Civic and Symbolic Space in Representation and Ritual in the Renaissance Gordon, Andrew David Hamilton
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Civic and Symbolic Space in Representation and Ritual in the Renaissance Gordon, Andrew David Hamilton The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1523 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] School of English and Drama Queen Mary & Westfield College University of London Civic and Symbolic Space in Representation and Ritual in tAlL IC'MoSd24 t( Andrew David Hamilton Gordon A Dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 1999 (LONDON) Abstract: This project examines the conception and imaging of the city in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The thesis aims to chart the ways in which a spatialised reading of the metropolis most fully realised in ceremonial representations of the city informs representational strategies of the time. Chapter 1 looks at the transformations taking place during this period in the practice of land surveying, exploring the implications of the new techniques of geometrical survey for conceptions of civic space. Examining the parallels between the viewing of the estate and the reformation of the Rogationtide ceremonies of perambulating the bounds, the urban context for spatial description is analysed through a reading of John Stow's Survey of London. In Chapter 2 the resistance of the city to a strictly geometrical conception of space is traced through an analysis of early printed maps of the city and the texts of civic ceremonies. The shared interest of these cultural practices in the representation of civic space is interrogated to reveal an understanding of the city as comprising !oth built environment and social body which informs the deployment of the city as a subject of cartographic representation. The next chapter analyses the costume book in the context of a Europe- wide project of geographical description. The production of a clothed body capable of articulating spatial and hierarchical difference is examined in relation to the available ceremonial models for the negotiation of these intersecting axes of description and the tensions generated by this representational strategy The final chapter undertakes a reinvestigation of the Earl of Essex's rebellion, reading a wide range of materials to argue for the centrality of anxieties over the control of the civic sign to the understanding of this event. Contents Acknowledgements 1 List of illustrations 2 Introduction 4 I The Surveyor Abroad: The City and the Perfect View 7 Section 1: Desperate Measures 7 Section 2: Perambulation and the Reformation of Manors 16 Section 3: The City Surveyed 30 2 Performing London: The Map and the City in Ceremony 45 Section 1 45 Section 2 47 Section 3 56 Section 4 76 3 Inhabited Spaces: The costume book and the custom of representation 80 Section 1: Definitions 80 Section 2: A Material World 92 Section 3: Fashionable conduct 104 Section 4: The space of representation 126 Section 5: Loose threads 137 Section 6: The empire's new clothes: embodiment and artifice 151 4 "This Capital Rebellion": The Design of Essex and London 169 Section 1: Making History 170 Section 2: The Verbal Contest: Naming, proclaiming and shaming 174 Section 3: Report and Libel: seditious words 192 Section 4: Preaching to convert 210 Section 5 "Thy accusation did but quote / The margin of some text of greater note": The several trials of the Earl of Essex 226 Conclusion 245 Appendix I: Bibliography of costume books 247 Appendix II: Contemporary account of the Essex rebellion 249 Bibliography 253 Acknowledgements Without the support, encouragement and advice of a number of people this work would not have been possible. I would like to thank firstly my supervisor Lisa Jardine from whom I have learnt much. Her enthusiasm and insights as well as her faith in this project have been instrumental in seeing it through to completion. Bernhard Klein has been an important friend and ally in researching early modern cartography and much else besides. His comments and criticisms on the work contained here have made a generous contribution to its development. I should also like to thank Warren Boutcher for his detailed reading of the Essex material and for the benefit of his observations on other aspects of the project. I am grateful to the following who each read and offered comments upon sections of the thesis: Caterina Albano, Ava Arndt, Patricia Brewerton, ma Habermann, Andrew McRae and David Matthews. The research carried out would not have been possible without the assistance of the staff of the British Library, University of London Library, Queen Mary and Westfield College Library, the Bodleian, The Institute of Historical Research, The Public Record Office, The Corporation of London Record Office, The Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum and The Royal Library, Stockholm. My family has been a constant source of love and support throughout the process of researching and writing and I am deeply grateful to them. My dad was exceedingly generous both in his help with the translation of Latin texts and in his proof-reading of the entire work, Aunty Mary charitably covered the printing costs. Many friends have helped lighten the load during the period of the last four years but none has shared it so much as Bettina Weichert to whom I am indebted. This work is dedicated to the memory of Elisabeth Innes. 