These appear to include many attached to the Scottish royal court. This is hardly surprising given Durham’s proximity to the border shires, as well as its pivotal role in the wars of Scottish succession and the ongoing Anglo-Scottish border skirmishes. From at least the thirteenth century onwards, Durham’s ecclesiastical possessions of Norhamshire and Islandshire (including Holy Island and the Farne Islands) in former Northumbria meant that it had a vested inter-

39  A cythar is a plucked stringed instrument also known as (or related to) a cittern: Taylor, “Cittern” https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/ 9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005831?rskey=CeKZdA&result=1; players in the Durham accounts include one Edmund de Kendal, cytharedo of the prior, for Easter (DCD Burs. acs) 1338 (B; memb. 7); William de Sutton, citharedo and menestrallus of Chief Justice Geoffrey le Scrope, for the Sunday after Epiphany 1339 (memb. 6); and a chitharist or citharator of Lord Robert de Horneclyff in the bursar’s accounts of 1330 (memb. 6) and 1330–31 (A, memb. 4r— may be the same payment). A “viro ludenti vno loyt & vxori eius cantanti” (man playing a lute and his wife singing) appear at Beaurepaire in the hostiller’s accounts (DCD Hos. acs) for 1361–2 (memb. 2d); again, “cuidam luter cum muliere” performed at Beaurepaire for the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25) in 1364 (DCD Burs. acs. 1363–64, memb. 5d). Viellatores of King Edward III appear in the bursar’s account of 1334 (June 5, memb. 1d); a viellarius named Patrick attached to Thomas, Lord Wake’s (1298–1349) household appears in 1339 (April 29, memb. 6). 40  DCD Burs. acs. 1360–61 (memb. 4).



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est in peaceful relations with the Scots, as well as in balancing power relations between the Marcher lords. Durham’s northernmost dependent cell of Coldingham—north of the Tweed and therefore deep in Scottish territory for much of its existence—concentrated Durham’s interest in Anglo-Scottish relations. This was especially acute during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when Durham’s claim to Coldingham was repeatedly challenged.41 Tellingly, the very earliest record from the Durham accounts involves a payment to a ministrallus of the King of Scotland, Alexander III (r. 1249–86): Garcionj Dominj Wyschardj. & alio eunti apud Karleol & Menestrallo Regis Scocie –.ij.s. vj.d […] Menestrallo de Nouo Castro – ij. s.

To a servant of Lord Wishart, and to another, when he was in Carlisle, and to a menestrallus of the King of Scotland – two shillings and sixpence … To a menestrallus of Newcastle – two shillings.42

In this case, it is possible that we are dealing with unspecified servants rather than performing “minstrels” per se, as the payment of two shillings and sixpence also covers a servant (garcioni) for the Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Wishart (ca. 1240–1316).43 In the following century, Bishop Wishart would play an instigating role in the power struggles between King Alexander’s successors and in the wars for Scottish independence.44 However, in this early REED evidence, these ostensibly Scottish visitors to Durham have come at a time of peace. In records from the following century, however, things appear to have changed. In the Priory Bursar’s account for 1390–91, a number of travelling performers are recorded as having visited the palatinate—including another Scotsman—this time in the wake of recent skirmishes between the northern English lords and an aggressive Scottish nobility. As recently as 1385 Richard II had tried to organise an invasion of Scotland, and in the subsequent years the Scots had been making incursions southward. In the 1390–91 entry, the list of visiting performers at the priory’s demesne appears to reflect aspects of these recent hostilities: Ministrall’ domini Regis – iij.s iiij.d Ministrall’ ad natale – vj.s viij d Ministrall’ comitis de Hurmondie – .ij.s Ministrall’ domini de Darcy – ij.s Willelmo Pratt bina vice – ij.s Ministrall’ domini de neuyll – v.s Duobus Haraldis – vj.s viij d Haraldo percy – ij.s vni Haraldo de Scocia – iij.s iiij.s vni Waferar apud Bieurepaire – xij.d Tribus Ministrallis de Eboraco – .ij.s […] To the King’s minstrel(s) – three shillings and fourpence; to (a) minstrel(s) at Christmas – six shillings and eightpence; to (a) minstrel(s) of the Earl of Ormond – two shillings; to (a) minstrel(s) of Lord Darcy [1352–1399] – two shillings; to William Pratt (a jugulator), twice – two shillings; to (a) minstrel(s) of Lord Neville – five shillings; to two heralds – six shillings and eightpence; to a herald of Lord Percy – two shillings; to one Scottish herald 41  Dobson, Church and Society, 83–133.

42  DCD Burs. acs. 1278–9, memb. 1.

43  For the ambiguity associated with ministrallus, etc., see Young, “Minstrels and Minstrelsy.” 44  ODNB: “Wishart, Robert, bishop of Glasgow.”

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– three shillings and four pence; to one waferer at Beaurepaire – twelve pence; to three minstrels of York – two shillings; …45

This accountancy record is typical for the period, with the entire year’s payments to all manner of “performers” recorded under the list of dona et exennia of the prior. Although the abbreviation of the Latin case endings makes it difficult to tell if we are dealing with single or multiple ministralli, we can assume that payments of a standard two shillings, or the higher rate of three shillings and fourpence (for “the King’s Minstrel”), are for individuals, with the exception of the three “common” minstrels from York who received two shillings between them. Whilst minstrels of local lords appear in this account— those of Philip, Lord Darcy (1352–1399) and of Ralph, Lord Neville (ca. 1364–1425)— there are also those from further afield, such as those attached to the Anglo-Irish earl of Ormond (James le Botiller, ca. 1360–1405) whose primary estates were in Tipperary and Kilkenny.46 In the aftermath of recent Anglo-Scottish conflict, it is likely that the payments to a herald of Henry “Hotspur” Percy (1364–1403) and to the herald “de Scocia” are associated with Lord Percy’s ransom after his capture at the Battle of Otterburn. The battle had taken place in August, 1388, when a Scottish force narrowly defeated the English near Newcastle, taking Percy captive. There is another, similar payment made to Lord Percy’s herald in the account the year following the battle (1388–89), also likely connected to his ransom.47 The Prior of Durham at the time, Robert of Walworth (alias Berrington), bore a large share of this ransom.48 This particular record would seem, therefore, to reflect some of the political manoeuvring in the aftermath of events—as we might expect, involving the politics of performance.

Restrictions on the Scots

The intricacies of Anglo-Scottish relations during the long period evidenced by the Durham records are too complex to discuss in detail in the current chapter. However, two points regarding performers described as “Scottish” in Durham records are clear: first, they appear at first to be the most numerous of any single group of identified “foreign” performers; and second, beyond the odd travelling performer or retainer such as heralds, Scots are specifically and repeatedly barred from holding enfranchised positions within the palatinate’s civic or ecclesiastical structures. Durham Priory, for example, had long forbidden Scotsmen from entering its monastic community, a stricture which inevitably made its tenuous hold on Coldingham Priory even less secure.49 After a century of legal struggles with, in particular, their Benedictine counterparts of Dunfermline Abbey, the monks of Durham ultimately abandoned a claim to the remote cell in the 1470s.50 45  DCD Burs. acs. 1390–91, memb. 7.

46  ODNB: “Butler, James, third earl of Ormond (c. 1360–1405).” 47  DCD Burs. acs. 1388–89, memb. 4.

48  At least twenty pounds in 1389–90: J. T. Fowler, ed., Extracts from the Account Rolls, 3:196. 49  Dobson, Church and Society, 57.

50  Church and Society, 109–33.



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Beyond such individual factors, which are varied and numerous, dealing with the Scots became a chief preoccupation of the later medi­eval palatinate, and this is often reflected in Durham’s records of performers and performance. Anglo-Scottish hostility is also evident in the few records surviving for Durham’s Corpus Christi plays. There is little extant evidence for the exact subject or nature of the plays, but the handful of trade company or “guild” ordinances which survive leaves intriguing clues about their production.51 Ordinances survive for seven of Durham’s dozen or so trade companies, including those of the Butchers and Fleshers (1403 and 1520), Mercers (1430), Weavers (1450), Cordwainers (1464), Barbers and Surgeons (1469), Plumbers (and related trades, 1532), and Barkers and Tanners (1547).52 They are all written to the same basic formula. The Butchers’ and Fleshers’ ordinary of June 12, 1520 is typical and contains relevant stipulations found in all of Durham’s other preReformation ordinaries: In the Worship of God and for the Sustentation of the Procession and the play of Corpus Christi Day in the City of Durham after the old Custom and for the Weal Profitt and Right of all the Kings People, It is Ordained and assented by all them that Occupy the ffleshewer Craft in ye said City & Suburbs of Durham for them and all theirs of the said Craft that shall come after them in the said City and Suburbs for to dwell hereafter […] shall amiably at the ffeast of Corpus Christi go together in procession & to play & ger play the play that of old time longs to their Craft […].

Not only does the text suggest that the Corpus Christi play produced annually by the company is a long-running one (“the play that of old time longs to their craft”), it also goes on to specify that no Scotsman is to be admitted to the company or taught its trade: And it is ordained & Constituted by the Brethren of the said Craft that none of them shall take nor teach any scottish man the said Craft upon pain of forfeiting to my Lord [Bishop] of Durham xx shillings & to the said craft xx shillings […].53

Given this stipulation, it is unlikely (but not impossible) that one would hear a Scottish accent in the production of a Durham Corpus Christi play. Nearly identical wording is used in all of the city’s other trade company ordinances, including, for example, the earlier Butchers’ ordinary of 1403, the Weavers’ ordinary of 1450,54 and the Cordwainers’ of 1464. Such legal proscriptions barring the admittance of foreign enemies appear elsewhere in pre-modern Britain, of course—especially in those marcher regions where the

51  McKinnell, The Sequence of the Sacrament at Durham; Chambers, “Durham’s Corpus Christi.”

52  Respectively: DUL Mickleton and Spearman MS 49, pp. 178–89, and DUL Add. MS 201, pp. 252–53 (Victorian copy); DUL Add. MS 202, pp. 196–203 (Victorian copy); TNA Durham Cursitor’s Records 3/47, memb. 14v; TNA Durham Cursitor’s Records 3/50, 16, memb. 6v; DUL DCG 1/13 (17th-century copy); “Glazier’s Charter,” copied 1787, DUL DCG 12/2, fols. 230r–34r; NCRO Cookson (Meldon) MSS, ZCK 1/14. 53  DUL Add. MS 201, p. 252.

54  “No Scotsman to / be taken Apprentice, penalty,” Thomas Woodness’s transcription: DUL MS Add. 202, pp. 97–98.

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foreign “other” was just over the border and, consequently, an overriding local preoccupation.55 In the Durham records, the “other” is inevitably Scottish. There was probably also a legal reason why no Scot could be a member of a Durham company: all the trade ordinaries imply that their members are “the King’s (that is, the King of England’s) people,” and this was of course incompatible with loyalty to the Scottish crown.56 The Durham records indicate that Scotsmen would have been prohibited from the usual pathways to civic or social enfranchisement, including, we may presume, the opportunity to participate in or produce (“ger play”) the city’s Corpus Christi plays.

Travelling Histriones

This does not mean, however, that nominally “Scottish” performers are otherwise absent from the records from the palatinate—quite the contrary. In the bursar’s accounts for each of the years 1332–33, 1333–34, and 1335–36, there are payments recorded as gifts from the prior to visiting histriones (“players”) of the “King of Scotland.”57 However, as with the examples of ministralli and Walsharpour above, more information is required in order to assess the precise nature or degree of “foreignness” of such performers. Clearly, these were performers: histrio appears several times in the Durham accounts up until ca. 1370, after which the term ministrallus takes over as the blanket Latin substantive referring to a performer (histriones seems to have been used previously to refer to both musicians and players of various kinds—for example actors). Moreover, references to the “King of Scotland” in the English sources from this period refer to Edward Balliol (ca. 1281–1366). A puppet of Edward III and a claimant to the Scottish throne, Balliol had spent most of his life in England and in France as exiled pretender.58 It was only in the summer of 1332—the same year his histriones appear in the Durham records—that Balliol had adequate support and opportunity to enter Scotland and take up the Scottish crown. His reign would not last long: Balliol’s fortunes in Scotland waxed and waned in the years that followed, and by the end of the decade he was “the King of Scotland” in name only.59 Occasionally he enjoyed (or acquiesced to) Edward III’s direct support, but by the end the decade he was apparently no longer useful to the English king. Anecdotally, his histriones stop appearing in the Durham records at this point. Balliol and his retinue spent a great deal of time in the north of England during the early 1330s, and the repeated appearances of his performers in the priory records here is unsurprising. The second of these records (from 1333–34) appears alongside payment to certain vielle players of Edward III. Here it is possible to identify a connection:

55  REED: Chester, li; also cf. the restriction on citizens of Chester from attending Welsh weddings or ales in ca. 1515, reiterated in 1566: REED: Chester, 23 and 76.

56  Such loyalty involved acceptance of the assertion of independence in the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 (noted by John McKinnell); this had been accepted by Edward III in the Treaty of Northampton (1328) but rejected by him a few years later. 57  DCD Burs. acs. 1332–33, memb. 5; 1333–34, memb. 2d; 1335–36 (C, draft), memb. 7.

58  ODNB: “Balliol, Edward.” 59  “Balliol, Edward.”



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these performances probably relate to the installation of Richard de Bury as Bishop of Durham on June 5, 1334, when both Edwards were in attendance. Just over a week later (June 19), both would be in Newcastle, where Balliol formally acknowledged liege homage to his English overlord.60 The records of payments to the “Histrionibus Regis Scocie” from the Durham accounts, then, occasionally suggest a time and occasion for performance, but they leave little indication of the nature of that performance or any details of the performers. Who were they, exactly? And what did they perform? Given the context, it seems unlikely that the appearance of Balliol’s histriones in the Durham accounts refers to Scottish performers per se, as they could easily have assumed his patronage whilst the sometime “King of Scotland” was outside his nominal realm. They may well have come from his northern English estates. These are travelling royal players certainly, but nationality or ethnicity is unascertainable. Likewise, in the account for 1363–4, there is record of “iij. histrionibus Regis scottorum,” this time performers belonging to the next Scottish king, David II (r. 1341–1346 and 1357–1371).61 David had been held captive by the English from 1346 to 1357 and had only been allowed to return to Scotland under the shadow of an enormous and arguably overburdening ransom.62 In 1363—the same year as the account—he again travelled south, returning to England to negotiate a peace treaty at Westminster. Here again, little can be said about the nature of the king’s performers in Durham on this occasion, other than that they were attached to the Scottish court, they likely accompanied the king from Scotland to Westminster, and, at some point during the journey, they performed at Durham. The nature of accountancy evidence for REED almost always necessitates further contextualization, and this is certainly true of our survey here of travelling and foreign performers in the Durham records. Some other noteworthy groups of travelling performers do show up in the accounts, some of whom were from further afield. In 1362–63, for instance, the year before David II’s players’ visit, a blind histrio from France passed through Durham, accompanied by his young brother: “ystrioni ceco franco cum vno puero franco fratre suo.” The pair received two shillings from the prior’s chaplain.63 Again, analysis of the surrounding records can help to shed light on this particular performer. There are a number of similar payments made to blind harp players in the midcentury accounts (often designated as “Blyndharpour,” “Cakharpour,” etc.),64 so it seems almost certain that this travelling French histrio likewise played the harp. A further account records payment to “cuidam Ministrallo ceco” (“a certain blind minstrel”) who performed at Easter, 1368.65 This group of payments appears to demonstrate that gradual substitution of ministrallus for histrio we mentioned above: in fact, analysis of the whole range of account records provides further evidence of this lexical shift. Moreover, 60  Ormrod, Edward III, 162.

61  DCD Burs. acs. 1363–64, memb. 5.

62  ODNB: “David II (1324–1371), king of Scots.” 63  DCD Burs. acs. 1362–63 (A), memb. 4.

64  DCD Burs. acs. 1357–58, memb. 6; 1358–59, memb. 6d; 1359–60, memb. 6d; sic passim. 65  DCD Burs. acs. 1367–68, memb. 5.

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comparing records for blind histriones and ministralli across the accounts also makes clear that, in particular, Prior John Fossor (1341–1374) and his fellow monks enjoyed welcoming blind musicians to Durham. Perhaps they saw it as an act of Christian charity. At any rate, the French performer and his brother appear to have benefitted from this patronal proclivity.

Further Travellers and Furthering REED

Whilst monastic suppression in 1540 brought an end to the rich seam of records being produced by the medi­eval priory’s administration, it did not spell the end of performers travelling to Durham. A decade after the Italian showman and his serpent wowed spectators in the Market Place, for example, the Earl of Leicester’s Men apparently passed through: tellingly, they received payment from the elemosine pauperibus of the reformed cathedral’s treasury (details of any performance are unrecorded).66 Much later still, on June 2, 1633, a certain “singingman of Peterborough” apparently visited the palatinate. He was followed the following year by a “wandering Singingman,” and each received the sum of two pounds from the cathedral treasury for their performances.67 Further evidence from the post-Reformation material for Durham will undoubtedly uncover further instances such as these, where travelling performers have left their mark on social and economic records from the county—hopefully some as intriguing as the Italian showman with his Ethiopian monster. Tracing the route or even likelihood of a travelling player through a given region used to be an onerous and time-consuming process. Such work requires assembling and comparing evidence from a range of variously located sources. The ongoing online publication of new REED collections (such as Durham’s), as well as the digitised “legacy” volumes, will undoubtedly allow for greater inclusivity of such evidence, ameliorated by robust tagging and hyperlinking which will enable a degree of contextualization not possible in the previous print collections. Indeed, the development of “eREED” will help to refine and extend our knowledge of premodern performance, continuing to render the “strange” recognisable and the exotic familiar. As REED continues to “ride its own bounds” and develop its resources, its innovative subject- (rather than period- or genre-) specific approach will continue to define the contours of early drama and performance. Overall, the region’s records collected so far indicate a pervasiveness of ecclesiastical, monastic, and parish records. This is perfectly understandable: as the primary lawmakers and landowners, and key drivers of economic activity, the Cathedral community and its all-powerful prince bishops were also the overwhelming source of bureaucratic record. The priory records and monastic accounts in particular dwarf other types of surviving REED evidence. The picture these records paint is one of a thriving regional centre which welcomed travelling performance. Moreover, Durham’s growth was fuelled, to a large degree, by the enduring legacy of St. Cuthbert, as well as the region’s defensive 66  Durham Cathedral Treasurer’s Book 12, DCD/L/BB/12, fols. 25r.

67  Durham Cathedral Treasurer’s Books 24 and 25 (DCD/L/BB/24 and 25), fols. 28r and 35r, respectively.



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position as bulwark against the Scots. And this is reflected in its records for travelling performers: inevitably, they are shown performing at feast days and high days, entertaining the prior and his brethren ad ludum, and accompanying armies and diplomatic missions through the northern Marches. Following on from the substantial records left by the medi­eval priory, the early modern records show that Durham continued to be a desired stop for visiting performers, hosting various “wandering” acts, such as the Italian street performer with his serpent from “the Turke’s dominions.” Given its importance as a site of pilgrimage and regional spiritual-secular power, the palatinate was frequently host to exotic itinerant performance, including, on occasion, the “greate, strange & monstrous.”

Chapter 9

RURAL AND URBAN FOLK CEREMONIES IN COUNTY DURHAM JOHN McKINNELL

Thanks to the steady bureaucracy and occasional litigiousness of the members and servants of Durham Cathedral Priory, County Durham is rich in records of annual folk ceremonies and performances, although we must bear in mind that these records are of various kinds and dates, and that they were written to serve the interests and advance the financial well-being of the priory, not to inform future generations. The Stag Ceremony

A curious example of this is reflected in an episode in Robert Graystanes’s chronicle history of Durham Cathedral Priory,1 the fourth of five chroniclers of the Community of St. Cuthbert, which covers the period from 1213–1334. When Bishop Louis de Beaumont of Durham died in October 1333, Graystanes, who had been sub-prior for many years, was elected by his fellow monks to succeed Beaumont, but was deprived of the election by the papal provision of Richard de Bury to the see; he remained a monk of Durham until his death in 1336. The relevant episode of Graystanes’ chronicle survives in four manu­scripts: 1. London BL MS Cotton Titus A.ii, fols. 103r–v and 120v–121v (C);

2. Oxford, MS Bodley Laud Misc. 700, fols. 116v–117r and 129r–v (L); 3. Oxford, MS Bodley Fairfax 6, fols. 268rb–va and 278rb–vb (F);

4. York, Dean and Chapter MS XVI.I.12, fols. 200r–v and 218vb–220rb (Y).2

We (John McKinnell and Mark Chambers) have transcribed and checked the relevant episode in all four manu­scripts. Dobson states that L is a copy of F,3 but in the two chapters we have studied the opposite is probably true. Essential words and phrases omitted 1  Chs. 22 and 44 in Graystanes; chs. 155, 178 in all four manu­scripts, where the works of the Durham chroniclers are combined into a single sequence. 2  Raine’s edition in Historiae Dunelmensis scriptores tres was based only on Y, whose folio numbering has been changed since his time, when the relevant folia were 198 and 216–18; faint traces of this numbering can still be seen under the current ones. 3  See Barrie Dobson, “Contrasting Chronicles.”

Prof. John McKinnell is Emeritus Professor of Medi­eval Literature in the Department of English Studies and IMEMS, Durham Uni­ver­sity, and co-editor of the Records of Early English Drama volume for County Durham; until 2019 he was Principal Investigator of the research project REED N-E.

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by F and by C show that neither can be the sole source for any of the other manu­scripts, but when individual words are omitted from L, the other three manu­scripts usually copy the same omissions and then supply the missing words as interlinear additions. This, together with the rougher appearance and summarising marginalia of L, suggest that it is a working copy or draft, of which F, C, and Y are fair copies. Later correctors and annotators of L clearly had access to at least one of the other manu­scripts. For these reasons, our text is based primarily on L. Graystanes records a dispute between the priory and the Neville family, who as tenants of the estate at Raby claimed a traditional right to process into Durham Cathedral each year on the Feast of the Translation of St. Cuthbert (September 4), with Lord Neville and his foresters blowing their hunting horns, and to make an offering of a recently hunted stag from the Raby estate at the shrine of St. Cuthbert, in return for which they received the prior’s hospitality, while Neville’s men took over the kitchen and organised the feast. In 1290 Prior Richard Hoton disputed this right, claiming that it was not an offering but part of the rent for the estate. It seems strange for a tenant to claim the right to make a payment which the landowner wants to refuse; the dispute was embarrassing to both sides, since the Neville family were important supporters of the priory, and it rapidly became even more so: Prior hoc aduertens ceruum deportatum ad feretrum & oblatum ibi recipere uoluit.4 & cum homines Ranulphi ad coquinam deferre conarentur oritur contencio inter homines Prioris & ipsos & de verbis processum est ad verbera. Vnde & homines Ranulphi manus violentas in monachos circa altare ministrantes iniecerunt.5 Monachi vero econuerso cum cereis quos gestabant illos repercusserunt ceruus vero remansit cum monachis & Ranulphus repulsus est cum suis.

When the stag had been carried to the shrine and offered there, the prior, seeing this, was willing to receive it, and when Ranulf’s men tried to take it to the kitchen an argument broke out between the prior’s men and his, and they proceeded from words to blows. As a result, Ranulf’s men also laid violent hands on the monks who were serving round the altar. In return, the monks hit them with the candles they were carrying; indeed, the stag remained with the monks and Ranulf was repulsed along with his men.

The prior then began proceedings against Neville’s men in the ecclesiastical court for hindering divine service and assaulting his monks, while Ranulf sued the prior before the bishop’s justices in an attempt to assert his right to make the offering. Eventually both sides abandoned their suits, and after that the stag was not offered while Ranulf lived, but in 1331 his son Radulf tried to revive the custom. The offering was allowed to take place while an inquiry was held, in which elderly monks and local inhabitants gave their testimony: dixerunt Ranulphum nunquam ante illum diem talia petisse immo viderunt eum frequenter ceruum offerentem sed facta oblacione non remansit ad prandium &iam per Priorem

4  L, F and Y: uoluit; C: noluit (see below).

5  L LH marginale in MS hand: Conflictus inter monachos & ser/uientes .R. de Neyuyl.



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Rogatus Quidam antiqui de partibus6 dixerunt idem7 sed facta oblacione & ceruo deportato ad coquinam; adducebantur portantes ad aulam ad iantandum vt solent8 portantes redditus & exennia nullus tamen de partibus hoc recolit9 esse factum sed ymaginatur. […] Argumentum contra eum quia solet semper offerri in die sancte Crucis vnde mortuo Roberto de noua villa. proavo istius cantabatur in luctum eius Anglice:10 Wel qwa sal þis11 hornes blawe haly Rod þi day. Nou es he dede and lies lawe. was wont to blaw þame ay.

They said that Ranulf had never demanded such things before that day. They had indeed often seen him offer the stag, but after the offering had been made he did not stay to dinner even when invited by the Prior. Some old people from the area said the same thing, but that after the offering had been made and the stag had been carried to the kitchen, those who carried it were led into the (Prior’s) hall to have breakfast, as those who bring rents and gifts usually are; however, no one from the area recalled this having been done, though they imagined as much. … The argument (was made) against him that the offering had always been accustomed to be made on Holy Cross Day, and because of that when Robert Neville the grandfather of this man had died, this was sung in his lament in English: Whoever shall these hornés blow Holy Rood, thy day? Now is he dead and liés low, Was wont to blow them aye.

The priory therefore won the case on the technicality that after 1280 the Nevilles had been making the offering on the wrong day (the Translation of St. Cuthbert rather than Holy Cross day, September 14), and the annual ceremony then ceased. At one point the differences between manu­scripts are important to the understanding of the case. In the last sentence of chapter 22, L and Y have what seems to be the original text: & si recte baptizaretur non deberet dici oblacio set redditus quia Raby cum octo villis adiacentibus tenet Reddendo annuatim quatuor libras & vnum ceruum …

and if it had been correctly baptised it should not have been called an offering but rent, because he (Lord Neville) holds Raby with eight adjacent vills, paying an annual rent of four pounds and one stag.

6  L, Y, C: de partibus; F: de patria. L has an interlinear addition in a slightly later hand: patria (the County Palatine of Durham is referred to as the patria throughout the Durham Priory records).

7  F omits idem, but adds it in the central margin, in the MS hand and the darker ink used to rewrite the last sentence of ch. 22.

8  C omits portantes ad aulam ad iantandum vt solent (an eye-skip from the first “portantes” to the second). 9  C: recolit hoc.

10  L, F, C: in luctum eius Anglice; Y: Anglice in luctum eius. 11  L, F, C: Þis; Y thir.

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C changes this slightly:

& si recte baptizaretur non deberet dici oblacio et uero redditus quia Raby cum octo villis adiacentibus tenet Reddendo annuatim quatuor libras de dicto Priore.

and if it had been correctly baptised it should not have been called only an offering but also rent, because he holds Raby with eight adjacent vills from the said Prior, paying an annual rent of four pounds.

Earlier, it changes “Prior … voluit” to “Prior … noluit” (“the prior was not willing”), probably to make Hoton’s refusal of the stag seem more consistent and provide a more obvious explanation for the physical fracas, but the agreement of the other three manu­scripts shows that this cannot have been the original reading. F may originally have agreed with L and Y, but it has rewritten part of the sentence over an erasure; it now reads: & si recte baptizaretur non deberet dici oblacio set redditus quia tenuit Rabi cum octo villis / adiacentibus de priore Dunelmi Reddendo / annuatim quatuor libras sed patet per cartam / suam trium copia est in The landboke / penes priorem.

and if it had been correctly baptised it should not have been called an offering but rent, because he held Raby with eight adjacent vills from the prior of Durham, paying annual rent of four pounds, but this is clear from his charter in three copies, of which one is in the Land Book in the possession of the prior.

A marginal note in C, probably in a slightly later hand than the main text, adds:

act’ patet per / .[a]rtam dicti domini / Ranulphi cuius / copia est in / .entali Prioris

The decision is evident in the document of the said Ranulf of which there is a copy in the Prior’s rental.

C removes any reference to the stag and appeals to written evidence, but admits that the custom was an offering as well as rent, while F’s more radical re-working also removes this admission. It looks as if the scribe of F, its marginal annotator and the annotator of C all had access to the priory cartulary or “Landbok,” and the priory is clearly asserting the authority of written documents over traditional custom. The prior’s pretext for objecting to the ceremony was that entertaining Neville and his men was an imposition which disrupted the life of the monastery, and he may have disliked the role played by Neville’s men in the feast, but this cannot be the whole explanation, since the testimony cited from elderly people makes it clear that it was usual for anyone who brought rents and gifts to receive a meal in the priory. His real objection emerges in the statement that: si recte baptizaretur non deberet dici oblacio set redditus.

if it had been properly baptized it should not have been called an offering, but rent.

and in the removal from C and F of the explicit reference to the stag. Prior Hoton evidently regarded the ceremony as “unbaptized” (i.e., not Christian).12 The Nevilles were normally 12  si recte baptizaretur might alternatively be translated less specifically as “if it had received its proper name,” but throughout this episode Graystanes chooses his words carefully and exactly, and if his intention had been only to assert the priory’s right to define the stag as rent he could have



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staunch allies of the priory, but at least three generations of the family nonetheless tried to insist on holding the stag ceremony, two of them despite severe disapproval from the prior, so it must have been important to them. Maybe they believed that their continued enjoyment of the Raby estate depended on it, or perhaps that belief was widespread among the local population on whose support they often had to rely in time of war. Stag ceremonies and folktales can be found all over northern Europe,13 from Herne the horned hunter in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor (4.4 27–30) to the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, still held each September, in which six of the dancers wear reindeer antlers.14 The roots of this kind of ceremony are very ancient: for example, two dancers wearing stags’ horns can be seen among the figures on the smaller of two golden horns from Gallehus, Schleswig, which have been dated to ca. 400 AD/CE, and it has even been argued that some stone-age petroglyphs in Scandinavia already include depictions of it, so Prior Hoton’s objection to the Durham stag ceremony as a pre-Christian ritual was certainly historically correct.15

The Plough Ceremony

The stag offering was evidently enjoyed by people of all ranks, but another rural custom went on at a much humbler level of society and in many more places, namely the annual plough ceremony. This was held on the day after Epiphany, usually referred to in Latin as dies carucarum and in English as ploudrawe (e.g., Wardley account 1299–1300), forthdrawe (e.g., Bewley and Billingham account ?1296–97), or later as ploughday (e.g., Bearpark account 1341–42, Bewley account 1406–7). This was one of two annual feasts provided for workers on the priory’s County Durham manors, the other being at Michaelmas (September 29), which marked the end of harvest, whose feast was known in English as the ladegos (e.g., Ketton account 1339–40) or Inyngose (e.g., Houghall used any of the verbs vocari “to be called,” (de)nominari “to be named,” designari “to be designated,” or definiri “to be defined (as)”; the figurative use of the idea of baptism rather suggests a religious objection to the ceremony.

13  Another stag tradition, preserved in The Rites of Durham (ed. Fowler), relates how King David I of Scotland was saved from being gored by a supernatural stag while hunting on Holy Cross Day. When he grabbed a crucifix which miraculously appeared between the stag’s horns the animal disappeared, and the king later founded Holyrood Abbey as a thank offering. But this legend was attached to the Black Rood of Scotland, a relic which did not reach Durham until 1346, when it was captured along with King David II at the Battle of Neville’s Cross (although The Rites of Durham conflates the two Davids into a single king). Since the Raby stag offering ceased in 1331 it can hardly have been influenced by the Holyrood legend.

