Quidditas Volume 40 Article 8 2019 “Sapere videre” How a Spreadsheet Helps “Knowing How to See” Royal Power on Display in England’s Counties, 1277 to 1642 James H. Forse Bowling Green State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Renaissance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Forse, James H. (2019) "“Sapere videre” How a Spreadsheet Helps “Knowing How to See” Royal Power on Display in England’s Counties, 1277 to 1642," Quidditas: Vol. 40 , Article 8. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra/vol40/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Quidditas by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Quidditas 40 (2019) 122 “Sapere videre” How a Spreadsheet Helps “Knowing How to See” Royal Power on Display in England’s Counties, 1277 to 1642 James H. Forse Bowling Green State Univesity Using a spreadsheet tracking touring in England’s counties by entertainers at- tached to members of England’s royal families suggests that such activity was wide-spread dating from the time of Edward III, and that those entertainers may have served to “advertise” royal power. For years I’ve been rummaging about in the published volumes of the Records of Early English Drama (REED for short), and other printed sources, which like the data in the REEDs, comes from parish, household, court, and various types of municipal records concern- ing performance activities in medieval and early modern England. My focus here is the evidence of travelling entertainers sponsored by royalty—reigning monarchs and their immediate families. I use the term entertainers to include not just players but minstrels, mu- sicians, jesters, jugglers, acrobats, and animal keepers (most often bearwards).1 There does not seem to be a bias in the records that indicates performances of royal entertainers are listed any more than others—for the records include references to noblemen’s and noble- women’s performers, those of knights, those of gentrymen, those sponsored by various towns, and unnamed groups of entertainers. Unfortunately, rarely do they inform us what the entertainers per- formed. These are financial accounts, so their focus is upon how much was spent. Most of the time the records only give a total ex- penditure; infrequently some records include amounts for auxiliary expenses like wine and food furnished to the visiting entertainers. 1 Records in Latin mention histriones, mimis, luditores, and lusitores. Histriones and mimi probably designate some sort of actors, and luditores and lusitores are generic terms for players. See William Smith, A Smaller Latin-English Dictionary, rev. ed., J. F. Lockwood (New York, 1962), 311, 410-11, 435. Minstrels may be actors, musicians, dancers, or all of these. Bearwards, and animal keepers, jesters, jugglers, and acrobats (tumblers) usually are specified as are musicians: trumpeters, pipers, harpists, drummers, and waits. Quidditas 40 (2019) 123 To date I’ve collected data from 35 English counties. Since the REED project has not published volumes for all of England’s counties, my data also comes from several other sources such as Ian’s Lancaster’s Dramatic Texts and the Malone Society’s Plays and Players. Each time I find a new record I enter it into my master spreadsheet, which now is jumbled up with a little over 10,100 entries. But the nice thing about a spreadsheet is that it is easy to sort, which can allow one “sapere videre” “to know how to see” what exists in the jumble of data (to quote the theme of the 2019 Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance conference where this paper was presented). Sorting the spreadsheet according to patrons is one approach. Us- ing that criterion one “sees” that the spreadsheet contains lots of kings, princes, and queens. Excluding court performances (that I would characterize as “in house”), England’s dramatic records re- veal appearances throughout the realm by the entertainers of every single reigning monarch except Edward V, who was deposed within 3 months of his accession in 1483. Over 365 years, from 1227, when Edward I’s “ystroni” received twelve pence at Canterbury, until 1642, when Charles I’s trumpeters received 120 pence at Oxford,2 dramatic records from 35 counties reveal a bit over 2,548 perfor- mances by entertainers who were “servants” of England’s reigning monarchs.3 When comparing that number to about 10,000 records of all touring performances in those 365 years, we can “see” that one-fourth of all touring entertainers were those attached England’s kings and queens-regnant. Though not as frequently, we also can “see” that the dramatic records contain performances by entertainers of every Prince of Wales, save the future Edward II and the future Richard II—from the entertain- ers of Prince Edward of Woodstock (the Black Prince) at Canter- bury in 1339 to the trumpeters of the future Charles II at York in 1642. (I include Princess Mary who was de facto princess of Wales from 1525 until her bastardization in 1533 with her own Court and 2 REED Kent, 28; REED.Oxford, 580. 