university of notre dameundpress/tocs/p03194-toc.pdf · 2016-02-22 · the project, we are indebted...

Series Editors: David Aers, Sarah Beckwith, and James Simpson

RECENT T ITLES IN THE SER IES

Against All England: Regional Identity and Cheshire Writing , 1195–1656 (2009)Robert W. Barrett, Jr.

The Maudlin Impression: English Literary Images of Mary Magdalene, 1550–1700 (2009)Patricia Badir

The Embodied Word: Female Spiritualities, Contested Orthodoxies, and English Religious Cultures, 1350–1700 (2010)

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The Island Garden: England’s Language of Nation from Gildas to Marvell (2012)Lynn Staley

Miserere Mei: The Penitential Psalms in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (2012)Claire Costley King’oo

The English Martyr from Reformation to Revolution (2012)Alice Dailey

Transforming Work: Early Modern Pastoral and Late Medieval Poetry (2013)Katherine C. Little

Writing Faith and Telling Tales: Literature, Politics, and Religion in the Work of Thomas More (2013)Thomas Betteridge

Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463–1549 (2015)

Sebastian Sobecki

Mysticism and Reform, 1400–1750 (2015)Sara S. Poor and Nigel Smith, eds.


THE CIV IC CYCLES

Artisan Drama and Identityin Premodern England

N R . R & M A P

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana


Copyright © 2015 by the University of Notre DameNotre Dame, Indiana 46556

www.undpress.nd.eduAll Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rice, Nicole R., 1973–The civic cycles : artisan drama and identity in premodern England /

Nicole R. Rice & Margaret Aziza Pappano.pages cm. — (Nd reformations: medieval & early modern)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-268-03900-4 (paperback)—ISBN 0-268-03900-3 (paperback)

1. York plays. 2. Chester plays. 3. English drama—To 1500—History and criticism.4. Literature and society—England—History—To 1500. 5. Artisans—England—History—To 1500. 6. Theater—England—York—History—Medieval, 500–1500.

7. Theater—England—Chester—History—Medieval, 500–1500. 8. Religious drama, English—History and criticism.

I. Pappano, Margaret Aziza, 1967– II. Title.PR644.Y6R53 2015822'.051609—dc23

2015023728

∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.


To Howard, Toby, and Helena

N. R. R.

To Adnan and Hamza

M. A. P.


Contents

List of Figures ixAcknowledgments xi

Introduction: Craft Communities and Artisan Drama 1

New Beginnings: Processions, Plays, and Civic Politics 41in York and Chester

“Whom Seek Ye, Sirs?”: Searching and Salvation in 83York’s Herod and the Magi

Fair Trade: Masters, Servants, and Local Identity in 117the York Cycle

Spinsters, Laborers, and Alewives: The Regulation of 161Women’s Work in Chester

Last Judgment in York and Chester: Artisans, Merchants, 209and the Performance of Civic Charity

Epilogue 255

List of Abbreviations 265Notes 266Bibliography 323Index 343


Figures

Figures lacking page numbers are in the gallery following p. 164.

Figure i.1. First folio of Chester Goldsmiths’ Company Book (CALSZG 12/1). Reproduced with permission of the Chester Gold-smiths’ Company. 29

Figure 1.1. York Corpus Christi Play: Pageant Route of 1486. © MegTwycross. Reproduced with her permission. 45

Figure 1.2. Map of premodern Chester. © Robert W. Barrett, Jr. Repro-duced with his permission. 47

Figure 1.3. God’s speech from the York Tanners’ Play. © The British Li-brary Board, Additional MS 35290, fol. 6v. Reproduced withpermission.

Figure 3.1. Last Supper panel from York Minster. © Dean and Chapterof York. Reproduced by kind permission.

Figure 3.2. Addition to the York Glovers’ play by John Clerke. © TheBritish Library Board, Additional MS 35290, fol. 23v. Repro-duced with permission.

Figure 4.1. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. © The British Library Board,Royal MS 2 B VII, fol. 4v. Reproduced with permission.

ix© 2015 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Figure 4.2. Woman beating man with distaff. Fourteenth-century miseri-cord, Abbey of St. Werburgh’s (Chester Cathedral). Photo-graph by Valerie Hamill. Reproduced by permission of theChapter of Chester Cathedral. 173

Figure 4.3. Noah and ark from Mathew Baker’s “Fragments of AncientEnglish Shipwrightry.” Reproduced by permission of thePepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Figure 5.1. Undercroft of York Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, chapel. Au-thor’s photograph. 215

Figure 5.2. Diagram of York Mercers’ pageant wagon with key. © LeedsStudies in English. Reproduced by kind permission. 218

Figure 5.3. Doomsday painting from Holy Trinity Church, Coventry.Reproduced by permission of Holy Trinity Church PCC,www.holytrinitycoventry.org.uk.