14  The Horn Dance is first recorded in Robert Plot, The Natural History of Staffordshire (ch. 10, para­graph 66, 434). It then included a Hobby Horse and six dancers wearing reindeer antlers who collected money in a “pot” which was used to provide cakes and ale for the dancers, to repair the church, and to provide for the poor. Unlike later tradition, Plot claims that it took place at New Year and on Twelfth Day (January 5). 15  See Gunnell, The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, 49–53. The original horns were lost during the Napoleonic War, but for detailed drawings made before their disappearance see Gunnell, 52 and Moltke, Runes and their Origin, 82–85.

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Map 5: Durham Cathedral Priory: Prior’s Manors in the County Palatine, 1277–ca. 1405. Reproduced by permission of the Surtees Society from Richard Britnell, Durham Priory Manorial Accounts 1277–1310 (Surtees Soc. 218).

account 1407–8 A), both meaning “harvest goose”.16 Because of their status as traditional customs they are grouped together in many accounts. The Durham Priory manorial accounts are voluminous, and well over eighty references to the plough ceremony have been discovered so far, from sixteen different manors,17 plus a number of ambiguous cases. The custom was clearly well established by the date of the earliest surviving manorial accounts in 1277–8, and records of it continue in most places until ca. 1405, when the priory began to lease out its manors and 16  On the harvest goose, see Homans, English Villages of the Thirteenth Century, 372.

17  Bearpark, Belasis, Bewley, Billingham, Dalton le Dale, Elvethall, Ferryhill, Fulwell, Houghall, Ketton, St. Mary Magdalen (Durham), Pittington, Rainton, Wardley, Westoe and Witton Gilbert—see Map 5. The only manors searched so far where the custom is never recorded are those which either employed fewer than four ploughmen (the minimum number needed to drag the plough effectively, e.g., Merrington) or upland manors which concentrated on sheep farming (e.g., Muggleswick).



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runs of accounts from most of them come to an end. However, the accounts from Elvet­ hall and Pittington continue until 1529 and 1452 respectively; the last unambiguous payment for “le Ploughday” discovered so far is in the Elvethall account for 1455–6. The custom cannot be assumed to have taken place every year on all the estates for which it is recorded, and the accounts which do not mention it outnumber those which do, but in some of these the payment may be concealed in more general expenses or in payments to ploughmen de precaria “as a favour” in which Plough Day is not specifically mentioned. Contributions to Plough Day from manorial resources were clearly regarded as a favour, not a right, and a few of them have been scored out. In Houghall account 1369–70, a cancelled payment of 20 d. die carucarum is accompanied by a very small superscript explanation: quod no in cap pur

because it is not being asked for in a meeting.

It looks as if this serviens (estate manager) ruled out the payment on the grounds that it had not been properly agreed beforehand. Similarly, a cancelled payment of eighteen pence in Westoe account 1373–74 is followed by the (rather dishonest) explanation: quare non in aliis compotis precitur

because it is not requested in other accounts18

Some servientes may have felt uneasy about paying for the custom, and in at least two other accounts it is disguised as a gift to the poor and paid in measures of wheat (Dalton le Dale account 1320–21, memb. 2r; Ketton account 1331–32 dorse),19 while the Elvethall account for 1424–25 presents it as an incentive to the ploughmen vt melius agerent “so that they may work (or possibly ‘behave’) better”. The plough ceremony took place on January 7, the day after Epiphany (in crastino epiphanie videlicet in le plughday, Bewley account 1406–7; in Crastino Epiphanie, Almoner’s account 1412–13). In more recent times, this became known as “Plough Monday,”20 but in 1407 January 7 was a Tuesday according to the Julian calendar, and in 1413 it was a Wednesday.21 There is also occasional evidence for (presumably additional) ­performance as part of the harvest celebrations.22 18  I am grateful to Michael Stansfield for his help in reading this very faint entry under ultraviolet light. Other cancelled payments in die carucarum appear in Billingham account 1337–38 and Pittington account 1340–41, while in Westoe account 1397–98 a payment pro les Boues is corrected to messoribus conuencione “to reapers according to custom” (see below). 19  The payment is also in measures of wheat in Bearpark account 1328–29 (dorse).

20  See, for instance, Britnell, Durham Priory Manorial Accounts, 9n39. Britnell prints the surviving accounts up to 1310, but the later ones remain unpublished. 21  https://www.timeanddate.com/date/weekday.html?year=1&month=1&day=1 gives Gregorian calendar weekdays, to which eleven days must be added to reach those according to the Julian calendar.

22  See Westoe account 1375–76, memb. 2d: “… Et in pane frumento pro les Buues in autumpno

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The earliest surviving forthdrawe payment in the Durham Priory Manorial accounts is in Pittington account 1277–78: Liberati Carucariis. Carectariis & aliis familiaribus pro forthdraue de consuetudine – xviij.d

Paid to ploughmen, carters and other members of the household for the forthdrawe according to custom – eighteen pence

This does not tell us how much was received by each participant, but Pittington account 1285–86 remedies this omission: Forthdraue: In liberacione ˹facta˺ xij. carucariis vj. caretariis. fabro. Bercario. Daie. porcario pro forthdraue de consuetudine – xxij.d

Forthdrawe: in a payment made to twelve ploughmen, six carters, a smith, a shepherd, a dairyman and a swineherd, for the forthdrawe according to custom – twenty-two pence

Each man clearly received a penny, and participation was not limited to ploughmen. Similarly, fifteen servants at Pittington are paid fifteen pence die carucarum “on plough day” in 1303–4, and ten ploughmen, three carters and a smith receive 14d. in 1304–5, again de consuetudine “according to custom.” It is not usually clear whether payments were in cash or whether the sums recorded represent an allowance which was actually spent on food and drink; the almoner’s accounts for 1377–78 and 1378–79 are unusual in specifying that in those years plough day payments at Witton Gilbert and St. Mary Magdalen Durham were paid in argento “in silver.” On the other hand, in 1339–40 the servants at Pittington receive a gift of sixteen pence for food; in Bewley account 1406–7 their “expenses” are for bread, meat, and ale; in Pittington account 1377–78 seventeen pence are spent on buying drink and cheese for twenty ploughmen on plough day; and a more elaborate feast may be suggested by Billingham account 1343–44 (memb. 1r): Expense arucariis: … Jn expensis famulorum die carucarum preter panem de seruientium – xij.d. sicut in cer/uisia & coquina Expenses for ploughmen: … In expenses of the manor workers on plough day over and above the servants’ bread – twelve pence, for such things as ale and cooking.

The allowance of one penny per participant is widespread, but Bewley account 1303–4 (Enrolled Manors 1303–5, memb. 1r) suggests something on a larger scale: Expense: … Xxxiij famulis cum fabro die Carucarum ex consuetudine – iiij s. j.d. ob. ...

Expenses: … to thirty three servants and a smith on plough day according to custom – four shillings and a penny halfpenny…

The large number of workers in this entry might suggest that two manors held a joint Plough Day celebration in January 1304, but only two other manors (Billingham and Belasis) were close enough to Bewley for this to be possible. Bewley and Billingham have a joint account for ?1296–97, but not for any subsequent year, and for 1303–4 Billingham has its own account, which includes a Plough Day payment. The Belasis – j quarter …”; Westoe account 1397–98, where “pro les Buues” is corrected to “messoribus conuencione” “to reapers according to custom” (on “les Boves,” see below).



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account for 1303–4 is lost, but the Bewley account for 1304–5 also has an unusually large Plough Day payment (three shillings and tenpence halfpenny) and for that year the Belasis account survives, with its own payment (a total of two shillings and nine pence for eight ploughmen and three carters at Michaelmas and on Plough Day, or a penny halfpenny per man for each feast). A possible explanation may be suggested by Wardley account 1378–79, which includes both a small payment for drink die Carucarum and a larger feast for twenty ploughmen on an unspecified date, paid for by the terrar of the priory and including accommodation for one day and large amounts of meat, cheese and ale. This could suggest a ploughing contest, not necessarily on Plough Day or with any performative element, after which the contestants feasted and spent the night at Wardley; the same explanation seems possible for the 1303–4 Bewley account. It is not completely clear what was involved in the Plough Day custom, but it certainly included a performative element and begging for money. Both are evident in the Almoner’s account 1412–13: Dona & exennia: … Item dati in Crastino Epiphanie in veteri Elvet trahentibus aratrum iiij d.

Gifts and presents: … Item, given on the day after Epiphany in Old Elvet23 to men pulling a plough fourpence …

It is clear from this that the forthdrawe involved the ploughmen demonstrating their strength by pulling the plough themselves. The modern streets Old Elvet and New Elvet exchanged names at some time about 1500, so this payment was made in what is now New Elvet, in the hostiller’s manor of Elvethall. It cannot therefore have been a contribution from the almoner as lord of the manor; it looks more like an impromptu payment for drink to “plough stots” who had accosted the almoner in the street. This may also explain a curious phrase in Pittington account 1377–78: Et in potu & caseo emptis pro xx. carucariis alio modo – xvij. d.

“And for drink and cheese bought for twenty ploughmen alio modo – seventeen pence.”

The meaning of alio modo is not clear, but may be “in another form,” which would suggest that these ploughmen were disguised, most likely as plough oxen. A number of other accounts from Pittington and from Westoe may support this interpretation (e.g., Pittington account 1390–91, which includes a purchase of coal pro expensis bouum “for the expenses of the ‘oxen’.”24 Even more clearly, the Westoe accounts from 1370–71 to 1373–74 include expenses for bread and cheese for “Les Boues,”25 and those for 1395–96 and 1397–98 make them an allowance of braseum fusum “soaked barley” (used in the brewing of ale). Here “les Boves” must refer to the human participants in the forthdrawe, since real oxen do not eat cheese or drink ale. Pittington account 1449–50 suggests that by the mid-fifteenth century “Les Boves” had an appointed or elected leader: 23  Dobson, Durham Priory, 41n3.

24  Similar entries also appear in Pittington accs. 1392–93, 1394–95 and 1395–96.

25  Throughout the Durham Priory accounts the use of the French definite article means that the following word or phrase is in English, so this group must have been called “the Boves.”

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Et in iij plaustratis carbonum emptis & datis preposito Custodi boum & le Garthwomann ex consuetudine – ij s vj d And for three wagonloads of coal bought and given to the appointed keeper of the oxen and the Garthwoman according to custom – two shillings and sixpence.26

This custos may have played the part of the team’s “ploughman,” as Cain appears to do (with a ridiculous mixed team of oxen and horses) in the Towneley Mactacio Abel 25–36.27 This character may have evolved into the “caller in” in later folk plays, but we have found no evidence that these already existed in pre-Reformation County Durham.

“Le Garthwoman”

Pittington was one of the most prosperous of the priory manors (the only one whose livestock returns regularly include peacocks), and for the periods 1390 to 1397 and 1433 to 1452 its payments for Plough Day and harvest customs also mention someone referred to as “le Garthwoman,” a term which we have not found anywhere else in the Durham manorial accounts. The word appears occasionally in other northern English records as a term for a female gardener,28 but that can hardly be the meaning here, where (as in the accounts of several other Durham priory manors) the usual term for a female gardener is mulier gardini. At Pittington the mulier gardini regularly receives an annual stipend of five shillings and an allowance of two quarters and two bushels of wheat. She is occasionally named (Cecilia in 1405–6, Sibilla in 1406–7, Agnes Broun in 1409–10), and in 1399–1400 she is also given allowances of barley and oats for the upkeep of poultry. By contrast, nearly all the items that mention “le Garthwoman” lump her together with harvest expenses, as for example in 1396–97: Jn viij fothers & dimidium carbonibus emptis pro expensis autumpnalibus & le Garth­ Woman pro le fother ix d – vj s iiij d. For eight and a half loads of coal bought for harvest expenses and le Garthwoman at ninepence per load – six shillings and fourpence

The entry under Autumpnalia for 1393–94 is more complex:

Jtem Johanni de Charleton & Jsabelle famule le GartheWoman laborantibus in manerio quasi per xxi dies capientibus per diem iij d – v s iij d …

Item, to John of Charlton and the maidservant Isabella ‘le GartheWoman’ for working on the manor for about twenty one days, earning threepence per day – five shillings and threepence

26  See also Pittington account 1450–51.

27  See The Towneley Plays, ed. Stevens and Cawley, 2:442.

28  For example, an “Amicia Garthwoman” appears in the Yorkshire Subsidy Rolls (Poll Tax) for Ripley, North Yorkshire in 1379 (see Elaine Clark, “Medi­eval Labor Law,” 338n27).



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The fact that this “Garthwoman” has an ordinary female name makes it unlikely that she was either a folk-play man/woman or a “corn mother” made of straw,29 but neither of these records includes a sum paid solely to her, and the second suggests that she was not actually paid anything. The usual rate of pay for a man at Pittington in this period is threepence per day, so if John of Charlton was paid at the usual rate, his pay for twenty one days would come to five shillings and threepence, and the “Garthwoman” cannot have been paid at all. It seems likely that “the Garthwoman” was a role or title associated with the harvest celebration, and that Isabella played this role in either 1393 or 1394— we cannot tell which, because the terminal date of the account is Michaelmas for both years. Perhaps John of Charlton may have been her father or husband. The second batch of accounts which mention the Garthwoman (1433–1452) shows a somewhat different pattern. The term mulier gardini is no longer used, but the amounts of the stipend (five shillings) and the annual allowance of wheat (two quarters and two bushels) remain the same, but are now paid to the Garthwoman. It seems that by this time the female servant who looked after the garden was automatically also the “Garthwoman,” but the account for 1433–34 suggests that the accountant regarded the word as a title particular to Pittington: … Et in stipendio vnius [sic] mulieris ibidem vocate le Garthewoman pro stipendio suo quasi pro mediate vni Anni – ij s. vj d …

… and for the stipend of a woman in that place [i.e., Pittington] called le Garthewoman, as her stipend for half a year – two shillings and sixpence… .”

The word vocate, the continuing association of the purchase of coal with days of festivity (1446–7 A) and the phrase ex consuetudine (1449–50, 1450–51) also suggest that “the Garthwoman” was a ceremonial role associated with harvest which was played by one of the female servants of the manor. What her function may have been we do not know, though she may have presided over the harvest feast. Equally, we have no evidence as to how old the custom was or whether it also existed elsewhere. Some scholars have linked the Old Norse mythic giantess Gerðr, who is forcefully wooed by Skí�rnir (“the shining one”) on behalf of his master, the fertility god Freyr, to the word garðr, taking her to represent the enclosed field which is made fruitful by the sun. However, others have pointed out that ON garðr usually refers to an enclosed farmstead (as ME garth doubtless does in the word Garthwoman) rather than to an arable field, and there may also be some philo­logical problems about equating the words garðr and Gerðr, so it would be rash to assume a pre-Christian origin for the title.30 All we can say with any confidence is that there was sometimes a custom at Pittington, probably at harvest time, in which a serving woman played a significant part. 29  For a male minstrel, presumably a folk-play man/woman, who used the name “Mother Naked,” see Durham Priory bursar’s account 1433–34; on the straw figure known as the Corn Maiden or the Corn Mother, see Frazer, The Golden Bough, 525–42. 30  See Paul Bibire, “Freyr and Gerðr,” and Gunnell, The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, 353–5.

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May Games

The evidence for young people participating in May games is confined to sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Durham City. They seem to have consisted of a number of items about Robin Hood followed by a “Young Maids” procession, and their competitive form clearly depended on that relatively urban environment. Our main source of information about them comes from MS BL Harley 7578, a composite manu­script from the latter half of the sixteenth century, in which fols. 84–117 give the treble line of a musical work in praise of Durham.31 Its score includes many rests, indicated by vertical lines of varying length, the shortest of which seem to represent a single minim rest, and which vary between one and twenty-four minim beats in length. These were no doubt filled with music and text assigned to the lost singing parts, and the varying positions of these lines on the stave may give a rough indication of the melodic line in one or more of those parts. It would therefore be misleading to print the surviving words and music without taking notice of the gaps and trying to give some idea of what may have been lost. Unfortunately, the surviving words suggest considerable variation of metre, and in places they have been treated with great freedom by the composer, so any reconstruction of the metrical shape of the whole work can only give a rough idea of what it may have been like. In Movement 1 the Narrator encounters a number of tradesmen, asks who they are, and is told about the various produce and tools that they have brought to market in Durham from surrounding villages. Movement 2 continues with the ringing of the corn bell to indicate that trading may start, then focuses on what sounds like a rather shady horse-trading negotiation. Movement 3 takes place at the St. Cuthbert’s Day fair (September 4) and describes some disorderly behaviour: Piers of Pelton and his friends get involved in a fight in which someone has a knife, while Hogge of Houghton is loud, gluttonous and probably drunk. Movement 4 begins with the scene in Silver Street, with the much-elaborated cries of people from the villages selling coal, passes on to more general praise of the city and castle, then moves into the fortified area and ends in the North Bailey. In Movement 5 the occasion shifts to the May games, held in Elvet, in which the young people of local parishes evidently compete with each other with piping, dancing and disguising; a sequence of Robin Hood songs is followed by a Young Maids procession. Movement 6 consists of praise of Queen Elizabeth and a closing prayer. The work as a whole provides evidence for the composition and probably also the performance of sophisticated secular music in sixteenth-century Durham, but Movement 5 is also an important account of two Mayday customs in the City.

31  For an edition of the Durham Song with music, see Milsom, “Cries of Durham”; he transposes the key from F to C and offers no explanation for the positioning of the rest marks.



Robin Hood32

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The “Robin Hood” section focuses on the young men of the North Bailey (the parish of St. Mary le Bow), who meet across the river in Elvet for what sounds like a contest with the other Durham parishes. There is no explicit mention of a play, but there is music, dancing, and dysgysyng, which may imply that the participants adopted different roles in a Robin Hood play or ballad and probably that they “fought” with quarter staffs. They (or perhaps only some of them) also sing.33 It is difficult to be sure how much text is missing here, but the introduction to this section seems to run as follows: Now will we go the bayly to, ther of sum thing now for to syng. [+ 14 beats]. Jn lusty may [+ 2 beats] the north bayly [+ 2 beats] att Elvett heer dyd mett. Ther was dysgysyng [+ 2 beats], piping & dansyng [+ 2 beats], & as we cam nere [+ 4 beats], which thus begane:

This is followed by a section which seems to be based on the melodies of pre-existing songs: “Robyn” [+ 24 beats, a “Robyn” song?], “Robyn, robyne” [+ 1 beat], And “Many man haith A fayre wyfe that doth him lyttill good,” “Robyn” [+ 1 beat], “Robyn robyn” [+ 1 beat], & “Joly roben lend you me the bowe” [+ 1 beat].

The “Robin Hood” section then ends with an elaborate representation of the sound of the young men’s hunting horns: Through euery strett thus can they go [+ 1 beat] & euery man his horn dyd blowe: “Tro tro tro tro ro ro ro [+ 1 beat], Ro ro ro tro ro tro tro [+ 1 beat], Tro ro ro tro tro tro [+ 1 beat] Tro ro ro [+ 1 beat] Ro ro tro tro ro ro ro [+ 1 beat] Ro ro tro ro row.” [+ 6 beats before the introduction of the Young Maids’ song]

The Robin Hood sequence evidently includes popular songs which begin “Robyn,” “Robyn, Robyn,” “Many man hath a fair wife that doth him little good,” and “Joly Robin lend you me the bowe.” In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1601) Feste the Fool sings a snatch beginning “Hey Robin, jolly Robin” which allows the imprisoned Malvolio to identify him; the surviving tune of this song is attributed to William Cornysh (d. 1523), and the three “Robyn” notes which precede the 24-beat rest correspond to the three opening 32  Fols. 109v–110r. I quote the texts and numbers of beats rest for the surviving (treble) part, and have edited the words into verse lines.

33  I am grateful to Angela Robley for transcribing and editing the Robin Hood and Young Maids sequences from facsimile images of MS Harley 7578, and for the idea that the placing of the rests may suggest phrases of melody in one or more of the lost parts.

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Figure 4: The Durham Song: the Robin Hood Sequence (from BL MS Harley 7578, fols. 109v–110r).



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notes of Cornysh’s tune.34 In the opening scene of William Wager’s play The longer thou livest the more foole thou art (ca. 1568) the vice Moros enters singing snatches of various traditional songs, including “Now Robin lend to me thy bow,” which also appears as a canon for four voices in Thomas Ravenscroft’s Pammelia. Musicks Miscellanie of 1609.35 I have not been able to find “Robyn, Robyn” or “Many man hath a fair wife that doth him little good.” All these songs, as well as the extravagant outburst of horn blowing, probably had sexual undertones. Few of the young men from the city who are portrayed here can actually have been hunters, but in secular songs hunting was often a metaphor for sex, as in another song by William Cornysh, “Come blow thy horn hunter,” which rather impudently challenges its audience to interpret it: I was weary of the game, I went to tavern to drink; Now the construction of the same What do you mean or think?      Now blow thy horn, hunter,      Now blow thy horn, jolly hunter.36

However, the notes to which the title “Joly Robin lend you me the bowe” is set in MS Harley 7578 do not correspond either in melody or rhythm to the known tune of the song; similarly, the two instances of “Robyn, Robyn” are not set to the same notes as each other. It seems likely that the composer of the Durham Song only used Cornysh’s tune for “Robyn, Robyn,” although the tunes of the other songs may have been echoed in one or more of the lost alto, tenor and bass lines.

The Young Maids’ Procession

The Robin Hood section is immediately followed by the arrival of a Young Maids’ Procession (Figure 5). After the first three words the time signature changes to 3/2 until the end of the section, after which it reverts to 4/4; the notation of the 3/2 is different from that of the rest of the work, and it may have been copied from an older manu­script. It seems to be a single song, sung during the procession, of which some lines are missing because they were not sung in the treble line. Any attempt at reconstruction of the lost text can only be guesswork, although the changed time signature and the regularity of rest beats and rhyme scheme may suggest that the song had three seven-line stanzas followed by a single reprise line. The first stanza may have rhymed a(?a)bc*c*, the second b(?d)bc*c* and the third d(?a)dc*c* +c (with asterisks indicating a single rhyming sound of which no example remains). The opening three lines would then follow a familiar tailrhyme pattern; the first line of the second stanza would use the equally familiar device of picking up the second rhyming sound of stanza 1; the first line of the third stanza would echo the second rhyming sound of stanza 2 in the same way; and the second line 34  Twelfth Night 4.2 69–76; “A Robyn, Gentyl Robyn,” in Stevens, Music at the Court of Henry VIII, 38–39.

35  Facsimile ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1971).

36  Stevens, Music at the Court of Henry VIII, nos. 35, 35A, p. 29.

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Figure 5: The Durham Song: the Young Maids’ Sequence (from BL MS Harley 7578, fol. 110r–v).



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of the third stanza may have completed a “circle” by picking up the rhyming sound with which the whole song began. The surviving fragments may thus have fitted together as follows: The maydens came [+ 1 beat]:37 [Instrumental (?) opening (5 beats)]

When J was in my mothers bower [+ 10 beats, possibly 1 line, end-rhyming with “bower,” pronounced “boure”] J hade all38 that J wolde. The bayly berith the bell away [+ 9 beats, possibly 1 line] The lylle, the rose, the rose J lay [+ 9 beats, possibly 1 line] The sylwer is whit, rede is the golde [+ 9 beats, possibly 1 line end-rhyming with “sun”] The robes thay lay in fold. The baylly berith the bell away [+ 9 beats, possibly 1 line] The lylly, the rose, the rose j lay [+ 9 beats, possibly 1 line]

And through the glasse wyndow shines the sone, [+ 9 beats, possibly 1 line rhyming with “boure”] How shuld J love & J so young? The bayly berith the bell away [+ 9 beats, possibly 1 line] The lylly, the rose, the rose J lay [+ 7 beats, possibly 1 line] The bayly beryth the bell away. ||39

Since a bell was sometimes awarded as a trophy for the winner of a contest or race, as in the case of the Carlisle Bell, noted by Gašper Jakovac in the present volume (see fig. 2 above), the final line probably implies a contest in which the young people of the North Bailey claim the victory. But both refrain lines are probably adapted from an older song, whose words survive on a strip of vellum bound into MS Oxford Bodley Rawlinson D. 913: Al nist bi the rose, rose, Al nist bi the rose I lay; Darf ic noust þe rose stele, Ant ȝet ich bar þe flour away.40

37  At this point the time signature changes from 4/4 to 3/2.

38  The MS makes “all” a semibreve, but the rhythm demands a minim, and Robley emends accordingly. 39  Here the time signature reverts to 4/4.

40  Robbins, Secular Lyrics, no. 17 (pp. 12, 232–33), probably fifteenth century.

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The supposed (male) speaker here seems to be saying that he lay all night by a beautiful woman whom he did not dare to abduct, but that he took her virginity. However, this is clearly not the meaning in the Durham Young Maids’ Song. If pressed for an interpretation, patriotic English people might have suggested that the line meant “In a contest between France (the lily) and England (the rose) I wager that England will win”;41 but The lylly, the rose, the rose J lay is more probably a meaningless refrain derived from the older song, although it retains suggestions of female beauty and potential sexuality which contribute to the song’s delicate balance between a young woman’s anxiety at the prospect of marriage and sex and her (possibly enticing) sense that they will soon come to pass. The composer seems to have had a traditional tune in mind for this song, although he or she must have adapted it to some extent: the first two instances of The bayly beryth the bell away share the same melody, the third begins with the same motif transposed up by a third, and only the last is quite different, while all three instances of The lylly, the rose, the rose J lay are set to the same melodic line. Young Maids’ processions appear in a variety of sixteenth-century records from other parts of England, usually in the form of contributions from the maidens to parish funds, and in the 1506–7 and 1507–8 churchwardens’ accounts from Reading St. Laurence (Berkshire) two such payments appear alongside receipts from a Robin Hood play, although these performances took place on Hock Monday (April 12) rather than on May Day.42 Receipts from separate gatherings of young men and maidens also appear in some Worcestershire churchwardens’ accounts (Badsey in 1535–36, South Littleton in 1554 and 1555),43 and at Grimley, Worcestershire in 1526–27 and 1527–28 Prior More of Worcester pays maidens for singing on May Day.44 However, the only other example I have found of competition between parishes is in a comic “Contry song remembring the harmetless mirth of Lancashyre in peaseable tymes” in the Blundell Family Hodgepodge Book (Little Crosby, Lancashire 1641).45 This records (or perhaps merely alleges) a dancing and piping contest for a wager between couples from various parishes in coastal Lancashire, which went on until: The maydes buttocks quaked lyke Custards new baked.

It mentions various tunes, of which the most prominent is “Roger o’ Covely” (presumably the tune now known as “Sir Roger de Coverley”), but the date of this supposed contest is merely given as “On Twesday last,” and its picture of mixed couples dancing is quite different from the separate-sex performances described in the Durham Song. 41  For the verb lay in the sense “to wager,” see OED lay 12b.

42  BRO:D/P 97/5/2, quoted from the REED website (https://ereed.library.utoronto.ca/search/).

43  REED Herefordshire and Worcestershire, 357–58 and 391.

44  REED Herefordshire and Worcestershire, 493, 497. 45  LRO: DDBl Acc 6121, REED Lancashire, 32–35.



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Another source for the May games in Durham survives as an incidental detail in a furious diatribe by the puritan Canon Peter Smart against the high-church members of Durham Cathedral chapter, launched from the cathedral pulpit in July 1628 and printed soon afterwards. Smart is outraged by his opponents’ revival of some details of preReformation worship, which he calls “Babylonish” and “histrionical,” and in particular by their use of pre-Reformation copes. In the lengthy articles of denunciation which he prepared for the ecclesiastical court in York in 1630, he alleges that one of these: … taken from masspreists, adorned with images, and having the picture of the Blessed Trinity on the cape therof, wrought in gold very bravly, which cope was caryed about the towne, from alehowse to alehowse, from taverne to taverne, and could not be sold till Ferdinand Morecroft, the thriftie Treasurer of the church of Durham bought it, to save some charges, and with it another old, rotten ridiculous robe, (which they say cost 3s. iiijd.) used by the boyes and wenches of Durham above 40 yeares in theyr sports and May-games.46

Later in the same document Smart repeats the allegation that a pre-Reformation cope had been used in the Durham May games, but now says that this had been done for over fifty years.47 He is anything but unbiased, but his statement about vestments is probably essentially true. The cope with a picture of the Trinity on the cape must be the one now known as the Durham Cope, and the “old, rotten ridiculous robe” is probably one of three other late-medi­eval vestments which are still in the possession of the dean and chapter.48 Smart probably did not know how long it had been used in the May games, but it may have been acquired by the young people after being disposed of by the puritan William Whittingham (Dean 1563–79), whose wife, a sister of John Calvin, is accused by the author of The Rites of Durham of having burned the Banner of St. Cuthbert.49 It seems probable that a pre-Reformation cope was used in the May games for quite a long period, but we do not know what its function was. It would certainly have been too heavy and unwieldy to be worn by a dancer or instrumentalist, but since the May games involved a contest, someone must have been appointed to judge between the performances of the competing parishes. It is possible that the person who did this also wore the cope, in which case he may have been a parodic figure of ecclesiastical authority like the Aberdeen “Abbot of Bon Accord” who was also connected to May Day and to Robin Hood,50 but this can only be a speculation.

46  The Correspondence of John Cosin, DD, 171 (from Oxford, Bodley Rawlinson A 441). In 1630 Smart’s case was dismissed and he was imprisoned for refusing to pay the resulting fine; this verdict was reversed by parliament in 1641 and Smart regained his living and held it until his death in 1652. Cosin was briefly imprisoned before going into exile as chaplain to the Queen; he became Bishop of Durham shortly after the Restoration in 1660. 47  The Correspondence of John Cosin, DD, 186.

48  Further, see McKinnell, The Sequence of the Sacrament.

49  The Rites of Durham, 26–27.

50  See Mill, Mediæval Plays in Scotland, 21ff.

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Conclusion

Folk customs evolve or decay over time, and it is unfortunate that the evidence for those discussed here comes from such different periods. However, they do seem to divide into predominately rural ceremonies (the stag offering, plough day and possibly the garthwoman) and those found in the Palatinate only in the relatively urban setting of Durham City (the young men performing Robin Hood and the Young Maids Procession). Both types needed a continuing social function, although the question of what this was in each case may be subject to argument. I would suggest that the rural customs served to reinforce the ancient idea of an implicit contract between the ruling elite and those who supported them. This was expressed on the side of the elite in annual or twice-yearly feasts provided for their households, including types of food and drink which their workers produced (venison in the stag ceremony; ale, cheese, meat and geese on Plough Day and at the end of harvest), while their retainers expressed support for them in symbolic ceremonies which featured symbols of their work (hunting horns for Lord Neville’s foresters, the plough and its “oxen” on Plough Day). The two “urban” customs seem quite different. They provided an opportunity for young men to show off their athleticism in dancing (and possibly in mock fighting) and for young women to display their attractiveness. Both groups also had a chance to demonstrate their musical ability.51 It is worth noting that Smart’s reference to the May games limits participation in them to the young, whereas there is no mention of any age limits for Lord Neville’s foresters or for participants in the plough ceremony. Further evidence may modify this theory, but at present it seems that the rural ceremonies implied support for the ancient social contract between lord and retainer, while the May games provided an opportunity for young people in Durham to show off to potential marriage partners.

51  Modern survivals of the Young Maids’ Procession such as the one at Croxton Kerrial (Leicestershire) also include a song specific to the ceremony, and (for the older girls and in the earliest photo­graphs) costumes which closely resemble wedding dresses. Unfortunately, a surviving photo­graph of the Young Maids at Croxton Kerrial in 1909 is not of usable quality for this book.

