Records Ofeayl~Q English Dan'iay

volume 11, number 1 (1986)

A Newsletter published by University of Toronto Press in association with Erindale College, University of Toronto . JoAnna Dutka, editor

Records ofEayl~q English Dan'iay

REED's interest in a variety of dramatic activities is illustrated by the papers in this issue . David Mills (University of Liverpool) notes the Puritan hostility, exemplified by John Bruen in Cheshire, to various entertainments, while Caroline Balderston Parry (PLS, Toronto) and Michael Heaney (Bodleian Library) discuss two of those forms of amusement : Mrs Parry, in a paper originally given as a talk in the REED/PLS series `Recreating the early stage', provides information on Maypoles ; Mr Heaney, on the term `fiddler'.

DAVID MILLS

'Bushop Brian' and the dramatic entertainments of Chesbire

A Faithfull Remonstrance of the Holy Life and Happy Death ofJohn Bruen of Bruen Stapleford in the County of Chester Esquire, published in 1641,' is a biography well known to historians but, so far as I am aware, little used by those interested in the drama and related activities in north-west England . Its author, William Hinde, was a Puritan preacher at the village of Bunbury, near Chester, from 1603 until his death in 1629.2 His subject, John Bruen, was born at nearby Bruen-Stapleford in 1560 and died in 1625 .3 The book is a characteristically Puritan `saint's life' biography 'usefull for all sorts and Sexes, but principally intended, as a Path and a President of Piety and Charity for the Inhabitants of the Famous County Palatine of Chester .' It documents the career of this Cheshire squire and, in particular, his extreme Puritanical zeal in the organisation of his own life, his household, and the spiritual welfare of the parish of Tarvin . Though primarily a fascinating revelation of the Puritan mind of its subject and also its author, the book is of interest to the drama-historian as a hostile witness to various entertainments of sixteenth-century Cheshire . It indicates the attitudes and values that prevailed against those activities and reveals the ingenuity with which groups of influential Puritans devised practical measures against them . Hinde's opening sections describe the unregenerate youth of Bruen, a condition which he attributes to the negligence of the Roman Catholic Church . Sent for education to the household of his uncle Dutton, he was drawn into the dancing-school there . Later, when a married man of 21, `he was much addicted to the customary and ordinary exercises and recreations of hunting and hawking, following the courses, and affecting the company of such Gentlemen, as being of note and quality, took pleasure in such things' (p 28) . At one time he kept six brace of hunting dogs . In his later life, Bruen served as a model to the landowners `who had much rather spend much of their estate in maintaining idle and base persons to serve their owne lusts, and satisfie the humour of a rude and profane people, as many do their Hors-riders, Faulkeners, Huntsmen, Lords of misrule, Pipers and Minstrels' (p 86) . Hinde picks up the same contrast some pages further on : `And these would I willingly commend in the example of this Gentleman (to be duely considered, and diligently followed) unto many of our Gentlemen, and to many of inferiour ranck also, that they would make an exchange of their vaine and profane exercises of May-games and Summer-greenes, of their Foot-races, and Horse-races, of their weekely and almost daily meetings and matches on their Bowling Greenes, of their lavish betting of great wagers in such sorry trifles, and of their stout and strong abetting of so sillie vanities, amongst hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of rude and vile persons . . .' (p 104) .4 Hinde clearly felt that it was the responsibility of a man of rank to purge his household of servants kept for private sport and entertainment, and also to set an example to the general populace by not engaging in public sport and revel - including the 'folk- activities' of May-games and Summer-greenes, though evidently many felt otherwise . Bruen was, however, not only an exemplary squire but an active and zealous reformer . His family had its own chapel in Tarvin church and the right to appoint the Preacher to the living, 5 and Bruen felt a special responsibility towards the local church, still with its pre-Reformation glass and ornaments :

Finding in the Church of Taruin, in his owne Chappell, which of ancient right did appertaine unto him and his family, many superstitious images, and idolatrous pictures in the painted windowes, and they so thicke, and darke that there was, as he himselfe saith, scearce the breadth of a grot of white glasse amongst them, he, knowing by the truth of God, that though the Papists will have Images to bee lay mens bookes, yet they teach no other lessons but of lyes . . .. Hee presently tooke order, to pull downe all these painted puppets, and popish idols, in a warrantable and peaceable manner, and of his owne cost and charge, repaired the breaches, and beautified the windows with white and bright glasse againe (pp 78-9) .

