Civic ceremony in early modern London

Michael M. Berlin

72 citations0/0 files storedUrban History

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Renaissance Literature and Culture Historical Architecture and Urbanism Cultural History and Identity Formation

Abstract

The ceremonial life of the early modern town has emerged as an important area of study for urban historians. Ever since the publication of Charles Phythian-Adams' innovative study, attention has focused on the elaborate series of processions, pageants and rites of passage which were a constant feature of the yearly cycle of town life. In the wake of his work other studies of the ceremonial life of late medieval and early modern towns have added to the urban historian's awareness of the importance of ritualized forms of behaviour as a symbolic thread which helped bind together the social fabric of the townscape. The research done thus far forms one of those areas of scholarship in which the cross-fertilization of the interdisciplinary approach, so beloved of the ‘new’ urban history, has proved particularly fruitful. It might be surprising then that London, the largest of English towns, has yet to receive similar treatment. There have been, of course, several important studies of the capital in the early modern period, and they have something to say about the ceremonial life of the city. These have largely concentrated on topics such as the structure of government, the nature of London's ruling elite, and social mobility within the city's craft organizations. While providing important sidelights on ceremony, these treatments have tended to place ceremonial events in the background, as the ‘icing on the cake’. At the same time there have been many important studies by art and literary historians of ceremonial occasions such as coronations, royal entries or the Lord Mayors' Shows, but these have tended to concentrate on ceremony as an expression of dynastic propaganda or as a development in dramatic form rather than as part of the social history of the city. The object of this article will be to attempt to rectify this gap in our knowledge by applying some of the framework bequeathed by Phythian-Adams, and so try to assess the relevence of his conclusions about urban society in this period to the particular case of London.

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References

1981Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice 1983RITUAL, DRAMA AND SOCIAL BODY IN THE LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLISH TOWN 1980Puritanism and Theatre 1982:Public Life in Renaissance Florence 2020Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice 1982:Puritanism and Theatre: Thomas Middleton and Opposition Drama under the Early Stuarts 1982Desolation of a City: Coventry and the Urban Crisis of the Late Middle Ages

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2000The Cambridge Urban History of Britain 2000Urban growth and economic change: from the late seventeenth century to 1841 2011Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges c.1300–1520 1996Myth, image and social process in the English medieval town 2011Pageantry and Power : A Cultural History of the Early Modern Lord Mayor's Show 1585–1639 2000London 1700–1840 1995London in the Later Middle Ages 1300–1550

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