Chapter 10

RUSH-BEARINGS OF YORKSHIRE WEST RIDING C. E. McGEE

Rushes strewn on

the floors of royal palaces and parish churches, manor houses, and modest homes were one of the amenities of life in early modern England. They made floors of stone or earth a little warmer, drier, and softer underfoot. The smell of fresh green rushes freshened the air when the rushes were first distributed and afterwards, because bruising the plants by walking on them released their pleasant aroma. In London in the early fifteenth century, the business of gathering, transporting, buying, and selling rushes was so great that the Common Council ordered those who brought them on skiffs to bundle them on board, not on the wharves, because once unloaded, the piles of rushes impeded other commercial activity and left a mess for other people to deal with.1 For special occasions in the city, the streets of a procession route might be thoroughly cleaned, hung with arras, and strewn with rushes. In the final scene of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2 for instance, a Groom calls for “More rushes, more rushes” to prepare for the passage of the new king, Henry V, through the streets of London. 2 For special guests, providing fresh rushes was de rigueur as a sign of respect and hospitality—hence, in The Taming of the Shrew, Grumio reviews the preparations for the arrival of Petruchio and his bride: “Is supper ready,” he asks, “the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the servingmen in their new fustian, the white stockings, and every officer his wedding garment on?”3 Far be it from Petruchio’s household to treat Katherine as if she were, as the saying goes, “not worth a rush.” In certain northwestern counties of England—Lancashire, Cheshire, Westmorland, and Yorkshire—the practice of covering the floors of churches with fresh rushes developed into an annual parish festivity that aimed to celebrate and strengthen personal and communal bonds within families and households, within parishes, and between neighbouring ones. Rush-bearings were not limited to “the western extremes of Yorkshire,”4 but occurred at least as far east as Brandsby, in the North Riding, about fifteen miles north of the city of York. We do not know why this custom flourished in the northern counties, nor when it began to take shape.

1  Burton, Rush-bearing, 2–3.

2  Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV, 5.5.1.

3  Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, 4.1.43–46. 4  Hutton, Stations of the Sun, 323.

Prof. C. E. McGee is Emeritus Professor in English at Waterloo Uni­ver­sity, Ontario, and co-editor of the Records of Early English Drama volume for the West Riding of Yorkshire.

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Date

Place

Source

1581

Rufforth

Diocesan Court

July 1595

Aldborough (with Roecliff)

Diocesan Court

Chrono­logy of Yorkshire West Riding Rush-bearings

July 1591

Heptonstall (with Wadsworth)

May–July 1596 Cawthorne June 1614

Methley

July 1619

Fewston

July 1618 July 1619

August 1619 July 1620 July 1620

Leeds

Thorner (with Bramham) Leeds

Scriven

Knaresborough

Diocesan Court Diocesan Court

Shann Commonplace Book Court of Star Chamber

Court of Start Chamber Court of Start Chamber Court of Star Chamber

Slingsby Family Papers Slingsby Family Papers

“It must have developed,” Ronald Hutton suggests, “before the end of the Middle Ages, but the paucity of early records in those upland areas is such that it emerges into history, already firmly established, only with the Elizabethan Reformation.”5 The only full-length study of the development of the practice is Alfred Burton’s Rush-bearing: An Account of the Old Custom of Carrying Rushes to Church (1891). While this is an invaluable starting point, Burton rarely draws on primary sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and never attends to early Yorkshire records. The late Barbara D. Palmer, one of the original co-editors of REED: Yorkshire West Riding, is the only scholar who has looked closely at some of the seventeenth-century accounts of rush-bearings there.6 Surveying various forms of parish drama, she discusses six rush-bearings recorded in ecclesiastical court cases and family papers. Her study, however, overlooks records of rush-bearings documented by proceedings of the Court of Star Chamber, which are crucial because they illustrate the impact of King James I’s Book of Sports on the debates about the proper uses of the Sabbath, the parish church, and the churchyard. The present study builds on Palmer’s invaluable work and supplements it, for we now have records of at least eleven rush-bearings in ten parishes in the West Riding: Aldborough, Cawthorne, Fewston, Heptonstall, Knaresborough, Leeds, Methley, Rufforth, Scriven, and Thorner. A few more may well have occurred between 1577 and 1581, the years when Tristram Tildsley, vicar of Rufforth, allegedly danced immodestly at as many as twelve rushbearings, ales, or weddings in Rufforth, Marston, and nearby parishes.7 If we cull from all these disparate records the descriptive details of rush-bearings prior to 1642, we get a sense of the form of the festive custom. A rush-bearing was first 5  Stations of the Sun, 323.

6  Palmer, “‘Anye disguised persons’,” 81–93.

7  York Uni­ver­sity, Borthwick Institute CP.G.3306, Rufforth, “Cause Paper,” fol. 1.



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Map 6: Rush-Bearings in Yorkshire. Map drawn by Byron Moldofsky.

and foremost a procession of the young people of a parish, some displaying celebratory banners, all of them led by a piper and drummer. The featured performers were girls and young women, dressed for the occasion in fancy attire embellished with scarves and silken bands. They carried in their arms or on their heads the bundles of rushes, bound with colourful ribbons and decorated with flowers. Most of these rushes would be strewn throughout the church, but some were delivered to family pews by household servants (an action symbolic of the proper hierarchical order within a household) and others were woven into the shape of garlands or towers, embellished with flowers, and set up in the church “for the decoring of it, according to their old custome.”8 Besides the practical business of strewing the rushes and adorning the church, the festivity was enhanced by ringing of the church bells, music, dancing, and, despite their explicit prohibition, disguising and role-playing. The event not only brought the parish together as a community with shared traditions, but also confirmed a sense of solidarity with people from neighbouring parishes, by giving them the opportunity to supply rushes and to attend the event, with the result that sometimes hundreds of people gathered for a rush-bearing. At their best, rush-bearings brought people together, first in their church, the centre of parish life, and afterwards in the churchyard or some other public space, where they “made merry together to the maintenance and increase of love and charity amongst them.”9 8  James VI and I, Book of Sports, 367.

9  Goring, Godly Exercises, 17, quoting Innocent Read of Redbourn, Hertfordshire (1589).

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No single account of a West Riding rush-bearing, however, brings together all these features of the custom. Indeed most facets of the activity that we have noted appear only once in the records and may reveal local practice. Only at Heptonstall, for instance, does the testimony mention that “yong maides & weomen” of another village “brought burdens of Rishes deckd with flowers.”10 Only at Cawthorne did the rush-bearers bring rushes woven into the shapes of garlands and towers to be set up within the church. Only at Methley do we have evidence of termino­logy peculiar to the festivity there: Richard Shann describes the rush-bearers as a “great companie of verie fayre Titopps.” Then he adds, emphasizing the distinctiveness of local usage, “as we call them.”11 The account of a rush-bearing at Fewston is similar, for there the young men accompanying the rush-bearers set up “toppinells,” or perhaps “toppmells,” a word not found in the OED but defined within the court proceedings as “peeces of Wood adorned & decked with gold rings siluering Iewells scarffes, & other such things.”12 What Paul Whitfield White observed about provincial dramatic activities in general is true for West Riding rush-bearings in particular, that “far too much of what we know … derives from single pieces of evidence, often from documents that mention relevant information in passing or in connection with another topic.”13 As a result, generalizations about the form of the custom and its purposes are risky. This is especially true when the information about a rush-bearing appears in the adversarial context of court cases. In legal submissions, the selection, suppression, organization, and interpretation of information all serve the purposes of competing persuasive efforts. At Leeds, for instance, the defendant, Alexander Cooke, alleged that the plaintiff, John Metcalfe, hired someone to advertise an up-coming rush-bearing by drumming on market day and every day of the week thereafter. This detail served the defendant’s argument that the plaintiff, despite his claims to the contrary, had contravened the stipulations in the king’s Book of Sports by deliberately trying to attract an audience not only from within, but also from outside, the parish. Metcalfe, like Cooke, also focused on details not found in any other account of a West Riding rush-bearing, specifically that two children carried banners in the procession. This feature of the event was important to the rhetoric of his particular complaint. To prove that Cooke was seditious and violent, Metcalfe claimed that the banners in question had images of King James and Prince Charles on them, and the two children were among the very ones beaten by Cooke and his supporters. Such isolated pieces of evidence in the records, while they make generalizations difficult, also illustrate how important local traditions, specific parochial situations, and individual rhetorical purposes all are in shaping our knowledge of rush-bearings as a form of festive parish drama. To the information about rush-bearings gleaned from the records of the ten Yorkshire parishes we can add the evidence found in the documents of control of church and 10  York Uni­ver­sity, Borthwick Institute CP.G.2651, Heptonstall, “Cause Paper,” fol. 1. 11  Shann, “Commonplace Book,” fol. 71v.

12  TNA Court of Star Chamber STAC8/180/11 [Fewston], “Harrison v. Smithson,” memb. 1. 13  White, Drama and Religion, 7.



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state. Indeed the earliest record of rush-bearings we have for the region appears in the Injunctions of Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of York. In 1571, he ordered ministers and churchwardens not to allow: anye lordes of misrule or sommer lordes, or ladyes or anye disguised persons or others in christmasse or at maye gammes or any minstrels morice dauncers or others at Rishebearinges or at anye other tymes to come vnreverentlye into anye churche or chappell or churcheyeard and there daunce or playe anye vnseemelye partes with scoffes ieastes wanton gestures or rybaulde talke namelye in the tyme of divine service or of anye sermon.14

This injunction was part of the on-going effort made by church and state officials to foster proper observance of the Sabbath and holy days. With this intervention, Grindal aligned himself with medi­eval, early Tudor, and other Elizabethan sabbatarians, Catholic and Protestant, who, as Kenneth Parker argued in The English Sabbath, “shared a common concern that the day be spent in worship and private devotions, with rest from worldly labours and trading and abstinence from recreations and popular celebrations.”15 “Abstinence” overstates the case somewhat, for Grindal’s aim, like that of most other authorities, “was not to eradicate customary pastimes completely, though that sometimes seems the desired end, but rather to detach mirth from an association with religious observance … to keep festive practices physically, temporally, and ideo­ logically away from the church.”16 The wording of Grindal’s injunction allows for May games and rush-bearings, as long as they do not usher in other forms of festivity, as those at Brandsby and Leeds did. At Brandsby, partly to enhance the fund-raising potential of the event, the parish added to the rush-bearing a show with Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham.17 At Leeds, the festivities included a man with “a vizard on his face & a paire of Ramms hornes on his head playing his tricks.”18 What concerned ecclesiastical authorities like Archbishop Grindal was not the traditional custom itself, but the unseemliness of performers with their scoffing jests, wanton gestures, and ribaldry; the lack of reverence for the church and the churchyard; and the timing of the activity in relation to sermons and church services. For his first diocesan visitation after becoming Archbishop of York, timing was the crux of Grindal’s question to parish churchwardens about “Rush bearings, Bull-baytings, Beare-baitings, May-games, Morice-dances, [or] Ailes.” He wanted to know whether any of these activities “or such like prophane pastimes or Assemblies” occurred “on the Sabboth to the hinderance of Prayers, Sermons, or other godly exercises.”19 Most of the records of rush-bearings in the West Riding were the result of the secondary issues that concerned Grindal and other church leaders. People behaved in ways that were irreverently lewd, disrespectful of the church, and disruptive of divine ser14  Grindal, Iniunctions, sig. C iii.

15  Parker, The English Sabbath, 16.

16  Jensen, Religion and Revelry, 30.

17  Keenan, “Recusant Involvement,” 475–78.

18  TNA, Court of Star Chamber STAC8/215/6 [Leeds], “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 2. 19  Grindal, Articles (1607), pp. 8–9, art. 38.

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vices. Because churchwardens did what was required of them by ecclesiastical authorities, rush-bearings appear in court records as occasions of social and religious conflict, violence and disorder, and clerical misbehaviour. On “sonday about St Iames day” in 1591, for example, “ther was a Rishbearing at Heptonstall chapell, at what time the yong maides & weomen of the towne of Waddesworth brought burdens of Rishes deckd with flowers to Heptonstall Chapell.” The event drew a large crowd, including William Greenwood, a nine- or ten-year-old boy. When Henry Crabtree saw Greenwood in the chapel porch “thrusting in with the Rishbearers,” Crabtree gave “the said William Grenewood a blow with his fist vpon the head or vpon his brest or sholders.”20 Why Crabtree took offence and struck the boy instead of others “thrusting in” remains a mystery: was he trying to ensure the orderly entry of the rush-bearers? did he judge the boy to be rude and aggressive? Whatever Crabtree’s motive, his violent intervention was incidental to the rush-bearing, which, so far as we know from the account, Greenwood, Crabtree, and other parishioners approved of and looked forward to enjoying. In Rufforth and Marston in 1581, a rush-bearing almost became an occasion of violence. One of the men who joined in the dancing that was part of this event: either in his dauncing or after, wantonlye & dissolutelye … kissed a mayd or yong woman then a dauncer … wherat diuers persons were offended & so sore greved that ther was wepons drawne & great dissention arose or was lyke to aryse thervpon.

Again, the problem in this ecclesiastical court case, however, was not the rush-bearing per se nor the threat of violence, but rather the behaviour of the vicar, Tristram Tildsley, for he was the lusty dancer who wantonly and dissolutely kissed the young woman. We know of rush-bearings in Rufforth and Marston, going back to 1577, because Tildsley not only permitted young people to use the church and churchyard for their festivity in past years, but also allowed much lewde light & vnsemelye dauncinges & gestures very vnfit for thes places but also he hym selve at the said Rishbearing very vnsemelye did Daunce skip leape & hoighe gallantlye as he thought in his owne folishe & lewde concepte in the said churchyard emongest a great multitude of people wher he was derided, flowted, & laughed at to the great sclaunder of the ministry.21

Tildsley added to this embarrassingly energetic display by participating in what appears to be a customary folk dance. In this dance, as one witness deposed, “a man fetched in a woman and putt his hatt on her heade and kissed her, and she fetchd in a man in lyke maner and so till ther was a great company both of men and women which daunced hande in hande.” By the end, the enthusiastic Tildsley “had in eyther hand a woman and daunced Rounde with thother company and hoyghed as they dyd.” All of this, the witness concluded, “was much noted and marked and was very offensyve to those that sawe him.”22 No other account of a rush-bearing provides such a detailed account of the dancing, which seems clearly to foster and celebrate community spirit and to facilitate some 20  Heptonstall, “Cause Paper,” fol. 1.

21  Rufforth, “Cause Paper,” fol. 1. 22  Rufforth, “Cause Paper,” fol. 3.



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Figure 6: “Unseemly Dancing.” Salomé is rewarded with the head of John the Baptist for dancing before Herod: Pickering Church, North Riding. With permission of Pickering Parish Church Council.

wooing. In this court case, clerical misbehaviour was the issue, not the dancing, nor the music, nor the rush-bearing that occasioned the people’s high spirits and good cheer. Unlike the cases we have considered so far, the accounts of West Riding rush-bearings in legal records also suggest that there were more fundamental disagreements between those for, and those against, this activity and other customary forms of festivity. In Aldborough, in July, 1595, the township of Roecliffe in the parish of Aldborough brought rushes to the church there. The rush-bearing seems to have proceeded without incident, but after the rushes had been strewn, the minister, Thomas Hundislay, reproved “certayne disgised persons that were comed into the churche, & wylled them to come in more humble & reuerent maner to the place.” When news of this intervention reached Robert Rodes in the alehouse, he immediately hired a gun, went to the church, and, just as the minister ended his sermon, fired a shot “directly ouer the minister, eyther to hit him, as it was reported, or to afray him.”23 For the vicar, the problem appears to be only the disrespectful manner of some of the participants in the rush-bearing. For Robert Rodes however, the problem must have run deeper. His reaction—an obvious overreaction to a rebuke of the rush-bearers’ comportment—suggests that he felt that the custom itself had been attacked by religious authorities with some new agenda, and he was ready to fight back. Rodes’s subsequent behaviour confirmed his disaffection from Hundislay’s ideo­logy and practice, for the churchwardens added to this presentment for discharging a firearm in the church another one, that he failed to attend church services for the next two months. Whereas Robert Rodes was a die-hard defender of old forms of parish mirth, Sir Charles Barnby was extreme in his opposition to them. In a submission to the Diocesan 23  York Uni­ver­sity, Borthwick Institute HC.CP.ND/11, Aldborough, “Cause Paper,” fol. 1.

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Court, Barnby, lord of Barnby Hall in the parish of Cawthorne and possibly a recusant24 claimed that nine men of the parish in “Maye Iune or Iulye 1596 … did procure make or was presente at or consentinge to a rishbearinge … within the said parishe or Chappellrye of Cawthorne vpon a Sabbaothe daye, & made towers, garlandes & other formes of thinges covered with flowers” to be carried into the chapel and set up there. This event seems rather innocuous: no blows were delivered, no guns fired, no weapons drawn. The problem was simply timing: the procession of rush-bearers arrived at the church “when the minyster was readye to go to prayers, whereby he was forced to staye the prayers till they had sett vp theire thinges to the hinderance of devyne service.”25 Barnby, however, began his submission to the court by stating three guiding principles. These reiterated injunctions were found in the episcopal Visitation Orders, but Barnby put them more absolutely and dogmatically than the bishops had. His views resemble those of extreme sabbatarians who affirmed that people should model their lives on the story of creation in Genesis. As God spent six days creating the world and then rested, so people should work for six days and then spend a day in spiritual exercises. In his submission to the court, Barnby made that point, asserting that people should keep the Lord’s day in “prayer godlye meditation & exercyses & not to abuse or to profane the same by vngodlye excercyses”; secondly, that the church was ordained for prayer, divine services, and the sacraments—”& not for anye profane vse especiallye for playes interludes showes disguisementes rishbearinges or sommer games therein to be vsed”; and, thirdly, that rush-bearings and other forms of festivity were not to be performed on Sundays or holy days “to the dishonor of god or to the evill example to others or to the hinderance of devyne service or profanation of the Sabbaothe or festivall dayes to the hinderance of devyne service.”26 The last of these principles allows for a rushbearing under specific conditions, even on Sundays if church services are not affected. However, the hard line articulated in the first two principles effectively bans such festive, ceremonial activities: if rush-bearings are by definition profane, then the Lord’s day is no time for them, the church or churchyard no place. The account of the rush-bearing in Cawthorne offers a glimpse of one of the extreme positions in church politics and the implications for traditional parish festivities. Like the rush-bearing at Cawthorne, the one at Thorner in the last week of July 1619 proceeded, it seems, without incident. William Oglethorpe, gentleman, of Oglethorpe Hall, mentions the event, but does not describe it in any detail. In his bill of complaint to the Court of Star Chamber, the rush-bearing was not the main issue: defamation was. Oglethorpe complained that William Clough, firebrand vicar of Bramham, not only spread false reports that Oglethorpe had committed a felony, but also suborned witnesses to testify to the same. The rush-bearing at Thorner, though not problematic when performed, was useful to Oglethorpe’s libel case nonetheless, because the rush-bearing provoked a response from Clough that revealed his true character, at least as Ogle­thorpe 24  Pratt, History of Cawthorne, 43–44, describes the Barnby family as recusant, but Sir Charles himself is not identified as such by Pratt or by Peacock, List of the Roman Catholics, 3. 25  York Uni­ver­sity, Borthwick Institute HC.CP.1596/7, Cawthorne, “Cause Paper,” fol. 1v, art. 5. 26  Cawthorne “Cause Paper,” fol. 1, art. 1–3.



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saw it—that of a man self-righteous, factious, and defiant of authority. Some of his contemporaries would undoubtedly have agreed with this view of the vicar. On Whitsunday 1616, Clough had allegedly scandalized his congregation by asserting that “‘for the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, he cared not for them all three a rye or brown bread toast’” and dared the bishop to try “‘to stop his mouth.’”27 Similarly in 1620, the Court of High Commission heard testimony that Clough had called the king “a fool … good for nothing but to catch dotterels” and had declared further “that in former times priests did rule kings, but now kings did rule priests, adding further that there were priests before kings and an altar before a crown.”28 If Clough had so little respect for the authorities and for the laws of church and state, he might well be guilty, Oglethorpe implied, of defaming a gentleman and paying witnesses to perjure themselves. Clough’s controversial response to the rush-bearing at Thorner occurred on the first Sunday of August, 1619, when he used his sermon to castigate some of his parishioners for attending the event. Taking as his text, “Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord,”29 Clough allegedly rebuked his parishioners, denigrated the minister who allowed it, impugned the people of Thorner who presented it, and, most important, bluntly criticized King James I for commanding people “to breake the saboath” and for making “lawes against Godes lawes in giuing tolleration to those May games and rush-bearinges.” Oglethorpe claimed that Clough also went on to explain why the king acted as he did: “he (meaning your Maiestie) did it for playne feare for the saftie of his bodie being in his progresse.” William Clough’s reaction to the rush-bearing at Thorner demonstrated, according to Oglethorpe, the vicar’s “seditious disposition”30 and his contempt for the king’s laws, specifically those articulated in King James I’s Book of Sports, to which the reference to the royal progress alludes. King James first issued the Book of Sports during his return journey from Scotland in 1617.31 He did so during his visit to Gerard’s Bromley in Staffordshire, but events in Lancashire occasioned its release. In 1616 the Judges of the Assize there had issued an order forbidding festive customs and forms of recreation “vpon anie saoth daie in any parte of the daie.”32 However, as the king progressed through Lancashire, he heard, as he says in the preamble to the Book of Sports, “with Our owne Eares … the generall complaint of Our people, that they were barred from all lawfull Recreation, and excercise vpon the Sundayes afternoone, after the ending of all Diuine Seruice.”33 The king was sympathetic to their cause, and when he stayed at Hoghton Tower in August 1617, he summoned Edward Bromley, the judge who signed the repressive Assize order, to answer for his actions and, presumably, to rebuke him. To further dramatize his sup27  Quoted by Cressy, Dangerous Talk, 111.

28  Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 187, items 41 and 47. 29  Leviticus 19:30, Holy Bible, 118.

30  TNA, Court of Star Chamber: STAC8/225/30 [Thorner], “Oglethorpe v. Clough,” memb. 3. 31  See REED: Lancashire, 229–31, for this first version.

32  REED: Lancashire, 228.

33  James I, Book of Sports, 366.

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port for “honest recreation,” King James witnessed as part of his entertainment there the performance of “a rush-bearing and pipeing,”34 a show that put a spotlight on a distinctive aspect of local culture as part of an entertainment honouring a visiting monarch. Most important of course, King James went on to protect and encourage rush-bearings and other traditional festive activities in his Book of Sports, which focused on Lancashire when issued in 1617, but extended its scope to the realm when published in 1618. The Book of Sports was both a rebuke to Puritans and other extremists who would ban traditional customs on Sundays and a royal endorsement of the value of such recreations. Given that twofold aspect of the book, which the king’s preface made explicit, some people read it as a licence for the performance of traditional forms of festivity. To those who read the Book of Sports in this way, the day of the week, the time of the day, the manner of the festivity were of little concern because they felt they had royal authority to perform their traditional local customs as they had done in the past. But opponents of such pastimes read it—closely and more accurately—as a document of control, which specified when, where, and how “honest recreations” such as rush-bearings were to be performed and what other activities were forbidden. “Indeed these regulations establish stricter guidelines than most ecclesiastical injunctions and visitation articles.”35 In his answer to Oglethorpe’s charges, Clough offered an alternative version of his homily, representing it as consistent with the king’s dictates. He claimed that, to his “best remembrance,” he had simply explained the “true vse of a Saboth,” spoken against “exercises as hinder divine service,” and warned the congregation: “mistake not yourselves if the kinges of the earth doe allowe lawfull recreacions on the Saboth yett they doe not allowe the prophanacion of the Saboth.”36 Presumably this was the same defence that Clough had used when Edmund Troutbeck, another Bramham parishioner, accused Clough of “vtteringe the very selfe same wordes”37 about the king making laws contrary to God’s laws. A jury impanelled by the king’s Council of the North heard Troutbeck’s charge in December 1619, considered the testimony of witnesses (including William Oglethorpe), and judged the defendant not guilty. Despite this decision, Oglethorpe repeated in his Star Chamber submission the claim that Clough had made these seditious statements. What is most important about the rush-bearing at Thorner is not the event, but its context. The rush-bearing there was one of four that occurred in the wake of the publication of the Book of Sports, which focused and intensified the heated debate about traditional festivity and the proper uses of the Sabbath. The Star Chamber cases that document the others, a rush-bearing at Fewston in 1619 and the two at Leeds (one in 1618, the other in 1619), provide evidence of the violent conflicts occasioned by the rush-bearings and reveal a polarization on religious grounds about such parish customs. All the principal parties to these cases invoke the Book of Sports and all of them testify 34  REED: Lancashire, 146, 147.

35  Parker, The English Sabbath, 139–40.

36  “Oglethorpe v. Clough,” memb. 2.

37  “Oglethorpe v. Clough,” memb. 2: Clough’s phrase emphasizes that he had already answered this specific charge; for Troutbeck’s earlier action, see Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 128, item 13.



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to the extreme antagonism—in words and deeds—between those for and those against convivial parish activities such as rush-bearings. Ironically, King James I’s intervention to protect traditional parish festivities and recreations specified the very grounds on which reformist Protestant forces would resist and try to control, if not to eliminate, them. The rush-bearing at Fewston in July 1619 is a case in point. With respect to this event, it is difficult to exaggerate the rhetorical significance of the Book of Sports to both Thomas Harrison’s bill of complaint and the defendants’ answers. Harrison, husbandman of Fewston, charged Nicholas Smithson, vicar of the village, and his four sons with seditiously railing against, and forcibly impeding, the rush-bearing there. To prove his case, Harrison kept the Book of Sports constantly in view. He devoted nine sentences in the bill of complaint to the rush-bearing, every one of which explicitly referred to the king’s “litle booke,” his “gracious booke of allowance.” He also repeatedly claimed that the rush-bearing in question was, like those in the past, “civill,” “decent,” “honest,” “comely,” “orderly,” and “lawful,” and emphasized that the rush-bearers on this occasion observed “in all things the circumstances and prescript orders signified by your princly direcion in the saide booke.” He even tried to portray an obvious breach of the king’s orders as being in line with them, when he affirmed that the rush-bearing “was donne before the time of devine service & according to your Maiestes orders so prescribed as aforesaid.” The Book of Sports, however, specified—three times in fact—that such recreations were to occur only after all Sunday sermons and services. Harrison’s insistence on the legality and orderliness of the rush-bearing aimed to throw into relief the culpability of Smithson and his associates, who, Harrison alleged, blocked the procession of rush-bearers, tore their rushes from them, and assaulted several of the young people. Nicholas and Reuben Smithson then went further: the vicar railed in the church, his son in the churchyard, against King James and Prince Charles, for being “against the Common wealth” and setting out “bookes contrary to the lawes of god.” To Harrison, the Smithsons had demonstrated their manifest contempt for the king’s Book and his “will and pleasure” therein.38 The answer of Nicholas Smithson responded point by point to Harrison’s allegations and in the same rhetorical terms. He too referred directly to the Book of Sports, incorporated material verbatim, closely paraphrased parts of it, and alluded to its stipulations in almost every sentence. He reminded the court that King James I’s Declaration to his Subjects concerning Lawful Sports “was giuen att his highenes Mannor of Greenwiche the 21th day of May in the 16th yeare of his Maiesties raigne of England &c & of Scotland the 51th.” Smithson’s precision here was typical of his rhetorical strategy: again and again throughout his answer, he aimed to demonstrate his detailed knowledge of the Book of Sports. In general, his rhetorical strategy was to turn a negative into a positive, to take a rebuke of Puritans for their godly attitudes and turn it into a prescription for restraint and order. To him the Book of Sports was an instrument of reform, a means to: prepare & reforme the minds of the said parishioners to a more divine & sacred consideracion of the holie Communion of Christs bodie & blood & sacrament then & there to be

38  “Harrison v. Smithson,” memb. 2.

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ministred vnto them, & to make them vnderstand how irreligiouslie & impiouslie they had erred & offended in theire said former barbarisme, & rudenes.

For that reason, during the service on the Sunday morning when the rush-bearing occurred, he read “his Maiesties book or declaracion verbatim in the hearing of the whole congregacion” and exhorted them “not to offend anie more against his maiesties said declaracion.” Smithson’s allusion to “former barbarisme, and rudenes”39 suggests that he, like many reformist Protestants, considered rush-bearings and other parish customs to be the irreligious remnants of Catholicism. That idea was implicit in King James’s concern in the Book of Sports that banning such pastimes would hinder conversions, because “their Priests” would persuade them “that no honest mirth or recreation is lawfull or tollerable in Our Religion, which cannot but breed a great discontentment in Our peoples hearts, especially of such as are peraduenture vpon the point of turning.”40 Whether a Papist practice or not, the rush-bearing at Fewston in 1619 certainly did offend against the king’s orders. If Smithson’s testimony is to be trusted, after the young women strewed their rushes throughout the church: diuers & sundrie of the said young men in their Companie did then & there in thesaid Church in verie prophane & irreligious manner climbe vppon thesaid Communion table (being furnished with bread wine & other sacramentall rights & preparacion as aforesaid) & did wilfullie ouerthrowe the communion cupp & other things that were laid vppon the same table and standing with theire feete, & shoes vppon the said table, & Cloth did then & there sticke & sett vppon some places ouer, vppon, & about the said table certaine things commonly called toppinells which are peeces of Wood adorned & decked with gold rings siluering Iewells scarffes, & other such things. All which was then & there vnlawfullie donn by thesaid delinquents before the beginning of divine service as aforesaid which is contrarie to the words & meaning of his maiesties said book.41

These bold, sacrilegeous actions of the young men of Fewston seem to be a direct assault on the communion liturgy itself, as if they considered Nicholas Smithson’s ritual to offend against the laws of the church and the authority of the king. Perhaps they, like Robert Rodes in Aldborough in 1595, saw their actions as a justifiable defence of the realm and the church against offensive innovation, but they clearly went well beyond the honest, lawful recreation endorsed by the king. Similar ideo­logical and physical conflict marred the rush-bearings at Leeds in 1618 and 1619, events recorded in the Star Chamber case of “Metcalfe and Jackson v. Cooke, Hill, Jeffrey, Sykes and others.” John Metcalfe, a leading cloth merchant and burgess of Leeds, had supported the controversial appointment of Alexander Cooke to succeed his brother, Robert Cooke, as vicar of Leeds after he died in 1615. Since becoming vicar in 1590, Robert Cooke had worked to consolidate the strength of Puritanism within the parish of Leeds. Alexander Cooke, not only Robert’s brother but also, after 1604, his curate, seems to have been even more extreme in his dedication to the cause of Protestant reform. He was a relentless, trenchant foe of Roman Catholicism, as his published 39  “Harrison v. Smithson,” memb. 1.

40  James I, Book of Sports, 366.

41  “Harrison v. Smithson,” memb. 1.



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works Pope Joan (1610), Work for a Mass-priest (1617), and its three sequels clearly demonstrate. But for Metcalfe, Cooke went too far, objecting to the celebration of Christmas in December, denying communion to those kneeling, opposing the use of wedding rings, and failing to bury the dead in accordance with the rites of the established church. The rush-bearings at Leeds became entangled in this religious disagreement between those (such as Metcalfe) committed to “the present gouernement of the Church of England, and the Lawes and statutes ordayned and established for the preseruacion confirmacion of the same” and those (such as Cooke, according to Metcalfe) who aimed “to advance some imaginarie gouernement, and to represse, defame, despoyle, abandon and abollish” the existing institution.42 The conflict between Cooke and Metcalfe was not only ideo­logical, but also personal. Animosity between Alexander Cooke and John Metcalfe intensified the ideo­logical conflict over the rush-bearings at Leeds. In his answer to the bill of complaint, Cooke claimed that Metcalfe was the person who organized the rush-bearings in order “to vex & grieue this defendant by their disorders.”43 For his part, Metcalfe blamed Cooke and his confederates for a libellous song that reminded people of Metcalfe’s use of the office of deputy bailiff to misappropriate public funds that should have alleviated the plight of the poor and mocked him as the town bull, the “bellowing bull” who “hath all his life, sought to defloure both Maid and wife.”44 These personal emotions and religious differences made the rush-bearings of Leeds the most violent in Yorkshire. John Metcalfe complained to the Court of Star Chamber that Alexander Cooke had preached against traditional parish festivities, directed others of his faction to forcibly withstand them, and personally assaulted and injured innocent participants in a rushbearing. The cornerstone of Metcalfe’s case with respect to the rush-bearings at Leeds was, again, the king’s expressed support for honest, lawful recreations in the Book of Sports. Metcalfe alluded to it as he began to describe Cooke’s seditious, factious opposition to rush-bearings, this charge being the last of twelve that he compiled to demonstrate the vicar’s contempt for the canons of the Church of England and the laws of the realm. When Metcalfe turned his attention to the Leeds rush-bearings, he took it for granted that the king’s support for these activities included not just the procession to the parish church and the strewing of rushes there, but also the “Musick and other decent shows” that were, for him and others, the normal parts of this form of recreation that the king had licensed. He emphasized that what the rush-bearers did in 1618, and tried to do in 1619, was what they had always done; that is, distribute the rushes and decorate the church in the morning, and then recreate themselves with music, dancing presumably, and other entertainments afterwards. On July 25, 1618, the procession to the church and the distribution of rushes occurred peacefully, but Metcalfe complained that when the young people and other parishioners were “decentlie recreating themselves” early in the afternoon, a group of Cooke’s supporters assembled, armed themselves, and then 42  “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 3.