And from the family chapel, Bruen continued throughout the church `defacing all the popish and superstitious images' (p 80) . Hinde stesses that this was an act of piety and personal charity . Davidson comments that in Elizabeth's time `the cost of replacing so much glass with plain white glass was prohibitive within the limited budgets allowed to the churches during this period," but Bruen undertook it `of his owne cost.' And Hinde moreover defends the legality of the action, done `in a warrantable and peaceable manner,' and cites in its defence `the Queenes Injunctions' and `the Authority of a Commission sent down into the countrey to the Earle of Derby, the Major of Chester, and others to the same purpose .' The defence was a necessary one. In 1559 it was proclaimed that curates

shall take away, utterly extinct, and destroy all shrines, covering of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindles, and rolls of wax, pictures, paintings, and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages .

2 idolatry, and superstition, so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glasses, window, or elsewhere within their churches and houses.'

Bruen evidently felt that he acted within this Injunction . But in 1560 a second proclamation was issued to check the wholesale damage being done to the churches :

Her majesty chargeth and commandeth all manner of persons hereafter to forbear the breaking or defacing of any parcel of any monument, or tomb, or grave, or other inscription and memory of any person deceased being in any manner of place, or to break any image of Kings, princes, or noble estates of this realm, or of any other that have been in times past erected and set up for the only memory of them to their posterity in common churches and not for any religious honor, or to break down or deface any image in glass windows in any church without consent of the ordinary. 8

Bruen's action in replacing the windows ran counter to the spirit of the second proclamation. He certainly acted unilaterally in treating the family chapel as his private property, and Hinde is clearly concerned to deflect criticism of the legality of the extension or the process to the `common church .' This was far from the only occasion on which Bruen turned the letter of the law to his own ends . His greatest concern was the failure of the country to observe the Sabbath Day fittingly:

The principall occasion of his parents errour, and his own vanity, taking such and so great pleasure in these pleasures of sinne, was (as he himselfe hath since observed and acknowledged under his hand) the popish and profane estate and condition of the people and countrey round about them in those dayes, for at that time (saith he) "The holy Sabbaths of the Lord were wholly spent in all places about us, in May-poles and May- games, Pipings and Dancings, for it was a rare thing to heare of a Preacher or to have one Sermon in a yeare, all living prophanely in ignorance or in error" (pp 11-12) .

Bruen voices a frequent Puritan complaint - witness the 1590 document The Manifold Enormities in the Ecclesiastical) State in the most partes of the Countie of Lancaster : and many of them in some partes also of Cheshire :

Wackes, Ales, Greenes, Maigaimes, Ruchbarings, Beare-baites, Doveales, Bonfiers, all maner vnlawfull Gaming, Pipinge and Daunsinge, and suche like, ar in all places frely exercised vppon ye Sabboth.9

Sunday had been traditionally a festival day before the Reformation, and the right to engage in `lawful exercises' on Sunday after divine service was enshrined in post- Reformation legislation . Thus the Lancashire JPs in 1590 prohibited :

pipes and minstrels playing, making and frequenting bear-baiting, bull- baiting on the Sabbath days or upon other days in time of divine service ;

3 as also against superstitious ringing of bells, wakes, and common feasts ; drunkenness, gaming and other visious and unprofitable pursuits . 10

The extension of such local prohibition in 1616 to `pipinge, Dancinge, bowlinge or beare or bull-baatinge or any other profanacion upon any Saboth Day in any parte of the Day ; or upon any festivall day in tyme of Devyne service'" underlay the protests made to the King during his passage through Lancashire in 1617 and led to Thomas Morton, Bishop of Chester, drafting that year a local countermand which in 1618 was issued by the King generally - The Book of Sports ." The preamble to the Book complains that people are punished `for vsinge theire lawfull recreations and honest exercises vupon sondaies and other holidaies after the afternoone sermone or service' - a state blamed upon `two sortes of people whearwt h that cuntrie [Lancashire] is too much infected (wee meane Papists & Puritanes .. .).' Hence the law is affirmed :

That after the end of Diuine Seruice, or good people bee not letted or discoraged from anie vnlawfull recreacion such as Pypinge, Dansinge either men or women, archerie for men, leapinge valtinge or anie such harmles recreation & the women to have leave to Carrie rushes to the Church for the decoringe of it accordinge to their ould Custome but w` h all wee doe heare accounte still as prohibited as vnlawfull games to be vsed vpon sundaies onelie as beare & Bull beatinge enterludes & bowlinge . 13

