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‘More medieval morality play than 21st century’: Spectacle and its Meaning at the Coronation of King Charles III
- Edited by Meg Twycross, Lancaster University, Sarah Carpenter, University of Edinburgh, Elisabeth Dutton, Université de Fribourg, Switzerland, Gordon L. Kipling, University of California, Los Angeles
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- Book:
- Medieval English Theatre
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 08 May 2024
- Print publication:
- 25 June 2024, pp 153-185
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Summary
On 6 May 2023, as I sat down on my couch to watch King Charles III's coronation, I cannot say that I was especially excited about it. I am not from the United Kingdom and did not feel particularly engaged by an event that I perceived to be closely tied to that country and culture. However, I was curious enough to turn on the television that morning: the fashion would undoubtedly be interesting (would the hats be even more wonderful than those seen at royal weddings?) and it would be fun to spot our own Swiss president sitting in Westminster Abbey. As the ceremony started, my excitement rose and I found myself wanting to see the crown jewels, all the gold and the wealth on display, and museum pieces worn again. I was eager to listen to the music, some of which – like Handel's Zadok the Priest – I was aware had been composed for similar ceremonies in the past. Spectacle (defined here as ‘stage display or pageantry’) was therefore the primary draw for me to watch King Charles III's coronation. I was intrigued because the event was beautiful and unique, but also because I felt I was watching, in some ways, a recreation of a historical spectacle.
Yet, was the coronation not more than this spectacle? Was it even as ‘historical’, and perhaps medieval, as I felt it was when I was watching it? What was its meaning and how was it expressed through spectacle? Prompted by these questions, this article reflects on the meaning of this twenty-first century coronation and on its evolution over its 1,000-year history. It will do so by exploring the discourse around the coronation of King Charles III and by comparing the features of this royal event with those of its medieval antecedents. Both the perception of the coronation, and the choices that were made during its organisation reflect the current – and the changing – view of kingship. I will first examine the meaning of the coronation as it was explained by those involved in planning and enacting it; I will then move on to consider the extent to which the intended meaning was understood, appreciated, or embraced by the recipients, the spectators of the event.
Performing Female Authority: Convent Plays and Lay Spectatorship in the Barking Abbey Elevatio and Visitatio Sepulchri Dramatic Ceremonies
- Edited by Elisabeth Dutton, Olivia Robinson
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- Book:
- Medieval English Theatre 42
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 January 2023
- Print publication:
- 21 May 2021, pp 50-89
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Summary
In the early fifteenth century Abbess Sybil of Felton saw the need to provide guidance for the future abbesses of Barking Abbey and commissioned an Ordinal and Customary recording the house’s liturgy. Its account of Easter Matins includes two ceremonies – generally named in scholarly literature the Elevatio and the Visitatio Sepulchri – that depict the Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, and the Visit of the three Marys to the Sepulchre. While unique, they belong to an ensemble of similar ceremonies produced in numerous medieval cathedrals, monasteries, and nunneries throughout Europe. These ceremonies were sung in Latin by their participants – nuns, priests, and clerics in the case of Barking – who explicitly took on roles and wore appropriate clothing to signify these roles. These last features of the Elevatio and Visitatio have resulted in their frequent dissociation from the rest of the liturgy and in their study as drama. Yet their categorization, as well as the common use of the term ‘liturgical drama’ to designate them, continues to provoke extensive scholarly debates. Some scholars have denied that they should be categorized as liturgical; others that they should be categorized as drama. Musicologists in particular regret the lack of reference to music in the term ‘liturgical drama’, though music is an essential feature of these events. Furthermore, because there is no consensus about the term and its definition, ‘liturgical drama’ is used as a catch-all expression to designate vastly different ceremonies, sung or spoken, performed in Latin or in the vernacular, during or outside church services. As for the nature of the Barking Abbey Elevatio and Visitatio, the current scholarly consensus, which I here follow, seems to be that they are liturgical, but feature dramatic elements otherwise absent from or less pronounced in the rest of the liturgy.
The classification of performative activities as either drama or liturgy probably depended in the Middle Ages on the perception of the audience or congregation. A ritual that was perceived to have ‘efficacy’ was liturgy, although this did not prevent it from being theatrical. Some spectators may even have recognized the more ‘dramatic’ liturgical ceremonies as close to drama, or as resonant with other theatrical experiences.
The Huy Nativity from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century: Translation, Play-Back, and Pray-Back
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- By Aurélie Blanc, Université de Fribourg, Olivia Robinson, Université de Fribourg
- Edited by Sarah Carpenter, Elisabeth Dutton, Gordon Kipling Meg Twycross
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- Book:
- Medieval English Theatre 40
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 31 August 2019
- Print publication:
- 19 April 2019, pp 66-97
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Summary
In the early seventeenth century in Huy (present-day Belgium), one or more anonymous Carmelite nuns embarked upon a piece of theatrical translation. Using a medieval vernacular playbook which had been copied in Walloon French within their own convent around a hundred years before, in the second half of the fifteenth century, they set about adapting two of the short plays they found in it (which together cover the narrative of the Nativity, Epiphany, Rage of Herod, and Purification of the Virgin) into a single, new French-language play. They, or two of their sisters collaborated to copy this play into a separate manuscript. The Huy convent's medieval playbook is now owned by the Musée Condé at Chantilly (Chantilly, Condé MS 617); however, the early-seventeenth-century play has remained in the convent's archive, alongside their surviving administrative and financial documentation (Liège, Archives d'Etat, Fonds Dames Blanches de Huy [hereafter ‘Fonds DBH’], doc. 386bis). 386bis's play (hereafter the Huy Nativity) translates, reworks, and expands the material comprising the first play in Chantilly 617 and the first part of that manuscript's second play. It thus presents the Nativity, Epiphany, and part of Herod's Rage, omitting the Purification and other non-Biblical episodes found in Chantilly 617's Play Two. (We provide a detailed synopsis of the Huy Nativity as an appendix.) However, the script breaks off unfinished, suggesting that it might well have gone on to include – in another copy, or in performance – further material from Chantilly 617's second play, and/or from elsewhere.
Minor alterations include changes of spelling or grammatical construction, that reflect changes in linguistic and orthographic practice (e.g. les anges du ciel for les angle de ciel); more major revisions include for example, the addition of entirely new characters. Sometimes, however, the script is much more radically revised at a structural level, including, for example, the addition of entirely new characters. One such character is the Sibyl, who does not appear at all in the medieval play, but who is sent for by Herod in the Huy Nativity to confirm his pre-eminence. In an episode which was certainly known as far back as the Middle Ages (it appears in the Golden Legend) the Sibyl experiences a vision of a virgin holding an infant in her arms. In the play, this vision enables her to confirm the birth of Jesus and deny that Herod is all-powerful.
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