43  “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 2. 44  “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 3.

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attacked “the drummers Pipers and other Musitions and cut in peeces their drummes pipes and other instrumentes of Musick, cast them vnder their feete and breake them in peeces.” The physical assault led to a verbal one, as Cooke’s faction called those engaged in the festivities “Rogues, Rascalls, whores and whore Masters and such like.”45 On August 24, 1619, Metcalfe alleged that Cooke and his allies attacked not only the conviviality that followed the rush-bearing, but the rush-bearing itself. On that morning Cooke supposedly broke with his normal practice: he arrived at the church at seven to stop the young men ringing the bells, beat a bystander there, then ordered his curate to begin the reading of the divine service, after which Cooke himself “continewed prayer and sermon” throughout the whole morning “with purpose of prevention and not of anie devotion.” As a result, the young people could not carry their rushes to the church when they normally would have done so. When they did proceed with the rush-bearing after dinner, they found that Cooke had locked the main door of the church, and when they found a means of entry, they faced the vicar in the pulpit ordering parishioners “to pull downe the Rushes and not to suffer the servantes that bore them as the manner is to carry them to their Masters Pewes.” Frustrated in his attempt to stop the rush-bearers and undo their work, he angrily left for his home, beating some children, including those with banners bearing the images of King James and Prince Charles, along the way. According to the plaintiffs, rush-bearings themselves were anathema to the godly Cooke. He had reviled them in sermons as “impious ffooleries and Villanies” and preached that “whosoeuer did by coullor of your Maiesties tolleration exercise these sportes might well saue their Neckes from the halter, but could neuer saue their soules from the hell fyre.”46 Alexander Cooke seems to have been one of those “Puritanes & precise people” to whom King James explicitly directed his rebuke in the Book of Sports. 47 In his answer of course, Cooke provided a very different version of events. He denied that he had used his sermons to revile the king’s toleration of traditional sports, pleaded ignorance of any injuries to rush-bearers or bystanders, and argued that some of the violence was self-defensive and some of it justifiable because the person he cudgelled was his own servant. He explained the protracted services and sermons on the days of the rush-bearings as consequences of a funeral in one case, a marriage in another. And like Nicholas Smithson, vicar of Fewston, Cooke used the Book of Sports in his own defence by enumerating ways in which the rush-bearings in question contravened the king’s prescriptions with respect to the timing of the events, the attendance of people from outside the parish, the inclusion of disguised performers of suggestive shows, and the lack of decent, civil, lawful behaviour. This public disorder was an essential element of the arguments of both Metcalfe and Cooke. Metcalfe, at the beginning of his submission regarding the Leeds rush-bearings, asserted that Cooke deliberately aimed “to stirre vpp vnlawfull vproares and dissensions amongst the people and Parrishioners of the said parrish of Leedes and to drawe them into vnlawfull Ryott, force and faction one 45  “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 3.

46  “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 3. 47  James I, Book of Sports, 366.



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against another.”48 Understandably, Cooke did not admit that fomenting conflict was his intention, but he did turn the violent discord to account. In a carefully nuanced point at the end of his answer, Cooke: professed he would not argue whether such sports were lawfull or noe because his Maiestie had approued them/ But this defendant confesseth that he sayd if his Maiestie had knowne the disorders that fell out at such meetings that he this defendant was persuaded his Maiestie would not haue thought them convenient in such a towne as the said towne of Leedes is.49

In effect, Cooke calls for a ban on rush-bearings, not in general, nor as a matter of principle, nor as a challenge to the Book of Sports, but certainly as a prudent measure in a volatile town like “the said towne of Leedes,” where personal animosities and religious debates quickly led to violence, riot, and disorder on occasions of festive parish gatherings. All the West Riding rush-bearings that we have examined so far cast them in a rather negative light. That is understandable since the evidence we have of them is found in court documents recording cases of questionable personal behaviour and public discord. Unfortunately, given the chance survival of records, the records of the Yorkshire West Riding do not include a body of churchwardens’ accounts, as the records of Cheshire and Lancashire do. For those counties, we have evidence of how highly parishes valued rushbearings: they fined women who failed to provide rushes; hired musicians to lead the procession; rewarded the rush-bearers with tallow, gunpowder, or financial support; and helped other parishes by lending them banners for their processions. The records of the West Riding are not completely lacking in such evidence of support for rushbearings and other traditional forms of festivity. We find it in the records of the gentry however. In July 8, 1620, Sir Henry Slingsby of Scriven, near Knaresborough, donated the remarkable sum of ten shillings—more than any parish in Cheshire or Lancashire spent on a rush-bearing— “to give to the younge folkes of Screvine towardes their Reishbearringe.” Two weeks later, he gave another twelve pence “to the boy at his goinge to knarsborough to a Rishbearinge.”50 Similarly, the commonplace book of Richard Shann of Methley registers not only his personal enthusiasm for a rush-bearing there in 1614, but also parish support for the festive custom. His commonplace book includes a “survaie and measure of all the whole groundes within the Manner of Methley,” which Shann says he copied in 1611. Among the various entries is “One peece of meadowe belonginge to the Clarke for strowinge greene Russhes in the Church vpon Whitsondaie.” The records of rush-bearings in other counties indicate how much rushes cost, who was to supply them, and how they were transported, but none specifies the local source of them. The records of Methley are unique in identifying the specific property for growing the parish’s rushes, a provision that bespeaks its commitment to future performances of the traditional festive custom. 48  “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 3.

49  “Metcalfe v. Cooke,” memb. 2.

50  Leeds Uni­ver­sity, Brotherton Library YAS DD56/J/3/4: Slingsby Papers, fols. 99v and 100v.

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Richard Shann’s support for rush-bearings was also quite personal. Shann was almost certainly a “church papist,” one of those who conformed outwardly to what the Church of England required, but “nevertheless continued to adhere tenaciously and instinctively to the faith in which they had been baptised, to the Catholicism of their ancestors.”51 Although he seemed to have been an upstanding member of Methley parish throughout his life, his son completed his father’s chrono­logy with the note: “he died a Roman Catholic.” Richard Shann may have valued rush-bearings as an old custom associated with the old faith, just as he valued both Methley’s Whitson play, Cannimore and Lionley, which occupied four days during Whitsun week, and the Catholic Christmas carols that he included in his collection of “Pretie Songes”52 at the end of his commonplace book. Shann took particular delight in the rush-bearing of 1614, primarily it seems, because his daughter was one of the performers. On Tuesday in the same week that family, friends, and neighbours performed Cannimore and Lionley: There was allso A Rush bearinge … with A great companie of verie fayre Titopps as we call them, most richlie bewtefied with Skarves and other silkes.

Vpon whitsonn even beinge the xjth of Iune 1614 my doughter Ann was verie sicke by reason of A desinesse that was in hir heade, but god be prased she did recover soone after, for she went to the church with the Rush bearinge.53

This brief entry suggests that some of the young women who carried rushes to the parish church were in their late teens, for Ann Shann, born June 25, 1595, was just two weeks shy of her nineteenth birthday. Shann’s note is also unique in registering in the context of a rush-bearing the personal connection between a father and his daughter, an audience member and a performer. Presumably she was happy to play her part with other young women in the cultural life of her parish, and he was proud to see her among the “fayre Titopps” who connected the present parish to its past. Methley was less than ten miles from Leeds, but the rush-bearing there in 1614 seems a world away from those at Leeds where rush-bearings became a site for religious debate, violent confrontations, and public disorder. Perhaps there were many more rush-bearings like those at Methley, Scriven, and Knaresborough, rush-bearings that brought the parish community together without sparking any controversy or conflict to make the pastime worth recording. For eight of the eleven West Riding rush-bearings however, we still must rely on legal records, and these documents represent rush-bearings as occasions of questionable clerical and lay behaviour, principled disagreements about religious issues, and sometimes violent social discord. Seen by some advocates of religious reform as a superstitious remnant of Catholicism, cherished by others as a valuable part of parish life consistent with the constitutions and rites of the Church of England, rush-bearings focused Sabbatarian debates of the moment and offered glimpses of larger political and religious forces shaping the nation. 51  Walsham, Church Papists, 1.

52  Shann, “Commonplace Book,” fols. 19v, 86, 71–71v, 133–53v. See Jensen, “‘Honest mirth’,” 224–30, regarding these songs. 53  Shann, “Commonplace Book,” fol. 71v.

Chapter 11

BOY BISHOPS IN MEDI­EVAL DURHAM JOHN McKINNELL AND MARK CHAMBERS Nisi conversi fueritis, et efficiamini sicut parvuli, non intrabitis in regnum celorum (Matt. 18:3)

Christ’s admonition to his disciples from Matthew 18:3 appears as the opening of the Gloucester boy bishop’s sermon in 1558. The sermon was apparently penned by the cathedral’s almoner, Richard Ramsey, who as a long-serving member of the monastic community would have had first-hand experience of the annual ceremony, which in this case took place on Holy Innocents’ Day, December 28.1 Ramsey undoubtedly knew the custom well and was able to compose the speech from a boy’s own point of view. A young chorister named John Stubs had been chosen episcopus puerilis for the occasion, a position usually bestowed by the boy’s fellow choristers and ratified by the cathedral’s canons. Stubs would have been both excited and honoured at being elected: becoming the “boy bishop” promised not only respect from his peers and the wider community but usually came with a pecuniary reward. Most English boy bishop ceremonies took place either on the Feast of St. Nicholas (December 6), on Holy Innocents’ day (December 28) or some combination of the two, and they marked a high point in that liturgical season of social inversion around Christmas, with “last becoming first” as the youth of the community were granted limited mastery over their adult brethren: “Except yow will be convertyd, and made lyke unto lytill childern”—i.e., “made more like us,” Stubs words would have reminded them—“yow shall not entre in to the kyngdom of heaven.”2 For centuries a traditional part of the Christmas season in cathedrals and colleges across England, the Gloucester boy bishop ceremony of 1558 came towards the end of that brief return of such customs under Catholic Queen Mary (reigned 1553–1558). Mary herself apparently hosted the St. Paul’s boy bishop in St. James’s Palace at Christ1  Warren W. Wooden disputes Ramsey’s ultimate authorship (Children’s Literature of the English Renaissance, 31–38). Ramsey’s sermon is printed in Nichols, ed., Two Sermons, 14–29. 2  Nichols, ed., Two Sermons, 14.

Dr. Mark Chambers is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of English Studies and IMEMS, Durham University, and co-editor of the REED volume for County Durham. Prof. John McKinnell is Emeritus Professor of Medi­eval Literature in the Department of English Studies and IMEMS, Durham Uni­ver­sity, and co-editor of the Records of Early English Drama volume for County Durham; until 2019 he was Principal Investigator of the research project REED N-E.

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mastide 1555.3 However, the return of such colourful ceremonies was only temporary. They had been prohibited by royal edict in 1541 following Henry VIII’s turn to Protestantism, and would be suppressed again under Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603).4 Like the so-called “Feast of Fools” and other socially permissive seasonal events with liturgical features,5 boy bishop ceremonies frequently drew censure and did not ultimately survive the restrictions imposed by Protestant ideo­logy. Henry VIII’s edict of July 22, 1541 rails against the “dyvers and many superstitions and chyldysh obseruances” associated with the festivities, when “children” like Stubs and his mates would be “strangelie decked and apparayled to counterfeit priestes, bishoppes, and women.”6 The edict further derides the custom’s accompanying perambulations, when the boys would be “ledde with songes and daunces from house to house, blessing the people and gathering of money; and boyes do singe masse and preache in the pulpit”; it sought to put a stop to such “vnfittinge and inconuenient vsages” and “superstitious obseruations”.7 As we shall see, this proscription may not have had any effect in Durham, where boy bishop ceremonies seem to have been discontinued well before Henry’s reign. The major difference between Durham’s medi­eval boy bishop ceremonies and those elsewhere, however, is that at some point in the fourteenth century they were apparently dissociated from Christmastide and any connection with the traditional feasts of St. Nicholas and the Holy Innocents. In fact, and as befitted a semiautonomous urban spiritual centre of the later medi­eval period, Durham seems to have adapted aspects of the popular custom to suit particular local circumstances.

Literature Review

The history of the boy bishop ceremony has been well rehearsed in the literature. The accounts in the several editions of John Brand’s Popular Antiquities (1813, 1841, etc.) were followed by Edward Rimbault’s influential account for the Camden Society in 1875,8 but both are primarily concerned with the English material. In his ambitious study The Mediæval Stage (1903), E. K. Chambers attempted to situate all of the then-known English evidence within a wider European context.9 A number of important early studies followed, including an article on the “episcopus puerorum” by C. H. Evelyn-White for the Journal of the British Archaeo­logical Association in 1905, and W. C. Meller’s The Boy Bishop and other Essays in 1923.10 More recently (1975), in an article for Moreana, 3  See Rimbault’s introduction to Nichols, ed., Two Sermons, xxii-xxiii. 4  Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:336–71 at 366–67.

5  See Max Harris’ excellent study Sacred Folly, especially 172–80.

6  Printed in Hampson, ed., Medii Ævi Kalendarium, 1:61; also discussed in Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:366–7. 7  Hampson, Medii Ævi Kalendarium, 1:61.

8  Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, 1:228ff. and 295–96, and Rimbault’s introduction to Nichols, ed., Two Sermons, i-xxxii. 9  Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:336–71.

10  Evelyn-White, “The Boy Bishop (episcopus puerorum) in Medi­eval England,” 30–48, 231–56, and



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Richard DeMolen looks specifically at evidence for the Tudor boy bishops and the “Pueri Christi Imitatio,” discussing the religious contexts of the three extant boy bishop sermons.11 In subsequent scholarship, the ceremony is often treated only in passing or as part of a wider survey of medi­eval ceremonial culture—notably in Ronald Hutton’s The Stations of the Sun (1996), Eamonn Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars (1992, 2005), and Clifford Davidson’s Festivals and Plays in Late Medi­eval Britain (2007).12 Michael Milway provides a useful reassessment of the evidence in “Boy Bishops in Early Modern Europe: Ritual, Myth, and Reality” (2000), and in a recent (2011) study of the so-called “Feast of Fools,” Max Harris helpfully distinguishes the English boy bishop tradition from the apparently less prevalent festum folorum or festum stultorum, for which there is relatively scant but intriguing English evidence.13 It is a pity, however, that the only full-length modern work on the boy bishop tradition, Neil Mackenzie’s The Medi­eval Boy Bishops (2012), contains a number of inaccuracies and anachronisms. The introduction opines, for example: Perhaps the greatest surprise to those studying the Boy Bishop is that, in England at least, he was so quickly forgotten. That such important, vibrant, colourful ceremonies which provided one of the most impressive focuses of the Christmas season could have faded from the national memory in less than a century after their final suppression is perhaps an indication of how quickly and ruthlessly the new Protestantism erased the memory of the Old Religion.14

Many of these characteristics are suggested in our opening sketch, but given the historical controversy surrounding such ceremonies and the context of the English reformers’ attitudes towards anything that might be considered idolatrous or otherwise worthy of censure, it is far from surprising that “the new Protestantism” would wish to suppress such ceremonies—the derogatory wording of Henry VIII’s edict being a case in point.15 Moreover, the notion of a “national memory” is problematic with regard to the medi­eval period; it obscures the reality of the varied regional, cultural, and community-based identities of the pre-modern era.16 Finally, Mackenzie’s overview fails to acknowledge local variation, particularly seasonal variation such as we find in the Durham evidence. As we shall see, the records for boy bishops in Durham suggest that the city and its monastery adapted this widespread socio-religious custom to suit particular local circumstances. For the boys of the community of St. Cuthbert, there was indeed a “Durham difference.” Meller, The Boy Bishop and other Essays, 3–18. 11  DeMolen, “Pueri Christi Imitatio,” 17–29.

12  Hutton, The Stations of the Sun, 100ff; Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 13–14, 430–31, 482; Davidson, Festivals and Plays in Late Medi­eval Britain, 4–10. 13  Milway, “Boy Bishops in Early Modern Europe,” 80–90; Harris, Sacred Folly, 172–80. 14  Mackenzie, The Medi­eval Boy Bishops, xiii.

15  Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 430–31.

16  For discussion of regional identity in the medi­eval northeast, see Holford, King and Liddy, “North-East England in the Late Middle Ages,” 27–48.

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The Ceremony in the Northeast

A number of institutions and religious houses in what we now call the northeast of England enjoyed seasonal boy bishop ceremonies. There is a very early and rare record in a payment made by Edward I for a boy bishop at Heaton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for the Feast of St. Nicholas in 1299: Septimo die Decembris cuidem episcopo puerorum dicenti vesperis de Sancto Nicholae coram Rege in capella sua apud Heton juxta Novum Castrum super Tynam, et quibusdam pueris venientibus et cantantibus cum espiscopo predicto de elemosina ipsius Regis per manus Domini Henrici Elemosinar’ participantis denarios inter pueros predictos – 40 [s].17

On the seventh day of December, [given] to a certain boy bishop who recited the vespers of St. Nicholas before the King in his chapel at Heaton near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and to those boys who came and sang with the said bishop, from alms of the King himself by the hand of Lord Henry, Almoner, the money [being divided] between the said boys participating – forty shillings.

So here is quite early evidence from the medi­eval “northeast” of some manner of boy bishop ceremony. In this case, the bishop and his youthful retinue are associated with the Feast of St. Nicholas, which is common elsewhere; they were probably attached to the chapel in Heaton Castle (built by Adam of Jesmond, Sheriff of Newcastle, ca. 1267), rather than to a cathedral or a parish church.18 An even earlier record of a boy bishop in England comes from the York Minster Statute Book for 1220–25. In a passage on the duties of the treasurer, there is an order to prepare the “stars and all pertaining to them” (“stellas cum omnibus ad illas pertinencibus”) for a Nativity ceremony or play, and to gather “rushes” (“cipros”) for the same, some of which were apparently to be used by future boy bishops (“quos inueniet episcopus puerorum futurorum”), although the reference is unclear.19 Evidence from York also provides one of the most detailed records of a progress of a boy bishop from England. A compotus of 1396, headed “Compotus Nicholay de Newerk custodis bonorum Johanis de Cave Episcopi Innocencium […]” (“The account of Nicholas of Newark, guardian of the property of John de Cave, boy bishop…”),20 includes not only charitable donations given by various dignitaries, but also outgoing expenses arising from performances on December 23. These include expenses for clothing and vestments for John, for fuel (torches, sea-coal, etc.), as well as for the dinner feasts on the eve of Holy Innocents’ and on the day itself. The account also gives details of the perambulations of the boy bishop’s entourage around York in the weeks that follow the ceremony. There are further expenses listed for the octave of Holy Innocents’ (January 4) when the boy bishop and his retinue travelled to Kexby (to the house of Sir Thomas Utrecth). Then 17  Liber Quotidianus, 25.

18  https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1016633.

19  REED: York, 1; transl. 687; Chambers suggests fatuorum for futuorum (Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:357).

20  Printed as an appendix in Nichols, Two Sermons, 31–34; what follows is summarized from Nichols. Also cf. Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:357.



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on January 7, the “Feast of St. William,” the party embarked on its longest perambulation around Yorkshire, visiting Kirkham Priory, Malton Priory, the Countess of Northumberland’s house at Leconfield, Bridlington, Watton Priory, Bainton, Beverley, Meaux Priory, Ferriby, Drax Priory, Selby Abbey, Pontefract Priory, Nostell Priory, Monk Bretton, Lady Marmion at Tanfield, Lady Darcy “The Lady of Harlsay,” Helmsley Castle, Rievaulx Abbey, Byland Abbey, Newburgh Priory, Marton Priory, and finally returning to York on Saturday, January 20. This itinerary would imply some punishing distances: approximately 286 miles (over 450km) travelled in around fourteen days, or some twenty miles per day, with the young bishop’s “liturgical” and/or solicitation duties performed at over twenty locations, so that many of the stops must have been quite brief. Also notable is the number of prominent women contributing to the bishop and his mission: the Countess of Northumberland, Maud Lucy (ca. 1350–1398, the second wife of the first earl, Henry Percy) gave the most generous gift of 20 shillings and a gold ring.21 The account concludes with the suggestion that a boy bishop’s progress might normally last until the Feast of the Purification on February 2 (as it did elsewhere), but on this occasion it ended early. Whilst the outgoing expense for the progress was considerable, the account shows over forty shillings remaining apparently “for the use of the [boy] bishop.” According to Chambers this represents only a small proportion of the total receipts.22 With regard to Durham, it is impossible to know from the surviving evidence the perambulatory circuit made by any of Durham’s boy bishops, but what survives from York suggests that it might well have included the households of nobility, the priory’s manor houses and/ or regional religious establishments. The last of these would necessarily be limited, as Durham Priory seems to have discouraged other male monastic houses in the Palatinate: the house of Augustinian canons at Baxter Wood lasted only from 1180 to 1196 before being taken over by Durham, with its lands being allotted to Durham’s cell at Finchale;23 Barnard Castle’s community of Augustinian friars seems to have lasted only for a few years from 1381;24 and the Premonstratensian houses at Egglestone on the Tees and Blanchland on the Derwent, neither of them very prosperous, were both on the far side of rivers, just outside the Palatinate.25 There was a Benedictine nunnery at Neasham from 1156 until the Dissolution, as well as a house of Franciscan friars, founded in 21  Nichols, Two Sermons, 31–32. Lady Marmion (“domina de Marmeon”) was Elizabeth Grey (ca. 1363–1427), wife of Sir Henry Fitz Hugh; Lady Darcy (the “domina de Harlsay”) was almost certainly Elizabeth Darcy (née Grey, 1356–1412), wife of Phillip, third Baron Darcy; see VCH: York North Riding, 1:384–89; Verduyn, ed., “Darcy family, gentry,” ODNB Online, September 23, 2004 at https:// www-oxforddnb-com.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/ odnb-9780198614128-e-54518. 22  Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:357; Rimbault’s introduction to Nichols, Two Sermons, xv.

23  VCH: County Durham, 2:109. 24  VCH: County Durham, 2:111.

25  https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/egglestone-abbey/history; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchland-Abbey.

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Durham 1239 but apparently moved to Hartlepool in 1240.26 As one of these catered for women and the other for a type of vocation that a Benedictine house could not accommodate, neither could be seen as a potential rival to St. Cuthbert’s great Cathedral Priory in Durham. It is possible that the Durham boy bishops’ progresses could have raised a considerable amount of money for the boys and their community, as evidence from York suggests for that city’s tradition, but for Durham the comparable evidence is limited. The records from York also provide incidental evidence about the possible quality and manner of the boy to be chosen as bishop: in an entry in the York Chapter Register for December 2, 1367, there is a stipulation that the “bishop of the boys” should be the boy who has served longest, “provided, nevertheless, that he is sufficiently handsome in person [dum tamen competenter sit corpore formosus];27 and that any election otherwise should not be valid.”28 There was clearly some attempt at “quality control” and to channel the boys’ election. A fifteenth century liturgical text, the York Missal, also provides substantial and detailed evidence of how the boy bishop ceremonies at York were celebrated.29 There is little room in the current chapter to treat these details at any length, but they include, for example, the titles and position of the bishop and his “officials” as well as the various rites they performed. Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire also leaves us valuable evidence for boy bishops in the later-medi­eval North-East. In the Household Book of the Fifth Earl of North­umberland, Henry Algernon Percy (1478–1527), the earl is said to give by annual custom the sum of twenty shillings to the “Barne-Bishop of Beverlay” on those occasions when the boy called at the earl’s house at Leconfield.30 We may presume a sixteenth-century date for most examples of the earl’s annual alms-giving, much later than the Durham evidence discussed below, but he was simply carrying out the custom of hosting a local boy bishop at the family’s Leconfield residence, just as his great-great-great grandfather’s second wife, the Countess Lady Lucy, had done back in January 1396. Overall, however, and as colourful as this evidence from other major centres of activity in the North-East may be, it can only suggest some possibilities for the activities of the Durham boy bishops. As we shall see, the extant evidence points clearly to a “Durham difference,” which must have included an effect on the liturgical content of the ceremonies, as well as on any festivities, processions or progresses which the boy bishop may have carried out.

26  VCH: County Durham, 2:106–8 and 109–10.

27  Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:356.

28  Rimbault’s introduction to Nichols, ed., Two Sermons, xvi.

29  Henderson, ed., Missale ad Usum Insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis, 1:23–25.

30  Thomas Percy, ed., The Regulations and Establishment of the Household, 340. The same amount is given to the “Barne-bishop” of York. The term “Barne-Bishop” is also used with reference to a cope in an inventory from Lincoln in 1536 (Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:358).



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As noted above, Gloucester’s almoner, Richard Ramsey, took charge of and probably composed the boy bishop’s sermon for the cathedral’s 1553 ceremony. This is unsurprising, as we would expect the almonry to be a focal point of the ceremonies, since it was the office responsible for charitable collection and distribution and for running a school for “deserving” boys. The almonry- or boy bishop of Durham was chosen from among the children of the Almonry School, founded around 1338,31 whose schoolroom was next to the Abbey Gate, and hundreds of contributions towards the cost of the custom are recorded in the accounts of officials of the cathedral priory and its cells. As discussed above, in most other places the boy bishop ceremony took place either on St. Nicholas’s Day (December 6) or on Holy Innocents’ Day (December 28),32 and it may have been held on St. Nicholas’s Day when it was first instituted at Durham. A damaged entry in the account of the Prior of Holy Island for 1342–43 reads: Item liberati Clericis sancti Nicholai – iij…33 Item: paid to St. Nicholas’s clerks – 3…

The partially preserved sum may have been three shillings and fourpence – more than is paid to the boy bishop in later Holy Island accounts, but the same as the usual payment from the Prior of Finchale. The boys of the Almonry School are called clerici in the Pittington Manorial Account for 1376–77, where they receive a small allowance of ale in return for mowing or spreading hay: Jn seruisia empta et data Clericis Elemosinarie pro operacione eisdem vna vice – iij.d.34

In ale bought for and given to the clerks of the Almonry for work done by them on one occasion – threepence.

If they might sometimes alternatively be called clerici Sancti Nicholai, a ceremony involving them may have taken place on the feast day of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children,35 and Mill cites two early-sixteenth-century Scottish examples of boy bishops being called “St. Nicholas’s Bishops.”36 31  For the building of the Almonry School, see Crosby, Durham Cathedral Choristers, 4n3. Bowers, Educational Provision and Policy in a Late Medi­eval Town, 16n3 suggests that the school was “apparently established during the latter half of the year 1348”. Crosby (10) gives the same date, but their only evidence for it is the almonry bishop payment in the hostiller’s account for 1348–49 (DCD Hos. acs. 1348–49), which they assume refers to a ceremony on St. Nicholas’s Day, December 6, 1348; both were apparently unaware of the 1346–47 payment from the Prior of Lytham (DCD Lyth. acs. 1346–47). 32  Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:369–71.

33  DCD HIs. acs. 1342–43, memb. 4r. Raine (Prospectus, 89) translates this entry and asserts that it is an almonry bishop payment, though he dates it to 1346–47. 34  DCD Pitt. acs. 1376–77, memb. 1r.

35  Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 292–93.

36  Royal payments in 1501 and 1502 to the “Sanct Nicholais beschops” of Cupar and Linlithgow (Mill, Mediæval Plays in Scotland, 317–19); further, see Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1:336–71.

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The Holy Island payment in 1342–43 may be the earliest surviving example of the expression “St. Nicholas’s clerks,” whose original sense was probably “poor clerics without a benefice”; it later acquired the comic sense “highwaymen,” although that meaning is clearly not relevant here. From 1278–79 until the late fourteenth century, most Durham bursars’ accounts include “customary alms” to clerics for singing the Psalter on All Souls’ Day, and in 1337–38, 1338–39, and 1354–55 this payment is switched to St. Nicholas’s Day.37 It is therefore possible that the item in the 1342–43 Holy Island account has no connection with the boy bishop custom but refers to a payment to unbeneficed clergy for singing the psalms. The earliest record which certainly refers to the almonry bishop of Durham appears in the Prior of Lytham’s account—from the daughter cell at Lytham in the far west of Lancashire38—for 1346–47 (DCD Lyth. acs. 1346–47). Whichever feast the custom was attached to when it was first introduced in Durham, it very soon moved to a date in early summer. One indication of this can be seen in several accounts for periods shorter than a full year which include contributions to the almonry bishop but do not cover the month of December. The earliest of these is the Hostiller’s account for 1355 (DCD Hos. acs. 1355), which covers only the period from the Octave of Easter (April 12) to Ascension Day (May 14). The most extreme example, however, is the Hostiller’s account for 1358 (DCD Hos. acs. 1358), which runs for a period of only eleven days, from Ascension (May 10) to Pentecost (May 20). Other examples can be seen in the following accounts: – Hostiller 1360 (DCD Hos. acs. 1360) (Monday after Ascension – Michaelmas), – Sacrist 1363 (DCD Sacr. acs. 1363) (Monday after Ascension – eve of St. Margaret of Antioch, July 19),

– Prior of Finchale 1367 (DCD Finc. acs. 1367) (Monday after Ascension – Assumption, August 16),

– Bursar 1368 (DCD Bur. acs. 1368) (Easter – Martinmas, November 11), – Almoner 1373 (DCD Alm. acs. 1373) (May 30 – July 11),

– Hostiller 1395 (DCD Hos. acs. 1395) (Pentecost – Michaelmas),

– Master of Jarrow 1408 (DCD Jar. acs. 1408) (Ascension – St. Faith, October 6), – Master of Jarrow 1413 (DCD Jar. acs. 1413) (St. Peter in cathedra, February 22 – Ascension),

– Chamberlain 1414 (DCD Cham. acs. 1414) (Monday after Ascension – St. Benedict, July 11),

– Prior of Finchale 1451 (DCD Finc. acs. 1451) (February 15 – Pentecost).

The one period included in or close to all these terminal dates is the season around the feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost. In the early years of the fifteenth century the Hostiller’s account normally begins at Pentecost and closes on the Monday after Ascension Day, with a six-day gap before 37  DCD Burs. acs. 1337–38, 1338–39 and 1354–55.

38  See REED: Lancashire, xxxiii.



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the beginning of the next account. These terminal dates are clearly approximate, so that expenses incurred around this time of year might be recorded either for the year past or for the one that was just beginning, possibly depending on how promptly reimbursement was claimed. The Hostiller’s account for 1405–6, which begins from about June 7, 1405, records: Item Episcopo Elemosinarie nichil quia non erat propter guerras eo tempore.

