London and the Problem of the Clerkenwell Plays

Abstract

Scholars and antiquarians at least since John Stow's Survey London (1590) have believed that there was a cycle biblical plays performed over several days by clerics at Clerkenwell (or at Skinners' Well) in the fourteenth and the opening decades the fifteenth century, even, according to Stow, until his own day.(1) There are a number problems associated with this tradition: there is no other record that a biblical was presented in England over more than one day before the early sixteenth century when Chester moved its Corpus Christi to Whitsuntide(2); the earliest documents we have for a mammoth production plays lasting for more than a three-day period are otherwise continental and fifteenth century (except for the Passion at Cividale(3)); and those English cycles for which we have extant texts and sufficient documentation were all produced by guilds or ruling oligarchies that constituted civic corporations whereas the Clerkenwell plays are said to be made by the clerics London outside the precincts the city. The questions we need to address are: whether the ludi at Clerkenwell were cycles biblical dramas; whether the clerks London constituted a body with the resources to produce such a series plays; and, assuming that they did produce a series plays, whether they were an annual or regular production over a long period time. Before I turn to the Clerkenwell documents, I would like to place my discussion within a current one among scholars the medieval drama: how we are to read possible references to scripted dramas in the extant records. Although recent scholars are more sensitive to the language and game than earlier historians, there remains a desire to read the word and related terms as drama whenever we do the basic research collecting records and writing histories the early drama. Over the last decade or so, I have taken a sceptical approach to the way we have read our extant documents, yet I also acknowledge that many records remain opaque to us because we do not have enough context to determine whether a is a drama or some other ludic activity or even a game.(4) I bring this scepticism to the records the Clerkenwell plays. At issue in this study are the words miracula, pley, and iew (Fr jeu).(5) In the past scholars have thought that miracula referred either to saint plays or religious dramas in general or both.(6) I have argued that the term denotes clerical ludi a raucous and unstructured kind and somergames, which may be lay equivalents. Either these may have involved irreverent rather than pious representations the crucifixion and Harrowing Hell. But the term may also denote a variety festivities on days license (e.g., St. Stephen's, Holy Innocents', St. John's or a patron saint's feast day) that may have included wrestling, football, and other sports, especially within sacred precincts like the parish cemetery.(7) I have also questioned whether the phrase play of or followed by a saint's name (e.g., ludus de sancta katerina) indicates that the reference is to a saint or to a lay parish festivity on a saint's feast day.(8) In a similar sceptical vein, I approach the problem the Clerkenwell plays, the documents which are as follows: 1) 1300-01 (Lancashire 543): Complaint the prioress Clerkenwell that the crowd (gentz) damages her crops, hedges and ditches when they attend the miracles et lutes the clerici London.(9) The King's writ in reply refers to these activities merely as luctas sive ludos. 2) 1384, 29 August (Lanc 544): The Westminster Chronicle: Vicesimo nono die Augusti clerici London' apud Skynnerswell' fecerunt quendam ludum valde suptuosum; duravitque quinque diebus (On 29 August the clerks London at Skinners Well made a certain very sumptuous ludus, which lasted five days).(10) 3) 1385, 12 August (Lanc 545): London Letter Book H: In order to prevent peril and debates the mayor and aldermen forbid luyte within the city or its environs by the gentz the same city on pain imprisonment and forfeiture their goods. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 3 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.