Such a lenient view, albeit supported by his Bishop, was unlikely to appeal to Bruen, as the weary preamble with its reference to Puritans suggests . Bruen was nephew to the Duttons of Dutton, in whose household he was educated . 14 Later, his cousin Thomas Dutton stayed with Bruen, and Bruen was able to agree with him on a measure which to some degree circumvented the law . The Dutton family had the right to licence minstrels at a special annual court in Chester . Documents relating to the court in 1478-9 and 1495-6 are extant, and there are seventeenth-century accounts of the origins and procedures of the court." The minstrels made a special appearance in 1540 at the double wedding of two daughters of Sir Piers Dutton . 16 Bruen sought to modify the terms of the licence :

At the same time my cosen Dutton, being pressed and charged by some of great place to mainteine his Royalty of Minstrelsey for Piping and Daunsing on the Sabbath day, my Minister, my selfe, and my family were earnest against it, and prevailed so far with my cosen Dutton, that he promised that all Piping and Dauncing should cease on the Sabbath day, both forenoone and afternoon, and so his Licences were made, and do continue so untill this day . And so wee had great peace and comfort together, blessed be God (p 131) .

Though the exact date of the change is not known, Thomas died in 1614 and the biography cannot be later than 1629. The incident is a further example of private local Puritan initiative against national decree, the terms of the licence running counter to the law of the land . Bruen's other major initiative against local entertainment concerned the Tarvin Wakes . Here Bruen took advantage of the law prohibiting entertainments during divine service

4 to mount what was effectively an ecclesiastical filibuster :

Against S. Andrews day, which is the time of Taruin Wakes, and the weeke followinge, I observed (saith he [Bruen]) many years together, to invite two or three of the best affected Preachers in the Diocesse, that spent most part of three dayes in preaching and praying in the Church, so as the Pipers and Fidlers, and Bearewardes, and Players and Gamesters had not time left for their vanities, but went away with great fretting (p 90) .

Again, the private individual used his rights to prevent the intended conclusion of the law. Bruen's objections to the Wakes seem, in fact, to have had two aspects - the celebration of a saint's day and the excess which accompanied it :

Now because popery and profannes two sisters in will had consented, and conspired in this Parish, as in many other places together, to advance their idols against the Arke of God and to celebrate their solemne feasts of their popish saints, as being Dii Tutelares, the speciall patrons and protectors of their Church and Parish, by their Wakes and Vigils, kept in commemoration and honour of them, in all riot and excesse of eating and drinking, dalliance and dancing, sporting and gaming, and other abominable pieties and idolatries . . .(p 89) .

A less obvious manifestation of Bruen's influence may lie in his relationship with the Hardware family. His first wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Henry Hardware, `a worthy and wise gentleman, having been twice Major of the City of Chester' [in 1559-60 and 1575-6]. It was Bruen's father-in-law who had to draw up the document exonerating Sir John Savage from responsibility for the final production of Chester's mystery cycle in 1575. 17 His son, Elizabeth's brother, was also called Henry, and he and his household stayed with Bruen. In consequence he `set up religion in his family .. . And so afterwards being Major of Chester, he that yeare shewed his religion very graciously [CL : gloriously] in his government' (p 99) . Something of what this implied may be seen in-the following passage from one of Chester's Mayors' Lists :

This mayor [Hardware] was a godly zealous man, yet he gott ill will amonge the Commons, for puttinge downe some anchient orders, in the Cittie and amonge some compaiyes, especially the shoemakers, whoe he much opposed, he cause the giantes which vse to goe at midsomer to be broken. The bull ringe at the highe crosse to be taken vp. The dragon and naked boyes he suffered not to goe in midsomer showe nor the diuell for the Butchers, but aboye to ride as other Companyes . he restrayned their leaue-lookers for sendinge wine, on the Vu]feastifull dayes, acordinge to their anchant vse and Custome. 1 while another claims that `This Maior for his tyme Altered many ancient Customs as ye shootings for the sherifs Breakefast the goinge of the gyants at Midsomer etc., and would not suffer any playes beare Baits or Bullbaites .i19 It is all too easy to dismiss a man like John Bruen as a religious fanatic and eccentric . In fact, he was an influential figure, cousin of Sir Robert Harley 20 and distantly connected, through the Duttons, with the Egerton family . Lady Egerton, daughter-in-

5 law of the Chancellor, Sir Thomas Egerton, stayed with Bruen and was evidently influenced by his life and belief. He epitomises the committed, skilful and politically able opposition to drama and quasi-dramatic entertainment in the north-west of England in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries . Such was his authority in the area that he could comment wrily of himself that `I have bin longe called Bushop Brian.''