Item, to the Almonry Bishop nothing, because it did not take place because of the wars at that time.” (DCD Hos. acs. 1405–6)39

This is supported by a cancelled payment in the Chamberlain’s account for 1404–5, which ends around June 1 (or about June 7, allowing for the six-day gap noted above). The accounts of the Almoner, Bursar, and Master of Jarrow for 1404–5 do not include any payment for the almonry bishop; that of the Prior of Finchale includes it, but only as part of a “holdall” entry covering various payments whose wording is copied mechanically from the previous year.40 The only military campaign in the North of England in 1405–6 was Archbishop Scrope’s rebellion against King Henry IV in May 1405. Scrope was opposed by a force hurriedly recruited in Durham by Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland, with whose family the priory had a close and long-standing relationship.41 Neville’s forces defeated a small local levy at Topcliffe, North Yorkshire, probably on May 25, and then confronted Scrope at Shipham Moor near York, where there was an uneasy stalemate for three days. On May 29 Neville captured the rebel leaders by means of a treacherous ruse, and they were executed at York on June 8, after which the Durham force seems to have returned home, leaving the King’s army to complete the task of capturing the castles of his enemy, Henry Percy, first Earl of Northumberland. So far as Durham was concerned, the whole campaign cannot have lasted longer than a month or so. This strongly suggests that the boy bishop ceremony was part of the celebration of Ascension week (May 25–28) or Pentecost (June 7).42 39  Mackenzie, misreading Chambers (The Mediæval Stage, 1:360), attributes this to an account of the Prior of Finchale rather than to the hostiller’s account (The Medi­eval Boy Bishops, 15). Elsewhere he concludes that a boy bishop ceremony must have taken place at Finchale, and that “from 1449 onwards it seems likely that all the payments went to the boy bishop at Durham” (56). This is clearly incorrect: so far as we know, the boy bishop payments from all the cells of Durham Priory were for the ceremony at the mother house and always had been—it would, for example, be absurd to suggest that payments from the hermitage on the otherwise uninhabited island of Great Farne went to a ceremony there.

40  See DCD Cham. acs. 1404–5; DCD Alm. acs. 1404–5; DCD Burs. acs. 1404–5, memb. 4d; DCD Jar. acs. 1404–5; DCD Finc. acs. 1404–5.

41  On Ralph, fourth Lord Neville and from 1397 first Earl of Westmorland (ca. 1364–1425), see Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 9:503 and 12:2:544–47. One of many examples of this relationship is a payment to his minstrels and those of his son-in-law Ralph, Lord Lumley in the almoner’s account for 1394–95 (DCD Alm. acs. 1394–95, memb.1d). 42  Further on Scrope’s rebellion, see Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, 60–61.

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The 1405 cancellation of the almonry bishop custom is not unique. There may have been no ceremony in 1375, when the only payment recorded is part of a “holdall” item (probably mechanically copied) in the Finchale account, while six other relevant accounts contain no payment. A similar gap appears in 1422: seven relevant accounts survive for 1421–22, but none of them includes an almonry bishop payment. We do not know why the custom might have been cancelled in either of these years. However, it was also cancelled in the three years 1438–40: both copies of the Jarrow account for 1437–38 record: Et Episcopo puerili Elimosinarie Dunelmi nichil quia in remotis [xx d.]43

And to the Almonry Boy Bishop of Durham nothing, because it is in abeyance.44

It seems clear from this that an intended payment of twenty pence was not actually made, and there are no payments from any of the other officers of the priory or its cells for 1438 or either of the next two years, despite the survival of many relevant accounts (nine in 1437–38, ten in 1438–39, eight in 1439–40). This marks an abrupt change from the preceding and following years, when there are eight contributions in 1436–37 and nine in 1440–41, but these cancellations can be explained by a financial crisis caused by the incompetent bursarship of Thomas Lawson. Lawson concealed the priory’s mounting financial problems until they came to light when he fled from the priory in 1438. He then attempted suicide, but was finally reconciled with his brother monks, who agreed that the Bursar’s job had become too complex to be managed by a single person.45 As a further economy measure, the Almonry School was closed at Michaelmas 1438 and its pupils transferred to Bishop Langley’s Grammar School on Palace Green. However, this caused other problems, making it difficult for the choristers to fulfill all their duties in the cathedral, and the Almonry School was re-opened shortly before Christmas 1442.46 It is rather surprising that the boy bishop ceremony resumes in 1441, when the boys formerly attached to the Almonry School were still at Bishop Langley’s School, but it seems clear that the ceremony was in fact held twice before the Almonry School was re-established. It is also probable that the custom did not take place in 1459 and certain that it did not in 1460 or 1461. The 1458–59 accounts of the hostiller (DCD Host. acs. 1458–59) and the Prior of Finchale (DCD Finc. acs. 1458–59) include cancelled boy bishop payments, while the six other surviving accounts for that year do not include them. Four relevant accounts survive from 1459–60 and six from 1460–61, but none of them includes an almonry bishop payment. In this case the obvious explanation, as in 1405, is civil war, which was imminent by the early summer of 1459, brought a Yorkist invasion in the summer of 1460 and was at its worst in Durham in June 1461, when the city was in Yorkist hands but was the object of an unsuccessful attack led, among others, by at least 43  DCD Jar. acs. 1437–38 A and B. In A, the correction “nichil …” is written before the erased sum; in B it is directly over it, so that the sum erased is illegible. 44  For this meaning see Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, 1563–64.

45  See Dobson, Durham Priory, 285–87.

46  Bowers, Educational Provision and Policy, 29–30, 47.



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one local noble family, the Nevilles of Brancepeth.47 Oddly, the “Bishop of Elvet” payments (see below) continue in the Elvethall accounts for 1458–59 and 1459–60, while the account for 1460–61 is lost. Perhaps this parish-level ceremony was able to continue because it was small-scale and inconspicuous. After this, support for the almonry bishop custom seems to have waned. From the period 1463–66 we have only one account which includes an apparent payment (Lytham 1462–63, DCD Lyth. acs. 1462–63), despite the survival of between six and eight accounts from each of these years, and this may be a “ghost” entry, since it repeats exactly the wording and sum from the previous year. We do not know of any external reason for the custom not having taken place in these years. Eight relevant accounts survive for 1470–71, none of which includes an almonry bishop payment; the likeliest reason is again civil war, for Edward IV’s final triumph was not completed until nearly the end of May, and news of his entry into London probably did not reach Durham until after Pentecost (June 2).48 In 1474 the almonry bishop payment in the Master of Jarrow’s account (DCD Jar. acs. 1473–74) is cancelled; there is an uncancelled payment in the Master of Wearmouth’s account for this year (DCD Wrm. acs. 1473–74), but no payment in any of the other four relevant accounts that survive. It seems likely that the ceremony did not take place in 1474, and that the Wearmouth account has simply omitted to delete the entry, but no reason for the cancellation is known. The fullest account of rites and ceremonies at Durham Cathedral Priory just before the dissolution of the monastery in 1540 is to be found in The Rites of Durham, composed by an elderly catholic, probably the antiquarian William Claxton of Wynyard, in 1593.49 Surprisingly, this does not mention the boy bishop at all, despite the fact that contributions from priory office holders under this heading continue until 1537–38, but it does give details of annual processions on the three “Cross” or Rogation days (the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday preceding Ascension Day), from the cathedral to the three city churches of St. Oswald’s, St. Margaret’s and St. Nicholas’s, and adds that at the end of each of these processions a sermon was delivered by one of the monks in the relevant church.50 However, in 1475 there seems to have been an important change: from then on all almonry bishop payments were paid to the office of the feretrar, the keeper of the shrine of St. Cuthbert (see the Prior of Finchale’s account for 1474–75, DCD Finc. acs. 1474–75, and all subsequent boy bishop payments). This new arrangement is confirmed by the next surviving feretrar’s account (DCD Feret. acs. 1480–81), which includes a complete list of boy bishop payments received in that year. However, the feretrar’s accounts do 47  Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, 515–29; Ross, Edward IV, 20–46.

48  Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, 569.

49  Raine, The Rites of Durham. The earliest manu­s cript, the so-called Hogg Roll (Durham Cathedral MS. C.III.23), is in Claxton’s own hand, but is incomplete at the beginning; a complete copy made from it about 1630 is now DUL MS. Cosin B.ii.11. Further, see Doyle, “William Claxton and the Durham Chronicles,” 347–48, and McKinnell, “Remembering Durham Cathedral Priory after the Dissolution,” 162–63. 50  Raine, The Rites of Durham, 104 and note on p. 287.

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not include any corresponding outgoings, so it seems probable that the participation of the children came to an end in 1475, after which the processions continued but the boy bishop payments became no more than a tax levied by the feretrar on some of the other priory officers. The number of those who contributed to it also shrank—after 1475 they include only the chamberlain and the heads of the monastery’s cells—but almost every surviving account from those officers who continued to make payments includes a contribution, the only exceptions being the accounts of the Master of Wearmouth for 1490–91 (DCD Wrm. acs. 1490–91) and the Prior of Lytham for 1533–34 (DCD Lyth. acs. 1533–34). There is no evidence for any year in which payment is cancelled; this very regularity suggests a levy rather than a continuing social custom. We do not know what the duties of the boy bishop were before 1475, but it seems most likely that they included leading the processions to the city churches on the three Rogation days in Ascension week and delivering a sermon there which he had learned by heart (presumably one written for him by one of the monks), as we saw above with the case of Gloucester by the sixteenth century, and as is done in some southern European child-priest ceremonies today. The association of the boy bishop of Durham with the Ascension week processions is also supported by the highly unusual custom at St. Oswald’s of a parish “Bishop of Elvet,” or Episcopus puerilis ecclesie Sancti Oswaldi (“Boy bishop of the church of St. Oswald”), as he is called in the Elvethall account for 1430–31 (DCD Elv. acs. 1430–31). The earliest record of the “Bishop of Elvet” is in the Prior of Finchale’s account which ends on the Monday after Ascension in 1424 (DCD Finc. acs. 1423–24). He then appears sporadically in the three sets of accounts which had connections with St. Oswald’s parish—those of the hostiller, the Prior of Finchale, and the Elvethall manorial accounts—until 1474; the custom then returns for a single year in the Elvethall account for 1478–79 (DCD Elv. acs. 1478–79) but never appears after that. It looks as if Durham’s two boy bishop ceremonies were connected: there are no payments for either of them during the priory’s financial crisis in 1438–40, and the generally smooth sequence of both comes to an end after 1474. However, contributions for the “Bishop of Elvet” from the manor of Elvethall continue to appear in some years in which there are no payments for the boy bishop of Durham (1459–60, 1463–64, 1465–66, and 1478–79); this may suggest either that the parish of St. Oswald’s was capable of conducting its own (possibly modified) ceremony even without the almonry bishop, or that the Elvethall payments for each of these years is a “ghost” mechanically copied from the preceding year. If the almonry bishop processed to the city churches and delivered the sermon at services there, the “Bishop of Elvet” may have sung part of the liturgy, although he would not have been permitted to consecrate or dispense the Host. So far as we know, the two boy bishop customs practised at Durham did not include any lack of seriousness or reverence, and we have no evidence that the Rogation days processions included any entertaining extraneous material (as they did, for example, at Ripon, where between 1439–40 and 1540–41 they included a processional dragon).51 51  Leeds, Brotherton Library, MS Ripon 183; see McGee, REED N-E “Flower of the Month” blog for September 2018 (https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?p=3835).



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They may even have served the useful religious purpose of reminding the faithful of Jesus’s instruction in Matthew 19:14: “Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

Conclusion

Although the accounts which include boy bishop payments are very numerous, they cannot by their very nature give us much information about what was done in the ceremonies in which the two Durham boy bishops took part. However, when they are carefully analyzed a few tentative conclusions do emerge: 1. The boy bishop custom in Durham probably began around 1338–40, at the same time as the establishment of the Almonry School, or a few years afterwards.

2. It is possible that when it was first introduced it took place on St. Nicholas’s Day (December 6), as it did in a number of other places. However, by 1355 it was at some time around Ascension Day or Pentecost, most likely on the three Rogation days immediately before Ascension Day, when processions to parish churches and/or parish boundaries were already common. It continued to be observed at that time. 3. It was observed in most years, but could be cancelled, for example in time of war, as in 1405 and 1459–61, or of financial crisis, as in 1438–40.

4. From 1475 onwards the participation of the almonry children (or at least of payments to or for them) was probably discontinued, but annual contributions nomin­ally attached to the ceremony continued to be paid by the chamberlain and the heads of most of the daughter cells of Durham Cathedral Priory.

5. There is very little evidence of what the almonry bishop was expected to do, although he probably led the processions from the cathedral to three city churches on the three Rogation days before Ascension Day and delivered a sermon in each of them which had been written for him by one of the monks, and which he had learned by heart. After the boy bishop custom ended, these processions continued, and the sermons were delivered by the monk(s) who had written them. Rogation Day processions often visited parish boundaries, and it is possible that some of these were incorporated into the processional route, at least for the geo­graphically compact parish of St. Nicholas’s. St. Margaret’s Crossgate was not a parish, but merely a chapel of ease serving the western part of the large and sprawling parish of St. Oswald’s, but the procession to St. Margaret’s may have visited the western boundaries of the parish, and perhaps also the standing cross erected to commemorate the English victory at the Battle of Neville’s Cross (1346), the base and stump of which can still be seen near the junction of the modern A690 and A167 roads. 6. By 1424 there was also a “Bishop of Elvet,” a boy bishop attached to the parish of St. Oswald’s, Durham. Parish boy bishops are very rare, and the function of the “Bishop of Elvet” was almost certainly connected with that of the almonry bishop; it too probably ended in 1475, although it looks as if there was an attempt

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to revive it for a single year in 1480 (see the Elvethall account for 1479–80, DCD Elv. acs. 1479–80). We have no evidence about how the “Bishop of Elvet” was chosen or what he was expected to do, although receiving the almonry bishop at the church door and singing part of the liturgy seem likely. St. Oswald’s parish was very large, stretching for about eight miles from Croxdale in the south to Finchale in the north. This would have made it difficult for the almonry bishop to visit all its parish boundaries and might explain why St. Oswald’s was thought to need its own “bishop,” but this can be no more than a theory. Contributions for the bishop of Elvet are on a much humbler scale than those for the almonry bishop.

7. We have no evidence as to what costs had to be covered by the financial contributions for the almonry bishop, but obvious possibilities include costumes (child-sized episcopal vestments would have been very expensive), payments to adults for conducting extra training in oratory and/or singing, a feast for the participants, and perhaps, as at York, some financial reward for the “bishop” and his attendants, although we have found no evidence for this. Alternatively, they may have gone towards the upkeep of the almonry boys throughout the year. 8. Apart from the fact that the almonry bishop and the bishop of Elvet were children, it seems that there was no element of parody or lack of religious seriousness in their activities.

Whilst the season and feast day(s) of the Durham boy bishop ceremonies came to differ from those in many other places, it is clear that the capital of the Palatinate was merely adapting a widespread and well-established tradition to suit local events and circumstances.

Chapter 12

REGIONAL PERFORMANCE AS INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE BARBARA RAVELHOFER The maidens came.           When I was in my mother’s bower, I had all that I would.           The bailey beareth the bell away;           The lily, the rose, the rose I lay. The silver is white, red is the gold; The robes they lay in fold.

          The bailey beareth the bell away;           The lily, the rose, the rose I lay. And through the glass windows shines the sun. How should I love, and I so young?           The bailey beareth the bell away; The lily, the rose, the rose I lay. Lines from the Durham Song, as recited by Dylan Thomas.1

Between 2013 and 2018, the project Records of Early English Drama North-East

gathered some ten thousand textual records pertaining to drama, music, ceremony, and public festivity in England’s northeast, from the earliest beginnings in the eighth century to the onset of the English Civil War in 1642. The haul included manu­scripts with medi­eval pilgrim and mystery plays, accounts of rites that were customary in Durham Cathedral before the Reformation, but also evidence on popular entertainment, such as medi­eval stag ceremonies and May games. Some of the material attested to anonymous groups of performers, while other documents hinted cryptically at individuals, such as “Mother Naked,” an entertainer of tantalizingly unknown talents once employed by the Priory of Durham.2 Among the texts of major significance from the region, we studied the Anglo-Saxon Harrowing of Hell (before 750, perhaps from Lindisfarne), probably the oldest play surviving in the British Isles, and we recited and performed the Durham Song, a Tudor musical fragment connected with festivities in old Durham which inspired such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky and Dylan Thomas. In its entirety, the cor1  Anon., “The Lily and the Rose,” in Dylan Thomas, The Colour of Saying, 8–9.

2  The Durham Priory Bursar’s account for 1433–34 (memb. 4d) includes a payment of fourpence to a male minstrel (“vni ministrallo”) named “Modyr Nakett.” Mother Naked’s particular routine is unknown; he may have performed as a burly Man–Woman figure as known in folk plays, or a kind of predecessor to the later Panto dame, or specialised in something grotesque or obscene. His payment is the smallest to any minstrel in these accounts, which suggests the performance was not particularly valued. I owe this information to Dr. Mark Chambers. Barbara Ravelhofer is Professor of Early Modern Literature in the Department of English Studies, Associate Director for Research in IMEMS, Durham Uni­ver­sity, and, since 2019, Principal Investigator of the research project REED N-E.

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Figure 7: Aerial view of the peninsula of Durham, with permission of Durham Uni­ver­sity.

pus we investigated constitutes important evidence of Britain’s—and indeed Europe’s and the world’s—dramatic heritage. Durham is itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site: Norman cathedral and medi­eval castle, once residence of Durham’s Prince Bishops, are situated on a peninsula framed by the River Wear; this intact ensemble of riverbank, surrounding woodland, and imposing architecture allows visitors to appreciate vistas that have not changed much since the days of King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. Nor has the cathedral ever been out of use: the complex has been a living and working World Heritage Site for over a thousand years. Such contexts prompt a reflection on how records of early drama are connected both with the landscapes and built environment of the region, and the communities that generated and (in some cases) keep alive the dramatic practices recorded. As researchers, we are steadily confronted with what we can still see or touch—manu­scripts, buildings, objects, and so on—in short, tangible expressions of what UNESCO would define as “cultural heritage.” Tangible elements of cultural heritage raise questions about their intangible implications. Might the poor vestiges of the Durham Song in the British Library hint at the actual soundscape of a fair in a Renaissance town? Who or what is the enigmatic Bailey? And might the lyric about the lily and the rose reflect a young woman’s anxiety at the prospect of marriage?3 John McKinnell ponders the historical background of such questions in the present volume; my concern here is more about the legacies of our records. Why does the fragment have enduring appeal, attracting the likes of W. H. Auden, featuring in Thomas’s broadcast 3  British Library, MS Harley 7578. See also Milsom, “Cries of Durham,” 147–60.



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readings, and appearing most recently as “Poem of the Week” in a British newspaper?4 How should we preserve, study, and present dramatic cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, and what might be the challenges? This final chapter will consider the wider meaning and future of early regional drama as intangible cultural heritage, and focus on Durham as both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a location associated with a long and rich performance history.

Heritage—Definitions and Aspirations

The current understanding of “heritage,” with its widening abstract significance, is relatively recent. In medi­eval England, “heritage” was simply physical property to be passed on. The sense of “condition or state transmitted from ancestors” emerged only around 1700 in British usage, and the notion of “cultural heritage” as tourist attraction or feature of historical interest became popular from the 1970s.5 On a global level, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (proclaimed 1948) heralded a step change in thinking about “cultural heritage:” all people shared a fundamental right to “participate in the cultural life of the community.”6 UNESCO defines “heritage” as our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations.7

Heritage, thus understood, inspires communities, who in turn shape and preserve it. Cultural legacies include assets “of Outstanding Universal Value” to humankind—assets which belong to all peoples of the world and which need to be protected for future generations to appreciate and enjoy.8 UNESCO’s vision of cultural heritage is that of a common good: a source of creative impulses, but also an asset which comes with responsibilities. Cultural heritage may be marshalled to maintain social diversity and intercultural dialogue. It may play a critical role in conflict mitigation and sustainable development, as the example of Lumbini, Nepal (World Heritage Site since 1997, twinned with Durham) demonstrates: active since ca. 550 BCE, the Birthplace of the Buddha is an important global pilgrimage destination for Buddhists and Hindus alike, who visit the archaeo­ 4  Rumens, “Poem of the Week: The Bridal Morn,” The Guardian, October 8, 2012. https://www. theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/08/poem-of-the-week-bridal-morn. Rumens finds the poem “haunting:” “this anonymous lyric combines its mysteries with a very concrete set of images and a beguiling music.” 5  OED, “heritage,” n., usage from 1970s onwards; www.oed.com.

6  Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed at the United Nations General Assembly in Paris, 10 December 1948, §27. Full text translated into over five hundred languages available at www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.

7  “Monuments, buildings and sites of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; from ethno­logical, aesthetic, or anthropo­logical point of view.” (Art.1). UNESCO, Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Articles 1–2, at https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. 8  UNESCO, Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Articles 1–2.

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logical remains and worship. A model for prosperous co-existence, the site encourages collaboration between very different stakeholders—Nepal’s governing Communist Party and populations of different religious faiths—and enhances the region’s economic well-being. However, other expressions of cultural heritage may give rise to conflict. In 2019, UNESCO took the unprecedented step of striking off an immaterial asset, the street carnival in Aalst, Belgium, a six hundred-year-old popular institution. The carnival lost its status because it had repeatedly featured, as commissioners put it, racist and antisemitic elements. Thus, March 2019 saw a pageant car illustrating the Jewishorthodox “Sabbath” with big-nosed figures perched on money bags, which could not be reconciled with the values of the UNESCO Charter.9 UNESCO’s 1972 and 2003 Conventions distinguish between tangible cultural assets (monuments, buildings, sites, and artefacts) and intangible ones, defined as “that which is untouchable, such as knowledge, memories and feelings […] the immaterial elements that influence and surround all human activity.”10 Such intangible assets comprise living cultural heritage, usually expressed in oral traditions, performing arts, social customs, rituals, and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature; or traditional craftsmanship.11 The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Paris, October 17, 2003; in force since April 2006) stipulates an explicit connection with human rights and responsibilities. It defines intangible cultural heritage as the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly re­created by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposes of this Convention, consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.12

Cultural heritage’s manifestations are exuberantly varied: in October 2019, UNESCO listed 1121 tangible and 508 intangible assets across 167 member-states; altogether thirty-two World Heritage Sites were registered in the UK.13 Worldwide, examples range from the Sydney Opera House to the Georgian alphabet, Vanuatu sand drawings, 9  “Karneval in Aalst verliert Status als Weltkulturerbe,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 13, 2019, https://faz.net. 10  Stefano, Davis and Corsane, “Touching the Intangible,” 1–5 at 1.

11  UNESCO, Basic Texts, Article 2, §2a–e, https://ich.unesco.org.

12  UNESCO, Basic Texts, Article 2, §1. See also Alivizatou, “The UNESCO Programme for the Proc­ lamation of Masterpieces,” 34–42 at 34–35. For a history see also Labadi, UNESCO, Cultural Heritage and Outstanding Universal Value. 13  Intangible assets at https://ich.unesco.org/en/lists; continuously updated world heritage assets at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/.



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and the Belgian practice of shrimp fishing on horseback. Any application for inclusion of a potential asset in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity requires “the widest possible participation” of the communities connected with the proposed asset, so as to provide evidence of broad-based relevance.14 A current example which pertains to early regional performance would be the Landshut Wedding, Germany’s largest historic festival. The Landshut Wedding celebrates the marriage of a Polish princess and the Duke of Bavaria’s son in 1475 with pageants, early music, dance and theatre, street entertainment, and tournaments, in the city of Landshut, Bavaria, over four weeks in summer every four years. First staged in 1903 with one hundred and forty-five costumed performers, it now involves well over two thousand, and attracts about one hundred and twenty thousand visitors on a typical weekend.15 In 2017 the festival was endorsed by the organising society’s eight thousand members and consequently included in Bavaria’s state inventory of intangible cultural heritage; the nomination is now being progressed to Germany’s national list.16 The case for support stresses the multidimensional grassroots nature of an event which takes place in a protected town centre, turning the latter into a living and lived-in heritage environment.17 The closest British equivalent might be York celebrating medi­eval cycle plays in the historic city. Revivals of early English drama proliferated in the twentieth century, alongside a growing popular and academic interest in early music; the Festival of Britain (1951) with its exhibitions and events across the country gave a massive boost to such efforts.18 As for Landshut, the dynamic relationship between the city’s architecture and the people who inhabit it has mutual benefits: the former provides an authentic historical frame, enhancing a community’s self-representation in public; in turn, an environment that is so closely connected to local identities is more likely to be protected.19 In this way, one could term the Landshut festival a “monument in the making,” composed of tangible elements (the old town) and intangible ones (the interactions in the streets). The Landshut Wedding demonstrates the power of historic revivals to integrate and create stable communities, improve local self-awareness, and—not least—contribute significantly to the city’s coffers.20 Intriguingly in this case, it is not the historic event but its revival that has been proposed as intangible heritage—a revival that, in the course of over a hundred years, has developed a history of its own. The work on REED North-East sharpened our awareness of tangible and intangible assets in the region’s dramatic history. Durham Cathedral and Castle constitute a tangible asset of Outstanding Universal Value, inscribed in UNESCO’s list in 1986. The Cathedral, 14  UNESCO, Basic Texts, Operational Directives, Ch. 1.2.

15  Numbers from Bleichner, Die Landshuter Fürstenhochzeit 1475, 96, 136. 16  Die Landshuter Fürstenhochzeit, 173.

17  Die Landshuter Fürstenhochzeit, 174.

18  For revivals of drama in an English context, see Oakshott, “The Fortune of Wheels,” 367–73, and Rogerson, “Medi­eval Mystery Plays in the Modern World,” 343–66. 19  Die Landshuter Fürstenhochzeit, 188.

20  Die Landshuter Fürstenhochzeit, 211.

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once part of a medi­eval Benedictine monastery, hosts the tombs of the saints Bede (d. 735) and Cuthbert (d. 687); it is considered the finest example of Norman architecture in the United Kingdom. The physical integrity of medi­eval Durham is not its only asset: as a living, millennial World Heritage Site it is also an active centre of learning, community life, and religious practice, and thus a witness to intangible uses and traditions. Music, dance, ceremony, and various forms of drama and popular entertainment shape Durham’s intangible heritage alongside its palpable history of stone and mortar. To safeguard intangible heritage, UNESCO recommends measures that chime with the aims of the REED initiative: “the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion, enhancement, transmission, particularly through formal and nonformal education, as well as the revitalization of the various aspects of such heritage.”21 This chapter reflects on what such measures might mean in practice, when applied to dramatic evidence connected with Durham’s World Heritage Site. Examples include the Harrowing of Hell, a dramatic text which may have originated from Cuthbert’s monastery at Lindisfarne; Peregrini, a medi­eval pilgrim play (a genre evident across Europe) penned by a Benedictine monk at Durham; Durham’s medi­eval boy bishop tradition; and finally, church rituals associated with local dragon lore. Our project engaged with all of these by way of documentation and textual study, but we also attempted creative forms of dramatic revival.

From the Tangible to the Intangible and Back: The Case of Durham The “Lindisfarne” Harrowing of Hell

The “Lindisfarne” Harrowing of Hell (possibly before 750) may be the earliest surviving dramatic text in the British Isles. A fragment of it in Latin is included in the ninthcentury Book of Cerne, now at Cambridge;22 a related, fuller Old English version can be found in the Blickling Homilies (ca. 971), considered to be “the earliest extant collection of vernacular preaching texts in England,” now in Princeton.23 Both texts derive from a common Latin source, now lost.24 The text builds on an early Christian idea, the “Harrowing of Hell”: Adam and Eve’s original sin has led to the fall of mankind, which means that everyone is doomed to Hell after death, including those whom the Book of Cerne terms the “ancient righteous” (“antiqui iusti”)—the innumerable souls who have 21  UNESCO, Basic Texts, Article 2, §3.

22  “De descensu Christi ad inferos,” Book of Cerne, CUL MS Ll.1.10, fols. 98v–99v. https://cudl.lib. cam.ac.uk/view/MS-LL-00001-00010/1; Michelle Brown, The Book of Cerne. Dumville, “Liturgical Drama,” describes the text as “perhaps the earliest example of the liturgical drama which is extant” (374), identifying an earlier section within the Book of Cerne and associating it with Æðiluald, bishop of Lindisfarne (d. 740). 23  Princeton, Blickling Homilies, fols. 50r–58v, high-resolution photos available online: https:// catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/3499523#view. Date and characterization according to Kelly, ed., The Blickling Homilies, xxix.

24  The Blickling Homilies and the Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell derive from a Latin homily, now lost: Dumville, “Liturgical Drama,” 375.



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lived blameless lives. In Christian thought, hope comes with the advent of Jesus. In the three days between his crucifixion and resurrection, Christ descends to Hell, where he defeats Satan and his devils. He releases Adam and Eve together with the ancient righteous, and leads them all to Heaven. As an idea, the Harrowing of Hell was first expressed in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus; there, the so-called Discensus Christi ad Inferos expands on Psalm 23:7 (Authorised Version Ps. 24:7): “Adtollite portas […] et introibit rex gloriae” (“Lift up your gates […] and the King of Glory shall enter in,” in the Douay–Rheims translation). Sermons, plays, and para-dramatic liturgical texts attest to the Harrowing’s popularity in medi­eval alpine regions, as well as in Spain, Italy, France, and England. Easter celebrations across Europe featured scenes of souls in Limbo who rejoiced at the prospect of their deliverance, with devils bustling about to defend their citadel from Christ’s challenge to “lift up your gates.”25 As a form of medi­eval religious drama, the Harrowing of Hell is certainly part of Western cultural heritage; however, as its ephemeral expression has fallen into disuse, it is no longer a living asset, and theatre historians must determine the intangible expressions of performance from textual fragments that are sometimes at a distance from theatrical practice. The Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell, as recorded in the Book of Cerne, begins with an “oration” of the ancient righteous who greet the descending Saviour with tearful voices (“lacrimabili voce”). They are released. Adam and Eve are left in chains, pleading. The text breaks off midway through Eve’s lament; to understand what might happen afterwards, a reader must turn to the Blickling Homilies. Here, the sermon for Easter Sunday (Homily 7, “Dominica Pascha”) frames the Harrowing of Hell with a discourse on the Last Judgement. It recalls how Christ sent his glorious spirit into the abyss of hell and there bound and humbled the prince of all darkness and of eternal death, and exceedingly troubled all his confederates, and brake in pieces hell-gates and their iron bolts, and from thence brought out all his elect; and he overcame the darkness of the devils with his shining light.

The devils regret that “there is now no weeping nor lamentation heard here, as was previously wont to be, in this place of torment.”26 Like other Anglo-Saxon homilies, Blickling has a palpable sense of immediacy; its narrator often resorts to direct speech.27 A vivid, almost comical example would be the devils expressing their alarm about Christ’s arrival to Satan, exhorting the latter to listen. The passage is nicely captured in both R. Morris’s aforementioned Victorian translation, and, more recently, in Richard Kelly’s version: They, very fearful and terrified, spoke in the following terms, “Where does this come from, so strong and so bright and so terrible? […] Our prince, do you hear? This is the same one for whose death you have long striven, and in the event of which you promised us much plunder. But what will you do about him now?”28

25  Muir, The Biblical Drama of Medi­eval Europe, 138–39.

26  The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century, ed. Morris, 84–85.

27  Compare, for instance, Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century, ed. Morris. 28  The Blickling Homilies, ed. Kelly, 58–59.