1 List of Illustrations (figs. 1-7 between pp.79-80, figs. 8-34 between pp.! 68-169) 1. Wenceslaus Hollar, An Exact Surveigh of the Streets Lanes and Churches contained within the Ruines of the City of London (1667). 2. Map of Norwich from William Cunningham's The Cosmographicall Glasse (1559). 3. Civitas Londinum: the woodcut map of London (1633). 4. John Norden, Civitas Londini (1600). 5. "Le Mayeur de Londres ainsy qu'il marche a son entree" from Lucas de Heere, Theatre de tous les peuples et nations de Ia terre avec leur habits et ornemens divers, MS in University Library Ghent. 6. Detail of Lord Mayor's Procession from Civitas Londini. 7. Detail of "gally fuste" from Civitas Londini. 8. Ambrogio Brambilla, Habiti delle Donne del Mondo (1602), first impression pre 1585. 9. Title-page to Bartolomeo Grassi, Dei Veri Ritratti degl'Habiti ti tutte le parti del mondo (1585). 10.Title page to Hans Weigel and Jost Amman, Habitus Praecipuorum Populorum (1577). 11 .Three images of Venice from Vecellio, De Gli Habiti... (1590). 12.Venetian procession with captions denoting different participants and the ducal trionfi, from Giacomo Franco, Habiti d'Huomeni et Donne Venetiane (1609). 13.Engraving of the Doge seated before a window in Franco, Habiti d'Huomeni... 14.A woman going for a walk and a woman walking to the market from de Bruyn Omnium Poene Gentium Imagines (1577). 15.Litter of the 'Nobilis Neapolitana' with flat & raised curtain from Pietro Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus (1594-6) 1 6.Venetian courtesan showing undergarments [This copy lacks the skirt overlay]. Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus. l7.A courtesan out of doors from Vecellio, De Gli Habiti. I 8.Courtesan, noble and bourgeois wives, widows and young ladies from de Bruyn, Omnium Pene Europae, Asiae, Aphricae Atque Americae Gentium Habitus (1581). 19.Dogaress and prostitute from de Bruyn, Omnium Pene Europae. 20.The Holy Roman Emperor with the three Ecclesiastical Electors from Petri Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus. 21 .The four Secular Electors from Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus. 22. 'Ordines Sacri Romani Imp' engraving by Antoine Wierix from Gerard and Cornelius de Jode, Speculum Orbis Terrae (1593). 23.Peter van der Keere, Germania (1610) with Rudolph II as "Rom. Imperator" and "Hungariae et Bohemiae Rex. Archidux Austriae". 24.'Germani Geographicis Tabulis Illustrata' with the images of Emperor and Electors reproduced in bottom left, from Speculum Orbis Terrae (1593). 25.Four Dukes from Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus. 26."Fower free men of the Empire" from Bertelli, Diversa rum Nationum Habitus. 27."Fower metropolitans of the Empire" from Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus. 28.Four Imperial Cities from Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus. 29.Four 'Ruistici' from Bertelli, Diversarum Nationum Habitus. 2 30. Images from The Triumph of Maximilian I (1526) woodcuts by Hans Burgkmair and others 31.The Triumph of Maximilian I (1526) 32.The Triumph of Maximilian 1(1526) 33.The Triumph of Maximilian 1 (1526) 34."herald (announcer of the triumph)" from The Triumph of Maximilian 1. 3 Introduction I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then said I, Whither goest thou ? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof. (Zechanah 2.1-2) To take the measure of the city. Such a notion provokes a series of questions. What scale would such a practice deploy ? Based on what units ? And how might one represent the findings ? All the chapters of this thesis touch upon the issues raised by these points of inquiry. From the precise techniques of geometrical measurement whose impact is investigated in chapter 1 to the security measures intersecting with a form of ceremonial geography in chapter 4, efforts to demarcate, to read and to control the space of the city form a starting point for the series of investigations undertaken here. In doing so each section of the thesis marks a stage in the development and extension of the idea of civic space which centres upon notions of resistance, highlighting in each case a productive friction which animates the representational strategies of the materials discussed.