NOTES

1 Printed in London in 1641 by `R . B . for Philemon Stephens and Christopher Meredith' for sale at `the Golden Lyon in Saint Paul's Church .' The book was published posthumously by Samuel Hinde, the author's son, who offers it to Sir James Stanley as an example . Two copies of the book are in the Library of Chetham's Hospital, Manchester . For this article I used a microfilm of the book initially and have verified quotations against the Chetham's copies . Chetham's Library also has a manuscript of the work written in two seventeenth-century hands, ms 11368. [CL] Though claimed by Ormerod and by DNB as the author's copy, the manuscript is - as the Library's catalogue shows - a fair copy. The paper pages of the manuscript are numbered consecutively. On p 132 scribe 2 has incorporated margin-notes into the body of the text and scribe 1 notes in the margin `Thus far is marginal) writing,' indicating the manuscript's status as copy . Since the manuscript does not contain errors in the arrangement of material found in the printed text, it is not a copy of the printed text . Its readings, however, do not substantively differ from those in the printed text . The manuscript was presented to Chetham's by Rear-Admiral William ffarington in 1857 in recognition of the connexion with the Hospital held by his family . He had found the manuscript in the papers of his uncle, Rvd D . Harington, Rector of St George's Church . The only clue to its earlier history is the name 'Catharine hunbridg' written vertically from bottom to top of p 49 in the left margin. 2 On William Hinde, see DNB 9, p 894. 3 On John Bruen, see DNB 3, pp 139-40 and the full pedigree of the family printed in G. Ormerod, A History of the County Palatine of Chester (1882), 2, pp 322-3 . His will is in the Cheshire County Record Office . Extensive use is made of the biography by R . C. Richardson, Puritanism in North- west England: a regional study of the diocese of Chester to 1642 (Manchester, 1972) . 4 summer-greenes presumably refers to the practice of carrying May-garlands in English villages . Bowling greens seem to have been a sixteenth-century formalisation of the playing-area for a popular medieval pastime ; an accompanying development was the introduction of the biased bowl . See John Armitage, Man at Play: Nine Centuries of Pleasure (New York, 1977), 53-4 . 5 The duties in Puritan-orientated churches were divided between the Curate, who was responsible for the conduct of the services, the prayers, responses etc, and the Preacher, whose duty was to give the sermon . 6 Clifford Davidson, Drama and Art (Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series 1 ; Kalamazoo, 1977), 18 . 7 Tudor Royal Proclamations, edited by P. L . Hughes and J .F. Larkin (New Haven, 1964), 2, The Later Tudors (1553-1587), Proclamation 460, p 123 . 8 id, Proclamation 469, pp 146-7. 9 `The State, Civil and Ecclesiastical, of the County of Lancaster About the Year 1590,' edited by Canon F.R. Raines, Chetham Society Publications 96 (1875), 2 . On Puritan Sabbatarianism, see M.M. Knappen, Tudor Puritanism : a chapter in the History of Idealism (Chicago, 1939), chapter 24. 10 Quoted in Minor Prose Works ofKing James viand i, edited by James Craigie (Scottish Text Society ; Edinburgh, 1982), 218 . On the `superstitious' ringing of bells, see Raines, 6-7, where complaint is made of the practices both of ringing bells during burials and of ringing them on the day and night of the burial and on the anniversary of the death. 11 id, quoted on 218.

6 12 Craigie's collected edition offers the most recent text of the book, here used . It presented the 1617 and 1618 versions on facing papers . The 1617 text is here quoted. 13 id, 106 . 14 Ormerod, 1, p 651 gives the pedigree of the Dutton family . 15 In REED. Chester, edited by L .M. Clopper (Toronto, 1979), 17-18, 20-21, 461-6, 487-9. 16 id, 43-4. 17 id, 113-6 . Ormerod, 2, p 333 gives the pedigree of the Hardware family. 18 BL Harley 1944, fols 90-90v, in Clopper, 197. 19 BL Harley 2133, fol 46, in Clopper, 198 . 20 See further, Patrick Collinson, The Religion of the Protestants: The Church in English Society 1559- 1625 (Ford Lectures, 1979; Oxford, 1982), 164-70 . 21 Quoted by Collinson, 169 .

CAROLINE BALDERSTON PARRY

`The Maypole is up, now give me the cup . . .'