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Sometimes the narrative slips back to the past tense, but the sense of urgency is sustained by the present tense of the direct speeches. Eve cries out: Gehyr þu arfæsta God min stefne, mid þære ic earm to þe cleopie; forþon on sare & on geomrunga min lî�f & mine gear syndon fornumene.29 Hear, O gracious God, my voice with which I, poor one, cry unto thee, for my life and my years have been consumed in sorrow and lamentation. (tr. Morris)

Gracious God, listen to my voice with which I, now wretched, cry to you, as my life and my years have been wasted in sorrow and in lamentation. (tr. Kelly)

Morris’s translation, with the added vocal “O,” captures better the emphatic plea, underscored by the inverted word order in Old English (“hear you, gracious God”). Considering such instances of direct speech and audience exhortation to listen, the Blickling Easter homily demonstrates a strong affinity to performance. A number of factors both textual and paratextual have led to the classification of the Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell as outright liturgical drama. Red ink highlights the title as well as the first sentence of each narrative passage. David Dumville proposes that this rubrication was meant to differentiate between narrative sections and a protagonist’s direct speech.30 Coloured indications such as “now Adam cries with miserable voice to the lord,” “then Adam kneels,” or “thereafter Eve, crying, says,” fulfill thus a twin purpose of narrative and stage direction. Investigating the text’s grammar, John McKinnell notes further evidence for dramatic performance: the narrative’s present tense points at stage direction; the masculine adverbs associated with the figure of Eve would be incongruous, unless they indicate a male performer of this female role (“conparatus sum iumentis insipientibus et nunc similis factus sum illis” “I have been matched with foolish cattle and have now become as they are”).31 In consequence, the project mounted a production of the Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell, directed by John McKinnell, in one of Durham’s medi­eval parish churches, St. Oswald’s, in 2016. The cast included researchers, students, and local singers and speakers, in costumes recalling an early medi­eval period. The production faced a number of challenges; a few examples might suffice here. To begin with, the fragmentary play broke off with Eve’s lament, and the main protagonists, Christ and Satan, lacked lines. To mitigate this, McKinnell produced a composite playscript, combining the Cerne text with the ending from the Blickling Homilies, and supplying dialogue between Satan and Christ from a contemporaneous continental source, a ninth-century liturgical re-enactment of the Harrowing of Hell in a Latin manu­script from Metz.32 Speeches between the devils were divided “to give an antiphonal effect,” a device which would have been familiar to performers and audiences of Anglo-Saxon liturgy.33 Except for Satan’s spoken dialogue 29  The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, 88–89.

30  “[…] to differentiate clearly between narrative and spoken sections.” Dumville, “Liturgical Drama,” 380. 31  Cambridge Uni­ver­sity Library, MS Ll.1.10, fol. 99v.

32  Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 9428.

33  For production decisions see https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=847.



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with the devils, all lines were sung in plainchant, mostly adopted from the Liber Usualis, a collection compiled at the Abbey of Solesmes which featured Gregorian chant that been in common use in the Catholic church since the sixth century.34 A further important decision concerned the play’s language. The Book of Cerne’s Latin text may well have been obscure to many Anglo-Saxon listeners, while both Latin and Old English would be largely unfamiliar to a modern audience. One option might have been to maintain the original languages, and thus highlight in performance the composite nature of the production’s base text; however, philo­logical attention to textual variants would have resulted in the loss of performance cohesion and impact. Generally, producers of medi­ eval theatre repertoire, especially of the religious kind, are mindful of how to make their work relevant to modern, multi-faith and secular audiences. Should they keep close to the original text, or resort to adaptation to make it more contemporary?35 A guiding principle of the project production was to make rare and unfamiliar forms of early drama accessible to modern audiences, but how to achieve this without watering down the inherent strangeness of an Old English play? Ultimately the Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell was staged in modern English—with the exception of Christ and Satan. The choice of Latin for their lines highlighted the separateness and authority of these figures by direct reference to the Vulgate (“Quis est iste rex gloriae?” … “Adtollite portas”). Everyone else sang in modern English, which established a sense of connectedness with the audience. Programme notes explained the play’s sources and the director’s decisions. In performance, the vividness of Old English liturgical drama became apparent; the play also surprised by its brevity. An event of epic significance in Christian thought was over in twenty minutes. The production is now available in a documentary film.36 Lawrence of Durham’s Peregrini

Lawrence of Durham (1110–1154) was a monk and later Prior of Durham’s Benedictine monastery. His liturgical play Peregrini was recorded around the time of his death in 1154, and survives in a twelfth-century manu­script now at Palace Green Library, Durham.37 The text has been proposed as an outstanding example of the “pilgrim play” genre for two reasons: it is the only known pilgrim play set in rhymed verse throughout, and, exceptionally, it features strong differences in the characterization of its protagonists, ranging from a habitual pessimist to a young enthusiast.38 Lawrence’s version 34  See Robley, “Music in The Harrowing of Hell,” http://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=849.

35  See Rogerson, “Medi­eval Mystery Plays in the Modern World,” 343–66.

36  Performance on July 8, 2016; about twenty minutes’ duration. Film available at https:// community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=82.

37  “Rithmus Laurentij de Christo et eius discipulis,” DUL MS Cosin V.iii.1, fols. 104r–106v; created between 1130 and 1170. The work’s misleading title of a poem (“rithmus”) was added in the sixteenth century; in topic and structure it clearly belongs to the medi­eval Peregrinus genre. Durham Priory Library Recreated, https://iiif.durham.ac.uk/index.html?manifest=t1mcz30ps64z &canvas=t1tmc87pq352. See also McKinnell, “On Lawrence of Durham’s Peregrini,” 12–30, and “A Twelfth-Century Durham Play,” 38–39. 38  Doglio and Chiabò, eds., Letteratura e drammaturgia dei Pellegrinaggi.

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is based on the Gospel of Luke; it introduces two pilgrims, youthful, upbeat Luke, and the more sullen Cleophas, who travel from Jerusalem to Emmaus. On the road, they are joined by a stranger; this is the risen Christ, whom they do not recognize. During a meal at Emmaus, Luke and Cleophas express their grief over Christ’s death. Christ consoles them and vanishes just as Luke recognises him. Overjoyed, the pilgrims return to Jerusalem. Christ appears twice to the apostles and so overcomes the apostle Thomas’s scepticism about the Messiah’s resurrection. Thomas’s final confession of faith leads naturally into a triumphal processional hymn with which the play ends. Lawrence’s playtext was originally untitled, and although it is rubricated with the characters’ speech labels in red in the left-hand margin, it includes no music or stage directions.39 This might be explained by the fact that Peregrini is not preserved in a liturgical manu­script but a miscellany: the dialogue and the processional hymn conclude an antho­logy of Lawrence’s writings in Latin verse, which in turn is complemented by various kinds of oratory, medical recipes, a consolatory text, a prosa (hymn) on the resurrection, and a verse epic on the redemption of mankind. An early modern reader considered the work to be a poem, giving it the title of “Rithmus.” It should be borne in mind, though, that dramatic texts were routinely termed “poems” in the early modern period; furthermore, the dearth of paratextual pointers to drama need not indicate an absence of dramatic purpose. Lawrence wrote rhymed Latin dialogues, which suggests sung performance. The work would have been suitable for staging at Vespers on Easter Monday. On this basis, John McKinnell proceeded to a full production that was sung throughout. It involved a cast of academics, students, and local singers, all dressed in medi­eval tunics, and took place at St. Oswald’s Church, Durham, in July 2016. To enable a full-scale performance, a number of missing elements had to be inferred. As with The Harrowing of Hell, original music did not survive, so in order to recreate the sung lines, Margot Fassler, a specialist at the Uni­ver­sity of Notre Dame who had also advised on The Harrowing of Hell, chose appropriate music which could be found in mid-twelfth-century manu­scripts that belonged to Durham Priory. For instance, the play’s final procession was set to the hymn “Laudes crucis,” a tune popular across twelfth-century Europe and indeed in Durham.40 The Peregrini manu­script implies movement from “Jerusalem” to “Emmaus” and back, but does not specify how the pilgrims should travel around the church space or where Emmaus should be located. In this production, the discussion between Christ and the pilgrims on the way to Emmaus proceeded from west to east with Cleophas and Luke using the side aisles, while Christ took the central one. This emphasised the protagonists’ respective status and also embedded the audience more closely: the audience were literally in the middle of the pilgrims’ questions and Christ’s teaching. The nave altar was 39  See McKinnell, “A Twelfth-Century Durham Play,” 38–39.

40  Chief musical sources were DUL MS Cosin V.v.6 (late eleventh to twelfth centuries), which includes “laudes crucis,” and Cambridge, Trinity College MS 0.3.55, a twelfth-century manu­script originally from Durham with chants for St. Oswald; see Fassler, “Music in Peregrini,” http:// community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=823.



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removed; instead a staging area had been cleared in front of the altar screen, with Emmaus located on the right (from the audience’s point of view). In the second scene the apostles were placed all round the church for their argument about Christ’s resurrection, so that the audience were again immersed in the action. Christ made two sudden entries through curtains that screened off the choir at the east end; these curtains were dawn back for the final triumphant procession, in which the choir had come to represent heaven. Spacing and costuming (a halo for Christ) established the authority of individual performers and offered important extra mimetic clues about the action, for all lines were delivered in Latin. This was unavoidable, as it would have been impossible for any translation to preserve Lawrence’s ingenious and inventive rhyme schemes (as, for example, in the first forty lines, which all use a single rhyme-sound without any rhyming word occurring more than once).41 In Lawrence’s time, an educated monastic audience might have coped with the sung verse, yet anyone else who only spoke the vernacular would have required such additional signposting. The 2016 production highlighted issues of comprehension. The audience was to a large extent composed of academic specialists (delegates of an inter­ national conference on early theatre), although many of the regular congregation of the church were also present. A substantial programme was required, in the form of a booklet with the original text, translation, and commentary. The filmed documentary uses English subtitles.42 Discussions with the director, cast, and members of the audience resulted in the consensus that the Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell might lend itself to a regular revival but Lawrence’s Peregrini seemed less suitable. In the latter case, singers made full use of the church space and thus had opportunities for closer contact with audiences seated in all areas of the church; yet the play’s overall effect was more static than that of the much shorter Harrowing of Hell, which had, after all, featured a satanic stage fight. The length of Peregrini (forty-five minutes in performance) and its Latinate diction posed not only an enormous challenge for any non-specialist audience; the dialogue had to be memorised and delivered in plainchant, which required months of rehearsal for untrained if talented amateur performers. Overall, the production in 2016 cast a brief light on the intangible elements hidden in Lawrence’s six-page Latin script and enabled the local audience to take pride in it as a past cultural achievement; yet too many factors might militate against an annual effort to revive it. Its nature simply seems too remote by now to galvanize a wider community into a regular re-enactment of this particular asset of their dramatic heritage along the lines of UNESCO’s ideals.

41  See also Kindermann, “Das Emmausgedicht des Laurentius von Durham,” 79–100, and Rigg, “Lawrence of Durham: Dialogues and Easter Hymn,” 42–126.

42  Filmed documentary of production on July 8, 2016 at https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed. ne/?page_id=80.

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The Medi­eval Boy Bishops of Durham Circumstances might be different in the case of this particular lost tradition. The custom of choosing a boy to act as “bishop” for a day was familiar throughout Western Europe in the later Middle Ages.43 In England, boy bishop ceremonies featured in colleges and churches alike, at Oxford, Eton, Durham, York, Beverley, London, Sarum, and Newcastle; the practice has been revived in Hereford and Salisbury. On special feast days, often ones appropriate to children—usually the Feast of St. Nicholas (December 6) or the Feast of the Holy Innocents (December 28)—a boy bishop would be chosen from among a church’s choristers to become an episcopus choristarum or episcopus puerorum—a sumptuously dressed dignitary in miniature who commanded a day’s religious festivities with a touch of earnest parody. York’s regulations from 1367 indicate that conscientious service as well as a good voice and good looks were required: the Bishop of the boys should be […] he who had served longest in the church, and who should be most suitable; provided, nevertheless, that he was sufficiently handsome in person.44

He might preach a sermon, sing, command a troupe of monks and choristers, or lead communal prayers and processions. As John McKinnell and Mark Chambers show in the present volume, Durham’s tradition is exceptional in that the city had two boy bishops, not one; and they officiated not in winter but around Ascension and Pentecost, between mid-May and early June. The boy bishop of Durham Cathedral was chosen from the children of the Almonry School (the predecessor of the current Chorister School), founded around 1340 and located next to the Priory Gate. The Rites of Durham, a sixteenth-century manu­script describing pre-Reformation religious ceremony in Durham, mentions a “song school” at the south end of the Cathedral’s Nine Altars, to teach six children to sing at services. The school provided books and facilities to support the learning effort in inclement weather, “all the floure Bourded in vnder foote for warmnes, and long formes sett fast in ye ground for ye Children to sitt on.” The master also taught his charges to play on the organ on feast days, and to accompany the monks and perform at evensong.45 The second boy bishop, the so-called “Bishop of Elvet,” or “boy bishop of the church of St. Oswald,” came from a parish on the other side of the River Wear. In Ascension week, processions linked the cathedral and Durham’s parish churches, and both boy bishops played an important role in these. What their respective duties were remains unclear; they may well have included leading the processions, preaching a sermon, and singing the liturgy. Such practices were formally put to an end by a royal proclamation in 1541, which outlawed children who, “straungely decked and apparayled” like bishops, sang mass, preached in the pulpit, and moved “with songes and daunces from house to house, 43  Hone, Ancient Mysteries Described; Milway, “Boy Bishops in Early Modern Europe,” 87–97; Richard DeMolen, “Pueri Christi Imitatio,” 17–28.

44  Register of capitulary acts, York Cathedral, December 2, 1367, in Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault, xvi. 45  Rites of Durham, ed. Fowler, 62–63.



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blessynge the people.”46 Even so, there was a possibility that the practice may have continued locally (although not in Durham), if George Hall’s account is to be believed (“I know not whether in some places it may not be so still”), and more recent studies have traced analogues of the practice in the nineteenth century.47 According to Hall, children in surplices greeted the grinning populace with blessings: “Yea that boyes in that holy sport were wont to sing Masses, and to climbe into the Pulpit to preach (no doubt learnedly and edifyingly) to the simple Auditory.” Hall further noted with horror that the sport was not only practised in England but also abroad, in Salzburg, Austria, for instance; thus early English writers were aware of the custom’s wider geo­graphical dimensions.48 These elements encouraged the project to stage a procession with a boy bishop during an international theatre festival in July 2016.49 Our boy bishop came, as his predecessors did, from Durham’s Chorister School; he was a trained singer, about twelve years old. Followed by singing performers in Renaissance-style clothing, the boy bishop toured Palace Green, a large square enclosed by castle, cathedral, almshouse, and Bishop Cosin’s library. Early sources indicate rich clothing for such occasions. A Northumberland household book had specified costly array for the local episcopus puerorum: this included a mitre garnished with pearls and precious stones, red vestments with silver lions and golden birds in the borders, copes of blue silk, and a scarlet tabard lined with white silk.50 In line with such evidence, our boy bishop was expensively dressed in Venetian lampas which copied a Renaissance pattern.51 Very few texts for boy bishop ceremonies survive, but there are, for instance, sermons given by the boy bishops of London and Gloucester in the Tudor period. Both draw attention to the speakers’ youth. The first, preached by a boy bishop of St. Paul’s, London, probably before 1496, capitalizes on the speaker’s child-like innocence: In the begynnynge thenne of this symple exhortacyon/ that I a childe, wantynge the habyte of connynge may be dyrected by him/ that gaue to that childe Danyell (Sermonem rectum et spiritum Deorum).52

The second, a sermon preached by the chorister John Stubs at Gloucester Cathedral on the day of the Holy Innocents in 1558, survives in a compilation from the second 46  A proclamation deuysed by the Kinges maiesty; also Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault, xx-xxi.

47  Orme, “The Culture of Children in Medi­eval England,” 48–88 at 71, draws attention to the practice of boys going around singing and asking for food or money between November 23 and 25, on the feast days of St. Clement and St. Catherine. 48  Hall, The Triumphs of Rome, 25–26.

49  The Sacred and the Profane, directed by Lieven Baert and Barbara Ravelhofer, July 10, 2016. Documentary (46 min., 2016) available at http://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=27.

50  Parchment roll, transcribed in Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault, pp. xxiv-xxv, and Grose and Astle, The Antiquarian Repertory, 4:322–23. No date is given, and the roll’s current whereabouts are unknown. I am obliged to the editors of the REED Northumberland and Percy Papers volumes, Suzanne Westfall and Bob Alexander, for trying to track the document and for their antiquarian references. 51  Rubelli, ruby-coloured “Vignola,” a textile composed of silk, linen, and acetate.

52  [John Alcock], In die Innocencium sermo, in Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault, 3.

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half of the sixteenth century which originated in Yorkshire. The volume highlights the text’s dramatic potential, as it further includes Tudor songs and ballads, as well as John Lydgate’s dialogic Dance of macabre.53 Stubs addresses his audience divided by age group, beginning with the oldest listeners. Sadly his sermon does not reveal the speaker’s own age, leaving matters with the cryptic declaration “I am not very old my selfe.”54 The boy bishop comments on his own failings: “Speake I must, allthough lyke a child, and stammer owt of this word of God a briefe exhortacion to both sortes, the elders and yongers.”55 He exhorts the audience to find their innocence again, and ends by appealing to parents and teachers to assist in the process by using the rod liberally. If sermons for child bishops are difficult to come by, music is even rarer. For any evidence it is necessary to look beyond England. Christmas songs with a bishop play are included in the Moosburg Gradual (1360), a codex which reveals medi­eval festive practices in the Bavarian diocese of Freising, Germany.56 Its compiler, Johannes of Perchausen, recorded four “well-known” songs that accompanied the election of a “clericulus” to the role of boy bishop (when he is adorned with vestments and enthroned as presiding figure: “Cum infulatus et vestitiis presul intronisatur”); the latter’s exit from the church; and subsequent dancing (when proceeding from the [body of the] church to the choir: “Cum itur extra ecclesiam ad Choream”).57 The telling combination of religious rite, song, and dance in this Continental example invites speculation about the nature of boy bishop ceremonies in medi­eval and early modern England. In Perchausen’s view, the tradition allowed for some playfulness while forestalling pranks of a ruder sort; similar sentiments are reflected in English sermons which, while being delivered by a parodic bishop en miniature, yet castigate ill-behaved choristers. Licence tempered with didactic purpose and real piety appears to have been a key concern in Bavaria and more Northern regions alike. The project sought to explore manu­script music in action, and thus we experimented with a number of popular medi­eval tunes. For communal singing during the procession on Palace Green, we recurred to a hymn appropriate to Ascension. Its tune had been current across Europe since the twelfth century, and was still used by Miles Coverdale in Goostly Psalmes (1535), where it was matched with the metrical psalm “Christe is now rysen agayne / from his death and all his payne.”58 The performance revealed interesting acoustic details about a specific area of the World Heritage Site. Much of Palace Green’s built fabric dates to the medi­eval period and the seventeenth century; buildings are at least two storeys high. Closed off on all four sides, the site keeps out wind. All these factors facilitate open-air speaking and singing. Surviving tangible locations such as Palace 53  BL MS Cotton Vespasian A XXV, fols. 164r–170r, ed. in Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault.

54  Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault, 23. 55  Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault, 20.

56  Now Munich Uni­ver­sity Library, 2o Cod. 156 (Moosburger Graduale, facs. ed. with commentary by David Hiley). 57  Munich Uni­ver­sity Library, 2o Cod. 156, fol. 231v, 232r; Moosburger Graduale, ed. Hiley, xviii. 58  Coverdale, Goostly psalmes and spirituall songes: “Of the Resurrection,” fol. 27rv.



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Green may offer important clues about the acoustics of lost spaces, such as Paul’s Cross, London’s pre-eminent address for open-air sermons. How was it possible for a preacher to be heard by hundreds, if not thousands, at Paul’s Cross? Have reports about mass audiences been exaggerated? Durham’s World Heritage Site might be used as a laboratory to explore such intangible historical contexts and purposes. As Laurajane Smith argues, “heritage is what goes on at these sites.”59 The resonance of hard stone and brick façades favours the resonance of high-pitched voices such as that of choristers, and indeed, the boy bishop’s voice was remarkably audible during the procession. Studies of indoor playhouses in early modern London have argued that these were purpose-built to accommodate the voices of boy actors; a famous example would be The Tempest’s Ariel singing in the Jacobean Blackfriars Theatre.60 The Blackfriars no longer stands; our experiment corroborates that stone works well for young voices even under adverse open-air conditions. Professional boy actors, as they became common in England from the late sixteenth century onwards, had much in common with the choristers of earlier periods, no less ambitious in their acoustic mimesis. The project also delved into the practical performance of musical repertory for indoor uses. Hector Sequera transcribed two pieces from the Moosburg Gradual: Mos florentis and Flos campi profert lilium. Both were once sung by Moosburg’s boy bishop. In 2017, our boy bishop studied and performed the songs in the medi­eval concert hall on Palace Green. He was supported by several older singers from the university’s music students.61 The variety in age and pitch was consistent with practice in the medi­eval northeast: for instance, York’s child-bishop travelled the diocese in the company of a tenor and a singer with a medius voice.62 In performance, the effect was reminiscent of hearing something akin to the Carmina Burana. In both Mos florentis venustatis and Flos campi profert lilium, the refrain began in a four-stressed trochaic rhythm, which struck the popular note of medi­eval vagrant lyrics. Indeed, in Renaissance poetry, trochaic metre was often used to indicate dances or a lightness of tone; Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream makes ample use of it in the lines given to the fairies. The chorister did not find the boy bishop’s parts particularly challenging; he worked with his instructor for about a week to memorize and sing them. The 2017 audience was largely local. Feedback collected on the occasion suggests that listeners found the singing fascinatingly beautiful; for them it elucidated the county’s history and added to the atmosphere; some asked for the boy bishop ceremony to be revived.63 Durham Cathedral has since indicated cautious interest; yet any revival 59  Smith, Uses of Heritage, 44.

60  Bruce Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England.

61  Concert “The Dragon and the Bone Queen,” Durham Concert Hall, June 3, 2017; dir. by Hector Sequera and Barbara Ravelhofer.

62  Computus detailing the accounts of John de Cave, boy bishop of York in 1396, Two Sermons, ed. Rimbault, xv.

63  Of an audience of about seventy, 60 per cent left feedback; relevant statements: “The music really adds to the atmosphere—fascinating history.” “It was a wonderful combination of literature,

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Figure 8: Music for a Boy Bishop: (above) Johannes decanus, “Mos florentis venustatis” and (right) “Flos campi profert lilium,” from the Moosburg Gradual; transcriptions by Hector Sequera.

may need to make concessions to current needs and sensitivities. It was, for instance, suggested that girls too should be eligible for the role.64 Any engagement with a cultural asset is, we believe, bound to change it. A living World Heritage Site must remain committed to both an inherited past and contemporary uses. Dragons and Bishops

The northeast is uncommonly rich in dragon lore, possibly a consequence of its Viking settlements that introduced Norse myths and their plentiful stock of scaly monsters to early medi­eval England.65 The project uncovered a real “dragon” that had, apparently, visited Durham in 1569: music, religious history and myth.” “Fantastic, loved every minute of the event, the child bishop should be reinserted in the Durham traditions.”

64  Exchanges with the Dean of Durham Cathedral, Andrew Tremlett, and Vice-Dean Michael Hampel, November 2019.

65  See also James Beckett’s podcast about local dragons, “The History of the Lambton Worm and



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A certaine Italian brought into the Cittie of Durham the 11th Day of June […] A very greate, strange & monstrous serpent in length sixxteene feete, In quantity of Dimentions greater than a great horse. Which was taken & killed by speciall pollicie in Æthiopia within the Turkes dominions. But before it was killed, It had devoured (as it is credibly thought) more than 1000 persons And also destroyed a whole Countrey.66

The presence of such dragons is both tangible, for instance, in the survival of manu­ scripts recording travelling entertainers, and intangible, in oral transmission. A famous representative thereof, the legend of the Sockburn worm, is connected with a landowning family in County Durham, and still has profound resonances today. Famously, it inspired Lewis Carroll, who lived for a time in Sunderland, to compose the poem Jabberwocky; and both Carroll and the worm are given their due in the regional ­graphic novel Alice in Sunderland.67 According to the tale, Sir John Conyers smote a foul serpent which ravaged the lands near the river Tees. For this feat he and his descendants Sockburn Worm,” http://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=2322. 66  St. Nicholas’s Church, Durham, parish register for 1569.

67  Talbot, Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment.

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Figure 9: The tradition of Durham’s Boy Bishops as Celebrated on Palace Green in 2016. Photograph by REED N-E project.

were rewarded with the lands of Sockburn by the Prince Bishop of Durham. Historically, the Conyers family established its seat soon after the Conquest. A broad-bladed late thirteenth-century weapon called the “Conyers falchion” is still on display to visitors of Durham Cathedral today.68 This falchion was an integral prop in the installation ceremony of each incoming bishop. Traditionally, bishops of Durham were greeted by a descendant of the dragon-slaying Conyers family at the borders of the diocese: either at Neasham, south of Darlington, where the old road up North crossed the river Tees at the High Ford, or at the medi­eval bridge of Croft-on-Tees, in North Yorkshire. The bishop was offered the falchion with these solemn words: My Lord Bishop, I here present you with the faulchion wherewith the champion Conyers slew the worm, dragon, or fiery flying serpent, which destroyed man, woman, and child; in memory of which the King then reigning gave him the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that upon the first entrance of every Bishop into the country, this faulchion should be presented.69

The bishop then returned the falchion with courteous well-wishings, renewing, as it were, the feudal bond between the church and local gentry. John Cosin, who was preb68  DURCL 18.2.1. Bronze guard, steel blade, handle decorated with the arms of the Earl of North­ umbria and the Plantagenet kings of England. Produced between 1260–1270; length 89 cm. http:// collections.durhamcathedral.co.uk/Details/collect/1866; Wall, “The Conyers Falchion,” 77–83. 69  Surtees, The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham, 3:243; The Corres­ pondence of John Cosin, ed. Ornsby, 2:21n.



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end at the cathedral under Charles I and who after the Restoration became bishop of Durham, fondly remembered his own reception in August 1661, as he was greeted by the crowd at the river Tees: The confluence and alacritie both of the gentry, clergie, and other people was very greate; and at my first entrance through the river of Tease there was scarce any water to be seene for the multitude of horse and men that filled it, when the sword that killed the dragon was delivered to me with all the formality of trumpets and gunshots and acclamations that might be made. I am not much affected with such showes, but, however, the cheerfullness of the country in the reception of their Bishop is a good earnest given for better matters which, by the grace and blessing of God, may in good time follow here among us all.70

By Cosin’s time, the ritual seemed dated for a Restoration prince of the church. In Adrian Green’s words, it demonstrated “the anachronism of the bishopric in an England, which was increasingly orientated on property rights rather than feudal obligations; the 1660 Statute of Tenures had, in fact, ended the bishop of Durham’s rights as chief feudal lord in the Palatinate.”71 Yet the custom appears to have responded to a need, for it has persisted into the present, even though it is now carried out with a replica of the original falchion. An anecdote circulates locally about Bishop David Jenkins, appointed in 1984, when the British miners’ strike began. Welcomed by the Mayor of Darlington, Jenkins allegedly swung the falchion over his head, declaring his intent to slay therewith the twin dragons of homelessness and poverty.72 The example illustrates forcibly the nature of intangible heritage as “a living process that is not comprised of forgotten or abandoned practices but reflective of contemporary complex and changing identities.”73 In popular memory, the dragon-slaying act connected with a bishop known for caring passionately about local communities and social justice. The prolific presence of dragons in local lore, religious ceremony, and indeed even in records pertaining to popular performance, encouraged the project to build a stage dragon with the materials and techniques that would have been available at the time the “certaine Italian” travelled in England’s northeast. Our own project dragon had the dimensions of the sixteenth-century Ethiopian worm and was otherwise (given the lacunae about its physical properties) the creative brainchild of local artists from Hexham, Northumberland. The dragon has since become something of a local mascot, borrowed by local enthusiasts; it tours Durham at Halloween, and makes guest appearances at the so-called Gathering, an annual parade in Morpeth, Northumberland.

70  Letter to William Sancroft, Aug. 22, 1661; The Correspondence of John Cosin, 2:21.

71  Green, Building for England, 62.

72  As told to me in 2019 by Shaun McAlister, exhibition assistant at Durham Cathedral.

73  Alivizatou, “The Paradoxes of Intangible Heritage,” 9–21 at 19.

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Conclusions

At present, UNESCO criteria are predominantly used in the Heritage sector and disciplines such as Archaeo­logy; yet among scholars of English theatre history they have barely registered. As the case of Durham demonstrates, terms such as “tangible” and “intangible cultural heritage” might profitably become conceptual currency in the history of performance. UNESCO’s international conventions allow researchers to reflect on their work in a global, trans-disciplinary context; indeed UNESCO terms might stimulate and validate research-led engagement activities, because UNESCO values community involvement in cultural heritage. In academic research, measures such as the creative revival of dramatic heritage from fragmentary evidence, or experimental retroengineering tend to be relegated to a minor status, perhaps because touring with a stage dragon might be suspected of being too much fun when compared to, for instance, the hard grind of the traditional learned mono­graph. From UNESCO’s point of view, however, there is merit in community-based, practical research which combines academic knowledge with craftsmanship and teaching and thus safeguards and promotes rare expertise in the arts and sciences—from palaeo­graphy to choreo­graphy, textile manufacturing, puppeteering, or introducing learners of all ages to practising early musical instruments. For good reason we “grasp” an idea, and cherish the “hands-on” tackling of an abstract concept in a concrete example: the process of understanding and learning is aided by palpable experience.74 REED North-East showed the benefits of research-led full productions on specific sites. We believe that Peregrini, the Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell and our dragon pageants have stimulated heritage literacy within our own discipline, and led to a greater public awareness of, and engagement with, Durham’s World Heritage Site. Heritage studies note that, paradoxically, UNESCO as a global organization seeks to determine what locally counts as Outstanding Universal Value. Critics reason that this approach might introduce arbitrariness; furthermore, internationally agreed principles might separate local communities from the particular cultural asset they cherish.75 Our project work, however, found UNESCO’s criteria sufficiently flexible yet rigorous; they responded very well to the extremely variegated expressions of musical and dramatic evidence we investigated. With regard to the criteria of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, our research has highlighted how fluid the boundaries between both domains are: the material nature of rubricated manu­scripts might gesture at ephemeral dramatic function; architectural remains hold clues about past use; cultural memory may prompt a physical performance. The project has also sharpened our awareness of the intangibles of theatre research, especially the undervalued sonic cultural heritage: the Durham Song resounds both in the voice of Dylan Thomas and in Tudor musical settings. Whether 74  I adopt Anette Rein’s observations on dance for early drama (see her “Flee(t)ing Dances!,” 93–106 at 98).

75  See Alivizatou, “The Proclamation of Masterpieces,” 37–8; Lenzerini, “Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Living Culture of Peoples,” 101–20.



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listeners understand Latin or not, the vocal echoes of Lawrence’s rhymed lines resonate melodiously, giving audiences an aural vision of the musicality of local medi­eval liturgical drama. In our experience, sounds and music have become just as important as Norman arches. They establish a sense of place both local and sacred. It is no surprise to us that Dylan Thomas became haunted by a Tudor fragment which functions like an echo sounder of the past, with a faint signal of music, cries in a market town, and artless maidens’ songs, radiating from a lost location. In order to aid comprehension, modern museums often add missing elements when they showcase fragments of ancient sculptures and other artefacts. To the visitor, such aids are often clearly signposted so as not to be mistaken for the original: a torso will be endowed with extra limbs made of plaster rather than marble; a painted scene might be completed with sketched outlines. In analogy, we recreated our records very liberally to make them legible for a wider modern public. “Now is not Then, and even the most historically sensitive production cannot claim to reproduce the mental and spiritual circumstances of late medi­eval drama,” argues Jane Oakshott.76 In the same vein, we did not attempt reconstructions in pursuit of historic authenticity but appealed to present creativity and present expertise: our boy bishop sang not what was studied in Durham’s medi­eval Priory School but what was reconstructed from a manu­script with music for medi­eval Bavarian choristers. The crucial point was not to deceive audiences but to explain the provenance and combination of performance elements.77 The intangible can be both fragile and resilient. Many sculptures of the Viking age have crumbled, yet the northeast’s love for “worms” lives on in songs and tales. Such resilience depends on the continued ability of a cultural asset to galvanize the community of which it is part. UNESCO recognizes that living heritage is “in constant evolution,” activating or reactivating skills, memories, and knowledge, and appealing to human creativity.78 In response, heritage and museum studies increasingly understand objects as having dynamic, developing identities.79 In concrete terms, this means for theatre historians that there is value in recovering and preserving records of early drama; we may also legitimately ask how the relevance of such records might change for modern constituencies. Creative concessions in re-enactment can enable audiences to immerse themselves in a performance: Adam and Eve’s modern English may thus be acceptable in a revival of the Lindisfarne Harrowing of Hell. As yet, they and others, like our AngloSaxon stage devils, or Mother Naked, represent modest achievements compared to longstanding triumphs such as the Landshut Wedding. Perhaps we have as yet erected molehills rather than “monuments in the making.” The future will show. 76  Oakshott, “The Fortune of Wheels,” 372.