3 See Appendix: Reigning monarchs. Quidditas 40 (2019) 124 Household at Ludlow.)4 And also the dramatic records show fre- quent performances by several “spare” heirs—four sons of Edward III, two of Henry IV, the second sons of Edward IV, Henry VII, and James I, James’ daughter Lady Elizabeth, and Henry VIII’s illegiti- mate son Henry Fitzroy.5 Interestingly, the only child of Henry VIII who never had a troupe of entertainers attached to her name was the future Queen Elizabeth. But wait, England’s dramatic records also contain tours by enter- tainers of several queens-consort: Queen Philippa (wife of Edward III), Queen Margaret of Anjou (wife of Henry VI), Queen Elizabeth Woodville (wife of Edward IV), Queen Anne Neville (wife of Rich- ard III), Queen Elizabeth of York (wife of Henry VII), four wives of Henry VIII—Queens Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Catherine Parr—and Queen Anne of Denmark (wife of James I).6 And we can add to that number the entertainers of two mothers of reigning monarchs, Cecily Neville (Edward IV and Rich- ard III), and Margaret Beaufort (Henry VII),7 as well as the broth- ers of Edward IV, George, duke of Clarence, and Richard, duke of Gloucester.8 When we add all of those immediate members of royal families, we “see” a total of about 3,738 performances about Eng- land by their respective entertainers (see table below). That means about 37% of all data in England’s dramatic records printed to date refers to entertainers attached to “the royals.” 4 REED York, 615; REED Kent, 41. See Starkey, Six Wives, 169-71, 442-43, and 521-22. For her performers on tour see Appendix: Princes of Wales. 5 See Appendix Spare Heirs. 6 See Appendix Queens-consort. 7 Cecily Neville: REED Cambridge, 45, 48-4, 63, REED Kent, 67, 80-83, 342, 354, 358,361, 364, 368, 370, 372, 743, 828-29; REED Sussex, 50, 53-54, 56-58; Margaret Beau- fort: REED Cambridge, 69; REED Kent, 381, 770, 833; REED Shropshire, 165; REED Somerset, 41-42; REED Sussex, 65, 75; Dymond, Thetford, 148. 8 Clarence: REED Devon, 32-35; REED Dorset/Cornwall, 443; REED Hereford/Worc, 405; REED Kent, 77-79, 348, 350-55, 616-17, 739, 828; REED Shropshire, 148-50; REED Sussex, 49-50; Gloucester: REED Cambridge, 62; REED Devon, 33-34, 36; REED Her- eford/Worc, 405; REED Kent, 78-83, 348, 350, 352-53, 356, 359, 362, 365, 387, 618, 620, 671, 740-44, 829; REED Shropshire, 148, 150-53; REED Sussex, 52, 55; Wickham, Stage, 332, 334. Quidditas 40 (2019) 125 Royal Entertainers in County Dramatic Records, 1277-1642 COUNTY FIRST YR LAST YR NO. VISITS Berkshire 1538 1618 39 Bristol 1518 1631 60 Cambridge 1362 1628 230 Cheshire 1589 1633 26 Cornwall 1470 1550 9 Cumberland 1589 1627 12 Derby 1593 1599 3 Devon 1361 1634 239 Dorset 1524 1631 27 Durham 1300-03 1532 6 Essex 1359 1625 35 Gloucester 1393 1595 37 Hampshire 1523 1624 46 Hereford 1533 1618 10 Kent 1277 1641 1158 Lancashire 1521 1628 18 Leicester 1530 1625 87 Lincoln 1499 1621 36 London 1360 1641 49 Middlesex 1429 1634 309 Norfolk 1416 1638 105 Northumberland 1508 1591 9 Nottingham 1572 1623 22 Oxford 1432 1643 294 Shropshire 1400 1642 170 Somerset 1461 1622 68 Stafford 1609 1623 25 Suffolk 1482 1624 92 Surrey 1540 1603 9 Sussex 1346 1616 162 Warwick 1429 1639 110 Westmorland 1592 1637 14 Wiltshire 1526 1622 17 Worcester 1300 1630 99 York 1442 1642 106 TOTAL 3738 Quidditas 40 (2019) 126 What were the purposes of these “royal” entertainers touring Eng- land’s counties? After all their main raison d’être was to entertain their patrons; but most of these recorded performances were not necessarily in conjunction with visits by their patrons. Perhaps one reason they toured was to augment the incomes they received from their patrons. Yet it must be remembered that these performers were the servants of their patrons and would not be touring unless given leave by their masters. Hence, their mere presence in the localities in which they performed may have been what Leonard Tennenhouse calls Power on Display (to quote his book title). Travelling enter- tainers indirectly served to represent, to “advertise,” their patrons’ power and status. We know that the Lord Chamberlain paid allow- ances for liveries for his acting company to march in his entourage in Queen Elizabeth’s funeral procession, and its new, royal patron did the same so that the King’s Men could march in James I’s “of- ficial” entry into London in 1604.