Onlookers at the 1983 Chester Cycle or the 1985 Towneley Cycle productions at the University of Toronto were delighted to see an additional, pretty spectacle : Maypole dancing. In the intervals between plays, as a part of the craft fair entertainment, I led a willing assortment of volunteer dancers through the over-and-under motions of simple Maypole ribbon weaving. Sometimes the red, yellow, blue and green ribbons got tangled, but more often we were successful at producing a beautiful pattern of motion and woven colours gradually extending down the pole - and then we would reverse our movements and unwind . Sometimes we had musicians ; sometimes the audience helped out by singing a tune for us! What both dancers and audience perhaps did not realize was that the ribbons which looked so pretty were entirely anachronistic . In English tradition, Maypole dances with hand-held ribbons, woven around short poles as part of a'show dance', go back to the mid-18th century at the earliest. Otherwise, people did simple country dances such as 'Sellenger's Round' or `Gathering Peascods' around the foot of the pole itself, or in a circle nearby . The early pole (often painted in barbershop spirals) was decorated with streamers and garlands of flowers, and was usually quite tall - too tall for the kind of ribbons we wove at the Cycle fairs . A few of these old-style poles still survive in England today, such as at Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds, or at Padstow, in Cornwall . Ribbon dancing, generally thought of as an Italian import, became fashionable in the mid-19th century, just when many older popular sports and recreations were fading out of English folk life . When education became compulsory in the 1880s, the spread of ribbon Maypole dances was furthered by a new generation of lady school teachers who enjoyed such genteel exercise . The Victorian love of the floreate and of innocent childhood (rather indiscriminantly mixed up with a penchant for all things 'Olde English') contributed to the popularity of the new Maypole dances as well . Ribbon dancing became the dominant Maypole style, resulting in such compromises as one still seen today at Ickwell, in Bedfordshire, where ribbons have been attached about one third of the way up a tall red and white pole and the dancers wear mock rustic costumes of an uncertain period. Even the ribbon-style Maypole dances faded into obscurity in England by the time

7 of World War ii, but the folk revival of the 1960s helped to bring them alive once more, as well as other traditional dances such as the Morris . Maypole dances also emigrated along with many folks to different corners of the world and, where successfully transplanted, have evolved in different ways . Colleges like Earlham and Bryn Mawr in the United States, for instance, have their own well-established traditional May Day ceremonies now - with ribbons on their poles! I have even learned of an Afro-Caribbean tradition of Maypole dancing (around a special May tree, without ribbons) which has developed on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua in the wake of British colonialism . In Canada, however, when I say I am at work on a history of Maypoles, I am likely to see a quizzical eyebrow and hear' . . . maples?' Occasionally I find ethnic folk dances which feature small, decorated staff-like Maypoles ; some informants have told me about dancing around Maypoles years ago - such as at the Ottawa Ladies College or within the Montreal Protestant School Board ; another cited the little-known tragedy of a child who was killed in the 1930s, when a rusty metal `maypole' (the kind of playground equipment hung with chains you hold and swing round on) collapsed - causing the Toronto School Board to banish them throughout the city . But what of the early evidence of Maypoles? It is as fragmentary as the records of early English drama, and my research is by no means complete . What follows is a brief summary of my work to date . Working backwards from the edict of 1644 which ordered all the Maypoles in England be taken down, we can generalize that Maypoles - also called `summer poles', and as often linked to Whitsuntide as the Celtic first of May - were most widely enjoyed in the preceding 200 years . In the later 17th century, even after they were prohibited, some Maypoles lingered on in remote corners of the country . Of course there were many joyful restorations of Maypoles in 1661, especially of the famous pole erected in the Strand . However,, they never again were as prevalent as before the Commonwealth . The edict of 1644 was itself simply the end of a long succession of Puritan diatribes against the evil of Maypoles, or in Phillip Stubbes' famous words in 1583, against `this stinking Idol, rather.' Because Maypoles were associated with pre-Reformation, church- sponsored May Games, they were condemned as `popish' . This is an ironic association, considering the pagan and phallic significance of the Maypole as a variation of the anciently symbolic Tree of Life . Undoubtedly pre-Christian in origin, Maypoles and many other vegetation rites were absorbed into Christian times with difficulty. Long before the days of the 1618 or 1633 editions of King James' Book of Sports (specifying just when Maypole dancing was to be allowed) ; indeed long before the historic Evil May Day in 1517 (when the pole in front of St . Andrew's Undershaft in London was taken down because it was the center for an apprentices' riot), there were complaints about the bad influence of May activities . In 1244, for example, the bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, complained about clerics who made `inductionem Maii' [quoted in Chambers, The Medieval Stage, 1, p 91]. Well before the Tudor and Elizabethan May Games began to be popular, May processions and greenery for bowers, garlands, etc were common . Maypoles themselves, however, do not appear in written or visual records with any frequency until the 1500s . The earliest English evidence I have yet found documenting an actual Maypole is the Lostock, Cheshire, `mepul' charter granted in the time of King John (1167-1216) [cited in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, 6, pt 2, p 207 (1847)] . The May Fair charter for an annual fair, held in the area of London which now goes by that name, was granted during the reign of Edward i (1271-1307) . I do not know when the famous Maypole at Mayfair was first erected, although Chaucer mentions `the great shaft at Cornhill,' also in London, in 1388, as though it were well known. By the 16th century, however, Maypoles ('somar pole', `summer tree' etc) were widely noted. Church wardens' records are full of references to payments for poles being put