77  On the principle of re-creation, see also Ravelhofer, “Rituale der Sterblichkeit,” 89–114.

78  UNESCO, Basic Texts, Operational Directives, Ch. 4, Article 107f–k. Article 109a–c, and foreword, October 2018. 79  Albert, “Heritage Studies—Paradigmatic Reflections,” 9–17 at 13.

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Personal Afterword

REED North-East was an international research initiative, made possible thanks to funding from five countries. Our onsite team in Durham comprised English, Scottish, German, Slovenian, and American researchers. Thanks to a common effort, rare regional drama was revitalized after hundreds, if not a thousand years. In summer 2016, when we mounted our productions, the UK voted for Brexit. This book went to press on the day the UK exited from the EU. We hope that our work will continue to raise the region’s awareness of its rich dramatic heritage and its appreciation of Continental connections.

BIBLIO­GRAPHY Abbreviations AHRC BAM BL BRO DCD DCG DCRO DUL EDAMR EETS ERALS HMC LRO NCRO NEEHI NYCRO ODNB OED PHA REED REED N-E SP Sy TNA VCH WYAS YAS

Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) Bolton Abbey Manu­scripts British Library Berkshire Record Office Durham Cathedral Document Durham City Guild Records Durham County Record Office Durham Uni­ver­sity Library Early Drama, Art and Music Review Early English Text Society East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Local Studies Historical Manu­scripts Commission Lancashire Record Office Northumberland County Record Office North East England History Institute North Yorkshire County Record Office Oxford Dictionary of National Bio­graphy (online) Oxford English Dictionary (online) Petworth House Archives Records of Early English Drama Records of Early English Drama North-East State Papers Domestic Syon House Manu­scripts The National Archive Victoria County History West Yorkshire Archive Service Yorkshire Archaeo­logical and Historical Society Collection

Manu­scripts, Documents and Antiquities Alnwick Castle, Duke of Northumberland’s Archives First Northumberland Household Book: Sy: U.I.2/13/1, Sy: U.I.2/30/9, Sy: U.I.3/55/7, Sy: U.I.8b, Sy: U.I.14/a/3, Sy: U.I.50/(2), Sy: U.I.50/(3), Sy: U.I.50A (3) Alnwick MS 790 (payments to entertainers for the imprisoned thirteenth earl of Northumberland) Beverley, ERALS Nevile Memoranda Book, DDWS/8/1/1/1

184

Biblio­graphy

Beverley town account rolls, BC/II/6/25 (1560–1), BC/II/6/26 (1562–3), BC/II/6/28 (1570–1), BC/II/6/29 (1572–3), BC/II/6/39 (1586–7), BC/II/6/47 (1606–7), BC/ II/6/49 (1608–9) Beverley Governors’ Minute Books, BC/II/7/2 (1558–67), BC/II/7/3 (1568–73) Hedon Town records (DDHE/19) Bradford, WYAS

Hopkinson 32D86/27 (Talbot Family Papers) Cambridge, Trinity College Library

MS 0.3.55 (12th-century liturgical manu­script with music, including chants for St Oswald, from Durham Cathedral Priory) Cambridge Uni­ver­sity Library MS Ll.1.10, fols 98v–99v (The Book of Cerne “Harrowing of Hell” https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/ view/MS-LL-00001-00010/1). Chatsworth House, Derbyshire (The Devonshire Archives)

Bolton Abbey Manu­script Books BAM 95, 144, 172, 216 (Household Accounts) Bolton Abbey Manu­script Book BAM 28 (Pantry Accounts)

Doncaster

Doncaster Archives, AB.2/1/1, fol. 38v (Doncaster Borough courtier: waits’ regulations). Durham Cathedral Collections

The Conyers Falchion, DURCL 18.2.1; http://collections.durhamcathedral.co.uk/Details/ collect/1866. Durham Cathedral Priory

Almoner’s Accounts (DCD Alm. acs. + year); Bearpark Manorial Accounts (DCD Beapk. acs. + year); Bewley Manorial Accounts (DCD Bewl. acs. + year); Billingham Manorial Accounts (DCD Bill. acs. + year); Bursar’s Accounts (DCD Burs. acs. + year); Chamberlain’s Accounts (DCD Cham. accs + year); Elvethall Manorial Accounts (DCD Elv. acs. + year); Enrolled Manor Accounts (DCD Enr. man. acs. ?1296–97 [Bewley and Billingham], 1299– 1303 [Wardley 1299–1300 and Belasis 1302–3], 1303–5 [Bewley 1303–4, Billingham 1303–4, Pittington 1303–4, Belasis 1304–5 and Pittington 1304–5], 1309–10 [Bearpark], 1320–21 [Dalton le Dale]); Prior of Finchale’s Accounts (DCD Finc. acs. + year); Prior of Holy Island’s Accounts (DCD HIs. acs. + year); Hostiller’s account (DCD Hos. acs. + year); Houghall Manorial Accounts (DCD Houg. acs. + year ); Master of Jarrow’s Accounts (DCD Jar. acs. + year); Ketton Manorial Accounts (DCD Kett. acs. + year); Prior of Lytham’s Accounts (DCD Lyth. acs. + year);



Durham Cathedral Priory Lease (DCD Misc. ac. 6525); Pittington Manorial Accounts (DCD Pitt. acs. + year); Sacrist’s Accounts (DCD Sacr. acs. + year); Wardley Manorial Accounts (DCD Ward. acs. + year); Master of Wearmouth’s Accounts (DCD Wrm. acs. + year); Westoe Manorial Accounts (DCD West. acs. + year).

Biblio­graphy

185

Durham Cathedral (post-Reformation)

MS. C.III.23 (The Rites of Durham, the “Hogg Roll”) DCD/L/BB/12, 24 and 25 (Durham Cathedral Treasurer’s Books 12, 24 and 25) Durham DCRO

Order Book of the City of Durham (1604–17) EP/Du.SN 1/2 (Register of the parish of St. Nicholas, Durham) Durham DUL

MS Cosin B.ii.11 (The Rites of Durham) MS Cosin V.iii.1, fols. 104r–106v (Lawrence of Durham, Peregrini [“Rithmus Laurentij de Christo et eius discipulis”]) https://iiif.durham.ac.uk/index.html?manifest=t1mcz30ps6 4z&canvas=t1tmc87pq352). MS Cosin V.v.6 (late 11th or 12th-century liturgical manu­script with music, including “Laudes crucis,” from Durham Cathedral Priory). MS Mickleton and Spearman 49 (Durham Butchers’ and Fleshers’ Ordinary 1403) Add. MS 201 (Durham Butchers’ and Fleshers’ Ordinary 1520) Add. MS 202 (Durham Mercers’ Ordinary 1430) Add. MS. 866 (diary of Thomas Chaytor of Butterby) DCG 12/2 (Durham Plumbers’ etc. Ordinary 1532) DCG 1/13 (Durham Barbers’ and Surgeons’ Ordinary 1469) Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

Cecil Papers CP 90/80 (On Sir Thomas Hoby) Cecil Papers CP 102/16 (Ralph Fetherstonhalgh to Henry Sanderson, 12 November 1603) Cecil Papers CP 110/138 (Henry Sanderson to Lord Sheffield, 6 May 1605) Cecil Papers CP 118/30 (Lord Sheffield to Earl of Salisbury, 30 October 1606) Cecil Papers CP 238/1 (Egton, Cecil’s list of recusants) Hull City Archives

Hull Chamberlains’ Accounts, C BRF 2/365 (1451–2), C BRF 2/367 (1454–5) Hull Corporation Bench Books, C BRB–2 (1555–1609), C BRB–3, (1609–50) Leeds Uni­ver­sity, Brotherton Library

MS Ripon 183 (Ripon Minster Chamberlain’s Accounts) Leeds University Special Collections

YAS DD56/J/3/4 (Slingsby Family Papers) YAS MD335/3/2 (Chevet Hall, Wakefield) YAS MS311 (Francis Stringer’s Commonplace Book)

186

Biblio­graphy

Leeds, WYAS

WYL100/EA/12 and 13 (Temple Newsam Steward’s Accounts) London, BL

MS BL Cotton Titus A.ii (Robert Graystanes, History of Durham Cathedral Priory) MS BL Cotton Vespasian A XXV (Sermon preached by John Stubs, Gloucester, 1558). MS BL Harley 7578 (The Durham Song) MS BL Harley 2118 (The Sockburn Worm) MS BL Add. 35390 (The York Cycle) MS BL Add. 38599 (Methley, Richard Shann’s Commonplace Book) MS BL Add. 58833 (Revenues and Disbursements of James I, 1603–1617 (1617–1619) London, Lambeth Palace

Talbot 3201, Letter 143 (Sir Thomas Edmonds to Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, on entertainments at the Lord Admiral’s wedding, September 1603) Talbot 3201, Letter 235 (Sir Thomas Edmonds to the Earl of Shrewsbury, on a masque at Sir Phillip Herbert’s wedding, December 1604) Talbot 3202, Letters 131, 133, 134, 173 (Roland Whyte, Robert Sidney Viscount Lisle, and Lord Arundel to the Earl of Shrewsbury, on a masque at Viscount Haddington’s wedding, February 1608) Talbot 3203, Letter 18 (The Earl of Worcester to the Earl of Shrewsbury, on entertainments at the Lord Admiral’s wedding, September 1603) London, TNA, Kew STAC 5/H50/4 (Hackness, papers of Sir Thomas Hoby) STAC8/180/11 (Court of Star Chamber: Fewston, “Harrison v. Smithson.”) STAC8/215/6 (Court of Star Chamber: Leeds. “Metcalfe and Jackson v. Cooke et al.”) STAC8/225/30 (Court of Star Chamber: Thorner, “Oglethorpe v. Clough et al.”) Durham Cursitor’s Records 3/47 (Durham Weavers’ Ordinary 1450) Durham Cursitor’s Records 3/50 (Durham Cordwainers’ Ordinary 1464) DL30/494/11, mb. 12d (Honour of Knaresborough court roll) DURH 3/95 (1612–1614), fol. 18 (no. 59) (Recognizance, records of the Chancery of Durham) SP 12/183, fols. 101r–26v (Thomas Bishoppe, sheriff of Surrey, to the Privy Council, 1585) SP 14/4, fol. 7r. (Henry Sanderson on recusancy in Durham and Northumberland, 3 October 1603) SP 14/216/1, fol. 56 (The examination of Thomas Carpenter, November 7, 1605) SP 14/216/1, fol. 104 (The confession of William Andrew, November 9, 1605) SP 14/16, fols. 170r–73r (The examination of Sir Everard Digby, November 19, 1605) SP 14/216/1, fols. 161r–62r (The examination of William Ellis, November 21, 1605) SP 14/216/1, fols. 22r–23v (The examination of William Handy, November 27, 1605) SP 14/216/2, fols. 53r–54r (The examination of Richard Hollis, December 2, 1605) SP 14/17, fols. 32r–33r (William James to Robert Cecil, December 9, 1605) SP 14/216/2, fols. 106r–108r (Robert Wintour to the Lord Commissioners, January 21, 1606) SP 14/216/2, fols. 193r–97v (Extracts from examinations, November 21, 1605) Munich Uni­ver­sity Library

2o Cod. 156 (Moosburger Graduale, facs. ed. with commentary by David Hiley (Tutzing: Schneider, 1996))



Newcastle upon Tyne, NCRO

Biblio­graphy

Cookson (Meldon) MSS, ZCK 1/14 (Durham Barkers’ and Tanners’ Ordinary 1547)

Northallerton, North Yorkshire

NYCRO ZCV (F), box 1, book 11 (Fairfax Steward’s Account) NYCRO ZQG XII 4 (Richard Cholmeley’s Notebook) NYCRO ZDV V 10 (Records of Thomas Bellasis, first Viscount Fauconberg) NYCRO QSM 2/2 (Records of Helmsley Quarter Sessions) NYCRO QSM 2/3 (Records of Helmsley Quarter Sessions)

Nottingham

Inspire Nottinghamshire Archives, DD/SR/A4/25 (Savile family papers) Oxford, Bodleian Library

MS Bodley Fairfax 6 (Robert Graystanes, History of Durham Cathedral Priory) MS Bodley Laud Misc. 700 (Robert Graystanes, History of Durham Cathedral Priory) MS Bodley Rawlinson A 441 (The Correspondence of John Cosin D.D.) MS Bodley Rawlinson D 913 (“Al nist bi the rose”) MS Bodley Add.C.259 (Letter of Sir Henry Savile) MS Bodley Eng. hist. b. 208 (The Second Northumberland Household Book) Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France

MS lat. 9428 (The Metz “Harrowing of Hell”; liturgy for the dedication of a church) Petworth House Archives, Petworth, West Sussex

MS HMC 116 (Thirteenth Earl of Northumberland’s Book of Lists) MS PHA 580 (Percy family household accounts) Princeton Uni­ver­sity Library

MS Scheide 71, fols 50r–58v (“The Blickling Homilies” https://catalog.princeton.edu/ catalog/3499523#view). Sheffield, Sheffield Archives

Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments WWM/STR P 20 (c) (194), January 13, 1612/13 York, Dean and Chapter Library

MS XVI.I.12 (Robert Graystanes, History of Durham Cathedral Priory)

York Uni­ver­sity, Borthwick Institute for Archives

HC.CP.ND/11 (Aldborough, York diocesan cause paper) HC.CP.1596/7 (Cawthorne, York diocesan cause paper) CP.G.988 (Headingley, York diocesan cause paper) CP.G.2651 (Heptonstall, York diocesan cause paper) V.1567–8 (Ripon Visitation Book) CP.G.3306 (Rufforth and Marston, York diocesan cause paper)

187

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Documentary Films

Lawrence of Durham’s “Peregrini”. Directed by John McKinnell and Margot Fassler. Durham: Candle and Bell, 2016. https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=80. The Harrowing of Hell. Directed by John McKinnell and Angela Robley. Durham: Candle and Bell, 2016. https://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=82. The Sacred and the Profane. Directed by Lieven Baert and Barbara Ravelhofer. Durham: Candle and Bell, 2016. http://community.dur.ac.uk/reed.ne/?page_id=27.

INDEX

Place names refer to the pre-1974 English county divisions as used by REED. Aalst, Belgium, street carnival: 164 Abbot of Bon Accord, Aberdeen. See folk ceremonies: May games Adams, Joseph Q.: xi n1 Ainderby Steeple. North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Albert VII, archduke of Austria: 64 Alcock, John: 173n52 Aldborough, West Riding of Yorkshire: 37, 132, 137, 142 Aldbrough, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Alexander III, king of Scotland, patron of minstrel: xxi, 103 Alexander, Bob: 15n2, 173n50 Alivizatou, Marilena: 179n73 Allen, Woody: Sleeper, 13 Getting Even: 14 Alleyn, Edward: 41 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland: 4, 11 Andrew, William: 64n7 Anglo, Sydney: 17, 24, 28, 29n42 Anne of Denmark, Queen (wife of James VI and I): xviii, 33, 57 players of, 61 Appleton Wiske, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47, 49 Arbroath, Declaration of: 106n113 Aristotle: 12 Armin, Robert: 11 Foole upon Foole. See plays and playwrights Arthur, Prince, son of Henry VIII. See weddings Arundel, earl of. See Howard, Thomas Astington, John H.: 10n69 Atcheson, Richard: 36 Baert, Lieven: 173n49 Baines, Henry, Mayor of Carlisle: 71n35 Baldwin, Elizabeth: 5

Balliol, Edward, titular king of Scotland, patron of performers: xxi, 106 Baret, Michael, Hipponomie: 69–73 Barnby, Sir Charles, of Cawthorne: xxiii, 137 Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire: 88 Barton, Thomas, of Whenby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Bartlett, J. N.: 79 Barwick in Elmet: 56 Batho, Gordon R.: 2n12, 4n21, 11n76 Baynard’s Castle, London: 26 Bayreuter, Magdalena, 65n13 Beadle, Richard: 80n20, 83n34, 84, 90n54 Beanes, John, of East Ayton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Beaumont, Francis. See masques Beaurepaire (Bearpark), County Durham: 98, 101, 102, 104, 115–17 Beckett, James: 96n68 Bedale, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Bede, Saint: 166 Belasis, County Durham: 116, 118–19 Bellasis family of Newburgh Priory, Yorkshire: xvi, 40, 42–43 bells, as prizes in competitions: 69–71, 127 Bergson, Henri: 12–13 Berry, Herbert: 11n76 Best, Thomas, of Great Hornby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47 Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire: xviii, 53–59, 61, 80 visiting performers at: xviii, 53–59 See also boy bishops Bewley, County Durham: 115–19 Billingham, County Durham: 115 Binns, Jack: 45 Birkbie, John: xvi, 37–38 Black Death, the: xix, 78–79 Black Rood of Scotland, the: 115n13 Blakiston, Sir William, of Blakiston, County Durham: 69

206

Index

Blickling Homilies: 166–68 Boleyn, Anne, at her coronation banquet: 22n25 Bolton-on-Swale, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Boroughbridge, North Riding of Yorkshire, minstrels of: 37 Bourdieu, Pierre: 66n14 Bowers, R.: 153n31, 156n46 boy bishops: xxiv–xxv, 147–60, 172–78 as “St. Nicholas’ clerks”: xxiv in Salzburg, Austria: 173 modern revivals, at Hereford and Salisbury: 172; by REED North-East: 172–78 of Beverley: xxiv, 151, 152, 172 of Durham: xxiv, 153–58, 172 of Eton: 172 of Gloucester: 174 of Heaton, Newcastle, 150 of Lincoln: 152n30 of London: 173 of Oxford: 172 of Sarum, 172 of York: xxiv, 150–51; details of perambulation in 1396: 151 Boynton family, of Burton Agnes: 60 Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire: 88 Bramham, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiii, 132, 138, 140 Brancepeth, County Durham: 68 See also Neville family Brand, John: 148 Brandsby, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, viii, xxiii, 40–41, 43, 48, 131, 135 See also Cholmeley Brenan, Gerald: 15n3 Brereton family, of Shocklach, Cheshire: 5 Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire: xix, 53n9, 58, 151 Brompton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48, 50 Brown, Michelle: 166n22 Brown, Pamela Allen: 11 Buckingham, duke of. See Stafford. Bulmer, Sir Bertram, of Tursdale, County Durham: 69 Bulmer, Ralph, of Hovingham, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Burghley. See Cecil, Robert

Burneston, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Burton Agnes Hall, East Riding of Yorkshire: 60 Burton, Alfred: 132 Bury, Richard de, bishop of Durham: 107, 111 Butler, Martin: 2n13 Butterby, County Durham: xviii, 63n1, 68 Buttercrambe, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Butterworth, Philip: 88n48, 93n59, 94, 95n64 Byland Abbey, North Riding of Yorkshire: 44, 151

Calais, York merchants at: 87 Cambridge, performances at: 5, 24 Campion, Thomas: xv, 31n2, 32, 33, 61 See also masques Canterbury, Kent: 53n7 Cape, Richard, of Ainderby Steeple, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire: 29 Carlisle, horse-racing at: 70 See also bells Carpenter, Sarah: 3n14, 25n34 Carpenter, Thomas, of Norton, County Durham, Gunpowder Plot witness: 69 Carr, Robert, earl of Somerset: 32–33 Casson, Catherine: 81 Catesby, Robert: 64 Cave, Sir Ambrose: 26 Cave, John de, boy bishop at York Minster. See boy bishops Cawthorne, West Riding of Yorkshire, disguising at: xxiii; rush-bearings at: 132, 134, 138 See also Barnby, Sir Charles; folk ceremonies: parish rush-bearings Cawton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 cayr cloth (carried over virgin brides): 21, 22n25 Cecil, Robert, Lord Burghley: xviii, 45, 67–68, 74 Cecil, William, sixteenth earl of Salisbury: 31n2 Cerne, Book of: 166–68 Chaganti, Seeta: 77n2 Chamberlain, John: 7



Chambers, E. K.: 11, 27n37, 31n2, 33n7, 148, 150n19, n20, 151, 152n27, n30, 153n32, n36, 155n39 Chambers, Mark: xxi, xxiv, 1, 54n12, 161n2, 172 chapels in great households, buildings and staffing: xiv, 15–29, 35 Chaplin, Charlie, Modern Times: 13 Chapman, George. See masques Charles I, king of England, Scotland and Ireland: 162, 179 as Prince Charles: 32, 42 Charles II, king of England, Scotland and Ireland: 63 Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Merchant’s Tale: 25 The Summoner’s Tale: 53 Chayton, Will, of Croft-on-Tees, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47 Chaytor, Thomas, of Butterby, County Durham: xviii, 63n1, 68–69 Chester: 106n112 horse-racing at: 70 plays of: xi, xii n6, 77 Cholmeley family, of Brandsby, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, 40–42 Richard: xvi, 40–43, 48 Claxton, William, of Wynyard, County Durham: 157 Clemen, Wolfgang: xi n2 Cliffe, J.T.: 40n3, 50n18 Clifford family, of Londesborough: xvi, xviii, 36, 42 Elizabeth, marriage of. See weddings Francis, fourth earl of Cumberland: 31, 36, 61 Henry, fifth earl of Cumberland: 31, 36 Lady Anne: 36 Clopper, Lawrence M.: 5 Clough, Rev. William, vicar of Bramham, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiii, 138–40 Coghill, Neville: xi n4 Coletti, Theresa: 88n49, 97n73 commedia dell’arte. See performance Constable family, East Riding of Yorkshire: 52, 60 Conyers falchion: xxi, 96, 178–79 See also dragons

Index

207

Conyers family, of Sockburn, County Durham: Sir George: xxi, 69 Sir John, xxi: 96, 178 Cooke, Rev. Alexander: xxiii–xxiv, 134–35, 142–45 Cooke, Rev, Robert: 142 Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire: 64 Cornysh (Cornish), William, senior: 24–25, 27, 29, 123, 125 Corpus Christi plays and processions: xii n5, n7, xix, 77–88, 105 See also plays and playwrights Cosin, John, dean, later bishop of Durham: 129n46, n47, 178n69, 179 Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire: xvii, 55, 56, 59 Coughton Court, Warwickshire: 64 Council of the North: 74, 140 Coventry, plays of: 77 See also plays and playwrights; travelling players: Queen’s (Elizabeth I) Coverdale, Miles, Goostly Psalmes: 174 Crabtree, Henry: 136 Craig, Hardin: xii n5 Craik, T.W.: 97n72 Cranford, James, actor of “Commedye”: 10, 13 See also performers; travelling players Croft, John, Excerpta Antiqua: xv, 35 Croft-on-Tees, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47, 49, 178 Croxton Kerrial, Leicestershire: 130n51 Cuthbert, Saint: xxi, xxiv, 97, 108, 129, 149, 152, 157, 166 See also feast days Dalton le Dale, County Durham: 116n17, 117 Danby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48–50 dancing. See performance Darcy, John, Lord, patron of players: 55 Darcy, Lord (Philip), patron of minstrels: 103, 104 David II, king of Scots: xxi, 107, 115n13 Davidson, Clifford: 149 De La Pole family: 52, 100 DeMolen, Richard: 149, 172n43 Derby, earl of. See travelling players; weddings Dering, Sir Edward, collection of plays: 4

208

Index

Devereux, Robert, third earl of Essex: 32 Devereux, Walter, his brother: 45 Digby, Sir Everard: 64–66 Sir Robert: 64 disguisings. See performance Dobson, R. B.: 81, 97, 98n81, 103n98, 104n106, 111, 119n23, 156n45 Doncaster. See performers: minstrels and musicians dragons: Carroll, Lewis, Jabberwocky: 177 commissioned by REED-Northeast project: 179–80 “Ethiopian”, exhibited in Durham by Italian showman: xxi, 93, 177 in the northeast of England: 166, 176 in Rogation processions at Ripon: 95, 158 in St George’s Day celebrations: 94–95 Lambton Worm legend: 96n68, 177n65 Sockburn Worm legend: xxi, 96, 178–79 “The Dragon and the Bone Queen,” Durham 2017: 175 Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire: 53n9, 58 Dudley, Robert. See Leicester, earl of Duffy, Eamonn: 149 Dumville, David: 166n22, n24, 168 Dunchurch, Warwickshire 64, 67, 69 Dunsmore Heath, Warwickshire: xviii, 64–67, 74–75 Durham, Palatinate and City of: 53–54, 105, 130, 160 government of: xx–xxi, 179 diocese of: 67, 151 “Ethiopian” dragon exhibited in. See dragons order concerning visiting players in: 54, 60 St Margaret’s church, Crossgate: xxv St Mary le Bow church, North Bailey: xxii St Nicholas’s church/parish: xxi, xxv St Oswald’s church/parish: xxv its parish boy bishop. See boy bishops Tollbooth in: 54 variety of entertainers in: xx, 96, 103, 106, 108–9 See also folk ceremonies; performance; performers Durham Priory: xvi n13, 78, 97–99, 104, 113, 116–21, 151, 155–56, 161, 169–70 Almonry School: xxiv, 153, 156, 159, 172

Durham Cope: 129 manors listed: 116n17 See also folk ceremonies: May games Durham UNESCO World Heritage Site: 162, 166, 174–76, 180

Easingwold, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 East Ayton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Edmonds, Sir Thomas: 33–34 Edward I, king of England: xxi, 51, 54, 150 Edward III, king of England: 106; as patron of performers: 102n96, 106–7 Edwards, Peter: 65, 70, 73n47, n49 Egton, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, 39, 40, 44–49 Egton Bridge, North Riding of Yorkshire: 46, 48, 50 Elizabeth I, queen of England: 11, 26, 32, 33, 39, 53, 57, 64, 68, 88, 122, 148 Elizabeth of York, marriage to Henry VII. See weddings Elizabeth, Princess (Stuart): xv, 31, 64; see also weddings Ellis, William, examined about Gunpowder plot: 64n4 Elvet, bishop of: xxv, 157–60, 172 See also boy bishops Elvethall, Durham, priory manor: xxv, 116, 117, 119, 157–60 Elyot, Sir Thomas, The book named the governour: xviii, 65 Emmison, Frederick G.: 20n19 Englands Helicon: 36 entertainers. See performers Equestrian contests. See performance, displays of horsemanship Evelyn-White, C. H.: 148 Fairfax family of Gilling Castle: xvi, 40 Fairfax-Blakeborough, John: 63n2, 70n34 Farnham, Christopher: 43 Fassler, Margot: 170 Fauconberg. See Bellasis Fauconbridge, Roger, of South Otterington, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 feast days: All Souls: 154 Ascension: xxiv–xxv, 99, 154–55, 157, 158, 159–60, 172, 174



Candlemas (Purification of the Virgin), xxiv, 154 Christmas: xvii, 20n19, 23, 24, 32, 34, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 99, 100, 103, 143, 146, 147, 149, 156, 174 Corpus Christi. See Corpus Christi plays and processions Feast of Fools: 10n66, 148, 149 Hock Monday: 128 Holy Cross Day: xxii, 113, 115n13 Holy Innocents’ Day: xxiv, 147, 148, 150, 153, 172, 174 Michaelmas: 115, 119, 121, 154, 156 Purification of the Virgin. See Candlemas Rogation days: xxi, xxv, 95, 157, 158, 159 St Cuthbert’s Day (main feast and translation): xxi, 100, 112, 113, 122 St George’s Day: 16; processions at Newcastle, Ripon, York: xxi, 94, 95 St Nicholas’s Day: xxiv, 153, 154, 159 Twelfth Night: xv, 1, 10, 13, 33, 123, 125; in Percy household: 21, 24, 28 See also boy bishops Festival of Britain: 165 Fetherstonhalgh, Ralph, letter to Henry Sanderson, qv: 68 Fewston, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiii, 132, 134, 140–42 Finchale priory, County Durham: xxv, 97n75, 98, 151, 153–56, 158, 160 fireworks: 32 See also weddings Flanders: 64, 79 folk ceremonies: 111–30 Durham Song: xxii, xxiii, 122n31, 124–28, 161, 162, 180 English folk customs at Mount Wollaston, Massachusetts: 9 Garthwoman, le: xxii, 120 Hock Monday. See Young Maids’ processions lords of misrule: 135 May games: xxii, xxiii, 122–30, 135, 139, 161; Abbot of Bon Accord: 129 morris dancing. See performance: dancing parish rush-bearings: xiii–xxiv, 37n26, 131–46 plough ceremonies: xxii, 115–20, 130

Index

209

Robin Hood plays and songs: xxii, xxiii, 122–24, 128–30, 135 St. George plays: xxii, 94–95 stag ceremony, Durham Priory: xiii, xxi–xxii, 111, 115, 130, 162 summer lords/ ladies: xxiii, 135, 138 Young Maids’ processions: xiii, xxii, xxiii, 122–30 De Fonblanque, Edward B.: 4n20, 11n76 fools and jesters: xii, xx, xxi, 1–14, 24, 98 at Ludlow, Shropshire: 6; see also below, Lockrood and Shington at University of Cambridge (Duke of York’s jester): 5 in Percy households: xiv, 1–14 Clarke, fool of the Star Chamber: 7 Feste, in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: 1, 10, 13, 123 Garrett, John: xiv, 6, 9 Jestour Jawdewyne, Durham fool: xiv, n11 King’s jugler: 4 Lockrood, jester to Queen Elizabeth: 6 Lord Lumley’s fool: 7 Mack, fool rewarded by Earl Percy: 6 Miller, Jack, fool and actor. See plays and playwrights Moder Nakyd, Durham fool: xiv Monarcho, fool to Queen Elizabeth: 11 of Sir Peter Legh: 5 Patenson, Henry, fool to Sir Thomas More: 5 Pelidod, Robert, fool to King Edward II: xiv, n11 Stone, Percy family fool, mentioned in Volpone: 9–10 Shington, fool to Sir Henry Sidney: 6 Thomas stultus or fatuus, Durham fool: xiv, xx Wiggan, Thomas, fool of George Percy: xiv, 7–9; at Jamestown, Virginia: xiv, 7–8 Ford, Christopher, of Danby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Forest of Galtres, North Riding of Yorkshire: 70 Fossor, John, prior of Durham, as patron of musicians: 108 France: 79, 107, 128, 167