Figure 5.4. Doomsday painting from St. Thomas’s Church, Salisbury.Photograph by Emm Photography. Reproduced with per-mission.

Figure 5.5. Doomsday painting from St. Thomas’s Church, Salisbury,detail of damned souls. Photograph by Emm Photography.Reproduced with permission.

Figure 6.1. Gamull family tomb sculpture, depicting Francis Gamull,from St. Mary-on-the-Hill, Chester. Author’s photograph.

x Figures


Acknowledgments

This study has evolved with the help of many generous institutions andcolleagues. In 2011– 12, we were privileged to receive an ACLS Collabora-tive Research Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Soci-eties. The fellowship enabled us to devote sustained time to researchingand writing this book. We are grateful to St. John’s University and Queen’sUniversity for their ongoing support of our research. We thank the NewYork Public Library for facilitating research with the MaRLI program andthe Wertheim Study.

For assistance and patience during our visits, we would like to thank thearchivists at the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies office and the YorkCivic Archive (especially Joy Cann), Jill Redford and Louise Wheatley at theYork Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, and the staff of the British Library. Weare grateful to Hilary McNain, the Chester Cordwainers’ steward, for grant-ing us access to the company’s records. We thank Lynn Kinsey and theFriends of St. Thomas’s Church, Salisbury ([email protected]), as well as Emm Photography, for kind assistance with images.

We have learned much from colleagues as we shared work in progressat seminars and conferences. These conversations introduced importantnew concepts and pushed us to refine our arguments, both large and small.We thank the participants in the Folger Library seminar on artisan episte-mology, led by Pamela Smith, and members of the Medieval Club of NewYork, especially Glenn Burger and Derrick Higginbotham. We are grateful

xi© 2015 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

to Martha Rust and the New York University Medieval and RenaissanceCenter Distinguished Speaker series, where we received feedback fromRob ert W. Hanning, Marlene Villalobos Hennessy, and Maryanne Kowa -leski. We thank the members of the Queen’s University Medieval Semi-nar, especially Adnan Husain, Ruth Wehlau, Richard Greenfield, Mat thewScrib ner, and Agatha Hansen, and the English Department research forum,especially Elizabeth Hanson, Marta Straznicky, and Asha Varadharajan. Atvarious conferences, we received support and valuable suggestions fromMary Agnes Edsall, Dante Pappano, Jill Stevenson, and Pamela King.

For reading our work and offering insightful commentary at the start ofthe project, we are indebted to Theresa Coletti and David Aers. Brian Walshoffered an incisive reading near the end. Thanks are due to the readers forUniversity of Notre Dame Press, who offered encouraging, concrete advicefor revision. We are grateful for the support of the ReFormations editorialboard and to Stephen Little for supervising the editorial process.

We thank Matthew Roby for his acumen and diligence in helping toprepare the manuscript. We gratefully acknowledge Elisabeth Magnus forher careful copyediting.

Portions of this study appeared in earlier forms in several journals.Part of chapter 1 appeared in Margaret A. Pappano and Nicole R. Rice,“ ‘Beginning and Beginning-Again’: Plays, Processions, and Civic Politics inYork and Chester,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 30 (2008): 269– 301. Part ofchapter 2 appeared in Nicole R. Rice, “ ‘Whom Seek You, Sirs?’ The Logicof Searching in the York Herod and the Magi,” Comparative Drama 43, no. 1(2009): 89– 112. Part of chapter 3 appeared in Margaret Aziza Pappano,“Judas in York: Masters and Servants in the Late Medieval Cycle Drama,”Exemplaria 14, no. 2 (2002): 317– 50. See www.maneypublishing.com/journals/exm. We thank the editors of these journals for permission toinclude previously published material here.

As befits its topic, this book emerged through a collaborative process,characterized particularly by shared planning and working through of ideasand joint revisions. We wrote the Introduction together. Chapters or sec-tions were written individually by Rice (the Chester and Marian sections ofchapter 1 and the entirety of chapters 2 and 5) or Pappano (the York sec-tion of chapter 1 and the entirety of chapters 3 and 4 and the epilogue) andwere then revised in consultation.

Finally, we thank our families for everything.

xii Acknowledgments


university of notre dameundpress/tocs/p03194-toc.pdf · 2016-02-22 · the project, we are indebted...

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