8 up, taken down, refurbished, made into firewood, ladders, and so forth . Alexandra Johnston, for instance, in her work on folk drama in Berkshire, has found approximately twenty references in that area inside a period of ninety years . Forthcoming REED volumes will document this activity much more fully, of course . To date I have been unable to find any visual evidence of Maypoles earlier than the coloured painting attributed to Anne of Brittany's Book of Hours, dated 1499, now located in the Bibliotheque Nationale. This picture simply shows a pole without dancers . The pole is highly stylized, on a tiered base, hung with round baubles which might be eggs (another symbol of spring) . There are also some wonderful sixteenth-century woodcuts by the German artist H. S. Beham portraying peasant life at the village fairs, which include several different kinds of dancing and celebrating . And a delightful Flemish etching of the same period shows villagers dancing in a ring around a central tree (which holds a band of musicians up in its highly trimmed branches), while on the side of the green stands a tall pole, decorated with a garland of what may be eggs again . This is an anonymous work from the Victoria & Albert Museum, but these are definitely `Maytime' dancers and the pole is a `Maypole' . However, there are very few English visuals : I have found one sixteenth-century map of London with a tiny pole in front of the tiny Church of St Mary-le-Strand . This was drawn by a Dutchman, Van den Wyngaerde, in 1543. From the next century, the earliest representation of a Maypole in England is simply a broadsheet woodblock print (now in the Bodleian) of approximately 1630 - it shows a straight tall shaft with greenery and a garland at the top and no ribbons attached for dancers . The famous `Betley window' featuring stained glass Morris dancers and a Maypole with the banner `A Mery May' is probably from this same period as well . As research for my book progresses, I am emploring the early Indo-European sources of the Maypole as it came to be known in England and now in North America, as well as the very slim evidence of its existence in the first millennium AD . I also am looking at many different influences on the `rise and fall' of Maypoles and Maypole dancing in the second millennium, such as the Puritan opposition, already mentioned ; royal patronage; agricultural or rural customs vs city life ; class conflicts ; settlement patterns in forests vs open fields ; Sabbatarianism ; the Enclosure Acts and the emergence of private property ; the Industrial Revolution itself ; and the calendar change of 1752, which `caused' the first of May to have almost two weeks' earlier weather . In addition, there is more to say about Maypoles as symbols of freedom, sometimes calledliberty poles, and about nineteenth- and twentieth-century illustrators of children's books, who seem to have doted upon Maypole imagery . The total history of Maypoles is fascinating, diverse, and often richly detailed . I certainly have not yet assembled all the pieces of this history which I know are `out there', particularly in terms of early English materials . There are many questions still to be asked, and the subsequent answers to puzzle over . For instance, one visual detail I want to decipher is the significance of a pair of copulating dogs in the foreground of the majority of the Maypole pictures I have collected! Any ideas? For this in particular, or for other issues in general, I would like to ask for assistance - references, specific quotations, and especially pictures - from anyone who reads this article . I will welcome any suggestions or help you can offer.

9 MICHAEL HEANEY

Must every fiddler play a fiddle? I Abigail Ann Young's cautionary words about glossing Latin fistulator as `piper' (`Plays and players : the Latin terms for performance' [part 2], REEDN 10, #1 (1985), 9-10) prompt me to mention a similar problem which exists in English, and of which REED workers should be aware. The oED glossesfiddler, in the musical sense, only as a player on instruments of the violin family . Some texts falling within REED's purview serve to cast doubt on this . The first is Henry Burton's A divine tragedie lately acted, in which Example 45 (1641 edn, p 20) recounts that

Also at Battersey neer London, the last year [1634] a notable example of God's judgement befell a fiddler, the youth of the town of both sexes, being assembled solemnly to set up a garland upon their May-pole, and having got a tabor and pipe for the purpose, he with the pipe in his mouth, fell down dead and never spake word .