210

Index

Garbutt, John, of Cawton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Garrett, John, jester and member of the Queen’s Men. See fools and jesters Garthwoman, le. See folk ceremonies Gascoigne, George: 27 Gascoigne, Will, of Hutton Buscel, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Gatherley Moor, North Riding of Yorkshire: 70 Gerard, Fr John, S.J.: 64–65 Gilling Castle, North Riding of Yorkshire: xviii, 40–41, 47–48 See also Fairfax family. Gower, Sir John, of Stainsby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47 Gowthwaite Hall, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvii, 39n2, 45–46, 49 Grant, John, Gunpowder Plot conspirator: 69 Grant, Lodwick, Gunpowder Plot witness: 69 Graystanes, Robert, Chronicle: xxi, 111–12, 114 Great Ayton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Great Hornby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47 Green, Adrian: 179 Greenwood, William: 136 Griffith family, of Burton Agnes Hall: 60 Grindal, Edmund, archbishop of York; Injunctions and Articles: xxiii, 135 Grose, Francis: 18n12, n14, 20n19, 28n41, 173n50 Gunpowder Plot: xiv, xviii, 2, 63–75 Hall, Edward: 17, 22, 26 Hall, George: 173 Hambleton racecourse, North Riding of Yorkshire: 63n2 Hamilton, William D.: 26 Handy, William, examined about Gunpowder Plot: 64n4 Happé, Peter: ix Harris, Max: 10n66, 148n5, 149 Harrison, Thomas: 134n12, 141–42 Harrowing of Hell (Gospel of Nicodemus): 166–68 See also plays and playwrights Hartlepool, County Durham: 78, 152 Harwood, Sir Edward, 73n47

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, “The May-pole of Merry Mount”: 9 Heaton Castle, Northumberland, boy bishops at: 150 See also boy bishops Healaugh Park Priory, North Riding of Yorkshire: 41 Hedon, East Riding of Yorkshire: 53–54, 58 performers at: 59 Helmsley, North Riding of Yorkshire: 46–47, 49 Castle: 61n40, 151 Henry IV, king of England: 81, 155 Henry VII, king of England: 15, 17n9, 24–26, 28 Henry VIII, king of England: 5, 17, 20, 26, 53n7, 61n36 Henslowe, Philip: 43 Heptonstall, West Riding of Yorkshire: rush-bearings at: 132, 134, 136 Young Maids’ procession at: xxi Herbert family: 26, 30 Philip, fourth earl of Pembroke and earl of Montgomery: xv, 31n2, 34 See also weddings heralds: 98, 103–4 Herne the Hunter: 115 Heron, John, royal treasurer: 27 Hessle, East Riding of Yorkshire: xvii, 59 Hexham, Northumberland: 25, 179 Hoby, Sir Thomas Posthumous of Hackness: xvii, 45, 49–50 Holbein, Hans, fool included in More family portrait by: 5 Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire: 53, 59 Hollis, Richard, examined about Gunpowder Plot: 64 Holyrood Abbey, stag legend of King David: 115n13 See also folk ceremonies: stag ceremony Hopkinson, John, antiquarian: 31–33 Horsemanship, competitive. See performance: displays of horsemanship Hoton, Richard, prior of Durham: xxii, 112–15 Hotson, Leslie: 10n69, 52 Houghall, County Durham: 101n93, 116, 117 Hovingham, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48



Howard family: Charles, first earl of Nottingham and Lord Admiral: 32–33 Frances, countess of Essex, countess of Somerset: xv, 33 Henry, earl of Surrey: 36 Theophilus, later second earl of Suffolk: 34 Thomas, fourteenth earl of Arundel: 34, 68 Hudson, Richard, leader of Hutton Buscel playing company: xvii, 45, 49–50 Hull. See Kingston-upon-Hull Humber estuary: 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 57, 59 Hundislay, Rev. Thomas: 137 Hutton Buscel, North Riding of Yorkshire. See Hudson Hutton, Ronald: 131, 132, 149n12 Iacomo “the Italyan”, performer of “comody”: xiv, 3, 10–11, 13–14 See also performers Iarvis/Iervys, player. See travelling players Intangible heritage: xxv, 161–81 Italian showman in Durham. See dragons

Jackson, John, associate of Shakespeare: 52 Jak Garcio, character in Towneley Prima Pastorum. See plays and playwrights Jakovac, Gasper: xiii, n10, xviii, 127 James IV, king of Scots, wedding to Margaret Tudor. See weddings James VI and I, king of England and Scotland: xv, 31, 57, 61n40, 68, 70n32 at Hoghton Tower, Lancs.: 139 Basilikon Doron: 66n13 Book of Sports: xxiii–xxiv, 132, 133, 134, 139–45 James, Mervyn: 81 James, William, dean (later bishop) of Durham: xviii, 66–69, 73–75 Jamestown, Virginia. See Percy family, George; fools Jenkins, David, bishop of Durham: 179 Jensen, Phebe: 39n2, 135 jesters. See fools and jesters Jestour Jawdewyne. See fools and jesters Johannes of Perchausen. See Moosburg Gradual Johnston, Alexandra F.: 81, 82, 88n49

Index

211

Johnston, Nathaniel, antiquarian: 31 Jonson, Ben. See masques; plays and playwrights

Katherine of Aragon, Queen. See weddings Keenan, Siobhan: 39n2, 135n17 Kelly, Richard: 166n23, 167, 168 Kempe, Margery: xix Kemp, Will, Kemps nine daies wonder: xvii Ketton, County Durham: 101n93, 116, 117 Kexby, East Riding of Yorkshire: 55, 150 Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire: xiii, xvii, xviii, xxv, 51, 53–55, 59–60, 62 attitudes to plays and players: xvii, 59–60 histriones at: 59 waits of: 51, 59 Kiplingcotes, East Riding of Yorkshire: 70 Kirby Wiske, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Kirk Merrington school, county Durham: xxv Kirk, Maria: 4 Knaresborough, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiv, 132, 145, 146 Knollys: Sir Francis, 26 Kolve, V.A.: xii, n7

Lancashire, Ian: 10n69, 15n4, 16, 21n23, 24n28, n29, n31 Landshut, Bavaria, Landshut Wedding: 165, 181 Langbaine, Gerard: 71–72 Langburn, Peter, of Thirsk, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Lawrence of Durham, prior of Durham, Peregrini. See plays and playwrights Lawson, Thomas, bursar of Durham Priory: 156 Lealholm, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47, 49 Leconfield Castle, East Riding of Yorkshire: 61, 151, 152 Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiii–xxiv, 88, 132, 134–35, 140, 142–44, 146 Lees, Claire: 97n72 Lefebvre, Henri: 15, 18, 30 Leicester. See travelling players: Queen’s (Elizabeth I) Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of: 74 See also travelling players Leinwand, Theodore: 5

212

Index

Leland, John, De Rebvs Britannicis: 17n9, 26, 28n40, 29n42 Itinerary: 55 Levers, Richard, of Great Ayton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Limon, Jerzy: 9n58, n60 Littleton, Humphrey and Stephen: 64 Lodge, Richard, of Appleton Wiske, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47 Lodge, Richard, of Masham, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Londesborough House, East Riding of Yorkshire: xv–xvi, xviii, 36, 42, 61–62 London: Mermaid tavern: 52 Paul’s Cross, sermons at: 175 St Paul’s Cathedral, boy bishop at. See boy bishops Longrigg, Roger: 70n32, 72 Love, Nicholas: 79 Ludlow, Shropshire. See fools and jesters Lydgate, John, Dance of macabre: 174 Lytham Priory, Lancashire: xxiv, 97n75, 153n31, 154, 157, 158

Machin, Lewis, The Dumb Knight. See plays and playwrights Mackenzie, Neil: 149, 155n39 MacLean, Sally-Beth: 56–58, 62n42 Mak and Gill, characters in Towneley Secunda Pastorum: xix See also plays and playwrights: Towneley Plays Manley, Lawrence: 56 Market Weighton, East Riding of Yorkshire, xviii: 58, 61 Markham, Gervase, Caualarice: 70–73 The Dumb Knight. See plays and playwrights Marske, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47–50 Marston, West Riding of Yorkshire: 132, 136 Martin, Michael, of Thornton le Moor, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Marton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47–50 Priory, visit of boy bishop:151 Mary Tudor, queen of England: 57n22, 147 Masham, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 masques: at weddings: 26–27, 31–35

A Challenge at Tilt (Ben Jonson): xv, 33 Hue and Cry after Cupid (Ben Jonson): 34n14 Hymenaei: 33 Juno and Hymenaeus: xv, 34 Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn (Francis Beaumont): 32 Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn (George Chapman): 32 of Turks (performed by Henry VIII): 26 The Irish Masque (Ben Jonson): xv, 33 The Lords’ Masque (Thomas Campion): xv, 32 The Masque of Beauty (Ben Jonson): 34 The Masque of Cupids (Thomas Middleton): 33n7 The Masque of Truth: 31 The Somerset Masque (Thomas Campion): xv, 33 See also performers; plays and playwrights (for named writers); weddings Master of the Revels: xvii, 57, 60 Matteson, John, steward to Sir Arthur Ingram: 37 Matthew, Toby, bishop of Durham: 66 McAlister, Shaun: 179n72 McGee, C.E.: xiii n10, 36n 20, 37n26, 38n28, 61n37, 95n65 McKinnell, John: xii n8, xiii, xxiv, xxi, 54n12, 93n58, n60, 97, 105n108, 106n113, 162, 168, 169n37, 170, 172 McMillin, Scott: 56n16, 57–58, 62n42 Meaux Abbey, East Riding of Yorkshire: 51, 54, 151 Meller, W. C.: 148 Metcalfe, John: xxiii, 134, 142–45 Metham, John, Amoryus and Cleopes: 40n4 Methley, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiv, 132, 134, 145–46 Middleham, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Miller, Edward: 79 Miller, Jack, actor: 5, 10, 13; in Armin’s Foole upon Foole. See plays and playwrights Mills, David, 5 Milway, Michael: 149, 172n43 minstrels. See performers: minstrels and musicians



Moder Nakyd. See fools and jesters Monarcho. See fools and jesters Moor Monkton, North Riding of Yorkshire: xv, xvi, 36, 37 Moosburg Gradual: 174–76 More, Sir Thomas: 5 More, William, prior of Worcester, rewarding singing maidens: 128 See also folk ceremonies: Young Maids’ processions Morpeth, Northumberland, annual Northumbrian Gathering at: 179 Morreall, John: 1n5, 12, 13 Morris, R.: 167 Mount Wollaston, Massachusetts. See folk ceremonies Much Wenlock, Shropshire: 44 musicians. See performers: minstrels and musicians Myers, Alec Reginald: 18n13

Nelson, Alan: 5 Nevile, Elizabeth. See weddings Sir John, of Chevet Hall: 35 Memoranda Book: xv Neville family, of Brancepeth, County Durham: 157 Neville family, of Raby, County Durham: xiii, 112–15 Ralph, first earl of Westmorland, as military leader: xxiv See also folk ceremonies: stag ceremony Neville’s Cross, battle of: 115n13, 159 Newburgh Priory, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, xviii, 40, 42–43, 151 Newcastle upon Tyne: 67, 99n87, 103, 104, 107, 150, 172 St. George’s Day at: xxi, 94–95 visiting players at: 53–54, 56, 59 trade in: 78 See also feasts: St George’s Day; folk ceremonies: St George plays; travelling players New Malton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Newmarket, Suffolk, horse racing at: 63, 70, 75n53 Newton, Thomas: 12 Nicholls, Mark: 5n26, n27, 8n52, 9n54

Index

213

Nidderdale, North Riding of Yorkshire: 39n2, 46, 47 Nightingale, Pamela: 78n3, n8, 79n10, n12, n14, 80–81, 87, 91 Northallerton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 46 Northumberland, earls of See Percy family Northumberland Household Books (NHB): First NHB: 4, 8, 152, 173 Second NHB: xiv, xv, 15–16, 18–23, 28–30 Nottingham. See travelling players: Queen’s (Elizabeth I) Oakshott, Jane: 181 Oddi, Sforza, playwright: 4, 11 Oglethorpe, William, of Oglethorpe Hall, West Riding of Yorkshire: 138–40 Orme, Nicholas: 173n47 Osmotherley, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48, 50 Overbury, Sir Thomas: 33

Pageants, in play cycles. See plays and playwrights Palliser, D. M.: 79n11, n16, 80n20, n22, 86n39, 87, 91n55 Palmer, Barbara D.: xxiii, 32, 35, 88, 132 Parker, Kenneth: 135, 140n35 Patenson, Henry, fool to Sir Thomas More. See fools and jesters Peigham, Edward, of Osmotherley, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Pelidod, Robert, fool to king Edward II. See fools and jesters Pelt, Nadia van: 92 Pembroke, earl of. See Herbert Penshurst Place, Kent: 17 Percy family, earls of Northumberland: xiii, 1–14, 61 Algernon, fourteenth earl (1602–68): 2, 14; collection of plays, 4 Charles, brother of thirteenth earl: 3 Eleanor. See weddings family chapel: 17–18 George, youngest brother of thirteenth earl, at Jamestown, Virginia: xiv, 8–9 Henry Algernon “the magnificent”, fifth earl: xiv, 15, 18, 152

214

Index

players of: 28; at Selby Abbey, Thornbury and Guildhall, Cambridge, 24 Household Books of. See Northumberland Household Books Henry, first earl: 151, 155 Henry (‘Hotspur’): 104 Henry, thirteenth earl (1564–1632): xiv, 2, 6, 8, 14 Advice to his Son (1609): 3 encyclopaedic book of lists: 2, 3 list of books sent to Syon: 3, 11 entertained while imprisoned: 7 household fools of. See fools and jesters Josceline, brother of thirteenth earl: 5 Peres (Pyers), chaplain to Percy family, probable writer of interludes: 28 Thomas, Gunpowder Plot conspirator: 66–67 twelfth earl (ca. 1532–85): 2, 6, 14 William, brother of thirteenth earl, playwright: 4, 5 Perchausen, Johannes of. See Moosburg Gradual performance places (exact locations only): Chevet Hall, West Riding of Yorkshire: xv, 35 Gilling Castle, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, xviii, 40–41 Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London: 33 York, Micklegate and Pavement: xix performance: bear / bull baiting: 135 commedia dell’arte, xiv: 10–11 dancing: xiv–xv, xxii–xxiii, 3, 20, 21, 23–27, 30, 33, 35, 38, 115, 122–23, 128, 130, 133, 136–37, 143, 165–66, 174–75, 180n74 Abbots Bromley horn dance: 115 morris dance: 24, 26 “Roger o’ Covely”, dance tune: 128 See also Tildsley disguising: xxiv, 17n9, 20, 23–29, 30, 122, 133 displays of horsemanship: xiii, xviii, 63–75 folk ceremonies. See folk ceremonies interludes: xvii, xxiii, 23, 27, 28, 39n2, 49n16, 60, 138

juggling: xx, 3, 4, 22, 98 masquing: xv, 9, 24, 26–27, 31–35 singing: xv, 1, 3, 27, 30, 102n96 by boy bishops: 148, 154, 160, 172–75 Durham Song: xxii–xxiii, 122–28, 161–62, 180 in shepherds’ plays: 92 libellous: 143 “Phyllida was a fair maid”: 35–36 tightrope-walking: xii tournaments: 17n9, 29, 165 See also boy bishops; folk ceremonies; masques; plays and playwrights performers: bearwards: 55, 98; Queen Elizabeth’s: 59 fools and jesters. See fools and jesters harpers: xiv, xx–xxi, 7, 11, 99–101 histriones: xxi, xxii, 47, 59, 98, 100, 106–8. See also below, minstrels and musicians; terminology illusionists: xx, 98 jugglers, tumblers and acrobats: xx, xxi, 3, 4, 22, 40, 42, 98 lusores: xxi minstrels and musicians: xx, xxiii, 8, 10, 20, 23, 27, 42, 133 crowders, crwth-players: xx, 101–2 cytharists: xx, 102 French: xv, 36, 107–8 lutenists: xx, 23, 37, 102 of Aldborough with Boroughbridge: 37 of Alexander III, king of Scots: xxi, 103 of the earl of Ormond: 103–4 of Philip, lord Darcy: 103–4 of Ralph, lord Neville: 103–4 of Newcastle: 103 of York: 104 rebec players: 23 roters: xxi, 100–102 singers: xiv–xv, xx, 18, 108, 168, 170–71, 173, 175 taborers: xx, 9, 23, 100 viellatores: 102n96 waits: xx, 37, 98–108; of Doncaster: 37; of Hull: 51, 59; of Stamford: xv, 36 Scottish, in Durham: xxi, 102–7 terminology: xx–xxi variety of, visiting Durham: xx, 98–102 waits. See minstrels



wrestler (Bartholomew Wright): xx See also masques; performance; travelling players Petre, Sir William: 20n19 Pickering, North Riding of Yorkshire: 46–47, 137 Pittington, County Durham: xxii, 98–99, 101, 116–19, 120–21, 153 playhouses, in London: xi, xii, 2, 41, 51, 175; in Hull, supposed: 51 plays and playwrights: Antrobus, Cheshire, Souling Play: xxv Armin, Robert, Foole upon Foole: 5, 10 The History of Two Maids of MoreClacke: 4 Cannimore and Lionley: 146 Chester Plays: xi, xii n6, 77 Coventry Plays: 77 Day, John, Humour out of Breath: 4 Durham Corpus Christi play: 105 Everyman (revival): xi n4 Godly Queen Hester: 28 Harrowing of Hell, “Lindisfarne”: xxv, 161, 166–69, 171, 180–81 Heywood, John, The Play of the Weather: 29 The Play of Love: 29 Il duello d’amore: 4 I morti vivi: 4 Johan Johan: 29 Jonson, Ben, Volpone: 4, 10 See also masques Lawrence of Durham, Peregrini: xxv, 166, 169–71, 180 Lost Voices of the North-East: xxv Machin, Lewis and Gerard Markham: The Dumb Knight, xvi, 41–42 Medwall, Henry, Fulgens and Lucrece: 28 Middleton, Thomas, and Rowley, William, The Changeling: 24, 30 Percy, William, The Cuck-queanes and Cuckolds Errant: 4 Plautus: 28 Redford, John, Wit and Science: 28 Shakespeare, William: xi, 1n1, 11, 25, 56, 56, 62 Hamlet: 25, 41 Henry IV Part 2: 3, 4, 131n2 Love’s Labours Lost: 4 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 22, 29, 175

Index

215

Much Ado about Nothing 11, 25 The Merry Wives of Windsor: 115 Pericles: 25 The Taming of the Shrew: 131 The Tempest: 25, 175 Timon of Athens: 25 Titus Andronicus: 25 Twelfth Night: 1, 10, 13, 123 Shirley, James, The Triumph of Peace: 9 St Christopher: 45 St. George plays. See folk ceremonies Terence: 28 The Castle of Perseverance (revival): xi n4 The Sacred and the Profane: xxv, 173n49 Towneley Plays: xviii, xx, 77–78, 83, 88–92 Mactacio Abel: 120 Prima and Secunda Pastorum: xix, 88–91 Troilus and Pandar: 29 Udall, Nicholas, Ralph Roister Doister: 28 Wager, William, The longer thou livest the more foole thou art: 125 York Plays: xviii–xix “Nativity” and “Offering of the Shepherds”: xix, 82–92 “Travellers to Emmaus”: 80n19 Plot, Robert: 115n14 Pocklington, East Riding of Yorkshire: 53n9, 58 processions: xii, xiii, xiv, xxi, xxv, 15, 19, 30, 159 See also Corpus Christi plays and processions; folk ceremonies Proctor, Sir Stephen: 45–46 Pyle, Sandra J.: 12 Quarter Sessions: 44–50 Quentin, Cecil: xi n4

Raby, County Durham: xxi, 112–15 Ramsey, Richard, almoner of Gloucester Cathedral: 147, 153 Ravelhofer, Barbara: xxv Ravenscroft, Thomas, Pammelia. Musicks Miscellanie: 125 Rawcliffe, Carole: 17n8 Records of Early English Drama: xii collections listed: xii–xiii

216

Index

published collections cited: Cambridge: 5 Cheshire: 5 Chester: 106n112 Coventry: 5n35, 10n67 Herefordshire and Worcestershire: xii, 10 Kent: 4n23 Lancashire: xii, 139 Lincolnshire: xii, 95 London (Ecclesiastical): 4n25 Newcastle upon Tyne: 8, 54, 59n50 Norwich: 95 Shropshire: 6, 44 Sussex: 10 Wales: 29 York: 53–54, 55, 81–82, 95, 150 Patrons and Performances website: 24n30, 57 Records of Early English Drama NorthEast: xxv, 9, 39, 77, 93n58, 94n61, 161, 165, 180, 182 website: 2n13, 14, 36n, 18, 37n26, 38n28 recusancy: xvii–xviii, 39, 45, 49, 63–64, 66–69, 73, 135, 138 Richmond, North Riding of Yorkshire: 25, 40, 41n7, 46, 47, 56, 70 Rimer, Thomas, of Brompton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Ripon, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, 38, 47 dragon in Rogationtide procession at: xxi, 95, 158 visitation of: xvi, 37 Rites of Durham, The: xxiv–xxv, 99n84, 115n13, 129, 157, 172 Robley, Angela: 123n33, 127n38 Rodes, Robert: 137, 142 Roecliffe, West Riding of Yorkshire: 132, 137 Rogation days. See feast days: Rogation days rogues and vagabonds, statutes against: xvii, 39, 44–45, 49 Rokeby, Ralph, of Marske, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47, 49 Rolle, Richard: 79 Rufforth, West Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, 38, 132, 136 Rumens, Carol: 163n4

Sadler, Ralph, of Burneston, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Salisbury, earl of. See Cecil, William Sanderson, Henry, letter to Lord Sheffield on northern recusants: 67–68 Savile family of Thornhill: xv, 36 Savile, Sir Henry: 34n14, 35 Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvii, 40, 45, 47, 49, 80 Scottish performers in Durham. See performers Scoville, Chester: 82, 84 Scriven, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiv, 36 Scrope, Richard, archbishop of York: xxiv, 81, 155 Sequera, Hector: 175–76 Shakespeare, William. See plays and playwrights Shann, Richard, Commonplace Book: xxiv, 132, 134, 145, 146 Ann: 146 Sheffield, Edmund, third Baron Sheffield: 67n19, 74 Sheffield Castle, West Riding of Yorkshire: 31, 33 Shirley, James. See plays and playwrights Sidney, Philip, The Defense of Poesy: 12 Sidney, Robert, Viscount Lisle: 9, 34 Simpsons, the Egton playing company: xvii, 39n2, 40, 44–50 Christopher, member of Egton playing company: 45 Robert, leader of Egton playing company: xvii, 39, 44, 46 Skelton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Slater, Will, of Easingwold, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Slingsby, Sir Henry, of Scriven and Moor Monkton, West Riding of Yorkshire: xv, 36–37, 145 Smart, Canon Peter of Durham: xxii, 129 Smeaton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47, 49 Smith, Laurajane: 175 Smith, William, of Headingley: 37 Smithson, Rev. Nicholas of Fewston, West Riding of Yorkshire: 134, 141–42, 144 Reuben, 141 Somerset, Alan: 44



Southampton: Henry Wriothesley, second earl of: 26 South Otterington, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Southworth, John: 1n4, 6n40, 7, 10, 11 Spackman, Anna: 97n72 Spence, Richard: 61–62 Stafford, Edward, duke of Buckingham: xiv, 17, 24 Staindrop, County Durham: 68 Stainsby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47, 49 Stamford, Lincs., waits of. See perfor­mers: musicians and minstrels Star Chamber, Court of: xxiii, 7, 39n2, 45–46, 49, 50, 132, 133n12, 134n18, 138, 139n30, 140, 142–43 Stephenson, Will, of Wilton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47 Stern, Tiffany: 12 Stokes, James: 36n20 Stokesley, North Riding of Yorkshire: 49 Stone, Percy family fool, mentioned in Volpone. See fools and jesters Strangeways, Jane, of Gilling, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Stravinsky, Igor: 161 Stringer, Francis and Dorothy, of Sharlston, West Riding of Yorkshire: xv, 35 Stringer, Richard, of Lealholm, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47 Strong, William, of New Malton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Stuart family: King James VI and I. See James VI and I Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, patron of players: 43, 61. See also weddings Henry, prince of Wales: 31 King Charles II. See Charles II Stubbs, James, of Wilton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Stubbs, Ralph, of Marske, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Stubs, John, boy bishop at Gloucester Cathedral. See boy bishops Sutton Bank, North Riding of Yorkshire: 43–44, 46–47 Swainby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Syon House, fools at. See fools and jesters, in Percy households

Index

217

Talbot, Brian, Alice in Sunderland: 178 Talbot, John, of Grafton, Worcestershire: 74 Talmud: 1 Tarleton, Richard: 11–12 Taylor, John (“the water poet”), A Merry Wherry-Ferry Voyage: xiii, xvii, 52–54, 59 Tebbe, Francis, of Kirby Wiske, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Tempest family: Jane (Chaytor), daughter of Sir Nicholas: 69 Sir Nicholas, first Baron Tempest of Stella Hall, County Durham: 69 Temple Newsam, West Riding of Yorkshire: 37 theatres. See playhouses Thirsk, North Riding of Yorkshire: 46, 48, 50 Thomas, Dylan: 161, 180, 181 Thomas, Sir Rhys ap: 29 Thomas stultus, Durham fool. See fools and jesters Thompson, Cuthbert, of Yarm, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Thompson, Will, of Swainby, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Thornbury, Gloucestershire, players at. See Percy family: Henry Algernon Thorner, West Riding of Yorkshire: xxiii, 132, 138–40 Thornton le Moor, North Riding of Yorkshire: xxiii, 48 Throckmorton family, of Dunchurch: 64 Tildsley, Rev. Tristram: xvi, 37n26, 38, 132, 136 Todd, Michael, of Bedale, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Tomlin, Francis, of Egton Bridge, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 tournaments. See performance Towneley Plays. See plays and playwrights: Towneley Plays Townshend, Sir Roger, collection of plays: 4 trade in Yorkshire, in wool and cloth: xviii–xix, 55, 77–91 travelling players: Chamberlain’s/King’s: xvi, 42, 51–56, 60–61 Children/boys of the King’s Revels: 41, 61

218

Index

“Children of the King’s chapel”: 27 “Company of His Majesty’s Revels”: 54 Countess of Essex’s: 55 Duchess of Suffolk’s: 55 Duke of Suffolk’s: 55 Earl of Bedford’s: 55 Earl of Derby’s: 61 Earl of Essex’s gesters: 5 Earl of Exeter’s: 55 Earl of Leicester’s: 56, 57, 108 Earl of Pembroke’s: 61 Earl of Skaithe’s: 55 Earl of Suffolk’s: 53n7 Earl of Sussex’s: 55 Earl of Worcester’s: xvi, xviii, 40–41, 55n15, 58, 59 Hudson’s company of Hutton Buscel, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvii, 45, 48–50 Jarvis (Iarvis, Iervis) of Lord Wharton’s Men: xvi, 41–43 King Henry VIII’s: 53n7 Lady Elizabeth’s / Queen of Bohemia’s: 43, 61 Lieutenant of the Tower’s: 55 Lord Admiral’s: 53–56 Lord Beaumont’s: 59 Lord Berkeley’s (“Bartilles”): xvi, xviii, 40–41, 55 Lord Buckingham’s: 59 Lord Clinton’s: 55 Lord Darcy’s: 55 Lord Ambrose Dudley’s: 55 Lord Robert Dudley’s. See Earl of Leicester’s Lord Eure’s (“Evers”): 55n15 Lord Hunsdon’s: 55 Lord Lincoln’s: 55n15 Lord Luxborough’s: 55 Lord Montague’s: 55 Lord Monteagle’s: xvi, xviii, 43, 55, 61 Lord Morden’s: 54 Lord Mountjoy’s, 55 Lord Privy Seal’s: 53n7 Lord Rich’s: 55 Lord Shrewsbury’s: 55 Lord Stafford’s: 61 Lord Strange’s: 55–57 Lord Wharton’s: xvi, 41–43

Lord Willoughby’s: 55, 61 Prince Charles’s: 42, 61 Prince Edward’s: 53n7 Princess Elizabeth (Stuart)’s. See Lady Elizabeth’s Queen’s (Anne of Denmark): xvi, xviii, 6, 43, 57, 61n40, 62n42 Queen’s (Elizabeth I): xviii, 9, 54, 55n15, 58, 61 St. Paul’s boys: 4 Simpsons’ company of Egton, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvii, 39, 44–50 touring routes: 45–50, 53–54, 56–59, 62 See also performers; rogues and vagabonds, statutes against Tremlett, Andrew: 176n64 Troutbeck, Edmund: 140 Turner, Francis, of Middleham, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Twelfth Night, celebrations in Earl of Northumberland’s household. See feast days; Percy family

United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 163 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO): 162–66, 180–81 University of Cambridge, jesters rewarded at. See fools and jesters Upton, Sir Henry (portrait including a masque): 27 Vincent, Marmaduke, of Smeaton, North Yorkshire: 47

Wager, William. See plays and playwrights waits. See performance: musicians and minstrels. Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire: xv, 35, 77, 88 Walsham, Alexandra: 146 Walsingham, Sir Francis: 57 Ward, Henry, of Bolton on Swale, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Wardley, County Durham: 115, 116n17, 119 Wasson, John: 32n6, 35 Wearmouth, County Durham, 97n75, 101, 157, 158



wedding rings: 143 weddings: xii, xiv–xv, xvi, 9, 15–30, 31–38, 106n112, 132 and unhappy marriages: xv, 35–36 in the Earl of Northumberland’s household: xiv, 15–30 Landshut Wedding, Bavaria: 165, 181 of Eleanor Percy to the Duke of Buckingham: xiv of Eleanor Slingsby to Sir Arthur Ingram junior: xv, 36–37 of Elizabeth Clifford to Lord Dungarvan: xv, 36 of Elizabeth de Vere to Earl of Derby: 27 of Elizabeth Nevile to Roger Rockley: xv, 31, 35 of Lady Elizabeth Radclyffe to Viscount Haddington: xv, 34 of Elizabeth Russell to Henry Somerset, son of the Earl of Worcester: 27 of Elizabeth of York to Henry VII: 17n9 of Princess Elizabeth Stuart to Frederick V, count Palatine: xv, 31 of Frances Howard to the Earl of Somerset: xv, 32–33 of Katherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur: 17n9, 24–26, 29–30 of Margaret Stewart to Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham: 33 of Princess Margaret Tudor to James IV of Scotland: 17n9, 20n19, 25–26, 28–30 of Susan de Vere to Sir Philip Herbert: xv, 34 of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VIII. See Katherine of Aragon of Gilbert and Ann Hodson: xv, 36 See also masques; Percy family Welford, John, of Aldbrough, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 West, Will, of Buttercrambe, North Riding of Yorkshire, 48

Index

219

Westfall, Suzanne: 7n50, 10, 173n50 Westoe, County Durham: 116n17, 117, 119 Whenby, North Riding of Yorkshire, 48 Whitby, North Riding of Yorkshire: xvi, 40, 45, 47, 49, 56 White, Paul Whitfield: 134 Whitehead, Hugh, prior (later dean) of Durham: 97 Whittingham, William, dean of Durham: 129 Whyte, Roland: 34 Wickham, Glynne: xi n4, xii n8 Wiggan, Thomas, fool of George Percy. See fools and jesters; Percy family Wildon, John, of Marton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47, 48 Wiles, David: 1n1, 10n82, 12n82 Wilson, F.P.: xi n3 Wilton, North Riding of Yorkshire: 47–50 Wintour, Robert: 64n5 Wishart, Robert, bishop of Glasgow: 103 Wooden, Warren W.: 147n1 Woodham Moor, County Durham, horse racing at: 72 Woolf, Rosemary: xii n6, 85 Worcester parish customs (Badsey, Grimley, South Littleton). See folk ceremonies Wressle Castle, East Riding of Yorkshire: 61 Wyatt, Diana: xiii n10, xvii, 31, 35, 42n9

Yarm, North Riding of Yorkshire: 48 Yonge, John: 28 York: 40–41, 42–44, 52, 53, 55–59, 61, 77–92 See also boy bishops; feast days: St George’s Day; plays and playwrights: York Plays Yorke, Sir John, of Gowthwaite Hall, North Riding of Yorkshire: 39n2, 45–46, 49–50 Yorkshire, cloth and wool trades: xviii–xix, 77–92