National Centre for English Cultural Tradition University of Sheffield THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH FOLK PLAYS Volume 1 Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Ph.D. Peter Thomas Millington May 2002 ABSTRACT This thesis concerns those English folk plays whose plots are centred on the quack doctor character. Earlier researchers proposed three possible origins for these plays: a non-specific mystery play from the time of the crusades, some pre- Christian fertility ritual, and primitive shamanism. All three proposals were based on over-general comparisons, and relied on the key assumption that a continuous history can be traced back from before modern plays to the relevant era. However, in contrast with other customs, no evidence can be found for these plays before the 18th century, despite diligent searching. These theories are therefore disproved. Instead, it is proposed that the plays were attached in the early to mid 18th century to existing house-visiting customs. These were probably the source of the non-representational costumes that are sometimes worn. There is also evidence for the influence of the conventions of the English Harlequinade. The provenance of the scripts is unknown, but similarities between them suggest they ultimately derived from a single proto-text. A full-text database of 181 texts and fragments was built for investigation using cluster analysis, distribution mapping and other computerised techniques, some of which are novel. The cluster analysis has generated a new classification for the play texts that both confirms and extends the established typology. Comparison of the attributes of the clusters, aided by distribution mapping, has resulted in a putative genealogy for the plays that is presented for discussion. Trellis graphing has revealed a core of common lines that can be assembled into a viable script. This represents a reconstructed proto-text, although it requires consolidation with further evidence. Bibliometric analysis suggests that more archival research is needed in the century ending about 1750, which is the key period for the genesis of the plays. To compare is not to prove. French proverb TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE XIII INTRODUCTION 1 Setting the Scene, or What is a Folk Play? 1 Types of Folk Play 2 Definitions and Terminology 5 My Interest in Folk Plays 7 The Traditional Drama Research Group 9 The Importance of Origins 11 My Research 12 BIBLIOGRAPHIC SURVEY 13 The Antiquarian Period 14 The Earliest Texts 15 William Sandys 17 The Late Nineteenth Century 19 Thomas Fairman Ordish 19 E.K.Chambers 23 Beware of Greeks 26 R.J.E.Tiddy 28 C.R.Baskervill 30 The 1930s 32 Joseph Needham 35 Folk Dancers get in on the Act 36 Alex Helm, Margaret Dean-Smith and Friends 39 “English Ritual Drama” 42 The Beginning of the End of Ritual Origins 43 The Post-ERD Era 44 The New Folk Drama Studies 48 Continuing the Quest for Data 49 Computerisation 51 Criticising the Old Scholarship 52 Performance and Context 53 - i - Farewell Survivalism 54 Moving On 55 Remaining tasks 56 CRITIQUE OF EARLIER RESEARCH 57 Previous Criticism 57 Book Reviewers 58 The New Criticism 60 Flawed Methodologies 62 Fitting Facts to Theory 66 Over-generalisation 69 Lack of Re-evaluation 71 Closed English Definition of “Folk Play” 72 Interpretation of Non-play Customs 77 Relevance of Sword Dances 78 Texts and Degradation 81 Secondary Nature of the Texts 84 Characteristics of Modern Quack Doctor Plays 86 Over-reliance on Exemplar Texts 87 Balkan Parallels - A Preoccupation 89 Denial of Geography and Time 93 Summary 94 THE QUESTION OF SURVIVALS 97 The Key Issue - Traceable Ancestry 97 Apparent Lack of Older Records 97 Is the Lack of Records before the mid 18th Century Real? 98 Historical Bibliometric Investigations 99 Bibliometric Compilation Methodology 99 Extracting Dated Items from Databases 100 Normalising Dates 100 Handling Categories 102 Compiling and Charting Statistics 105 Bibliometric Results for Folk Play Databases 106 - ii - Observations on Folk Play Bibliometrics 109 Comparing Folk Play Bibliometrics with other Performances 110 Comparing Bibliometrics with Morris Dancing 110 Comparing Bibliometrics with Plough Monday 111 Possible Explanations for the Variability in the Bibliometrics 113 Effects of Social Changes 113 Effects of Major Collectors and Key Publications 114 Sources of Information and Methods of Compilation 115 Available Publications 116 Retrieval Tools 117 Folklore Manuscript Collections 120 How Folklore Records Change Throughout History 121 Late 20th Century 122 Late 19th to Mid 20th Century 122 Early to Mid 19th Century 123 Restoration to Late 18th Century 123 Reformation to the Civil War 124 Pre-Reformation 124 Summary of Influences So Far 124 A Change of Methodology 