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Submitted for the Qualification of D. Phil. in Medieval Studies at the University of York

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Submitted for the Qualification of D. Phil. in Medieval Studies at the University of York The Dynamics of Urban Festal Culture in Later Medieval England Christopher Humphrey Submitted for the qualification of D. Phil. in Medieval Studies at the University of York Centre for Medieval Studies,University of York April 1997 ii Abstract A distinctive subset of late medieval drama are those customs which involved an elementof subversionor inversionon the occasionof a calendarfeast. These customs, which may generically be labelled as misrule, have long been a source of interest to antiquarians, local historians and students of medieval drama and popular culture. One particularview which has dominated the discussion and interpretation of misrule is the approachwhich seessuch practices as a conservativeforce in late medieval society, that is, by temporarily challengingauthority these customs merely reaffirm it in the long run. It is the contention of this thesis that although this model has raised the important question of the relationship between misrule, politics and social structure in this period, it is inappropriate both as a metaphor and as a tool for the analysis of these thernes. I review the scholarly literature on misrule over the past twenty-five years in Chapter One, drawing attentionto the problemsof previousapproaches. In Chapter Two I put forward what I believe to be a more appropriate vocabulary and framework in which those calendarcustoms with a transgressiveelement can be discussed.I suggestthat misrule is more constructively approachedas an instance of symbolic inversion, which enables functionalist terms like 'safety-valve'to be replaced by a neutral languagethat does not prejudgethe function of a custom. I use this new methodology to undertake a series of case-studies in Chapters Three to Six, each of which examines the function of a particular custom. I am able to show that misrule could have a variety of functions in the late medieval town, playing a part in local change as part of wider strategy of resistance,. as well as being one means through which social status could be accumulated and articulated. 111 Table of Contents Acknowledgments IV Note on the Text V Abbreviations vi Introduction I 1. Models and Paradigms II 2. Towards a New Methodology for the Study of Medieval Misrule 34 3. SeasonalDrama and Local Politics in Norwich, 1443 61 4. Vegetation-Gathering at Coventry in the Fifteenth Century 84 5. The Boy-Bishop Custom at Bristol 109 6. Hocking in Urban Churchwardens'Accounts and the Coventry Hock Tuesday Play 143 Conclusion 163 Appendix 1: The Dating of Hocktide 168 Bibliography 173 iv Acknowledgments I am grateful to the British Academy for funding both my M. A. and D. Phil. work, and for providing a grant to enable me to attend a conference to present work in progress. I would like to thank the staff at Bristol Record Office for all their assistanceduring my researchin the Bristol archives. Roberta Gilchrist and Anthony Gash deserve a special mention for their helpful advice at an early stagein my career.John McGavin supervised my M. A. dissertationand has continued to provide me with help and advice during my time at York, for which I am grateful. Thanks are also due to all the staff and students of the Centre for Medieval Studies and the Departments of English and History, who over the years have made York such a stimulating environment in which to work and teach. In particular I would like to thank Peter Rycraft, Sarah Rees-Jonesand Karen Hodder for all the help and supportwhich they have freely given. John Arnold has been a close friend and his unflagging enthusiasmfor discussing both theory and evidence with me deservesspecial thanks, as do his efforts in proof-reading the manuscript. I owe a particular debt to my supervisors, Jeremy Goldberg and Felicity Riddy, who have been a constant source of help, guidance and inspiration during the course of this thesis. Finally, I will always be grateful to Rachel, to my parents and to the rest of my family and friends for all the love and support which they have given me over the years. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Jonathan Newby, whose full and vital life endedjust as this project began. V Note on the Text Where a custom is first mentioned in the text it has been my practice to refer the reader to the most recent secondaryworks in which the custom is discussed;no attempt has been made to list exhaustively all of the secondaryworks in which referencesoccur. I have the usedthe word'festal'in constructions like'urban festal culture',,since it signals that an occasion took place as part of a calendar feast, without implying that it was necessarily 'festive', that is, celebrated in an upbeat manner. Elsewhere I have used various terms likeTestive', 'festival' and Testal'where a custom had a calendar context, and again they should all be understood to denote context rather than tone. In order to avoid the problem whereby abbreviated citations appear some distance away from the original reference,I have given the full reference to a work the first time that it is cited in eachchapter; subsequent references to the text in that chapter are given in abbreviated form. This should also assistthe reader in identifying the sourcesused, since in many casesboth primary and secondary source material has appeared in several different editions. Thoms and yoghs have been replaced as appropriate. The spelling of names has been left in the original where that person appearsonly once or twice, the names of individuals who are cited more often have been standardised in line with modern usage. All medieval dates are given in New Style.1 have for the most part followed the guidance offered by Shaun Tyas in Style Book for Medieval Studies (Stamford, 1995). The place of publication for all works is London unless otherwise stated. A proportion of Chapter Three has previously appeared in print as "'To Make a New King": SeasonalDrama and Local Politics in Norwich, 1443', in Medieval English Theatre 17 (1995), pp. 29-41. vi Abbreviations0 I have opted not to use heavily-abbreviated versions of the names of the main primary sources,preferring to give the full referencefor the first citation in a chapter and a shortenedversion in subsequentreferences. The few abbreviations which have been usedare listed below: EETS Early English Text Society O. S. Original Series N. S. New Series REED Records of Early English Drama MED Middle English Dictionary vii The problem of carnival (in the sense of the sum total of all diverse festivities, rituals forms and of a carnival type) - its essence,,its deep roots in the primordial order and the primordial thinking of man, its development under conditions of class society, its extraordinary life force and its undying fascination - is one of the most complex and interestingproblems in the history of culture. We cannot, of course, do justice to it here. Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems ofDostoevsky's Poetics, Introduction 2 Late Medieval and Early Modern Calendar Customs In late January 1443 a merchant named John Gladman rode through the streets of Norwich dressedas a king,and accompaniedby an entourage on horseback and on foot. Gladman'sriding took place at a time of heightened tension within the city, and became implicated in a series of subsequent events which resulted in the loss of the city's liberties and the imprisonmentof its mayor in the Fleet. In the version of the riding given at an inquiry at Thetford just over a month later, Gladman is said to have ridden through the city'like a crowned king, with a sceptre and sword carried before him'; furthermore, a number of others rode on horseback before him,, 'with a crown upon their arms and carrying bows and arrows, as if they were valets of the crown of the lord king... '. ' By the defence the later, that contrast, in city's of incident made some years it was argued Gladman had only taken part in a disport that was customary throughout the realm on Shrove Tuesday, namely to ride'crowned as King of Kristmesse', with representations of the seasonsbefore him and the figure of Lent following on behind.' The particular reasonswhy this riding took place, and why a Shrovetide procession may have occurred outside of its usual festal context, will be explored at some length in a later chapter.' What is interesting about this incident are the two competing ways of reading it, the point is not to identify which of them is true, but to consider how and why the events cameto be representedin these quite different ways. The city's defence clearly depends upon a notion of 'misrule', that is, a sense that the usual rules may be temporarily transgressedas part of a festival occasion. In this case,the potentially treasonousact of riding as a king is assumedto be mitigated by the fact that it is only a representationof a festive character. The official version of events would seem to be a more literal interpretationof the incident,,denying that the festal element has any bearing upon what was actually dramatised. 'A translationof this indictmentis given by N. P. Tanner, The Church in Late Medieval Norwich, Studies 1370-1532, and Texts 66: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, 1984), pp. 149). Tanner's 149-51(p. translation is preferred over that of Hudson, in Ae Records of the City W. Hudson ofNorwich, ed. andJ. C. Tingey,2 vols (Norwich and London, 1906-10), 1 pp. 340- 1, 'is whose version much abbreviatedand not always accurate'(Tanner p. 151 n. 5 1). 'Records OtY of the offorwich, ed. Hudson and Tingey, I pp. 345-6 (p. 345). 'See ChapterThree for a fiffl discussion of this incident and the scholarly literature surrounding it.
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