The second is mentioned by J. A. Sharpe in `Crime and delinquency in an Essex parish 1600-1640,' (in Crime in England 1550-1800, ed J.S. Cockburn (1977), 90-109). He writes that at Kelvedon Easterford John Ayly, an alehouse-keeper, was presented in the archdeacon's court in 1613 `for suffering of a fiddler to play with taber and pipe in his house upon the 9 of May, being the sabbath day, in time of divine service' (102) . A third is in oED itself, under morris : `The Fidler comes in with his Taber and Pipe, and a whole Morice after him with Motley Visards' (Harsnet, Pop. Impost.). In each of these cases it is perfectly possible that the text is meant to be read literally - ie, that a person known for playing the fiddle was on each occasion playing the pipe-and- tabor. However, there are other indications that `fiddler' may be used generally in reference to a pipe-and-taborer . The pipe-and-tabor was the traditional accompaniment to the morris dance . If we go beyond REED's dates for a moment, we find that when in'the nineteenth century the pipe- and-tabor was at last supplanted by the fiddle, commentators remarked on the fact, and older dancers complained that they could not dance to the fiddle accompaniment. For example, Jackson's Oxford Journal of29 May 1858, p 8, reports on the Whitsun morris dancing at Bampton, Oxfordshire : `The dancing was very creditably performed, but we cannot approve of the substitution of a squeaking fiddle for the appropriate, and to our mind, orthodox "tabor and pipe" .' The following example from the same period confirms both the dancers' preferences and the fact that musicians were often proficient on both instruments . C.J. Sharp, collecting from nineteenth-century dancers, noted from a former dancer of Leafield, Oxfordshire, that `Their musician, John Williams, played fiddle and whittle and dub, but all preferred to dance to the latter' (Sharp, MS Folk Dance Notes, Clare College, Cambridge, vol I, p 79) . Certainly from 1730 to 1840 the pipe-and-tabor is the only instrument mentioned in connection with the morris dance (see J . Forrest, Morris music: some questions (1985), 29). The strong association between pipe-and-tabor and morris dance is confirmed by references throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; for example, in The puisne's walks about London (c 1620) the hero relates, `And when I came unto the route / Good Lord! I heard a tabor play / For so, God save me! A morrys-daunce .'

1 0 There are just two references before 1840 to `fiddlers' accompanying morris dancers . One, from Canterbury in 1589, is recounted by Peter Clark in his The English alehouse (1979), 129-30 . Mr Clark has kindly supplied me with more details from his transcript of the original manuscript (Canterbury Cathedral Library, JQ 1589): one H. Parkes, a musician accompanying a group of morris dancers, is referred to as `the fiddler' by the Vice of the dancers . The second reference is from the manuscripts of the geologist William `Strata' Smith, in the University Museum, Oxford, in which are to be found the accounts of a Whitsun Ale held in Churchill, Oxfordshire, in 1721. Morris dancers are hired as an essential part of the proceedings, but the only musician hired is referred to as a `fiidler' . While one may perhaps have doubts about the uniformity of morris dance accompaniment in its sixteenth- and seventeenth-century heyday, there can be no doubt that the only legitimate accompaniment for morris dancing at Oxfordshire Whitsun Ales in the post-Restoration period was the pipe-and-tabor ; so there are very strong grounds for believing that this particular fiddler played the pipe-and-tabor, and that the designation 'ffidler' was sufficient to indicate this . An interesting comment on terminology can be found in Thomas Wilson's Companion to the ballroom (1816), in which he writes (215-16) that musicians engaged to play for balls

are treated worse than . . . servants, and never, or seldom spoken to, but in an imperious haughty manner, generally addressing them, and speaking of them, by the names of fiddlers, endeavouring thereby to shew a superior consequence in themselves, and the dependance of the Musicians : or otherwise, adopt the other extreme, and become very familiar and ply them with Liquor, in order to make them drunk, being with those persons a common opinion and saying, that nothing is so amusing as a drunken fiddler, the whole of the Musicians coming under this title whatever instrument they may play .

Although late for our purposes, this description (for which I must thank Mr Dave Townsend, who brought it to my attention) is the most explicit indication that `fiddlers' need not play fiddles . In general it seems that the term was used loosely to refer to any musician, especially a musician low on the social scale, or, perhaps, a musician playing to accompany dancing . It therefore follows that no presumptions can generally be made about the instrument played by any `fiddler' where the instrument actually played is not mentioned .