125 The Early Morris Project 125 Early English Drama Projects 127 Reassessing Old Records 129 Criteria for Accepting Records as Quack Doctor Plays 133 Time of Occurrence 133 House Visiting 133 Participants 134 Dramaturgy 134 Action or Plot 134 Characters 134 Costume 134 Text 135 Name for the Participants or Custom 135 - iii - Conclusions 135 ALTERNATIVE ORIGINS 139 The Relationship of Plays to Non-Play House-Visiting 139 A New Hypothesis 140 Testing the Hypothesis 141 Retained Pre-Play Features 143 Where, When, How and Why 144 Theatrical and Literary Background 145 Diversity of 18th-Century Amateur/Folk Drama 145 Identified Literary and Ballad Sources 146 Finding Literary Parallels – Opportunities and Difficulties 151 Theatrical Influences 152 Early English Pantomime and the Commedia dell’Arte 152 The Rôle of Booth Plays at Fairs 155 Textual Origins 157 Dissemination of the plays 158 Rise and Fall 158 Methods of Transmission 159 The Printed Texts 160 Summary 162 HISTORICAL DATABASE OF TEXT LINES 165 Introduction 165 Approaches to Textual Analysis 167 Databases of Lines 169 TextBase 169 Selection of Texts for the Collection 169 Record Dates 170 Encoding Texts 171 Encoding Lines 172 Encoding Verse (including Blank Verse) 172 Encoding Prose 173 Retrospective Adjustments 173 - iv - The TextBase Database Design 173 Loading and Normalising Records 175 Assigning IDs to Lines 176 Unique IDs 176 Standard IDs (Std.IDs) 177 Handling Line Definition Problems 179 SIMILARITY AND VARIABILITY OF LINES 181 Handling Variation 182 Similarity Thresholds 183 Experimental Similarity Statistics 184 Accommodating Different Line Lengths 190 TEXT ANALYSIS TOOLS 193 Introduction 193 Cluster Analysis 193 Methodology 194 Similarity and Dissimilarity Formulae 195 Data Selection 197 Line Similarity Measures 200 Text Similarity Measures 201 Minimum Number of Occurrences of Lines 202 Clustering Methods 203 Type of Linkage 209 Type of Variance 209 Dendrograms 210 Interpretation 211 Key Attributes 213 Provenance Profiles 216 Mesa Graphs 218 Clustered Mesa Graphs 220 Trellis Graphs 221 Graphical Comparison of Narrative Sequence 223 Conformity Index 225 - v - Distribution Maps 227 "What if?" Investigations 229 DISCUSSION OF TEXTUAL ANALYSIS 231 Textual Analysis Results 231 Final Cluster Analyses 232 Validity of the Clusters 234 Evidence for a Proto-Text 236 The Main Clusters 238 Plough Plays 238 Multiple Wooing Plays 239 Recruiting Sergeant Plays 240 Sword Dance Plays 245 Galoshins (or Galation) and other Scottish Plays 247 Irish and Related Plays 250 The Southern English Plays 251 Cotswold Plays 252 Northern English Plays and the Chapbook Texts 254 Other Groups 258 The Evolution of Folk Plays – Some Concepts 259 Textual Clues to Ancestry 261 General Observations and Tendencies 262 Evidence of Specific Relationships 263 Specific Ancestral Relationships 268 Links between Ireland and the British Mainland 268 Plough Play Sources 269 The Northern English and Southern English Versions 271 Thoughts on King George, Saint George, and the Dragon 272 Genesis of the Southern English Group 275 Development of the Cotswold Group 278 Genesis of the Sword Dance and Galoshins Plays 279 A Family Tree for the Quack Doctor Plays 280 - vi - CONCLUSIONS 283 Review of Earlier Theories 283 Disproving the Established Theories 284 New Proposals 285 Textual Analysis 286 Textual Analysis Results 288 A New Classification for Quack Doctor Plays 288 Evolutionary implications 290 Suggestions for Further Work 291 Historical Research 291 Text Database Content 292 Text Database Encoding 292 Text Analysis Tools 293 Unanswered Questions 294 BIBLIOGRAPHY 295 APPENDIX A - EXAMPLE TEXTS 323 Hero-Combat Play 323 Saint George Play from Underwood, Nottinghamshire 323 Recruiting Sergeant Play 327 Ploughboys Play from Cropwell, Nottinghamshire 327 APPENDIX B - NATURE OF HISTORICAL FOLKLORE RECORDS 335 1. Contemporaneous Factual Records 335 2. Non-contemporaneous Records 336 3. Literary and Artistic Works 337 APPENDIX C - FOLK PLAY TEXT ENCODING STANDARD 339 Conventions 339 File Names 339 File Structure 342 STD Template - Standardised Text File 348 Example STD File - Abridged 349 Adaptation of the STD Template for Raw Data 350 Raw Text File 350 - vii - APPENDIX D - FOLK PLAY TEXTS IN HTML FORMAT 351 Introduction 351 Fields 351 HTML Header 351 Context 352 Source 352 Cast 352 Text 353 Notes 353 File History 353 HTML Trailer 353 HTML Template - with equivalent STD field tags 355 Example HTML Code (abridged) 357 Example - As Displayed (abridged) 359 APPENDIX E - NON-EXACT LINE MATCHING TOOLS 361 Comparing Neighbours 361 Comparing Reversed Lines 362 Comparing Normal Lines 363 Dialix - for handling Dialect and Semi-literate Variation 363 Typical Sequence of Matching Operations 364 Assigning New Standard IDs 366 APPENDIX F - TYPES