3 results
Chapter 2 - Wedding Revels at the Earl of Northumberland’s Household
- Edited by Diana Wyatt, John McKinnell
-
- Book:
- Early Performers and Performance in the Northeast of England
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 09 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 31 May 2021, pp 15-30
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
IN HIS BOOK The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre asks, “What exactly were the great cathedrals? The answer is that they were political acts.” 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. 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.” 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.
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.
Contributors
-
- By Linda S. Aglio, Cyrus Ahmadi Yazdi, Syed Irfan Qasim Ali, Caryn Barnet, Jessica Bauerle, Felicity Billings, Evan Blaney, Beverly Chang, Christopher Chen, Zinaida Chepurny, Hyung Sun Choi, Allison Clark, Lauren J. Cornella, Lisa Crossley, Michael D’Ambra, Galina Davidyuk, Whitney de Luna, Manisha S. Desai, Sukumar P. Desai, Kelly G. Elterman, Michaela K. Farber, Iuliu Fat, Jaida Fitzgerald, Devon Flaherty, John A. Fox, Gyorgy Frendl, Rejean Gareau, Joseph M. Garfield, Andrea Girnius, Laverne D. Gugino, J. Tasker Gundy, Carly C. Guthrie, Lisa M. Hammond, M. Tariq Hanifi, James Hardy, Philip M. Hartigan, Thomas Hickey, Richard Hsu, Mohab Ibrahim, David Janfaza, Yuka Kiyota, Suzanne Klainer, Benjamin Kloesel, Hanjo Ko, Bhavani Kodali, Vesela Kovacheva, J. Matthew Kynes, Robert W. Lekowski, Joyce Lo, Jeffrey Lu, Alvaro A. Macias, Zahra M. Malik, Erich N. Marks, Brendan McGinn, Jonathan R. Meserve, Annette Mizuguchi, Srdjan S. Nedeljkovic, Ju-Mei Ng, Michael Nguyen, Olutoyin Okanlawon, Jennifer Oliver, Krishna Parekh, Jessica Patterson, Christian Peccora, Pete Pelletier, Sujatha Pentakota, James H. Philip, Marc Philip T. Pimentel, Timothy D. Quinn, Elizabeth M. Rickerson, Susan L. Sager, Julia Serber, Shaheen Shaikh, Stanton Shernan, David Silver, Alissa Sodickson, Pingping Song, George P. Topulos, Agnieszka Trzcinka, Richard D. Urman, Rosemary Uzomba, Joshua Vacanti, Assia Valovska, Michael Vaninetti, Scott W. Vaughan, Kamen Vlassakov, Christopher Voscopoulos, Emily L. Wang, Laura Westfall, Zhiling Xiong, Stephanie Yacoubian, Dongdong Yao, Martin Zammert, Maksim Zayaruzny, Jose Luis Zeballos, Natthasorn Zinboonyahgoon, Jie Zhou
- Edited by Linda S. Aglio, Robert W. Lekowski, Richard D. Urman
-
- Book:
- Essential Clinical Anesthesia Review
- Published online:
- 05 February 2015
- Print publication:
- 08 January 2015, pp xi-xvi
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
“The Actors are Come Hither”: Literary Analogues of Itinerant Player Troupe Procedures
- Suzanne R. Westfall
-
- Journal:
- Theatre Survey / Volume 30 / Issue 1-2 / May 1989
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 07 July 2009, pp. 59-68
- Print publication:
- May 1989
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
Hundreds of itinerant players under civic, ecclesiastical, and aristocratic patronage were criss-crossing England from at least 1426, when Henry VI rewarded a troupe of the Duke of Exeter's boys playing interludes, to the closing of the public theatres in 1642. Public and private financial accounts mark the passage of such troupes, but rarely provide any information about them beyond what year they appeared and who acted as their patron. We know that the players existed and that they travelled, but we know virtually nothing about the day-to-day lives of the touring players, about their touring strategies and methods. How many plays were in a typical repertoire, ready to be performed for any audience? How did players gain admittance to performing spaces, and how were they received? Who was responsible for the administrative details governing rewards, bed and board, and production procedures? Who decided what, where, and why the players performed, and what kind of reception could players expect? No extant primary source document addresses any of these questions.