Communications

FROM JACQUELINE MURRAY, CURATOR, CENTRE FOR REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES, REGARDING SENIOR FELLOWSHIPS :

The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria University (in the University of Toronto) offers each year a limited number of non-stipendiary post- doctoral Senior Fellowships . The Fellowships are intended primarily for scholars outside the Toronto area who (1) wish to make more than passing use of the Centre's collection in pursuit of some research project ; and who (2) would be willing from time to time,

1 1 on an informal basis, to share their knowledge and discuss their research with fellow scholars and students within the Toronto academic community . The fellowship would carry with it access to specially reserved working space (in the Centre), as well as membership in the Victoria Senior Common Room . During their tenure at the Centre, Fellows would also have free access to other Toronto research libraries whose collections complement our own (eg . the collection in the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and in the Thomas Fisher Rare Books division of the John Robarts Research Library) . Prospective applicants should write to the Director, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria University, Toronto, Canada, M5S 1 K7 for an application form.

Of Note

CENTRE FOR REFORMATION AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

cRRs, the only institute of its kind in Canada, is a research centre devoted to the period from approximately 1400 to 1650 . Since its foundation in 1964, the Centre's aim has been to offer scholars and students not only a collection of rare and modern books, but also an intimate and congenial atmosphere for serious study, and a place for the exchange of ideas and information. The Centre is broadly multi-disciplinary in conception, with resources for students and scholars in most areas of the history, the literature, and the thought of the Renaissance and Reformation . The cRRS library has a collection of 18, 000 modern titles and approximately 4,100 rare titles. The most important and valuable of the rare books constitute the Erasmus Collection, early editions of works written or edited by the illustrious Dutch humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam (d 1536) . This collection, one of the half-dozen best collections of Erasmiana in North America, is well supported by works of modern scholarship . The Centre also has significant rare holdings of humanist editions of the classics, as well as Bibles, theological treatises, devotional works and histories . Regular lectures and seminars are sponsored by the Centre to promote interest in the study of the Renaissance and Reformation. The Erasmus Lecture is now in its twenty-first year. The Distinguished Visiting Scholar Programme was inaugurated in 1983 by Paul Oskar Kristeller and was followed by the visits of Charles Trinkaus and John Tedeschi . Each year this programme brings an eminent scholar to Toronto to give a number of seminars and to meet with local researchers . The Centre also sponsors seminars throughout the academic year such as the recent series by W. W. Barker on `The Bibliography of the Renaissance Printed Book' and `Reading Manuscripts from Petrarch to Milton' presented in conjunction with REED . The CRRS sponsors two publication series . The Occasional Publications series published four catalogues of the cRRs's rare holdings in the areas of Humanist Editions of the Classics, Statutes and Histories, Bibles and Theological Treatises, and Science, Medicine and Natural History. In process are catalogues of Languages and Literature, and of Philosophy . The Translation Series aims to provide works of Renaissance and Reformation authors in translations suitable for undergraduate teaching . Thus far, translations of Lorenzo Valla's The Profession of the Religious and the principal arguments from The Falsely-Believed and Forged Donation of Constantine and Giovanni Della Casa's Galateo have appeared .

12 In addition to the Senior Fellowship for post-doctoral scholars wishing to make concentrated use of the collection, the CRRS also awards two Graduate Fellowships annually. These Fellowships, open to graduate students in any area of Renaissance and Reformation enrolled in the University of Toronto, provide an opportunity for students both to work with the collection on a project chosen in consultation with the Director and the Curator and to meet informally with researchers using the Centre . At intervals throughout the year, a Newsletter is published containing news, publication information, and events of interest to those in the field of Renaissance and Reformation . Anyone wishing t6 receive the Newsletter or further information about the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies should contact the Centre office (see address above).

Jacqueline Murray, Curator

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

CLIFFORD DAVIDSON AND JENNIFER ALEXANDER, The Early Art of Coventry, Stratford- upon-Avon, Warwick and Lesser Sites in Warwickshire . Kalamazoo : Early Drama, Art and Music Reference Series, 4; 1985. Pp xii, 216 ; illus, maps . Paper, $14.95 . `Subject lists of extant and lost art including items relevant to early drama .' Appendices deal with `relics in Coventry and Warwick' and `musical iconography .'

I IMOTHY J . MCGEE, Medieval and Renaissance Music . Toronto, 1985. Pp 304 ;illus. Cloth, $27.95. The materials, repertory, and techniques of early music, including that for dramatic productions, are discussed from both the scholarly and practical points of view. The concluding chapter deals with modern editions and scholarship .

Subscriptions to the REED Newsletter are invited. The cost is $5.00 Canadian (£2.50) per year of two issues . Cheques should be made payable to Records of Early English Drama . Please address correspondence to the editor, REED Newsletter, % English Department, Erindale College, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario, L5L 1C6, Canada . Typeset by Donna Best.

The REED project is largely supported through a Negotiated Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

1 3 © University of Toronto Press 1986

ISSN 0700-9283 PRINTED IN CANADA